Page 160 of The Edge

So Devine went down to Hell. Sometimes it was as simple as that.

* * *

Alex blinked once, twice, and then managed to keep her eyes open. She rubbed at her arm where it hurt and felt the slender mattress under her. She didn’t remember much. Lying in her bed trying to sleep and then waking up and being surprised to find a masked person looming over her. She had dressed hastily, at the intruder’s instructions.

Then, at some point, it all went blank.

Like when she had woken up in that field near the woods. After having been...

Alex felt around the darkened space with one of her hands, but feeling clumsy and slow; her fingers weren’t really registering what they were touching. She shivered because it was cold. She clearly sensed this was not a safe place, but seemed to lack the energy to do anything about it.

She strained to hear any noise, someone else’s breathing, movement, a car, or plane, or even the smell of the ocean. Alex understood she should be afraid, fearful for her life. Deep inside her fuzzy thoughts she had concluded that this was connected to what had happened to her fifteen years before.

She lay back on the mattress. In her mind she saw the image she had started to sketch. The man who had attacked her, robbed her of much of her life, made her afraid to do the things that anyone would want to do: travel, get a job, make friends, find romantic companionship. She had decided that her art might lead her mind to pluck the memory out of her, freeing it and her at last. Alex had finally concluded that the limbo she was in could only be broken by remembering who had done this to her. Then, and only then, could she move on with her life.

She hadn’t gotten far on it, but she had commenced the painful journey, letting her mind guide her hand, going back over familiar, and yet unfamiliar, ground. A line here, a shadow there. She felt it coming together, she really did. This represented progress when she had been at a standstill for so long.

And now?

Will I not get a chance to finish? Will I not get a chance to keep on living?

She covered her face with her arm where the needle had gone in, to deepen the darkness even more. Alex felt herself shrinking away, to nothing.

Then she heard someone coming.

CHAPTER

78

THE STAIRS TO THE LOWERlevel emptied into a large room set up with an old-fashioned bar, and billiard and ping-pong tables. Behind a set of leather-covered double doors Devine found an elaborate home movie theater. There was also a lavish bathroom, and a well-equipped gym and sauna. Next to these spaces was a wine cellar with a glass door that allowed Devine to see that it was empty of anything except wine.

He reached one end of the basement, found nothing useful, and turned to go the other way.

He searched quickly but comprehensively, calling out Alex’s name periodically. At the opposite end of the basement was a large ceramic wall with each block about two feet square. Set at one end of the wall was a large hanging clock. On the other end was a floor-to-ceiling mirror. In the middle of the wall recessed shelves held vases and knickknacks, and another section contained rows of photographs of what looked to be the Maine coastline.

Shit, was I completely wrong about all of this, thought Devine. But then he still had the upstairs to search.

Heaven. Is Alex in heaven?

Depressed, he put one hand against the wall, dropped his head, and noted his muddy feet. He had tracked dirt in on the highly polished marble floors.

Forensic evidence to nail me on a felony.

And then his gaze drifted to the set of footprints that were situated right in front of the wall, where the recessed shelves were. Those were not his. They weren’t muddy, and they were bigger than his. And there was another, even more critical, difference.

They are headingoutof the wall.

Devine instantly started running his fingers along the ceramic blocks, grabbing every crevice that he could find. He did the same with the knickknacks but found them secured to their spots on the shelves. And then he found the pictures were fastened in place as well.

He looked at the clock. The hands were set at six and twelve. He put his ear to the clock. He heard nothing. Thinking quickly, he took the hand on the six and moved it to twelve to match the other hand.

There was an audible click, and a door-size section of the wall opened up on stainless steel pivot pins.

Devine held his gun in front of him and peered around the doorway. He couldn’t see much because there was little light. He did a silent count to three and plunged in, his Glock making wide arcs as his gaze swept for threats.

Devine had imagined many things this space might contain, some outlandish, others quite possible. He had never thought of anything like this.

A hospital bed was tucked against one corner. It was empty. Next to the bed was an IV stand with empty bags on hooks. An automated medication dispenser was also attached to the IV stand. It had been turned off.

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