Chapter Twenty-Two
“MOM?” TOMMY had pushed the unlocked door open and stood under the chandelier, wet and confused. Brad had his hand in his pocket, but I saw the outline of the gun barrel pointed at me. Slowly, I stepped back and let the French door slam shut.
“Hi, Uncle Brad. What are you doing here?”
“Tommy, run!” I yelled, but by then Brad had the gun out and pointed, not at Tommy, but at me. Tommy stood stock still, looking from Brad to me.
“Come here, Tommy,” Brad said. “We’re going to walk out of here. Out back. And to my car.”
Slowly, my son walked towards us, and anguish filled me. He wasn’t going to save himself and leave me. And Brad . . . Brad couldn’t let either of us go.
“I don’t understand,” Tommy said in a careful voice. “What’s going on?”
“He killed your father.”
Tommy gasped, and in the light from the chandelier, I could see Brad’s face redden. “I just wanted him to settle the case before the discovery got going.”
He fell silent, and I took up what I imagined to be the story. “So you sketched out an offer of settlement and took it to him that night at his office. You tried to force him to take the fountain pen and paper, and when he wouldn’t do it, you shoved him.”
“Something like that. He took the pen,” Brad said contemplatively. “And then he threw it out. Contempt.” He added, “You still haven’t given me that little baggie, the one with my pen.”
“I’ll give it to you when we get to where we’re going.”
“Ah, Meggie, if it makes you feel better, carry it for now. I’ll get it later. Let’s go.” He waved the gun towards the door I’d just closed.
Tommy shuffled to stand by me, and my hand stole out to grip his. Then I unlatched the door and stepped out onto the wet wooden floor of the deck. For a moment I considered screaming, bellowing as loudly as I knew I could. But I could see only tiny distant winks of houselights in the darkness, and the wind rose up to overwhelm any noise I might make. No one would be out tonight. No one could help us, unless Mike arrived and realized something was wrong.
The rain slashed at my face and the wind tangled my hair, and I focused fiercely on how to turn this storm to our advantage. A crack of thunder, and the sky flashed white, and I glanced back to see Brad’s strained face in sharp relief. He was nervous. He was scared. Considering that he held a gun, that wasn’t necessarily a relief. But if I could distract him, detain him, Mike would be arriving soon, driving along that road where Brad was parked.
“Brad, think this through. If Don’s death was really an accident, you can get out from under that. And I don’t think they’ll be able to pin Will’s accident on you.”
“There’s that pickup truck I rented last week. The one that looked just like Murdoch’s. I used a false name, of course, but if they decide to look into it, they’ll figure out I’m a Munssen.” He waved the gun towards the steps. “Go on. Down to the woods and turn left. We’ll come up through the other yard.”
“Then what?” I didn’t want to ask, didn’t want Tommy to hear the answer. But it bought me another few seconds as Brad carefully took the slippery stairs, one hand on the wooden bannister.
“Then we’ll take a ride. You’ll drive. I’ll be in the passenger seat with the gun. Tommy, dear boy, you’ll have to sit in back, very quietly, or I’ll have to discharge this into your mother.”
“What difference does it make?” Tommy asked, standing his ground. “You’re going to shoot us anyway. Dear Uncle Brad.” All the teenaged contempt he could muster was in that endearment.
Brad raised his voice to compete with the howling of the wind. “But I’m hoping to wait until I get to the Murdoch farm. And that will give you both some more time to say your prayers, or say something important to each other. Or plot your escape, which I’m sure you’re both already doing.”
My eyes were adjusting to the darkness. I took a few steps and stopped, as if waiting for Brad. “Why didn’t you just kill Murdoch?”
“Because the old fool has instructed his estate to continue litigating the lawsuit if he died.”
Tommy had figured out my plan. He took a step, then stopped, still in earshot of Brad. “What would all come out? What’s the big deal? It was Dad who committed fraud, not you.”
Brad didn’t answer, so I said, “Uncle Brad made it possible. He got wind of the new floodplain survey before it was public. And he took money from your father for that inside information.”
