Neal dropped to his knees next to Jake, and though he spoke in the same calming tones he’d been using in the car, Maggie had a hard time making out the details. The panic that had been building within her now roared in her ears, making Jake and Neal sound like voices in the distance. Had he been shot? Stabbed? No. Neal checked his pulse. Could it be a heart attack? No.
Jake was lucid enough to speak, though every word brought a wince. It had been Kindler. He’d come for Allie. ““Bastard… knocked me… down,” he said. Each word came with a painful wince. Jake pointed to his chest. “Stomped me.”
“Son of a bitch,” Neal muttered.
Maggie heard someone speak and was surprised to find it was her voice. “His ribs,” she said. “He’s got broken ribs.”
Neal held up a hand without so much as turning in Maggie’s direction. He knew. He had this. “Jake, can you breathe?”
“He… took… Allie!”
“Can you breathe?” Neal repeated.
“He’s talking, so he’s breathing,” Maggie said, her voice still shot full of panic and far too loud.
Neal held his hand up again, but Jake’s eyes locked on Maggie. He repeated himself, the anger rising in his voice even as he struggled with each word. “He’s… got... Allie!”
Maggie turned to the wide-open back door. She didn’t speak, just stared into the black night. For a moment, all she could hear was the roar of panic in her ears.
Then Jake spoke again. His teeth clenched in pain, but he issued an order in one clear sentence. “Get that son of a bitch!”
Neal opened his mouth to give Maggie directions, but she was already across the kitchen and out the door. The back-porch light was on, and it sent a finger of light out across the backyard. The backyard ran for about thirty feet downhill before a nest of undergrowth marked the passage into the tree line that ran along the Little Horn River. One set of footprints led across the yard and into the woods, and Maggie pulled out her flashlight as she charged into the night.
At the edge of the yard, Maggie stopped where Kindler’s tracks led into the woods, and she paused for a moment to listen. The wind was strong enough now that it almost sounded like human moans in the bare tree limbs that crisscrossed the woods before her. But beyond that, she heard something else. A human cry. The sound of panic. A child’s panic.
“Allie,” Maggie whispered to herself. Behind her, she heard Neal’s footsteps approaching. She turned to see him closing the distance on her. His gaze raised to meet hers, and when it did, he motioned with a pointed finger out to the woods. Maggie obliged and charged ahead.
As she stepped into the woods, Maggie was overwhelmed for a moment by the darkness that engulfed her. Even the bright beam of her Maglite did her little good, as it was broken up and turned into a confusing patchwork by the undergrowth and tree limbs that surrounded her. As she pressed into the dark, she somehow managed to pick up her pace. Tree limbs and winding vines scratched her as she sprinted forward, but she was focused on one thing only: the sound of Allie’s voice ahead of her. Maggie had to be closing in, because she could make out words now. “Daddy! Daddy!” Over and over she said it, the two syllables shot through with fear and confusion. Just a few steps behind her, Maggie heard Neal lose his footing and tumble to the snowy ground. Maggie stopped to help, but Neal waved her on as he picked himself up. Maggie ran on, pushing through winding underbrush. She stumbled forward, her legs caught up for a split second in the undergrowth, but when she broke free, she found herself in a small clearing, and there they were, Kindler and Allie, no more than twenty feet away.
Kindler wore a heavy navy-blue winter coat that he hadn’t even thought to zip up. Maggie realized then that Kindler must have spotted her and Neal on their way into the hospital and made his escape as soon as they were out of sight, because he was still dressed in the blue hospital scrubs he’d been wearing for work. Kindler carried Allie like a bundle of firewood. She was even more poorly dressed for the weather than he, as she wore only the pajamas she’d been dressed in when Kindler had broken in the front door. She screamed and screamed. “Daddy! Daddy!”
Kindler turned in Maggie’s direction when she pushed her way into the clearing. Kindler was thin and handsome in a singularly nonthreatening way. He had a milky complexion and big brown eyes that were ever so slightly sunken and careworn. There was something almost delicate about him. Standing in the clearing with his screaming daughter in his arms, Maggie found herself somehow able to see Kindler as she imagined Lucinda had seen him. This was a thoughtful guy. A nice guy. A safe guy.
