The Step Between

by Penny Mickelbury

  “What are you doing out here, Mr. MacDonald?”

  He looked at her as if she had gone mad. “What am I doing out here?” He shook his head in disbelief, then he laughed. “You do amaze me. And since you’re so amazingly forthright, I think you deserve an answer: I’m doing the same thing I imagine you’re doing. I’m looking for Annabelle. And for Ruth. Where are they?”

  She struggled to maintain her aura of control and to conceal her surprise at hearing him speak of Annabelle. “I don’t know where Annabelle is, Mr. MacDonald, and since I’m a little lost myself at the moment—”

  “You’re a liar!” He spat the accusation at her with such venom that she recoiled, and was thankful that he was as far away from her as he was. He had changed in an instant. Rage purpled his face and veins protruded in his forehead and his eyes bulged. But there was something else fueling the rage and, difficult as it was to reconcile with his behavior, Carole Ann thought it was fear.

  He thought Annabelle was alive, and he’d made no mention of Jocelyn. Did that mean that he hadn’t been following them? And if he hadn’t, what was he doing here? “I’m not lying, MacDonald. I lost my bearings when I was running through the woods and I really don’t know where Annabelle is.”

  “Kneel down, Miss Gibson.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She was taken completely off guard and totally startled by his direction.

  “I said kneel down, and lock your hands over your head. I’ve researched you extensively and I don’t intend to get close enough for you to display your martial arts prowess.” He chuckled to himself. “Richard thought the articles made you sound too noble, citing as they did your disdain for weapons and touting your emphasis on the arts aspect of martial arts, and therefore he found them not entirely believable. I, however, believe every word. Now. Do as I ask and kneel down!” he said, his voice so thick with tension that the gun quivered in his hand. She obeyed.

  He began to inch closer to her, keeping the gun trained on her but having to be careful of his footing. She was downhill from him, and the underbrush was a thick tangle. He stumbled and wobbled once, and quickly righted himself. The gun remained steady in his hand. He might be a novice as an intimidator, but he clearly was an expert with a gun. Even if she could manage to surprise him with a display of her own weapon, she was no expert.

  “If you don’t know where Annabelle is, why are you out here? How would you know to come here? And why did you evade me when you saw me on the road? Your behavior is suspicious, to say the least.”

  “My behavior is suspicious? Have you lost your mind?” she snapped at him, finally too irritated to remain frightened. “You kidnapped my partner’s wife and murdered our client and destroyed his business, all the while pretending to be a servant, and you call my behavior suspicious? What kind of drugs are you on, MacDonald?”

  He stared at her for a full minute. Then he smiled and nodded his head to her, signaling a touché of sorts. “Obviously your good press is well earned, Miss Gibson; you’re every bit as tough as your notices report, though you do err in several significant respects. I did not kidnap Mr. Graham’s wife, nor did I murder Mr. Childress.”

  “But you did kill your brother, didn’t you, Mr. MacDonald?”

  “Actually, no, I didn’t do that, either, though I have planned in my mind, for years and years, ways to rid myself of him. He’s really an awful human being.” There was genuine sadness in his voice and Carole Ann was beginning to feel more and more like Alice down the bunny hole. He’d spoken of Sanderson in the present tense.

  “You’re going to have a difficult time convincing a jury of that, especially since nobody’s seen him since Harry Childress was murdered and since he was doing his dirty deeds in your name. You have motive, you have method,” with a nod to the weapon in his hand, “and you no doubt had opportunity. And unless you kill me, too, I certainly intend to contribute to your conviction.” She hoped she sounded convincing because she no longer was convinced that John MacDonald had killed his brother or anyone else. Fear was wreaking havoc with the man’s emotions.

  “Does anyone else think I’m guilty of having committed these crimes?”

  “Quite a few people, as a matter of fact. And besides, I saw your hand, MacDonald,” she said, aware of a slight edge of hysteria creeping into her voice. “I know you were responsible for Grace Graham’s kidnapping. I know you were there that night.”

  “You saw my . . . I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” He spoke with such guileless surprise that she believed him. And yet, she’d seen the ring. Twice.

