The Naked Edge

by David Morrell

  “Hi, William,” she said from her pillow, as if receiving a visitor in this manner was the most natural thing in the world.

  Cavanaugh locked the door.

  William had two garment bags draped over an arm. “Here are the clothes you asked me to bring from the Gulfstream. Jeans. Pullovers. Jackets. Socks. Shoes. Underwear. I'm quickly becoming the most expensive errand boy in the legal community.”

  “Except that we can't afford to pay you any longer,” Cavanaugh said.

  “The distraction factor is payment enough. Rutherford says that he still has some loose ends to take care of, that we won't be flying out of here until the morning.”

  “Does that ruin your schedule?”

  “Not at all. I went to Harvard with the dean of the University of Iowa's law school. I'm having dinner with him tonight.”

  “Every city you come to, you have a connection.”

  “I win friends and influence people.”

  “Intimidate them into submission is more like it.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot. I needed to set something down when I knocked.” William opened the door and retrieved a large paper bag marked with the logo for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  “How could you forget you brought food?” Jamie asked with delight.

  31

  In the night, she wakened, reached for Cavanaugh, but didn't feel him. Outside, the night was quiet, the rain having stopped. She glanced toward the bathroom. Its door was open. Its light was off. She switched on the bedside lamp, went to the closet, and found that his clothes were gone.

  32

  Cavanaugh told the taxi driver to let him off at a convenience store on the end of West Benton Street. He paid and waited until the taxi pulled away. Then he left the harsh lights of the store and walked down the street toward the park. It was on his right, and he was pleased that fog obscured the fields and the creek, making it unnecessary for him to take elaborate precautions to hide his approach.

  Where the creek entered the park, he left the sidewalk. Immediately, he unclipped his knife from his pants pocket, allowing the hook on the back of its blade to snag on the pocket, the resistance causing the blade to open. The creek was on his left. He used it as a guide but stayed far enough away that he could respond to the sound of an attacker lunging up from the bed. Soon the hazy glow of the streetlights behind him dimmed, then vanished. As he proceeded over the wet grass, the fog's moist tendrils drifted around him, their chill dampness seeping through his jacket.

  He unfocused his eyes, emphasizing the periphery of his vision. The effort produced a strain comparable to forcing himself to be cross-eyed. But in this uncomfortable way, trying to look sideways while peering ahead, he activated the rod-shaped cells in his eyes, the cells that were sensitive in darkness. The technique made it possible for him to see distinctions among shadows, gradations within shades of gray and black.

  Having crisscrossed the park numerous times during the day, he had a sense of how far objects were from each other. Strong boyhood memories reinforced his estimate. The spongy grass absorbed his footfalls. Only when he judged that he was within thirty paces of the first stand of trees did he crouch and assess what was ahead. He listened for a long while. Lingering moisture dripped from the trees and bushes. Water trickled along the creek bed. A breeze scraped branches.

  He crept ten paces forward and listened again. Hearing nothing to alarm him, he went another ten paces, then turned to the right toward a fog-shrouded field while the periphery of his left eye concentrated on the vague shadows of the trees. With his rod-strengthened vision, he looked for movement that couldn't be attributed to a branch swaying, for a shape that didn't fit the pattern of tree trunks. The rain had caused many bushes to lose their leaves, creating gaps that enabled him to notice if there was a solid shape behind them.

  He crept farther ahead. In his experience, nothing was more tense or exhausting than stalking someone in darkness. Patience was everything. Discipline. Control. The irony wasn't lost on him that, because Carl's lack of discipline had been the cause of so much misfortune, Carl would take extra care to prove that he now had more control than Cavanaugh did.

  Knife ready, he entered the trees. From the rain, the dead leaves were so soggy that they made no sound under his shoes. In his youth, this section of trees had been almost fifty yards wide and long, but now it was barely ten yards wide and thirty yards long. As wisps of fog drifted past, he crouched with his back against a trunk and turned his head slowly one way and then the other, using his peripheral vision to scan the indistinct branches and bushes.

