Move to Strike (36 page)

“You see”—she made a dry, rasping sound as she drew in her breath—“Chris had a few days off from college and I—I had said, ‘Why don’t you go to Tahoe? Take that flight your dad arranged for me. You’ll be up there tonight.’

“I didn’t know Bill had decided to kill me.”

“Kill you?”

She nodded. “Because I was leaving him. He paid a mechanic a lot of money to sabotage that plane.”

“Jesus!” Paul said. “He killed his son instead!” He was shocked to the core, filled with the unspeakable horror of it.

“And the hell of it is, he loved Chris too, more than anything in the world,” Beth said. “That’s the hell of it. Nothing else mattered to either of us by then, it was all emptiness.”

Paul just shook his head. He couldn’t think of a word to say.

“Chris had called Bill to tell his dad he was on his way home. Bill didn’t realize at first Chris was on the plane. But then—the engine quit. When I heard Bill sounding so strange, I came running from the kitchen. Bill was out of his mind. Hysterical. He told me that was Chris on the phone, and he had heard everything. Chris had shouted for help. He had cried. My poor, poor baby. The one thing left in my life. Such a fearful death, time to know that he would die, time for terror—it took a minute before I believed what Bill was telling me. That the plane had crashed. That the phone was dead. That Chris was dead.

“It came back, what I’d felt in that same room the night I killed Nicholas. A terrible anger, so powerful it was unreal, like living a nightmare. I grabbed the sword and brought it down on the back of Bill’s neck. Then I slashed him again. So much blood everywhere. Just like it must be every day in Bill’s operating room, that’s what I kept thinking.”

She stopped, then said, “It didn’t show on me, did it, Paul? You never know with people, do you? Would you believe I could slash his face then, so some patient like Stan Foster would get blamed, and wipe the handle of the sword? It was easier the second time. I never saw Daria. She must have come after I left. And then Nikki got blamed.”

Paul said nothing.

“I tried to help. I paid her legal fees.”

“What if she’d been convicted?”

“I would never have told the truth,” Beth said. “But it feels good to tell you, Paul.”

“Come with me now,” Paul said. “I’ll help you get legal counsel. I still want to help you. Don’t give up completely. Let’s start with the gun, okay?”

“The gun.” She seemed to be nodding. “I used it to kill the mechanic.”

“I thought maybe you did.”

“Three murders—but I was cold when I killed him. It was simple to fly down there and get in. Because he killed Chris. For money! So I avenged my son. But coldly, Paul. I didn’t feel a thing. Then I started thinking that Rankin knew too much, and I thought maybe I should kill him, too. And now, you know, part of me wants to die, but what can I say, the monster wants to live, and you’re here . . .”

He saw the movement of her hand, the movement he’d been dreading. “Don’t do it!”

But she was raising the gun—

Toward him? Toward herself?

He launched himself the rest of the way across the cavern and, at the same time, heard the shot.

CHAPTER 31

NINA HAD ALREADY rushed forward. She chopped viciously upward with her hand and Beth’s gun flew up to the ceiling and fell to the dirt a few feet away in the gloom. Beth let out a scream and pulled Nina down and seemed to try to bite her. There were scuffling sounds and dirt and wood and stones were coming down on them. Paul couldn’t tell them apart. He yanked on a loose arm. It was Beth. She screamed.

He pulled her away from Nina roughly and to her feet. He had his gun and for a millisecond his finger was tight on the trigger. Instead he flung her away, against the stone wall. She sank down next to the sight-less, mummified witness to all this.

Nina got up, crying, “She shot herself in the arm! She’s bleeding!”

“Are you hurt?” He checked her over, wiping her cheeks with his fingers. “The timbers overhead . . .”

“I’m fine. Really. You?” A big, too big, timber thudded into the dirt, accompanied by a stream of stones, and they all started coughing.

They both looked at Beth. She hadn’t moved. The dirt was piling around her legs and hips.

“I got worried and decided to find you,” Nina said. “I heard voices. When I saw her point the gun I . . .”

“She wouldn’t have killed me. She was trying to kill herself.”

“Maybe,” Nina said. “Maybe not.” She was pulling herself together rapidly. Her voice was hard.

Beth began rocking back and forth. The shower of stones was increasing. “We have to get out of here right now,” Nina said.

“Okay, Beth,” Paul said. “Beth?” No response. He turned to Nina. “Let’s get her up and out.”

Paul helped Beth to her feet. A stream of blood ran down her arm. He and Nina backed toward the tunnel, choking in the dust, blind, half-dragging Beth, and the noise increased as larger stones began to fall.

“Hurry! Damnit, Beth, help us or we’re not going to get out of here!”

Paul gave up, picking her up and hunching into the tunnel, Nina right behind. A thunderous noise and a choking cloud of dirt came from behind them, and they stumbled and fell and crawled somehow beyond it.

Then there came a great silence. They fell into the dirt, breathing like locomotives in the blackness. Paul flashed the light behind them, toward the cavern. The entry was completely blocked.

