Hands stretched toward the sky, Gunderson stared up at the wormhole, waiting for it to take him. Another loud thunderclap and the now familiar jolt to the chest told him his wish was about to be granted.
“Come on, goddammit!”
The swirling black maw widened in response, wind kicking up around him, and he felt its power take hold. His feet lifted off the ground and he began to rise.
“Yes!” It was finally happening. The moment he’d been waiting for ever since that cop had put a bullet in him. “Take me,” he shouted. “Take me!”
But then, from out of nowhere, a voice said, “I don’t think so, Alex” — and Donovan appeared directly below him, wrapping his arms around his legs.
What the fuck?
Gunderson kicked, trying to shake him off, but the bastard had a lock on him so tight, he could barely move. One look into Donovan’s eyes and Gunderson realized that something had changed.
Donovan knew. He understood.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was not part of the program.
Feeling himself being pulled back toward the ground, Gunderson fought desperately against it, trying to break Donovan’s grip. But Donovan was a bulldog, would not let go, and a moment later they hit the earth, a tangle of arms and legs.
Pain shot through Gunderson as rocks dug into his flesh, scraped his bones-a sensation he wasn’t accustomed to.
They rolled to the edge of the precipice. Then, all at once, Donovan was straddling him, hands around his neck, an intense, unstoppable fury in his eyes.
“No more puzzles, Alex. Tell me where she is!”
Gunderson brought his arms up, trying to break Donovan’s grip, but was powerless against his rage. The earth beneath them began to rumble and crack, steam hissing up from newly formed fissures.
“Tell me, goddammit! Now!”
“Fuck you!” Gunderson croaked, and the ground shifted, another fissure opening up directly beneath him, the earth crumbling away on either side.
Electric tentacles reached up and wrapped around him, pulling at him. Donovan jumped back, narrowly avoiding the widening fissure. There was another loud thunderclap, and above, the swirling wormhole sucked at Donovan, his hair whipping wildly in the wind.
“Where is she, Alex? Tell me!”
But Gunderson ignored the command, watching in horror as the wormhole enveloped Donovan.
“No!” he shouted. “No!”
Then the wormhole swallowed Donovan whole and whisked him away.
And the agony Gunderson felt was so deep that he was almost certain it would last an eternity.
J UST WHEN SHE thought they’d lost the fight, that the epinephrine had been a bust, Jack’s body bucked wildly beneath the paddles and his eyes flew open as he gulped a bucketful of air. Feeling a rush of sweet relief, Rachel burst into tears and threw her arms around him.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God.”
She glanced at Wong, who was now leaning against the wall, his body slack, face full of shock, looking like a man who was seriously considering a career change.
“The hospital,” Jack croaked. “Take me to the hospital.”
“We’ve already called,” Rachel told him, hugging him close. “The ambulance is on its way.”
“No,” Jack said. “That isn’t what I mean.”
“What, then?”
“The convalescent hospital. Saint Margaret’s.”
“What?” Rachel said. “Why?”
Jack looked at her, a look she knew all too well. A look that meant she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.
“Sara’s window,” he told her. “I have to find Sara’s window.”
Part Four
53
They got there in less than half an hour.
After making it abundantly clear to Donovan that this was against her better judgment, that he needed to go to the hospital- now — Rachel brought her car around and used her considerable driving skills to get them there in record time.
No doubt about it. He was gonna have to marry this woman.
Despite the ordeal he’d just been through, Donovan felt surprisingly good, thanks in part to sheer willpower, an abundance of hope, and the adrenaline Wong had pumped into his veins.
There were only a few scattered cars in Saint Margaret’s parking lot. They took the elevator to the second floor, and when the doors opened, Donovan was relieved to see that Nurse Baker had not returned. Instead, a lone nineteen-year-old was manning the nurses’ station.
“Sara Gunderson,” he said. “What room?”
The nurse looked at him as if he were something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe. “I’m sorry. Are you family?”
Donovan frowned and flashed his credentials. “Just take us to the goddamn room.”
Looking flustered, the nurse came out from behind the counter. “Follow me,” she muttered, and headed down a hallway.
A moment later she led them through a doorway into a small, dank room, a single bed against the wall, surrounded by a collection of medical equipment, including a ventilator.
The woman on the bed did not even remotely resemble Sara Gunderson. She looked like ninety pounds of nothing. A sickly old woman on the brink of death.
But it was Sara all right. Eyes closed, chest rising and falling to the wheezy beat of the ventilator.
Donovan looked around, surprised not by what he saw-but what he didn’t see. His stomach lurched.
“The window,” he said. “Where’s the window?”
The nurse studied him, clearly confused by the question. “She… doesn’t have one. This is a converted storeroom.”
“How long has she been in here?”
“Sir, if-”
“How long?”
The nurse flinched. “Ever since she was admitted. Why?”
Donovan glanced at Rachel, feeling the ground beneath him roll. Overcome by a sudden, intense despair, he found a chair and sat, the nurse eyeing him with a mix of distrust and concern.
“Are you okay, sir?”
“Get out,” he spat.
“Sir, I’m not sure what you’re-”
“Out,” he repeated. “Get out.”
Looking frightened now, the nurse turned and scurried out the door. Donovan felt Rachel looking at him and held a hand up.
“Don’t say it,” he told her. “Just let me think.”
He lowered his head and stared at the floor, studying the pattern in the linoleum. Everything he’d been through and this was where it ended?
No. There was something here he wasn’t seeing. There had to be.
The puzzle. Concentrate on the puzzle.
One word. Ten letters.
All you had to do was look out Sara’s window.
Cursing himself for being so bad at these things, he glanced up at Sara, watching her chest rise and fall. “Come on,” he said. “Help me with this.”
What had Gunderson meant? If there was no window in the room, what other kinds of windows were there? Sara’s eyes? The window to her soul?
No. Too literary for Gunderson.
Ten simple letters. What could they…
And then it hit him.
Rising, he crossed to the bed and searched the nightstand next to it, but it was littered with medical paraphernalia, nothing else.
“Come on, goddammit.”
“Jack,” Rachel said. “What’s wrong? What are you looking for?”
And then he found it, partially hidden by one of the machines, taped to the wall directly above Sara’s head.
Ten letters.
Photograph.
A Polaroid photo he’d seen at least a half dozen times: Alexander Gunderson smiling for the camera, standing in front of the Lake Point Lighthouse.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
Donovan ripped the photo from the wall. “Sara’s window.”
54
Hold on, Jessie.
He’s coming to get you.
…Jessie?
She struggled to open her eyes and peered into the darkness she’d grown so accustomed to.
Was that the angel’s voice she’d heard?