Thirty-One
Ty pulled in behind Gus's truck, parked off the road just before the Rancourt driveway. Manny, his hands wiped off and disinfected, jumped out and checked the truck, but shook his head. Ty joined him, feeling the drop in temperature even at this elevation.
"No sign of anyone," Manny said, squinting up toward the Rancourt house. "Think they spotted Eric and went after him?"
"The trailhead's just up the road. It's possible—"
But he saw a movement up on the left side of the driveway, someone waving to them from behind a low stone wall, then collapsing back out of sight. Manny saw it, too. "That's Gus. Looks like he's down."
Manny was already on his way. North grabbed his medical kit from the back of the truck and ran, forcing back any intrusive thoughts—Carine? Where the hell was she? What had happened to Gus? But he knew not to get ahead of himself.
Manny leaped over the stone wall and squatted down next to Gus, who was conscious but in obvious pain. "Where are you hurt?" Manny asked. "What happened?"
"Turner bounced me off the bumper of his fucking car. I think I broke a leg, maybe a couple ribs—"
"Christ, Gus," Ty said. "You need to stay still, take it easy."
"Relax, I'm fine." His breathing was rapid, his eyes on Manny. "He's got your son and Hank up in the shed."
Manny had no visible reaction. "You saw them?"
Gus shook his head, wincing. "Just Turner and Hank. The Rancourts said he's got Eric up there, too. They knew and did nothing."
"Where's Carine?" North asked.
Gus winced. "Sneaking around back with a rock."
Ty pictured her last year, zigzagging up the hill from her cover behind the boulder. She was a scrapper. She'd do anything, but she wasn't stupid. He shook his head at Gus. "Jesus. I shouldn't have let you and Carine come up here on your own."
Manny fished a cervical collar out of North's med kit. "Too late, North. We're all here now."
Gus tried to sit up on an elbow. "You're not putting that fucking collar on me. Go find Carine. Turner must have hit me five, ten minutes ago at most. You didn't pass the Rancourts on the road? They said they'd call the police."
"Police are on their way," Ty said, but deliberately didn't tell him about Val. Gus had enough on his mind, and his pulse was rapid, his skin getting clammy. He needed an ambulance. "You warm enough?"
"Yeah. Toasty. Will you quit?" He licked a little blood off the corner of his mouth. "Bit my fucking lip. That hurt."
North quit arguing. "Just stay still."
"Carine won't do anything crazy."
Manny crouched behind the low stone wall and looked up the hill at the remaining length of driveway, the dirt track, the warming hut with its surrounding trees and natural landscaping. There was a lot of rock. "Think he's seen us?"
"I don't know," Ty said. "I'm guessing yes."
"North!"
The shout came from the warming hut. Turner.
Manny gave North a quick sideways look. "Well, he's seen you."
"Do you think I care if you bring in helicopters and every cop in the state?" Turner yelled. "Kill me. It doesn't matter. So long as I kill you and your friends on my way out."
"Shit," Manny said, "one of these suicide types. And he's got my kid."
North gave him a warning look. "You with me?"
Manny exhaled, nodded. "I'm going up there."
"Let's talk money." Turner, although he was shouting down the hill, sounded calm, even conversational.
"How much for your senator? For your friend's son? For your woman, Sergeant North? How much for her?"
"No way he has Carine," Manny said. "She'd never go quietly. Gus would have heard something."
Her uncle grunted. "This is bullshit. Turner doesn't want money. He had the Rancourts, for Christ's sake. They've got more money than all of us put together."
Ty took a breath. "Let's talk," he called. "Face-toface. You send out the boy, I'll come up there and talk money with you."
"I tried that trade once. I was almost double-crossed by Mrs. Bitch Carrera."
"I'm killing him," Manny said. "Understood?"
Ty ignored his friend. "Then let's get it right this time. Let the boy go, Turner. You don't want to hurt a kid."
"I've investigated you, Sergeant North." This time, Turner's voice held a note of sarcasm and superiority. "Suppose you give me some of that trust fund you've got tucked away?"
