"I'll check—"
She stopped Dillon before he'd taken even one step. "Remember what Seth said. You stay inside."
"He told us both to stay inside."
"Yes, but I live here. No one would be surprised to see me out there. You, on the other hand…"Patting his arm, she stepped into her old beat-up loafers,then left the cabin.
It was a beautiful day—bright, sunny, a slight chill in the air but not too uncomfortable. The air smelled of spring, of pines and wildflowers, of budding trees and shrubs. She loved spring and early summer in the mountains, loved the colors, the fragrances, the sounds. Birds' songs competed with streams tumbling over rocks and down cliffs and breezes rustling through the leaves, and the blossoms—redbud, dogwood, apple tree, honeysuckle, azalea and rhododendron—were heavenly. The next few months were a wonderful time to be living exactly where she was living.
She only hoped that Dillon could share them with her.
She hurried down the steps and across the bare ground to the van, opening the passenger door, leaning inside for a quick look. Sure enough, the corkscrew was lying on the floor, one corner of its cardboard package caught underneath the rubber mat. She pulled it free and was preparing to back out of the van and straighten when suddenly a face appeared through the driver's window opposite her. Her startled cry died unvoiced as she stared at Steven Vickers. He was wearing the green baseball cap of theCatlin County Sheriff's Department, but instead of his uniform jacket, he wore aCatlin High letter jacket.
And he was holding a gun.
Before she recovered enough from her shock to react, a hand closed around her mouth from behind, and powerful arms pulled her away from the van. She caught a glimpse of the man who held her reflected in Bessie's window, but he was a stranger. Sowas the man behind Steven and the fourth man approaching from behind the cabin. But the last man, bringing up the rear, was no stranger. She knew Bill Armstrong well. She had gone to school with his youngest daughter, entrusted her savings to him and been turned down by him for a loan when she had first returned toCatlin .
Everything Dillon had said was true. If she hadn't already believed him, this would have convinced her beyond a doubt.
Dillon.Oh, God, Dillon. They had come here to kill him, just as he'd predicted they would, and he had no way to defend himself because Seth had taken the gun yesterday. If he died, it would be her fault for confiding in Seth, her fault for convincing Dillon to stay, her fault for not getting up early this morning and sneaking him out of the county as they had planned. If he died, she would never forgive herself…but if he died, she realized with a chill, she was going to die, too. There was no way these men might let her live to testify against them.
Armstrong stopped in front of her, his expression harsh and cold. She had always thought he was a pompous and phony old goat, but this morning she realized that it wasn't arrogance in his eyes. It was evil, chilling, narrowly focused. "Is he in the cabin?"
She made no effort to reply with her mouth covered; after a moment's wait, he impatiently gestured for the man who was holding her to move his hand. "You bastard," she said softly.
"I'm not interested in your view of my character, dear. Is Boone in the cabin?"
She said nothing.
"Call him out." It was the fourth man who'd spoken, drawing her attention to him. Like the others, he was dressed casually, in jeans and a jacket, a hunting rifle cradled in his arms, but he didn't look like the others. His jeans were pressed, his jacket expensive leather, his hiking boots top-of-the-line. He was young, about Dillon's age, but he was far more polished, more elegant, more like Bill Armstrong.
So this was Russell Bradley, Dillon's old friend, former boss and betrayer. She couldn't imagine any two people less likely to be friends than these two. She couldn't imagine anyone less deserving of Dillon's friendship than this man.
"Call him out," he repeated, his voice soft, lacking all traces of hisGeorgiaupbringing. When she still didn't respond, he shrugged, and the man holding her twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her wrist toward her shoulder. This time she couldn't control the cry as sharp little fingers of pain stroked through her arm, up into her shoulder and down her back.
Steven Vickers moved around the van, holding his pistol firmly in both hands. "Boone!" he shouted. "Dillon Boone!"
* * *
Inside the cabin, Dillon was leaning on the counter, idly waiting for Ashley to return, when his name echoed through the windows. His muscles went taut, and cold chills swept over him as he acknowledged in an instant that Seth Benedict was supposed to be the only one who knew he was here and that definitely wasn't Seth's voice. Moving to the nearest window, he raised the sheet a few inches, and his heart stopped beating in his chest.
Bradley, Armstrong, Vickers and the other two men from Sadler's Pass. God help him—God help Ashley—they were in trouble. They were dead.
His gaze lingered for a moment on Ashley. She looked frightened and in pain from the way the big son of a bitch was bending her arm, but other than that, she seemed unharmed. She wouldn't stay that way long, though … unless he figured out a way to help her.
As Vickers yelled his name again, Dillon let the sheet fall and gave the cabin a sweeping look. Seth had taken the deputy's gun, and Ashley didn't have one of her own, not thatit would help if she did; he had never fired a gun in his life and wasn't about to start when she was standing between him and his target. The deadliest weapon available was the paring knife on the counter. Muttering a prayer of thanks that he was left-handed and still had full use of that hand, he slid the knife out of sight into the sling,then started toward the door. There he saw the walking stick, long, solid wood,hard wood. He hefted it, decided it could surely do some damage, then let it slide through his fingers until he was gripping it near the top. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and, leaning on the stick, be feigned a slight limp as he walked across the porch to the top of the steps.
