Autumn Dreams

by Gayle Roper

  “You’re going to shoot someone!” The old man turned to run. “I’m going to tell!”

  Tuck started after him, but a blur of movement stopped him before he took more than two steps. People were coming out of SeaSong and more people were jumping out of the van. Sherri? Kevin?

  He fell back to his knees and searched for his quarry. He would deal with the old man later. He wasn’t going anywhere in this weather.

  And there she was, helping gather luggage. He lifted the rifle, looked through his very expensive, highly sophisticated laser scope, and homed in on his target. Humming to himself, he pulled the trigger.

  Bingo!

  “Brenna?” Cass turned and took the girl’s weight in her arms, suitcases forgotten. “Brenna!”

  “I’m okay,” Brenna muttered, though clearly she wasn’t. She couldn’t even hold herself erect.

  “What’s wrong?” Cass asked. Then she felt a warm stickiness under her palm where she grasped Brenna’s shoulder. She looked and saw a trail of crimson flowing from beneath her hand to wash away in the torrent of water beating on them.

  Brenna’s head fell back as she lost consciousness. Staring in horror, Cass tried to keep the girl from falling into the street where water ran to curb height. She could drown if she fell. “She’s been shot!”

  “I’ve got her, Cass. You can let go.”

  Cass stared at Dan blankly. Brenna had been shot! People didn’t get shot, not people she knew. Lowlifes and TV characters got shot, not friends.

  “Cass!” Dan kicked her gently in the shins. “Let go. I’ve got her.”

  Cass looked at him, affronted. “You kicked me.”

  “My arms are full,” he explained. “Now let go of Brenna so I can get her inside.”

  Cass shook her head to clear it and stepped back. Connor, who had recognized the gunshot for what it was, raced ahead and opened the door for Dan.

  Cass stood frozen, the rain beating on her back with a force that was painful. Brenna had been shot! An accident? Or on purpose? Mike thought she was in danger, but why? How?

  Cass spun until she was standing where Brenna had been standing. Where had the shot come from? Behind her was the boarding house across the street on one corner and the tennis courts on the other. The house was closed for the season, and no one was on the tennis courts where the wind roared across the open space with enough force to blow a man off his feet.

  No one could have shot Brenna from directly across the street without hitting Cass first, so that wasn’t where the shooter was. On the other side was SeaSong itself, and no one there had shot Brenna.

  That left in front. Sudden movement caught Cass’s eye, and she looked up to see the curtains part at a second floor window of Mr. Carmichael’s house. A man stood there, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he held a rifle hanging muzzle down. He began to raise it, and Cass felt panic rise.

  She’d found the shooter.

  Dan laid Brenna carefully on the carpeted floor in the common area. Only he and Connor were still downstairs, the others having gone up to the rooms which Jenn and Jared were showing them. Connor had a cell phone at his ear as he told the 911 operator they needed an ambulance.

  Dan stood and stripped off his raincoat. He watched Brenna’s blood drip down the sleeve of her yellow raincoat onto the carpet, knowing that only a small portion of the hemorrhage was actually making its way through the hole torn in the coat by the bullet. He’d never felt so helpless.

  “Does anybody here know first aid?” he roared. He dropped to his knees and began to undo Brenna’s raincoat. He did know that they had to stop the bleeding, and that meant getting to the wound.

  “Alma does. She runs with the ambulance in her township,” Connor said as he raced to the stairs. “Alma! Get down here fast!”

  Almost immediately there was a clatter on the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

  “Gunshot wound,” Connor said.

  Dan carefully slid Brenna’s slack arms from her sleeves, flinching when he saw blood bubbling. He knew intense relief when the lone woman with the SS guests slid to her knees beside him. She was still dressed in her wet clothes, and her hair dripped onto Brenna, but she was all business.

  “First aid kit?” she asked. “Scissors? Towels?”

  Dan pushed himself to his feet, eyes still fixed on Brenna. “Jenn,” he called. “Where’s the first aid kit?” Dan knew Cass had an extensive one, but he wasn’t certain where she stored it.

  “Behind the registration counter.”

