Duplicate Daughter

by Alice Sharpe

  Taking a roundabout approach, he made his way to the dark shape lying in the snow. As he came within a few feet, he heard more rapid fire. He was under attack! As bullets whizzed behind him, he tumbled forward in the snow, the rifle held out at the side, scrambling to his knees to take cover behind the wounded man, shooting into the brush near the dock from where the shots came.

  The injured man groaned. Nick couldn’t risk even the smallest of flashlights to check for wounds. He used his frozen hands and felt something warm and sticky on the man’s chest.

  Time was critical. Did he have an injured good guy, an injured bad guy or what?

  He shook the victim’s shoulder and got more groans. Obviously, the wound was too extensive to make this man much of a threat. Nick would get him into the house; to leave him out here would be to leave him to die from exposure.

  He rose to a stooped position. In the moment of stillness that followed, he heard the crunch of someone approaching through snow. Breathing suspended, he searched the landscape.

  Another shot and a bullet sliced through his jacket sleeve. Nick returned fire and a dark shape detached itself and fell forward from a bank of trees.

  Nick stood slowly, shakily. It had been well over ten years since he’d fired a gun at another human being. He used the small flashlight he always carried in his pocket to examine the fallen man in front of him. Blood seeped through his jacket. His face was covered with fallen snow.

  Nick then moved to the other man, rifle ready. This guy was lying on his face. A 9mm Glock had fallen beside his hand and Nick picked it up carefully, thumbing on the safety, dropping it into the deep pocket of his down jacket.

  He could feel no pulse, but his hands were so cold it was hard to know for sure. Since his sympathies at this point favored the first wounded man, who at least hadn’t shot at him, Nick retraced his steps, shining his flashlight. The injured man flung up an arm in a defensive gesture—a good sign. Nick stooped to help him stand, supporting most of his weight. Helping the victim manage the deepening snow quickly became an arduous chore made more difficult as the poor guy lost consciousness.

  When Nick finally gained the front porch, he pounded on the door. There wasn’t time for finesse. He yelled, “Katie? Let me in.”

  She had apparently been hovering against the door, for the moment his hand hit the solid wood, it flew inward. She seemed to size up the situation in a heartbeat. Throwing her shoulder under the man’s other arm, she helped Nick get him inside and onto a leather sofa. For a small woman, she was strong, though Nick did notice her limp was back.

  Sweeping a lap blanket off one of the chairs, he gave it to Katie with the instructions, “Apply pressure to his chest. There’s another injured man outside. I’ve got to get to him before he freezes.”

  His gaze followed hers as it dropped to his arm. A rent in the sleeve leaked white down.

  “Nick, what’s going on?”

  “Gunfight at the OK corral,” he said. Seeing the bewilderment in her eyes, he added, “Two men are trying to kill each other. And me. I’ll be right back.” He turned when he reached the door to find Katie leaning over the man on the couch, pressing the blanket against his chest. Her complexion had turned a pea-soup green.

  Nick retraced his steps, using the flashlight to illuminate the night. The snow seemed to be slowing down. He found the scuffed-up snow he’d created as he helped the fallen man stand upright and veered off toward the trees, looking for the man he’d brought down with his rifle.

  He found a depression in the snow, spatters of cherry-red blood, and the barest trace of footsteps leading away. The man hadn’t been dead after all.

  Nick had the gunman’s Glock in his pocket, but there was nothing to say there wasn’t another gun trained on him at that very moment. He immediately flicked off the light and hugged the landscape again, making his way back to the house in a hurry. Just before he opened the door, he thought he heard the sound of a motor starting off toward the south. He paused, listening. Yes, a motor.

  “Where’s the other one?” Katie asked as he locked the front door behind him.

  “Gone. I wounded him, but he apparently wasn’t as bad off as I thought,” he said shrugging off his jacket.

  “This one is a mess,” Katie said.

  Nick said, “Well, we’ll do what we can for him.” He moved closer. Katie had used a corner of the blanket to wipe the man’s face clear of snow.

  Nick said, “I heard a motor start. Probably a—”

  He stopped talking as he took in the haggard face of the wounded man lying on his sofa.

  Time seemed to stop.

  It just stopped. A minute, two minutes…a week.

  “Nick? What is it? Do you know this man?”

  “Yes,” Nick whispered, breathing again, blinking.

  “Who is he? Nick?”

  “My father. This man is my father.”

  “Your father!” She stood abruptly, her face drained of color, her hands covered with blood. Nick took over with the blanket.

  “If this is your father, then where in the hell is my mother?”

  Chapter Six

  Caroline surveyed her “cell” on hands and knees, shaking with fear and cold, her thin pajamas little help in keeping warm.

  One wall, a right angle, another wall, another turn, another wall. A small pipe, flush with one wall, allowing cold, fresh air to seep into the pit. Her hands bumped against something freestanding and solid and she stopped. Sitting with her back against the dirt wall, she patted the floor with eager fingers to recover what she’d bumped into.

