Isolation

by Mary Anna Evans

  The cold, sick feeling at his core took him onto the front porch, where Sly wasn’t sitting in the rocking chair with his ax in hand.

  Thumbing the button that dialed Joe’s phone and clamping his own phone to his ear, he sprinted down the front entry stairs to the front yard. Joe didn’t answer.

  As Gerry turned and ran through the basement door beneath the front porch, he prayed that he would find Emma and Michael safely where they were supposed to be. He found nothing but Joe’s cell phone lying beside the banister of the front staircase, face-down in the dirt.

  ***

  Joe only paused for an instant, because that’s all the time it took to do the mathematics of projectile flight in his head. If he launched himself silently, traveling at the proper angle and the proper speed, he would hit an unaware target.

  Delia sat staring into a small campfire. If he launched himself now, she wouldn’t see him coming before his dense body, curled into a compact crouch, struck her like a cannonball. Conjuring the scene in his mind’s eye, he could see the angle at which the rifle would fly out of her hands and he knew how far it would fly before it landed. When he had calculated that the rifle would fly far enough to render her unarmed, he jumped.

  ***

  Faye couldn’t believe that Delia hadn’t heard them coming. Joe’s footfalls made no more sound in the forest than they ever did, so he might have been able to sneak up on her, but he wasn’t alone and Faye didn’t have Joe’s knack for silence.

  Faye hadn’t been making as much noise as she might have, since her boots were still lying unlaced on the parlor floor, but she knew how many sticks had snapped beneath her feet because she had felt all their splinters cut into her soles. She had made plenty of noise breaking those sticks, enough to catch the attention of someone listening for trouble, but Delia had been staring abstractedly into the fire ever since Faye came into sight. Maybe the hiss and crackle of its flames had masked the sound of her footsteps and her breathing.

  By the time Joe paused for the leap onto Delia’s back, Faye was fully winded. Crouched on her hands and knees, she fought for breath. Her wheezing had to have been audible, but still Delia sat there, clothed head-to-toe in camouflage clothing in the exact dappled-green needed to hide in woodlands like the ones on Joyeuse Island. Delia warmed her well-manicured hands over the small fire and its flickering light played on her glossy pink fingernails. Faye could see those hands trembling in the orange light. What was the woman planning to do that made her so nervous?

  Delia’s weapon said that her plans involved death. That weapon, a long and sleek rifle that looked capable of taking out a deer from three hundred yards, lay across her lap. Perhaps the rifle was the answer to the question of why Delia didn’t hear Joe until he was upon her. Perhaps long hours of target practice had dulled her hearing.

  Faye was frightened by the mental image of Delia spending hour after hour pumping bullets into paper targets, growing ever more accurate and precise in her ability to put them into living people. This was the kind of practice that would render a person capable of putting a bullet into Liz’s back. It would also render that person capable of putting a bullet into someone standing watch on the porch of Faye’s home or sitting at the window of her child’s bedroom or even standing silhouetted in the window of a cupola three stories above the ground.

  Delia could do it. It was possible.

  Faye had seen the photo, the one she had texted to Joe. It had been part of an article about Delia and her second husband that had been published in Stock and Barrel. Her husband had been one of those hunters who liked to shoot really big things. Moose, bears, elk. The article had detailed the intensive marksmanship training he’d given his young wife, and it had featured a photo of the happy couple clad in camo and holding rifles…scary-looking rifles with scopes.

  She and Joe must not let Delia leave this spot, not with a rifle that would give her the capacity to take out Sly, Gerry, Emma and—oh God— little Michael in four quick shots.

  And for what? If Delia had killed Liz because she’d attracted the attention of the rich old man she’d targeted to be her third dead husband, and if she had been stalking Faye and Emma for the same reason, then Faye guessed the woman was willing to kill all her rivals. Why shouldn’t she also be willing to kill Sly, Gerry, Joe, and Michael, too? Why leave witnesses?

