by B. J Daniels
She heard him whisper, “This is almost over, then it’s just you and me, baby.” He gave her a loud slap on her behind as she turned to leave.
“We’ve already gotten away with it, no thanks to you.” Juliette hesitated for a moment in the doorway and then went out. “Make sure she suffers for putting me through this.”
AJ looked to Otis as the door closed. “Please. Take off his cuffs. I know you’re going to kill us but at least give me a moment in his arms before you do.” She sounded close to tears. She was.
Otis laughed and shook his head. “You’re a lot more romantic than Juliette.”
Juliette was a heartless, cold bitch, but she didn’t tell him that. If he didn’t already know, he would soon enough. They deserved each other.
“Please. You’ve taken so much from him. At least give us a few minutes together,” she said.
“You are awfully demanding,” he said as he stepped toward her and Cyrus. “No wonder Juliette is so fond of you. You know she wanted to kill you herself, but it didn’t work out. You should be damned glad of that. Okay, why not? Stand over there,” he said to her as he knelt down and reached for his keys to the cuffs. “Make a move and I’ll shoot him in the head and then turn the gun on you. Got it?”
She nodded and pressed herself against the wall as he’d ordered.
Cyrus was looking at her as if he hoped she knew what she was doing. Not half as much as she hoped she did. The moment she’d come into the warming hut, she’d looked around for something she could use as a weapon.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much. Someone had left a pile of garbage in the back corner. There was a broken ski pole lying next to it. Closer was the tip end of a broken cross-country ski. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do, she thought as she waited for Otis to dig out his handcuff keys.
She watched Otis kneel on the floor next to Cyrus.
“You pull anything and I’ll blow your head off,” Otis said, brandishing the gun in his left hand as he rolled Cyrus over to get to his cuffed wrists at his back.
The moment he turned the key and the cuffs fell away, she made her move. The warming hut was small enough that all she had to do was take a step to reach the broken ski tip. She snatched it up, disappointed immediately to feel how light it was. It wouldn’t make much of a weapon, after all.
But she was committed now and had no choice. She swung it with all her strength. It caught Otis in the side of the head. The sound it made was more impressive than the damage it did. He swayed a little and let out a curse as he started to grab for her.
The blow slowed Otis enough that Cyrus was able to spin around. He brought up his knees, his ankles still bound, and kicked Otis hard in the chest. AJ had to jump out of the way as Otis went sprawling on his back.
AJ saw the man raise his gun. She leaped on him, grabbing the gun as she tried to wrest it away from him. Cyrus rolled over and grabbed Otis’s arm, the three of them wrestling on the floor, when the door of the warming hut burst open.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE GUNSHOT TOOK them all by surprise. Dust and wood splinters filled the air around them. Cyrus turned toward the doorway to find Arthur Davis waving a gun. The man raised it as if to fire another shot into the ceiling.
“Arthur, stop!” Otis ordered as he wrestled the gun from AJ. He swung it. Cyrus ducked, but still caught enough of the barrel against his head for the light to dim for a moment as he fell back. Otis gave AJ a shove that sent her falling back onto the wood floor. “Keep your gun trained on them.” He got to his feet, wiped at the blood running down his cheek and swore. The metal edge of the cross-country ski tip had torn into his flesh. But the wound was obviously only skin-deep.
Cyrus reached for AJ, taking her in his arms. He couldn’t believe her bravery. His love for the woman swelled until his heart was bursting. He wished there was some way to save her. He didn’t see any way out of this now. He’d managed to get the tape off that had bound his ankles. But there was no way he could launch an attack on the two men holding guns on them.
“If we’re going to die, I want you in my arms,” he whispered in her ear as he held her tight. “I’m so sorry, AJ.”
She shook her head, tears running down her face as she drew back to look at him as if suspecting, like he did, that it would be the last time.
