As Night Falls (23 page)

S
andy found a scarf thrust deep into the pocket of her coat, wintered over from last season, and gave it to Ivy to wind around her face. “I won't be long,” she whispered, trying not to mind when Ivy didn't answer. Sandy walked forward, kicking up clumps.

The cabin's steps had been swept at least once, but were frosted with snow that had fallen since. Sandy's shoes left feathery footprints as she hurried to the door and knocked.

Where Ben had installed a pull forged from hammered iron, shipped in from a metalworker who lived in Montana, the Nelsons had a cheap chrome knob purchased at a Lowe's or Home Depot downstate. Sandy shuddered in the steely air. She suddenly hated herself, hated them all. Why had she and Ben decided to build a grand lodge up here instead of being content with the life they had built with each other in town?

An answer came from deep inside her, and she couldn't help but take a reflexive step away from where Nick waited.

Because it made you feel like you left all that behind.

But a big house couldn't do that. The higher she'd climbed, the closer Nick got. Or maybe it was that he'd been there all along.

Anita Nelson pulled the door open with an unwelcoming frown. Biding herself not to look over her shoulder at the others, Sandy asked if she could come in.

“Come in?” Anita said. “What, did the pipes burst up at that castle of yours? Mountain living suddenly feel a little more real?”

“Anita,” Sandy said wearily. “I come from Cold Kettle.” She hadn't said those words to anyone in twenty years. “Please stop treating me like I used to own a bakery in Brooklyn.”

“Well.” Anita sniffed. “Your husband doesn't come from Cold Kettle. He fits the bakery bill pretty well.”

At the mention of Ben, Sandy's vision blurred.

Anita seemed to catch sight of it.

“What's wrong?” she asked, a trifle less irritably. “Is somebody sick? Or hurt?”

Only the worst enemies would fail to come together over a medical emergency in the mountains. Time was too short, and the consequences too potentially dire. But another lie had scrambled together in Sandy's brain, better than an injury. It was just outrageous enough to have a chance of working.

“I did something really stupid,” she said, confession working itself into her tone. Old habits died hard. There was something almost soothing to Sandy about lying again, like slipping on a comfortable old robe.

“Anita? Who's there?” It was Hark Nelson's voice from inside the cabin. He walked up behind his wife, dwarfing her form, though he would still be no match for Harlan. He too frowned upon seeing Sandy. “What do you want?”

“Quiet,” Anita told him. She gave Sandy a grudging nod.

“It was childish of me,” Sandy explained. “But I found this reality show.”

The story fell from her mouth as easily as the accumulating snow. If she could get the Nelsons to vacate their property, Nick could break in and have access to anything he wanted. While Sandy would have access to things, too. This home hadn't been rid of its household weapons.

“It's called Nasty Neighbors,” Sandy went on.

The Nelsons frowned in unison now.

“I told them our story. Gave your information,” she added. “They're going to come out here tonight to interview you.”

It was absurd, of course—a television crew arriving unannounced, during a storm—but hadn't TV in fact become completely ridiculous these days? Any chance to find someone willing to prostrate herself, anything for a story.

Sure enough, Anita said, “They're coming out here?”

“To interview us?” asked Hark.

Sandy nodded, watching for the expected distaste to paint their faces. Adirondack people were interior, private. The notion of airing dirty laundry to anyone, let alone strangers, should provoke an instant recoiling.

“They want to hear your side of the story,” she explained. “There'll be a camera crew and everything.” Now was not the time to check whether the others were continuing to stay hidden, or if Nick was growing impatient, but it felt as if it took chains to keep from turning her head. Sandy went on rapidly. “I think you should leave, just for tonight. Believe me, I regret the whole thing now. I don't want you subjected to bright lights and microphones.”

Hark stepped outside, even more alarmed than she'd imagined by the idea of outsiders—from television, no less—encroaching on his home.

“I mean, get your coats first,” Sandy said. “And then just go to the motel on the highway. The crew will come and not find you here and probably never air the segment at all.”

The story sounded relatively plausible to her worried mind. Not bad anyway, given the options, and Hark and Anita did seem to be going for it. Sandy allowed herself a shallow breath of relief, the barest glimpse over her shoulder.

