“It was Cole’s idea,” Tori answered quickly.
Cole shot Tori a curious look. That wasn’t true. They hadn’t discussed it. He had simply assumed that the sleeping arrangements would be this way.
“Tori, the thermostat is on the wall by the door.” Cole gestured at it. “I came out here a while ago and turned it up. That’s why it’s warm in here now. The fire’s a nice touch, but don’t worry if it goes out.”
Cole had come out to turn up the thermostat and to go through her luggage. He’d found nothing suspicious, but he’d taken her cell phone anyway. Now he wasn’t worried about her calling any enemies in case he had misjudged her loyalties. There was only one phone in Billy’s lodge. It was in his bedroom upstairs, and Tori hadn’t left the first floor since arriving. She could call someone from a pay phone in Hubbard but the town was miles away and he had the only key to the Jeep.
“Well, I gotta go,” Billy announced. “You can take care of yourself, Cole. You know where the wood is if you want a fire too. But remember to open the flue this time. It still smells of smoke in the cabin you stayed in last time, and that was two years ago.”
Tori smiled. So Cole wasn’t always as smooth as he thought he was.
“Good night, Miss Brown. It was nice meeting you.” Billy tipped his ten-gallon hat and turned to go.
“Mr. Threefeathers,” Tori called after him.
He hesitated at the door. “Yes?”
“Are there any wolves around here?”
Billy grinned. “No.” He shook his head. “I guess Cole’s been doing a little exaggerating about the dangers of the woods.”
Tori gave Cole a withering gaze as he tried his best to look innocent.
“You don’t have to worry about wolves,” Billy assured her, pushing open the cabin door. “Just the children, and they won’t really bother you.” Without another word he was gone.
“What did he mean by that?” Tori asked.
“Nothing,” Cole said calmly. “He’s kidding.”
“Tell me, Cole.” An eerie feeling inched up her spine.
“Really—”
“Cole!”
“All right, all right. It’s an old Indian myth. The Chippewas who lived around here considered the Lassiter life-giving. It was the center of activity for the tribe. It gave them fish and rice. They considered it important as far as the afterlife as well. They believed that the closer you were buried to it, the better your afterlife would be, so they buried their dead all along the Lassiter. Those who died young were buried at the headwaters, right down the hill, while the elderly were laid to rest at the mouth, down near Lake Superior. Everyone else was buried somewhere in the middle, according to their age. The older the individual, the farther downriver that person was buried.” Cole pointed out the window into the darkness. “Some people claim to have seen Chippewa ghosts along the river. Up here at the headwaters they claim to see children. Billy swears he has seen them walking around the cabins at night, but I’ve been on the river for fifteen years and stayed in his cabins many times and I’ve never seen anything,” he said earnestly.
Tori rolled her eyes. “Jesus.”
“Don’t worry.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” She followed the shadows of the flames flickering up the walls.
“Well, good night. I’ve got to get some sleep.” Cole walked to the door. “I’m in the next cabin if you need me.” The door swung shut behind him.
Tori moved slowly to the door and gazed through the window, watching Cole walk to his cabin in the glow of the spotlight over the door. The first few snowflakes were beginning to fall.
* * *
—
The children were everywhere, all around her, leading her on, pointing the way toward a man at the edge of a field. He was beckoning silently for her to come to him. Then he faded and she was hanging by her hands from a rope, holding on for dear life, suspended thousands of feet above a city skyline she didn’t recognize.
Suddenly Tori came out of the dream and sat bolt upright in the bed, perspiration covering her body. For several moments she stared at the dying embers in the fireplace, breathing hard as her heart raced. Finally she ran her hands through her hair and shook her head. The dream had been so vivid. It was the same dream she had had the night after her lunch with Cole at the Broadway Diner.
Then the howl came. It was a strange moan from the distance, and it made her flesh crawl.
