Sandra Brown

by The Witness [lit]

  But maternal instinct won out. She came to her feet and took Kevin from Gibb. She clutched the baby to her chest and moved her hands over him, trying to touch as much of him as she could in the short time she had left. Kevin immediately stopped crying.

  The change in the infant wasn't lost on Gibb. "I'm going to give you a choice, Kendall," he said. "Under the circum stances, I think I'm being much more generous than you deserve.

  "It would only take a few days to wean the boy. At which time, you would be erased from his memory forever. He would become accustomed to me and would rely on me for everything.

  I could, and will, make him entirely mine.

  "But unfortunately, at this stage in his development, he needs a mother. So you have a choice. You can either die now alongside your illicit lover, or you can come with me and tend to your child for a while longer.

  "Either way, you'll pay with your life for your sins of treachery and fornication, but you'll have a little more time with the boy. I'm not making this offer because you deserve it, but because I want what's best for my grandson."

  "Those are my choices?"

  "I need your decision quickly. As clumsy as they are, it's possible that the FBI will also track you here."

  "I'll go with you, Gibb, and I'll cooperate with you," she pledged. "I might even be an asset to you. As you know, I'm very good at disappearing. But let John live."

  Gibb frowned. "I'm afraid his life isn't negotiable. He committed adultery with my son's wife. For that, he must die."

  "I was no longer married to Matt. He had divorced me."

  "Nevertheless. As Matt said, in the eyes of God"

  He aimed the rifle down at John.

  "No, wait!" Kendall cried.

  "Don't plead for my life with this son of a bitch," John said angrily. "I'd rather the bastard shoot me than have to wait.

  "John didn't know I was married, or had been married.

  Remember, Gibb?" Kendall said urgently. "He had amnesia.

  I lied to him and told him he was my husband. It's my fault."

  "But he recovered his memory," Gibb argued. "You said so yourself."

  "I lied about that to defend myself against Matt. John didn't recover his memory until this morning."

  "That's not true, Burnwood," John said. "I've known for more than a week who I was and who she was. I continued sleeping with her because I enjoyed it."

  "He's lying, Gibb."

  "Why would he lie?" Gibb asked her.

  "To distract you in the hope of protecting Kevin and me.

  His sworn duty is to protect us. He'll do it, no matter what he has to say."

  "You know what a liar she is, Burnwood, " John said. "You'd be a fool to believe her."

  "I'm not lying, Gibb. He woke up this morning with his memory restored. When he realized how I'd tricked him, he was furious. He intended to turn me over to the authorities for kidnapping him. I was running away when you arrived."

  Her voice took on a pleading tone. "If you kill him, you'll be murdering an innocent man who was only carrying out his duty. You can relate to that, can't you? John abides by a code of honor similar to yours. He believes in what he does, and he doesn't let anything stop him from doing what he feels is right. Gibb, please. I swear I'm telling you the truth. He didn't know that in God's eyes I was still Matt's wife."

  He pondered it, looking long and hard at John.

  Finally he let out a heavy sigh. "Kendall, you're just no good at lying anymore. I don't believe a word of what you said. The man who made my son a cuckold must die."

  He crooked his finger around the trigger, but a sudden and unexpected sound kept him from pulling it. If there was one sound Gibb recognized instantly, it was the click of a gun being cocked. He froze and cut his eyes toward Kendall.

  "If you kill him, I'll pull this trigger." Kendall's voice was no longer thin and high with hysteria. It was low, level, and steely with resolve.

  "My God," Gibb whispered. Some of the color drained from his ruddy face.

  "That's right, Gibb. I'll protect Kevin from you, even if this is the only way I can do it. I'd rather see him dead than have him spend one minute in your company."

  Kevin, exhausted from crying, had fallen asleep on the swell of her breast. His virtually translucent eyelids were closed, although a glistening tear still clung to his eyelashes. His lips were bowed and slightly parted.

  The barrel of John's pistol rested against his temple.

  When she had charged through the kitchen door, almost colliding with the Burnwoods, they had been as surprised as she. When they hustled her back inside, she had managed to slip the pistol into the pocket of her skirt, uncertain until this moment how she was going to use it.