Tommy said, “But Uncle Brad, you’re rich. Your whole family is rich. You didn’t need more money.”
I recalled the signs I hadn’t recognized before—Brad’s defensiveness about the symphony tickets, his inability to float a loan for Wanda’s symphony pledge, even his trading in the BMW for the Infiniti. “Old money, Tommy, has a way of dying at inconvenient moments.”
Brad didn’t deny this. “Keep moving.”
I squeezed Tommy’s hand as we slid down the slope to the edge of the woodland. It was hopeless, but I had to try. “Brad, we’ve been friends for twenty years. Real friends. And Tommy has called you his uncle all his life. He’s spent more time with you than with his real uncles. He’s just a kid.” I half-turned to face him, but with the air so lined with rain, I could hardly see him. “You can’t mean to do this just for money. It’s not worth it. You know it’s not.”
There was a peal of thunder, and lightning illuminated his face, so that for an instant he looked as beautiful and aesthetic as a martyr behind his rain-speckled glasses. “It’s hardly just the money now. It’s the family, the scandal—and I can’t do prison. I know it. It would kill me. I don’t want to hurt you and Tommy—never Tommy—but I can end it all, just like this, and save everything, and get it all back. No one else will know. It will end here.”
But Mike, I wanted to scream. Mike and Wanda would figure it out. But if I reminded him of that, it might send him after them next. He could kill them, if he could kill Tommy.
There was nothing more to say. And Tommy, oddly, was urging me forward with a tug on my hand. We trudged along the woods, our feet sinking every step into the sod, and Tommy’s fingers dug into my palm. Another lightning flash, and I saw what he had noticed, just ahead, an opening in the brush, and through it a path down to the lake.
I squeezed his hand, and as the light faded, I flung my bag at Brad’s face, then shoved my son towards that opening and dove after him. As Brad erupted in a shout, I slid headfirst down the slope on my belly, pebbles jabbing at my face, my outstretched hand banging randomly against Tommy’s sneaker. We shot towards the lake like luge riders, only without a sled or rudder or controls, the branches whipping at us, the long grass slicing into our skin, Brad shouting above us.
I slammed into Tommy on some unseen plateau surrounded by brush. The lake was only a dozen yards below; I could hear the raindrops slam into the surface. Then I heard a crack like thunder, and a whine, and something struck a tree, chipping the bark, and I felt it, a sharpness in my calf like the slice of a knife. I reached down and felt my leg and found, along with the mud and the rain, the slimy slide of blood. The pain shot through me, almost stunning me.
“Honey,” I whispered, “he shot me—just in the leg. But I don’t think I can walk. And the cell signal is down. We can’t call 911.”
I didn’t know if he heard me over the wind, but he half-rose to his knees and grabbed my hand, tugging me down, pulling me with him, rolling over the crest of the little clearing. Another lightning flash, and I saw where he was taking me—under a large bush, the kind children liked to turn into low-tech forts. I found myself huddling there in a cave-like place under its branches, Tommy crouched beside me. We could hear Brad crashing into the brush above us, cursing and calling our names. I held my breath, both to defend against the pain and to keep silent, held my breath until my lu
ngs burned. Then I drew in more air through my teeth.
“I have to go, Mom.” Tommy’s voice was low and harsh in my ear. “It’s the only way. I know where to go. We used to sail Travis’s remote-control boat in the lake. I’ll draw Brad off and go along the lake, and up the neighbor’s path to the road. I can do it.”
I got a death grip on his arm. I wasn’t going to let him go out there where he could get shot. We could wait, just wait, until something happened, till Mike arrived and . . . and what? Wandered around back for some crazy reason? He wouldn’t. He would think I had stood him up again and drive away.
“Go.” My fingers curled off his arm and into a fist. “Go.”
He was off like a shot through the back of our little cave, making less noise than I dreaded, but still, my hand closed on a rock and I flung it sidearm, as if I were skipping it into the river, out the opening and it clattered into the brush a dozen feet beyond, far away from Tommy. A pitiful diversion, but all I could manage.
