Snowbound - Blake Crouch [56]
Starting down the stairs, she heard a noise coming from the lobby. It sounded like footsteps creaking on wood. She continued down, emerged from the stairwell into the third-floor alcove, and peered around the corner.
Something was moving toward her down the corridor, and as it passed under the illumination of a ceiling light, she saw it was a man in a black jumpsuit. He had a red bandanna tied around his left bicep and held a pump-action shotgun, its strap dangling from his shoulder. He was tall and blade-thin, wore a Stetson, and had long hair flowing down over his shoulders.
She ducked back into the stairwell, went down to the first floor, and ran up the corridor and back into the lobby.
Beside the library was an archway she hadn’t noticed before. She headed toward it, and as she went through it, she passed an opening on her right that led to another staircase.
Thirty feet on, the passage terminated at a thick wooden door, and just ahead, it opened to the left.
She stopped, glanced around the corner into a high-ceilinged dining room, in the center of which stood a table expansive enough to seat ten comfortably on each side and two at each end. Its centerpiece was an exploding bouquet of greenery—native flora. An immense candelabra stood near each end, the candles burning. The set of chairs looked terribly expensive, and a chandelier hung down from high above, fifteen feet above the table.
At the far end of the dining room was another massive fireplace, big logs roasting within.
Light filtered in from windows twenty feet up, the wall below adorned with numerous trophy mounts—moose and caribou with cartoonishly huge racks, a pair of wolverines, Dall sheep, a grizzly bear.
Out in the lobby, a bell tolled—the light, rapid announcement of a meal.
She retreated from the dining room and entered the passage just in time to hear footsteps on the nearby staircase, accompanied by the voices of men.
Devlin turned and slipped back into the dining room, realizing as she did that sound was now emanating from the double doors to the left of the fireplace.
Running water, dishes clanking—kitchen noise.
She scanned the dining room, saw no place to hide. A long dry sink was pushed flush against the west wall, the kitchen was occupied, and there was nothing larger than a potted spruce tree behind which to take cover.
People were coming, and her legs had begun to weaken. She felt a deep shuddering behind her knees.
Devlin did the only thing she could.
FORTY-FOUR
Through the forest of chair legs, she watched them come—disembodied feet and legs, at least half a dozen pairs, strolling into the dining room. They didn’t immediately take seats at the table, congregating instead at the dry sink, beckoned by the constellation of exotic glass bottles.
“Bloody Mary, Sean?”
“Absolutely.”
“Looks like we’ve got Diaka, Grey Goose, some Russian shit.”
“Gotta go with Diaka.”
Crouched under the table, she watched a man in khaki slacks standing at the dry sink, carving up a lime and twigs of celery.
“Want one, Zig?”
“No, I’m gonna sip on this Pasión Azteca. Can’t believe they scored a bottle of this tequila.”
“I didn’t even see that.”
“I’ll pour you one.”
Breakfast smells had begun to waft in from the kitchen—bacon, brewing coffee, eggs, frying pancake batter.
Someone said, “Boys, to decadence.”
Glasses banged into one another.
“Damn, that’s smooth.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
“You believe how much snow fell overnight?”
Footsteps could be heard from the passage, and Devlin glanced through the chair legs just in time to see a pair of boots and blue-jeaned legs stroll into the dining hall, followed by a voice that boomed over the others.
“Gentlemen! Welcome! Glad you all made it here ahead of the storm!”
The man stopped at the end of the table, his legs so close, Devlin could have reached out and touched them.
The other men drifted over from the dry sink, said their greetings—slap of hard handshakes, small talk of the raging blizzard.
“My brother, Paul, is working