Shadow Image

by Martin J. Smith

  “Oh, Jesus,” Christensen said.

  He’d seen an execution only once—on black-and-white film, that unforgettable horror from the streets of Saigon—but there was no mistaking this. The man behind Bostwick moved up another step, casually putting more distance between himself and the shrinking fountain of blood. He put the gun back inside his suit coat, then took off one shoe and wiped its toe on the carpeted stair.

  Christensen retched twice, as quietly as he could. It tasted like coffee grounds.

  Steadying himself against the maple’s branches, he forced himself to look back through the window. The killer was moving again, stepping carefully around the flannel heap and the widening pool beside it. Christensen wouldn’t—couldn’t—let his eyes stop there. Still, his stomach lurched again.

  The killer disappeared behind the stairs, into what looked like the cabin’s kitchen. Maybe with his final nod and a gun to his head, Bostwick had finally told where he hid the films. Even so, would the killer shoot Bostwick before he actually found them? The man in the suit crossed the opening between the stairs and the left wall. There, he opened every cupboard door and swept the contents—cans, jars, bags of rice and sugar—onto the floor, more agitated than before.

  Still looking.

  Suddenly the killer was outside, appearing on the cabin’s front deck from a walkway that ran down the right side toward what must have been a back door. Maybe thirty feet away, he tucked the gun back into his suit jacket and headed for the stairs to ground level.

  Christensen looked down, thinking first of the vomit that had landed at the base of the tree. Would the killer notice the smell as he passed on the way to his car? What caught Christensen’s eye instead were his own shoes, two brown loafers side by side beneath the maple’s lowest branch. It was dark, and they blended with the dirt and leaves. But they were too out of place, too unexpected. If the man saw them, he’d know. Christensen held his breath and prayed.

  Time slowed, then stopped, as the man coasted to a stop just below. In that frozen moment, with a killer staring at the stranded shoes, instinct took over. As soon as the man’s right hand moved inside his lapel, Christensen swung silently off his perch and into a fifteen-foot freefall, landing his socks on the man’s shoulders and unleashing a primal scream just as the man looked up. He heard the unmistakable snap of bone as something heavy skittered into the brush.

  Christensen landed on his feet, then lurched forward and fell. He rolled and stood, surprised that the impact hadn’t been more painful. The killer was struggling up to all fours with an unknowable smile, shaking his head like a punch-drunk boxer. When he looked up at Christensen, he lost his balance and fell onto his right side. His jacket yawned open, and against his white shirt Christensen could see that the shoulder holster was empty. The way the guy was struggling for breath, Christensen figured he’d broken his collarbone.

  The gun was somewhere close. Christensen charged, and when the man reached his left arm up to shield his face, he kicked him hard in the ribs. Even through the dark suit jacket, Christensen’s foot connected with a dull thud, another soggy crack, and the grunt of emptying lungs. The only other sound was Christensen’s own scream as pain shot up his right leg. He backed off and kicked again, his injury numbed by adrenaline and fear. The man crawled forward and collapsed as Christensen limped away, cursing a pain that felt like hot knitting needles jammed point-first between his toes.

  The man wasn’t moving. Ten seconds. Twenty. “I saw everything, you son of a bitch,” Christensen said to the dark heap, looking away only to steal quick glances for the gun. “I already called the cops.” He took a sharp breath. “From my car phone, before I even knew what you were doing.” Another breath. “They’re coming, so don’t try anything.”

  He circled closer, wary, convinced the man was bluffing, too. When he was close enough to see the closed eyes and empty hands, Christensen nudged the limp form with his left foot. The man’s face rolled in the dirt until it settled back into place. Christensen knelt on the back of the slack left hand, easing his full weight down to make sure it was immobile, then pulled the limp right arm back and turned it palm up. The man groaned, but didn’t move. Pinning that arm in the middle of his back with his right hand, Christensen started searching the bastard’s pants pockets with his left. He might never find the gun, but at least he wanted the knife.

