“Not necessarily,” Parrant said. “Some people can be bought. Most people in fact. Or they can be scared easily enough. Who else knows?”
“I lied,” Cork told him. “No one else knows.”
“I don’t believe you.” Parrant rubbed at his nose, thinking. “Tell you what I’m going to do. From now on, every time I get an answer I don’t believe-” He put his arm around Jo to hold her and he pointed the barrel of the. 38 at her foot. “-I’ll put a bullet through one of Jo’s extremities.”
“You’d really do that?”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m lying. But think about it. What have I got to lose? A man who aspires to the White House ought to be able to be ruthless if the situation demands. So, what do you think? Will I really do it?”
Parrant’s eyes were quite clear and unblinking as a snake’s. “Let’s begin again,” he said. “Did you tell anyone else about the negatives?”
“No.”
“Did you talk to anyone else about your suspicions of me?”
“No.”
The sound of the gunshot made Cork jerk as if he’d been struck by the bullet. Jo tried to yank free, almost separating from Parrant as she screamed into the duct tape. From under the table, where it had lain cradled on his lap, Cork swung the Winchester. The safety was off, a cartridge chambered. For the briefest instant he had a shot at Parrant. Not a clear shot, however, for Parrant was struggling to pull Jo back. Cork hesitated. That was all Sandy Parrant needed.
“Drop it!” he shouted at Cork, jamming the revolver into the back of Jo’s head. “She’s not hit. But I’ll kill her, I swear to God.”
Cork saw that although Jo stood tottering, she was unharmed. He lowered the rifle to the floor.
“Brinkmanship, O’Connor,” Parrant explained with a galling note of triumph. “A game I’m rather good at. John Kennedy was a fucking amateur.” Parrant resettled his grasp on Jo, wrapped his arm around her, and once again aimed the gun at her foot. “Next time, I promise you, I won’t miss. Once more, did you tell anyone about the negatives?”
“Schanno.”
“When?”
“I saw him today. We discussed GameTech.”
“Schanno.” Parrant considered this and didn’t appear too upset. “I’ve got things on him. I can get to him.”
“I think you underestimate the man,” Cork said.
“No one else knows about the negatives?”
“No one.”
“Did you discuss your suspicions about me with anyone?”
“The priest.”
“Tom Griffin? In confession?”
“I haven’t made a confession in years.”
Parrant took a deep breath and thought that one over.
“He’s free to talk,” Cork reminded him. “Maybe he already has. You may end up having to kill all of Aurora, Sandy.”
“But he doesn’t know about the negatives?”
“Like I said, no one besides Schanno knows.”
Parrant glanced down as if preparing to fire at Jo’s foot. “I think you’re lying.”
“How can I prove I’m not?” Cork asked quickly. “Look, I’ve already put two men’s lives in danger. What will satisfy you?”
Parrant reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out a jackknife. He carefully extended the blade and moved it toward Jo’s back.
“Christ no, Sandy!” Cork half rose from his chair.
Parrant cut Jo’s wrists free. “Take the tape off,” he told her.
She obeyed and let the pieces from her wrists and mouth drop to the floor. “I’m sorry,” she told Cork.
“It’s okay.”
“Over there beside him,” Sandy said. He shoved her toward Cork, then bent and picked up the loose pieces of tape and put them in his pocket. He took out the roll of duct tape and tossed it to Cork. “Tape her wrists,” he ordered.
Jo looked confused, then understood. “Fingerprints. You want Cork’s fingerprints on the tape.”
“So it looks like I bound and killed you,” Cork finished.
“You’d have to be distraught,” Jo went on. “But distraught over what?”
Parrant reached inside his coat and brought out folded photographs. He tossed them onto the table. “Pick them up,” he instructed Cork.
Cork lifted the pictures. They were photos of Molly and him embracing by the sauna. They’d been taken at night with a night vision lens from somewhere out on the water. Harlan Lytton’s handiwork for sure.
“These are the ones he showed you?” Cork asked Jo.
“Yes.”
“And now they’re covered with your fingerprints, too,” Parrant said with satisfaction.
