Southern Gothic (22 page)

Max squinted at the blinding light in his eyes. “We didn’t come down here to screw anything up. The Hulls brought us here. They screwed things up for you.”

“Shut up. I don’t care who brought you here or why you came. All I know is that the two of you have caused me more headaches than an entire lifetime living here. And now let me tell you something — I want out.”

Max’s head perked up. “The gold — you want it for yourself.”

“That’s right.”

Though speaking with a lethargic drawl, Drummond managed to say, “Careful, Max. I’ve heard men talk like this before. He isn’t stalling for time and this isn’t part of his mission. Speeches like this, this guy, he’s building up the courage to shoot you two.”

Max agreed. The way Sandra clasped his hand tight suggested she had come to the same conclusion.

Rolson whipped his head around in spurts as he spoke, disheveling his hair, while all the time maintaining his circular path. “Why shouldn’t I take this gold? They don’t need it. Heck, they don’t even want it. They only care about the stupid chest it came in.”

“But they’re not going to let you take that gold, and you know it. They’ll hunt you. For the rest of your life, if they have to.”

Rolson stopped, and the corner of his mouth rose slightly. “Oh, I got that all figured out.” He raised his gun. “And it all starts with you two. Right here.”

“Listen. We can work a deal. There’s no need for this.”

Rolson’s face deformed as he tightened all of his muscles. In a low, calm voice, he said, “Burn in Hell.” Then he fired the gun.

Max saw the flash of the muzzle and thought how bright it appeared in the dark gym. Like a camera flash or a bolt of lightning, it lit up the entire cavernous gym for less than a second. By the time the sound of the gunshot reached Max’s ears, he should have been dead. He even had time to notice that he had not died.

And in that rapidly passing second, his brain took note that despite all Drummond had been through, he had thrust his ghostly body in the path of the bullet, that doing so would slow down the bullet but not stop it entirely, and that Max should duck. Max did more — he dropped flat, pressing his face against the cold wood floor. Sandra lay next to him, offering him a smile that said simply —
I’m not shot
.

Drummond cried out. Not a painful cry but rather a war cry — he attacked Rolson. He tried to, at least. He flew in fast but slammed into an unseen wall.

Rolson stumbled back from the hit. Licking his lips, he pulled out a necklace with a small bag tied to it. “You think I don’t learn my lessons? I may not be able to see you, ghost, but I know you’re there. This here is a ward against you. You won’t be hurting me ever again. You hear me?”

Rubbing his head, Drummond said, “Tell this moron I hear him. Tell him anything, so long as he shuts up.”

But Max had a different move in mind. While Rolson yelled at a ghost he couldn’t see, Max and Sandra scuttled off into the darkness. Holding her hand tight with one hand, he kept the other in front, waving it around in the total darkness.

They moved slowly. Max could hear Rolson cursing Drummond and laughing at the same time. He had never seen a man go insane before, and he hoped never to see it again — at least, not when the man holds a gun. Max’s hand bumped into something solid and wide. A stage. Like many schools, this one had built a stage at one end of the gym.

Speaking soft right into Sandra’s ear, Max said, “Climb up.”

Max crawled up onto the stage and felt Sandra behind. He slid forward until his head bumped a curtain. Finally, something had gone his way. Holding the bottom of the curtain up, he let Sandra crawl under and quickly followed.

The whole thing had lasted only seconds but to Max, it had felt like minutes. He couldn’t understand why Rolson hadn’t searched for them. As he let the curtain down, however, it became clear — despite the pain involved, Drummond had continued to attack Rolson’s ward. He distracted Rolson, playing on the man’s disjointed mind, and thus, giving Max and Sandra plenty of time to escape.

If you could drink, I’d buy you a lot of whiskey, my friend.

Sandra latched on to Max’s hand again, and this time, she led the way off the stage. They bumped into a few chairs, but she found a set of stairs that led them into the far end of the hallway. Straight ahead, they found a door leading outside.

