Howard Conway and Ralph Hibbs, he decided.
Join you for golf, fellows? A smile twisted Keith’s mouth as the taillights of the car dwindled.
His grim humor was brief. He was again in motion. Vallancourt and his cronies would go to the lodge, look around and, when they found the place deserted, return this way.
She’ll meet them head on, he thought. I’ve got to reach her before that happens.
Off the road, underbrush and rough stony terrain impeded his progress. He slipped to the edge of the road, looked back. The taillights of the Continental were far down the lake, almost to the driveway, he judged. Even if they looked down the road from there, at this distance they wouldn’t see him.
Keeping to the side of the road, he moved at a ground-eating pace, loose and loping, getting his second wind and breathing through his nose.
He reached the woodland, stumbled over a shallow pothole in the shoulder of the road. Still no sign of Nancy’s compact. Had Vallancourt and the others left the cottage yet?
His lungs began to pain at last, and he had to stop for a brief rest. He gulped deeply. Then he saw giant fireflies through the trees. Up around the next curve.
He stepped out into the middle of the road, gambling that he had correctly identified the sewing machine-like whirr of the small sedan’s engine.
He began waving his arms as the headlight glow enveloped him. The sedan stopped, and he ran over to it. Nancy’s face was white mist under her blonde hair.
“Keith...”
“Move over,” he said, “quick.”
He opened the door of the car and threw himself under the wheel. His body slammed against hers. She slid over.
“Hey,” she said with a taut laugh. “I’m making mush of these hamburgers I got at the drive-in.”
“Never mind that. Listen!”
He had turned off the headlights and engine. Nancy pulled the bag of hamburgers from between herself and the door.
“Keep it quiet, can’t you?” he snarled.
Her face snapped toward him, shocked. “Keith...”
“For God’s sake, shut up!”
She eased back in the seat, suddenly pressing away from him, from his voice, so cold and hostile.
He poked his head out. Down below the trees, the lake was an effective sonar, catching and echoing all sound.
“Oh, God,” he chattered, “they’re coming!”
“Who, Keith?”
“Your father and a couple of other men. Maybe a carload of them.”
He knew there was no chance of getting the sedan turned around and beating the Continental in a race. He kicked the parking release, threw in the clutch. The sedan began to roll forward. He set the ignition key and put the gear shift to the third position. When the sedan had rolled several yards, he slipped the clutch out. The engine caught without the grinding of the starter.
Through the foliage he was now able to see the big car’s headlights. How far away were they? Second or third curve?
He felt naked, disarmed, on the narrow road. Underbrush on either side formed hemming barriers.
He tried to unroll a mental map. The cottage belonging to the Florida people... Harkleroad, that was their name!.. right after this next curve...
Or the curve after? The one that would put him in full view of the approaching Continental?
He kicked at the accelerator. The sedan shot forward.
He followed the heavy darkness of the trees and thickets, headlights off. Come on! A century later, there was a break in the dense shadows, a lighter patch, the gravel of a driveway twisting up behind the dark house.
Keith twisted the wheel, sending the compact into the driveway. It jackrabbited upward, vanishing in the shadows of the deserted house.
The Continental purred past on the road below.
10
Keith didn’t like the looks of the proprietor. The motel had seemed made to order, an older one, clean, inexpensive. Not a fancy place, and not a seedy dump a rat would run to, either. Just an everyday, run-of-the-mill motel. The kind of place he’d told the taxi driver he wanted for himself and his sister.
“Say you had car trouble?” the proprietor said.
Keith nodded, looking at the registry card he was signing. Why was the old bird quizzing him? The story he had told was perfectly plausible: He and his sister... driving downstate... car trouble... the need for an overnight repair.
“I guess you want adjoining rooms,” the lanky, wrinkled man said.
“If you have them.”
“Sure.” In a wise tone.
Keith let his breath out cautiously. This map-cheeked character with the granite eyes... did he think he’d spotted a couple of college kids shacking up for the night?
He handed the man the card. The eyes shifted. It made Keith want to reach across the registry desk in the dingy office and tap the old man on the chest and ask him what the hell was bugging him. Instead, Keith jammed his hands into his pockets.
“You’ll have to sign a card of your own, honey,” the man said, smiling at Nancy.
Keith pictured himself backhanding the old punk, wiping that wet, wise smile off the withered lips.
Nancy bent over the card. The eyes met Keith’s across her shoulders. The eyes turned stonier, and the old man got two keys from a pegboard behind the desk.
“Just the one bag?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” Keith said. “Left the rest of the luggage in the car. It’ll be locked in the garage until the mechanic gets started on it tomorrow morning.” He reached down and picked up the bag. It was heavy. Her trousseau kit, Nancy had called it when they’d planned the elopement.
The heft of the bag, the sight of her blonde head bent over the registry card, caused an ache to spread through him. He was almost overcome by a feeling that it was useless to keep running. They were unreal people stumbling through a nightmare. Cold, greasy hamburgers for their dinner. Her compact abandoned on the other side of town. A ride on a municipal bus. A taxi to here. We’re making progress like a turtle backing his rear into a pot of water the cook has got boiling, he thought.
“This way,” the motel man said. Keys in hand, he started around the waist-high desk.
“Newt?” a shrill female voice called.
The man glanced with irritation at the open doorway beyond the desk. “Heather,” he called toward the living quarters, “we got...”
“I have to go out, Newt. None of those crummy friends of yours while I’m gone, hear? I’ll only be...”
A woman appeared in the doorway. She was thin and sallow, an arrangement of slats in clean, threadbare clothing. “Oh.”
“You never give me a chance to tell you,” her husband said. “This is Mr. and Miss Lonergan, Heather. They’re staying the night. I’m putting them in three and four.”
The woman glanced at Nancy’s left hand.
Keith looked frankly into the narrow face with its pinched mouth and anxious eyes.
“We’re not from the college, ma’am,” Keith said with a forced smile. “Brother and sister, on our way down-state because of sickness in the family. Our car broke down and we can’t get it fixed until tomorrow morning.”
“Sure. Well, you’ll rest easy here. We have a nice place.” She brushed by Newt, took Nancy’s bag, and led the way outside.
Keith glanced over his shoulder as he followed the woman across the parking area. Old Newt was standing in the doorway. Stiffly, watching.
The woman opened a door, switched on a light. A small, commonplace room was revealed.
“There, now,” the woman said. “The young lady can have this number three. New print curtains, see? Like them, miss? I work my fingers to the bone keeping this place up. If I had to depend on that sorry husband of mine... Here’s the bathroom. And a nice big closet. My father built this place, you know. When he and mama passed away, I made up my mind I’d keep it as nice as they left it. Respectable, too. We don’t take in the trash some of the older motels do nowadays.”