Chill Factor (51 page)

Softly, very close to tears, she said, "He was trying to save
my
life."

"Unfortunately for you, he didn't try hard enough."

Moving so quickly she couldn't react, he slipped the blue
ribbon
around her neck and pulled it taut.

"No! Please!"

He smiled at her cruelly and pulled the ribbon even tighter.
"I'm
certain you realize the futility of begging. I'll tell you what I told
all of them. You're about to die."

She tried to kick him, but he sat on her thighs, anchoring
them to
the floor while he increased the pressure of the ribbon. "It won't take
long. Your asthma will speed it along. But if you could please
accommodate me by dying quickly, because I hear the helicopter
returning."

Indeed Lilly heard its approach, but it could still have been
minutes away. The ribbon was biting painfully into the skin of her neck.

Her fingers flexed and clenched as she struggled for breath.
Her
body arched as her lungs sought air.

Was this how she was doomed to die after all? Unable
to breathe?

With no warning, no sound, nothing, Tierney bounded through
the
bedroom door. Before William Ritt had time to register his unexpected
appearance, Tierney kicked him in the head.

CHAPTER  33

THE KICK LIFTED WlLLIAM OFF THE FLOOR LIKE A CHARACTER in an
animated cartoon. He landed three feet from Lilly, rolled onto his
back, and tried to sit up. The side of his head just above his ear was
bleeding. He slapped his hand to it and gaped at Tierney as though he
had come back from the dead.

He did look like a survivor of the apocalypse. His right arm
was
hanging at an odd angle from his shoulder. His clothing on that side of
his body was saturated with blood. His face was as gray as death except
for a bleeding cut on his cheekbone. His eyes were sunken and darkly
shadowed, and he never took them off William Ritt.

He must have found an unlocked window in the bedroom, knowing
that
it would be a surprise attack if he came in that way.

"Lilly?" His voice was gravelly.

"He's Blue."

"I figured." Keeping his eyes trained on William, he bent down
and
placed his pistol in her cuffed right hand. "Got it?"

"Yes."

"If he gets the best of me, kill him. Without a moment's
hesitation." He pulled the ribbon from Lilly's neck.

His gait was gawky and uneven, but he bore down on William,
who had
regained some of his wits and was trying to scramble away. Tierney
reached down with only his left hand, grabbed a handful of William's
parka, and hauled him up, then let go just long enough to smash his
fist, still holding the ribbon, into William's face. The blow spun the
pharmacist around. He stumbled and landed hard, face-first, against the
wall, then practically bounced off it.

Tierney covered the back of the man's head with his wide hand
and
slammed his face into the wall. Twice. He punched him once in the
kidney, causing William to scream, then grabbed his shoulder and turned
him around, stapling him to the wall with the fingers of his left hand
around his neck. The ribbon was still entwined in Tierney's fingers. It
trailed down William's chest.

His face was a bleeding pulp. His eyes were wild with fright.
Tierney said, "I ought to wrap this ribbon around your own fucking
throat and choke you very slowly."

His voice was weak. Blood was puddling around his feet. He
paused to
take a breath, but his grip on William Ritt remained inescapable.

"God knows I want to kill you. I want to tear your heart out
with my
bare hands. But I won't because I don't want you to get off that
lightly. You don't deserve a quick death.

"No, I want you to live a long time. I want you to rot in a
cell for
decades. I want you to stay locked away in anonymity, getting raped
every day by bull queers who don't enjoy it until they see you bleed.
That's what they do to child killers in prison, you know. And Torrie
was only fifteen. Fifteen!" His voice cracked. "And when you die, at
what I hope is a ripe old age, you'll go straight to hell and burn for
eternity, you miserable piece of shit."

Tierney was barely able to stand. He was swaying on his feet
when he
opened his hand to release William's neck. The little man slid to the
floor and slumped to one side.

Tierney stood over him for a moment longer, then turned and
started
walking back toward Lilly.

"Tierney!" she cried.

He spun around just as William uncapped a syringe, which he
must
have had secreted in a pocket of his parka. But it wasn't intended for
Tierney. He jabbed the needle into his own neck.

