‘‘And you believed Jim over Kelly. I know how well Jim lies, Mr. Strong.’’
‘‘Yes.’’ He hung his head again. ‘‘My wife insisted that we institutionalize Jim, and he begged me not to. I couldn’t do it to him—couldn’t believe he was capable of such a thing. Other events occurred. Over a period of years, the family cracked up, you might say. Like a car wreck in slow motion. My wife moved with Alex and Kelly to Colorado and divorced me. I stayed at Paradise and tried to control Jim.
‘‘I think, when the family left, Jim became frightened of himself. He took the loss of his mother very badly. She had cut off all contact with him, and this affected him so deeply that he seemed to start to turn around completely. He graduated from high school, got some college in, and started working with me at Paradise.
‘‘My wife died just before Alex finished college, and he wanted to come here and work. He and Jim were both on the Ski Patrol, and they started up again as if they’d never been apart. Alex put up with Jim’s moods. They went around together, double-dated—I thought Jim was going to make it.
‘‘Alex took over the lodge and Jim ran the ski operations for a few years. They both got married. Jim was completely taken with Heidi, and for the first time in his life he seemed happy.
‘‘But about a year ago, Jim came into my office and accused me of favoring Alex. He had that old look on his face. I was very concerned.
‘‘He wanted Alex’s job. Eventually I gave it to him. He was no good at it. He was no good with people, with details, with paperwork. He kept at it, but there were incidents, and I knew I was going to have to do something soon.
‘‘Heidi began coming to me, knowing how well I knew Jim. She told me that Jim had become so abusive to her that she was planning to leave him. I was very alarmed for her safety, for Jim’s stability—I wasn’t sure what to do. I tried to talk to her, to try to persuade her to stay, and somehow, we—we—’’
‘‘Fell in love,’’ Nina said. She was listening intently, looking for understanding even if there was to be no comfort for her.
‘‘I will carry the guilt for the rest of my life.’’ He closed his eyes.
‘‘Go on, Mr. Strong.’’
‘‘I’m not sure how Marianne found out.’’
Nina said, ‘‘She overheard Heidi calling you from the equipment rental room one day. She didn’t know who Heidi was talking to.’’
‘‘Marianne had dated Jim before Heidi and was still interested in him. I have thought sometimes that she married Alex just to stay close to Jim.’’
‘‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’’
‘‘So, of course, she told Jim about Heidi. She wanted Heidi to leave him. Out of spite, or because she thought she could turn him toward her—she’s a—a—’’
Nina nodded.
‘‘When Heidi got home he made her tell him who it was. He threatened her and bullied her into staying with him. And he made her promise not to tell me that he knew. He was deciding what revenge to take, I suppose. I knew nothing except that Heidi suddenly wouldn’t even talk to me. Jim acted perfectly normal. Can you believe anyone could do that?’’
‘‘Jim could.’’
‘‘Alex died a few days later, and I thought it was an accident. I thought it was an accident! Why on earth would Jim hurt Alex? What did Alex have to do with Heidi and me? Then Heidi ran away. She thought that Jim had killed Alex. But I had my head in the sand one last time. I told her we would wait and see what came out of the police investigation. I looked into Jim’s eyes, and I couldn’t tell. I thought I was going crazy myself. I had to get out, but I was afraid to go to Heidi.
‘‘I could have saved her. And Alex.’’
‘‘How?’’ Nina said.
‘‘I could have. I could have sent Jim away when he was sixteen.’’
‘‘I doubt you could have,’’ Nina said softly. ‘‘I couldn’t save my husband. I tried, just like you tried, to control someone who was completely out of control. Even if—if you and Heidi hadn’t fallen in love, Jim was going to kill someone eventually.’’
Strong’s shoulders slumped. He looked old. ‘‘Please don’t be so kind,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t deserve your kindness. It’s just another blow. Why don’t you despise me? Even when Jim was arrested for Alex’s murder and I knew there was evidence of it, I looked the other way. The truth was too horrible for me to face. And so my bright beautiful Heidi was lost too.’’
Nina put her hand on Strong’s shoulder.
‘‘Thank you for listening to me,’’ he said. ‘‘I realize now I did even this for myself, subjected you to this selfish and maudlin confession. You’re a fine lawyer and fine person, and I am so sorry for what my family has done to you.’’
