Terminated (30 page)

I
ngram drove blind for the first hundred
miles. He knew Fort Richardson was somewhere between Eureka and the Oregon state line, but that was it, because that was all Lynette Petersen knew. Gwen had been smart about keeping many of the details of the plan to herself to prevent anyone from stopping her. He called the office and got his PA to Google the place for directions.

Hundreds of miles lay ahead of him. He had no idea if he’d arrive in time, even driving at crazy speeds, but he had to try. How desperate must Gwen have felt to turn to Parker to help her, a man who’d brutalized her? She’d been driven to it by frustration. A frustration he now felt. He wanted to do something, and he was helpless to do so. He thumped the steering wheel.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he growled.

How had it gotten to this point? It was a question he knew the answer to. He’d let this woman down. Everyone charged with protecting her had failed. It was about time he rectified that error.

He could stop it all with a single phone call to the cops. His cell sat within easy reach. It would be so easy to make the call, but he couldn’t do that. The cops wouldn’t look upon Gwen’s plan favorably. If he could stop her before anyone got hurt then he would have done something good for her. He didn’t know if he could save her from the cops entirely,
but he could sure minimize the damage. He owed her that much.

He wasn’t just trying to save Gwen. He had to save Tarbell too, as much as Tarbell didn’t deserve saving. No one owed that son of a bitch anything after he had put Paul Farris in a coma. But Petersen had been missing for days, and Ingram knew Tarbell had had a hand in it. He needed to know what happened to him. He hoped to God Tom was OK.

“Be safe, buddy. Please, be safe.”

Ingram piled on the miles. Traffic thinned out the farther north he traveled. Towns became less frequent. He increased his speed until the weather stepped in. The temperature dropped, the sky darkened, and the rain lashed down. He saw his speed drop along with his chances of reaching Gwen in time.

His spirits lifted when he passed signs for Fort Richardson. They gave him hope.

He turned into the deserted parking lot and slithered to a halt. He jumped from his car in time to hear a woman scream.

“Christ,” he murmured. He was too late.

He went to the car’s trunk and grabbed his only weapon, a tire iron. He wished he had a gun, but this morning, he hadn’t thought he needed one.

He hopped the barrier preventing people from crossing the causeway to the island fort, but the barrier was totally unnecessary. The tide provided a natural security. The causeway sat beneath several feet of water and would get deeper with the incoming tide. He didn’t think. He just waded out into the water.

The water was bone-chillingly cold, but that wasn’t the problem. A waist-high wall edged both sides of the causeway. Slots cut into the walls allowed the water to drain out. Water sluiced through the slots from the movement of the rising tide, effectively squirting jets of water at Ingram’s ankles then sucking them back out. Each step was met by a blast of water that rocked his balance. He worked hard to stay on
his feet, but it reduced his pace to a crawl. Two hundred yards to the island soon seemed like two hundred miles.

Another scream split the air.

Keep screaming, Gwen
. If she was screaming, she was surviving. He had more to fear from silence.

A wave smashed into the causeway, kicking up a wall of water. It slammed into him, driving him onto his hands and knees, then below the surface of the water. With nothing to hang on to he was driven into the opposite causeway wall. He yelled out and seawater flooded his mouth. He forced his head above the surface and grabbed air before the undertow dragged him back across the causeway.

He flailed for something to grab on to, but it was impossible with only one free hand. The smart thing was to drop the tire iron he clung, to, but he couldn’t rely on finding another weapon when he reached the other side.

A moment of calm water between waves gave him the opportunity he needed to push himself to his feet. He was breathing hard and fatigue doubled his body weight, and he’d yet to cover a quarter of the distance.

He was tiring fast, and it showed when a wave split around the island and smashed back together on the other side. It caught him in the swell, forcing him up, then sucking him down. The undertow bounced him off the causeway and dragged him back toward the shore. He’d be damned if he’d start all over again and fought the pull of the tide, but he was losing. He wanted to yell in frustration, but another thought preoccupied his mind. It had been a long time since he’d last heard Gwen scream out.

It had all gone wrong. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Parker was dead or dying, and it was her fault. She’d never thought for one second he’d die. She’d prepared for the possibility that he’d keep the money and leave her twisting
in the wind but not that he’d end up dead.

“Gwen,” Tarbell screamed her name.

She was running, not well, but running. Being dropped off the gun battery and half drowned had taken its toll. Her body no longer absorbed the shock of running. Every footfall rammed a spike into her brain. She wanted to be sick, but there was no time for that. If she stopped, she died.

Sprinting down the slope, she slipped on the wet grass and fell forward, striking the ground on all fours. Her head swam from the jarring impact. She staggered to her feet and felt instantly light-headed. The park turned into a Dalí painting.

“Gwen,” Tarbell screamed again.

She’d never outrun him to her car, not in this condition. She needed a second. She staggered over to the battery, stumbled inside the doorless room marked “plotting room,” and leaned against the wall before she fell down. She focused on a single spot, and the world slowly solidified and the nausea passed. The brick building held the cold and drew out her remaining body heat. She was suddenly aware of how cold and wet she was, and she broke into shivers.

“Where are you, Gwen?” Tarbell shouted. “I’m not going to let you leave.”

And she couldn’t leave. Running wouldn’t stop Tarbell. Worse still, there was a mess left behind. Parker would be found. Whether anyone connected the dots between him and her was another thing, but it was a problem for her. Worse, she’d lost her element of surprise. Tarbell would never fall for a trap like this again. He’d follow through with his threats. She couldn’t leave until she finished what she’d set out to do.

“Don’t make this any worse than it is. Come out and I might spare your daughter.”

She didn’t believe him for one
second. He’d go after Kirsten. This bungled ambush guaranteed it.