  Gibb had regained his composure. He was actually smiling over her theatrics. "You would never do it."

  "Yes. I would."

  "You love him too much, Kendall. Everything you've done so far running to Denver, escaping the marshals, hiding here has been to protect this baby."

  "That's right. To protect him from you. If you shoot John"

  The blast startled her. She jumped out of her chair so quickly that it fell over backward and crashed to the floor.

  "If I shoot John . . . what?" Gibb taunted.

  Horrified, Kendall stumbled backward until she came up against the counter. She stared in disbelief at John's crumpled form. He had fallen on his side, his cheek against the floor.

  Blood was pooling beneath him.

  "Well?" Gibb was standing and facing her now. He took a step forward. "Give me my grandson."

  When she'd bolted from the chair, she had somehow managed to keep her hold on Kevin. Rudely awakened again, he was wailing. The pistol was now dead weight in her hand. It dangled lifelessly at the end of her arm at her side.

  John hasn't moved. John's blood is all over the floor. John is dead.

  He killed John.

  Gibb, with his keen hunter's instinct, smelled the imminent surrender of his prey. He closed in.

  She raised her hand. It was trembling so violently, it ap peered as though the pistol had a grip on her and she was trying to shake it off. "Don't make me do it, Gibb. Please."

  "You would never kill your baby, Kendall."

  "That's right. I would never kill my baby."

  She turned the weapon on Gibb, and the small house echoed with a third gun blast.

  Chapter 40

  Kendall leaped over Gibb's body and knelt beside John.

  "John? John?" She eased him onto his back.

  "Is the son of a bitch dead?"

  "Thank God you're alive." She bent down and hugged him close, squashing Kevin between them. "Thank God! I thought he had killed you."

  "Is he dead?"

  She glanced at the body. Gibbons Burnwood was unquestionably dead.

  "Yes."

  "Good."

  She could have laughed with relief that he was able to talk, except that she was crying too hard. "Oh, John, look at you.

  You're badly injured."

  "I'm okay." But he wasn't. Each word was spoken on a feeble hiss. "How's the baby? Is he okay? Was he hurt?"

  Kevin was squalling louder than ever. "He's had a rough morning.

  John smiled through his pain. "Haven't we all?"

  By now the house was swarming with FBI agents. Pepper dyne, in full assault gear like the rest of them, stomped in.

  He took one look at John, swore lavishly, then poked his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. "Get those paramedics in here. On the double."

  "What took you so goddamn long?" John asked querulously as his friend crouched beside him. "I thought I would bleed to death before you struck. First, your approach was about as stealthy as a buffalo stampede, then you sat on your asses out there, scratching your balls, and let that bastard shoot me."

  Pepperdyne pushed back his helmet and laughed. "No need to thank us, John. We know you're grateful."

  Kendall was confused. "You knew they were out there, J
ohn?"

  He nodded. "I saw motion through the screen and knew hoped what it meant. That's why I was doing everything I could to keep the Burnwoods occupied."

  "You shouldn't have attacked Matt. They could have killed you right then."

  "I didn't think about it. When he hit you . . . For a lot of reasons, I wish I'd killed him myself."

  They exchanged a long, meaningful look that lasted until a paramedic slid an IV needle into his arm. "Ouch! Shit! That hurts."

  "Which one of you is going to fill in the gaps for me?"

  Pepperdyne asked. "I want to know exactly what went down."

  Kendall watched medical personnel futilely check Matt's body for vital signs. She couldn't feel grief over the death of her former husband, but she did feel sorrow for his misguided life. "Gibb shot Matt."

  "We saw that," Pepperdyne said. "Was it because of Mrs. Lynam?"

  "Yes. Matt said Gibb had killed her."

  "She was found in a motel room with her throat cut," Pepperdyne told them.

  "Matt really loved her," Kendall said sadly. "He never had a chance for a happy life. Not with Gibb as his father."

  "One of our sharpshooters would have taken out the old man when he shot Matt," Pepperdyne explained, except that he was holding the baby. It was too risky."

