Fate and Destiny (12 page)

12.

Destiny woke to sunlight
streaming through the window and something wet against her hand.
Blinking against the bright morning, she lifted her
head.

Shadow sat at the side of
the bed, licking the fingers dangling over the edge of the
mattress. Tears sprung and her heart caught in her chest. He was so
beautiful sitting in front of her, lopsided grin, tongue hanging
out and big brown eyes. He bumped his head against her hand.
Instead of simply giving him the obligatory petting he sought,
Destiny detangled herself from Andrew's arms and slid to the floor.
Hugging and rubbing the dog, she was careful to avoid the white
patch of bandage over his shoulder and around the side of his
neck.

“
Shadow, you are the best
thing I’ve seen in a long time. I am so sorry. I promise I will
never shoot you again.”

Shadow shifted his weight
around without using his front leg. Rolling over to his back, he
presented his belly to her in a sign of submission.

“
Does that mean you aren’t
worried about me shooting you again? Or that you will forgive me if
I do?”

Shadow lay on his back,
leaning to the uninjured side, gazing at her with adoring eyes.
Hearing movement from the bed, the dog and woman both looked at
Andrew who sat up in the bed, watching them.

“
Glad to see you both up
and doing well.”

He smiled at Destiny,
wiping sleep from his eyes and yawning. The rings under his eyes
suggesting he had a long night.

“
Better than you from the
looks of it. Go back to sleep Andrew. I can open the door and let
him out. I’ll even see what I can do to make an edible
breakfast.”

Remembering the tracks in
the snow, Andrew was hesitant to let her anywhere near the front
door, and he didn’t want Shadow out without supervision.

“
I’ll make a deal with
both of you. If Shadow can wait just a few minutes, I want to jump
in the shower and wash away the sleepiness. Then I will take him
outside so I can keep an eye on him. While I’m doing that, you can
start cooking.”

Thinking on her history, he
added, “You can cook can’t you?”

“
Who do you think cooked
for my aunt and uncle? I got tired of eating
sandwiches.”

Leaving the bed, Andrew
kissed the top of Destiny’s head as he limped to the bathroom.
Watching him move past her, Destiny laughed.

“
Aren’t the three of us
quite a sight? All of us limping around on bum legs!”

Andrew didn’t reply. He
couldn’t see the amusement in the situation, however he was the
only one who knew about the boot prints in the snow. Someone was
looking for Destiny. When they failed to find a body, they would
certainly begin looking through the cabins on the mountain.
Hopefully, they would start with the empty ones before knocking on
the doors of the occupied ones. That would buy him some time to get
everything together and leave the mountain.

There must be some clearing
in the storms for the kidnappers to get up the mountain. If they
could get up here, then he could get down there, and soon be on the
highway taking Destiny back to California with him since she
wouldn’t go to the police. That idea brought up another issue. What
if she didn’t want to go with him?

Destiny worked in the
kitchen making cheese omelets while coffee brewed. The area was so
small she only needed to look through a few cabinets to find
everything the room held. Her leg mildly ached this morning, and
she could almost walk normally. She wouldn’t be running marathons
anytime soon, but at least she didn’t limp or need to be carried
now.

Flipping the second omelet,
adding cheese to the top, she glanced over her shoulder at the dog
lying behind her on his side. A spot of red pooled through the
center of the white bandage, but not enough to alarm her. As the
bathroom door opened, she expertly slid the omelet onto a plate
before turning to Andrew.

“
I think he’s snoring
again.”

Laughing, she gestured
towards the dog with the skillet in her hand before placing it in
the sink.

“
Destiny, it’s a truck.”
At the serious tone of Andrew’s voice, Destiny gave him her full
attention. “It’s the same truck I heard the day I found
you.”

Destiny was confused for a
moment by the controlled panic in Andrew’s eyes as he swiftly
limped towards her, grabbing the rifle from the fireplace mantel
along the way. As his words registered in her head, she trembled,
dropping the plate of eggs and cheese.

“
No. They can’t be coming
back. No. No.”

Near whispering, she shook
her head in denial.

Awakened by the shattering
dish, Shadow sat up, ears pricked, listening intently to the
foreign sounds coming up the distant road.

Finally reaching her,
Andrew bent down, threw back the rug and lifted the handle to the
cellar.

“
Honey, don’t panic, but I
need you to get down in the cellar and stay there until I let you
out.”

Dazed, Destiny maneuvered
around Andrew and onto the first stair of the cellar. She looked
back up at him.

“
It’s so dark down
there.”

“
I know, honey, but you
have to stay down there.” He handed her the flashlight from the
drawer. ”Keep the light down and stay in the far corner.” He placed
the rifle in her hands. “Just don’t shoot me okay? Make sure it
isn’t me before you shoot. Your aim might get a lot better in
there.”

Taking the rifle, she
stepped down another step, glancing back to Andrew.

Reaching for her, he placed
a kiss on her lips.

“
It’s okay Destiny. I’ll
take care of everything. But I need you to hurry now.”

Doing as Andrew instructed,
she moved down the stairs. Reaching the last stair of the cellar,
she looked up and Andrew’s face was the last thing she saw before
the door closed, sealing her in darkness.

Covering the door with the
rug, straightening it so it didn’t appear suspicious, Andrew
cleaned the broken pottery from the floor. The rumbling got louder
as the truck approached the driveway.

Shadow hopped to the front
door using his three good legs, alternating between growling and
whining. He wanted out, but Andrew didn’t know what to expect from
the truck heading his way up the mountain road. They might be the
type to shoot first and ask questions later. If they decided he was
a threat or knew anything about them, they would kill him, and no
one would be the wiser for a long time. He could easily disappear
for three months before anyone noticed him gone.

