Chapter 7
The dream was one of the old ones, one that he hadn’t dreamed in a long time. He was lost. And it was dark. A long way off, high above him, was a rectangle of light. And he knew, because he’d had this dream before, there were stairs that led up.
The phone was still ringing.
Next to him, Tean was starting to sit up, already reaching for his glasses on the nightstand.
“I got it,” Jem mumbled and slipped-staggered-stumbled across the room.
A light was flashing on the phone in time with the ringing. Jem snatched it up. He scratched out, “’lo?”
“Jeremiah.” Brigitte’s voice was wrong. Raspy. Hoarse. “It’s Gerald. Gerald’s dead.”
“What?”
“They’re saying he’s dead,” Brigitte said and started to cry.
“Where are you?” Upright now, Tean watched him, his face serious behind the heavy black frames. Jem shook his head at the unasked question. “What room?”
“Twenty-seven,” she said, and then it came back to him—the bar, the room charge.
“I’ll be right there.”
He dropped the phone in the cradle and grabbed his chinos.
“What’s wrong?” Tean said. “What happened?”
Jem told him.
Tean scrambled out of bed, grabbed his pants, and stepped into them.
Five minutes later, they were in the elevator.
The car had a parquet floor and mirrored walls, and Jem saw himself: rumpled clothes, hair a mess, raccoon eyes.
He started tucking in his shirt. Tean fixed his collar for him.
The doc’s shirt, somehow, was unwrinkled, the trousers neat.
His hair was wild, but not any wilder than usual.
His eyebrows did look—well, electrocuted was probably the closest word for it.
Light, reflected in the mirrored walls, made him think of the dream. It had been one of the first homes. Maybe the first. And he’d been in a new place, sleeping among strangers. In the basement. They’d been nice enough about it when he’d stumbled up the stairs, sobbing. The first time.
You were sleeping in a new place, he thought. It’s that kind of dream.
He tried to focus. Be present. But it was like his thoughts kept turning and bending, and every time he came around a corner, there was the dream again: lost, dark, that high up patch of light.
It turned out that twenty-seven wasn’t a room.
It was a chalet. Which was apparently what they called it when you rented your own house at the lodge.
“Just follow the walkway,” a bag-eyed bellboy said. “There are signs for the chalets.”
“Got it,” Jem said and started for the doors.
“You’ll want your coat, sir.”
“I’ll grab them—” Tean began.
“Great,” Jem said and pushed out into the shock of the storm.
It was still snowing—swirling gusts of snow, and cold like the first shock after he’d bitten the inside of his cheek.
The wind made the snow ripple, spin, turn.
Five strides from the door, it was wrapping itself around Jem, stinging his eyes, tangling his legs.
The covered walkways didn’t help at all.
Maybe, in theory, the concrete was supposed to be cleared, but with the snow coming from every direction, it already lay in drifts that were inches thick.
Jem’s ROOS had zero traction and almost sent him ass-over-ankles more than once.
The howl of the wind was so loud that he could barely hear the crunch of the snow underfoot.
It sounded—a part of him distantly thought—like wolves.
It was morning, technically. Somewhere up beyond the flurrying gray, the sun was shining. Down in the storm, though, it was dark enough that Jem was grateful for the emergency lights spaced out along the path.
He was shivering before he reached the first sign.
“Left,” Tean said next to him.
The doc had his arms folded, his shoulders hunched. Snow hung in his thick hair and glittered under the emergency lights.
“I thought you were going to get the coats.”
Tean shook his head and went left.
It was good luck that number twenty-seven was the first chalet they came to; Jem’s ears and the tip of his nose were already numb, and his cheeks felt hot in a way that he knew meant trouble.
The chalet itself was a shifting shadow in the snow, bone-gray stone and dark wood, the silhouette ruined only briefly when the flurries thinned enough for him to make out the satellite dish mounted on the side.
The windows were dark, with snow drifting along the sills and climbing the panes.
More snow nosed upward in the corner of the door.
Jem hammered and then tried the handle; when it turned, he pressed Tean into the chalet ahead of him.
As soon as he closed the door, warmth swept over him.
Warmth, and the smell of coffee, and a hissing sound.
They stood in a small entry hall. The walls had been finished with a log veneer.
