“Did you ask him?” Monica asked.
“He said he didn’t think he’d met me before, but he couldn’t be certain.”
And this morning Monica had seen Bart studying Nathan intently over breakfast, possibly racking his brains trying to recollect something. Or had he remembered?
They also both knew Katie Colbourne’s face from the nightly news back when they used to live in Vancouver. Images of Katie Colbourne holding the mike were indelibly scored into Monica’s brain, coupled tightly with a nightmare she wished she could forget, because Katie had covered the incident. That was how Monica thought of it. The incident. Not naming it kept it removed from her conscience. It allowed Monica to consider it as something that didn’t really belong to her.
But the incident had been newsworthy, so it was to be expected that Katie had covered it.
And Katie Colbourne knows nothing about my connection to the incident. Nothing at all. We managed to keep it quiet. We got away with it. So there’s nothing to worry about.
But now there was Steven. He was inextricably tied to the incident. And he was here.
A dark, cold dread began to unfurl in Monica’s chest. Something deep and unbidden began to knock at the walls of consciousness that she’d erected around the old and buried memories.
“If I’d known he’d be here, I wouldn’t have come,” Nathan whispered. “How can you expect me to spend a full ten days with—”
“We won’t!” Deborah interjected forcibly. She shuddered, and her teeth chattered. “She . . . S-S-Stella w-will fly us out. We’ll g-g-go home tomorrow. We won’t s-s-spend ten days here. It’s all been a big, t-t-terrible mistake.”
They’d reached the stairs. Katie Colbourne appeared out of nowhere, filming them again. Irritation flared through Monica.
“Can you just fucking quit that?” Monica snapped.
Katie lowered her camera and looked Monica in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said coolly. “But you all signed—”
“We signed up for a fucking luxury spa trip, Katie,” Steven barked as he raised his fist and bashed on the lodge door. “So get off your high horse.”
Katie scowled. Steven banged three times and hollered, “Anybody here? Anyone home?”
A hollow booming echoed inside the building.
Monica’s heart beat faster.
Steven thumped the door again, then tried the handle.
It was unlocked. They all fell silent as he creaked open the heavy wooden door, his triathlon-honed body wire-tense, as if he were primed to dart backward should something come at him.
“Hello?” he called into the dark house.
Silence. The house seemed to breathe out of the door, releasing a dank, musty scent. Steven pushed the door open wider. He picked up the bags and entered.
Monica, Nathan, Deborah, and Katie followed.
“Hello! Anyone home?” Steven called again loudly.
Dust motes drifted down in the dark gloom. As Monica’s eyes adjusted, shadows took shape. They were standing in a cavernous room with a vaulted roof that reached up to the second floor. Wooden stairs climbed to a balcony that ran in front of doors upstairs. A monstrous rock fireplace took center stage along one wall. Leather-covered sofas and chairs with ball-and-claw feet were grouped around a coffee table in front of the hearth. A long dining table stood near an archway that seemed to lead into a kitchen. On the coffee table was a leather-bound book and what appeared to be some kind of chess game with carved wooden figurines atop a stone checkerboard. Monica let go of Deborah, leaving Nathan to support her.
She stepped deeper into the room.
Turning in a slow circle, she took in the balcony that ran in a U shape above them. Native masks—horrific things with long, wiry black hair and gaping mouths—hung on the wall next to the staircase. A rifle and an old fishing creel were mounted on another wall above an antique-looking desk. Massive oil paintings in heavy frames adorned another wall. Spaced between them were mounted heads of taxidermy. A deer. A snarling cougar. A moose. It was like some kind of museum. Monica felt as though they’d stepped through a portal and back in time, or into some strange alternate universe.
“Hello!” Steven yelled again. More dust motes drifted down, floating softly on currents of air disturbed by their entrance. They all looked up for the source of the dust. Above them hung a chandelier made of antlers. It was the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.
“Anyone here?” Steven yelled, his voice catching slightly.
Sound boomed and bounded back at them. The house seemed to creak. Or was that just the wind increasing outside and blowing through the rafters?
