* * *
Twenty minutes later Kirsten was backing out onto the road again, the Remington unloaded and stowed in its case in the back seat. Until that day she hadn’t fired a 12-gauge since she was a cop, and then only during training sessions at the range. Now, despite the recoil supressor, her shoulder was sore, but she’d learned one important thing. Using that double-O buckshot, with nine .32-caliber pellets in each shell, from fifty yards away she was able to hit the side of a barn.
That would have to be good enough. The hard part now would be the wait, and putting up with Carlo for ten or twelve hours.
56.
The hours passed and the only surprise was that at about four o’clock, after taking a shower, Kirsten fell into a dead sleep on the bed in the motel room. She woke up in a panic, afraid she’d slept through the night. But it was only ten-fifteen and she was thankful, both for the rest and for the passage of time. Carlo, locked in the trunk the whole time, had wet his pants and wasn’t happy at all. She managed to get him to the bathroom in time to avoid a more major embarrasment, and then kept him quiet with Pepsi and cheeseburgers.
As predicted, the night was cool and cloudless, bright with moonlight and not a whisper of wind. Kirsten made her approach to Debra’s from the east this time, driving with the lights off. Just across the river where the land sloped up she drove to the top of the rise and stopped beside the road, in the shadow of the trees. Ahead, on the right side of the road and less than a half mile away across the flat farmland, the house and its outbuildings were clearly visible.
It was eleven-thirty, and no way could Debra be expecting her. She got out of the car and looked through the binoculars. Light shone behind the curtain at one window, but she saw no movement other than thin white smoke rising from the chimney. She went back and opened the trunk.
“You get the picture,” she said. “If she cares about you she gives my husband to me and I give you to her and that’s it.” She’d given up all thought of capturing Debra by then, and didn’t give a damn about Polly Morelli’s threats. “We go our separate ways.”
“And I’m back with my fucked-up sister,” Carlo rasped.
“Look, I got you three hundred miles away from a man who’d love to watch you die a painful death. No one says you have to stay with Debra. She’s not your damn mother, for God’s sake.” She thought he was listening for once. “But tonight, you’re all hers.”
“I’m hers until the goddamn cops come charging up and I’m in the shithouse again—for helping her kidnap your husband or some shit.”
She stared at him. “First, if I had cops waiting, wouldn’t they know you’re not in on any kidnapping? Second, have you seen any cops? You know better than anyone how she is. She gets a hint of a cop, and Dugan’s dead. My way, I get him and I’m outta here. And she gets you and she’ll be gone, too. In a hurry. She’s got way more than kidnapping on her plate.”
“Way more what? What’s she—”
“I’ll testify you had no choice but to go with her tonight. But after tonight, Carlo, get away from her. Or she’ll buy you a return ticket to Pontiac … maybe death row.” She closed the trunk and adjusted the straps of her Kevlar vest. She had more to worry about than Carlo’s future.
* * *
Kirsten waited in the car near the river, perspiring, shivering, scarcely able to breathe. No vehicles passed by in either direction. At midnight she put on her headset and switched the cell phone back on. Five minutes later it rang and she answered it.
“Are you in Chicago?” Debra asked. “Where are you?”
“Are you ready to trade?”
“Dammit, where are you? Tell me, and I’ll name the place and the—”
“Why not your house?” Kirsten said. “Why not now?”
“What?”
“Ready or not,” she said, then started the car and turned on the headlights. “Stay on the phone.”
She pressed hard on the accelerator and pushed the Impala as fast as she could—gravel flying, rear end fishtailing—and in seconds she skidded to a stop just past the house. She pulled forward another ten feet, to get beyond the driveway, too, then angled the car diagonally across the road to position the driver’s side away from the house. She cut the lights and left the motor running. Her face and neck were damp with perspiration, and she lowered her window.
“Surprise!” she said into the phone.
No response.
