Savagely Gideon shoved that thought aside. If someone had found Hannah and killed her, he would have already made good his escape in the dark sedan. No. If there was anyone else here on the beach, he was still around. And that meant Hannah might still be alive.
Sinking into the darkness near the cliffs, Gideon kept moving. The protection offered by the rock wall wasn’t all that different from the kind afforded by a dark alley. It had been a long time since he’d used the shadows for concealment. These days he was accustomed to camouflaging his movements behind corporate sleight-of-hand. But some things you never forgot, he discovered wryly. It was sort of like riding a bicycle.
From the shadows he could watch the stretch of beach between him and the water. Anyone moving across it would be a dark figure silhouetted against the lighter sand. He was almost to the wall of stone at the far end of the beach when he saw a shadow of movement. Gideon went utterly still, waiting.
The figure detached itself from the rocks at the closed end of the beach and started slowly back toward the wrecked jeep. It wasn’t Hannah, Gideon knew at once. The shape and movement were that of a man. He moved cautiously, obviously still searching for someone. Gideon watched him for a few tense seconds and then carefully began to parallel the other man’s movements back up the beach.
Sticking close to the cliff, Gideon kept moving, narrowing the gap between himself and the man. Whoever he was, he didn’t appear to be armed. His hands moved freely, unencumbered by the bulk of a gun. Maybe he was simply a concerned motorist who was trying to find the other victim of the accident, Gideon told himself. Then the man swung around to survey the beach behind him. The pale moonlight fell on Drake Armitage’s face.
That took care of the concerned motorist theory. Gideon waited impatiently as Armitage scanned the beach once again and then resumed his walk back to the jeep. When Armitage’s actions made it clear that he had stopped searching and was intent on getting back to the vehicle, Gideon slipped out of the shadows and began closing the distance between them rapidly.
As if warned by some instinct, Drake whirled at the last second, his mouth half open on an unvoiced protest. But it was too late to dodge. Gideon’s momentum carried him straight into Armitage and sent them both thudding down onto the sand.
“You bastard!” Armitage’s choked off cry wasn’t followed by any further conversation. He heaved upward, intent on using the strength in his upper body to dislodge his attacker.
Gideon rolled to one side, trying not to give Armitage a target. Then he snapped a hand across Drake’s throat, connecting solidly enough to make the other man gasp painfully. Armitage tried to throw himself onto Gideon, attempting to pin him onto the sand. But Gideon shifted again and brought his knee up into the other man’s groin. The one rule about street fighting was that there aren’t any rules.
The blow was a little off center but it was sufficiently brutal to send Armitage over backward. Gideon moved in and caught the full force of Armitage’s foot on his thigh as the man kicked out savagely. Stupid, Gideon told himself as he struggled to reestablish his balance. In the old days he would never have made that kind of mistake. Maybe he’d spent too many years in corporate street fighting after all. Or maybe he was getting old. He had five or six years on Armitage, and in this kind of thing that counted.
But age brought some knowledge of treachery, and what good was knowledge if it wasn’t put to use? Gideon let the kick take him farther out of reach than Armitage intended, falling onto his back and trying to present a reasonably tempting target.
Armitage didn’t need any invitation. With a muttered shout of triumph he jerked to his feet and tried another kick, this time aiming at Gideon’s head. The younger man apparently operated on the theory that if something worked once, you could use it again. But in street fighting predictability could get you killed. Gideon grabbed for Armitage’s ankle and yanked his opponent off balance. Armitage yelped in rage.
Gideon was on top of Armitage before the other man had hit the sand. Two blunt, chopping blows made Drake’s head snap first to one side and then the other. By the time Armitage had shaken himself free of the cobwebs Gideon had a pocketknife pressed against his throat. Drake’s eyes opened very wide in the moonlight. It was hard to tell for certain because moonlight washed out their color, but Gideon was almost sure Armitage’s eyes were blue. He tried to remember the day in the athletic club when he’d been introduced to the younger man.
