The Last Commandment

by Scott Shepherd

  They rode the rest of the way up in silence with Grant having a clearer and more painful understanding of what was waiting for them up top.

  VIII

  The glow reminded Frankel of the snow cone machines he used to see every summer with his father when they would take a trip to the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

  Every color of the rainbow seemed to be swirling up ahead like those shaved bundles of flavored ice, as he and Grant made their way on the narrow blue-painted path deep inside the glacier, just below the peak of the Matterhorn.

  Once they turned the corner, despite the dire circumstances that had brought them there, Frankel and Grant stared in wonderment at the Glacier Palace.

  Exquisite ice sculptures in vibrant assorted colors filled the cavern. Houses, animals, cars, and flowers looked like they had been carved from precious crystal instead of ice from the massive glacier. It was a genuine winter wonderland.

  “Was this here when you were here before?” asked Frankel.

  Grant shook his head. “Believe me, I would have remembered it.”

  They resumed walking until Grant stopped in front of a wall of ice with a distinctive jagged pattern. “I remember this though,” Grant said.

  “I think I’ve seen it too, but I know I’ve never been here.”

  “Because it was in the photograph Everett gave me on Christmas Eve. We took it right here.”

  “Of course,” remarked Frankel. Suddenly, he realized something else. “Oh shit.”

  “What?”

  “Those gifts he gave us,” said Frankel.

  “What about them?”

  “He was telling us what he was up to—flaunting it again in our faces.” Frankel pointed at the wall. “Like the story you just told me how it all started with this place. Everett was telling us it was going to end up back here.”

  He turned back toward Grant. “That DVD and book he gave me?”

  “Gone with the Wind,” said Grant.

  “The main plotline has Scarlett O’Hara pining away for the man that her cousin ended up marrying.”

  Grant’s jaw dropped. “Bloody hell.”

  “I’m sure that picture he gave Rachel meant something too,” Frankel added. “But for the life of me, I can’t tell you what.”

  Frankel could see Grant thinking of the snapshot taken long ago at the Brighton seashore. The commander’s eyes suddenly widened.

  “The family he wanted but could not have,” Grant said. “Me dead and buried in the dirt—leaving Rachel, Allison, and him as one happy family.”

  “Very good, detectives!”

  Grant whirled at the sound of Everett’s voice behind them.

  Frankel reached in his coat for his gun but two sounds beat him to the punch.

  The first was Rachel screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “John!”

  And the second was the blast of a rifle shot.

  Frankel was knocked to the ground and his pistol scattered along the icy floor before he even realized what had happened.

  He had taken a bullet between his shoulder and chest.

  Grant turned to help him but Everett’s voice echoed through the glacier.

  “Stay right where you are, Austin.”

  Lying on the ground, Frankel could barely turn his head, the pain was so excruciating. He saw Everett standing in middle of the path with a rifle aimed directly at his brother’s chest.

  Rachel suddenly appeared. She rushed over and dropped to her knees beside him. “John . . .!”

  She tried to cover the bleeding wound with her hand but he writhed away in agony.

  “I tried to warn you,” she told him.

  “It’s okay,” Frankel grumbled. “You’re okay . . .”

  Rachel nodded, tears falling down her face. “I am,” she whispered.

  Frankel watched as she turned to look up at her uncle.

  “You have to help him,” she pleaded. “You have to do something!”

  But Everett’s eyes and the hunting rifle were trained on Grant.

  “I told you to come alone.”

  “You, of all people, shouldn’t be telling anyone what to do,” said Grant.

  Rachel turned back toward Frankel, her eyes filling with concern.

  It must really look bad, thought Frankel. It certainly feels really bad.

  “Enough of that!” roared Everett above him.

  He waved the rifle at his brother. “Get her away from him!” he ordered.

  Rachel moved down closer to the fallen detective.

  Frankel nodded at her. “Do what he says, Rachel.”

  She shook her head, refusing to stand up.

  “You have to, sweetheart,” Frankel begged her. “Please.”

  Suddenly, Grant was behind her. Frankel could see the Scotland Yard man had no choice but to help his daughter to her feet because Everett had the rifle trained on both of them.

  With pain coursing through him, Frankel felt more helpless than ever as Everett grabbed hold of Rachel with one hand while poking Grant in the back with the rifle.

  “Let’s go.” Everett motioned behind him. “You know where.”

  As he backed them away, Frankel felt his chest seize up.

  And then he saw Rachel’s lips part.

  “I love you,” she silently mouthed.

  Frankel did everything in his power to not wince as he softly answered her.

  “I love you too.”

  The next thing Frankel knew, they had disappeared around a corner.

  Seconds later, everything went completely black.

  IX

  The snow was an endless field of white, untouched by a human soul.

  If there had been a crater in sight, or if the full moon itself hadn’t been shining down from a star-filled sky, one might think they were on the lunar surface.

  All of this was lost on Rachel as she was dragged out of the ice cavern by the lunatic she’d until recently thought of as her uncle—because all she could hear was herself screaming.

  Her raking sobs and string of scathing epithets ranging from murderer to madman were the only sounds within hundreds of miles.

