Into the Dark
Page 19
Dad pointed to the passenger seat, where Nigel—
Boom! This one the biggest of all. Flames boiled through the walls and roof of The Cottage, the noise, like a wild storm, so loud that Ingrid didn’t hear the snowmobile until it was almost too late.
The snowmobile roared across the yard, Cyrus driving with one hand, the moonlight shining on the rifle in his other. The machine bore straight down, its single headlight exposing them clearly in the night. Dad had his back to the whole scene.
“Dad!”
Dad turned, saw the snowmobile, almost on them. He gave Ingrid a huge push, sent her flying. Then with a sickening crunch the snowmobile mowed him down. The rifle pinwheeled away into the night. Dad lay still in the snow.
Ingrid ran to him, fell on her knees. He lay on his back, eyes closed. “Dad! Dad!” She took his head in her hands. His mouth opened. Blood trickled out one side, black in the moonlight. He spoke one word, hard to make out with his voice so thick: “Run.” Ingrid looked up, saw the snowmobile veering in a tight turn, Cyrus hunched over the controls, coming back. She ran.
But where? Ingrid headed for the lane. If she could only get out of the woods, past the Ferrands’ house, she might find help on the main road. But almost at once the snowmobile changed direction, cutting her off. She went the other way, past The Cottage, now blazing from top to bottom, a riot of red and orange flames, and into the trees.
Ingrid ran. Cyrus followed. The woods, so dense, protected her, forcing the snowmobile to slow down, slaloming through the trees. But there was nowhere to hide—that headlight kept finding her, throwing her running shadow across the snow. And then, all at once, there were no more trees. She was out of the woods, on a bare, steep slope down to the river.
No good. Ingrid cut to the right. Cyrus followed, was on her almost at once. Roar. A hand grabbed at her from the side. Ingrid fell. Rip—and her jacket was gone. Before she could get up, the snowmobile was bearing down, engine shrieking, and Cyrus shrieking something too, his mouth a round black hole. And then it was on her, looming huge. Ingrid rolled away, one snowmobile runner clipping her side, knocking the wind out of her. The slope took over and rolled her, down, down and into the river.
But not into. The river was frozen, of course, and she landed hard on the ice, ice swept bare by the wind. She rose. The snowmobile barreled down the slope, relentless. Ingrid turned toward the river. Was it safe? Chief Strade had said the ice on the Punch Bowl was safe, and it had been, but she no longer trusted him. Was there a choice? Ingrid started running across the ice. It held.
The snowmobile howled after her, and Cyrus howled too. Ingrid ran with all her might, her whole being devoted to speed and only speed. But the ice was slippery and she wasn’t a machine. The machine caught up fast, her shadow growing and growing in its headlight beam. At the last second she darted to one side—more of a lurch—and the snowmobile tore past.
Ingrid lost her balance, fell to the ice, hitting her head. She was stunned for a moment, and in that moment Cyrus swung around sharply and opened the throttle wide, hunched forward, coming fast. Ingrid started to rise, but oh so slow. And now there was no distance between them at all. His teeth were bared like a knife blade, and his eye patch flapped up in the wind. She was getting her feet under her—dizzy and oh so slow, the noise unbearable, the snowmobile filling her vision—when suddenly there came an enormous crack.
Crack!
And the snowmobile stopped dead. The engine snarled, but the machine went nowhere. Then it tilted, nose rising and rising, like the Titanic but much quicker, until the headlight pointed straight up at the sky. A second later the engine went silent and the headlight dimmed and flickered out. Cyrus’s face registered a few quick expressions: disbelief, anger, terror. And maybe there would have been more, but he was out of time. The river made a soft sucking sound, and Cyrus and the snowmobile sank from sight in an instant, as though yanked down by some force on the bottom.
Ingrid crawled toward the hole in the ice, halted a few feet from the edge. A big bubble rose to the surface of the black water. Then came a few smaller bubbles and a single tiny one, bursting with a moonlit pop. After that, nothing.
Ingrid spotted something lying on the ice, close by: Cyrus Ferrand’s eye patch. She didn’t touch it.
Sirens sounded in the night, lots of sirens, getting louder. Ingrid turned toward the shore. The fire rose high, towering over the woods. Some of the trees were burning too, an enormous conflagration, but too distant to hear. The only sound now was a crackling, soft and quiet, almost inaudible: the hole freezing back up.
Ingrid spent the rest of that night and most of the next day in the hospital. Dad, with a broken pelvis, was there much longer. Mom took to visiting. Mrs. McGreevy got the asking price on her house almost at once and moved to Boston. Mom and Dad did a lot of talking in Dad’s hospital room. Was he going to come back home? No one said, but Ingrid got the feeling that he wanted to and that Mom was still making up her mind. Mom was eating better now, had lost that hollowed-out look.