“Nicholas,” Beth said. But Nicholas made no reply. The body of Nicholas Zack had been buried by nature, for good this time.

They put her into the Bronco. Nina jumped into the front seat and started it up. Paul sat in back with Beth, his gun handy. She held her forearm, where the bullet had grazed her as Nina knocked into her, but the blood had stopped.

Beth let out a short, bitter laugh. Nina stepped on it and they roared up the dirt road.

About twenty minutes later, as they finally turned onto the highway, Beth said to Paul, “It was all a lie. Bill killed him. I was out of my mind back there. The sight of Nicholas made me crazy! I can’t be held responsible!”

“Shut up, Beth!” Paul ordered. “Don’t tell me any more. I’m already a witness.”

“I’ll deny everything. Paul, I need you. You’ll help me, won’t you?”

“I’ll help you, Beth,” Paul said. “I’ll help you get a good lawyer. And it won’t be Nina.”

Nikki was sitting at the computer in the hovel wearing her ball and chain. She had been reading her e-mail, starting with one from Scott in jail. He was doing a lot of reading on his case. He thought he might want to go into the legal field after all this was over. His attorney, Jeffrey Riesner, had told him he would be out soon. He was learning a lot from the dude, and could see it was the kind of profession that would really appeal to him.

She didn’t know what to make of that. The less she saw of the inside of a courtroom, the better.

With the clicking of her mouse, three spams went straight into the trash. Then . . . Nikki stared at the screen, at the blue underlined letters. Could it be true? Did she have a message from Krigshot, the greatest, most hard-core band in Sweden? These guys weren’t sellouts. They were better than HellNation, even better than Destroy! She clicked on the message line, holding her breath, and the message came up.

Hey Nikki, your songs are crusty . . . we downloaded the
screamers from MP3 web site . . . you deep, girl . . . your
web site is thrashed and we never seen anything so hard
core . . .

Nikki thought, oh, boy, this is it, they’re asking me to join the band!

So we were thinkin maybe youd do a web site for us cuz
we’re just asswipe musicians not artists like you so how bout
it Nikki? Is five grand enuf?

What? She scrolled back up to read again, starting from the beginning. The words made her blood jump, then:

youd do a web site for us

They didn’t want her in the band, they wanted her to do a
web site?
But that was so easy, you just had to be obsessive and pissed off and throw stuff up there! She read it again.

Is five grand enuf?

Wow!

“Mom!” she screamed. “Mom!”

Daria dropped a basket of laundry, rushed through the doorway, and ran to her daughter’s side. “Nikki, what’s the matter? What is it? You called me ‘Mom!’ ” Her eyes were wide with fear.

Nikki pointed at the screen.

Daria squinted at the monitor. “Well,” she said and squatted down on the floor beside Nikki. “This is just so spectacular! We may or may not have opals, but here’s the real proof we have a talented person here. That’s so much more important.” She tapped her chin. “Hmm,” she said thoughtfully.

“Don’t even start thinking about using that money for anything but bills, Mom. There’s this notice that just came from the electric company . . .”

“Congratulations,” Daria said. She was looking at her proudly. It made Nikki want to laugh, they were in such a mess, but for Daria, talent was the thing, and it always would be.

It was her own joy, her relief, that broke Nikki’s resolve, made her open her mouth and say the thing that had been making her sick for months now. It just sort of crept out of her mouth. “Mom, you came into the study. Uncle Bill was still alive. I saw you.”

“Saw what, baby?” She didn’t get it at first.

“I saw you. Your shadow. It looked exactly like you. Exactly.”

“No, honey. Whoever you saw, it wasn’t me. You were gone already, and he was dead on the floor when I got there. Did you think I killed your uncle? You’ve been protecting me!”

“Mom, don’t lie to me! Not now!”

But then the phone rang, and it was Nina Reilly, calling from some hospital in Winnemucca, calling to tell them about Aunt Beth, and to explain about her father, why he left without saying good-bye.

When Beth began talking again at the hospital, Nina went into legal mode, not allowing her to say anything. She recommended a lawyer, Karyn Sheveland, an experienced criminal attorney in Reno, and called her for Beth.

Then she called the Winnemucca police.

Paul left a card with Sheveland. He planned to keep track of Beth. He felt an obscure sense of obligation to her. Something had happened to him during those final moments down in the cavern with her, something important. He had felt the difference between them. Beth had let the lizard out of a crack in her soul. And that place—that place where it was all emptiness—that crack was still open in his own soul, and might never close.

He would be vigilant. He would guard himself. He would remember her eyes when she said that it had been easy to kill the mechanic.

She had helped him discover that he would have to be vigilant for the rest of his life.

Back at the hotel, Connie Bailey had left a message on his voice mail. She had finally gotten around to looking over Skip’s papers and noticed that the passenger manifest Paul had read as “Mr. Sykes,” said “Mrs. Sykes.” Nobody could read Skip’s handwriting like she could. Did that help him?

Thanks, Connie.

Well, at least Beth wouldn’t be suing Skip Bailey’s estate for the wrongful death of her son. Connie had lost her husband, but she wouldn’t be losing everything.

