The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel) (34 page)

Clint clutched the railing. “You’re not thinking straight, woman.”

“Was Merilee the first? How many others after her, Clint? How many?”

“Put that thing down, goddammit.”

“So you can blow me up with the evidence in the mine? I know you, Clint, I—”

He took a step toward her and she fired instantly over his head.

He ducked, swore.

“Was it just you?” she yelled, reloading. “Or did the others rape her too? Tell me. I want to know everything that happened that night or I swear on my girls’ lives I will kill you right now, right here.”

“Beps, just listen to me—”

She fired again, blasting a chunk out of the trestle near his boots. Jeb saw her reloading.

“Jesus, fuck, okay, okay. I’ll tell you. They wanted it, Beppie. They both wanted it.”

“Louder! I can’t hear you, tell me louder!” she yelled.

“We used the drugs. Date rape drugs in their booze so their memory would be fucked!” He screamed over the water. “Satisfied, woman? Is that loud enough for ya? The drugs made them limp, like jelly. Easy pickings. I started with Merilee, in the mine.”

Beppie staggered backward. Water roared. Time stretched.

“All of you?” she finally yelled. “Levi, Luke, Zink?”

“Just put it down, okay?”

She fired again.

Clint ducked, swore.

“Okay, okay! It was me first, then Zink. We made Amy watch. We had a rope around Amy’s neck and we made her watch. Levi was gung ho, ready to go, dick out of his pants.”

Beppie reloaded. She had shells in the bib of her dungarees.

“But Levi chickened out when I used the gun to fuck Merilee. I used a gun, okay! I got off on it. But Amy started screaming hysterically and Levi, he freaked. He said, no man, this isn’t cool. We got in a tussle. We bashed into Merilee and she cracked her head on a rock. Her neck went all funny. Limp. There was blood everywhere. She was choking on it. I yelled at Levi to bring something to stop the bleeding. He ran to the Jeep and brought Luke’s sweatshirt. Luke, the asshole, was passed out in his T-shirt in back of the Jeep. But by the time Levi got back, Merilee was dead. I don’t know what happened, she had no pulse. Maybe she drowned on her own blood, choked, or some shit. Or maybe it was injury to her brain, or her neck. Dead. You never saw guys sober up so fast. We panicked. She was full of our semen, our DNA. Mine and Zink’s. We pushed her down the shaft. Okay, satisfied?”

Beppie was eerily still.

A sick coldness settled through Jeb. There was no fire of rage in him, but something else. The reality of what this man, those guys, had done, it steeled his muscles. It made his brain numb.

“Beppie,” Clint yelled. “You satisfied? Will you put that gun down now?”

“Go on!” she screamed, edging closer. “I want all of it. Every detail. What did you do with Amy?”

“Amy saw it all. We didn’t know what to do with her. I wanted to push her down the shaft with Merilee, but Levi said they’d come up here, looking. They’d find their bodies. They’d find our semen in Merilee. We’d all go down. So we took Amy and put her in the Jeep. I drove. We went north. I was amped from drugs and booze. Levi was freaking out. Luke didn’t know what the fuck was happening, he was still passed out cold. We figured we’d dump Amy far enough away, and if they found her, there wouldn’t be any of our semen on her. And then they’d look for Merilee in that area, too. No one would think to look way south in the mine. We made a pact to say we saw Cullen going north with them. That part was easy because they’d been in his car before they saw us at the rail crossing. Beppie?”

Another shot blasted chunks of the railing into the air beside Clint.

“All of it!” she yelled.

Jeb didn’t dare move. His muscles were humming, tight. He wanted to hear. All of it. Like Beppie.