He straightened out the
quilts and sheet on the bed, and hid Destiny’s clothes. Taking one
last glance around the cabin, satisfied no signs of the woman in
the cellar remained, he sat down in the chair with the remaining
omelet and half a cup of coffee. His stomach was tied in too many
knots to eat, but he mashed it up a little and moved it around so
it looked like he was enjoying his breakfast.

The truck turned into the
driveway. A few hundred feet to go before they would be at his
cabin.

 “
You are such an
idiot. DeMont was stupid to think you could handle this. Now I
gotta be in the middle of it, trying to clean up the mess you
made.”

Doug didn’t speak. It was
no use. Arguing with Lenny only made him madder.

“
Are you sure you dropped
her on this road somewhere? If you dropped her off the side of this
road, we should have found her body last night, or at least traces
of it. If an animal dragged it off, it would have left tracks or
something.”

“
It’s been snowing a lot
up here. The tracks could be full of snow.”

Lenny smacked him in the
back of the head.

“
Yeah dolt, but you’d
still see the impressions under the snow. Besides, you think the
animal ate her clothes too? We didn’t find shit. No tracks,
Nothing. I think you’re too stupid to know where you left the body.
You sure she was dead when you shoved her out of the
truck?”

Lenny drove so Doug could
track landmarks back to where he thought he left Destiny’s body.
DeMont refused to pay either of them without proof she was
dead.

Doug hated himself. He
never killed anyone. He didn’t kill the old man. Charles did. They
all thought Doug was dumb because he didn’t get very far in school
and he didn’t know how to handle things like money, or killing
people. His cousin Lenny was smarter than him, but Lenny had a big
mouth so he always got them both in trouble.

Doug quit his job in Texas
working construction because Lenny convinced him Vegas had money
falling in the streets and women for anyone who wanted one. He took
a job as a bouncer at a strip club where girls with broken dreams
sold themselves to anyone flashing cash. Lenny tended bar in the
same club. That was where they first met up with Charles DeMont. He
would go to the club and pay the dancers to spend an hour in the
back room. Doug overheard some of them talking about the twisted
things the man with the money liked them to do. Listening to it
always made Doug’s stomach hurt. The girls were usually desperate
and did whatever was asked of them for a few measly bucks. By the
time men ended up in that particular club, they were near broke.
Not only in their pockets but also in their minds.

Lenny was a smooth talker,
always had been, and somehow he became the middleman between DeMont
and the girls. He was responsible for setting the right girl up for
whatever sick fantasy DeMont wanted to live out that night. Lenny
persuaded even the girls who weren’t quite so desperate.

Once Lenny got in close
with DeMont, Doug became included in the mix since he looked like a
big scary guy. Lenny and DeMont always made him act like he was
tough. Doug really hated to fight.

Now he was in a big
mess.

He needed money to pay off
the loan sharks Lenny hooked him up with and he needed enough money
to get out of Vegas and go back to doing regular work. He would
never be able to live his own life as long as he was around
Lenny.

Destiny was a pretty young
thing. Never hurt nobody. He’d seen her before at the casino with
the old man. She even said hello to him on a couple of occasions,
and she never looked afraid of him like other women did. At least
not until the night he was supposed to get rid of her. She looked
plenty scared then.

It broke Doug’s heart to
hurt her. He couldn’t make her bleed. He thought if he doped her up
real good, she would just kind of die out there and it wouldn’t
hurt. Even though he read the instructions on the painkillers, he
wasn’t sure how much to give her to kill her. He smashed them up
into water and forced it down her throat before putting her in the
truck and driving until he found a road out of the way. After
dumping her, he went back and discovered most of the pills still
swimming in the bottom of the cup. Maybe he should have stirred it
up before he gave it to her.

By then, it was too late,
so he told Lenny and Charles he gave her the whole bottle of pills
to kill her, then left the body on a mountain for the animals. The
plan worked great until Charles got all bent out of shape wanting
to see the body.

 “
I thought she was
dead. I mean, I didn’t check for a pulse or anything, but she
didn’t move anymore.”

“
Like you would even know
how to check for a pulse. What about breathing? Did you see if she
was breathing, stupid?”

Doug hung his
head.

“
I didn’t think to check
for breathing.”

“
That’s because you’re an
idiot! I-D-I-O-T. Idiot. You should have just shot the bitch and
buried the body near the runway. That would’ve saved us a lot of
time here!”

“
I couldn’t shoot her
Lenny. There would be a mess and other people were using that
hangar. Somebody would have known. I thought we were supposed to
get rid of her so they couldn’t link her back to us or
DeMont.”

“
Just shut up Doug. You
already screwed up enough. We’re going to this cabin. I thought I
heard noises coming from this way last night. Let me do all of the
talking and just keep your big mouth shut.”

Stopping the truck with the
plow still on the ground in front, Lenny checked the gun he
carried. Making sure it was loaded and ready to shoot, he took the
safety off before placing it back in the holster under his arm. A
cabin squatted in the clearing with smoke curling from the chimney.
As they opened the doors and exited the truck, furious barking
broke through the air from the cabin.

13.

As the truck pulled into
the driveway, Andrew slipped on his boots and put on his coat.
Shadow was ready to bust through the door to get to the intruders
so it was probably a good idea to meet them out front instead of
letting them in the cabin.

Before opening the door,
Andrew placed his hand on the dog’s head. The barking subsided to
intermittent growls.

“
Shadow. That’s enough.
Listen up boy. It’s your job to protect Destiny if anything happens
to me. You’re the man of the house.”