Zig Zag (41 page)

"We
can't rule out the possibility of an accident. She could have tripped
in the dark, or accidentally touched some wires..."

"Wasn't
there light in the generator room?" Silberg asked. "She was
the one who caused the short, right? So there would have been light
at least until she touched the wires. Why wouldn't she turn it on?"

"Maybe
she did."

"Well,
did she or didn't she?" Blanes took over. "Was the light
switch up or down?"

"I
didn't
notice, Professor," Carter replied, and for the first time Elisa
thought she sensed irritation in his voice. "Still, if someone
locked her in, she could have gotten flustered and not have been able
to find the switch."

"But
why lock her in to begin with?" Silberg looked disconcerted.
"Even if someone wanted to hurt her... why do that? There are
too many things that don't add up..."

Carter
quietly laughed.

"In
great tragedies, things don't add up, that's for sure. But what
happened has a simple explanation. In real life," he
said—stressing the word
real
—"things
are almost always quite straightforward."

"Maybe
in the real life you know," Blanes objected, "but not me.
What about Ric's disappearance? Nadja, tell us again what you found
in his bed."

Nadja
nodded. Elisa, sitting beside her at the table, could tell without
touching her that she was trembling and held her hand protectively.

"When
I heard the alarm I got up and went out into the hall... I was alone,
no one else had gotten up yet and, well, I wanted to wake them. So I
looked in and saw that Rosalyn's bed was empty ... And in Ric's bed
Was ... well, not exactly a doll, it was more basic than that, just a
pillow and a couple of round backpacks, really. His sheet was on the
floor," she added.

"Why
would Ric do that?" Blanes asked.

Carter
looked as if he'd just thought of something. "He probably didn't
think any of you would make good detectives. He thought you were just
physicists."

"Physics
is based on hypothesizing, following clues, and finding proof, Mr.
Carter. That's what we're trying to do right now." Blanes gave
Carter that sleepy look he had that Elisa knew so well. "Do you
think Ric is hiding somewhere in the station?"

"He'd
have to be the Invisible Man. We've searched everything top to
bottom. There aren't many places he could be hiding here. On the
island, yes, but inside the station? I don't think so."

The
door opened and Marini, Craig, and the Thai soldier, Lee, filed in
one by one. Both Lee and Craig were literally soaked, as if someone
had sprayed them down with a pressure washer. Stevenson, the soldier
who had barred their way that morning, and who was now standing guard
in the living room, was also dripping wet.

"All
in order," Marini said, though his face seemed to indicate the
opposite. He wiped his hands on a rag. "The computers are all
fine, and the screens are still picking up signals from the
satellites..."

"SUSAN
is fine, too," Craig confirmed. "No one touched anything."

Who
would have touched anything anyway?
Elisa
wondered distractedly. "Lee?" Carter asked.

"Nothing
wrong with the backup generator, sir." Lee wiped sweat from his
face with the back of his hand—or maybe that was rain, too. His
uniform was unbuttoned, revealing a scrawny white chest beneath his
undershirt. "There's plenty of electricity. But the main
generator is kaput, completely burned out. No way to repair it."

"Why
didn't the backup kick in when the main one burned out, then?"
asked Blanes. Carter conveyed the question to Lee by shrugging and
raising his eyebrows at the soldier.

"The
ignition wires burned out, so all the backup generator could do was
trigger the alarm. But I just rewired it."

"Does
it make sense that the
backup
ignition
wires get burned out by a short circuit in the
main
generator?"
Blanes queried.

An
electronic bleep interrupted them. Carter took the walkie-talkie from
his belt and they heard static and indistinct words.

"York
says they've made it to the lake and there's no sign of Mr. Valente,"
he explained, after listening to the communiqué. "But
they still haven't searched the rest of the island."

"And
what are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

Carter
raised a hand to his thick neck and paused, though he didn't seem
particularly bothered by the question. It was as though he wanted to
create suspense, as though the time had come to show the know-it-alls
what was what. He stood beneath the only dining-room light that was
on (two of the three had been turned off to prevent another possible
short, he said); all eyes were on Carter. His robust figure seemed to
be saying, "Trust me." In a way, Elisa was glad there was
someone like him there with them. She'd never think of going dancing
with Carter, or to a French restaurant or even for a walk in the park
with him. But in that situation, she liked having him around. Guys
like him were good in tragic circumstances.

"This
is all set out in the contracts you signed. I'm assuming command, and
calling off the project until further notice; there will be no more
scientific investigation, and we can all start packing our bags. By
noon, the weather should have improved a little, and the choppers at
our nearest base might be able to come pick us up. By tomorrow night,
no one but the search team should be left on New Nelson."

The
announcement was expected, maybe even wished for, but it was met with
somber silence.