Manny looked at North. "Trust fund?"
"My father left my mother some money," he said. "When she died, she left it to me."
Gus frowned. "I wondered how she managed to live off making collages and painting waterfalls. Christ, you have a father after all, huh? How much money he leave you?"
"I'm comfortable."
"How comfortable?" Manny asked.
North ignored both of them. They were all, he knew, focused on the job at hand. "I don't think Turner saw you," he told Manny. "I'll keep him talking. You want to get up there?"
Manny nodded. "I'll see what Carine's up to. A rock. I hope it's a big one." He glanced at North. "The Ran-courts have rifles. I'll see what I can grab. But if things go south up there, I'm going in."
"Valerie Carrera's dead." Turner's voice seemed louder, almost echoing across the valleys and ravines. "Someone should have found her body by now. Did you pass her on your way up here?"
"Tyler! Mom!"
Eric Carrera. His voice wasn't as strong as Turner's, but it was distinct. Manny couldn't stand it and jumped up. "Your mom's alive, son."
North grabbed him and jerked him back down behind the stone wall, but Manny was already diving. A shot sounded, hitting a rock two feet to their left, just above their heads, sending a chunk flying. It struck Manny on the right side of his head, tearing out a two-inch strip of flesh above his ear. "Negotiate, my ass. He's fucking out to kill us. Damn boonies, or we'd have a tac team here by now."
"There's only the one road up. They're not going to come in here with guns blazing. They'll plan it out first." North reached for a bandage in his med kit and handed it to Manny. "At least we know where Turner is."
Manny patched his bleeding head. The flying rock probably would have knocked anyone else unconscious. "Yeah. He's up in the fucking shed with my kid, shooting at us."
"At least Eric can talk," Ty said. "That's a positive."
Gus tried to move but moaned in pain, gritting his teeth. "Hank's up there—I'm betting Turner hasn't hurt him yet. He'll want to keep all his bargaining chips as long as he can."
Blood had dripped down the side of Manny's face onto his neck, but he didn't seem to notice. "He wants us dead, but on his terms."
North nodded. "We contain the situation. We keep Hank and Eric alive until we get help up here."
"Easiest way is to kill this fuck," Manny said, crouching down low, then moving quickly, making his way from cover to cover up the hill.
Thirty-Two
The shot had been close enough that Carine had felt its concussion, as if the air around her was compressed, the oxygen sucked out of it by the velocity of the gun burst. Itwassounexpected,sostartling,she'dalmostscreamed, and ended up biting the inside corner of her mouth.
Turner didn't have her. In fact, he'd slipped out of the warming hut and was moving around back, near her position in the trees. She was cold—no hat, no gloves, just her barn coat. At least she was basically out of the wind.
"Carine," Turner said softly, dried leaves crunching under him, "I know you're here. I have a soft spot for you. Join me. You didn't know about North's trust fund, did you? We can get away from here. I won't hurt anyone if you come with me."
Maybe North had a trust fund, maybe he didn't, but she didn't believe Turner planned to do anything but shoot her the first chance he got. Either he really was losing his grip on reality or he was just pretending to, toying with her, manipulating her. She sank low behind a low-branching white pine. If she moved, he'd hear her—she couldn't see him, but she knew he was close.
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"I'm sick. I have cancer. It's all through me. No one's fault."
If true.
"It gives me perspective." His voice was eerily calm, almost toneless. "I know what I want before I die. Who I want to see die first. But I'd give that up if I could spend my last days with you."
She stiffened to keep herself from shivering with fear, the cold. She didn't dare look around the tree, make even the slightest sound.
"Tony—Louis—and I had a good thing going. I planned to live out my last months in style. I had a wife." His voice cracked. "The smuggling was to help set her and her idiot brother up for the future."
Carine had no choice but to let him talk. If he was talking—hunting her—he wasn't shooting anyone else. But had he seen her, heard her? Was he just playing with her before he pounced?
"Jodie Rancourt took up with Louis a year ago, before you took the pictures of our base of operations. She knew he was up to something, but she liked the sense of danger, the risk. She let us try out her and her husband's expensive guns."
