Corey Harper said, “Do you guys know that most FBI agents never get close to the big trouble we’re in now? Some of them never even draw their guns. They spend their whole careers interviewing people. I’ve been told that quite a few agents, when they retire, become psychologists—they’re that good at getting information out of people.”
Quinlan laughed. “We’ll get out of this, Corey. Believe it.”
“You think you’re so bloody smart, Quinlan. How the hell are we going to get free? And a swarm of little old people are going to show up any minute. Do you think they’ll form a firing squad? Or just beat us to death with their canes?”
Corey said quietly, “Don’t, Thomas. Let’s get loose. There’s got to be a way. I don’t want to be helpless when someone comes, and you both know they’ll come.”
“What, dammit?” Thomas shouted. “What can we do? The ropes are too tight. They even tied us to the wall so we couldn’t get to each other. We’re in the dark. So what are we going to do?”
“There’s got to be something,” Corey said.
“Maybe there is,” Quinlan said.
SALLY’S jaw hurt. She opened and closed her mouth, working it until the pain eased to a dull throb. She was lying in the dark, the only light coming through the open doorway from the hall.
She was alone. Her hands were still tied in front of her. She lifted her hands to her mouth and began to tug with her teeth on the knot.
She was concentrating so hard that she nearly screamed when a quiet voice said, “It’s really no use, Sally. Relax, baby. Don’t move. Just relax.”
“No,” Sally whispered. “Oh, no.”
“Don’t you recognize where you are, Sally? I thought you’d know right away.”
“No, it’s too dark in here.”
“Look toward the window, dear. Maybe you’ll see your dear father’s face again.”
“I’m in the bedroom down the hall from yours.”
“Yes.”
“Why, Amabel? What’s going on?”
“Oh, Sally, why’d you have to come back? I’d give anything if you hadn’t shown up on my doorstep that day. I had to take you in. I really didn’t want you involved, but here you are again, and there’s nothing I can do.”
“Where are James and the other two agents?”
“I don’t know. They’re probably in that little tool shed behind Doc Spiver’s cottage. That’s a sturdy prison. They’ll never get out.”
“What are you going to do to them?”
“It’s really not up to me.”
“Who is it up to?”
“The town.”
For a long moment, Sally couldn’t breathe. It was true. The whole bloody town. “How many people has the town killed, Amabel?”
“The first old couple, Harve and Marge Jensen, the ones Quinlan was supposedly here to look for, they were both accidents. Both of them keeled over with heart attacks. We found cash in their Winnebago. Next there was this biker. He started wailing on poor old Hunker, and Purn cracked him over the head with a chair to protect Hunker. It killed him. Another accident.
“Then the biker’s girlfriend realized he was dead. Sherry Vorhees had no choice but to kill her. She slammed her over the head with an industrial blender.
“It got easier after that, you know? Someone would spot a likely old couple or someone who looked rich. Or maybe one of the women who was working in the World’s Greatest Ice Cream Shop saw a whole lot of cash when the person pulled open his wallet. Then we just did it. Yes, it got easier. It got to be nearly a game, but don’t misunderstand me, Sally. We always treated them with greatest respect after they were dead.
“You’ve told me how beautiful the town is now. Well, it was a run-down mess before. But now, our investments are doing well, everyone is quite comfortable, and many tourists come here not only for the World’s Greatest Ice Cream but also to see the town and buy souvenirs and eat at the cafe.”
“How wonderful for you. More people to choose from. You could discuss it among yourselves. Did that couple look richer than that one over there? You played Russian roulette with people’s lives. That’s disgusting.”
“I wouldn’t put it so crassly, but as we’ve gotten to be more of a tourist attraction we’ve been able to be more selective. But we’ve killed only old people, Sally. They had all had a full life.”
“That biker’s girlfriend didn’t.”
Amabel shrugged. “It couldn’t be helped.”
