Free Until the Night by Giles Blunt Page B

and a schedule of events. She had attended exactly one. The racket was unbelievable and the entire membership appeared to be twelve-year-old boys.
    The trail wound away from the road and past a tiny frozen lake. That was it for open country. Trees and brush whipping by. The ruby numerals of the speedometer showed forty, but being inches from the ground gave a tremendous sensation of speed. Snowmobiling at four-thirty in the morning—it’s crazy in fifty different ways, Delorme thought. Is this how you get a promotion? Or is this how you get a reputation for being a little “funny,” with colleagues rolling their eyes when your name is mentioned?
    The Ski-Doo’s headlight threw long shadows shuddering into the woods. The engine’s roar ensured the absence of wildlife. She came to a fork in the trail and kept to the right. The map showed a dotted line, meaning an unofficial trail, coming up. Half a kilometre farther, a small gap opened in the trees. Unofficial indeed. But the snow was packed down and chomped by snowmobile tracks, so she steered up and over the verge and into the woods.
    The engine blared louder. The front blades slammed over rougher terrain. Then a steep rise and she crested the old railbed. She had to do a two-pointer to orient the machine, and then followed the railway line. Itwasn’t far now. Ancient utility poles tilted at angles’ others, felled by beavers, sagged almost parallel to the ground, supported by smaller fir trees.
    The railbed ran for fifty or sixty kilometres, but Delorme kept an eye on the passing trees for another gap. When it came up on the right, she turned and the machine clattered onto even harsher ground. At one time this would have been a construction road, but that was short-lived and nobody had kept it up since.
    A few more bone-rattling minutes and then there it was.
    When the tracks were torn up, the developer’s plan had been to build first a road and then a “winter recreation lodge” right here in the middle of the woods. But he underestimated the kind of delays that can ensue when you’re dealing with three levels of government, two or three public utilities, at least one defunct corporation, and a population of aging boomers who just wanted the woods left alone—but with nice cleared paths for skiers and snowmobilers. In a fit of defiance, he had begun construction and worked at great speed, perhaps counting on a fait accompli to sway fortune in his favour.
    Delorme was looking at the result now. Whatever rustic glory the developer may have had in mind, what he’d actually left was a concrete-block rectangle. Half of this was covered with split pine cladding and a sharply peaked roof. The rest was bare concrete.
    He had intended to call it Deep Forest Lodge, but it was known to cross-country skiers as the Ice Hotel. It was set on the crest of a long slope that faced south, so it caught the sun all day, even in winter. Any snow that fell on it melted and dripped down the walls, where it froze into a sheath of translucent, impenetrable ice.
    The place couldn’t be torn down until armies of lawyers had finished wrangling—much to the chagrin of the provincial police. Although they tried to secure it, it was impossible to keep teenagers away. The place was dark, unfinished and unsafe. Every year the OPP had to rescue some kid who had climbed inside, only to end up with a broken leg.
    DANGER: KEEP OUT. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
    The usual signs were prominently posted, and just as prominently defaced. Delorme regarded the ruin with a shudder. Some women like to be scared . It wasn’t the place that frightened her so much as the idea that anyone would fantasize about bringing a woman out here and doing God knows what.
    She left the snowmobile running to have the benefit of its headlight. She took up the tool kit and flashlight and walked toward the fence, her shadow totemic against ice and concrete. The gate was padlocked, but ten metres to the right someone