  "You had him in your si ghts all that time?" Kendall asked.

  "Yeah. Then when you sat down in that chair with the baby," he said, pointing, "you were in the line of sight. After he shot John"

  "No big deal," John grunted as the paramedics lifted him onto a stretcher.

  Pepperdyne told him to stop his whining, but it was apparent to Kendall that the two old friends were glad to be exchanging insults and jibes.

  Pepperdyne picked up his explanation. "After Burnwood shot John, you moved to the counter," he said to Kendall.

  "We hoped that holding that pistol to your baby's head was a bluff."

  "Of course it was, and Gibb knew it. But I suddenly realized that after he shot John, he had laid the rifle on the table. He was no longer armed. I turned John's gun on him and would have shot him."

  "Except that our guy got off a clean shot first. Straight through the head."

  The sight of Gibb's head exploding was a horrible memory that would remain with Kendall for a long time. She shivered and held Kevin closer against her.

  "How'd you get John's weapon?" Pepperdyne asked.

  She glanced at John.

  "I gave it to her," he lied.

  "Yes," she agreed quickly. "He gave it to me for safekeeping.

  "Why'd you place your weapon into her safekeeping?" the agent wanted to know. "Come to think of it, you're supposed to have amnesia! In all the excitement, I forgot about that.

  No pun intended. When did you recover your memory?"

  "Give us a break, Jim," John said, groaning. "Kendall can give you her statement later. Right now she needs to see to the baby, and I guess I'm due a few stitches."

  Pepperdyne cleared a path for them and stood by while John was moved to one of the waiting ambulances. "Will you be all right?" Kendall asked anxiously.

  "I'll be fine," he assured her. He patted Kevin on the bottom. "Will he be all right?"

  "He won't remember it."

  "I'll never forget it," he said softly. "None of it."

  The paramedics folded up the legs of the gurney and placed it in the ambulance. She and John maintained eye contact even as the doors were closing, then she watched the ambulance until it turned off the lane onto the road.

  "Mrs. Burnwood." Pepperdyne touched her arm. "My car's over here, waiting to take you back to town."

  "Thank you."

  He sat with her in the backseat while another agent drove.

  "John's tough. He'll make it."

  She gave a little smile. "I know."

  "You know that he's tough, or that he'll make it?"

  "Both."

  "Hmm. He seems to have taken a real shine to your baby."

  He nodded down at Kevin. "I never thought I'd see John so comfortable around a kid."

  "Why?"

  He told her what had happened in New Mexico. "He still blames himself."

  "Yes. He would," she said, nodding wistfully. "He takes his responsibilities seriously."

  "He loves responsibility. When he's had time to think about it, I'm sure he'll bear the guilt of Ruthie Fordham's death, too."

  "I hope not. That would be awful for him."

  Pepperdyne said nothing, although he was looking at her curiously. "I'm afraid it's my duty to remind you that you're still a material witness in the custody of the Department of Justice."

  "I'll testify to what I saw that night in the woods outside Prosper, Mr. Pepperdyne."

  "Those files you had in your place in Denver have already proved invaluable to us in preparing our cases."

  "I'm glad. The Brotherhood must be exterminated with no more mercy than they showed their victims. I'll help in anyway I can to see that all the members are brought to justice. No matter what it costs me personally."

  He nodded, and gazed out the window for a moment. "Then there's this other matter of abducting a federal officer."

  "That's right. I did."

  "Hmm. Well, the government takes a dim view of that."

  Looking him straight in the eye, she said, "I was desperately afraid of my ax-husband and father-in-law, and as we now know, my fear was justified.

  "I thought the only way I could protect myself and Kevin was to disappear and remain hidden for the rest of our lives.

  I don't regret doing what I did. If necessary, I would do it again, except that I wouldn't involve John. I endangered his life, and I'll never forgive myself for that."

  "He was performing his duty."

  "Yes. His duty."

  "Mrs. Burnwood, at what point did he recover his memory?"

  "I wish I knew that myself, but I don't," she replied honestly.

