by Nora Roberts
“You know you leave the back open half the time.” He rose, movements relaxed and easy. “I couldn’t stand around outside waiting for you. Someone might have seen me.”
“All right, all right.” Max dragged off his coat, tossed it aside. “It’s crazy meeting here at the paper in the middle of the damn night. You could have come to the house.”
“Carrie might hear. You never told her any of this. You swore.”
“No, I never told her.” Max swiped a hand over his face. “Mother of God, you said he’d fallen. You said he went crazy and cut the rope. That he’d gone down in a crevice.”
“I know what I said. I couldn’t tell you the truth. It was horrible enough, wasn’t it? You were banged up and delirious when I got back to you. I saved your life, Max. I got you down.”
“But—”
“I saved your life.”
“Yes. All right, yes.”
“I’ll explain everything. Get out that bottle you keep in your drawer. We need a drink.”
“All these years. All these years, he’s been up there. Like that.” He did need a drink and grabbed two coffee mugs, then the bottle of Paddy’s out of his drawer. “What am I supposed to think? What am I supposed to do?”
“He tried to kill me. I can still hardly believe it.” Plausible deniability, he thought again.
“Pat? Pat tried to—”
“Luke—remember? Skywalker, the Jedi knight. The more drugs he took, the crazier he got. It stopped being a game. When he reached the summit, he wanted to jump, and damned near dragged us both off.”
“My God. My God.”
“He said it was a joke, after, but I knew it wasn’t. We were coming down, rappelling down the face, and he took out his knife. Christ God, he started sawing at my rope and laughing. I barely got to the ledge when he cut it through. I took off.”
“I can’t believe it.” Max swallowed whiskey, poured more. “I can’t believe any of this.”
“I couldn’t believe it when it was happening. He’d lost his mind. The drugs, the altitude, hell, I don’t know. I got to the ice cave. I was panicked. I was furious. He came after me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
“I didn’t think you’d believe me. I took the easy way out. You’d’ve done the same.”
“I don’t know.” Max dragged a hand through his thinning hair.
“You did take the easy way. When you thought he’d fallen, you agreed to keep your mouth shut. You agreed not to say anything at all, to anyone. Patrick Galloway took off, parts unknown. End of story.”
“I don’t know why I did it.”
“Three thousand came in handy for your paper, didn’t it?”
Max flushed, stared into his glass. “Maybe it was wrong to take it. Maybe it was. I just wanted to put it all behind me. I was trying to start something here. I didn’t know him that well, not really, and he was gone. We couldn’t change that, so it didn’t seem to matter. And you said, you said how there’d be an investigation if we told anyone we’d been up there, that he’d died up there.”
“There would’ve been. The drugs would’ve come out, Max, you know it. You couldn’t afford another drug bust. You couldn’t afford to have the cops wondering if you—if either of us—had been responsible for his death. However he died, that’s still true, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But now—”
“I had to defend myself. He came at me with the knife. He came at me. He said the mountain needed a sacrifice. I tried to get away; I couldn’t. I grabbed the ax and . . .” He cupped his hands around the mug, pretended to drink. “Oh, God.”
“It was self-defense. I’ll back you up.”
“How? You weren’t there.”
Max gulped down whiskey as a bead of sweat trickled down his temple. “They’re bound to find out we went up there. There’s an investigation. Cops are involved now, and we can’t avoid it. They’ll backtrack. Maybe they’ll find the pilot who took us up.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It looks like murder, and they’ll dig. Dig enough and they’ll identify us. People saw us with him in Anchorage. They might remember. It’s better to come forward now, to give them the whole story, explain what happened. Before they charge one or both of us with murder. We’ve got reputations, positions, professions. Jesus, I’ve got Carrie and the kids to think of. I need to tell Carrie, to explain all this to her before we go to the police.”
“What do you think will happen to our reputations, our positions if this comes out?”
“We can weather it, if we go to the police and tell them everything.”
“That’s the way you want to play it?”
