It is real. Mary and Jorge are dead.
For a moment everything around her went all blurry. Blinking ferociously, Gina willed the tears back.
The others, what of them? Ivanov had said they had found nine out of the twelve.
She would make number ten. That meant two of her colleagues were presumably out on the island somewhere.
Arvid and Ray, maybe? Had they gone looking for her?
There was no way to know.
But what she had taken from Ivanov’s words was that nine of her colleagues were dead.
Murdered.
By the men who were at that moment searching the compound for her.
If they found her, she had not the slightest doubt that they would kill her, too.
Goose bumps raced over her skin at the thought. She felt dizzy all over again.
This is no time to fall apart. Focus.
As she saw it, she had two choices: stay where she was, or try to make a run for it.
Ivanov had looked in the closet, she was sure. It was unlikely that he would look in it again.
But he might. Or someone else might.
On the other hand, if she left the closet she could run right into them. She had no idea where they were. Ivanov, Heavy Tread, third guy—they could be anywhere. In this building. Just outside. Somewhere they could see her if she emerged from her hiding place.
For all she knew, there might be more than just the three of them.
To make a run for it, she would have to go back the way she had come: through the common room, the kitchen, the mudroom, across the meadow, up the mountain. Any other route would take her through the complex, and that was too dangerous even to contemplate.
She could take the phone, call for help. Call whom? The Coast Guard? The sponsors? 911?
A question to be answered later, she decided. The point was, she could call somebody and know that help was on the way.
Heavy Tread had spoken of the fuel tanks being too close to the buildings in the context of burning the bodies—what if he meant to cause an explosion, or in some other way set the buildings on fire now?
The mere thought that she could be trapped in a fire made Gina go woozy. Gritting her teeth, clenching her fists, she fought to banish the disturbing images.
You can’t lose it now.
The men could come back into the common room at any time.
Her chance to run would be lost.
So—go?
Go.
Moving as silently as she could, Gina picked her way to the closet door. For a moment she crouched there, listening, surveying as much of the room as she could see.
THE ROOM was empty.
Darting out of the closet, she snatched up the telltale apple and turned to grab the phone.
It was gone.
A lightning survey of the shelves confirmed it: the phone was missing. They’d taken it.
No time to waste worrying about it.
Go, go, go.
With every sense she possessed on red alert, being as quiet as she could possibly be, she dashed for the kitchen, then paused on the threshold to listen for any sound that might indicate someone was in there. Nothing.
Didn’t mean somebody wasn’t standing there silently.
Heart pounding so hard she could hardly hear over it, she peeked in, saw no one, and flew across the room, thrusting the apple down on top of the trash in the trash can on the way, not wanting to just drop it in case it made a telltale sound. At the entrance to the mudroom she paused again.
She listened, heard nothing. Looked, saw nothing.
Bolted for the door.
The mudroom was relatively small. Two big washing machines against the short wall at the kitchen end, two industrial-size dryers against the short wall at the opposite end with the outside door opening between them. Shelves with laundry supplies and the table with the laundry baskets taking up one long wall. The cubbies along the other. The door to the outside was solid. No window, no way to see through it.
Anybody could be out there, Gina thought as she reached it. Heart pounding, she hesitated, trying to listen, to hear anything that might be on the other side of it even as her hand wrapped around the knob. Nothing, not even the generator, not even the wind or sea. The walls and door were apparently thick enough to block external sounds. The rest of her senses were acutely attuned to the building behind her. For all she knew, someone might still be inside.
A slight creak from what she thought was the kitchen electrified her. Was someone there?
She was so frightened that she could feel her knees shaking.
The sound wasn’t repeated. But—maybe whoever was in there was being very quiet as they listened, too? Listened to her.
There was no help for it: she would have to pull the door open, scan the yard, and then run like a rabbit across the flat meadow until she reached the hills.
Thank God for the fog: it would provide concealment.
She hoped there was still fog.
Praying no one was outside, she was just tightening her grip on the knob when it turned under her hand and the door was thrust forcefully inward.