She leaned across and studied the dark house through the passenger window. The building faced south, and the moon was in the southern sky, so there was plenty of light to see that the door was closed and there was no movement at any of the front windows, first or second floor. And none in any of the windows on the west side of the house, either, as far as she could tell from her angle.
She got out, climbed into the back seat, crawled across, and pushed open the passenger side rear door, for quick entry by Dugan … if and when things got that far. Then she backed out on the driver’s side again, and took the loaded shotgun from the floor and leaned it against the driver’s door. Crouching by the rear tire, keeping as much of the car as possible between her and the house, she reached and unlocked the trunk and raised the lid.
“Get out,” she said, waving the stun baton, and Carlo—his hands cuffed in front of him—struggled out. She grabbed his arm and pulled him with her until they both had the car between them and the house. She was by the rear door on the driver’s side, looking across the roof. Carlo was to her right, by the trunk, so that Debra could easily see him.
Using the headset freed up both of Kirsten’s hands, and now she had the Colt .380 in one and the stun baton in the other. “Don’t try anything, or I’ll drop you where you stand,” she told him, knowing Debra would hear, too.
A few seconds passed and finally the front door swung inward and Debra stepped into view.
“Let’s get on with it,” Kirsten said, fighting the obvious tremor she couldn’t keep out of her voice. “Bring Dugan out.”
“And then what?” Over the phone Debra’s voice sounded firm and strong, which made Kirsten angry—at herself as well as at Debra.
“Then you send my husband toward me on the drive, and I send Carlo toward you. They meet halfway and Dugan keeps coming and gets in my car. You try anything … anything … and I drop Carlo in his tracks.” She paused. “That’s the deal.”
“How do I know there aren’t fifty police cars hiding by the river?”
“Because I say there aren’t. Bring Dugan out, now, or I take Carlo back … to see how long he can stand up under Polly’s—”
“Debra!” It was a croaking rasp, Carlo’s version of yelling. He leaned toward Kirsten and the phone. “For chrissake, don’t let her take me to Polly.” And now he was whining again. “There’s no fucking cops anywhere around. Please!”
Long seconds went by, and then Debra said, “I need time to get him out of … to get him up.” She went back inside.
Kirsten waited, wondering. Maybe as much as sixty seconds went by, but then Debra appeared again in the doorway, this time with a rifle in her hand. Kirsten raised the Colt and pointed it at Carlo’s head, and Debra stepped back out of sight.
“There’ll be another day,” Debra said on the phone, and when Kirsten didn’t answer, she added, “Maybe sooner than you think.”
And then Dugan stepped out onto the stoop.
“Dugan!” Kirsten cried, ignoring the phone. “It’s me!”
He waved his upper body from side to side, but didn’t answer. He wore a light-colored shirt and dark trousers, and what looked like duct tape covered his mouth and chin and was wrapped around to the back of his neck. His arms were behind his back, and he twisted around so she could see that his wrists were cuffed.
“Take the cuffs off him,” Kirsten said.
“Not until you take the cuffs off Carlo.”
Kirsten didn’t want to do that, and didn’t want to spend time arguing. “Forget it,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Dugan stepped forward, walking carefully on bare feet, teetering from side to side as though barely able to keep his balance. She knew how hard it was for Carlo to walk when he first crawled out of the trunk, and Debra had spoken of Dugan being “back in his box.” But he seemed so unsteady, so stiff. Worse than Carlo. She wondered if it was an act, to make Debra think he was worse off than he was. But why? Did he have a plan?
He stopped and shook his head and waved his torso from side to side again, clearly anxious to tell her something. Maybe just how happy he was to see her.
“Don’t think about anything,” she called. “Don’t do anything. Just get to the car.”
Stepping forward again, he stumbled and almost fell, then managed to regain his balance. He stood still at the top of the steps and at first she thought he was worried about making it down. But he looked back behind him and Kirsten could tell Debra had told him to stop.
