Before I Wake (29 page)

Upstairs in her bedroom, Arden shut the door and sat down on the bed. Bundled in her heavy winter coat, she snapped open the briefcase and pulled out a small, black computer.

Government issue.

Her plan was to open Fury’s computer and snoop through his files. She didn’t make it that far. Under the computer was an eight-by-ten brown box, approximately an inch deep.

She brought the flashlight closer. On top was her name, followed by her date of birth.

She lifted out the box and pulled off the lid.

Her life.

In a box.

The condensed version, because whose life could fit in a box? But it was still her life.

Photos. Dozens of them. She looked through a few, then put the rest aside to continue her search.

There were several CDs and DVDs, all with her name on them.

One appeared to be her life history from birth through college. Another was a copy of her interview.

videotaped after her parents’ bodies were found. Another was labeled DAVIS CRIME SCENE FOOTAGE.

It wasn’t strange that he had information about her. An FBI agent working on a case would have such material.

Under the photos were hard-copy files stamped CONFIDENTIAL.

Her college rape. Nobody knew about that. Not even her parents. Not her brother. Why hadn’t Fury brought that up when he was trying to psychoanalyze her?

She dug deeper. Something stapled together. A sort of manuscript. She turned the pages, scanning the print, the words seeming vaguely familiar.

Her journal. Written in college. Not the actual journal. This was a photocopy.

The entire briefcase was about her.

This wasn’t the collection of an FBI agent. It was the collection of someone obsessed. Someone unstable. Someone focused on one thing and only one thing.

The singular thoroughness gave her chills. It was like something a serial killer would covet. A treasure trove. A box of souvenirs.

She and Daniel were the two who’d gotten away. Who’d escaped what had been intended as a total massacre.

Was Fury the copycat killer? Didn’t she have a memory of his being on the farm that day? Hadn’t she seen him in the corncrib?

It wouldn’t have been enough for him to hunt her down and kill her in New Mexico. He had to bring her back to the place where it had all gone wrong. He had to bring her back to the place of execution.

Jesus. He
was the one alone now with Daniel.

Daniel, whose death, along with Arden’s, would complete the massacre.

Think.

Think, think, think.

It was times like these when she wished for a
Jetsons
existence. Where were those fucking pills that were supposed to supply everything a body needed to survive? She wanted to pop a pill. Just pop a pill that would give her brain and body the fuel it needed to continue.

Think.

Fury started this whole thing. He talked Harris into letting her return. Fury came to get her in New Mexico. Fury had been at the Hill when Vera was killed. It wasn’t until Fury appeared that Eli’s throat was cut.

Then there was the way he’d immediately gotten her alone to dole out his theory, to completely mess with her head, to get her mind so screwed up that she wouldn’t be able to figure it out. He’d wanted her to be so horrified by the idea that she may have murdered her own family that she wouldn’t see what was really going on. She wouldn’t see that Fury himself was the killer.

Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Her mind ran over everything again.

It was Fury. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

And now he was out there with her brother.

Daniel knew snow. He knew how to walk through it. You could step high, which wore you out quickly. Or you could wade. Wading took longer, but it was the best way to conserve strength.

Fury was doing a little of both.

“This is it.” Daniel stopped. “The highest point in the county.”

Fury pulled out his cell phone and stared at it. “No signal.” With his head bent he moved around, watching the tiny screen for any sign of power. “Nothing,” he said, breathing hard from exertion. “Not even one bar.”

Daniel tried the phone Franny had given him.

Same results.

He stuck it back in his pocket and replaced his gloves. “Tower must be out.” Daniel wasn’t cold, but it would be a bad idea to linger. Soon their bodies would begin to cool down. “That happens sometimes around here.”

Fury made an annoyed sound and kept staring at the phone as if it would suddenly work. He punched in the 911 emergency number. No surprise when nothing happened.

The wind was whistling through something. Maybe a crack in a telephone pole, or a transistor. Maybe something they didn’t even know was out there. Maybe an old combine somebody had left in a field. Or a broken washing machine that had been tossed in a ditch.

Above their head, strung on poles that ran parallel to the road, power lines swung back and forth, cracking like whips. Fury’s back was to the wind, but Daniel was getting struck full in the face.

“Better head back to the house,” Daniel shouted.

“Not yet.”

“We can’t piddle around here. We’ve got to start moving again or our body temperature will drop.”

“Stay here,” Fury told him. “I need to talk to you.”

Arden ran from her room and down the hall to the master bedroom. There, she dug in her parents’ closet.

Her dad had owned a shotgun, along with the .22 rifle taken from Daniel’s truck.

Where was the shotgun?

Not in the closet. Not this closet, anyway.

No time.

She had to leave. Had to go after Daniel and Fury.

She checked the other two bedrooms, then hurried downstairs.

“Pancakes again,” Harley said, spatula in his hand. “And I found more canned apples to go with them.”

He was wearing an apron, kiss the cook. Someone had given the apron to her father for his birthday. It should have bothered her that Harley was wearing it, but that wasn’t important.

“Can’t right now.” She slipped past him, opened the basement door, and hurried down the steps.

The foundation was stone. The basement was the only part of the house that really showed its age, that gave you a sense of history. Uneven stones gathered from creek beds and stacked to make the walls, smelling of mold and earth and cobwebs.

Not a place to keep a gun, but she checked the ancient and worn wooden shelves anyway. She checked a small wooden cupboard.

Had Daniel taken the shotgun, too?

No time.

