The Viper

He stared at the ice-covered ground in disbelief. He stepped closer, holding the Glock in his right hand and with his left using the flashlight app on his phone to examine the shadowed ground. Nothing. Not even any sign that the coating of ice had been disturbed.

Trying to make sense of the situation, he guessed that the fingers must have been set upright on the surface rather than implanted in the earth, allowing for their removal without a trace. Meaning that someone had been watching, making sure he saw them, then taking them away. At least, that was what his rational mind was telling him. But another voice inside him was telling him something else.

Maybe they were never there to begin with. Maybe too much stress and too little sleep too soon after a concussion are taking a toll.

It was an explanation he didn’t want to believe. Few things frightened him more than the possibility that he might be subject to hallucinations. Faulty eyewitness accounts of crimes proved time and again that people under stress often saw—and were able to describe in precise detail—things that didn’t exist. Add to that stress the disruption of a traumatic brain injury and God only knew how messed up one’s perceptions might be.

Valdez eyed the ground but showed no reaction—unless an absence of expression under such strange circumstances was itself a significant reaction.

Gurney pointed to the area where he was sure he’d seen the fingers.

“They were right there.”

He heard an insistence in his voice that sounded disturbingly fragile.

70

GURNEY SPENT THE REST OF THE DAY SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE that would support what had happened. Treating the location around the hemlock as a crime scene, he followed a spiral search pattern, proceeding slowly around the central point in an expanding circle—and then repeating it, expanding it farther and farther into the surrounding forest.

When dusk arrived, all he had to show for his efforts were a sore ankle from twisting it on an exposed tree root and photographs he’d taken of several areas of disturbed pine needles, photographs he then had to admit were meaningless. He deleted them from his phone.

At dinner that evening, Valdez maintained a stolid silence, except for announcing that he needed to make another trip, this time to Emma’s recovery center, and would be away until the following day.

“Someone is arriving. I try to make new residents comfortable. It’s part of what I do, part of my job.”

“Are you a paid for your work?”

The question elicited a rare smile. “I am paid with peace of mind.”

After clearing the table, putting the dishes in the kitchen sink, and asking Gurney if he would be alright by himself, Valdez departed in his pickup truck.

Gurney remained at the table, half exhausted and half energized by anxiety. Eventually he got up and double-checked the locks on the doors and windows, upstairs and downstairs, then returned to the table and opened his laptop.

He spent the next hour searching for information on stress-induced and injury-induced hallucinations. He learned a lot, none of it calming. In fact, the more he learned, the more adrift he felt. A flesh-and-blood antagonist could be found, confronted, and defeated. Physical assaults could be parried. Physical evidence could be collected and analyzed. But if the assaults, if the evidence, were only in one’s mind, what then?

He shut down his computer and brought it up to his bedroom. The windows had blinds, which he lowered before turning on the bedside lamp.

The sight of the bed reminded him how weary he felt. He lay down on the soft quilt, hoping to put aside, at least for a little while, the menace of the day. But his mind was still churning with possibilities. Suppose the disappearing fingers were real, after all. Were they intended to be a confidence destroyer? A paranoia inducer? Or a distracting jab, setting up a knockout punch? The questions had no answers. They became increasingly disjointed and led only to an uneasy sleep and distressing dreams.

The first of these was similar to the Blackmore Mountain one he had a few nights before. Sleet is pelting the windshield of the Outback. The red tow truck comes out of nowhere, crashing into him, ramming him off the road. The truck stops and Sonny Lerman emerges from it, laughing. Gurney sees himself firing a pistol at Lerman, Lerman being knocked back into the truck. He sees himself approaching the truck, looking inside. Jack Hardwick’s bleeding eyes look back at him. Hardwick says, “You’ll be the death of me, Sherlock.”

The dream kept repeating itself, until it was transformed into another dream entirely, a dream about Madeleine. When he awoke at dawn, it was from a dream so sad that his eyes were wet with tears—yet a moment later whatever caused his weeping had dissolved beyond recall. In its wake was a lingering and irresistible urge to visit his home.