Allie screamed and screamed in his arms.
For just a moment, Kindler froze there in the clearing, his gaze locked on Maggie, and for that moment, Maggie thought that she might have him there. Maggie wasn’t about to draw her weapon on him, not while he held Allie, but he had to know he couldn’t outrun Maggie with Allie fighting him every step of the way. Then, he made his decision. He dropped his child at his feet and fled into the woods.
Maggie ran toward Allie and scooped her up out of the snow, instinctively cradling the girl in her arms. Still Allie screamed one word, and one word only: “Daddy! Daddy!” Was she trying to call him back now? Maggie tried to hold her closer, but Allie fought her. In a moment, Neal had arrived, a limp in his gait, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He dropped to his knees beside Maggie in exhaustion. “Kindler!” he said through gasps. “Where’s Kindler?”
Maggie was still trying to pacify Allie, so she didn’t speak aloud, just gestured with her head toward the patch of woods into which Kindler had fled.
Neal fought to catch his breath. “Okay,” he said, “okay. Called in backup. They’ll get him.”
The thought pinged around in Maggie’s head for a moment like a jagged piece of shrapnel. Maybe backup would get Kindler. But maybe they wouldn’t.
Maggie made a snap decision. Kindler wasn’t getting away. “Here,” she said softly. She passed Allie over to Neal. The girl had stopped kicking and was starting to calm down. “Take care of her,” Maggie said. And with that, she pushed herself to her feet and charged into the woods.
Again, Maggie found herself in near-darkness. The underbrush here was thinner than the vegetation had been closer to Lucinda’s house, which made Maggie think people probably passed this way more frequently. Indeed, after a ten or fifteen foot patch of trees, Maggie found herself on the bank of the Little Horn running along a well-worn foot path. She thought she could see movement up ahead, but when she trained her Maglite on the path, all she saw was a few tree limbs that swayed as if someone had just brushed past them. Maggie pressed on, picking up her pace.
Twenty yards. Thirty. Maggie tried to keep a light on the path ahead, but with the swing of her arms as she ran, she caught only strobing glimpses of what lay ahead. Here was another swaying limb. Then another. Maggie pushed herself even harder as she felt the first pull of a cramp in her side. She wasn’t far now from Waterfront Park. Surely he’d be in the open there. Surely she’d catch him there.
What happened next happened in a flash.
As quick as a diving owl, a form rose up from the bushes to her right and heaved itself at her. Kindler. He appeared as if out of the earth itself. Maggie gave a short shout as Kindler’s shoulder dug into her gut and he drove her sideways off her feet.
A moment of weightlessness, then Maggie crashed to the frozen ground. She landed hard on her back, and the wind rushed out of her with an almost comical moan. Somehow, she kept hold of the Maglite in her left hand, but the Glock in her right went spinning into the darkness toward the frozen river. Now she and Kindler were wrestling in the snow, each vying to pin the other. Kindler’s thin body possessed a wiry and surprising strength, and he grappled with ease and control that made Maggie wonder if he’d had training. In a moment, he was astride her. He grabbed her throat with both hands and bore down hard, and when he did, his nice-guy veneer disappeared entirely. His eyes were wide open with a murderous zeal that bordered on lust. It w
as a horrifying visage, and for a moment, Maggie thought of how easy it would be for a victim to look into a face like this and be struck with a panic that knocked the last bit of fight out of them and doomed them to see nothing else, ever again. The thought made Maggie shudder. Did Kindler sense his advantage? Perhaps he did, because at that moment, he bared his teeth in an animalistic and victorious snarl. Maggie figured that was as good a target as she was apt to get, and she swung the Maglite with all her strength.
There was a bony crunch, and Kindler tumbled backwards in a spray of saliva, blood and broken teeth. He shrieked, then clamped his shattered mouth shut, and his shriek turning into a long moan. Maggie pushed herself up off her back and rose to her knees. She still couldn’t quite catch her breath, and as she struggled to breathe, she panned the Maglite’s beam out toward the frozen river in the direction she’d lost the Glock.
