Cold Heart (31 page)

The plan hadn't just sprung into being.

Nor had he sat over long months meticulously jotting down his timetable.

It coalesced over endless winter nights, like a slow, recurring dream.

Until he had trouble believing it hadn't already happened. The only reason he was certain that he wasn't in the dream now was that it wasn't repeating the way it was supposed to.

Rich was supposed to be dead by now.

And Dawn.

Then the others would come calling and fall right into his trap.

By a little after six he and Micky would be having dinner together.

The plane buzzed over his head as he entered the clearing and he stopped, raising the rifle and firing off two more quick shots. He cocked the lever action but the gun was empty. He tossed it into the muskeg and plucked at the bungees that held the other rifles. But he was shaking and the fingers of his wounded hand wouldn't obey him. He gave up on the tied guns but fumbled the pistol into his left hand.

It was empty.

He forced himself to calm down.

His right hand throbbed and his fingers were stiff as boards. He had shot himself through the center of his palm and he kept thinking how Christ-like that made him. But he couldn't look at that wound any more than he could force himself to look at the bloody hole in his calf.

The plane swooped like a mad bomber, making El duck with each pass. But he managed to eject all six empty shells and reload. As Rich dived at him again, El used both hands and took a quick potshot at the underbelly of the plane. His wounded hand slipped along the cylinder and he accidentally advanced one of the unfired shells.

He cursed and fired twice more at the plane, pretty sure he had put a couple of holes in it, then reached across and shoved the pistol back into the holster. But, when he tried to throttle up with his wounded right hand, he flooded the four-wheeler.

He cursed again, pressing the start button until his thumb ached, but the Honda was dead. In disgust he climbed off, giving the machine a kick with his good foot, sending a blast of pain up that leg.

He spit into the slush and hobbled toward the store.

M
ICKY PRESSED HER BACK
against the half-open door to the bedroom.

Dawn was in her hiding place again. One gleaming eye peeked balefully through the door at Micky, who held the ax handle aloft like a batter waiting for a fastball.

“Micky!” whispered Dawn, sliding one thin finger through the crack in the door and pointing at the top of the handle. “He'll be able to see it!”

Micky glanced up and nodded, dropping the dense hickory wood onto her left shoulder.

“Close the door, but not all the way,” she hissed, watching Dawn comply. “If I tell you to run, you run, got it?”

No answer.

“If I tell you, you run right past me and out the door and don't stop running. Do you understand?”

“I don't want to leave you.”

“You do it, understand?” Micky's face was hard but her eyes were soft.

“Yes.” The voice was a mouse squeak.

Micky twisted her fingers around and around the smooth handle, flexing her muscles, preparing for the swing. The handle felt silly as a weapon but it was all she had. It would have to do.

Her mother and father.

Wade.

The dancer.

Aaron.

All the others.

All lost.

Not Dawn.

Dawn was going to make it out of this, no matter what it took. No matter what it cost.

Outside the plane continued circling but seemed to be maintaining more of a distance. Rich must have called for help by now. But getting help from Anchorage would take two hours at least, maybe three. He was probably staying in place above them so that he could guide the troopers to El when they came. She wondered how long the little plane could stay in the air.

Micky heard a grunt and a curse from downstairs and at first she thought that it was Marty. It didn't sound like El. Something hit the floor hard and then something else rattled across the room. Either El was enraged that she had gotten away or he was hurt. She prayed it was both. Anything to disrupt his thinking. To distract him. Hopefully he'd believe she and Dawn had gotten away and he wouldn't bother to search the store.

“I know you're up there!” he shouted. “You stupid bitches! You tracked ash all the way up the stairs!”

Micky stared at her feet in horror.

Neither she nor Dawn had worried about the ash as they rushed to the window. And when they knew that it was futile to try to make a break across the clearing, they'd both run upstairs without thinking. A muddle of footprints milled in the center of the bedroom. Faint tracks led over to Dawn's hiding place. Micky closed her eyes. When she opened them again they were damp with tears of frustration.

“Stupid bitches!” El screamed. His voice cracked.

He was definitely hurt. He alternated between a screech and a whine, accented by gasping breaths.

But he was getting closer to the stairs with each step and Micky tensed like a spring on a switchblade. She heard the distinctive
click
of the single-action pistol being cocked.

If she hit him right, he'd go down like a brick and she
wasn't going to let him up. Her muscles flexed and loosened, flexed again. She'd hit him over and over, crush his skull, break his neck, smash his rib cage, until he was dead and she could pull off the mirror glasses and see what was behind them.

You hear me, God?

I'm going to see what's in the bastard's eyes.

You owe me that.

The first stair tread creaked and there was a wrenching noise, as though El were ripping the railing away from its bolts.

“Shit.” It was more a groan than a curse but Micky heard the creak of another stair tread.

The little door opened a hair and Micky shook her head violently. The movement stopped. Dawn was watching and Micky knew exactly what the girl was feeling.

No problem.

For the first time she mouthed the words so that Dawn could see and read her lips.

Another creaking tread.

Another curse.

There was an odd unevenness to El's tread. A hesitation that shouldn't be there, as though he were climbing with one leg then bringing the other up to meet it and, when he had to take the next step, when he put all his weight on the wounded leg, that was when he grunted. Either he had fallen from the four-wheeler or Rich had shot him.

Two quick steps, then a gasping breath.

One more.

How many risers are there?

Surely ten or more. Maybe twelve.

How many has he taken?

Four?

Five?

She couldn't remember. But he was close. His breathing sounded like it was right on the back of her neck. But he hadn't reached the head of the stairs.

Not yet.

She slowed her own breathing and listened.

“I did this for you,” said El. It was the cry of a wounded
child, a spoiled kid who has been punished for something he is convinced he is not guilty of. “For us!”

