The Hidden (17 page)

The woman was saying something else now, something he didn’t catch. He said, “What?”

“How long are you going to make me suffer?”

“I’m not trying to make you suffer.”

“But that’s what you’re doing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t keep saying you’re sorry. I don’t want to die, I don’t want my husband or the deputy to die, but if you’re going to shoot me, why don’t you just go ahead and get it over with?”

His head had started to ache. A dull throbbing centered behind his eyes. He squeezed them shut and knuckle-rubbed them, then dug the heels of his hands hard into his temples.

“Well?” she said.

Opened his eyes again, quick, but she hadn’t moved. “I don’t like this any more than you do.”

“But that’s not going to stop you, is it.”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I don’t
know
!”

And he didn’t, he still didn’t. It was like being back in Iraq, having to make another in a string of hard and fast decisions in order to survive. He’d handled it all right on the first tour, no problem, but on the second, after Georgia lost her arm and Charley got wasted and he had to scrag those two Iraqi civilians, it got harder and harder. To the point where he didn’t know what was right and what wasn’t, didn’t know what to do, didn’t want the responsibility, just wanted it to be over and done with one way or another.

He’d felt bad then and he felt bad again now. Harder and harder. Too much responsibility. Made him feel the way he had when they stuck him in that clinic over in Iraq—as if he’d lost part of himself, the way Georgia had lost her arm. And that it didn’t really matter what he did tonight or from now on, shot the woman and the deputy or didn’t shoot them, shot any more of the spoilers or not, because there was no way he could ever get it back.

T W E N T Y - S E V E N

H
E WAS NOBODY SHELBY
had ever seen before. Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, lean and muscular, with a round baby face and thin blond hair wet and tangled from the rain. He didn’t look dangerous; he looked like the boy next door all grown up. There wasn’t enough light in the cabin for her to get a clear look at his eyes, but his expression—flat, almost placid—was not that of a homicidal lunatic. He didn’t talk or act like one, either. Soft-voiced, except for flashes of anger that lasted for only a few seconds. Hadn’t touched her or even come close to her, just ordered her to sit on the sofa and then sat down himself at the table across from it. Seemed almost apologetic each time he said he didn’t know yet what he was going to do about her and the trussed-up deputy.

The Coastline Killer. She’d realized that must be who he was as soon as he caught her and now he’d confirmed it. Hiding out right here the whole time she and Jay were at the cottage. The Coastline Killer on one side and another violent weirdo, Brian Lomax, on the other. Sandwich meat between two slices of crazy.

Shelby kept trying not to look at the silver-framed automatic on the table in front of him, but her eyes were drawn to it mothlike. He’d killed a bunch of people already with that gun, for some warped reason that had to do with preserving the coastal environment, and pretty soon now, when he worked himself up to it, he would add two more to the list.

She was terrified, but she had the terror tamped down under the calm she had learned to adopt in crisis situations. If she let him see any sign of fear, it might be the impetus he needed to go ahead and use that automatic. All she could do was keep him talking, try to postpone it as long as she could while she continued to look for some miracle way to prevent it from happening.

She kept chafing her hands together to try to restore circulation; she’d stripped off what was left of the torn and sodden gloves when she first sat down. The cuts on her palms and her cheek stung like fury. But the rest of her felt numb, stiff from the wet and the cold. She had to clench her jaw muscles to keep her teeth from chattering.

The blond man’s eyes were downcast now, in a squint that ridged his forehead with horizontal lines. Again Shelby made a surreptitious eye-sweep of the cabin. There was a wood box next to an old-fashioned woodstove, some sticks of cordwood stacked inside. Maybe, if she could get him out of that chair and closer to her …

“It’s cold in here,” she said. “The fire’s almost out and I’m freezing.”

He didn’t respond. He was massaging his temples again, as if he had a headache.

“Maybe you could put some more wood in the stove?”

“No.”

“Or let me do it—”

“No. You just stay where you are.”

No use. The cut logs were ten feet away, the deputy was on the floor between her and the table, and any sudden movements she made were bound to be clumsy. As soon as she came up off the lumpy sofa, he’d have the weapon in his hand—and one or two seconds after that she’d be dead.

Ferguson’s limbs spasmed again, but his eyes remained shut. She hadn’t gotten an answer to why he was here, what had happened between him and the blond man, but it didn’t really make any difference. Even if his arms and ankles weren’t bound, he’d be of no help to her or to himself. Nasty head wound—blunt force trauma, probable concussion. Likely he’d be so disoriented when he regained consciousness he wouldn’t even know his own name.

Another groan brought the blond man’s eyes back up. They flicked over Ferguson, lifted to resettle on her.

She said, “I don’t know your name.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I’d like to know. I told you my name.”

“Shelby Hunter. I like that, it’s kind of appropriate.”

