Vera thought her tired eyes were playing tricks on her. Strangeness leapt across the highway after they passed the Super 8. Then she saw it again. On the gentle hilltop straight ahead: a red flickering lashed out in long erratic strands, daubing the pavement. The wind blew hard. She could feel it pushing down on the car, like it was trying to keep her away. A half-mile wide blade of snow guillotined the highway. The flickering disappeared. Whiteness. She turned her wipers on high and leaned closer to the windshield. The wiper arms shuddered, inch by squeaking inch, over the glass.
Her view cleared.
The red lashes were back, bouncing crazily off the snow mounds on either side of the freshly plowed four-lane road. They striped the countryside in crimson, growing more intense the farther she drove into town.
Red.
Red.
Red.
She eased her foot off the gas pedal.
Not slowing down too much. She didn’t want to alarm her passenger. Merge a river of caffeine with anxiety and no sleep and you start to see funny things. As the Camaro steadily climbed the hill, her heart forced up against her sternum like a balled fist.
Police cars.
Two of them with their light bars swirling. There were no sirens. The silence was even worse, Vera thought. As if they’d been hiding in ambush.
Waiting for her to come up over the rise.
The two patrol cars were stopped, but their engines were running. One parked on the shoulder; its headlights frosting over Vera’s skin. Goosebumps puckered on her arms. The second car swerved, drawing up perpendicular into a commercial driveway. She was forced to pass in-between. Under the amber haze of a business sign, she could make out the driver’s silhouette, sitting behind the wheel, motionless.
The wind bellowed. It gave the illusion of gathering speed, as if the Camaro were being pulled into a vortex. The edge of town solidified. Vera looked at the cop car again. Her hands were wet. All her rings felt tight and itchy.
She slowed.
An insignia was printed on the cop car’s door. Letters spelled out American rapids police in a black rainbow above a blue- and-white waterfall.
The door opened.
In the distance, a third set of red lights bore down.
Was it a roadblock?
“Looks like something’s happening up ahead,” Adam said. His voice sounded soft, whispery. His gaze focused on the roadside.
It’s a motel driveway, Vera realized. The spinning lights made her seasick.
Was this some sort of trap?
“Maybe there’s an accident. You’d better slow down,” he said.
“I hope that’s not the place you’re recommending I stay.” She lifted her foot a millimeter. Already she felt like they were crawling. The cop with the open door hadn’t come forward into the light. She could make out a shoulder, clad in inky blue leather, and the lunar curve of a man’s jaw. Nothing else.
A radio squawked. The sound cut inside the sealed Camaro. Vera swore it patched right into her skull. Sonic fuzz followed a
burst of harsh electrified voices. Vera couldn’t discern the words. But they made her queasy. Her belly filled with a slow-dripping dread. Was she walking into a trap? Not knowing exactly what to do, she reconsidered every move she’d taken in the last twenty- four hours. Careful—she’d been so damn careful.
Yet apparently she wasn’t being careful enough. Picking up a hitcher. Telling him her name. That was stupid. Okay. He was hers to deal with now. Or later. But the police were a bigger problem. She tried to calm herself and think logically. Could Chan have called them? Impossible. He hated the cops. And he had more to lose than she did, especially if the law got involved.
What about the people who hired Chan? The ones directly responsible for the slaughter at that house back in Illinois? You wouldn’t find 911 on their speed dial. They’d be coming after her. That’s for certain. But they wouldn’t use the police. No, their approach would be stealthier. More lethal. And they’d do a lot worse to her before they killed her.
Those poor women in that house .. .
God, if she thought about them she’d definitely lose it.
Adam sat up. His back arched. He shifted his legs around and Vera caught another wave of gasoline fumes. It made her nauseated. Her mouth tasted like greasy rubber bands; the dread in her belly threatened to erupt.
Where was this guy leading her?
“Seriously, this isn’t the place. Is it?” she asked.
He fixated on the scene.
Vera took the opportunity to slip her hand into her purse. Stroking the Bobcat’s trigger, she said, “I don’t know who you are, but—”
“Jesus, I wonder what’s going on. Three squads, that’s practically the whole town police force.”
“What is this?”
“I’m not sure—”
“Tell me what you know!”
He looked over at her like she must be kidding ... or crazy.
“Relax, okay. I’m riding along with you. What could I know?”
Vera had no comeback. As they passed the flashing police cars, she watched Adam’s blood-lit face. He had a good point. Letting go of the Bobcat, she hoped he wouldn’t notice her hand buried in her purse.
A tall cylindrical object loomed over the motel.
Vera gawked up at it. Near the top was a sharp protuberance jutting out toward the road. It looked like an awning. It was a beak. The snow parted and danced around the uniformly thick column, which stood inert along the windy roadside but craned forward like a bird hunting fish over a cold-running stream. They had to drive almost underneath it. Grotesque carvings were gouged into the trunk, stacked one on top of another. Masks and gargoyles. Frozen faces stolen from a nightmare.
“Is that a totem pole?” Vera asked.
“Behold the famous Totem Motor Lodge.” Adam indicated a low, timber structure hunkering in a depression of land surrounded by sodium vapor lights. The yellowish stained accommodations recalled an outsized version of the liver-brown Lincoln Logs Vera played with as a child. An affront to their rustic charm, a large satellite dish roosted on the highest beams. Snowflakes obliterated it from their sight. The wooden tower in the foreground grew starker.
As they gathered speed, it, too, disappeared.
“That thing is spooky.” Vera pressed the gas, felt her seatback respond with a comforting nudge. “What’s it famous for anyway?”
“Nothing. It’s only a gimmick.”
“People are supposed to see that creepy pole and want to check in?”
“I didn’t say it was a good gimmick.”
Adam squeezed her shoulder and she jumped at the physical contact.
“Easy does it,” he said, backing away. “Here’s our turn.”