  Chapter 38

  The keys were a bonus. Somewhere on the ring that Christensen pulled from the killer’s pocket was a handcuff key, he was sure, but it was too dark to find it outside. He shuddered at the prospect of going in, of confronting the horror at the base of the loft stairs. But he didn’t want this guy up and around.

  Slipping the switchblade into his own pants pocket, he limped up the deck stairs and followed the walkway around to the open back door. He was still out of breath and squinting as he stepped into the track-lit disaster of Bostwick’s cabin. The fallen mattresses blocked his view of what lay just beyond, but there was no denying it. The far corner of one mattress was turning red, soaked with blood.

  He stepped quickly but carefully in his stocking feet, picking a path toward the dead man, his need for the handcuffs outweighing the need to preserve the crime scene. No telling how long before the killer came to. Was this really happening?

  The answer came too quickly. Bostwick was slumped forward, his chin on his chest, a matted flap of dark hair at the back of his head. Christensen stepped wide of the crimson pool and onto the loft stairs, busying himself with the key ring, focusing on something other than Bostwick’s body. He found the small handcuff key quickly, but he felt for a pulse before unlocking the dead man’s wrists from the stair railing. Nothing, of course. How could there be?

  Bostwick fell forward as soon as Christensen turned the key, then moaned as the motion forced trapped air from his lungs. The sound split the cabin’s silence, followed by the crack of the dead man’s skull as it hit the plank floor.

  “Sorry,” he said, an instinctive reaction.

  Bostwick lay facedown in his blood, his silence underscoring the absurdity of the apology. Christensen stretched forward and unlocked the second cuff. Bostwick’s freed arm fell forward, coming to rest awkwardly, palm up, beside his torso. For a moment, Christensen felt the need to see Bostwick’s face, to know what the man looked like. But he hesitated, unprepared to carry that image with him for the rest of his life. He moved quickly across the room, stopping only to peer through the cabin’s front window to make sure the dark heap was still at the base of the maple tree.

  Outside, Christensen nudged again with his foot. The killer stirred, still unconscious but struggling back to the surface. He grabbed the man’s starched shirt collar and pulled, dragging him maybe ten feet to the base of the tree, then tugged the bulk until it was sitting upright. He leaned him against the foot-thick trunk and cuffed one wrist, then pulled the left arm around the tree and reached for the man’s right. He closed the second cuff with a reassuring snap, anchoring the killer, then fell backward into the dirt. He landed on the gun.

  Christensen never seriously considered pulling the trigger, but as he sat face-to-face with the man he’d seen kill so casually, the gun’s barrel wedged solidly between the killer’s teeth, he had to admit the urge was there. He’d released the safety once he’d found it, and felt his finger tighten when he thought of Annie and Taylor, of where they might be and what might have happened since they disappeared.

  He tensed again when the eyelids fluttered, at once frightened and relieved that the man’s brain was functioning again after ten minutes of unconsciousness. The head rocked from side to side, and Christensen felt the man’s tongue pushing against the cold steel. He gave no quarter, shoving the barrel even deeper. The man gagged and his eyes opened all the way, but it took him at least a minute to fully grasp his circumstance.

  “Can you he
ar me now?” Christensen asked when their eyes finally met.

  A nod.

  “And you understand what I’m saying?”

  Another nod.

  “That’s good. Let’s start with the easy stuff.” Christensen withdrew the gun and put the barrel in the center of the man’s forehead. “What’s your name?”

  “Tony.”

  Christensen counted to ten. Anything less and he might have lost control. “Tony Robbins?” he said finally.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Christensen moved the gun’s barrel from the man’s forehead and teased it into one of his nostrils. “Like the personal power guy in the infomercials? That Tony Robbins?”

  “You know him, too?” The man seemed sincere, weirdly so, as if they’d discovered a mutual friend.