Tierney was on him in an instant. William was trying to
depress the
plunger and inject air into his vein;
Tierney
was
righting to keep him from doing so. With his left hand, he caught
William's wrist in what must have been a bone-snapping grip. The man
cried out, not only in pain but in frustration and outrage, because
somehow Tier-ney had managed to pin his other hand to the floor with
his knee.

The cabin door burst open and crashed against the interior
wall.
"FBI! Don't anybody move!" Two men dressed in full SWAT gear and black
ski masks swept the room with their rifles, then trained them on
Tierney and William.

"Drop the weapon!" ordered a stern-looking man who had entered
behind the others. He was dressed in an ordinary overcoat, but Lilly
was so impressed by his authoritative air, it took her a moment to
realize that he was addressing her. She opened her hand and let go of
Tierney's pistol. It clattered onto the floor.

Another agent, who was younger and slimmer and wearing
eyeglasses,
had a pistol aimed at the back of Tierney's head. "Release him, Mr.
Tierney."

"He's got a syringe in his neck, trying to kill himself."

The intimidating gray-haired man strode over to them, bent
down,
took a moment to assess the situation, then unceremoniously yanked the
syringe out of William's neck. "Cover him," he said to the man in the
glasses.

"He's Blue," Lilly said in a rush. "His name is William Ritt."

"I know his name," the agent said.

"He's the man you want, not Tierney. William Ritt is Blue."

"How do you know?" he asked.

"He told me. He was going to kill me."

During this rapid exchange, Tierney had braced his left hand
against
the wall and used it for support as he stood up. The older agent took a
large white handkerchief from his back pants pocket and wordlessly
handed it to him. "This might help with the bleeding."

Tierney took the handkerchief and pressed it into his
shoulder.
"Thanks."

"So." The agent nudged William with the toe of his shoe, but
he was
looking at Tierney when he said, "You finally found Blue."

Tierney nodded.

Lilly looked from one to the other with confusion.

The federal agent turned to her. "Ms. Martin, I'm…
Oh, my apologies.
Hoot, search Ritt for the key to those cuffs."

"He didn't handcuff her. I did."

The older man looked at Tierney with surprise.

"The key is in my coat pocket. It's zipped. I'm not sure I
can—"

"Allow me." He unzipped the pocket Tierney indicated and
withdrew
the small key. "I'm Special Agent in Charge Begley. That's Special
Agent Wise." He knelt in front of Lilly and unlocked the handcuffs,
then assisted her to stand.

"Pleased to meet you." She pushed past him and rushed to
Tierney,
who was still holding himself up against the wall. Her hands moved over
him, although inches away from actually touching him out of fear of
hurting him more. "Lord, Tierney, look at you."

"Did he hurt you?"

"What?" She looked up into his sunken eyes, then shook her
head.
"No."

"But I did. In the shed—"

"Doesn't matter."

"I had to do it."

"I understand. I
do
."

For several moments their attention was riveted on each other,
but
they simultaneously became aware of their audience. She addressed the
senior agent. "Tierney arrived just in time to stop William Ritt from
killing me. Millicent Gunn's body is in the toolbox in the shed. I
found it there this morning." She looked at Tierney. "You found it the
night you went for wood and searched for the ax. That's why you were so
brusque."

He nodded. To Begley he said, "Like Lilly says, I found the
body
night before last. I didn't touch it, so it's just as I found it.
Unless Ritt moved it when he got up here."

"I don't think he did," Lilly told them. "He came straight
into the
cabin."

"Where's this shed?" Begley asked.

She told him. "William admitted to me that he killed Millicent
and
hid her body there temporarily. He confessed to—boasted
of— the other
killings as well."

"Get him out of here." At a nod from Begley, the two tactical
officers seized William under the arms and dragged him facedown toward
the door. He hung limply between them, as though he'd finally passed
out from the beating Tierney had given him.

"Restrain him, put him in the chopper. Wait for me there."

"Yes, sir."

"Hoot?"

"Sir?"

"Call the nearest RA. We need a crime scene unit up here ASAP.
Remind them they'll need a chopper."

