Chapter 2
Gerard Remington had been only scant hours away from proposing to Vanessa Moreau when his world went dark.
The proposal, like many things in Gerard Remington’s life, had been carefully planned. First step: After extensive research, Gerard had purchased an engagement ring, 2.93 carats, princess cut, VVS1 clarity, F color, platinum band with a halo setting. He had bought it from a renowned jeweler in Manhattan’s Diamond District on West 47th Street—not in one of the overpriced larger stores but at a booth in the back near the Sixth Avenue corner.
Step Two: Their flight today would be leaving Boston’s Logan Airport on JetBlue flight 267 at 7:30 A.M., touching down in St. Maarten at 11:31 A.M., where he and Vanessa would transfer to a small puddle-jumper to Anguilla, arriving on the island at 12:45 P.M.
Steps Three, Four, etc.: They would relax in a two-level villa at the Viceroy overlooking Meads Bay, take a dip in the infinity pool, make love, shower and dress, and dine at Blanchards. Dinner reservation was for seven P.M. Gerard had called ahead and arranged to have a bottle of Vanessa’s favorite wine, a Chateau Haut-Bailly Grand Cru Classé 2005, a Bordeaux from the Pessac-Léognan appellation, at the ready. After dinner, Gerard and Vanessa would walk the beach barefoot, hand in hand. He had checked the lunar phase calendar and knew that the moon would be nearly full at the time. Two hundred eighteen yards down the beach (he’d had it measured), there was a thatch-roofed hut used during the day to rent snorkels and water skis. At night, no one was there. A local florist would line the front porch with twenty-one (the number of weeks they had known each other) white calla lilies (Vanessa’s favorite flower). There would be a string quartet too. On Gerard’s cue, the quartet would play “Somewhere Only We Know” by Keane, the song he and Vanessa decided would be forever theirs. Then, because they both liked tradition, Gerard would bend down on one knee. In his mind’s eye, Gerard could almost see Vanessa’s reaction. She would gasp in surprise. Her eyes would well up with tears. Her hands would come up to her face in astonishment and joy.
“You have entered my world and changed it forever,” Gerard would say. “Like the most startling catalyst, you have taken this ordinary hunk of clay and transformed it into something so much more potent, so much happier and brimming with life, than I could have ever imagined. I love you. I love you with my entire being. I love everything about you. Your smile gives my life color and texture. You are the most beautiful and passionate woman in the world. Will you please make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?”
Gerard had still been working on the exact wording—he wanted it to be just right—when his world went dark. But every word was true. He loved Vanessa. He loved her with all his heart. Gerard had never been much of a romantic. Throughout his lifetime, people had a habit of disappointing him. Science did not. Truth be told, he had always been most content alone, battling microbes and organisms, developing new medicines and counteragents that would win those wars. He had been most content in his laboratory at Benesti Pharmaceuticals, figuring out an equation or formula on the blackboard. He was, as his younger colleagues would say, old-school that way. He liked the blackboard. It helped him think—the smell of chalk, the dust, the way his fingers got dirty, the ease of erasing—because in science, truly, so little should be made permanent.
Yes, it was there, in those lost moments alone, when Gerard felt most content.
Most content. But not happy.
Vanessa had been the first thing in his life to make him happy.
Gerard opened his eyes now and thought about her. Everything was raised to the tenth power with Vanessa. No other woman had ever moved him mentally, emotionally, and yes, of course, physically like Vanessa. No other woman, he knew, ever could.
He had opened his eyes, and yet the dark remained. At first he wondered if he was somehow still in his home, but it was far too cold. He always kept the digital thermostat set at exactly 71.5 degrees. Always. Vanessa often teased him about his precision. During his lifetime, some people had considered Gerard’s need for order close to being anal or even OCD. Vanessa, however, understood. She both appreciated it and found it to be a bonus. “It is what makes you a great scientist and a caring man,” Vanessa had told him once. She explained to him her theory that people we now consider “on the spectrum” were, in the past, the geniuses in art, science, and literature, but now, with medications and diagnoses, we flatten them out, make them more uniform, dull their senses.
“Genius comes from the unusual,” Vanessa had explained to him.
“And I’m unusual?”
“In the very best way, my sweet.”
But as his heart swelled from the memory, Gerard couldn’t help but notice the strange smell. Something damp and old and musty and like . . .
Like dirt. Like fresh soil.
Panic suddenly seized him. Still in pitch-darkness, Gerard tried to lift his hands to his face. He couldn’t. There was something binding his wrists. It felt like a rope or, no, something thinner. Wire maybe. He tried to move his legs. They were bound together. He clenched his stomach muscles and tried to swing both legs into the air, but they hit something. Something wooden. Right above him. Like he was in. . . .
His body started bucking in fear.
Where was he? Where was Vanessa?
“Hello?” he shouted. “Hello?”
Gerard tried to sit up, but there was a belt around his chest too. He couldn’t move. He waited for his eyes to get used to the dark, but that wasn’t happening fast enough.
“Hello? Someone? Please help me!”
He heard a noise now. Right above him. It sounded like scraping or shuffling or . . .
Or footsteps?
Footsteps right above him.
Gerard thought about the dark. He thought about the smell of fresh soil. The answer was suddenly so obvious, yet it made no sense.
I’m underground, he thought. I’m underground.
And then he started to scream.