Good God, Carine thought, wishing she had a tape recorder.
"He had them for show," Turner said as he crept around in the woods to her right, nearer the Rancourt house. "Louis wanted to kill you. I stopped him. I wanted to get the camera, make sure there were no incriminating pictures and make sure you were too scared to talk. Then the PJs and Hank Callahan showed up on the scene. I had to cut my losses."
She spotted him in the trees, up on the hill above her, still to her left, but if she stayed where she was, he'd see her. She picked up her rock and eased around the other side of her pine, making relatively little noise in the bed of red-brown pine needles. She hit grass, then quickly slipped into the back door of the hut.
Maybe it was what he'd planned all along. Corner her. Shoo her into the hut with Eric and Hank.
Eric was in the corner, sobbing and choking for air. Carine knelt down, setting the rock on the floor next to her, and quickly undid the bungee cords around the boy's wrists and ankles. "You heard your dad out there, right?"
The boy nodded. "He—he only tied me up this morning." But talking was clearly difficult for him, and once free, he immediately grabbed his inhaler, then sagged and threw it down. "None left."
"Look—sit tight," Carine said. "I'm going to untie Hank. Turner's outside looking for me. Maybe your dad and Tyler will intercept him."
She quickly ran to the front of the hut, where Hank was bound and gagged next to the small potbellied woodstove. Carine pulled the gag.
"Eric—he's going out the back. If Turner sees him—" Hank sat up straighter. "Go after him, Carine. I'll be okay."
He was bound with thin rope, the knots pulled tight. She tugged at them, trying to stretch the rope. "I can't get them without a knife."
"Go!"
She could hear Turner out front, stepping onto the ground-level porch. "What the fuck's going on in there?"
"We're out of time," Hank hissed.
She ducked down and ran toward the back of the hut, diving outside and down behind a woodbox next to the door. Eric was up by her pine tree, but he didn't stay put. He made a mad dash up the hill, into the woods, thrashing through the dried leaves.
Carine took a breath, pretending she was the one making the noise. "Gary," she said. "I told everyone you weren't trying to kill me that day last fall. The shack— you set it on fire?"
He was inside, moving toward her position. "I had to burn down the evidence. Manny Carrera was almost there—"
"He would have waited for the police. He was unarmed."
"I couldn't take that chance."
"What happened?"
"My wife was there. She tried to talk me out of burning everything down. She didn't want to give up. She and Tony Louis—they thought we could kill all of you."
He kicked at something on the floor just inside the door, probably Eric's bungee cords. "They were right. I should have listened. The explosion and fire killed her. I watched the woman I love burn to death."
"I'm sorry, but why didn't anyone find her body?"
"I buried her in the woods, before the ground froze. She didn't die right away, but I couldn't take her to the hospital. Louis ran—Jodie Rancourt helped him. I don't know if she guessed who he was then, knew it all along. I hid in the woods for weeks. I got a skin infection. Frostbite. I lost my fingers, a couple of toes."
"I'm sorry." She held her rock, wondering if he'd come outside and she could bonk him on the head before he shot her. "But hurting people because you're hurting—that's not your way. I can tell."
"I don't expect you to understand. It'll feel good to see those bastards go before I do. They think they can do anything."
He was out the back door, two feet from her. She didn't dare breathe.
"Are you armed, Carine?" he asked in a conversational tone. "The boy won't last. There was peanut oil in the energy bar I made him eat a little while ago. He doesn't know. He's deathly allergic to peanuts.
"North! Carrera!" It was Hank, yelling from inside the hut. "Eric's free. Turner's going after Carine. I'm setting this place on fire. I'm his only hostage."
Turner spun around. "What? Goddamn it—"
The sound of crashing metal—the potbellied stove— came from the hut, Hank still yelling information, instructions. Carine shot out from her woodbox cover and beaned Turner with her rock and ran, darting up the hill into the woods. He swore viciously, and she glanced back, seeing him down on one knee, grabbing his head where she'd hit him. He hadn't dropped his rifle.
