Michael Koryta - Last Words

Pause. “Nothing.”

“There has to be.”

“There isn’t.”

Mark rose from the chair but didn’t move away from it. “Put in the word Trapdoor. See if it hits.” Mark could see his reflection in the window. With the woodstove in the background, the image reminded him of different places, a different man. Howling blizzards and small towns. Broken fingers and pickup trucks crawling through the snow. Exposed lies. Blood and justification.

“Eleven properties,” Jeff said. “The name is Trapdoor Caverns Land Trust.”

“ Eleven? Eleven unique properties. You’re sure? No duplicate records.”

“I’m looking at the parcel map, Markus. Eleven properties, roughly following the basin of something called Maiden Creek. Sound right?”

Too right. Mark wet his lips and said, “Can you see who owns the trust?”

“Nobody owns a trust.”

“What do you mean?”

“A land trust is its own entity. Like a corporation. It doesn’t have owners, it has beneficiaries. Those names aren’t public. Obviously, we can find them, but as far as the public record is concerned, Trapdoor Caverns is its own legal entity. Trapdoor can buy and sell land. So far, it has only bought.”

“How recently?”

“Let me see.” It was quiet for a few seconds while Jeff looked, and then he said, “Each parcel was transferred to the trust from Pershing MacAlister in October of 2004.”

“The month after Sarah was killed.”

“That makes sense, though. They shut the place down after she was killed.”

“You said you could see a parcel map,” Mark said. “What does it look like?”

“ Look like?”

“Yes. What does the shape of the Trapdoor land-trust property look like?”

“Like a snake. It follows the creek, then curls out and away. I don’t know what shape it has. It looks like a suburban subdivision, maybe. Winding roads and cul-de-sacs. What are you hoping to hear?”

“Exactly that.”

“Markus, what are you talking about?”

“Ridley mapped it from below,” Mark said. “But the cave’s not worth anything unless you own what’s above it. I’m sure of that, Jeff. I’m from oil country. Surface ownership extends to the core of the earth. Ridley was working from the bottom up.”

“Which matters how? ”

“How fast can we get ahold of that trust document?”

“Not very. Private and sealed legal agreement. We’d need a subpoena.”

“There has to be a faster approach than that.”

“Sure. You can find one of the parties involved and ask if you can see a copy. Short of that cooperation, you’ll need a subpoena. But you still haven’t given me an answer. Why do you think this matters? What does it have to do with Sarah Martin?”

“I’m close,” Mark said, as if that answered the question. He was circling through the fog, waiting to land. Instruments were out, only instinct left. He was close. You either landed or crashed.

Ridley questioned Julianne Grossman’s authenticity on many things, but he couldn’t deny the power of her presence. Her energy was palpable in the truck, even though she couldn’t speak and chose not to move. She sat there in his jacket with the tape over her mouth and she stared straight ahead, and still he could feel her like a pulse. He was relieved that he had silenced her.

On the road to Trapdoor they passed the tumbledown trailer that had once belonged to Carson Borders. The headlights caught a glimmer of police tape. Ridley hit the brakes so hard that the truck fishtailed and what was left of the tires was put to shrieking work. They held on to the road, but just barely.

The truck was across both lanes when it stopped but Ridley didn’t care to move it. He kept his foot on the brake and stared at the trailer. The snow all around it was mashed down and trampled by tire tracks and boot prints. A perimeter had been cordoned off with tape.

“What is this?” he said, but of course Julianne was unable to answer. He thought she might know and he was tempted to remove the tape to ask but afraid of the result. The point was to make it into Trapdoor, and it was more than logical that the surface world would try to prevent him. Perhaps the scene at the trailer was not even real.

“Do you see that?” he asked Julianne.

She was eyeing him warily but she nodded.

“I don’t mean the building. I mean the rest.”

Again she nodded. He thought she was being sincere. “Okay,” he said. “All right, that’s very good.”

He took his foot off the brake, but he was shaking now.

“The thing to remember,” he said, “is that this doesn’t matter. All of this, what we see up here? It doesn’t mean a thing. What matters happened down there. We can’t see any of what matters. Not yet. That is what we must remember!”

He had started to shout and he didn’t like that, because it suggested a lack of control. He concentrated on his breathing until they reached Trapdoor. Just beyond the closed gate, he pulled off the road and into the snow and killed the engine. He took the sapphire necklace down from the rearview mirror and put it in his pocket and then he got out of the truck and took both backpacks out of the bed. He opened Julianne’s door, took her hand, and helped her out of the cab. He would never have admitted it but the touch of her hand was comforting. He doubted that she felt the same about his.

“There’s a garage up ahead and to the left,” he said. “That’s the caretaker’s quarters. We’ll walk there. Don’t run.”

She didn’t run. He put one of the backpacks over her shoulders, and she moved to cooperate, no sign of resistance. They walked on the other side of the tree line and parallel to the drive, went as far as the back corner of the garage, and then Ridley whispered, “Hands, please. Only for a little while.”

She offered them reluctantly, and he tied them without ever having to take his eyes off the house. This was why you practiced. You never knew what would be asked of you.

“All right,” he said. “Quietly ahead. Quietly. And, Julianne, you might see some things that will suggest that all of your efforts have been wasted. That I’ve lost control again. Don’t be fooled. I’m in control.” He extended his hands, palms down, like a child waiting to play a slap game. They showed no more movement than the ice over the creek.

He nudged her forward and they walked around the garage and up the exterior stairs that led to the apartment above. He was entranced by her movement. He’d anticipated that she would struggle to walk, that fear would make her clumsy. Instead, she glided along in perfect step, matching his energy and joining it, like a dance partner.

Maybe you’re wrong about her. You don’t know what she really said to Novak. You’ve made assumptions.

No, no, no. He had trusted once and would not again. The surface world was false and she had come from it.

At the base of the steps that led to Cecil Buckner’s apartment, Ridley paused and studied the windows, looking for any indication that Cecil was up and moving. He wasn’t at the window, but Ridley could see his socked feet resting on a coffee table, a can of beer beside them. He was clueless and unprepared, as he should be. Despite his proximity to Trapdoor, Cecil had never learned to listen to what she might tell him, the warnings she might whisper. The very notion that he was entrusted to be the cave’s caretaker was offensive.

Ridley positioned Julianne in front of him, withdrew his knife, flicked the blade open, put it to her throat, and shoved her forward. He walked with his chest pressed to her back and guided her up the stairs. He reached around her then and knocked on the door with his free hand.