We headed downstairs again.
“Out front?” he whispered, pointing to the porch.
We opened the wooden door to the front porch and froze. Tiramisu sat on a wicker couch with his gun pointed at Quinn’s chest.
“Welcome, Hollisters. As surprised as I am that you amateurs tracked me down, I’ve actually been expecting you.” Tiramisu waved the gun toward the river and opened the porch door. “Move it,” he said, “Drop your pathetic weapons and get outside.”
The no nonsense tone of his voice snapped me out of my shocked state. I lobbed the chain outdoors, where it landed with a muffled thud on the earth. Quinn tossed his pipe onto the wooden porch floor, where it bounced a few times and rolled to a stop near a rocking chair.
“Slowly!” Tiramisu said. “You first, Mr. Hollister.” He waved the gun in Quinn’s face.
Quinn stepped onto the wooden stoop.
“You next, Mrs. Hollister. Hands up.”
I shuffled toward the door. Tiramisu shoved me between my shoulder blades and sent me sprawling onto the slate rocks beside the stoop. I don’t know if it was the incongruously serene view of the river or sheer anger that made me snap, but I turned on Tiramisu in a rage. “Goddamn it! Stop that. And where’s my mother? What the hell have you done with her, Tiramisu?”
Quinn helped me up. A veiled warning lurked in his eyes. I thought he wanted me to back down, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
“First of all, you know my name. It’s Blount. Sidney Blount. Call me that or nothing.”
Nothing, I thought. You are a big fat disgusting nothing.
“Secondly, stop worrying about your mother. She’s fine. For now.”
I looked left and right around the property, and wondered if he’d stashed her in the Kids’ Kondo.
“Last of all, I need you two to talk. Fast.”
He grabbed Quinn’s cast and pushed him toward the edge of the ravine near the post and rail fence that lined the edge. A birdfeeder swung lazily in the breeze, reminding me how peaceful this property could be if Tiramisu weren’t clouding the view. The river objected with its constant murmur, like the sound of a waterfall, yet not quite. Mini waves of white water dotted the surface, causing a pleasant and distinctive sound. More than a hum, less than a roar. I wondered how cold the water was.
“Mrs. Hollister, do you think your husband would look good with more broken bones? I could push him over the edge and see what happens. And if that doesn’t kill him, a bullet through the head will do the job quite nicely.”
I ran toward Quinn, but Tiramisu—I couldn’t call him Blount—jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow. Quinn turned to slug him, but Tiramisu brought the gun up to his neck and jammed it against his throat.
“Stop!” I screamed. “What the hell do you want from us?”
Tiramisu’s chest hitched up and down, and a drop of perspiration rolled down his temple. “I want what your mother couldn’t give me. My money.” His eyes flared in wild fury.
“She doesn’t know anything!” I cried. The tears ran freely now, soaking my cheeks and blurring my vision.
“What about you, little miss? Did your step-daddy tell you any secrets?”
“No!” I said, wiping at my cheeks with trembling hands. “And there was nothing in that stupid safe deposit box. Nothing!”
“We were told you removed the contents.” He turned the gun toward me. “Is that so?”
I wondered who had told him, and for the first time, thought he might be getting inside information from someone on the police force. How could he have known about our visit to the bank? And how the hell did he know we were coming here? The only possible link was the directions we printed out on the hotel printer.
“Yes. We took everything. It’s in our hotel room. But I’m telling you, there’s nothing there. Just a bunch of old photographs, a few report cards, and other old papers. Nothing of any value. No treasure maps, if that’s what you’re thinking. And certainly no goddamn money.”
Tiramisu pushed Quinn around the end of the fence and closer to the ledge, where my dear husband struggled to stay upright.
“Tell me. Now! How was your stepfather involved in the robbery? Did he meet Ramona? Did she give him the cash?”
I screamed my answer. “I don’t know! I just heard about Ramona for the first time this week on television.”
He let go of Quinn briefly, pounding the side of his head with an open hand. “Somebody has to know something!”
Before Tiramisu could grab him, my crazy husband faked a fall and plunged over the edge with a hollow scream. I saw a sly look in his eye just before he went over. I couldn’t see him, but heard scrambling on rocks and a loud splash.