  Jenn’s voice was soft and close, and Dan spun to see that the call to Alma had brought everyone running.

  One of the SS group standing near the registration counter went behind it and passed the first aid kit forward. He also grabbed a pair of scissors that passed from guest to guest until they reached Dan, then Alma. Alma began cutting away Brenna’s sweater and shirt. Jared ran upstairs to the linen closet and brought back several towels.

  Mike and the SS man who looked sixteen came down the stairs laughing together. They stopped cold when they saw the crowd gathered and staring. Dan immediately moved toward Mike.

  “What’s going on?” Mike asked.

  “The girl’s hurt. Shot,” said an SS man.

  Mike looked surprised but not alarmed. “What girl?”

  No one answered. Not that the SS people could, but Jenn and Jared kept quiet too. Dan couldn’t blame them. He didn’t want to tell Mike either.

  Dan knew the moment Mike understood. His face went white. “Brenna?” He pushed the man with glasses out of his way as he surged forward. “Brenna!”

  Dan caught him and held him as he tried to push his way to her side.

  “Let Alma work on her,” he said. “You’ll just get in her way.”

  He struggled frantically to free himself from Dan’s grip. “Let me go, Dan! I’ve got to get to her. She needs me.”

  “She’s unconscious, Mike. She won’t even know if you’re there. We need to stay out of Alma’s way.”

  “I could use an assistant,” Alma called over her shoulder.

  Mike strained against Dan’s grasp, “Me.”

  Dan ignored him and looked around the room. “Cass, where are you?”

  Silence.

  “Cass!”

  “I haven’t seen her,” Jenn said. “Not since you all went outside.”

  Dan’s heart froze with fear. He forgot all about Mike and pushed to the front door. Cass!

  When he saw her through the glass in the door, he felt weak with relief. The vise about his heart loosened, and his blood began to flow gain. She was just getting the rest of the baggage.

  He looked around for his raincoat, grabbed it from under the feet of two SS men, and shrugged it on. A lot of good it would do him since it was as wet on the inside as the outside. Still, he snapped it, watching Cass through the door the whole time. He saw her look up toward Mr. Carmichael’s house. His hands stilled on the snaps as he saw the panicked look on her face.

  Then she began to run, but not toward SeaSong and safety. She ran toward Mr. Carmichael’s.

  Thirty-Four

  CASS FLEW UP the sidewalk to Mr. Carmichael’s house. That grouchy, impossible old man was in grave danger. Did he know he had a sniper in his house? Had the sniper harmed him somehow?

  Cass turned the knob on the front door, expecting to find the door locked. She was surprised when it turned readily. She pushed gently against the frosted glass that filled the top half of the door, and the door squeaked open. She listened carefully. Nothing. So where was the man with the rifle?

  Oh, Lord! Help!

  She stepped cautiously inside.

  “Mr. Carmichael?” she called softly. “Mr. Carmichael?”

  “Go away,” he shouted, his voice eerie in the darkness of the house. “Go away! Leave me alone!”

  Cass stepped farther into the front hall. “Mr. Carmichael?”

  “Go away! Go away!”

  “Come with me,” Cass urged, still trying to keep her v
oice soft so the man upstairs wouldn’t hear her. “Come on. We need to get you out of here.” She reached out her hand even though the old man wasn’t in sight.

  In a flash a hand came out from behind the door and grabbed her wrist. She screamed automatically and felt her heart stop.

  Reminder: Never again try to be a heroine like the dumb heroines in books. It’s dangerous.

  She stared at the hand gripping her wrist. In the gloom, it appeared disembodied, an entity in itself. Thing from the Addams Family flashed through her mind, and she knew she was in danger of hysteria. When a man wearing a baseball cap and a ponytail stepped out from behind the door, she was almost glad to see him. Clooney’s man on the beach? At least she was glad until she saw the revolver he held in his free hand.

  “Get away from the door.” The man gestured with the gun to the center of the hall.

  She got.

  He kicked the big front door closed and twisted the lock without taking his eyes off her. “Go through to the kitchen,” he ordered.