“It’s not the best knife I’ve ever used for this kind of work,” Gideon said as he dug the blade a little into Armitage’s throat. “Just a pocketknife, I’m afraid. But it will do the job, believe me.”
“You’re crazy.” Armitage didn’t move.
“Possibly. Especially at the moment. Where’s Hannah?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. I was looking for her. Her car went off the cliff. I was trying to find her.”
“Her car went off the cliff because you used your car to push it off, just like you did a few months ago.”
“That’s a lie, damn it. We were just trying to help. For Christ’s sake, Cage, why would I want to hurt Hannah?”
Gideon ignored the question. “We? I assume that means Vicky’s somewhere in the vicinity? Of course she would be. She wouldn’t send you out alone on something this crucial. Where is she?”
“I don’t know, I tell you. We split up looking for Hannah. We wanted to help her, Cage. She’s probably hurt, maybe unconscious somewhere.”
“Thanks to you.” Gideon let the point of the pocketknife sink a little deeper.
“Listen to me,” Armitage pleaded, “we saw her Jeep get into trouble. We were right behind her on the road. When we went past Vicky said we should turn around and go back to see what had happened. By the time we got back the jeep was at the bottom of the cliff. I figured Hannah must have gone over with it so I came down here to have a look. But Vicky thought she might have crawled out up on the road. She’s searching up there.”
Gideon didn’t want to think about that possibility. He’d seen the expression in Victoria Armitage’s eyes once when she’d looked at Hannah. If Hannah had escaped from the jeep before it went over the edge, she would probably be wounded and frantic. An easy target for an Amazon.
“Come on.” Gideon got to his feet, pulling Armitage up beside him.
“What are you going to do?” Apprehensively Drake eyed the knife that still hovered too near his neck.
“I’m going to find Hannah. And if she’s dead I’m going to come back here and put this knife into your throat.”
“You are crazy. Will you listen to me? Vicky and I only want to help.”
But Drake’s defense of his actions and those of his wife came to an abrupt halt as a gunshot echoed through the darkness.
“Shit. Vicky’s got a gun.” The coldness in Gideon’s belly turned to ice. “When this is all over, I really will kill you, Armitage, and I’ll take my time about doing it.”
“No, you’ve got to understand, we had to do something. Everything had gone wrong. Nothing had worked. Vicky said we had to do something—”
Gideon didn’t bother to let him finish. He used the edge of his hand on the back of Drake’s neck, choking off the other man’s words along with his consciousness.
Then Gideon started running down the beach, searching for a route back up the cliff.
CRAWLING OFF THE ROAD and into the tangled vegetation on the opposite side had been the hard part. Hannah had been certain that her reinjured knee would collapse under her. The pain was intense. Surely anything that painful had to be incapacitating. But fear was another great motivator, she discovered. It ranked right up there with revenge when it came to giving a person strength and determination. She was learning a lot about willpower these days.
The distant roar of the engine of the returning car had grown steadily louder through the rain as Hannah laboriously pulled herself off the road. She felt like an injured animal that had been carelessly hit on the highway and was now trying to
drag itself off into the bushes to die.
No, damn it, she was not going to die. Her leg was on fire, but other than that she was relatively unscathed. She had a few bruises on her hands and face from her impact with the road, but the sturdy cotton twill of her fatigue pants and bush shirt had protected her from too much damage. When this was over she would have to write a letter of commendation to the folks who ran the mail-order house from which she’d ordered them. It wasn’t often these days that you got your money’s worth from a product.
The ludicrous thoughts probably meant that she was suffering from some kind of shock, Hannah decided. It wasn’t rational to be thinking of writing thank-you letters to mail-order outfits at a time like this. On the other hand, it did serve to take her mind off her knee for a few seconds.
She was well into the tangle of tropical foliage when she heard the car come to a halt on the edge of the road. Hannah lay gasping for breath, clutching her knee, and tried to figure out what to do next. She had no idea whether whoever was in the car would come looking for her, but it was a pretty good bet they’d want to make sure they had killed her. With any luck they’d assume she’d gone over the cliff in the jeep.
