But there’s something really strange about this setup. Through a slant of driving snow, Eric eyed the truck, which had been pulled right up to the house’s front stoop. The truck was 1970s-ancient: a burnt-red Dodge D200 two-door pickup with a crew cab. Someone—two guys, judging from the size of the prints—had driven up, swung out, and taken the steps, and not all that long ago. The footprints were filling in, but Eric still made out the treads. Only a thin white mantle of snow glazed the Dodge’s windows and hood.
“Wyoming plates,” Emma said. “I can tell from the bucking bronco on the left. Read it in a book somewhere.”
“Yeah?” At her tone, he craned his head over his shoulder. They were close enough that their helmets bumped. “You say that as if it means something.”
Instead of replying, she swung off the Skandic and waded against the driving snow and through thigh-high drifts to the Dodge. The wind snatched Tony’s space blanket, pulling it out behind her like a flag made of aluminum foil. “What are you doing?” he called. Dismounting, he slogged against the suck and grab of the snow at his calves. He watched as she crouched to swipe the Dodge’s front plate, which was a brighter red than the car, with raised white reflective letters and numbers.
“Sixty-seven,” she said, tracing with an index finger. “See? Stamped in the upper right-hand corner.”
Hunkering down beside her, he studied the plate a second, then shrugged. “Okay. So?”
“So … does that mean the year the plate was issued? Because that would be weird, wouldn’t it?” She looked at him, the legs of a furry blood-tarantula staining her bandage as it bunched with her frown. “We always get a renewal sticker every year, not a new plate.”
“Do you guys have a vintage car?” When she shook her head, he said, “Well, that explains it, then. They’re probably vintage plates, like the truck.”
“Maybe, but don’t vintage cars have special plates? Like blue or something, and a different numbering system? This looks like a regular license.”
“Well, maybe it’s different in Wyoming than Wisconsin.” He waited a beat. “You want to tell me what’s eating you?”
“What’s eating me?” Grunting a humorless laugh that was mainly air, she pushed to a stand. “You mean, more than everything else tonight?” She shivered and pulled Tony’s space blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I don’t know … it’s just”—she turned a look from the truck to the house—“this feels … off. I know I keep saying that, but it’s not right, Eric. I just can’t put my finger on what it is, though.”
He stood, wincing a little as his knees complained. “Everything looks weird at night. Plus, we’re in a storm, and you’re hurt.” The urge to comfort her, pull her into a hug, was very strong, and he throttled it back. “A lot’s happened, Emma. You crashed. You lost a friend. I don’t know about you, but when my day started, I sure didn’t see myself ending up here.” If anything, his day had started out even worse. As spooked and worried as he was … I actually feel better here. A crazy thought. He looked down at her face, so ghostly white and pinched with cold. I feel better here, with her, than I have with anyone anywhere else in as long as I can remember.
“Yeah, you can say that again.” Her eyes shimmered, and she looked askance. Even with that thick screen of snow, he saw her jaw clench. “I know all that,” she said, meeting his eyes again. She pulled herself straighter. “But that’s not what I mean. Look at the truck, Eric. It’s barely covered. All this snow, but it’s like it just got here.”
“Well …” He threw the Dodge an uncertain look. “Maybe it did. Those guys’ tracks are only just now filling up.”
“But Eric, we’ve been on the sled for a long time, at least an hour, don’t you think? Long enough for the tracks on the road to almost disappear. And the crash …” She swallowed. “Eric, that happened a couple hours ago, right? The sled’s odometer says we’ve come a little more than fifteen miles. But the turnoff wasn’t that far back from the van where Tony said he and Rima lost the truck.”
“A half mile, yeah.” He saw what she was driving at. Even if it also took whoever drove it here an hour, that meant these guys should’ve been here for quite a while. The truck’s tracks hadn’t deviated. The driver hadn’t stopped or turned off somewhere else along the way. The way the snow was coming down, not only should the truck’s tire tracks up this long driveway have filled in, but that Dodge ought to be nearly invisible.
So how come we still see tracks? Why isn’t there more snow on this truck? On an impulse, he tugged off a glove and put his hand on the truck’s hood.
“Is it warm?” Emma asked.
“No,” he said, taking his hand back. The metal had leeched all the feeling, and he haahed a breath and shook his hand to push the blood into his fingers to warm them. Man, that was cold. Burned like a blowtorch. “But with barely any snow on it at all, it ought to be.”
“Right. That’s what I mean by off. Sounds crazy, but … it’s almost like the storm wanted to make sure we saw the tracks, this truck.” Emma inclined her head at the Skandic. “I mean, look at the sled. It’s already filling up.”
“Yeah,” he said, taking in the thickening layer of white on the sled’s seats and foot wells. Screwing his hand back into his glove, he studied the house, a two-story with a large wraparound porch, which reared up from a field of solid white. A glider, laden with snow, hung from chains to the right of the front door. More snow pillowed in hanging baskets suspended from hooks on either side of the porch steps. The porch light illuminated the front door in a spray of thin yellow light. The door was black, hemmed by sidelights of glowing pebbled glass. To the left, a large bay window fired a warmer, buttery yellow, and further back, a feeble glow spilled through a side window. Kitchen, maybe. The second story was completely dark.
“Somebody’s home for sure,” he said, wondering why that didn’t necessarily make him feel any better. His nerves were starting to hum with anxiety, and a creep of uneasiness slithered up his neck. “Must be the guys with the truck.”
“If they live here, then why do they have Wyoming plates?”
“Maybe they’re just visiting.”