by Anne Baines
Again. She raised the Glock, taking aim at where the glint had been. It might be nothing.
But she wasn’t willing to bet her life on it.
Colin had taught her how to shoot a gun when she was thirteen, declaring that she’d better know or else she’d just get taken advantage of someday. But she didn’t use them that often, though she tried to keep in practice.
The recoil surprised her, as it always seemed to. She was ready for the noise, though it, too, sounded painfully loud in the darkness. Was that a muffled cry? Her ears, ringing from the gunshot, strained.
Instinctively, she shifted to one side, knowing she shouldn’t stay in place after a shot.
The return shot chewed into the cabin wall a foot from her head. Delilah dropped down to the porch, ignoring the intense pain as her remaining stitches pulled tight.
She saw movement, someone coming toward the porch quickly. She fired the gun even as she rolled for the porch edge. Her body hit the grass and she forced herself up to kneeling, gun ready.
Movement off to her left, so she took another shot. Go, go, go, her brain screamed at her. Stationary target here in the moonlight was bad. For a long half second fear mixed with adrenaline, freezing her as time slowed.
Then she was up, dashing around the side of the cabin, seeking the deeper shadows in the back, away from the light of the setting moon.
Two more shots rang out but as far as she could tell, Ted missed by a mile. There were three traps in the back yard, hidden beneath the grass. She wanted to draw him around, give him a chance to step in one.
But to lure him, she’d have to show herself, give away her position.
Delilah took a couple gulping, quick breaths, her back pressed against the cedar shingles. The back door was just to her left and she hadn’t locked up when she’d set up her watch outside.
“Delilah?” Ted’s voice called from somewhere in the trees behind the cabin. She searched for the sound, but the wind whipped it around, making it impossible to pinpoint him. “Let’s talk; I don’t want to shoot you.”
Then stop shooting at me, she said silently. A crazy, desperate ploy formed in her mind. She willed him to keep talking, to stay there in the darkness behind the cabin a few moments longer.
“Delilah,” he said in a sing-song voice that raised the hairs on her arms.
She inched her way to the left and reached slowly for the door handle. Her fingers depressed the latch of the old-fashioned jug handle and she eased the door open. Then she slammed it shut, and dropped prone. She prayed the deep shadows on the porch were enough to conceal her movement and her body.
She heard what sounded like a muttered curse and then he fell for her ploy.
Ted emerged from the trees, moving in a quick, zig-zag pattern over the open ground. Delilah lay still, aiming down the sight of the Glock.
She stilled her heartbeat and held her breath. Closer, closer. He was nearly to the back steps and she started to squeeze the trigger.
There was a sickening crunch as Ted screamed and dropped.
Delilah took her finger off the trigger and shifted to kneeling, moving like a crab to one side, never taking her eyes off Ted.
He continued to writhe in the grass, cursing and making horrible agonized noises. Delilah’s smile surprised her. He’d stepped right into one of her traps.
Carefully, because she couldn’t be sure if he’d dropped his gun or not, Delilah rose.
“Teddy,” she called and stepped quickly to one side, just in case.
His arms came up, one hand shading his eyes as though he could block out the moonlight behind her and see clearly. His hands looked empty and blood darkened one sleeve.
“Delilah,” he said, his voice thick with pain. “Fuck you. I’m going to fucking kill you, bitch.”
“Shut up, Teddy.” She licked her lips and walked forward. He was barely a car’s length away now. “I should thank you, you know.”
His face in the cold light blanched but his eyes were dark, angry pits.
“For what?”
“For showing me that I do have some motherly instinct after all.”
He growled at her and tried to lunge forward as she raised the gun. His effort aborted as the teeth of the trap yanked his broken leg. Whatever he might have said turned into another scream.
Delilah stepped onto the top step and took aim at his head. His eyes widened and he raised his hands as though he could ward off the bullet. A glint caught her eye. His cuff-links. They looked a lot like the opal ones she’d stolen from that house in Daytona Beach a lifetime ago. She realized that it might have been those, catching the moonlight, which first caught her eye from the porch.
“I guess you weren’t born in October, Teddy,” she said, and pulled the trigger.
Fifty-eight
Delilah turned and walked into the cabin and dropped the gun on the table. She collapsed onto the futon, pulling over herself the knit throw folded on the back. Her shivers subsided as her heart returned to a normal rate.
It was over. No more being hunted down. No more fear.
No more Jake. She smelled him, fresh and warm, spice and peanuts. He was there with her, in the cedar bones of this cabin, whistling a lullaby down the chimney with the ocean winds.
Surrounded by the ghosts of her memories, by the phantoms of better days, Delilah fell into a deep sleep.
It was full daylight when she awoke. She didn’t have a watch and the sky was overcast, hiding the sun, but she guessed it was mid-morning from the brightness of the day.
Ted’s corpse was still in the back yard. Delilah didn’t look too closely at it. She gathered up the tarp the traps had been in and used it to drag the dead body into the woods. She took his car keys, wrinkling her nose at the smell of his vacated bowels. Corpses were definitely not fun, but it gave her a sense of closure to confirm his death in broad daylight.
