Hour Game

by David Baldacci

  She snatched up the phone and hit the answer button. Her heart leaped when she heard his voice.

  “Michelle, could you hear anything on the phone?”

  “Yes, Todd and I are in a boat heading to Sylvia’s right now. We called out everybody.”

  “Listen, Eddie’s still got Sylvia. He’s headed to the cove below where the first body was found. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m heading there in my boat right now.”

  Michelle raced to the cockpit with the phone pressed to her ear, grabbed the wheel and plowed the Sea Ray into a thunderous turn, pitching its deck almost perpendicular with the water. Williams fell down again.

  “I’m on my way. Ten minutes. We’ll send everybody there. Oh, and Sean?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for being alive.”

  Eddie aimed the bow right at the ring of red clay that stuck out from the cove he was in, cut power and ran the FasTech right up onto it. He started to open the door to the cabin.

  “Okay, Doc, let’s go.”

  The stream of fire extinguisher fluid hit him flush in the face. He staggered back and was hit on the head with the canister. Blinded, he grabbed at his face and dropped to his knees. But he sensed Sylvia racing past him, and reached out and tripped her with one of his big arms.

  “Get away from me, you bastard, get away from me,” she screamed.

  Eddie wiped his face off with his hand, his eyes stinging like crazy. He grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt, lifted her completely up in the air and threw her onto the hard clay shore, where she landed with a thud and lay still.

  He opened a storage bin and lifted out the short-handled ax, jumped off the bow, and his feet hit dirt. He waded out into the water and dipped his head below the surface to clean off the crap she had shot him with. He stood, gazed out at the lake and the lightning crackling in the distance, took a deep breath, turned and walked over to her.

  “Get up.”

  Sylvia said nothing.

  “I said get up.” He emphasized this point with a foot in her ribs.

  “I think my arm’s broken,” she whimpered.

  “Which one?”

  “My left.”

  He reached down, grabbed her left arm and pulled her up as she shrieked in pain.

  “Damn it, you’re killing me, you bastard!”

  “That’s right. I am.” He dragged her along into the woods.

  King’s boat flew through the water. He glanced behind him and saw the wink of lights about five hundred yards behind. He clicked on his phone, which had somehow survived its dunking in the water.

  “Is that you behind me?” he asked.

  Michelle answered, “And coming up fast.”

  King slowed the boat as he maneuvered into the narrow inlet. As soon as he saw the beached FasTech, he cut his running lights.

  “Okay,” he said into the phone, “looks like they’re out of the boat.”

  Michelle’s cruiser appeared at the mouth of the inlet. She powered down, cut her lights and coasted into shallow water next to the jet boat.

  “Are you armed?” she called across.

  He held up his pistol. “I stopped at my houseboat before I headed back out.”

  Michelle and Todd grabbed flashlights out of the Sea Ray’s cabin, and the three climbed off their boats and waded to shore, their pistols aimed at the FasTech just in case Eddie was lying in wait.

  Covering each other, they quickly made a search of the boat and found nothing except a used fire extinguisher.

  They headed to shore and then into the woods.

  “We’ll spread out,” said King, “but keep visual contact. No lights yet. He could pick us off easy that way.”

  A bolt of lightning hit on the hill opposite them with such force that the ground seemed to shake.

  “If the damn lightning doesn’t get us first,” muttered Williams.

  They threaded their way up to the crest of the hill and peered over.

  “Two hundred yards and to the right is where the first body was found, if I’m not mistaken,” whispered King.

  “About that,” said Michelle.

  “We’ll take it slow and easy,” said Williams. “This guy’s nuts but cagey as hell. I’m not looking to end up like Chip—”

  Sylvia’s scream hit them all right in the gut.

  King tore down the hill, Michelle right on his heels, with Williams rumbling along in the rear.

  CHAPTER

  98

  “PLEASE, GOD, DON’T DO

  it.” Sylvia was on her knees, head flush against the top of a rotted stump, with Eddie’s knee in the middle of her back holding her in this position.

  “Please,” she continued to wail. “Please.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Why are you doing this? Why?”