  One minute.

  Two minutes.

  Three minutes.

  This is what you planned, Carl. You knew I'd be forced to act responsibly and betray you. You knew even a small army wouldn't find you. You knew, when the search failed, I'd finally come.

  So here I am. Ready when you are. Wherever you're hiding, come out. This is what you wanted, so let's do it. But take your time. I don't want to rush you. I've got all night.

  Eight minutes.

  Nine minutes.

  Ten minutes.

  Cavanaugh couldn't risk staying in one position much longer. The chill creeping into his muscles might cramp them if he remained immobile. The same liability applied to Carl. He, too, would need to shift his body. Inching forward, Cavanaugh expected that at any moment a figure would rocket from under leaves, a knife plunging toward him. Despite the cold, he felt nervous sweat trickling down his face.

  At once, a noise made him flinch. On his right. Something crashing through the bushes. Low. Breathing hard, a huge dog bounded toward him. Black, it suddenly noticed him and veered through the trees. With equal suddenness, it howled in agony. The howl became yelps as it thrashed grotesquely, snapping branches off bushes, twisting, thudding against a tree. Its frenzy dwindled, its yelps getting weaker. Finally, it lay still.

  At distant houses, dogs howled in response. Gradually, the night returned to the quiet of moisture dripping off leaves, the wind scraping branches, and water trickling along the creek. Cavanaugh eased toward the dog—a Labrador retriever, he estimated—and found the stake that had catapulted into its chest when paws tripped a wire.

  A booby trap, Carl? After dark, you crawled from your hiding place and arranged a surprise for me? I'm disappointed. Since when are traps in the game?

  Rage heating him, Cavanaugh yanked the stake from the dog. He felt along the wire. It was the sort of item routinely discarded on a construction site. He coiled it, put it in a pocket, and inched forward, holding the stake.

  33

  At the open door to his room, wearing hastily put-on clothes, Rutherford squinted at his watch, his eyes puffy from having been wakened. “Maybe he just went for a walk.”

  “At one in the morning?” Jamie asked skeptically.

  “It was a tough night and day. He must have a lot on his mind, a lot to rethink.”

  “He's gone to the park.”

  “You don't know that for a fact.”

  “I know him. There isn't anywhere else he'd go.”

  “What do you expect me to do, tell those thousand men to go back to the park? Even if I wanted to, I couldn't get them organized before dawn. Did you watch the evening news? Did you see how foolish we looked? For sure, Mosely would demand my resignation if I repeated today's farce.”

  “No,” Jamie said, “I don't expect you to tell those thousand men to go back to the park.”

  “Thank heaven.”

  “I expect that you and I will go to the park.”

  “Shit,” the Southern Baptist said.

  34

  Sweat blended with moisture from the fog and trickled down Cavanaugh's face. He lay on his chest on wet grass, assessing the gloom of the next stand of trees. He was sure that a booby trap waited for him in there, also. He tried to imagine Carl's reaction to hearing the dog's agonized howl.

  Carl needs to assume I realize what killed the animal. He also needs to assume that I'll now avoid t
he trees and any other areas where traps can be easily set. He'll decide that I'll shift to the open spaces. He'll focus his hunt in those areas.

  That meant Cavanaugh needed to do the opposite of what Carl expected and go farther into the trees. But first he rolled toward a nearby picnic bench. He crawled under. It was a space that would appeal to someone who wanted to hide his silhouette while looking for his prey. Cavanaugh used the wire to bind the stake to a metal leg, the point projecting outward at head level.

  Then, ready with his knife, he squirmed from beneath the table and studied the closer gloom of the trees. Probing with the knife, moving it up and down, then right and left, he crawled past a bush. He waited. He listened. With his peripheral vision, he stared at the fog and the shadows. In the distance, the muffled drone of a car proceeded along West Benton Street. His nerves tightened until the sound was gone and he could again concentrate on the faint noises around him.