  “The woman’s ring you’re probably wearing at this very moment, Mr. MacDonald, on the baby finger of your left hand. You were wearing it the night I exchanged the OnShore and Seaboard documents for Mrs. Graham and I saw it. That’s how I knew to connect you to all of this: I saw the ring again when you served us coffee at Mr. Islington’s the other day. . . .” She gasped. On his left hand. The kidnapper had worn the ring on his right hand.

  He closed his eyes and his body sagged, as if some of the air had been siphoned from him. “Sandy, you fool,” he whispered. Then he smiled sadly and there was not the slightest trace remaining of the raging, murderous pseudo-mercenary of a moment ago. “Let me tell you the story of this ring,” he said softly, raising his left hand, removing the glove, and looking at the sparkling circle on his baby finger. “My brother gave this ring to Annabelle Islington when he promised to marry her. She didn’t know he was a womanizing scum. She didn’t know men like him at all. For all his faults, Richard Islington was a good father. Not a warm one or an openly affectionate one, but a good one. He exposed Annabelle to as much good as he could buy, and kept as much evil and ugly away from her as he could afford to shelter her from.”

  “Then how did she meet your brother?”

  He sighed, as if he himself were the helpless, hapless father of the rebellious daughter. “They all leave the nest, Miss Gibson. She graduated from college and moved out on her own. Her father disagreed about the wisdom of that—she moved to Falls Church to placate him because he believed living in the city was dangerous, and she deliberately pursued activities and behaviors and people she knew he would oppose.”

  “Like your brother.”

  He nodded. “They met at a movie, of all places. I learned of their association purely by accident. Even after she moved out on her own, I periodically visited her, just to be certain that she was all right. And one day, Sandy was there.”

  “You’re very close to her, aren’t you, Mr. MacDonald?”

  “I’ve known her most of her life. I began working for Richard when she was seven. I drove her to school and to ballet classes and horseback-riding and piano lessons. I was Mr. Islington’s assistant, but it gradually fell to me to care for Annabelle as she grew older, and I didn’t mind. She’s really a very nice girl,” he said almost proudly.

  “Then why are you trying to kill her?” Carole Ann shot at him, wounding as she’d intended.

  His head snapped back as if he’d been slapped. “I’m not trying to kill her, for God’s sake! Are you mad? I’m trying to find her . . . to find out what Sandy may have told her. My brother created more trouble for me than I know of, Miss Gibson.”

  “You didn’t know he’d used your name to buy his way into partnership with Harry Childress?”

  “No!” he exploded, the anger back in full force, but without the hysterical rage. “The bastard! Annabelle told me. Apparently she surprised him with a visit at the warehouse and called him Sandy or . . . Jimmy is what she called him. And Harry Childress was standing there and asked who Jimmy was . . . is that what put you and Graham onto him? He was so scared and so angry! I, of course, enjoyed every moment of his misery, especially when I discovered my inadvertent part.”

  “He used the Social Security number of a John David MacDonald from Georgia who’s deceased. That’s what caught our attention.”

  He blanched. The blood drained from his face and he blinked rapidly. �
�That was my father,” he said quietly. “He escaped to Canada to avoid the army and Vietnam back in the 1960s. He met my mother, produced me, and, with the United States Military Police on his trail, he escaped again. He was killed in a car crash when I was seven.”

  “So, what about the ring?”

  He shrugged and looked again at his hand. “Annabelle learned that Sandy was much worse than a liar. He had numerous women, which he freely admitted to her. He also admitted that his desire to marry her was sparked, at first by her father’s wealth, and then, later, when he found out about Ruthie’s trust fund. She gave the ring back to him and he was going to give it to one of his other girls, some secretary at the warehouse. It had no more meaning than that to him. So I took it from him. I don’t know what I planned to do with it, but I couldn’t allow him to give it to some secretary or, worse, to that one who was following him all around everywhere.”

  Carole Ann thought immediately of the Jane Doe in the warehouse. “A young woman followed him about?”

  He nodded. “She even had the temerity to show up at my home! Of course, it wasn’t her fault. Sandy told her to come.”

