“Howdy. Your name Jordan?”
“That’s right. I filed my flight plan in Los Angeles.”
“I got it. My name’s Wally Mathes. I’m pretty much the whole show here — manager, mechanic, you name it.”
“Can you service the bird for me? I may be leaving in a hurry.”
“I’ll gas you up and give it a once-over.”
“Good. You got a telephone here, Wally?”
“Inside on the desk. Help yourself.”
Brendan trotted off toward the small hangar while Mathes walked slowly around the Cessna. He had tried to call Lindy at the inn from Omaha, but he got the same recorded message about problems in the circuits, delivered by a different voice, that had answered him in Los Angeles. He hoped for better luck here, where Wolf River was practically a local call.
Inside the hangar were a clean-looking Piper and a beautifully restored Stearman. Normally Brendan would have enjoyed having a look at the planes, but he had other urgent matters on his mind.
The “office” turned out to be a cubicle in one corner of the hangar with a rolltop desk, a creaky swivel chair, and a telephone with greasy finger stains on the handset and dial. Brendan picked up the phone and dialed the number of the inn. He listened for a moment to the loud crackling in his ear, then swore and banged the handset back into the cradle.
He went back out onto the field, where Wally Mathes was already wiping down the Cessna.
“Why didn’t you tell me your phone wasn’t working?” he asked testily.
“Phone’s workin’ fine. Least it was ten minutes ago when I talked to the wife. What’s the problem?”
“I tried to call Wolf River and all I got was static.”
“Oh, well, why didn’t you say so? Line to Wolf River’s been on the fritz all day. I expect it’s got something to do with the storm.”
“What storm? I had clear weather all the way from the Coast.”
“Maybe so.” Mathes pointed off to the north. “But I call that a storm.”
Brendan shaded his eyes and peered in the direction the man was pointing. A heavy gray-black smudge lay on the horizon.
“Could be smoke?”
“Could be, but it ain’t. Fire that size, I’d hear about it. Nope, it’s storm clouds all right. Been just sitting right there all day.”
“Weird kind of storm,” Brendan said.
“It’s that, all right. How long you plan to be staying?”
“Not long. What kind of transportation is there to Wolf River?”
“Bus.”
“That’s it?”
“ ‘Fraid so. Not much call for that kind of travel around here. Next one leaves, lemme see, noon tomorrow.”
“I mean I want to leave now,” Brendan said. “Where can I get a car around here?”
“Hard to say, this time of night.”
“What do you mean ‘night’? It’s hardly dark yet.”
“Night comes early in these parts. Not like your Los Angeles.”
Brendan summoned up as much patience as he could manage. “Look, Wally … I do not mean to insult your town or your life-style or anything else. It’s just damned important to me that I get to Wolf River as fast as possible. Now, do you have any suggestions?”
“Well, I got a Jeep Comanche I might let you use. For a price, I mean.”
“You got a deal,” Brendan said.
He agreed to the airport man’s price, climbed into the compact pickup, and leaned out to ask, “What’s the fastest way to Wolf River?”
“Only one way. Take 45 — that’s it you see just beyond the end of the runway — head north past Sugar Junction to the Wolf River cutoff. Town’s about seven miles farther on. There’s a map in the truck if you need it.”
“How will I know the cutoff road?” Brendan asked. “The one to Wolf River?”
“It’s just the other side of Indian Head Rock. You can’t miss it. That’s the big rock looks like an Indian.”
“No kidding. Will you be needing the truck back before morning?”
“Nope. Wife’ll pick me up here when I close down. You can drop her off anytime after six tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
Brendan shoved the Comanche into gear and drove out onto the highway, where he gunned it in the direction Mathes had indicated. If there was a posted speed limit, he never noticed.
Can’t miss it, my ass, he thought twenty minutes later. As he drove north it grew rapidly darker. The strange storm clouds seemed to roll toward him, swallowing the setting sun as they came. He had passed the sign for Sugar Junction, driven by a couple of granite outcroppings that might have looked like Indians, but had seen no intersecting road for Wolf River. Now he was coming into Clintonville, and he knew from the map that he had gone too far.
He turned the Comanche around and headed back the way he had come on Highway 45. He drove more slowly this time, stopping to shine the spotlight on signs he couldn’t quite read. It was almost completely dark when he found a narrow, unmarked road angling off to the northeast just before a big more or less Indianlike rock. A curtain of mist almost obscured the turnoff.
“Why the hell don’t you put up road signs?” he asked the countryside, and steered the Comanche down the poorly paved cutoff.
• • •
Wolf River was on him before he knew it. Only a few lights shone in the houses. Nothing seemed to be open for business. No one walked the streets. Overhead no stars broke through the clouds. The storm felt imminent.
The Wolf River Inn wasn’t hard to find. It was the largest single building on its block, and a light shone behind the glass doors, making the lettering of the name legible even through the mist.
Brendan parked in front of the inn and entered. He crossed the deserted lobby to where a young desk clerk was in agitated conversation with an older man wearing a suit. They looked up reluctantly as he approached the desk.