Sally was shaking her head back and forth on the pillow, believing but still incredulous. “Amabel, you’ve killed people. Don’t you understand that? You’ve murdered innocent people. It doesn’t excuse anything that they were old. You robbed them. You buried them in the cemetery—what? Oh, I see. You buried them two to each grave. Only you used a man’s name. Does one of you have a list identifying who’s really in each grave?”
“No, but we left identification on the bodies. Don’t sound so appalled, Sally. We were dying here. We desperately wanted to survive. We have. We’ve won.”
“No, everything’s coming down on your heads now, Amabel. There are three FBI agents here, and Sheriff David Mountebank knows everything they know, maybe more. You kill the agents, and you’ll all be in the gas chamber. Don’t you understand? The FBI is involved!”
“Oh, Sally, here you are, going on and on about something that really doesn’t concern you. What about yourself, baby? What about your father?”
“He’s not my father, thank God. At least I found that out.”
“Good, there’s anger there. I was afraid you were still trying to believe he was a nightmare come back to haunt you.”
“You’re saying he’s here with you, Amabel? You want him here?” She knew the answer. But she didn’t want to hear it.
“Of course, Sally.”
She stared beyond her aunt to the man illuminated in the doorway. Her father. No, not her father, thank God. It was the bastard who raised her, the bastard who beat her mother and locked her away in Dr. Beadermeyer’s sanitarium, the bastard who beat her just because it pleased him to do so.
“So how does our little bastard feel, Ammie?”
Ammie? What was this?
“I’m not the bastard. You are.”
“Sally, I hesitate to hit you in front of your aunt. It bothers her, even though she knows what a vicious mouth you have, even though she knows I’ve got to do it to control you.”
“Amabel, why do you have him here with you? He’s a murderer. He’s a traitor to our country.”
Amabel sat down beside her. Her fingertips were light and soft as they drifted over Sally’s forehead, pushing her hair behind her ears, lightly smoothing her eyebrows.
“Amabel, please. When I was here before, I knew it was him on the phone to me. He admitted that he’d looked in through the bedroom window.”
“Yes, dear.”
“Why was he here, Amabel?”
“He had to come here, Sally. He had to take you back to the sanitarium. He hoped to make you doubt your sanity with the phone calls and his face at the window.”
“But how could he possibly know I was even here?”
“I called him. He was staying at a small inn in Oklahoma City. He took the next plane to Portland, then drove here. But you knew even as you asked that question, didn’t you, Sally?
“Ah, but you didn’t doubt your sanity at all. That was due in part to Quinlan. That man. His being here made everything more difficult. Isn’t it strange? Quinlan made up that story about coming here to try to find a trace of those old folk? All he wanted was you. He didn’t care about any missing old people. Just you. He thought you’d either killed your father or were protecting your mother.
“I’ve always been amused by the ways of fate. Well, I’m not amused now. There are big problems now.”
“Now, Ammie, do you think it was fate that brought all those nice old people here to buy the World’s Greatest Ice Cream so you could then kill them and steal all their money?”
Amabel turned and frowned at him. “I don’t know, and neither do you, Amory. Now, I don’t care what happens to Quinlan and the others, but I don’t want Sally hurt.”
“He doesn’t agree with you, Aunt Amabel,” Sally said. “He hates me. You know he’s not my father. He has no latent tender feelings for me. As for my mother, did you know that he forced Noelle to stay with him?”
“Why, of course, Sally.”
Sally gaped at her. She couldn’t help it. On the other hand, why was she so surprised? Her world had flipped and turned more times in the past seven months than she could cope with. It seemed she’d never known who she really was or why things were the way they were. And she’d hated her mother for her weakness. She’d felt contempt for her, wanted to shake her herself for letting her husband knock her around.
“Who’s my father?”
“Now she wants to know,” Amory St. John said, as he strolled into the small bedroom, his hands in his pants pockets.
“Who?”
“Well, dear,” Amabel said, “actually your father was my husband. And yes, he was my husband before he met Noelle and the two of them fell in love—”
“In lust, you mean, Ammie.”