  Christensen shoved the barrel as far up the man’s nose as it would go. “Let’s start over, you lying sack of shit. What’s your name?”

  After half a minute of silence, Christensen withdrew the gun, thinking maybe the man couldn’t talk, or worse, maybe his attempt at intimidation made him sound like a cheesy Hollywood mobster. Either way, all he got was stony silence and that same strange, grotesque smile he’d seen as the killer went down. What now? Christensen backed off and sat down cross-legged about five feet away, leveling the gun at the man’s chest. He needed another tactic, an exposed nerve he could manipulate. He’d probably get nowhere trying to bully the guy. He needed to get into his head.

  “Then let me tell you some things,” he said. “You work for the Underhill family.”

  No reaction. Just that smile.

  “Part of your job, maybe all of your job, is making sure the family secrets stay secrets. I’m guessing from that suit that you’re paid pretty well, so you must be good at what you do. Loyal, too. These people treat you well, don’t they?”

  A modest shrug. The smile broadened into a grin. A clue.

  Christensen lowered the gun. “Loyalty is a great thing. Really. Very commendable.”

  The man nodded. “ ‘Devotation is the hallmark of the committed.’ ”

  “Devotion,” Christensen said, nodding. “So true. You made that up?”

  He shook his head. “Maya Baba Mankar.”

  Christensen smiled, imagining the phrase highlighted in yellow marker in the man’s copy of that tinhorn mystic’s bestseller, The Prophesies of Q. Here was another of the New Age’s misguided spiritual seekers; here was someone whose buttons he could push. “Wise man,” Christensen said. “You’ve read his book?”

  The man shook his head. “Tapes.”

  Of course. “ ‘The nobility of the follower,’ ” Christensen said. “He really hit the nail on the head, didn’t he?”

  “ ‘The joy of selfless service!’ ”

  “Yes!” Christensen pretended to marvel at the wisdom of the idea. “Service is such a noble calling.”

  An appreciative nod.

  “Okay. The thing is, it’s over.” Christensen waited a beat. “The secret’s out. I’m not the only one who knows about Chip Underhill. And you killing the guy inside, or my friend Maura, or anybody else who knows, that doesn’t stop the ship from going down. So it’s your choice: You can help me out here, or you can go down with it like some faithful family dog.”

  The man said nothing, but his eyes strayed to the gun.

  “Loyalty’s a great thing, a noble thing,” Christensen said. “And you tried your best. But, fact is, you still couldn’t keep the secret. I’d never fault you for that, but your bosses, well, you know, they’ll have to blame somebody. People like that don’t make mistakes, you know, they hire people like you to make mistakes for them. Because they’d never make a bad decision, would they? And they’d never, ever get their own hands dirty. Not people like that. Hey, you a gambler?”

  The smile was gone. The man shook his head.

  “ ’Cause I’ll make you a bet: How loyal do you think the Underhills will be when they find out you let them down?”

  “I didn’t,” he said.

  “They needed your help, expected it. But now everybody knows. That family’s going down, and it’s your fault. You failed.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “It’s true. Everybody knows, and it was your sloppy work that did it. The dead gardener had Fox Chapel silt in his pockets when they found him downriver, so they know where he went in. And I just saw you kill Simon Bostwick. You got cocky. You didn’t even close the blinds.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You think the Underhills are going to admit all this was their idea? Even if they did, who’d ever believe them? I guess what I’m saying here, sport, is maybe you should check to see if the people you were following are still out in front. I think when you look up, when you understand what’s happened here, you’ll see there’s nobody left to follow. Know why? Because they’re all hiding behind you. You’re propped up in front, all alone. You’re the tackling dummy.”

  “Bite my pipe.”

  Christensen squinted down the gun’s barrel, as if drawing a bead on the man’s head. “Where are my kids?”

  The sick smile became a grin. But no answer. Enough with the mind games. Time to speak the man’s language.

