by Sandra Brown
“Why aren’t you coming?” she asked. “What are you going to do?”
“Get in the truck and don’t get out.”
She hesitated.
Enunciating, he said, “Get in and shut the door.”
She climbed in and pulled the door closed. He waited until he was sure she would stay, then turned and disappeared through the front door. A few seconds later, there was a shotgun blast that sounded like an explosion in the morning air.
It was followed by a second.
Chapter 17
Emory pushed open the door, leaped from the truck, and ran toward the house, colliding with her scowling protector as he came down the steps. “Dammit, I told you to stay in the truck.” He spun her around and thrust her in that direction.
“You shot them!”
“No I didn’t.”
No, he hadn’t.
Because she could hear the Floyds’ obscenity-laced tirade, then both burst through the front door. Fury made Will clumsy as he tried to reload the shotgun. Norman, in stocking feet, slipped on one of the porch steps.
Emory was hoisted none too gently into the cab of the pickup, then its owner came around, got in, and started the engine, every motion efficient and controlled, as though he didn’t have two bloodthirsty men on his heels.
He accelerated so hard that the tires spun before gaining traction. They sped out the drive, leaving the Floyds shaking their fists and yelling threats.
Emory was paralyzed with disbelief. They rode in silence for the brief time it took to reach his cabin. He got out and opened the gate, then drove the truck to its usual parking space. Getting out again, he went over to a chopping block and worked the ax blade from the heavily notched surface.
She tracked his progress across the yard, back through the gate, and across the road to the pickup truck with the listing tree still embedded in its grill. He went around to all four tires, methodically hacking great gashes in them.
Then he came back through the gate and latched the padlock, testing it with a sharp tug to make certain that it was secure. After replacing the ax in the chopping block, he came back to the truck, opened the passenger door, and reached inside.
Instinctively, she recoiled. He frowned at her. “I want my pistol back.”
She’d forgotten she still had it. Her right hand was clutching it in a cold death grip. “Are you going to shoot somebody?”
“Not before breakfast.”
This time when he reached for it, she let it go. He stuck it back into his waistband as he turned and started toward the cabin.
She stepped out of the truck and looked back at the gate, considering if she should climb the fence and take off running. He had lied about having neighbors. In addition to the Floyds, surely there would be others reasonably nearby.
But the road was steep, with too many switchbacks to keep count of. It intersected with other rural roads that were similarly daunting. Her right foot was throbbing from having stood at Lisa’s bedside most of the night. Her head was muzzy from lack of sleep. The temperature had to be well below freezing. Which probably wouldn’t be a problem because he could catch her before she’d gone fifty yards.
Realizing the foolhardiness and futility of even attempting to escape, she followed him inside.
He was crouched in front of the grate shoveling cold ashes aside. He laid kindling and, when it caught, added logs. “It’ll take a while to get warm in here. Till it does, you’d better keep the coat on.”
His coat. She had removed it in order to treat Lisa but had put it back on shortly before they left. Suddenly it felt heavy and cumbersome, but she was still glad for the warmth and sense of protection it provided.
He replaced the fire screen and turned to face her. “Are you still hungry?”
“Hungry?” She stared at him with bewilderment. “I don’t get you at all. You commit burglary in order to help a young woman you don’t even know. You’re gentle enough to convert a vicious dog into a pal. But then you fire a shotgun at two men, unprovoked.”
“It wasn’t unprovoked.”
“When we left, you definitely had the upper hand. You didn’t have to go back inside at all.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Why?”
“Because of you.”
“Me?”
“They’d made some crude references to you.”
“You should have ignored them.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“What did you expect? Refinement? They’re ignorant and scurvy, and—”
“They’re shit is what they are.”
“Okay, they’re lowlifes. Does that justify shooting at them?”
“I didn’t shoot at them. If I had, they’d be dead.”
“Then why fire the shotgun at all?”
She tried to stare him down, but, to her consternation, he turned away. “Do you want to use the shower first, or should I go ahead?”
Furious over his being so indifferent to her outrage, she went after him and grabbed his sleeve, bringing him around. “Damn you, answer me!”
“What?”
“Tell me why you fired the shotgun. And don’t claim it was self-defense.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Then why’d you do it? Just to make a point?”
He remained immutable.
“Tell me!”
“I shot out the TV!”
Stunned by both his shout and the explanation, she fell back a step, having a wild compulsion to laugh. “The TV? Why?”
He pulled his sleeve from her grip. “So they wouldn’t see your picture on it.”
* * *
By the time he emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered and wearing clean clothes, she was serving up the scrambled eggs and bacon she’d prepared. After all, it was morning. Most people were having breakfast at this time of day. Breakfast was the one conventional thing in this otherwise Looking-Glass universe in which she was now living.
As though he hadn’t dropped a bombshell before retreating to the bathroom, he thanked her for the plate of food she set down on the table in front of him. As he tucked in, she motioned toward a plate stacked with slices of toast. “The toaster works better. It popped them up.”
“Good. The repair saved me from having to buy a new one.”
