Dead of Winter

by P J Parrish

  CHAPTER 39

  Darkness and cold. They were closing in on him, tightening their grip on his mind, on his body. He trudged on through the drifts, his eyes never leaving the beam from his flashlight. It was all he had, that light. It was his only defense against the fear that was growing inside him. The light...and his brain. They were the only weapons left to him now.

  “Stop.”

  Louis did not turn at the sound of Gibralter’s voice behind him. He heard the faint ping of the tracking device.

  “Left, ten o’clock,” Gibralter said.

  They moved on slowly, as they had been doing for the last hour. Or was it longer? Louis was losing sense of time, just as he was losing sense of place and himself. He was shivering, unable to stop it, and his fingers gripping the flashlight were numb. His toes were numb. His mind was growing numb.

  Is this how it ends, this numbness? Is this how I die?

  He bit down hard on his lower lip, almost drawing blood. Anything to stay alert. He stuck his free hand in his parka pocket. It found the rabbit’s foot. He gripped it, his mind finding a focus again...Jesse.

  He stopped suddenly and turned around. It was going to end soon. However it did, whatever was going to happen to him, he needed to know the truth.

  “Where’s Jesse?” he asked.

  All he could see was the light Gibralter was shining in his face. “What did you do with him?” Louis asked.

  When Gibralter said nothing Louis held up the rabbit’s foot. He couldn’t see Gibralter’s face.

  “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to worry about Jesse anymore,” Gibralter said.

  “You killed him,” Louis said.

  Gibralter said nothing.

  “You killed him. Why?”

  “He made the wrong choice.”

  “Choice? What choice?”

  Louis heard the click of a gun hammer.

  “Move,” Gibralter said.

  He trudged on, trying to think. What choice had Jesse made? Had he finally turned against Gibralter? Had Jesse been going to turn himself in when he left the cabin?

  Louis stopped again and turned. “You killed Pryce, too, didn’t you?”

  “You’re wasting time, Kincaid.”

  “Jesse’s dead. They’re all dead! It doesn’t matter anymore, that’s what you said!”

  It was quiet except for the ping of the tracking device in Gibralter’s hand.

  “Did you? Did you kill Pryce?” Louis demanded.

  “I made a permanent sacrifice,” Gibralter said.

  There. He had his truth. Louis shut his eyes, turning his face upward. The snow was cold and wet on his face. It was a moment before he could bring himself to speak again.

  “You coward,” he whispered. “You were afraid and you killed him. You fucking coward.”

  “Pryce was the coward,” Gibralter said. “He didn’t have the guts to do what had to be done. He didn’t understand that our strength comes from our unity.”

  “Gens una sumus,” Louis said, shaking his head.

  Gibralter’s chuckle drifted to him. “You’re learning, Kincaid.” He tipped the gun barrel, motioning him to move on.

  Louis didn’t’ move. There were still too many questions. “How did you find out he was on to you?”

  Gibralter didn’t answer.

  “How?” Louis shouted.

  “I was lucky. I got a call I never should have got.”

  “From who? Who told you what Pryce was doing?”

  “Steele’s secretary,” Gibralter said. “She called the station and Dale transferred the call to me. She said she was calling to say she had to change the time of Pryce’s appointment for December third.”

  Louis stared, stunned.

  “I told her I’d pass the message along.”

  “You killed Pryce on the basis of that?”

  Gibralter shook his head. “I suspected he was turning before then.”

  Louis waited. Gibralter seemed to be trying to decide how much to explain.

  “He was looking for a job. I got calls for references,” Gibralter said. “I didn’t think much of it at first. Pryce never seemed to really fit in here.”

  “It had to be more than that. What else tipped you off?”

  “Dale.”

  Louis shook his head.

  “It’s not what you think,” Gibralter said. “Dale didn’t know what Pryce was up to. He was just pissed that Pryce was messing up his files. Dale came to me, it was around Halloween, asking if he could put locks on the file cabinets to keep everybody out. He was mad at Pryce, said he never put things back. He showed me a file Pryce had left a mess.”