Everyone was still well concealed.

Hark faced her, glaring. “You called the media? Let 'em come. I'd love to tell 'em what happens when Fifth Avenue meets honest, hardworking folk.”

Sandy felt something slide away inside her.

“Nice try, Cass,” Nick said, shouldering his way out of the woods. Bringing the gun into view, he motioned for the Nelsons to back into their cabin. Nick jerked his head, calling Harlan and Ivy forward. “But I've always found honesty to be the best policy. Haven't you?”

Nick kept the gun trained on Hark while Harlan made an awkward shuffle onto the porch. During the moment his wife was unguarded, Hark shouted, “Anita! Get my—”

Anita's gaze flew to a cabinet that stood by the entryway; just as fast, she took a step toward it.

“Harlan,” Nick growled, and Harlan crossed the porch in one step.

“Grab him,” Nick ordered.

Hark let out a high, unexpected yelp as Harlan's enormous hand encircled his throat. The man's eyes bulged and a terrifying blue started to stain his cheeks.

“Harlan,” Nick said, gun keeping Anita in check. “Loosen up a little.”

Harlan did, and Hark sagged in his hold.

“Let him sit,” Nick commanded.

The room was too small and crowded for men of their size to walk in tandem. Harlan knocked over a chair, and a plate fell to the floor in his wake as he sat Hark down.

Nick jerked his chin toward Anita and she went to take a seat beside her husband.

“I think you can both see that fighting is the wrong approach,” Nick said. He waited until Anita and Hark nodded. “The good news is that there's no need to fight.”

Sandy had gone to stand next to Ivy, the gun cabinet tantalizingly within reach.

“Get away from there,” Nick said, and Sandy let out a breath. It was easier in some ways to be told what to do. Less thinking. Less risk.

She tried to nudge Ivy closer to the kitchen table, but her daughter shrank from her touch.

Nick turned back to the twosome on their folding chairs. “As these two lovely ladies will tell you, nothing bad has to happen tonight. So long as you do what I want.”

Hark finally regained his breath, bracing his throat with one hand. “And what is it that you want?”

“Just stay there.” Nick looked at Harlan. “If either of you so much as coughs funny, Harlan will snap your wife's neck with one hand while he holds you down with the other. Is that clear?”

Hark looked as if he were trying to nod, but could not.

“I'll take that as a yes,” Nick said. “I need something on your computer, but the princess can help me with that.” He turned to Ivy with an expression of confidence in his eyes.

Ivy nodded, and the sight made Sandy want to take her daughter and shake her.
No,
she screamed silently.
Please don't you be cowed by him, too!

Only, how could Ivy not be? Nick had taken five people captive tonight, including Ivy's unstoppable father.

Ivy wouldn't look at Sandy anyway. She'd sooner follow Nick's lead than turn to the mother who'd betrayed her. Sandy couldn't send any sort of message, not a single note of reassurance. How did you make up for a lie that had lasted a lifetime?

“Can you tell me where your computer is?” Nick asked politely.

Hark let go of his throat, and pointed toward the living room. Five oblong bruises made a peacock's tail against his flesh. “In there.”

Anita started to rise—some automatic reflex of hospitality—and Harlan took a step in her direction.

“Anita!” That high note of alarm again before Hark's voice gave out and he erupted in a cough. “Sit down!” he begged once he could speak.

“Actually, go fix some coffee,” Nick corrected as he turned. “And make it strong.”

Anita walked over to turn a light on under the kettle.

“Can I help?” Sandy asked her.

Anita's glance took in her husband, who sat slumped in his chair, gingerly touching his neck. Harlan stood over him.

“I think you've done quite enough already,” Anita said, then added, “Would you like some coffee?”

Sandy looked into the living room. Ivy was skidding the mouse over a pad, displaying different windows on a desktop computer for Nick as if she were helping one of the kids she babysat with his homework.

“You know?” Sandy said. “I actually would.”

Anita opened a cupboard and took out a jar of instant coffee.

“Can I get a cup?” Hark let out a grinding cough. “Be good on my throat.”

Anita nodded. She lifted down a bouquet of mismatched mugs from the cupboard.

