The car rocked when the sheriff tapped the brakes.
“Why?” the sheriff asked.
Deputy Bogan looked around, then over at the sheriff. “This is it,” he said in a low voice, as if he hadn’t wanted Michelle to hear. Sheriff Fisk leaned toward the windshield, looked up, then let his eyes drift across the deserted road. “This is what?”
“This is the house,” the deputy whispered. “Dell says we’re sitting right in front of it, but . . .”
“But what, Elmer?” the sheriff asked, sounding frustrated with Elmer’s fragmented reporting.
“Dell doesn’t know how long he can stay,” Elmer said. “Said he got sick all of a sudden, like the flu or something.”
The sheriff looked around then got out of the car. The deputy stayed with Michelle.
“What’s going on?” she asked Deputy Bogan.
“Nothing yet, ma’am,” he answered, never taking his eyes from the sheriff.
The sheriff walked over to Bogan’s window. “Hand me that microphone, Elmer.” Fisk held it in his palm and took a few steps toward the front bumper.
Michelle couldn’t hear what he was saying. The searchlight switched on again. The sheriff talked on the radio then leaned in and told Elmer to turn on the police car’s emergency roof flashers. Blue and white light splashed across the tree trunks and branches. A second later, the helicopter peeled off and was gone. She saw the sheriff grimace. When he got in the car, he switched off the emergencies and drove to the end of the road, turning around in front of the dilapidated house. Michelle’s eyes searched the front yard, the empty windows, the broken pickets.
Fisk drove back up the mountain to Michelle’s cabin. Elmer waited in the car while the sheriff escorted her to the door, rain hissing across the deck.
He removed his hat. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I didn’t see any house down there,” the sheriff said. “Dell swore we were sitting right in front of it . . .”
Michelle could tell the sheriff was leaving something out. They walked to the deck railing. “Maybe tomorrow night we can get those fellers together again and go down there with the dogs. We’ll take the same path your husband did, straight down through them woods,” he said, nodding his head sideways toward the trees. Michelle could still see the light. She turned back to the sheriff, noticing that he wouldn’t look down at it.
“I think Elmer and me’ll take another ride down there. Maybe something we missed. If you hear anything by morning, you give me a call. We’ll be back tomorrow evening.”
Michelle recalled the uncertainty in Cliff’s voice when he’d come back with the car the previous night. She’d been in bed while he stumbled around in the dark.
“Cliff? What are you doing?” she’d asked, sitting up to see him.
He had turned toward her and even in the dark she could see the pallor in his face. Peeling the blankets back, she asked what was wrong. He glanced toward the door, then back at her. “It’s not there,” he’d told her.
“What’s not there?” she’d asked.
“That house. I can see the light from up here, I can hear people down there, but when I drove down, it wasn’t there.”
Michelle had never bothered to tell the sheriff what Cliff had said. She figured Cliff had been driving on the wrong road. She was about to tell Fisk when he gave her an empty smile, placed his hat on his head, and turned toward the walkway. There was a new reticence in his step; he wasn’t nearly as confident as he’d been earlier.
“What happened down there?” Michelle said. The sheriff turned back to face her, his body bent against the rain. “You’re not telling me something. I know it.”
The sheriff tugged at his chin then sighed. “Dell said he could see the house till he turned on the big beam. Then, well . . . he said the house just up and disappeared.” The sheriff’s eyes hardened, looking at nothing for a few seconds before the life came back to his face.
“Disappeared?” Michelle said, pulling her coat together at her chest. Her breath caught for a moment.
“Probably because of the rain,” he finally said. “A reflection or something. Plays tricks on the eyes. Lot of big boulders on this mountain, big as houses. That’s probably what he saw.” The sheriff fixed his gaze on the deck boards for a second, then turned away from Michelle and hurried down the steps. The police car backed out of the driveway, the taillights vanishing down the road. Michelle walked to the rail and stared at the light down the mountain. Just then she thought she spotted a person in the driveway. She eased along the rail to get a better look through the trees, watching the shape walk beneath the dusk-to-dawn light. It was a man in a red cap and tan jacket.
“Cliff?” she yelled. “Cliff?”
The man stopped, looked up for a moment then disappeared behind a tangle of limbs and trees.
Chapter 2
Michelle rushed inside and rummaged through the cupboard and drawers for a flashlight but couldn’t find one. She figured if she kept her eyes on the dusk-to-dawn light as she picked her way down the slope, it would lead her directly to the house. “Screw the flashlight!” she said to herself. “I’ll just fucking go down there. It can’t be more than a couple hundred yards. I’ll keep my eyes on the light and follow it down.” She switched on all the lights in the cabin, including the porch light, so she could find her way back. Then she had to pee. She took off her coat and tossed it to the floor.
The thought of going down through those woods in the dark left a catch in Michelle’s chest. “Jesus, I’m about to do exactly what Cliff did, follow some ridiculous light down a dark mountainside! Fuck!” Her heart was pounding. But that had to have been Cliff, she reasoned, even though he didn’t seem hurt or scared. But why hadn’t he responded when she called his name? Could he not hear her? Or was that some trick of light, the figure she thought she saw? After all, the chopper pilot thought he saw an entire house until he turned on his spotlight. Now Michelle started to doubt she’d seen anything at all. Sitting on the toilet, she figured there must be another road down there. Her mind started spiraling back on itself, a dizzying replay of everything Fisk had told her, everything Cliff had said the night before.
Michelle flushed the toilet and zipped up her jeans then jerked out the bathroom drawers hoping to find one of the disposable flashlights they’d bought for emergencies. One of the drawers got away from her and crashed to the floor, jars and tubes and bottles scattering along the tiles. That’s when the toilet started overflowing. She quickly jiggled the handle, water spilling over her tennis shoes, then reached behind the tank for the plunger. Cliff had promised to repair it on their last trip but never did. She jabbed the plunger up and down in the toilet until the water sucked away with a whoosh.