Snowbound

FORTY-SEVEN

At first, she didn’t believe it, thinking, This must be some kind of nightmare or hallucination. No way she could still be alive. That’s what Dad said. But it was her. As she stood there breathless, watching Rachael Innis in bed, Devlin recognized the big-black eyes, the shape of the mouth. Her mother didn’t look angry or sad or anything like what Devlin might have expected. Just older, tired, worn-out.

Devlin wiped her eyes, looked up and down the corridor, then back through the peephole as she knocked at the door.

Her mother glanced up but didn’t move, sat motionless in bed, as if waiting.

Devlin knocked again, then cupped her mouth and spoke through the door, “Mom.”

Rachael showed no sign she’d heard a thing.

Devlin knocked once more, and finally, Rachael stepped tentatively down onto the floor and moved slowly toward the door.

Devlin tapped the peephole and stepped back several feet into the corridor, praying her mother would look.

Ten seconds elapsed, and then she heard a sound come through the door like a gasp for breath or a stifled sob, followed by something hitting the floor.

Devlin ran to the peephole, peered through, saw her mother crumpled down into a pile, her back heaving, weeping.

She ran up the corridor, trying doors until she found an unlocked, unoccupied room, tore through the drawers, the bedside table, saw at last what she was after. Ripping a page from the notebook, she had to wait for her hand to stop trembling so she could write.

Mom, I came to Alaska with Dad and an FBI agent to look for you. Can’t find them. Are they here? Will get you out somehow. I love you. We never forgot.

Devlin ran back into the corridor, dropped to the floor at room 429, and slid the sheet of notebook paper under the door. Through the peephole, she watched her mother take the paper over to a desk.

Rachael kept wiping her eyes, shoulders bobbing. She sat down, spent thirty seconds scribbling on the sheet of paper. Then she got up, hurried back to the door, knelt down, and shoved the paper underneath.

Devlin had to stand under a light to read what her mother had scrawled, the handwriting wobbly, as if she hadn’t held a pen in years.

Get out of this place. Don’t try to do anything. Just get out back to safety and find help. I love you so much.

Devlin set the paper on the floor and scribbled under her mother’s handwriting:

Wolves outside and blizzard. Our pilot not coming back until tomorrow.

Devlin slid the paper through. Rachael picked it up, holding it flat against the door while she wrote.

It came back quickly, and as Devlin grabbed it, she heard footsteps.

Terrible people here. You cannot let them find you. Go to an empty room and hide there until you can leave. You have to listen to me. I love you. Now go.

The footsteps were coming up from the lobby stairs. Devlin took the sheet of paper, wrote “I love you,” and held the message up to the peephole, then moved quickly into the alcove and down three steps before stopping.

Now there were footsteps climbing this stairwell, too, these faster, with a kind of clicking, like a dog’s toenails on a hardwood floor.

She backtracked to the fourth floor, glanced around the corner from the stairwell, the footsteps getting louder on the lobby staircase, at the other end, the faster ones rushing up beneath her.

She ran into the fourth-floor corridor, searching for that unlocked door, finally finding it four down and across the hall from her mother’s room. She slipped inside just as someone’s head emerged into view from the lobby stairs.

She eased the door shut, stared through the peephole.

A long black shape loped by.

Five seconds later, it returned, stood staring at the door, whining and sniffing the floor.

A man walked into view—the tall, cowboy-hatted guard with long hair. He patted the wolf’s head, knelt down, let the animal nuzzle into his neck.

Another man drew everyone’s attention—short and round, wearing a green kimono, sandals, with a red bandanna tied onto his left arm, pursuant to Ethan’s instructions.

The great black wolf sat at attention beside the guard, hackles raised, eyeing the guest.

“Hey, Reynolds,” the guard said. “Good to see you again.”

“Likewise, Gerald, likewise. Say, would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of the pregnant woman Ethan mentioned this morning?”

“Sure, right this way.”

The men and the wolf started back toward the alcove, and just before their voices diminished entirely, Devlin heard the guard say, “She’s in four twenty-nine. I think you’re going to enjoy yourself, my friend.”