Hemlock Bay f-6

by Catherine Coulter

  The path was steep, and she had to slow way down. Still she tripped a couple of times, and the last time, she had to grab a bush that grew beside the trail to halt her fall. It had thorns, and she felt them score her hands and fingers.

  She vaguely heard birds calling overhead.

  She knew the men had to be nearly at the top of the trail now. They’d come after her. What was down here except more beach? There had to be someplace to hide, some cover, a cave, anything.

  Her breath was spurting out of her, broken, tight. A stitch ripped through her side. She ignored it. She had to be calm, keep herself in control.

  She kept her eyes on the winding trail. Wouldn’t it ever stop? She heard the men now, yelling from the top for her to come back up, they weren’t going to hurt her.

  She managed three more steps, then there was a shot, then an instant ricochet off a rock just one foot to her right, scattering chips in all directions. A chip hit her in the leg, but it didn’t go through her jeans.

  She hunkered down as much as she could, twisting to the left, then the right, going down until at last her feet hit the hard sand on the beach. She chanced a look back up to the top and saw one of the men start down after her. The other man was aiming his gun at her. It was a handgun, not accurate enough at this distance, she hoped.

  It wasn’t. He shot at her three more times, but none of the bullets seemed to strike close to her.

  She stumbled over a gnarly piece of driftwood and went flying. She landed on her stomach, her hands in front of her face. She saw wet sand, driftwood, kelp, and even one frantic sand crab not six inches from her nose.

  She lay there for just a moment, drawing in deep breaths, feeling the stitch in her side lessen. Then she was up again. She saw the man coming down the trail, but he wasn’t being as careful as she’d been. He was a big guy, not in the best of shape. He was wearing those opaque wraparound sunglasses, so she couldn’t really make out his features. He had thick, light brown hair and a gun in his right hand. She watched him stumble, wildly clutching at the air to regain his balance, but he didn’t. He tumbled head over heels down the trail and landed hard at the bottom, not moving. His gun. His gun was her only chance. She’d seen it flying. She ran to his side in an instant. She picked up a big piece of driftwood, realized it was soggy and not heavy enough, and grabbed up a rock instead. She leaned over him and brought the rock down on his head as hard as she could. She slipped her hand inside his coat and pulled out his wallet. She shoved it into her pocket, then saw the gun some six feet back up the trail, just off to the side, lying on top of a pile of rocks.

  The man on top was yelling, firing, but she ignored him. She got the gun, turned, and ran for all she was worth down the beach.

  Washington, D.C.

  Savich felt his heart pounding faster beneath his wife’s palm. He shot up, turned on the bedside lamp, then faced her. “Tell me.”

  “I remember being scared for you when I saw you go into that conference room. Then I’m sure I saw Timmy Tuttle dragging Marilyn into that security room across the hall. I ran into the room, the three other agents behind me. The room was empty. At least that’s what I thought at first.

  “I saw this bright light, Dillon. It nearly blinded me, and I swear to you, for some reason I just couldn’t move. The light was right in front of that big window, and I know I saw Timmy and Marilyn in the middle of that light.

  “I could hear the other agents yelling at each other. I realized they weren’t seeing what I was. Still I couldn’t move. I was just nailed to the spot looking at that white light. Then Timmy Tuttle grabbed Marilyn tight around her neck, and…”

  “And what?”

  “Dillon, I’m not crazy, I swear.”

  He pulled her against him. “I know.”

  “They just disappeared. It was like they were right in front of me, then they were in front of the window, and the window was bathed in the white light. Then they receded through that white light until they were gone. Then everything just seemed to close down. That’s all I remember.”

  Savich said, “That’s just fine, Sherlock. Well done. It fits right into the rest of it. It seems logical to everyone that Tammy Tuttle used some sort of mass hypnosis. You know how David Copperfield walked through the Great Wall of China? How he got sawed in half with millions of people watching, most of them on TV?”

  “Yes. You think Tammy has this skill?”

