Perfect Touch

by Elizabeth Lowell

Then he realized that she was outpacing him and might get away. He cursed her viciously.

  Sara heard Barton’s savage words and didn’t care. She simply, doggedly, ran through the darkness and stinging snow, alone as she had never been before in her life. She tried to scream, but only had enough breath for a hoarse groan.

  A hand clamped onto one of her pumping arms, spinning her around. Barton kicked out at her, knocking her feet out from under her. She was on her back, unable to see his face, but she could smell the mint and alcohol on his breath. His voice was as ugly as any sneer. She tried to scream again, and again could only moan.

  He dropped her foot and grabbed at her bare hand, yanking her toward him. Before she could counter the move, he had his hand in the hair at her scalp and was dragging her over the frozen lot. Snow scraped and gathered beneath her thin cotton shirt.

  She clawed feebly at the hand buried in her hair and tried to lift her legs to kick him, but all she managed was a useless flopping around. Between the noise of his shoes crunching through icy snow, she heard the sound of running water.

  Suddenly Barton yanked her upright and simultaneously shoved her forward so hard her feet left the ground.

  And then she was falling down, down.

  The shallow, deadly cold water waited for her below.

  CHAPTER 29

  CHILDLIKE, THE WIND played with falling snow, throwing curtains here and there, revealing and concealing the streetlights and two figures running. Breathing hard, Jay stared where he thought he’d seen movement.

  There. Off to the right.

  The pale blur of Sara’s blouse was headed back into the darkness at the edges of the construction zone. He thought about using the flashlight on his belt to light the way but didn’t do it. The moon appeared often enough between storm cells that he didn’t want to ruin his night vision.

  Besides, when it came to a fight, he wanted both hands free.

  He lengthened his stride, leaping over small obstacles and watching for the treacherous drainage ditches. Slipping, sliding, heart pumping, he closed the distance between himself and the two figures that had vanished into snow flurries less than a block away.

  Then wind gusted, revealing only one person with a wildly flapping coat.

  Barton.

  Where’s Sara?

  Despite the fear clawing at him like another kind of cold, Jay knew he would have heard a shot.

  She must have slipped and gone down.

  He increased his speed, desperate to get to Barton before he could hurt Sara any more. As he pounded closer, he saw an indigo outline and a pale face. The features were small, delicate as a girl’s, and twisted with hate. Then Barton turned and ran back in the direction of the gallery, pursued instead of the pursuer.

  Jay tackled his brother hard, bone crunching on bone, making certain that Barton hit the ground first. Then he lifted his fist and flipped Barton over.

  “Go ahead,” Barton panted. “You’ve always wanted to do it. Beat me while she freezes to death in the ditch.”

  With a harsh curse and a hard kick, Jay shoved off Barton and ran back to the place he had last seen Sara.

  Two hundred feet and a lifetime later, he was on top of a berm. The water below was an ugly black gash promising an icy death. He went down the slope in long, leaping strides until his right foot caught on a hidden obstacle. The ankle gave way, throwing him to the right. Twisting, he broke his fall with his shoulder, stopping just short of the water.

  Sitting up, he yanked the flashlight from his belt and turned it on. For long, terrifying moments, the bright LED found nothing but blinding white snow and empty black water. Then a different color of white caught the light.

  Sara.

  She was sprawled on her back, her head and shoulders in the water. At the edge of the flashlight beam, the seeping blood on her neck was like a trickle of dark paint. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  Dead people didn’t bleed.

  In a blur of motion, he pulled her away from the water and stripped off her soaked blouse. She would have fought him if she’d had the strength, but the best she could do was a kind of reflexive twitching away from him.

  “Easy, sweetheart. It’s Jay.”

  He stripped off his shearling coat and stuffed her into it, yanking it up and over her head to keep her soaked hair out of the wind. Then he stood and pulled her up into a fireman’s carry around his shoulders. Holding her with one arm, he fished in his pocket for his phone.

  It was gone.

  Shit. Must have happened during one of my falls.

  He checked the Glock. Still in place. Wet, cold, waiting.