When Brendan asked for Lindy Grant, the clerk and the other man exchanged a look.
“Checked out. All three of them,” said the clerk.
“Three of them?”
“That’s right. Miss Grant along with the other two.” He checked a register file. “Mr. Dixon and Mr. McDowell. I guess they gave up on the so-called class reunion.”
“So-called? You’re saying there wasn’t any reunion?”
“Not that I heard about. Couldn’t have been much of a party with just the three of them. Is there anything else I can do for you? We’ve got kind of a problem here.”
Brendan leaned across the desk and showed the clerk his teeth. “You listen to me, pal. I don’t know what your problem is, but mine is that Miss Grant might be in some kind of serious trouble. Now suppose you tell me what you know that might help me with my problem, and I’ll leave you to solve yours.”
The clerk looked worriedly at the man in the suit, who spoke to Brendan.
“My name’s Kinderman. I’m the owner here, Mr ….”
“Jordan,” Brendan supplied.
“Mr. Jordan. Please excuse our preoccupation, but we had a waitress walk out on us earlier tonight without any kind of notice, and Saturday is our one big night of the week in the restaurant. Not that we’re getting much trade tonight, but that’s the fault of the weather. Now, about your Miss Grant — Charlie, is there anything you can tell Mr. Jordan?”
“All’s I know is they left in Mr. Dixon’s car. All three of them. Goin’ like the devil was after them.”
“Which way were they headed?”
The clerk reached down behind the desk and retrieved a slip of paper. “Maybe this’ll help. They all got one today. I think they all read the same.”
Brendan took the folded sheet from the clerk and read the short message:
Big Reunion Party Tonight!!
At the Wolfpack Cabin.
For the Hero, the Monkey, the Cat … and the Clown.
Don’t miss it or you’ll be sorry!
“What’s this Wolfpack Cabin?”
“
It’s a place out by the lake the kids used to use for parties. Been closed up for years.”
Lindy’s story of the last Halloween Ball in her senior year returned to Brendan. He said, “How do I get there?”
The clerk shrugged and looked at Mr. Kinderman.
“Head north out of town about three miles. There used to be a dirt road there off to the right that led in through the trees to the cabin and the lake. I don’t think it’s been used in a long time.”
“Thanks.” Brendan stuffed the wadded message into a pocket and strode out of the lobby. Kinderman and the desk clerk watched him go.
• • •
Lightning now crackled every minute or so, washing the woods on both sides of the road with a ghostly gray-green light. Brendan drove rapidly, but kept his eyes steadily on the thick brush along the right side.
The entrance to the old road wasn’t hard to find. The brush was torn and flattened in a gap the size of an automobile. Without hesitation, Brendan turned the Comanche in and bounced along the matted tracks where he could see another vehicle had traveled earlier.
About two minutes into the forest he jammed on the brakes. The little pickup slewed sideways and stopped just short of a body that lay prone in the roadway. Leaving the engine on idle, Brendan leaped out and ran to the unmoving figure.
A woman. Blond, young, in a uniform that might have been a waitress’s. He turned her over. She moaned softly. Her face was smudged with dirt from the roadway, but there were no visible signs of injury.
Brendan carried her to the truck and propped her in the seat next to him. “Are you hurt?” he said. “Can you hear me?”
The girl moaned again. Her eyes snapped open. For a moment she didn’t focus, then she jerked away from him fearfully.
“It’s all right,” he said gently. “You’re all right now. What happened out here?”
The girl only whimpered and shrank back against the door on her side.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Brendan said. “Do you know where the cabin is? The one they call the Wolfpack Cabin?”
“He got into my head,” the girl muttered.
“What? What’s that?”
“He got into my head. He pushed me way back into the dark and he used my body. I couldn’t do anything.”
The girl, he decided, was on the edge of delirium. Apparently she’d been raped and dumped out here. He had no choice but to take her along.
He took her hand and pressed it. “Look, you try to relax. I’ll get you to a doctor as soon as I can, but there’s something I have to do first.”
The girl started to cry then. Deep, steady sobs. Brendan took that as a hopeful sign. God only knew what had been done to her. Crying now might help wash some of it out of her memory.
He jammed the Comanche into gear and drove on deeper into the forest.
CHAPTER 30
The flashes of lightning outside the cabin followed so swiftly now, one upon the other, that the pale splotches of light provided by the candles were hardly necessary. The boom of thunder was unrelenting. Outside a wet wind lashed the brush and tree branches into a fury.
In the fireplace the last of the ashes glowed dark red. Lindy sat with her back to the brick hearth, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them.
Alec paced back and forth across the bare wooden floor, dirt gritting under his feet with each step.
“Why doesn’t the rain come?” he demanded.
“It would almost be a relief,” Lindy agreed.
“This crazy weather just makes the whole thing seem worse than it is.”
“Mmm.” Lindy did not say so, but she wondered if Alec was aware of the depth of their trouble, weather or no weather.
“Do you think Roman made it back to town?”
“I wouldn’t want to guess.”
“Would he send help for us, even if he did make it?”
“What kind of help would you expect?”