Brad had stopped yelling, but I could hear his progress through the brush. The crashing came closer. I imagined I heard his heavy breathing over the wind. I started counting the seconds in my head. How long would it take my champion quarter-miler to run up that slope to the road? How long would it take him to flag down a car or bang on a front door? A minute, two, three? How long would it take Brad to realize where Tommy had gone? How long for Brad to find me?
I curled up into a tight ball in the mud, my hand gripping my calf, my teeth biting back the cry of pain. My heart was pumping as hard as the rain fell, and I pressed my arm over my chest, trying to still it, as if Brad might hear the rhythm and locate me. There in the cave, protected a bit from the wind, it was quieter, and if I held my breath I could hear the rain rattling the leaves above me, and Brad pushing through undergrowth somewhere out there, and a shout of muddled rage . . . and then, as the thunder rumbled, a shot, a sudden blast snatched away by the wind.
Tommy—but there was no scream. The air tasted of gunpowder and wet wood. Tommy must have gotten away. I couldn’t bear it otherwise.
Even when the lightning flashed, there was nothing visible through the opening but the glistening mud and the silver trails of the rain through the dark air. I could hear Brad panting truly now, no terrified illusion, coming closer—an agonized wheeze, then a harsh exhale.
“Meggie!” he screamed, and the sound sizzled through me like an electric shock. He was that close. I strained my eyes and there I saw him, the sharp shapes of his wingtip shoes only two yards away in the little clearing. I gathered myself tighter, suppressed my breath, focused on quieting the pounding of my pulse, and prepared, if I had to, to roll out the back and down to the lake, and . . . I don’t know, swim somewhere away, away from the shore.
The shoes moved closer, tentatively. His pants were wet, clinging to his legs. He sensed me near. “Meggie,” he said again, this time in a quiet, conversational voice that barely carried over the wind. “Come on out. I will make it quick.”
I dug into the mud, flexed my arm, ready to launch myself through the branches out the back where Tommy had gone. Brad’s legs came closer. If I stretched, maybe I could grab him.
A rustle somewhere to the west, and his legs swiveled as he turned to see. Now! I told myself, but before I could move something smashed into Brad and brought him down. The bodies collided, falling onto the ground of the clearing, Brad underneath the other man. Too tall to be Tommy, thank God. Lightning flashed far off, and I saw Brad’s hand, the gun gripped in his fingers . . . and then a vicious chop by the other man, and the gun spun free, towards my cave.
Gathering my strength, I launched myself towards it. My hand, slippery with my own blood, wouldn’t grasp it. All I could do was scoop it back out of reach of Brad’s flailing hand. Now, with my head half out of my sanctuary, the tangle of bodies was only two feet away. I recognized the other form as Mike Warren, and the relief washed over me, then panic, as Brad’s hand closed on a rock and he shoved Mike back and rose to his feet.
I had to help, but the best I could do was crawl the last foot to the mouth of my cave and struggle to my knees. Mike was up too, but Brad had the rock raised over his head and–
“Mom! Are you all right?” A powerful light blasted out of the darkness and hovered there, illuminating the scene, Brad with his hand coming down, Mike stepping back to avoid his blow.
And then Brad threw up his free hand to block the light, and Mike lowered his head and charged, knocking Brad backwards. I heard a sickening thud as Brad’s head hit the ground, and then Mike whirled around and dropped to his knees in front of me.
“Bring the light,” he commanded, and Tommy moved nearer, my miraculously unscathed boy, his hair plastered down on his forehead and his face streaked with mud. He glanced warily at Brad’s prone, motionless figure, and then at me.
“Mom, I found this guy parking out front. I got a signal on his phone and called 911.”
“Good boy,” I said weakly, as with a gentle, imperious hand, Mike pushed me down on the ground and straightened my leg out in front of him.