  Lovely young Delia didn’t fit the profile for a mass murderer, so she might have been able to pull it off. Faye imagined Delia, beautiful and impassive, watching the endless national news coverage that would ensue if six people were found shot to death on a lonely island. She would watch calmly, secure in the knowledge that no one had any reason to suspect her.

  The events after that were predictable. Delia would try to get Oscar to put a wedding ring on the finger that still bore the marks of her last dead husband’s rings. She would probably succeed. And Oscar would soon succumb to a lingering illness.

  In the last second before Joe jumped, Delia raised her head slightly and Faye got a good look into her face. Her unfocused eyes looked drugged. Together with the rifle and her trembling hands, those dazed eyes helped Faye shove the last clue into place. They showed her how Delia had managed to kill Liz, terrorize Emma, leave a butt-print on the bluff above Emma’s house, and come out to Joyeuse Island long enough to leave a footprint, all without Oscar ever noticing she was gone.

  Delia’s second husband had been the hunter who taught her to shoot that rifle, but her first husband had owned a chain of pharmacies. Delia had worked at his store. She’d had years to pilfer a stash of amphetamines to keep her awake when she needed to be up all night. She probably also had a stash of tranquilizers to help her sleep when she needed to sleep or to slip into Oscar’s drinks when she needed him unconscious. And Delia’s second husband had died from Alzheimer’s, an ailment that, like her first husband’s kidney failure, would be pretty damn easy to fake for a woman who had once had access to a drugstore full of pharmaceuticals.

  Before Joe’s body struck Delia’s, he passed between her body and the fire, and his shadow fell on her face. She jerked backward, showing the twitchy reaction time of a woman on speed, but there was nothing she could do to stop him. They went down in the dirt and the rifle landed four feet away.

  Faye knew instantly that it was her job to get it.

  ***

  Joe had the upper hand. He was larger and he had struck first. He had Delia’s shoulders pinned to the ground, and Faye could see him working to immobilize her flailing arms. Delia wasn’t a heavy woman, but she was tall and long-limbed. Joe needed some leverage to get her under control, so he raised himself on his knees and shifted his body weight forward.

  As he focused on her right arm, her left arm shot out to the side, groping for the rifle. It was out of reach but she found the next best thing, a long branch that she’d been using to poke the coals of her fire.

  The branch was stout and Delia swung it through the air like a bullwhip. Faye heard the crack when it broke against Joe’s temple. He shook his head, ponytail slinging through the air, and she caught sight of his eyes. For a moment, they looked as dazed as Delia’s. He quickly gathered his wits and pinned her right shoulder with his knee, grappling with her left hand for control of the branch.

  Faye saw that she could end this, if she could just get to the rifle. She stepped into the open, revealing herself. Delia struggled harder, knowing that the odds of her getting the upper hand over Joe had just dropped even further. As she arched her back to get a look at Faye, she also got a look at the piece of tree branch clutched in her own hand. Its end glowed where it had been resting in the burning fire.

  Delia knew a weapon when she saw it. She raked the branch across Joe’s throat and the red coals broke off and scattered.

  Faye heard her husband gasp. A streak of soot and an angry white-and-red mark slashed diagonally across his neck, and the sight gave her an electric shoc
k of sympathetic pain. She covered the ground between her and the rifle in a heartbeat.

  Delia used that heartbeat to drive the burning end of the branch into the hollow at the base of Joe’s throat. He jerked back, hard, and Delia used that off-balance moment to shift her weight beneath him, throwing him onto the ground beside her. She straddled him, pinning his arms under her knees and holding the branch high. It was still tipped with glowing coals that lit her smiling face. Searching for her other adversary, she looked over the shoulder and saw that the rifle was aimed at her and Faye was staring down its barrel.

