“Help.” The voice was weak, almost inaudible over the roar of the fire. “Don’t leave me here.”
Inside the shed, the man—it must be Military Boots—was crawling toward her. Blood trailed from his limp leg. Under his snow pants, there had to be a compound fracture, bone protruding through skin. She had no trouble getting to her feet this time. In the outbuilding, the gun she had kicked away in the struggle was only a few feet from him. She felt its heft. The rough texture of the grip caressed her palm. Her fingers played with the cold trigger. She pointed it at the man’s head. Imploring eyes begged her to shoot, not to shoot—she didn’t know; she didn’t care. But they pleaded with her in a way that words never could. He sagged to the ground and closed his eyes. Beyond him, snow had already started to cover Trammell’s ashen face. For a long time, she stood there trying to make up her mind. Finally, she turned and heaved the gun far out into the snow and walked away.
“Don’t leave me here, please,” the man moaned again.
She ignored him.
She stripped the dead man of his half-burnt winter coat, his boots, and gloves. Underneath, he wore a wool sweater. She took that, too. Pain shot through her as she slid it over her head. She nearly passed out. She left one arm empty, and cinched the dead man’s belt around her body, strapping her wounded arm hard against her side. Her breath came in jagged spurts.
She bent to kiss Trammell one last time. Lips touched again, her tears spilling onto his unblinking eyes. Oh, to live in a fairy tale where a kiss, a tear, could bring the dead back to life.
But she wasn’t in a fairy tale and he remained motionless on the ground.
She recovered the snowshoe he had intended to use as a weapon. A snowshoe against an experienced gunman. To protect her. Chivalry died hard, but it died all the same. She found the other snowshoe behind the shed, along with the horse blanket. She took both. No tracks led from the shed toward the woods. A hole had been dug into the snow. He had stretched out on the blanket, staying out of sight and waiting.
Goddamn you, Lance Trammell, if you had just listened to me, we’d both be alive right now. But would she? The gunman had missed his first shot only because Trammell’s snowshoe charge had distracted him long enough to allow her to get within reach.
Martha stood as close to the burning cabin as she dared, letting her wet, bloody clothes dry, eating snow to rehydrate and letting the fire warm her. Her shoulder throbbed, each beat of her heart a reminder of the wound. She kept glancing at the overcast sky, hoping, praying the tower of smoke would bring a helicopter down over the cliff or up from the valley. Nothing filled the sky except more snow. Nothing filled her mind except the memory of Lance Trammell.
The roof collapsed into the burning cabin. She stepped back to avoid the falling embers. The motion of the first step seemed to propel her into action. She wrapped the horse blanket around her shoulders, strapped on the old snowshoes and began to walk through the now gently falling snow.
Martha rode out of the mountains on one of the gunmen’s snowmobiles.
Within a quarter mile, just out of sight over the first ridge, she had spied the machines tucked back into a grove of Ponderosa pines. The trail out was easily identifiable by the tracks the gunmen made on the way in. Snow had rounded the edges and started to fill them in, like an ancient footprint in the mud, but there they were, her bread crumbs out of the mountains.
A teenager sneaking out to light a smoke found her lying in the middle of the road in front of Bryce Valley High School. The snowmobile, still running, lay overturned in the ditch.
This began a series of events of which Martha remembered little.
The local volunteer EMT, recognizing the gunshot wound and shocked by the amount of blood he found after opening her jacket, requested an emergency evac to the trauma unit in St. George. In the helicopter, Martha regained consciousness long enough to whisper to the paramedic, “One other still alive. Hurt bad. Follow the smoke up Bryce Canyon.”
It was enough. The smoke, once spotted, acted like a beacon to the helicopter pilot and the paramedic. She remembered waking enough to look at the man on the stretcher beside her. Remembered wondering if she’d regret not having killed him when she had the chance. His eyes opened to slits as she stared at him. For a moment, she thought she was looking at the face of Danny Kimble. Her wandering mind returned to the notion that she had already killed him. Was she supposed to kill him again? Fear came over the man’s face when he opened his eyes enough to realize who he was traveling with. Martha closed her eyes and had the odd thought that this wasn’t how she expected to take her first helicopter ride.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw a man sitting in the chair beside her bed. Thickset and clean shaven, he wore a uniform of olive and brown. His Smokey the Bear hat rested on a nightstand. Gray lined his temples. Reading glasses sat perched low on a bulbous nose. He saw her move and looked up from the paper he was reading.
