Oh, crap, I thought. I was at a distinct disadvantage and had no desire to grapple with her.
The woman could run. She rapidly closed the gap between us, red-faced and still screaming. No way could I outrun her. I raised my hands in surrender, in supplication, wondering if Holt was right behind her, or me.
“Wait, wait, Nancy. Don’t!”
She didn’t slow down. I braced for her assault at the last second.
She flung herself at me. Sobbing aloud, she wrapped her arms around me in a crushing bear hug that nearly knocked me down.
“Help! Help me! He tried to kill me,” she cried. “You were right! You were right!”
“Thank you.” I shook off her hug. “Where is he?” I looked apprehensively around us.
“Back there,” she gasped, indicating the picnic area and the stream. “He’s after me!”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Which way? Which way?” She looked lost and bewildered.
“Come on.” I caught her arm and we scrambled into the brush. “Take off that sweater!” I said.
“He tried to kill me, he tried to kill me,” she blubbered.
“I won’t say I told you so. But take off the damn sweater. It’s like a red flag.”
“He wants to kill me!”
“So do I,” I hissed, “if you don’t take that thing off. Get rid of it, or I will. He can’t miss you in it.”
She looked down, as though hearing me for the first time, and then pulled it off over her head as we ran.
She wore only a little silk camisole underneath.
“Don’t bring the sweater with you, for God’s sake,” I said. “Hide it in those bushes, cover it with leaves.”
“Cashmere,” she panted tearfully. “Brand new.”
“Ditch it!”
She did.
We stayed off the trail. When we paused to listen and catch our breath I asked how she got such a head start on Holt, who still hadn’t appeared behind us.
“I knew it, I just knew it,” she said, voice trembling, close to hysteria. “You planted the seeds. I began to think. He started to scare me. Last night he went out to chop a few sticks of firewood and didn’t come back for hours. I couldn’t see him. I don’t know where he was, but I thought I heard voices in the woods. He had moved the car and was acting strangely. Just now, at lunch, he kept pouring more wine in my glass. I dumped it in the grass when he wasn’t looking. Then he insisted we cross the stream. I was afraid. He knows I’m not a good swimmer. He wants me dead. He told me to butch up, it was the only place to cross. He’s never talked to me like that before.”
I remembered Colleen, afraid of that last run down the ski slope.
“He said to trust him. But I saw something in his eyes. You were right. I don’t know who he is. He was too good to be true. I didn’t know him long enough.”
“Shush,” I said, “he’ll hear us. We have to keep moving. Watch for a ranger, other hikers, or anybody. I don’t like being out here alone with him.”
“Thank God you were here.” She began to sob.
“Shut up.” I looked around fearfully. “Where is he? What is he doing? Why isn’t he right behind you? How did you get away?”
“I hit him hard, really hard, as hard as I could, with the wine bottle.” She snuffled. “He fe-fell in the water.” She hiccuped.
I stopped to stare at her. “Was he conscious?”
“When he reached out to grab my arm, to drag me onto the rock, I swung as hard as I could. The bottle broke on the side of his head.”
I paused and looked over my shoulder. “You think he drowned?”
She wiped the back of her hand across her drippy red nose.
“No. The water just carried him a few feet.” She stopped and sniffed. “Then he grabbed hold of a rock and yelled at me to help him. His head was bleeding. I told him you were right and he could get himself out. Then I ran. Thank God I found you.”
She tried to hug me again.
“Stop it,” I snapped, alarmed. Not only was Marsh Holt homicidal, now he was also soaking wet, bleeding, and mad as hell. As would be Lacey, his lover, who was lurking somewhere, most likely in these very woods.
Even then, as my adrenaline spiked and my fight-or-flight response ratcheted into high gear, I took delight deep down at what a great story this was. Already it needed updating. Again. I could see the new caption under Nancy’s photo: THE BRIDE WHO FOUGHT BACK.