  He shifted deeper into the trees. Immediately, he froze when his knife met resistance. Something thin and taut. A wire. Moving to the side, he discovered a low branch bent sideways and down. Feeling in the darkness, he found that the wire was attached to a rock that weighed down the branch. A stake was tied to the branch. If Cavanaugh had disturbed the wire, the rock would have shifted, the branch would have sprung, and . . .

  He held his breath—one, two, three. Silently exhaled through his lips—one, two, three. Quietly inhaled through his nose—one, two, three. The technique calmed his heartbeat and steadied his lungs. Then he pushed the rock off the branch. With a whoosh, the branch vaulted noisily past him. Simultaneously, he grunted as if he'd been hit, then crashed against a bush. His groan became faint as he remembered the groans of wounded comrades becoming faint when death claimed them.

  Holding his breath again (one-two-three), exhaling (one-two-three), he crawled silently to the edge of the trees, doing his best to make his crouched silhouette indistinguishable from a stump.

  One minute.

  Two minutes.

  Three minutes.

  Ten minutes.

  A whisper on his right made his heart lurch. “Getting tired of waiting, Aaron?”

  The words came from a cautious distance, perhaps as much as thirty feet away, muffled by the fog.

  “I'd have joined you sooner,” Carl's voice continued, “but I had to check the rest of the park and make sure you didn't bring company like you did this morning.”

  Cavanaugh's pulse was so rapid that his veins felt swollen.

  Something crashed among the trees. Instantly, Cavanaugh squirmed in that direction. He knew that was the one place Carl wouldn't be. The noise was intended as a distraction. Right now, Carl would be hurrying around the stand of trees, intending to enter them from behind while Cavanaugh theoretically remained in place, his attention directed toward the noise.

  All the while Cavanaugh squirmed forward, he used his knife to probe the air. Abruptly, he felt the resistance of another wire. At the same time, he thought he heard a slight noise behind him, Carl entering the trees.

  He rolled to the side, threw a branch on the wire, heard a whoosh, and relied on that to distract Carl while he snaked to the side of the grove, emerging onto the grass. He sprinted soundlessly onto a soccer field and spun with his knife, waiting for Carl to charge through the fog.

  “How do you like the traps?” Carl asked from the murk of the trees. “Makes the game more interesting, don't you think?”

  Cavanaugh didn't answer, refusing to be baited into revealing his location.

  “I figured, if you can break the rules, so can I. Honestly, don't you feel embarrassed that you brought all those guys to look for me? Can't you fight your own battles?”

  Cavanaugh remained silent.

  “All that manpower, and they couldn't find me. Aren't you dying to know where I hid?”

  A crash among the trees. Cavanaugh flinched. Instantly, he recovered and tightened his grip on his knife, knowing that Carl had used the noise to hide the lesser sounds he made as he hurried from the grove.

  Now they were both in the open. In the fog.

  “The truth is, I counted on you to betray me again.” Carl's voice came from straight ahead. “After all, betrayal's in your nature.”

  Cavanaugh crouched, making himself a small target while priming his arm muscles to strike with his knife.

  “I wanted you to bring help, lots and lots of help.” This time, Carl's voice came from the darkness on the right.

  Cavanaugh moved in the opposite direction.

  “So much help that, when they didn't find me, they'd figure this was the last place in the world to look for me.” The voice was farther to the right.

  He's tempting me to charge, Cavanaugh thought.

  “The only flaw in the plan was the chance you'd feel so ashamed that you wouldn't show up tonight.” Now Carl's voice came from the left.

  Cavanaugh reversed direction and headed to the right.

  “Even though they'll never find your body, they'll be forced to assume I was here.” The voice was closer, to the right now.

  Cavanaugh stopped moving.

  “After you disappear, they'll focus on this area.”

  Cavanaugh glimpsed a shadow in the fog.

  “But of course, that'll be too late. I'll be far away by then.”

  Taking advantage of Carl's distraction, Cavanaugh charged.