“Martha Whitaker?”
“Yes.” Her voice was hoarse, her throat dry.
“I’m Officer Ike Thomas with the Utah State Patrol. I’d like to ask you some questions.”
She closed her eyes again, but when she opened them, he was still sitting there, still waiting. She answered as truthfully as she could. She didn’t embellish, she didn’t rant or rave, she didn’t lie. The only thing she omitted was the final act, which she had only begun planning. Every time he backtracked or asked the same question again, she gave the same answer, told the same story, omitted the same future ending. Officer Thomas had the annoying habit of nodding his head with every other word, as if she were speaking in iambic pentameter and he was keeping the beat. Unwanted, uncalled for, her memory spurted out Trammell’s line, “Now join your hands, and with your hands, your hearts.” For now, his name would only bring a silent emptiness, a silence that, she knew, would begin to fade until it was forever out of reach. She began to cry softly. Officer Thomas left the room. When he returned, her tears had dried, and he started all over again with the same questions.
Martha figured she had at least one night of being safe, one night before she needed to start looking over her shoulder. Would he come down from Seattle to finish the job? Would he wait until she returned? Or was there yet another person from the forgery ring that she hadn’t accounted for? She had to be ready. But she figured she had one night. She was too exhausted to think of anything more.
But that night, when the nurse came in at two a.m. to check her vital signs, she found the bed plumped up with pillows and Martha on the far side, dozing on the floor, no longer certain she had even one night.
Morning brought intense sunshine streaming through the east windows of her room and another visit from Officer Thomas. This time, an FBI agent, who looked like a Mormon missionary with his short hair and ill-fitting black suit, accompanied him. Another lengthy interview covered much of the same ground as they had covered the day before. Martha gave the same answers.
The FBI agent stepped out, and Thomas gathered up his papers. “We’ve posted a guard outside your room.”
“To keep me in or to keep others out?” she asked.
“Both, for now,” he said. “Been in touch with Seattle. A Detective Callison confirmed much of your story. Seems he’s not real happy with you at the moment. But the younger Reichart, that’s the young man they brought in with you, is starting to talk. We found what was left of his older brother in the ashes of the cabin. Found another by the shed with his back broken. Right where you said he’d be. The Reichart boy is talking, but he doesn’t know much. It was his brother’s gig, or so he claims.”
“Guilty conscience?”
“Maybe.” But his snort indicated he didn’t really think so. “More likely he’s gettin’ all cooperative because he wants to avoid the death penalty. Seems they matched a fingerprint of his to a murder scene in Seattle. At some bookstore?”
Martha nodded, torn between not having killed him when she had the chance and grateful that she didn’
t. “Did he mention who his Seattle connection is?”
Officer Thomas looked at her for a time. His continued silence told her they hadn’t identified the Seattle connection. Military Boots must not have known.
It didn’t matter; she knew.
He had to come after her. She remained the one person who could tie it all together.
But how could she get out of here? Even if she sneaked past the security guard, she had nowhere to go, no way to pay for it. Her wallet, with all her money, credit cards, and ID, had gone up in flames. As had her cell phone. She had no idea where her laptop might be, or the rental car, for that matter. And would it matter? Would she be strong enough to protect herself when he came for her?
She sat up, waited for the lightheadedness to pass, and then stood, grateful that her arm was in a sling strapped tight to her body. She started simply, moving and flexing muscles: neck, one shoulder, one arm, fingers clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing, one leg, then the other, then toes. Each move hurt. She felt exhausted, but she did it all again. Two days before, she had been in prime shape. It hadn’t disappeared with the bullet wound. The wound was painful, but the doctor said it was clean, the bone intact. It wouldn’t kill her. One arm, one shoulder was incapacitated, not the rest of her body, not her mind. She cinched the sling tight to her chest and placed her feet on the floor. Slowly breathing in and out, she tried to quiet the pain, but there was some pain the drugs couldn’t mask.