The floorboards were more of the same honey-colored wood they’d used everywhere throughout the lodge.
The lights were off, but from farther back in the chalet, some of the daylight—what little there was—made it inside.
Enough to make the melting snow in Tean’s hair streak like rainbows when he turned his head.
Enough for Jem to make out a single, watery footprint leading down the hall.
“Hello?” Jem called. “Mom?”
And there it was again. That word.
More loudly, he called, “Brigitte?”
“Jeremiah?” It was her voice. Not quite as hoarse as on the phone, but still rough.
She appeared in the hallway a moment later, dressed in what must have been her pajamas: a matching pink set that shimmered like it might have been silk.
Over the pajamas, she’d thrown one of the lodge’s terrycloth robes.
She didn’t have any makeup on, but her hair was done.
What the hell, though, Jem thought. Maybe she slept in a helmet.
When she saw him, she let out a sound that was gaspy and tearful. “Oh Jeremiah!”
She hurried down the hall and threw her arms around him. He stood there, unsure of what to do. After another moment, he touched his mom’s back. Brigitte’s back. Light. Not quite a hug.
“What happened?” Jem asked.
“I don’t know.” She stepped back, wiping her eyes. “We don’t know what happened. He says they found him like that.”
“Who?”
Someone moved farther back in the chalet, and a man stepped into view. He was White, probably in his fifties although his high-and-tight was still dark. He was bulky in a way that had probably started as muscle but was now age and comfort. His dark suit needed to be cleaned and pressed.
“Mr. Larsen,” Brigitte said. She gestured at the hallway.
Jem made her go first. He checked Tean’s face, but his expression was unreadable.
The hallway took them to a high-ceilinged room with exposed beams. The furniture and features were similar to what Jem and Tean had in their room—the fieldstone fireplace, the leather furniture with the nailhead trim—but there was so much more of it.
A breakfast bar divided the living room from a spacious kitchen.
Another hallway led back to what Jem suspected were the bedrooms. And on the far side of the room, a ladder led up to a loft, where through an open doorway he glimpsed bunk beds tucked against the sloping line of the roof.
A scuffing sound reached him, and then the creak of a joist, and a hint of blond hair appeared at the edge of the loft, followed by a pair of blue eyes.
A second pair joined them a moment later.
When Jem offered a small wave and a smile, Brigitte whirled around to face the loft and snapped, “I told you to stay in your room.”
“Why?” asked Milo.
“Because she hates us,” Maeve said.
“Go to your room,” Brigitte said.
“We want to see a movie!”
“Go to your room and stay there!”
With a tween’s attempt at cool, Maeve got to her feet and said, “Come on, Milo.” She didn’t wait for the boy, though, and headed into the room with the bunk beds.
Brigitte waited until the door had closed behind them.
Then some of the strain seemed to leave her body.
She touched her forehead and, trying for what Jem guessed was her good hostess voice, said, “Would you like something to drink? I made coffee.” She let out a short laugh.
“He told me Gerald’s dead, and I made coffee. We don’t even drink coffee.”
“What happened?” Jem asked.
Brigitte cut her eyes to Mr. Larsen. He held out a hand to Jem and then Tean, saying, “Vaughan Larsen, lodge security, I’m sorry for your loss.
” Without waiting for them to respond, he continued, “One of our staff found Mr. Fitzpatrick on one of the covered walkways this morning. We attempted to provide medical care, but Mr. Fitzpatrick had been dead for several hours.”
For a moment, it looked like Tean might say something, but he didn’t.
“Do you know how he—do you know what happened?” Jem asked.
“We believe he fell,” Larsen said. “Our staff member found Mr. Fitzpatrick on the ground, and he has a laceration on the back of his head.”
“Several hours?” Jem said. “How could he be out there several hours and nobody saw him?”
“The storm has made it difficult for the lodge to maintain its usual operations.” Larsen’s face remained composed, but he sounded tired. “For the safety of our staff, we decided last night to continue essential operations only.”
“You mean he fell and hit his head and died,” Jem said, “while everybody else was inside and safe and warm.”
“I don’t know how he fell,” Brigitte said. “The walkways are supposed to be heated. They’re supposed to be safe.”