  "Mrs. Burnwood"

  "I hate that name. Please don't call me Mrs. Burnwood anymore."

  Pepperdyne gave her a stern look. "Then what should I call - .. you

  "They're the Crooks."

  "I'll say," Ricki Sue said. She was holding Kevin on her lap, letting him gnaw on her strand of purple beads. "Those bastards tried to kill me. Calling them crooks is putting it mildly."

  "No, that's their name," Kendall explained.

  She looked from the mug shots to Pepperdyne, who had asked her if she could identify the two men now residing in the Sheridan jail. They had been found where Ricki Sue had directed officers to look, bound to trees, naked, and lumpy with mosquito bites.

  "Henry and Luther." She told them about the Billy Joe Crook fiasco. "His family held a grudge against me, so I guess they thought they would get in on the chase and try to find me before Matt and Gibb did."

  "Thanks to me, they almost succeeded." Ricki Sue's eyes filled with tears. "Every time I think of what could have happened, all because I got drunk and blabbed my big mouth."

  Kendall reached across Pepperdyne's littered desk and gave Ricki Sue's arm an affectionate squeeze.

  "On the contrary. If it weren't for you, Agent Pepperdyne and his men wouldn't have arrived in time. Until they got there, John . . . Dr. McGrath played them perfectly," she finished huskily.

  John, who had refused to stay longer than one night in the hospital, was standing propped on his crutch, ghostly pale, with the fresh scar on his temple, his broken right leg still in a cast, and his left arm in a sling. The bullet from Gibb's rifle had entered his shoulder and exited his back. It had missed a major artery by only a hair. Every time Kendall thought of how close he had come to dying, her throat constricted.

  Pepperdyne cleared his throat noisily to break an emotionally wrought silence. "The government is willing to offer you immunity from any charges, in exchange for your testimony against the members of the Brotherhood."

  "That's awfully generous," she remarked.

  "Well, kidnapping would
be a difficult charge to prove when the kidnap victim refuses to say at exactly what point he became a willing participant." Pepperdyne shot John a retiring glance.

  "I don't remember," he said blandly.

  "Very funny." Pepperdyne closed the folder and stood to conclude the meeting. "Thank you, Miss Robb, for your assistance.

  "Don't think you can kiss me off so easily, Pepperdyne," Ricki Sue said. "You'll be in South Carolina for the trials, won't you?"

  "In and out."

  "I'll be around, too." She flashed him a grin. "I've been invited to go along and help take care of Kevin while Kendall's in court."

  "I see."

  "Well, you don't have to look so glum about it. And any way, don't forget you owe me a night out."

  "How could I possibly forget when you remind me of it every fifteen minutes?"

  Suddenly the office door was flung open and a young man barged in.

  Kendall blanched.

  Ricki Sue groaned. "Oh, no. Now the shit's really gonna hit the fan."

  The young man looked from one of the women to the other.

  "Hey, y'all."

  "Hi."

  "Hi."

  "How're y'all?"

  "Fine."

  "Who's this guy?" John asked.

  "Who's in charge?" the newcomer asked.

  Pepperdyne stepped forward. "I am."

  "What the hell is going on? I don't get it. Why am I here?

  I thought I was off the hook."

  "Calm down," Pepperdyne said to him.

  "Calm down, my ass! There I am minding my own business, having a plate of pasta in my apartment in sunny Roma, and these two goons show up and identify themselves as U.S. marshals. Next thing I know, I'm on an airplane, bound for the States, compliments of Uncle Sam."

  Showing his indignation, he planted his hands on his hips and demanded of the group at large, "What gives?"

  "I believe everyone here knows everyone else, except for John." Turning toward his friend, Pepperdyne said, "Dr. John McGrath, meet Kendall Deaton."

  Chapter 41

  "It's rather difficult to explain.

  "Try."

  She and John were alone in the office. Ricki Sue had taken | the real Kendall Deaton by the hand and dragged him from | the office. He was still sputtering demands for a full explanation, which she promised to give him if only he'd shut his| trap and let her get a word in edgewise. Pepperdyne and the| two marshals had followed them out.