NOW
I walked along the edge of the fallow garden, the game sack in my hand. I strode purposefully toward the snare line in case Mark came outside to watch. I gave myself one star for the crappy acting job back at the cabin.
I walked a few yards into the trees, glanced over my shoulder and turned sharply toward the zigzag trail.
If I got a signal on the phone, I would make the call, then hurry back and move a couple of snares so no one would be suspicious. I hoped Rudy would have returned by then, and I wondered how long it would take for help to arrive. I reminded myself to tell Inspector Hardy about the damaged bridge. Maybe the cops could send a helicopter.
The wet snow slapped cold against my cheeks. My boots left tracks in the layer of white but what else could I do? I had to move fast. I was practically jogging now. By the time I reached the top of the hill, I was out of breath. For a moment, the edges of my vision darkened and I had to stop and bend over. My uterus contracted again, although this time the pain dissolved quickly. There’d been blood this morning but just a single spot. I straightened up.
In front of me was the thick-trunked Witness Tree, with its orange sign and hanging Saint Christopher medal. Beyond that were the fire ring and the sitting stone. I noticed a shallow, bathtub-shaped puddle at the edge of the tree branches; it hadn’t registered the last time I had been here. I didn’t think too much about it, though. I had to save myself and Xander. I pulled off my gloves, lifted the phone into the air and began to walk. Ten feet past the Witness Tree, the phone came to life. One ping, then two, then a whole chorus of them. I looked at the phone as the text messages popped up. I don’t think I’d ever been happier to see that I’d earned twenty gasoline points from the supermarket or that I was eligible for a free flu shot.
The phone showed two bars, then one. Quickly, I tapped open the contact list, located Hardy’s name and hit call.
The phone rang. I swear the sound echoed through the trees. Six times, seven times. Eight. I imagined Hardy pulling the phone from her pocket, seeing who was calling and silencing her phone.
“Please, please,” I begged.
Another ring. Then a click.
“Hello, you’ve reached Inspector Hardy of the San Francisco Police Department,” the voice said.
I cursed, closed my eyes and waited for the familiar spiel: the instructions to call 911 if this was an emergency; the notice to provide a case number if this was an ongoing matter and to call the district attorney if charges had already been filed; the request to leave your name and phone number slowly and clearly; and the final admonition that it might take her forty-eight hours to return a call. Finally, the beep sounded and the words rushed out of me as if I were a dam cracking open.
I told Hardy everything. I was babbling like a crazy person. I couldn’t help myself. I was just about to remind her of the address where the cop had gone before and to tell her that the bridge was out, when a long tone sounded. I had been cut off.
“Damn it,” I said.
A voice came from behind me. “Liv?”
I turned. The phone was still against my ear.
Mark stood at the edge of the clearing. He wore jeans and a blue wool shirt. He must have hurried after me. His boots weren’t even tied.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
His face, pale, filled with anger.
“Um, nothing. Looking for Rudy.” I shoved the phone behind my back like a toddler who’d gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“Who are you calling?” He took a step toward me. The pistol was stuffed in the waistband of his jeans.
“Nobody.”
“Who?” he demanded.
I lifted my chin. I was tired of pretending, tired of being scared of what he might do. “I called the police. I told them you were alive and holding me prisoner. They’re coming to find me.”
He swore and his hands clenched into fists. He came toward me, his boots splashing through the bathtub-shaped puddle, and I thought, He wants to hurt me. I told myself to run, although I knew there was nowhere for me to go. I think he knew it too.
“Give me the phone.” He held out a hand.
“No,” I said.
“You’re going to call back the police and tell them you made a mistake.”
“I won’t,” I told him.
He was a few feet from the Witness Tree when he stopped. “What the…?” he said.
The Saint Christopher medal dangled from the branch in front of him. He took a step closer. “Why is this here?”
I shook my head, glad of the distraction.
“This is Alvin’s,” he said. “He never took it off. It was his good-luck thing, his protector.”
The snow was coming thicker now. Beyond the reach of the tree’s branches, the ground had turned white.
“Maybe it was to mark his time here at the farm,” I said.
Mark shook his head. “He wouldn’t have left it here. This was his dark place.” Mark pointed toward the fire ring. “He came here only when the demons showed up. He said it was a spirit hole or something and called it the Skull. It gave me the creeps.”
I thought of the note in Rudy’s hut about meeting at the Skull. Mark must have mistaken the look on my face for confusion.
“You know, the Skull, like Golgotha, the place where Jesus suffered and died.”
“I know.”
My gaze went to the puddle. Suddenly, it no longer looked like a bathtub. I thought of Alvin’s driver’s license having been left behind.
Mark followed my sight line to the watery depression in the dirt. His whole body stiffened.
A raven croaked nearby and I heard the soft whoosh of its wings as it took to the air.
Slowly, Mark knelt and put a hand to the edge of the puddle.
That was when I felt the arm come around my neck.