White Space полностью

“Whatever,” Casey said, already turning away. “Your funeral.”

1

SHE’D LOST HER gloves somewhere along the way, so Eric had taken Emma’s icy hands and thrust them beneath his parka. Body heat, he’d explained; keep them out of the wind. Her hands were still there, but warm now, her long fingers laced over his stomach. Her chest spooned his back. Eric liked how that felt—as if her touch was a kind of promise.

Emma’s voice fizzed through his headset, “What are you thinking?”

About how good you feel. How I like that we kind of fit together. How I think we could talk about things. “I’m thinking it’s weird,” he said, swiping a thin rime of fresh snow from his plastic visor. Thank God, he’d found the faceplate before he and Casey ventured into the valley. With this wind and cold, driving the sled without one would’ve been impossible. At bare minimum, his nose would have fallen off, and he’d be looking at some serious frostbite.

“Yeah, me too,” she said. “Something’s … off. You know?”

She was right. The turnoff Tony and Rima described was a half mile back of the wreck. There’d been tire tracks, but the storm reduced their speed to a crawl, and eventually, the tracks were no more than suggestions. They’d been about to turn back when Emma spied a slight silver smudge in the distance that grew brighter and more distinct as they approached, still using the truck’s tracks as a guide. Fifteen miles from the turnoff, those furrows took a sharp dogleg left at a mailbox nailed to a post and so lathered with snow they couldn’t make out the name. Eric didn’t care. A mailbox meant a house, and that meant people.

The driveway was long. Two miles and change, according to Eric’s odometer, which was … a little odd, but people did like to spread out in the country. Then the silver smudge suddenly resolved to an actual light—and became a farm.

But there’s something really strange about this setup. Through a slant of driving snow, Eric eyed the truck, which had been pulled right up to the house’s front stoop. The truck was 1970s-ancient: a burnt-red Dodge D200 two-door pickup with a crew cab. Someone—two guys, judging from the size of the prints—had driven up, swung out, and taken the steps, and not all that long ago. The footprints were filling in, but Eric still made out the treads. Only a thin white mantle of snow glazed the Dodge’s windows and hood.

“Wyoming plates,” Emma said. “I can tell from the bucking bronco on the left. Read it in a book somewhere.”

“Yeah?” At her tone, he craned his head over his shoulder. They were close enough that their helmets bumped. “You say that as if it means something.”

Instead of replying, she swung off the Skandic and waded against the driving snow and through thigh-high drifts to the Dodge. The wind snatched Tony’s space blanket, pulling it out behind her like a flag made of aluminum foil. “What are you doing?” he called. Dismounting, he slogged against the suck and grab of the snow at his calves. He watched as she crouched to swipe the Dodge’s front plate, which was a brighter red than the car, with raised white reflective letters and numbers.

“Sixty-seven,” she said, tracing with an index finger. “See? Stamped in the upper right-hand corner.”

Hunkering down beside her, he studied the plate a second, then shrugged. “Okay. So?”

“So … does that mean the year the plate was issued? Because that would be weird, wouldn’t it?” She looked at him, the legs of a furry blood-tarantula staining her bandage as it bunched with her frown. “We always get a renewal sticker every year, not a new plate.”

“Do you guys have a vintage car?” When she shook her head, he said, “Well, that explains it, then. They’re probably vintage plates, like the truck.”

“Maybe, but don’t vintage cars have special plates? Like blue or something, and a different numbering system? This looks like a regular license.”

“Well, maybe it’s different in Wyoming than Wisconsin.” He waited a beat. “You want to tell me what’s eating you?”

“What’s eating me?” Grunting a humorless laugh that was mainly air, she pushed to a stand. “You mean, more than everything else tonight?” She shivered and pulled Tony’s space blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I don’t know … it’s just”—she turned a look from the truck to the house—“this feels … off. I know I keep saying that, but it’s not right, Eric. I just can’t put my finger on what it is, though.”