by Sandra Brown
Lilly placed the heels of her hands against her temples. “I can’t . . . argue . . . anymore.”
“So don’t. Just unlock the handcuffs.”
“You’ll kill me.”
“I’m trying to save your life.”
She shook her head, laboring to inhale. “I can . . . identify . . . you . . . as Blue.”
“You can’t identify me as anything if you suffocate.”
“A note.”
“Oh, I see. You’d leave a note, telling them that I’m Blue. You’d place it where they’d be certain to find it.”
She nodded.
“If that happened, I’d say that you became delusional from oxygen deprivation, that you were also convinced elephants were dancing inside the walls. They’d believe me. As for that”—he nodded at the blue ribbon, now curled on the seat of the rocking chair—“I’d tell them what I told you—I found it and was taking it back to town with me to turn over to the authorities.”
She motioned toward his hands.
“Yeah, explaining the cuffs would be tricky, but I’d have a day or two to think of something plausible. And just possibly I would be able to work my hands free before anyone got up here.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, nodding toward his bloody wrists. “Even if . . . I was dead . . . they’d have you.” Ending her argument there, she turned to leave the room.
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
She stopped but didn’t turn around.
He pressed on. “If you release me, what’s the worst that could happen, Lilly? Say I am Blue. Say I kill you so you can’t finger me to the authorities. You’re going to die anyway. In a matter of hours, if that long. So how could my murdering you be any worse?”
She turned to face him. “Save another . . . victim . . .”
“Ah, I see what you’re saying. You don’t want to unleash me onto an unsuspecting public, leaving me free to victimize more women, do to them whatever I’ve done to the others. Is that it?”
She nodded.
“Okay. That’s reasonable. Very altruistic, too. You’re placing the lives of others above your own.” He thought on it for a moment, then said, “Once I’m back with your medication, once I’ve carried in enough firewood to last for another day, I’ll let you handcuff me again. I’ll remain handcuffed until we’re rescued.”
She tried to laugh but didn’t have adequate breath. “I’m . . . not that . . . gullible . . . not that . . . oxygen deprived . . . yet.”
“You don’t trust me to keep my word?”
“No.”
“You can, Lilly. I swear it. You can trust me.”
“Give me one . . . one reason.” In spite of her determination not to cry, tears filled her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered roughly.
Drawn by his fierce gaze, by the memory of their kiss, she took a step closer. “Give me . . . one reason why . . . I should trust you, Tierney.”
He was about to speak when her cell phone rang.
For a second or two she didn’t grasp what the sound was or where it was coming from, only stood there gaping at Tierney, who appeared equally stunned by the unexpected noise.
When she realized the jangle was her cell phone, she frantically fished it from her coat pocket and flipped it open. “Dutch? Dutch!” Her voice was a mere croak. But it didn’t matter. The phone was dead, the LED dark. The connection had been momentary. A tease. Fate taunting her.
With a sob, she sank to her knees, clutching the silent phone to her chest.
“Lilly, don’t cry.”
“Leave me alone.”
“You must not cry. That’ll only make it worse.”
Her sobbing brought on a coughing fit. The spasms racked her whole body, contracted every muscle, squeezed precious air from her lungs. While she struggled to breathe, her mind registered Tierney’s elaborate swearing and his redoubled efforts to break the lock on the handcuffs.
It took several minutes for her to bring the coughing under control, but finally it subsided into loud wheezing.
“Lilly.”
She raised her head and wiped the tears from her eyes. Tierney had kicked the blanket off his legs and was straining against the cuffs like an animal caught in a trap, willing to tear off his hands in order to reach her.
“It’s true that I’ve given you very few reasons to trust me,” he said. “And many reasons for you not to. But I believe you know, you know, that I’m not someone you have to be afraid of. Rely on your instincts. Trust them, even if you don’t trust me.” He continued looking at her for several beats before adding, “Don’t die on me.”
