Less than a mile later, his blinker signaled a left turn and the Trooper disappeared from sight. Had he taken this turn with the sole intention of losing her? Of trapping her? Was he waiting to see whether she followed? Or was he oblivious to her presence? There were glimpses of moonlight tonight, the sky a grid of broken clouds. She couldn't continue to follow him as she had been; they were too far off the beaten track for that. What to do? They had passed a tavern on the outskirts of town. Should she go back and telephone for help? Risk losing him?.
She slowed, a headache beating unmercifully at her temples.
She switched off her headlights and turned down the darkened lane, following his taillights just barely visible a half-mile in front of her. It was a macadam road, tar mixed with crushed stone. When the moon passed behind the clouds it forced her to slow to a crawl. When it reappeared, she drove quickly, closing the distance between them. Cat and mouse, she caught him and lost him, caught him and lost him. Her headache drove spikes down into her neck. Her calf muscle cramped from carrying the tension there as well.
The road turned to mud. Twice she drove past side roads where his taillights and his tracks said he'd gone. She backed up, worried he might spot the backup lights, made the turn, and followed. It was a spiderweb of dirt roads out here; mud sprayed loudly onto the undercarriage. The front-wheel drive held the car close to the road. A left. A right. She would never find her way out of here. If this was a spiderweb, she thought, then he was the spider and she was the prey. Perhaps he had her exactly where he wanted her. Perhaps he had known she was back here all along.
Pamela Chase fumbled awkwardly nervously-with the oversized brass padlock, finally inserting and turning the key. The dogs were going crazy in there. The lock came open with a loud pop. She leapt away as a dog's nose and teeth jammed through the crack in the door surprising her. Biting at her. She placed her hand out for the dog to smell. It whined. It tried for her again, and she recognized that nose. "Felix?" she said. "Did you get out of your cage, boy?" She eased the door open, her hand-her scent-leading her. Felix approached and nuzzled her. A few of the other dogs stopped barking. She closed the door behind her.
It smelled horrible in here. He hadn't been keeping it clean.
It smelled wrong. Not exactly like dogs. It was dark, and she could not see clearly.
She switched on the lights. The very first pen she looked at was unoccupied, and her mind jumped to the immediate conclusion that this dog had been the one to receive the surgery. Finding an empty pen was exactly what she had hoped for-it exonerated Elden; another warm wave of tranquility passed through her at the sight of it.
Behind her and farther into the structure, she heard a collar sound its warning beep, and one of the dogs smash into the cage wall. She turned to see who was being so rambunctious.
A woman! Her hair tangled and matted, one eye bandaged, her mouth gagged, lips worn raw, a shock collar locked around her neck.
Pamela screamed. The woman screamed soundlessly. The dogs began barking ferociously again.
A bandage covering a kidney scar. Badly infected, by the color.
"Sharon?" Pamela asked tentatively.
The woman's one good eye cocked toward her suspiciously.
Untrusting.
Pamela felt weak, unable to move, without strength. This roller coaster between euphoria and horror was nearly intolerable. Only a moment before…
The kidney bandage cried out to her. How could she have done such a thing? Was she to be party to a murder? And what did that mean about Elden? Had he ever told her the truth about anything? She felt sick to her stomach-the smell, the pleading expression on this poor woman's face. And then another wave of calm swept through her, and she felt much less upset. She could handle this; everything was okay.
And then it struck her again that she was at least partly responsible. Where did her own involvement stop and Tegg's begin?
The woman in the cage-Sharon-laced her fingers through the wire cage and shook, deliberately ignoring the punishment of the shock collar that beeped its warning.
No apparent pain. The dogs were wild with excitement, but Pamela was used to the dogs, she hardly heard them; it was this woman's exceptional behavior that impressed her and held her interest. Pamela took several steps closer. How could she inflict that kind of punishment on herself and endure it?
"I'm coming," she announced, wondering why she was walking, not running. Wondering how she could feel this comfortable.
Pamela seized hold of the lock attempting to communicate to Sharon that she intended to get her out of here.
