Abandon

She turned left, climbed twenty steps, already breathless.

In the lobby, a man yelled, “Where’d she go?”

She reached the second floor.

Left or right?

She went left, then right, heard footfalls racing up the steps behind her as she came to an intersection of corridors and stairs.

Left, right, or climb?

She turned left, sprinting down a hall—pink walls, white trim, white doors, squeakiest floor she’d ever encountered, past room 201, under a chandelier with two fried bulbs, room 202, then a series of black-and-white photographs of old steam engines, room 203, right turn, long, narrow hallway: 214, 215, 216, 217.

It dead-ended at a door with a sign under the metal handle: DO NOT OPEN. FIRE DOOR ONLY. WILL SET OFF ALARM.

Bursting through into icy rain, the alarm wailing, Abigail stood on a fire escape that overlooked a sparsely populated parking lot, the globules of slush glittering under the yellow streetlamps like jewels on the hoods and windshields.

She glanced back through the glass-paned door, didn’t see him coming, prayed he’d taken a wrong turn in the maze of corridors.

She dropped to her hands and knees, lowering herself down the slippery ladder, and as her feet touched the pavement, the fire door banged open above her.

She crawled into the shadow of a nearby Dumpster. The ladder’s metal rungs resonated under the impact of his boots.

He hit the ground.

From where she crouched, she could only see his breath pluming in the floodlights.

She reached down, felt the hard bulge of the Ruger in the side pocket of her jacket, but it was zipped in and she didn’t want to risk the noise.

Ice pinged the Dumpster’s metal lid.

Quinn stepped a little farther out into the parking lot. Abigail wondered if the shadow where she squatted was as dark as she thought.

He stood there for some time, motionless.

The floodlights cut off, and she couldn’t see him anymore.

When they came on thirty seconds later, Quinn was gone.

Abigail got up and jogged through the parking lot, away from the illumination of streetlamps, the blaring alarm, into a dirt road cratered with puddles icing over.

Silverton at this hour consisted of cold and darkness and the isolated lights of little Victorian houses, some run-down and vacant since the mining bust, others polished up and slathered with bright paint by mountain-worshiping Yuppies.

She ran up Reese, blinded by sweat and freezing water that trailed down the back of her neck and along the curved ridge of her spine.

Somewhere in the dark, a truck engine mumbled.

She glanced over her shoulder, saw twin light beams slash through the pouring rain, the Bronco speeding up Twelfth Street.

She ran harder, splashing through puddles crusted with paper-thin ice.

A dog yapped at her through the window of a nearby house, and several blocks away, the courthouse clock tolled 8:00 P.M.

One street up, the Bronco bounced along a dirt road. She saw it streak between the houses, make a right turn onto Thirteenth, then haul ass for a block before initiating another hard right, the high beams now blasting head-on, accompanied by the roaring engine.

She dived off the street, her head just missing a mailbox, then flattened herself in wet grass against a chain-link fence as the Bronco screamed past, mud slinging into her hair, slopping down all over her clothes.

Abigail waited, listening to the engine dwindle up the road and the distant fire alarm and the deep, almost imperceptible static of the Animas River on the opposite side of town, running low in advance of winter.

When the Bronco turned onto another street, she struggled to her feet and wiped the mud out of her eyes and went on, soon crossing the intersection of Reese and Thirteenth, every footfall sending new shoots of pain up into her tailbone.

Another minute brought her to Fourteenth, where she veered left at an abandoned brick building and ran for one long block past decrepit white Victorians and a double-wide into Snowden, another muddy road, rougher and more washboarded than Reese.

She looked around—just the faint drone of the fire alarm, like some psychotic mewling cat, and shards of house light, the air permeated with the rain-mellowed odor of wood smoke, and thirty yards on, at the end of a gravel drive, blades of porch light lying in triangles upon a Ford Expedition with a modest suspension lift, giant tires, a wench, and a light bar mounted on the roof.

Two blocks down, the Bronco turned onto Fourteenth, barreling toward her.

She wept from the pain as she staggered up the drive, passing the driver’s door of the Expedition—gold-emblazoned with SAN JUAN COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT.

EIGHTY-SEVEN

Abigail reached the front porch of the Victorian—cherry, with yellow trim, Tibetan prayer flags strung between the gutter and a cluster of skinny aspen, a circular stained-glass window on the second floor, backlit with firelight, chairs in the yard fashioned out of old skis.

She pounded on the front door and, looking through the inset of curtained glass, saw a light flick on, heard footsteps crossing a hardwood floor that squeaked and groaned.

A bolt turned, a chain slid out, flopped against the door frame, hinges creaking, and there stood that petite, beautiful woman who’d hassled Scott over his fishing license four days ago at the trailhead, though no braided pigtails this time. No Stetson or parka. Just a woman in a pink satin nightgown and sheepskin slippers, hair pinned up with chopsticks, breath spiced with the faintest glimmer of vodka.

“Help you with something?” she asked.

Abigail’s knees buckled. She sat down hard on the porch.

“What’s wrong?”

Abigail couldn’t speak, just pointed back toward Fourteenth, but there were no oncoming headlights, only streetlamps and darkness.

The sheriff squatted down in the threshold of the door.

“You were with that group headed out to Abandon. Last Sunday, right?”

“Yes.”

“Your face is frostbit. What happened?”

“Please, just . . . get me inside.”

The sheriff helped her to stand, then, with her arm around her waist, walked Abigail into the house and shut the door.

“Do the locks,” Abigail said.

As the sheriff relocked the door, Abigail tried to unzip her muddy jacket, but her hands trembled too much to grasp the zipper.

“Let me help with that,” the sheriff said.

“Thank you. What’s your name?”

“Jennifer.”

“I’m Abigail.”

Abigail pulled her arms out of the sleeves, and Jennifer took the jacket and hung it from the coatrack. Then she guided Abigail through the foyer, past the staircase, and up a dark hallway into the kitchen.