“My gun, my fingerprints on the tape and the pictures.” Cork nodded as if he admired the thoroughness. “We argue over my dead lover. I freak, kill Jo, and then what, Sandy? I commit suicide? Or do I just disappear like Joe John LeBeau?”
“Just tape her,” Parrant said.
“What do we do, Cork?” Jo asked.
“You do what I say,” Parrant threatened.
“Or what?” Cork asked. “You’re going to kill us anyway.”
The tea kettle on Molly’s stove suddenly jumped and skittered across the burner. Startled, Parrant swung the revolver that way and let off a round that buried itself in the wall. “What the hell?”
“Windigo,” Cork said. “You know what a Windigo is, don’t you, Sandy?”
“A fucking fairy tale.”
“It wasn’t a fairy tale made that pot jump around,” Cork said.
The wind rose outside. The windowpane over the sink rattled. From the dark of the night surrounding the cabin came a long low howl that was not the wind but was wrapped within it. And buried somewhere within the howling was the name of Sandy Parrant.
“The Windigo’s calling you, Sandy. Do you know what that means?”
Parrant eyed the window angrily. “It means there’s a joker out there who’s going to die with you.”
“Can’t kill the Windigo with that gun,” Cork told him. “The Windigo called the names of Russell Blackwater and Harlan Lytton, too. Blackwater knew it and carried a gun and it didn’t matter.”
“I don’t believe that crap.”
“Sam Winter Moon once told me there’s more in these woods than a man can ever see. More than he can ever hope to understand.”
“Shut up!”
Parrant pointed the revolver at Jo’s heart as if to fire, to finally end it all. But the light in the kitchen went out suddenly. Cork pushed Jo to the side and threw himself in the other direction. Parrant fired wildly. In the blindness after the loss of the light, Cork spread his arms wide and charged the place where Parrant had been standing. He caught the man in his arms and they tumbled down. Cork heard the scrape of the. 38 as it slid loose across the floorboards.
Parrant squirmed from Cork’s grasp and was back on his feet instantly, kicking hard at Cork’s ribs. Cork rolled away and brought himself up. Parrant was at him, throwing punches out of the dark, landing blow after blow to his torso. Cork stumbled back, retreating across the kitchen until he was pinned against the sink. Hunched and grunting, he tried vainly to protect himself as Parrant hammered at his sides and head.
A shattering of crockery and Parrant stopped abruptly. Moonlight streamed through the window over the sink. Parrant, in milky white, staggered back, holding his head. Cork tried to move, to attack, but the pain in his ribs paralyzed him.
Jo’s hand was on his arm and her voice urged him, “Cork, quick!” She pushed him through the kitchen door and into the cold night. Tugging, she pulled him toward the sanctuary of the woods.
They’d barely reached the first of the trees when the crack of Cork’s revolver came from the cabin. Jo ran hard, weaving among the trees and thickets, fighting her way desperately through the deep snow and drifts. She ran until she was nearly breathless, then she risked a glance back. Cork was nowhere to be seen. She stopped and turned, frantically searching among the trees for any sign o
f him. A black form separated itself from a nearby tree trunk and stepped toward her. Jo almost screamed. Then she recognized the old man Henry Meloux.
“Here,” Meloux whispered, and pointed toward a cedar with its branches bent low under the weight of snow.
“Cork-” Jo tried to explain.
The old man ignored her. “In there quick,” and he held aside a cedar bough showing a hollow in the snow, a little sanctuary. He urged her in, surprising her with his strength. “The man is almost here,” he whispered.
In less than a minute, Sandy approached through the trees, the beam of a flashlight scanning the snow in front of him as he came. Jo realized he was following her tracks. In a few more seconds he would be at the place where Meloux had met her and the tracks would lead him to their hiding place. Meloux’s face showed no fear, only an intense concentration.
Cork’s cry from the direction of the cabin brought Parrant to a sharp stop. He turned and began a hard run back.
“Cork!” she whispered, afraid.
“I will find him,” Meloux said. “Stay here.”
“Like hell I will.”