Sharon pointed and nodded violently. "The key?" Pamela asked.
"Is there a key in this building?"
The woman shook her head. "I'm going to get you out," Pamela said confidently, unsure where such confidence came from.
The captive nodded enthusiastically. She looked around. Without a key, then what? The shovel? Could she beat the lock apart? She walked over to the shovel, knowing she should hurry, but strangely in no hurry. it was okay. Everything was okay.
Sharon became frantic. Shouting. Waving her arms. Slapping the cement floor. Hopping up and down. God, she looked like one of the animals.
What was this? Several of the dogs quieted; they all began pacing their cages at once.
Sharon kept slapping the cement, in an ungainly primitive dance.
Pamela struck the lock with the end of the shovel. Nothing.
She tried again. "I'm trying," she told the frantic woman inside. This woman's behavior was making her nervous. "Stop it!" she said. Only when she identified this fleeting nervousness did she realize what a huge dose of Valium it must have been-there was a gulf between how she should have been, and what she actually was, feeling.
She struck the lock with the shovel again. Nothing.Now Sharon was shaking her wrist toward the main door. Pounding the cement again and pointing hysterically toward the door.
Finally, Pamela understood as she felt a rumble under her feet.
The dogs barking had covered the approaching sounds, but now Pamela heard them distinctly.
A car! But if a car, it could only be one of two people: Maybeck or Elden. And if either of them caught her in here doing this
Sharon grabbed hold of the cage again. Her collar sounded and Pamela watched as the collar punished her. She held on an impossibly long time. She pointed emphatically toward the door.
Close the door! Of course! Pamela moved quite quickly now, surprising herself. First toward the door; then, stopping, she returned to the cage and started in with the shovel again.
She should have never come here, she thought. All a mistake.
She glanced toward the door. Sharon pointed furiously. "I know," Pamela said. "I know." What Sharon didn't understand was that there was no way to lock that door from the inside. The only hope now was to get her free of the cage.
She never should have gone against him, she realized. He was too powerful for her.
She dropped the shovel, abandoning her efforts. It clanked to the floor. She felt terrified of him before she ever saw him. The Valium did little to help with this fear.
Sharon let out a muffled, anguished cry. The dogs went completely hysterical. Pamela wanted to disappear, to vanish. Anything but face his wrath. She had glimpsed his anger before. She shook with fear, unable to imagine how he might react to this.
The door creaked. Sharon retreated, curling back into a ball in the center of her cage.
Pamela felt like hiding, too. She watched as a hand pushed open the door.
She knew that hand.
Daphne had the Prelude up to forty, which in the dim light of an inconsistent moon seemed more like twice that. She careened through puddles, sending water up in a torrential spray, blurring her windshield and demanding the wipers.
She had lost him. A few seconds earlier his taillights had been distant but visible. She had slowed to avoid pressing herself on him. When she caught herself giving him too much leeway,
she had sped back up. Now, he was nowhere to be seen.
She pushed the car a little harder, a little faster. Dangerous at best, given the slippery conditions and the lack of visibility. They had been on these backroads for the better part of fifteen minutes-it seemed more like an hour.
There! She just caught a glimpse of some lights out of the corner of her eye. She craned her neck to look out the mudsplattered side window. Was that a road?
A painful cramp stabbed into her neck and locked. She cried out.
Her hand just barely tugged the wheel. She forced her head back around as the car began a weightless crabbing to the right, drifting slowly on all four tires, the front end surrendering to momentum and releasing its careful grip. Like a rock tossed out onto a frozen pond. She corrected the wheel to the right. Waited. Nothing. Cut it back. Nothing. Drifting, like a chain was pulling her off the road. She tapped the brakes tentatively, and that did it: The car seemed to snap; the back end swung completely around on her-she was looking back from where she had just come, flying backwards now. Pitch black. Vertigo. Perilously close to the ditch. Mud flying everywhere. The horrible sound of machinery doing what it wasn't designed to do.
