The Swap

by Nancy Boyarsky

  The tool slipped from Nicole’s hands and the sour taste of bile leapt to her throat.

  “Good girl.” Reinhardt was already on his feet, going through the pockets of the fallen men.

  Nicole stared for a moment, then ran over to the coal bin to be sick.

  Twenty-Six

  As they left the house, Reinhardt disabled the alarm next to the back door, using one of the keys he’d taken from Ben’s pocket. Outside, it was completely dark except for the moon, shining through a thin layer of clouds.

  They took the path leading to the rear of the house, then cut across the damp grass. Reinhardt reached the rose garden first, easily hopping the short hedge and zigzagging his way through the bushes. Gasping for breath, Nicole struggled to keep up. At one point, she was forced to a stop by thorny branches that latched onto her jumpsuit and refused to let go. Almost at once, Reinhardt was beside her, seizing the branches and — after a couple of distinct ripping sounds — she was free.

  He held out his hand. “Let’s go. They’ll soon have the dogs on us.”

  With Reinhardt pulling her along, they quickly reached the fountain at the center of the rose garden. She glanced back and felt a fresh wave of alarm. “The basement light,” she said. “We forgot to turn it off.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Reinhardt said. “They know where Ben took us. The basement is the first place they’ll look.”

  The rose garden ended, and they started across the last stretch of open lawn. Nicole, now getting a second wind, pulled her hand free and ran easily beside him.

  She took another look, but the house appeared to be asleep. Other than the basement and a few dim lights on the first floor, the place was dark. Even so, she had the feeling that, any moment, Hayes’ troops would burst out the front door and come tearing after them.

  Reinhardt grabbed Nicole’s arm and pulled her along. “It’s best if you don’t look back,” he said.

  They passed through the opening in the hedge and onto a wooden footbridge leading to the woods. When they reached the trees, the darkness was all but impenetrable. Once again, Reinhardt took her hand. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve already scouted the route. Just follow me.”

  As the path sloped uphill, she caught glimpses of the house through the trees, her first real look at its exterior. The structure, lit by a series of spotlights, was a squat baronial manor of granite and red sandstone. It was the sort of thing that might have belonged to a turn-of-the-century industrialist, built with money made on the backs of women and children working long hours in their factories.

  On the other side of the house, a van was parked at an odd angle. The door stood open, as if the driver hadn’t expected to be gone long. She had a hunch it was Ben, that he’d locked them in the basement so he could get the van and take them away from the house. Hayes wasn’t the sort who’d want dirty work done under his own roof.

  The path took them back and forth across the face of the hill, crisscrossing a wandering stream on a series of small wooden footbridges. The moon had moved out from behind the clouds, casting a glow on their surroundings. On either side of the path, flowerbeds were crowded with exotic plumes of foliage while dense banks of shrubs covered the slopes. Silhouetted against the sky were giant ferns and distinctive tree-sized shrubs she recognized as bird of paradise plants. They were as common as hibiscus back home, but she’d never seen any this large.

  Her injured ankle, which she’d almost forgotten, had begun hurting again. After they crossed the fourth footbridge, she paused and looked at Reinhardt. “My ankle,” she said, “I have to stop.”

  “That’s all right,” he said. “I have to stop here for something I left earlier. Rest a bit.” He gestured in the direction of a stone bench just off the path. She limped over to it and sat down.

  Reinhardt retreated into the bushes, then reappeared a minute or so later carrying a backpack. After removing a flashlight, he slung the bag over his shoulder and held his hand out to her. “Do you think you can get back on your feet?” he said. “We haven’t much time.”

  Her ankle felt a little better. She stood up, taking his hand.

  As they resumed their trek up the hill, he said, “It’s all a façade, you know — this patch of rainforest. Hayes had some bulldozers carve up the hill. Brought trees over from the mainland. The big tropicals are plastic. Rather good imitations, if you fancy that sort of thing.

