The Huge Season Page 25
With his blackened fingers he struck another match on the bricks. He read again the last scene, the death of Lawrence, the hollow voice of Lou Baker over the phone; then he sat in the dark until her voice seemed to blend with the stirring birds. The cat clawed at the screen, and he walked through the house to the kitchen door. A new day was breaking, the dawn like a sheet of clear ice on the pond. He took out his watch, started to wind it, and saw that the time—the captive time—had stopped. At two o’clock in the morning, the first day of his escape from captivity.