“It’s the way we have to play it. I’ve been thinking about this since they found him. I’ve been working it all out. We need to go to the cops before the cops come looking for us.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe you are.” He set the mug down, rose as if to pace back and forth behind Max’s chair. He drew a glove out of his pocket, slid it onto his right hand. “I need a little more time. To think. To put things in order in case . . .”
“Let’s take another day.” Max reached for the bottle again. “Give us both time. We’ll go to Chief Burke first, get him behind us.”
“You think that’ll work?” His voice was soft now, with a hint of amusement in it.
“I do. I really do.”
“This works better for me.” From behind, he grabbed Max’s right hand, clamped his own over it on the butt of the gun. And hooking his left around Max’s throat, jammed the barrel to his temple. His old friend reared back in shock, gulped for air. And he pulled the trigger.
The explosion was huge in the small room and sent his hand to shaking. But he made sure to press Max’s limp finger to the trigger. Fingerprints, he thought, his mind bell-clear even as he shuddered. Gun powder residue. He released his hold so Max’s head fell to the desk and the gun clattered to the floor beside the chair.
Carefully, with his gloved hand, he turned on the computer, and brought up the document he’d written while waiting for his friend to meet him.
I can’t live with it any longer. His ghost has come back to haunt me. I’m sorry for what I did, for everyone I hurt.
Forgive me.
I killed Patrick Galloway. And now I’ll join him in Hell.
Maxwell Hawbaker
Simple, clear-cut. He approved it and left the computer on. The light from the screen and the flare from the desk lamp shone on blood and gray matter.
He stuffed the soiled glove in a plastic bag, pushed that into the pocket of his coat before putting it on. He donned fresh gloves, his hat, scarf, then picked up the coffee mug—the only thing in the room he’d touched without gloves.
Walking into the bathroom, he poured the whiskey down the sink, rinsed the sink with water. He wiped the mug clean, then carried it back to the office and set it down again.
Max’s eyes stared at him, and something about it forced bile up into his throat. But he swallowed it down, forced himself to stand and study the details. Satisfied he’d overlooked nothing, he left the way he’d come in.
He took the side streets, making sure his scarf was over his face, his hat low on his head in case some insomniac looked out a window.
Above him, the sky streamed with the northern lights.
He’d done what he’d had to do, he told himself. Now it was over.
When he got home, washed away the scent of cordite and blood that clung to him, he had a single short whiskey as he watched the old glove burn up in the fire.
There was nothing left now, so he put it all cleanly out of his mind.
And slept the sleep of the innocent.
THIRTEEN
CARRIE STOPPED BY The Lodge on the way to the paper to pick up a couple of bacon-and-egg sandwiches. She’d been surprised, then a little annoyed to find Max gone when she’d wakened. Not that it was the first time he’d gone back to the paper at night, and ended up sleepi
ng there. Or left early in the morning before either she or the kids were awake.
But he always left her some sweet or silly note on his pillow when he did.
There’d been no note that morning, and no answer when she’d called the paper.
It wasn’t like him. But then, he hadn’t been himself for the last several days. That was starting to annoy her, too.
There was a huge story brewing, what with Patrick Galloway’s body being discovered. Allegedly Pat Galloway’s body, she reminded herself. They needed to decide how to handle the story, how much space they’d want to devote to it—and if they should get their butts down to Anchorage when the body was finally brought down.
She’d already dug through her old snapshots and had culled several of Pat. They’d want to run his picture along with the story.
And pictures of the three boys who’d found him. She wanted to interview them, certainly Steven Wise, who was a hometown boy. Rather she wanted Max to do so, as he was better at interviewing than she was.
Max wouldn’t talk about it. Why, he’d even snapped at her once when she’d brought it up.
Time for him to go in to the clinic and get himself a physical. He tended to get a delicate stomach when he wasn’t eating or sleeping right. Which he hadn’t been, come to think of it, since news came down about the Galloway business.