  He stuffed his pistol in the gear belt he’d put on in the boat and pulled out a black hood from the inside of his wet suit. He donned the hood, adjusting the eye holes so he could see. It wasn’t the circle-with-crosshairs one the police had confiscated, but it would do just fine for this impromptu execution.

  He swung up the ax in one strong hand.

  “Any last words?”

  Sylvia was nearly unconscious with pain and fear. She started to mutter something.

  Eddie laughed. “Are you praying? Shit! Fine, you had your chance.”

  He raised the ax over his head. Yet before he could bring it down on her neck, the handle of the ax exploded.

  “Helluva shot, Maxwell,” muttered Williams as they hurtled forward.

  If they thought Eddie was simply going to surrender, they quickly saw that wasn’t the case.

  He jumped sideways, far enough to reach a steep incline, and he rolled and slid down to the bottom. He was up in an instant and sprinted off.

  King ran up to Sylvia and cradled her.

  “It’s okay, Sylvia,” gently whispered King. “You’re okay.”

  There was a flash of motion.

  “Michelle!” screamed out King. “Don’t!”

  She cleared the crest, rolled down and hit the bottom. Up just as fast as Eddie, she sprinted after him.

  “Damn it,” screamed King. He handed Sylvia over to Williams and raced after his partner.

  As King ran along, he could only tell where he was heading when the pitch-blackness was lit by lightning. Or when he heard the crash of footsteps up ahead.

  “Why the hell are you doing this?” he called out to Michelle even though he knew she couldn’t hear him.

  After spending the last hour with Eddie Battle he had no desire to ever go near the man again unless he was behind bars with twelve guards surrounding him. And maybe even then he’d take a pass.

  He stopped suddenly because the sounds up ahead had ceased.

  “Michelle?” he hissed. “Michelle?” He gripped his pistol and swung it in arcs, periodically looking over his shoulder in case Eddie had circled around to rear-flank him.

  Up ahead Michelle was staring at a clump of brush with great intensity. She glanced down every so often to see if the tiny red light was dancing across her body. She eased her pistol’s muzzle through a small gap in the wild holly bush she was hidden behind and parted its branches slightly. There was slight movement to her right, but it turned out to be a squirrel.

  She heard a noise behind her and whipped around.

  “Michelle?”

  It was King, about twenty feet away. He’d taken a different path and was separated from her by a wall of bramble.

  “Stay back,” she said between clenched teeth. “He’s stopped right up ahead.”

  She turned and waited. One lightning flash; that was all she needed. She edged around the bush, backtracked a bit and then slowly made her way down and around with the goal of coming up behind Eddie.

  The flash of lightning. She heard the noise to her right. She pivoted and fired in the same instant. There was an explosion in front of her as a spark of
red-hot light erupted for an instant and then vanished.

  She couldn’t know it, but Eddie had at the same time been circling around her and had fired at the exact same instant as she. Beating odds of probably a billion to one, the two bullets had collided, causing the explosive spark she’d seen.

  Eddie hit her low and hard, driving the breath right out of her before drilling her into the dirt almost face-first. It was a textbook tackle. Mud, leaves and twigs were pushed so far into her mouth she could barely breathe. Michelle twisted her body around and tried to kick at him, but he was on top of her pinning her down. He was unbelievably strong; she couldn’t come close to breaking his iron grip with her fingers; it was like a child trying to escape from her daddy. She tried to get up, but she didn’t have nearly the strength to do it with his 220-plus pounds clenched around her.

  Damn it. She spit shit out of her mouth. If she could just push him away, she could deliver stunning blows with her feet that might give her a chance. But he was simply too strong. She felt the hand go around her throat while he kept the other one locked on her arms. She thrashed wildly around trying to throw him off, but she had no leverage. She tried to call out but couldn’t. She started to lose focus. Her brain felt heavy, her limbs started to twitch.

  Is this it? Is it?

  And then everything relaxed. The weight was lifted. She was free, and Michelle knew she’d just died at the hands of Eddie Lee Battle. She turned to see his face peering down at her, smiling at what he’d just done.

  Only he wasn’t looking at her. She sat up, scooted away from him and only then saw what he was staring at.

