Cold Springs(77)

“Right hand. Extend it.”

Mallory tried, but she was still swaying in the void. Her hand found nothing but air and rain. She saw Olsen on the platform above her. Then the rope turned and Mallory was looking at Leyland in the opposite tree, his face stern. He was gesturing for her to come on.

Mallory extended her hand again, found a cord.

“Good!” Olsen yelled. “Now slowly—take your time. Put—”

There was a sound like Velcro ripping, and Mallory dropped a millimeter, the pit of her stomach threatening to yank out the bottom of her shoes.

“What—what was that?” she yelled.

Olsen's voice—for a terrible half second—wasn't there.

“Mallory, other hand,” she called, the new urgency in her voice making Mallory's joints freeze. “Both hands on the line. Now.”

Mallory tried, but her arms wouldn't obey her. The rain stung her eyes. She swung and saw Leyland, his face now pale.

“Mallory!” Olsen shouted again. “You need to get back up.”

“I can't!”

“Other hand!”

“I can't!”

Leyland came into view again, frantically hooking cables to his harness, his left foot already out on the bridge.

There was another Velcro rip, and Mallory dropped another millimeter, her one good handgrip on the slick rope slipping away.

She could hear confused voices below now—Dr. Hunter, the other kids shouting through the storm.

This isn't happening to me. It isn't.

She realized her shoulder didn't feel so constricted now. The belt around her waist was loose. She was unraveling in midair.

“Please, God . . .” Her voice didn't sound like her own.

“Right above you!” It was Olsen. “No—I mean left. The rope, Mallory! It's right there.”

“Where?”

She felt the line trembling through her harness as Leyland worked his way toward her—too far away. Much too far. This isn't happening to me.

Another ripping noise, and then the foot line bowed against her forearm, and she grabbed it, shaking off a string of raindrops into her face. She got her other hand on the line. Olsen was yelling encouragement, urging her to hang on.

Then Leyland was there, lifting her up with one arm, making sure her feet found the bridge. He crushed her against him with one arm, and they slid together—across the river. Even after they reached the opposite platform, after Leyland had threaded an emergency line around her waist and rappelled her to the ground—Mallory still felt the world swaying. She crumpled onto all fours, soaked and shivering.

“Just get me down,” she mumbled, her eyes squeezed shut. “Get me down.”

“Zedman, you're all right now.” Hunter's huge hand was gripping her shoulder. Then his tone hardened. “Leyland, what happened?”

“Look,” Leyland said. He tugged lightly on Mallory's back strap—something she couldn't see, didn't want to see.

Hunter snapped, “Get it off her.”

Mallory's hands curled in the moss and the wet leaves. Her vision went black and she vomited, heaving all the terror out of her body, everything she had ever feared—from Talia Montrose's torn body to her father's fists to Katherine leaving her, disappearing into the yellow house with the dark doorway and the ivy made of iron.

“Zedman.” Hunter's voice was smaller now, like it had been compressed to fit in the barrel of a gun. “You're all right, Zedman. Look. The harness ripped.”

And she looked up, saw him holding the strap that had almost killed her, the rip sprouting tufts of orange synthetic fiber.

“It's okay,” Hunter said. “The main thing is you're safe.”

But she could hear the anger in his voice, and she could see the strap as well as he could—the truth that no amount of reassurance could make all right. The tear line was perfectly straight—the strap had been cut.

19

The Marin County Sheriff's Office found no body at John Zedman's house, no sign of forced entry except for Chadwick's.

They couldn't locate John Zedman, nor his car, nor his driver, Emilio Pérez. Zedman's only two neighbors on the cul-de-sac had seen or heard nothing suspicious in the past twenty-four hours. But then, they hadn't noticed Chadwick drive up, or Sergeant Damarodas' arrival twenty minutes later, or the caravan of sheriff's vehicles with lights flashing that followed. As Chadwick figured it, their ocean views were so expensive the neighbors lost money every time they looked street-side.

The splatters in John's bathroom were definitely blood. The hole in the living room wall was definitely a bullet hole.

Past that, Detective Prost of the Marin County Investigations Division wasn't prepared to say. He was much too busy enjoying Chadwick's company. Even after an hour of interrogation, Prost was not anxious to let him go.

“So your relationship with Mr. Zedman,” Detective Prost recapped for the twentieth time. “You wouldn't characterize it as friendly.”

“I'd characterize it as irrelevant,” Chadwick replied. “There's blood in his goddamn bathroom. Maybe you ought to try looking for him.”

Prost reached across the kitchen counter, helped himself to some of John's gourmet coffee.