  “The raid file,” Louis said. “Pryce made a copy.”

  Gibralter nodded. “I started watching him after that. I followed him one day when he went back to the Eden place. I checked evidence and knew he’d been in there. I saw that the seal on the Hammersmith bag was broken.”

  “You knew he found the throw-down,” Louis said.

  “Yes, but he didn’t take the gun. He wasn’t as smart as you.”

  Louis was shivering hard and clenched his teeth together to keep them from chattering.

  “Walk,” Gibralter demanded.

  “What about Ollie and Lovejoy?” he said.

  “What about them?”

  “Did you kill them, too?”

  Gibralter stared at him, his breath visible in the beam of the flashlight. “Do you believe in fate, Kincaid?”

  Louis didn’t answer.

  “’There is no armor against fate. Death lays its icy hand on kings.’”

  Louis recognized it as part of the quote Gibralter had delivered at Ollie’s funeral. It hadn’t meant anything to him then. But now, here, the words sounded cowardly, like an excuse.

  “Fate?” Louis said. “It was their fate to die?”

  “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” Gibralter said. “Things were set in motion that day at the Eden cabin, things that no one could stop. Is that fate? I don’t know. All I know is things must come to their inevitable conclusions.”

  Louis turned and walked on, the cold inside him growing as his thoughts turned to his own fate. Gibralter planned to kill him tonight. He knew too much, just like the others. He felt the cold steel of his empty gun against his skin.

  Thing, think! Find a way to beat him. Find a weapon.

  He stopped again.

  “Kincaid, you’re getting on my nerves,” Gibralter said.

  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you,” Louis said.

  “Get moving.”

  “What are you waiting for?” Louis yelled. “Why don’t you just shoot me right now!”

  “What, and make you a fucking martyr in her eyes?”

  Louis swung his flashlight to Gibralter’s face. Gibralter moved but not before Louis saw the tightness in his expression.

  “Who? Zoe? Is that —- ” Louis demanded.

  “Her name is Jeannie!” Gibralter interrupted, pointing the gun at Louis’s chest.

  Louis held his breath. Gibralter slowly lowered the gun.

  “You’re going to take a bullet in the back tonight, Kincaid, but it won’t be mine,” Gibralter said. “Now move!”

  Louis walked on through the drifts, his mind churning as he realized what was going to happen. Gibralter knew he would have to face an investigation when this was over. Any bullet found in Louis’s back would come from Lacey’s gun. Gibralter would make sure of that. He had thought of everything. Every maneuver was designed, every move thought out three steps ahead. How could he get the advantage?

  Zoe.

  He had seen something in Gibralter’s eyes when he had said her name. It was small, almost undetectable, but it was there. A weakness, a fissure, a way in.

  “Zoe,” he said.

  From behind came only the crunch of boots on snow.

  “Zoe,” he repeated, more loudly.

  Silence.

  Louis gave a small laugh as he
walked on. “She likes to be called Zoe. You didn’t know that, did you?”

  “Shut up.”

  Louis’s heart was hammering but he knew he had to get Gibralter off balance. “Zoe,” he said loudly. “That’s what she wants me to call her when we make love.”

  Silence. Louis drew in a harsh breath of cold air.

  “You know what Zoe told me? Zoe told me you haven’t been able to satisfy her in years.”

  “Stop!”

  Louis stopped.

  “Turn around.”

  He faced the light, squinting.

  “You want to play games?” Gibralter asked.

  Louis could not see if the gun was pointed at him. Ping-ping-ping. The faint sound of the tracker matched the pounding of his pulse in his ears.

  “You know what an end game is, Kincaid?”

  Louis remained silent, his hand going up to shield his eyes against the light.

  “The end game is the final strategy in chess,” Gibralter said. “It’s when most of the pieces are lost and the king is forced into action. Amateurs thing the king can be taken at this point. But in the hands of a master, the end game can have any number of outcomes.”

  Gibralter moved his flashlight away from Louis’s face. Louis could see him smiling, shaking his head.

  “Zoe, Jeannie, it doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “Weak move, Kincaid. A weak move from a weak man.”