  Faye had once stood on the other end of a rifle barrel while the woman who held it pulled the trigger. If it hadn’t misfired, she would have been dead. She had watched Joe pull the trigger of another rifle on the same woman. Together, they had watched her die. Faye herself, however, had never held a rifle in her hands. Her entire experience with the real-world use of firearms consisted of firing a revolver once at a woman and hitting her boat’s gas tank instead. The shot had been effective, because the exploding gas tank had absolutely taken the woman out, but Faye couldn’t take credit for good aim. After that day, she had spent many afternoons practicing with the same gun, so that she’d know how to use it the next time the real world required her to do so.

  Where was that gun now? Glancing down, she saw that she had carefully laid it on the ground behind her right foot so that she could use both hands to grip the more dangerous weapon. If Delia wanted that handgun, she was going to have to come through Faye to get it.

  Delia put a hand on Joe’s throat and pressed down hard, fighting off his big hands as she bore down. He couldn’t breathe.

  Faye had only an instant to decide what to do. She could almost have reached out and touched Delia and Joe with the tip of the rifle in her hands, so she suspected that its scope would be useless. It had been designed to be effective over long distance, not at point-blank range. She was too close to worry about the bullet dropping in flight, so she shouldn’t have to worry about hitting Joe, not if she aimed passably well. If she intended to shoot Delia, she could almost certainly do it. (And, to be honest with herself, she had to acknowledge that shooting Delia with such a behemoth from this distance probably meant killing her.)

  Faye knew that she was not meant to be a killer, because she wasn’t capable of pulling a trigger without first taking the time to think through the consequences. Sometimes a critical moment didn’t leave time for thought.

  Delia saw Faye hesitate and she let a silvery laugh pass from her perfect lips. “Put the gun down or I’ll grind this thing into his eyes. First one, then the other.” She waved the burning stick around. Bits of ash fell in Joe’s face and he closed his eyes tight to protect them. “I’ll probably mess up his pretty face while I’m doing it, and you don’t want that. But if burning the skin off his face isn’t enough to make you put that weapon down, I will do this.”

  She lifted her hand and let Joe gasp for breath while she again held the branch perpendicular like a spear over the soft spot at the base of his throat. “I will open up his throat with this thing. Poking, burning, tearing…whatever it takes, I will kill this man with nothing but a stick…a burning hot little stick.”

  Maybe it was just the drugs talking. Maybe Delia really did think that she still had the upper hand, even though Faye possessed all the firepower. Maybe she had a death wish, but Faye thought that the woman had no inkling that a mild-mannered archaeologist might really kill her. Maybe she was thinking, “Nice girls don’t shoot.”

  If so, then Delia was thinking wrong. It took nothing more than a glance at her suffering husband to make up Faye’s mind. She pulled the trigger.

  The bullet struck Delia in the chest and traveled out her back, poetically taking the opposite path of the bullet she’d pumped into Liz. Its momentum took Delia’s body backward and left her sprawled against a tree. Bits of bone and flesh surrounded her, and the ground was splashed with blood. Faye would have stood staring, stunned at what she’d done, but Joe needed her.

  She threw the rifle aside in her thoughtless hurry to get to her husband’s side. Then she straddled him, just as Delia had done. Unlike Delia, she was careful to keep her weight on her knees so that she wouldn’t impede his breathing. And he was breathing, thank God. The wound on his neck didn’t pierce his trachea, and Faye counted herself lucky that she hadn’t given Delia the extra seconds she’d needed to do just that.

  His eyes were closed and she was so afraid of hurting him, but she gently kissed his lips and his jaw and, finally, the eyelids that Delia had threatened to gouge away. Then she pulled away to let him breathe. As she stood, she felt his big hand close on her ankle, as if he were making sure she was still there. Leaning down, she took that hand and helped him to his feet. He moved like a man who was going to be okay.

  Only after she saw that Joe was back to himself did she look around her. A dozen small fires licked across the forest floor. The coals from Delia’s branch had landed among the dry leaf litter and pine straw that lay thick over all of Joyeuse Island. The fires were moving as fast as a human being could run, maybe faster.

