Snowbound - Blake Crouch [60]
She stayed in the room for a long time. When she finally built up the nerve to leave, she got to her feet and moved over to the door, listened. Silence. She glanced through the peephole, and what she could see of the corridor was empty.
She pulled the door open, poked her head outside. It took her a moment to remember where she was. Third floor, south wing. She crept out into the corridor, the lodge momentarily quiet.
When she reached the stairs, she glanced down into the lobby, saw a kimonoed man thirty feet below disappearing into the first-floor corridor.
Devlin took the stairs up to the only corridor she’d yet to search—the south wing’s fourth floor. As she climbed, she spotted that longhaired man in the cowboy hat, strolling the third floor of the north wing with his shotgun, his back to her, walking away.
The fourth floor was empty.
She crept up to each door, peered through the peephole, taking note of which rooms were occupied, which vacant and unlocked.
At the end of the corridor, she came to 429, the last room on the left-hand side before the alcove and the stairwell. She stood on her tiptoes, leaned in to look through the peephole. Inside, a woman was sitting in bed. She was wearing a yellow chemise, her hair long and dark, the color indistinguishable in the poor light. Her face was turned toward the window and she was watching the snow fall. Devlin could tell by looking through the thin fabric of her nightgown that the woman was with child, perhaps half term, her face a little swollen from the pregnancy, and pale, with dark bags under her eyes.
By the light from the lamp on the table, Devlin saw that the woman’s hair was a deep black, and then she drew in a sharp breath and her eyes welled up and ran over and her throat closed.
She was looking at her mother.
Scalding
FORTY-SEVEN
At first, she didn’t believe it, thinking, This must be some kind of nightmare or hallucination. No way she could still be alive. That’s what Dad said. But it was her. As she stood there breathless, watching Rachael Innis in bed, Devlin recognized the big-black eyes, the shape of the mouth. Her mother didn’t look angry or sad or anything like what Devlin might have expected. Just older, tired, worn-out.
Devlin wiped her eyes, looked up and down the corridor, then back through the peephole as she knocked at the door.
Her mother glanced up but didn’t move, sat motionless in bed, as if waiting.
Devlin knocked again, then cupped her mouth and spoke through the door, “Mom.”
Rachael showed no sign she’d heard a thing.
Devlin knocked once more, and finally, Rachael stepped tentatively down onto the floor and moved slowly toward the door.
Devlin tapped the peephole and stepped back several feet into the corridor, praying her mother would look.
Ten seconds elapsed, and then she heard a sound come through the door like a gasp for breath or a stifled sob, followed by something hitting the floor.
Devlin ran to the peephole, peered through, saw her mother crumpled down into a pile, her back heaving, weeping.
She ran up the corridor, trying doors until she found an unlocked, unoccupied room, tore through the drawers, the bedside table, saw at last what she was after. Ripping a page from the notebook, she had to wait for her hand to stop trembling so she could write.
Mom, I came to Alaska with Dad and an FBI agent to look for you. Can’t find them. Are they here? Will get you out somehow. I love you. We never forgot.
Devlin ran back into the corridor, dropped to the floor at room 429, and slid the sheet of notebook paper under the door. Through the peephole, she watched her