Maybe it was because they were of an age, she mused as she pulled up at the curb in front of The Lunatic. And that he’d known the man a little. They’d struck up a friendship in the few months Max had been in Lunacy before Pat . . . left. Best to leave it at left until they had all the facts.
But she didn’t see why Max should take out his middle-aged blues or whatever on her.
She’d actually known Pat longer than Max had, and she wasn’t going into a funk. She was sorry, of course, for Charlene and Meg—they’d have to be interviewed, too—and she intended to give them both her condolences in person as soon as she could.
But it was news. The sort she and Max should be investigating and writing about for the paper. For God’s sake, they had the hometown advantage here. It could mean having their articles picked up by the wire services.
Well, she was going to make that doctor’s appointment for him herself, then nag him into keeping it. They had a hell of a lot to do, what with the Galloway story and their plans to cover the Iditarod. Lord, it was already February, and March first nearly on them. They needed to get started if they were going to get any color on the race before deadline.
She needed her man in tip-top shape—and she’d remind him of it at the top of her lungs if need be.
She climbed out of the car with the take-out bag steaming fragrance and already spotted with grease. And shook her head when she saw the faint wash of light from the rear of their storefront operation. Max had fallen asleep at his desk again, she’d bet the bank.
“Carrie.”
“Hi, Jim.” She stopped on the sidewalk to talk to the bartender. “Early for you.”
“Need some supplies.” He nodded toward The Corner Store. “Weather’s supposed to stay clear, so I thought I’d do a little fishing.” He glanced in the paper’s window at the light. “Somebody else is starting early.”
“You know Max.”
“Nose for news,” he said tapping his own. “Hey, Professor. Time for school?”
John stopped to make it a trio. “Just about. Thought I’d walk it while I have the chance. Radio said we might break thirty today.”
“Spring’s coming,” Carrie announced. “And this breakfast is getting cold. I’d better get in and give Max a shove off his desk.”
“Got anything on the Galloway story?” John asked her.
She dragged out her keys. “If there’s anything to get, we’ll have it for the next edition. Have a good one.”
After letting herself in, she flipped on the lights. “Max! Rise and shine!” She clamped the take-out bag between her teeth to free her hands. She stripped off her coat, hung it on a peg. She stuffed her gloves in one pocket, her hat in the other.
As a matter of habit, she finger-fluffed her flattened hair.
“Max!” she called again, stopping by her desk to turn on her computer. “I got breakfast, though I don’t know why I’m so good to you seeing as you’ve been cranky as a constipated bear lately.”
Setting the bag down, she moved to the coffeemaker and carried the carafe into the bathroom to fill. “Bacon-and-egg sandwiches. I just saw Skinny Jim and The Professor out on the street. Well, I saw The Professor at The Lodge first, finishing up his oatmeal before school. Looks pretty chipper for a change. I wonder if he’s thinking, now that Charlene knows her old flame’s dead, she’s going to settle down with him. Poor slob.”
She started the coffee, then dug out paper plates, napkins, for the sandwiches. Under her breath she was humming “Tiny Dancer,” the Elton John number that had been playing on her favorite classic rock station on the drive in.
“Maxwell Hawbaker, I don’t know why I put up with you. If you’re going to be sullen and sulky much longer, I’m going hunting for a happier, younger man. See if I don’t.”
With a plated sandwich in each hand, she started back to Max’s little office. “But before I leave you for my wild, sexual affair with a twenty-five-year-old stud, I’m hauling your dumpy ass to the clinic for . . .”
She stopped in the doorway, and her limp hands folded out at the wrists. The sandwiches plopped, one-two, onto the floor. Through the roar in her ears, she heard the screaming.
NATE HAD HIS SECOND CUP of coffee while he discussed the Lego castle he and Jesse were building as their morning project. He’d had the first at Meg’s, and most of his mind was still back there with her.
