Final Settlement

by Vicki Doudera

  Darby’s breath caught in her throat. A ski mask.

  She let out a cry of alarm and then turned immediately up the hill. Without a moment’s hesitation she began stepping as quickly as she could up the face, thinking nothing except that she had to escape. Her breath came out in jagged little puffs, and her lungs burned with exertion, but still she pushed herself higher, higher, faster and faster, in an effort to flee the masked man. Who is he? Why is he after me? Her brain asked the questions, and her body gave only one answer: run.

  FOURTEEN

  BITSY HUNG UP THE phone and felt the first smile in days tugging at the corners of her mouth. She’d just received a dinner invitation from Tina Ames, and it was exactly what she felt like doing—relaxing with a few women over wine and a casserole. Tears welled up in her eyes. Tina, her high school boyfriend’s new wife, had become a friend. Who would have thought it possible?

  She walked across the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator. There was a new container of smoked mussels, a few olives, and a good wedge of Brie. She’d put it all on a platter, add some crackers, and voila! An appetizer for Tina’s party, along with a big bottle of wine, of course.

  She closed the refrigerator door. The house was silent, and she recognized with a pang that she missed Rosie. The rambunctious puppy was not only a welcome distraction, but she was good company. Bitsy sighed. It was pretty pathetic when you started thinking of a young yellow retriever as your companion, she thought.

  She wondered who else would be at Tina’s little party. Terri, Tina’s sister from up the coast in Westerly, and definitely Darby. Maybe I can get a ride with Darby. She trotted to the phone and punched in her number.

  The phone rang and rang, and Bitsy was about to hang up when Darby’s message came on. “Give me a call about carpooling to Tina’s,” Bitsy said, adding a “thanks,” just before she hung up.

  There was about forty-five minutes before it was time to go to Tina’s. Bitsy hated empty time, because it made her think of Charles. If Rosie were here, she’d kill some time by playing with her, giving her a treat, or cleaning up whatever mess the dog managed to make.

  She glanced at her reflection in the hall mirror. Dark circles under her eyes, no makeup, and hair that looked decidedly dirty. She ran a finger through the spiky hairdo. Charles had liked it. He’d said it was cute …

  He would have loved me when I was bald, too, she thought. When I was getting all those treatments at the Nevada Cancer Center …

  Sadness washed through her. Before it could carry her away completely, Bitsy took a deep breath and climbed the stairs to the master bathroom, turning on the water for a long, hot shower.

  _____

  Darby didn’t dare glance backward to see the man’s position. Instead, she crested the top of Juniper Ridge and began running across the narrow edge. She heard a scraping sound and panicked, but it was only the teeth of Tina’s snowshoes grating against bare rock.

  A large boulder loomed before her. Should she descend the ridge in the other direction? She whipped her head back the way she had come. There was no one there.

  Her heart pounding, Darby looked wildly around the ridge. It was empty and silent, the only sound the drone of a faraway plane. She swung her head to the side and caught a fist as it jammed into her face.

  “Where is the box?”

  Kenji Miyazaki stood before her, the mask removed to reveal his once handsome features, now contorted into an ugly sneer. Steam rose from his matted black hair, and his eyes flashed in a cold fury. “Answer me! Where is the box?”

  Darby put a hand to her cheek where his punch had connected. She pointed at the ski mask. “You killed Lorraine Delvecchio?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I want the box.”

  “The box?” Her voice sounded dazed. Get a grip, she told herself. Remember your training …

  He raised an arm to hit her again, this time from the other direction, but she swiftly blocked the move.

  His face remained impassive. If he was impressed, he wasn’t about to show it. “The red lacquered box!” he hissed.

  “It’s at my house …”

  “It’s at my house,” he jeered. “Don’t you think that’s the first place I looked? Where the hell is it in your house?”

  Darby moved her jaw. It was sore, but still working. “Why do you need it? You got the formula.”

  His black eyes bored into hers. “I ask you again, Darby Farr. Where is the box?”

  An image of her grandfather flashed before her eyes. Had he imagined this very scenario?