The thought that he had been there, in his cabin, all that time, dreaming of her, thinking of her, having God alone knew what fantasies about her, made her sick. Then a switch clicked inside her mind and she saw El, as clearly as though she were watching an old black-and-white movie.

Inside her cabin.

He had been there before.

She knew it the way that she knew that she would take the next breath. The way she knew that her heart would beat.

And the fury in her brain exploded into a violent, white wrath.

“You have to help me, you bitch!”

Creak.

She saw El sitting in her chair.

Touching her glasswork.

Saw him on her bed.

Pictured him…

Her fingernails dug into the ax handle.

Creak.

This inhuman monster had been in her house?

Through her private things?

This piece of refuse had fantasies about
her?

This
thing
was going to murder Dawn?

He was right on the other side of the door now. There was a rattle of pain in each of his gasping breaths.

The ax handle no longer felt silly in Micky's hands. It felt like a war club.

“I'm hurt.”

The whine again. Grating like broken glass against her soul.

“You're
supposed
to help me.”

Come on in.

I'll help you.

The floorboard creaked.

Micky tensed.

Did the hidey-hole door move a fraction?

Another footstep and the toe of his boot appeared. He was only inches away, separated by a wooden door that
would not stop a bullet. Micky was tight as the hammer on a pistol; the ax handle no longer rested on her shoulder but lifted, an inch from her left temple, poised. She glanced at her feet and noticed a thin trickle of El's blood, snaking across the floor. She blinked slowly in satisfaction.

Take another step.

Just one more fucking step.

“Come out, you bitches!”

The sudden ferocity of the scream, the blind hatred behind it, jolted her and she almost gasped.

“Come out!”

The scream clawed its way out of the bottom of El's lungs. Apparently he thought that both she and Dawn were in the hidey-hole.

The pistol shot rolled like thunder around the small room. Metal hangers rattled as an old coat danced against the other clothes. Splinters of pine flittered through the air. Micky was stunned.

Had he hit Dawn?

Micky's muscles were metal bands. Her fingers were so tight on the ax handle that they ached.

Take one more fucking step, you monster!

Suddenly she saw his back as he lurched two steps toward the closet. She stepped out and carved a vicious swing at the side of his head, determined to slam the heavy end of the handle against his temple.

But El fired again.

The shot rocked him backward and the ax handle connected farther down the handle. The force was dulled and a nasty vibration shot up Micky's arms.

El staggered away, swinging around to bring the pistol to bear on her. She focused on the gun rather than his head, bringing the handle up and down swiftly, aiming for his wrist as the half-inch hole in the barrel spun inexorably around.

The handle impacted El's wrist at the same instant that his finger tugged the trigger.

The explosion again rocked the room and Micky felt the white heat of a bullet strike her in the left shoulder, driving the wind out of her, slamming her backward and to her knees.

But rage sustained her.

Not this time.

You might have me.

But you aren't getting Dawn.

The strength had deserted her left arm. She could barely grip the ax handle.

But El had dropped the pistol. He staggered, struggling to remain on his feet. One more blow and he might go down for the count. But she couldn't reach his head and she only had the one uninjured hand. In slow motion, she watched El slip the big hunting knife from his boot with his left hand.

She brought the handle of the ax up between his legs with all the power she possessed, happy to see his look of annoyance turn to surprise, then pain.

El dropped heavily to both knees and, just as exhaustion and pain overwhelmed her, Micky slung the handle backhand and caught him hard on the right side of his neck. He crashed facedown onto the bloody floor.

She dropped onto her worthless left hand and, when it would not support her, slid down onto the floor, her face inches from El's mirror glasses. She wanted to rip them from his face but her arms would not obey her.

“Get out!” she tried to scream at Dawn. But there was no breath in her lungs.

She sucked in air and tried again but her voice was scarcely a whisper.

“Dawn! Get out! Run!”

She heard a tiny creak as the little door opened.

Dawn pressed against the wall, as far from El as she could get. Micky tried to nod but it was all she could do to summon up the energy to keep breathing and her vision was foggy.

“Get far away,” said Micky. “Wait until help comes. Don't come out until then. You understand? Don't come out for anything!”

Dawn disappeared around the corner of the door as Micky slumped to the floor.

M
ICKY CAME TO, BOUNCING
down the stairs on her butt. Excruciating pain radiated outward from her shoulder and a blistering agony inflamed the back of her head. She clawed at the railing as El dragged her along violently, by her hair.

He wasn't breathing anymore.

He was gasping.

When they reached the first floor, he dropped her like a sack and leaned against the wall, jerking the knife from his boot. His face was contorted, unrecognizable. An ugly lump swelled in front of his left ear and his cheekbone seemed to be somehow out of place.

Did I do that?

The Ruger was back in its holster.

But the knife swung like a metronome in his hand.

“Get up.” There was a cold anger in his voice now.

Hatred?

No. Something more.

Betrayal.

Micky didn't move.

“Get up!”

The scream was sharper than the knife. She recoiled from it but tried to stand.

The pain in her shoulder lashed up the back of her neck and melted into the fire at the back of her head. She nearly blacked out again. Warm blood oozed between her breasts, soaking her shirt. More pain rocked through her as El's boot slammed into her ribs.

If I pass out, he'll kill me.

She focused on his smudged glasses as she pulled herself up the bannister post, drawing power from her rage. But even standing she was stooped from agony and from the instinctive urge to cradle the wound in her shoulder. She was pleased to note that El wasn't standing quite upright either, although whether that was a symptom of his leg wound or the blow to his manhood she didn't know. Or care.

He lashed out with his crippled right hand and caught her backhanded across the jaw, splattering more blood onto her cheeks, driving her out into the room.