“That too. Anyway, Noelle was always rather stupid, and Carl wasn’t all that much of this earth himself. Knowing both of them as well as I did, I had difficulty figuring out who got whom into bed. But they must have managed it. She got pregnant. Fortunately she was seeing Amory at the time, and things got worked out to everyone’s satisfaction.”
“Not to my mother’s.”
“Oh, yes, she was thrilled that she wouldn’t have to abort you, Sally. She would have, of course, if it meant no husband as a cover.
“I brought my Carl out here to The Cove so he could paint and spend the rest of his meaningless little life doing landscape oils that sell at airport shows for twenty dollars, and that includes their vulgar gold-painted frames. Carl never roamed again. In fact, he begged my forgiveness, said he’d do anything if only I wouldn’t leave him. I let him do quite a bit before he died twenty years ago.”
“You didn’t kill him, did you?”
“Oh, no. Amory did that, but Carl was already very ill with lung cancer. He never would stop smoking unfiltered Camels. Yes, it was a blessing for Carl that his brakes failed, and he died so quickly. Thank you, Amory.”
“You’re welcome, Ammie.”
“So how long have you been lovers?”
Amabel laughed softly, turning to look at the man who was standing in the doorway. “A very long time,” she said.
“So you don’t mind him beating you, Amabel?”
“No, Amory, don’t!” Amabel walked quickly to him and put her hand on his arm. She said over her shoulder, “Listen to me, Sally. Don’t talk like that. There’s no reason to make your father angry—”
“He’s not my father.”
“Nevertheless, mind your tongue. Of course he doesn’t hit me. Just Noelle.”
“He hit me too, Amabel.”
“You deserved it,” Amory said.
Sally looked from one to the other. In the dim light she couldn’t see either of them clearly. Amory took Amabel’s hand, pulled her closer to his side. The shadows seemed to deepen around them, moving into them, drawing them into one. Sally shivered.
“I thought you loved me, Amabel.”
“I do, baby, indeed I do. You’re my husband’s child and my niece. And I agreed with Amory that you were better off in that nice sanitarium. You weren’t doing well. He told me how erratic you’d become, how you were cheating on your husband, how you’d gotten in with the wrong people and were taking drugs.
“He said that Dr. Beadermeyer would help you. I met Dr. Beadermeyer. An excellent doctor, who said you were doing nicely but that you needed complete rest and constant supervision by professionals.”
“That was all a lie. Even if you don’t want to believe he’s such a monster, just think about it. You’ve read the papers, seen the news. Everyone is looking for him. Everyone knows that many of the patients in Dr. Beadermeyer’s sanitarium were prisoners, just like I was.”
“Oh, baby, don’t do this. I don’t want to put a gag in your mouth, but I will. I won’t let you talk about him like this.”
“All right, but didn’t you wonder about how crazy I was when he showed up here, knocked me over the head, and drugged me? When he nearly killed James?”
Amory St. John pulled away from Amabel. He walked to the bed and stood there, staring down at Sally. “In this dim light I can’t tell if you’re going to be bruised or not.”
“You really hit her that hard, Amory?”
“Don’t fret, Ammie. She deserved it. She spit on me. Over the years I learned exactly how hard I could hit Noelle to get a certain kind and color of bruise. But everyone’s skin is different. We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”
“You’re nuts,” Sally said. “You’re a monster.”
“I would have whipped you if you’d ever said that when you lived under my roof.”
“It doesn’t matter, Amory. She’s frightened. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen to her.”
Sally said, “I know exactly what’s going to happen to me. He doesn’t have Dr. Beadermeyer to hold me prisoner for him anymore. No, he’s going to kill me, Amabel. You know that as well, otherwise you wouldn’t have admitted everything to me. No, don’t deny it. You’ve already accepted it. But I don’t really count. What will bring both of you down is hurting the FBI agents. You try killing James, and all hell will break loose. I know his boss, and you can count on it.”