  “It makes sense. There she or he was with Marilyn, and then she or he just wasn’t there. I think the whole thing was this big performance that she worked out to show us that we are dealing with a master. You know what else I think? I think Tammy knew I was trying to trap her and using Marilyn as bait. She knew we’d be at the airport waiting for her. She was ready for us. I also think she really wants us to believe that everything we saw was supernatural, beyond our meager brains. But it’s not. She’s just very, very good. She wanted to scare us all to death, paralyze us. I do wonder, though, why she didn’t try to kill me.”

  Sherlock pulled away, stroked her fingers over his jaw, and said, “I think it’s because she couldn’t get close enough to you. I’ve given this a lot of thought, Dillon, and I think you’re one of the few people Tammy’s ever met whom she can’t hypnotize or perform an illusion for when she’s up close to you. And if she can’t get close to you without your seeing exactly what she is, then she can’t kill you.”

  “You mean if I had been close to her, I wouldn’t have seen Timmy, I’d have really seen Tammy?”

  “Yes, it sounds reasonable. If she can’t get close enough to you without your seeing her exactly as she is, then she knows she’s at a disadvantage. When you were in the barn in Maryland with her, how far away were you standing from her?”

  “Maybe two dozen feet.”

  “And she was always just what she was? Tammy Tuttle?”

  “Yes. She called the Ghouls, but she didn’t change. When I shot her, I saw the bullet nearly rip her arm from her body. I saw her fall, heard her yells of pain. She remained exactly what she was and who she was.”

  Sherlock said, “Then at the airport, she just couldn’t get close enough to you to kill you. And she realized, too, that she couldn’t get too close or you’d see her as she really is and kill her. She’s being really careful after what you did to her at the barn.”

  Savich said, “Jimmy Maitland called me at the gym, told me that Jane Bitt in Behavioral Sciences allowed that just maybe it is possible that Tammy is a strong telepath in addition to all her illusion skills. She won’t swear to it, says she doesn’t want to get mocked out, but we should consider it, given the incredible control Tammy was able to exert at the airport.”

  Sherlock said, “So maybe she’s got both this talent and skill in creating illusions. I think you were right. Tammy knew that you were setting her up. She also knew that you would bring Marilyn. For whatever reason, she wanted Marilyn back. I’m just hoping that she didn’t want her back to kill her. Maybe she really is fond of Marilyn. Maybe Marilyn feeds her ego, makes her feel powerful because she’s so very malleable and suggestible. Tammy can make Marilyn see, make her believe anything she tells her to believe. Didn’t you tell me that Marilyn firmly believes everything Tammy says?”

  “Oh, yes, and it’s genuine, Sherlock. Even under hypnosis, Marilyn was frightened of Tammy and she believed everything she said to Dr. Hicks and to me. She remembered it as fact, for heaven’s sake, so she had to have believed it.”

  Savich threw back the covers and jumped to his feet. He grabbed a pair of jeans as an afterthought and pulled them on. “I’m going to do some research on this with MAX.”

  He walked back to the bed, grinned down at his wife, pulled her up tightly against him, and kissed her until she would have just as soon he waited until morning to visit MAX. But she knew that brain of his was working again, asking questions, wanting to know everything, and fast.

  “I won’t be gone too long.”

  She lay back down in bed, shut off th
e table lamp, pulled the covers to her chin, and smiled into the darkness when she heard Dillon speaking to MAX down the hall in his study. She heard him laugh.

  22

  Hemlock Bay, California

  There weren’t any caves, not even one indentation in the rock where she could squeeze in and wait them out. Just a beach that went on and on, driftwood piled all over it, and slimy trails of kelp, dangerous when you were running.

  But she had a gun. It was small and ugly, but she wasn’t defenseless. From what she knew about guns, which wasn’t much, it was a close-range gun, useless at a distance, but if you got near enough, it could kill a person quite easily.

  The temperature dropped as the sun went behind gathering clouds, whirling rain clouds. Any minute now rain would pour down. Would that help her or not? She didn’t know.

