I felt her move, push against me, felt her weight move along my body, knees in my back, then the pressures changed and she was working on the rope around my ankles.
Julia said, “When I was young, a teenager, my dad had a fire going in the fireplace. The logs were round, set in the fireplace in a dangerous way, as we found out. Once the bottom logs burned down, the top log rolled out, right into the middle of the room, sparks and embers flying. I remember screaming when it came out, this flaming thing rolling out into the room. My dad jumped up and kicked it, got it back onto the hearth. It’s still a very sharp memory. Interesting how the past works, though. It gives you ideas. I know fire people, like marshals, can go through a place and determine how a fire was set. They can find traces of gasoline or whatnot, and then they know. So I started a fire in Jay’s fireplace and got the logs burning. I took the bag off his head and dragged him up into a recliner, put some booze in a glass nearby like he’d been drinking, which he had, then waited. I had to wait a long time, until the logs looked about right, then I used a poker to pull the top log off and roll it out into the room. It sat on the rug, burning. After a while the room started filling with smoke and a smoke alarm went off so I got out of there. It was dark. I’d parked up the street. I got in my car and left. Jay was dead. All I could do was hope everything looked right. Later, though, they said it was murder so I guess it didn’t fly.”
“No smoke in his lungs,” I said.
“Huh?”
“He was dead when the fire started. They wouldn’t find any smoke in his lungs. You have no idea what you’re doing.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute, then went on as if she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “Anyway, I went back to Fernley and got Harry into the back of this car, where you are now—and in case you didn’t know, that bundle beside you is Leland. With Harry gone, Jayson Wexel dead, Candy dead, Leland was getting flaky. I’ll tell you about Candy in a moment. Last night, Leland and I had a good time at the Fernley house, one last time, but I couldn’t let him keep worrying about everything and possibly blowing it.”
“Black widow,” Jeri said.
For a moment I thought Julia would take offense to that, but she kept driving. I felt my skin crawl, lying there next to Leland.
“I took Harry up to the trailer. There’s an old mining tunnel in the side of the mountain not far from where Jay put the trailer, and there’s a shaft in the tunnel off to one side that goes down fifty feet and ends in a pile of rubble. It used to be boarded up, but the boards have rotted out. Candy was still at the trailer. I told her the money was ready and all we needed to do was get rid of Harry. She and I dropped him down the shaft, after she’d cut off his hand with a rusty saw she found in the tunnel. I was in favor of cutting off his head so everyone would know he was really dead. I needed him dead so I could inherit right away. But Candy had heard Harry’s slogan and thought she’d turn it into a joke. She remembered you, Mr. Angel—Mortimer. It wasn’t that long ago that you found those heads, the mayor’s and the DA’s. It was her idea to send Harry’s hand to you with his stupid slogan on a note. At first I didn’t like it, then it occurred to me that it was such a weird, random thing it would get investigators running in circles, chasing ghosts. I wouldn’t have thought to do that. I didn’t really want to cut off Harry’s head and send it anywhere, so Candy’s idea worked out. She and I packaged Harry’s hand, drove to Bend, and left it in a FedEx pickup box.”
“How’d you get my address?” I asked.
“I didn’t get all of it. Only your name and Ralston Street, but obviously that was enough. You’re famous, Mortimer. I was sure it would get to you, and of course it did.”
Man, I didn’t like her calling me Mortimer. If she gave me a chance, I would drop her down that mineshaft on top of Harry.
We rode in silence for a while. She’d told us most of it, but not all. Jeri was still working on my ankles and I wanted to keep Julia distracted.
“Why put this car in Mary Odermann’s name?” I asked.
“Why not? I didn’t want it in my name, and Leland didn’t want it in his. He knew his sister’s date of birth, social security number, everything else he needed. He handled it. He gave Mary’s husband, Robert, five thousand dollars to not say anything, just let the car be in his wife’s name, that he, Leland, would pay the registration every year. keep up the insurance, whatever was needed to keep it legal. He told Robert he wanted to keep an affair quiet that could mess up his life if it got out. Maybe Robert was a romantic, because he went along with it—either that or the five thousand dollars did the trick.” Julia laughed. “Anyway, that was months before Candy entered the picture. Leland bought the car so he and I could see each other. We couldn’t afford to have my car running out to that house in Fernley. Harry and I had vanity plates. My car was SENATR2, which was much too visible.”