“We drove her up the Rutherford drainage, to the old trapper’s cabin. The others waited in the Jeep while I took her in. She was blathering, stumbling, falling as I led her by the rope around her neck. Like an animal. It turned me on, okay? It made me feel powerful. I hurt her in the cabin. Knocked her about, raped her with my gun, front and back, and then I strangled her. I thought she was fucking dead. Her pulse must have been so low from the drugs that I didn’t feel it, or I was too amped up to register it. And you know what, Beppie?” he screamed. “I fucking liked it, okay! It whet my appetite. I did more women after her, in Bosnia, while on deployment. And in Sierra Leone I did one of the military females. She dropped charges, but it got me kicked out. Now I go hunting for one or two each fall, along with the moose and the caribou, and I bring back my trophies.”

Silence.

Just the thundering of the water far below, the sound of beating rain. Thunder in the hills.

“What about the hoodie? How did it get in Jeb’s car?”

He laughed. Loud and guttural, like some kind of wild man on the bridge. “I only realized when we got back it was still in the Jeep. I took Luke home and put the damn thing on him, left him outside the door. He woke up as I was hauling him out of the Jeep. I figured he’d wash it or whatever. He wouldn’t know what the hell happened anyway. But I got edgy at home. I remembered there was a GPS in the Jeep. So I came back before dawn to wash the Jeep down and erase the route recorded by the GPS.”

“You tried to kill Jeb the other night, didn’t you?” Beppie yelled. “You burned down his land, started the Wolf River fire. You used my truck.”

“Me, Zink, and Levi did. I got rid of that therapist and Amy, too. Just need to finish off here now, Beppie. And it’s all under control.” Clint threw his arms out wide, put his head back, and laughed again. As if he was all-powerful, king of the wilderness. Jeb tensed. Things were coming to a head. He sighted Clint down the barrel of his rifle, aiming for just below the glow of the headlamp. But he had a bad line. Beppie was in his way. He didn’t want to risk hitting her. And Clint was edging closer and closer toward his wife, who seemed rooted to the bridge.

Jeb tightened his finger softly around the trigger.

Move, Beppie, move, dammit.

Jeb knew in his gut that Clint was going to send her over that bridge. No way in hell would he be telling her this stuff if he had any intention of allowing her to live.

If Jeb yelled for Beppie to move, it would distract her, Clint would take the gap. Jeb cursed. It was a tough shot as it was. It had been almost a decade since he’d last hunted, fired, or even touched a rifle. He’d been an ace marksman once. He didn’t know if he still had it.

Suddenly Jeb caught sight of another light approaching rapidly on the far side of the gorge—someone holding a flashlight, running. His gaze flashed back to the bridge. Clint had his back to the approaching person. He had no idea someone was coming.

“Your actions will not touch my girls, Clint!” Beppie screamed suddenly. “You must pay for this. The world must see what you did to Merilee and Amy. Justice must be done. A man must be set free—your family must be set free!”

“Police!” came a voice.

Everyone froze.

“Put that gun down, Beppie Rudiger. You don’t want to do this.” The voice was female. Strident.

Jeb stepped out from behind his rock, aiming his rifle at Clint as he approached the other end of the bridge. “Listen to the officer, Beppie. Let her take him in!” he called over the water. “Put the gun down. I’ve got him covered.”

She hesitated. Confused suddenly.

Then she whipped the stock back to her shoulder and fired. The shot boomed. Clint whirled sideways and went over the barrier, a tumbling black shadow into white mist and roaring water. Beppie dropped her gun and lowered herself into a sitting position on the bridge. The shotgun spiraled down into the foaming gorge after her husband. Beppie held her knees, rocked, moaning.

Jeb got to her before the officer did.

He reached down for Beppie’s hand, helped her up, and he guided the sobbing woman across to the cop, who was approaching from the other side. It was Pirello, the same cop who’d come to Rachel’s door looking for him, the one who’d responded to the call at school when Quinn got in trouble.

Pirello took Beppie’s hand, helping the woman back onto solid ground on the far side.