She’d be flying north today, delivering supplies, then stopping off at Fairbanks to buy items for the locals here. For her fee of five percent tacked onto the purchase price, they could save themselves the round trip to one of the cities—a choice that wasn’t always possible in winter—and have her do the shopping, the transporting and the delivery.
It was, she’d told him, a small but steady portion of her business.
He’d gotten a look at her office that morning, too. It was just as bold and stylish as the rest of the place, and set up for comfort and efficiency.
A sturdy, crate-style desk, a tough-looking black computer with a wide, flat screen. Leather executive chair, he remembered, an old-fashioned freestanding clock and a lot of black-framed, arty pencil sketches on the wall.
There’d been a huge plant, something that had looked like long, green tongues—in a glossy, red pot, snow-white file cabinets and a star-shaped crystal suncatcher hanging from a chain in front of the window.
He’d found it both practical and female.
They’d made no plans for later. She shook off the notion of plans, and he thought that was just as well. He needed some time to think. About what direction they were or might be taking.
His scorecard with women was pitifully low. Maybe he had a chance to change that with her. Or maybe it was just the moment, an interim sort of thing. There was a lot waking up inside him after a long, dark sleep. How did he know what was real? Or if it was real, if he could keep it that way.
If he wanted to.
Better, for now, to drink his coffee, eat his breakfast and build a plastic castle with a kid who was just happy to have the company.
“It should have a bridge,” Jesse said. “The up-and-down bridge.”
“Drawbridge?” Nate pulled his attention back. “We might be able to work that. We could get some fishing wire.”
The boy looked up at him and beamed. “Okay!”
“Here you go, chief.”
He caught Rose’s wince when she set his plate down. “Okay?”
“Back’s a little stiff. Had the same thing with this one.” She ruffled her son’s hair.
“Maybe you ought to see the doctor.”
“I’ve got a checkup today. Jesse, you let Chief Burke eat hi
s breakfast while it’s hot.”
“We need fishing wire for the bridge.”
She left her hand on his head another moment. “We’ll get you some.”
She looked over as Skinny Jim stumbled in the door. “Jim?”
“Chief. Chief. You gotta come. Come quick. At the paper. It’s Max. Oh, my God.”
“What happened?” But he held up a hand even as he said it. He could see from the ghost white pallor of Jim’s face, the wide, glazed eyes that it was bad. And beside him the little boy was watching with his rosebud mouth opened in a stunned O. “Wait.”
He got up fast, grabbed his coat. “Outside.” And he gripped the man’s trembling arm, pulling him out the door. “What is it?”
“He’s dead. Sweet Jesus God. Max is dead, shot dead. Half his head—half his head’s gone.”
Nate yanked Jim up when the man’s legs buckled. “Max Hawbaker? You found him?”
“Yes. No. I mean, yes, it’s Max. Carrie. Carrie found him. We heard her screaming. She went inside, and The Professor and I were standing there talking for a minute, and she started screaming like somebody was killing her. We ran in, and . . . and . . .”
Nate continued to drag him down the street. “You touch anything?”
“What? I don’t think. No. The Professor said to go get you, to go to The Lodge and get you. That’s what I did.” He was swallowing fast and often. “Think I’m going to be sick.”
“No, you’re not. You’re going to go to the station house, get Otto. You’re going to tell him what you just told me and that I need a camera, some evidence bags, some plastic gloves, the crime scene tape. Just tell him I need crime scene equipment. Can you remember that?”
“I—yeah. I’ll do it. I’ll do it right now.”
“Then stay there. You stay at the station until I come to talk to you. Don’t talk to anybody else. Go.”
Nate angled toward the paper and quickened his pace. His brain had gone on auto, and preserving the scene was key. Right now, as far as he knew, there were two civilians in there, which meant it was already compromised.
He yanked open the door, and saw John kneeling on the floor in front of a sobbing Carrie. John was still wearing his outdoor gear, minus his gloves, and was pressing a glass of water to Carrie’s lips. He looked up at Nate, and a shadow of relief moved across his shocked face.