  Cass didn’t move. The farther she got from the door, the farther she was from help. Besides, she wasn’t certain her legs would hold her if she tried to walk.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice shaking. She swallowed and tried to sound more in control. “Why did you shoot Brenna?”

  “Brenna?” He frowned in confusion. Then his face cleared. “Sherri. That was Sherri.”

  Now Cass looked confused. “Sherri?”

  “My stepsister.”

  Cass was surprised he couldn’t hear the click as the facts fell together in her mind. Tuck! The stepbrother who hurt things! Cass shuddered, and suddenly the brothers seemed like four of the most wonderful men in the world, stubbornness and all. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to hear them calling her BB.

  Tuck waved his gun. “The kitchen. Now.”

  Cass wrapped her arms around herself and again didn’t move. If he was going to shoot her, he would do so regardless. Maybe she could keep Mr. Carmichael safe.

  He studied her for a second, then lowered the gun and fired into the floor at her feet. Cass jumped as her heart leaped to her throat. She ran to the kitchen. There she found Mr. Carmichael, the phone at his ear.

  “It’s dead,” he said, his wrinkled face distressed and drained of all color.

  Cass’s heart broke at his helpless fear. “Mr. Carmichael,” she said, reaching out for him.

  “Stop!” Tuck said, his voice cold. “Let the old fool alone. He’s no threat to either of us.”

  A fist began pounding on the front door. “Cass! Cass! Are you in there? Open this door!”

  A mix of hope and terror rose in Cass. Would Dan be able to save her, or would he be shot along with her?

  Tuck looked at her. “Your husband?”

  “My husb—? Oh, n-n-no, our guest. I’m not married.”

  “Um.” Tuck grabbed a rifle Cass hadn’t noticed lying on the counter. With the handgun in one fist and the rifle in the other, he gestured Cass toward the back door. “Outside.”

  Cass looked out the window at the raging storm. “W-where are we going?”

  “Cass!” The front door began to shudder under Dan’s attempts to make the lock give. “Open this door or I’m breaking the glass and coming in!”

  Tuck raised his handgun.

  “Dan, look out!”

  Tuck fired.

  “Dan!” Ears ringing from the explosion of sound in the enclosed space, she lurched toward the front of the house. “Dan!”

  Tuck stuck out a foot, catching her in the shins. With a backward swing of his leg, he pulled her feet out from under her, tipping her forward. Her hands hit first, slapping the cracked linoleum, sliding, stinging. With a breathy huff, her chest hit the floor, then her chin. Her teeth clicked painfully. She lay stunned, gasping.

  “Get up,” Tuck hissed. “And don’t ever try anything like that again.”

  Fighting tears of pain and fright, Cass climbed slowly to her feet. She hurt all over, but she couldn’t pull her eyes from the front of the house. In the stormy darkness she couldn’t see where Tuck’s shot had gone, but she’d heard no shattering glass. At least the front door’s frosted pane hadn’t broken.

  God, please! Let him be all right.

  Tuck prodded her with his rifle. He wasn’t a very tall man, but he was muscular, maybe a weight lifting fanatic. “Open the back door.”

  Cass moved slowly, all the while listening for noises from the front door. There were none. Oh, Dan. She reached the back door and turned the knob.

  “Outside,” Tuck ordered as he pulled the strap on his rifle over his head and centered the weapon on his back. He aimed his handgun directly at her.

  Cass pulled the door open. Immediately wind and rain flooded in, slapping her in the face, making her eyes water. She ducked her head against the blast and stepped onto the back step. Tuck came right behind her, his handgun at the small of her back. All he wore for protection against the weather was a sweatshirt.

  When Dan careened around the corner of the house and screeched to a stop mere feet from them, both Cass and Tuck flinched, startled. Tuck grabbed her about the waist and held her to him, his handgun at her temple.

  Cass barely noticed, so intent on Dan was she. “You’re okay?” She had to yell to be heard over the snarl of the wind. “He didn’t shoot you?”

  Dan took a step toward her. “I’m fine. Are you okay?”

  “Get back, hotshot! You wouldn’t want me to hurt her, now would you?” Tuck released her waist only to wrap his arm around her throat, tightening his hold until she began coughing at the pressure.