  He motioned with the gun toward the trees. Louis turned and trudged on. He was shivering violently now, the cold overtaking him. There had been no response about Zoe. A normal man would have retaliated. But there had been nothing.

  Think! Think!

  Gibralter was a man and every man had a weakness. Where was Gibralter’s? But this wasn’t a normal man. This wasn’t even a man. This was nothing but a gun, a badge and a fucking uniform.

  A cop. Not a man, just a cop.

  A cop...Attack the cop, not the man.

  Louis forced himself to let out another laugh. It echoed in the darkness. “A weak man! I’m a weak man!” he yelled. “That’s the ultimate insult to you, right, Chief?”

  He charged the final word with sarcasm, knowing Gibralter would pick up on it. He forced out a chuckle. “Nothing worse than a weak cop, right, Chief?”

  Gibralter said nothing.

  “What makes a weak cop? Why don’t you define it for me, Chief?” Louis said. “Why don’t you tell me so I can get my badge to shine as pretty as yours?”

  Louis kept his eyes on the dim path created by the flashlight in his shaking hand.

  “A weak cop doesn’t break the rules, right, Chief?” Louis yelled back over his shoulder.

  The crunch of boots on snow.

  “A weak cop doesn’t let his macho ego lead him into a dark alley alone without calling for backup, right, Chief?”

  Silence.

  “A weak cop doesn’t let a bunch of punks take away his gun, right, Chief?”

  Louis listened for the click of a gun hammer.

  “A weak cop doesn’t end up naked, spray painted, and handcuffed to a fire escape, right, Chief?”

  Jesus, what am I doing?

  He drew in a shuddering breath and forced out one last laugh. “And a weak cop doesn’t end up riding a fucking desk because he’s too scared to go back out on the street and do his job, right, Chief?”

  “Stop!”

  Louis froze. He shut his eyes, waiting. For a bullet, a blow to the back. Whatever it was he wanted it to come fast. Just let him come close. Just close enough, just one swing of the flashlight, one chance...

  “Did she tell you that?”

  The voice came from the same distance behind him but for the first time it sounded different, colored with a whisper of effort.

  “She told me everything,” Louis said.

  There was a long silence. It was so quiet Louis could hear the snow’s kiss as it touched the ground. Quiet, so very quiet.

  Too quiet.

  The ping had stopped.

  Louis turned slowly. Gibralter was looking down at the tracking device in his gloved hand. It was now giving off a soft steady tone.

  “He’s stopped,” Gibralter said. He looked off into the dark pines and then pointed his gun at Louis.

  “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Louis could smell the burning wood before he saw the cabin’s lights. The scent drifted to him, faint but definite, and he stopped.

  “Smoke,” Gibralter said softly behind him.

  They moved on slowly, quietly. Finally, Louis saw a glimmer of light in the distant trees. The snow had stopped and a silver moon was out, bathing the forest in a sickly glow. Off in the distance was a small boxy shape —- a cabin.

  Louis stared at it in disbelief. They had found it. The whole scheme with Cole, the tracking device, it had actually worked. He felt a rush of adrenaline. It was replaced quickly with dread. Now what?

  “Son of a bitch, there it is,” Gibralter said, his voice closer now. “Switch off your light.”

  As they crept nearer, they saw it was not a cabin but a small rough-hewn hut. It listed slightly under the weight of the snow, a tendril of smoke curling from a pipe in the dilapidated roof. The place was probably a deserted storage hut left over from the long-dead logging trade. No wonder they had not been able to find Lacey.

  As they came up to the small clearing, Louis’s eyes went to the red pickup parked in front. His pulse quickened. Lacey was here.

  They had approached the hut from the front but the two front windows were boarded shut, the door closed. The light they had seen through the trees had come from a small window on the side.

  Gibralter moved around to Louis’s left, standing about five feet away. He was surveying the hut and the truck.

  “Let’s go. Stay in front of me,” he said softly.

  They crept up to the truck. From his position near the front wheel, Louis could make out the outline of a shotgun in the rack. Gibralter peered inside the open bed and carefully lifted a tarp.

