MORNING COMES SLOWLY. Overnight, the falling snow, so peaceful, has turned to sleet, coating everything in brittle ice, making the landscape even more dangerous to navigate. It seems everything is about to snap. Inside the inn, there’s a distinct chill in the air.
Lauren rises early, freezing, even with the warmth of Ian pressed up beside her. Her neck is stiff. She gets out of bed, shivering, and hurries to put warm clothes on, wondering why it’s so damn cold. She slips on jeans, a T-shirt, a heavy sweater, warm socks. They hadn’t closed the curtains before they went to bed, and now she glances out of the front window to the landscape below. Even though it’s still quite dark, she can see that the branches of the huge tree in the front yard are bent, weighted down with ice. She sees where one of them has broken off; there’s a large, pale gash where it has been ripped from the trunk. The heavy limb lies broken in three separate pieces on the ground below.
She walks quietly into the bathroom, leaving the door open. She doesn’t want to turn on the light – she doesn’t want to wake Ian. It’s damn cold. She brushes her hair quickly. Her illuminated watch face says it’s just before six. She wonders what time the staff get up and start their day.
She glances back at Ian snoring in their bed, only his head showing above the covers. He won’t be up for a while. She opens the door quietly. It’s dark in the corridor; the lights in the wall sconces are out. She slips out and walks down the second-floor hall to the main stairs in her thick socks. She doesn’t want to wake anyone. She turns towards the staircase to the lobby, wondering how long it will be before she can get a cup of coffee.
Saturday, 6:03 AM
Riley wakes suddenly, sitting up abruptly in bed, eyes wide open. She thinks she’s heard a scream – loud and piercing. Her heart is pounding, and she can feel the familiar adrenaline surging through her body. She glances quickly around the dim hotel room and remembers where she is. She turns to the other bed beside her, throwing aside the bedcovers, and is immediately accosted by the cold. Gwen is awake, too, and alert.
‘What’s going on?’ Gwen says. ‘I thought I heard something.’
‘I don’t know. I heard it, too.’
For a moment they remain perfectly still, listening. They hear a woman’s voice, shouting.
Riley throws her legs over the bed and pulls on her robe against the chill, while Gwen scrambles to do the same, saying, ‘Wait for me.’
Riley grabs the key as the two of them slip out of the door. The second-floor corridor is unexpectedly dark, and they stop suddenly, disoriented. Riley remembers that she needs to talk to Gwen about last night, but now is not the time. She’s just grateful to have Gwen here with her. She doesn’t know what she would do if anything happened to Gwen.
‘The power must be out,’ Gwen says.
Riley and Gwen make their way to the grand staircase, barefoot. Holding on to the polished rail, they race down the stairs as other footsteps can be heard running in the darkened hotel.
Then Riley stops abruptly. The faint light coming in through the front windows illuminates a ghastly sight below her. Dana lies sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, perfectly still, her limbs in an unnatural position beneath her navy satin robe. Her lovely, long dark hair spills all around her, but her face has an unmistakable pallor. She knows immediately that Dana is dead.
Lauren is kneeling on the floor beside her, leaning over her, her hand pressed against Dana’s neck, feeling for a pulse. She looks up at them, stricken. ‘I just found her.’ Her voice is strained.
Riley continues slowly down the stairs until she is standing on the last step, right above the body. She can feel Gwen’s presence behind her, hears her broken sob.
‘Was that you who screamed?’ Riley asks.
Lauren nods, tearful.
Riley notices Bradley and his father, James, standing nearby. James is staring at the body of the dead woman at the bottom of his staircase, his face slack with shock. Bradley seems unable to look at Dana, staring at Lauren instead as she hovers over the body. Then James moves forward and reaches down hesitantly.
‘She’s dead,’ Lauren tells him.
He pulls his hand back, almost gratefully.
David hears the scream and jumps out of bed. He throws on a bathrobe, grabs his key, and leaves his room. At the top of the landing he pauses and looks down at the ragged little gathering below. He sees Dana – clearly dead – lying at the foot of the stairs in her bathrobe, Lauren beside her. Riley and Gwen have their backs to him. James is pale and Bradley looks suddenly much younger than he did last night. David hears a noise above him, glances up quickly, and sees Henry and Beverly coming after him, also still in their pyjamas, drawing their robes closed and tying them shut.
‘What happened?’ David says, hurrying down the stairs.
‘We don’t know,’ James says, his voice shaking. ‘It looks like she fell down the stairs.’
David comes closer.
‘I couldn’t find a pulse,’ Lauren says.
David squats down and studies the body without touching it, a grimness taking hold of him. Finally he says, ‘She’s been dead for a while. She must have fallen in the middle of the night.’ He wonders aloud, ‘Why would she have been out of her room?’ He’s noted the terrible gash on the side of her head, the blood on the edge of the bottom step. He takes it all in with a practised eye, and feels unaccountably weary.
‘Dear God,’ Beverly whispers. ‘That poor girl.’
David looks up at the rest of them. Beverly has turned her face away, but Henry is staring solemnly at the body. David glances at Gwen – her face is tear-stained, and her lower lip is trembling. He longs to comfort her, but he doesn’t. Riley’s staring at the dead woman as if she can’t tear her eyes away. He notices then that Matthew is missing.
‘Someone has to tell Matthew,’ he says, his heart sinking, knowing it will probably be him. He takes one more look at James and then at all the stricken faces now staring back at him as they remember Matthew. ‘I’ll do it.’ Standing up, he adds, ‘We’d better call the police.’
‘We can’t,’ James says harshly. ‘The power’s out. And the phone. We can’t contact the police.’
‘Then someone has to go and get them,’ David says.
‘How?’ Bradley asks. ‘Look outside. Everything is a sheet of ice.’
James shakes his head slowly. ‘The power lines must be down because of the ice storm. It’s hazardous out there. Nobody’s going anywhere.’ He adds, his voice taking on an uncertain note, ‘It’s probably going to be a while before the police can get here.’
Candice’s alarm on her mobile phone is set to go off promptly every morning at six thirty. She’s nothing if not disciplined. She is a light sleeper, however, and this morning something wakes her before the alarm sounds. She’s not sure what. She hears footsteps running along the hall below her, raised voices.