The room she stepped into was an enormous lobby, fifty feet high from floor to ceiling, with a freestanding fireplace rising up the middle of it. Its floor was made of polished stone, and open staircases ascended on either side, giving access to the north and south wings.
Her footsteps echoed as she crossed to the other end and stood gazing up the staircase, then down the first-floor corridor of the north wing, which glowed with points of candlelight. Something echoed above and behind her on the third or fourth level of the south wing—footfalls perhaps.
She walked around to the stairs and started to climb, the creak of the steps reverberating through the cavernous lobby.
The fourth-floor corridor was empty and quiet as death, two dozen globes of firelight dancing through the tops of iron sconces. She walked into the corridor, its floor plushly carpeted, passed closed doors with brass numbers.
Halfway down the corridor, she noticed a peephole below the number designation on each door, and one in particular drew her attention, because she could see light coming through it. She stopped walking, crept up to the door of 413, and put her ear to the wood. She could hear something coming from inside, but it was soft, indiscernible. She was at the level of the peephole, and when she looked through it, she gasped.
It was installed backward, the room all shadowy blue save for the orange coils of a kerosene heater and the candle sitting on the windowsill, its flame restless, flickering. Shapes and details came into focus—a bed and dresser, a desk by the window. As her eyes adjusted to the low light, she realized there was someone lying under the bedcovers. The body was turned away from her, but she could see the person’s breath pluming in the cold.
Something crackled above Devlin’s head, and the entire lodge seemed to rumble.
Up and down the corridor, recessed ceiling lights flickered to life, one after another, and the warm breath of central heating pushed up into her face through a large vent in the floor.
She proceeded to the end of the corridor, just an empty alcove with a big window and a doorway leading to a set of stairs.
Starting down the stairs, she heard a noise coming from the lobby. It sounded like footsteps creaking on wood. She continued down, emerged from the stairwell into the third-floor alcove, and peered around the corner.
Something was moving toward her down the corridor, and as it passed under the illumination of a ceiling light, she saw it was a man in a black jumpsuit. He had a red bandanna tied around his left bicep and held a pump-action shotgun, its strap dangling from his shoulder. He was tall and blade-thin, wore a Stetson, and had long hair flowing down over his shoulders.
She ducked back into the stairwell, went down to the first floor, and ran up the corridor and back into the lobby.
Beside the library was an archway she hadn’t noticed before. She headed toward it, and as she went through it, she passed an opening on her right that led to another staircase.
Thirty feet on, the passage terminated at a thick wooden door, and just ahead, it opened to the left.
She stopped, glanced around the corner into a high-ceilinged dining room, in the center of which stood a table expansive enough to seat ten comfortably on each side and two at each end. Its centerpiece was an exploding bouquet of greenery—native flora. An immense candelabra stood near each end, the candles burning. The set of chairs looked terribly expensive, and a chandelier hung down from high above, fifteen feet above the table.
At the far end of the dining room was another massive fireplace, big logs roasting within.
Light filtered in from windows twenty feet up, the wall below adorned with numerous trophy mounts—moose and caribou with cartoonishly huge racks, a pair of wolverines, Dall sheep, a grizzly bear.
Out in the lobby, a bell tolled—the light, rapid announcement of a meal.
She retreated from the dining room and entered the passage just in time to hear footsteps on the nearby staircase, accompanied by the voices of men.
Devlin turned and slipped back into the dining room, realizing as she did that sound was now emanating from the double doors to the left of the fireplace.
Running water, dishes clanking—kitchen noise.
She scanned the dining room, saw no place to hide. A long dry sink was pushed flush against the west wall, the kitchen was occupied, and there was nothing larger than a potted spruce tree behind which to take cover.
People were coming, and her legs had begun to weaken. She felt a deep shuddering behind her knees.
Devlin did the only thing she could.
FORTY-FOUR
Through the forest of chair legs, she watched them come—disembodied feet and legs, at least half a dozen pairs, strolling into the dining room. They didn’t immediately take seats at the table, congregating instead at the dry sink, beckoned by the constellation of exotic glass bottles.
“Bloody Mary, Sean?”
“Absolutely.”
“Looks like we’ve got Diaka, Grey Goose, some Russian shit.”
“Gotta go with Diaka.”
Crouched under the table, she watched a man in khaki slacks standing at the dry sink, carving up a lime and twigs of celery.
“Want one, Zig?”
“No, I’m gonna sip on this Pasión Azteca. Can’t believe they scored a bottle of this tequila.”
“I didn’t even see that.”
“I’ll pour you one.”
Breakfast smells had begun to waft in from the kitchen—bacon, brewing coffee, eggs, frying pancake batter.
Someone said, “Boys, to decadence.”
Glasses banged into one another.
“Damn, that’s smooth.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
“You believe how much snow fell overnight?”
Footsteps could be heard from the passage, and Devlin glanced through the chair legs just in time to see a pair of boots and blue-jeaned legs stroll into the dining hall, followed by a voice that boomed over the others.
“Gentlemen! Welcome! Glad you all made it here ahead of the storm!”
The man stopped at the end of the table, his legs so close, Devlin could have reached out and touched them.
The other men drifted over from the dry sink, said their greetings—slap of hard handshakes, small talk of the raging blizzard.
“My brother, Paul, is working on a busted generator, so we probably won’t see him until lunch. But meantime, everybody have a seat, please.”
Devlin crawled toward the fireplace as the chair legs squeaked across the marble, legs swinging under the table, one boot nearly striking her face.
She settled just out of range of the nearest leg as that voice boomed again: “Everybody good on drinks?”
Grunts of affirmation.
“Breakfast will be out shortly, so let me officially welcome each of you to the Lodge That Doesn’t Exist.”
The men laughed conspiratorially.
“I’m Ethan, and a couple of you have been here before, but there’re a few things I need to discuss up front with the newbies. We run on generators here, and they shut down automatically from midnight to six-thirty A.M. We’ll probably shut them down quite a bit earlier tonight. When we go dark, feel free to use candles and lanterns. You should have a stash in your room. You wanna hunt, fish? Gonna be colder than fuck, but either Paul or I will be more than happy to take you out. However, something tells me no one came here to hunt.”
More laughter.
Someone said, “Damn right.”
“We run a sensitive operation, to say the least. Maybe you’ve heard things. We had another group from Presidian over the summer.”
A gruff male voice: “Them boys had fun.”
“Well, now we come to the tough-love portion of my welcome, and after this, I promise it’s all about fun and meeting your every need. But we need to be clear on this point. You’ve all been to Vegas, I imagine. We’ve co-opted a famous Sin City saying for our little lodge. What happens in the middle of nowhere stays in the middle of nowhere.”