“I’m so sorry,” Beppie said. She was soaked through, shaking like a leaf. “I’m so sorry, so sorry, sorr
y . . .
” She slumped down onto a rock, taking off the bag she had strapped across her shoulder. She held it out to Pirello.

“What’s this?” Pirello said.

“His trophies. His hunting trophies.” Her voice was shaking. “He was going to put me in that mine and blow me up with all his trophies.” She dug into the bib of the dungarees she was wearing and took out a something small and dark, around the size of a cell phone. “And this.” She held it out to Pirello with her trembling hands. “I got him. I got him on tape.”

Pirello glanced at Jeb.

“I made him yell loud enough so he could be heard over the water.” Beppie was shuddering hard now, the aftereffects of shock taking hold of her body. “
I . . .
I hope I got him.” She looked up at Jeb. “
I . . .
I’m so sorry for what they did to you.”

CHAPTER 26

I come round slowly.

My head feels as though it has exploded. My mouth tastes strange. I’m in a vehicle—I can feel the motion, hear the engine. I manage to open my eyes a little. Wipers are going. Rain. Thunder. I smell smoke. I move my head slightly to the side.

Brandy. Driving.

Quinn.

Shock slams through me as I remember. I struggle to look over my shoulder. I can see her. She’s come round. She’s staring at me—her eyes huge above her taped-up mouth. A force explodes through me—I can’t let anything happen to Quinn. But I can’t seem to move. My limbs are still paralyzed.

“Wha
t . . .
wha
t . . .
” My mouth is thick, throat raw and dry. “Brand
y . . .
”

She glances at me and her face scares me. Her eyes are red-rimmed, puffy, wild.

“Where is he?” she barks.

My brain is slow. “Who?”

“Jebbediah Cullen. Why won’t he answer his phone?” Her voice goes shrill. Her fists are tight on the wheel. Her neck is all corded muscle. I realize we’re going up the mountain, up a switchback road. I can see fire burning across the drainage. We must be on Bear Mountain because the last I heard, Mount Barren was aflame. She’s taking us up Bear Mountain while the entire village below is being evacuated. Wipers are streaking rain and ash like mud across the windshield.

I try to move my legs, but can’t. Things seem strangely distant. I swallow, forcing moisture into my mouth. My arms are squashed behind my back, a zip tie cutting into my wrists. She hasn’t killed us. She could have. She might still. But she wants Jeb first. I must buy time, try to figure her out.

“Wh
y . . .
do you want him?” My voice comes out hoarse.

Her gaze shoots to me. “You shouldn’t have meddled. You should have let him be. If I fix this, if you go away—” She beats the steering wheel with the palm of her hand.

“Le
t . . .
who be?”

“If you all just go away, if I stop you all from digging into this. The evidence will never be found. It’ll all die down. We can still be together. I need him. I
need
him.” She slams her hand on the wheel again. “Where is he, Rachel?” The truck slides in mud as she almost misses a switchback.

“Who?” I croak. “Who could you be together with?” Suddenly I recall the night the fire broke out on Jeb’s property. I phoned Brandy to look after Quinn. I remember thinking when she answered that someone was in her bed. She’s not mentioned a man in her life.

“Shit! Shit, shit. You screwed it up. You were
all
supposed to be at home.” She reaches onto the dash, grabs my cell. One hand on the wheel, she dials again.

I hear it ringing.

I struggle to move my arms but they’re stuck fast behind me. With colossal effort I lurch my body sideways, knocking the phone out of her hand. She backhands me hard across the face, flinging me back into the seat. My head strikes the side window with a thud. My skull hums and I taste blood at the back of my nasal passage. Blood leaks over my mouth and down my chin.

Quinn suddenly rams the back of Brandy’s seat with her feet. She’s ram, ram, ramming. Brandy’s body jerks from the impact as she redials Jeb’s number. “Shit, you little runt. Stop it.” She tries to reach into the back and strike Quinn. The truck almost goes over the side. She swears again, dropping the phone as she rights the vehicle with both hands. Desperately, I seek a way to distract her.

