“I did not see your note! I saw you leaving the house. And I knew damned well you’d be trying to get to Ms. Kennedy—to lay it all on me! You had much more to gain than I did!”
“Jack Jones, I did not do it!” Roxanne insisted. “You did it. Because you quit seeing Myra to spend more time with your lover, Thomas Schiff! Myra was furious. And she was blackmailing you, saying that she’d tell your wife—”
“My wife knows!” Jack insisted, red-faced. He looked at Kristin. “We’ve an agreement, she and I. We have children, so we keep up a marriage. And Myra was trying to blackmail me. But I didn’t kill her.”
Great, Kristin thought. So much for the great and dramatic confrontation. She had two killers.…
Or none.
Well, she decided, this had been a waste of time.
Then she frowned suddenly. About twenty feet deeper into the forest was a strangely shaped shadow. Was there someone hiding behind that tree?
There were footprints in the snow around the tree.
Maybe someone else had seen Roxanne write her note. Maybe that someone had come here to listen and learn.
She studied the shadow again, then nearly laughed out loud. The shadow was crooked because the tree was crooked. But the footprints…
Who else was in the wood?
Neither Roxanne nor Jack seemed to be paying any attention as she walked away from them. Even as she moved the twenty or thirty feet closer to the clump of trees, she could hear them arguing.
Well, maybe the afternoon wouldn’t be such a waste after all. She felt fairly certain she could eliminate two suspects—Jack and Roxanne. If one of them really was a killer, the other would be dead by now.
She paused before the first footprint. It wasn’t very clear, but there was a long trail of footprints. She began to follow them excitedly, seeing that they became more and more defined and clearly etched in the snow as she moved into the copse of trees.
She came to a stop by a tree and a very clear print.
The cold seemed to sweep around her as she did so. She was chilled inside and out as she stared at the footprint. It was large. A heavy snow boot.
A sudden sound startled her. It was a sneeze, she realized, and she looked up.
A sneeze…
The person who had made the footprint was still beside the tree. Not two steps away from her.
Staring at her.
The person…
The killer. Skulking out in the woods. He had been the one to see Roxanne writing her note in the kitchen. And he was here now. She knew that he was the killer. She knew because the truth was so naked in his eyes as he stood there, staring at her.
“So you have stumbled upon me. I was hoping not to have to hurt you,” the killer said wearily.
“Kristin!”
She heard her name shouted. Hope soared in her heart. It was Justin.
She spun around, ready to scream to him. My God, she had come so far! She hadn’t realized how far she had wandered into the woods.
But Justin was coming. He was running across the snow, floundering, running again. He didn’t see her there in the trees. He just seemed to know that she was out there, somewhere.
Black-jeaned and black-jacketed, he was racing through the snow. He had nearly reached Jack and Roxanne. He was so very, very close. All that she had to do was scream, and he would see her.
Sound never left her throat. She had found the killer, and the killer had found her.
A jacket was thrown over her head, hands clamped hard over her throat, choking her words.
She struggled fiercely, but she was dragged deeper into the shadow of the trees.
She couldn’t breathe. Desperately, she tried to inhale. She fought against the fingers that held a death grip around her throat.
But the white of the day was turning black. Don’t! she told herself. Please, please, don’t lose consciousness! she commanded herself.
No, please…
Dear God, Justin hadn’t even seen her. Neither Jack nor Roxanne had seen her leave.…
She couldn’t stop fighting. She was being dragged through the forest. She had to fight for awareness.
He was strong.…
They went a fair distance. She was lifted, thrown. She was in a car, she realized dimly. The jacket was pressed down upon her, suffocating her.
But her fingers ceased to fight the hold upon her throat.
And the blackness descended surely upon her.
Chapter 12
Kristin had been mistaken about one thing. Justin had seen her.
One minute she was there, moving through the trees. The next second, it seemed, she had disappeared.
“Where the hell is Kristin!” he screamed as he reached Jack and Roxanne.
“Justin, she’s right here—” Roxanne began, turning, around. “Well, she was right here.”
“No, she wandered off into the trees. She seemed to be looking at something,” Jack said. “Justin, do you want me to—”
“Damn right! Look for her!” Justin snapped. He tore through the forest, then paused, his heart beating. He screamed her name, his hands clenched by his side. “Kristin!” There was no answer, just the mocking whisper of the winter wind.
Then he realized there were two sets of footprints before him. Two…
He started to follow them, running quickly.
Tree by tree.
Then, suddenly, there were no longer two sets of footprints. There was one set of prints.…
And then deep grooves in the snow. As if something had been dragged through it.
Something, or someone.
His heart quickened. He almost screamed out her name again.
Then he saw that he had reached the embankment at the edge of the copse. The road was beneath him.
And there was a car down on that road.
“Justin!” Jack was behind him.
“Call the sheriff!” Justin said.
They could both see Kristin.
Someone was lifting her lifeless body into the back seat of the car.
Lifeless.
Oh, dear God, no!
“No!”
He whispered the word in agony, and he started to run again, “Tell the sheriff to look for the car!” he called.
