Because even Gerard could not fully comprehend it.
But the pickup truck wasn’t here to rescue anyone. Just the opposite.
From this distance, he could make out a woman in the back of the truck. She wore a bright yellow sundress. That much he could see. The sundress was so out of place among this horror that Gerard could actually feel a tear well up in his eye. He pictured Vanessa in a bright yellow sundress like that. He could see her slipping it on, turning toward him, smiling in a way that would thump-thump right into his chest. He could see Vanessa in that bright yellow sundress, and it made him think of everything else beautiful in the world. He thought about growing up in Vermont. He thought about how his father loved to take him ice fishing when he was little. He thought about how his father died when Gerard was only eight years old and how that really changed everything, but mostly how it destroyed his mom. He thought about her boyfriends, dirty horrible men, and how all of them dismissed Gerard as a weird kid or worse. He thought about how he had been bullied in school, the last kid picked for kickball, the laughs and the taunts and the abuse. He thought about how his attic bedroom had become the escape, how he would make it dark and just lie on the bed, how that box underground sometimes didn’t feel so much different, how, as he grew up, the science lab would start serving the same function. He thought about his mother growing older and losing her looks, and then the men were gone and so she came to live with him, cooking for him, doting on him, being such a large part of his life. He thought about how she died of cancer two years ago, leaving him completely alone, and how Vanessa had found him and brought beauty—color like in that bright yellow sundress—into his life and how very soon it would all be gone.
The truck did not stop. It vanished in a cloud of dust.
“Gerard?”
Titus never screamed. He never got angry or threatened violence. He didn’t have to. Gerard had met men who commanded respect, who walked into a room and immediately took control of it. Titus was like that. His even tone somehow grabbed you by the lapels and made you obey.
Gerard turned toward him.
“Come.”
Titus disappeared back into the farmhouse. Gerard followed him.
An hour later, Gerard started back down the path. His gait was unsteady. He began to shake. He didn’t want to go back into that damned box. Promises had been made, of course. The way back to Vanessa, Titus had promised him, was to cooperate. He did not know what to believe anymore, but really, did it matter?
Gerard once again considered making a run for it. He once again dismissed it as nonsense.
When he reached the clearing, the Muscled Man stopped playing with his chocolate Lab and gave him an order in what Gerard believed was Portuguese. The dog ran up the path and out of sight. The Muscled Man pointed a gun at Gerard. Gerard had been through this routine before. Muscled Man would keep the gun on him as Gerard entered the box. Muscled Man would close the door and throw on the lock.
Darkness would smother him again.
But there was something different this time. Gerard could see it in the man’s eyes.
“Vanessa,” Gerard said softly to himself. He had taken to repeating her name, almost like a mantra, something to calm and soothe him, like his mother at the end with her rosary beads.
“This way,” Muscled Man said. He pointed with his gun toward the right.
“Where are we going?”
“This way.”
“Where are we going?” Gerard said again.
Muscled Man walked up to Gerard and put the gun against his head.
“This. Way.”
He started toward the right. He had been here before—it was the spot where he washed off with the hose and changed into this jumpsuit.
“Keep going.”
“Vanessa . . .”
“Yep. Keep walking.”
Gerard trekked up past the hose. Muscled Man stayed two steps behind, the gun pointed at Gerard’s back.
“Don’t stop. Almost there.”
Up ahead, Gerard could see a smaller clearing. He frowned, confused. He took one more step, saw it, and froze.
“Keep going.”
He didn’t. He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He didn’t even breathe.
To his left—next to a thick oak tree—was a pile of clothes. Lots of clothes, like someone was waiting to do laundry. It was hard to say how many outfits. Ten. Maybe more. He could even see the gray suit he’d been wearing on his way to Logan Airport.
How many of us . . . ?
But his gray suit and even the sheer height of the pile wasn’t what drew his eye. That wasn’t what made him pull up, stop, and let the truth finally crash over him hard. No, it wasn’t the volume of clothes. It was one article of clothing, sitting atop the pile like a cake decoration, that shattered his world into a million pieces.
A bright yellow sundress.
Gerard closed his eyes. His life actually did pass before his eyes—the life he had, the life he almost had—before the blast ushered the darkness back in, this time forever.
Chapter 11
Two weeks later, Kat was finishing up some paperwork in the precinct when Stacy stormed in like a Doppler-tracked weather system. Heads turned. Tongues lolled. Most higher-level brain activity ceased. Simply put, nothing lowers a man’s IQ like a curvaceous woman. Chaz Faircloth, who was sadly still Kat’s partner, straightened his perfectly straightened tie. He started toward her, but Stacy shot him a look that knocked him back a step.
“Lunch at the Carlyle,” Stacy said. “I’m buying.”
“Deal.”
Kat started to sign off her computer.
“So how did your date go last night?” Stacy asked.
“I hate you,” Kat said.
“Yet you’ll still have lunch with me.”
“You said you were buying.”
Kat’s first three dates from YouAreJustMyType were unfailingly polite, nicely dressed, and, well, blah. No sparks, no sizzle, just . . . nothing. Last night—her fourth in the two weeks since Jeff had semi-redumped her—had given her early hope. She and Stan Something—no reason to memorize the last name until she reached the so-far-unreachable Second Date—had been walking on West 69th Street, heading to Telepan restaurant, when Stan asked:
“Are you a Woody Allen fan?”
Kat felt her heart flutter. She loved Woody Allen. “Very much so.”
“How about Annie Hall? You ever see Annie Hall?”
It was only one of her favorite movies of all time. “Of course.”
Stan laughed, stopped walking. “You remember that scene when Alvy’s going on his first date with Annie and he says something about them kissing before the date so they could relax?”