“Leland bought you a hundred-thousand-dollar car,” Jeri said to keep her talking. “What a guy.”
“Wasn’t he, though? This turned out to be really useful when I was hauling stuff out to Candy.”
“Why’d you have this love-mobile painted white?” I asked.
She was silent for five seconds. “It is white. What do you mean ‘have it painted’?”
Truth is in the hesitations. “About a week ago it was green.”
She was quiet for a long time, thinking. Then the car slowed as we went through Gerlach. I hoped Deputy Roup was on the ball, watching the highway, that he would pull her over and bust her ass, at least stop her and question her, but no such luck. The car picked up speed as we went out the other end of town, back into empty desert. I didn’t know how far the trailer was from Gerlach, but I didn’t think we had much time left. Jeri was still working on the rope around my ankles.
“You’ve found out some stuff,” Julia said. “Interesting.”
“The FBI will think it’s interesting, too.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think you and Nancy Drew back there got lucky. You called the little whore Allie a while ago, so you know her name. So you know her, which means you’re connected to her somehow and you stumbled across me. She phoned her sister when I was pumping gas in Gerlach. That must have been it. I don’t think Harry’s hand had a thing to do with you finding me.”
“Wrong,” I said. “You were seen dropping that package into a drop box in Bend.”
She was quiet a while longer. “I still don’t see it,” she said. “I still think you got lucky . . . if you want to call your situation right now lucky.”
Ha, ha. Really—I wanted to kill her. Somewhere to the north I hoped to find a mineshaft with her name on it.
Then my legs came free. Julia hadn’t put plastic ties around our ankles, which was a mistake. If I could get Jeri’s legs free, she could kick Julia to death, just like she’d almost kicked Victoria’s head off her shoulders back in August. Jeri’s head was toward the front of the car now, and mine was toward the rear. I felt her legs move until her feet were at my hands, then they stopped. I began to work on her knots, exploring, trying to figure out how the knot was tied, where the ends were.
“Still doesn’t explain why you had this thing painted white,” Jeri said.
“Which was at Lou’s Auto Body in Bend,” I added, hoping she would make a mistake if she got rattled. “Lou was the guy in the wheelchair, in case you didn’t know.”
Again Julia was quiet for a while. Then she said, “I’d been through Gerlach in a green car at least twenty times in the past few months. Then Candy phoned her sister, which was stupid. I didn’t like that. I thought a change of color would be a good idea.”
“That’s all? A good idea?”
“What else? It was a good idea. I was doing everything I could to stay off anyone’s radar.”
“Real good,” I said. “Here’s how good it was: the VIN number of a car is reported to the DMV if its color is changed. The FBI will be all over that. But speaking of a change of color, you’ll look good in an ora
nge jumpsuit.”
More silence.
Finally, she said, “This thing is registered to Mary Odermann, Leland’s sister. Leland is about to disappear off the face of the earth. So how does this car come back to me?”
I didn’t have a ready comeback to that. I was having trouble with my head, listening to her and working on Jeri’s knots—which felt like I was trying to untie a rock.
“I don’t see how any of this can get back to me,” Julia said. “I spent all afternoon wiping down the Fernley house. I was finishing up when I saw you two out there on the street, watching the place. I’m so glad you decided to check the garage. Gave me a scare, but it gave me the chance to clean up that loose end, too. I didn’t know you or anyone was onto me.”
“The FBI won’t be far behind,” I said.
“Don’t think so, Mortimer.”
Bitch.
“When did you murder Allie . . . Candy?” Jeri asked.
“Murder. That’s such an ugly word.”
“I’m sure what you did to her was much nicer.”