Paul went to bed and woke up Sunday afternoon. Beth was in custody and Nina was meeting with Nikki and her mother and didn’t seem to want to talk on the phone.

The knock on the door came at eleven Sunday night.

He had been lying in the hotel bed with the light off, his arms behind his head, thinking about his leg. This led him to roam more deeply than he had ever done into his private places. All this being bothered, the accident, the problem with Susan, had to do with the burden of carrying around a secret about himself. He understood what he had done. He didn’t think anyone else could, but that wasn’t a problem anymore, because his secret was out. Nina and Bob knew what he had done. Just as well. He was done pretending.

“It’s me,” Nina said through the door. “Let’s talk, Paul.”

He jumped at the sound of her voice. There was only one reason she would show up at this hour, after a day like this.

Confrontation time.

But he wasn’t ready. He envisioned the talk ahead, laid out starkly as a walk from death row to the site of lethal injection. They would start with the wrong he had done and move into what he had to do to right it, such as turning himself in. She would say, “You have to do the right thing,” just like she had told Daria that day. She was a lawyer, an officer of the court. She would tell him to have faith in the judicial system. And what would he say in response?

“Paul?” she said from the hall. “Are you there?”

He feared what was coming. He feared her, and he had thought he feared nobody.

“Paul?”

“I’m coming,” he mumbled. He got up in his shorts and answered the door. She was all wrapped up in a long wool coat, holding it shut although it wasn’t that cold outside. She probably didn’t want him to get any ideas. She smelled like gardenias.

She came straight in and sat down on one of the chairs by the window. “May I?” she said, indicating the pint of Jack Daniel’s he had been working on. He couldn’t read her face.

Bringing her a plastic glass, he poured a finger of bourbon for her. She tossed it off as though she needed it.

Avoiding his eyes, she poured one for him. Handing the glass to him, at last, she looked up. She took a sip from her glass, then another, brown eyes locked on his face.

Paul couldn’t drink. He had never cottoned to the Irish habit of celebrating with booze at wakes. “Dutch courage for an Irish lass?” he said finally.

Still focused on his face, she set her glass down. “So you killed him,” she said.

There it was, the big moment. He could lie or he could tell the truth, allow the break to happen, as it inevitably would. He felt his whole vision of the future slipping away. She had been in his vision. He felt overwhelmed.

“He was breaking into your house,” he said. “He’d jimmied the lock. But yes, I came up on him from behind. I could have taken him in. I just didn’t think he should be alive anymore.”

“He had come to kill me, hadn’t he?” Strong, steady brown eyes looked into him.

“Yes, after he was through with you.”

He watched the brutal thought sink into her and settle.

“The police looked everywhere,” she said eventually. “Everyone thought he had left Tahoe. How did you know he would come to my house?”

“I put myself into his mind. He wasn’t afraid of getting caught, and he wasn’t finished, so I started watching. It didn’t take long. Then I waited to make my move until he had made his.”

“You were going to do this thing and go your whole life, and never tell me.”

“That was the plan.” He shrugged. “I probably would have kept breaking my leg until I told somebody, though. I’m not good at hiding things about myself.”

“You didn’t feel you could trust me by telling me?”

“The last time I confided in you about anything, when I punched out that jerk Riesner, you fired me. I thought you just might think this was worse. Plus I knew I could be quiet about it. I wasn’t sure about you. But then Bob . . . I couldn’t let that kid go through his whole life having those dreams, being afraid.”

“I know that you did it for me. I just don’t know how you could do it, with your police background, knowing the risks.”

“I took out the garbage.”

That said exactly how he felt about it. He wasn’t going to show any false remorse. If he couldn’t fix it, if he couldn’t make her understand, at least he could be honest.

She was silent.

“I’m stronger than Beth.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. But I’m not going to lie to you and promise anything. I acted on instinct. It happened.”

“Why did you do it?”

“For you. Because I love you.”

She pulled him toward her, pulled him in until they stood body to body, her head resting on his chest. He made no move to put his arms around her. It was her show.

She was going to be classy to the end. No recriminations, no guilt trips, no demand that he tell anyone else. She was treating him as an old friend deserved to be treated, resting her head on his shoulder so sweetly one last time as her way of saying good-bye. He raised a hand to her long hair, pulling the band out that held it at her neck, stroking it softly.

She had closed her eyes.

“You always talk so much better than me,” Paul said. “Talk to me. Just another minute. Don’t say good-bye yet.”

Still she didn’t speak. He turned her head up toward him but her eyes were closed. “It’s a crying shame,” he said.

Putting both hands up around his head, she brought him closer, turning his head slightly, bringing his head down. She put her lips to his ear.

Gardenias. He felt her warm breath for the last time. He had lost her. He could do nothing to change it now.

Running a finger along the lobe of his ear, she whispered something. Too softly. He couldn’t hear. “What?” he said. “What did you say?”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“Wh-what?”

“From the bottom of my heart.”

And as she pulled off her coat, the light from his bedside lamp played over the long expanse of her naked skin, as mysterious and radiant as opals.