"The
project is off...," Blanes said. Despite what had happened,
Elisa understood why he sounded so distraught.

"Paragraph
five, confidentiality appendix," Carter recited. " 'In any
situation entailing unknown risks to personnel, the security team may
call off the project indefinitely.' I think the death of one
colleague and the disappearance of another qualify as unknown risks,
don't you? But we're talking about a break here; this doesn't mean
we're terminating the project indefinitely. What I'm worried about
right now is finding Valente. So for the time being, get going. Pack
your bags."

ELISA
didn't
have much to pack. She quickly stuffed everything in her room into
her suitcase, but when she went to get her stuff from the bathroom,
she found that the lights had burned out, probably after the short.
The bulbs and sockets were black, as if they'd been singed. She
decided to find Mrs. Ross and see if she could get a flashlight from
her.

Questions
raced through her head as she wandered down the hall.
Why
did he run away? What made him hide? Did he have anything to do with
what happened to Rosalyn?
She
didn't want to think about Valente. Picturing him made her think of
her bizarre dream, and that made her feel like she couldn't breathe.

Never
in her life had she ever had a dream as horrifying, disgusting, and
at the same time realistic. She'd even gone so far as to examine her
body, searching for some sign of the rape experience. But aside from
a faint yet persistent pain, there was nothing, just a sensitivity
that eventually went away. She tried to convince herself that the
alarm, combined with the story Nadja had told her the week before,
caused her nightmare. She could think of no other explanation.

Elisa
found Ross in the kitchen, taking inventory.

"That's
odd," the woman replied on hearing her request. "The same
thing happened to Nadja last week... But I don't think it has
anything to do with the short circuit, because my bathroom light is
fine. Must be the sockets. Anyway, as for a flashlight, let me think
... Lately, demand is far outweighing supply!" And she gave that
low, open laugh that Elisa had heard the first time the night she
arrived on the island. Almost immediately, though, Ross became
circumspect, as though she knew any sign of joy was out of place that
morning. "I'd lend you mine, but I'm about to go down to the
pantry, and if the lights go out again, I don't want to be banging my
shins against those refrigerators. Hmm. You could ask Nadja... No,
wait... She told me hers broke this morning..."

"Never
mind, it's no big deal," Elisa said.

"How
about this? If you're not in a rush, I'll try to find some more in
the pantry. I was planning to go down as soon as I finished taking
inventory here anyway. We need to know exactly how much we're leaving
behind, because I'm sure we'll be back soon."

"Can
I give you a hand?"

"Well,
since you're offering, that would be great. Thank you, honey. If you
could just tell me what's up in that high cupboard, since you're tall
enough not to need a chair to stand on..."

Elisa
stood on her tiptoes and began to list the products. Mrs. Ross asked
her to stop at one point, to give her time to jot it all down. Elisa
filled the silence.

"Poor
Rosalyn, you know? Not just the way she ... Not just the accident,
but everything she went through over the past few days."

It
didn't take long for Ross to offer her theory. Mrs. Ross loved
devising theories about people and events; she'd always done it as
part of her job ("I used to be a consultant," she'd once
said, without specifying what kind or for whom). In her opinion,
Valente was hiding somewhere on the island and would reappear before
they left. And why was he hiding? Ah, that was a whole different
story.

"Mr.
Valente is a very odd young man," she pointed out. "In
fact, he could probably win the Weird Scientist Award. He might make
some women's hearts flutter, but a lot of his attraction resides in
his eccentricity. That was all Rosalyn saw in him. He dominated her,
and she liked that... Can you reach those bags at the back there?
Pull those out for me, would you?" Ross helped her, sticking the
papers in her mouth to free her hands. "Didn't you think it was
strange that Nadja found the sheet in Ric's room on the floor? If he
wanted to make out that he was in bed, why would he leave it on the
floor? Seems like someone else went in there before Nadja and found
him out, don't you think?"

Elisa
realized that Mrs. Ross was more perceptive than she let on.

"I'll
tell you what I think," Cheryl Ross continued. "Rosalyn was
frantic because he'd stopped paying any attention to her, so that
night she got up and went to his room to talk to him, but when she
pulled back the sheets he wasn't there. So she searched the station
and found him in the control room. That must be where he was, because
the door was ajar when I got there, and I was the first one to
arrive, before the soldiers even. I'm a light sleeper, and that alarm
had me out of bed in a flash. Anyway, so ... Maybe they argued, like
they did in the kitchen that day last week, remember? Maybe they were
shouting and went into the generator room so no one could hear them.
Then she got an electric shock and he got spooked, took off, and
locked the door behind him. I'm sure he had a copy of the key. Men
are sneaky like that, you'll find that out one day. And it doesn't
take a five-hundred-volt shock for them to hit the road and leave you
stranded, either."