Julia laughed. “Not long after she phoned her sister, we stopped at a convenience store in Empire. She was hungry. I didn’t want to stop but I had to keep her happy, not worried. We got back on the road, headed toward Reno. Candy was giddy with joy, about to get her million dollars. She was hugging the duffel bag with the money I’d given her at the trailer and the hundred thousand Harry brought to the Fernley house—over a hundred thirty thousand altogether—”
“Which you’ve got now.”
“No, genius. I threw it out a window. Of course I’ve got it. It was night, dark. I could see at least ten miles in either direction. So I stopped the car suddenly, acted sort of shocked and got out, went to the back of the car, told her to get out too, and the dumb creature got out, came around back, and I shot her in the chest. One bullet and she was down.”
I shuddered. She’d said it like she said she’d bought herself a Diet Coke and a package of Fig Newtons, no big deal.
Then the car slowed and we turned off the highway. Inertia told me we’d turned left, which was west. Now we were bouncing over ruts, which made it harder to keep my fingers working on Jeri’s knots.
“I got her into a plastic garbage bag and wrestled her into the back where you are now,” Julia said. “I went back, through Gerlach, back to the trailer, dragged her into the tunnel, dropped her down the shaft on top of Harry.”
“Then you burned the trailer right down to its wheels,” I said, remembering what Roup had said two weeks ago.
Another few seconds of silence. “Where’d you get that?”
“I come across things. The FBI will, too. Look at all the things I’ve learned. They might be following us right now with their lights off, about to bust you. I have the feeling you’re headed for a lethal injection.”
We bumped along another mile or two in silence.
“After you disposed of Allie, you came back through Gerlach,” I said. “I saw you go by. You kept going, didn’t stop for gas.” I tried to remember what time that was. “It was about ten thirty at night.”
Julia muttered a curse, kept driving. “If you think I’m going to stop now, you’re out of your mind.”
Well, shit. A person could at least hope.
The road got steeper and began to wind around more. We were going up into the hills. I worked harder on Jeri’s ropes. My fingers were already raw, but it was worth it because suddenly the knot got looser and I was unravelling it, and then Jeri’s feet were free. She scooted down to where I could start working on her hands, but if she had a plastic tie around her wrists that might not be as useful as having her feet free. Her feet were deadly weapons.
Five minutes later, I had gotten nowhere with the knots, and the car felt like it topped a rise to a level spot. It slowed, then stopped.
“Everyone out,” Julia said in a singsong voice. She opened her door. A light came on over my head. I was on my back, looking up. After all that darkness it was like staring into the sun.
The rear hatch of the SUV popped open and swung up. I could see Julia from about mid-thigh on up as she stood back a little way with the Glock in her hand. “You untied her feet, Mortimer. Good work. You, girl, sit up. Do it now.”
Jeri sat up. Her face was three feet from mine when Julia pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Jeri in the face and blew out the back of her head.
No—!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I HAD A snapshot of blood and brains and bits of bone hitting the back of the front seats, then everything went black because suddenly Jeri was gone and all sense of reality was blown into whirling bits that had nothing to do with this world. For a few seconds I was out among the stars, in the infinite nothingness of space where there was no Earth, no SUV, no Julia, no sound, no sensation, nothing . . . then the world roared back and I was lying on my back but I couldn’t think because Jeri was gone and my life was over and it was too sudden too swift too impossible she couldn’t be gone forever and this was a dream except it wasn’t and Julia was hauling Jeri out by her feet and my love slid by me and plopped on the ground which was the first thing I heard since that gun had gone off and ended my life.