  Suddenly she knew.

  “Something is missing,” Darby said calmly. “A part of the formula. And you think it’s in the box?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You listen to me. You’re going to take me back there and get me the damn box.” He gave her a rough shove and she stumbled, nearly falling into the snow. “Get moving!”

  Darby took a step down the embankment. His volatility was dangerous. He was a thief and a spy at the very least, and there was no way she could trust that he’d simply take the box and go.

  She bolted down the ridge.

  Kenji Miyazaki shouted an obscenity. Darby heard him grunting as he pounded in his snowshoes behind her. An instant later he’d grabbed her arm and yanked it back, hard, so viciously that she felt it disconnect from her shoulder socket.

  “You think you can outrun me?” He spat out the question. “I’m a world-class athlete, and you’re a little skinny nothing. I’m fitter and smarter, and the sooner you accept that, the easier this will be.”

  “What are you going to do with the formula?” She was panting, hard, and trying to figure out her next move.

  He gave an arrogant snicker. “That’s the least of your worries. Now, this is what we’re going to do …”

  A popping sound made Darby look up to where Kenji was standing, or at least where he had been standing just a moment earlier. For some reason, he was no longer there.

  She glanced down. Kenji Miyazaki was face up against the white hillside, his arms extended as if he were making a snow angel, a crimson liquid pouring from his neck and staining the ground blood red.

  Darby gasped. It took only two seconds for her to comprehend that Kenji was dead and that the popping sound had been a gunshot. She pulled her eyes from the widening crimson pool toward the direction from which she guessed the shot had come.

  Detective Dave Robichaud was sprinting toward her. “Darby, are you okay?” he yelled.

  She thought a moment. Her feet seemed stuck in the snow, her body was becoming dangerously chilled, and her left arm hung slackly from her shoulder. One side of her face was numb thanks to Kenji’s fist, but she was alive.

  He was suddenly before her, panting, the gun in his right hand now pointed down toward the snow. “You okay?” he repeated.

  She moved her head slowly.

  He glanced at the body and back at Darby. “Looks like your shoulder is dislocated,” he said. “Can you walk?”

  “Yes,” she managed, not moving at all.

  “Here,” he reached gently for her uninjured arm and led her away from Kenji. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  “How did you find us?” Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. “How did you know?”

  “The FBI called and said he was headed this way. Tina told me you were here.”

  He scanned the snow in front and behind them. Their slow trudging had brought them to the spot where Darby had stood and admired the view only minutes before Kenji had appeared.

  “Did you come up here alone?” Dave Robichaud asked.

  “Yes.” She shook her head, feeling as if she were in a dream. “He must have followed my tracks.”

  Detective Robichaud nodded. “What about your phone? Did you make any calls?”

  “No.” She reached in the jacket’s pocket, the one she could access with her uninjured arm. “It’s not here. I must have dropped it.”

  “That’s okay
. You won’t need it.”

  Darby’s heart made a quick constriction. Won’t need it? What an odd thing to say …

  Suddenly all of her faculties were back, sharp and clear. She was a deer in the forest, the fraction after a twig snaps. I’m in danger.

  Her mind ran through the options while her face stayed expressionless and her feet trudged on. Out run, out maneuver, out smart? In a flash, she had made her decision.

  Darby wheeled on Detective Robichaud, going for his gun, using an Aikido disarming technique she’d learned in the martial arts academy back in San Diego. Her eyes on his, she brought both of her hands down hard on the wrist holding the gun, ignoring the shooting pain from her shoulder. Driving it in a swift counterclockwise move, she grasped the handle of the gun and trained it toward his heart.

  “What the hell are you doing?” His voice was surprised. Then it hardened.

  “Give me my weapon.” He spread his hands palms out in the characteristic gesture of submission. “Come on, Darby, this isn’t funny. I know you’re scared from your encounter with the Japanese guy, but you need to give me the gun. Now.” He took a step toward her.

  “Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot.” Her voice was strong and clear.

  His eyes became two narrow slits. “What are you talking about? Why in the world would you want to harm a police officer?”

