Page 46 of Smoky Lake

But dream-Ani wasn’t taking him seriously. She was offering him water and Tylenol when he needed something more. He needed her attention. He needed her to listen. Everything red, everything dead. Everything red, everything dead. He kept repeating it, over and over.

She woke up with a gasp.

For a wild moment she had no idea where she was. Where was her comfortable king-size bed with the white leather headboard? Where were the sliding doors that led onto the side patio? Where was the framed image of Ganesha that her grandmother had given her to bless her marriage?

In storage. That was where. All of it in storage. Possessions, packed away. House, sold. Marriage, undone.

A hand tightened on her thigh. Gil. Right. The mists cleared and she adjusted her seat so she was upright again.

“You okay?”

“Yes, just…I was dreaming about Victor.” She took off the baseball cap and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “I think my subconscious thinks we’re missing something.”

“Any hints?”

“It has to do with Victor and the notes he was writing.” She looked out the window and saw a nearly empty highway and an open landscape of tall grasses and wildflowers, with foothills rising on the horizon. “Where are we?”

“Halfway to Fairbanks. The good news is that no one is following us.”

“What’s the bad news?”

He gave her a rueful smile. “Basically all the rest of it.”

No, she thought. It wasn’t all bad news. Gil was sitting next to her, relaxed but alert, one strong hand on the steering wheel, the other on her leg. Her injured leg, the one that had endured so much, but still served her as well as it could.

I’m in good hands, she realized. And I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that way before.

“My leg,” she said abruptly.

He glanced at her and pulled his hand away. “Sorry, is it hurting?”

“No no. Not at all. You can put your hand back.” When he hesitated, she grabbed his hand and planted it back where it was. Maybe a little higher on her thigh. “I want to tell you what happened.”

“You don’t have to, I shouldn’t have pried when I asked about it.”

“Do you want to know?” She didn’t tell the story very often. John had already known, of course, because everyone at school knew. So did her friends. When she’d started fertility treatments, her doctors had needed a complete medical history. They knew. Occasionally one of the children at the clinic would ask her why she limped. She always told them that she’d gotten hurt as a child, and so she knew what it was like to need some help.

“Yes, but only if you want to tell me,” Gil said. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“Are you okay feeling uncomfortable?”

“I’m used to it. Ever try standing guard outside a marathon diplomatic session at The Hague that might not ever end?”

“Obviously not. But I’m not talking about physical discomfort. This is a hard story.”

“Lay it on me. I can handle it.”

Okay then. If he thought he could handle it, who was she to say otherwise? “At the age of twelve, I was…well, someone tried to snatch me off the street. I was walking home from school with my earbuds on. I guess he yelled something at me first, but I didn’t hear or understand. Then he pulled over right in front of me and tried to yank me into the car.”

She stopped to take a breath. Her heart was hammering away the way it always did when she talked about it.

“He yelled horrible things at me like I wasn’t even human. I knew he wanted to hurt me, or kill me, or both. He had a gun on the seat next to him and I had no doubt that he’d use it.”

She didn’t dare glance at Gil, but kept her gaze fixed on the curves of the highway unfurling before them. Hills rose on either side of them now. They must be approaching Denali Park.

“I knew that if I got in the car, I’d be dead. Somehow I managed to get loose from him but he put the car in reverse and chased me onto the sidewalk and ran me over. He crushed my leg under his back tire. I didn’t go unconscious, I don’t know why. I should have, just from the pain. I was screaming, frantic. Then he rolled forward, off of me, and I heard horns honking and tires screeching.”

She paused again, checking to make sure he was still with her.

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