“Wha
t . . .
would you hav
e . . .
done if we were all home?” I gag as blood goes down my throat.

She doesn’t answer. I imagine she might have tried to drug us all, take us somewhere where the fire might consume us, and no one would think to do a tox screen on our bodies.

“How can you hurt Quinn?” I say her name, choking on the blood in my throat. I want Brandy to think, to snap back. She’s cracked on some psychological level. This is not the same woman I trusted with my niece. “You love Quinn, Brandy. You’v
e . . .
” I cough again but can’t clear the blood and spittle from my mouth and nostrils. “You’ve looked after her, you want your own kids. You don’t have to do this.”

“I do!
I . . .
I have to finish. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” She reaches down for the phone, picks it up.

Quinn kicks harder, moaning under her duct tape. I turn my head slowly. I look into her big round eyes. “It’
s . . .
going to be okay.” I try to make the words come clearly, but I gag and cough again. Desperation swells in my chest.

Brandy redials. With a sick feeling I hear Jeb answer. Brandy looks panicked for a second.

“Jeb Cullen?” she says. “
I . . .
I have them. I have Rachel and Quinn.” Her voice is shaky and weird now, her eyes frantic. “I
f . . .
if you want to see them alive again, do what I say.”

“Who is this? What are you talking about?”

I hear his voice, loud, strident. I try to move my legs but can only shuffle my feet slightly. I’m trapped inside my body. I can’t help Quinn.

“I’ve got them on Bear Mountain. We’ll b
e . . .
” Her gaze jerks up as she yanks the wheel round another bend and hits the gas. Gravel and mud spit out from under the tires as we almost go into a spin. Fire is fully engaged on parts of Mount Barren. I can now see that the gondola terminal on Barren is ablaze. Smoke smells thick inside the car. Brandy looks panicked as she peers through the ash-streaked windshield. I realize she hasn’t formed a concrete plan. Her first plan failed and she doesn’t actually have a backup. I need to use this fear and insecurity I see in her.

Suddenly she’s staring at the burning gondola station on the other mountain.

“We’ll be at the Summit-to-Summit Gondola station. I’ll wait exactly forty-five minutes for you to get here, or they die.”

Quinn kicks the back of Brandy’s seat with her heels again. Brandy jerks forward, curses.

“Wait—” I hear Jeb yell. “How do I know you have them?”

Brandy hits the brakes and the car slides sickeningly on mud. She lunges into the back, rips part of the duct tape from Quinn’s mouth. Quinn screeches in pain. I lurch my body at Brandy again. She shoves me back into the seat.

“Say something to Jeb,” Brandy orders Quinn, holding the phone to her face.

“J-J-Jeb, I want my m-m-mom. Brandy h-hurt Rache
l . . .
”

My stomach contracts. I need to throw up. My pain for Quinn is unbearable. I have to stop this.

Brandy yanks the phone away from Quinn. “Satisfied?”

“Why are you doing this? What do you want?”

But Brandy kills the call, retapes Quinn’s mouth with a fresh strip. She rams the truck back into gear and spins the steering wheel as she hits the gas again. A scream of rage rises in my chest. I hold it in. I must not panic. Panic kills. I need to negotiate with Brandy. I know Brandy, don’t I? Who could she be protecting?

. . .
The evidence will never be found. It’ll all die down. We can still be together. I need him. I
need
hi
m . . .

Who is
him
? My world spins again and I fade in and out. I struggle to pull my mind back into focus. I force myself to think of the men who lied about Jeb. Clint, Levi, Luke, Harvey. I don’t know that any of them are connected to Brandy. Then it strikes me.
Adam.
Luke’s brother.

Adam with the Jeep and the ska music. Adam whose mother led the charge to convict Jeb. If Adam was involved in the rape or cover-up, he stands to lose everything if exposed now.

