I heard them getting out of those cars, heard the doors slam, and the voices, the crunch of boots on the crisp grass as they came toward us.
Then I heard Eve’s voice, and I turned around. Even with the glaring lights in her face she was not aware of them. She was talking to me, wildly, warning me.
“Don’t try to stop me,” she said.
I stared at her, feeling the creepy sense of shock along my neck. She still didn’t know those people were there. Maybe she didn’t even know me. But she brought the gun up slowly.
Someone shouted at her from behind me, but she did not hear them. Nothing changed in her face. There was nothing there any more to change. There was nothing but death in her face. She was alive, but everything inside her had been killed.
“Eve.” I lowered my voice, trying to hide the shock at what I saw in her face.
I was less than a foot from her. I had kept moving toward her because there was nothing else I could do. I saw her hand tighten on that gun.
“Eve.”
She shook her head, wavering, and I snagged her wrist. I twisted the gun from her grasp.
She stared up into my face. I didn’t know if she recognized me or not. Her voice was as empty and soulless as her eyes.
I heard the sheriff and his deputies surround us. She was unaware of them.
“He killed Evans,” she said in that flat, soulless voice.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Cassel,” Sheriff Mason said. “We were here. In the dark. We saw it all.”
One of the deputies had moved past us to the overturned convertible. He played his flashlight inside. Then he reached in and brought out the satchel I had taken from Bart Cassel in Fort MacKeeney that morning. I stared at it. It was in Eve’s car, and she’d been running. No wonder Bart had tried to run her down and tried to kill her.
“Here’s something, sheriff,” the deputy said.
The rich leather of the satchel gleamed in the headlights, shining.
Eve turned her head, stared at the satchel. She lunged away from me, grabbing at it. Before anyone could move, she jerked it away from the deputy, hugged it against her.
“No,” she said in that spiritless voice. “It’s mine. He killed Evans.”
“Come on, Mrs. Cassel,” the sheriff said. “Let me take you in to town ... to the doctor.”
She tried to writhe free of his arm, and she would not release the satchel. I put my arm around her. “Come on, Eve,” I said. “Let’s go.”
She glanced up at me, nodded, and did not resist. We walked slowly toward the sheriff’s cruisers. The lawmen followed, silent.
Suddenly, she stopped walking. Her voice quavered. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going into town, Eve. You’re going to be all right.”
“No.” Her voice did not rise, but there was terror in it. She tried to pull away from me. “I can’t go ... I shot Bart. You know I did. You saw me shoot him. I can’t go to prison. I’d die ... I—”
“It doesn’t matter, Eve. He tried to kill you. They saw it. The sheriff saw the way it was.”
She smiled then in a strange vacant way that made me shiver. “Yes. He’s dead. Bart’s dead. He can’t lie any more ... You saw how it was, Mitch.”
“Yes. I saw how it was. He can’t hurt you any more.”
“He can’t hurt me any more?” She turned and looked up at me, eyes wide and empty. She was still unaware of the sheriff’s men around her. She cried out suddenly, a heartbroken sound. “He doesn’t need to hurt me any more. He’s already hurt me ... Already hurt me ... He killed Evans. That’s why I had to shoot him, Mitch. You see how it is.”
“Yes,” I said. “I see how it is.”
THE END
About the Author
Harry “King of the Paperbacks” Whittington (1915-1989) - who was born in the north Florida town of Ocala - is today best known for the noir novels he wrote between 1950 and 1960, including classics such as Fires That Destroy, You’ll Die Next! and Web of Murder. He served with the U.S. Navy during World War II, and worked as an editor and freelance writer before he continued to write full-time.
After selling his first short story to United Features in 1943, Whittington went on to write more than 170 noir, suspense, western and romance novels, using nearly 20 different names, over the next thirty years.
About the Publisher
280 Steps is a publisher of crime, noir and hardboiled fiction. Discover new writers and crime classics.
For more information about 280 Steps and our titles, please visit 280steps.com
Copyright
Copyright © renewed 1988 by Harry Whittington
Introduction copyright © 2013 by Bill Crider
First eBook edition: January 2014
Published by 280 Steps by arrangement with the Estate of Harry Whittington. Visit us at 280steps.com
Cover design by Risa Rodil
eISBN: 978-82-93326-10-6
Publishers note:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used ficticiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
If you would like to use material from the eBook (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher:
[email protected].
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