Love Kills

by Edna Buchanan

  My lips moved in a silent prayer as she cautiously stepped inside.

  An earsplitting scream sounded almost instantly. The Range Rover leaped forward as my foot stomped the accelerator in a reflex action. More screams. I could hear the sheer panic in her voice above the pounding of the rain. I hit the brakes, switched off the ignition, and groped for something, anything, to use as a weapon.

  I remembered the stack of firewood on the porch next to the front door. Head down, I fought my way through the deluge, scrambled up steps strewn with slick windblown leaves as quickly as I could, snatched up a heavy piece of wood, and took a deep breath.

  Nancy was still alive, still screaming. Water streamed into my eyes as I pushed the front door open and burst inside. The gun, a high-powered automatic, was the first thing I saw.

  “You didn’t say the other guy was a woman!” Nancy howled. She was crouched against the wall near the fireplace, her hands protecting her face.

  “Leave her alone!” I cried, then gasped when I saw the face behind the gun. “What are you doing here? Is it really you?”

  “Who is she?” Lieutenant K. C. Riley looked annoyed as she holstered her weapon. “Does she always scream like that?”

  “Always,” I said, frowning at Nancy, “from the day I met her.”

  I closed my eyes. When I opened them, K.C. was still there. This was no dream, no hallucination. I dropped the piece of firewood and burst into tears.

  “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “I said I’d get back to you. What’s with this weather?”

  I stood there dripping water, barely able to speak. “Thank you for coming,” I managed.

  “We’re investigating the death of Gloria Weatherholt,” she said. “It’s a cold case, a homicide. She didn’t drown. Her scuba tank had been tampered with. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “That is what I’ve been trying to tell everybody.”

  She took a step closer. “My God, Britt. You look awful. Get out of those wet clothes and into something warm. Are you all right?”

  “It’s been a rough week,” I said, voice thin.

  “Who is this?” She cut her eyes at Nancy.

  “Nancy Lee Chastain Holt, survivor bride, the last of an endangered species.”

  Nancy climbed slowly to her feet, still whimpering.

  “Her husband and his lover are probably right behind us. They’re armed.”

  “Lover?” Nancy’s eyes welled up.

  I explained to Riley where we’d last seen them. She stepped to a front window and peered intently into the storm. “What about John Lacey, the young man who might have been murdered?”

  “I was wrong. The son of a bitch isn’t dead. He’s with her husband. They’re a couple. Have been all along.”

  Riley’s eyebrows lifted.

  “We have proof,” I said. “Did you bring backup?”

  “Stone. He’s in Fairbanks filling in the local cops. He’ll be here soon. I’ve lost the signal on my cell phone.”

  “Me too. The roads are impassable, flash flooding.”

  She nodded. “I barely made it through, had to run a few roadblocks coming up. You two dry off, I’ll make some hot tea.”

  “No,” I said, “let Nancy do it. She’s a professional.”

  Riley stood watch while I took a hot shower. I didn’t recognize my reflection in the big full-length bathroom mirror. Whose body is that? I wondered. Grotesque. Would I ever be the same again? I sighed and stepped into the shower, luxuriating in the steamy, soapy water. I was rinsing off, still in the shower, when the power went out.

  I dressed quickly in the dark and stepped out with a blanket wrapped around me. “Is it the weather?” I whispered. “Or somebody outside?”

  “Weather, I think,” Riley said. “This must be the worst place I’ve ever been. It’s like Miami, minus the sun.”

  “Thank Nancy,” I said. “She chose it for her honeymoon. How did you get here? I didn’t see your car.”

  “A rental. I hid it on high ground in the woods about a quarter mile north of here. Didn’t want Holt to spot it.”

  I filled her in as I gratefully inhaled the hot tea Nancy brewed. Before the power failed, they had retrieved Lacey’s laptop from the Range Rover.