"Right, sir."

Agent Wise got on his cell phone. Begley turned back to them.
"How's
the shoulder, Mr. Tierney?"

"Busted."

"I'm surprised you haven't gone into shock."

"Any minute now."

"Want to sit down?"

He shook his head. "You'd never get me back up."

"We set the chopper down in the road about fifty yards from
here,"
Begley said. "Followed your blood trail the rest of the way up. Our
pilot already radioed for a CareFlight helicopter to pick you up. It
should be here momentarily."

"Thanks."

"Feel like talking?"

"Talking may keep me from passing out."

Begley grinned as though he understood that logic. Then his
expression turned serious. "I owe you an apology, Mr. Tierney. We
didn't learn until minutes ago that you're Torrie Lambert's father."

Lilly looked up at Tierney, speechless.

"Her mother and I divorced when Torrie was an infant," he
said,
addressing his explanation to her rather than to the FBI agent. "Her
stepfather adopted her, gave her his name. But she was my daughter"

"Which explains a lot," Begley said. "Obviously, you didn't
trust us
or the local police to solve the case, so you've been doing your own
sleuthing over the past two years."

"That's right."

Begley harrumphed and looked at Tierney wryly. Lilly got the
impression that, had it been his daughter who was missing, he would
have done the same. "Whose handiwork is that in the kitchen?"

He was referring to the message she had scratched into the
cabinet.
It seemed he missed nothing. "Mine," she said. "For a time, I
thought…"
With remorse, she motioned toward Tierney.

"Well, you weren't alone in that assumption," Begley said.
"Mr.
Tierney, were you on to William Ritt?"

"No. I thought it was Wes Hamer."

"Wes Hamer?"

"I became acquainted with Millicent by shopping in her uncle's
store," he said. "She developed a… a… an
attachment to me."

A crush
, Lilly thought.

"This was during my trip here last fall. One night I returned
to the
lodge, and Millicent was there waiting on me. It made me uncomfortable.
I didn't invite her inside my cabin, but she started unloading a very
sordid story about her, Wes, Wes's son, a pregnancy and a miscarriage."

Lilly had always thought Wes Hamer was a colossal jerk.
According to
Tierney's story, he was considerably worse than that.

"When she returned from the clinic for eating, disorders, she
wanted
to get back together with Scott, but he would have nothing to do with
her. She asked for my advice." He shook his head ruefully. "I had my
own agenda and sure as hell didn't want to get mixed up with anything
like that. But then, when she was reported missing last week, well, I
thought that maybe Wes had disposed of a problem, and that his crony
Dutch was covering for him."

Turning to Lilly, he said, "That's why I didn't tell you what
I was
doing. If I explained myself, I was afraid you'd feel honor bound to
tell Dutch, and he would protect his pal Wes. Even if Wes had turned
out not to be Blue, my cover would have been blown, and Dutch would
have found a way to block my amateur efforts to find my daughter."

"What were you doing on the mountain the day of the storm?"
she
asked.

"I never gave up trying to find a trace of her on one of these
hiking trails. The day of the storm, I discovered…" He
paused, cleared
his throat. "Graves. Four of them, and a fresh one dug for Millicent.
The shovel used to dig it had been stashed in some underbrush."

"The handcuffs?"

"Those are mine."

"You also bought a transponder," Begley said. "For tracking
purposes, I presume."

He nodded, looking abashed. "I never got to use it, but
obviously
you did your homework."

"Actually, that credit goes to Special Agent Wise," Begley
said,
indicating the other agent.

He had ended his cell phone call to the RA, whatever that was.
He'd
been listening to Tierney's story and now stepped forward. "I also owe
you an apology, Mr. Tierney. On paper, you looked like a viable
suspect."

"On paper, I suppose I would. Why were you looking at me in
the
first place?"

"Your initials appeared several times in Millicent Gunn's
diary. She
indicated that you were nice to her."

Tierney shrugged but didn't comment on that.

"About the graves?" Begley prompted.

"I tried not to disturb the area around them, hoping they
would
provide forensic evidence. Whoever Blue turned out to be."