A pair of brown duck overalls hung on a nail above the stairs. She pulled them down and put them on.

Back upstairs, she slipped into insulated boots, black stocking cap, and heavy wool mittens.

“What are you doing?” Harley asked, holding a plate of pancakes.

“I have to check on something.”

She didn’t want to tell him her worst fears. He would go off. Think it was up to him to hunt Fury down.

That honor was reserved for her.

“I have to get something from the car. And I have to look at the LP tank. Make sure we aren’t running out of fuel for the stove.”

He set the plate down on the table. “I’ll go with you.”

She braced the flashlight between her knees and wound a scarf around her neck. “Stay with Franny.” She zipped her coat to her chin. It smelled like cotton and damp feathers.

“You shouldn’t go by yourself.”

“I’ll be okay.”

She was heading out the door when he grabbed her. “Arden.” His voice broke on her name. She looked up. He was a silhouette, his face hidden by darkness. “I think I’m in love with you.”

She swallowed.

This had gone too far. It had gotten out of hand. She hadn’t understood how serious he was.

He pulled her to him and kissed her. A quick kiss on the mouth. Then he let her go. “Be safe.”

Two seconds later, she was out the door, her heart pounding.

Be alive
, she silently prayed, fighting her way through the snow.

Nothing can happen to Daniel.

The blizzard hadn’t let up. It took her breath away, and the drifts had increased in depth. Daniel had taken the good flashlight. The one in her hand was a plastic discount-store model that did a poor job penetrating the falling snow.

She knew where to go. She knew the direction they should have taken. But what if they hadn’t even left the yard? What if Fury had sliced Daniel’s throat the minute they’d stepped outside?

Live the reality you know, not the one you’re afraid of.

Her path took her past Eli’s car, and the mailbox. She turned left, her head bent against the driving snow.

She mentally monitored her progress.
Down to the lowest point in the gravel road, then up the short, steep incline
.

At the hard road, she stopped to get her bearings and catch her breath, her chest rising and falling, lungs already raw, heart hammering.

She wasn’t going to make it. Daniel had been right. She wasn’t in shape for this. She’d thought her will would be strong enough. She used to run marathons; she knew how that worked. You removed yourself from your body until you were just along for the ride. But sometimes that wasn’t enough.

Another left and she was on Roller Coaster Road.

Forward, forward, forward.

Don’t think. Just move.

Keep moving.

She fell down. She got up. She fell again.

And stayed down.

For a while.

Just for a little while.

Her breathing was ragged. Her lungs burned. Sweat poured from her, soaking into the layers of clothing. She lay there, her hot face against the snow.

Freezing to death was supposed to be pleasant. At the moment, it seemed very appealing.

But she had places to go. Things to do.

Get up! Come on. Get up! Up!

She shoved herself to her feet and swayed, her hot, gloveless hands dangling at her sides.

Where was the flashlight? She’d had it a minute ago…

She dug through the snow, finally seeing a faint glow. She scooped it up and pointed it south, in the direction Daniel and Fury would have gone.

A wall of white.

“Daniel!”

She waited, listening, arms hanging weakly at her sides. She shouted, “Daniel!” She tried another name. “Fury!”

She dropped to her knees.

Things were hard enough, impossible enough, without this white stuff being thrown into the equation.

If life gives you snow, make snow cones.

Ha, ha. She was funny. A damn comedian, that’s what she was.

She used to be funny.

Nobody would believe that, would they? That she’d actually made people laugh at one point in her life. Granted, it had been a very brief point, but a point nonetheless.

She thought she heard something.

Her ears perked up. Her body stiffened. “Daniel!”

She staggered to her feet, fighting fifty pounds of snow. It was packed in her boots, down her neck, up her sleeves.

A light. A flashlight beam.

A voice—a shout—came out of the darkness. “Arden?”

“Daniel?”

She started moving toward it. Running, or as close to running as she could get. The feeling was more like trying to move through thigh-deep mud. “Daniel!” she gasped, catching up with him.

He shone the light in her face, then lowered it. “What are you doing out here?”

“I came to find you. I was worried—” She stopped herself.

Had she simply been paranoid? Crazy Arden.

Thinking weird things again. Doing weird things. Was her theory about Fury total nonsense?

Fury.

Daniel was alone. “Where’s Fury?”

“We couldn’t get a signal.” Daniel was breathing hard. “We kept trying, but nothing. I said the tower must be out, but Fury wanted to keep trying.”

That didn’t make sense. They should have stuck together. But then Fury could be persuasive…

“Where are your gloves?” he asked.

She looked blankly at her bare hands. “I don’t know.”

He made an annoyed sound and checked the area with his flashlight, finally digging up a pair of snow-covered mittens. He tossed them back down. “Those will only make you colder now.”

She didn’t like the idea that Fury was back there somewhere.

“Maybe we should wait. Maybe we should go after him.”

“He’ll be okay. Let’s go.”

Daniel was acting strange. She had the feeling he was hiding something. Had Fury told Daniel his theory about Arden and their parents? Was Daniel afraid of her? Did he think he might be the next to die?

“I’m sweaty,” he stated. “So are you. We can’t wait or hypothermia will kick in. We have to get home.”

Home.

If you want to call it that.

They turned around and began walking.

Arden didn’t realize how far she’d come. Probably at least half a mile. And now she was slowing Daniel down. He had to keep stopping. Had to keep waiting for her.

Daniel grabbed her by the arm, but that was worse. If they walked side by side, the snow created too much of a barrier.

She fell into step behind him, following in the path he broke.