Mark tried to take a big step but his foot found nothing but air and he started to fall and the other man caught him and pulled him forward with an effort and Mark fell to his knees on a floor. Out of the snow now but still very cold.
“Who brought you here?” the voice said.
“I’m going to tell you the truth,” Mark said.
That provoked a low, dark laugh. “I think that’s the way for you to do it, yeah.”
“But you’re not going to like it much, I’ll tell you that now.”
“Why don’t you tell me who brought you to town instead?”
“The same son of a bitch who sent you after me. So let’s not waste our time pretending we’re confused about that. Ridley called me, and Ridley called you, but only one of us is actually working for him.”
“Thought you were here for Sarah Martin, not Ridley Barnes.”
“I don’t care about Sarah Martin.”
“That’s disappointing to hear from a detective. You’re supposed to care. You’re supposed to solve the thing. Think you’ll be able to do that?”
“It’s not going real well to this point.”
“Don’t care about Sarah, huh? Don’t like Ridley and don’t care about Sarah. What in the hell do you want in this town, then?”
“Not a damn thing. I just want to go home.”
“Little late for that.”
There was a pause, a rustling sound, and then another stab of the knife, this time high on his arm, in the flesh of his biceps. Wait. No, that wasn’t the knife. It was thinner and sharper and went too deep with too little pain.
Mark got it then, understood from touch what he could not see, and said, “What did you just put in me?”
There was no answer. The needle found him again, the other arm this time, and though he tried to twist away from it, he succeeded only in falling backward as an unknown chemical joined his bloodstream, slipping through his body and carrying a black fog with it.
14
The black fog never lifted, but it had shades. For a time Mark thought he was underwater, in the dim depths. He was certain he could see a familiar reef below, and he knew exactly where he was: Saba National Marine Park. Lauren had reached the reef first — she always did, she moved like an eel. She had beaten him there, and that meant she was just to his left. He turned to his left then, eager to see her, and the water rippled like a curtain, and her face was there but hard to see. There was snow in the water now, falling fast and hard between them. He’d never seen snow underwater before. It was beautiful. Lauren was smiling at it, reaching out to catch one of the flakes in her palm, and suddenly Mark felt panic rising, because Lauren didn’t know anything about snow, she’d always lived among palm trees and warm sunsets and blue waters and she was not prepared for the dangers that lurked in harsh winters. That was his fault. He had not done enough to prepare her for that because she was never supposed to see it.
Mark said, “Baby, be careful,” and then something slapped him in the face and knocked the next words aside. He’d meant to ask her a question, but he couldn’t recall it now, and the snow was falling faster and the curtain of water was rippling like laundry on the line, and Lauren faded out of sight behind it all. Mark blinked and squinted and tried to find her but the snow was gone and then the water went with it.
He’d come to the surface.
No, that wasn’t right. He’d never left the surface. His feet were on the ground and his ass was on a chair. These things were real, tangible. It was as dim here as it had been underwater. Some source of light was coming from behind him, painting shadows on a wall of boards in front of him. There was something wrong with the boards. The boards were melting. He tried hard to think of what that might mean, and then he thought Fire and fear overwhelmed him, because he knew that if there was a fire then he had to run, but he couldn’t even get out of that chair.
“Settle down, damn it,” someone said.
“The boards are melting,” Mark said. “Look at them. They’re melting!”
Another slap, and the fog that returned was gray, and Mark didn’t mind it so much because at least he didn’t have to see that wall melting in front of him anymore. His fear ebbed away and he became aware of a repeated question. Asked patiently but insistently.
“What did Ridley tell you?”
Ridley. That didn’t make any sense. Ridley hadn’t seen the reef. Nobody but Mark and Lauren had. The other divers were scared of going that far. Hell, Mark had been a little scared too. Lauren wasn’t, though. He could see her blond hair fanned out wide in the current, could see those sleek legs in a smooth churn that drove her down effortlessly, and he remembered that he’d been scared of her in that moment. Scared for her, yes, but scared of her too, because nobody can hurt you worse than someone you love. Lauren was reckless in the way that you could be only if you’d never had true cause for fear. Mark didn’t want her to be afraid, but maybe she needed to be. Fear protected you at times.
“She was just young,” he said.
“What?”
“Just too damn young. Came from a different place than me, and I thought that was good. I thought that was perfect. But some people don’t need to be older to understand what the world can do to you. She wasn’t one of those, though. She wasn’t.”
“Sarah? You’re talking about Sarah?”
The gray fog parted and Mark saw the melting boards again and felt panic again, but then the boards peeled away and there was nothing but water behind, shimmering curtains of water. Good. They weren’t going to burn after all. You couldn’t burn underwater, could you? Maybe in the right conditions you could. Things blew up underwater. Maybe in the right—
Another slap, then the voice, louder, and warm breath against Mark’s ear. “What... did... Ridley... tell you?”
Ridley hadn’t told Mark anything about Lauren. Why would he? He didn’t know her. Wait. Wait one minute. He had said something about her.
“Dates were the same,” Mark said.
“What dates?”
“When they died.”
Hands fell on his shoulders, their grasp rough, shaking him, and when the voice returned, it had added urgency. Mark couldn’t see anything but shadows now. One large shadow, looming above him. Too tall to be a man. Something bigger than a man, something worse.
“He knows they died on the same day? He’s sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, he’s sure.” Mark didn’t understand the confusion about this. The dates were obvious; all Ridley had to do was read the newspaper. Maybe the shadow should learn to read. Mark started to laugh. The shadow didn’t like the laugh, and he slapped him again. That was getting old. Mark was tired of the slaps.
“What else? Think hard, now, tell me the truth. What else did Ridley have to say?”
Mark wanted to please the shadow, which seemed strange because the shadow kept slapping him, but there was something in its voice that was so urgent, nearly desperate, that Mark wanted to provide the right answers.
“He said...” What had he said? They’d talked, hadn’t they? Yes, they’d talked, and he’d said that the dates were the same, and that had bothered Mark. Mark got upset with Ridley then, he remembered that.
“He said what?”
“That I needed to go there.”
“Where?”
Good question. Where was there? For a moment he was convinced that the right answer was the reef, but the reef hadn’t involved Ridley, that had been just Mark and Lauren. Why did the reef keep coming to mind, then? Tanks. Tanks and rebreathers. Yes, he’d seen those with Ridley, that made sense. But Ridley didn’t dive, he...