She’d be booked on every talk show, a spunky role model for all endangered little girls romanced by the wrong men. Her cookbooks would sell like hotcakes. She’d write a best-selling sequel combining honeymoon recipes with her harrowing tale of heartbreak and survival.
If, of course, we survived.
She was whimpering. “Beautiful wedding…expected to be together when we were seventy-five…”
“I hate to say this to you too, Nancy, but butch up. I’m not trying to scare you, but another man’s involved, an accomplice. He was probably one of the voices you heard last night. He’s dangerous too. We have to get to the car and then go to the police. If we walk into headquarters together, they’ll believe us and won’t arrest me.”
At least I hoped they wouldn’t. No way, I thought. I had prima facie evidence of the lovers’ crimes, plans, and schemes. It was all on Lacey’s laptop.
I had my story—but first we had to find our way out of these woods.
I checked the compass to be sure we were headed toward the car.
“Marsh has a gun,” she whimpered.
“What?” I hadn’t thought to ask. I’d simply assumed that gunplay wasn’t his style, since his MO was staging accidents. “How did he get it on the plane?”
“He didn’t. He bought it in Fairbanks. Said we needed it for protection from wild animals—and you, because our cabin was so isolated. He said you’re dangerous.”
I felt a chill, as if someone had walked on my grave. If Holt was armed, Lacey might be too. “Where is the gun?”
“Maybe in the cabin, or in his backpack.” She wiped her eyes. “What can I say to my parents, my friends, my television audience? How can I tell them?”
“Come on,” I said, weary of her whining. “Hurry.” The undergrowth we pushed through had practically shredded her lacy camisole.
“Can you keep up?” Her watery blue eyes focused on me. “You don’t look good.”
“Just keep going,” I panted. “I’ll feel a lot better when we get to the car.”
My lower back ached. I kept stumbling, clinging to low-lying branches, tree trunks, and bushes for support as I struggled. It took hours. My stomach was cramping. My feet were numb and I couldn’t catch my breath. Just when I thought things couldn’t be worse, it started to rain. The occasional fat raindrops that splashed onto leaves grew into a heavy downpour that continued to build. Rain pelted my face and my aching shoulders. How could this be any worse? I wondered. I quickly found out. The temperature was dropping. Nancy was shivering.
Then, like a miracle, I spotted a familiar landmark.
“Nancy,” I gasped. “We made it! The road is up ahead. The car is beyond those trees to the left, just off the road.”
She jogged ahead, hugging her arms for warmth, then turned back to me, an odd look on her face. I drew upon my last ounce of energy, caught up, and staggered into the clearing where I had left the car.
It was gone.
“Are you sure this is the place?” Nancy demanded. “You must be mistaken. The trees all look alike.”
“No, this was it,” I gasped. “I left it right here.” I groped in my pocket for the key, realizing there must have been two. Either Holt or Lacey must have spotted the Explorer and taken it.
“Oh, no,” I murmured. The laptop with its incriminating letters, the only evidence to link the two men, was gone with the car.
“This can’t be the place,” Nancy insisted.
“I can’t make it back to our cabin on foot,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. �
��Your place is closer. But it’s a risk to go there.”
“I could get a sweater.” Her teeth chattered.
My feet were cold, wet, and numb. What ever happened to global warming? I wondered bitterly.
I tried to think. “Where are the keys to the Range Rover?” I asked, praying they weren’t in Holt’s backpack.
Her nose wrinkled as she rubbed her arms, trying to stay warm. “I don’t want to be a divorcée.” Her eyes welled.
“You don’t have to be,” I said. “Have it annulled.”
“Think I could?” she asked brightly.
“The keys, Nancy, the car keys. Focus. Do you know where they are?”
“You needn’t be rude,” she pouted. “If life was only candy and nuts, every day would be Christmas.”
“Oh, God, Nancy. What the hell does that mean?”
She stared sorrowfully at me through the drenching rain.
“The keys,” I said. “The keys.”
“Maybe…on the hook, just inside the door? Or on the bedroom dresser.”