She dumped him down a ravine a short trek from the cabin. It was all the grave she was willing to give him. It would probably be a long time before anyone came back to this place anyway.
She used a couple big sticks to disarm the rest of the traps and put them back under the deck. Delilah found Ted’s gun in the grass and recognized Jake’s revolver. She tossed it into the Civic along with her own gun.
Ted’s car was just over the top of the hill, pulled over along the side. Delilah used the tool kit from the cabin to remove the license plates before she drove the car up into the trees as far as she could get it before the brush got too thick, but at least it wasn’t visible from the road anymore.
She worked mechanically, pushing away thoughts of Jake bleeding out on the office floor. The stains on her jeans popped into her vision at awkward times, threatening another round of tears and tearing grief.
Delilah locked up the cabin and climbed into Nancy’s car. The peanut and Cheerio smell made her smile. It was a sign of the lives she’d saved. She’d protected her daughter, that miracle, binding her by blood forever to the man she’d loved and left.
Left to die.
Delilah drove down to the coast, stopping at an overlook. She perched on the metal barrier overlooking the ocean and watched the waves for a long time as she dismantled the Glock. The pieces went over the cliff and disappeared into the rocks and surging water below. She knew she should ditch the Colt as well, but couldn’t quite bring herself to toss it over.
The smart thing, the safe thing, would be to get in the Civic and just keep driving. North to Washington, maybe, or south to California. Ditch the car along the way and just keep going. She could drum up work later, after she’d had some rest and time to heal her belly, and her heart.
That would be the safe thing.
Delilah sighed and climbed back into her car. She got back on the road and headed down 101. When she came to the turn-off that would take her back to Portland, she took it.
Fifty-nine
Sam walked into the waiting room outside the intensive care unit. He looked around at the handful of
people waiting and found the most likely one. He approached the exhausted-looking woman, a pretty brunette in her thirties.
“Nancy Leventon?” he asked.
“Yes?” She looked up, eyebrows creasing.
“I’m Detective, I mean, I’m Sam. They said you wouldn’t mind if I came by this afternoon.”
Her face smoothed and she smiled, wan but genuine. “Sam. Thank you.” She rose and pressed her hands into his. Her fingers were cold and trembled slightly.
“How is he?” Sam had gone back to the hotel for a quick nap after the police had finally located Jake’s wife and child in a hotel just south of Portland. At that point, Jake had still been in surgery.
“Stable,” she said, her eyes bleak. “He lost so much blood. He hasn’t woken up yet. They say he’d be dead if you hadn’t found him when you did, put those bandages on him.”
Sam stiffened. He’d told the lie to the paramedics because he hadn’t been sure who or why the napkin and masking tape triage had been performed. He doubted that Whitechapel had done it and Jake definitely hadn’t had the strength.
“I can’t take all that credit,” he said softly. “I don’t know who bound up the worst of it.”
Nancy looked down and dropped her hands from his. “I do,” she whispered. “Delilah. She saved us.”
“You saw her? You didn’t mention that to the police.” Sam tried not to sound too eager.
She shook her head and sat back down heavily. “No, I couldn’t. She said she’d wait for him, that man after us. She told us to go.”
“Where was this?” he asked but Nancy was already shaking her head. He wanted to grab her and jolt the truth out. Visions of the vulnerable, dark-eyed girl who’d stolen his keys with a pretty smile in the bar rose up in his mind. Visions of her cut to pieces and bleeding out, just like the poor bastard Sam had helped scrape up off the floor late last night.
“She made this problem,” Nancy said, though it was as much to herself as to Sam. She wasn’t even looking at him and instead stared out the window into a sunlit nothing. “She’ll be okay. Delilah knows how to look after herself.”
Sam sighed. “How’s your daughter?”
“Sleeping in pediatrics. She had to get her transfusion today anyway, so they’re letting her rest up there.” Nancy looked at him and her smile returned briefly.
He wanted to know more, there were so many questions dodging around in his head, but Sam felt impotent to get anything out of this tired woman. He couldn’t just stand there until she decided to talk.
“You look exhausted,” he said. “I’m dying for some coffee and a sandwich. Want something?”
Again the brief smile, tinged with a hint of relief. “Yeah, if you don’t mind. Skim latte with a shot of vanilla.”
“I’ll try to remember that.” Sam returned her smile.
“Plain coffee with skim milk is fine if you forget.”
He walked out of the hospital and across the emergency entrance. He’d reached his car and was going for his keys when he saw movement in the corner of his eye. Turning, there was Delilah, standing in the sunlight like a figment, solid and ephemeral all at once.
“Sam,” she said.
He walked over, stepping up onto the curb beside her. “Hi, Delilah, or Lia, or is it Donna?”
She laughed, the sound thin but pure. “Delilah will do. You came all the way here? For me?”
“You asked for my help, remember?” He studied her. Her face was thin and drawn, her dark hair mussed as though she’d just gotten out of bed. But she had a secret strength about her and there was no fear in her eyes at all.
