by West, CJ
Club in hand, Charlie slipped outside with Deirdre close behind. Rain pelted their every halting step across the slick deck and down to the grass. Cold rainwater streamed down their faces blurring everything beyond ten feet as they hunched among the shrubs searching for movement in the storm. Soaked by wind-driven rain and blind to what lay ahead, they scampered into the darkness and took shelter against the shingled wall of Charlie’s house. The corner blocked the wind. They stood listening for movement inside. The power was out here, too. Every window was dark. Oliver could be waiting inside, but they rushed in anyway.
Deirdre shined the light around the living room at head-height. Charlie quickly cupped the bulb and fumbled until he switched it off. They stood against the wall at the foot of the stairs. Hiding. Listening. Charlie cursed himself for allowing her along as the wind buffeted the rear of the house. Between gusts, tiny claws scampered across the linoleum. Deirdre trembled when she heard them. Charlie pressed a finger to her lips, urging her to keep quiet.
They climbed the stairs. Charlie led by two steps to give himself room to swing the club if Oliver appeared. Halfway up, something round and firm rolled under his feet, stealing his balance until he kicked it aside.
He whispered back for Deirdre to watch her step.
When Deirdre reached the same point, she froze, shaking. Charlie turned back, grabbed a handful of her soaked windbreaker and pulled her up the next few steps. Somehow she kept her promise not to scream.
The upper landing was clear, still no sounds of human occupancy. Charlie led the way into Deirdre’s room and signaled for light. She switched it on with alacrity and panned around the small dresser and the floor. The room was a shambles. The drawers had been overturned, what remained of her belongings piled on the floor.
“Where’s the folder?” Charlie asked.
Deirdre shined the light on an empty suitcase.
“How about your share of the money?” he whispered.
Deirdre shrugged. The beat-up suitcase from Piolenc was gone.
Charlie noticed a bulge in the bed and motioned Deirdre to stand back. She trained the beam on the figure and waited. He couldn’t believe Oliver was sleeping there in her room with all the noise they’d made, but he raised the club, ready to strike. He nodded for her to pull back the sheet. Deirdre didn’t move.
“Grab it quick and get out of the way,” Charlie whispered.
Deirdre crept closer with the light focused at pillow height. Twice her fingers failed to grasp the sheet. On the third try, she pinched it and yanked it back.
A bald head appeared above an agonized, lopsided face. A single bullet hole in the man’s forehead was filled with red jelly-like fluid.
Charlie wretched.
Deirdre dropped the light and broke her promise.
She screamed in one long high-pitched note and disappeared into the dark.
Shadows sprung up as the light settled on the floor. Charlie scrambled for the light, the agonized face burned into his memory. The stranger could only have been the detective Deirdre hired. Charlie had secretly hoped he was lurking nearby ever since Deirdre mentioned him, but he never imagined he’d end up like this.
Charlie rushed toward the sound of footsteps racing down the stairs. The light found Deirdre just as her feet flew off the treads. She crashed down on her back then banged and tumbled her way to the first floor. She came to rest contorted in the corner, shrieking in agony. “Henri! Help me, Henri!” She wailed his name over and over, begging him to materialize and save her.
Charlie rushed down the stairs with the light focused on the treads to avoid the snake they’d stumbled on earlier, the one that had sent her falling. He found the culprit about eight stairs from the bottom and quickly doused the light. The round, firm tube was no snake, but several bloody fingers. If Deirdre had seen them, they would have haunted her forever.
Charlie considered going back up to check the bald man’s hands. He’d been so shocked by the bullet hole in his forehead that he hadn’t noticed anything else. The man had to be Deirdre’s detective and the fingers had to be his. Oliver knew who had hired him and for what purpose. Oliver had chopped off his fingers one at a time to show precisely what resistance would get them. His ghastly visual crushed Deirdre’s nervous psyche and sapped her will to do anything but flee.
Deirdre flopped on the floor, frantically struggling to get up. Her right leg wouldn’t hold her weight and twice she fell, triggering a new round of screaming for Henri. She clawed her way to the door, desperate as a wounded animal with a predator closing in. Charlie abandoned the idea of returning upstairs. He leaned the club against the wall, picked her up, and carried her back out into the rain.
The flashlight beam zigzagged wildly as he trudged down the steps. She lay limp in his arms, doing nothing to support her own weight. Charlie sagged as he reached the grass. The cold rain needled him and he hooded himself over her, sheltering her face against his neck. The heavy drops soaked his clothes until they clung to him. Water streamed through his short hair and down his face. They were both drenched when they reached the deck. Charles opened the sliding door and welcomed them inside.
Chapter Forty-four
Lightning illuminated the farm and thunder reverberated through the rafters so strongly Charlie thought the nails would shake loose. The storm had battered the house for hours and showed no signs of relenting. Charlie propped Deirdre up on the couch and fell to his good knee, panting, as he checked her unfocused eyes for signs of recognition. The cold hit him when their bodies parted and he could see her lips quiver and her slight arms begin to tremble. Charlie could feel his father standing behind him with a dozen questions about what had happened, but Deirdre was in shock. Elizabeth appeared from the hall with several large towels. Charlie took them and rubbed vigorously through her clothes.