At first, she couldn’t find it, but after playing the light further out onto the ice, she saw that the weapon had come to rest at least ten feet away from the shore. Maggie cursed inwardly, and for a moment, she considered how she might wrangle Kindler into cuffs with her baton. She was reaching to pull it from her duty belt when she looked over and saw Kindler. He wasn’t looking at her.
Kindler’s eyes were on the gun.
He scrambled to his feet and lunged out onto the ice toward the Glock. Maggie still hadn’t managed to draw a complete breath, but she willed herself to her feet and scrambled out after him. Kindler slipped and looked for a moment like he was going to fall, but he somehow managed a few more steps so that when he tumbled to the ice, he was just a few feet short of the Glock. Maggie was almost out of time. She took a few more lumbering steps, and then, just as Kindler reached the gun, she launched herself at him, crashing down with as much weight as she could muster squarely on his back.
Maggie felt Kindler coil up in pain under her. Something in him popped under her weight, and the Glock slid out of his hand.
Then, a deeper crack resounded all around them, and Maggie realized she’d made a mistake. A few hairline cracks appeared in the ice around Kindler’s form, one of them large enough that it produced a tiny waterspout. Kindler saw it, too, and he knew what was coming. He pushed up desperately, trying to throw Maggie off his back and get clear. This struggle produced another loud crack, and this time, the ice heaved and pitched underneath them, then gave way.
Kindler went under first, but Maggie was right behind him, sliding face first into the black water as quickly as though there had been nothing holding her up to begin with. As her body hit the water, a shockwave blasted through her nervous system that was like nothing she’d ever felt. Instantly, her brain seized up as her senses scrambled to make sense of the impossible environment in which Maggie now found herself. Her nerves couldn’t understand the water as cold, and instead interpreted it as something nearly emotional. An infinite loneliness. An immortal desolation.
This is how you drown, Maggie thought. This is how you die.
Maggie wasn’t ready for that, so she pumped her arms to right herself. For a moment, a blast of fresh panic struck her when Maggie realized that in the dark, she wasn’t sure which way was up. However, the bright beam of her Maglite still pinwheeled around her. Maggie watched long enough to see the direction in which it was sinking. She turned in the opposite direction and swam for the surface.
Maggie managed two strokes, then three, but still she hovered in the dark. How deep was the Little Horn? How far had she sunk? Maggie had no idea, but her throbbing lungs told her she didn’t have long. She reached up again toward the surface, and this time, her hand hit a wall of something solid and unyielding.
She was trapped under the ice.
For a moment, Maggie felt around for open air. Surely she couldn’t have drifted far from where they had broken through. The panic rising in her made her want to hammer the ice with her fist, but that would only doom her, so she reached in the dark, testing for open air. Five seconds. Seven. Her lungs ached. Finally, as she felt herself on the verge of a sob that would surely drown her, Maggie’s fingers found purchase on the jagged edge of shattered ice. She reached up into the open air, took hold of the ice’s edge, and pulled herself toward safety.
That’s when the hands came up for her from below. Kindler caught hold of her coat first, then pulled himself close enough that Maggie could just make out the features of his face in the dim glow of the Maglite that now sat in the silt of the riverbed. He was raging. Maggie still had a hand on the edge of the ice, but Kindler had her by the throat. He wasn’t looking for the surface. He was looking only for blood. As she watched, Kindler opened his mouth wide. The jagged stumps of his broken teeth gave his rictus grin the look of some wild beast or monster.
Kindler clutched her throat tighter.
Maggie held onto the edge of the ice with one hand punched Kindler in the face over and over with the other. He barely flinched, just tightened his grip on Maggie’s throat and pulled himself closer. Maggie’s grip on the ice began to falter.
Then, the light from Maggie’s lost flashlight seemed to flare, and in a moment, there was someone else under the ice with them. The light rose up behind Kindler as though something were rising from the depths, and Kindler’s open-mouthed grin turned into a look of confusion as two hands clamped down on him, one on each shoulder.
