Cold Springs(103)

Kindra had said, “You scare me, Chad.” But she'd agreed to keep the information to herself, and to pick up Mallory personally when the girl emerged from the woods.

“Let's find a place to talk,” he told Ann.

“No. I want to see Cold Springs.”

“Ann—”

“I don't mean Mallory. Just the school. I want to see where you live. Isn't that allowed?”

Chadwick wanted to tell her there was nothing to see of him at Cold Springs. He'd spent his new career here in this airport, stepping on and off planes, flying from crisis to crisis, leaving as little mark as the changeable placards at the gates.

But instead he nodded, and made silent plans to cancel the Sheraton reservation later.

On the road to Fredericksburg, he tried to talk to her about John's disappearance, the missing school money, the Montrose murder investigation. He asked her what was happening in San Francisco. He told her about his conversation with Mallory and Pérez. But Ann participated in the dialogue the way a yarn-holder participates in knitting a sweater—giving material when asked, keeping her end of the line from going slack, but her mind nowhere near the task, paying no attention to the patterns he was struggling to create out of threads. She kept her eyes on the line of iron clouds rolling in from the north, sealing off the winter sun.

By late afternoon, the flatlands around San Antonio had rippled and swelled into the Hill Country, the highway shearing through fifty-foot ravines, curving under the shadows of granite peaks dotted with live oaks. In the valleys, cattle huddled for warmth, and swarms of blue dragonflies hovered over the watering holes. Mesquite smoke curled up from every ranch house chimney.

As they got into Fredericksburg, they passed the truck stop where Chadwick had assaulted the rednecks, the convenience store where Pérez had almost killed him. Chadwick pointed out the historic homesteads instead. The wildflower gardens, now dormant.

Another five miles, and they drove through the gates of Cold Springs.

“The property goes back over the tops of those hills,” he told her. “Mallory can walk all day and just get to the middle.”

But he saw what Ann was noticing—the surveillance cameras on the front gate, the wire fence cut free from brush and floodlit, just like a minimum security prison.

Inside the grounds, the only people visible were a group of gray levels, fixing a barn door down by the horse pasture, trying to get their work done before nightfall. Chadwick didn't need a forecast to tell him it would be freezing rain tonight. Possibly even snow.

Flurries weren't unheard of in the Hill Country, but they were rare enough to be talked about for weeks whenever they happened. The last time had been seven years ago. Chadwick remembered the lodge's aboveground water tank cracking wide open like a hatched egg in the cold.

He thought of Mallory out in the woods tonight. He decided not to discuss the weather with Ann.

The Big Lodge was deserted. Hunter would be out in his jeep, overseeing the solo treks, tracking the GPS coordinates of the black levels, keeping in touch via walkie-talkie with each counselor, who would be trailing his or her charge through the woods at a distance of half a mile, just in case. The black levels would feel alone—they would be alone. But the safety net would be there, invisible, in case something went very wrong.

Nobody was at the main desk, so Chadwick turned the logbook around and signed out a room for Ann in the staff dormitory, a few doors down from his. It wasn't much of a liberty. Parents stayed here from time to time, though usually not until the end of White Level, when the kids were getting ready to transition back into the outside world.

Tonight, with no other visitors and most of the staff working, they would have the dorm wing almost to themselves.

He showed Ann some of the empty facilities—the computer lab, the library, the gym. In the art therapy room, she picked up a red-clay figure from the table by the window—a limp human form that had been pulverized by a fist, its head caved in.

“I had a student last year,” Ann said, “molested by her stepfather. The therapist did this—had her make an image of her abuser, then tear it apart. To empower the child.”

“Good therapy is good therapy.”

She set it down, pressed her hand over the boy's handprints stained on the butcher paper. “Somehow, I didn't expect Dr. Hunter to know that.”

“Ann, his program works. It's strict, but it doesn't ignore the kid's needs. You did the right thing sending Mallory here.”

She looked at her fingers, now stained with red. “Eighteen years, I fought to keep Laurel Heights alive. I believed kids were good, creative, able to make choices. And my school is dying. Meanwhile this . . . this kind of school is thriving. Should I feel good about that? When my own daughter needs a drill sergeant more than she needs me?”

Chadwick took the handle of her suitcase. He'd been up thirty-six hours straight now, and his blood was turning to helium. “Let me show you your room. It's not exactly five-star, but it's a place to sleep.”

“Where do you stay? Let me see that first.”

The light was fading outside when Chadwick opened the curtains of his dorm apartment. It seemed impossible to him that this was the same day he'd watched the sunrise in Fredericksburg with Kindra Jones.

As Ann stared at the books on his shelf, Chadwick excused himself. He went into his bathroom and splashed water on his face.