We were tempting fate. Holt, Lacey, or both might be waiting for us. Then I thought of how long it would take me to slog uphill in a downpour through the mud, to the cabin Lacey had rented. And for all we knew, they might be waiting for us there.
“Let’s go,” I whispered. My heavy boots, full of water, chafed at every step.
Barely able to see through the cold rain, we stared at the newlyweds’ cabin from the chilly woods across the road. No lights visible, nothing moving. The Range Rover was still parked where I had seen it last.
If Holt had made it out of the woods before we did, he could be inside.
“Okay, Nancy. Focus. Even if we’re lucky and neither one is in there, that could change at any moment. So we go in fast. You run to find the keys, look for the gun, and grab a sweater or jacket, then we’re out of there in forty-five seconds or less. If one or both show up, all we can do is run in opposite directions, be brave, fight back, and hope for the best. Got it?”
She began to cry. “This is my honeymoon—”
“It could be your funeral.”
“This was supposed to be the happiest week of my life.” Rain mingled with tears on her face.
I closed my eyes and wished I felt strong enough to shake her until her big white teeth rattled.
“How long did you know him, Nancy?”
She gasped, shoulders shaking. “Two, almost three months.”
“Don’t ever do that again. Make it eighteen months minimum before you even consider an engagement.”
“He was so handsome, so romantic, so perfect. What gives you the right to be so smug? Look at you.”
“This is not the life I chose,” I said, itching to smack her hard. “Let’s go.”
We scuttled across the road one at a time. She climbed the front stairs, fished the spare key out of a flowerpot, and gingerly unlocked the front door.
I watched her step inside and held my breath until she reappeared to wave the all clear.
I dragged myself up the stairs, barking like a drill sergeant. “Okay, okay, okay. Forty-five seconds. The keys, the keys, the keys. The gun. Find the gun. Grab a sweater, a jacket. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
The car keys were not on the hook by the door. I scanned the room and yelped. Lacey’s laptop sat on the rough-hewn wooden table. I snatched it up like a prize.
He had been here, waiting. Neither of them expected Nancy to emerge from those woods alive. Holt had planned to stagger out to safety, feigning grief and shock. The head wound Nancy had inflicted would have served as further proof of how he’d heroically tried to rescue his beloved. He’d spin a tale of how he’d leaped into the rapids to reach her, smashing his head on a rock, risking his own life as the current swept her away.
Nancy emerged from the bedroom wearing a heavy ski sweater and a windbreaker. “Here.” She tossed me a man’s flannel-lined blue windbreaker. “It’s his.” Her lips quivered.
I didn’t care if it belonged to Beelzebub himself, I gratefully slipped it on.
“And these.” She dangled the keys to the Range Rover.
I took them. “Did you find the gun?”
She shook her head.
I sighed and picked up the fireplace poker.
“Where’d that come from?” She stared at the laptop.
“It belongs to John Lacey. He was here. You weren’t expected back.”
Nancy stopped at the door and turned, eyes roving the room lovingly. She was working herself up again. “I was going to make a soufflé tonight—”
“Don’t, Nancy. Let’s go. I’ll drive.”
“I think I should,” she said, as we went back out into the rain. “My husband and I are the only names on the car-rental contract. The insurance might not cover anyone else.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Teeth on edge, I heaved myself up into the driver’s seat.
The relentless rain made it impossible to see the muddy road, which was slippery as hell.
“We’ll go straight to police headquarters,” I said. “I just want to get us off this mountain. My plane ticket and clothes are back at my cabin but we can’t go there.”
“Why?”
“Duh. Think about it, Nancy. If they’re not here at your cabin, they’re probably looking for us at mine.”
Even with four-wheel drive, the Range Rover skidded, and the water made it hard to see the edge of the lane. On a curve it would be easy to drive right off the side. Slowly, we descended to where the rutted dirt road met the pavement.
“Oh, my God!” Nancy said, and began to scream.
“I don’t believe it!” I hit the brakes.
There was no paved road, only a raging, dirty brown river.