  Until Everett threw her down in the snow and yelled. “Stop! Enough!”

  Her uncle pointed the hunting rifle directly at her and slid his finger onto the trigger guard. Rachel felt herself beginning to tremble. And saw that Everett’s finger was doing so as well.

  “Everett—no! You don’t want to do this!”

  Everett swiveled to see that her father had emerged from the cavern.

  The rifle didn’t budge an inch.

  “Give me one reason I shouldn’t.”

  “Because you don’t want her.” Her father raised his hands in the air. “It’s me.”

  He took one step closer and immediately stopped when Everett turned the gun in his direction.

  “I’ve always been the one you wanted.”

  “It took you long enough to figure that out,” scoffed Everett. “The great Scotland Yard detective—outwitted at every turn.”

  “You can do what you want to me. But this has nothing to do with her.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you, Austin? Aren’t you wondering why I went to New York in the first place?”

  “I don’t really care,” her father answered.

  “I went to bring Rachel back home.”

  What? Rachel stared at her uncle incredulously.

  “I needed someone left behind who would feel the pain of what it’s like to lose everything in an instant.” Everett leaned closer to her. “And that person is you, Rachel.”

  He waved the rifle at Grant.

  “Your father’s career is in ruins. And now, tonight, he is going to die. Just like your precious Detective Frankel did back there.”

  Rachel screamed and leapt to her feet.

  “Noooooo!”

  Everett swung the hunting rifle into her stomach. Rachel doubled over in agony. Everett hurled the rifle away and it vanished deep in the snow.r />
  Grant started to move for his brother.

  And stopped when Everett pulled out a knife and grabbed Rachel by the throat.

  “Don’t even try it,” growled Everett. He pulled Rachel closer and waved the knife in front of her face. “Now do you see why I need her, Austin?”

  Grant raised his hands up.

  “You don’t need her. You need me.” He pounded his chest. “Take me.”

  “Someone needs to suffer the rest of their life. Like I have all these years.” Everett shook his head wildly. “Someone has to suffer because of what you did to me!”

  “You mean Allison?” asked Grant.

  “Of course I mean Allison!” yelled Grant. “She was supposed to be mine.”

  “You’ve had it backwards all these years, Everett. Allison never loved you.”

  “Liar!”

  “I didn’t take her from you. No matter what that twisted brain of yours is telling you.”

  “Liar!”

  Her father inched closer to Everett.

  “If anyone is guilty of the last commandment, it’s you, brother. You’re the one who coveted his neighbor’s wife. Not me.”

  “That’s not true!” screamed Everett.

  Rachel suddenly understood what her father was doing. He was baiting Everett—trying to unnerve him. Just like his speech at Hawley’s funeral.

  And maybe she could help him.

  “Then why did you attack her, Everett?” she asked.

  Anger and complete betrayal rose up in her father’s eyes like she had never seen.

  “You?” her father cried out. “You’re the one who did that to her?”

  Everett pulled the knife away from Rachel’s throat and started waving it at his older brother.

  “No! I told Rachel that wasn’t what happened—”

  Her father leaped on top of him.

  Rachel got knocked aside and fell to the ground. She suddenly found herself far away from the two brothers who were rolling in the snow, locked in a mighty struggle.

  Everett let out a roar and came up with the knife. He didn’t hesitate and lunged at his brother with the razor-sharp blade.

  Rachel screamed. “Nooooooo!”

  A gunshot split the cold night air and echoed through the towering Alps like a booming cannon.

  Everett looked down to see a hole had suddenly appeared in his chest.

  He dropped the knife and clutched the gaping wound. A gush of blood sprouted forth.

  Everett’s lips quivered for a moment, then the life drained out of his eyes and he died right there.

  Her stunned father slowly lowered Everett’s dead body into the snow and then called out for his daughter.

  “Rachel, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “You?”

  Her father nodded.

  Suddenly, they heard a noise behind them and both whirled around.

  Just in time to see John sprawl into the white snow, blood still dripping from his open wound.

  He let out an enormous sigh, then dropped the just-fired service revolver from his open palm and passed out.

  X

  They were halfway back down the southern face of the Matterhorn when Grant closed his cell phone. He looked across the cable car’s small aisle at his daughter and the still unconscious Frankel leaning against her. His wound was no longer bleeding; Grant and Rachel had wrapped it tightly in every piece of clothing they could spare without freezing to death themselves.

  “The medics down below said we’ve done all the right things for him.”

  “It’s a miracle,” she said.

  “The real miracle was that when John passed out in the cavern, he rolled up against that jagged piece of the glacier.”

  “The one from the picture, right? That Everett gave you?”

  Grant nodded. Like he’d told Frankel on the way up the mountain, his father’s religious fervor hadn’t done much for him. But there were times in life when Grant couldn’t deny someone, somewhere, was looking out for certain people.

  Case in point: the glacier’s ice had stanched the blood long enough to keep Frankel alive, and then the freezing cold had woken him back up. It kept him conscious just long enough to stumble out of the cavern and fire one shot into Everett’s chest—saving the woman he loved and her father from getting a Roman numeral ten carved in his forehead.