  Too bad I can’t make a phone call on it.

  Using the flashlight to avoid obstacles, Jay began moving at a ground-eating trot toward warmth. Restaurant, gallery, his truck—he didn’t care. All that mattered was getting Sara warm again.

  As he double-timed it, he kept looking for Barton. Either his brother was still down or he had managed to get out of sight while Jay found Sara.

  I’ll find you again, little brother. Count on it.

  “J-J-Jay?” The muffled word came from the depths of his coat.

  “It’s me. Can you feel your hands and toes?”

  “C-C-Cold.”

  He felt the violent shivers racking her. Relief swept through him at the sign that her body was returning to life.

  Two blocks later she said, “B-Burns.”

  “Good. That’s circulation coming back,” he explained as he stepped into the street. “Hurts like a bitch.”

  Not a single car was in sight.

  Jay kicked the worst of the ice and snow from his grip-tracks and trotted toward the gallery. Burning hot streaks shot up from his ankle every time it met the hard cement of the sidewalk. He ignored the pain. He’d been injured worse and carried a wounded soldier back to camp. The experience had taught him that sometimes pain was a message without meaning.

  “I c-can w-walk,” Sara said as her head bounced against him.

  “It’s faster this way.”

  “B-But—”

  “Save your breath for warming up.”

  By the time he reached the block with Susie’s Kitchen in it, the sign in the window told him they had shut down and gone home.

  “Gallery,” Sara said.

  “The truck will be more comfortable.”

  “G-Gallery,” she insisted.

  Remembering the last time he had run roughshod over her wishes, Jay turned toward the gallery. At least the phone there would be working. He was sure of it. He had started the utilities himself.

  “Gallery it is. Hang on, sweetheart. We’re almost there.”

  He passed the parking lot and noted that the black BMW was still there. Wherever Barton had gone, he hadn’t taken his car.

  “Muse,” she said clearly.

  The first word that came to Jay was savage, so he bit it back.

  Sara gripped the arm holding her in place across his shoulders. Her head was spinning, but something Barton had said made awful sense to her now.

  “The painting,” she said carefully. “Barton wants to burn it.”

  For two cents, I’d help him, Jay thought bitterly.

  “There’s a secret in the painting,” she said as he swung into the alley.

  “I’m glad you’re coming around, but you’re not making a whole lot of sense. Easy now, I’m going to put you down.”

  He bent over by the gallery door and gently put her on her feet, steadying her with his hands. As he did, his instincts hammered at him, yelling that he had overlooked something.

  Footprints.

  Leading into the gallery.

  Suddenly the door opened and a man’s hand grabbed Sara, yanking her into the gallery.

  “Get in here or I’ll kill her.”

  “Henry? What in hell are you doing here?”

  And then Jay was afraid that he knew.

  The foreman backed up until he and Sara were beyond Jay’s r
each.

  “Shut the door behind you,” Henry said. “There are police cruisers all over the place.”

  Wish I’d seen one, Jay thought as he shut the door and watched Henry’s every breath.

  “As for what I’m doing, I’m cleaning up after Barton.” His voice, like his expression, was heavy with contempt. “That boy can’t take a piss without wetting himself.”

  Barton’s voice came from behind Henry and off to the right. His voice was different, hard where it had been whiny. “I’ve done a lot more than you, old man. Two months ago, I tried to get the paintings out of Fish Camp alone, but the old man got mad when I kicked over an open can of paint. He told me not to come back without Jay.”

  Henry looked bored.

  “I even robbed Sara’s room to make her go home,” Barton finished. “Now give me back my gun.”

  “Any idiot could walk through an open door. As for the gun you stole from Liza . . .” Henry flicked a glance at the gun he was holding against Sara’s head. “A .22 purse pistol. Girly gun for a girly boy. But if you get close enough, it works okay. I’m close enough.”

  When Henry looked up an instant later, it was into the muzzle of another, bigger pistol, Jay’s .45 coming around to draw a bead on Henry’s head.

  “Jesus, you’re fast,” Henry said. “Faster than JD, and he was lightning.”