“Where the hell are you?” Rolson bellowed.

“Go,” Max said.

They bolted to the door, slammed it open, and didn’t stop. Max pointed toward the line of evergreens up a short hill. Sandra nodded even as she sprinted ahead. When they reached the trees, they ducked beneath the thick branches and scurried close to the trunk of the nearest one.

Rolson stumbled through the door, his gun lolling to the side. His breath puffed out in the cold air. He looked drunk and confused as he twirled around, searching aimlessly for them. But Max didn’t think the man to be as lost as he appeared. He may have fallen into a bit of insanity, but that only made him unpredictable, not unable to function.

With a sudden shift, Rolson stood firm and stared straight into the trees. Max stared back, refusing to move a muscle, promising himself that the man could not possibly see them. Sandra watched, too, also holding still. Neither of them dared to even breathe.

Throwing his arms out in disgust, Rolson grunted and stormed off to the parking lot. Max heard Sandra exhale and followed suit. They held still until they saw the lights from his car turn onto the main road and disappear.

As they emerged from the trees, Drummond flew out from the gymnasium. Though dead, he looked queasy.

“Stop hurting yourself for us,” Sandra said, shivering in the cold.

Drummond forced a wink. “Who else am I going to hurt myself for?”

“I mean it. I’m going to feel guilty for long enough as it is.”

“Sweet of you to say, but you got nothing to feel guilty about. You’re my friends. Besides, it hurts but at least I get to take a jab at the Hulls — well, one of their little minions, anyway.”

Sandra glanced off into the dark. “That minion is on his way to Baxter House to steal the gold. We’ve got to get going.”

“Hold on,” Max said. “We’re not going to rush into this blind. We’ve done that enough for one day. It’s going to take us forty minutes or so to get to the house, which means it’ll take Rolson that long as well. That gives us some time to come up with a plan. Good thing with that is — I think I have one.”

Sandra grabbed Max and planted a kiss firmly on his lips. “Let’s hear it.”

Chapter 24

Sandra pulled up against the curb
a few blocks away from Baxter House. With the details worked out, the last twenty minutes of the drive had been spent in silence. Only now, as they sat in the cold, Max saw that for Sandra the silence had been one of mounting tension. She gripped the wheel white-knuckle tight and her chin quivered as she stared ahead.

“I’ll be fine,” Max said. “This plan is a good one.”

Sandra shifted her body in order to face Max head on. She reached over and took his hand. Her skin felt warm despite the freezing cold surrounding them. “Why are we doing this? Rolson has got to be there already. He probably has the gold. We’ve lost.”

“Even if he has the gold, it doesn’t matter. We have to go in there. We’ve got to stop him from getting away with it. And we’ve got to get that chest for Cecily Hull.”

Sandra’s thumb rubbed circles on the back of Max’s hand. “This doesn’t feel like other times. I’m worried.”

“If we all do what we planned, I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. It’ll work. Besides, Drummond’s already off doing his part. We can’t leave him hanging alone.”

Sandra looked down at their hands and said nothing. In the dark silence, Max felt her thumb moving over his skin. In response, his fingers danced along her hand. He could feel her fears and desperation all through that sliver of contact between them.

They had held hands many times in their life together, but this felt different. This tiny connection felt stronger than any other physical contact they had ever shared. It focused all they were about to face, all their thoughts and concerns, all their history and future — all of it wrapped up into one small touch. In the same way that a stubbed toe could be more painful than a broken bone, or that a brush of the lips could be more erotic than a deep kiss, Sandra and Max’s clasped hands brought them closest to each other’s heart.

Though her body had not moved, Max could tell that tears fell from her eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong? Is it really this plan?”

“It’s not the plan.”

“Are you that scared of Rolson? We’ve dealt with tougher.”

“I know. It’s not that.”

“Then what? Why are you so upset?”

With a sniffle, she said, “I want to tell you something that I’ve never shared before.”