  Had there been three men? One staying with Simon and the other two after her? Maybe there were just two men and Simon could get away and call for help. They’d been idiots-telling their FBI protectors that since they were just going to the cemetery and they wanted to be private, they’d meet them back in Hemlock Bay.

  She stopped, bending over, her hands on her thighs, so tired her breath was catching and she was wheezing with the effort to breathe. She flattened herself in the shadow of the cliff and looked back.

  Then, suddenly, she heard one of the men cup his hands around his mouth and shout, “Lily Frasier! We have Simon Russo. Come out now or we will kill him. That is a promise. Then we will call our friends to come at you from the other end of the beach. We will trap you, and you won’t like what will happen to you then.”

  The man’s words brought her breath back, straightened her right up. The man’s voice was also thick with an accent-stilted, unnatural. Swedish. Well, damn, it seemed that Olaf Jorgenson himself had come, or sent his friends. She ran again, until she rounded a slight promontory and looked up. She had found her way out. Another narrow trail snaked up the cliff, much like the one she’d taken down. Two miles back up the beach? Three miles? She didn’t make a sound, just shot up that trail, using her hands on rocks and scrubs, anything to keep her steady, knowing they couldn’t see her until they came around the promontory themselves.

  They couldn’t kill Simon. They’d left him alone in the car. If there was a third man watching him, well then, they couldn’t contact him. Unless they had a cell phone. Everybody had a cell phone. Oh, God, please, no. It had to be a bluff, it just had to be.

  She slipped once, saw pebbles and small rocks gushing out from the cliff and pounding their way back down to the beach. She held still, then started up again. She was up to the top of the cliff in no time and running. The men would realize soon enough where she’d gone.

  Hurry, she had to hurry. She hurt, really bad, but she thought of Simon, of his hair curling at his neck, and she knew nothing could happen to him. She wouldn’t let it. Too much loss in her life, she couldn’t bear any more. She came into the back of the cemetery, climbed the wrought-iron fence, and ran down the path toward the visitors’ parking lot.

  The horn wasn’t blaring anymore.

  Nearly there, she was nearly there. She saw their rental car, but didn’t see Simon. She got to the car. He was stretched out on the front seat, unconscious. Or dead.

  She pulled the driver’s side door open. “Simon! Wake up, dammit! Wake up!”

  He moaned, struggled to a sitting position. He blinked, finally focusing on her face.

  “They’re after us, two men, both with guns. I got away from them but we don’t have much time. Scoot over, we’re getting out of here. I’m going to drive us right to jail and have Lieutenant Dobbs lock us in. It’s the only safe place in the world. No lawyers allowed. Just Lieutenant Dobbs. He can bring our food. We’ll get Dillon and Sherlock out here. They’ll figure this all out, and we can get the hell out of here.”

  As she spoke, she managed to shove his feet off the seat and push him toward the passenger door. “It will be all right. You don’t have to do anything, see, I can drive now. Just rest, Simon.”

  “No, Lily, no more driving. You’re not going anywhere, not anymore.”

  Lily turned slowly at that syrupy voice and stared up at Charlotte Frasier, who was pointing a long-barreled gun at her. “You’ve given us too much trouble. If I hadn’t decided to oversee this myself, you would have escaped yet again. I always believed three times was a charm, and so it is. Get out of the car, Lily. Now.”

  Lily wasn’t surprised, not really. Not Elcott, but Charlotte. Then she almost smiled. Charlotte didn’t know she had a gun, too. Would Charlotte take the chance of killing them here, in the cemetery parking lot? She believed all the way to her gut that Charlotte was capable of anything. She was still free, and Mr. Monk had been dead for three days now.

  Then she saw the men running toward them. She had to hurry, had to do something. She opened the door, lifting one arm, hiding the other hand slightly behind her.

  “Where’s Elcott?” she said, wanting to distract Charlotte, just for an instant. “And that marvelous son of yours? Who loves me so much he’d like nothing more than to bury me? Aren’t they hanging back there, waiting for you to tell them what to do?”

  “Don’t you dare speak of my husband and my son like that-”

  Lily was clear. She raised the gun and fired.