Otis sighed and said, “Let’s get this over. If either of them move, shoot them.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Cyrus saw the former cop reach into his pocket and bring out a syringe. So that was the plan? Not shoot them?
Otis stepped to them, grabbed a handful of AJ’s hair, and dragged her from Cyrus’s arms. “Shoot her first if Cyrus moves,” the ex-cop ordered.
Cyrus had no doubt that Arthur would do it. The man seemed to be the loose cannon of this bunch. But as Otis went to jam the needle into his arm he pretended to flinch and managed to move enough that even though he felt the prick of the needle, the ex-cop had trouble emptying all of the drug into him. Otis swore and kicked him in the thigh hard enough to make him double over.
“Did you get enough of the drug into him?” Arthur asked.
“I think so. Won’t make any difference in about twenty minutes anyway,” the former cop said. “Go get ready. You think you can handle this?”
Arthur smirked at him. “You just do your part.” He turned then and left.
Cyrus could feel the drug racing through his system. He realized that they weren’t going to dope AJ. He was afraid of what Otis had in mind for her. The former cop seemed distracted, no longer worried about Cyrus, no doubt knowing that the drug would soon leave him unable to defend himself. He could already feel its effect weakening him. He just hoped that he’d managed to get so little of the drug that it wouldn’t render him useless for long.
But even as he thought it, he felt himself drifting, his body feeling as if he was floating. He tried bunching his hands into fists. It was as if his brain and his body were no longer connected. Had they used this drug on him on the ship, he thought, he wouldn’t be here now. And neither would AJ.
* * *
“HERE IS WHAT we’re going to do,” Otis said as from outside came the loud rat-a-tat-tat of a snowmobile engine coming to life. “You’re going to help me get your boyfriend here out to his pickup. Or I shoot you here. Your choice.”
AJ moved from the wall where she’d been standing and the two of them helped Cyrus to his feet. Otis kept the gun clutched in his free hand and she could feel him watching her, looking for an excuse to get back at her for hitting him with the ski. The cut on his scalp where she’d hit him with the ski was still bleeding. She’d hurt him and he wasn’t one to forget it.
He kicked open the door of the warming hut and they stepped out into the heavy snow. Cyrus’s now leaden body shifted and she almost fell into a snowdrift under his weight. Otis managed to pull him back and they made it the few steps to Cyrus’s pickup. The ex-cop opened the passenger side door and ordered her to go around to the driver’s side.
Cyrus fell face-first into the pickup. Otis grabbed his legs with effort and shoved him in the rest of the way.
As AJ slid behind the wheel, she tried to imagine what the man had planned for them. None of this made any sense. If he was going to kill them, then why not get it over with and just shoot them?
He slammed the passenger side door and she saw her chance. She reached down to start the pickup. If she could get away fast enough... The key wasn’t in the ignition. Her door flew open. Otis jangled the keys in front of her, laughing as her slim hope of escape evaporated.
“Scoot over,” he ordered. There wasn’t much room in the cab with Cyrus slumped over. Otis helped her shove him into a sitting position and had her put his seat belt on.
She watched as he put the key in the ignition and started the engine. What did he plan to do? Plug the tailpipe and let them die of carbon monoxide poisonin
g? She’d heard of it happening in the winter. Drivers went off the road and kept their vehicle engines running while they waited for a wrecker, not realizing that the car’s tailpipe was in the snow and the vehicle was filling with the deadly gas.
But that didn’t seem to be the plan, she thought as he got out, stood in the open doorway and honked the horn. The noise of the snowmobile could be heard in the distance. It had quieted some she realized—until Otis honked the horn. He reached over and honked the horn twice again. She heard the snowmobile rev up in the distance.
“What are you—”
“I’m giving you a chance to save yourself and your boyfriend,” Otis said. “Drive down the road through that gully. Here’s your chance to live. If you make it to the other side and up that mountain, then I won’t come after you and shoot you both. You’ll live.” He reached down to wedge something against the gas pedal. The engine howled. He shifted the truck into gear and jumped back as the pickup leaped forward.
