Page 103 of Dead Mountain

Neither Corrie nor Nora said anything.

“You have the camera—right? And the journal? Give us those and we’ll let you go.”

“Fuck you.” Corrie aimed and fired through the curtain.

But as the echo died away, she heard Nora cry out a warning from behind, turned instinctively back toward the dim passage—and felt a massive blow to her head, followed by a loud buzzing sound, then nothing.

57

CORRIE SWAM BACK into consciousness. Her head pounded with every beat of her heart. Although it was dim, she became aware of people in the room around her: shapes moving, an angry voice. As her vision stabilized, she recognized the antlers, table, and gigantic stone fireplace of the day room of Rancho Bonito, the place where Sam Puller had given them coffee and advice. She tried to move, realized she was duct-taped to a chair. Through the lodge windows she could see a leaden dusk, with snow swirling past. She looked around, keeping her head upright to help steady the whirling sensation. She saw Nora, also taped to a chair, on the opposite side of the table. There were several men in the room, all armed.

“Hey, Doctor,” came a voice from behind. “She’s awake.”

She tried to turn her head, but a sudden pain stopped her. She closed her eyes, tried to steady herself. She and Nora had been captured. They were back in the lodge. Where were the Pullers?

“Open your eyes.”

She opened them. The figure of a man loomed in front of her. He tapped her face with his fingers. “Hey. Wake up.” He gave her a slightly harder slap.

She tried to focus on his face. Now he slapped her hard, sending pain shooting through her head.

“Hey!”

Instead of spinning her back into a sickening dizziness, the pain and rough handling helped clear her head. She concentrated on the face in front of her: hollow, prominent cheekbones, thin lips, narrow eyes. Early forties. She didn’t recognize the face, but the voice was familiar. Corrie realized it was Alex DeGregorio, whom she’d spoken to on the phone.

“What,” she mumbled.

“Pull yourself together,” he said. “We’ve got business.” Another slap. “Paying attention now?”

Corrie stared at him. “It’s all in the journal,” she managed to say. “You . . . you did it.”

“You mean this?” The man held up the scuffed leather journal, tossed it on the table. “Where’s the camera?”

Corrie glanced over at Nora. She was awake and staring back at her. Her mouth had been taped so she couldn’t speak, but her eyes were wide. She could now see that, in addition to herself, Corrie, and DeGregorio, there were a total of four other men in the room, looking back at her with grim faces.

“Where are the Pullers?” she asked.

DeGregorio glanced over to the doorway to the kitchen. Corrie followed his gaze and saw a heavy spattering of blood across the doorframe, congealing into a large pool on the floor. Sickened and aghast, she turned back to him.

“You killed them?”

He leaned closer to her. “I want the camera. Where is it?”

Corrie stared at him in confusion. Then she looked at Nora. She remembered the archaeologist slinging the camera around her neck—or did she? It wasn’t around her neck now. Her pack was lying on the floor, open, contents strewn about.

Where was the camera?

“No idea,” said Corrie.

At this, DeGregorio struck her across the cheek so hard it wrenched her head around and caused her vision to momentarily falter. She gasped, drawing in air, as the throbbing slowly diminished.

DeGregorio removed a gun from his waistband and pushed the cold steel muzzle into her ear. A couple of the other men moved closer.

“Where’s the camera?”

“I’m not lying. I really don’t know.”

Another blow. As she recovered her senses, she heard DeGregorio’s voice, as if at a distance. “Next time, it’ll be a bullet in the knee.”

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