“Jesus, Steven, quit your bellowing,” Nathan snapped. “There’s no one here.”
A scurrying sounded in the fireplace. They spun to face the noise. It came again—tiny nails scritching against rock. Monica’s pulse quickened.
They exchanged glances.
“Just a rat or something,” Steven said quietly.
Monica went toward a door that led off the big room. She opened it carefully. “Oh, look,” she exclaimed. “There’s a huge bathroom in here. With a tub and everything.” She entered and reached over the bath. She turned on the copper tap. The pipes banged, coughed. Water shot out of the faucet in a tea-colored gout, then another. It began to run clear, pipes chugging as a pump worked somewhere in the innards of the building.
“The water must come from a well,” Steven said from the door. Nathan came up behind him, helping Deborah. Katie remained in the great room, filming again.
“Or it’s pumped straight from the lake,” Nathan countered.
Steven threw him a dark look.
“There’s a gas heating mechanism above the bath,” Monica said. “It looks like it heats the water as it comes up through the pipes.” She turned the knob on the heating apparatus, and a small blue flame spurted to life. “We’ve got hot water at least.”
“Just don’t drink it before boiling it properly,” Nathan said.
“Deborah, come on inside, honey.” Monica held out her arm. “We can get you washed and warmed up in here. Nathan, can you fetch Deborah’s bag? Steven, maybe you could see if there’s a kitchen with some supplies, and make us some tea or coffee or something.”
Monica helped Deborah limp over to a wooden stool under a framed piece of cross-stitched verse that hung on the wall.
There were even towels on a rail. She sniffed one. It smelled musty, like it had been in a closet a long time, but seemed clean. “See if one of you guys can maybe get a fire going?” she called after the men as Nathan closed the bathroom door.
Monica helped Deborah shuck off her wet jacket and take off her shoes and socks. Nathan returned with Deborah’s bag.
He set it on the floor at her feet and hesitated. “I’m sorry, love,” he said quietly.
Monica nodded. “It’s okay.”
He cupped the side of her face. Forcibly. Which startled her. He forced her to look up and directly into his eyes. “It’s going to be fine,” he said firmly.
She held his gaze, swallowed.
“It will,” he said. “We’ll get through.”
With his words came unexpected emotion. She blinked it back. He loved her. He always had. He’d move heaven and earth for her, and he had. Maybe she didn’t love him back enough, and it hurt him. She knew that. Maybe she’d pushed him too far, gotten too complacent. But being here, with Steven, and with Katie Colbourne bringing back memories of that awful time, she realized she needed him. She needed him, and he needed her, because they shared a secret that could destroy them both. Along with Steven. And the weight of bearing that secret alone all these years would have been impossible.
Nathan turned to go. But as he exited the bathroom and began to close the door, she called out to him.
“Leave it ajar, will you? Just . . . a little.”
Their eyes met. He nodded.
Monica turned back to Deborah. That’s when she registered the words of the cross-stitched verse above
Deborah’s head.
Cursed are those who Sin
And Lie to cover their deeds
For a Monster will rise within
And they must Repent.
She stilled and caught sight of her own face in the rust-pocked mirror above the antique basin.
“What is it?” Deborah asked, noticing the sudden change in Monica.
“I . . . uh, nothing. Nothing at all. Do you want some help getting into the bath?” she asked as she leaned over to turn off the taps.
But a disquiet had entered her heart.
THE LODGE PARTY
NATHAN
Nathan found Steven—golden-haired, triathlon-honed, moneyed, philandering, plastic-surgeon Steven—in the massive lodge kitchen, knocking about on an old gas range.
The kitchen was dark and sooty-looking. A huge island with a chopping board took up the center. Above the island hung an assortment of tarnished copper frying pans, cast-iron pots, and other cooking implements. On the stone surface of the island sat a wooden block that contained knives in varying sizes. A meat cleaver the size of a man’s shoe lay atop the chopping board alongside a flesh tenderizer that reminded Nathan of medieval torture tools.
“Jesus,” he whispered. “Like something out of another time, or a horror movie.”