  “Where is your brother, Mr. MacDonald? Since you didn’t kill him.”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. Ask that fat old bastard he works for.”

  Fat old bastard. The final piece dropped into place. Bill Williams, Carole Ann thought. All along it was Bill Williams pulling the strings.

  When the alarm sounded, MacDonald jumped, stumbled, and almost fell. Carole Ann knew instantly that the silence-shattering whoop was the Explorer’s alarm, that someone must have tried to enter it. She rolled over on the ground, crab-crawling into the underbrush, digging into her pocket for her gun. It felt familiar and comfortable in her hand. She rolled over and fired toward MacDonald; she did not try to aim. She quickly fired off two more rounds. Then, above the noise of the truck’s alarm, she heard men’s voices yelling. Then she heard MacDonald cry out in anguish before she heard him crashing through the brush. She scrambled to her feet and began her own scurry.

  “Jocelyn, if you hear me, I’m fine,” she said into her chest. “I repeat, I am not wounded and I’m moving and I hope I’m moving in your direction.” She picked up her pace, running wildly and with abandon, tree branches slashing at her face. Suddenly she stopped and listened. She thought she’d heard her name called. The truck’s alarm was still screeching in the distance, but that was the only sound she heard.

  She began moving again, not running but picking her way through underbrush that had grown considerably denser. The gun she still held in her right hand was impeding her progress; she needed two hands to move the branches. . . . “Shit! You scared the shit out of me!” She pushed aside a branch with her left hand and came face-to-face with Jocelyn Anderson.

  “Damn smart move leaving that phone on,” she said in her usual calm tone.

  “I thought so,” Carole Ann replied, striving for an equal degree of calm.

  “Where’s MacDonald going?”

  “If we’re lucky, directly into the arms of the West Virginia State Police. Or the county sheriff’s deputies. Or whoever Central called. Is Ruthie Eva all right?”

  Jocelyn nodded. “Scared out of her mind, but she’s fine. She says Bill Williams sent her here to meet her daughter but then she panicked, wondering why, if Williams knew where Annabelle was, he didn’t just tell her.”

  “Good for her! How much further, Jocelyn?”

  “We’re there. Or here. Or whatever,” she said with an exasperated grin.

  Carole Ann’s hackles were on their way up and her eyes opened wide. What Bill Williams had called a “shack” was, in reality, a woven wonder growing out of the underbrush. It was small, no more than one room, and it appeared to be made of the underbrush itself—it was thatched and woven—Carole Ann didn’t know what to call it; she’d never seen anything like it. She stepped closer to it and touched it, in some way to convince herself that it was real. She looked inside but darkness stared back at her: a small, tidy, clean darkness. “She is a remarkable woman,” she said, speaking essentially to herself and only barely aware that her words were audible.

  “I’m a very simple woman, Mrs. Crandall, who has had more good luck than I know what to do with.” Ruthie Eva, somehow, was behind her, dressed from head to toe in ski clothes and with a heavy wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jocelyn said with urgency. “C.A., we’ll take Miss Simmons’s vehicle. I don’t think we should take the time to look for the truck, and I don’t think we want to talk to the authorities just yet.”

  Carole Ann agreed and they ran around to the side of the little cottage to where Ruthie Eva’s forest-green four-wheel-drive sport utility was parked. In the spring and summer, it would be virtually invisible parked here.

  “Do you mind if I drive, Miss Simmons?” Jocelyn asked, even as she was approaching the driver’s side door. “We may need to move in a hurry and I wouldn’t want you to be accused of doing anything illegal.”

  Ruthie Eva took a deep breath and handed over the keys. She climbed into the backseat, leaving the front to Carole Ann. They were under way in seconds, bumping along the lane that would lead them out to the auxilary road that would return them, eventually, to the interstate. “If you want, I can show you a back way,” she said tentatively.

  “Show me!” Jocelyn cried enthusiastically and gratefully. “I would do just about anything to avoid running into the West Virginia gendarmes.” And, following directions, she slowed to a crawl and turned onto a road only a native would have known existed and there, before them, was the river.

  “What majesty!” Carole Ann exclaimed. “No wonder you chose this spot. But why on earth do you call that a shack?”

