Paul looked at her and for a moment he was her husband again, the man she’d married and had children with, performed the countless tasks, both shared and disputed, involved in creating two human beings out of nothing but the strength of love.
“Ally wanted Izzy,” he said simply. “She threw a fit when she woke up and realized we forgot her. I had to come back from the farm, and when I did, you started to wake up.”
Coldness descended along with another great wave of wake from the falls. Liz stared at her husband. A doll. He’d forgotten a doll. And then he’d gone and let Ally lose her anyway.
“You bastard,” she said. “You stole my children. You want me to stay? You’re lucky I don’t kill you instead.”
“I wouldn’t call it lucky.” The Shoemaker’s bodiless voice rose from a cavity by the creek. Parted by the wind, a veil of mist revealed him. “For you would probably fail if you tried. Whereas I will not.”
The Shoemaker lifted a thick-barreled gun.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Liz took in the strange triangle the three of them formed before recognizing that the gun was pointed not at Paul but at her. Sorrow assailed her with the strength of the falls.
Reid. Ally. I’ve only just gotten you back.
Then another thought hit—her children were going to be left here with this monster—and she let out a cascading cry.
A snick came from the Shoemaker’s gun when he pulled something back, obliterating all other sound. It could be heard over the spiraling screech of a bird, over the great thrust of the water.
Paul strode forward, thrusting out his arm. “No, Kurt,” he said in his forceful way. “Not again. There must be a better way.”
An eerie clarity overtook things. Paul was referring to the woman whose corpse she and the children had stumbled upon. Liz was just another potential victim here, not Paul’s wife, or the mother of his children.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that, Paul,” the Shoemaker said.
He didn’t take his eyes or the gun off Liz as he spoke. The tone he used was all but unrecognizable, jovial and light.
“Clearly this woman doesn’t believe in what we stand for,” the Shoemaker continued. “She will undermine us at every turn.”
Crossing the distance between himself and the Shoemaker, Paul paused.
A glint lit the Shoemaker’s eyes.
Half-forged plans whirled in Liz’s head. Make a run for the children, herd them toward the woods, where they could all disperse, hide amongst the trees. But she could never outpace the Shoemaker. And she’d be setting him loose on the kids.
Horror constricted her throat and she turned to face the man she’d married.
The Shoemaker was also rounding on Paul. “She will ruin us,” he said, and now his voice was familiar, portentous and deadly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Paul said brokenly, as if he were giving up the whole world. “We’ve already lost what we came for. Surely you can see that.” He began covering the remaining ground to the Shoemaker, his hand fisted with purpose.
“Come on, Paul,” the Shoemaker said in a silken tone. “I’m not the only one who knows about murder here.”
Shock purpled Paul’s face. “What are you talking—” He broke off, then began again: “How did you—”
“Let me do this, Paul. And then we’ll pick up where we left off.”
Paul halted. “You’re … crazy. You can’t kill my wife.”
A weary resignation took hold of the Shoemaker’s features. “Yes, I can,” he said, turning the gun on Paul. “But I see that I’ll have to kill you first.”
He fired.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
The bullet caught Paul in the chest and he went down. First onto his knees, hands clasped as if in prayer before the great chasm on his body. He looked up at the sky, and the ground absorbed the flow of his blood, dirt staining red until finally Paul fell.
Her husband had been trying to prevent Liz from this slaughter. It had taken him a while—and of course he had put her, put them all in this mad situation in the first place—but still Liz looked on his fallen body and a wrenching sadness gripped her. For it to end this way, Paul splayed out amongst his ruined dreams. She let out a sob that turned into a heave.
“Even with our limited time, I probably could have appealed to your husband’s misplaced sense of lordship,” said the Shoemaker. “Women are always dispensable.” His gaze shifted. “I might even have been able to get Paul to fire the killing shot. But it would’ve been a reach, I grant you, given the way he was going.” The Shoemaker stared off distantly at the falling cloak of water. “I’ve learned enough to take over here. And I certainly won’t miss Paul’s presumption.” He refocused on Liz with rage. “I doubt anyone will miss you much either.”
He was twisting and turning things on her again, using words to make her dart. Liz drew in a breath. She had to concentrate. Getting the children away was the only thing that mattered.
The Shoemaker turned the single blind eye of the gun on her.
Liz spun and cried out. “Tom!” He was the oldest, the one who stood the best chance in those woods. “Take them! Run!”
The Shoemaker whipped around too, his body that of a snake. “Where is my son?”
Liz turned to look, but the children were out of sight. Relieved breath escaped her.
The Shoemaker was stalking toward the gentler stretch of creek.
“I have him!” Liz shouted. “Tom would’ve gone with anyone to get away from you!”
She checked once more for the children, and saw them then, distant flickers in the trees.
They were fleeing.
All except Reid.
The Shoemaker wheeled around, firing hand extended.
Liz shrieked. “No! No!” Words meant for Reid. “Get away! I mean it, now! Get away!”
But her son kept coming, gaze aimed down at the Shoemaker’s hand.
The one that held the gun.
