Panic(44)

The padlock on the gates had been left undone. Ellie remembered, as they passed through it, that Ray Hanrahan had done maintenance at the Denny Swimming Pool last summer. Could he be in on this?

Across the wet grass, the squelching mud, to the edge of the pool, which sat glimmering slickly in the moonlight, faintly lit up from below, electric and improbable.

The fear came rushing back all at once. “You have to be kidding me.” She was at the edge of the deep end, trying to backpedal. But she couldn’t move. They had her tightly. Something metal bit into the palm of her hands, and she curled her fingers instinctively around it, too frightened to think or wonder what it was. “How do you expect me to—?”

She didn’t get to finish before she was pushed, roughly, headfirst into the water.

Flood. A flood of water everywhere: mouth, eyes, nose.

She was underwater for a little more than a minute before she was hauled roughly to the surface, but she would afterward swear it was at least five, or seven. Endless seconds of her heartbeat thudding in her ears, her lungs screaming for air, her legs kicking for purchase. So many seconds of panic—so complete, so all-consuming, it wasn’t until she was once again in the open air, taking deep, grateful breaths, she realized that all along she had been clutching tightly to the small metal key that fitted her handcuffs.

Dodge’s gamble at last paid off. In the morning, the story of Ellie spread, and by noon the betting slips had once again appeared. This time, they were passed from hand to hand, secretively, cautiously. Zev Keller and Ellie Hayes had both failed their individual challenges. They were out of the game. Colin Akinson, too. He’d been the first to flee the Graybill house—rumor was he hadn’t stopped running until he was almost to Massachusetts.

Dodge, Ray, Heather, and Nat were still in. So were Harold Lee, Kim Hollister, and Derek Klieg.

Only seven players left.





WEDNESDAY, JULY 27





dodge

THERE WAS NO JOY LEFT IN THE GAME—NO LIGHTNESS or humor at all. Panic, as far as Dodge knew, had never been this serious. It had never been played with so much secretiveness, either. This was about more than getting busted for continuing a game. The cops were still trying to pin the fire at the Graybill house, and Little Bill’s death, on someone.

Even the judges had, apparently, lost their sense of humor. The next email that arrived, several days after Ellie had been eliminated from the game, was bleakly to-the-point.



Malden Plaza, I-87. 9:00 p.m. Wednesday.



Bishop drove. It felt almost routine: Heather sat shotgun, Nat and Dodge were in the back. Nat spent the whole drive tapping the window with a knuckle, unconsciously beating out her own private rhythm. Dodge could almost believe they were just heading on some kind of late-night adventure to the mall. Except that Heather looked exhausted, and kept yawning, and Bishop hardly said a word except to ask her, in a low voice, what was wrong.

“What do you think is wrong?” Heather replied. Dodge didn’t want to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t help it.

“Your mom called,” Bishop said after a pause. “She said you haven’t been home.”

“I’m just staying at Anne’s for a few days. I’m fine.”

“She said you took the car.”

“So now you’re on her side?”

Bishop must have gone to Little Bill’s funeral. Dodge recognized the folded memorial pamphlet, featuring a winged angel, now hanging on a ribbon from his rearview mirror. Like a charm, or a talisman. Weird that he’d felt the need to hang it. Bishop didn’t strike Dodge as superstitious. Then again, Dodge didn’t really get Bishop. He didn’t, for example, understand why he seemed to feel he was part of the game, why he seemed to feel guilty for Bill Kelly’s death.

When they passed the Columbia County water towers, Dodge looked out and remembered the night of the first raid, when he, Nat, and Heather had hid from the cops. He felt a sudden wrench of grief, for the way time always goes forward, relentlessly. It was like floodwater: it left only clutter in its wake.

The sky was choked with masses of dark clouds, but it had stopped raining at last. Impossible to tell, actually, where the sun was coming from. A thick beam of light, singular and strange, cut across the road. But the drive to Malden Plaza was long—they had to loop around to get to the northbound side—and before they’d arrived, the sun had set.

There were a few dozen cars in the lot, most of them hugging up as close to the McDonald’s as possible, plus a couple of eighteen-wheelers, trucks that must have been on a run from Albany to Canada. From the opposite side of the lot, Dodge watched a family emerging from the big swinging doors, carrying paper bags of fast food and large soda cups. He wondered where they were off to. Somewhere better than here, probably.

The players had parked as far from the building as possible, at the edge of the lot, where the trees were creeping close to the pavement and it was much darker. Seven players left and only two dozen spectators. Dodge was kind of surprised that Diggin had bothered to show up. Standing under the tall, stiff-necked streetlamps, he looked kind of green, as if he was in danger of puking.

“Rules are simple.” Diggin practically had to shout over the roar of traffic behind him. I-87, separated from the parking lot by only a flimsy, shin-high divider, was a six-lane mega-highway. “Each of you has to cross. The five who cross fastest move on. The other two don’t.”