  Washington, D.C.

  FBI Headquarters

  Ollie Hamish came running into Savich’s office. “We got him! We got Anthony Carpelli, a. k. a. Wilbur Wright. He was right there in Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks. He was kneeling in front of the monument at Kitty Hawk and we came up on him and he just folded down like a tent and gave it all up.”

  For an instant, Savich was so distracted he didn’t know what Ollie was talking about. Then he remembered, the guru from Texas who’d had his followers murder the two deputies and the sheriff, the Sicilian Canadian who’d attended McGill University and had an advanced degree in cellular biology. Savich said slowly, “Sit down, Ollie. You said he was kneeling at the monument? As in worshiping?”

  “Maybe so. All the agents were so relieved at how easily it went down, they were celebrating, drinking beers at eleven o’clock in the morning. We got him, Savich. He’ll go back to Texas and fry, probably.”

  “Probably not,” Savich said. “Remember that he isn’t tied directly to those killings, just hearsay from a woman who was pissed off.”

  “Yes, Lureen. Evidently they’re holding her as a material witness. They’ve also picked up two more of Wilbur’s people who were in the cult. Everyone thinks his own people will finally nail his ass. At least we got him and he’s not going to be killing anybody else.

  “Hey, Savich, you should be really pleased. After all, it was you and MAX who predicted he’d probably go back to Kitty Hawk.”

  Savich realized he was so caught up with Tammy Tuttle that he didn’t feel much of anything about Wilbur Wright. And it was a victory, a very clean win. Everyone would be very pleased. He smiled at Ollie. “I am pleased. MAX discovered sixteen more killings throughout the Southwestern U.S. that sound like the work of Wilbur. So there’s lots of other crimes to tie in to this one; local law enforcement should be brought up to speed and get with the program. Dane Carver is heading that up. Now that you’ve got Wilbur Wright, you can get our doctors on him and see what makes him tick.”

  “I really don’t want to know.”

  “Unfortunately a jury will demand to know. Meet with Dane and go over all the other cases, then head down to interview Wilbur.”

  “When we caught him, I looked at him, Savich. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such dead eyes, and I’ve seen lots of bad folk up close and personal; but Wilber, he was just flat-out scary. You wonder what exactly he’s seeing with those dead eyes. It won’t be long before they extradite him back to Texas with more than enough evidence to fry his butt.”

  “You can bet the lawyers will fight extradition.”

  “Yeah, they’d prefer a state where there�
�s no death penalty, but if we get enough evidence, it won’t matter.”

  “We done good, Ollie. Now you and Dane sew it up, okay?”

  “You got it.” Agent Ollie Hamish leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands between his legs. “I’ve heard all sorts of things, Savich, about what happened in Antigua. How’s that going?”

  Savich told him all of it. “We’ve got people working on where she learned her illusion skills so we can get a better handle on what she’s capable of. There are more people scouring the airport in Antigua trying to find out how she managed to get away, questioning everyone in the area, searching all boats, all private charters.”

  Ollie said, “She’s still got only one arm and, physically, she’s in bad shape, right?”

  “I don’t know how bad it still is. Her surgeon said if she has an infection, she could be dead within a week without antibiotics. But if she doesn’t have an infection, she could make it through just fine. He said she responded superbly to the surgery. I asked the doctor if anyone had ever reported seeing someone other than Tammy Tuttle or seeing her where she shouldn’t be.”

  “Did he even understand what you meant?”

  “Yes,” Savich said slowly, “he did. He said that an orderly told him he’d just seen Tammy up and walking to the bathroom the day after surgery. When he went to check her, she was lying strapped down to the bed. Nobody believed the orderly. Then she escaped and no one could figure that out, either. Anyway, Ollie, how are Maria and Josh? He just turned two, right?”

  “Yeah. He’s running all over the house, opening every drawer, banging every pot. He yells ‘no’ at least fifty times a day, and he’s cuter than the new puppy we just got, who peed on the shirt I was going to wear this morning.”