“Please go, Roxy. Please. You’re right. You have to get help. And the roads are going to get worse. Please, go. Go now.” I took Roxy’s hands. “You understand, right? You understand I can’t go without him.”
“We have to go. It doesn’t make sense to stay here.”
“It does. I will make Sarah tell me more. I’ll find out the location of the hospital. By the time you get back with help, I’ll have convinced her to spill it.”
Roxy glared and pointed. “You stay hidden. Lock yourself in here if you have to. I’ll find a phone, and I’ll come back for you.”
“I know you will. Please be careful. We don’t get a lot of snow in Nashville.”
“Hell, I drive a pickup with four-wheel drive. I don’t even know if these are his keys. Stealing a car is a new one, even for me.”
She gave me a quick, fierce hug and went to the door, opening it gently. “Stay in here,” she said, and slipped out.
I hurried over to the window, parting the heavy curtains. To my relief, I could still see the van through the blinding snow. I didn’t dare breathe as Roxy’s hunched-over form scurried through the snow and held out the keys. The van blinked its lights in recognition.
She clambered inside and fired up the engine. At first, she clearly gunned it too hard. It lurched and nearly knocked over the trashcans. Then it slowly backed up and quietly moved down the alley.
“Where’s your friend?”
I flinched as Sarah stepped through the door. “She’s trying to find a phone.”
“She went out in this? I’m telling you, there’s no phones that will work.”
“She took our car.”
“And left you here? The officers said you would be on foot.”
“She knows I won’t leave my grandson.”
Sarah looked back at the door. “The police were gone when I went up front. I… want to talk to my husband about this. Just stay here.”
She again slipped out, and I turned once more to the window. Thinking of Roxy navigating the unfamiliar streets, I made the sign of the cross. I then whispered the Hail Mary, picturing a boy standing somewhere in this town, maybe looking out at the snow too, wondering about the strange lady who hugged him so tight and called him William.
How long had my grandson been in this horrible town? How many other people without memories are here, their families oblivious to the fact that they’re alive? Obviously one of the Researchers had enough information about this place to start writing that poem all those decades ago.
If it was meant was a guide, how it is Steven hadn’t known that, all those years ago? Fast-forward forty years, and he was set to take me here from that hotel room, before the FBI burst in. He’d even created that encrypted map, just in case we were separated.
Anger churned in my chest. Either Steven was telling the truth, that he’d just recently learned the truth about Argentum, or there had been decades of lies—
I suddenly looked back at the door.
Sarah said she wanted to talk to her husband about this. But she had referred to him as her boyfriend when we first came into the room.
I should have caught on to that quicker. You don’t realize it yet, but you’re going to explain everything to me, young lady.
I eased towards the door, slowly opening it to the dark hallway. I could hear static of some kind, and then a clicking. The unmistakable sound of radio communication came from down the hall.
“I don’t know, Mark. I know she’s driving that maroon Voyager. Over,” Sarah said in a whisper.
“I can’t hear you, Sarah, speak up. Over.”
Reflected in the window, I could see Sarah leaning on the counter, a two-way radio in her hand.
“I can’t talk much louder. She’s got to take Singer Street and then Main Street. I gotta go.”
When she put down the radio, I emerged, my eyes dazed in anger. “How could you?”
She gasped. I shook my head. “How could you!”
“She shouldn’t have stolen that van! I didn’t have a choice! They were going to find out, and then they’d know I knew! I can’t go to jail, I just started to have a life!”
“Don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to know what happened to you? What happened to all of you?”
“It doesn’t make sense, what you’re saying!”
“I only want to find my grandson! Don’t you wonder if someone ever came looking for you? And this is what you do?”
“Please. Stay here and talk to the police, they will help you—”
I turned and rushed down the hallway.
“Where are you going?” she cried out, stepping around the counter. “Miss, don’t go out there!”
I reached the end of the hall and flew through the back door, the snow temporarily blinding me. Without hesitation, I plunged into the white.
EIGHTEEN
It took two steps to realize the insanity of what I had done.
The snow that had swirled and blurred before was nothing to the whiteout conditions that now pummeled the town. I could see nothing, not even the trash cans that Roxy had almost knocked down. I reached back to touch the wall of the inn as some kind of proof that the entire world wasn’t lost in white. I used its wooden surface to navigate away from the door. If Sarah was still calling out my name, she was drowned out in the oppressive howl of the winds.
I reached the edge of the building. Were the security officers on their way? Were they tracking Roxy instead? Was she far enough away by now that they couldn’t follow?
The temperature felt as if it had dropped ten degrees. I gauged the distance between the inn and the first building on the boardwalk as ten feet at best. But it may have well been a thousand yards away. If I lost my sense of direction, even for a moment, I could wander into the street and never find my way. But the alternative was to stay and wait for the officers to find me.
I forced myself to imagine William again, standing in front of a window, watching the snow.
My fingertips left the building, and I stepped one foot directly in front of the other, convincing myself that it was as simple as following a line. I reached out with my right hand, not unlike the way I had as a girl trying to swim from one side of the YMCA pool to the other. I hadn’t been brave enough then to open my eyes, so I swam blindly, holding my breath as long as I could, aiming for the other end. More times than not, my lungs gave out and I surfaced, opening my eyes to realize I was only inches from the edge.
I’d walked fifteen feet, hadn’t I? I should have reached the stores now. My God, I’d gone off course. I kept reaching, with both hands now. Even with my thick gloves, my fingers ached in the cold. Just touch something—
I felt it, then, a fleeting surface. I waved my hands wildly, striking the wood post with such force that I gasped in pain. With my other hand I clung to it like a life preserver, reaching out for the wall.
I leaned against the cold wood and took several deep breaths. I inched along the wall, at last coming to the corner. The blinding wind was just as fierce here. How can it blow in more than one direction?
I continued feeling along the wall, noting a jut-out of shutters. I felt a door handle at my waist and shook it frantically, finding it locked.
You are going to die here.
Keep moving. Don’t stand still. Think of William.
I felt along the storefronts. Even the abandoned buildings’ shutters were locked tight. I passed the empty laundromat and approached the general store. Please let there be a light on, please let someone still be inside.