Performing ordinary tasks like making toast and placing the stick of butter on a dish had given her a self-delusional sense of control over her situation. She knew he noticed the dish as he knifed a pat of butter and spread it over his toast. He acknowledged it with a glance toward her but didn’t comment.
Halfway through the meal, he asked if she wanted another cup of coffee.
“If you’re getting up, please.”
He came back to the table with their refills, then sat down, straddling the seat of his chair in the way of a man. Any man. A normal, nonviolent man. A man who hadn’t shot out the TV of his redneck neighbors at dawn.
No longer able to hold back the question, she blurted, “My picture was on TV?”
“I saw it on our way out. That’s why I had to go back inside and take care of it.”
“Were they saying—”
“I don’t know what they were saying. The audio was muted.” He took a sip of coffee, watching her through the steam rising out of the cup. “But in big yellow letters across the bottom of the screen was a notice of a reward. Twenty-five thousand.”
“Who put up the reward? Jeff?”
He shrugged. “But I couldn’t let the Floyd brothers see that. God knows what they’d have done in order to claim the reward.”
“Why didn’t you explain this to me right away? Why did you let me go on the way I did?”
He leaned back in his chair. “I wanted to learn what you really think of me. Now I know. You have a very low opinion.”
“That’s not true.”
He made a scoffing sound.
“Well, can you blame me? Pauline, who only met you last night, conjectured that you�
�re a fugitive.”
“She tell you that?”
“Lisa did.”
“That seems to be the consensus among them. Norman bragged about his lawbreaking and urged me to swap stories with him.”
“What did you tell them?”
He didn’t answer.
“Nothing,” she said, guessing but knowing she was correct.
He asked, “Lisa tell you anything else?”
She related the context of their conversation about him. He didn’t comment on the girl believing him to be an outlaw over a wife deserter, nor did he say anything in response to her qualifying him as a man who wouldn’t expect sexual favors in exchange for kindness.
“She holds you in high esteem,” Emory said. “But you remain a puzzle to her. She asked me what I made of you.”
He waited, unmoving and expressionless.
“I’ll tell you what I told Lisa. I don’t know what to make of you.”
He kept his level gaze on her a few moments longer, then got up and carried his empty dishes to the sink. They worked side by side to clean the kitchen. It was amazing to her that, given the events of the last twelve hours, the scene they were now enacting was so commonplace. They could be any couple anywhere, going about a morning routine.
Except that established couples knew what to expect from each other. There might be an occasional surprise, but typically one didn’t astonish the other with extraordinary acts of kindness followed by outbursts of violence.
And established couples usually didn’t kiss with the blatant eroticism with which he’d kissed her last night. Not unless the partners were skin to skin, and the kiss was a prelude to the lovemaking it intimated.
When the last dish was put away, she said, “If you don’t mind me borrowing another shirt…”
“Help yourself.”
On her way to the bathroom, she took a shirt and a pair of socks from the chest of drawers. Her running clothes smelled of the Floyds’ house. It was a relief to peel them off. She put them in the sink to soak while she showered and washed her hair. The goose egg was barely a bump, and, except for a little tenderness, she wouldn’t have known the cut was there.
He’d said it wouldn’t require stitches in order to close, and she wondered now how he had known that. Maybe he’d planned it that way. Maybe he had struck her just hard enough to knock her unconscious, but not so hard as to cause a gash that required stitches.
She wondered where he’d hidden the rock.
She wrung out her clothes and took them with her into the main room. As before, she moved one of the dining chairs near the hearth and draped the garments over the rungs of the ladder-back. She sat on the hearth and finger-combed her hair until it had partially dried.
“I should dry it completely,” she said. “But I can’t hold my head up any longer.”
He marked his place in the book he’d been reading and set it on the table. “I’m whipped, too.” He left his recliner and went to each window, pulling down shades behind the muslin curtains, making the room darker, leaving the end table lamp and the fireplace the only sources of light.
“How do you know the Floyds won’t come here seeking retribution for their TV?”
“If they planned to attack today, they’d already be here.”
“They’re on foot.”
“That’s not what’s holding them back. Underneath all the swagger, they’re cowards.”
“How do you know?”
“I know the type.”
“You know them. From somewhere. From something.” She waited for a second or two, then prodded him for a response. “Don’t you?”
“Go to sleep, Doc.”
Too weary to engage in an argument with a stone wall, she got into bed and pulled the covers over her. He returned to his recliner, switched out the lamp, and covered himself with a quilt. Ponderous minutes ticked by. As tired as she was, she couldn’t relax. Every muscle of her body remained rigid, her mind in turmoil, her emotions clashing.
She knew that he wasn’t sleeping either. If she opened her eyes, she would no doubt find his on her: ever watchful, penetrating in their intensity, remarkably still except for the flickering reflection of the firelight.
Had he not shot out their television, the Floyds might have noticed the bulletin, called the police, reported her whereabouts, and collected their reward. By now she would have been in familiar surroundings, reunited with Jeff and resuming her ordinary life.
