Page 7 of Saving Mr. Bell

Arlo threw it between the seats, and I caught it. Next came a bottle of water. “It’s not drugged,” he said when I eyed it warily.

“Course not,” I retorted. “I never thought it was.”

Arlo’s snort as he started the engine said I wasn’t convincing anyone. I drank half the water in a series of long gulps before tucking the blanket around me. I had it, so why not? There was no point in being cold if I didn’t need to be. “At least tell me where you’re taking me.”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

I didn’t expect to sleep, but there was something about the movement of the car and the warmth of the blanket that made me drowsy. The lateness of the hour and the amount of alcohol I’d imbibed probably had something to do with it as well. Besides, there was nothing else to do. I couldn’t look at my phone because Arlo refused to give it back, and he’d lapsed into silence, the dark, winding road demanding all his concentration.

When I woke, the world had turned white. I jerked upright, wondering if I was dreaming. But no, it really had turned white.

“It’s snowing,” Arlo said, strain present in his voice.

“I can see that. Why?”

“It’s cold enough that the water vapor in the clouds has frozen. Therefore, instead of rain, we get snow. Most people think it’s frozen rain, but it skips that stage altogether and—”

I cut into the science lesson before he could bore me back to sleep. “That’s not what I meant.” I didn’t really know what I’d meant. Only that things were going from bad to worse. I could barely see the road, the flakes large and heavy enough that they obscured what little visibility hadn’t already been stolen by the encroaching darkness. “Should you be driving in this?”

“Probably not,” Arlo said, his cheerfulness at odds with the way he hunched over the steering wheel. “But do you really want to stop here?”

Here, was more trees on either side of the road and nothing else. “I want to be in my luxury hotel suite in Salzburg with central heating and room service. But what I want doesn’t seem to matter to you.”

Arlo didn’t respond. I stayed awake for the rest of the trip, worried that if I dropped off to sleep again, I might miss the part where we skidded off the road and ended up in an icy ravine. The road only got bumpier and the snow heavier until I gripped the seat and wondered if it was too late to find religion and start praying.

“Bad weather wasn’t forecast,” Arlo said out of the blue. “I checked, and it wasn’t supposed to happen for a few more days.”

“We should sue,” I said just as the car hit a pothole and launched me into the air for a few seconds before I crashed back down.

“Yeah,” Arlo agreed.

When the car rolled to a stop ten minutes later, I didn’t know who was more relieved, me, or the man behind the steering wheel taking in air like he’d been holding his breath for the last twenty miles. After what felt like an age, he sat up straighter. “Are you ready to run?”

Once upon a time, I’d watched a horror film about a group of bored businessmen who’d gotten their kicks by luring tourists to a remote location and then hunting them. It’d been an absolute gore fest, the tourists meeting a grizzly end one by one, until only one survived to raise the alarm. Is that what this was? Was Arlo making a documentary on sick fucks who got off on torturing people? Why me? Did someone hate me enough that they’d requested me, like a menu, but for people rather than food? “Will you chase me?”Will somebody else chase me while you film?

Arlo frowned. “What? I just thought you’d want to get inside quickly out of the snow.” He gestured out of the window and I saw what I’d missed while I’d been letting my imagination run away with me, namely an old-fashioned log cabin.

“Tada!” Arlo said. “We got here safe and sound. It took longer than I expected because of the snow, but better late than never.”

“And here is?” Him not bothering to answer didn’t come as a surprise. That seemed to be his modus operandi, to only answer the questions he wanted to.

Arlo unclicked his seatbelt. “It’s either come in, or stay in the car.”

Yeah, I’d already worked that out. I just hadn’t decided which option was preferable. I checked my watch. Four in the morning. Which meant the entire journey had taken less than two hours. It seemed longer. I must have only slept for about an hour. I eyed the log cabin with some trepidation, still not entirely sure it wouldn’t harbor a group of bloodthirsty businessmen who wanted to cut off my fingers and string me up from the ceiling. Perhaps I needed to stop watching horror films.

Chapter Four

Arlo

We both ran. The good thing about snow was being able to shake most of it off before it melted. I’d take snow over rain any day for that reason. Although a couple of hairy moments on the drive here where the car had been difficult to control had nearly changed my mind on that score.

With me not being a hundred percent sure I’d make it back tonight, either alone or with a companion, I hadn’t left a lighton in the cabin. I had left the wood burner going, though, the interior of the cabin warm and toasty as we stepped inside. I flicked on the light, relieved to see the blizzard hadn’t left us without electricity. While I stamped the snow off my boots, Rudolf turned in a slow circle. “Who else is here?” he asked.

“Just us.”

“Right.”

I couldn’t tell whether it was a relieved ‘right,’ or one wishing there was someone else here. “I’ll give you a tour.” It was a reasonably sized cabin. It ought to be for the amount I’d paid for it. The object that resided in the other room had overridden my original wish list of what I’d been looking for when I’d set out to rent a cabin in Austria relatively close to Salzburg. The way I’d seen it, it was fate—the universe’s way of telling me that what I was doing was the right thing.

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