Coyotes were plentiful in the area and harmless to humans, but she didn’t know this. She threw the covers back, ran outside and raced barefoot through two inches of new-fallen snow to Cole’s cabin, yanked open the door and yelled, “Cole!”
He came to consciousness quickly. “What the—”
“It’s me!”
“Tori?” Cole reached for the lamp on the nightstand and flicked it on. “What’s the matter?”
She stood just inside the door, shivering. She was wearing only a New York Knicks T-shirt that ended well above her knees.
“Hey, nice legs, Tori.”
“Move over!” She ran for the bed, climbed in, pulled the covers over herself tightly and rolled so that her back was to him.
“What are you doing?” he asked. Instantly he felt intense warmth emanating from her, even though their bodies weren’t actually touching.
“I heard something outside. I’m not staying out here in the woods by myself. You’ve got a roommate for the rest of the night.”
“I could think of worse things.”
“Turn the light off.”
Cole reached for the lamp and flipped the switch. “Are you all right?” She was trembling.
“I’m fine,” Tori said defiantly. She felt much better now that she was with him. “I had a nightmare. You know how those things are.”
“Yes, I do.” Cole put his head down on the pillow.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” she murmured apologetically.
“It’s all right.”
For several minutes they lay in silence, then Tori reached slowly behind herself and found his hand. She pulled his arm around her, kissed his palm and held on tightly.
After a few minutes Cole ran his fingers through her hair and rubbed her head gently, then moved his hand down her side, reached for the bottom of her T-shirt and pulled it up. He hesitated for a second, then moved his fingers down onto her soft, bare buttocks. Then he heard her slow, steady breathing. She was asleep.
20
The Jeep headlights cut an eerie swath through the darkness and the falling snow, guiding Cole down the driveway and over six inches of new powder. He held his breath as the vehicle eased down a steep section of the driveway and into a sharp curve. The Jeep could slip off the driveway and become mired in the deep ditch on either side so easily. If it became stuck, he’d be forced to walk all the way back up the hill to Billy Threefeathers’s lodge for help, which would cause a long delay in getting to the Albion estate. A delay that could cost him the prize.
Returning to the lodge might awaken Tori, as well—Cole had managed to rise from the bed and dress without disturbing her. She would demand to go with him this time, which might cost him the prize, too.
Suddenly the rear end of the Jeep swung to the left, then back to the right, and the vehicle began fishtailing down the slope. Cole took his foot off the brake and instantly the vehicle picked up speed. However, without the brake application the four wide tires regained traction and he was able to bring the Jeep back under control. As he came to a full stop at the end of Billy’s driveway, he relaxed into the seat and took a few short breaths. Then he turned right, toward the town of Hubbard, and onto the virgin snow covering the county road.
The Albion estate was located halfway between Billy Threefeathers’s lodge and Hubbard. The estate encompassed several thousand acres of pine trees and four miles of the Lassiter. On the en
tire property there were only two buildings—the main house and a boathouse. The main house was a massive eight-thousand-square-foot stone structure overlooking the Lassiter. It was built atop a ridge paralleling the river, and from it visitors to the mansion had an incredible view of the surrounding territory. From the back of the mansion a narrow path snaked its way down the slope in a series of hairpin turns until it reached the large stone boathouse. The boathouse was set on a slow-moving stretch of the Lassiter where the Albions’ friends and children could swim and canoe safely without the threat of being pulled into fast water. This slow stretch offered some of the best brown trout fishing on the river. In the summer of his senior year in high school Cole had pulled a twelve-pound monster from this stretch with Billy Threefeathers in the back of the canoe, showing him precisely where to cast.
The snow was falling heavily, and Cole turned up the speed of the windshield wipers. He leaned forward over the steering wheel, searching the road ahead for deer, which might dart out from the trees into the Jeep’s path. There were thousands of them up here, and they were drawn to the headlights instinctively. A collision with a big buck would end this excursion prematurely. Cole tried the high beams, but the reflection from the falling snow caused a terrible glare and he turned the lights down again.
