"Not so silly, Pat. Just a little less fearsome than you may think."
But you weren't there, she thought. You didn't see how terrible Abbey looked, and you didn't feel the emptiness in their apartment after she'd left. You weren't there, and you didn't see what I saw out—
"Pat." Wes leaned closer, resting his forearms on his knee. "Pat, the thing you're not telling me, are you sure it has nothing to do with tonight?''
Startled, she looked away and stared at the glazed double doors, half expecting them to swing abruptly inward and admit Abbey and Kelly in the custody of a patrolman. All of them laughing over what was a stupid misunderstanding.
"Coffee," Wes said then. He stood. "Black, cream, what?"
"Black," she said without thinking, nodded to him distractedly and didn't hear him leave. Didn't hear him return until he pressed the cup into her hand. She sipped, and shuddered at its strength and its underlying bitterness.
Wes craned around to look at the clock on the wall behind him. Nine-fifteen. He was about to speak when a patrolman poked his head into the room and beckoned. With a mumbled sentence Pat didn't understand he left, was back in less than a minute, drumming on the blotter, frowning and rubbing a palm over his face.
"Well?"
"All the doors were open, just like you said. Nobody there. Nobody in back, no footprints except near the garage, and we'll assume for the moment they were yours."
She scowled and leaned back. "The street—"
"A quick tour around the block for a couple of blocks in either direction. She wasn't there, or she was hiding, or she was picked up, or someone took her."
"As simple as that," she said, bitterly impatient without knowing why.
"Yes," he told her, drumming.
"Wes, please," she said then, pointing to the pen.
"Oh. Sorry." Again he swiveled around to face her. "Pat, you said you checked the car?"
"I looked in. I didn't see anyone. It was dark. I didn't turn on the light or anything." She frowned. "Why?"
"You said the driver's side window was rolled down."
"Yes."
"It wasn't, Pat. It had been smashed in. There were pieces of glass all over the floor under the steering wheel, a few on the seat. As far as we can tell, someone tried to get in that way. Probably did."
The questions came rapidly, and softly, but she had no answers to satisfy him. She didn't know where Kelly had been the night before, didn't know the name of the man, and certainly hadn't known the car had been returned. The only thing she could tell him with any degree of certainty was that the pieces of marble or stone found on the floorboards had probably been from either her purse or her coat.
"From my workshop," she explained. "I'm always picking things up and sticking them into my pockets or my purse. Then I dig around and they fall out. I'm like a walking gravel pit sometimes."
"Okay," he said. "All right. Let's go back to that first time, when you came back from New York and found"—he leaned over his pad, flipped back a page and scanned it—"Oliver Fallchurch's glove missing. You saw him later and he had both gloves in his pocket. And he didn't tell you how he'd gotten it back."
"No, but . . ." She stopped at the expression on his face, put a hand to her eyes and wished she were in bed, that it was two weeks ago and she was starting all over again, waiting for Dean Constable to announce the decision. Or had it only been a week? A couple of days? My god, she thought, how long can a Sunday be?
"Pat."
She looked up quickly, aware of his gaze, aware of the heat that finally forced her to unbutton he coat. "Pat, does this Fallchurch kid live on campus?" She nodded. Then: "Wait! You're not going to—"
"I have to talk to him, Pat, you know that. If he got in your apartment once to get his glove, he might have done it again. You must understand I have to check it out."
"Well . . ." She watched as he dialed for an outside line, turned away when he began to speak, to the front doors that shimmered when a wind gust slammed against them. The singing in the cell block began again, was cut off abruptly; the radio was turned off; somewhere in the building a radiator hissed and she could think of nothing more than dry snow blown across a field, whispering over dead grass as if summoning spirits that lay beneath. She hugged herself. Poor Abbey. Poor Kelly. One, the other, the both of them involved in something she wasn't allowed to know, something that . . . it occurred to her suddenly that perhaps Kelly had lost the keys, that whoever had found them (stolen them?) was the one who'd broken into her apartment. Kelly might have smashed the window to get into the car, and her friend, whoever he was, might have known how to hot-wire the ignition. Embarrassment, then, would have prevented the girls from telling her the truth, at least until the window had been replaced.