The old man’s strong hand restrained her. “You have children. Think of them.”
Meloux was gone in an instant, leaving Jo alone in the safe hollow under the cedar boughs.
48
A dozen yards into the woods, Cork knew he couldn’t keep up with Jo. Adrenaline couldn’t mask all his pain, couldn’t undo the shortness of breath that was the legacy of tobacco. As Jo had moved farther ahead, Cork looked for a place to hide. He spotted a humping of snow-covered vines, and with all the strength he could muster, he’d leaped the thicket. The deep snow on the far side cushioned his landing and he crawled to cover only seconds before Parrant rushed by pursuing Jo.
He had no idea how far ahead Jo had been able to run, but he wanted to give her the best chance he could to make it safely away. He crawled from the safety of the thicket. When the beam of the flashlight was forty or fifty yards beyond him, he let out a cry. He’d meant it to be a cry of challenge, but the stabbing in his ribs turned it to a howl of pain. Still, it did the trick. Parrant turned for him and Cork ran for his life.
He skirted the cabin, not even trying to make it inside to find the rifle. It would be too great a gamble fumbling around, hoping to find the Winchester before Parrant reached him. He made instead for the vast, unbroken wilderness of the Superior National Forest a mile northeast.
He ran numbly through drifts above his knees. Awkwardly he vaulted a fallen log and came down in a snag of branches on the other side. His foot became entangled. While he worked himself free, he checked the woods behind him. Nothing. No movement. Only sound. Above him the wind raced through the tops of the pines, its passage marked by the scrape and groan of branches. From farther east came a deeper sound, a throaty grumble that Cork recognized as the tumble of fast water in a stream. Half Mile Spring. The flow gushed out of high ground and rushed down a deep ravine to the lake. As its name implied, the spring didn’t have a long run from its source to its ending, and even in the coldest winter the water never froze.
He became aware of something else, the smell of wood smoke in the wind. Meloux’s cabin! The place wasn’t far beyond the spring. Cork tried to think if Meloux owned a firearm. The old man had been a hunter once, a great one it was said, but did he own a working firearm?
Cork knew he should be moving again. Two things held him there at the log. He wanted to be certain Parrant was still following him. If Parrant was after him, it meant that Jo had a good chance of getting away. The other thing was the simple fact that he couldn’t move. The adrenaline had washed out of him, and what had seeped in to take its place was searing pain. The beating his ribs had sustained was too much. He couldn’t straighten up, could barely take a breath. Even the slightest movement drove a spike of pain right through his chest.
He’d left his gloves on Molly’s kitchen table. His hands, vulnerable to the bitter, single-digit temperature of the night, ached from the cold. He tried to blow on them for warmth, but the stabbing of his ribs gave him almost no breath for it.
The flashlight beam shot like an arrow through the trees. Cork tried to rise but grabbed at his ribs and doubled over with a moan. The flashlight swung his way. He crouched behind the log as the light played past him. He thought about the ravine at his back. Even if he could escape Parrant somehow, the deep, rugged walls of the ravine and the rush of Half Mile Spring would stop him. His best hope would be to turn to the lake, cut across the ice, and make for Meloux’s cabin. But first he would have to elude Parrant, a possibility that became less likely with each step Parrant took.
The. 38 fired unexpectedly. Cork jerked although nothing hit near him. Parrant shot another round. Cork risked a glance over the log. The light swung back and forth, scanning the woods to the left. What had he fired at? Jo? Christ, no! Cork braced himself to rise, to call out, to draw Parrant’s fire, but a hand on his shoulder restrained him.
Meloux crouched beside him. He beckoned to Cork and began to crawl on all fours toward the ravine. Cork followed his example, snow up to his chin. After a short distance, the old man rose and loped ahead, graceful despite his age. Cork did the same, although much less gracefully and a good deal slower.
He glanced back once. The beam of the flashlight had vanished.
Jo cursed the old man. Cursed him because he’d made her afraid.
