“As soon as we get out of town, you can let me go. Right? Even if I run back you should be on your way to—” Claudia stopped in confusion. Where was he headed and why wasn’t he going there in his car? “Well, you’ll be gone and won’t need me anymore.” Instinct told her not to cry or throw herself on top of Ezra and plead for mercy. She remembered the look in his eyes when he’d knocked the man out.
“We’ll see. Now get on the sled. You’ll be driving so you don’t do anything silly like leap off the back. Close the garage doors and make sure nothing looks unusual. The dogcatcher will soon be just another lump in the snow.”
Claudia rose and wondered if the dark spot under Ezra’s head was blood. The sooner she got Peter out of town the faster she could return and help. She pushed the doors shut and returned to find him wearing the snowmobile suit Ezra had been in only moments earlier. He pulled the helmet over his head and stepped past her. She glanced back in time to see him aim a vicious kick at Ezra’s back and stifled a scream. He pointed the gun at the spot he’d just kicked.
“Don’t do it. Don’t risk it.”
She obeyed.
TWENTY
“I don’t know how to drive.” Claudia could have sworn she said it aloud but heard nothing over the mewling wind. She tried again, forcing the words past her fear-choked throat and chattering teeth. “Peter, I’ve never driven a snowmobile.”
His eyes rolled in offended martyrdom.
“The throttle is there.” His voice was peevish as he indicated a lever on the right side of the handlebar. “Use it to get up to speed. The brake is on the left. Don’t overdo it. Just a light touch. What sort of idiot grows up skiing and can’t work a snowmobile? Let’s go.” He pulled down the visor.
Claudia motioned toward the carriage house. “I need the helmet from there! It isn’t safe to drive without one.”
He blocked her way. Giving up, she climbed on Ezra’s rumbling snowmobile. Peter climbed behind her and wrapped both hands tightly around her waist. She wondered where he’d put the gun.
A jab at the ribs signaled her to get moving. She slipped feet into the stirrups and tapped the lever gingerly. Nothing happened. She pressed harder, and still the sled didn’t move. Another jab to the ribs and she jerked at the throttle. The snowmobile shot forward twenty feet in two seconds before she could locate the brake. She squeezed it and the machine shuddered to a stop.
Peter snarled in her ear. “Quit messing around, Claudia! If you’re trying to attract attention you’ll regret getting any.”
She took a breath and used firm steady pressure on the throttle lever. The machine twitched slightly before picking up speed across the parking lot. Peter relaxed the crushing pressure on her middle.
Claudia stopped abruptly as she reached the road.
His body tensed with fury and she rushed to placate him.
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to irritate you. But I have no idea where we’re headed. And if you want me to keep from driving into a pole I’m going to need something to shield my eyes. I can’t see.”
Peter lurched from the snowmobile and clicked open a storage bin. He yanked out a pair of goggles and tossed them at her. The gun wasn’t in his hands. He waited until the goggles were in place before he latched his hands around her forehead and pulled. The frames dug into her skin. With his mouth inches from her ear he warned, “The gun is where I can get at it, Claude. Just head toward your old buddy Amos’s house. I’m parked near there, and I’ll let you know when to stop.”
She astonished herself when she got the snowmobile moving on the first try. It wasn’t smooth but, even in her nervy condition, she kept going. She turned the handlebars to the right to get out of the driveway, then right again to take the road that led to Amos. They passed Blossom’s, cold and dark and silent. Everyone must be at the high school for the post-recital party. Not everyone. Someone loped up the sidewalk. Over the past week Claudia had become familiar with that gait. Philip. Peter clasped his arms around her waist and leaned closer.
“Just wave and keep going.”
She did and felt Peter do the same. Philip flapped a hand in greeting.
Maybe, she hoped, maybe Philip would tell his parents what he saw, and they’ll wonder why we’re heading the opposite direction of the jail. No. The Gomers would assume Ezra was just taking her on a ride around town for fun.