“No coffee except for Nick,” Harlan said, looking at Sandy through bleary eyes. “Think I can't guess what hot coffee would do if you threw it in my face?”

The idea actually hadn't occurred to Sandy, and she realized she'd better start thinking in different terms. Hark clearly was. Upon hearing the refusal, he squeezed his hands into frustrated fists, eyes set at a point right above Harlan's belly.

Anita twisted a knob on her stove, dulling the electric coil before the kettle could start to shriek, then came back and took her seat at the oilcloth-covered table, a foodless version of the world's strangest dinner party.

Hark was staring at Sandy. “Level with me,” he said, low.

In addition to appearing frightened, Sandy noticed that Hark also looked unwell. His face was ashen, his throat stubbled with straw-like bits of beard. It came back to Sandy then—how Hark's aggressive resistance toward their construction had begun to wane during a resurgence of some type of cancer.

“How much trouble are we in?” Hark's gaze flicked toward his gun cabinet, the sheer curtain that hung over the window of the back door, and his truck parked outside.

“I think we're in the kind of trouble we can get out of,” Sandy said. “They want to get away clean. That's it.”

Hark gave a single nod, although doubt tapped a finger on Sandy. The thoughts she'd had in the basement were starting to seep in again, rising like floodwater. Beneath Nick's rational plan to escape lived a completely unchecked urge to see Sandy taken down. And even if Nick could deprive himself of that, was he really going to leave behind witnesses?

But what would Hark have done if Sandy shared any of that? Instead of voicing her fears, she asked, “Hark? Are you on any sort of medication? Painkillers, I mean.”

He frowned. “I've got some Oxy, sure. Why do you ask?”

Sandy looked to where Harlan stood, standing guard. She couldn't tell if he was listening, much less following, but she gave a straight answer. “His foot is hurt.” Sandy pointed toward Nick in the living room. “If you could spare a few pills, it might help us once we leave here.”

Hark dug around in his shirt pocket, coming out with an amber vial. “You can have the whole damn bottle.”

“You sure?” Sandy asked. Hark obviously kept his pills close at hand. But she was already closing her fingers over the offering. These would make the Advil Nick had taken seem like Smarties, subduing any residual pain, and dulling resistance when he went to switch his shoes for boots. Oxycontin could also produce softening in mood-related ways, resulting in a more malleable, easier-to-manipulate Nick. The snow would become less of a threat, the trek would seem more manageable.

A flash came from the direction of the living room. Someone had turned on the TV, an old-fashioned box kind on a stand.

Anita lifted her head straight up, addressing Harlan. “Can I hold my husband's hand?”

Harlan shifted his body to check, but Nick was intent on both screens. Finally Harlan said, “Can't see any harm in that.”

Anita scooted over in her chair and Hark leaned across the table until they were close enough to touch. Their hands came together like magnets.

Watching them, Sandy's eyes spilled over. That simple, elemental connection between husband and wife. Had hers been lost, was it dying now on a cold basement floor, without Sandy there to share the final moments?

The barker voices of anchors and reporters penetrated the room while tears ran down Sandy's face. After some time, she became aware of Anita looking at her.

“I knew I didn't want you moving up here,” she said.

Sandy looked at her, outrage soldering her tears.

Anita stared back, until the humor contained in her statement began to leak through. Sandy shook her head, suppressing a faint peal of laughter. She wondered if, in a different life, the two of them might actually have gotten on quite well. Anita stretched her free hand across the table, and after a moment, Sandy took it.

“Coffee ready?” Nick asked, entering the kitchen with Ivy at his heels.

“I'll get it,” Sandy offered. She rolled the tablet she had managed to eject between her fingers. Just one shouldn't do much more than take the edge off. She wanted Nick comfortable enough to leave, but not so comfortable that he lost his motivation.

Sandy could feel Anita's eyes on her as she crossed to the yellow flecked counter. Sandy poured hot water over a hill of instant, then let the pill drop from where it had stuck to her sweat-slicked palm, swirling the mug around to dissolve both powder and grinds. The medication's effect would be concentrated because it wasn't being swallowed whole; Sandy remembered that from work. Something about a time-release mechanism.