She analyzed each feature of his face, looking for a telltale sign of villainy. If he were a sly abductor of women, wouldn’t she be able to tell? Wouldn’t she sense a disguised malevolence?
She looked, looked hard, but could find no trace of duplicity. If it was indeed there, he’d mastered the art of hiding it. He seemed sincere, trustworthy enough to make her doubt herself.
But his victims hadn’t detected his guile, either. They had trusted him.
Her expression must have conveyed her determination not to be duped, because he said angrily, “All right, ignore your instincts and plain common sense. Forget our day on the river. Never mind the kiss last night. Discount all that, but play the odds.”
“Odds?”
“Stay alive, and you’ll have a chance of capturing Blue. Die, and you’ll have none.”
I don’t know what to do, her mind screamed, but the only sound issuing from her throat was a terrible gurgling noise.
“Even a slim chance is better than none, Lilly.”
His argument was sound. But as soon as she released him, he would probably kill her. Her slim chance of incriminating him would die with her.
Taking advantage of her hesitation, he said, “I’ve saved the most obvious argument for last. The pistol. You still have it, and you know how to use it. What could I do to you as long as you’re holding me at gunpoint?”
She gave that rationale a few seconds’ thought. He was right. When all the arguments and second-guessing were pared away, it came down to her playing the odds. Slowly, she came to her feet. Warding off the light-headedness caused by oxygen deprivation, she turned and walked into the living room.
“Lilly! Goddammit!”
She returned just as quickly as she’d left, carrying the pistol in one hand, the key to the handcuffs in the other.
His shoulders slumped with relief. “Thank God.”
She set the pistol on the chair, far out of his reach. As she approached the bed, she extended the key toward him. “You . . . do . . . it.”
As soon as he had a grip on the key, she backed away hastily and reclaimed the pistol, aiming it at him.
There was just enough play in the cuffs for him to angle one hand down and the other up. With amazing dexterity, he fit the key into the tiny hole and turned it. The bracelet on his left wrist came free. In a matter of seconds he had the other bracelet off.
Then, in one fluid motion, he vaulted off the bed and yanked the pistol out of Lilly’s hands. It happened before she could blink, insufficient time for her brain to process that she should pull the trigger. She wheeled around and tried to run from him, but he hooked his arm around her waist, bringing her up short and trapping her right arm against her side. He lifted her off the floor and held her against his chest.
“Stop it!” he ordered when she began screaming.
“I knew,” she wheezed hysterically. “I knew. You’re him.” She thrust her free elbow against his rib cage and sank her nails into the back of his hand.
“Son of a bitch!” Ungracefully hauling her into the living room, he pushed her onto the sofa, then raised his hand to his mouth and sucked at the blood flowing from the deep scratches.
Lilly perched on the edge of the sofa only long enough to gasp several breaths, then launched herself at him again, flailing at his head. But the shortage of oxygen had affe
cted her coordination. Her arms felt heavy and rubbery. She tried to connect her fists with his head, but the attempts were futile. Most of her blows fell short, went wide, or landed with negligible impact.
When he took her by the shoulders and pushed her back onto the sofa, she was helpless to do anything except fall heavily into the back cushions. He crammed the pistol into the waistband of his jeans and swiped his bleeding hand against his leg. The angry-looking scratches immediately leaked as much blood as he had wiped away.
His breathlessness was almost as bad as hers. He was noisily inhaling great drafts of air and rapidly blinking as though to stave off dizziness. His upper torso was angled forward from the waist. The blow she’d given his sore ribs had made standing upright impossible.
Good, she thought. I hope you’re suffering terrible pain. She would have gloated out loud, but she didn’t have enough breath.
But she looked up at him defiantly. If he was going to kill her now, she wanted to be looking him in the eye. She wanted him to take her defiance into hell with him and remember it for eternity.