And the more she thought about it the more likely it seemed, until she turned to Wes to tell him, jumped when the doors burst open and Greg rushed in, coat flapping, muffler streaming behind him like a speedboat's wake. She looked at Wes, who covered the receiver and smiled sheepishly at her; to Greg, who stood anxiously at the railing.
Finally, it broke. She could no longer hold it, no longer had the strength. She jumped down off the desk's platform and into Greg's arms, the two of them babbling apologies and not hearing each other, kissing once lightly, again hard, leaning back still embracing and watching their eyes.
Greg nodded toward Wes Martin. "He, uh, called me."
"He has a big mouth."
"You have to stay much longer?"
"I don't know. He's checking Oliver now."
Greg's face darkened. "If he's the one who's been—"
A finger to his lips, and he grinned.
"Pat?"
She turned, though she kept a hand linked with Greg's.
"I can't get to him now. I'll try Harriet Trotter, and I'll have a man recheck the house. The car . . ."
"Oh my god," she said. "Don't tell me."
His laugh was rueful. "Stockton has his procedures, Pat. I'll have to bring it over here for checking." He would have continued, but she interrupted with the scenario she'd developed. When she was done, he was clearly skeptical. "But stranger things have happened around here, so I won't dismiss it now. But Pat . . . look, I don't want you worrying, okay? I mean, there's no sign of . . ." He paused, and she knew, and nodded. "I'll let you know when you can pick up the car. And I'll let you know the minute I know something myself."
"You're going to a lot of trouble," Greg said, not unkindly.
Wes grinned. "It's Sunday night, Professor Billings. It beats counting the cracks in the walls."
There was little more to say. A patrolman came into the room with Pat's statement typed and ready to be signed, and once the formality had been taken care of she left with Greg, sat in the VW while he cursed at the recalcitrant engine, then put out a hand to stop him before he pulled away from the curb,
"What?"
She licked at her lips nervously, unsure if she had made the right decision. "You . . . how adventurous are you?"
"Not at all," he said glumly. "But if it'll get me out of your dog house, I'll do just about anything."
"Even go back to the quarry?"
"What?" He looked at her sharply. "Now? In the middle of the night? For god's sake, why?"
She took a deep breath and held it, exhaled as slowly as she could while her mind raced for a reason not to tell him. And when it failed she pointed up the street.
"Drive," she said. "I'll tell you on the way."
Chapter 18
"You don't believe me."
The car was stopped at the bottom of the incline that led to the quarry pit. The moon was out, flanked by a carpeting of stars, yet the light that touched the trees, the snow, seemed less an outside source than something that worked from within, something that defined and etched and turned everything grey. All the scene needed now, she thought, was a wedge of geese crossing the moon's face, their cries like souls searching for a graveyard.
She wasn't sorry she'
d finally gotten it all off her chest, and she no longer feared what Greg would think about her. But she did wish she knew what he was trying to decide about the story she'd told him. Throughout the drive he'd only looked over to her a couple of times, and she had not been able to fathom his expression, distorted as it had been by the dashboard's own glow. And once he had grunted. Nothing more. Now he was staring at the incline, his hands roaming the steering wheel compulsively, as if he were hunting the best spot to strangle it. His hair was still tangled, a forelock dropping down over one eye until, with a muttered curse, he swiped it back onto a semblance of place.
"Well?"
The trail from the break into the open to the crest of the incline was virtually clear, the only snow left caught in rutted gaps. As if a benevolent, selective wind had wanted to make their trip easier.
"Come on, Greg." Patiently. Not pleading.