“Why appropriate?”

“The Hunter part, I mean.”

“I’m not a hunter. I don’t like to kill living things.”

“Neither do I, but sometimes it’s necessary.” Then he said, “Soldiers are hunters, that’s what I meant. Were you ever a soldier?”

“No.”

“You could’ve been. You’ve got the courage.”

She ignored that. “I’m an EMT.”

“Medic? That’s good. Can’t do without medics.”

“It’s how I know my husband needs medical attention. If I hadn’t been there to stabilize him after his heart attack, he might’ve died then.”

“You told me that before. I’m sorry.”

“The deputy needs attention, too,” she said. “Why don’t you let me look at his wound?”

“No.”

“Maybe there’s something I can do for him—”

“I said no.”

Shift to another subject. Soldiers, the military.

“What branch of the service were you in? Army? Marine Corps?”

“Army infantry.”

“NCO?”

“What else? I made corporal.”

“Serve overseas? See combat?”

“Iraq, two tours,” he said. “I hated it over there.”

“I can’t imagine what it was like.”

“No, you can’t. It was hell. But once you’re there, all you can do is embrace the suck.”

“Do what?”

“Make the best of it. Deal with all the shit until you …” His voice trailed off; he shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about Iraq.”

Keep him talking about something!

“Where are you from?”

“Nowhere,” he said.

“You were born someplace, grew up someplace—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you have family? Brothers, sisters?”

“No.”

“What about your mother and father?”

“I never knew him and the old bitch is dead.” He was becoming agitated; his voice had risen, taken on a sharp edge. “There’s no point in asking me all these questions. It won’t work.”

“What won’t work?”

“Trying to distract me. You can’t overpower me and you can’t get away.”

“I know that. I wasn’t trying to distract you—”

“Don’t lie to me. I don’t like to be lied to.”

“All right.”

Silent stare for several seconds, his face showing the bunched effects of his headache. Then abruptly it smoothed; he pushed his chair back, picked up the automatic, and got to his feet. Resolute expression now, as if he’d made some kind of decision. Shelby tensed, but he didn’t turn the weapon in her direction; held it straight down along his side.

“Lie down,” he said, “on your belly.”

“Why? What for?”

“Do what you’re told, medic.”

“Are you going to shoot me now?”

“Not if you obey orders.”

There was nothing else she could do. She pulled her legs up and stretched out, slowly turned over with her cheek against a cushion that smelled of dust and mildew and pipe tobacco. A bullet in the back of the head, execution style? She resisted the impulse to close her eyes.

He said, “Put your feet together and your hands behind your back.”

No, that wasn’t his intention, not yet. He was going to tie her up as he’d done the deputy. She released the breath she’d been holding, let the prayer that had come into her mind slide back out again.

“Now don’t move.”

She obeyed while he tore off pieces from a roll of duct tape, wrapped her wrists together crosswise, then bound her ankles.

“Why are you doing this?” she said.

He didn’t answer until he was finished and he’d tested the tape to make sure it was secure. “I have to go out again for a little while.”

“Where?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But you’ll be back.”

“Yeah, I’ll be back.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know yet. Be quiet now, just be quiet.”

At the periphery of her vision she saw him walk across to the door, open it, then stand there looking back at her. His face was impassive in the lantern light, but he had one more thing to say to her, oddly, almost shyly, before he went out and shut the door behind him.

“My name is Joseph,” he said.

T W E N T Y - E I G H T

M
ACKLIN DIDN’T KNOW WHAT
to think. As far as he could tell, nothing had been taken from Shelby’s purse; her wallet was inside, the unopened can of Mace tucked into a side pocket. Logic blocked the notion that there’d been a pair of cruisers and Shelby and the driver of this one had left together in the second. A deputy might have abandoned his vehicle if it was disabled in some way, but he’d sure as hell have locked it first. And Shelby would never have willingly abandoned her purse, not for any reason.

Something bad had gone down here, something that accounted for Brian Lomax being dead. The possibility that Shelby might also be hurt made him frantic. But no matter what had happened she was alive, he refused to think otherwise. Around here somewhere, or out by the highway. Alone? Lomax’s body had been left where it had fallen; there was no reason for Shelby to’ve been taken away, hurt or not. Unless … hostage? No, no, what would anybody need a hostage for? She
had
to be in the vicinity.

He started to back out of the cruiser, stopped when his gaze rested on the pump-action shotgun in its console brackets. He didn’t like guns, hadn’t had anything to with any type of firearm since the time his father had taken him out hunting quail in his early teens, Pop’s one and only effort to “make a man out of him.” But in a situation like this you did what was necessary, whatever was necessary.

Desperation gave him the strength to tear the shotgun loose from its moorings. It was loaded: The slide worked smoothly and he heard a shell snick into the chamber.