The second tape was in the Albion boathouse. Cole could only guess that his father had decided to hide the second tape in the boathouse because of a telephone conversation with Cole’s aunt long ago. Bennett Smith had mentioned that his father called his aunt every few weeks to check up on Cole. After catching the twelve-pound brown trout with Billy Threefeathers, Cole had related the story to his aunt and uncle at length over Sunday dinner back in Duluth, referring to the Albion boathouse several times. The note on the hotel room floor had specifically referred to the Albion boathouse as well. That must have been the connection and the reason for his father’s decision to hide the second tape there.
Cole smiled as he guided the Jeep through the storm. No one else could have guessed what the note was referring to. It didn’t identify a body of water or a town or even a state in which the boathouse was located. It had simply directed him to get to the Albion boathouse as quickly as possible. Then it had given him a specific location in the boathouse to look for the “package.” If the note had fallen into the wrong hands, the person who found it wouldn’t have had any idea what it meant anyway. The smile drained away from Cole’s face. The note had also made clear that this was the last package.
The messenger had to have been Bennett, Cole reasoned. Jim Egan had trusted Bennett enough to deliver the first message. It seemed logical that Bennett would be responsible for the second one as well. Who the hell else could it have been?
Cole checked his watch as he guided the Jeep off the county right-of-way onto a snow-covered rutted dirt road used by loggers in the summer. It was almost five o’clock in the morning.
A hundred yards down the logging trail, Cole stopped and turned the vehicle around so that it was pointed back out toward the main road, then cut the engine. The entrance to the Albion estate was still a mile north of this location, but he preferred to park here and walk the rest of the way as a precaution. The entrance to the Albion estate was protected by a locked gate, and he didn’t want to park the Jeep outside the gate right on the main road. It would be an advertisement to anyone passing by that someone was at the estate.
Cole walked back along the logging trail to the county road, hunched over against the driving snow, following the tracks made by the Jeep. Then it was a mile to the entrance of the Albion estate, another half mile along the Albions’ long driveway to the mansion and a few hundred yards down the narrow path to the boathouse. He would retrieve the tape from the boathouse as quickly as possible and get the hell out of here. He pulled the parka’s hood over his head and began jogging as the falling snow whipped past him. The tape was almost within his grasp.
Several hundred yards south of the entrance to the Albion estate, Cole crossed the main road. There were still no tire tracks on it. Usually the locals were up and moving by this time of the morning. But they knew better than to venture out in a storm this fierce.
Cole scaled the five-foot chain-link fence running along the Albions’ property and moved into the trees on the other side of the fence. Darkness had yielded only slightly to a gray light, but the feeble rays were enough for him to make his way through the trees with relative ease. He wanted to stay off the driveway and hidden for as long as possible.
As Cole moved through the forest, a deer suddenly bolted away from behind a grove of trees. He jumped back, startled. “Jesus,” he muttered. The snow had deadened the sound of his footsteps, and he was almost on top of the animal before it sensed his presence. Cole stood still, listening to the deer crash away through the underbrush. Finally the sounds faded and the woods were quiet again. Once more he began moving through the trees, roughly paralleling the Albion driveway. He squinted through the snow and the forest. Visibility was fifty feet at most.
When Cole was certain he had walked a half mile, he turned north toward the driveway. He would locate the mansion, then walk down the narrow lane behind it to the boathouse. He doubted anyone was in the huge house. In this area of the country people kept a close eye on the weather map, and the Albions would have known that forecasters were predicting several feet of snow for the territory. If the Albions had been up here recently, they were probably back at their estate in Minneapolis by now.
Cole broke out of the forest onto the edge of the driveway. Visibility had increased, but he still couldn’t see objects more than a hundred yards away because of the driving snow. He glanced to his left toward the mansion, fifty yards away. There were no lights illuminated and no cars in the circular driveway in front of the main entrance. He glanced to his right, back up the long driveway toward the main road, but saw nothing suspicious.
