He heard the noise louder now, powerful engines roaring off the walls of the valley. Straining, he peered through the bars. The steel slats had been tripled, slicing his view into fissures.

The gravel road was blocked from view. He breathed and he waited.

At last an enormous moving truck edged into sight as it turned in to the circular cobblestone driveway and passed from his field of vision.

And then another.

Another.

The last parked with its rear still visible. Workers coalesced at the back of the truck around the rolling door. It rattled up on creaky tracks and banged, dislodging a shelf of ice from the roof.

Several of the men hopped inside, and a moment later an enormous flat item, sized like a barn door and ensconced in protective wooden crating, emerged. The workers lowered it from the truck, laboring under its weight, and staggered out of view toward the porch.

Evan realized now why René had chosen not to knock him out with halogenated ether. He wanted Evan to witness this.

Whatever this was.

The workers came back for another like-shaped object. Evan wondered just what the hell it was.

A few minutes later came a different kind of ruckus from deep inside the chalet.

Saws revving and power screwdrivers and the screech of rent metal.

Construction noises.

Evan returned to his room, put his ear to the sturdy front door, and listened for a while. After a time his legs grew sore, so he sat with his back to the door. An hour passed and then another, the clamor never subsiding. A few times he nodded off, but the sound was piercing and irregular enough to avert sleep.

The dread gathering in his stomach didn’t help either.

He watched the first light of morning filter through the bars. It crept across the floor, inch by inch. It had just reached his toes when he heard the moving trucks rumble away.

A blissful moment of silence followed.

Then the electricity hit, flame erupting around his neck, shooting tendrils of heat through his jaw and down into his chest. The shock flattened him to the floorboards.

It continued, feeding Evan a steady current of pain. Somewhere beneath the static, he realized that these were the new procedures before anyone entered his room. René was taking no more chances.

Sure enough, a moment later the door swung open, shoving his body aside.

Dex reached down and gathered him up.

46. All the Honey

46

All the Honey

Dead on his feet, Evan stumbled along the corridor a few paces ahead of Dex, a collared dog being taken for a walk. Instead of a leash, Dex had only to hold the transmitter up. A tap of his finger would send Evan to the floor.

They passed the library and then the sunroom. Every step heightened Evan’s curiosity. And his concern. What torture device had René built for him?