  Something heavy—a plastic jug. Two. Three. Then something soft like clothing—no, a blanket. A small box filled with objects. Fumbling in the box, she felt a cool, metal cylindrical shape. A flashlight, she realized with a stab of relief so acute it forced a sob from her throat. She flicked it on with a surge of hope.

  The hope died as she shone the light over four dirt walls and a roof that looked as though it was composed of sheets of plywood. Her prison was little more than a four-foot-deep hole in the ground. She beat against the boarded top and was rewarded with dense thuds. Even though there were a few gaps in the boards, they didn’t admit any light.

  Her total findings consisted of three gallon bottles of water, an empty pail with a lid, presumably for waste, a roll of tissue, two rough wool blankets that looked like Army surplus, a box of crackers, two dozen plastic-wrapped cheese sticks and five green apples.

  The volume of food alarmed her. There was so much! Did this mean she was going to be held here for several days?

  She’d spent a lifetime trying to get away from her thoughts. The realization that they were to be her only company for who knows how long caused her heart to race—the sure beginning of a panic attack.

  She held the flashlight against her chest, afraid to turn it off even though she’d found no extra batteries. What did it matter? Better to have light now, better to investigate every nook and cranny, better to examine the wooden “lid.”

  If she yelled through the cracks? Through the pipe?

  Up on her haunches, she pressed her lips against the wood and screamed. She hit it with her fists. When that proved pointless, she screamed into the pipe. Nothing. Next she examined the walls with the flashlight. None of this flurry of activity revealed any new information, and once again she sank into a sitting position, tears running unheeded down her cheeks. She wrapped one blanket around her shoulders and another around her legs. She tried conjuring up Bill’s face, Tess’s face. She needed them. But she couldn’t see more than their eyes, and their eyes were filled with disappointment.

  She turned off the flashlight and was instantly plunged back into darkness.

  Bill and Tess were a million miles away.

  She was totally alone.

  Who was doing this to her?

  And why?

  “DOES HE LOOK like the man you saw at the window?” Nick asked as stared down at his father.

  “I don’t
know. It’s kind of hard to tell.”

  “Well, I guess we better try to save him,” Nick said, turning away.

  While retaining pressure on the injured man’s wound, Katie carefully cut away the thick layers of clothes covering his torso. Meanwhile, Nick relit the lanterns, heated water on a butane burner and gathered medical supplies. He seemed to have an abundance of the latter and explained that living in a town without a doctor meant taking care of small emergencies yourself.

  Small emergencies.

  Nick’s father groaned and Katie stopped what she was doing in order to pay close attention to his mumbling. Nonsensical sounds that may or may not have been words. Eyes opening and closing without comprehension, more murmurs and groans. Somewhere inside this man’s head was the knowledge of where Katie’s mother could be found. It had to be in there. He had to live to share it. He had to live long enough to tell them where to start looking.

  “Where is she, where’s my mother?” Katie urged. “Bill, where is Caroline?”

  “Caroline,” he muttered, but that was all he got out before he faded away again.

  Nick deposited a tray of supplies on the nearby table. He’d already positioned four lanterns to shed as much light as possible. “I don’t think he’s up to much conversation,” he said.

  “No kidding.” Catching sight of the scalpel on the tray, she added, “Do you actually have medical training?”

  “Not really. You?” He pulled a stool close.

  “None. His breathing seems shallow.”

  “He’s probably going into shock. I should have made a stretcher to get him inside, but the bullets whizzing past my head made me a tad anxious.”

  She stared at Nick for a moment. “I know you don’t like your father, that he’s disappointed you in the past,” she said, “but you have to put that behind you. It’s time to mend fences and—”

  “Please, please,” he interrupted. “Spare me the psychobabble.”

  “You have to save him,” she insisted.

  He didn’t look particularly convinced.

  “I mean it, Nick. Without him, we have absolutely no clue as to where to start looking for my mother.”

  “I’m not an idiot and I’m not into patricide,” he scoffed.

  “Just so you understand.”

  “I understand. I have to save my father in order to save your mother. I got it.”

  She looked away. All she knew was that if Bill opened his eyes and saw the expression on his son’s face and the scalpel in his hand, he’d probably pass out again.

  Together they peeled away the blood-soaked garments, exposing the bullet hole. “It’s a little higher on the chest than I thought it was,” Nick said briskly. “That’s good—it probably bypassed anything major. If it hit the carotid artery, he’d have already bled out.” He rolled his father gently onto his side. “There’s no exit wound though. I’m not a surgeon, but I think the bullet better come out.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I’d better try.” He brought a syringe from his medical kit and injected his father with morphine.

  The next thirty minutes were a nightmare for Katie, though Nick seemed to enter into a focused zone that precluded anything but the task at hand. He sliced through his father’s skin and muscle with apparent calm, attempting to find the bullet that had torn through the older man’s flesh. When he finally dropped the squat piece of metal onto the tray, Katie swallowed hard and did her best not to faint.

  When he was finished, Katie taped on layers of bandages while Nick carried away the bloody towels.

  “This will have to do until we can move him to a hospital,” Nick said, standing back and surveying their handiwork.

  “When will that be?”

  “As soon as the storm lets up and the roads are usable.”