  “He’s got an arsenal here,” he whispered, nodding toward the boxes. “Probably more inside.”

  “Give me back my bullets,” Louis said.

  “Forget it.”

  “You’re going to need my help. Lacey’s dangerous and the kid knows guns,” Louis said. “You go alone, you’re going to lose.”

  “This way,” Gibralter whispered, swinging his gun back over his shoulder toward the trees.

  Louis had no choice but to obey. Gibralter followed him back to the cover of the trees. He seemed to be looking for something in them.

  “Stop here,” he said. “Toss me your gun.”

  Louis didn’t move. What was this? What was he doing now?

  “Gun,” Gibralter hissed.

  Louis pulled the empty gun from his belt and flung it at Gibralter. He caught it and stuck it in his parka.

  “Get out your cuffs,” Gibralter ordered.

  Louis stuck his flashlight into his waistband and retrieved his cuffs. Despite the cold he felt a hot flush of terror spread over him as he realized what Gibralter was going to do.

  “Do it,” Gibralter said, pointing the gun at him.

  Louis didn’t move.

  “Do it! Now!”

  With trembling hands, Louis slapped a cuff on his right wrist.

  “Other one, over that limb,” Gibralter ordered, pointing with his gun.

  Louis looked up at the bare limb. It was about three inches in diameter, sturdy but just big enough for the cuff. With a look at Gibralter, he snapped it on.

  “Key.”

  With his free left hand, Louis dug in his pocket for the key and threw it at Gibralter. It bounced off his chest and Gibralter knelt to pick it up from the snow.

  Gibralter slipped it into his pocket then smiled at Louis. “Scared?”

  Angela Lacey flashed into Louis’s mind. “Fuck you,” he whispered.

  For a second, Louis thought Gibralter was going to laugh. Then, incredibly, Gibralt
er brought a finger to his lips, like a child signaling another to be quiet. He turned and headed back to the pickup truck.

  Louis watched him as he crept around the back of the truck and toward the hut. He was moving toward the open window on the side and Louis knew he was going to try to take Duane Lacey and Cole by surprise, gun them down in cold blood.

  Do something! Yell! Warn them! No! They’ll panic and end up dead.

  He twisted the cuff against the limb, pulling it, but it wouldn’t move. He glanced back at Gibralter. He was nearly to the window.

  With his left hand, he pulled the flashlight from his jeans. Reaching up, he placed it over the limb and grabbed each end. Using himself as dead weight, he swung his legs back and forth, trying to break the limb. It swayed but held. He edged the cuff out on the branch and tried again, his breath coming hard and fast as he bounced.

  A loud snap split the quiet. He fell to the snow.

  He scrambled quickly for the cover of the trees. From his position near the hut Gibralter looked back, scanning the darkness.

  Louis’s eyes darted to the pickup. The shotgun, he needed to get the shotgun. He started toward the truck but a sudden light made him duck back.

  The door of the hut opened. A figure came out onto the porch. It was Lacey. He was holding a shotgun ready at his side, surveying the trees. He waited for a moment then started toward the pickup.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye Louis saw movement. Gibralter, moving into firing position, raising his gun.

  Move! Now!

  Louis darted from the tree to the truck. Lacey had opened the truck’s door and started to turn, his ears picking up a rush of sound. Louis tackled Lacey, slamming him against the open door. Lacey let out a grunt but kept a tight grip on the shotgun.

  Louis threw his full weight against Lacey, grappling for the shotgun as Lacey tried desperately to swing it down into position to fire.

  “Get off me!” Lacey yelled.

  “Shut up, goddammit, shut up!” Louis said.

  A shot rang out. Louis wrenched Lacey into a neck hold and scuttled back for the cover of the open truck door. Louis slammed Lacey against the door and Lacey’s grip on the shotgun loosened just long enough for Louis to grab the barrel and twist it out of Lacey’s grasp. Louis tightened his arm around Lacey’s neck, pulling his back against his own chest. Frantically, he scanned the trees but there was no sign of Gibralter.