Bill Pronzini - The Hidden

He peered through the opening. No outside lights, no interior lights visible in the front part of the house. The ones he’d seen from down the lane filtered out from the living room at the rear. The bulky shape of the SUV loomed dark and dripping on the parking area.

He switched the flashlight on, aiming the ray at the front door of the house. It wasn’t powerful enough to penetrate the downpour, and there was still enough daylight left to dilute the beam, but if either of the Lomaxes looked out this way they ought to be able to see it. He waggled the flash from side to side, up and down. Kept doing that for more than a minute, without getting any kind of response.

Finally he gave it up, slid back into the Prius and swiped trickling rivulets out of his eyes and off his face. It took him three tries to position the car so that it was facing the gates. They were made of solid wood, but the high-beam glare penetrated the gap between the two halves and shone glistening off the curtain of rain. He flicked the lights on and off, on and off, a dozen times.

That didn’t get him anywhere, either. Even if Lomax noticed the signaling, he wasn’t coming out.

In frustration he leaned hard on the horn. More wasted effort; they wouldn’t be able to hear it through the wind shrieks and the ocean’s roar. He pounded the wheel with his fist. He was wet, cold, wired up as taut as a guitar string. And his breathing was off a little, coming short and painful, the same as in the aftermath of one of the nightmares; he hadn’t noticed it until now.

The hell with it. Tomorrow was soon enough to tell Lomax about the blocked lane, find out if he had a chain saw. None of them was going anywhere until then anyway.

S I X T E E N

THREE OF THE CANDLE flames had been snuffed by the incoming blast of wind when Jay shoved his way through the door. Shelby got the box of matches, relit the wicks. Still murky in there, like the gloom in an underground grotto, and it wasn’t even full dark outside yet; shadows and clots of blackness seemed to lurk beyond the edges of light from the candles and the fire. She was feeling the old fear of dark, empty places again. It never bothered her when she worked night shift on the ambulance; there were always lights, people, movement. But when she was alone in a closed-in environment like this, the fear crawled up out of her subconscious and scraped on her nerves, built an edgy restlessness.

The storm made it worse, screeching out there like all the pain cries from all the accident victims she’d ever heard combined. So did the fallen tree blocking the lane, trapping them. So did what had happened to Gene Decker. She’d had plenty of experience with death; watched Mom die by degrees, watched strangers die at scenes of mangled metal and flesh or in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. But proximity to cold-blooded murder was something new and unsettling.

She wondered again how Claire was holding up. Not too well, probably, alone in that house with her abusive husband. Maybe she should have gone along with Jay, talked to Claire while he talked to Brian Lomax about the tree. But what could she say to the woman now? Words of comfort from a stranger usually rang hollow; that was a lesson she’d learned early on in her job.

She couldn’t sit still. Kept pacing back and forth, waiting for Jay to come back—animal in a cage. Her wineglass was empty; she detoured to the kitchen to refill it. What she really wanted was a martini, or a slug of straight gin without the trimmings, but she’d had two glasses of wine already and if she mixed in hard liquor this early—not even five o’clock yet—she’d be down and out fast. And getting wasted wouldn’t accomplish anything anyway, except to give her a hangover to deal with tomorrow. Alcohol was fine for dulling the edges of anxiety, but too much of it did more harm than good.

She’d been in a dull funk ever since she’d made her decision yesterday afternoon and confronted Jay with it. There should’ve been some sense of relief, of sadness and loss; she ought to be giving some thought to the future, to other decisions she’d be facing. But she seemed mired in that same cold emptiness she’d experienced in the car yesterday. Feeling a kind of bleak disconnection, too; her mind wouldn’t stay focused. Why? Because at some level she wasn’t convinced a divorce was the right choice after all?

Pace, sip wine, listen to the storm battering the cottage, watch the quivery candlelight and firelight to keep from watching the stationary darkness. She’d never wanted to leave a place more than she wanted out of this one, a feeling as irrational as her borderline nyctophobia. There was really nothing menacing or unpleasant about the cottage or its setting. It was just the wrong place at the wrong time, a symbol, a catalyst. No matter what happened in the future, she knew she would look back on her time here with a sense of loathing.

Rattling at the door, an inrush of wind and wet for a couple of seconds: Jay was back.

He came in breathing hard, jammed the door shut with his body and then threw the bolt. Under the brim of his rain hat, his face was a pale oval slicked with wetness. Shelby went to the kitchen for a dish towel while he shed his rain gear and gloves. The legs of his Levi’s were soaked almost to the knee, the rest of his clothing clinging from water that had gotten in under the oilskin.

“What did Lomax say?”

“Didn’t talk to him,” Jay said as he dried his face and neck. “Couldn’t get in past the gates. He had them closed, padlocked with a chain.”

“Can’t blame him, after what happened to Gene Decker.”

“I could’ve climbed over, but I didn’t want to risk it.”

“Illegal trespass,” she said.

“Yeah. Get my ass shot off.” He bent to pick up the sodden hat and coat he’d dropped on the carpet; his breathing was still labored when he straightened.

“Are you all right?”

He answered the question with a dismissive gesture. “Nothing any of us can do in the dark anyway, while it’s blowing like this. Have to wait for daylight.”

“You’d better get out of those wet clothes and into the shower. There’ll be hot water in the tank.”

“Okay.”

“Here, give me those. I’ll hang them up on the porch.”

He handed over the coat and hat. “I tried moving the tree with the car before I drove down there,” he said. “No use. Too big, and I couldn’t get any traction. I don’t think Lomax’s SUV can move it either. Chain saw’s our best bet. He’d better have one.”

“We’ll worry about that tomorrow. Go on, get into the shower.”

“Pour me a glass of wine while I’m in there?”

“Yes.”

He went off down the hall, carrying one of the candles. Shelby finished her wine as she poured a glass for Jay. Another glass? Might as well. Three glasses of inexpensive chardonnay should have had her feeling mildly buzzed, but not on this miserable night. The wine might as well have been tap water for all the effect it was having on her.

She relit another couple of snuffed candlewicks, then went to put a pair of logs on the banking fire. It wasn’t really cold in there, but she felt chilled just the same. Maybe she’d take a quick shower herself when Jay was finished. Once she’d have just gone in and joined him, to conserve the hot water, but that kind of intimacy was unthinkable now.

The fresh wood began to crackle, radiating heat against her back. But it didn’t take the chill away. Bone deep. A mound of blankets and comforters wouldn’t make her warm again tonight.

What was taking him so long in there?

Three minutes was his usual shower limit. And he wouldn’t use up what was left of the hot water, would he?

She picked up a candle, followed its light into the bedroom.