She murmured Henri’s name from behind vacant eyes.
“Mom, she needs a blanket and something warm to put on. Do you have some sweats that might fit?”
“She’s tiny, but I’ll find something.” Elizabeth rushed off into the dark.
Charlie toweled her hair as best he could and began undressing her. She neither moved to help, nor protested, as he peeled off her wet clothes. Pink gooseflesh dotted her clammy skin. Charlie toweled briskly, whisking away the moisture, but the gooseflesh remained. She gazed somewhere past him, unfazed by his efforts. Her hope to break free from this nightmare was lying dead next door. When she saw the dead man in her bed, her senses retreated inward to wait for the inevitable.
Elizabeth returned with an elbow for Charles.
He nonchalantly browsed toward the dining room as if he hadn’t realized it was inappropriate to gawk. Charlie and Elizabeth dressed Deirdre in a pair of sweatpants, rolled up four inches at the ankle, and a shirt and sweater combination that draped to miniskirt length. As if that weren’t warm enough, Charlie doubled a wool blanket and wrapped her snugly, tucking it under her legs and pinning her arms to her chest. Deirdre’s body stopped shaking, but apparently her senses had deserted her. She sat oblivious to the group intent on her condition.
Still dripping wet, Charlie left Deirdre in his mother’s care and followed his father across the house to the master bedroom with the light off to conserve batteries. Each time lightning struck, they snapped a look to the nearest window expecting to see Oliver peering in. They saw only wind-whipped rain.
Charles switched on the flashlight long enough to find an old pair of jeans and a belt. He tossed them to Charlie and rummaged for more clothes.
The jeans were four sizes too large, and the belt lacked holes where Charlie needed them to secure the baggy pants, but they were dry and Charlie started feeling warmer as soon as he got out of his soaked briefs and pulled them on.
“What happened over there? She see another snake?”
“Nn-nn,” Charlie grunted, straining unsuccessfully to work a key through the belt to create another hole.
“Charlie. What happened? Where’s the fil
e?”
“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure we found the detective.”
Charles grimly handed him a turtleneck and a sweatshirt. The turtleneck had been stretched doubly wide around the middle, but the extra-large Marston Vineyards sweatshirt was new and it fit.
“Is he dead?”
“Beyond dead. Randy cut off his fingers and left them for us to trip over.”
“Is that what sent her over the edge?”
“No, she didn’t see them, thank God. The bullet hole in his forehead got her.”
Charlie pulled on a pair of stiff, new work boots that fit well with two pairs of socks. His father stood motionless by the bed.
“My God. What’s wrong with this guy?” Charles muttered.
“What’s wrong with Randy? Are you kidding? He’s whacked. He’d turn us all into quivering vegetables like Deirdre if he could.”
“Call him Oliver. His name is Oliver.”
“Is that all you can say? You’re responsible for this. You screwed him up. You killed his family and set him ticking.”
“I couldn’t have known this would happen.”
“Listen to you. Five people are dead because of what you did. You killed them and you just go on like nothing happened. Doesn’t it bother you? Don’t you feel even a little guilty?”
Charlie hotly laced his boot, stood up, and faced his father in the darkness. The man he’d idolized as a child and worked so hard to impress as a young man was a fraud; all his preaching about persistence, baseless. Charles was nothing but a thief in an eight-hundred-dollar suit.
Charles hung his head in the gloom.
“No wonder Oliver wants you dead. You stole his life for God’s sake and even after all this time you did nothing to help him.”
“We gave him two million dollars,” Charles muttered. “That’s something.”
“Mom says you were broke, so where’d you get two million?” Bill Caulfield’s role suddenly became clear and Charlie answered his own question. “Caulfield loaned you the money. He was in on this from the beginning…You stole the wineries together, didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t…” Charles’ voice trailed off.
Charlie didn’t need to hear the words. He knew it was true. “You and mom have been trying to drag me into this business for the last ten years. Did you expect me to steal for you, too?”
Charlie couldn’t imagine his mother had gone along with the scheme. He remembered her shameful expression at dinner when he’d learned the truth about the propylene glycol. She had seemed as disillusioned as he was.
“You don’t understand, Charlie. We were on the verge of bankruptcy. I had to do something or we were going to lose the winery. We had nothing else.”
Charlie stepped back toward the hall. “My high school coach once told me, acting with honor is easy when you’re on top. True character emerges when you’re falling to the bottom.”
“Don’t lecture me, Charlie. We’ve got bigger problems.”
Charlie listened to the rain and wind as he considered his own history. “So what now? Do we rush him with one gun between us?” he asked.
Both men looked at the shotgun lying on the bed. Charlie imagined standing face to face with Oliver. He wondered if he could pull the trigger and kill the man who’d pretended to be his friend. He couldn’t be sure. And he couldn’t be sure what his father was capable of.
“We’re getting the Hell out of here,” Charles said.
“The stone wall?” Charlie grimaced, picturing an excruciating crawl to safety.
“Do you think Deirdre can make it?”
“If not, I’ll carry her.”
