“They’re using her to control me,” Leo had said. “You have to find her and get her out of here.” The room spins. Archie grasps the bedpost and pulls himself into a seated position. Everything is undulating, throbbing along with his pulse. How long has he been out? Archie’s eyes move to the bedroom window. He can see between the drapes that it’s still dark. Maybe it’s only been a few minutes. Maybe there’s still time. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know why Leo did this to him, and right now he doesn’t care. He knows that Susan needs him. That is enough. Using the bed for leverage, he hauls himself upright until he is bent over and dizzy, but standing. He glances around the room for a landline, but doesn’t see one. He has to get downstairs. His head is already clearing. By the time he gets down the stairs, he is lucid. The guesthouse is quiet. The lights downstairs are low. Archie makes his way carefully through the living room and out the front door. The catering van is gone. He fumbles for the mask in his pocket and puts it on, and then moves briskly down a path leading through the grounds. The party is still going. He can hear the music coming from around the house. The lamplights and torches are like bright stars in the yard. But he doesn’t see anyone else. No caterers or partygoers. It’s like this part of the grounds has been closed to guests. The path in front of Archie forks in two. So many of the gravel garden paths split and meander and double back on themselves, that Archie has to glance around to get his bearings. He doesn’t want to lose time. That’s when he sees her.

He stops in his tracks.

She’s not on a path. She’s in the woods. But there is an accent spotlight angled up to illuminate a tree, and it catches her briefly in its glow. She is wearing a slinky red gown and a gold mask that glitters as she crosses the beam of light. Her hair is long and dark.

But Archie would know her anywhere.

It’s Gretchen Lowell.

Archie knows every inch of her body; he recognizes the angle of her head, the contour of her shoulders, her carriage. But he knows she must be a hallucination, that he’s gone too long without oxygen, that his eyes are playing tricks on him. Yet, there she is, right in front of him. She doesn’t see him. He’s sure of this. Her attention is focused elsewhere, up ahead. Archie follows her gaze and sees a flash of movement thirty feet in front of her, and he realizes that she’s following somebody.

She looks so real.

He takes a step after her.