“Flash flood!” I tried to back up, but the tires spun uselessly in the mud.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Huge pieces of debris swept by—trees, logs, a roof, and a broken carport—all caught up in the torrent.
“We’re gonna drown! We’ll drown!” Nancy shrieked.
“No,” I said quietly. “We won’t. There are three of us here, and that’s not going to happen.”
I backed up slowly, painstakingly, gaining purchase each time I cautiously fed the Range Rover more gas. I continued backing up the dirt lane as the water followed, rising in front of us. Finally we reached a place wide enough to turn around.
“Where do we go? What do we do?” Nancy babbled.
I found the radio news at 660 KFAR-AM: State of emergency. Mud-slides. Roads closed. River on the rise. Boats rescuing residents. The water had flowed over bridges and surged through buildings.
I headed back up the mountain through the savage downpour, the windshield so flooded I could barely see. At top speed, the wipers could not move fast enough. The cabin Lacey had rented was the highest shelter I knew. It offered food, warmth, and dry clothes.
My cell phone still had no signal. Nancy had lost hers escaping from her bridegroom.
“We’re passing your place,” I shouted, over the sounds of the pounding rain and the blaring radio. “Look out that side. See if anyone’s there.”
If they had returned, Marsh Holt and John Lacey would be furious that the Range Rover and the incriminating laptop were missing. By now they would know that Nancy and I were together.
I turned off the headlights as we approached.
I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road, but I saw the Ford Explorer out front. My heart constricted. Nancy had rolled her window down for a better look. Blasts of rain blew into the car.
I heard her gasp.
“What?”
“Somebody on the porch.”
“Which one? Did he see us? Are there two of them?”
“I don’t know. It was so fast. The rain was hitting my face and I couldn’t see.”
“I bet he could, watching from a covered porch.”
Headlights bloomed in the rearview mirror and my pulse quickened. But just as quickly they disappear
ed. Perhaps they had turned down the mountain toward the highway, or maybe the driver had simply doused his lights.
“If he headed for the highway,” I said, “they’ll be back soon.”
Nancy burst into tears of relief when we saw the cabin. It looked just the way it did when I left it.
We sat, silent for a moment, the car buffeted by wind and the merciless cloudburst. I dreaded that dash to the door. Dreaded that I might not make it, and fearing what might be waiting inside if I did.
“You’re sure you didn’t see two men back there?” I asked.
“No, only one. But that doesn’t mean the other one wasn’t with him.”
“Or that he’s here, waiting for us.” My throat felt dry. “I’ll leave the engine running. Move over into the driver’s seat. If I don’t come out to signal an all-clear in ninety seconds, take off. Hit the gas and get the hell out of here. If you have to, hide in the woods until you’re rescued. It won’t be too long. The rental agents know how many people are up here. The minute the rain stops, they’ll send in choppers, medics, and cops. But whatever happens, don’t let go of Lacey’s laptop. Keep it with you. Show it to the cops. Insist that they read my story and his saved e-mails. The password is Suzanne. Suzanne with a z.”
Nancy frowned, her eyes narrowed, as though it was all too much to grasp.
Did she hear a thing I said? I was tempted to snap my fingers to test her reflexes, if any, when she blurted, “Absolutely not! I’m not going into those woods by myself.”
I sighed.
“No. I’ll check the cabin instead.” She reached for the fireplace poker and opened the car door. “If he’s in there, I can run down those front steps a helluva lot faster than you can.”
I paused, then tossed her the front door key. “My condition is temporary,” I said. “While you’re baking cakes and cookies, and flashing your big teeth for the camera, I’m jogging, swimming, and working out. At least I did. I may be temporarily indisposed but, normally on my worst day, I could outrun you in a heartbeat without breaking a sweat.”
“I bet you could,” she said, and jumped out of the Range Rover into the rain.
“Be careful,” I warned. She didn’t hear me. She was already halfway up the front steps, teeth gritted, the fireplace poker gripped solidly in both hands.
Love Kills Page 23
