In Colorado, it still made roads slick and driving harder. You still had to shovel, to dig out your car and your sidewalk. But life moved slower, so none of these things mattered. Snow made the town prettier, and filled the water reserves with runoff for the spring. Snow meant high rivers and few fires. Snow meant powder days at the ski resorts, which meant smiles for the locals and money for the businesses. Snow was a blessing, an offering from above, and it snowed every third day.

With Vince’s business, I’d gradually settled in. The trust between us had slowly been built, starting with that dinner in the hills. Immediately Vince took me off the runs and reassigned me to a different task. He decided I knew too much about the operation to be comfortable and effective, and I agreed. I was moved to bookkeeping, where I kept track of numbers and made sure the money added up. Financials; just the job I’d run from in New York, but light years simpler and incomparable in scope. Days started at 10 a.m., and 5-day weeks were uncommon. The money was even better than driving. It was a much better fit for me to begin with, but I had to know everything.

It was also more incriminating. It required me to know—and influence—the cash flow of the business. I was more than an accessory now; I was a full-blown accomplice. I was a player in the heroin trade. This dawned on me quickly, but I saw no other option. One day, a man dips his toe in the mud, just to test and see how it feels. The next he goes a little further, and the next his whole foot is in. Each step is a small one, seemingly innocuous, but before long, the man is up to his neck in shit.

Slowly, day by day, the scope of what I was doing disintegrated from my grasp. It was a job now, and a routine one. The more I performed my tasks without seeing bags of brown heroin or a police raid or a murder or anything else I’d blindly associated with drug trades, the more it seemed normal. It was just a job. I kept my small apartment and made the rent payments myself. I maintained independence. I attended social gatherings sporadically, but saw no séance’s or cultish behavior. I began to understand Vince’s explanation of the community.

I slept with Adeline twice more. Both times she showed up at my apartment drunk and unannounced, and both times she assured me no one would find out. Both times, in the morning, I told her it could never happen again. There was too much risk. Both times she smiled, nodded, and told me not to worry, then she did what she pleased. I convinced myself it could not continue. But I knew, deep inside me, that if she showed up again I could not turn her down. She was powerful, in control, and the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. Seeing her darken my door made my knees weak.

I had drinks with Vince twice a week. We talked business and local happenings. We didn’t talk women.

One night I stopped into McNeil’s, the bar in which Suzanne had sung with piano accompaniment months ago, before I’d even moved to Otter Ridge. The room was just as I remembered it, lively with overworked bartenders, and the same man was playing piano. He was accompanied by a different woman, this one short and brunette. Her voice was flat and seemed empty. I had one beer and left.

I had tried Suzanne’s phone once after she disappeared, but my call went straight to voicemail. There was part of me that expected her to come back, that wanted her to come back, at least for a night, rather than just disappearing into nothing. It didn’t make sense, to leave like that. I asked Vince once if she’d tried to contact him, and he told me she hadn’t. After that, I didn’t think about her much.

I didn’t think about Damon much, either. I didn’t think about either of the people who had disappeared after a while. At first their memories were fresh, and my thoughts of them wandered, no matter which explanation I heard from Vince or others in the community. I wondered where they were, and what they were doing. But as time passed and they stayed gone, and they were not mentioned, the wonder faded. My thoughts of them went from every day to every other day, then once a week, then once a month. Time has a way of making strange circumstances seem normal.

I did not see Suzanne, and I did not see Damon, and I did not think of them much. They were gone; starting new lives, hopefully, each content in their own way. I assumed this and didn’t give them much more thought, until one evening, in the dead of winter, she returned.

41

It was an overcast winter afternoon. The sun had not peeked out that day, leaving the landscape a dull gray. The last week had been warm, temperatures climbing well above freezing and melting much of the snow that covered the town. Now the sun had gone away, the cold had returned, and the exposed ground was a pale brown.

I went to my apartment after completing my work for the day, which I did in a small building near Vince’s house. At one point, it had been someone’s home, but had since been converted into the business center for Vince’s operation. There were three small rooms with desks, a large meeting room, a dry bar, and a porch with mountain views. It was not a bad place to spend time. On a typical day, I was joined by a handful of other men; paper pushers with pleasant but reserved personalities. I hadn’t quite figured out what they did, and we didn’t much discuss business between us. My reports went straight to Vince.

It was late in the afternoon, not long before sunset, when she appeared. At first I didn’t believe it was her. At first I thought I was hallucinating. At very first, I didn’t even recognize her. She stood in my doorway, broken and shivering, and only her posture gave her away. She said nothing, just looked up at me with dark eyes and waited.

There was a knock on my door and I answered it. That was all that happened. I was sitting on my loveseat with the TV on, having a beer after work, and there was a knock on my door. My first thought was Adeline, but it had been nearly a month since she had come by, and it was too early in the day. I was curious, so I opened the door quickly, and there she was.

Suzanne, but not the Suzanne I remembered. Her skin was pasty white and showed open cuts. Her lips were chapped and quivering, and her once glowing red hair had been hastily dyed black.

“Suzanne,” I said. “My God, come in.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.” Her voice was faint. Where once was a strong, boisterous woman, stood a shell.

“What?”

“I can’t,” she repeated. “I shouldn’t even be here.” Her words barely made it out.

I grabbed her and pulled her inside without much resistance, then shut the door. She felt lighter. I led her over to the loveseat and sat her down.

“My God,” I said again, “what in the hell happened?”

She looked at the floor and shook her head. “A lot. And nothing.” She looked up, and her big dark eyes examined me. They were the same eyes I knew. They were the only part of her that remained unchanged.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Listen, I need to tell you some things.”

“Suzanne, we need to get you taken care of first. Let me get you something to eat.”

“No.”

“Yes,” I said, standing up, “I’ll make you a sandwich.”

“I’m not hungry. Listen, Julian, there’s no time.”

“Let me get you a blanket at least.”

She didn’t respond, so I grabbed the comforter off my bed and put it on her. She pulled it over her shoulders but kept shivering.

“Where in hell have you been?” I asked.

“You need to know some things,” she said.

“Okay. But first tell me what’s going on. Where did you go?”