Darkness(43)

Unbidden, the thought of how he’d kissed her, and how she’d kissed him back, made her cheeks heat. And her body heat. He had made her want him, and it had been a long time since she’d felt anything like that. The knowledge was disturbing, and, cross at herself, she pushed it out of her head.

The fog was heavy enough so that once she reached ground level she could only locate the main building, and that was because of its glowing windows. As she approached, light spilling through the glass panes made weird yellowish patches in the gray fog. Her boots crunched through the ice, the sound almost covered by the rush of the waves rolling into the bay behind her. The rumble of the generator grew louder as she neared the side door that opened into the mud–cum–laundry room, where they generally left their outdoor clothes.

Ordinarily she would have yelled out some version of “Hey, honey, I’m home” upon letting herself into the building. Ordinarily she would have stripped down to her socks and jeans and thermal shirt and parked her coat and boots with the others in the cubbies, then scooped up some clean clothes from her clean laundry basket—they each had two baskets, one for dirty and one for clean—in anticipation of a coming shower before proceeding farther into the building. But because she meant to grab the phone and head back outside, and really wanted to attract as little notice as possible until that was done, she didn’t do any of those things.

Instead she took off her gloves and stuck them in her pocket, pushed back her hood, and carefully wiped her feet on the mat. Then she walked very quietly through to the kitchen, reveling in the warmth. The industrial-size stove and refrigerator were relatively new—as in, fewer than twenty years old—but the dark wood cabinets lining the walls probably dated from World War II. A lighter wood island that stood in the center of the room had the look of having been handmade, probably by bored Coast Guarders some considerable time before the station had been abandoned. There were no remaining signs of breakfast, not even the lingering scents of coffee or bacon. She snagged an apple from the bowl on the island on the way through because she was starving. Biting into it, enjoying the spicy scent and crisp sweetness way more than she normally would have done, she headed on into the common room.

It was large, paneled in dark wood, with a long inner wall that alternated built-in shelves with storage closets and an equally long outer wall with a pair of windows. It smelled a little of dust, a little of—was it mold? Something slightly dank and unpleasant. Three worn leather couches, plus battered coffee and end tables complete with lamps, were arranged around a striped rug at the far end of the room. They faced an outdated boxlike TV kept solely for playing DVDs, a surprisingly eclectic selection of which took up a fair amount of space on the shelves. Six mismatched armchairs complete with reading lights formed two semicircles facing each other in the middle. The section of the room nearest her and nearest the kitchen was for eating. It contained a long table covered with a red-and-white gingham plastic tablecloth with eight folding chairs arranged around it, and two smaller four-tops, one of which held a partly completed jigsaw puzzle of a beach scene that people worked on as the mood struck them. Gina personally had contributed a corner piece of blue sky.



THE PHONE was nestled in its case on one of the shelves. With a quick glance around to make sure she was alone, hungrily munching the apple as she went, Gina headed toward the phone. Three of the lamps were on, two of the closet doors were ajar, and she could hear footsteps overhead on the second floor. Heavy footsteps: undoubtedly one of the men. But no one was anywhere they could see her.

Carpe diem.

Taking another huge bite of apple, she hurried for the phone. She would grab it, head outside—

Walking between the long table and the one with the jigsaw puzzle on it, she almost stepped on a cheery red Santa sweater. Pausing with her foot still in the air only inches above it, she looked down at it stupidly. Mary Dunleavy’s sweater—Gina would have recognized it anywhere. A big Santa face in the center accented by dozens of tiny dancing Santas on the sleeves and around the neck and hem. What she was seeing was a small section, but . . .

Staring down at it, Gina swallowed the bite of apple as she took one more cautious step that carried her past the tables. Her eyes widened. Her heart lurched. Mary was wearing her sweater. Her outflung arm lay limply on the worn linoleum floor.

Mary lay limply on the worn linoleum floor.

Gina froze in her tracks, staring down at the other woman in stupefaction.

Mary was sprawled on her back just beyond the big table. A small, trim woman in her late thirties with short platinum-blond hair, she wore jeans with her sweater and red and purple socks on her feet. Her pale hand with its bright red manicure stretched out beseechingly. Her round, cheerful face was slack and gray. Her lips were parted. Her black glasses were askew.

Her eyes were open. Usually a vivid blue, they were almost colorless now. They were also glazed over. The pupils were wide and fixed.

Mary was dead.

Gina’s throat seized up. Her stomach turned inside out.

She was just registering that Santa’s beard in the middle of Mary’s sweater was a shiny, wet red instead of its usual fuzzy white when out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a large shape on the floor in the shadows near the wall.

She looked toward it. Jorge Tomasini lay curled in a fetal position. There was no mistaking the fact that he was dead: half his face was gone, leaving red gore where his left eye and cheek and jaw should have been. His head lay in a puddle of blood. It looked like a spill of bright scarlet paint that was slowly spreading over the scuffed linoleum.