  “He even smuggled in tropical birds,” he went on. “Parrots and the like. They didn’t survive. The harsh winter and the hawks…”

  As Nicole glanced around, she understood her feeling of déjà vu. The place reminded her of the Jungle Boat ride at Disneyland, the perfect outdoor component of the dream world Alexander Hayes had created for himself. She was especially indignant about the parrots. What a rotten thing to do.

  At the top of the hill, the path ended at a thick hedge of oleander, covered with blossoms. Well before they reached it, Nicole noticed something nauseating in the sweet heaviness of its perfume. Then she realized it wasn’t the oleander. Mingled with its scent was the unmistakable stench of something dead and rotting.

  As if he’d read her mind, Reinhardt said, “I smell it, too. Wait here. I’ll have a look.” He was back almost immediately, pulling her in a new direction, away from the stand of shrubs.

  As the stench began to fade, he said, “I saw signs of a shallow grave. Maybe it was here when I passed through before but hadn’t started to …” he hesitated and seemed to grope for the right word, “decay.”

  They continued along in silence until they reached the hill’s crest. Here, Reinhardt turned on his flashlight and pointed the beam down a gently rolling slope. A narrow stream, no more than a couple of feet wide, meandered down toward the loch, which appeared as a vast stretch of darkness.

  After locating the stream, Reinhardt snapped off the flashlight. There was a creaking nearby, a wild rustling of leaves, and a dark shape burst from the branches of a tree. Nicole’s heart leapt to her throat and seemed to stick there, as Reinhardt turned the flashlight on again. He swung the beam in an arc, catching the culprit — a large owl in flight. As it flapped away, the bird’s head swiveled around and stared back at them, its eyes iridescent in the light.

  After it disappeared, Nicole couldn’t shake the feeling that the creature was some kind of omen—a warning. Reinhardt, unruffled as ever, tucked the flashlight in his backpack and pulled out a square bundle of dark cloth, which unfolded into two ponchos. He handed one to Nicole, “Here,” he said. “we won’t have much cover going down. This will us give a bit of camouflage.”

  When she had put hers on, he reached over to pull up her hood. “Now,” he said. “Let’s go. To put the dogs off our scent, we’ll walk in the streambed. Mind your step. It’s slippery.”

  They were just starting down, Nicole a few steps behind him, when she heard excited barking in the distance. She looked around. The hill behind them was still deserted, but the implications were clear. Their absence had been noted. The search had begun.

  Nicole tried to remember how long it had taken them to climb up the hill. Seven minutes? Five? Surely it wouldn’t take that long to get down the slope and out of sight. From the top, it looked like an easy walk, but the rocks were indeed slippery, and maneuvering the creek bed was tricky.

  Reinhardt tackled the terrain more easily, walking at a brisk pace and reaching the trees near the water’s edge well ahead of her. As he turned to look back at her, his head jerked up, as if he’d spotted something on the hill behind her. A second later, a beam of light swept the hillside from above, barely missing her as it stopped and moved back across the slope. In a panic, she stepped out of the creek onto solid ground and ran.

  Only when she reached Reinhardt and the shelter of the trees did she look up at the hill again. At the top, two figures were using flashlights to explore the grassy slope. Several dogs were nosing about the bushes.

  He hurried her through the trees and over a thick outcroppi
ng of rocks. At the water’s edge, he stopped. “We’re going to wade in the loch. It’s quite chilly but shallow along the shoreline. Take care—the bottom is covered with sharp stones.”

  A moment later, she followed him into the icy water. Although it only came to mid calf, the chill reached all the way to her scalp. Reinhardt turned and began to wade along the shore. Teeth chattering, she forced herself to follow. The rubber boots offered little protection; with each step, the sharp-edged stones jabbed her feet.

  It wasn’t long before he turned and waded back to her. “I think I’d better carry you,” he said. “It’s not far, but we have to be out of sight before they get here. When I turn round, climb up and hold on.” Reinhardt turned and bent over, and Nicole did as he said, settling behind the backpack. As he straightened up, she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.

