23

I awoke in a cold sweat.

Sprang up from the couch. Despite everything, I’d zonked out. First time in days.

Nightmares. Real ones this time.

Black Suit, creeping up the stairs, and me with nowhere to run. Black Suit, stalking me through the halls of Fire Lake High, whistling tunelessly as I scrambled for a hiding place. He was everywhere. Inescapable. Implacable.

I hurried to my father’s office. Checked the security feeds. Nothing. All clear. I collapsed into an oversized reading chair. Blowing out a ragged breath, I tried to think rationally. Black Suit was alive, but that didn’t mean our pattern was suddenly meaningless. There was no reason to think he’d show up for a special “bonus” slaying tonight.

Then another thought struck me, and I sat up straight.

Black Suit was a real person. Which meant he had to eat, and sleep. Which meant, logically, he had to be staying somewhere. In the valley, almost certainly—it was thirty miles to the closest town with guest rooms.

I can probably find him.

My father owned the largest resort in Fire Lake, and could access the integrated booking system used by every bed-and-breakfast and hotel in town. Normally that wouldn’t help much—most places stayed at least half full, even in fall—but this year the Anvil had kept nearly everyone at home. Active reservations were scarce.

I logged in as my father. His password was a joke: EQUITY. The name of his first boat. Though forced to use them, Hunter Livingston disdained computers and the silly “online webs,” mainly because he was hopeless with technology. Despising things he didn’t understand was one of his favorite pastimes.

Inside the system, I found what I’d expected: blank ledgers across the grid. There were less than a dozen reservations, and half had been canceled. The rest were easily dismissible to someone familiar with our town. I didn’t know much about Black Suit, but you couldn’t keep a low profile at Waterfront Court, especially when no one else was staying there.

Disappointed, I tapped a few more keys. Nearly gasped.

There was a single booking at Powder Ridge Ski Lodge.

My father’s resort.

“What is this . . .” I pulled the listing. A one-bedroom suite was blocked out by special code. Indefinitely. Even more strangely, the reservation was in the boutique chalet at the top of the slopes rather than the main lodge at the base of the mountain.

My fingers drummed the desktop. Rooms up there weren’t usually available out of season. Known as Chimney Rock, the facility was summerized from June until the first good snow, usually sometime in mid-October.

I sat back. Why would anyone be up there now? It was well out of the way, and there were cheaper places by the lake. Plus, the mountaintop village was closed. Literally everything you’d need was ten minutes downslope.

My shoulders tensed. The more I considered logistics, the less sense it made. There was no good reason for anyone to stay there this time of year. Unless you’re trying to go unnoticed.

My hands began to tremble. This was it. I’d found him.

New questions dog-piled. Who made this reservation? It didn’t follow the proper format. Which meant my dad had probably keyed it in personally, something he rarely did.

I went cold.

Had my father booked a room for my killer?

My breathing quickened. It all felt too big for me. Like I was juggling thirty knives at once. What did I know about conspiracies? I was the dope who’d listened to Dr. Lowell for years!

Min didn’t. She figured that bastard out.

I had a sudden impulse to find her. Min said she had information that something big was going down. Maybe we could figure it out together.

You mean she could figure it out for you.

The self-reproach was like a slap. I didn’t know anything yet. Had nothing but a hotel reservation. What would I actually tell Min? That I maybe sorta kinda thought a bad guy was staying on the mountaintop? That I needed her to check on it for me?

I’m going there.

I stood abruptly, terrified by my snap decision. But the idea firmed in my mind.

Black Suit always came for me. Found me. Killed me.

He was always the hunter.

But this time the story would be different. Screw the consequences.

I was coming for him.

•   •   •

I took the Tahoe. It’s black with tinted windows, and runs quiet. The drive is longer heading counterclockwise around the lake, but I didn’t want to be seen. Even that early—the dashboard said 6:58 a.m.—people might be up and about in town.

Plus, there was a loaded Beretta M9 resting on the passenger seat.

I’d waited two hours before leaving, anxiously pacing the house, timing my drive up the mountain so that the sun would crest as I reached its apex. I wanted to catch Black Suit unaware. See him in the flesh a second time. But perhaps even more than that, I wanted to catch him doing something basic. Something human. Watching my nightmare assassin engage in as simple an activity as combing his hair, or eating a breakfast burrito, might help chase away the terror still lurking in my brain.

I reached the eastern end of the lake and turned north. My eyes strayed to the woods on my right. I thought of the trucks I’d spotted from my tree house, one more unfathomable development in a week full of them. But I put that mystery from my mind. I was heading to my father’s ski resort to intercept a serial killer, and I still didn’t have a plan.

The gates were closed, but I knew the code. I pulled into a parking lot facing the main pavilion. All quiet. No lights or other vehicles. The place could not have looked more shut down.

I turned onto a narrow strip of blacktop winding up the mountain and killed the headlights, familiar enough with the road that I could drive it blind. The sky was morphing from charcoal to ash as I reached the summit. I pulled around behind the shopping village and parked out of sight. Turned off the engine. Then my movements grew stilted as I ran out of things to do inside the car. This is where my genius ends.

A glance at the gun. My stomach did a cartwheel.