“Let Carlo go.” Debra’s voice came softly through the headphones.
“Only when Dugan is down the steps and starts down the drive do I let Carlo go,” Kirsten said, speaking into the phone, but for Carlo to hear, too. “While Carlo goes up the drive and into the house, Dugan comes down and into the car. Then we’re gone, and you’re out to your plane and you’re gone. And it’s over.”
“For now,” Debra said.
“For now, yes. I’ll have my gun trained on Carlo and I don’t care about you. If you try anything or fire any shot, I will drop him. I will not miss.” She waited, but there was no response, and she said, “That’s it then. No more talk.” She tore off the headset and tossed it, and the baton, through the open window into the car.
She watched Dugan make his way cautiously down the steps. Surprise was on her side, leaving Debra little time to ponder alternatives. If she tried anything before her brother made it to safety, it would almost certainly be to take out Kirsten first. The house was a good forty or fifty yards away, but Debra had a rifle, and maybe a scope.
When Dugan reached the driveway she sent Carlo on his way, then moved to the front of the car. She crouched beside the front tire and peeked across the hood. She wanted Debra to believe she really would shoot Carlo if Debra fired and didn’t take her out with one shot. But she didn’t care if Carlo lived or died. She wanted only to get Dugan out alive.
Both men moved forward with stiff, halting steps, Carlo in the center of the crushed stone drive and Dugan in the grass along the edge. Gripping her pistol with two hands, Kirsten kept her eyes moving across the entire front of the house. The door was still open, but there was no sign of Debra, and—
There! A lift of the corner of a curtain at one of the windows. An upstairs window … and the fabric didn’t fall back into place. Keeping her eye on the window, but not lifting her head to give away that she’d seen, she stayed in her crouch, shifting from side to side to present a moving target, keeping the .380 aimed at Carlo without really looking at him.
The two men drew close to each other at the halfway point, Carlo limping noticeably now, and Dugan taking short, quick steps like a man walking on hot coals. They passed each other with barely a glance, and kept going in their opposite directions.
Finally, when Dugan was maybe ten yards from the car, Kirsten stood up and sidestepped quickly to the driver’s door, and as she did a shot rang out and metal hit the car … somewhere … and she grabbed the shotgun. “Run, Dugan! Run!” she screamed, and heard two more rifle shots.
She fired at the upstairs window with the shotgun as Dugan, hands behind him, stumbled down the drive. She fired again, using the roof of the car to steady her aim with the Remington, and with her second shot the glass in the upstairs window shattered. She pumped and added another blast at the same spot, and Dugan hurtled headfirst into the back seat.
She tossed the shotgun into the car and was behind the wheel and pulling away, with the Impala fishtailing again on the gravel. More shots rang out, and at least two of them hit the car and the rear window exploded, and she kept going.
* * *
When the odometer hit three-tenths of a mile Kirsten stopped and twisted around in her seat. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Can you breathe okay?”
He nodded vigorously and she got out of the car. She didn’t know the range of the rifle, but couldn’t believe Debra would be accurate from that far. Besides, by now she expected Debra and Carlo to be already out the back door and headed for the plane. Looking back at the house with the binoculars, though, she didn’t see them. Suddenly she heard a thudding sound beside her. Dugan had shifted around and was pounding his bare feet on the inside of the rear window. And, to her horror, smearing blood on the window as he did.
“Okay, okay,” she said, and yanked open the door. Grabbing his ankles, she checked the soles of his feet. They were scraped and bloody from running on the coarse grass and sharp stones, but there were other wounds, too. Older wounds. Large blisters she could tell were from burns, some of them puffy and some broken open and raw, and oozing blood-tinged pus.
