“Are we in a hurry?” Alice gasped when he took a sharp curve fast enough to tilt her torso nearly parallel to the seat.

“Late,” he replied shortly, the car hurtling through the darkness.

She didn’t know how they could possibly be late. Wade had told her fifteen minutes and she’d been out there in ten. When they finally stopped, Alice took the driver’s white-gloved hand and let him help her out, feeling disoriented. The driver was mumbling to himself about their tardiness as he shut the door behind her.

“She won’t be pleased,” he remarked, shutting the car door with a thump that made Alice jump. She looked around, trying to see if Wade was waiting for her somewhere, but there was nothing, nothing at all, just a long gravel drive leading up to a building of some sort she couldn’t even really see. The night was complete darkness, no streetlights, not even a moon to light the way.

“Excuse me?” Alice called to the driver but he was already striding toward the building, not much of him visible except for the flash of his gloves. “Can you help me?”

“No time,” he called back and then he disappeared.

She stood there shivering for a moment, from anxiety or cold she wasn’t sure, wondering what to do next. She half-expected Wade to appear out of thin air, but when he didn’t, she decided to call him. Her iPhone had no signal though, no matter which way she turned.

There wasn’t anything else to do but follow the driver before he got too far ahead.

She used the “flashlight” function on her iPhone and with that little bit of light made it to the side of the building where the driver had gone. It was solid black brick as far as she could tell, no windows or doors. So how had he disappeared?

Alice swept the light from her phone this way and that. She walked down the wall, frowning, perplexed, her heels unsteady on the gravel. Sighing, she ran her hand along the wall like she had when she was a kid as she paced and was about to turn and go the other way when the wall ended. Startled, she used the light on that part of the wall and realized it had depth. There was a section missing here, but the brick was so black, so seamless, it all ran together.