“Goddamn it!” Tiramisu ran to the edge, and when he did, I dove for the chain, wrapped it around my hand, and swung hard at Tiramisu’s head.
The gun went off, breaking the glass in the storm door behind me. I swung again, this time with all my might. The chain caught him behind the knees. Tiramisu stumbled and went over the side, grabbing a tree to slow his fall. He arrived at the water’s edge on his hands and knees.
“Quinn!” I screamed, leaning over the fence. Quinn lunged and jumped on Tiramisu’s back. Both men fell forward into the water. Quinn’s good arm encircled the big man’s neck. Tiramisu thrashed in the headlock, and Quinn repeatedly slammed his cast against Tiramisu’s face. His nose burst into a stream of red, discoloring the fast moving water.
Tiramisu bellowed like a wounded bull and flipped over, submerging Quinn beneath his monstrous body. I watched in horror, about to scramble down the cliff toward them.
The sound of tires bumping over roots in the driveway drew my attention. I’d feared Yale Barski or the woman from the bank, but was relieved when Agent Natalie Jaworski emerged from the dark gray sedan. In spite of the terror of the moment, my brain worked in the background, analyzing the situation. How had she found us? And why wasn’t she with McCann? Thoughts raced through my brain like Wiley Coyote on Ritalin. Maybe McCann was just behind her in his cruiser. And maybe Cromwell figured out our location from the website we’d visited. He could easily have traced our location. I’d have to remember to thank him later.
I stumbled toward her, babbling. “Help! Quick, over here! He’s got my Quinn. He’ll kill him!”
She looked all business in her dark navy suit and sensible shoes. And the Glock she pulled from her side didn’t exactly scream sissy.
“Over here,” I panted, running to the edge. Jaworski planted herself against a tree and took aim.
Quinn burst from the water, gasping for breath. Tiramisu pulled back and punched him, knocking his head back. Quinn crumpled into the river.
“Blount!” Jaworski yelled.
He looked surprised, almost relieved, and then shocked when she shot him between the eyes.
I scrambled over the steep ledge and down into the surprisingly warm water. “Quinn!”
The water swirled and sputtered white flecks. I looked wildly around and spotted him trying to stand a few feet downstream. His cast was soaked. His face was bloody. But he was alive. With pounding heart, I floundered toward him and steadied him. He spluttered, coughed, and sucked air.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“Over there. Jaworski shot him.”
A frown creased Quinn’s brow. “Honey?”
I wiped the blood from his face with my sweatshirt sleeves. “Yes, baby?”
“Then why is she pointing the gun at us?”
Chapter 36
I watched Tiramisu’s big body float past, his bloodied eyes staring at the sky, his small neat feet leading his way. He bobbed and twisted around a whirlpool, then continued downstream. I pitied the poor fishermen who would find him and imagined the grisly, unbelievable fish stories that discovery would inspire.
“Get up here.” Jaworski spat the words, erasing all doubts of her complicity.
I stared with my mouth open. “Agent Jaworski?”
She stared, kept the gun trained on us,
and repeated herself. “Now! Get your asses up here.”
A shot zinged past me as fast as the truth that finally hit me.
Red hair. Nicely dressed. Not tall like me. Jaworski had been in on this from the beginning.
Tiramisu had seemed relieved when she showed up. He’d expected her. And she had been the one on the other end of the phone call who told him we were on our way up there. She must have gotten the info out of Cromwell, assuring him she wanted to help us.
How had she met Tiramisu? And what was their relationship?
A shot whizzed past my left ear, urging us both up the narrow path. We slipped and scrambled, barely making it up the steep path. We arrived at the top and linked arms. Jaworski leered at Quinn, then turned her wrath on me.
“Where’s the money, bitch?” She poked my belly with the gun. “You’ve been one step ahead of us the whole time, haven’t you?”
My eyes narrowed. Jaworski’s sudden turn from angel to demon ticked me off. Her sweet smiles, her empathetic eyes, her murmurs of comfort… all lies. She’d been playing me from day one.