From the darkness behind him, a face came into view.
Maggie stared in disbelief. Lucinda had returned. The sorrow that had permeated her entire presence the night before was gone, and her expression now was one of wide-eyed rage.
Kindler spun around to face his attacker, and when he saw who it was, he evacuated whatever air was left in his lungs in a garbled scream. Lucinda didn’t even blink. She put her arms around his back and, with her eyes locked on his, began slowly to drag him into the murk. Kindler waved his arms as he disappeared, grunting even after his breath was gone, but Lucinda merely stared. As she disappeared into the black, she seemed to be smiling.
Maggie’s vision was graying out now. She was out of time. She tightened her grip on the edge of the ice, and with the last of her strength, she pulled.
The ice gave way under her weight. For a moment, she held onto that chunk of ice that had broken free, then she dropped it and scratched at the solid sheet above her head, but only for a moment. Soon she couldn’t move anymore, so she just floated in the gray.
Floated into the black.
Then she sank.
For a moment, there was perfect darkness, and that wasn’t so bad. How could it be? Then the light came spiraling back again, and suddenly Maggie found herself again on the river’s edge, but this time, she wasn’t alone.
This time she was with Jerry.
Maggie remembered now. It was her first visit to Burgettsville. They had just come back from school for a visit, and Jerry was making his pitch. He knew that Maggie wanted to be with him. But could she be with him here in his goofy hometown? That was the question. Jerry hadn’t spoken it aloud, but Maggie had heard it in every step they took around town that day. Here was the city park. Here was the elementary school Jerry had attended, the same as his parents before him. Here was the life Jerry had come from. The life he wanted to live.
Could Maggie live it?
There hadn’t been snow yet, so the two sat together cross-legged on the walkway at the edge of the boat ramp and stared at the colored lights of the South Street Bridge reflected on the river. Maggie leaned against Jerry and let him talk and tell his stories about growing up in Burgettsville. He didn’t know it yet, but he didn’t have to win her over. She would return with him to Burgettsville, and she’d do it gladly, without a second thought. She’d follow him to Timbuktu. As long as she was with Jerry, the surroundings didn’t matter. She didn’t know how to tell him that, so instead, she leaned in close and kissed him, and for just that moment, she was there with Jerry. With his hands. His mouth. His whole body. His presence. They kissed, and then Jerry smiled. “It’s getting cold,” he
said, “Let’s go home.” Then Jerry rose to his feet, and he reached down and offered Maggie his hand. She took it, and she pulled.
She pulled.
She pulled herself up.
Maggie came to with a convulsive choke. For an instant, she couldn’t breathe, and she rolled off her back and onto her side and coughed, and gagged, and coughed some more. A generous portion of the Little Horn had flooded her throat and chest, and she coughed a great gout of it onto the ice.
When she finished, Maggie looked around in wonder. She lay on the icy surface of the river. To her left, maybe three feet away, she saw the gaping hole in the ice through which she and Kindler had plunged moments before.
She was out. She didn’t know how, but she had made it out.
The ice was so cold that it burned her hands as she pushed herself up into a cross-legged position. Everything around her wobbled at first, but even through the disorientation, Maggie felt a presence, just as she had beneath the ice.
For just a moment, Jerry was there.
Maggie felt her mouth fall open in surprise, and with new breath, she spoke his name aloud. “Jerry?”
He was there. She couldn’t see him as she had seen the ghost of Lucinda, but she knew her eyes were lying, so Maggie closed them, and for just a moment there on the ice, she leaned against Jerry as she had in memory.
She would have followed him anywhere. It turned out the same had been true for him. She had been almost all the way gone in the dark, but before she could disappear, Jerry had come for her. “It’s getting cold,” she heard him say. “Let’s go home.”
Maggie opened her eyes again, and her surroundings came flooding back to her. The wind whipping along the surface of the ice was like nothing Maggie had felt before, like nothing she hoped to ever feel again. She was drenched from head to toe, and when she pushed herself up from the ice, her frozen slacks snapped off the surface of the river with little pops.
Wicked Winters Page 27