"Uh-uh," he warned. "Ignore me. Focus, now. Enjoy, she's very pretty. It's a good way to go."
All he had to do now was reach into the car with one leg and one hand. Put his foot on the brake, slide the gearshift into drive, and release his foot from the brake. Those simple movements were all that was left between life and death for Sawyer and me.
FORTY-SIX
Rand was watching us. I could feel his eyes.
His father. I was certain, would not approve of his taking a respite from the task at hand to quench his voyeuristic thirst.
I pushed Sawyer's shoulder back away from me, exposing her chest to his view. Instantly, she seemed to understand what I was doing, and she raised her leg onto my hip, angling her crotch for his appraisal.
Time, I thought, we need time.
"Go on. Go on,” he urged.
I touched her neck and she slid her hand to my side and let it migrate down between my legs, she touched me almost chastely.
Go ahead, keep watching, asshole. Keep watching.
He did, for a good minute. I stayed limp in Sawyer's hand.
Suddenly, the weight of the car shifted, and I knew the time had come, he was moving toward the gearshift and the brake. I threaded my fingers under the latch of the door and pulled it hard, the noise was distinctive as tha mechanism released and the hatch door popped open two inches, then stopped.
He barked "No!"
A gunshot, crisp and frank, pierced the air. Sawyer and I ducked. I held my breath as though my inflated lungs could deflect a slug.
The balance of the car shifted again and Rand yelped, he seemed to be trying to swallow the sound of his own scream, the car lurched forward a few inches and tugged, like a big dog straining against its leash, the engine raced again as Rand hit the gas pedal with his foot while he was searching for the brake, another gunshot rang out, accompanied by a loud thud.
I pushed the hatch door up with my forearm. Sawyer and I were fighting to untangle from each other so we could scramble out the back of the car before Rand sent it over the cliff. I heard a familiar sound— clunk— as he dropped the gearshift from park into drive.
Finally the heavy car began to ease forward as Rand's foot came off the brake. Gunshots filled the air, ringing out in rapid order, at least two guns, maybe three. I couldn't tell, with all my strength I pushed Sawyer toward the open hatch, my efforts throwing me back farther into the car.
I felt the incline change, gravity's new tug pulling all the blood from my heart, the clearing we'd been on was rapidly becoming cliff. I pawed at the carpet, climbing the cargo bed as though it were a ladder, desperately clawing to get to the still-open hatch door.
My mind jumped to thoughts about Lauren and the baby we'd barely talked about having.
With a sudden shudder the car angled down farther. I figured the incline was now close to forty-five degrees. I managed to hook my fingers on the frame of the back door but I couldn't get enough purchase with my bare feet to propel myself out against the steep incline. Hands suddenly clamped onto my wrists. One, then another.
A woman, not Sawyer, ordered. "Let go, Alan."
I did, feeling that with the release of my curled fingers, I was giving up any hope of escaping the car. I was dying. But the hands on my wrists held firm and, as though in slow motion, I felt the car drive out from under me. My chest cleared the bumper first, and a split second later so did my legs. I fell in a heap into dust and rock.
Below me I heard a crash like a minor traffic accident, and then two seconds later, a horrific crunching sound echoed through the canyons around Magnolia as my Land Cruiser found the bottom of the cliff.
A. J. Simes and Reggie Loomis had arrived up Magnolia in a yellow cab, which was still waiting at the bottom of the long driveway- Sawyer and I made tha driver's day by climbing into the backseat of his cab nearly naked.
He didn't even try to pretend he wasn't staring at Sawyer, he asked. "Were those gunshots I heard?"
I said. "I didn't hear anything." Sawyer was wearing AJ.'s coat, this one a shade of teal that would probably be dangerous around people with seizure disorders. It barely reached her thighs, she was shivering. I was wearing Reggie's blue denim workshirt. I was shivering, too. "Could we have some more heat, please?" I pleaded.
"Sure,” he said. Feigning nonchalance, he added. "Where to?"
"The Boulderado." I said.
"They must have relaxed their dress code."
I wasn't in any mood for his comedy. "On second thought, just run the meter. I have a feeling we should stick around for a few minutes."
A few minutes became ninety, although they were treating us like victims, not offenders, the sheriffs investigators proffered plenty of questions neither Sawyer nor I wished to answer, the cops also had blankets, though, and that was good.
The gunshots that had felled Rand had come from A. J. Simes's weapon, that fact made her the center of attention. Sawyer and I waved to her as she was moved into a sheriffs car to be transported somewhere for questioning.
Reggie Loomis was nowhere to be found. Disappearing was apparently one of his best things.