Nina nodded.
‘‘If there is anything I can do for you at any time—’’ She nodded again. He took her hand. He frowned, as though he hadn’t been able to say what he meant at all.
Something deep and sad passed between them. ‘‘So sorry,’’ Philip Strong mumbled as he moved away.
Collier was gone forever from contact, but in the sense of an impenetrable wall between them, not in the sense that his spirit was finally extinguished. The wind and the shivering came every night. She left her window open to make it easy for him.
Maybe our spirits can intertwine
Til there’s no more of yours and no more of
mine
Her spirit shrank from the world. It felt as though she was looking at it through a keyhole. None of it mattered. She was still clinging to him.
The grotesque became normal. The day after the funeral she went back to work. Collier’s body still lay in the snow of her mind while she looked at her phone messages and spoke to the court clerk on the phone. Sandy held most of the incoming calls while she read through the cards and letters. Ginger wrote, ‘‘Don’t give up. We need you.’’
She opened a card from Mrs. Geiger. Inside was a check for thirty thousand dollars. Her note said, ‘‘I got a job doing the accounts at Cecil’s market. That’s what I really needed, a job. It wasn’t right of me to take your money. God bless you for what you did.’’
‘‘Send it back to her, Sandy,’’ she said.
‘‘But—’’
‘‘Just send it back.’’
An investigator named Sean something called to say he was coordinating the search for Jim. There had been a possible sighting in Miami. He told her that they figured Jim had left the jurisdiction before Collier had even been found.
The newspaper lay on her desk. The buyout of Paradise Ski Resort by a German corporation had attracted a lot of attention.
So Marianne and her stepbrother had forced Philip to open the family business, and Philip must have given up and sold out completely. Marianne and Gene would be on their way to the Alps with a million dollars in their pockets. Paradise would never be the same.
Toward five o’clock, Sandy came in and said, ‘‘Time to go.’’
‘‘Okay.’’ She put on her coat, picked up her bag and walked outside, following Sandy.
It was already growing dark. She could see Christmas decorations in the trailer park behind the parking lot. It was very cold.
‘‘The wind’s gonna let loose tonight,’’ Sandy said. ‘‘You watch yourself.’’ She turned to go, but then came back to where Nina stood alone in the lot and said, ‘‘You gotta be brave.’’
‘‘I know. I’m trying.’’
‘‘Okay then. See you tomorrow.’’ Sandy stood beside her car, watching until Nina turned the Bronco on and drove out of the parking lot. The stars were coming out one by one, and the cold was deepening.
28
Snow falls upon this dream of mine
This dream we had together
Oh why can’t happiness endure . . .
THE WIND STARTED with a soft hush, then accelerated into many small whirlwinds. Cold began to grip the night and everything in it, a chilling hand.
Driving on Pioneer Trail, completely unexpectedly, Nina began to have another panic attack. She felt again the terror spiraling up in her from the place she had tried to hide it. It was like a pressure against her heart.
And still the wind increased in intensity, until the sky filled with the snowless gale, cold and clean and pure and deadly, penetrating every crevice. The killing cold, merciless, rode with it.
As she drove, her mind fighting its own whirlwind of shock and fear and loss, she could barely keep the car on the road. The gusts pushed the Bronco around on the road like a toy.
She finally remembered to turn on the heater, but the cold had already infiltrated and she began to shiver. At the same moment, Jim came into her mind again, somehow mixed up with Bob.
At last she had it, what Kelly and Marianne and Heidi had been telling her if she’d only been able to understand.
He takes the thing you love the most, she thought. Panic made her weave over the center line.
He’d already taken Collier. He should be long gone by now, to Belize or some other faraway place where he could hide. He’d taken her love.
Had it been enough for him?
What did she know about his mind? She grabbed the car phone and called home, heard the useless buzz.
‘‘Oh, my God,’’ she said aloud. Oh please God, no. She gunned the car to race home.
In the clear night, she felt she could see all the way to heaven, the stars so close you could almost hear them sizzle. Wind tore across the lake, creating cresting dark currents, picking up moisture.