He shook his head slowly and dropped his hands into his lap. "I wish to hell I knew," he said. Then he leaned back and stretched his neck.
She had expected something like this—not outright disbelief, but rather an inclination to allow her an opportunity of proof. He would want her to show him, so she could in her own mind understand it was her own mind that had provided the beast that stalked her in the whirlwind. That would be what his plan was, rapidly formed and now working at a way to phrase itself without sounding insulting.
"Do you have a flashlight?"
He reached across her and pulled down the glove compartment. She took the flash from him and thumbed it on, off, on again, and took hold of the door handle.
"Pat."
"I am not now, nor was I ever, in the throes of a nervous breakdown, Greg."
His eyes wrinkled near to closing and she knew with a pang she'd struck home. And why not? Hadn't that been her first and continuing belief, coupled with the drinking and Lauren's memory? Wasn't it perfectly reasonable? Of course it was. And it was perfectly unreasonable that, knowing how reasonable it was, she should feel such a ragged surge of anger.
She stepped outside and pulled her collar close around her throat. She waited. Listening. Feeling nothing of the pressure, of the wind, of the sounds that had preceded the creature's first appearance. They were alone, atop a hill outside Oxrun Station, and the snow had turned to levels of grey and depressions of black. The driver's door slammed, snow crunched; she did not look at him when he came to her side. Instead, she aimed the spear of white light toward the row of sheds. And it was easy to locate the one crushed by what had been hidden in the bloodwind—a spreading mound of rubble tangled with ice and snow, planks poking through the surface and lying scattered about, wind-tossed, it seemed, or vandalized by children.
A moment of telepathy: "You're thinking," she said in a monotone, "that the weight of the snow did it. The walls buckled and it all came down while I was hiding behind it." She handed him the flashlight and nudged him with a soft fist. "Go ahead. Walk over there, Greg, and tell me it just fell down."
He did.
Without apology, without a look, he plowed through the snow to the ruined shed, the beam flicking here, there, once shooting at the bank of trees beyond before turning. He walked slowly, bending over, once reaching down and pushing aside a section of wall. He skirted the main debris until he was standing where she had crouched, glancing once toward the quarry, bending again as though he were attempting to put himself in her position. It was all very methodical, and all very maddening, and the fact of the moonlight bleaching him of all colors but grey did nothing to assuage the unease that gripped her. Yet there were no doubts, no second thoughts; from the moment she'd caught sight of the shed in the car's headlamps she knew. It was as simple as that: she knew. When he returned he said nothing. After giving her the flashlight he jammed his hands into his pockets and began walking the incline. Slowly. Not turning around, not waiting for her to follow. She watched him and shuddered, trying not to yield to the impression that at any minute he was going to scream, and scream loudly. And when he beckoned she moved, just as slowly.
When she reached the top he slipped a hand around her arm and pulled her close.
"I'm trying very hard," he said quietly, and she was startled to hear a catch in his voice.
They started down toward the edge at his gentle urging, and it wasn't until they'd reached the midway point that she realized her stone chair was gone. Or most of it. What remained was a flat section ridged with jagged edges, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it and lopped it in half with a single, superhuman blow.
Below she could see the snow glowing, a beautiful jewel-encrusted frame around a gaping black hole. It wasn't ice; it was water.
"There are all kinds of explanations for this," he said then, dropping into a crouch, his hands dangling between his thighs. "A section of the wall gives way, someone throws a rock and it strikes a fault line in the ice, the ice itself is weaker than it looks and sinks under its own weight. The shed was old. Your throne could easily have been cracked by a dozen winters, water trapped inside and expanding to split it apart. A dozen explanations." He picked up a stone and hefted it, tossed it up and caught it, brought it close to his eyes and stared at it. Then he shook his head and threw the stone away. Viciously.
"Is that what you think?" she asked him when he took her arm again and led her back toward the car.
"No," he said. "All of it is possible, but all of it happening in the space of a couple of hours violates the sanctity of my orderly mind."
