Cemetery Dance

Chapter 81

In the mildewed dark, Nora waited. Her head throbbed fiercely; just moving it sent a lance of pain searing from temple to temple. Her jailer had aggravated her concussion with that blow to the head. Despite the pain, she had to fight against a heavy torpor that threatened to overwhelm her. How many hours had passed? Twenty — four? Thirty — six? Strange how the dark preyed on one's perception of time.

She lay propped up against the wall, on one side of the door, awaiting her jailer's return, wondering if she would have the energy to attack him when he did. She had to admit to herself it was hopeless — the trick hadn't worked the first time and it would hardly work a second. But what other course was there? If she remained anywhere else in the room, he could shoot her through the window. She knew her jailer wasn't going to release her. He was keeping her alive for some obscure purpose, and when that purpose was complete, he would kill her.

In the black silence, her thoughts wandered. Into her mind came the image of a black limo at the marina in the tiny town of Page, Arizona, the red bluffs of Lake Powell rising in the background and the sky overhead a cloudless bowl of perfect blue. Heat rose from the parking lot in shimmering waves. The door of the limo opened and a lanky man climbed awkwardly out of it, dusted himself off, and straightened up. He looked silly in his Ray — Bans, his brown hair sticking out in multiple directions. He stooped slightly, as if embarrassed by his tallness; she recalled his aquiline nose, his long and lean face, and the squinting, perplexed, yet confident way he took in his surroundings. It was her first glimpse of the man who would become her husband, who had joined her archaeological expedition to the canyon country of Utah as the resident journalist. Right away she had thought him an ass. Only later did she learn he kept his better qualities, his wonderful qualities, deeply buried, as if mildly ashamed of them.

Other random memories drifted through her mind from those first days in Utah: Bill, calling her Madam Chairman. Bill, climbing on his horse, Hurricane Deck, cursing and swearing as the horse danced around. These recollections segued into memories of their early life together in New York: Bill, spilling brandy sauce on his new suit at Café des Artistes. Bill, decked out as a bum in order to sneak into a building site at night where thirty — six bodies had been found. Bill, lying in the hospital bed after being rescued from Leng… The images came unbidden, unwelcome and yet strangely comforting. No longer having the energy to resist, she let them pass through her memory as she drifted into a state midway between sleep and wakefulness. Now, at this extremity, her own life destined to end at any moment, she seemed somehow finally able to come to terms with her loss.

She was torn back to the present by a muffled rumble, a deep vibration both in the air and through the walls. She sat up, suddenly alert, headache temporarily forgotten. The rumble went on and on before dying away into silence. Minutes later, it was followed with the loudboom! boom! of two gunshots in rapid succession, followed by a pause, and then a third.

The shock of the sounds, so loud and sudden after such lengthy silence, galvanized her. Something was happening, and this might be her only chance to act. She tensed, listening intently. At first faintly, and then more pronounced, came the sounds of something heavy being dragged over the cellar floor. A grunt, a pause, more dragging. Silence. And then the sound of the grate in her door being opened.

The voice of her jailer rang out. "Got a visitor!"

Nora did not move.

A light shined in through the opening, the black bars of the grate thrown into relief against the far wall.

Still Nora waited. To force him to enter and then make her attack — it was her only chance.

She heard a key in the lock, saw the door swing partway open. But instead of stepping in, her jailer flopped something on the floor — a body — and immediately backed out, slamming the door behind him. In the retreating light she stared at the body's face, silhouetted in the light from the grate: the chiseled features, high cheekbones, marble skin and fine hair; the eyes like slits showing only the whites; dust and blood caked in the hair; the once black suit now a powdery gray, rumpled and torn; a pool of dark blood still spreading across his shirt.

Pendergast. Dead.

She cried out in surprise and dismay.

"Friend of yours?" the voice jeered through the grate. The lock turned, the padlock rattled, and darkness returned once again.