"Still on the south shore?" Stride asked.
"Yeah, I assume so. Not much reason for people to be driving around down here if they're camped on the north side. It's a long way up there, unless you want to go across the belly of the lake and swim." He chuckled.
"Thanks," Stride told him. "Stay safe."
"Not like I'm going to die young."
Stride flew out of the RV and back to his Bronco. He called 911 and gave them the position off his GPS locator and told them where he was headed and asked them to scramble everyone they had. When he got the confirmation from the operator, he threw the phone back on the passenger seat and concentrated on the lake. He abandoned the rest of the fish houses in this inlet and accelerated back toward the open stretch of ice. Sheets of snow blew up from his tires in two waves, as if he were parting the sea. He tried to keep an eye on the dark blotch of land to the east, but the storm grew even worse, shrinking his universe to a few feet in front of the truck. Even so, he pushed the Bronco faster, until his foot was on the floorboard and the chassis was shimmying and wobbling on the bumpy ice. Too fast.
He lost control. The truck spun. He went round and round in a strange, graceful pirouette, and the truck came off its tires and threatened to roll. He felt himself sailing at an angle, airborne, but then the Bronco staggered back and righted itself, falling back onto its wheels with a kidney-busting jolt and drifting to a stop. He pushed the accelerator again, and the truck coughed, clamped down on the snow, and sped up.
He was lost now. He couldn't see a thing and had no idea where he was or what direction he was going. He opened the window and shoved his head out as he drove, but the wind and snow were like knives on his face. The lake, the sky, and the woods were all indistinguishable. He thought he could make out the dark stain of the next finger of land jutting out to the east, and he turned toward it, but he was disoriented by the silver, blowing swarm that was everywhere around the truck. The vision of the land vanished, as if it had been an illusion all along.
He was far out, too far out, before he realized he had gone the wrong way and strayed from the land. Something changed under his tires. What had been two feet of impenetrable ice no longer felt heavy and solid; instead, the ground trembled and moved as he drove. He knew he had to stop, turn around, get out of there. He was skating on a hot spot, trying to walk on water, and when he steered in another direction, the first sharp crack was like a rifle going off under his feet.
The ice was breaking.
The truck lurched.
Stride was thrown forward by the jolt. The nose of the truck shuddered and dipped. He fumbled with his seat belt, pushed open the door, and threw himself outside, where he hit the ice with a cold slap and rolled. He kept crawling, hearing more ice crack around and behind him. He spread his weight out and practically swam through the snow toward the safety of a thicker shelf of ice. He could see the red flags now, warning beacons that he had driven past and missed entirely in the storm.
He stood up. The ice here was strong enough to hold him.
Twenty yards away, he watched his ten-year-old Ford Bronco disappear, carrying his past and his cell phone with it. Spiderlike cracks opened up and widened into fissures. The front wheels slurped into the lake water, which freed itself from its prison like a sea monster and surrounded the truck. The Bronco flailed, fought, and floated, but not for long. Frigid water leached into its body, and steam hissed as the engine drowned. The front end dived, and the back end settled behind it, and then the truck careened to one side and made a gentle splash as it sank between the chunky plates of ice and was swallowed up and gone.
The storm raged.
He was alone in the middle of the lake.
55
Blue Dog staggered back two steps, colliding into the opposite wall. A set of metal shelves collapsed under his weight, and debris clattered to the floor around him. Someone else climbed inside the shanty with them and shut the door. For an instant, the darkness was so complete again that Serena felt as if she were wearing a mask, but then the overhead bulb lit up, and even the pale light was enough to make her close her eyes and turn away.
When she blinked, she saw Lauren Erickson with a shotgun nestled against her right shoulder, pointed at Blue Dog's head. The gun looked oversized in her small arms, but she held the barrel steady and straight.
Lauren's eyes flicked to Serena and lingered. Her mouth was tight with anger and something that might have been guilt or regret. She turned back to Blue Dog, who was clenching his wrecked shoulder with his other hand. His wound was a mess of bone, muscle, and blood.
"You stupid son of a bitch," Lauren snapped. "You had the money. You could have left the city, and everything would have been perfect."
"It was never about money." He nodded his head at Serena. "Me and her, we have a history together."
Serena interrupted them, her voice calm and firm. "Lauren, cut me loose."
Blue Dog jabbed a finger at Lauren's face. "You know you can't do that. If she walks out the door, everything comes out."
"Lauren, I don't care what you've done," Serena told her. "Look at me. Look at me. You could never be a part of something like this."
Lauren stared at Serena tied to the cot. Naked. Her body streaked with blood. "I'm sorry you're in the middle of this," she told her.
"It's not worth it, Lauren," Serena said. "It doesn't matter what you did. We can work it out."
Lauren shook her head. "We're way beyond that."
She shoved the twin barrels of the shotgun into the skin of Blue Dog's forehead.
"Lauren, do not pull that trigger," Serena insisted. "Don't do it. Once you do that, you can't go back. Just call the police. He's the one they want. You can work out a deal."
Lauren took a half-step backward.
Blue Dog's lungs rattled as he laughed. "A deal? You think you can cut a deal? Not after you killed Tanjy."
Serena closed her eyes and swore silently to herself.
"Shut up," Lauren hissed.
"Don't you want Serena to know what an ice-cold bitch you are?" Blue Dog said. He grinned at Serena. "I told Lauren all about Dan's affair. All about Tanjy's rape fantasies. All the sick things they did together. I even had the photos. I just wanted money to keep it quiet, but Lauren here had a better idea."
"Shut up," Lauren repeated.
"She paid me to keep Dan's ass out of the papers, and then she paid me even more. She hired me."
Serena saw a primal horror in Lauren's eyes. The small space swayed as the gales outside pounded the walls. It got even colder.
"To do what?" Serena asked, but she had begun to put it all together.
"To rape Tanjy Powell," Blue Dog said. "She didn't just want to break up Tanjy and Dan. She wanted this bitch destroyed. So that's what I did."
"Oh, my God," Serena murmured.
"She was a twisted little whore," Lauren said, spitting out the words.
"Yeah, and Dan couldn't get enough of her wet, wild pussy, could he? But you fixed that." Blue Dog's grin came back. "Then Tanjy called and said she knew who raped her. That scared the shit out of you, didn't it? If Tanjy knew about me, then she'd find out about you, too."
"Stop it!" Lauren shouted.
"But you knew what to do, didn't you? I bet when you swung that flashlight into the back of her head, you fucking well had the biggest orgasm of your life."
Lauren was lost in what she had done, trembling, furious. The shotgun sagged in her hands. She didn't see Blue Dog moving on the floor, his right hand reaching and scrabbling on the ground behind him. Serena shouted a warning, but Lauren didn't understand and didn't see Blue Dog as his hand emerged from behind his back with Serena's gun. He grinned and fired, grinned and fired, two shots in two seconds, both in and out, one that drilled a tunnel through the flesh of Lauren's elegant neck and one that broke through her collarbone with an audible crack.