  Darby saw the anger in his face. This man was dangerous, she knew it with every pore of her body, and yet she did not quite know why. “Tell me about Lorraine Delvecchio.”

  “What? Oh, come on, Darby. She fell off that pier. What more is there to say?”

  “She was blackmailing at least five people.”

  “Yeah, well, she wasn’t blackmailing me. Why in the world would I kill her?” He brought his hand up to his face and Darby started.

  “Don’t move—“

  Detective Robichaud’s leg contracted and then thrust out in a forward kick, knocking the gun from Darby’s grasp. Another kick dealt a resounding blow to her injured shoulder, sending her collapsing to the ground in pain.

  “Hopefully it’s broken,” he spat, keeping a wary eye on her as he bent to grab his gun. “What in the world did you think you were doing?”

  Darby’s whole left side screamed in pain.

  “Get up!” he ordered, kicking her ribs with the toe of a winter boot. “Get the hell up right now!”

  “Why? You’re going to kill me anyway. Why not here?”

  He gave a soft laugh that raised the hair along her spine. “You’re something else, Darby Farr.” He knelt down to her level, the gun aimed at her brain. “So beautiful and so smart.”

  He let out a loud breath. “You’re correct—I am going to kill you, but not right here. You, my little amateur detective, are going over the side of this pretty ridge. That way, I can blame it on your eager friend Mr. Miyazaki.”

  Darby lifted her head, slowly and painfully, and stared into the barrel of the gun. “You killed Lorraine,” she said. “You hid behind the lighthouse, and pushed her off the Breakwater.”

  “Yes,” he purred. “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was a conniving blackmailing bitch, that’s why.”

  “What did she do to you?”

  He stood. “Get up!” he snarled. “Now!”

  Darby used her good arm to push herself off the snow, wincing in pain as she moved. “I can’t,” she said, sinking back to the cold comfort of the ground. “You’ll have to kill me here.”

  “That’s not the way it’s going to happen,” he spat, yanking her roughly to her feet. She moaned, but he ignored her cry. “We are following my plan, dear Darby.” He shoved her toward the edge of Juniper Ridge. “And my plan involves you breaking your neck after a fall from this lofty peak.” He grabbed her roughly by the waist. “Any last words?”

  “Yeah,” she said softly. In a lightning move that took every ounce of energy, she swung her powerful right leg up, around, and toward Detective Robichaud’s head.

  The metal of Tina’s snowshoe connected with Robichaud’s skull with a satisfying ker-thunk. He thudded to the ground, the gun spurting from his hand. Darby scrambled to pick it up, keeping her eyes on the motionless man, the beneficiary of one of the best roundhouse kicks Darby had ever executed.

  A moment later she used her last reserve of energy to shoot him in the foot, just in case.

  _____

  Armed with hiking poles and wearing a powerful headlamp, Donny Pease moved swiftly in his snowshoes up the side of Raven Hill, following the oval-shaped tracks of Darby Farr. Donny had heard the crack of gunfire echoing across the island, had seen Darby’s red coat hanging on a hook inside the doorway of Tina’s house, and now his heart pounded with dread for the young real estate agent. What the hell had happened? Was she okay? Did all this have anything to do with the other deaths on the island?

  “Probably just some kid shooting turkeys,” Deputy Tom Allen had drawled when Donny reached him from the truck. “Nothin’ to be worried about, Pease.”

  That was the trouble with the man Donny knew by his middle-school nickname, Dozer. He was both unimaginative and lazy, a dangerous combination for anyone, but especially someone in law enforcement. No wonder the Manatuck police were “helping out” Deputy Allen while Hurricane Harbor’s town officials searched for Chief Dupont’s replacement. Thank goodness everyone on the island had enough sense to know that Dozer himself was basically inept, that he could never be Chief material.

  “Why can’t she just stick to selling houses?” Donny said aloud, speaking of Darby, but thinking about Tina, too. Even though his new wife was at home with a just-baked tuna noodle casserole, wringing her hands with worry over Darby’s whereabouts, she was just as crazy when it came to embroiling herself in dangerous situations. “Lord, keep them all safe,” he prayed, hustling even faster up the knoll.