Then she heard the voices.
“I’ll go down and make sure.”
A man’s voice. One Hannah recognized but didn’t want to acknowledge. Then came the woman’s voice and Hannah decided that there was no use in pretending she didn’t know Victoria Armitage’s loud, harsh tones.
“I don’t think she’s down there, Drake.”
“Got to be. Where else could she have gone?”
“We didn’t actually see the jeep go over. She might have had time to get out.”
“No way. Her reflexes aren’t all that good, especially with that leg of hers. You’ve seen her move lately. She still uses the cane.”
“I don’t know, Drake. I have a feeling she’s not down there.”
“I’ll go look.”
“All right,” Victoria agreed. “I’ll check around up here. You’re right about one thing. Wherever she is, she can’t have gotten far.”
“The first time she managed to get herself to a hospital.” Drake sounded thoroughly disgusted. “And the second time, Cage got in the way.”
“This time we’ll make sure of her.”
“God, Vicky, I wish you’d get this business finished once and for all. It’s getting damned spooky.”
“Don’t lose your nerve now, Drake. There’s no way she’ll get out of this. I’ll take the gun.”
Hannah closed her eyes in horror. A gun. Vicky was coming after her and she was armed. Frantically Hannah opened her eyes and glanced around. The rain offered some protection but it seemed to be lessening. Tropical storms didn’t last long. She’d better take advantage of the downpour while she could. It would hide her movements for a while.
Gritting her teeth, Hannah levered herself to her feet. There was no point fooling herself that adrenaline and fear would completely overcome the pain and weakness in her left leg, but she made an attempt, regardless. There was no choice. Dr. Englehardt had done a good job on the knee. He’d said so, himself. If the job hadn’t been good enough, she’d sue when she got back to Seattle.
Slowly, painfully, Hannah made her way deeper into the undergrowth. The terrain became rough quickly, and sizeable chunks of granite were as abundant as frangipani and ferns. Using both hands to help herself along, Hannah opted to use the boulders as protection. They looked as though they’d be better able to deflect a bullet than the delicate, flowering shrubs.
The rocky hillside provided a number of handholds. Unfortunately, it also provided a number of loose pebbles and debris. The rain was still heavy enough to conceal most of the noise Hannah was making but it wasn’t going to go on much longer. She had to find a decent hiding place before the storm ended.
Some of the delicate tropical bushes weren’t quite as innocent as they appeared, Hannah discovered as she put one palm firmly around a vine bristling with thorns. Stifling a groan of anguish, she released the vine and stared at her hand. Rain washed across her palm, carrying traces of something that might have been blood. Then again, it might simply have been mud. Hannah went back to the task of finding a hiding place.
The obvious one lay amid a jumble of craggy rocks. It was a cave, surrounded by thick vegetation. It loomed up out of nowhere, its dark mouth yawning invitingly in the rain. It offered shelter and shadows. With the age-old instinct of the wounded and the hunted, Hannah headed toward it.
She was about to collapse into the dark interior when something made her think more clearly. The cave was a little too obvious. If Vicky Armitage spotted it, she was likely to come to the same conclusion as Hannah, and Hannah would be a sitting duck of a guidance counselor trapped inside.
Biting back a groan of despair, Hannah paused to catch her breath and search her surroundings. Above the cave, an uneven mixture of thick vegetation and rocks stretched upward and backward. If she could get above the cave entrance she could keep climbing into the hills.
Hannah set herself to fighting her way around the mouth of the cave. If her leg hadn’t been hurting so badly it wouldn’t have been such a difficult task. The terrain wasn’t so rough that it couldn’t be handled easily by someone with two functioning legs. Vicky had too functioning legs, Hannah reminded herself. Vicky would be humming right along behind her on two legs toughened up by a great deal of running. She would also have a gun in her hand.
Damn it to hell. Vicky not only had a Ph.D., she had a gun. Life could be very unfair at times.