Russell smiled the big, friendly smile he used to hide his black soul. "You're a hard man to find, Dillon. We figured you were dead somewhere out there in the forest until some of Steven's trackers finally picked up your trail again this morning. We never suspected that it might lead straight to Sheriff Benedict's lovely ex-wife."
A dozen agitated thoughts were racing through Dillon's mind as he listened. Where were the trackers now? Had Vickers sent them back home or deeper into forest to search for further tracks that didn't exist? If they'd gone back home, would they tell the sheriff what they'd discovered or trust Vickers to do it? How could he ever have trusted Russell, and did he get Ashley into this mess?
His fingers clutching the hickory stick tightly, he breathed deeply to make sure his voice was steady—to make sure he didn't plead—when he spoke. "You don't want to hurt Mrs. Benedict," he said, not shaky, not intense, just a quiet, careless warning, "because if you do, Sheriff Benedict will kill you."
"Sheriff Benedict won't have any reason to believe that it was us," Armstrong said.
"He knows everything. We had a long talk yesterday. Right now he's investigating each of you—" he gestured toward the three men in front, then made brief eye contact with each of the others "—and it won't take him long to find out whoyou are."
"All he knows is what you've told him," Russell contended. "He won't find anything to implicate us in either the robbery or the tragic events here."
Dillon shrugged. "He's got the gun I took from the deputy. Tests will prove that I didn't shoot him. The same tests done onhis gun," he continued with a nod toward Vickers, "will prove thathe did."
Vickers held up his pistol, a nine-millimeter semiautomatic identical to the one Dillon had taken off Coughlin. "You're right, Boone. Testswill prove that this gun was used to shoot Tommy. They'll also prove that Ashley was killed with the same gun. Then, presumably distraught over all that you'd done and over the prospect of spending the rest of your life—or dying—in prison, you turned the gun on yourself."
"Seth won't buy that,
" she said scornfully. "How are you going to convince him that Dillon got hold of your gun when youpresumably haven't seen him in almost a year?"
Vickers's grin faded, and his eyes turned cold as he looked at her. "Then we'll just have to take care of Seth, too."
And that would leave them in the clear, Dillon acknowledged grimly. Not knowing who else might be part of Russell's scheme, Seth had proposed conducting his investigation quietly, completely on his own, at least in the beginning. If Vickers killed him and destroyed his notes, the only other person who could possibly speak out was Tom Coughlin…who had suffered serious head injuries…who was in a coma… whose recall of the shooting—provided he survived—could be easily discounted.
He and Ashley were screwed. He couldn't even try to bargain to save her life, because Russell held all the cards. Dillon had nothing to offer.
"Come on down here," Russell ordered.
Still using the stick as a cane, he slowly made his way down the steps. At the bottom, he stopped. "You people are crazy. You're willing to kill four people, two of them cops, for a lousy half-million dollars? That's nothing. It's certainly not worth dying for."
"But that's the beauty of our plan," his old friend—his dearest enemy—replied."We're not the ones who are going to die. And we never could have done it without you, Dillon. I knew the day I saw you in Atlanta that you would be perfect for it. You had never accomplished anything. You'd been in trouble all your life. You were a failure, ascrewup . Yet you were smart enough to do what we needed you to do, trusting enough to not suspect what was up and honest enough to not rip us off. You were a perfect pawn."
The truth of his words settled bitterly on Dillon's shoulders. So it had been an even more elaborate setup than he had suspected. From the very beginning, before Russell had even offered him the job, it had all been part of their plan. If only he hadn't lost that last job in Atlanta…If he hadn't accepted Russell's offer, if he'd had something or someone to keep him inGeorgia, he could have avoided this entire nightmare. He never would have met Ashley, probably never would have known what it was like to love anyone the way he loved her, but at least he wouldn't be standing here preparing to die. He wouldn't be at such a damnable loss to think of a way to preventher from dying.
She was looking at him, her face pale,her eyes bigger and bluer than ever. He wished he could hold her one last time, wished he could tell her how sorry he was and how very much he loved her. Then she smiled, just a faint little curving of her mouth, and he knew that she knew. She understood.
"Let's hurry up and get this done with," Armstrong snapped. "We've all got better places to be and better things to do."
Vickers stepped forward. "We've got to make it look like he killed her,then killed himself. Darrin, go inside and find her car keys. We'll say she saw a chance to escape, and he stopped her."
Ashley couldn't stand by silently while two people she'd known all her life planned the best way to murder her. "Right," she said sarcastically. "I was in town alone for two hours yesterday afternoon, but this morning I decide to escape. You guys are idiots. You think Seth or anyone else with a brain will believe that?"