AJ was so stunned it took her a moment before she grabbed the wheel and slid over under it as the truck roared down the steep road out of control. She started to touch the brakes but remembered what Otis had said. The engine was revved so high she couldn’t hear herself think. She shifted the truck into Neutral, but the pickup had already dropped over the edge of the ravine and was now careening downward.
She pumped on the gas pedal trying to get it to come up. The pickup was bouncing down the mountain at breakneck speed through the pines and snow. It was all she could do to keep it on the road and not crash into the pines as snow rose in the air and blew over the windshield.
Ahead, the trees opened into the bottom of the gully. That’s when she knew what Otis had planned. Avalanches over the years had barreled down the gully, clearing out the trees and anything else in their paths. The gully was now an avalanche chute and with the heavy cornices at the top of the mountain...
That’s when she heard the roar. Arthur had taken the snowmobile up on the mountain to set off the avalanche. They would be buried alive in it if she didn’t reach the other side of the gully.
Her gaze shot to Cyrus’s passenger side window. A wall of white was rushing down the mountainside headed right for them. She had no choice. She shifted back into gear. The pickup leaped forward as she raced toward the other side of the gully, knowing she wasn’t likely to make it, but having to try.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
OTIS WAITED UNTIL he saw Cyrus’s pickup disappear under the mountain of snow before he climbed behind the wheel of the stolen truck. He’d promised Arthur that he would wait for him. He’d lied. Just as he’d lied to Juliette. He had the check in his pocket. He had a friend who would cash it for him and then he was out of the country. He already had a new passport and identification in another name.
“You should have listened to me, Juliette,” he said, smiling, as he started down the road out of the canyon. He told himself that he wasn’t worried about Arthur surviving and turning state’s evidence against him. Arthur was so sure he could start the avalanche without getting caught in it.
But Otis had known the man for years. Arthur couldn’t do anything right. By now he would be under all that snow along with the stolen snowmobile. Otis smiled to himself. He just wished he could see Juliette’s face when she realized what had happened. If she talked, she would only incriminate herself.
Anyway, she hated the cops. All the times her mother had called the police when she was a kid and they showed up but did nothing about the woman’s abusive husband. It was just a matter of time before he killed her and he did. He would have killed Julie too if she hadn’t gotten out of there and reinvented herself as Juliette.
He almost felt sorry for her. But his own father had been a real bastard so he couldn’t work up much sympathy for her. Did she really think he wanted to run away with her and marry her? He must look like a fool in that case. He’d seen into her heart. She could never love any man. She was busy destroying every man she could snare as if killing her father over and over again.
Otis shoved away the past, like swatting away a pesky fly. If his plan worked, it would appear that AJ and Cyrus had gotten caught in an avalanche. It would look suspicious, but there would be no proof that any of them had been involved.
He would get rid of the stolen pickup as soon as he reached Billings. In a city that size, it was just a matter of wiping it down and leaving the keys in it. Soon he would be a free man. Free of Juliette and Arthur. In the spring they would find Arthur’s body. If Juliette wasn’t already behind bars, they’d suspect her. But with her luck, she’d probably skate. She had a knack for getting away with murder.
Otis couldn’t wait to get out of the country. He’d saved every dime he could of the money he’d made with Juliette. He had a nice nest egg, enough that he could live comfortably where he was going. He thought about sun on his face, a cold beer in his hand, a pretty woman on his arm. Hasta la vista.
* * *
HARP HAD WAITED at the entrance into Horse Thief Canyon. He’d kept looking at the tire tracks in the road until he hadn’t been able to stand it any longer. It wouldn’t be the first time that he’d disobeyed a direct order. But it could be the last, he’d thought as he pulled out his shotgun, made sure it was loaded and then took his handgun from its holster and laid it on the passenger seat next to him.