  “It’s too bad my sister wasn’t able to come up here instead of me,” Katie said as she peeled off the sterilized gloves both she and Nick had worn.

  “Why?”

  “She’s a veterinarian. She’d have been a lot more help to your father than a bartender.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “I’ve done that and a few other odd jobs.”

  “No focus?”

  She sighed. “No money.”

  “So what would you like to do?”

  “In my fantasy world? Run a place of my own. A little bar with a restaurant. Good food, nice music, friendly people. I took a few business courses at night at junior college, so maybe someday… Right now, I wish I’d taken premed.”

  “No kidding. Well, I think that’s all we can do for now.” After they’d cleaned up and wrapped Nick’s father in more blankets, Nick added logs to the fire. It was two in the morning and Katie was dead on her feet, but a new thought struck her as she looked out the window.

  “What if she’s out there?” she whispered.

  Nick had just come back into the room after checking on Lily. “At least it stopped snowing,” he said.

  “Nick, what if she’s out there? My mother, I mean. Maybe she was hit by one of the bullets before you even went outside.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” He turned resolutely and started putting his snow gear back on.

  “I’ll come with you,” Katie said.

  “Lily—”

  “I’ll check back in on her.”

  He gestured at his father. “What if he says something about what happened, about where your mother is?”

  They both looked at the man. “He’s not going to say anything for a while,” Katie said resolutely.

  He regarded her with a strange expression on his face. “Is there anything at all that you’re afraid of?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Snakes.”

  “What kind?”

  “What do you mean, what kind? All kinds.”

  “They’re a necessary part of the ecosystem. Without them—”

  “Nick? Save it. You asked, I’m telling. Snakes.”

  He laughed. “Well, you’re in luck. It’s way too cold to find many snakes slithering about.”

  Katie bundled up in her own coat, but borrowed gloves and boots from Helen’s stash in the washroom. They checked on Lily, who was sleeping soundly, then locked her inside the house with plans to take turns every few minutes to check on her and on Nick’s father. Nick helped Katie into a pair of snowshoes then put on some himself.

  Armed with the shotgun and a huge, powerful flash- light, Katie covered the front, including the cabins, all of which were empty and cold. Her leg throbbed with the effort of walking, difficult even with the snowshoes. She searched nearby fences and trudged through the small meadow, careful to avoid mounds, which she’d discovered were usually snow-covered bushes that collapsed when she got too close, trapping her snowshoes until she dug them out. It was a slow, tedious, painful procedure.

  Nick, meanwhile, took care of the area out by the lake. Eventually, they both investigated the boathouse. The structure was big and dark and filled with water-craft and summer paraphernalia, making it almost impossible to find every hiding spot. It didn’t help that their only source of illumination came from flashlights.

  Nick discovered one thing—his phone line had been sliced in two. He swore when he saw it.

  “I wonder when that got cut.”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” he said. “Let’s get back inside the house.”

  In the end, Katie had to agree. If her mother was outside, she was well hidden.

  Or dead.

  NICK LED THE WAY back into the house where they once again checked on Lily and his old man, stoked the fire and retreated to a pair of armchairs in the far corner.

  He figured if he looked half as weary as Katie did, they made a pair to draw to.

  “Well, he’s done it again,” Nick said, glancing across the room at his father who, wrapped in blankets and lying still as stone, resembled a mummy more than a living man.

  “He’s brought trouble into your life,” Katie said
.

  Nick nodded, running a hand through his sandy hair. “There’s one person we’ve kind of forgotten about,” he said.

  “I assure you, I haven’t forgotten about my mother for an instant—”

  “Not your mother. The man I shot earlier tonight. What’s to keep him from coming back with reinforcements? Without being able to talk to my father about what’s going on, we don’t know who he was or what he wanted.”

  “Is it possible he was connected to the police?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He shot at me first, Katie. Lawmen don’t shoot at innocent people without issuing a warning of some kind.”

  She jumped to her feet and walked back over to his father, staring down at him. It looked to Nick as though she was willing him to wake up.

  Good for her. If the power of her single-minded desire had any magic in the world, perhaps it would manifest itself right then and there with his father’s return to consciousness.

  His father might open his eyes and tell Katie where her mother was. Then Nick could kindly shuffle them both out of Alaska to find the dear lady, and his life would go back to normal.

  He bent his elbow on the chair arm and rested his forehead in his hand. After two years of peace and tranquility, he was sorely out of practice for nonstop drama. Within the past twelve hours he’d been subjected to Katie Fields’s iron will, Helen’s irrational behavior and subsequent desertion, a gunfight resulting in two people down, a mad gunman on the loose plotting heaven knows what, discovering his father had returned and doing his best to dig a bullet out of the old man’s shoulder. What next? Fire? Pestilence?

  “How did the two men get to your house?” Katie said.

  She’d moved to stand in front of his legs and was looking down at him, hair falling forward, expression intense. Patricia had stood just like that off and on through their marriage, mainly when she’d been annoyed with him. Back then, he’d yank on her hands until she tumbled into his lap and gave up being mad because it was so much nicer being happy.