Instead she was snuggled into the bed of this unnamed man, who by turns mystified, aroused, and appalled her.
Regardless of her intention to keep her eyes closed, they opened of their own accord. As expected, he was looking directly at her. “Before we left, you went back into the bedroom.”
“I wanted a private moment with Lisa.”
“What for?” When he didn’t say anything, she came up on her elbows so she could see him better. “What for?”
He took a long time to answer. “I asked which of her brothers had fathered the baby. She told me it could have been either.”
Chapter 18
It rained a lot in Seattle. What a hell of an understatement that was.
Special Agent Jack Connell’s flight out of LaGuardia had been delayed for several hours due to sleet, snow, and high winds. He almost preferred that wintry mix to this weather. His experience with it so far—and he was just now driving the rental car off the lot at Sea-Tac—led him to believe that the whole damn Pacific Northwest was underwater.
Driving from the airport into the city, he kept one eye on the rain-washed freeway while trying to find the defroster switch on the unfamiliar dashboard. Miraculously, without killing either himself or another motorist, he made it through downtown and to the ferry pier.
Any scenery he might have enjoyed on a sunny day was obscured by a downpour and dense fog. The city was swallowed by it within minutes of the ferry’s departure, and what lay ahead was as much of a great unknown as the Atlantic Ocean had been to fifteenth-century sailors.
He’d never much cared for boats. Boats chugging through fog he cared for even less. It was an hour and a half before his destination port was announced, and he was relieved to drive back onto terra firma. Or what would have been firma if it hadn’t been waterlogged.
He checked into his hotel and, without even taking the time to settle into his room or unpack his suitcase, he braved the weather again. Using the car’s GPS he drove straight to the residence of one Grace Kent.
It was a two-story house, white clapboard with gray shutters flanking the windows on both levels. The front door was red, and on the exterior wall to the side of it was a brass mailbox.
He considered going up to the door and checking to see what kind of correspondence had been delivered to her that day. But discretion being the better part of valor and all that, he decided against taking the risk. He instead drove to the end of the block, where he parked beneath the rain-laden branches of a giant conifer.
More than three hours elapsed. Just before six o’clock, a minivan pulled into the driveway and into the garage, which was opened with a remote. The door was lowered before Jack could see who was inside the van.
But a few minutes later when the front door was pulled open, he grabbed his camera and focused the telephoto lens on the woman who came out to get her mail.
Grace Kent was Rebecca Watson. No question.
This wasn’t a baby step closer to his quarry. This was a giant leap.
* * *
Sam Knight leaned far back in his desk chair and stacked his hands on the top of his pot belly. “What do you think?”
Without so much as a blink, Grange replied, “Guilty as hell.”
They were both weary from spending an entire day actively involved in the search for Emory Charbonneau. Most of the time had been spent outdoors fending off the cold, or in the SUV trying to warm up while listening to Jeff Surrey cast aspersions on their aptitude.
They’d dropped him at the motel, another sour
ce of complaint, and had returned to the office to assess the day’s lack of progress before heading for home and grabbing a few winks before resuming in the predawn hours.
“He’s guilty, all right,” Knight said. “But being an asshole isn’t a criminal offense.”
“They should pass a law just for him.”
Knight chuckled, though it wasn’t a laughing matter. He picked up a rubber band and began stretching it around his fingers. “You think he killed her and hid the body.”
“Instant divorce. A lot less hassle, especially when there’s a sizeable estate involved.”
“Which he would inherit.”
“That would be sufficient motive, but maybe not his only one.”
“Okay, I’ll bite.”
Grange was eager to expand. “She didn’t move her pot of gold over to his money management firm when they married. Nor has she endorsed that drug, which he’s talked up to his clients as a sound investment.”
“From a professional standpoint,” Knight said thoughtfully, “that’s two strikes against Jeff. She’s made him look bad and might have cost him a partnership.”
“On a personal level, it’s just as bad. She outshines him on every front. She’s well known for her philanthropy. In all the write-ups about her, his name is always a footnote. She’s beloved by her patients, but his clients blame him if the economic news isn’t good.”
“He’s jealous of her success as a human being.”
“Resentment in addition to the money angle.” Grange shrugged. “Seems a no-brainer.”
“The no-brainer part bothers me,” Knight said. “It’s almost too obvious. Plus, we don’t have a body, a smoking gun, or the suspect’s opportunity to do her in. Last time I checked, stuff like that comes in handy when you go to a DA and try to get somebody indicted for wife-killing. Until we get more, we essentially don’t have anything. We may never get anything either.” He looked at the large map on the wall and sighed. “She could be anywhere.”
The media had called the search for Dr. Emory Charbonneau a “coordinated effort,” which was a misnomer to many, and a joke to Sergeant Detective Sam Knight. Coordination was almost nonexistent because every law enforcement agency within a tri-state area was involved, and each had its own agenda, personnel problems, budget considerations, and general stupidity. There were many dedicated and determined officers, but their efforts were often undermined by those not so sharp or dutiful, of which there were also many.