She knew she'd only bought herself a few seconds.
But she could smell smoke. Hank had set the hut on fire, presumably creating a diversion—confusion, chaos—for Manny and Ty to act.
Carine zigzagged up the hill from tree to tree, trying to pick up Eric's trail and stay out of Turner's sight. Had he gone back into the hut to grab Hank? He wouldn't want to lose his only hostage.
But if he had, it wasn't for long.
She could hear him down the hill, behind her in the woods.
Thirty-Three
North and Manny had made it to the trees just below the hut when Hank decided to set the goddamn place on fire.
"Carrera, North—go after Turner!"
But the fire would spread rapidly—smoke was already pouring out of the front door. No way would they leave Hank in there to burn to death.
Without discussion, North ran, Manny with him. Automatically, Manny ducked to one side of the front door, Ty covering his mouth as best he could and bursting inside, crouched down as he grabbed Hank and dragged him out. Manny took over, throwing Hank over his shoulder and running a few yards back down the hill, dumping him behind a boulder.
Ty coughed, but he hadn't inhaled that much smoke. He dove behind the boulder and glanced back. Flames were eating up the wall where the woodstove had been. Hank wouldn't have stood a chance.
Manny got a knife from North's med kit and quickly cut the ropes on Hank's feet and hands. He was coughing up soot, his lips and cheeks swelling.
"Looks like you singed most of the hair off your face," Ty said. "Eyebrows, eyelashes. That's going to look good on TV."
"I'll be okay." Hank winced in pain, pushed North's hand away when he started to dig in his med kit." Go after Turner. Intercept him before he gets to Carine and Eric."
Ty had already thrust a tube of burn ointment at him. "This hut's going to keep burning. Stay clear of it."
Hank hissed irritably. "Jesus Christ, I know. I hope I bought Carine enough time. He's gone after her. He knew you'd storm the place once the fire started, and he wouldn't have a chance against all three of us."
"Eric?" Manny asked.
"He's not in good shape. He used the last of his inhaler. He tried—"
North checked a lump on Hank's forehead. "What'd you do, jump the woodstove?"
"Turner hit me on the way up here. He wants Carine dead as much as he does us. Maybe more. She took the pictures last fall, she turned him down on his o
ffer of the good life together—and Eric. Turner'll use him if he has to. He wants revenge. We ruined his life. He'll ruin ours."
North got to his feet. "No one knows these mountains better than Carine."
"Cold, fear, an uphill climb—Eric's going to collapse." Manny's head was bleeding through the bandage and had to be pounding, but Ty knew he wasn't going to stop. "Go, North. Pick up his trail. Don't let me slow you down. If I can't keep up, don't count on me."
Hank coughed and spat black soot. "I'll meet the police when they get here and get a rescue team in place. Gus?"
"Banged up pretty good. He's down by the stone wall."
"I'll hook up with him. If you see this guy—he's done playing games. He wants to kill someone. Don't take any chances."
* * *
Carine thought she'd gone too far and must have bypassed Eric somewhere down on the trail. She made the last, steep burst onto the main ridge trail, but kept going, not daring to call him.
Although she was still below the treeline, the wind was blowing hard, the temperatures dropping, the cold penetrating her barn coat and freezing her ears. She couldn't imagine Eric in his sweatshirt. What if he'd fallen? What if he'd collapsed? But she couldn't think about that—she had to keep moving, find him, stay ahead of Turner, hide from him.
She ducked on and off the trail, trying to stay within cover of trees or boulders, intensely aware she was unprepared for the conditions. But Eric had spent the night in the cold hut, kidnapped, terrified, conserving his inhaler as best he could. She could keep moving.
The trail meandered along a section of rock, marked with splashes of blue paint and rock cairns.
And then she saw Eric, collapsed in a patch of grass a few feet off the trail. Carine shot over to him. Fear and determination had gotten him moving fast, but now he was prone, barely breathing as he lay on the cold ground. She glanced around her for Turner, then grabbed the boy and half carried, half dragged him to the base of a fifteen-foot ledge, several stunted fir trees concealing them.
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