He felt her forehead again. Her cheeks. She was starting to cook. In another hour or so she’d be ready. Almost done.
SIXTY-THREE
A wave of panic crashed over the car as Teddy paid the toll and started down Route 100 toward the park. That feeling was back in his gut. The one that told him something horrible was about to happen or already had. He couldn’t stop moving. He couldn’t shake it off.
He saw the turn ahead and made a left onto Lakeview Road. When he spotted the private drive, he pulled over and glanced at the street sign. Then he took another look at the map in the pamphlet he’d pocketed before he was thrown out of the Trisco building. Shoreside Lane had to be it. He could see the frozen lake stretching over the land at the bottom of the hill. A large house and barn were nestled in the trees halfway down. Idling along the street, he reached a break in the curb and stopped. The driveway to the house was snow covered. All except for a double set of tire tracks.
He lit a cigarette, got out of the car and examined the tracks closely. They looked fresh, but were melting in the afternoon sun. A car had entered the property at some point during the day and left, he figured. No one else had used the road since the last storm several days ago.
That left Trisco out. He wasn’t living here.
Teddy took a deep breath and tried to relax as the realization settled in. He hadn’t expected to find Trisco here. Every sign pointed to the madman living in the city. Teddy had made the forty-minute drive because he sensed there was something missing and he needed to be sure. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. But as he gazed at the house in the distance, he knew it was more than that. It was all about the lake. The water. Finding Valerie Kram’s corpse in the river at the boathouse. The ominous feeling he got when he looked at the map in the pamphlet and learned that the Triscos had a place on the shoreline.
He climbed back into the Corolla. Turning into driveway, he eased the car down the hill following the tire tracks from the car before him. Although the snow was eight to ten inches deep, he could see the gravel beneath the tracks and had plenty of traction.
The house began to come into view through the trees. It was a farmhouse, not much different from his own. The driveway appeared to lead to a parking area around back. As he cleared the house and didn’t see any cars, he caught his breath again and pulled to a stop.
The view through the windshield was magnificent, the sprawl of the lake at the bottom of the steep hill, inspiring. Several fishing tents were set up on the ice, and he saw a man with rod and reel crossing the lake on foot to other side. Houses dotted the woods in the distance, built along the road to the park a half mile down. Teddy followed the fisherman’s progress on the other side of the lake until he got into a pickup truck and drove off in apparent silence, the sound of the engine too far away to reach him.
Teddy got out of the Corolla and glanced at the Trisco’s house, guessing it was built in the 1820s. Although the walls were whitewashed stone, modifications had been made to the back within the last twenty years or so to take advantage of the open views. Clearly, money wasn’t an issue in the renovation, and the building wasn’t exactly a farmhouse anymore.
He crossed the drive, noting the tire tracks melting in the snow from the car that had come and gone earlier in the day. It looked as if the driver pulled into the parking area, then backed up to the porch. He could see footprints on the path, the snow packed down as if someone had made more than one trip into the house.
He checked the door and found it locked. Then he stepped over to the window, got rid of his smoke and cupped his hands. It was a living room. Light and airy and about as far from the Trisco museum in Radnor as a trip across the universe. He looked for any indication that someone might be living here. An open book or newspaper, a pair of shoes left by a chair or even a bowl of fresh fruit. The sun was streaking into the room from a window to the left. He followed the shaft of light to a side table and noted the layer of dust. Someone may have dropped something off today, but no one had spent any time here for months.
He stepped off the porch, gazing at the hills rolling toward the horizon and trying to imagine a country club and hotel set on the landscape after it had been shaved down and carted off. There was a place for everything, he figured. This just wasn’t it.
He trudged through the snow over to the barn. The doors were locked with a chain, but the building was old and weathered and pleasingly dilapidated. Prying the barn doors apart, he squeezed through the opening and slipped inside. It was colder in here, the space filled with speckled light. A breeze whistled through the rafters. He shook the snow off his shoes, padding the leather soles dry so that he wouldn’t slip as he eyed a late-model Ford Explorer. The car was clean, but dusty. No chemical residue from winter driving could be seen on any of the fenders. He opened the door and noted the interior light. Checking the glove box, he found nothing. Then he saw a copy of Time magazine on the floor behind the driver’s seat. He reached around and grabbed it, his eyes moving directly to the nameplate. MR. AND MRS. EDWARD TRISCO, JR. He checked the date. September 6 was more than three months ago.
Teddy tossed the magazine into the car and shut the door. As he moved deeper into the barn, he noticed a small boat on a trailer beside a stack of cinder blocks and gardening supplies. A tractor used for cutting field grass down in the fall was parked off to the side. He thought he heard something and turned. That’s when he noticed the door to a small room behind his back.
A bird flew out of the doorway, landed on a rafter and began cooing at him from above. A mourning dove that appeared melancholy and alone. Teddy tried to get a grip on his nerves and stepped toward the door. The room beyond was dark, and he entered the space slowly, carefully. A light bulb hung from the ceiling. He saw the switch on the wall and turned on the light.
The room seemed harmless enough. Fishing rods were tacked to the wall, along with coils of nylon rope. A toolbox sat on a workbench before a window that had been boarded shut. In the corner he noticed a large wooden bin that had probably been used to store feed at some point when the farm was more active. Teddy lifted the heavy lid up and back and leaned it against the wall, then looked inside. On the right were a pile of fishing nets. On the left, a wetsuit lay over a pair of goggles, fins, and air tanks. Teddy thought about his run-ins with Mr. and Mrs. Edward Trisco, Jr. They didn’t strike him as having any interest in scuba diving….
It was all about the lake, he reminded himself.
He closed the lid and exited the room, pried the barn doors apart and slid out into the light of day. The rope, the cinder blocks, even the diving equipment-everything Trisco needed to make people disappear was here. His eyes flicked over the lake and zeroed in on his car as he walked through the wet snow. Checking the time, he thought he’d better head back into town.
The Corolla sprung to life on the first try and he pulled out his cell phone, searching for Powell’s number on the phone log. As he pressed the clutch down and shifted into reverse, his foot slipped off the pedal. The car snapped into gear and stalled, then began rolling forward.
Teddy felt his pulse quicken as he looked through the windshield at the hill. He threw the phone onto the passenger seat and jammed his foot on the brakes. The car slowed some. But then the brake pedal gave way, sinking into the floor as if it was broken. He turned the key, heard the engine fire up, and eased the clutch back. The car shook and vibrated, vaulting over the rough ground and skiing toward the lake at high speed. He checked the rearview mirror, the barn fading in the distance, then checked the mirror again trying to decipher what he was seeing through the jumbled blur. There was a man hiding behind the house dressed in dark clothing. A figure. A shadow. Someone watching him tumble down the hill into oblivion.