  They made their way around the end of the cliff and entered the next cove. From her perch, Nicole looked around and felt a wave of despair.

  The cove offered no place to hide, nor did there appear to be a route out other than the way they’d just entered. The only cover, unlikely at best, was an occasional cluster of bushes, which had defied gravity by taking root on the face of the rock.

  Reinhardt headed determinedly toward a clump of foliage growing near the waterline. “There’s a ledge of dry ground here,” he said. “I’m going to set you down.” He turned around and stood with his back to the ledge so she could climb down. When she was standing on the ledge, he said, “Hold on while I pull myself up.”

  She grabbed a nearby branch to steady herself, but it came off in her hand, and she found herself teetering on the narrow ledge. Reinhardt dropped back into the water and reached up to hold her. “Sorry,” he said. “I meant to warn you not to touch that. Use the rock for support.”

  Nicole rested her back against the cliff and studied the spot where they’d entered the cove. She could no longer see the lights of their pursuers, just a general glow from that direction. It was impossible to measure its progress. She looked at the tranquil lake, which held the full moon’s reflection. Then she turned to stare up at the solid wall of rock behind her, lifting her head to take in its dizzying height.

  At that moment, her faith in Reinhardt evaporated. Now, as she looked up at the cliff, she could imagine him attempting to scale it. He’d pull her along by the hand, insisting, “It won’t be long now,” and “Hang on, it’s not far.”

  Nicole shivered. In minutes, they would be target practice for the men who were after them. She wondered what had possessed her to follow Reinhardt on this long, futile trek when she could have stayed in the basement and died in relative comfort.

  She watched Reinhardt as he pulled himself up onto the ledge. Just then she noticed a dark pool accumulating under her left foot. He spotted it, too. “What’s that?” he said.

  When Nicole lifted her foot, she saw that the sole of her boot had been ripped away and, although she felt no pain, her foot was bleeding profusely.

  She crouched down to take a closer look when Reinhardt grabbed her arm and pulled her through a narrow opening in the wall of branches.

  On the other side was a damp-smelling space, hidden away behind a lean-to covered with dead branches.

  Inside, they were enveloped in darkness. “I don’t dare light the torch,” he said. “But I think we’re safe for the moment. Now, let’s find my medical kit and see what we can do about that foot.”

  Twenty-Seven

  In the darkness, Nicole could hear Reinhardt rustling around in his backpack, pulling things out. “Hold out your foot,” he said at last. “I’m going to clean the wound with an antiseptic pad. It might smart a bit.”

  Smart it did, but this was nothing compared to the fiery bite of the iodine he drizzled over the cut. While she clenched her fists and sucked in quick gasps of air, Reinhardt suggested she stay off the injured foot until he had a chance to bandage it properly.

  Afterward, they huddled together in silence, and Nicole once again revised her opinion of Reinhardt. Her rescue had been nothing short of miraculous, a tribute to the advance work he’d done when he first arrived on the island, before he was captured: scouting out their escape route and setting up this hiding place.

  Not that they were out of danger. At any moment, she expected a spotlight to find the entrance to the cave. A voice on a bullhorn would demand their surrender, followed by a barrage of gunfire. Oddly enough, she wasn’t frightened. Perhaps she’d reached her threshold of sustainable terror. A certain numbness had set in, giving everything a sense of unreality. It was almost as if she were a bystander, watching the scene from a distance.

  Minutes passed and still they waited. Finally, Reinhardt went to the entrance and peered out. “No sign of them,” he whispered, “We’d best get out of these wet things, but we’ll have to do it quietly, in case someone is out there.”

  Using a penlight shielded with his hand, he located some plastic bags at the rear of the cave and rifled through them. Finally, he turned off the light and whispered, “I have some dry clothes. Strip off your wet things and I’ll hand them to you.”

  Nicole removed her remaining boot and peeled off the soggy jumpsuit. Despite the impenetrable darkness, she was acutely aware of Reinhardt standing nearby and of her heart thumping in her chest. When her clothes were off, she stood there shivering until she realized he was waiting, too. “Ready,” she said.