“I don’t know. People. Men with lights and weapons and some way to get us out of here.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Lindy said.
“We shouldn’t have let him go. Not and take the flashlight and the ax with him.”
“I didn’t see you trying to stop him.”
“Did you ever try to stop Roman when he wanted to do something?” Alec said.
Lindy smiled grimly in the darkness, remembering. “Plenty of times,” she said.
Alec stopped his pacing for a moment and looked at her. Then he resumed. “He’s not coming back for us, even if he finds his way to town. All he cares about is Roman Dixon. That’s all he’s ever cared about. All I can say is that he deserves anything that happens to him out there.”
“Maybe we all do.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s payback time, Alec. Don’t you remember the message? I got it through my daughter. Roman heard it through his mother-in-law. It was a gypsy woman with you, wasn’t it? But it wasn’t really any of those people who sent the message.”
“That’s crazy. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Quit it, Alec. There’s no use in pretending we don’t know why we’re here.”
He spun away from her. “Don’t!”
“No, you’ve got to listen to this now. We have to face it. We were brought back here to Wolf River, you, me, and Roman, because of what we did to Frazier Nunley.”
“But that was twenty years ago!”
“I know when it was,” Lindy said quietly.
Alec turned back to face her, silhouetted against a lightning flash outside the empty window frame. “But it’s not right. We didn’t really do anything to him.”
“For God’s sake, knock it off. We tied the kid up, put him in a boat, set him adrift on the lake, and forgot about him. Maybe you didn’t personally buy the rope, and maybe I didn’t push him overboard, but we were all a part of it.”
“It was a kid’s prank, that’s all. What happened wasn’t our fault.”
Lindy continued as though he had not spoken. “He went over the side into the lake and he drowned. He was tied up so he couldn’t help himself, and he was blindfolded so he couldn’t even see. Yes, it’s our fault — yours and Roman’s and mine, just as surely as though the three of us had held his head under the water.”
For a moment Alec seemed about to say more, then he sagged and turned away. “The fire’s going out,” he said.
“Let it.”
He ignored her. “We should keep the fire going,” he said in a toneless voice. “I’ll go out and see if there are any logs small enough to burn well. Roman took the ax, so I can’t chop any more.”
Lindy leaned forward, trying to see his face in the guttering candlelight. “We don’t need a fire, Alec.”
“Well, I need some air.” He rolled his head and rubbed at the base of his skull. “The smoke in here or something is giving me a headache.”
Lindy hugged her knees tighter and let him go.
• • •
The air outside the cabin didn’t help. The wind seemed to suck away his breath, and the grinding pain in the back of his head worsened.
All his life Alec had hated the outdoors. Once or twice his father had made the gesture of taking him fishing. Both of them hated it, and both were grateful when the fishing trips ended.
That was one reason he chose to live in New York City. Even when you were outside there, you had good solid concrete under your feet, and solid, reassuring buildings on all sides of you. Central Park, with its two-legged forms of wildlife, was an example to Alec of the threatening outdoors brought to the city. He looked around now at the trees thrashing in the wild night wind and swore never again to leave Manhattan.
Resolutely he bent down to poke through the remnants of wood at the base of the pile, looking for something burnable. He really didn’t care if they had a fire going or not; he just needed to get away from Lindy and her chilling accusations.
He straightened suddenly. The pressure
in his head increased, and for a moment he was overcome with dizziness.
“Alec.”
The voice was gentle and breathy, so much so that he thought at first it must be the wind.
“Alec.”
This time he heard it clearly and looked toward the voice. Lightning blazed and revealed a pale figure standing some ten yards away from him on the weed-choked path that led to the lake.
“Come along, Alec.”
The tone of the voice, the expression, the stance of the figure he had seen in the lightning — all were achingly familiar. But they couldn’t be true.
His head throbbed.
“Come along, Alec. It’s time.”
He didn’t want to, but Alec found himself taking several halting steps toward the voice.
Lightning slashed the sky again. Thunder blasted his ears. She stood a little farther on down the path to the lake now, her long white dress strangely unaffected by the violent wind. She beckoned to him, turned, and walked on down the slope toward the dark lake.
“Wait!” Alec cried into the wind. “Mother … wait!”
He followed her, stumbling along the uneven ground, while his mind shrieked at him that this could not be happening.
She turned once to look back at him. It was his mother’s face, without a doubt, as she had looked twenty years ago. More beautiful, if anything. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and the white dress now seemed more like a negligee that clung sensually to her swelling breasts and gently rounded hips.
“Come, Alec,” she said, and turned to continue down the path. She seemed to float, her feet never quite touching the ground. And strangely, even in the darkness between the jagged streaks of lightning, Alec could see her clearly, as though she were followed by some spectral spotlight. He watched her swaying, provocative ass, hating himself for doing it.
She came to the lip of the shore, with the vast blackness of Wolf Lake beyond her, and turned. She smiled at Alec, a smile of terrible seductiveness.
You’re not my mother, he tried to say, but no sound came from his throat.
“Come to me, Alec,” she said in that breathy, throaty voice that was his mother’s, and yet not quite his mother’s.
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