  Dan stood still, impotent fury pouring off him in waves. “Are you okay?”

  “She’s fine,” Tuck snarled. “But she won’t be if you try anything heroic.”

  Dan raised his hands. “No gun. No tricks. Just don’t hurt her.”

  “We’re walking to my car, and you are not following.” He took a step, dragging Cass with him.

  “I am not following,” Dan repeated.

  “Move it, blondie. Walk under your own steam.”

  With one last desperate look at Dan, Cass did as she was told. She leaned into the wind and pushed herself toward the blue car in the back alley. A gust of wind struck and the man with the gun did a little dance to keep his feet under him. His baseball cap flew off, his ponytail flying off with it.

  Definitely Clooney’s midnight visitor.

  They reached the car.

  “Climb in the passenger side and through to the driver’s side, blondie. You’re taking us out of here.”

  She blinked. “You want me to drive?”

  “Get in the car!”

  She slid into the passenger seat and shivered with relief when the gun fell away from her temple. She climbed over the gear console, cracking her knee on the way. She kept stepping on her raincoat, making the process awkward and slow.

  “Move!” He prodded her with the butt of his rifle. She glanced back and saw he’d pulled it off his back.

  She fell into the driver’s seat and had to rearrange her raincoat under her before she had enough freedom of movement. He climbed in after her. He rested his rifle against the console, butt down, but the revolver never wavered from its fix on her.

  “The key’s behind the visor,” he said.

  She pulled it out and slotted it into the ignition. She turned her head slightly for what might well be her last glimpse of Dan.

  He wasn’t there.

  She felt an irrational sense of abandonment and isolation. In all the wet, wild world, there were only Tuck and her.

  She gave herself a mental shake. Dan had gone for help. Somehow he was doing something to rescue her. She knew it, and hope flared.

  Carefully, slowly, she drove down the alley. She looked in both directions and pulled out onto the street. As she did so, she heard a loud crack! Her first thought was that Tuck was shooting again, and her stomach turned over.

  But no. He sat quietly, gun pointed
at her, apparently unmoved by the crack of sound, at least until he saw the tree branch that had snapped and was hurtling right at them. Cass hit the brakes, throwing up her hands to protect her face while Tuck cursed. The car swerved wildly, but the huge limb missed them. Barely. Its leaves swiped across the windshield.

  Cass sat shaking as she stared up at the great ragged tear where the branch had ripped from the tree. “That could have killed us.”

  “That is far from your greatest danger,” Tuck snarled and placed the revolver against her side. “Drive.”

  She gulped. “Where?”

  He rammed the gun against her ribs. “I said drive.”

  “I’m not kidding.” She hated that she sounded breathless with fear. “Where do you want me to go? We won’t be able to get off island.”

  He stared for an instant. “I don’t believe you! Just drive!”

  She drove, her hands gripping the steering wheel as the wind buffeted the car. At one particularly strong gust, the car was blown across the road. Tuck flinched.

  “Scary, isn’t it?” Cass struggled to get the car back in its proper lane. Not that it mattered. No one else in his right mind was out driving in this weather.

  She went four blocks before they came to a flooded intersection. Cass hit the brakes and stared at the dark water, its surface agitated by the gale.

  “Drive through it,” Tuck ordered.

  Her hands turned slick on the wheel. “I don’t know how deep it is.”

  “Who cares? Drive!”

  “What if there’s a sinkhole or something, and we fall in?” Cass had never heard of a sinkhole in Seaside, but it was always possible.

  “Drive!” He pointed the gun at her again and started to tighten his finger on the trigger.

  If she had been able to pry her fingers loose from the wheel, Cass would have slapped a hand over her mouth to hold back the bile rising in her throat. Slowly, slowly she moved through the water. As little waves eddied out from the tires, she asked, “How high does water have to be to short out the motor?”

  “Who knows?” Tuck’s free hand played a nervous tattoo on his thigh. “Who cares?”

  Cass turned east toward the ocean as a great gust struck them broadside. The car shuddered and skidded.