I’m so cold, thought Nina. I can’t believe how cold I am. She swung around the corner of Natoma too quickly, nearly sliding into an old green Travelall hidden in the darkness under some trees.
He’s got to be all right. He has to. She couldn’t bear to think any other way. The shivering became uncontrollable. Clenching the wheel, she turned onto Kulow Street and pulled into the driveway.
No lights. A stillness that looked like death to her. She jumped out, hair slapping at her face, almost falling, and pounded on the door. No answer. The bone-numbing wind blasted her. She called, ‘‘Bobby! Bobby!’’ But her voice trailed off in the wind.
Trembling, she fumbled the key into the lock, feeling an awful fear of what she might find and a new sense of danger.
As if something were behind her . . .
She threw open the door and yelled, ‘‘Are you in here?’’ Then, overcome with terror, she ran down the hall to Bob’s room.
Nothing, no one, just his bare bed. Into the kitchen, bumping into things, the light—
And then she saw a note on the kitchen table.
‘‘Hi, Mom. Aunt Andrea picked me up so I wouldn’t be alone. Come over if you want, she says.’’
A heart drawn hastily at the bottom. He was all right! She sat down at the kitchen table, and sobbed with relief. A few minutes passed before the flood receded.
Finally, feeling very shaky, she got up to get the fire going. Damn! Only one small log. She was going to have to go outside to get more wood. She closed her eyes for a minute, steeling herself, then put her coat and dripping boots back on. Grabbing the flashlight, she opened the door.
The wind hit her in the face, nearly knocking her over. It must be a front for a hell of a storm. She would lock the place up tight, call Andrea, drink some whiskey, and go to bed. The panic attack had left her so weary . . . she didn’t want to go to Matt’s tonight. When she woke in the early morning, she didn’t want them all to hear the sound of her grieving.
As she bent down to fill her arms with logs, she thought she saw something moving in the trees on the edge of the yard. It reminded her of the day at Paradise with Philip Strong when he talked about seeing Alex around every corner. She peered into the howling wind for a long moment, and the creepy feeling of menace returned. Would it always be there? How could she stand it? Quickly, she gathered the wood and went back inside, slamming the door and locking and bolting it as soon as she could.
She had thought she smelled almonds. She was imagining things.
Stacking the wood by the fireplace, she crumpled some newspaper and lit the fire. The bright color and heat made her feel better. Then she went into the kitchen and put on the teapot. She dug around in the front closet for her mukluks and pulled out an afghan at the same time, returning to the kitchen just as the kettle began to whine.
Pouring the hot water over some Swiss Miss chocolate, she added a shot of Old Bushmills to the mix, turned on the stereo to the oldies channel, and sat before the fire, arranging the red blanket around her. The one Collier had put over her legs that night . . .
Then she called Bob on the cordless phone, and talked to Andrea who said Bob was fine and who urged her to come over. ‘‘Not tonight,’’ Nina said. ‘‘I’d rather be home.’’
‘‘Call if you need us,’’ Andrea said. ‘‘Matt will come get you, you know that.’’
‘‘No. Thanks for taking Bob.’’
‘‘I don’t feel right letting you stay alone.’’
‘‘I have to get used to it.’’
She hung up and sat huddled in the blanket. The fire slowly warmed the cabin, even as the wind roared into the fireplace flue, until finally she stopped trembling. She drank the chocolate slowly, the mug warming her hands.
At last the taut, frightened muscles surrendered one by one to the warmth of the blanket and the drink, and all the horror of the last month dulled for a few minutes. Safe, she thought. He’s long gone. Bob is safe. I’m safe and sound and home.
The wind clattered against the locked cabin. Nina hugged the blanket to her. Exhausted, she fell asleep.
I’ll make you pay, bitch.
I’ll make you beg me to kill you.
Hooded in his parka, hands in thick ski gloves, Jim watched the house. He watched the smoke billowing out of the chimney against a black sky, imagining her inside. The kid had been driving away with a woman just as he arrived, and the woman had looked back at his car just once, but he was wearing his parka and drove right by the house.
When the two of them were gone, he had parked the car up a street called Hunkpapa and pushed his way through the blasts of wind back to the back yard. And waited.
Bad weather didn’t bother him. He found it invigorating.