Steven glanced up. “Gas,” he said, patting the range. “Looks like the pipe feeds in from a large propane tank out back.” He wiped a smear of grime off a windowpane that looked out toward the rear of the lodge. “See?” He pointed.
Nathan came over and peered through the grime. Bart was outside there, poking around in the fog under the cover of an open-sided shed stacked with wood along one wall. Bart saw them. He raised an ax high above his head and brandished it with a gleeful grin. He pointed to the pile of logs. In his other hand he held a big knife with a violently hooked tip.
“What in the hell is he doing?” Nathan said.
Steven opened the window.
“Wood is dry!” Bart yelled. “Got an ax and tools and everything. We can make fire.” He slid the ghastly knife into a sheath he’d attached to his belt. He shot them another triumphant-warrior grin before positioning a crudely split log on a piece of stump. He planted his feet wide, swung the ax up high above his head, and brought it down with a loud thump. The log was cleaved in two. Nathan felt a shiver.
“He’s like a wretched Boy Scout on some adventure camp,” Steven muttered, pulling the window closed. “Far too happy for my liking. He’s weird.”
Through the grime-streaked panes Nathan watched Bart chopping for a moment. The guy was in his prime. Muscular, fit. Virile. He appeared to approach life as though it was one big, exciting adventure and he had the cojones to relish it. When had Nathan stopped living like that? Had he ever relished life like that?
Maybe that was his problem. As he watched, he searched his memory again for where he’d seen Bart Kundera before. The more he watched, the more the sensation niggled at him.
“It works!” Steven hooted.
Nathan jumped.
Steven pointed at the gas range. Little blue flames danced around one of the burners. “The range works.” The surgeon grabbed a kettle with a whistle from beside the stove and went to the sink. He turned on the tap. The plumbing clunked and the pumps sounded again. Water gushed out. He ran it until it looked clear, then rinsed and filled the kettle. He set it on the stove.
Nathan watched. He felt like he’d slipped into some alternate reality.
“Tell me, Steven, what ever made you think a wilderness spa thing would work with your clinic?” he asked.
Steven hesitated. For a moment he wouldn’t look at Nathan. Then he said quietly, “I wasn’t sure. Cosmetic tourism is a thing. There could have been a partnership, an opportunity for marketing. I just wanted to check it out.”
“Why? Because you knew Monica was coming?”
Steven glowered at Nathan. Danger simmered into the air. Nathan became conscious of all the knives and the meat cleaver and the heavy cast-iron frying pans and cooking implements all around them.
“Find some mugs, will you?” Steven said as he turned toward a counter.
Nathan wavered. He didn’t trust the guy, but decided to drop it, for now. Clearly everything about this situation was strange. He opened several cupboard doors in succession until he discovered one that contained glasses and pottery mugs. He reached for a mug.
“What in the hell?” Steven said.
Nathan turned, mug in hand.
Steven was holding a colorful box of kids’ cereal that he’d taken from a paper grocery bag on the counter next to the stove. A frown creased his brow.
“Tooty-Pops?” said Steven. “Strawberry flavor?” He dug back into the bag and took out a sales receipt. “Bought just over a month ago. Someone was inside this lodge not that long ago.” Steven looked more closely at the receipt, and his face suddenly lost color. “This is weird,” he whispered. “This is fucking weird.”
“What is?”
He held the receipt out to Nathan. “Look where the cereal was bought.”
Nathan took the receipt. He read the name of the store. His heart spasmed. A buzz began in his ears. Slowly he glanced up. Steven’s gaze locked with his.
“The Kits Corner Store,” Steven said. “Off West Fourth.”
An image sliced hot into Nathan’s mind. Monica sobbing in their old bedroom. Her face red, bloated, blotchy, her words coming between ragged breaths. I . . . I saw a cereal box, Nathan. It was squashed and the cereal was rolling out . . . little bits of color in the rain. And eggs, broken eggs.
“What else is in the bag?” Nathan demanded. His voice came out low, hoarse.
Steven took out a carton containing a dozen organic eggs, followed by a Snickers bar.