Pine needles brushed against Cole’s face as he turned back into the trees and began moving toward the river. He had decided not to use the lane to the boathouse after all. He would remain hidden for as long as possible. His paranoia was increasing with each step.
On the crest of the ridge overlooking the Lassiter, Cole paused for a few moments. From this spot he had an excellent view of the river and the boathouse below. The snow was still coming down hard, but it seemed to have abated slightly. Grasping tree trunks whenever he could, Cole made his way slowly down the steep slope. It was treacherous going, and he stopped every few feet to catch his breath, bracing himself against larger trees for support. During these short breaks he scanned the area for any unusual movements and listened for strange sounds. But as he drew nearer to the river, the wind whipped up, blowing snow into his eyes and obscuring all noises except the air whistling through the trees.
Finally Cole reached the riverbank. A thin film of ice had formed on the water’s surface, and as he gazed across the ice he noticed the spot near the far bank where he had landed the huge brown trout many years before. Billy had pointed out the exact spot to cast, and Cole had hit the spot perfectly. He could use Billy’s help now, Cole thought to himself as he turned and trudged through the snow toward the boathouse.
The Albion boathouse was constructed of the same stone as was the mansion. Sixty feet long and thirty feet wide, the boathouse was designed so that half the structure was over the water and half out. That way, with the river doors wide open in the summer, one could paddle or row a craft into the boathouse from the river, then step onto the docks inside protected from wind and weather. But now the structure was closed for the winter.
Cole stood in front of the boathouse’s side door. It was latched tightly with a small padlock, but he had anticipated this problem and pulled a small hammer from beneath his coat. He gave the padlock two powerful raps and it broke open. The door creaked on its hinges as he pushed it back and stepped inside. Dim light filtered through dusty windowpanes, but he still couldn’t see much. As
he turned on the flashlight he had brought from Billy’s lodge, he smelled mildew and heard dripping water. He played the flashlight beam around the space. There were canoes, rowboats, life preservers, paddles, hoses and fishing gear hanging from, leaning against and covering the walls and floor. With the flashlight beam he followed the pipes that came down the walls and disappeared beneath the water. The pipes carried steam to keep the water inside the boathouse from freezing during the winter.
Cole moved quickly over the wooden slat walkway to a ladder leading to the loft. Wind whistling beneath the eaves, the faint trickling of water and his own labored breathing were the only sounds inside the boathouse as he climbed the wooden rungs.
The package was secured to the top of the beam in the northeast corner of the Albion boathouse. That was the simple message penned on the note Cole had picked up off the hotel room floor. He moved stealthily across the loft, carefully avoiding tarps, paddles and parts of old motors. When he reached the northeast corner, he took a breath and ran his hand slowly along the top of the wooden beam. At first he felt nothing but dust and dirt, then his hand hit something that felt like a canvas bag. His heart skipped a beat. It felt as if there was a case inside the bag. He ripped the bag away from the beam, brought it down, peered inside and saw a videocassette case. Fingers trembling, he pulled the case from the bag and opened it. It did indeed hold a tape. He closed his eyes, mumbled a quick prayer of thanks, then dropped the bag, turned and headed back down the ladder. He jumped the last few rungs to the boathouse floor, pivoted away from the ladder toward the door—and stopped dead in his tracks. The man with the scar running down his left cheek stood ten feet away.
“Hello, Cole,” Magee said calmly. “What do you have there?” Magee gestured at the cassette case in Cole’s hand with the pistol he was holding.
Cole felt no fear, just fury. He was going to lose the tape again. “Home movies,” he answered.
“Home movies of you and your daddy playing ball in the backyard, I guess,” Magee said sarcastically. “I understand you and he had so much quality time together while you were growing up.”
The Legacy Page 22
