At Risk (37 page)

He stretched out a hand for the hatchet.

A high-pitched alarm blasted. Red lights blinked from two corners of the cellar. Michael let go of her and turned toward the wooden staircase.

Liz didn’t hesitate. She dove past him, seized the hatchet, and wrenched it free from the block. Before Michael could react, she slammed the blade of the hatchet down on his bare foot.

Michael shrieked in pain.

She caught a glimpse of him clutching his bleeding foot as she dodged and raced for the only exit. Michael’s scream became a howl of fury. Oblivious to her own injuries, she scrambled up the steep steps without looking back.

Liz heard him on the stairs, no more than seconds behind her. She grabbed the first thing she saw, a can of oven cleaner. Snatching off the cap, she sprayed it full in Michael’s face. He fell back howling, clutched at his eyes, and charged after her again. She fled from the pantry as glass shattered on the far side of the kitchen.

“Professor!” Michael bellowed. “I’ll hurt you! I’ll skin you!”

She was already moving out of the pantry when she remembered the guns. She reached back and snatched both weapons from the shelf. The heavier .45 fell and skidded across the kitchen floor, but she clung to the .22 in desperation.

More glass splintered. Liz glanced toward the kitchen door. Jack’s face loomed, white and haggard. One bloody hand reached through the broken door pane to fumble with the lock.

But Michael was already there in the kitchen, huge and terrible, advancing on her with mad, bulging eyes. “Put it down, Elizabeth,” he said. His gaze locked with hers, blue eyes once again human and beseeching.

“Stop,” she said. “I don’t want to kill you.”

“Shoot him!” Jack yelled.

Michael’s voice was calm, rational. “You won’t shoot me.” He reached for her. “You don’t have the nerve.”

“Don’t I?” She held the revolver steady with both hands and lifted the barrel.

Donald Clarke’s soft advice echoed out of the past.
Always aim for the largest target, Lizzy. Give yourself the advantage.

“No!” Michael said.

“Shoot him!” Jack urged.

Liz squeezed the trigger. The first and second bullets tore into Michael’s chest, slightly to the left of center. He shrieked, but kept coming, eyes flaming with madness, arms wide to grab her. She stood without flinching and placed a third shot cleanly between his eyes.

Michael sagged to his knees, blood bubbling from his nose and mouth. “You can’t,” he rasped, crawling toward her on hands and knees. “I taught you—”

“You didn’t teach me to shoot,” Liz said. “My father did.”

“Shoot him again!” Jack yelled.

Michael rose and lunged at her. “I’ll choke—”

“Game over,” Liz said. Without blinking, she emptied the revolver, placing the final three shots in a half-inch circle in the center of the Game Master’s temple.

He fell, twitched, and lay still.

“I can because I’ve done it before, you bastard!” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “My father didn’t kill Buck Juney. I did.”

“Lizzy?” Jack’s voice seemed to come from far off. “Put the gun down. It’s Jack. Don’t shoot me, Lizzy.”

She turned away from the dead thing on the floor and placed the empty weapon on the counter. “I couldn’t,” she said. “I couldn’t shoot you if I wanted to. I’m out of ammunition.” Beginning to tremble, Liz waited for a rush of guilt, but there was none. She felt only relief and joy to be alive.

“Lizzy, look at me.”

She turned to see Jack swaying in the open doorway. His face was an alabaster mask, his torn shirt and shorts soaking wet and dark with blood. “I think I’m going to . . .”

“Jack? No!” Liz dashed to catch him in time to keep him from collapsing. “I thought you were dead,” she said as she eased him into a kitchen chair.

His eyes lost focus, and his words slurred. “Tarzan . . . suppose . . . to . . . save Jane.”

“Right.” Liz knelt amid the broken glass to examine the bullet wound in his thigh. Jack had used his belt as a tourniquet, but blood still oozed in a thin stream from the gaping wound. His breathing was harsh and irregular, his lips blue. “I don’t know how you walked on this leg,” she said.

“Neither do I.” He coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hurts like a bitch.”

“How did you get here?” She pushed back the torn and gore-streaked shirt to see the hole in his chest.

“Boat . . . same way I got . . . to your . . . your house. I was worried about you . . . in . . . storm. Your damned . . . damned bridge is out. Again.”

