Page 92

Poe pounded the steering wheel in a fury. “I should never have left her! Tonight of all nights!” The truck swerved right. Virginia reached over and grabbed the wheel. The truck straightened out.

“Mr. Poe! Be careful! You’re no good to her in a ditch!”

Snow was blowing even harder as they drove up the approach road. Virginia could see the A-frame shape of the lodge up the hill in the distance, a few hundred yards away. As they got closer, she leaned out the window. The entrance to the driveway was blocked by a three-foot drift. “We’ll never get through!” she shouted.

“Like hell we won’t!” Poe shouted back.

He made a wide turn, hammered the pedal, and hit the drift head-on. The truck blasted forward and swerved up the incline—but only for about twenty feet. Then it stopped dead, tires spinning. No traction. No way.

“That’s it,” said Poe. “We can’t get any closer.” He turned off the engine and jumped out, then started lunging toward the lodge, pumping his knees high against the deep snow. Virginia hopped out and followed in his tracks. The lights in the lodge glowed behind a scrim of white. The snowdrifts were up to her thighs. The wind blasted her face. The endless white clouded her vision. For seconds at a time, Poe was just a moving shadow in front of her.

Suddenly she felt a warm shudder run through her. For a second, her vision went totally dark. She stopped in the middle of Poe’s tracks. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. Her vision cleared. Poe was way ahead of her now, closing in on the top of the driveway.

Virginia looked to her left, where the snow-covered lawn met the deep woods. She saw a small shape. Something moving. When she squinted, it looked like somebody had climbed on top of a snow-covered boulder a few yards from the line of trees. For some seconds, the snow swirled in front of the figure. Then, briefly, the snow cleared.

Virginia looked closer, her chest heaving.

Dear God! It was her! The girl from the shelter in the woods. The one who’d died in a winter storm twenty years ago.

The girl put her hand over her heart and nodded. Virginia squeezed her eyes shut. When she looked up again, there was nobody there.

Virginia leaned into the wind and trudged her way toward the lodge, catching up to Poe just as he stepped onto the porch.

He shoved the front door open. As they pushed into the entryway, Virginia heard a loud scream from upstairs. “Auguste!”

She watched Poe take the stairs two at a time, snow flying off his jacket and boots.

“Helene!”

CHAPTER 97

AUGUSTE POE RAN down the second-floor corridor toward the bedroom he shared with Grey. Holmes was pacing outside with a distressed look on his face. “Things are progressing fast,” he said. “Margaret’s taken over.”

“Did you call 9-1-1?” asked Poe frantically.

Holmes nodded. “They’ll come as soon as they can. But don’t hold your breath. They’ve got accidents all over the county.”

Poe pushed the bedroom door open.

“Finally!” said Marple.

Grey reached out toward Poe. She was sitting upright in the bed, pillows behind her back, knees raised and spread, a white sheet tented over them. Sweat glistened on her face. Her hair was damp and matted, her face drawn and pale. Poe threw his jacket on the floor and rushed over. He put his hand on her head. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

Grey’s answer came in a breathy pant. “I’m scared, Auguste. I’m really scared.”

Poe nodded. He was trying not to show it, but he was scared too. This was no place to be having a baby, let alone two of them.

Marple was sitting on a stool at the foot of the bed, wearing a pair of disposable nitrile gloves. She had a box of them on a folding table beside her, along with a stack of clean towels and facecloths. A pair of kitchen scissors sat soaking in a glass tumbler, with a plastic bottle of isopropyl alcohol alongside. At the bottom of the tumbler was a jumble of twine.

“What should I do?” Poe asked. “How can I help?”

“Hold Helene’s hand,” said Marple. “And when I tell her to push, hold her up.”

“They’re coming again,” Grey moaned through gritted teeth.

“The contractions,” said Marple, looking at Poe. “They’re just two minutes apart now. She’s in transition.”

“What does that mean?” asked Poe.