“So I did. Bridget told me some Florida detective saved Jake. Somehow I just knew it was you.”
“Bridget?” He raised an eyebrow and resisted brushing a lock of hair off her forehead. Part of him was afraid that if he touched her she’d dissipate like a dream.
“Waitress at Jake’s bar.” She chewed her lip and looked away. “Is he, I mean, he’s here, right? Inside?”
Sam answered the question that she didn’t ask. “He’s alive. Stable. Lost of a lot of blood though. They don’t know for sure yet if he’ll ever wake up.”
She took a deep breath that seemed to shake her whole body but when she turned her dark eyes back to his face they were clear and empty of tears.
“Whitechapel?” Sam asked.
“Not going to be a problem anymore,” she said.
“Good.”
“What about my daughter?”
That surprised Sam, though suddenly a couple missing pieces fell into place. Like why Whitechapel had gone after Jake and his family in the first place.
“Yours and Jake’s?”
She nodded.
“She’s sleeping. Nancy said she was tired, but fine.”
They stood for a moment, close together but not quite touching. Delilah finally broke the tension by reaching into her pocket and digging out a set of keys.
“Can you do me a couple favors, Sam?”
“Hell, why not?” He chuckled, releasing the tension of the moment. “I can’t arrest you, after all. Even if I had jurisdiction, I’m not sure I’d want to. So fuck it, I might as well just continue aiding and abetting, right?”
She blushed and pursed her lips. “You’re a good man, Sam.”
“Yeah, we’ll see. What do you want?”
“Return these to Nancy? I don’t think she wants to see me right now.” She held out the car keys.
Sam took them. Before he could ask what the second thing was, she leaned in, closing the distance between them. Her arms came around him in a quick embrace. He had long enough to feel her hair, smelling of cedar and wool, brush against his cheek. Then she was away, down from the curb and moving toward the cars.
“Hey,” he called out. “You said a couple favors. What’s the other one?”
The lights flashed on his rental car as she reached it and opened the driver’s door.
“Don’t report this for a couple hours,” she called back to him. Then, with an impish smile, she ducked into the car and started the engine even as the door closed.
Sam stepped off the curb, feeling for his keys but then stopped. He hadn’t even felt her take them from his pocket. He backed up and stood on the sidewalk, shaking his head.
Delilah backed his car out and drove off, one hand sticking out of the window as she waved farewell.
Sam had no idea where she was headed, or what she’d do. Or, for that matter, how the hell he was going to explain this whole trip and its strange results to Ronnie or his own Lieutenant.
But he knew, without a doubt in his bones, that Delilah would land on her feet.
Epilogue
The parking lot behind Poppy’s pawn shop was mostly empty of cars. A new Cadillac, done up in deep purple with shining chrome rims, was the only one parked close to the building. Dry leaves blew in lazy circles around the lot and the heavy gray sky promised an autumn storm.
Delilah parked behind the Caddy, blocking it in. There was no sign of Poppy’s truck, but him changing up cars wasn’t all that unusual. She sat for a moment and let the song on the radio finish, collecting her thoughts. Then, with a deep breath, she got out.
She was ready.
A couple quick taps on Poppy’s steel back door were all it took. The view slit slid open and the older black man’s yellowed eyes peered out at her. She heard his small exclamation of shock and just smiled, tipping her head to one side.
He probably hadn’t expected her to ever show her face in Atlanta again, but hell, she hardly blamed him. She hadn’t expected to come back either. But she’d done a lot of thinking while lying in bed shaking with fever and pain as her belly wound slowly healed.
She had unfinished business, and she wasn’t going to run away from that shit anymore.
Poppy opened the door, a puzzled smile on his face.
“Delilah,” he said, motioning her inside. “Hadn’t expected you back. I haven’t gotten word that mess is cleared u
p. You might still be a bad person to know, if you know what I mean.” His attempt at polite concern fell flat.
Delilah pulled the revolver out of her sweatshirt and pointed it at his gut.
“I’m pretty sure I’m a terrible person for you to know right now, Pops. After you screwed me out of my ten percent and all.” She motioned with her other hand for him to back up, stepping forward as he did. “Let’s go into your office.”
“Hey, there’s no reason to—“
“Shup up and sit down, Pops.” Delilah cut him off with a tiny smile and a slight adjustment of her aim downward. “Hands behind your head, please.”
He sat in the garish orange leather chair and laced his fingers behind his head. She could smell the fear coming off him like sweaty steam rising in the dim office.
Delilah hitched her hip up onto the desk. Her gun never wavered.
“Now, Poppy,” she said, her dark eyes like obsidian stones, her smile small and cold. “Let’s talk about the money you owe me.”
The end
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About the Author
Anne Baines holds a BA in English and a BA in Medieval Studies and thus can speak a smattering of useful languages such as Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Welsh.
She spends her non-writing time jumping horses over large stationary objects, traveling, and (legally) kidnapping and transporting rebellious teenagers for money. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and a very demanding bengal cat.