She hesitated and stared at him, stumbled forward to match his pace again when he looked down at her and grinned.
"Bullshit, huh?"
"Yes," she said; and the word stretched out, hissing as she sagged slightly against him. She smiled, wishing she were a little shorter so she could rest her cheek against his arm or his shoulder. Instead, she pressed her forehead briefly against his hair. Relief, then, and a bewildered fear—she wasn't crazy, and what in God's name was going on?
They did not speak for quite a while, not until the automobile had broken out of the trees and was heading back for the village.
"Pat, you understand that I have only your word for that thing you say was in that tornado, or whatever the hell it was."
"But you said—"
"I said—I should have made myself clearer. I believe something weird happened to you out there, no question about it. And I believe something unusual— you should excuse such a miserable word at a time like this—something unusual is going on. But I'm not one of the peasants firing up his torch, Pat. I mean, I've been to college and I've seen the world and Great Jesus Christ, I don't think I can just leap into an acceptance of some kind of creature you can't even describe. Not yet. Good god, not yet."
"I take it you'll want to see it for yourself."
He shrugged. "Pat, please. Understand me, too, okay?"
She did; that was the problem.
"But let's forget about that for a minute," he said, slowing to avoid a patch of ice at the Williamston Pike intersection.
"Easy for you to say."
He grinned. "You sound better."
"I don't feel any better, thank you."
"The thing is, Pat, I also don't believe all of this is happening randomly, either. And neither do you."
His gaze made her nervous, his words solidifying part of that fear.
"I don't think you should go home. Not tonight, anyway."
Her eyes closed slowly, her hand groped for his. "Yes. I was hoping you'd say that."
They were in bed, a loose embrace less sexual than warming. Heads close together on the pillow, ankles entwined. There were two blankets and a sheet, and still she was cold.
In the dark their voices were disembodied, floating.
"You thought it was me, didn't you."
"Yes. For a moment."
"Don't lie, Pat. It was for more than a moment. After all, let's examine the evidence, shall we?" Bitterness, resignation, and a struggle not to tumble into the safety of insanity—she reco
gnized the tone, it had been hers for days and no wonder people had reacted oddly to her. She squeezed his hand reassuringly, but it was a long second before he returned the gesture and cleared his throat.
"We were examining the evidence."
"Sure."
She felt his hand slice through the air.
"First, we have a colleague—that's me—who finds himself hiding in a college—of no small repute, mind— working under, as it were, another colleague who has achieved everything he's dreamt of over the past dozen years. Modest fame, more than just competent skills, a marshaling of a talent he could never hope to have." And sensing an interruption he poked at her hip. "Shut up. This isn't a feeling-sorry-for-Gregory session; this is a facing-the-facts admission . . . and one I should have done years ago. I'm a damned good teacher, Pat, but as an artist I'm not in your league."
She said nothing; there was little she could say at the death of a dream.
"So we have jealousy," he continued. "Professional, sexual, and probably something else so deep only a shrink could mine it and have it make sense. Murder has been committed for less compelling motives."
"But I don't think it's you."
"No. Neither do I."
They smiled together, and she snuggled closer.
"Then there's Ford Danvers. Jealousy again, bordering on outright hatred because you're a woman and you've successfully invaded his kingdom, divided it, and left him with all those dingbats who think they're actors."
"He's good, Greg."
"Yeah. The little shit."
She laughed behind a cupped hand.
"But I don't think he's the one, either. Why? Not because he doesn't have the guts, because he probably does. And not because he doesn't think he has cause, because he probably thinks he does. But because Ford would never have smashed up his own car that way, just to get you into trouble with the cops. That car was his kid, always has been. He's an in-fighter, not a Viking. Poison is more his specialty."
A silence that lasted so long she thought he'd fallen asleep.
The Bloodwind - An Oxrun Station Novel (Oxrun Station Novels) Page 17