A deputy sent the cab on its way and drove us down to town and the Boulderado. Getting from the hotel entrance to our rooms was awkward. Wrapped in borrowed blankets, we sneaked in a side entrance and used the house phone on the second floor to ask that room keys be brought our way, the explanation that the bellman extracted from us for why we didn't currently have clothing or identification was long and mostly fictional. Fortunately; he recognized Sawyer, and we got the keys. Once inside my room, which momentarily felt like a palace. I phoned Lauren and reassured her that our biggest problem appeared to be over but I wouldn't make it to Denver tonight, she said she'd been worried and asked why I wasn't coming down. I told her that I'd had some trouble with my car and I'd explain more tomorrow.
I paged Sam and waited a few minutes for him to return the call, he didn't.
I showered until the chill left my skin.
Sawyer and I rendezvoused, as planned, under the stained-glass roof in the Mezzanine Lounge forty-five minutes later, the mime wasn't on duty. I figured it was an
omen, a good omen. Sawyer had arrived before me, her hair still wet. I noted that her clothing could not have been more demure, she'd already ordered a bottle of champagne and some diet cola.
The wooden staircase from the lobby to the mezzanine of the Boulderado is grand in design and permits a grand entrance, the one we witnessed next was special.
I heard Milt's voice before I saw any of them, but as their heads cleared the tread of the top step. I could see all three. Milt and Sam were cradling A.J, between them, as though she were a queen on a portable throne. In my mind. I was assuming that she was being carried up the stairs because climbing that long rutted driveway to save our lives had cost her whatever precious energy she had left in her legs.
Sawyer and I jumped up and ran to meet them.
"These two sprung me," she said, her voice girlish. Milt said he hadn't done anything. Sam shrugged.
Sam said. "He's dead. Rand, they're getting a warrant now for his truck and his townhouse, the truck was parked about a quarter of a mile from where he tried to kill you two. Let's hope he's left some evidence behind that will tie him to all of this."
A.J, said. "Turns out I only clipped him. Twice. Leg and shoulder, he got his foot caught in the car, though.
and he went over the cliff with it. Rolled on top of him a couple of times, he died in the crash." She sounded disappointed that her shots had only wounded him.
"You saved our lives." Sawyer and I said, virtually simultaneously.
"I'll be happy to take some credit for that,” she said, beaming. "But I have to share it with your friend Mr. Loomis, he tracked me down this afternoon at the hotel and dragged me over to your office to warn you about young Mr. Rand. Loomis doesn't have a car, and I don't.., drive anymore. When we pulled up to your office in a taxi, we saw you and Sawyer coming down the driveway with someone in
the backseat of your car, we figured that we were already a little late with our warning. So we improvised and followed you into the mountains in the cab." She shook her head and laughed at the memory.
"Where did Reggie go afterward, a.J.? After the shooting?"
"Told me that there were some good reasons for him not to be associated with any of this. Before the sheriff showed up, he was gone."
"And where were you two?" I asked Milt and Sam.
Milt answered. "Rand tricked us. Left word at work he was on his way home from a hiking trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. One of his colleagues at the fire station was helping us out, and he let us know Rand's plans, we spent all day staking out his townhouse, waiting for him to get home." He faced A.J, and said. "Sorry. Got duped."
She touched him affectionately on his wrist and allowed her fingers to linger. "It all turned out fine," she said.
The waitress delivered three more champagne glasses. Sam eyed her suspiciously until she actually spoke. Sawyer raised her Pepsi, and she and I toasted the cops, all three of them.
Sam went along politely with the toast, then he ordered a Budweiser.
FORTY-SEVEN
Our celebration ended near midnight.
Sawyer was leaving for Phoenix on the first shuttle the next morning, and, with an audience of law enforcement officers, she and I said our final good-byes. I think she preferred that our parting be public and not sentimental. I whispered in her ear that I'd never forget her, she whispered back that she'd always remember me, we never spoke a word about our last evening naked together.
Before meandering back to my little alley-view room. I thanked the three cops who had helped save my life.
In the alcove beside my hotel room door, a man sat on the floor, his knees up, his head resting on his folded arms.
Reggie.
"Hello." I said. "I wondered when I'd see you again. I think I owe you some serious gratitude."
He raised his head and said. "Least I could do aftea leading you into that ambush up at Theo's house."
I shook my head to indicate I didn't get what he was talking about.
"That truck? Up the canyon? The one you were worried about? I spotted it again when I ran out of the cabin to get help for Theo, the pickup?"
"It was Rand, he was going to blow up the propane tank, that's what he told me."
"I wondered about that, thought he might be up to something, that's why I stayed outside and sent Theo's neighbor in. I was afraid it was Rand and thought I should keep an eye out for him, anyway, when I got back down to town. I had an old colleague of mine run the license plates on the pickup for me. Sure enough, it was registered to Corey's widow."
"What convinced you it was Patrick and not his father?"