“Figures.” She took a deep breath and said softly, “I killed him.”

Jack tried to chuckle, but the sound came out as more of a whistling moan. “I saw you. I thought . . . for a minute . . . thought you . . . were going to . . . to shoot me, too.” He blinked, and his eyes lost focus again. “Damned . . . damned good shooting . . . for . . . for a woman.”

“I always was. Daddy said I had a good eye.”

“The things I . . . don’t know . . . about you.”

You or anyone else
, she thought. All those hours of practice with Michael . . . when she’d deliberately missed the target . . . not wanting to think about taking another life . . .

“Damned . . . good shot even for . . . for a man,” Jack whispered, fighting to remain conscious. “I feel drunk, Lizzy. Am I drunk?”

“No, you idiot. You’re shot.” She stood up, cradled his head against her breast, and kissed the crown of his head. “When I saw you in my yard, I thought . . . I thought it was you,” she said as she stroked his wet hair. “I thought you were trying to kill me.”

“Never . . . never hurt a hair on . . .” His head sagged. “Tarzan supposed . . . supposed to save Jane . . . but . . . Jane . . .”

“You did save me. If you hadn’t set the alarm off by breaking the window . . .”

“Jane . . .”

“Jane needs to stop this bleeding. Can you move? You’d be better off lying down. I’ll try to call 911, but I think the phones are out. Wait.” She left him long enough to get Michael’s wheelchair from the dining room, helped him into it, and pushed him into one of the bedrooms.

Another telephone sat on the nightstand. She picked up the receiver, and, oddly enough, there was a reassuring dial tone. With trembling fingers, she punched in the emergency number. When the dispatcher answered, Liz told him that she needed medical help immediately. She gave her name, Michael’s name and phone number, and the address.

“What is the nature of your emergency?”

“Gunshot wounds. An adult male bleeding heavily from gunshot wounds.”

“Are you in danger?”

“No, the only danger is that this man will bleed to death if you don’t get a rescue helicopter here in the next half hour. The bridges on Clarke’s Purchase Road are out. Do you understand? The bridges are out. There is no way to get here by ambulance. Behind the house, there’s a wide driveway and space for a helicopter to safely land.”

“Where is the weapon?”

Liz tried to keep her temper under control. “Send the police. No one is in danger of being shot. The assailant is dead.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“I should be. I killed the son of a bitch.”

“Stay on the line.”

“I can’t. I told you. I have a man bleeding to death.”

“You must stay—”

“Get someone here fast or hire the best lawyer in Delaware. Because if you don’t, I’m going to personally sue you.” She slammed the phone down.

“That was pleasant talk for a college professor,” Jack said.

“Sometimes the best form of communication is the vernacular.”

Jack was a big man and heavy. It was all she could do to move him from the chair to the bed. He groaned.

“Hang on, Jack.” She slipped a pillow under his injured leg.

“Not . . . not going anywhere. Got a dead . . . dead . . . deadline.”

“Sure you do.” She found a pair of scissors in a kitchen drawer and scooped up an armload of linens from a hall closet. She hoped that a State Police helicopter was on the way, but she couldn’t wait. She couldn’t think about Michael or her fears, about the people she’d lost to his madness. Jack was alive, and it was up to her to keep him that way.

It took time to stop the worst of Jack’s bleeding, to force several glasses of juice down his throat, and to bandage his wounds. She thought the bullets had passed through him, but probing the injuries was work for a surgeon. That could wait for a hospital. What mattered now was keeping him from losing any more blood and dehydrating.

“Stay awake, Jack,” she urged quietly. “Talk to me.”

“I told you . . . told you not to trust . . . not trust . . .”

“Listen. What’s that?” She threw up one of the bedroom windows and heard the unmistakable
chop-chop-chop
of a helicopter. “It’s them,” she said. “It’s the E.M.T.’s. I’ve got to go out and warn them about . . . Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Four days later, Liz sat beside Jack’s hospital bed reading the synopsis of Jack’s third novel as he recovered from surgery to repair the damage done by the two bullet wounds. He was propped up, lightly sedated and bandaged, an I.V. running from his left arm, and a small oxygen tube under his nose.