The killer was already in the driver’s seat. And the car was already being revved to life.
Justin ran.…
The car began to move.
He had to keep it in sight. It was his only hope to save Kristin. The sheriff would never arrive in time.
Just as the car disappeared around the bend in the road, he took a flying leap off the embankment and onto the road. He fell to his knees on the icy pavement.
Teeth clenched, Justin stumbled to his feet. He’d lost his gloves. His hands were bleeding, raw. He ignored his hands, and started to run down the road after the car.
Run, run, into the snow. The dazzling white snow. His lungs were bursting. His eyes stung from the cold.
Please, please, let her be alive! Let me reach her! he prayed in silence.
He could only run so much farther.
Kristin awoke, feeling herself being dragged across the snow again. She opened her eyes, then closed them quickly. She had no idea where she was. If she feigned unconsciousness, she might manage to regain some strength and run.
No.
She heard a voice, a handsome, fine, dignified voice.
“It’s no good, Ms. Kennedy. I know you’re awake. It won’t do you any good. From the moment you made your announcement this morning, I knew I had to get to you to shut you up. At first I thought you were another Myra, that you could be paid off. But I’d paid her blackmail for so long.”
Kristin opened her eyes.
She looked into the distinguished features of Mr. Harry Johnston, renowned character actor. He had both her hands, and was dragging her backward over the snow. He paused when she looked at him.
“You’ll be very weak for a long time,” he warned her. “I nearly
killed you where we were.”
“Why didn’t you?” She was weak. Her throat burned. Her flesh was sore, probably bruising now. Did it matter? she wondered.
“I didn’t have time to do a thorough job of it. And I…I don’t mean to be crass, but I needed a better place to dispose of your body.”
“Justin—” It was hard to speak. “Justin saw you take me!” she managed to whisper. It was a lie, but perhaps it would help.
He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. We both know that that isn’t true.”
She had to find the strength to speak. “Harry, they’ll know it was you this time! It wasn’t Justin, Roxanne or Jack. Harry, they’d run out of suspects quickly!”
“Proof,” Harry said softly. “They need proof.” He sat down on a rock behind her, not vicious. He was truly regretful. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I saw Roxanne writing that note, and I knew I had to try and find out what she was going to say. I watched her, and I came around the back way to the woods. I was hoping you really didn’t know anything. I meant to listen, nothing more. But then I saw your face, and I saw in your eyes that you knew it was me. And I knew you would find a way to prove it.”
She grated her teeth, shivering. He went on talking.
“You know, it’s a hard business, Ms. Kennedy. I never meant to kill Myra. But she planned to ruin me.”
“How?” Kristin asked, amazed as well as terrified. She had been so certain that Roxanne had somehow done it.
“I drink, Miss Kennedy.”
“So do a lot of people. Alcoholism is a disease. Why wouldn’t you get help? Why kill someone?”
“Ah, in my case, I was on my very last chance. The director of Snowfire had promised that I would be out on my rear if he ever heard I’d taken a mouthful during the show. He gave me a chance. I had a, er, well, a moment of weakness. Myra found out about it. I’d never have stepped on a Broadway stage again if Myra had told the director what she found out. It was really very serious.
“I went off the wagon the first week of rehearsals. I had to go to the hospital to dry out. I lied to the director, saying I’d caught pneumonia. Myra found out from one of the nurses at the hospital. And she wasn’t just blackmailing me. She was playing with me. She didn’t really need money. She just liked having me in her power. And she was losing Justin. Well, she had lost him. Everyone else knew that, Maybe not Myra. So she’d blackmail me, then she’d say that she was going to tell anyway.
“That night, I followed her out into the snow. It was really coming down. I had on gloves, and the snow would eliminate any footprints. Still, I never meant to kill her. She made me mad and the next thing I knew I had my hands on the scarf she was wearing around her throat and then…well, then, the rest is history, right? But you knew that.”
He stared at Kristin and then laughed. “You didn’t know that. But you convinced me that you did. Well, I should be sorry. I guess I am.”
“How can you kill me? You’ll be caught this time! And you’re not angry with me. How can you kill so easily?” Kristin demanded.
Where was she? They’d been in a car. But how far had they driven? How long had she been out? Even if she was right, and he was caught, what good would it do her?
She had known her meeting in the copse would be dangerous. She’d told Miss Petrie to call the sheriff, since she had decided not to involve Roger. But it hadn’t been enough.…
It seemed that she was going to die anyway.
All that she could see around her were trees and snow and rocks. From somewhere near she could hear the sound of running water.
“I see that you can hear the water,” he said softly, watching her eyes. “There’s a stream nearby.”
“And?” she asked.
“It runs into a very beautiful—and very deep—pond.”
Kristin felt ill. She knew now what he planned to do. He would weight her body and toss it into the pond, and it would never appear again.
“How can you—?” she started to ask. She couldn’t continue.
“I guess we all just get jaded,” Harry said. “We just get jaded. They’ll never be able to prove that I killed you, Ms. Kennedy.”
“If you strangle me like you did Myra—” Kristin began.
“If they ever find your body, perhaps then they would have a case. But they won’t.”