I gasped with pain, and Tommy demanded, “What are you doing to my mom?” He raised his flashlight threateningly, his face fierce behind the glare. He didn’t trust anyone now. I saw that.
“I’m a physician,” Mike replied with that calm that sometimes maddened me but now seemed like the voice of safety. “And I thought I told you to stay with the car and wait for the police. Your son,” he added to me, “doesn’t obey so well.”
“Good,” I gritted my teeth as his fingers probed around the wound. “Am I . . . how’s it look?”
“Not too bad. It’s still in there—that’s why it’s hurting so badly—but it didn’t strike the bone. Catch,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his windbreaker.
Something metallic glinted in the light, and Tommy automatically grabbed it. “Your keys?”
“Yes. I want you to back up the driveway to the road and shine the lights to get the attention of the ambulance driver. The storm has knocked out the power, and the streetlights are off. It’s going to be hard for them to find this place.”
“You want me to drive your car? That majorly tight Jag?”
“You can drive, right?”
I bit down hard on the words learner’s permit. If Tommy could face down a loaded gun, he could back a car up a driveway. I just hoped Wanda’s mailbox was a few feet off the pavement.
“Yeah, sure.” Tommy held the keys reverently. “I can drive. I’ll bring the police down here.”
“Leave the light,” Mike said, and Tommy, with one last look at me, set the flashlight on a fallen log and ran off into the night.
Mike pulled off his windbreaker, then his t-shirt, and balling the shirt up, he pressed it to my leg. The shock receded to a throb, and I reached up, wonderingly, and touched his bare chest. “I keep getting you wet.”
“I noticed that. I don’t think I’ve dried out from the last time. In fact, I’m giving up the dive boat idea and moving to the Sahara.” He spoke lightly, but was glancing over his shoulder worriedly. I could feel his tension, though his hands remained gentle on my leg. “Just a few more minutes, and we’ll get you to the hospital.”
“What about Brad?”
He shook his head. “He’s out cold. Did I tell you I played football at U of I? It all came back to me when he raised his hand like he was going to pass. Safety blitz.” From a long way off there was the wail of sirens, and he touched my face reassuringly. “They’re almost here. They’ll bring a stretcher. And the police will deal with your friend there.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
I was fading out, but through a haze I heard him laugh. “I knew loving you would be an adventure,” he murmured, “but I’m about due for a time-out now, okay?”
I wanted to tell him that I was really very boring, a caut
ious accountant-type, and not adventurous at all, just ask anyone . . . but then, I listened in my head to what he had said . . . loving you. Ah, the easy way he said that word, I thought as the clouds closed over me and the rain pattered on my eyelids. This was a man who was good at loving.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I FOUND MYSELF swimming laboriously through a river of mud. I felt the surface above me, and broke through to a brightly lit room with a television hanging from the wall. Above me was a cheerful, white-bloused rescuer who reached out a hand to me to pull me out.
All she did really was take my pulse. “You’re awake. The doctor will be so pleased.”
“Tommy,” I whispered.
“Is that your son? He’s fine. I think he’s asleep somewhere around here.”
I closed my eyes, and I didn’t sink. When I heard Mike’s voice, all I had to do was wake up. “How are you feeling?”
I squinted at him. “Muddy. I mean, like I’ve been climbing up through mud.”
“That’s what coming out of anesthesia is like.” From the carafe on the bed-table, he poured me a drink and with a soothing hand on the back of my neck, helped me to sip it. This kind of bedside manner could get him arrested, I thought. Then he set me down on the pillow and looked judiciously at the monitor. “You’ll feel better in a few minutes.”
“What happened?” I inched my hand below the blanket and found my leg, thank God, encased in gauze. “I remember Brad and the shot, but you said it was only a flesh wound.”
“The bullet moved and nicked an artery as they were carrying you into the hospital. Pretty dicey there for a minute or two. You needed six pints of blood. But it’s all over now. Dr. Gupta stitched up the artery. You’re bruised from toes to hip, but you’ll recover.”
I frowned. “I don’t remember any of this.”
Until Death Page 34