Why’d I bring it? Sitting there in the parking lot, I became uneasy with my intentions. Back at home I’d had some troubling thoughts. Whispers of a dark idea. But up here in the rapidly growing light, it all seemed crazy.

I shouldn’t be here.

I almost left. Turned the key, punched the gas, and fired downhill with my tail between my legs. Instead I shoved the gun into the glove box, opened the door, and stepped out. A footpath led to a small plaza in the center of the complex. I scurried forward in a crouch, feeling both foolish and exposed at the same time. The stores were all empty, with jaunty door signs saying things like, “Closed until . . . SNOW!”

Something caught my eye—a shiny object between two wooden benches. I crept over, discovered a small satellite dish on a mobile pedestal. As I watched, it swiveled sharply, making me jump.

I whirled to see if anyone was around. I knew for a fact this wasn’t resort equipment—cable and Internet uplinks ran through a cell tower on the back side of the mountain. Whoever was up here had impressive hardware for company.

Light struck my eyes and I flinched, but it was just the sun topping the mountains. The world brightened. I shrank back, then hurried toward the slopes. As I emerged from the shops, the valley spread out below me. The view was breathtaking, even with the slopes naked and dry. A part of my mind whispered what a great surveillance point it made. Another voice gloomily noted how well you could see the front gate. Had I turned off my headlights before pulling in?

Stop wasting time. If you’re going to spy, do it. Then get out of here.

The chalet was to the right of the village, set slightly back in a stand of the pine trees. I crept toward it as ski-lift chairs rattled in the breeze, haunting and lonely.

At the far end of the complex, I peered across a stretch of grass separating the buildings. The suite in question was on the slope-facing side. No cover if someone happened to be looking.

My hands began to sweat. I wiped them on my pants. Ran a palm across my face.

I can’t do this. What a stupid idea.

An engine coughed to life. I pressed close to the wall, ready to bolt as soon as I figured out which direction to run. Squeaking tires, slowly fading. Someone had just left the Chimney Rock parking lot.

Go look. Find out if it’s him. Then get the hell gone.

I sprinted across the grass. Ducked into a thicket, gulping air, exhilarated and terrified at once. This was so unlike me. I never risked anything. But today I was risking everything.

The suite was directly before me. A ski-out accommodation, it had a ground-floor patio accessed by a sliding glass door. For five solid minutes I watched it as the sun rose behind me. No sound. No movement. But I couldn’t see inside.

Finally, I rose and bolted onto the patio, flattening myself against the wall and praying like hell no one was inside. When nothing happened, I reached out and pushed the door’s handle. It slid open soundlessly.

Blood pounding in my ears, I took a peek. Let out a breath. Empty.

The room was tidy, but lived in. The bed had been hastily made. A towel hung on the bathroom door. Someone was staying there, but nothing indicated who it was.

I walked to the closet and opened it.

Three black suits hung in a row.

Swaying slightly, I looked down. Shiny boots lined the floor.

I was right. It’s him. It’s him, and I’m standing in his freaking hotel room.

I don’t know what I’d been thinking, coming here. I couldn’t do a damn thing about anything, but I could definitely get myself killed. As I spun for the door, I spotted a black iPad sitting on the nightstand.

Almost against my will, I crossed the room and picked it up. Pressed the home key. It sprang to life instantly, a program already running, tight lines of text scrolling down one side of the screen. I scanned the feed, eyes narrowing. The information consisted of real-time updates from around the globe.

As I watched, a seismic reading from Manila appeared, followed immediately by a series of tweets about volcanic activity in New Zealand. Next came a classified NSA report detailing fatalities from a CO2 outgassing in Petaluma, California. On and on it went, a detailed summary of recent disasters and ominous reports.

In the center was a world map with arrows and links, cross-referencing events in the timeline. A digital clock occupied the bottom of the screen, counting down: “6 days, 15 hours, 54 minutes, and 12 seconds.” A new report popped up: details of a whirlpool in the South China Sea. The clock changed in a blink, reducing the remaining time by eight hours.

“What the hell?”

I tapped the timer, but nothing happened. So I pressed the home button, closing the program. The screen beneath was blank except for an icon named “Project Nemesis.” I tapped it, and a familiar landscape appeared. It took me a moment to grasp what I was seeing.

“The valley,” I whispered.

An option at the bottom of the map was labeled “Beta Subjects.” I pressed. Four glowing dots appeared onscreen. Two red. Two blue.

One of the blue dots was high in the northern slopes.

Directly over Chimney Rock Lodge.

It’s me. I’m the blue dot.

He can track me.

The other blue dot was to the west, behind Miner’s Peak.

“Min,” I whispered.

Growing frantic, I checked the two red dots. They were right next to each other, somewhere in town. I was trying to figure out exactly where when I heard a door open inside the building.

The iPad dropped from my fingers.

I bolted onto the patio and across the grass. Was halfway to my car before realizing I hadn’t shut the door behind me. I reached the Tahoe, slammed the starter button, and peeled out, roaring down the access road at breakneck speed.

“Let this be a dream,” I mumbled. “Let this be a dream. Please, please, I don’t want this. Let this be a dream.”

I didn’t stop driving for anything.

And I didn’t wake up.