The fireplace poker was useless now; Macklin tossed it into the runoff stream. With the shotgun crooked carefully under his arm, he swung the flash beam in a wide arc. It passed over the black woods, the deserted lane, the estate fence, the entrance gates—

He jerked it back when he realized that the gates stood partway open. They’d been shut all the times he’d driven by; he and Shelby had both assumed the place was closed up for the winter.

Was that where she was, somewhere on the estate grounds? The gates might have been blown open by the storm, but that wasn’t likely since they opened inward. Somebody must’ve unlocked them …
somebody
was there or had been there.

Macklin hurried across the roadway, and as he sloshed through swampy earth and grass he had the presence of mind to click off the flash. He’d already thrown light over the gates, but anybody on the other side would have to be close by to have seen it. Possible someone was hiding there in the dark … he couldn’t just go blundering onto the property with the flash on. Take it slow and careful.

He eased up to the nearest gate half, stopped there to peer through the gap. Thick darkness, unbroken except for the faint vertical outlines of trees—a dozen people could be hiding within twenty yards of him and he wouldn’t be able to see any of them. He put a strain on his hearing. Magnified faucet-drip from the waterlogged branches, the distant pounding of surf. No other sounds.

He stepped through, took a few steps forward and felt the driveway begin to slope downward. He might be able to follow it down through the woods without using the torch, but he was afraid to risk it. Too easy to veer off, stumble and fall … hurt himself, bring on another cardiac episode. His breathing was a little off again and the squeezing sensation had returned. There was a growing numbness in his hands and feet, too—the bitter windchill penetrating the layers of clothing and robbing him of body heat.

He had the flash pointed straight down, his thumb on the switch, when the light flickers showed below.

Now he knew for sure someone was on the grounds. Moving in or beyond the timber on the south side, where he judged the estate buildings to be. He stood tensed, watching, as the flickers lengthened and then steadied into a long shaft. Whoever it was had moved out from behind the screening trees, probably onto the driveway, and was heading this way.

Before the shaft cut around in his direction, Macklin backed up quickly to the gates and then went to his right along the fence. Some kind of scraggly ground cover grew along it; he trampled through the vegetation, his shoulder brushing the rough boards, his shoes sinking into a soggy cushion of pine needles.

The approaching light was slanted upward now, not quite piercing the darkness as far as the gates.

Shelby?

But the hope died as fast as it had been born. She’d be running or at least hurrying, and judging by the rate the beam was advancing, whoever held the torch was maintaining a steady pace but in no real hurry. Going where?

A thick pine trunk jutted a few feet to Macklin’s right; he pushed off the fence and stepped over to use the tree as a shield. His heartbeat had quickened and the metallic taste was back in his mouth. The stock and barrel of the shotgun had a heavy, leaden feel in his gloved fingers.

Two choices. Step out when whoever it was reached the gates, click on his flash, catch the person by surprise. Or stay hidden and try to see who it was, where he was headed.

No-brainer. He still had no idea who had killed Lomax—Shelby or the missing deputy or some unknown third party. Or why Lomax was dead. Or what the situation was here. He’d be the one at a disadvantage if the light-holder was armed and dangerous. He had no experience with a shotgun; to use it he’d have to take the glove off his right hand, and his fingers were cramped and without much feeling as it was. He’d be a damn fool to even think about trying to fire it one-handed while holding the flashlight steady on his target.

He bent forward against the pine trunk, watching the wavering ray draw closer, reach up to splash brightness over the gate halves. A single figure took dim shape behind it, slowed and then stopped to pull one and then the other half wide open. There wasn’t enough backspill for Macklin to get a clear look at him. But he could tell one thing as the man and the light passed out through the opening: What he was wearing was not a deputy sheriff’s uniform.

Macklin waited half a dozen beats. Snippets of light coming through chinks between the fence boards told him that the man was moving across the lane toward the parked cruiser. But he wasn’t planning to leave the area, head for the highway; he wouldn’t have opened the gates all the way if that was his intention. Must be going to bring the cruiser back inside, hide it on the estate grounds.

Was he the one who’d killed Lomax? If so, then wouldn’t he also want to get the corpse off the lane? Put it into the cruiser or drag it into the woods where it wouldn’t be easily found? That would take time, and so would stopping to close the gates after he drove the cruiser through.

Hurry!

Macklin stepped out to the rain-slick driveway, eased along it several paces in the dark while he altered his grip on the torch, closing his fingers around the bulb end and splaying them over the lens. When he switched on, enough light leaked through on a downward slant to show him what lay directly ahead, let him lengthen his stride. Every few steps he glanced over his shoulder at the gates. If the cruiser’s headlights appeared before he reached the end of the driveway, he’d darken the torch and get off into the trees as fast as he could.