“They’re stupid, all of them,” Amory said. He shrugged. “I know things will get even more difficult, but we’ll deal with it. Actually I’ve already set things in motion. It’s true I didn’t count on that damned agent getting you away from Dr. Beadermeyer again. That’s what ripped it apart. All my plans, Sally, everything has had to be rearranged. It has put me out. Now I’m no longer dead, thanks to the two of you. Now I’ll have to leave the country forever.”
“You try it. They’ll catch you. With those arms sales to terrorist countries, you’ve got the feds ready to tear the world apart looking for you.”
“I know. Such a pity. But it will be fine. I got most of my money out of the Caymans and Switzerland nearly a year ago. I left a bit in all those foreign accounts to tantalize the feds so they’d realize I knew exactly what I was doing. It will make them crazy, and they won’t catch me.”
“James will catch you.”
“Your James Quinlan isn’t going to catch a cold. He won’t have time before he’s six feet under.”
She felt such rage she couldn’t stop herself. She heaved up, hitting him in the face with her bound fists. Hard. He cursed, shoving her back, his own fist raised.
She heard Amabel yell, “Don’t, Amory!”
But that fist kept coming down, not toward her face but toward her ribs.
THIRTY-ONE
“Sorry, guys,” Quinlan said, “but the old codgers were thorough. My army knife is gone. I always taped it to my ankle. Damn.”
Thomas said, “Corey, what are you doing? Why are you heaving around like a gutted fish? Why are you making those weird groaning sounds?”
She was breathing hard. “You’ll see. I didn’t count on Quinlan finding that knife. Wait a moment, I’ve nearly made it through.”
“Made what through?” Quinlan said, desperately straining to see her in the darkness.
“I was a gymnast. I have the dubious honor of being the most flexible agent to go through the program at Quantico. I’m getting my arms beneath my butt and pushing on through and in just a minute—This is tougher than it used to be when I was younger and skinnier—” She stopped, breathing hard, straining. “There.”
She was panting, laughing. “I did it!”
“What, Corey?”
“My hands are now tied in front of me, Thomas. Thank heaven they left enough leeway between me and the
wall. The rope around my waist was higher than the rope tying my wrists together. Now, I’m going to turn around and untie the rope around my waist. When I’m free, I can do my feet and then get to you guys.”
“Corey,” Quinlan said, “if you get us out of this, both Thomas and I will recommend that you become the special agent in charge of the Portland field office. Right, Thomas?”
“If she gets us out of this, I’ll beg her to marry me.”
“Thomas, you’re a sexist. I won’t ever marry a sexist.”
“Corey, how are you doing?” Quinlan said.
“It’s coming. The knot at my waist is pretty easy.”
“Good. Hurry.”
But how much time did they have left before the old folk came for them? Where was Sally? Quinlan hadn’t prayed much in his life, but he was praying now. Did Amabel have her?
“Got it! Now let me get my feet.”
“I hear something,” Thomas said. “Hurry, Corey, hurry!”
“DON’T hit her, Amory!”
Amabel grabbed his arm, jerking it away. It slammed against the bed just an inch from Sally’s ribs.
He was panting. He wheeled about, his fist raised. “You shouldn’t have done that, Ammie. You shouldn’t have done it.”
Sally reared up, yelling, “Don’t you dare hit her, you cretin!”
But he did, his fist hard against Amabel’s jaw, knocking her against the wall. She slid down to the floor.
Sally didn’t say a word. She was staring at her aunt, praying she wasn’t dead.
“How could you?” She stared up at the man who had to be mad. “You’re lovers. She called to tell you I was here so you could come and get me. You hit her just like you hit Noelle.”
“Actually,” he said, rubbing his knuckles, “it’s the first time I’ve ever had to discipline her. She won’t go against me in the future now. I wonder how her skin will bruise.”
The Beginning Page 31