  From experience, he knew that the surprising rush would provoke Carl's startle reflex, gaining the second he needed to strike a lethal blow, but as he raced toward the shadow, plunging his knife into flesh, feeling blood on his hand, he realized with sickening dismay that what he stabbed was the dog.

  Carl held the corpse in front of him. Before Cavanaugh could pull the blade free, Carl twisted the carcass sideways, wrenching the knife from Cavanaugh's hand. Carl shoved the dead animal at him, knocking him backward, the dog's weight thrusting him to the ground.

  The impact jolted Cavanaugh's breath from his lungs. Wheezing, he rolled. Simultaneously, he felt a sharp impact in his right side as a crack and a flash came from Carl's direction. Jesus, he has a gun! He shot me!

  Continuing to roll, his lungs wheezing, Cavanaugh realized that the bullet had passed through the dog before it struck him. The bullet had penetrated him but not deeply enough to hit a vital organ. Lunging to his feet, he ran. But now his urgent footfalls were forceful enough to make sounds on the wet grass. He heard Carl chasing him. The collision had been so disorienting that he lost his bearings in the fog. Possibly, he raced toward West Benton Street, possibly toward the creek, possibly toward—

  A branch struck his face. The trees! He'd run back to them! As Carl's footsteps pounded closer, Cavanaugh scurried into the bushes. A sudden glow struggled to pierce the fog—from a flashlight Carl held. Frantic, Cavanaugh shifted deeper into the trees.

  “I did play fair sort of,” Carl said. “The gun's part of a knife. You remember those combination models Lance showed us?” He referred to an antique style in which a barrel formed part of the back of a blade. The hammer was the top of the guard, the trigger the bottom of the guard. “Of course, you can't get much accuracy and power. You got hit with a thirty-two. I expect that won't kill you.”

  Feeling blood swell from his side, Cavanaugh backed from the searching flashlight and bumped against something that stung his leg. Peering down, he saw a stake on the end of a branch, one of the booby traps he'd sprung.

  The weak light pivoted through the darkness and the fog, moving in his direction. He moved farther backward, forcing the branch to bend behind him.

  The flashlight beam settled on him.

  “You don't look like you're hit bad at all.” Carl shifted toward him through the bushes. “Not to worry about taking another bullet. It's a single shot. I don't have another round for it. Always had a fondness for this thing. Two weapons in one. Saves room in my bug-out bag.”

  Cavanaugh kept backing away. He bumped against a tree trunk.

  Holding the od
dly shaped knife, a barrel along the back of the blade, Carl stalked toward him. “Hate to do this. A knife against bare hands. But as you're dying, I want you to bear in mind, I'll be going for your wife next.”

  Carl lunged.

  Cavanaugh jumped free of the branch.

  It whipped forward.

  Carl screamed as the stake plunged into his thigh.

  35

  Jamie and Rutherford drove past the park. Two exits along West Benton Street, they turned right and then right again, finding themselves on the street where Cavanaugh had lived. The fog kept the van's headlights from reaching the park. As they got out, a dim streetlight allowed Jamie to realize that Rutherford had parked in front of what had once been Cavanaugh's house.

  They secured their jackets and started down toward the invisible park, only to pause when they heard a distant crack.

  They waited. The sound wasn't repeated.

  “What was that?” Jamie whispered.

  “It sounded like a—”

  “Shot?” Jamie's face tingled, only partly from the chill of the fog.

  “Low caliber, I think.”

  They waited a moment longer. Then Rutherford crouched, as if tying a shoe. He straightened and handed her something.

  “A gun?”

  “My emergency pistol. I keep it in an ankle holster.”

  “You're trusting me with this?”

  Rather than discuss it, Rutherford continued through the fog. As Jamie caught up to him, she heard what might have been muted voices in the park, too low and indistinct to be identified. They walked faster, then started to run when they heard a scream.

  36

  “You cocksucker!” Wailing, dropping his flashlight, Carl stumbled backward, the stake in his thigh tearing flesh as it pulled free.