He hadn’t quite paid her back for pulling that trick in court. The enormity of her betrayal had taken time to sink in. She was the worst traitor of them all, worse than Heidi, worse than his father. She had even thought she could fool him. As if he couldn’t read her.
None of it was his fault.
They had all left him now, and he had nothing but an empty gnawing hole in his soul. Hole in my soul, he repeated to himself, hole in my soul, slayer of betrayers, take the one you love the most and take you besides . . .
The gnawing was in his gut right now, cramping and tightening and making him sick. Christ, he was being eaten alive!
He’d begged Heidi to come back to him, but she wouldn’t understand. He hadn’t wanted to use the knife on her. It was his father’s fault.
He’d have to get out after he killed Nina, but he wasn’t finished. Next year for Kelly, who had testified against him. And of course, his father.
No one would escape. And the night-gnawing would end.
An hour or so went by while he froze outside her house. Enough time had passed for her to put on her robe, sit down for a meal, do whatever she was going to do, just so her guard was down.
He was sensitive to women. He had a feeling she was asleep.
He moved silently through the trees near the wood-pile, then stopped there under cover of blowing blackness. The snowfield next door reflected just enough starlight. Goddamn cold! He looked for a way into the house.
She made it so simple, he almost felt insulted. She had forgotten to bolt the back door. Noiselessly, methodically, he jimmied the lock. What a cinch.
Prepare to die, bitch, he thought. His rage surged up in him again, warming him.
She would beg, damn her.
He turned the knob.
Something hard and sharp struck him on the base of his spine through the parka. He figured a branch had blown into him, but as his hand tightened on the knob he felt the sharpness deepen, taking his breath away. Turning his head just far enough to see behind him, he saw a stranger, a big blond man, his head ringed with stars, his face terrible. He tried to scream but no sound came out. The man had clamped a hand like iron over his mouth. And then, incredibly, he felt another, crushing pain, like a spear, like an arrow, like a dagger. He felt appalling pain as a blade drove into his body, into his spine, and tears in his eyes, and the cold, my God, the cold—
‘‘Rhapsody on a windy night, motherfucker,’’ the man whispered. ‘‘The last twist of the knife.’’
He felt the pain tear him apart, and he wanted to scream but he had no breath left. He wanted to end the agony that corkscrewed through him but there was no way back to the wind and the stars and the night.
‘‘Ah—!’’
He was sucked down to the still and silent hell that awaited him.
The phone jangled Nina back to the firelit living room. Still dazed from her deep sleep, she put it to her ear.
‘‘Hi. It’s Paul. I wanted to let you know I was thinking of you.’’
Paul’s voice was so reassuring. She started jabbering, telling him things. Paul listened patiently on the line.
‘‘I know, honey, I know,’’ he kept saying.
‘‘They say—the police are sure Jim’s gone. There hasn’t been a trace of him. But I’m still—I had a real panic attack tonight on the way home. I thought Bob might be in trouble and he’s fine. I keep doing that, going along and then—it’s just—’’
There was a silence on the other end. Then Paul said, ‘‘Don’t worry about him anymore, Nina.’’
‘‘But I can’t be sure. I don’t know if I can live with this fear, Paul. I can live with the grief, but not constant fear. I don’t know what to do.’’
‘‘He won’t be back, Nina. I guarantee it.’’
She didn’t answer him. She thought, I want to believe that, but how can I?
‘‘Listen to me, Nina,’’ Paul said in a peculiar, insistent way. ‘‘You’ll never see or hear from him again.’’
‘‘You sound so sure,’’ Nina said. ‘‘Do you know where he is?’’
The line crackled, and she thought how far away Paul was, on the other side of the country, and how she missed him terribly.
‘‘Paul? Are you still there?’’
‘‘Yeah, I’m here.’’
‘‘Do you know where he is?’’
‘‘I’ll be damned if I know,’’ said Paul.
And that night, alone in her bed in the cabin, Nina turned her head on her wet pillow.
Perhaps her heart couldn’t take any more pain. Perhaps the mountain god had finally taken her into its arms, soothing her, sending her back to a moment long ago when she had been happy.
In her dream she was a child again, running in the Pacific surf on a sunny day, her parents behind her. She was a little girl full of joy, a joy which had come before and which would come again, in time.