  “Let her go,” Jay said flatly. Or look away again. “There’s nothing in this for you.”

  “Put your gun down,” Henry said, pressing the muzzle of his pistol harder into Sara’s pale cheek.

  “Don’t give up your gun, Jay,” Sara said hoarsely, pleading with her beautiful, dark eyes. “He’ll kill you and then he’ll kill me.”

  “Nobody has to die,” Jay said. An amateur hiding behind a hostage always makes a mistake. The only question is when.

  And if the hostage gets shot first.

  Henry looked into Jay’s cold navy eyes and wished Sara was tall enough to hide more of him.

  “You shouldn’t have come back,” Barton said to Jay. “We had a good thing. Meth labs, pot growing. Our cut was more than the stingy allowance you gave Mother, but she didn’t know. She never knew. Then you had to go all Rambo on the grow operations and I had to take her orders again.”

  “Shut up,” Henry snarled.

  “Why?” Barton asked. “Jay won’t do anything as long as you have a gun to that bitch’s head. You call me stupid, but he’s the one who fell in love. It makes him weak.”

  Sara looked frantically from Jay to Barton, who was holding a bloody cloth to one side of his face.

  Jay’s eyes never wavered from Henry. All it would take was another moment of inattention on the foreman’s part and the standoff would be over.

  “You can tell a man by his partners,” Jay said. “You think about that, Henry?”

  “Barton isn’t my partner. Not like that.”

  “The hell I’m not,” Barton said coolly. “I’m the one who made the deal with the local growers and cookers. I’m the one who picked up the money every month and passed it out.”

  “And you’re the one who got cheated every month,” Henry said.

  “No, old man. That was you. I kept two-thirds. I pulled the strings, and everyone thought they were pulling mine. Those acting lessons Jay paid for were worth every penny. I fooled—”

  “Shut up!” Henry said again.

  “Why? You’re going to kill both of them, I’ll inherit, and—”

  “You won’t inherit,” Sara said, clamping her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t chatter. “You’re not JD’s blood son.”

  Jay felt shock waves move through him, but his aim never shifted by a millimeter.

  It explains so much, he thought. Too much.

  “So you figured it out,” Henry said wearily. “I was afraid you would, but I thought it would take longer.”

  “Underneath all that do-over paint is a portrait of Liza,” Sara said, her voice certain.

  “Custer’s damned muse,” Henry said bitterly. “His lover. But Liza loves money and Custer was broke. She married JD, who was rich. Barton is Custer’s get.”

  “Sweet, isn’t it?” Barton said. He had shifted in his chair, leaning so far forward that his face almost touched his knees. He was holding the cloth awkwardly with his left hand on the right side of his face. “I would have been screwed out of my inheritance, but now Jay will be screwed out of his.”

  “That’s crazy,” Jay said calmly. “Blood or not, you’re my brother. It’s the raising that counts, the living together as a family.”

  “Saint Jay,” mocked Barton coldly. “And you’d do it, too. You’d give me a quarter of the ranch.”

  “You’re my brother.”

  “You’re a schmuck,” Barton said. “Look at me, schmuck.”

  Jay’s attention never shifted from Henry and the gun at Sara’s head.

  She watched Jay, only him. She thought about going limp to break Henry’s concentration but was afraid that she would get shot the second she moved.

  I never got to tell you that I love you, Jay.

  “Henry,” Jay said. “If you think Barton will give you one cent of whatever he gets his hands on, you’re crazier than he is.”

  “You should have read JD’s will,” Henry said. “If I’m foreman when the ranch is sold, I get four percent.”

  Jay just listened and waited for Henry to make a mistake.

  “Get the damned painting, Barton,” Henry said. “I couldn’t keep JD from getting in bed with Liza then, but I can protect my percentage now.”

  “What do you mean about Liza?” Sara asked, doing anything she could to get his attention away from the gun pressed hard into her cheek.

  “JD told Liza he wouldn’t marry her until he got her pregnant,” Henry said. “He said Ginny was all but barren. He wouldn’t have a barren second wife.”

