A dull pain throbbed at her ribs. Catching her breath, Michelle touched the flesh through the tear in her jeans, trying to determine if she was bleeding. She put a finger to her tongue. It tasted metallic. She couldn’t tell how bad the cut was. Michelle got to her feet and brushed the dirt and leaves from her jeans. Even though the night was cold, she was soaked with perspiration under her coat. Maybe she should have stayed at the cabin and waited for the sheriff to return with the dogs. But what about Cliff? Was he lying somewhere in the woods, unable to walk, bleeding, wet, and freezing?
It was hard to picture Cliff helpless or hurt. All Michelle could think of was his intensity; he could never let anything go. She had admired his tenacity before they were married—the college jock who wouldn’t quit wrestling when he’d fractured his ankle, trying to fool the coach into thinking it was a mild sprain. But over the years it had grown wearisome and felt controlling. What Michelle hated most was how effective it was against her. She had told him to forget about the light, the noisy neighbors, about going down the hill. “Maybe you drove down the wrong road,” she had told him. “It’s dark out. Please, just come to bed.”
“There’s only one road, Michelle! How could I take the wrong one?” he’d said, obviously agitated. “You pull out onto the road, drive down a half mile, then make a left turn. It said Pink Souder on the sign. How could I have been on the wrong fucking road?” He was almost yelling at that point. Michelle had looked down at the floor, then back at her husband standing on the deck and gyrating madly as he spoke.
“I can see the damn light!” he’d said, pointing over the rail. “It’s right there!”
They hadn’t left Atlanta until after eight that evening, and it was a three-hour drive. She was too tired to argue further.
“Go to sleep,” Cliff had said, his back to her. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Michelle had gone inside and was almost asleep when she’d heard Cliff rummaging through the pantry looking for a flashlight. She’d told him there was one in the Cherokee, then wished she hadn’t. “Cliff! Wait!” That was the last time she’d seen him. Now she was doing the same stupid thing Cliff had done, tramping down the mountainside in the dark, too impatient to wait.
Michelle took a deep breath and steadied herself against the massive boulder, her jeans cold and muddy. The cut on her knee throbbed when she put weight on it.
Holding to trees and shrubs, she tricked her way through the cover, plotting each step cautiously. Michelle felt the burden of silence around her. No crickets, tree frogs, owls, or chirrups. No barking dogs. None of the sounds that made night tangible. Michelle’s skin prickled under the warm coat. She heard something several yards away. She stopped and listened. Something walking. A bear? Should she make a sound? Or run? Maybe just stay still. Then she heard a similar sound behind her, then another to the side. “What the fuck?” She held onto the tree and tried to breathe shallow, quiet. The sounds moved closer. She stole a quick look around the tree. Hunters maybe?
“Is someone there?” Michelle finally said. “Hello?” Something loped past, a shadow, but upright, nothing like a bear.
She bolted from the tree down the hill, searching the woods for the light below. She didn’t want to stop to hear if anything was following. Darting past tree trunks and branches, something caught her ankle. She stumbled, almost falling, grabbing at limbs and leaves to catch herself. Sticker bushes cut her hands, snagged her jeans. In a second, Michelle was on the ground, rolling, tumbling. Then airborne, off a cliff maybe, no sensation except drifting, flying, until her body slammed solid ground. The collision rocked her, smashing the air from her lungs. Michelle tried to sit up, gasping. She couldn’t breathe. Her ribs ached. She tried to steady herself. Then she heard footsteps. She willed herself up and started running again.
After running for almost fifty yards, Michelle stopped, took a deep breath, and held herself against a tree. The woods were still. The darkness absolute. Once Michelle was able to release the tree, she eased down the slope, shifting her head back and forth to find the light below, glancing over her shoulder occasionally to see if anything was behind her. After a few minutes she found it. It was much closer now. She heard noises, like conversation or maybe a television, coming from the direction of the light.
The house came into view. It was less than two hundred feet away—though this close it was more like a cabin than a house.
When Michelle came within the glow of the dusk-to-dawn light, she looked down at her clothes. Blood stained her jeans. She could see the front door, lights in the window. She picked leaves from her hair and used her fingers to comb out the tangles. A Range Rover sat in the driveway, next to the sheriff’s car. Why hadn’t Fisk bothered to come back up and tell her he’d found the house?
Michelle studied the cabin, the red trim, the shutters, the herbs—sage, peppermint, basil—growing along the walk. The familiarity of the place froze her. The copper ash bucket filled with dried flowers sat to the right side of the front door. The brass door knocker in the shape of a leaping trout—exactly like the one she’d found at Kresser’s in Atlanta. Michelle spun around and looked up the mountain. The lights of her and Cliff’s cabin were gone, nothing but black. She was about to knock when she looked down at her shoes, at the welcome mat beneath her feet. It was the same one her sister had given them as a gag gift for the cabin. She and Darcy had laughed about the picture of the Paul Bunyan-looking hunter with his black beard shooting a musket at a fleeing turkey.
Michelle felt like a stranger about to knock on her own door, yet it wasn’t hers, she reasoned. But reason and logic seemed to have no role in the events of the last twenty-four hours. She drew a breath and rapped the trout lightly against its metal base.
Chapter 3
“Michelle!” Cliff said, throwing open the door. “I’ve been worried sick! The sheriff was out with men and dogs and a chopper and . . .”
Cliff pulled her into his arms. “I was going crazy here,” he said. “I was so scared.” He eased back from Michelle, checking her hair, the cut at her knee, her ripped coat. “Jesus. You’re hurt.”
“I . . . uh . . . Cliff?” Michelle said. “You’re okay. Where were you . . . ?” Finally she pushed past him, no longer able to marshal her thoughts. Her book was sitting on the coffee table, just as she’d left it. The interior of the cabin was exactly the same except for the furniture—it was completely foreign to her.
“Cliff . . . where am I? Where are we?” she asked. “What happened to . . . ?”
The mounted deer head Cliff had bought at a flea market, as well as the classic car series of prints and the rug he’d ordered from L.L. Bean were gone. So were the rustic couch and chairs that he had said would be perfect for the cabin, along with the antiques he’d bought on a trip to Knoxville. The painted duck decoy on the bookcase, the wrought iron fireplace tools—they were all missing and the new furnishings unfamiliar to her.