  “I have to say I hadn’t planned spending New Year’s Eve dressing gunshot wounds,” Rachel said.

  The rifle had been another oddity.

  Rachel said she’d been surprised to see Everett bring it up the mountain with them. Her uncle had told Rachel that if she or Grant had ever bothered to come visit him in Zermatt, they would have known there was a hunting as well as a ski season. “It’s good to be overprepared,” Everett had said.

  “A lot of things happened tonight I never could have imagined,” agreed Grant.

  Rachel managed a smile. “Some retirement party, huh?”

  “Believe it or not, I actually preferred that one at the Yard.”

  Rachel told her father she was just glad it was finally over.

  “For me, maybe,” said Grant. “But you still have your article to write.”

  “Oh. That.”

  “You’ll get to it eventually.”

  “I guess,” she said. “I think I came up with a title for it, though.”

  “You did?”

  “Well, actually you did.”

  “Really now.”

  “It was something you said up there. The Last Commandment. How’s that sound?”

  Grant thought about it.

  And that final moment up there on top of the world.

  Rachel had rushed to tend to Frankel, leaving Grant alone with his fallen brother.

  Grant had stared down at his younger sibling. It would be hard to remember Everett as anything but like this.

  It was then that he had noticed his hand was covered with his sibling’s blood.

  Grant took a deep breath.

  And then traced an X on his brother’s forehead with Everett’s own blood.

  Grant knew the next snowfall would wash it away—long before the Swiss police got themselves up there and took his body off the mountain.

  But Grant would always remember it there. It seemed appropriate.

  Now, he turned to look across the cable car at his daughter.

  “I think that sounds perfect.”

  Before she could respond, Frankel groaned and his eyes fluttered open.

  “Hey,” said Rachel.

  “Hey,” murmured Frankel.

  “Welcome back,” said Grant.

  Frankel shifted around and groaned again.

  “Easy there,” urged Rachel.

  But Frankel continued to stare at Grant. “Everett?”

  Grant shook his head.

  “Good,” said Frankel.

  Then the detective’s eyes cleared with the realization of what had transpired thousands of feet above. “And, I’m really sorry,” he told Grant.

  “Thank you, John,” replied Grant. “And I mean that.”

  Frankel leaned back against Rachel and started to close his eyes. But then he spotted something out the window.

  “Look at that . . .”

  Rachel and Grant followed his gaze. Fireworks were arcing and bursting over the twinkling lights of Zermatt down below.

  “Happy New Year,” said Rachel. She gave the wounded detective a soft kiss on the cheek.

  “Happy New Year,” murmured Frankel and managed to gently kiss her back.

  Then Rachel leaned across the aisle.

  She gave her father a kiss and followed it up with a hug where neither one wanted to let go.

  “Happy New Year, Daddy,” she whispered in his ear.

  “Happy New Year to you, Rach,” he whispered back.

  A moment later, she settled back next to Frankel and they all watched the fireworks for a bit.

  Then a smile crossed his daughter’s face
and she turned back toward him.

  “What?” asked Grant.

  “You know what that means, don’t you?” she asked.

  Grant nodded.

  I’m retired.

  And he had no idea what the hell he was going to do.

  But in that moment, he realized it didn’t matter. He had everything he could ever want right there.

  Acknowledgements

  I must begin with Otto Penzler, whose passion and incredible guidance has brought this book to life, like everything else he does at Mysterious Press. Many moons ago, I used to frequent the Mysterious Bookshop on Fifty-Sixth Street, where I would climb the spiral staircase to the second floor and find Otto hard at work on his latest omnibus. Always busy, he still took the time to discuss the latest mystery fiction, and I would happily leave the shop with more than a few soon-to-be-cherished nuggets that filled many page-turning hours. We subsequently lost touch for decades, so it is wonderful to be reunited in such a gratifying way. As Otto recently said, “Here’s to the (re)beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  Many thanks go to my team out here in California—Robb Rothman, Vanessa Livingston, and Amy Schiffman. Friends first, reps second—your support through this has been greatly appreciated.

  To Benee Knauer—your help with this novel is beyond measure. You never lost faith from the time we first discussed it, and I know seeing the book come to fruition this way gives you much the same sense of pride and satisfaction as it does me.

  A specific acknowledgement is long overdue to my close friend, Dan Pyne. You’ve made me a better writer from the day we first met and continue to inspire me all these years later.

  I can’t thank Cindy McCreery enough for being there every step of the way through this process. Whether it’s coteaching or continuing to try and conquer Hollywood together, it means everything to have someone who has your back and you can always count on.

  I am grateful to my early readers—Sibyl Jackson, Rodney Perlman, David Reinfeld, Connie Tavel, and Tom Werner—for their thoughts and encouragement. Richard Michaelis—your help with Britishisms proved invaluable. And Bruce Blakely—thanks for some pointers on using refrigerators instead of freezers.

  And most of all, my everlasting love to Holly. Everything starts and ends with you. Your absolute belief in me is what keeps me going.