A high-pitched squeak sounded upstairs, like the sound of a screw being torqued too far into a board. Charles grabbed the shotgun and raced into the hall and up the stairs. As they reached the top, two bulging sheets of drywall broke away from the ceiling with a crack, unleashing a torrent that crashed down from overhead. The light shone on a sheet of water that drenched the carpet, pooling everywhere.
“What the Hell?” Charles backed away.
Charlie paused a moment, then rushed toward the sound of running water in another bedroom. To his horror, the entire ceiling bulged under a huge weight. Water steadily rained down through cracks in the buckling drywall. Slowly, the cracks widened and then the drywall tore away from the rafters, releasing a waterfall that flooded the room to his ankles. Charlie climbed on the bed and followed a steady stream of water to its source. He tore off head-sized pieces, as he moved from bed, to chair, to bureau and ended up in the corner of the room. There, between the joists, a five inch hole had been cut through the wall. A section of downspout angled in, releasing all the rainwater from the roof into the ceiling. As if that weren’t enough, a green garden hose had been threaded through the downspout, adding to the flow. Masterful! Oliver had shown him what he intended to do and again Charlie failed to stop him.
Charlie knocked the downspout out of the hole and heard it drop to the grass. He passed his father in the hall where the water streamed over the threshold and flowed down the stairs like a fish ladder. He climbed up on his old bed, tore at the ceiling, located another downspout, and pushed it out.
They hurried downstairs to find the women before the water started dripping through the floor. Charles suggested moving them to the garage, but they decided the concrete floor would be too cold and they’d be blind to anything outside.
“How about the green house?” Charles offered.
“Good idea. Get some dry blankets. I’ll get the girls.”
Deirdre recognized his touch as he slid an arm underneath her knees. She absently clasped her hands around his neck, casually touching him, but supporting none of her own weight as he carried her over the two-inch pool in the hall. Elizabeth held the greenhouse door and a rush of warm, dry air met them. Charlie stepped in and settled Deirdre on the tiles. He went to work moving pots and overturning benches to create a short wall against the glass and an open space for them to gather in the center.
Charles brought three armloads of blankets and pillows, which Elizabeth arranged in the middle of the floor. The women lay on the blankets while the men leaned back against the solid wall and scanned what they could see through the rain-slicked glass. The rain continued to pound the house with a fury that would have caused grave concern for the vines in other years. Tonight they’d be grateful to survive.
Charles whispered to his son. “Deirdre looks better.”
“She does. Sleep will help.”
“We need to move at first light.”
Charlie imagined crawling a thousand feet with her on his back.
“We’ll follow the stone wall to the street. He can’t cover us from both sides and he can’t rush us and risk getting shot,” Charles said.
Charlie thought a moment and nodded his agreement.
The men passed the next hour watching the rain slide down the glass panels, listening to the wind buffeting the walls, and wondering if Oliver had slipped into the house. He could be waiting on the other side of the door, listening for them to fall asleep before he sprung.
Charlie suggested they sleep in shifts, but he couldn’t close his eyes with Oliver so close. They needed to be up and gone with the sunrise and the only way was for someone to stay awake.
Hours passed. The rain played maddeningly on the glass roof like a never-ending stream of curious children tapping the sides of an aquarium. The water-slicked glass blinded them to anything outside their concrete and glass prison.
Somewhere nearby a chainsaw sprang to life. The whine was close enough for Oliver to be cutting his way in through the front door and Charlie imagined that was exactly what he was doing. Charles shifted across the room and put his back to the glass to cover the single entrance to the house. Charlie relocated beside his father to get himself out of the line of fire.
Deirdre lay at their feet, pleasantly warm, asleep, and unaware of the threat.
The chainsaw roared off and on throu
ghout the night, snapping the men to alert with its hungry mechanical moan.
Chapter Forty-five
Father and son spent the night on alert, riveted by the sound of the chainsaw when it growled. They peered into the darkness when it was silent. The storm slackened in the early morning hours and in the wake of the chainsaw, the pattering rain soothed both men to sleep. They continued their slumber well beyond first light when they had planned to spirit away. When Charlie finally opened his eyes, the sky had cleared and the sun was coming through the huge oak in the front yard. Deirdre muttered something unintelligible and Elizabeth lay still in the blankets next to her. Charles was propped up in the corner with his eyes closed, the shotgun across his lap pointing toward the wall of glass.
The peal of metal on metal rang out again and Charlie recognized the sound that had disturbed his sleep. It sounded as if a giant was hammering a massive spike somewhere nearby. An intense crack followed. A heavy piece of timber gave way to some tremendous stress that Charlie had yet to understand. Shadows jiggled on Charlie’s lap and he looked up directly into the sun. As he fought the glare to look up at the oak, the new leaves jittered although there wasn’t a breath of breeze outside.
The peal sounded again, followed instantly by a heavier crack and more shaking in the high branches of the tree. Charlie immediately understood what was happening. The sawing wasn’t in the house at all.
“Everybody out, quick!”
The women stirred only slightly. Charles didn’t move.
Propelled to his feet, Charlie kicked open the door unafraid to find Randy in the house. He knew exactly where he was.