She picked up speed and clung to her earlier hope. He couldn’t go far on a snowmobile. At least she assumed the fuel tank wouldn’t hold enough gas for unlimited travels. Even if it did, unless he let her poke along at a snail’s pace, in this cold she’d freeze into a solid lump and be less than useless as the driver.
Eventually he’d realize she and the snowmobile no longer served any purpose. After he dumped her she could flag down a passing car. She could knock on doors and beg a ride back to where Ezra lay in a heap. She could run back and help him. Bile rose in her throat and she wanted to wallop Great-Great Uncle Dan and Peter for their greed. The snow, thicker now, skated along the wind in little splinters that scratched at her cheeks. The cold had intensified, Claudia was sure of it. The longer Ezra remained in that passageway wearing only jeans and a sweater, the greater chance of severe hypothermia.
She refused to entertain the notion that he was already dead. He wouldn’t be dead. That was a ridiculous caricature of the situation. In the grand scheme of the universe how could she lose her man only a week after meeting him? She realized that part of her mind had been praying over and over in a supplicating refrain, ‘PleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod’. Horrified, she heard another, harmonizing, chorus, ‘Don’t let Peter kill me.’
Unconsciously she loosened pressure on the throttle and they slowed. Peter shouted and she resumed the bone-rattling pace. They passed the last darkened house on the edge of town. Claudia hadn’t been paying particular attention to the route on her visits to Amos’s house, but the small road with deep woods on one side of the road and bare orchards on the other seemed familiar. Every so often she glimpsed what looked like Amos’s snow fence. Layering a prayer for guidance to her previous entreaties, she set part of her mind to thinking about Peter and why she was suddenly worried he would kill her. He’d proven to be unscrupulous, but she hadn’t thought him capable of violence. Distracted for a moment by an image of the efficient way he had clocked Ezra, she lost control of the sled. It wobbled, veered off course, and for several harrowing seconds refused Claudia’s attempts to regain the trail. Peter had enough sense of self-preservation not to grab or whack at her, and with white-knuckled concentration, she brought it under control.
Her speculations resumed. What about Roi? Suppose Felix hadn’t killed him? Possibly Peter had done it. Maybe he was a serial killer. Or a madman. She couldn’t let her mind go there. If he killed Roi, why? Roi went up to the balcony during dance recital. There had been so few seats there. She remembered how his shoes squeaked, the sound shoes make when they’re wet. Did he come in from outside? To meet Peter? Peter could easily have had a heavy object hidden in his jacket, brought it down in the dark on Roi’s flat head, and killed him with no one the wiser.
She worked to keep the snowmobile steady, and resisted her desire to shrink from the press of Peter against her back. She remembered that Roi died from a broken neck, not a blow to the head. Claudia began revising her mental movie when a car, at least she thought it was a car, careened past amid a fume of spewing ice and snow. A moment later Peter’s arm tightened around her ribs.
“We’re getting close. Slow down.” A few seconds later, he indicated she turn onto a gravel road, barely more than a track. It was the same road she’d seen Felix take the day they’d searched for Amos—the one leading to Bernice’s home. She angled cautiously to the overgrown little service drive and wished she had some of Bernice’s heft. She would have lunged herself backwards and squeezed the breath out of Peter until he let her go. The unfamiliar violence of this urge didn’t surprise her. Short of murder there wasn’t much she wouldn’t do to
keep from getting back to Ezra.
An unearthly howl erupted from behind her. She didn’t know a human was capable of making that sound.
“What?” she shrieked back, heart in throat.
“Stop! Now!”
She tried but the brakes skipped and she remembered Ezra’s complaint about Philip, Andy, and their faulty brake repair. Once again he roared that she stop.
“I’m trying!” she choked back a sob. His voice sounded desperate and angry and violent, and it frightened her more than any emotion he had thus far demonstrated.
“It was here! I left it right here! What happened?”
“What are you talking about?” Claudia screamed.
“My car!” he screamed back. He swore and stared at a spot where all too obviously a vehicle had been recently parked. The tracks headed back to the main road. With the throttle running more quietly, she heard Peter say, “I’ll never make it now.”