His breathing was still erratic; he kept expecting the chest constriction to erupt into smothering pain. But he didn’t let it slow him down. Finding Shelby was all he let himself think about.

The driveway’s looping descent had almost cleared the woods when he saw, first, the yellowish rectangle ahead to his left and at almost the same time, the brighter illumination tingeing the night above and behind him. But the cruiser’s headlamps were still outside the fence, just now swinging around to the entrance. He couldn’t make out the gates from where he was, but the buildings had begun to materialize ahead, the dark outlines of the big estate house on the edge of the bluff and the smaller, closer structure with the lamplit window.

The driveway forked; he veered onto the left fork, drawn by the light ahead.

Halfway there, he took another look beind him. Headlight glare showed through the trees … moving at first, then becoming stationary. The cruiser was inside the gates and the man had gotten out to close them. Only a matter of minutes before he’d be down here.

The small building was a rough-built cabin. Macklin stumbled and slowed as he neared it, his breath like fire in his lungs. He passed a closed door, brought up next to the unshaded window. Sleeved his eyes clear of rain and sweat and peered through the streaked glass.

Jesus!

He lunged sideways to the door, dragged it open just long enough to thrust his body inside. On the battered gray sofa Shelby’s head came up and her eyes rounded into an open-mouthed stare. She cried his name, twice, in a voice that cracked with emotion.

Relief flooded him. She wasn’t hurt, she looked all right.

“Thank God, Jay, but how did you—”

“No time now. He’s coming, he’ll be here any minute.”

“Quick then … get a knife, cut me loose.”

Macklin sidestepped the wounded deputy—recognized him, Ferguson—and stumbled into the kitchenette. Didn’t have to open drawers to find a knife; there was a wooden block of them on the sink counter. He exchanged the flashlight for a long-bladed carving knife, stumbled back out to the sofa.

His hand was shaking so badly he was afraid he might add another cut to Shelby’s already torn and bloody flesh if he tried to slice through the duct tape one-handed. He propped the shotgun against the sofa, stripped off his right glove, then held the knife in both hands to steady it as he steered the blade to the narrow gap between her wrists.

As he began sawing, she said with awe in her voice, “You came all this way on foot? Miracle you made it …”

“I’m okay.”

Damn knife blade was dull; he sawed harder. Nicked her in his haste—a line of fresh blood slithered along one wrist.

“Is he on foot or in the cruiser?”

“Cruiser.”

“Pray he doesn’t notice the shotgun’s missing, it’ll put him on alert.”

“Who the hell is he?”

“Coastline Killer. Hurry, Jay!”

One more cut and her hands were free. She took the knife from him, sliced the tape around her ankles, then reached for the pump gun. He tried to take it from her; she said, “No, let me have it, you’re in no condition,” and came up off the bed with it in her hands. She looked shaky, but not as shaky as he was.

He said, “Shell in the chamber,” and she nodded. She knew how to handle the weapon; you couldn’t do emergency work around cops for ten years without having seen a riot gun being used.

Rising sound of a car engine outside. Headlight glare slid obliquely over the front of the cabin, across the window.

Shelby said, “Get out of the way, Jay, over by the stove.”

He didn’t argue. His tank was almost empty; he’d been running on scant reserves for some time now. He shoved himself upright, made it over to an old armchair by the wood stove and leaned heavily against its back, straining to get his breathing under control.

Shelby moved past the deputy to the right side of the room, at an angle to the closed door; stood there with the shotgun leveled, her legs spread and her hands steady now. Frozen tableau for half a minute. Then the door opened and a blond man Macklin had never seen before came inside. Hadn’t noticed the pump gun was missing from the cruiser, hadn’t been put on alert, just walked right in.

The blond man saw the empty sofa, stopped abruptly at the same time Shelby said in a sharp commanding voice, “Stand still, soldier! I’ll blow your head off if you don’t do what you’re told.”

He stiffened, staring at her with surprise on his wet face; then the surprise shifted into tight-lipped anger, then into something else for a second or two, then to no expression at all. His posture seemed to turn even more rigid, into a military erectness—both arms flat against his sides with the still-burning flashlight pointed at the floor, shoulders drawn back, chin up, eyes straight ahead and unblinking.

Shelby ordered him to unbutton his coat, take it off and let it drop on the floor, then to lie facedown on the sofa, hands behind his back, feet together. “If you don’t obey orders, you’re a dead man. I mean it, Joseph.” Then she said something Macklin didn’t comprehend. “I’ve got a soldier’s courage, remember? And you know soldiers don’t make idle threats.”

“I know,” the blond man said. Just that, nothing else.

The round boyish face was still expressionless. Macklin, exhausted, not tracking too well anymore, thought that he must have misread what he’d seen there before the blankness set in.

It had seemed almost like relief.