“You don’t know?” she asks, one eyebrow inching higher.
I shake my head. “I’ve never been before,” I say before climbing out and turning to close the door.
“Just watch out,” she tells me, her round eyes going glossy. “They got a man up that way. Likes to choke people.” She holds her hands around an imaginary neck to demonstrate.
Cold sweat trickles down my middle back, Henry’s lips at my ear, curling into a smile.Boo.
“A killer,” she enunciates. “Hiding in the mountains.”
I click the passenger door closed, unable to speak, and she drives off with a wave. Glued to the curb, I try to shake my husband’s phantom, the sense that even here, he is watching. But Henry can’t possibly know where I am. He’s back in Charleston, thinking I am dead, gliding along the bottom of the Cooper River where I belong. The man in the mountains is someone else. Another version of Henry, perhaps, sucking his oxygen from the mouths of women. Another predator. But he’s got nothing to do with me.
I make my way inside to the counter to buy a ticket, praying I have enough money. “One seat for Crow Lake,” I tell the woman. Above me, a TV informs the near empty station of a grisly murder scene discovered recently on a mountain trail.Saranac Strangler Strikes Againthe headline beneath the reporter reads.
“No stop in Crow Lake,” the woman says.
“What’s closest?” I ask, glancing back at the TV.
“The madman of the mountains continues to terrorize the peaceful hamlets and lakeside communities of the Adirondacks,” the reporter is droning. “With this latest victim bringing his body count to a total of four. Police say women should be extremely cautious, particularly along the lonely trails and stretches of road that crisscross this scenic area.”
For a split second, I think I see her—the crook of an arm against the leaves, a blond ringlet twisting in a subtle breeze, her body strewn across a clearing, the surrounding trees gathered as witnesses. And then, like darts hitting a board, three more, each in such rapid succession I hardly register them. Black hair. A jutting collarbone. Freckles pale and purpling. They pass through me like wind, leaving behind a hollow cavity where they were. A place inside me that is no longer mine.
I look back to the woman behind the counter, her large earrings glinting silver under the fluorescent lights as she shakes her head. “I hope they catch that sicko soon.” She meets my eye. “He strangles them first. Chokes the life right out of them before doing things to the bodies.”
I swallow hard and refuse to question what she means bydoing thingsbecause I already know. Henry’s sweaty face pumps over me, eyes staring through mine until he sees what he is looking for, the bit that’s missing, the danger in its place, and he finally erupts in climax. How much easier it would be for him if he didn’t have all that life getting in his way.
“We can get you to Saranac Lake,” the woman says. “Stops at the market on River Street.”
My eyes flick to the television screen and back. “That’ll work.” I’ll figure the rest out from there.
She passes me a printed ticket after I pay her all the cash I have left, getting twenty-three cents in change. I’m well and truly broke now. The leftover snacks from my last fill-up will have to tide me over until I arrive. Her fingers linger as I go to slide the ticket toward me. “You be careful up there,” she says. “You’re just his type.”
“Thank you,” I say as I wrestle the ticket from her, an eerie intuition crawling over me. I start to walk away before turning back. “What do you mean I’m his type?”
Her eyes level on me. “A woman,” she says. “Alone.”
6Regis
The sun is disappearing when the bus rolls to a stop before the market in Saranac Lake. My butt is numb after the ten-hour circuitous route—including a healthy layover in Albany—the bus has made of an otherwise three-hour trip, and I’m beginning to shake from low blood sugar. I pause at the door of the bus and turn to the driver. “How far is Crow Lake from here?”
He appears taken aback. “Crow Lake? Thirty miles at least.”
A half-hour’s drive. I mentally calculate how long it would take to walk that far with a broken foot. I’m looking at the better part of the next twenty hoursifI don’t stop or slow down. My eyes coast over the hills across the lake, the inclines a foreboding portent. The concern must show on my face because the driver says, “Maybe you can catch a ride with someone.”
The lump of Don’s lifeless body flashes in my mind.
I clamber gracelessly off and stand back as the bus pulls away. Across the still road, and the calm waters of the lake beyond, the white-lined gables of several houses shine softly in the dusk of the trees. Boats are docked along the shore, looking like abandoned toys resting on the water. Even in the fading light, there is a rainbow of color between the elements and the architecture, and I am reminded suddenly of Charleston, my heart tightening around its grief. The feel of the mountains is unmistakable, a quiet, hovering presence, both enormous and close, like being lost and found at the same time.
Feeling faint, I make my way inside the store, fingering packs ofpowdered doughnuts and sticks of beef jerky with growing need. There’s a large convex mirror in the corner above me to reveal shoplifters, my figure lean and curved against it. I’ll never make the walk to Crow Lake without some food. I glance toward the cashier. My hands tremble. When she turns her back, I grab a handful of cheese and peanut butter cracker packets and try to shove them into my open bag. A couple fall to the floor, plastic crinkling loudly.
She spins around. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing? You gotta pay for those!”
I leave the crackers on the floor and start toward the doors, but a gruff man with arms like tree trunks pushes a dolly stacked with cases of beer in front of the exit. “Going somewhere?”
“I was just—”
“Trying to leave without paying,” the cashier finishes for me.
The man plucks my bag from my arms. Sticking a hand in, he pulls out several cracker packets. His eyebrows flatten into a thick line.