He’d glanced down the road up to the canyon. Still no sign of the sheriff. True, it had only been a few minutes since he’d made the call. No way could Flint have gotten here yet. Harp’s gut instinct had told him not to wait. He wasn’t sure he could trust it, that’s why he hadn’t disregarded the order to wait right after it was given.
Now as he shifted the patrol SUV into gear, he told himself he was taking a hell of a chance. There’d been a time that Sheriff Flint Cahill had just been itching for an excuse to fire him. And he’d come close more times than Harp liked to remember. But there’d been those other times when Harp had followed his gut instinct and saved the day. Not many of them.
But today, he felt like if he waited things could go very wrong.
Tromping on the gas, he thundered down the narrow road through the pines. The deep snow flew up over his SUV, making it hard to see at times, but he didn’t slow.
As he came around a bend in the road, he saw the pickup headed right for him. A second later a bullet shattered his patrol SUV’s windshield. Harp didn’t let up on the gas. The pickup and the patrol SUV were on a collision course, but he wasn’t going to be the one to turn away. He grabbed the handgun on the seat and fired through a hole in his windshield.
The pickup suddenly veered to the left and crashed into the pines.
Harp hit his brakes but he was going too fast. He tried to get past the tail end of the pickup sticking out in the road. Unfortunately, the road wasn’t quite wide enough. He heard his mirror fly off as the pickup scraped down the side of his SUV.
But somehow, he managed to get past the truck and was now barreling toward the warming shack, afraid of what he would find. Ahead, he saw something that made his heart race with worry. Snow rose from the gully next to the warming hut in a billowing cloud that seemed to obliterate everything ahead.
* * *
CYRUS OPENED HIS EYES. For a moment, he saw nothing but white. He blinked and tried to move his body. His fingers twitched. Then his arm jerked. He looked down. He was sitting up in what appeared to be his pickup, strapped in by the seat belt. Through the windshield, he could see nothing but snow. It was at his side window, as well. It seemed to be packed around him. He tried to open his door, feeling as if he needed fresh air. It wouldn’t budge.
He was trying to make sense of it when he looked over and saw AJ slumped against the door. He unhooked his seat belt and reached for her as he tried to shake off the fuzziness of the drug. She stirred.
“What happened?” he asked. He could see that their air bags had deployed, he realized.
He shook his head in confusion.
“Avalanche,” AJ whispered as she leaned into him.
He saw that she’d hit her head on the side window. There was blood running down the side of her face. He pulled her to him, wiping at the blood with his sleeve. “Avalanche?” It was freezing in here.
“Otis.” She met his gaze, tears brimming in her eyes. “The truck was caught in the avalanche.”
He felt his eyes widen in alarm. “We’re under the snow?”
She nodded and he felt his heart take off like a shot as he realized there was little chance of digging themselves out. They had no idea which way was even up. Just as there was little chance they would be found. Soon they would be out of oxygen.
AJ looked at him, her blue eyes wide and scared, but her expression accepting. She knew that they weren’t going to survive this.
He wanted to break a window and try digging them out, but he knew it would be fruitless and waste what little oxygen they had left. He hugged AJ to him and breathed in the sweet scent of her hair, his heart full of regrets.
“Juliette said you remembered.”
He nodded. “It all came back.” He told her about the FBI badges, the thumb drive someone had slipped into the pocket of his jacket, and how Juliette and Otis had taken him upstairs at the hotel. “I was such a fool. But they were so believable.” He shook his head. “They said they believed me that I was innocent and had no idea how the thumb drive had gotten into my pocket. They said the only way they could help me was if I helped them.”
“That’s how you ended up on the ship,” AJ said.
He nodded. “All of it including the wedding was supposed to be a ruse to catch the real criminals. I got swept up in it. I thought I was helping my country. I was suspicious that they’d set me up. But I still believed they were FBI. I heard them make calls to their superiors supposedly. It was all very real.”