He swung a leg over the seat, careless of how hard he shoved her forward. Standing next to her he lifted his visor and yanked at her goggles, pulling her head within inches of his face. In the absolute dark she could barely decipher the pale splotch of skin.
“I’ve still got the gun, Claudia. You know I’ll use it. I want to look at those tracks in the headlights before we head out again. Our road trip isn’t over yet.”
The fog which had obscured Claudia’s mind for the last portion of an hour lifted, and she knew what she had to do. When he was directly in front of the sled, she revved the engine. Startled, he looked toward her and threw a hand up to shield his night-adjusted eyes against the bright light. Immediately, Claudia pulled the throttle hard, and for a heart stopping half-a-second was sure she would kill it. Instead, the machine leapt forward, and she had the satisfaction of seeing Peter throw himself out of the way and roll to the side. She steered away fast, down the drive toward Bernice’s trailer, but needed to turn around. She couldn’t seek refuge with Bernice who, despite her homicidal tendencies, didn’t deserve to tangle with Peter. The road narrowed and she would have trouble maneuvering into the necessary arc for a U-turn. She had a vague notion that snowmobiles didn’t go in reverse. Ahead she saw the lane open into a bank on one side. She didn’t wait for a better spot farther down. Heading down the bank, she slowed and began to curve. It wasn’t steep, but she was inexperienced and didn’t want to tip. Claudia shifted her weight against the turn, but still the sled teetered. She slowed even more and the engine coughed. It couldn’t die. She’d never get it started again. In desperation she eased down on the throttle, leaned so far opposite that she could have kissed the bank, and completed the turn.
There was no time to relax. She hadn’t come far since knocking Peter over and although changing directions couldn’t have taken the eternity it seemed, precious seconds had been lost. In the dark past the headlights, she saw nothing. She accelerated to a speed Peter wouldn’t be able to catch and headed toward the main road. She had to keep momentum to get past him. And she knew he waited.
Claudia reached the spot he’d fallen, but saw no sign of him. Puzzled, she wondered if he had headed to the road. Maybe he would try and hitch a ride to wherever he had to go so urgently. Maybe he had twisted something when he fell and couldn’t move quickly. Maybe a bear had gotten him. She could only hope. The main road was in sight now, less than a hundred feet away. She gathered speed. The sled spasmed and leapt forward. Her head snapped back so violently that she thought her vertebrae would separate.
A shadow separated from the night and loomed in front of her.
Claudia screeched, steered away from Peter, and headed straight for a tree. She grasped the brake lever. It grabbed, but only after a squeal and a skip. Too late, she wrenched the handlebars to the right. The machine, in a valiant attempt to climb a large pine tree, succeeded in reaching a few feet above the ground before giving up the fight. Claudia braced to crash through the windshield but before she hit, Ezra’s snowmobile changed course and attempted to bypass the pine. She catapulted back and to the side and the snowmobile kept bucking until she fell off and rolled into scrubby bushes.
Her mind functioned the entire time. She hadn’t even quit rolling before starting the struggle to her feet. If she could get to the road there might be some traffic. Peter still had the gun, she assumed, but it was so dark. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to hit her. And her lightning quick mind also recognized the inevitability of the rough hand under her armpit and Peter’s venomous voice.
“Fool! Look what you’ve done!”
TWENTY-ONE
Peter continued to hiss as he dragged her toward the road. “What did you think you were doing? Idiot! The machine is useless now.”
Claudia’s small surge of adrenaline dissipated. Her legs shook. Her neck hurt, and the warm gush in her mouth seemed to come from blood. She gagged. Peter lost any semblance of patience. With one hand he grabbed a handful of hair, and with the other he slapped her.
“Listen. I have a meeting in Thunder Bay to sell the watch and the alexandrite. Because of you and that greedy imbecile, Roi Lily, I’ve been rescheduling or canceling all week. This is my last chance. We’re going to find a car. You’ll drive me to a little private airstrip south of here. I’ll get on a plane and let you return to your new life in a two-bit town. Just cooperate.”