In Molly Nurmi’s kitchen, she had been angry. She’d been trapped in something she didn’t see any way out of and she’d been blind with rage. Rage at Sandy for what he was, what he’d been able to hide from her so well, and rage at herself for her stupidity and blindness. The sanctuary the old man offered her had changed things. She wasn’t backed into a corner anymore. She had hope. But something unexpected had accompanied the hope. Fear. Fear so overpowering it made her tremble violently as if she were bitterly cold. She’d never been so afraid. She knew what it was now to be paralyzed by cowardice, because she didn’t think she could move.
She’d done as Meloux had suggested. She’d thought about the children. What would happen if both Cork and she were killed? She tried to remember exactly the language of their will. She wanted Rose to be the children’s guardian. She’d made that clear. Of course, it didn’t necessarily mean the court had to comply, but there was no one to contest that request. No close relatives left alive. Jo realized more clearly than she ever had how alone they all were in the world. God, they should have held together. They should have found a way.
She looked at herself, cowering in the dark little hollow, and she felt full of disgust. Cork’s cry had saved her from being discovered by Sandy. And the old man had put himself in danger, too, even though this trouble had nothing to do with him.
But here I am, she thought coldly, pulling herself together around a small fire of anger and self-loathing. Hiding like a damn rabbit.
The next shots, two of them, came from some distance away, beyond the cabin it seemed. If she were ever going to move, if she were ever going to do anything, now was the time.
She shoved aside the bough and crawled out. At her back, miles down the lake, was the safety of Aurora. She could make it. Keeping to the trees, moving carefully, she could make it. That would leave Cork and the old man to deal with Sandy alone. If Cork and the old man were still alive. If they weren’t, she was all that remained of the complications for Sandy to clear up. And he would do his best to kill her. When he wanted something, he always did his best.
She looked south toward Aurora, looked with an ache of longing toward where her children were safe with Rose. Then she turned back toward the cabin and she began to run.
She paused at the edge of the clearing, studying the dark cabin. The last shots had come from far enough away that she didn’t believe Sandy could have returned already, but she waited, watching carefully. Moonlight and the northern lights made the clearing and the cabin easy to see. The wind that had risen lifted snow off the pine trees and cabin
roof, and swirls of white danced ghostlike before her. Nothing human moved, and Jo finally made a rush at the door, quietly opened it, and slipped inside. In the moonlit kitchen, she knelt and searched the floor for the rifle Cork had dropped. She found it kicked against a baseboard, and she took it in her hands.
From the window above the kitchen sink, she studied the clearing and the lane that ran between the small cabins all the way down to the lake. All around her the big cabin groaned in the wind. Sprays of loose snow gusted across the clearing. Her legs quaked and her whole body shivered with terrible anticipation. She thought about shooting Sandy Parrant. Less than fifteen minutes before, she would have done it without a second thought. Now she stood wondering. Could she pull the trigger if she had to? Could she really kill him? It might be a moot point anyway since she wasn’t sure she could hold the rifle steady enough to shoot ducks in a barrel. Even so, she understood the wisdom of old Henry Meloux. If she’d charged out of her little sanctuary full of blind rage, the only thing she would have done was get herself killed. Now at least she had a chance.
A figure emerged from the trees, loping into the clearing. She raised the rifle and sighted through the windowpane. She had no idea if she could hit a moving target, and she wasn’t sure who the target was. Her hands ached from their desperate grip on the rifle. She shook violently as if she were freezing cold. The figure turned down the lane and headed for the lake. Only then did Jo see clearly that it was Sandy, and then it was too late. He was too far away. She watched him trot past the old cabins and vanish behind the sauna. Jo felt a rush of relief that he hadn’t come her way, that she hadn’t had to shoot.
But what was Sandy up to?
She cracked open the back door. Above the sound of the wind rushing through the treetops, she heard the engine of the Cherokee turn over. A moment later, the black shape of it headed away slowly across the ice.
Where was he going?
Then she remembered the two shots. With a plummeting of hope she thought, He’s going after their bodies.
At the ravine, the sound of Half Mile Spring grew to a small roar. Meloux turned back and searched the woods behind them for any sign of Parrant.
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