“Alex, look put!”
I slammed all twelve hundred pounds of snowplow into the side of the cabin. The wall caved in. The window frame hung from a corner for a second and then fell on top of the plow. Then the roof buckled, sending a full load of snow onto my windshield. We couldn’t see a thing.
Neither of us said anything for a long moment.
“Well, this is one other way of getting in,” I said.
“Alex,” Leon finally said. “Have you lost your mind?”
“I knew this was a cheap cabin,” I said.
He choked out a few words, unable to put a sentence together.
“Come on,” I said. “As long as we’re in.” I opened my door.
“As long as we’re… I cannot believe this.”
I stepped around the snowplow and into the cabin.
I stopped.
Leon came up behind me. “Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to us if…”
He stopped.
There was a body in the center of the room. On the floor.
Another body in a chair.
Blood.
Blood everywhere.
Old blood. Dried hard and black. The body on the floor spread out, face up. A man. What was left of the face. A man.
The body in the chair slumped over. Long hair. A woman.
Blood everywhere.
I couldn’t see the woman’s face. The hair hanging down to the floor like a final curtain.
Blood everywhere.
Leon swallowed hard next to me. “Sweet Jesus,” he said. “Let’s get out of here, Alex.”
I couldn’t move.
“Come on, Alex. Let’s go.” I felt his hands on my arm. “I said let’s go.”
I turned around and went back to the truck. I opened the door and got in. Leon was still outside the truck, wiping the snow off the windshield. When he finished and got in the truck, I turned the key in the ignition. There was a sudden grinding sound that went right through me.
“The truck is already running, Alex. Put it in reverse.”
I put it in reverse. As I pulled backwards, part of the wall came with it. In the beam of the headlights, we could both see into the cabin. The light hit the blood and somehow made it come alive again, a brilliant shimmering red.
“Nice and easy,” he said. He sounded calm. “Look where you’re going. Right back to the driveway.”
“I got it.”
“Keep going,” he said. “Straight back.”
“Okay, I got it.”
I moved back slowly, all the way back to his car. “Oh God,” he said when I had stopped. His calm was gone. He started to rock back and forth in the seat. “Holy God in heaven.”
“Take it easy,” I said. “Are you going to be all right?”
“God, did you see all that blood?”
“Yes,” I said. I was fighting it. I couldn’t let the blood overwhelm me.
“It looks like they’ve been dead for a couple of days,” he said. “At least a couple of days.”
“I wonder why nobody came looking for them?”
“We have to call the police,” he said.
“Hold on,” I said. “Think about it for a minute.”
“Think about what?” he said. “What’s there to think about?”
“Leon, think. What good is it going to do to have them come out here and see what we’ve done to this place? It’s not going to do them any good. Gobi, and… it was a woman, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “His wife maybe?”
“We’ll both go home,” I said. “And then I’ll call it in, anonymously.”
“I don’t know, Alex.”
“Think about it,” I said. “Play it in your head, both ways. Think about what happens in the end.”
He took a long breath and sniffled. “Let me call,” he said. “They might know your voice.”
I looked at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll call. I’ll wait about an hour after I get home.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Leon. I’m sorry I dragged you out here.”
“Don’t worry about it, partner.” He took one more breath and let it out. “Okay,” he said. “I’m good now.” He got out and went to his car. I followed him down the driveway, both of us backing our way down through the trees. He hit the road and went south. I went north.
When I was back on M-28, heading toward Paradise, I tried not to think about what I had seen. I couldn’t keep the image out of my head.
The waitress. Bruckman said something about Gobi working on the waitress from the Horns Inn. That’s who the woman was.
I pulled over, kicked the door open. I threw up all over the road, everything I had until I was heaving up nothing but air. I tried to breathe. So cold it hurt. I closed the door and kept going.
By the time I got to Strongs, I was having second thoughts about our plan. I’ve got to call the police myself, I thought. I can’t just go home and let Leon do this, pretend we weren’t there.
I picked up the phone, put it down, then picked it up again. I dialed 911.
Then to my left, something flashing by. A vehicle. It pulled over into my lane, cutting me off. I hit the brakes, started to skid on the icy road. I saw the car in front of me sliding sideways, then straightening out again. It was a Jeep. Champagne and Urbanic.
The Jeep was coming to a stop. I pumped the brakes. I wouldn’t be able to stop in time. Closer, closer. Goddamn it, stop! I swerved to the right, hitting the snowbank. The impact sent me bouncing off the steering wheel and then back against my seat.
When everything finally stopped moving, I looked up at the Jeep in front of me. They must know about what happened, I thought. This is going to take some explaining, why I’m driving back home, why I didn’t call it in.
Maybe if I can cut Champagne out of this, don’t even talk to him. I’ll have a better chance with Urbanic.
I winced as I got out of the truck. The sudden stop hadn’t done my ribs any good.
Go right to Urbanic and throw yourself at his mercy, I thought. Pretend Champagne isn’t even here.
The Jeep’s doors opened. Two men stepped out.
It wasn’t them.
I reached for my gun. It wasn’t there. My right pocket was empty. I never got it back from the police.
The road was deserted. Nothing to see in any direction but trees and snow. No sound but the wind.
“Good evening, Mr. McKnight,” the driver said. “At last we meet. You’re a hard man to find.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I sat in the back seat, directly behind the driver. I could see the back of his head, the fur on his collar, and nothing else. The other man sat next to me, wearing the same kind of coat. Fur on the collar, maybe sable. He had a strong chin and a nose that might have been broken once or twice. He kept looking straight ahead. He did not turn to look at me. He did not speak.
You’re a hard man to find, they said. The words rang in my head. You’re a hard man to find.
The driver had opened the door for me. He had stood there waiting for me. It would have been a perfect imitation of a chauffeur, except for the gun in his hand. The other man stood on the other side of the car, waiting patiently for me to accept the invitation. He had a gun, too.
I had gotten into the car. What else was I going to do?
You’re a hard man to find. It didn’t make any sense.
The driver kept going west on M-28. He turned north on the road to Paradise. I cleared my throat. “You’re Pearl and Roman,” I said.
They said nothing. The man sitting next to me didn’t even turn his head.
“You trashed my cabin,” I said. “Saturday.”
“We will not talk now,” the man said. He looked straight ahead.
We kept going in silence. When we came into Paradise, I saw the lights on all along the road, all the places that made up my town. The gas station. The post office. I tried to keep the fear down, someplace deep inside me, in a little box where fear can have its place without controlling you. I knew if I let it out of that box, I would have no hope of thinking clearly.