“Really? I thought you’d told me everything.”

“Don’t be like that now. I have an entire lifetime of things that I probably haven’t told you. I’m sure you do, too.” Sandra paused, her brow tight as she prepared herself. “This is about when we got engaged.”

Sandra exhaled a slow breath. The longer it took for her to speak, the more questions Max’s mind spun off. He couldn’t help it — the thoughts simply popped in his head.

Had she cheated on him before they were married? Had she gotten pregnant and had an abortion without telling him? Was there some back room deal she made with the Hulls in an attempt to protect him? What could be so terrible, and what did it have to do with now? Was she clearing her conscience because she thought he might die this time?

Sandra brought her other hand over and held Max’s between her own as if praying through his hand. “After our engagement, when I told my mother the good news, she begged me to break it off. She didn’t like you. No, that’s not true. She hated you. She said she didn’t trust you and that you were no good for me and that you would only bring me pain. Of course, I told her what she could do with her opinions. But then, she said it was more than opinion.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That night my mother told me something I had never known about her. She confessed that like me, she had gifts. She was clairvoyant.”

“Wait a minute. Are you serious? She can see into the future?”

“Something like that. She never would explain too clearly how it all worked. But she told me that she could see things for us and that what she saw was filled with struggle and sadness and pain.”

“Well, we’ve certainly had our ups and downs. We’ve definitely had our share of those things. But I don’t regret it. Do you? Is that what you’re saying?”

Sandra’s hands pressed tighter against his. “No. Never. I love you, and I don’t ever want you to think that I would give up what we’ve had.”

“Then why are you saying all this? What is this about?”

“When she told me all of this, there was a look in her eyes — a sadness unlike anything I had ever seen. I used to think she saw my death earlier than it should have been. But in the last minutes as we neared this house, it hit me strong — a feeling that matched how I felt when I saw her that night. I think her vision, her seeing into the future, I think she saw what we are about to do tonight. I think she knew the outcome would not be good. That’s why I don’t want you to go in there.”

With his free hand, Max brushed away the tears from Sandra’s cheek. “That was quite a story. Now let me share something with you about that same time. While your mother was talking with you, while she was planting these seeds of horror in you, your sweet father paid me a little visit.”

“He did? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want to change the way you saw him, and because I didn’t want to start off our marriage with what I’m going to say. See, he took me to a bar, sat me at the end of the counter, and got us beers. All very manly — just like your dad did everything. All designed to intimidate under the guise of camaraderie. I half-expected him to pull out a hunting rifle and set it between us. Anyway, he told me that he and your mother didn’t want us getting married. He didn’t like me, and he knew you could do better. So, he offered to pay me a lot of money to walk away.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“You know I’m not. In fact, he said that if I wanted more, they’d even put a second mortgage on their house. Whatever it took to get me to walk away. Up until a minute ago, I had always believed that the offer had been made as a test. That he wanted to see how much I truly loved you or if I was really the kind of scumbag that would take such an offer. And now, I think he was serious. I think he would’ve paid me to leave. And I think your mother was every bit as desperate. They coordinated their efforts trying to get us to break up.”

“You think she lied? That she wasn’t clairvoyant?”

Max shrugged. “I’m saying that even if she was clairvoyant, she may have misrepresented the things she saw in our future.” Max pulled Sandra’s hands to his chest. “I hear you, honey. I understand your fears. I have them, too. But let me ask you this — what else can we do? Let’s say I agree and we go home right now. Drummond will still be doing our plan. He’ll be lucky if he’s not caught by the Hulls and cursed again. And even if we somehow knew he would be okay, Rolson then gets the gold, gets the chest, and escapes. We still have to deal with the Hulls. I don’t see any way for us to get out of this mess without me going down there and doing everything as we planned. If you have a better idea, please tell me, and we’ll leave right now, we’ll try to find a way to stop Drummond. But if not, then we need to set our fears aside.”