She jerked the wheel to the right with authority and bounced her foot off the brake again. A rear tire caught on something. The front end of the car jumped so fast, so hard, that it stole the wheel from her hands. The front end bounced into the shallow drainage ditch. Her head slammed hard against the side glass. The car came to a grinding halt, its engine still running.
She just sat there for a moment collecting herself, checking herself with small movements, the flexing of a muscle, the movement of a joint. She got control of her breathing, though her heart was lost to adrenaline. It took the better part of a minute to get her vision down to one image.
No time! it suddenly occurred to her. In the heat of the moment she had forgotten what she was even doing out here. She forced the car into first gear-it didn't want to go-and let out the clutch. There was a bad noise, but then the front tires suddenly spun. She felt the tire dig a hole in what seemed like a fraction of a second. The front end sank perceptibly.
She tried to back up, tried to go forward: mired. The car rocked once, and then dug in deeply one final time. She climbed out. The car was beached, high centered on the lip of the ditch, both front tires rutted in up to their hubs.
She grabbed the keys. She kept jumper cables, snow chains, and a heavy-duty black rubber flashlight in the trunk' She grabbed the flashlight, pocketed the keys, and took off at a run through the sloppy mud.
The flashlight showed her the path of her car: an improbable tangle of deep ruts, crisscrossed and pretzled, that led back to two perfectly straight tire tracks and the arching curve of Tegg's tires where the four-wheel drive had turned. She followed Tegg's tracks up a road that quickly narrowed.
She found the edge of the road easier for running, though her TopSiders became heavy with mud. After about fifty yards it narrowed again, and the texture became more gravel than mud, although it remained spongy. The flashlight caught an occasional boot print, washed by the recent rains, but clearly distinguishable. Now that she caught onto it, it was one long line of boot tracks coming right at her-someone either exceptionally tall or running fast.
It was then that for some reason it occurred to her that this was in fact not a road at all.
It was a driveway.
The Keeper stood in the doorway, backlit by moonlight and a finger of fog that reached to the ground. Sharon had witnessed his entry several times, but only once before had he paused there like that, emanating a menace that even the dogs seemed to feel.
Sharon's eye stung badly. A hot, shooting pain bit into her side where the bandage covered her scar. Her neck was hot from the collar. Her ears were ringing.
Only a few short minutes ago she had been on the verge of being rescued, but she shrank from that hope now. The Keeper was too powerful. This young woman was no match for him, even though by the way they looked at each other there seemed to be a strong connection between them.
The dogs remained silent, though they continued to pace anxiously. The Keeper stepped inside and closed the door firmly behind him. He called, "Heel!" The guard dog obeyed, circling behind the man and sitting quickly by his side.
Sharon, who had lived through hundreds of dangerous incidents while out on the street, felt the impending threat that dog represented. "I'm sorry," the young woman mumbled, head down. Subservient. "But this isn't right," she dared voice. "I expected so much more of you," he said, his voice reverberating eerily in the steel building. Sharon felt invisible. He had yet to even glance in her direction. Instead, his full concentration remained focused on this other woman.
The Keeper continued, "You didn't do as I said. You have failed me."
"This is wrong, Elden," she countered.
For the first time Sharon could attach a name to this man, this monster. It was a strange name and somehow fitting. Strange to be fully prepared to kill a man whose name you don't even know. The needle warmed in her palm. "You could help me, you know. You could prove yourself. There's work to be done."
"You've gone way too far," she said to the cement. "It's over." She wouldn't look at him; she knew better than to look at him.
Sharon couldn't keep her eyes off him. He drew her into himself like a hypnotist. "Pamela," he said-and now this young woman had a name as well-"since when do you refuse me?"
The woman looked up at him.
Pamela's face felt hot. Her brain was like jelly. She wanted to resist him, but it was so difficult. She had worshipped him for so long, and now her anger, mingled with shame and fear, felt like spikes in the middle of her chest. Her emotions wouldn't stay focused for long; another wave of warmth would drive them away. "Who do you think you are?" she asked, clinging to a shard of righteousness. "A woman's life is at stake!" His face and neck reddened. Felix panted impatiently. "How can you say such things? Hmm? I suggest you consider your situation more carefully," he said, gripping the dog's collar. "Are you frightened? The police frightened you, didn't they?"
