The Never List

darkness.”
    I could feel my shoulders begin to shake, but I fought back the tears. I didn’t want Tracy to see me cry again. But I couldn’t face the idea of going back there.
    I needed some air. The hotel windows didn’t open, so I picked up the laminated room service menu and started fanning myself with it. Tracy watched me, but I had given up trying to read her emotions, so I didn’t bother checking her expression.
    “Come on, Sarah,” she finally coaxed. “You gotta get there. Look how far you’ve come already. A month ago you couldn’t go to the laundromat. I know none of this is easy for you. It’s not easy for me either. But remember, you won’t be going out there alone this time.”
    Tracy went into the bathroom and came out with a wad of toilet paper.
    “Here,” she said, handing it to me rather unceremoniously. “Go ahead and cry. You’ll feel better. Then clean yourself up, and let’s take a look at Google Earth.” She paused before continuing, “And if you really can’t do it, then fine. I’ll go out there by myself.”
    I gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
    “I would, and I will. You know my theory. Plunge in. Face the fear head-on. Stay on the offense.”
    Just what I need, I thought. Another body on my conscience. I was the one who had gotten her out here, dragged her back into the nightmare of these memories. I couldn’t let her go out there on her own. If something happened to her, I would never recover from the guilt. I had to pull myself together and go. I sat there hating her and, even more, hating myself for starting this whole thing. If I hadn’t pushed this forward, I’d still be sitting in my peaceful white haven eleven stories up, ordering in Thai food and watching films on Turner Classic Movies I’d seen a hundred times by myself.
    Goddammit, I had to do this.
    That night at ten p.m., dressed in black and wearing our most comfortable shoes, we pulled out of the hotel parking lot. Part of me was hoping I couldn’t find the warehouse again. That somehow the earth had swallowed it whole, along with whatever perverse rituals were going on within it.
    On the drive Tracy told me she’d reached Christine that morning, after somehow persuading Jim to give her the number.
    “And how did that go?” I asked.
    “Of course, it was a miracle she didn’t hang up on me immediately, but she heard me out. She didn’t have too much to say about it, though. In fact, she was silent for so long, I thought we’d been disconnected. But then she oh-so-calmly thanked me for the ‘update,’as she called it. The update . And that was pretty much it. She said she had to go catch a plane and hung up.”
    I could tell Tracy was upset by Christine’s indifference, but she didn’t want to let me see it. For my own part, I hadn’t expected much to come of it, so I shrugged in the darkness of the passenger seat as I adjusted my black gloves and cap.
    After a couple of false starts, we found the road to The Vault, which we only confirmed by driving all the way up to its entrance. We pulled into the parking lot and killed our lights. We had to take things slowly, after all. In the darkness, Tracy peered over at a lone man, standing by his car as he pulled a fringed black leather jacket up over his well-muscled shoulders.
    “Your kind of place, huh, Tracy?” I finally said.
    She laughed quietly.
    “It doesn’t … it doesn’t remind you …” I trailed off.
    Tracy just stared into the doorway of the club. “Yes. Yes, it does. But it gives me control of it.”
    We sat silently in the dark car for a few more minutes, then pulled back onto the road. While Tracy focused on the winding drive, I looked out into the trees, studying each dirt driveway on the left to find our turnoff. I had been so afraid that other night that I couldn’t remember if I had driven for twenty minutes or forty-five.
    Finally, I saw it. I was sure it was the right one, if nothing else because of the way my skin crawled just seeing it. We drove past it a few hundred yards, searching for a place to tuck the car. We found a small road where the weeds had grown up, and Tracy eased in as far as she could. She backed it in slowly so we could pull out fast if we needed to. I made Tracy check twice to make sure we wouldn’t get stuck in the mud and the grass wasn’t high enough to impede our exit. I wanted to be prepared to leave in a hurry.
    This time I was fully equipped at least. I had my cell phone strapped to my