“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, Michaela?”
“It does make you wonder, Greg. It makes you wonder what’s gonna happen next. And that question terrifies me. Oh, God.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing…” She shrugged, tired-looking. “I feel like hell, that’s all.” She shot me a faint smile. “Those days on the road are catching up with me. I don’t think we’ve slept more than two hours straight in the last week.”
“Wait there, I’ll run you a bath.”
“A what?”
“I’ll go fill the tub. While you have a soak in some hot water I’ll load food into the boat.”
Again that incredulous look. “You mean to say you’ve got hot water as well?”
“Sure. There’s an electric immersion heater. The electricity will have been cut at midnight, but it stays hot in the tank for hours.”
“Jeez. You’re the kind of guy who girls like me want to marry.” She suddenly blushed. “Take that as a figure of speech… but I wouldn’t say no to a bath.”
I stood up, ready to go run the water for her, but she waved her hand. “No, just point me at your bathroom and I’ll do the rest. You best get those supplies loaded.”
“It’s at the top of the stairs. First door on the right.”
“Thank you, Greg. I mean it… but just don’t go killing me before I’ve had at least ten minutes up to my chin in hot water, will you?” Wearily, she shook her head. “Sorry. Bad-taste joke. I’m terrible for that. I always joke about inappropriate subjects. But then, didn’t Freud write a paper about that?” She smiled again. “Sorry, Greg. I’m so tired I’m rambling.”
Within moments of her going upstairs I heard the water running into the tub. I grabbed a pair of heavy-duty holdalls and packed as much canned and dried food as I could carry. After three trips down to the boat I’d emptied the kitchen of every last bag of rice, pasta and bottle of beer. For a moment I considered taking the truck up to Ben’s to collect more food. I knew he’d got access to a cold store that was fed by electricity all the time. There’d be cheeses and sides of beef there, but to do that I might as well drive with the horn blaring and a sign on the truck roof that read JUST GETTING FOOD FOR STRANGERS, YOU MORONS.
Then what?
The townspeople would either lynch us there and then, or maybe they’d do it nice and slow, like they did with Lynne, and pile rocks on our chests until we suffocated. Those nice smiling bastards of Sullivan really knew how to squeeze the revenge juice out of a victim.
It took me less than an hour to make those trips to get all the food onto the boat. It wasn’t a great supply, as you can imagine. But it should keep Michaela’s group fed for a few days at least. With luck they might be able to find a house tucked away in the woods that hadn’t been picked clean.
I returned to the cabin to find the lamp had burned out and the place in near darkness, with all the blinds shut. Closing the screen door behind me, I listened. It had that special kind of silence, the tomb silence that seems more than there being no sound. There was a sense of the building holding its breath. Secret, secret, secret… there’s something hiding here you shouldn’t see, Valdiva.
Immediately the thought came to me that Michaela had been discovered. That maybe Crowther and his buddies were waiting in a darkened room with rifles cocked.
Shit. Where was Michaela? Why was the place so damned quiet? I’d only been down at the jetty less than ten minutes. Surely I’d have heard if some guys had pounced on her. Not risking relighting the lamp, I allowed my eyes to adjust to the thin wash of daylight filtering through the blinds. Then, walking as quietly as I could, I went upstairs. A candle still burned in the bathroom. The tub had been emptied. Trying to move like I was nothing more solid than a wisp of smoke, I crossed the landing to my bedroom.
In the gloom I saw a figure lying on my bed. Slowly, slowly, slowly, I eased myself into the bedroom. Michaela lay on the bed. She must have decided to lie down for a moment (while no doubt promising herself, No, I won’t let myself fall asleep), but there she lay, dead to the world, wearing nothing but my big bath towel, her long hair spread out against the white sheet in gleaming dark strands. Her breathing was slow, rhythmic. The poor kid couldn’t have slept in a clean bed for weeks, if not months.
At that moment, as I looked down at her, my stomach muscles twitched.
She’d turned over in her sleep, the movement making the towel come adrift where she’d fastened it high on her chest. The twitch came again. Following that came a tingle in my fingertips.
This was another kind of twitch. Not that fatal twitch that signaled I would attack. No, no, my man, this was very different.
For the first time I saw how beautiful she was. The dark arches of her eyebrows. The relaxed face that was a near perfect heart shape. She possessed a waiflike beauty that made her look so vulnerable asleep there on my bed. The towel had slipped down, exposing a smooth mound of breast. She breathed deeply in her sleep, raising her chest, making the towel slip down farther to expose skin almost as far as her nipple.
I moved quickly, closing the door behind me before going downstairs. Seconds later I’d lit the spare lamp in the kitchen and got busy making a jug of hot coffee on the camping stove. Let her sleep, I told myself. We can spare another hour here.
Boy, was I wrong. Was I wrong by a wide, country mile.
Eighteen
“Oh, hell’s bells.” I used the phrase Mom would use when Chelle spilled her milk on the couch or the crotchety old car wouldn’t start.
“What’s wrong?” Michaela whispered from behind me in the boat.
“Damn battery’s dead.” I let out an annoyed hiss between my teeth as I checked the battery meter. Yup, the needle was in the red. Deep, deep in the red. “Damn thing… it runs off truck batteries, but from the look of them they’re older than my grandmother. They’re just not up to holding a charge for long.”
Michaela glanced anxiously at the thinning mist out on the water. “We’ll be in clear view soon. Can you find a replacement?”
“Not here.”
“How about recharging them?”
“I can only do that tonight when the juice starts flowing,” I said, nodding at the power cable that ran along the jetty. “But it will take around five hours to get enough charge in the batteries for a round trip across the lake.”
“Then we’re stuck.”
“At least until dark.”
“Shit. My friends need that food.”
“Will they wait for you?”
She shrugged. “They will unless some hornets find them. Then they’ll have to run for it.”
“Damn.” I slammed the boat’s steering wheel with my fist. “I should have checked that those batteries weren’t goddam antiques before I took the boat. Look at the crust on them.”
“Don’t blame yourself. After all, you weren’t planning this kind of operation when you took the trip across there, were you?”
“No. The truth was, I’d just downed a bottle of whiskey and needed to get out of Paradiseville here for a change of air.”
She tilted her head as if to ask why.
“Long story. I’ll tell you another time, but we need to get these supplies covered up. Can you give me a hand with the tarp?”
“What now?” she asked as she helped me pull the sheet over the bags of canned food and packets that I’d dumped into the bottom of the boat.
“You need to keep out of sight until dark. Then I’ll run you across the water.” I stepped off the boat onto the jetty and held out my hand.
She shook her head. “I’ll lay low here.”
“You can’t stay in the boat all day.”
“But from what you’ve said, Greg, if the townspeople find out that you’re helping me you’ll be in big trouble.”
“Don’t worry, they won’t find you. All you need to do is sit tight in the spare bedroom in the cabin. Then we’ll leave after dark.”