She was still coming to terms with the knowledge that the Jack Rafferty she’d grown up with had written and sold two blockbuster suspense novels under the pseudonym John Marshall. In his more lucid moments, Jack had explained that he’d finished the manuscript of his first novel,
Chilling Habit
, shortly before being charged with attempted murder. He’d sent the proposal to a dozen literary agents, and Gregory McMann had called him a week later with an offer to represent him. McMann had been excited about the project, so much so that he’d generated enough interest in the novel to prompt three major publishing houses to make six-figure bids on the manuscript.

“Gregory has contacts with the legal community and in law enforcement. I trust him explicitly.”

“I didn’t know a literary agent’s duties included arranging counsel for accused murderers.”

“You’d be surprised at what writers expect their agents to do for them. Gregory could tell you stories that would curl your hair. But we’ve become good friends. I’ve even taken him off-shore tuna fishing. He deposited my advance check three months after I went to prison, and he’s kept my identity out of the media.”

“And you kept me in the dark about all this because . . . ?”

Jack managed to look sheepish. “Because I was writing this new book about major drug-running operations on the Delaware Bay, and because George was one of my main sources. Information he fed me could have gotten him murdered three times over.”

“So all the while your mother and I thought that you were involved in the drug trade,” Liz said, “you were really—”

“Doing research for my book,” he finished. “I was afraid to tell you the truth, afraid that if I shared my secret with anyone, George, Mom and Pop, or even you would suffer. So long as the local dealers thought I was a typical ex-con, cop-hating waterman, the people I cared most about were safe.”

“And now?” Liz asked.

Jack attempted to shrug, grimaced, and groaned. “Instant karma,” he said. “I was wrong. I should have been honest with you. I meant to tell you and my parents everything, once George testified and was settled into a new life.”

“What if the public finds out the truth?”

“The people I was most afraid of have more worries than hunting me or my family down. One’s dead, shot by one of his partners who thought he had ratted them out. Three of the others, including the trigger man, are in prison, awaiting trial. I doubt any of them will live long enough to be a threat to me again.”

“What about your brother?”

“George may be in witness protection, but he’s not getting away with his crimes. He’ll pay for them as long as he lives. And despite what’s he’s done, I love him. I just couldn’t risk . . .” Jack broke off as a chubby nurse entered with a tray.

“Time for your pain medication, Mr. Rafferty.” She glanced at Liz. “If you’ll give us a moment.”

“No need for her to leave,” Jack said. “She’s seen my bare ass before.”

“Oh, is this Mrs. Rafferty?”

“No,” Liz said.

Jack’s “No” echoed her own. “At least not yet,” he added hastily.

Liz smiled, and winced as her swollen lip cracked. “Not anytime soon.” One of her eyes was still black and her jaw ached when she spoke, but her worst injury was a cracked rib. That was tightly bandaged and hurt whether she sat or lay down or walked. Knowing how lucky she was, she ignored the pain.

“Ouch!” Jack said as the nurse gave him the injection. “I think you went all the way in to the bone.”

“Hardly, Mr. Rafferty. You’ll be feeling much better in a few minutes.” She took his temperature.

“Not soon enough,” Jack mumbled.

The nurse completed her tasks, made several adjustments to the I.V. line, and left the room. Jack rubbed his hip. “Damn, it wasn’t so bad until she jabbed that ice pick in me.”

Liz sighed. “Poor Jack.”

“You could be a little more sympathetic.”

“I don’t believe Tarzan ever whined about a little prick.”

Jack grinned devilishly. “That’s not my problem, and you can testify for me in any court in the country.”

“Braggart.” She laid the folder on the floor beside the folded newspaper.

Only part of the front page showed, but Liz knew what the headline read: CRAB-POT KILLER SHOT BY KIDNAP VICTIM. There were photos of her, of Michael in his State Police uniform, of his wife Barbara’s grave in the walled cemetery near his home—where investigators had dug up the flesh-stripped remains of at least nine unidentified victims—as well as pictures and drawings of the murder house and dock. The authorities had not yet permitted media access to Michael’s gruesome cellar, and if Liz had her way, the entire place would be blown up before TV cameras, sleazy tabloids, and reporters had a field day with the contents.

Neither she nor Jack had spoken of Michael, but now Liz felt that it was time. Sliding the straight-backed chair closer to the bed, she took Jack’s hand and squeezed it. “Is it my fault?” she asked him. “Did I set this in motion by shooting Buck Juney all those years ago?”