Rita Little Newt and her grandfather had almost died, partially for this sly woman’s greed. I thought of Mr. Little Newt and his kindly face. He was such a sweet old man, and now he was lying in a hospital bed in a coma. Poor Rita had been dragged from her shop by Barski, who probably intended to get rid of her as a witness to the near killing of her grandfather. To think she’d just lost her mother, and almost lost her grandfather. All for the want of some stupid phantom money that probably had been lost fifty years earlier.
My anger grew.
“Is that what it’s about, Jaworski? Money?” I stepped closer to her, in spite of the gun digging into my already sore ribs. “You’ve been behind this whole thing?”
She almost laughed. “Yeah. Fooled you all, didn’t we?”
“We?”
She looked downriver.
I locked eyes with her. “So how’d you know Tiramisu?”
“Sidney Blount was my dear uncle. By marriage, that is. My aunt married him before he robbed the bank.”
Quinn joined in. “So you were Blount’s contact at the FBI? You told him when the stolen bills started to surface? And that it was my mother-in-law who’d been passing them?”
A smile stole across her lips. “Well, aren’t you the smart one, Mr. Hollister. Of course. How else would Blount have known to track her? I let him and his goons do the dirty work. But no more questions. You two,” she brandished the gun toward two green plastic Adirondack chairs, “sit down and tell me where my money is. I know you took it from the safe deposit box, you bitch.” She backhanded me.
Her ring drew blood that trickled down my cheek. I swiped at it with my sleeve and glared at her.
She snarled again, reminding me of a hungry Bengal tiger. “Come on. Move it!”
We backed up and dropped into the chairs that faced the river. Tucking her gun beneath her arm, she pulled a roll of duct tape out of her pocket and started to tape Quinn’s arm to the armrest. I exchanged a helpless glance with him. My brain whirred, trying to find a way out.
Before I could act, Quinn lurched to his feet and rammed into her, knocking her off balance and into the fence. Quinn landed on his knees, one arm still stuck to the chair. Jaworski clung wildly to the post, but it was loose and didn’t hold her weight. She toppled over the edge. The gun followed her, but landed on the rocky shore, twenty feet upstream.
Before I could think better of it, I half climbed, half fell down the narrow path to the riverside. She curled in a ball and moaned. When I passed her to go for the gun, she rocketed toward me, grabbing me by the knees. I fell to the ground. She scrambled to her feet and ran for the gun.
I froze. There was no way I was going to play a target for her by climbing back up the hill. I looked behind me toward one of the skinny strips of land that rose above the river, and headed toward it.
The warm water swirled about my calves, and I wondered how deep it would get. The current was strong, pushing me downstream as I fought the flow. I nearly fell several times, trying to get a purchase on the round slippery rocks beneath. A bullet ripped past me and chipped a rock on the shore just ahead.
“Stop!” Jaworski’s voice had gone shrill. “Where’s the goddamn money?”
I hoped she’d not kill me until she found out, but didn’t trust her. She could get rid of me and torture Quinn into telling. I almost laughed hysterically, realizing she could torture us to death and we’d never talk. There was nothing to tell.
Water rushed around my thighs. My sneaker slipped on a rock and I went under, while pale amber water roiled around me. I gulped water, then pushed up and stumbled closer to the islet, spluttering for air. Another bullet sailed overhead. I ducked, then crawled on my hands and knees to land.
“There’s nowhere to run, Mrs. Hollister! And I’ve got boxes of ammo. You’re a sitting duck!”
She was almost right. But something white fluttered in the breeze in the middle of the outcropping, drawing my attention to a cluster of rocks that might hide me. At least until she realized she could follow.
I tucked my head and ran toward them, then backed up and gagged.
Yale Barski lay face up, his eyes clouded and blank. His curled fingers held a gun, and a ragged red hole opened into his brain. The blood wasn’t fresh, but hadn’t blackened yet. I guessed that Tiramisu had staged the kill sometime in the last day, and had hoped a casual investigation by local police would pronounce the death a suicide.
Another shot rang out, but this time it didn’t breeze past me. My left arm stung where it grazed my bicep. I screamed and dropped to the ground beside the body.
Dear God, let that crazy bitch think she killed me.
Small sharp stones cut into my cheek. A whiff of Barski passed over me. My arm stung.