The nurse came in. “Honey, back into bed. I need to take your vitals.”
As the nurse prepared to leave, Martha asked, “Could I make a long-distance phone call?”
The nurse nodded, gave her the code to get an outside line, and disappeared.
“Crystal, it’s Martha,” she said, when her assistant answered. It took several minutes to assure her she was all right, that the doctor said it wasn’t a serious wound, well, not serious for a gunshot anyway. Apparently, the Utah State Patrol, the FBI, and City Hospital had been in contact with the office. Rumors and worries and innuendos were flying fast on the cubical grapevine. Nobody knew anything, but everyone was talking about what happened to the Ice Queen. Martha again tried to assure her. “Crystal, I’m okay, really. Now, I need your help.”
A fitful night sleeping on the hard floor on the far side of the bed had left her reserves nearly empty. The nurse had woken her when making her rounds, only to find her hand captured in a grip that could easily have broken her wrist. The woman shook her hand and said, “What’s wrong, honey?”
Martha just stared wide-eyed, as if the nurse were a burnt-faced monster. Her soul felt empty, her body a husk that continued to take each painful breath only because she had a task left undone.
Before ten o’clock the next morning, FedEx delivered a package for Martha Whitaker. The deputy on guard outside the door checked the iPhone, opened the laptop, looked inside the package, and shrugged. Martha signed for the package, and sorted the contents: $2,000 cash, a company credit card, and photocopies of her driver’s license and passport, kept on file at the office in case of emergencies.
She blew the amazing Crystal a mental kiss. Also inside the packet was a sealed envelope. Martha recognized the sloppy scribble of her boss, Ben Matthews. A letter of reprimand? More likely, her termination letter. Today, it didn’t matter. She tossed it back inside the package, unopened.
The day dragged on, followed by a night that made the day seem short. The oxycodone did wonders in knocking the edge off, but how would she manage without it? She started palming every other one, preparing for when they would stop dispensing them to her every three hours.
A second FBI agent, whose bedside manner contained all the pleasantries of a slap in the face with a wet mop, grilled her on how she knew the documents were forgeries and how she managed to subdue three gun-toting perps with little more than a smile and . . .
“Over twenty fucking years of intense training,” she snapped.
In the twilight, the lights in the parking lot came on, one by one. Snow clouds in dark, towering stacks had passed through in the afternoon, leaving a few inches of fresh snow behind. Along the western horizon, a sliver of deep red foretold a reprieve from the next storm system. Officer Thomas’ knock startled her and she spun around. He stood with his wide-brimmed hat in his hands. In his pleasant baritone, he said, “Didn’t mean to scare you, ma’am.”
Her smile felt forced. “Officer.”
“I wanted to let you know, we transferred the Reichart fellow up to Salt Lake, and all the FBI agents with him, thank the Lord Almighty. We think we’ll get a signed confession from him if his damn attorney—no offense intended, ma’am—doesn’t kibosh the deal. Life without parole in exchange for a full statement and future cooperation. Seattle PD was happy as a bull in rut with the confession. They’re sending some detective named Metcalf. You know him?”
Martha nodded.
“Anyway, wanted to let you know we’re releasing the guard. You’re free to go whenever the doc clears you.”
“Thank you, Officer Thomas,” Martha said. “When is Metcalf due to arrive?”
“Sometime in the morning, I suspect. Is there a problem?”
“No, no problem at all.”
Less than an hour later, Martha walked out of the hospital. She figured she had only minutes before they discovered her empty room. She carried a plastic hospital bag with a hospital toothbrush, her arm sling, and Crystal’s package. She tucked her left arm into her jeans pocket, hoping it made her less conspicuous than a woman in a white sling. Outside, her breath vaporized into frozen crystals. She passed the first two hotels she came to and checked into the third. In an hour, she took her belongings and walked out the side door.