The police? Sharon thought. Was it possible?
Pamela stepped up to Sharon's cage and took hold of the lock.
"Open it," she said to him. "Get away from there!" Tegg warned in that sharp voice. He gave the dog's heavy collar a tug, and it came to its feet. "Give me the key. I'll do it," Pamela said, her voice shaking. "We can give her the electroshock, can't we? Some Ketamine and electroshock. We can leave her at a hospital, no one the wiser. We dismantle everything here and what's there to find?" It took every bit of her strength to address him like this. "You said it yourself: The police don't have anything. They're fishing is all. We can still do this, Elden. We can still get out of this."
"We most certainly cannot. I told you: There's a contract. There are things of which you have no idea. I have a plan! It's all settled." "Settled? It can't be settled. Give me the key."
"Of course I won't. Use your head."
Pamela picked up the shovel. "We can still save her, Elden.
Contracts can be broken." She felt as if she were dealing with a child. This wasn't the same man of even a week ago. "You're not well," she told him. "Away from there!" he roared.
She had chosen the wrong words. Her knees trembled. His strength was overwhelming, almost like a bright light you can't look at. She wanted to please him, to help him.
He stepped toward her. Felix followed. "Stand back," he ordered. Her heart sank, but she felt her feet refuse to obey. What was happening to her?
She raised the shovel and delivered another blow. To her joy, although the lock remained closed, the latch broke a rivet and the door came partially open.
Sharon felt the hair on her arms stand at attention. Freedom?
Was it possible?
The Keeper mechanically jerked his head toward her and shouted, "Stay right where you are!"
Sharon thought of the needle in her hand. She'd never managed to come up wit
h a plan for the dog, but one step at a time, she reminded herself.
Pamela said, "How can you justify taking one life in order to save another? What sense is there in that?"
The Keeper's expression hardened. "What sense?" His shoulders went military and he shook his head. "Lift your shirt, Pamela."
He repeated, "Remove your shirt. Now! Don't question me, Pamela. Show it to me!" His tone was that of a doctor-clinical and authoritative. Pamela stunned Sharon by removing her jacket and unbuttoning her shirt, allowing it to hang open.
From that moment on, Sharon knew it was over. Pamela had given in. She was his.
Below her ribs was a five-inch scar. "Touch it for me," he instructed. Pamela shook her head in one last try at defiance. "No, I won't."
"Do it!" he thundered. Tears came to her eyes.
She reached down and traced the long scar with a quivering fingertip.
He nodded. "I saved you. Hmm? I delivered, when no one else was able. Let me tell you this, when one faces losing a young friend as precious, as individual as you, one becomes capable of things he never dreamed possible." He experienced one of those tics then-his head jerking, his shoulder lifting, his eyes squinting shut. Sharon had witnessed this once before. He straightened himself, like a man adjusting his tie, and continued as if nothing had happened. "I told you a little white lie, a little fib back then, because to do otherwise would have caused you undue anxiety and might have interfered with your recovery. Hmm? Do you remember asking me about where I had located your liver? Hmm? I may not have done the actual transplant, but I saved your life-you know that's true. The truth is inescapable, is it not? It is the biggest burden of all. Hmm? Did you sense the truth? I suspect you did. You must have thought at some point that it hadn't really come from a trauma patient … No, of course it didn't. But I protected you from the truth because I knew how it would hurt you."
Pamela sobbed and sank to her knees. She was mumbling to herself, but Sharon couldn't understand a word. "That's what I'm offering you now, you know. Protection. But you don't seem to see that. Protection from them: the police; your parents; your fears. But you must join me. Hmm? Not go against me. I can protect you. Believe me." "You lied to me?" she asked incredulously. "What did you think happened to Anna?" he asked.
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