  They needed to be at home, and it was time to run. Once again, Joe was leading the way through the night and, once again, Faye was sprinting barefoot over uneven ground. The moon had still not shown its face, but the fires behind them and on either side lent enough light to put Faye in terror.

  In the flickering firelight, Faye and Joe ran for home.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Sly stood in the cupola, practically hanging out the open window. The smell of smoke had grown steadily since he heard the gunshot. He wanted to find his son and help him. He had learned the island’s paths pretty well, so he thought he probably could get to Joe in the dark, but first he had to have some inkling of where he was.

  The smoke seemed to be coming from the east, and his half-century-old eyes were not telling him what he wanted to know.

  How bad was it?

  When a warm glow lit the eastern horizon, many hours before dawn would light those same skies, he knew the answer. It was bad.

  ***

  Joe extended a hand back to help Faye and she slapped it away.

  “Don’t wait for me,” she said. “Get back to the house and save our…”

  She swallowed, and he knew she was unable to spit out all the things she wanted him to save. Son. Father. Friends. Home.

  When Faye found her voice, she flapped her hand in the direction of their big old house, still running. “We have to save it all. Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  He stretched out his stride and ran for home.

  ***

  Gerry had wandered the house, finding Emma and Michael in the basement but no one in the rest of the house or on the porches. There was only one more place to look, the cupola, and he was heading there when the sound of a single gunshot drew him away from the staircase, toward an east-facing window.

  Unless Faye, Joe, and Sly were all crowded into the cupola, some or all of them were out there in the dark. He wanted to help them and he wanted to know the answers to the questions that were holding him at the window. He was a scientist, so he lived for questions, but he was finding that unanswerable life-and-death questions left him paralyzed.

  Where were Faye, Joe, and Sly?

  Who pulled that trigger and what was the target? Who was the target?

  Why was the air heavy with smoke?

  Gerry stood indecisive, wishing desperately that he knew what his duty was, so that he could do it.

  A tremendous clatter sounded behind him, and he turned to see Sly descending the spiral staircase at top speed, still carrying the ax. Halfway down, he put both big hands on the banister and lofted over the side, hitting the ground at a run. It was the action of a foolhardy and headstrong youth, not a man running on aging knees. Sly Mantooth would feel those knees tomorrow—and his hips and
his neck and his lower back—but tonight he was moving like a young man running into battle.

  More important in Gerry’s mind, was this: Sly was moving like a man who knew where his duty lay and Gerry intended to help him do it.

  Sly was still running, out the front door and down the stairs. He bellowed “Fire!” Seeing the question on Gerry’s face, he wasted precious breath telling him how he could help. “Shovel’s under the porch.”

  Before Gerry could voice his question—“Where?”—Sly had answered it without wasting any more breath. He had pointed the big ax eastward toward the fire, while running as hard as he could in that direction.

  ***

  Emma heard the shot and snatched a sleeping Michael out of his bed. She’d checked the back porch for Joe and the parlor for Faye, and she’d just reached the front door when Sly barreled past her.

  She heard Sly cry out “Fire!” to Gerry, who was standing on the front porch, and she called after them. “I’ll wet some towels down. We can use them to beat back the fire.”

  This announcement stopped Sly cold. It actually made him turn around and walk a few steps in her direction, away from the emergency. “No, you will not be going near that fire.”

  She was preparing to tell him that nobody, not even Douglass Everett in his prime, had ever told her what to do, but his next words stopped her. “It’s too dark for you to even set that child down. He could wander two steps away and none of us would see him. When the fire is on us, and I’m here to tell you that it’s coming fast, we can’t be running around looking for that baby.”

  He was right.

  Sly took one more step in her direction. “I told my son I’d keep his family safe. You’re family to him, too. You take that baby down to the beach. You walk out in the water with him in your arms and you stay there until the fire’s done. That’s the most important job of the night. Will you do it?”