Nathan’s knees sagged. Time stretched. It hadn’t been on the news. The part about the eggs and the cereal and the chocolate bar. The cops had held back that information for some reason. Only he and Monica knew. And Steven knew. He felt sick. He was going to throw up.
Steven had gone quiet. He stared at the receipt.
“We . . . used to live down that street,” Nathan whispered. “Two blocks from that store.”
But Dr. Steven Bodine knew that. He knew it very, very well.
Memories swelled between the two men. Memories shared but not shared. They grew into a tangible thing in this sooty kitchen. The thing that bound and divided them. The thing Nathan had thought he’d managed to bury and forget years ago. The thing that in the end had forced him and Monica to move east, to escape. To try and start over. He tried to focus on the cereal box. Tooty the pelican, eating Tooty-Pops. Steven standing there, holding the box. Links and chains of the past locking and clicking and twisting around them both.
Neither wanted to put into words this amorphous thing. Neither of them seemed to be able to even begin to grasp what was happening, let alone attempt to articulate it.
Bart burst in through the back door with an armload of wood. They both jumped.
“What is it?” He looked from one man to the other.
“Nothing.” Steven cleared his throat.
“The gas stove and the gas water heaters work,” Nathan said. “And there’s plumbing.” He turned his back on them and busied himself taking mugs out of the cupboard in an exaggerated fashion. His heart hammered in his chest. Sweat prickled across his lip.
“And there’s tea, coffee, tins of tuna, and soup,” Steven said as he hurriedly opened more cupboards.
Bart frowned. “Well, at least we won’t go hungry.” He made for the living area, paused. “I found a path. It looks like it leads around to the other bay, but it was getting too dark to follow without a flashlight.”
“Do you think it might lead to the real lodge?” Steven asked.
Nathan blinked. It was like the doctor was reaching for straws by asking—as if hoping, still, that their pilot had just made some terrible screwup with the GPS coordinates.
Bart said, “We can check agai
n in the morning to see if—”
“There is no real lodge.” Jackie appeared in the doorway that led from the great room into the kitchen.
They all turned to look at the solid woman with intense eyes.
“This is no mistake,” she said curtly. “This is a con, some sick game.”
“What do you mean?” Bart asked.
“Did you guys not see the plaque outside, next to the front door? This place is called Forest Shadow Lodge. As in Forest Shadow Wilderness Resort & Spa. Here, look at this.” She pulled a brochure from her pocket and smoothed it out on the kitchen island.
“I printed it off the website before I left home.” She jabbed a photo of the luxury lodge. “It’s fake. It’s photoshopped, because it’s using the same location. See this bay here? And the shape of this one here? This mountain? This is how the terrain looked from the air. It’s this spot, but someone has photoshopped the spa into the location. They’ve erased parts of the forest, added cabins and trails, plus interior shots from some other spa and lodges.” She met their gazes. “This whole thing was faked from the get-go. We were lured here. All of us. And now we’re trapped.”
A sinister cold seemed to enter the kitchen. A shutter banged upstairs, and the wind whistled. Mist, cloying and wet, pressed up against the windows. It grew darker inside.
“Why?” Bart asked, still holding his wood.
“God knows.” Jackie dragged her hand over her hair. “But right now, we’re stuck. We’ve been baited and lured into some weird kind of wilderness prison.”
“We are not trapped.” Stella entered the kitchen. “We have a plane. And you guys have a pilot—me. We have fuel. We—”
“We have no bloody radio!” Jackie snapped, whirling round to face Stella, her eyes furious.
“What?” said Steven.
“That’s right,” Jackie said. “Go on, tell them, Stella.”
Stella’s gray eyes flashed, shooting daggers at Jackie.
“Go on. Tell them. The radio is broken. Sabotaged, wires cut.”
“But I heard you speaking to your dispatch on the radio,” Nathan said.
“But it wasn’t working, was it, Stella?” Jackie said. “Your dispatch couldn’t hear you, could they? No one even knows where we are, do they?”
In the Dark Page 8
