Reichs, Kathy: Death Du Jour

We’d been driving almost two hours when I spotted the sign. It was dawn, and the sky was changing from black to murky gray. Through the ice I could see an arrow and the letters nge Gardi .

“There.”

Ryan released the gas and eased onto the exit. When it ended at a T-intersection he pumped the brake and the Jeep crunched to a stop.

“Which way?”

I grabbed the scraper, got out, and struggled to the sign, slipping once and cracking my knee. As I hacked away, the wind stood my hair on end and drove icy granules into my eyes. Overhead it hissed through branches and rattled power lines with an odd clacking sound.

I chopped at the ice as though demented. Eventually the blade snapped, but I jabbed on until the plastic was completely shattered. Using the wooden handle I scraped and clawed until finally, I could see letters and an arrow.

As I scrambled back to the Jeep something in my left knee felt terribly wrong.

“That way.” I pointed. I didn’t apologize for the scraper.

When Ryan turned, the rear spun out and we swerved wildly. My feet flew forward and I grabbed the armrests.

Ryan regained control and my teeth unclenched.

“There’s no brake on your side.”

“Thanks.”

“This is the Rouville district. There’s an SQ post not far from here. We’ll go there first.”

Though I begrudged the lost time, I didn’t argue. If we walked into a hornet’s nest I knew we might need backup. And, while Ryan’s Jeep was good on ice, it had no radio.

Five minutes later I saw the tower. Or what was left of it. The metal had cracked under the weight of the ice, and beams and girders lay twisted and scattered like parts of a giant Erector set.

Just beyond the collapsed tower, a road took off to the left. Ten yards down I could see Anna’s gingerbread hut.

“It’s here, Ryan! Turn here!”

“We’re doing this my way or not at all.” He continued without slowing.

I was frantic. Any argument.

“It’s getting light. What if they’ve decided to act at dawn?” I thought of Harry, drugged and helpless while zealots lit fires and prayed to their god. Or loosed wild dogs onto sacrificial lambs.

“We’re going to check in first.”

“We could be too late!” My hands trembled. I couldn’t bear it. My sister could be ten yards away. I felt my chest begin to heave and turned my back to him.

A tree decided it.

We hadn’t gone a quarter mile when an enormous pine blocked our way. It had fallen, bringing up a twelve-foot root wad and dragging power lines across the road. We would not be continuing in that direction.

Ryan struck the wheel with the heel of his hand.

“Jesus Christ in a peach tree!”

“It’s pine.” My heart hammered.

He stared at me, unamused. Outside, the wind moaned and threw ice against the windows. I saw Ryan’s jaw muscles bunch, relax, bunch again. Then,

“We do this my way, Brennan. If I say wait in the Jeep, that’s where your ass will be. Is that clear?”

I nodded. I would have agreed to anything.

We did an about-face and hung a right at the toppled tower. The road was narrow and littered with trees, some uprooted, others snapped where their trunks had failed. Ryan wove in and out among them. To either side poplars, ashes, and birches formed inverted U’s, their crowns bent toward earth by the burden of ice.

A split-log fence began just beyond the gingerbread shelter. Ryan slowed and crept along it. At several places toppled trees had crushed the rails. Then I spotted the first living thing since Montreal.

The car was nose-down in a gully, wheels spinning, enveloped in a cloud of exhaust. The driver’s door was open and I could see one booted leg planted on the ground.

Ryan braked and shifted to park.

“Stay here.”

I started to object, thought better of it.

He got out and walked to the car. From where I sat the occupant could have been male or female. As Ryan and the driver exchanged words I lowered the window, but I couldn’t make out what was said. Ryan’s breath spurted like jets of mist. In less than a minute he was back in the Jeep.

“Not the most helpful character.”

“What did he say?”

“ Oui and non . He lives just up the road, but the cretin wouldn’t notice if Genghis Khan moved in next door.”

We moved on to where the fence ended at a gravel drive. Ryan pulled in and switched off the engine.

Two vans and a half dozen cars were scattered in front of a ramshackle lodge. They looked like rounded humps, frozen hippos in a river of gray. Ice dripped from the eaves and sills of the building and turned the windows milky, eliminating any view of the inside.

Ryan turned to me.

“Now listen. If this is the right place we’re going to be about as welcome as a cottonmouth.” He touched my cheek. “Promise me you’ll stay here.”

“I—”

His fingers slid to my lips.

“Stay here.” His eyes were blindingly blue in the dreary dawn light.

“This is bullshit,” I said into his fingertips.

He withdrew the hand and pointed at me.

“Wait in the car.”

He pulled on gloves and stepped into the storm. When he slammed the door I reached for my mittens. I would wait two minutes.

What happened next comes back as disjointed images, shards of memory fragmented in time. I saw, but my mind did not accept the whole. It collected the memory and stored it away as separate frames.

Ryan had taken a half dozen steps when I heard a pop and his body jerked. His hands flew up and he started to turn. Another pop and another spasm, then he dropped to the ground and lay still.

“Ryan!” I yelled as I threw open the door. When I jumped out pain shot up my leg and my knee buckled. “Andy!” I screamed at his inert form.

Then lightning burst inside my skull and I was engulfed in darkness thicker than the ice.

34

MY NEXT CONSCIOUS SENSATION WAS ALSO OF BLACKNESS. Blackness and pain. I sat up slowly, unable to see any form to the darkness. Fierce pain shot into my head and I thought I would vomit. More pain as I raised my knees and hung my head between them.

In a moment the queasiness passed. I listened. Nothing but the pounding of my own heart. I looked at my hands but they were lost to the darkness. I inhaled. Rotten wood and damp earth. Gingerly, I reached out.

I was sitting on a dirt floor. Behind me and to both sides I could feel a wall of rough, round stones. Six inches above my head my hand met wood.

My breath came in short, rapid gasps as I fought panic.

I was trapped! I had to get out!

Noooooooo!

The scream was in my mind. I hadn’t entirely lost my self-control.

I closed my eyes and tried to control the hyperventilation. Clasping my hands, I tried to concentrate on one thing at a time.

Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out.

Slowly the panic receded. I got to my knees and stretched a hand straight out in front of me. Nothing. The pain in my left knee brought me to tears, but I crawled forward into the inky void. Two feet. Six. Ten.

As I moved unobstructed my terror receded. A tunnel was better than a stone cage.

I sat back and tried to connect with a functioning portion of my brain. I had no idea where I was, how long I’d been there, or how I’d arrived.

I began to reconstruct.

Harry. The lodge. The car.

Ryan! God, my God, oh, God!

Please, no! Please, please, not Ryan.

My stomach roiled again and a bitter taste rose to my mouth. I swallowed.

Who shot Ryan? Who brought me in here? Where was Harry?

My head pounded and I was becoming stiff with cold. This was no good. I had to do something. I took a deep breath and rolled back to my knees.