  Nancy cried nonstop as she and Riley read the e-mails. I listened, sipped my tea, missed Miami, and experienced a new, highly unusual sensation. I suddenly yearned to scrub my small apartment from floor to ceiling, to reupholster the little chair in my bedroom, rearrange my kitchen cabinets, and organize my closets. None of those things had ever been a priority but now the urge to nest overwhelmed me.

  Away from home too long, I began to relate to those who forty years ago believed their exile would be brief, that they would return home to Cuba in a few days or weeks. Most never did and never will.

  I stared at dancing flames in the fireplace and wondered. How long before I go home? Will I ever see Miami again?

  Nancy whipped up a tasty meal from odds and ends in the pantry and the cans and groceries Lacey had brought. She’d also found some candles. I picked listlessly at my food. Nancy, who’d been hitting the blackberry brandy, soon cried herself to sleep.

  The wind-driven rain never stopped.

  “Get some rest, Britt,” Riley said. “I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

  “I’m too tired to sleep,” I murmured. “Maybe, in a while.” My body ached. My swollen feet and ankles were blistered, my breasts sore, and my back and belly hurt.

  Riley sat at the wooden table, back straight, her Glock in her waistband, the soft firelight glinting off her blond hair. I remembered the sweet-faced girl in McDonald’s high school yearbook as I threw a blanket on the couch and tried unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position. We talked softly in the dim light, listening for anything unusual beyond the rain pounding on the corrugated metal roof. It was like waiting for a hurricane’s full fury.

  “So,” she asked quietly. “Is Kenny’s baby a boy or a girl?”

  I explained why I didn’t know, not sure if she believed me.

  “I’m glad you’re having it. You could have—”

  “It crossed my mind for a split second. I never could. Adoption crossed my mind too.”

  I saw her react even though her features hid in shadow.

  “But I couldn’t do that either. This is all that’s left of him in the world. One reason this story is so important to me is that it’s probably my swan song unless the News lets me do some sort of work from home. I can’t hand this baby off to strangers to raise. No babysitters, no nanny, no day care. Even after he or she starts school, I can’t work the police beat, on call twenty-four/seven. That part of my life is over. It’s all I’ve ever done. This won’t be easy.”

  “Nothing good ever is,” she said. “You’ll find a way to make it work.”

  I wished I was so sure. Despite my fears and uncertainties I detected envy in her voice.

  “You can never predict how life will play out,” I said. “When you think you know, you’re wrong.”

  “Everybody has regrets,” she murmured. “I drove away the only man I ever loved.”

  “And I’m to blame for the death of the only man I’ll ever love.”

  “Too bad they were both the same man,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  “He was the best.”

  Surprisingly, she disagreed. “He was a great cop, smart as hell, with a good heart and a sense of humor. But he was human, like all cops. He wasn’t perfect.”

  I gave an irritated sigh and frowned in the dark.

  “He was a romantic, Britt, attracted women like a magnet. Because he died young, you’re convinced you would have lived happily ever after. Maybe not.”

  “We would have made it,” I said quickly. “We were perfect.”

  “So were we, Britt. Don’t place him on a pedestal so high that no other man can ever live up to him.”

  “I know you two shared a lo
ng history.”

  “Loved him since second grade.” She sounded mellow. Somehow the semidarkness made it easier to talk. “We were a couple all through high school. Later, when he fell in love with police work, he wanted to share it. He’s the one who recruited me into the academy.”

  The wind howled outside. Inside, the silence was painful.

  “You know it wasn’t just you and me, Britt,” she finally said. “Women were so attracted to him. The gun is a phallic symbol, and it didn’t hurt that he looked good and was great in the sack.”

  Tearing up in the dark, I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I did anyway. “When was the last time you and McDonald…”

  “Had sex? You don’t want to know, Britt.”

  “He proposed.” I propped myself up on one elbow, voice rising. “Bought me a ring. We were about to set the date….”

  “You don’t know how it would have worked out.”

  “If McDonald and I had split,” I asked, “would you have taken him back?”

  “In a heartbeat, God help me. He was the love of my life.” She sighed softly in the firelight. “But any woman who married him would have found it a challenge.”

  “Not me,” I said stubbornly.