  Ruthie Eva chuckled and drawled, “Well, it ain’t a house and it ain’t a cabin. It’s just one little room, no electricity, no running water. Just a cot and a table and a couple of chairs. I cook on the pit in the back.”

  “What did Williams tell you?” Carole Ann asked.

  “To come up here and meet Annabelle. That she was in some kind of trouble and that he was sending her up here to be safe. It wasn’t until I got here that what he said didn’t make sense.”

  “I called you, Ruth, early this morning, and you didn’t answer.”

  “My phone was out of order when I woke up. . . . Oh, my God! Do you think somebody . . . Bill called me on my portable because he said my line was out of order. . . . Oh, my God. If I didn’t have this little phone . . .”

  “What would have happened?” Carole Ann asked the question only of herself. “Who would have harmed you? And why?” She found that she believed John MacDonald’s claim not to have harmed anyone. But if he wasn’t in collusion with Jimmy Sanderson, then who was? “The second car,” she muttered.

  “The gray hatchback?” asked Jocelyn.

  She nodded. “MacDonald had been following me, but he wasn’t trying to kidnap me; he was hoping that I’d lead him to Annabelle. The guy with the gun was trying to scare me off. He’s part of whoever kidnapped Grace and killed Harry Childress and torched the warehouse.”

  “Abduct you? Hurt you? John? John wouldn’t hurt you or anyone else. And what does any of this have to do with Annabelle? Or with Richard, for that matter?” Ruthie Eva’s confusion was equal parts anger and fear, a mirror image of Carole Ann’s own feelings.

  “I’m not absolutely certain,” she began, but Ruthie Eva interrupted.

  “You don’t know where Annabelle is, do you?”

  Carole Ann hesitated for a moment before responding. “No, I don’t.”

  “Did you shoot John?” she asked hesitantly and fearfully.

  And Carole Ann actually managed a laugh. “If I did, it would be a miracle of biblical proportions! I was on the ground, rolling away from him. I fired in his general direction, but above him. I just wanted him to know that I was armed and I prayed that he would just leave me alone. Then I heard y
elling and I heard MacDonald running away, so I ran in the opposite direction.”

  “Speaking of which, what do I do here?” Jocelyn asked, and Carole Ann, who had turned around to look at Ruthie Eva, faced the front to see a fork in the road.

  “Go right,” she said, and before anyone could ask a question they passed a huge, blue MARYLAND WELCOMES YOU sign.

  “We’re in Maryland?” asked Jocelyn.

  “Yep,” replied Ruthie Eva. “And in about fifteen or twenty miles, you’ll see the signs for the interstate.”

  “Way to go—”

  “I know where this is!” Carole Ann exclaimed. “I know where we are! This is where they had Grace!”

  12

  “WHO’S GRACE?” ASKED RUTHIE EVA.

  “Are you sure?” asked Jocelyn, something like fear heavy in her voice. Then she composed herself and added, “Call ’em and let ’em know we’re OK and heading home.”

  Carole Ann reached into her pocket for her phone and found it was still on and the “low battery” light was blinking. She shut it off and extended a hand to Jocelyn, who, without a word, reached into her own pocket, retrieved her phone, and dropped it into C.A.’s palm. She punched it on and punched in the familiar GGI number. “Central, this is C.A. Gibson. We’re coming in, ETA four hours.” She listened, the expression on her face changing to something unreadable. She relayed their exact location, and then listened for a few moments more. “Jake,” she said after an interval. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said after having listened for several long minutes. Cradling the phone between her ear and shoulder, she reached for the notepad and pen on the dash and wrote briefly. “We’re fine, really,” she said finally, “and we’ll see you soon.”

  She switched off the phone, sat back, and closed her eyes, signaling that she needed not to be disturbed. She thought she had gathered all the pieces and fit them into their proper places in the puzzle. She was wrong. MacDonald was as innocent as he’d claimed—he wasn’t a mass murderer or a terrorist—he’d told the truth about that. And James Sanderson had an accomplice. A partner who still was very much alive and active. A partner whom Jake had identified and who, at this very moment, was closer to them than they could ever have imagined.