Blake Crouch
SUMMER FROST
ONE
I watched her steal the Maserati twenty minutes ago in broad daylight from the Fairmont Hotel. Now, from three cars back, all I can see is the spill of her yellow hair over the convertible’s bucket seat and the reflection of her aviator sunglasses in the rearview.
The light turns green.
I accelerate with traffic through the intersection of Presidio Parkway and Marina Boulevard, past the Palace of Fine Arts, the rotunda dwindling away in the side mirror.
We skirt the northern edge of the Presidio, pass through the tunnel and the tolls, and then I’m climbing the gradual incline toward the first orange tower of the bridge. There is no fog this morning, the bay sparkling under a sky so radiantly blue it doesn’t look real. With the exception of a few iconic landmarks, the white city in the side mirror looks nothing like the one I know.
I touch the Ranedrop affixed to the back of my left earlobe and say, “Brian? Do you copy?”
“Loud and clear on our end, Riley.”
“I picked her up at the Fairmont again.”
“Which direction is she heading?”
“North, as anticipated.”
“Back home.” There’s a note of relief in Brian’s voice. I feel it too. That she chose to drive north indicates we were right. Perhaps this will work. The thought of what’s to come puts a shudder of nerves through me as I pass under the second tower and start the gentle downslope into Marin County, the way it once was.
In the late afternoon, I’m north of San Francisco on a remote stretch of Highway 1. She’s out of sight, a good mile or so ahead of me, but I’m not concerned. I know exactly where she’s going.
My grip tightens on the wheel as the Jeep hurtles into a sharp curve. With no guardrail, the slightest lapse in control would send me plunging down the slope of the mountain into a slate-gray sea. It’s insane they once let people drive on this road.
The beams of the fog lights spear through the mist.
The air growing colder, the windshield becoming wet.
The gated entrance appears in the distance. It’s drizzling now, water dripping from the razor wire coiled along the top of a twelve-foot privacy fence that runs along the road.
I pull to a stop at the callbox before the wrought-iron gate. The name of the estate has been artfully burned into the redwood timbers that form the arch—SUMMER FROST.
I punch in the code; the gate lifts. Driving across the threshold onto a one-lane blacktop, I enter a forest of perfectly spaced ghost pines.
After a quarter mile, I emerge from the trees and catch a glimpse of the cliff-top home. Built of stone and glass, it perches precariously on a promontory that juts out into the sea, its architecture calling to mind the aesthetic of a Japanese castle.
I park in the circular drive beside the stolen Maserati and kill the engine.
The mist is clearing—at least for a moment.
The convertible’s soft top is down, the leather interior wet.
The cold air carries the approximate smell of wet cedar, eucalyptus, and a hint of the smoke that trickles out of two chimneys at opposite ends of the sprawling, pagoda-like house. It’s… almost right.
I touch my Ranedrop again. “I’m here.”
“Where is she?”
“Inside the house, I think.”
“Please watch yourself.”
I head up the stone steps under dramatically overhanging eaves, to a front door bejeweled with sea glass that shimmers from the light within.
Pushing it open, I move inside, my heart pounding. Straight ahead, an elaborate staircase connects three levels as it rises through the core of the house. Nearby, a man-made waterfall spills over rocks into a pool, and the air is trying for sandalwood, vanilla, and old pipe smoke but isn’t quite landing it. Everywhere, there’s dark leather and darker wood. Stone sculptures that look older than time. I spot an Escher hanging conspicuously over a Louis XIV desk across the way, which I’ve never noticed before.
Wet footprints trail away down a corridor lit with elegant sconces, the light softened by fixtures made of rice paper.
I follow them, arriving finally in a library whose ceilings are twenty-five feet high and arched like the interior of a cathedral. Massive windows overlook the hillside and the cliffs that sweep down to the sea.
There’s no sound but a fire crackling in the river-rock hearth.
I cross to a lectern in the center of the room. A giant codex lies open across its surface, the pages thick, brittle, and browned from age. They’re covered in words from some long-dead language, the text wrapped around a crude sketch of a pale, naked woman with straw-colored hair lying upon a stone altar. A dark line of what appears to be blood runs from her heart, down the stone, and onto the ground. A robed figure looms over her, holding a codex whose page is open to a drawing of a robed man holding a codex and standing beside a pale woman on an altar.
I move away from the lectern and climb one of the library’s spiral staircases to the catwalk that accesses the higher row of bookshelves.
The spine of a book called Le grand grimoire ou dragon rouge is still damp from her touch. I press against the spine, and the bookshelf swings open.
Pulling out my old-school phone, I turn on the flashlight app and step into a dark, narrow corridor. The smell of her perfume lingers in the air—roses and exotic spice.
I’ve never been close enough to smell her, and it’s exhilarating.
The secret passage twists and turns inside the walls of the great house, and then climbs steeply up a winding set of stone steps, terminating at a door only a child could pass through without ducking.
I take hold of the crystal doorknob and carefully pull it open, emerging from the shadows beneath a staircase into a master suite.
The bed is rumpled and unmade. An empty bourbon bottle lies on the floor, and a fire crackles in the hearth. A turntable is playing the Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite no. 1 in G Major, the notes sawing through the air like storm clouds.
Across the room, light flickers behind rice paper in the door leading to the bathroom.
I head for it, slide it open.
Candles everywhere, their light reflecting off the mirrors, the walk-in shower, the subway-tile walls sweating condensation.
Another bottle of bourbon stands on the marble next to a claw-foot tub, inside of which lies a man, submerged to his chin.
Oh God. I thought she might go to him, but I never expected this.
The water is turning crimson from the blood leaking in dark blossoms from five stab wounds in his chest and a ribbon of destruction across his neck.
I kneel, leaning against the edge of the tub. The steam rising from the surface of the water carries the faintest metallic scent of what I’m assuming is intended to be the odor of blood. Even in the candlelight, he looks unbelievably pale.
His eyes open—barely.
Life draining out of them.
“Did she do this to you, Oscar?” I ask. He makes no response, his eyes glassy with death and tears. Then, with a last, labored breath, he slides beneath the wine-colored surface of the bathwater.
I rise and head back into the bedroom, where french doors open onto the highest deck of the house. I step outside into the cool dusk and move to the railing.