Then hatred exploded through me and I had to kill her, had to get my feet under me, get outside and stomp Julia into the dust and keep stomping until she was bloody flesh and broken bones mashed into the dirt and that wouldn’t bring Jeri back but I had to—
I pulled my knees violently into my chest and threw my head back as Julia was dragging Leland out of the cargo bay, wrapped in a blanket. The momentum rolled me out of the SUV in a somersault that landed me on my feet, then flopped me into the dirt on my back. I tried to kick Julia’s right knee, missed by inches, then she was backpedaling with that gun in her hand and I saw the muzzle come up at me. I rolled to one side as the gun went off. I don’t know how close the bullet came but I kept rolling and got my knees under me, then my feet, leaped to one side as the Glock blew another bullet by me, then I was running around the far side of the SUV, putting it between me and her. I ran across a kind of clearing, zigzagging left and right with gunshots behind me and bullets flying, but it’s almost impossible to hit someone with a handgun under those conditions if you’re not an expert. I kept running, wondering if she’d get lucky, then I was eighty feet from the car, a hundred, sprinting through darkness under the stars with a pale yellow sliver of moon hanging low in the west.
Seconds later, more bullets came toward me, but she was firing blind now from two hundred feet, then three hundred, no hope of hitting me. My feet got tangled in a tough hunk of sage, and I went down, tucked my face into a shoulder as I hit the ground, hands still bound behind my back. I stayed down until the bullets stopped, then looked toward the SUV, saw a tiny light where it stood in the clearing where Allie’s trailer was a pile of cold ash and scorched metal, then I got up and jogged farther into the empty desert where Julia couldn’t see me, couldn’t follow, didn’t have a hope of finding me where she might be able to erase the pure, white-hot hatred for her I carried out there in my heart.
Jeri was gone.
Forever.
She would never be back.
I slowed to a jog and tears filled my eyes. I couldn’t see a thing except blobs of dark on black. Suddenly my throat closed up and I couldn’t breathe. I fell to my knees and choked on my tears.
My love was gone.
I collapsed, folded up with my arms behind me, and sobbed.
God, Jeri—no.
No, no, no, no.
I stayed like that for a long time, unable to stand, unable to see. Finally I heard the sound of an engine. I staggered to my feet, partly hunched over. Headlights swung around in the night. Taillights put a red glow on clumps of sagebrush, then the SUV bounced away into darkness.
I vowed then that Julia would die. I would hunt her down and kill her.
Not the police. I would do it.
Me.
If I didn’t, I wasn’t worth anythi
ng on this miserable earth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I MADE MY way back to where Jeri had been murdered. She and Leland were gone, mostly likely dumped down that vertical shaft Julia had mentioned. Forty yards away I could see the black maw of a tunnel in the hillside.
Jeri would be in there.
I could hardly breathe, thinking about that.
The last dregs of moonlight revealed the remains of the trailer Julia had torched two weeks ago. I explored it, located the sharp edge of a piece of sheet metal, and went to work on the plastic tie holding my wrists together. It took ten minutes, but the tie finally popped apart and my hands came free.
I couldn’t go into the tunnel—I couldn’t not go in the tunnel. I walked over without thinking, went in thirty feet, and saw nothing. It was pitch black. Stumble around and I could fall into that shaft . . .
. . . and be with Jeri forever.
Then Julia would win, which couldn’t happen. I turned around and came back out, quivering with pain and fury. Hatred for Julia was a molten indescribable thing inside me. I had to kill her. Had to.
I walked out. The moon went behind the hills and the land was dark, illuminated by starlight—barely enough to see the trail out, a rutted track between miles of rolling sage. I checked my pockets. I still had my wallet but no cell phone.
As I walked, I thought about Jeri and Julia, Jeri and Julia, love and hate, love and hate. But now Jeri was pain that tried to bring me down, make me give up, so I concentrated on Julia. I had to get to her. She knew I was still alive. What would she do? Where would she go? How could I track her down?
The night grew cool. I shivered as I walked, stumbling in the dark. I remembered Deputy Roup saying the trailer fire had been eight or ten miles in from the highway.
A long way to go in this black, horrific night.
Julia.
I saw a knife enter her belly, slide up slowly, watched her guts spill onto the floor at her feet, saw her staring down in horror and disbelief at her own bloody intestines. I saw her die slowly, then slip away into Hell. I wasn’t the person I was yesterday or even an hour ago. Now I was a monster.
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