Chapter Thirty

Through the glass-front office window, downtown Rapid City is lit up with cars and trucks. Belaski raises a cardboard cup of coffee to his mouth, breathing in a lungful of steam.

At the rental desk, a clerk punches numbers into a keyboard—checks something on a monitor screen. “We have a GMC Yukon, all-wheel-drive...the way the weather is...”

Belaski nods. “That'll be just fine.”

“All-wheel-drive and ground clearance,” the clerk says.

Belaski turns back to staring out into the evening traffic. Reflected in the window, he sees the clerk read the drivers license—a fake license, in the name of Gary Farndale—it matches the copied credit card, not hard to come by in Belaski's line of work.

“You'll take it for how long, Mister Farndale?”

“A week,” Belaski says, not looking round.

“Seven days from today.” The clerk’s fingers flit across the keyboard, he stares at the monitor screen.

Belaski thinks of Anthony, back in the cabin.

Breaking in had been easy—with the chainsaw; cutting clean through the wooden shutter. He’d left him handcuffed, bound to an iron stove, no way he'd make it out of there.

It’d be cold, though, real cold. Belaski puts the thought from his mind. Of more concern is the stolen parks service Explorer—now abandoned, four blocks south at the back of a mini-mart.

He thinks of the ranger woman—if she made it out of the forest she’d tell law enforcement the message for Lauren DeLuca. She’d have one more thing to think about, Lauren. One more worry, on top of everything else.

“Sir?”

The clerk looks up from behind the counter as Belaski drains the last of the cup of coffee.

“If you'd like to step this way, I'll show you right to your car.”

The cold and the blackness are twin entities, the only things left tangible, existing. Within the cabin, strange creaks break the silence. Things freezing, contracting. Anthony leans his chest against his drawn-up knees, rests his face against the fabric of his ice-fishing pants.

The dark is almost unchanging, now. The coldness inside like a living animal—shaking, trembling—wind the only sound that comes to him. Wind in the nearby trees.

His breathing is slow, he fights the creeping sensation, the shutting down. Dead already, he tells himself, if not for the gear he was wearing.

Hunger churns inside, then fades. The thirst is more frightening, his tongue is thick, at times he can barely swallow.

In dream-like moments, light appears. Moonlight breaking through the clouds, he imagines; filtering into the cabin, the outside world. No idea if it's still snowing, or if it’s clear.

Snow would be better. Clear skies will mean the temperature in free-fall.

He tries to move his arms, but they’re pinned against him.

His wrists are bruised and sore, the handcuffs a kind of torture. The binding to the iron stove is tight against his breathing, against his chest. He thinks of Lauren. At the lake. Did she know, then? She must have known. Why hadn't she warned him, why would she lead a man there?

The questions cycle, unanswered. Breath and energy slip away.

If he can last till dawn, if there’s light, maybe he can figure some way out. Useless to think so far ahead, he can't imagine it. Even if he frees himself, he daren't go outside into the cold.

An image comes to him, unbidden—the city of Chicago, Lauren cycling on the lake front trail. Lake Michigan, vast, under a summer sky. Eight years old. Pedaling to keep up.

His golden sister. Big, sure, beautiful.

He leans against his knees, his breathing stopped in his throat.

Why had she betrayed him in the end?

Light from the brazier fires is visible from the tree line—drums of flickering orange, the figure of a man beside the outline of a barn.

He’s silhouetted against a crack of yellow light. The crack widens as the barn door opens.

Coburn shouts something up ahead.

A flashlight clicks on, pale beam moving in the tumbling snow.

Whicher glances across at Lauren, riding beside him.

She stares ahead.

Still she won’t talk.