  “Love clouds your judgment,” she said. “Don’t build him into a larger-than-life lost lover who shadows your future. He had all the usual flaws and foibles, that’s all I’m saying. I loved him in spite of it. Always have, always will.”

  She spoke gently, but her words stung. I sighed in anger and denial. The irony being that, despite it all, I could see what McDonald saw in her.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “No, what?” I listened, but all I heard was the rain hammering the metal roof, rattling the windows, and crashing like Niagara Falls off the gutter outside the kitchen door.

  “A car.”

  She sprang to her feet and blew out the candles.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Stay where you are, Britt. Don’t get up.”

  Too late. I’d already struggled to my feet, heart pounding, straining to hear, hoping she was wrong.

  Riley hunkered down next to one of the two front windows, her back to the wall, gun in hand, peering into the downpour.

  I moved to the opposite window, staying out of sight. The visibility on the far side of the glass was nearly zero. I could barely make out the shrouded bulk of the Range Rover parked right out front.

  “See anything?” I said softly.

  “Not yet,” Riley said.

  Then I heard the unmistakable thunk of a car door. Or was it? “Hear that?” I whispered.

  “Car door?”

  “Maybe something fell over in the rain, or a broken tree branch hit the roof,” I said hopefully.

  I heard it again.

  “Two,” she said.

  “Did Nancy relock the front door when she brought in the laptop?” I asked.

  “I double-checked every door, every window,” Riley said.

  “Should I wake Nancy?” I said.

  “Will she keep quiet?”

  “Not if she’s scared. Is your cell phone still out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mine too.” I suddenly remembered something. “Kathy!”

  “What?” she whispered impatiently.

  “Lacey has a set of keys to this place.”

  “There’s a one-sided deadbolt, a thumb latch, on the inside,” she said.

  I had to be sure. I slid down the wall into a sitting position, then crawled beneath the window ledge to the front door and reached up to see if the latch was engaged. It was. I sat, breathing hard for a moment, my back pressed against the door.

  “Told you so,” she said, in an annoyed whisper.

  Just then I sensed, rather than heard, movement on the other side. My spine tingled and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Was it the creak of floorboards? A cautious footfall only inches away? The slight squeak and smell of wet rubber soles?

  I waved my arms, gesturing to Riley, as the metal doorknob just above my head slowly began to turn. Then I heard the smooth insertion of a key, followed by a metallic click as it unlocked. He tried to open it, but the deadbolt held. Afraid to breathe, I braced my back against the door in case he tried to kick it open.

  Riley had crept up beside me. “He’s right outside,” she whispered in my ear. “I can’t see the other one. Don’t know where he is. Take the poker and a sharp knife from the kitchen and go wake up Nancy. Gently, for God’s sake. Keep her quiet. Take her into the bedroom closet. Stay there, both of you. Put the wooden chair in front of the closet door and keep low.”

  “Have you tried your cell?” I whispered.

  “Still no signal. If this takes a bad turn, try to get to the Range Rover. If you can’t, take to the woods.”

  I stared at her, startled.

  “I don’t expect the screw-up fairy, Britt, but it’s smart to have a contingency plan.”

  I groped about, found the poker in the dark, crept into the kitchen, shone my penlight into the drawer, and chose a razor-sharp filet knife.

  Careful not to create a silhouette in front of the fireplace’s dying glow, I inched into the bedroom where Nancy snored gently beneath a patchwork quilt.

  I envied her peaceful sleep and hesitated, hating to wake her. As I reached out to gently nudge her shoulder, an earsplitting crash came from the bathroom, a few feet away. A shower of broken glass tinkled to the floor. A millisecond later, almost simultaneously, something smashed against the front door with the force of a SWAT team’s battering ram.

  Nancy sat up straight in bed. “What happened?” she murmured. “What was that?”

  “Be quiet,” I whispered urgently. “They’re trying to break in.”

  She saw the glint of the knife in my hand and howled like a coyote.

  I grabbed her arms and pulled her out of bed.