  “Mother got knocked up real quick, but not by JD,” Barton said, his smile as cold as the person he had always been beneath the act. “She fooled him but good.”

  “JD figured it out after years went by with no more kids,” Henry retorted. “He divorced her. Then he held Barton’s quarter of the ranch over her head to make sure she never told anyone that Ginny hadn’t been the sterile half of the Vermilion marriage.” Without looking away from Jay, he asked, “You have that canvas set up yet, Barton?”

  “Ease down, old man,” Barton said. “Wouldn’t want you to throw a big clot and die before the fun begins.”

  While he talked, Barton finished dragging over and levering onto a nearby table a canvas taller than he was. Smiling, savoring every moment of power, he took a can of lighter fluid from his overcoat pocket and squirted liquid randomly over the painting. He was laughing when he tossed the can on top of the canvas.

  “No,” Sara said hoarsely. “Muse is priceless.”

  Barton laughed at her. “I only wish this was my mother. She could nag a statue to its knees.”

  Sara made a mute sound of protest, and the gun barrel dug deeper into her cheek.

  Barton lit a cigarette with his pocket lighter, then grinned down at the painting.

  “Do it,” Henry said impatiently.

  “What’s the rush? I’ve waited years to see my older brother helpless. He’s such a schmuck. All he has to do is shoot through the bitch and kill you, but he’s too weak to do it. How’s it feel to be the weakling, bro?”

  “Love isn’t a weakness,” Jay said. “It’s the greatest strength there is.”

  “And you call me crazy.” Barton flicked the lighter to life and held it to a corner of the canvas where fluid dripped down to the floor.

  “No,” Sara said. “No! You’re burning something that can never—”

  With a soft whoosh, a cloud of fire billowed up into Barton’s face. He leaped back, sending a chair crashing into Henry, who looked reflexively to see what had happened.

  Two shots rang out like one. Henry was dead between one breath and the next.

  The instant the
grip in her hair loosened, Sara leaped away, grabbed a sheet from the floor, and ran to the painting. Hurriedly she began snuffing out the fire.

  Jay bent to pick up Henry’s pistol.

  When he straightened again, he found himself looking at a gun held by the smiling stranger who had once been his younger brother.

  “This isn’t a pussy gun,” Barton said. “It’s bigger than yours. I just wanted to use Mother’s for any killing.” He shrugged. “Now I’ll have to think of another story.”

  “Give it up,” Jay said.

  “Not a chance. You’re too weak to shoot your little brother, but I’m not too weak to shoot you. Chooka-chooka, bro.”

  Two more shots snapped out as one.

  “Jay!” she screamed, running toward him.

  But it was Barton who fell to the floor, a surprised look on his face.

  With movements too swift for Sara to follow, Jay kicked the gun out of his brother’s hand and tested his neck for a pulse.

  “Is he . . .” Her voice faded.

  “Dead. Like Henry. The army didn’t teach me to miss.” Jay closed his brother’s eyes with a sweep of his hand and looked up.

  Sara saw the tears streaming down his face and held out her arms to him.

  The gallery door slammed open. “Nobody move!”

  She choked off a scream. Will it ever be done?

  “Easy, Cooke,” Jay said, his back to the sheriff. “It’s over.”

  Three deputies piled in behind Cooke, guns drawn.

  “Any weapons?” the sheriff asked.

  “Three that I know of,” Jay said. “I’ll put mine down if you tell your deputies not to shoot.”

  Cooke looked at his deputies. “Stand down. Go ahead, Jay.”

  He put his pistol on the floor and turned around slowly.

  The sheriff looked at Jay’s face and sighed. “Damn, son, I hoped you wouldn’t have to be the one.”

  Jay didn’t say anything.

  “It’s not his fault,” Sara said quickly. “Barton was going to kill me and then Henry was going to kill me and then Barton was going to kill Jay and—” Her voice broke into a sob.

  Jay pulled her close and held her, just held her.

  With a low curse, Cooke swept off his hat and then resettled it with a snap. “Benson, you protect the scene. It will be a while before Davis gets here. He has to wait for the ambulance to pick up Liza.”