Hannah dislodged a few pebbles as she hauled herself around a boulder. The rain was definitely slackening now. If Vicky were close enough, she might have heard the small clatter. But there was no shout and no shot so Hannah kept climbing. There was nothing else to be done at the moment.
A huge fern blocked her path. Hannah wondered if she could go through it. She didn’t think she had the energy to circle around it. The fern proved obliging enough. It collapsed beneath Hannah’s weight and when she crawled over it, she found herself in the jumble of plants and rocks above the mouth of the cave. She lay trying to catch her breath and wondered how useful the struggle had been.
The question remained unanswered. A drift of departing rain swept across Hannah’s prone body and, when it passed, Vicky Armitage materialized. Hannah blinked painfully as the other woman stepped cautiously out into the open near the cave. It was true. Vicky did, indeed, have a gun. Fretful moonlight revealed its dark bulk in her fist. Hannah had full confidence in the other woman’s ability to use it. She lay utterly still on the damp, muddy earth and wondered how much luck any one guidance counselor could possibly have.
Vicky wasn’t worrying about being taken by surprise. She was obviously being cautious simply because she didn’t want to overlook any possible hiding places. She was probably quartering the terrain or walking it in concentric circles. Whatever technique she was using, Hannah was certain it would be brilliant and methodical.
The moon emerged more fully as the clouds scattered and departed. It occurred to Hannah that, if she got out of this, she owed two letters to the mail-order firm where she had purchased her clothing. Not only had the tough cotton protected her during the escape from the jeep but the khaki green shade of the shirt and pants was making her a part of the night-shrouded vegetation. As she thought about her clothing, Hannah also thought about her belt.
It was two inches wide, guaranteed to be made of sturdy British harness leather and finished with a hefty brass buckle. Just the thing for trekking into the tropics. It wouldn’t be much use against a gun but there might be other uses for the heavy belt. Slowly, trying not to make any noise, Hannah reached under herself and undid the buckle. Watching Vicky all the time, she inched the belt free. She looped the end of it around her wrist just as Vicky turned and spotted the dark entrance of the cave.
As Hannah had anticipated, Vicky headed at once for the dark, yawning hole. But she stopped short
outside.
“Hannah?”
There was an unnerving, unhealthy excitement in Vicky’s voice. It sent a strange chill down Hannah’s spine. The woman was enjoying this. Hannah didn’t move.
“Hannah, you should have listened to me. You should have given me Elizabeth Nord’s journals and books. You were a stupid little fool, and now it’s going to cost you. Because I’m the one who’s going to end up with those journals. I’m going to find the truth in them.”
Silence reigned for a moment. Hannah held her breath. Then Vicky took a step closer to the cave.
“Nord ruined my father with her lies. Do you hear me? He was a brilliant man and she ruined his career. He tried to help her in the beginning, tried to give her a hand up in the profession. She used him and then she turned on him. He told me so many times how it had happened. She used him! Do you have any idea of what she did to him? He died a weak, pitiful man. He became an alcoholic at the end. She killed him, Hannah! Just as surely as if she’d put a gun to his head. She didn’t even give him a quick death. It took him years to die. Years of watching his reputation dwindle and disappear. Years of getting second-rate teaching posts. Years of having the best journals turn down his papers. Years of knowing he was right and Nord was wrong and having no way to prove it.”
Hannah risked a very careful breath as Vicky moved closer to the cave.
“Come on out, Hannah. I know you’re in there. Just like you to run and hide. You’re like your aunt, aren’t you? You’d have used your connection with Nord to write the one book people would be sure to read about her. No one gave a damn about anything my father wrote about Elizabeth Nord. And you’d have made sure Nord’s lies were handed down to another generation. But I’m not going to let that happen. My father knew she’d lied. He told me she had. But no one would listen to him. They’ll listen to me, though, Hannah. By God, I’ll make them listen. I’ve known from the time I was fifteen years old and watched my father start to drink himself to death that I’d make people acknowledge the truth. And I’ll use Nord’s own journals to tear apart her reputation. I’m not going to let a weak little nobody like you get in my way.”
Twist of Fate Page 29