  “What don’t you understand about ‘Be quiet’?” I muttered fiercely in her ear.

  I pushed her toward the closet. “Get inside, down on the floor, and stay there!”

  Poker in one hand, the filet knife in the other, I cautiously approached the bathroom. The door stood ajar. I stepped closer and was sprayed by icy rainwater gusting through the shattered window.

  The floor was wet, and getting wetter, the cheerful red and yellow patterned curtains already soaked.

  A huge rock lay amid the glass shards on the floor.

  Was he about to climb inside, or had he already done so?

  The shock of cold water spray on my face startled and infuriated me. I swung the poker viciously at the closed shower curtain surrounding the tub, knife at the ready. No one there.

  Another crash, followed by more breaking glass, in the front room. Again, almost instantaneously, something smashed into the opposite corner of the cabin. Wood splintered and the entire structure seemed to rock on its foundation. They must have rammed it with the Explorer or the Range Rover.

  They moved fast, attacking from all directions. If their intent was to frighten and confuse us, it worked on me. I turned to rush toward the front room and collided with Nancy, who was right behind me. She sobbed under her breath.

  I nearly wept in frustration. Where the hell were they?

  Riley appeared in the doorway.

  “Get back in that closet!” she snapped.

  “Do you have a backup weapon I can borrow?” I asked urgently.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Just as well. Too many shooters in these close quarters would be dangerous. You have to worry about cross fire—”

  “I may not have police firearms training, but I was trained by a policeman,” I snapped. “I know how to use a gun.”

  Nancy panicked at the word gun, screamed, and ran blindly through the kitchen. Riley followed, tipped the wooden table onto its side, and ordered her to take cover behind it.

  Nancy’s screams drew Marsh Holt to the front room. He hurled a log from the conveniently stacked firewood through a window. He us
ed another to knock out the jagged shards of broken glass around the opening, and stepped through.

  From behind the bedroom door I watched the rainwater drip off him onto the cabin floor. Holding a gun and breathing hard, he looked huge and menacing in the flickering light. But, I told myself, he’s in for a surprise. He thinks all he’s contending with are two unarmed women, one hysterical, the other pregnant.

  “Nancy!” he bellowed. “Nancy Lee!” He was so close that I saw the flash of his bitter smile in the shadows. “Where’s my goddamn wife?”

  Nancy began to whimper in the kitchen.

  He heard it too and turned toward her.

  “Nice attitude for a man on his honeymoon,” I said, hoping to distract him.

  “You’re to blame for this, you bitch. Where’s Nancy?”

  She sprang out from behind the table and fled screaming through the kitchen.

  I turned to follow and came face-to-face with John Lacey. Drenched, shivering, and holding a gun as though it were a foreign object, he looked as shocked as I felt.

  “Lacey,” I whispered, “my God. Why?”

  “Britt.” He stopped and stared.

  I heard Holt approach behind me.

  “Drop the gun!” Riley said, from somewhere in the dark. “You’re under arrest!”

  “Who the hell’s that?” Lacey’s eyes widened.

  “What?” Holt spun around and saw Riley.

  He fired a shot at her, then turned and fired at me. But I was already sliding to the floor, protecting my belly.

  “Oh, no! My God!” Holt rushed at me. I braced and gritted my teeth. But inexplicably, he kept going. As he hurtled past, I summoned up all my strength, lunged, and sliced the back of his right ankle just above the heel as hard and as deep as I could with the filet knife.

  He dropped in mid-stride, his outstretched arm unable to reach Lacey, who lay moaning on the floor. I never even heard him fall. In the dying firelight, a dark river snaked toward me across the wooden floor. It wasn’t water. Instinctively, I rolled away from the blood, shuddering as I realized that the bullet Holt meant for me had struck Lacey in the side.

  “Is he alive?” Blood from the gaping gash in Holt’s heel spurted blood that sprayed across the wall and the baseboards. He clutched the wound with both hands and pleaded with Lacey. “J.L.—Johnny. It was an accident, I didn’t mean—”