At O’Hare, she found her gate, then wandered the terminals to pass the time. There was a stop for coffee at the only open counter in the food courts. Then she passed the remainder of the time parked in an uncomfortable plastic seat, reading the first couple chapters of Stephen King’s new book,Bag of Bones. The book seemed good, but she couldn’t focus. When her eyes inevitably fell shut again, she saw herself lying in a ditch at the side of the road, her gaze blank and wide, her skin burned but not burned. Still able to scream, though—the sides of her mouth cracked and bled with her pain-filled shrill.
This time when she cried out, she heard it too. She put the book aside, got a second cup of coffee, and returned to her gate.
Those two hours crawled.
Last night, Stack had called her about ten minutes before her plane was set to board last in Nevada.
Arden Royal, the twenty-seven year-old male found behind a Dumpster in Upper Saint Clair in 1991, also worked for Charter Pharmaceuticals. Stack was working to connect the others—they were on to something. Charter was about 280 miles outside Pittsburgh, near Philadelphia.
“There’s something else,” Stack said. “I think someone’s watching me.”
He told her about the white vans.
She tried dialing Stack several times since but only got a busy signal.
Fogel landed in Pittsburgh at thirty-three past three in the morning, retrieved her car from the lot, and took I-76 to Chadds Ford at a rate of speed that would put a smile on the face of any NASCAR fan.
She arrived in Chadds Ford at a little past eight, drove through the small town in all of four minutes, noting it was even smaller than Fallon, Nevada had been, then followed her hastily scribbled directions under the single traffic light at the back end of the quiet town to SR-41, and from there to CR-27 West. The few houses she spotted were set far back from the road, most lost behind large fields of corn, hay, soybeans, and God knows what else they grew out here.
Fogel completely missed the turnoff for Turlington Road not once but twice—blowing past it the first time at more than eighty miles-per-hour, then the second time as she drove much slower, carefully scanning the fields on her right.
The road wasn’t marked.
The road wasn’t really much of a road at all, a sliver of blacktop off the two-lane highway that quickly vanished into a sprawling cornfield. Had she not seen another car turn, she probably would have missed Turlington a third time.
By the time she maneuvered her car back around and returned to Turlington Road, the taillights of that previous vehicle were nothing but pin points in the distance, and even those disappeared up and over a hill and blinked out by the time she straightened the wheel and pointed her Toyota down the center of the narrow two-lane road.
While CR-27 West had been riddled with patched cracks and potholes, Turlington had been recently paved and was well maintained. Reflectors marked the center of the two lanes, and fresh white paint lined the edges. An eight-foot chain-link fence blocked access from the cornfields on either side, and Fogel was reminded of the claustrophobic drive into the state correctional institute on Beaver Avenue back in the city. More so when she came upon the gate and guardhouse at the end of the road.
The guardhouse had an arm meant to stop traffic, but the arm was raised. The vehicle she followed in from the main road paused at the gate, then pulled through into an expansive parking lot surrounding a large concrete building centered at the back. As Fogel approached the guardhouse, she fished her Pittsburgh PD badge and identification card out of her purse, but found she didn’t need it. There was nobody inside.
Noting there was not a single sign that read Charter—or any other business name, for that matter—she pulled through the gate and circled around until she found a parking space. Considering the early hour, it seemed odd so many people were here. Odder still—other than her green Toyota, every car in the lot was white.
3
Crossing that small island might have been the longest fifteen minute drive of my life. Stella had memorized the directions and pointed out each turn to me. Aside from a lone landscaper’s truck, we didn’t pass a single car in either direction. The island felt like another world, so far removed from the various cities I had lived over the years. If the island felt remote and isolated, Stills Creek Road was the edge of the earth. We turned from Cultus Bay onto Stills in silence. The road was narrow, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, lacking a center dividing line. Mailboxes and driveways lined the left side with not a single house in sight. The driveways weaved back into thick groves of Douglas fir, red alder, big-leaf maples, tall cedars, and hemlock. A wild place, untouched by the destructive hand of man.
“There,” Stella said softly, pointing at a large red mailbox with 6600 painted on the side in careful black script. Nothing else, no mention of the bed-and-breakfast. Nothing to indicate a business existed here at all.
A canopy of large, bowing branches bent over the gravel driveway.
“Go, Jack. I can’t stand it.” She was leaning forward again.
I realized I was, too. My palms were clammy with sweat.
I turned onto the narrow driveway and followed it through the trees.
4
The vehicle Fogel had followed into the Charter parking lot turned out to be a Ford F-250 pickup truck—white, like all the others. As she got out of her own car, she saw two men climb out of the large truck and disappear inside the building. Both wore long, white trench coats. Neither acknowledged her. Both moved with quick purpose.
Fogel pressed the lock button on her key fob—the two chirps sounding especially loud, as all sounds do at such early hours—then followed after the two men, across the parking lot and through two thick glass doors.
A whoosh of cold air met her as the doors swung shut automatically at her back, the click of her shoes echoing off the highly polished white marble floors.
Fogel stared up at the soaring ceiling, rising the full height of the building.
The ceiling was white.