“And here I was,” she said, forcing a laugh to keep from crying, “thinking you should get an Oscar for some phony ‘I can hardly walk’ routine, when—”
She shut up because he was obviously trying to tell her something, and couldn’t. She reached for the duct tape, but he twisted around and obviously wanted the handcuffs removed first. She dug the tiny key out of her jacket pocket. As soon as she got one cuff unlocked Dugan pulled away and started clawing at the tape. There was layer after layer and she tried to help, but then her cell phone rang. She reached over into the front seat and grabbed the phone and answered it.
“Kirsten?” A man’s voice. “Kirsten? Please … keep going. Don’t worry about—” Then nothing.
She opened her mouth and finally drew enough breath to say, “Michael? Is that you?”
Michael didn’t answer, but Debra did. “Now it’s your turn,” she said. “Aren’t surprises fun?”
57.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Dugan said, finally getting the tape away from his mouth. “That crazy woman has—”
Kirsten waved him quiet and listened to Debra rant on about priests who ruin the lives of helpless little children. “Take your husband and go,” she said. “Some day I’ll be back for you. But meanwhile this one? This priest Father Nolan? He will pay a just and painful price for his evil.”
“Do you even know what he did?” Kirsten was out of the car now, standing in the road. “It had nothing to do with a little—”
“So … is he worth saving? Then save him.”
“What?”
“I’ll trade his life for yours. Come back now—at once—and we’ll do it. Meanwhile, any sign of police and I will slice this one to ribbons … with my last breath if it comes to that. I’m watching you. Come back now. Otherwise, I will take him and—”
Kirsten terminated the call and reached into the front seat for the Remington.
“What are you doing?” Dugan said.
“Stay with the car.” She reloaded the shotgun. “I’m going back.”
“You can’t do that, dammit. Call the cops.”
“She’ll kill him if they come. And anyway, if we wait for them she’ll be gone. She has a plane.”
“And she has a rifle,” he said. “You won’t get halfway there.”
“I can’t leave him. Think about your feet. Think about what she would have done to you if she hadn’t needed you to get to me.”
“No, you think,” he said. “She’s going to kill Michael whatever you do. And if you go back, she’ll kill you, too. You can’t save Michael, but you can save yourself … and me.”
“I have to try,” she said. “I can’t just—”
“You can. But you won’t. So I’m coming with. But first call the—”
“No.”
“But you—” He looked past her, out the windshield. “What’s that?”
She turned and saw headlights coming toward them from the west. It was s
omeone in a hurry and the lights bounced and swerved back and forth wildly. She stood in the road, arms out wide, waving the shotgun.
The car skidded to a stop less than five yards from her. She stepped to her right, out of the blinding headlights, and saw then that it was a Jeep. “Get out!” the driver yelled. It was Cuffs. “I said out, dammit.”
The man who climbed out of the passenger seat was George Kleeman, the postmaster. Kirsten stepped closer. “Cuffs, how did—”
“Where’s Dugan?” Cuffs said. She was on the driver’s side of the Jeep and he pulled forward and stopped right beside her. He wore the same fedora and black raincoat, and despite the night air and the open vehicle, his face was shiny with sweat. “Where is he?”
“He’s right there, in the car. But Debra Morelli’s up at that house.” She turned and pointed with the shotgun. “She got Michael somehow, and—”
“I know what happened. I got word this evening, in Cleveland.” His voice was strangely flat, but too loud at the same time. “I called you five times over the last three or four hours. Kept getting voice mail.”
“That’s because I—”
“Gimme that!” Before she could react he snatched the shotgun out of her hand.
“Cuffs! What are you—”
“Fuck it. Get outta my way.” Cuffs almost always seemed mean and angry, but now he was a volcano, shuddering and about to blow. He checked the Remington’s magazine for shells. “Call the fucking cops if you want. But that bitch killed my guy to get to your uncle, and now she’s mine. You stay here.”
“No!” She moved to climb up into the Jeep behind him. “I’m going—”
“Move!” He shoved her away and slipped the clutch, and the Jeep roared off toward the farmhouse.
All the Dead Fathers Page 25