  King was standing there. Both hands were around his pistol grips, the weapon pointed directly at Eddie, who was backing away a little. King’s clothes were torn to shreds and his face and hands bloodied from where he’d fought through the bramble to reach them.

  “I wouldn’t have killed her, Sean.”

  King was trembling with rage. “Yeah, right, you bastard.”

  Eddie continued to back away, his hands up.

  “Another step, and you get it between the eyes, Eddie.”

  Eddie stopped, but he started to lower his hands.

  “Keep ’em up,” barked King.

  Michelle rose and looked around for her pistol.

  “Hey, Sean, just go ahead and shoot,” said Eddie wearily. “Save the state a lot of money housing me on death row.”

  “We’re not doing it that way.”

  “Just do it, Sean. I’m beat, man. I got nothing left.”

  “You’ll make it. Have no fear.”

  “You think so?”

  “In fact, I’ll bet you—”

  “The hell you say, you’re on—”

  Eddie leaped, his hand sliding to his back; he pulled the pistol.

  Michelle screamed.

  The shot was fired.

  King walked over and looked down at Battle lying there. He kicked the pistol away with his foot, stared at the blood pouring down from Eddie’s shoulder where the bullet had impacted before exiting out the man’s back.

  “I won the bet this time, Eddie.”

  Eddie smiled weakly up at him. “Just one tick off, man. One tick off.”

  CHAPTER

  99

  EDDIE BATTLE PLEADED

  guilty to every murder he’d committed. In return for fully cooperating with the authorities and answering all their questions, and because there was some doubt as to his mental stability, his attorneys were able to broker a deal that would send him to prison without the possibility of ever being free again. There was immediate reaction from all corners. Pro-death-penalty activists marched in the streets of Wrightsburg. There were calls for impeachment of the governor, the prosecutors and the judge assigned to the case. The Battle family—at least what remained of them—was ankle-deep in death threats. It was predicted that whatever maximum security prison he was sent to, Battle would be dead within a month.

  King hadn’t followed much of this. After shooting Eddie he’d helped carry him and Sylvia down to the boats where they’d been taken to the hospital. Both had fully recovered, though King doubted Sylvia would ever be the same after her terrifying experience.

  Hell, I might never be the same, thought King.

  He’d taken long rides on his boat, driving across in the daylight what he’d covered that awful night. He and Michelle had talked about it some but had mostly avoided the subject. They were drained enough. However, she’d been effusive in her thanks for saving her.

  She kept shaking her head at the memory of it. “I’ve never felt so helpless like that before, Sean. I’ve never encountered a man that strong before. It was like he was possessed by something not of this world.”

  “I think he was,” replied King.

  All of which brought King to where he was right now, sitting at his desk and wondering what Eddie had meant by his last words while lying bleeding on that hill.

  “Just one tick off, man.” The five words beat into his head, and he couldn’t get rid of them. He finally rose from his desk and drove over to the Battles’. Remmy was home, Mason told him.

  There were several pieces of luggage stacked in the foyer.

  “Someone going on a trip?” asked King.

  “Savannah’s taken a job overseas. She’s leaving today.”

  Lucky her, thought King as Mason led him down the hallway.

  Remmy seemed a very pale version of her former self. She was sipping from her cup of coffee. King felt certain it was actually nine-tenths Mr. Beam.

  “I hear Savannah’s moving out,” he said after Mason had left them.

  “Yes, but she said she might come back for Christmas,” the mother said hopefully.

  Or not, thought King.

  “Is Dorothea out of rehab?”

  “Yes. She’s back next door. I’m going to help her with her money problems.”

  “That’s good to know. No reason not to spread the wealth. And she is family. The police no longer suspect her in Kyle’s death?”

  “I don’t think they do. I doubt they’ll ever solve that.”

  “You never know.”

  Neither said a word about Eddie. What was there to say anyway?

  King was anxious to leave, so he decided to just get to it. “Remmy, I came here to ask you one question. It’s about a former employee of yours, Billy Edwards?”

  She looked at him sharply. “The mechanic?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s the question?”

  “I need the exact date when he left.”

  “The payroll records will show that.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” He looked at her expectantly.