She was weak, very weak. But she had to take a chance and run. She tried to struggle to her feet.
“No, no, Ms. Kennedy. You’re not going anywhere.”
From his pocket, Harry produced a gun. “I always try to be prepared. It’s an actor’s best asset.”
She had Mace in her own pocket, Kristin thought.
Not fair…
Life wasn’t fair. It had made Harry jaded. So jaded that he thought he could produce a gun and erase her life without a moment’s remorse.
Harry cocked the gun and pointed it at Kristin.
“Hey, Johnston! Harry Johnston!”
They both started as they heard his name called.
Harry fired into the trees in the direction the voice was coming from.
“You missed, Johnston! You missed. Try again!”
Harry fired again, wildly. It was Justin calling, and they both knew it.
Justin was near. Very near.
Harry fired again. Just once.
Then a dark blur sped out of the trees, leaping high and landing hard on Harry’s gun arm.
And Justin and Harry went down, deep down into the snow.
They rolled and rolled. Kristin fought hard for the strength to stand. She could see something glittering in the white expanse on the ground.
Glittering like…
Snowfire.
It was the gun. Harry’s gun. She tried to reach it. Tried and tried. Inching toward it. Her fingers touched it. Slowly, slowly they closed around it.
Harry and Justin fought on.
She managed to get the gun into her hand. Exhausted, she rolled to her back.
She looked up, a scream forming in her throat as she realized there was silence now. And a tall figure was standing over her.
“It’s all right,” Justin said. He reached down and took the gun from her, then knelt by her side, sweeping her into his arms.
She tried to smile. “Harry…?”
“He’s out cold.”
“What if he awakens?” she demanded anxiously.
“I’ve got his hands tied up fairly well with his belt. He’s not going anywhere. Anyway, I don’t think he’ll try. He knows it’s all over now.”
“But what will we do with him?”
“The sheriff will be coming. I told Jack to call him.”
“He should already be coming,” Kristin whispered weakly. “I asked Miss Petrie to call him when she dropped me off to get my car.”
He grinned. “So you were smart about one thing. But you were stupid not to have waited.”
“But I was meeting Roxanne,” she said lamely. “I had to hear what she had to say! And I knew that I was as strong as she was.”
“You were still stupid!”
“I was trying to be loyal and—”
“Okay, so you were loyal—and stupid. Harry’s gun was a surprise. Roxanne could have carried one, too. You were incredibly stupid!” he said.
Okay, so he had a point. Still, the warmth of his touch seemed to take away the sting of the words.
“Thanks!” she told him. Then she shivered. “Oh, Justin, thank God you found me—”
“Thank God I found you, too, you stupid little fool.”
“How did you—”
“I chased Harry’s car on foot, until I saw the ruts in the snow turning into the woods here. And then I found where he’d left his car.”
His fingers were shaking as he smoothed a stray lock of hair from her forehead.
She caught his hand. “You’re bleeding!”
“Am I? I fell down at one point.”
“Oh, Justin!”
“My hands are okay, Kristin. He
had you here by the time I caught up with him. Then I was trying to be damned careful. I was so grateful that you were alive! I heard the last of what he said. Heard him confess to killing Myra. I was still wondering what was the best way to save you. Then I saw him pull the gun. The only thing I could think of to do was draw his fire until I could get around behind him, or at least to his side. It bought me the few seconds that I needed.”
“And I’m stupid? You invited a bullet,” she said with quiet reproach.
“I know these woods. And how to move in them. I was pretty sure of what I was doing.”
“He nearly scared me to death!” Kristin murmured.
“He meant to murder you to death!” Justin said grimly, his arms tightening as he walked her across the snow. She could just hear a siren. The sheriff had reached them. He drove through the snow right into the copse.
“Hi, Bill!” Justin called. He indicated the path that he and Kristin had just taken through the snow. “Our killer is that way. I think he’s still out.”
“Are you both all right? You okay, Ms. Kennedy?” the sheriff called to her.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you!” Kristin said.
“She’s not fine at all. He almost strangled her,” Justin said gruffly. “Sheriff, there’s a lot to tell you, but maybe it can wait.”
“I already got a lot from that Mr. Jones,” the sheriff said. He cleared his throat. “I’m glad, Justin. I can’t say that I always believed in you, but I did always like you, and I’m—well, I’m glad.”
He tilted his head and walked on by them.
Still holding Kristin tightly in his arms, Justin walked over to the sheriff’s Jeep and leaned against it.
“At least he asked me how I was,” Kristin murmured. She looked up at Justin. His eyes were fiercely blue. “I am all right. You can put me down now.”
“I know how you are,” Justin said, and he shook his head slowly. “And now, I’m keeping you like this until we get you to the hospital.”
“The hospital!”
“Umm. Your throat is black and blue. Kristin, he nearly did strangle you. And you’re freezing. You need a night of observation.”
“But—”
“Just overnight,” Justin said. “And I’ll be with you. I won’t leave you. I promise.”
He grinned. “I’ll never leave you anywhere again. You don’t stay where you’re left, do you know that?”
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