In a flash, it came to me. I poked my head over the rocks to see Jaworski halfway through the water, struggling with the current.
Holding my breath and dulling my focus, I reached toward Yale’s hand and uncurled his fingers. Bile rose in my throat, but I pried the gun from his dead hand. I examined it hurriedly.
The safety can’t be on, or Tiramisu’s staged suicide wouldn’t fly.
I hefted it in my palm and snaked my forefinger over the trigger. Another glance around the rocks showed me she’d just reached the shore. I didn’t know much about guns, but prayed there was a spare bullet in this one.
I rolled on my side, slid the gun beneath my sweatshirt, and played dead.
Wet footsteps scudded over rocks. I heard the drip of river water raining from her clothes. A toe nudged my side.
When Jaworski leaned down to feel my pulse, I raised the gun, squeezed the trigger, and blew her heart open.
Chapter 37
I hadn’t realized Quinn was standing behind Jaworski until I opened my eyes through rivers of tears and saw him standing there with a rock poised in the air. In spite of his broken arm, he’d been about to smash her head when I’d shot her. I thanked God I hadn’t hit him.
He recoiled when he saw Yale Barski, but quickly recovered. The rock thudded to the ground. He rolled Jaworski’s blood-spattered body away from me and knelt by my side.
“Are you okay, baby?”
I lifted my arm and winced. “It hurts like hell.”
Jaworski lay stone still. Blood puddled beneath her neat white blouse and suit jacket. She looked surprised. Really surprised. Somehow, the expression gave me pleasure rather than horrifying me as it should have. Vengeful thoughts passed through me and instantly evaporated. I fell into Quinn’s arms and cried buckets. My stalwart husband cried a little, too.
We held each other for a long time but eventually dusted the dirt from our clothes and forded the stream, struggling to keep each other standing. Quinn’s hand looked purple, and the cast dripped. He’d have to get it rewrapped soon.
I realized when I got to the other side that I hadn’t stopped sobbing, that the sensations wracking my bod
y and mind came in doleful waves, rolling over me in a surf of pain. I trembled all over.
“Come on, honey. Let’s get you inside.”
He led me up the path, over a soft bed of pine needles, and across the porch into the cabin. After wrapping me in a blanket, he started the woodstove with the dried chunks of pinewood and twigs, and found some tea in the cabinet. I drank it gratefully, but felt numb. We dragged matching rockers close to the fire and tried to breathe.
Little by little, my hitching chest slowed down. I felt my hands steady, and my gaze cleared. With a start, I sat up and nearly spilled my tea.
“What the hell are we doing? We have to look for my mother!”
Quinn jumped to his feet. “I know. I just wanted you to warm up a bit.” He threw off the blanket he’d been wearing. “Are you ready?”
I set my tea on the dining table beside me and stood. “I’m ready. Let’s start with the outbuildings.”
Quinn grabbed the keys from the dining room table and flipped through them, peering at the labels. “Kids’ Kondo. Shed. Come on, let’s open them up.”
We hurried to the Kids’ Kondo first. The lock opened easily, and Quinn pushed open the door.
“Thelma? Are you here?” My voice rang through the cabin. Two sets of bunks—painfully empty—lay smooth with blankets un-rumpled. The air smelled slightly musty. “Thelma?” I glanced up at the loft and climbed the first few rungs of the ladder. “Are you here?”
No answer.
“Let’s check the shed,” Quinn said.
We found plenty of firewood, rakes, and a child’s rusty bicycle. But no Thelma.
“Damn.” I lay my head on Quinn’s shoulder and held in the tears. “Where is she?”
“Let’s search the grounds.” He lifted my chin, kissed my mouth, and pointed downstream. “You said there were seven acres here, right?”
I nodded.
“Plenty of places to hide someone. You take this side, I’ll go that way. Try to keep the house in sight, though. I don’t want you getting lost.”
“Okay.” I headed along the riverbank, calling my mother’s name. Quinn’s voice became fainter. When I hit the edge of a neighboring camp, I turned left and headed for the dirt access road where we’d parked. Visibility was good. The pine branches didn’t emerge until at least twenty feet aboveground, then flowed up to great heights. I caught glimpses of the red cabin from time to time.
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