She looked for a weapon in the room. A shard of brick gouged from the wall sat on the floor. It wasn’t much, but there was nothing else, and she snatched it up.

She peered outside the doorway. Tarbell was up on the top of the gun battery with Petersen’s gun loose in his hand. He had a clear view of the park in all directions. She was a sitting duck.

She hid back inside the plotting room and scrabbled for an idea, but didn’t come up with one. There was no way of her creeping up on Tarbell while he held the high ground. She had to get him down to her level. Even if she did, then what? She couldn’t take him one-on-one, especially with the gun. The only way to end this was to give Tarbell what he wanted—her. But if she sacrificed herself, she had to take Tarbell with her. It was the only solution that would save her daughter.

The sudden realization that she wouldn’t see her family again punched a hole in her chest. She’d never see Kirsten grow up. She’d never know if Paul recovered. But she had to do this for Kirsten’s sake. She sank to her knees, and a sob escaped her lips.

“Come on out, Gwen. It’s getting boring.”

She stood up and palmed her tears away. No more tears. No more self pity. The future of two people she loved depended on what she did next. Sacrificing her life would mean nothing if she didn’t engineer Tarbell’s death.

She peered out of the doorway. She couldn’t see him on the top of the battery. That was good. If she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see her. She edged outside and pressed her back against the plotting room wall, then peered around the edge of the building. Tarbell stood next to an observation tower scanning the horizon for her. He’d crossed a catwalk from the gun battery to reach the tower.

It was the best seat in the house, but it
did have its limitations. The observation tower was a blast-resistant box with slits for holes. Tarbell had to circle the walkway around the tower to see everything.

An iron staircase going up to the observation tower stood forty yards across from her. If she could sneak up on him, she could push him over the side. It was a solid idea, as long as she kept to his blind spot.

The second he disappeared from sight, she took a breath and darted over to the staircase. She didn’t get five feet before a bullet struck the ground in front of her.

“Didn’t think I’d see you? You really do take me for an idiot.” Tarbell emerged from his hiding spot and raced back across the steel catwalk for a better shot.

Gwen was exposed, trapped in the middle of no-man’s-land. To double back to her hiding spot would mean stopping to change direction, giving Tarbell more than enough time to line up an accurate shot. Instead, she kept running forward, heading for a recess in the gun battery’s slab-sided structure. She slammed her body up tight against the wall. It was a hiding spot but no sanctuary. She had only seconds before Tarbell caught up to her and shot down at her from above like an angry god. She waited until she could hear his footfalls slapping the battery’s concrete surface above her before breaking into a run.

The simple move bought Gwen vital seconds. The curving route across the top of the gun battery put Tarbell in a position with no clear shot at her.

She used the head start to pound along the gravel roadway behind the guns. From the corner of her eye, she caught Tarbell running parallel along the top of the battery. Only distance and a difficult angle kept him from taking his shot.

Tarbell cut back across the catwalk toward the observation tower and stopped mid-span. Now he had a straight shot at her. It would be very simple for him to put one in her back. In a panic, Gwen looked at all the doorways to the
buildings. Unlike the plotting room in the gun battery, each of the rooms had doors and the rangers had padlocked them all. She had nowhere to hide.

“Time to say good-bye, Gwen.”

Tarbell fired. His bullet struck the ground off to her right. She didn’t know if he missed by accident or was taunting her. She tensed for the next shot.

“Stephen Tarbell,” a voice bellowed. “Put the gun down.”

Gwen spun around. Ingram was staggering toward the gun battery, heading directly for Tarbell. He was soaked from head to foot and looked worse for it. He held a tire iron in his hand.

Tarbell whirled on Ingram. He aimed Petersen’s gun at him.

Ingram kept moving forward as if a gun wasn’t pointed at him. “It’s over. Put the gun down.”

Tarbell kept the gun trained on Ingram, and the investigator kept coming. Gwen felt panicked. If Ingram thought Tarbell wouldn’t shoot, he was wrong. She couldn’t have someone else die trying to protect her.

“Stephen, I thought you were here to shoot me,” Gwen yelled out.

Ingram looked at her in shock. She didn’t care about his reaction. Tarbell’s was the only one that mattered.

Tarbell spun back around to look down at her from his vantage point on the catwalk. His expression chilled her. She saw nothing but hate. “Promise me you won’t hurt Kirsten and you can still have me, Stephen.” She spread her arms wide. “I won’t fight.”

Tarbell switched his aim to Gwen. She braced herself for the bullet.

“Promise me, Stephen. You have to promise.”

Ingram ran forward. “Drop the gun. I won’t give you another warning.”

Tarbell didn’t break his gaze on Gwen. “I promise.”

Just as Tarbell pulled the trigger, Ingram hurled the tire iron. It smashed into the back of Tarbell’s neck, sending his shot wild. The bullet struck the ground at her feet.

Gwen saw the light go out of
Tarbell’s eyes. He stumbled hard against the safety railing. It caught him across the waist, and he toppled over the edge. She caught his look of shock as he plunged to the roadway. He pointed the gun at Gwen on the way down but hit the roadway before he could fire a shot, snapping his neck upon impact.

Ingram rushed over to Tarbell and twisted the revolver from his grasp. Tarbell’s gaze was fixed on Gwen. She walked over to the man who had tried to destroy her life and looked into his vacant expression.

“It’s over, Gwen. He’s dead.”

Ingram’s words sounded alien and the meaning of those words even more so. She was safe. Her family was safe. It didn’t seem real. She’d been fighting so long, the idea of being safe seemed like something out of a fairy tale. But it was true. She no longer had to fear what a new day would bring. The truth was evident on Tarbell’s face, deathly pale and unmoving.