He seemed on the verge of saying something but, without a word, went to the door and opened it. Within seconds he was back with an armload of firewood, which he dumped onto the hearth. He knelt down and stirred the coals to re-ignite the logs already on the grate.
This mystified her. “You aren’t . . . going to . . . kill me?”
“No,” he said brusquely as he came to his feet. He motioned at the logs he’d just carried in. “As they dry out, add them to the fire. They’ll last you a couple of hours.”
Only then did she realize his intention. He didn’t need to kill her. All he had to do was abandon her, leave her in the throes of a fatal asthma attack, and let the bothersome matter of Lilly Martin resolve itself. Why chalk up another murder on his roster of crimes when he didn’t need to?
To cover the ones he’d already committed, he had the presence of mind to retrieve the evidence against him from the bedroom. He replaced the handcuffs and ribbon in his backpack. As he zipped them into separate compartments, he avoided looking at her. Was he feeling a twinge of guilt?
Because by not killing her, he was condemning her to her worst fear. While she’d been debating whether or not to release him, one scenario she hadn’t considered was that he would abandon her to live through her nightmare before succumbing to it. Her heart constricted. “You promised—”
“I know what I promised,” he said, cruelly cutting her off.
He pulled on his coat and worked the watch cap down over his head. He draped the stadium blanket over the cap and folded the ends of it across his chest before zipping it inside his coat. He wound the wool scarf around his neck and the lower half of his face, then pulled on his gloves. Last, he picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. Every motion caused him to grimace and gasp in pain. Nevertheless he moved with haste, purpose.
As he walked toward the door, she was tempted to call him back, beg him to shoot her now. It would be a swift and painless death, not the prolonged and terrifying one facing her. She was more frightened of the fear and dread of dying than she was of death itself.
But she had too much pride to beg him for anything, nor would her survival instinct concede a voluntary death. So she watched him walk away, leaving her to struggle for each breath until she could struggle no longer, leaving her to die alone.
When he reached the door, he paused with his hand on the knob and turned only his head. Above the scarf, his eyes connected with hers, but only for an instant, no longer.
He opened the door. A swirl of snow engulfed him. Then it vanished as quickly as he.
• • •
Lilly’s cell phone rang twice before the connection was lost, which was more tormenting to Dutch than if it hadn’t rung at all. The aborted call increased his frustration, which was already strained to the breaking point.
The anteroom of police department headquarters was more crowded than he remembered it being since he was hired as chief. The feebs were there. Agent Wise was solemnly—did that guy ever crack a smile?—introducing Begley to Millicent Gunn’s parents. Mrs. Gunn looked scrawnier today than she had yesterday.
Wes, for reasons unbeknownst to Dutch, had been there when they arrived and was drinking coffee and chatting with the officer manning the desk. He was head of the city council, but since when was a police investigation any business of his?
Harris had followed them from the hospital in his squad car. He was starstruck by Wise and Begley, trailing them like a puppy, stumbling over his own big feet in his eagerness to assist. Why wasn’t he out on patrol, where he was supposed to be? And why wasn’t he, Dutch, ordering Harris back to his unit and onto the streets, where he could be of some use, instead of in here, further crowding the place, getting in everybody’s way?
For some reason, Dutch didn’t have the wherewithal to correct the young officer. It didn’t seem worth the effort it would take to issue an order and put any level of authority behind it. He felt oddly detached from what was going on around him, and he wondered not only at what point he had lost control but when he had ceased to care.
When the FBI entered the picture in the form of big shot SAC Begley?
Or when Wes Hamer, his so-called best friend, started kissing Begley’s ass as often as possible?
Or maybe when Cal Hawkins asked him the question he’d begun asking himself: Does your old lady want to be rescued?
He hadn’t felt this defeated since his last screwup in Atlanta. It had been the coup de grâce, the mistake that was too serious for a disciplinary action like suspension or probation. Only being fired would suffice. When you pulled your service weapon on a nine-year-old kid, mistaking his aluminum baseball bat for a gun because you were shitfaced drunk, the APD had no choice but to fire you. Do not pass go. Do not collect your pension. You’re outta there.