Tean’s eyebrows drew together, but Larsen spoke first. “We lost power last night. We’re not sure what happened, aside from the storm.”
Jem made a big show of looking at the lights.
“Backup generators,” Larsen said. “Essential—”
“Essential operations only,” Jem said over him. “Got it.”
“Mr. Fitzpatrick—” Larsen began.
“Berger. My last name is Berger.”
Larsen paused. “Mr. Berger, I’m very sorry for your loss. I know this is a terrible situation. Right now, unfortunately, emergency services are unable to reach the lodge. Once the storm clears, we’ll have more options.”
“He’s dead,” Jem said. “What are you going to do? Strap him to a snowmobile and ride him out of here so he doesn’t bother the other guests?”
Brigitte burst into tears.
Larsen waited another of those professional moments.
He glanced at Brigitte, but then his eyes came back to Jem.
And now Jem saw what he’d missed at the beginning—because he’d been off balance, because Gerald was dead, because hell, he’d still been waking up.
This guy was a cop. Maybe not anymore. Maybe not with a badge.
But he had cop eyes. And he was watching Jem the way cops watched people.
“We would be able to offer Mrs. Fitzpatrick evacuation by helicopter,” Larsen finally said.
“Brigitte,” Tean said, “when was the last time you saw Gerald?”
She was still crying, but more softly now. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “He was too upset to eat dinner. We both were. I wanted him to have an early night, but he said he had to prepare for tomorrow’s meetings.”
“Prepare how?”
“They were using one of the conference rooms for their meetings. He wanted to go over the materials, make sure everything was ready.”
“This was for his—”
She spoke before Tean could finish the question. “His coaching group, yes.”
Tean touched his glasses like he wanted to resettle them. “What did you do?”
“I came back here,” she said.
“We were waiting for you at the bar,” Tean said. “You told us you wanted to talk.”
She stared at him. Finally, she said, “Gerald and I had a fight. Not a fight, an argument. I didn’t like how he’d talked to Jeremiah.
We’d been going back and forth about it for weeks.
He insisted. I told him I wanted him to leave it alone.
It wasn’t any of our business how you—” She faltered.
Reached out like she wanted to grab Jem’s hand.
Jem stood there. And she stood there, still holding out her hand.
Larsen was looking at him. Tean wasn’t looking at him.
After a moment, he took her hand in his, and she squeezed his fingers.
“You’re my son. I don’t care about any of that. ”
“And after you came back here?” Tean asked quietly.
For the first time, the grieving-good-hostess voice sharpened. “What are you asking me?”
“I’m asking what you did after you came back to the chalet.”
“You’re making it sound like I—like I did something.”
“No, I—”
“He was my husband. And he’s dead. I loved him, and he’s gone. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
“That’s not what Tean’s saying,” Jem said. “He’s asking if anything unusual happened. If you noticed anything.”
Brigitte clung to his hand more tightly. She wiped her eyes again. “I don’t know. No. I mean, notice what? I came back here. I put the children to bed.”
“No, she didn’t!” Maeve shouted from upstairs. “She forgot about us!”
Brigitte rolled her eyes and wiped away fresh tears. “I told them they could watch TV in their room. I read for a while. And then I went to bed.”
“You weren’t worried when Gerald didn’t come home?” Tean asked.
This time, Brigitte gave him a longer, sharper glare. But all she said was “Gerald doesn’t sleep well. It’s not unusual for him to work late. We have separate bedrooms. Is that enough of an explanation, or should I go on?”
Tean dropped his gaze.
“I want to document everything,” Brigitte said, rounding on Larsen. “I want to take pictures of where he fell. I want to talk to whoever found him. I want all of it. Those walkways are supposed to be safe!”
Larsen nodded the way a cop nodded when he didn’t give a shit about what you were saying. His gaze floated between Jem and Brigitte as he said, “I understand this is a difficult request, but we need someone to make an identification.”
It took Jem a moment before he said, “You don’t know if it’s him?”
“He had a wallet: driver’s license, credit cards, room key. But we’re flying in the dark here, and I want to make sure we know what we’re dealing with.”
“We can make the ID,” Tean said. But he sent a silent question Jem’s direction.
Jem nodded. “Yeah, sure.” To Brigitte, he said, “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”