  The gunshot echoed once and stopped, muffled by the surrounding forest. The sound startled them both, and the killer pressed his right ear against his right shoulder in obvious pain. Christensen breathed easier when the man looked up, the ear intact. No blood.

  “Let’s try that again,” he said. “Where are my kids?”

  “They’re fine.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I don’t know, but they’re fine.”

  “Where’d you take them after you left the school?”

  “They’re fine, I said. Nobody’s gonna maltreat ’em.”

  Christensen edged closer, out of kicking range but close enough to put the gun’s barrel just inches from one of the man’s tasseled loafers. He looked him in the eyes. “Tell me now.”

  The killer’s eyes shifted between Christensen’s eyes and his own foot. “Now. Later. What difference does it make?”

  Christensen studied his face. “Explain.”

  A shrug. “They served their purpose this time. You already got the message.”

  He tapped the man’s foot with the gun, lightly, to make sure he understood. “I’m a little slow, and I’m not playing games. What’s the message?”

  “You don’t get it yet?”

  “I’m slow. Say it.”

  That smile. It infuriated Christensen even before the man answered. Then he spoke: “We can find ’em anytime we want.”

  The second gunshot was lost in a scream. Christensen didn’t look away as the man thrashed helplessly against the tree, cursing, twitching, his body convulsing from the pain. The shoe came off and Christensen picked it up. The tassel was gone; there was only a hole where it used to be.

  “Where are my kids?”

  The man threw his head back against the tree, his face contorted into something grotesque. His leg was moving by shattered reflex, a living thing whose spastic movements he couldn’t control. It was bleeding, but not much. “Fuck you,” he screamed.

  Christensen shifted to his right, the man’s left. This time he drew a bead on the knee of his other leg, startled by his own sadistic will. When he was sure the man understood his intention, he asked again: “Where are my kids?”

  “Fuck your mother!”

  “I’m going to count to three.”

  “They’re safe, I said!”

  “One.”

  “Cocksucker!”

  “Two.”

  “Just kill me!”


  “Three.”

  Suddenly, Christensen was standing, the gun aimed into the dirt, looking down at a fetal form whose legs were drawn up tight to his chest. He’d heard an explosion, sharp, final, but it was lost in the howl of an anguished animal, a howl that rose from Christensen’s chest and died in the surrounding woods. Jesus. What had he done? He waited, remorse overtaking him with each passing second.

  Finally, the man’s wounded foot twitched. He unfolded slowly, opened his eyes, and looked down at the knee. Christensen looked, too, surprised it wasn’t a gory mulch. Had he lost the stomach for it, or did he just miss? Their eyes met again, and the man whispered something.

  “Speak up,” Christensen said, still rattled by the power of his rage.

  “Kill me.”

  Christensen turned his back, breathing as hard as he might after a long run. The man was a killer, cold and efficient, but this was wrong. He thought of the kids again. Even that wasn’t enough to provoke him. When he turned around, the man closed his eyes. Waiting.

  “No,” Christensen said. He slid the gun’s safety back on.

  “Please.”

  The man’s eyes were still closed as Christensen turned away, headed for the car.

  Chapter 39

  If he’d followed his first impulse, Christensen might not have noticed the tape. If he’d twisted the Explorer’s ignition key, jammed it into reverse, and backed down the rutted dirt road and away from this nightmare, he might not have spent minutes panting behind the wheel, trying to collect himself, surrounded by the ghostly birch trees and the silence of the woods, remembering why he came.

  Bostwick had the autopsy films, and he’d died because of it. Christensen was sure of that. But if the killer’s search hadn’t turned them up, where were they? His leather briefcase had spilled onto the passenger-side floor during the rough ride to Bostwick’s cabin, and the answering-machine tape was among its scattered contents. He turned the key without starting the engine, then slipped the tape into the player and rewound it for several seconds. Bostwick’s had been the last of the three messages.