  When he crested Raven Hill and faced Juniper Ridge, the moon had risen enough to give him some additional light. He scanned the sides of the snowdrifts, searching for anything that moved. “This is nuts,” he intoned, yanking out his cell phone and calling Dozer’s mobile. He left a terse message for him to get his butt in gear, hung up, and shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  A shrill whistle cut through the night. Donny knew that whistle, and responded with a high-pitched call of his own. Tina. So much for her being safe with a casserole at home! Sure enough, he saw a small group of flickering lights making their way up the hillside. He shook his head, trying to be annoyed.

  “Whew,” the tall redhead exhaled when she’d reached his side. “That’s the fastest I ever hauled my sorry rear up that incline.” Her sister Terri appeared, breathing hard, wearing a too-big parka that he recognized as one of his. Behind her, the stout figure of Bitsy Carmichael continued trudging, a look of dogged determination on her red-splotched face.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “This isn’t some church picnic! Keep moving!”

  “Hang on, Bitsy. Donny’s going to tell us where to go so we’re an efficient search party.” Tina cocked her head like a heron hunting fish and fixed her questioning eyes on Donny.

  He swallowed.

  “Er, right.” Thoughts of his days in scouting flitted across his mind as he quickly surveyed the ridge. “Think of this as a grid. Tina, you do the quadrant to the far left, Terri, you head thataway, and Bitsy, you go right. Try to walk in a pattern so you don’t miss anything. I’ll take the top of the ridge.” He paused. “We don’t stop until we find Darby. Even if you locate somebody else, we’re not done until we find Darby. Clear?”

  The women nodded somberly and turned to start the search.

  _____

  Huddled under a small outcropping about twenty yards from the unconscious Dave Robichaud, Darby did not hear Donny give the search party their instructions, nor did she see the dancing lights of their headlamps. She was lying on her uninjured shoulder, throbbing face against the snow, with her legs tucked up as close as possible. She’d
stumbled upon the cave-like space by sheer luck, collapsed on the ground, and in her confused hypothermic state imagined there was a large heat lamp—the kind used in Southern California’s outdoor cafes—directly overhead. So warm was the imaginary air blowing from the phantom lamp that Darby tried removing Tina’s blue jacket, but her dislocated shoulder prevented any action.

  She could feel her body slowing down. Her heart struggled to keep beating, her breathing was languorous and shallow, and her thoughts seemed to come slowly from very far away. Mustering the energy to care about her condition was no longer an option for Darby. She was sleepy, incredibly sleepy, and ready to surrender to a fatal slumber.

  She felt herself slipping toward the intense heat of the lamp, felt the throbbing in her face start to subside, and sensed that this would be her welcome end. She closed her eyes, glimpsing the smiling faces of her long-dead parents. Her father whispered, “Hang on, Little Loon,” and her mother gave an encouraging nod, but Darby began drifting off to sleep.

  _____

  It was Bitsy who found the body of Kenji Miyazaki, nearly tripping over him as he lay spread-eagled on the snow. She screamed, a piercing sound that ripped through the still night, and then knelt to find a pulse.

  “He’s dead,” she muttered to Terri, who had run to her side despite Donny’s instructions. “Never seen him before, have you?”

  “Yes,” said Terri. “He was a friend of Darby’s, I think.”

  Another shriek made the hair on their necks stand up straight.

  “That’s Tina!” Terri cried, jumping to her feet and sprinting toward the sound of the scream.

  Bitsy hustled behind her. At the crest of the hill she could just make out a tall man lumbering toward them, groaning and dragging his right leg. He reminded Bitsy of the Frankenstein monster, or one of those Sasquatch things, and he was babbling incoherently.

  Bitsy was just about to yell when Donny’s voice boomed through the darkness.

  “I’ve found her! I’ve found Darby!”

  Bitsy abandoned the dazed man and raced with the Ames sisters across the snow.