Michael Koryta - Last Words

He nodded at that and then he squeezed her hand and left the hospital and drove out of Garrison for what he believed was the last time. He was headed north to the airport, and from there he would go south by plane. Jeff London was waiting to meet him in Tampa. There he would tell Jeff what he had to say, tell him the truth about how he felt about his wife’s unknown killer, and about the possibilities that he’d seen in this rural place where good but overstretched police could have benefited from outside help from the start. That the questions Did he do it? and Who did it? had always been intertwined, and it was time for Innocence Incorporated to embrace that. He had a sense of how that pitch would go over, and that was why the resignation letter had already been written. But he would do things right, and he would not hide behind Jeff or anyone else. Whether he remained on payroll or not, he had his next case. It had begun on a lonesome bend where the cypress leaves hung low and cast long shadows over the road to Cassadaga.

The airport was far from the town, and Trapdoor was not on the way, but he stopped there all the same. He didn’t get out of the car, just parked where he could sit and look down at the place where Maiden Creek became the Greenglass River.

She doesn’t want you yet.

“It’s just a hole in the earth,” Mark said. “It’s nothing but stone and water.”

But he couldn’t stare too long into the yawning blackness beyond the iron gate before turning away.

He rolled the windows down and let the cold air in and he took out his phone and pulled up the recording of his only willingly entered trance with Julianne Grossman. By now he’d listened to it several times and knew it well, and he knew the precise part he needed to hear before he left this place. Her voice filled the car, stronger than the sounds of the winter wind and the thawing ice fracturing across the surface of Maiden Creek. He listened to her ask him if he had feared death in Trapdoor and then to his own answer, a firm and swift response.

No, he said of the night that he’d nearly frozen to death beneath the earth, the night they’d had to use extracorporeal circulation to bring him back among the living.

And why were you not afraid of death?

Because there are places I still need to go.

Where are those places?

I’ll have to go back to where she died. I have to do that.

To where Sarah Martin died? To the cave?

No. Back to Florida. Back to my wife. And then I’ll have to go to the mountains.

Why the mountains?

Here he had paused for several seconds, and even on the recording you could hear that his breathing was labored, the sounds of a man in the midst of a struggle. Finally he had answered: I’m not sure. But I’ve always known it.

As always, foremost thanks to those who make me look better than I deserve: My editor, Joshua Kendall, and my agent, Richard Pine, both kept the lights on in the dark for me throughout, and kept the batteries charged. Tracy Roe is a copyeditor without equal. And much gratitude to the readers who suffered through the messy drafts: Christine Koryta, Tom Bernardo, and Stewart O’Nan all put their unique and tremendous talents to work on this book. The team at Little, Brown continues to be the best in the business; thanks to Michael Pietsch, Reagan Arthur, Heather Fain, Nicole Dewey, Sabrina Callahan, Miriam Parker, Garrett McGrath, and everyone else at Hachette Book Group. It is an honor to be published by such an incredible company.

I’m grateful to the people who took me into caves and did their best to explain them to me, particularly Anmar Mirza and Ty Spatta, and to the people who attempted to explain the realities of hypnotism versus the mythology to me and helped me capitalize on both. In this regard, Rima Montoya was truly exceptional, and for her insight and patience I’m most indebted.

And to the readers, the greatest thanks of all.