Russell Bradley turned to look at her. His gaze was measuring, derisive and just a little bored. He was a far more dangerous man than she'd first thought, she realized. He truly had no qualms about murdering two innocent people, one a stranger, one whom he'd grown up with, whom he had considered a friend. He had no heart, no soul. "This whole incident will be quite a trauma for the county ofCatlin ," he explained patiently. "One deputy comatose and in critical condition, the sheriff dead, his unfortunate former wife murdered by the same cold-blooded killer who then ended his own life…Everyone will be in shock. They'll believe whatever they're told."
"You underestimate my friends and neighbors," she said coolly, but she wasn't sure she believed it. Three deaths and Tommy Coughlin near death…Whyit happened could easily forestall any questions abouthow, and with Bill Armstrong—former mayor, everyone's banker and everyone's friend—there to smooth the cover story over, thehow might very well never be asked.
"What do you think?" Steven joined them as the man named Darrin came out of the house with her keys in hand. "Ashley out here and Boone inside?"
"Sounds reasonable," Bradley replied. "Take care of him first. Be sure you make it look self-inflicted."
Ashley's heart rate tripled. "Bill, youcan't do this," she pleaded. "You can't let them do this! You have your money. Please, Dillon will leave. That's what he was planning to do anyway. He'll leave the state and he'll never come back."
Armstrong looked at her without even a hint of remorse. "It's too late to bargain, Ashley. It was too late the minute he got arrested over inMossville . Go on, Steven."
Switching the pistol to his other hand, Steven took hold of Dillon's arm as Darrin moved in on the other side. Terrified, trembling, barely able to breathe, she took a step forward before the other stranger blocked her way with his arm. "Dillon!"
He smiled at her, an accepting sort of smile that wasunderlaid with sorrow. "It's all right, Ash. Everything will be all right."
Tears blocking her throat, she watched, silently praying—pleading, screaming—for him to dosomething as he climbed the first step, the second, then the third. He stopped there, fumbled,then swung around, bringing the hickory stick crashing against the side of Steven's head. As the deputy staggered back, then fell, the stick continued its powerful arc, slamming into Darrin's arm, sending him to his knees and his gun flying through the air.
Ashley reacted instinctively, ducking underneath her guard's outstretched arm, diving for the pistol where it landed in a patch of yellow jasmine. The commotion of a struggle sounded behind her as the man came after her, grabbing her ankle just as her fingers closed around the rubber grips of the pistol, just as she rolled onto her back, clutching the pistol in both hands, pointing it only inches from his heart. It made him freeze where he was.
She had always thought that she was absolutely incapable of using a gun for self-defense; she had told Dillon as much his first night here. She would never shoot to protect her property and had doubted that she could do it to protect her life.
Well, she had been wrong. If she had any idea what to do to make this gun fire—if there was a safety, if it was on, if the hammer had to be cocked or if she could simply pull the trigger—she would do it. She would kill this man, and Russell Bradley and Bill Armstrong and the others. She would kill them and be glad to do it.
The sound of a gunshot boomed, making her jump. Scrambling to her feet, she risked a look at Dillon, who was standing at the bottom of the steps, his left arm around Russell Bradley's shoulders, holding the other man in front of him. The sun glinted off the newly sharpened blade of the knife he held at Bradley's throat. Steven Vickers lay unconscious on the ground, and the other man, Darrin, was sitting a few feet away, bent over in pain, cradling his right arm to his chest. Bill Armstrong had raised his rifle, taking aim on Dillon and Bradley, but he wasn't the one who had fired. It was either Seth, standing at the rear of the van, or one of the men with him.
Without waiting for an order, Armstrong threw his gun to the ground. "Thank God you got here in time, Sheriff. We tracked Boone to Ashley's cabin, and when we tried to take him into custody, he disarmed your deputy and his friend. He probably would have killed us all if you hadn't come."
Seth moved forward. "Your luck's run out, Bill. Dub Collins didn't like being cut out of the capture. He figured that he tracked the guy, so he deserved credit for catching him. To ensure that he got it, he came straight to my office when you sent him away." Slowly, his gaze shifted. "Ashley, you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Turning toward his backup without taking his eyes off the men, Seth said, "Handcuff them all and read 'em their rights. Start with Mr. Armstrong."
"Wait one minute, Benedict—"
One of the men—an SBI agent, Ashley thought—stepped in front of Armstrong. He was a big man, backed up by a b
ig gun. "Put your hands on the roof of the van," he ordered in a voice that demanded compliance. As the banker obeyed, another of the men took the pistol from Ashley and led the stranger away.
She started toward Dillon, but Seth, his attention already locked on him, stopped her a few feet away. "He's not worth killing, you know," he said quietly.
Dillon remained motionless. His fingers were wrapped so tightly around the wooden handle of the knife that his knuckles were white, and his breathing was audible, slow and measured. "That's what he was going to do to us," he replied, his voice just as quiet. "They were going to shoot Ashley in the back, to make it look as if she tried to escape and I killed her,then killed myself." He smiled faintly. "They were going to kill you, too."
Bradley wet his lips nervously. "Come on, Dillon, please don't do this. I've got a family—a wife, kids. Please don't…I'll tell them everything, I'll tell them how we set you up for the robbery, just please,please, don't kill me."
Survive the Night Page 25