Claudia swallowed blood and tried to keep from fainting. Her trembling grew violent. Peter shook her but her legs folded and she collapsed on a stump.
“I’m sorry. I have to sit a minute unless you want to carry me.”
She doubted there would be any more traffic along this road. It dead-ended at Amos’s house. Claudia steadied her breathing and found the source of the bleeding. She must have bitten the inside of her lip.
Peter calmed. “Don’t move,” he ordered, as if she could have. She heard him slamming around the snowmobile. A light bobbed toward her. He must have found a flashlight. He shone it on the road. Bent almost double, he examined the serpentine tracks toward town. Those must be from his car. In the steady glow, Claudia saw they crossed another set leading straight and true toward the deBoer driveway. Peter’s excitement grew and he switched attention to the second set of tracks.
“Claudia, we have our wheels. These tracks go up the hill but don’t come back. Whatever vehicle made them is still there.”
He pulled her to her feet. The nausea passed, and her head cleared. The bleeding in her mouth seemed less profuse. She knew what vehicle waited at Amos’s house. Sue’s shiny new car. Claudia assumed Sue wasn’t the type of woman who ever left keys in the ignition. Peter would use ruthless measures to get those keys. Her fears for Ezra and the little family in Amos’s house intensified her hatred of Peter.
“Why couldn’t you take your own car from the beginning? Why did you make this such a complicated mess?”
He swung her around and she braced for another slap. Instead, he removed her goggles, and brought his face close to hers. His breath moved her hair and the flesh rose on her arms in revulsion. She hoped he couldn’t sense her distaste.
“I don’t know. Improvisation is one of my assets, but everything went wrong. Everyone should have been at the recital when I came back. If you left the watch there, I could salvage something from this fiasco of a trip.”
He had his hands on her face now, so close she couldn’t make out his features. “I parked on an abandoned road and jogged into town. I kept my hood up so even if anyone had driven past I doubt I’d be recognized. If I got the watch and you suspected me, so what? You could never prove anything. I’d sell it, get a nice little bonus, and go back to my regular life. It was just filthy good luck that I walked in on you holding the fob, and it was and downright miraculous when you and the dogcatcher came out and practically handed it to me. You must have me bewitched. Everything that should go right gets messed up when you’re around, and what seems like a lost cause you turn to gold.”
His lips brushed her cheek. If he tried to kiss her, Claudia knew she would bite him. Inst
ead he turned again toward Amos’s driveway. The wind had already dropped but icy precipitation formed a crust over the softer fall of the previous night and Claudia kept slipping. Peter grasped her elbow and led her into the car tracks leading to Amos’s driveway. The simple, natural gesture loosened Claudia’s aching tongue.
“How long have you known the watch was worth money?”
“How long? I don’t know exactly. A dozen years or so.”
Claudia hadn’t expected this. “You knew before you even saw it?”
“Naturally. Why do you suppose I met you in the first place?”
“Not simply by chance of cruel fate?”
He laughed softly. “Was your tongue always this sharp, dear Claude?”
“The honing process gained momentum when I got to know you.”
Another laugh. They could see Amos’s house now, and a car parked alongside. Peter, suddenly eager to talk, stopped under a muttering pine.
“I know where to look for certain lists, lists that itemize certain objects. Collectors are willing to pay a lot of money to get these items. Some are in museums, or private collections. Some are just lost. People like me are very, very good at tracking down these valuables and procuring them for collectors. So yes, I knew about the watch, and rumors about the alexandrite. I learned to keep eyes and ears open. One place is the antique jewelry trade. I really am an expert. Antique appraisers know who I am and respect me enough to call me in for consultations. When I heard of a plain watch with no markings, and a young lady who wanted information, I volunteered, and recognized the missing Tsar Alexander watch immediately. Once I saw you I knew that, despite your flaws, you could make the search for the gems more enjoyable.”
She remembered the magazine article. “You’re a bounty hunter.”
Winter Watch Page 19