At a height of forty or fifty feet a strong crosswind was catching that geyser of finely pulverized ice and snow and blowing it far into the pine forest. When the roaring machine came abreast of the clearing in front of the lodge where the wind was strongest, the frozen output was carried hundreds of feet out over the lake.
As Gurney watched, the truck moved on past the lodge in the direction of the chalet and Gall House, effortlessly clearing four-foot-high ice-impacted drifts from the road surface.
Madeleine came out onto the balcony next to him. “Shouldn’t you stop him and give him a message for the police?”
“That road dead-ends at the Gall mansion. He has to come back the same way. I’ll stop him then.”
She looked toward the brightening eastern ridge. “Thank God the snow stopped. But it’s freezing out here. We should go back inside.”
“Right.”
They went in, shut the door tight, and stood at the window.
Madeleine produced a fragile smile. “It looks like the sky might actually be blue today.”
“Right.”
She gave him a curious look. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m wondering why a county truck is clearing a private road.”
She stared at him. “Isn’t that something to be happy about?”
“You can be happy. I’ll do the worrying.”
“That seems to be your regular job.” She paused. “I think I’m ready to leave this place. What about you?”
“I’m ready. But once we get word to the police, we’ll need to make statements. About everything that’s happened here. That could take some time. Then we’ll be able to leave.”
She looked anxiously out at the road. “Maybe you should go downstairs now so you don’t miss him on his way by.”
“Lock the door after me.”
As a precaution against being caught off guard by Landon, he removed the Beretta from his pocket and held it in his hand, muzzle down.
He went downstairs and waited outside the main door, turning up his collar against the cutting wind. Within a couple of minutes the huge machine reappeared. To Gurney’s puzzlement, it turned off the road and in toward the lodge. With its snow blower shut down, it proceeded toward him, moved slowly under the portico, and stopped. The big diesel engine idled noisily for a few seconds before falling silent.
The operator stepped down out of the high cab, removing the wool hat and thick scarf that together had been covering most of his face.
“Jesus, it’s cold. How the fuck do people live here?”
“Jack?”
“No, your fairy godmother.”
Gurney pointed at the truck. “Where . . . how . . . did you . . .?”
“Borrowed it. Couldn’t get in here without it. Adirondacks, my ass. This is fucking Siberia.”
“You borrowed that thing?”
“Kinda borrowed, kinda commandeered. You know, police emergency, et cetera.”
“But you’re not the police.”
“No time to split hairs. Is there any special reason you have that gun in your hand?”
“Long story. The short version is that Austen Steckle is dead, Barlow Tarr is dead, and I shot a CIA agent, who may or may not be dead.”
Gurney filled Hardwick in on Steckle’s plot to gain control of the Gall fortune—and the toxic interaction between his fatal-nightmare stratagem and the mind-control ambitions of Landon’s group at the CIA.
“So you figure at the end Landon was trying to save his career by wiping out the evidence of his mistake?”
“Something like that.”
“Including you and Madeleine?”
“Most likely.”
“Holy fuck. Hard to tell who was worse, Steckle or Landon.”
Gurney responded without hesitation. “Landon.”
“How so?”
“Steckle was a devil. Landon was a devil who thought he was an angel. The ones who think they’re angels are the worst of all.”
“You might have a point there.”
“So what’s this very interesting news you have for me?”
“Hardly seems to matter now, considering the fact that Steckle’s dead. But Esti looked a little deeper into Steckle’s earlier life as Alfonz Volk. Any idea what Volk means in Slovenian?”
Gurney smiled. The news was a little too late to be useful. But it was pleasant to have one’s suspicions confirmed. “Wolf?”
“Precisely. Now, can we please go inside before my balls turn into ice cubes?”
HAVING CHOSEN THE HEARTH ROOM—WITH ITS SINGLE DOORWAY, lack of windows, and open view of the reception area—as the best place for them to sit down and work out their next steps, Hardwick went about building a fire.
Gurney went upstairs to get Madeleine.
He found her standing at the basin, wearing jeans and a sweater, brushing her teeth. She stopped and gave him an odd little smile. “I’m just trying to feel normal.”
Her told her about Hardwick’s appropriation of the monster snow blower and about Esti Moreno’s discovery linking Steckle to Brightwater.
Neither event seemed to surprise her. “What do we do now?”
“We need to find Landon, check on the Hammonds, check on Peyton, check on the status of the generators, get word out to the county sheriff’s department and to BCI. There’s a hell of a lot more that’ll have to be taken care of after that, but not by us.”
She smiled and nodded. “You did it.”
“Did what?”
“You saved Richard.”
He knew it was pointless to repeat that saving Richard hadn’t been the goal. And there was also the small matter of not knowing for sure if the man was still alive.
“Right now we need to sit down with Jack, figure out who’s going to do what.”
They made their way along the dark corridor to the main staircase, illuminated now by the morning light coming up from the reception-area windows and glass-paneled doors. As they were descending the stairs, Gurney heard voices in the Hearth Room.
“Sounds like Richard and Jane,” said Madeleine with a relieved smile.
The Hammonds were plainly alive and well. Jane was engaged in an intense conversation with Hardwick while Richard stood a bit to the side, listening.
When Jane saw Gurney coming into the room with Madeleine, she stopped in mid-sentence and turned to him, her eyes widening with hope. “Is it true? Is it really all over?”
“As far as the case against Richard is concerned, I’d say that’s over. It’s clear that he was just the fifth victim of a complicated plot. There were no trances, no suicides. The deaths were all murders. The crime was complex, but the motives were simple—greed and control.”
For her benefit and Richard’s, he repeated the summary of the situation that he’d already given to Hardwick.
Jane’s mouth fell open. “My God! We didn’t know anything. Nothing at all. When the snow blower came by the chalet, and we could finally use the car, we thought we should come over to the lodge—to make sure you and Madeleine were all right, and to ask Austen about the generators. When we walked in, we found Jack and, well, here we all are.”
Richard stepped forward and extended his hand. “Thank you, David.” That was all he said, but he said it with such a palpable sincerity that nothing more seemed necessary.
Jane nodded enthusiastically. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” She came over to Gurney and hugged him, tears welling in her eyes. She went over to Hardwick and hugged him. “Thank you both. You’ve saved our lives.”
Hardwick looked eager to shift the conversation in a less emotional direction. “If you have any interest in pursuing a lawsuit against the state police or against Fenton personally—”
Richard cut him off. “No. To have it over and done with is good enough for me. From what you’re telling me, Fenton’s case has completely collapsed. Let that be the end of it.”