The ballistics tests cleared Grampy. The next day the Ferrand Group put out a press release saying Cyrus Ferrand had no connection to the group and that his actions, including the employment of the late private investigator Dieter Meinhof—and his actions, including but not limited to any possible trespassing on private property or anonymous calling to any state or local agencies—had taken place without the knowledge or approval of the Ferrand Group or the Ferrand family, who, individually and collectively, were gratified that justice was done. Dad got a small raise.
Ingrid helped Grampy move back to the farm. They chopped some wood—just Grampy, actually, Ingrid’s hands not being quite up to it yet—and Grampy looked like his old strong self, split logs flying all over the place. Did that mean maybe he was somehow getting better? Ingrid had heard of things like that.
“Grampy?”
“Yup.”
“How are you feeling?”
He paused, ax raised, and said, “What kind of question is that?”
“I just—”
“Tip-top,” said Grampy.
And that was that.
Except that when Mom came to pick her up—Ingrid on her way out the door—Grampy put his hand on her shoulder and said, “You’re in my will. Want you to know that.”
“Oh, Grampy, I don’t—”
“Guess what it is.”
“What what is?”
“What I’m giving you.”
“I don’t want anything.”
“Someone has to take care of the damn thing. Might be worth money someday.”
“The Medal of Honor, Grampy? Oh, no, not me.”
“Who’s a better candidate?”
“Lots of people,” Ingrid said. “And besides, I would never sell it.”
“Proves the point,” said Grampy. “Case closed.”
“Grampy?”
“I said case closed.”
“This is something else.”
“Such as?”
“Such as if you ever go on a road trip, maybe I could come along.”
“What kind of road trip?”
“Like New York.”
Grampy’s eyes narrowed.
“For example,” Ingrid added quickly.
He gave her a long look.
Ingrid’s hands were fine by opening night of Hansel and Gretel in Prescott Hall; just a few little scars here and there, nothing worth a second thought. After, backstage, the cast still in makeup, Brucie came over and said, “You scared the p—” Brucie saw his father approaching, changed the word he was about to say—“pants. You scared the pants off me.”
“Huh?” said Ingrid.
“In the woods,” Brucie said. “Your voice. How did you make it so realis—”
But before he could finish his question, other people came swarming in, most of them surrounding Brucie, shaking his hand, patting him on the back. He’d brought down the house three or four times, come up with a funny ad-lib about bagel
crumbs, and done a completely unrehearsed and dead-on imitation of Mick Jagger. His voice rose from the midst of all those fans. “Any studio execs in the crowd? Step right up.”
Chief Strade and Joey approached.
“Stellar,” said the chief.
“Thanks,” said Ingrid. Their eyes met. Ingrid gave a little nod.
The chief turned to Joey. “Where’s that bouquet?”
Joey patted his pockets. “Must have left it in the car.”
But the bouquet—daisies—was still fairly fresh a few days later at the rec center dance. Joey handed Ingrid the flowers in the parking lot, minimizing the chance of any of the boys witnessing what could be interpreted as a romantic gesture.
“These are nice,” Ingrid said. “Smell them.”
Joey shook his head. They stood in silence, breath rising in the cold. Then Joey said, “I saw that movie. On DVD.”
“What movie?”
“The one your mom likes.”
“Casablanca?”
“Yeah.” More silence. Joey shifted from one foot to the other, like he was building up to something. How long was this going to take? It was getting really cold. “The funny thing is,” he said at last, “you do kind of look like her.”
Like Ingrid Bergman? “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ingrid said.
“You do,” Joey said. “Especially, um, around the mouth.”
He reached out and touched her lips with his finger, very gentle. A nice feeling—might even have been electric, if he hadn’t had gloves on.
About the Author
PETER ABRAHAMS is the bestselling author of DELUSION, NERVE DAMAGE, END OF STORY, OBLIVION, THE FAN, and BEHIND THE CURTAIN, as well as LIGHTS OUT and DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE, for both of which he received Edgar Award nominations. He is also a contributor to many short story collections, including UP ALL NIGHT. Mr. Abrahams makes his home in Falmouth, Massachusetts, with his wife and family. INTO THE DARK is the third book in the critically acclaimed Echo Falls series.
You can visit him online at www.peterabrahams.com and www.echofallsmysteries.com.
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Read all the books in the Echo Falls Mysteries series!
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
BEHIND THE CURTAIN
Credits
Cover art © 2008 by Paul Robinson
Cover design by Jaime Morrell
Copyright
The excerpt on Chapter Five is from Dylan Thomas’s “Poem in October”
INTO THE DARK. Copyright © 2008 by Pas de Deux. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition March 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-189739-9
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