The Shoemaker’s gator gaze slid past Reid and came to a rest on her. “You don’t think I’m coming back because of your puny attempts at a lure, do you?” Contempt curled his lips. “I already know my son hates me. I also know that hate can be more of a bond than love.”
Reid stopped a few feet away from them both.
Liz lashed at any attempt at distraction. “Hate is as good as love,” she mimicked. “Guess we all rationalize. Just like the real Shoemaker did.”
The Shoemaker loomed over her, cold breath chilling her neck. “What did you say?”
Liz fought to remember what she’d read in her search. She couldn’t tell where the gun was anymore, although right now the Shoemaker looked able to kill with the sheer force of fury in his eyes.
But at least he wasn’t paying attention to Reid, who was still approaching. Reid’s eyes were big and wide and scared, fixated on the gun.
“He was a sad little man who was so afraid of women, he had his son kill for him.” Liz let out a laugh that burned. “I don’t think Tom wants the job.”
The Shoemaker buried the gun in her side.
Reid’s arm flicked out, fast as the tongue on a snake.
Liz let out a shriek that slashed the air, a stream of senseless words curdled with tears of terror. “Reid! Stop! No! Reid! Go!” She fought to see what her son was doing—tried to follow the motion of his fingers—but they moved so quickly, so adroitly that she lost sight.
The Shoemaker hurled Reid away with a flick of his arm.
Liz watched her son’s body tumble with a sob of relief that nearly knocked the wind out of her. Reid landed on the ground, one hand folded as if he’d injured it in his fall.
Liz heard the click as the Shoemaker fired his gun, then felt a gust as it discharged against her body.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
It seemed to take forever for them both to realize that Liz was still standing. She and the Shoemaker were upright, so close they could’ve embraced.
From his prone position on the dirt,
Reid lifted his fist, an incongruous gesture of triumph. He opened his fingers and the bullets he’d removed clinked onto the earth.
The Shoemaker let out a roar of rage. He reared up against Liz, pushing her on the storm-slicked bank, toward the falls. The ground was as slippery as sealskin; she couldn’t stop herself.
She clutched at the Shoemaker’s hair, his clothes.
He slammed a fist into her head. For a second, the sun came out in all its blazing glory. Liz’s eyes were bathed in shafts of light; shutting them, she staggered.
If the Shoemaker had hit her with his right hand—if he hadn’t been holding on to the gun—then the blow would have probably killed her. As it was, she was summoned back to life only by the sound of a voice.
“Children!” it trilled. “You know you’re not supposed to play here!”
Liz tried to identify the source of the sound, looking around with uneasy hope. Her vision was gauzy from being struck, but the children appeared to be staying away from the carnage, and the battle playing out. The Shoemaker maintained total focus, using the diversion to unhinge Liz’s hold on his flesh.
In hazy relief, the figure of a young woman appeared. She was older than the others, but not by much, still almost a child herself. She cradled an infant in one arm.
The Shoemaker pushed Liz backward along the slick run of soil.
“He’s guilty of murder, you know!” the girl called out. “Kurt Pierson can be charged with the death of my mother.” Her voice hit a high, bright note of madness.
“I should’ve killed you yesterday,” the Shoemaker said without turning. He gave Liz a shove.
She would never overpower him. Not in muscle nor in wits.
A gong beat Liz’s skull. The falls were so near that they deafened her. She tasted the water’s breath on her tongue.
The Shoemaker seized her expression and she watched his triumph rise.
“You can’t fight,” he said. “Not even for your own children.”
Their eyes met as he pulled her toward the lip of the falls.
The Shoemaker dipped his face so close that the pores on his skin looked like wells, and he whispered in her ear. “I’m going to kill them as soon as you are gone.”
They were at the edge of the falls now. Water boiled at the base.
The Shoemaker’s boots skidded; the earth was as slippery as fish scales. Liz’s feet got tangled up in something, and she flailed for purchase. She gasped, looking down.
Woodbine.
A dense mat of it growing all over the bank.
Mist showered them, lifted by a great gust of wind. The Shoemaker was going to push her again, and when he did, he’d be leaning forward, off-balance.
Liz waited for the thrust of his arms and she grabbed them.
They both went over the side.
Liz’s fingers raked a trail going down as she scrabbled for the woodbine. She seized two meaty handfuls and held on with all her might.
The tiny suckers on the vine gripped back.
An unholy scream echoed above the thunderous water.
The Shoemaker’s body plummeted, twisting and turning like a twig before disappearing entirely, caught up by the suctioning river.
Liz hung there, wrist-deep in greenery.
But she couldn’t pull herself up. She would never have the strength.
She twisted around to look, knowing she was about to fall.
A hand reached over the side. It grasped Liz by the elbow.
“Hold on!” a voice shouted.
Liz did.
And Tom pulled her up.
AFTER THE FALLS
Tim Lurcquer started assembling his men, making arrangements from the jail as soon as he got Liz’s text. He had been buried in a colossal mountain of paperwork. One-tenth necessary, nine-tenths CYA crap. There’d been incidents at the jail before, and there would be others in the future. Too little manpower, plus relics of the old regime, where the ends always justified the means. Rough justice was the end, and nobody worried too much about means. But things had changed since Tim had been holding his position, and he was proud of that. Until now.