He shrugged. "Corey was a perfectionist, the truth is that if he was after you, you'd be dead, anyway, Corey's kid called me to tell me he'd found some of his father's things. Just before he asked me if I needed help with my food deliveries."
I nodded.
"I said I didn't, he asked if the same folks who helped me yesterday were going to help again the next time."
"And you said yes."
This time he nodded. "I wasn't thinking,” he said. Reggie had a padded envelope in his hand, a large one, big enough for a book, he noticed me looking at it. "Got this in the mail today." He nodded toward my door. "Do you mind if we go into your room?"
I used the card to let us in, he took the chair. I sat on the bed and offered him the splendor of my minibar, he declined.
From the envelope he slid a marbled black and white notebook, the kind that school kids have toted for a hundred years. "Rand sent this to me today, the kid. Patrick. But the notebook was put together by his father. Corey."
I didn't reach out for it. "Is that the D. B. Cooper notebook?"
His eyes asked. "How did you know?" He picked the book up and smacked it on his thigh. "It's actually the Dan Cooper notebook, a reporter copied the name incorrectly off a manifest early in the investigation, the hijacker originally checked in calling himself'Dan,' never 'D.B.' Corey knew that, of course."
He lifted it toward me. "You want to see it? A lot of interesting stuff in here."
I lowered my eyes to the notebook before raising them back toward Reggie. I shook my head. "No, not really. I don't think so."
He nodded. "Think Sawyer does?"
"I doubt it, she's leaving town tomorrow. My guess is that she has better things to do."
He exhaled through pursed lips. "Want to know where I grew up?"
"No."
"If I was in the service?"
"Not especially."
"If I had parachute training?"
"Not curious. Sorry, Reggie. Listen." I said, "you and I both have lives to get back to, people who count on us. Let's say we do it."
"Just like that?"
I sensed a shiver shimmying up my spine. I said. "Doesn't feel like 'just like that’ to me."
FORTY-EIGHT
Dresden finished our renovation right on time and took off for his scuba trip to Australia. Lauren and Emily and I moved back into the Spanish Hills house over a long weekend at the beginning of December.
Despite a paucity of furniture our home was lovely, we enjoyed a late Thanksgiving dinner feast and promptly decorated for Christmas.
Lauren and Emily seemed to have recovered completely from the carbon monoxide poisoning.
No one was trying to kill any of us.
And Lauren and I were busy trying to make a baby.
Adrienne had removed the stent from Sam's plumbing, and, as expected, he gradually repressed the pain and dread that had erupted from his brush with kidney stones. His new diet resolution became a curious memory long before the New Year.
Sawyer called frequently, she'd speak, happily, to whichever of us answered the phone. Lauren commented after one conversation that Sawyer was busy finding new reasons to have a life instead of gilding old reasons not to. I found the words sage.
I left Patrick Rand's four-thirty psychotherapy appointment open for a while. I did it on purpose. Each week I used the time to drive up Magnolia in my new car and ponder all that had happened and the vagaries of the cards that fate had dealt.
The line between lucky and unlucky in life is so thin. I knew, that it is often carved with a laser.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, I asked for and received plenty of instruction, guidance, and assistance on the way to completion of this novel.
Over the years Tom Faure of the Boulder County Coroner's Office has been an ever patient teacher. Hopefully, I've finally learned my lesson, and I will never again need to beseech him to explain the difference between "cause of death" and "manner of death." Stan Galansky; M.D., and Terry Lapid. M.D., offered medical support and, more significantly, friendship. Cathy Schieve, M.D., provided a curbside consultation, literally. Earl Emerson assisted me with my research by doing what he does so well: he told me a great story. Bob Holman answered a battery of questions while he showed me around in his Beechcraft Bonanza, even generously permitting this retired pilot to take the controls for a while.
There are always family ties. I'm grateful to Colin and Amy Purrington for being romantics and to Sara Dominguez for being so dam sweet. My mother, Sara Kellas, sells so many books she should be on commission. Rose and Xan, you've been there every day. What else can I say?
Elyse Morgan. Mark Graham. Harry MacLean. Tom Schantz, Karvn Schiele, Alison Galanskv, and Rose Kauffman read the manuscript during its development, and the final version benefited greatly from their observations. Patricia and Jeff Limerick have provided support over many years in many ways. In New York, al Silverman. Lori Lipsky. Michaela Hamilton. Elaine Koster. Phyllis Grann, and Lynn Nesbit each left their professional mark on this book. I couldn't have been in better hands.
I'd like to acknowledge an old debt, too, Years ago Dr. Bernard Bloom was my dissertation chair at the University of Colorado, he taught me many enduring lessons, mo
st of them by example. Virtually every day he demonstrated that the most essential thing a writer does each day is put his butt in the chair. Bernie, thanks for that and for all your graciousness and wisdom.
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