  He thrust a bundle of soft, dry fabric in her direction. “This is a jumper. Put it on first.”

  Her fingers recognized the soft, fuzzy texture of a sweatshirt. She felt around until she figured out which way was up, then slipped it over her head. Next came a pair of sweatpants, which she quickly pulled on.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you to wear on your feet,” he said.

  “Really?” She was shivering so much that her voice quavered. “I thought these pants had feet in them.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The legs are too long,” she explained. Then, to his continued silence, “It was a joke. Not a very good one.”

  “Oh,” he said, producing a sound that was probably meant to be a chuckle. “Sorry about that.”

  Nicole grimaced, suddenly weary of Reinhardt’s unflagging good manners, the burden of having to make polite conversation when she felt like throwing herself on the ground for a good cry.

  A light, dry object brushed her face, and she realized that he was passing her something else. “It’s a blanket,” he whispered. Then, after a pause, he handed her another packet, identical to the first. “You’d better lie down and cover up,” he went on. “That was a nasty cut. You may be in shock.”

  The “blankets” resembled sheets of packing material composed of papery layers fused to padded plastic. Although she doubted she was in shock, Nicole did as he said. The ground beneath her was hard and cold. Even with dry clothes and the two blankets, she couldn’t seem to stop shivering.

  On the other side of the cave, she could hear Reinhardt rooting through the supplies again. Then he began to shift about in a way that told her he was changing out of his own wet things. Despite the cold, she was half asleep when she felt him spread another blanket over her.

  When she jerked awake, it took a moment before she realized that this was the interior of the cave, now dimly illuminated by the low flame of a gas lantern. The place was smaller than she’d imagined, with craggy walls of dark, stratified rock. Against the rear stood three green plastic trash bags, which she assumed were the source of Reinhardt’s supplies. Set on the ground nearby was a camp stove with a pot on its single burner.

  A lightweight rowboat covered the entryway. It had been upended and tipped slightly to lean against the exterior wall of the cliff. The bottom of the boat, facing out toward the loch, was covered with a net to which branches had been attached. This was what hid the cave from outside.

  “I draped a sheet of black plastic over the entrance, so our light can’t be s
een from outside,” Reinhardt said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to do a proper job of dressing your foot.”

  Nicole sat up and pulled off the blankets, clutching them around her shoulders while he placed a gauze pad over the wound and secured it with a length of tape.

  She studied him while he worked, noting the look of quiet concentration in his eyes, the way he kept pushing his dark hair back from his forehead. At one point, he caught her gazing at him and grinned. That was when she first noticed his smile, how nice it was.

  When he was done, he produced a flask of brandy and poured some into a disposable cup. “Drink up,” he said. “It’s just the tonic for you.”

  The first swallow of brandy made her cough, but it was warming, and she drank the rest in a couple of gulps. Only when the cup was empty did it occur to Nicole that alcohol might not be a good idea on an empty stomach. Already she could feel its effect.

  She lay down again, expecting to drift back to sleep, but when she shut her eyes, the scene in the basement flooded back, etched in crisp detail. She could feel the weight of the sledgehammer as she brought it down on Kevin’s head, hear the sound of the weapon as it landed. His skull had given way like the shell of a soft-boiled egg with a smack of the spoon.

  Aside from the horror of that memory, she couldn’t bear the idea of having killed another human being. It was contrary to everything she believed in, unthinkable in the humane and orderly world she’d always inhabited.

  Nicole shifted about, trying to think of anything but the mess she’d made of Kevin’s head. Finally, she propped herself on her elbows and looked at Reinhardt. He was leaning against the wall of the cave, staring into space while he took an occasional sip from his cup. He wore a grim expression, as if he, too, were thinking about the man he’d killed.

  He must have felt her gaze, for he looked up. When their eyes met, she felt her own fill with tears. “Do you really think he’s dead?” she said.