He took William Mercer’s suicide as a personal failure, even if the man’s death wasn’t exactly a planetary loss. Still, it’d been Tim’s job to keep the man alive through trial, and he hadn’t. Mercer’s victims—the children he’d terrorized, the old man he nearly killed—would never get the satisfaction of having their case heard or seeing a verdict handed down.
Tim sat at the desk they had given him at the jail and crumpled the form he’d been filling out into a ball, aiming it in the direction of the trash.
“Lola?” he called. “Could I get another C19?”
The C19 never got filed.
Liz’s message came in and the miniscule letters on his screen were all that Tim could see.
They took K9 and a SWAT team from downstate, with Lurcquer mapping out three distinct sections of woods for his friend with the helo.
Landry took his orders with a flat look that spoke louder than any objection.
“Say it,” Tim commanded.
“Listen, I’m the one who talked to dispatch after the call came in,” Landry said. “The lady didn’t sound all that sure herself. Isn’t this a lot of resources to be assembling on a maybe?”
Tim snapped a new clip into his pistol. “I wouldn’t doubt Liz Daniels if I were you. One of her maybes is worth a dozen men’s yeses.”
Fragments coming over the radio revealed when the search dog located the picked-over remains of a woman’s body in a heap of refuse, wood ash, and dung. Tim was occupied at the moment. He had just spotted a disruption in the trees, a welter of twigs and branches. The helo swooped down to the place where Liz and her charges—they were small to judge by the footprints—had entered the woods.
At first Liz thought to lead everyone around by way of the falls, using the point of entry Tom had described. It would be worth something to keep the kids—especially Reid and Ally—from viewing Paul’s bloodied corpse.
Liz didn’t know how she could stand to see it again herself.
But they might encounter the Shoemaker’s bruised and battered body, broken in the water, and that would be bad, too.
The young woman with the infant offered to gather the other women up, deliver the news, and lead them out. No way was Liz taking the children back into the encampment.
They were clustered together in a shaking clump.
Liz’s arms felt blocky and wooden, not equal to the task of escorting out her small refugees. Tom and Reid worked in concert to strip the wet outer layers off the little ones, exposing them to the emerging sun.
“Come,” Liz said, her voice creaky and rusted, as if it had been left outside too long.
But the difficulty was clear as soon as they reentered the woods.
The falls were some ways east of the path Liz had followed in. If they tried to find their way from this starting point, Liz wasn’t positive she could keep them from getting lost.
Her dilemma must have registered because Tom spoke up.
“My—um, my fath—Kurt has a van,” he said in a sprightly tone that belied his bedraggled appearance. “He leaves it a few miles away. If you start hiking from the barn.”
There was a road. Had Liz known to look for a road, been able to find one in the spider’s web of camp trails here in the park, how much easier this whole thing would’ve been.
She gazed at the wall of woods before them, then back in the other direction.
The kids looked up at her, their hair drying at odd, scruffy angles, streaks of mud on their faces and clothes, but their gazes bright and trusting.
“Mommy?” Ally said.
“Yes, Al?”
Thinking, What happened to Daddy? How do we get out of here? Where will we find the other moms? or any of a dozen questions Ally might ask and Liz had no hope of answering.
“Kurt was lying, wasn’t he?”
It occurred to Liz that she’d never he
ard the Shoemaker’s real name before today.
“This isn’t where the world comes to an end, is it? The world—it’s still there, Mommy, right?”
Suddenly, an unnatural wind ruffled the leaves on the trees, and branches began to clatter. The air around them throbbed.
Liz looked up to see a helicopter descending, like the belly of a whale.
Tim was sitting above the skids, legs dangling as he scanned the ground.
The children were also looking up, their faces wide with wonder.
“Yes, Ally,” Liz told her as she began to hustle the kids together. She put her arms around Reid and Ally just for a moment to make sure. Then she raised a hand toward Tim and started waving madly. “Yes, everyone. The world is still there.”
This one is for my children, Sophie and Caleb, who know all about dreams and have done so much for this one. Here’s to pine-bough eyelashes, Frank Automotive Corp.… and cliff-jumping.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Getting to publish your first novel is a bolt from the blue; it’s a is-this-really-happening? moment. Getting to publish a second one gives you the great gift of answering that question with Yes.
To everyone who helped make this happen, my deepest thanks.
The usual suspects all apply, but so that these acknowledgments don’t become a novel in themselves, I would ask you to please take a look at the last few pages of Cover of Snow. There are resources and riches there, and many people deserving of great gratitude.
Getting to work with Linda Marrow on my debut novel made me one of the happiest, luckiest writers among that happy, lucky group. Getting to do another sends the quotient soaring. Linda deserves an acknowledgments section of her own, not only for her wisdom, vision, and breadth, but also for her support, humor, and plain old sense of fun.
Dana Isaacson deserves a thousand thanks for taking care of the million details that shepherd a book into being. If I had an eye like Dana’s, I wouldn’t need a dozen drafts. But I am glad I don’t because he sees things I am so grateful are in there.
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