Darkness(45)

Gina felt faint.

She was still staring at Ivanov’s gun when it hit her that if she could see him, he could almost certainly see her. All he had to do was turn around and look toward the closet.

Gina’s vision swam briefly as she experienced a jolt of pure terror. Her heart rate hit warp speed. Her lungs begged for air. It took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to suck in big, hungry gasps.

Quiet. Breathe in, breathe out.

“Sure it was a woman?” Heavy Tread asked.

Afraid of moving for fear of knocking into something else or in some other way making a noise, Gina knew she had no choice. She had to get out of sight, which meant going deeper into the closet. Easing back step by careful step, she sidled into the corner behind the knee-high pyramid of sleeping bags. Keeping a precautionary hand on them so that nothing toppled, wary of straightening for fear of disturbing the clothes above her head, she sank down onto her knees instead. Pulling her hood up over her head, she ducked so that her face would not be a telltale splotch of pale in the gloom. She was deep in shadow, and the piled sleeping bags were between her and the opening. She should have felt safer.

But she was trembling with fear.

Careful to keep her face lowered, she couldn’t resist peeking up through her lashes to observe whatever she could. All she could see of Ivanov now were his fingers curled around the gun on the table, a sliver of his leg, and the heel of his big black boot. Her mouth went dry as she looked at him. She swallowed hard. Could he see her? Only if he came over to the closet and looked inside, she decided.

With every fiber of her being, she prayed that he would not.

Ivanov said, “I am sure. We have a recording of her talking about the crash.”

Gina stiffened as the possible meaning of that registered. Could it be—were they talking about her?

They had to be. There was no other logical interpretation.

Yesterday, when she’d seen the plane going down and called for help over the radio—they’d been listening? Her blood ran cold.

I know who they are. Who they have to be.

They were hunting possible survivors of the plane crash.

Cal.

Panic assailed her.

Her hands knotted into fists so tight that she could feel her nails digging into her palms. Fighting for calm, she closed her eyes for the briefest of moments. When she opened them again, she looked out through the opening in the door and almost gasped. She actually had to press her hand hard over her mouth to contain the sound.

She didn’t know how she had missed it up until now. She could only suppose that she hadn’t been focusing on the floor.

Now she was, and her eyes widened with horror. Lying on the scuffed linoleum inches from the heel of Ivanov’s boot was her half-eaten apple. Red and round, with juicy yellow flesh showing where bites had been taken out of it. Obviously freshly eaten and dropped.

Looking at it, every tiny hair on her body shot upright.

If they see that apple, they’ll know somebody came in, saw the bodies. They’ll search the room.

The taste of fear was suddenly sour in her mouth.

There was no way Ivanov was going to not see it. He couldn’t not see it: it was right by his foot. It was just a matter of when.

“Don’t matter now,” Heavy Tread said. “If she was one of them, she’s dead.”

“Bylo tri,” the third man said in his grating Russian.

“He said there were three,” Ivanov translated. “Women.”

“How do you know?” Heavy Tread asked.

Gina frowned as she heard what sounded like paper flapping. Judging from the direction the sound came from—behind Ivanov, rather than in front of him where Heavy Tread was—the unseen Russian was doing something to cause it.

Ivanov replied, “Paper he is waving is list. From refrigerator. It says, three women, twelve people total on island. We have found here, nine.”

List? From the refrigerator? It had to be the schedule. Of cooking, of chores, of who would be using the boats when. It had been fastened to the refrigerator with a magnet. All their names were on it. Gina felt her blood drain toward her toes.

“We only found two women.” Heavy Tread sounded as if he was frowning. “Where’s the other one?”

“Perhaps still out on the island. At same time as transmissions from her, we picked up voices of men warning that the storm was coming. It is possible that she did not make it in.”

Heavy Tread said, “We got people searching the island to make sure nobody slips through the cracks. If she’s out there, they’ll find her.”

Ivanov said, “I hope you are right. We cannot afford any—what do you call them—screwups.”

He turned, and his foot struck the apple. It rolled, traveling in a clumsy, lopsided semicircle because half of it was eaten away.

Gina’s eyes riveted on it. Her breath caught. Her stomach turned over.

He’s going to see it now.

He was on the move. His boot came down right beside the apple, barely missing stepping on it. Gina caught her breath. Her heart thumped so hard it felt as if it would pound its way out of her chest.

“Search the buildings again,” Heavy Tread ordered. “Like you said, we don’t want any screwups.”

Ivanov was, impossibly as it seemed, walking away without having spotted the apple. He disappeared from view—