He felt equally defeated today. Betrayed by all: his wife, the weather, his best friend, his career, fate or the stars or God or whoever the hell was in charge of guiding his not-worth-a-crap destiny.
He needed a drink.
Officer Harris was leading the Gunns and the FBI agents down the short hallway toward Dutch’s private office. Begley, bringing up the rear of this parade, turned back to address him. “Are you joining us, Chief Burton?”
“I’ll be right there. Soon as I grab my messages.”
Begley nodded, then continued on and entered Dutch’s office through the door that Harris was holding open for him.
When they were out of earshot, Wes turned to Dutch and assessed the cuts on his face. “How’re you doing?”
He snatched a wad of pink memo slips from his dispatcher. “Just great, thanks.”
“Face hurt?”
“Like a son of a bitch.”
“Didn’t they have something to put on it?”
“It’ll be okay.”
“I could go over to the drugstore, pick up something from Ritt.”
Dutch shrugged. “Whatever.” He started toward the hallway, but Wes hooked his hand around his elbow.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Dutch?”
He threw off Wes’s hand. “Shit, no, I’m not all right!”
Realizing that his subordinate officer was all ears, he lowered his voice to a mumble. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s been a lousy morning.”
Wes sighed, ran his hand over his cropped hair. “Stupid question. I’m sorry. Look, Lilly is okay, Dutch. I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah.” Actually, he was more afraid that she was better than okay.
“Tell you what,” Wes said. “I’ll run over to the drugstore while you’re talking with Millicent’s folks. Pick up some salve for those cuts on your face, have Ritt or Marilee make some sandwiches to bring back.”
Dutch looked into Wes’s face and could see nothing disingenuous there. Just his old friend’s handsome features and a sincere regard that, despite their friendship, Dutch was coming to mistrust. “That would
be helpful. Thanks.”
“You bet. Now get on back there. This is your show, don’t forget.”
Wes’s parting words drilled their way through the bedrock of his defeatism. It was his show, but God. Everyone, including himself, seemed to have forgotten that. High time they were reminded.
As he headed down the hallway toward his office, he squared his shoulders and forced more confidence into his step. Harris was standing outside the door like a sentinel. Dutch hitched his thumb toward the front of the building. “Your squad car is getting cold.”
Harris looked at him stupidly. “Sir?”
“This isn’t a snow day, Harris,” he barked. “See to your duties.”
“Yes, sir.” The young cop rushed down the hall.
Dutch entered his office in time to hear Mrs. Gunn telling Wise and Begley that they’d had no serious problems with Millicent other than her eating disorder, and that she’d been cured of it.
“I can’t bear to think of her out there somewhere in this weather,” she said.
“That’s why we welcome this opportunity to talk to you, Mrs. Gunn.”
Begley’s tone of voice was that of a kindly father figure, and Dutch resented the way the Gunns responded to it. Give Begley a few days on the case, and they’d be questioning his methods and effectiveness just like they had his.
“You reckon Ben Tierney is the B.T. mentioned in her diary?” Mr. Gunn asked.
“We’re not sure of that yet,” Begley replied. “Agent Wise is looking into several possibilities. Mr. Tierney is only one of them. We must be very thorough before we draw any conclusions.”
“But old Gus Elmer said that you’d sealed off this Tierney’s rooms at the lodge. Did you find something in them? Something belonging to Millicent?”
Dutch saw the agents exchange a look of consternation. Wise was the one to address Mr. Gunn’s question. “We sealed off his rooms to protect potential evidence in the event that Mr. Tierney has a connection to her disappearance. That’s not to say we believe he does.”
“But you haven’t sealed off anybody else’s rooms,” Gunn argued. “How many other men around here have the initials B.T.?”