Brandy told me once a while back that she’d met Adam at a support group for people who had family members with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Her mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s. She told me that she and Adam bonded over this. I try to cast my mind back. I recall the look in her eyes as she spoke about him. I remember thinking she really liked this married man, and I wondered briefly at the time if there was more to it.

“Adam,” I say. “It’s Ada
m . . .
you’re doing it for him.” I cough and I struggle for more energy, more words. “You were with him when I called you to look after Quinn, the night the wildfire started. Wha
t . . .
did Adam do nine years ago?”

She returns her attention to the road.

“I love him,” she says simply. “He loves me. We’re going to be together. H
e . . .
he balances me. I
need
him.”

Balances me.
Brandy is unbalanced. I know very little about mental illness, but I am aware that people can appear normal for years, then the next thing you know is they’ve killed themselves. People miss the signs. I’ve missed the signs in her.

I love him. He loves me. We’re going to be togethe
r
. . .

My world spirals, slides again. Jeb said he loves me. I know he loves his daughter unconditionally. He will come for us. He will die for us. I don’t want him to die.

The things we do for lov
e
. . .

“This is not going to help Adam,” I say. “You can stop. You don’t have to hurt anyone.”

She curses violently. “You fucked it up. I
can’t
stop! I can’t. I have to finish it!”

I lurch my body at her again. She swears violently as she elbows me back. I try again. She rummages in the kit at her waist, finds the syringe. She jabs the needle deep into my leg.

“Just shut the hell up, okay? Shut up.”

My world goes black.

Annie drove through the stop-start southbound traffic with Beppie Rudiger in handcuffs in the backseat behind the barricade. She kept her siren off. There were real emergencies out there that needed the road, and she was using the time to see if Beppie would talk more.

Jeb Cullen had asked if the handcuffs were really necessary, but she was going by the book. This whole clusterfuck involved cops—LeFleur and his mother in particular—and she wanted everything squeaky clean. She was covering her ass, and she wasn’t going to take the fall for anything, no matter what Novak said.

She’d listened to the first part of the recording Beppie made. Some of what Clint said was audible. A tech might tease the rest out. Beppie was a witness and would talk. Jeb would testify too. Backed up with the recording, they could have what they needed to nail Clint Rudiger for the murder of Merilee Zukanov and the sexual assault on Amy Findlay. The one thing Annie was superedgy about was Clint himself. She was pretty damn sure she’d seen the shot hit him before he had wheeled over the railing. But it was dark. Even so, no one could survive a fall down that gorge. They’d find his body downriver, if at all.

“There’s another one,” Beppie Rudiger said suddenly in back.

“Another what?”

“Trophy.” Beppie Rudiger rattled something against the barrier as she tried with her cuffed hands to pass it through to Annie. “I forgot about this one. This is the one that made me think about what else might be in that box of his. You must have them all. All of it. I don’t want them near me. This one was in the back of his drawer. I found it when I was looking for cutters for my bee fence.”

Annie glanced out the corner of her eye. Her heart stalled, then started to hammer hard. Keeping one hand on the wheel, she reached for the ring Beppie Rudiger was trying to poke through the grid.

A hexagonal turquoise stone set in silver.

Immediately she pulled over onto the verge, flicked on her emergency light bar, no siren. She put the interior light on. The ring was engraved inside with the letters
CL
.

Claudette Lepine.

Annie’s blood turned cold.

It was the ring she’d given her sister.

Brandy was blind with adrenaline, terrified. On some level she knew she’d snapped again, like the time during the RCMP training course at Depot Division, which is why they’d kicked her ass out. It had been over a guy, too. She’d loved him. Unrequited love that put her over the edge, made her do stupid things. But that was long ago. She’d begun to think it was a one-time thing, that she was in control now. But losing Adam . . . she couldn’t. She needed him like she needed air to breathe. He was going to be with her forever.