One car pulled over. The passenger’s window slid down. The driver leaned over and asked how much it would cost for a little company. She offered to break his neck if he didn’t keep moving. She walked a mile before checking into a different motel, giving a fake name and paying cash.
Still, she slept on the floor, on the far side of the bed. Nightmares were her only visitors.
St. George roused itself in fits and spurts. She called a cab, and said merely, “Airport.” For the rental car agency, the copy of her driver’s license and the company credit card were all the ID she needed. By nine o’clock, she was driving down the highway in a rented Subaru. Northbound Interstate 15 stretched out like a snake winding through a canyon as she began the long journey home. Road signs announced the exit for Cedar City and Bryce National Canyon. With each familiar sign, Trammell was there, asleep in the car, just as before, stars shining above them like a queen’s tiara in the black sky.
And now she was returning home, where someone was about to learn what the wrath of an avenging angel was really like.
The rolling hills alongside the interstate were the front range to the Tushar Mountains, with the snow-covered dome of Mount Belknap visible in the distance. Towns she had never heard of and would never visit clicked off the miles. Eyes on the rearview mirror, she exited for gas. She drained the last of her coffee, washing down four ibuprofens with it. The gas station attendant was a chatty sort, tilting his cowboy hat back to reveal a handsome face and yellowing teeth. Leaning close, she smelled cigarettes and laughed at his flattery. No, she didn’t get thrown from her horse, but she touched his hand and laughed some more. Did he, by any chance, know a good place to stay in Salt Lake City? Not some dive now but, you know, something with a little class? She desperately needed a massage and a manicure; she wanted a real steak, not some overcooked piece of leather. After thanking him but declining his offer to provide the massage, she accepted his recommendation for the Grand Spa at the Great America Hotel. She plugged the name into her phone and confirmed the directions were correct. She paid for the gas, more coffee, and a ham sandwich with the company credit card.
Twenty miles down the road, she made a last-second exit at Santaquin. One car followed her, but it soon turned off toward the city center. She found US
Highway 6 and began to backtrack south, until at Delta the road merged with US Highway 50. She turned west. Once, she stopped amid the barren, rolling hills to down another four ibuprofens and empty the rest of the coffee onto the dirt shoulder. The frozen ground turned to mud and she lathered some across both front and back license plates on the rental car. She looked up and down the road and across the barren white landscape. She was the only living thing in sight.
Martha drove ten hours, stopping only for gas and bad deli coffee and snacks, all paid for with cash. Before entering a place, she removed her sling, donned a stocking cap, and tucked her hair up inside. On the lonely stretches of highways, the ache in her shoulder kept her awake and she had time to think and cry and grow angrier and think some more. Most of her thoughts were about Trammell, but occasionally, they strayed to her friend, Hewitt Wilcox Chappell. A forger and a liar. Even if he hadn’t meant anyone to get hurt, he had still run and hid when people started getting hurt. Still hiding behind the wreckage in the surf, just like he had so many years ago at Okinawa. She envisioned him at some remote beach cabin in Moclips or Copalis, listening to the surf roll in while people died and she and Trammel fought for their lives. He had tried to protect her? He hadn’t done a very fucking good job, if he had tried. Did he think leaving her his estate made up for putting her in danger? Christ, he may as well have killed Trammell himself. All for a lie—a lie he had been living and hiding the entire time that she knew him. He had ruined Obbert’s career for a lie, and would have gladly done the same to Trammell. And he had asked her, “the daughter he never had,” to be his messenger. The betrayal was worse than the bullet wound. Far worse.
Once, she pulled off to the side along a stretch of highway that even angels had abandoned. She walked around the car, shaking herself awake, and squatted to pee. Back in the car, she opened the glove box for the bottle of ibuprofen. She remembered how Trammell had used the glove box of the rental car to collect his receipts, all neatly paper-clipped together, so careful to tally his expenses, so he could repay her upon a return that now would never happen.
Out of the Cold Dark Sea Page 30