Cold Heart (33 page)

“Don't be silly. You know I wouldn't hurt a fly.”

“You shot El.”

“He was going to kill you.”

“No, he wasn't. He was already dying. Were you afraid he'd say something to give you away? My, God!
I didn't hurt her.
El said,
I didn't hurt her.
You told him not to hurt
me!
”

“He would never hurt you! He was obsessed with you. I can't believe you never saw it.”

The enormity of the horror was impossible to fathom. It was one thing to accept a psychopath like El going on a killing spree. It was another to comprehend Damon murdering someone. But she understood one thing immediately.

“You made El do it,” she said. “Somehow you started this. Why, Damon? How?”

Damon aimed the shotgun at her chest.

“I never meant for this to happen, Mick. Not any of it.”

“Don't point that gun at me, Damon.”

The sadness in his face was more frightening than rage.

“I never meant for it to happen,” he repeated. “The old bastard wouldn't tell me where the mine was.”

She couldn't believe that it all came down to that. All the deaths. Not just in McRay. But every death in her past. Had they all been about money?

The kid robbing her parents’ store.

The pair of sociopaths rampaging through Houston with the stolen armored truck.

Now this.

But as she stared into Damon's eyes she knew that she was mistaken. This wasn't about money. Stan had been right. For Damon it was all about the
finding.
He had to know where the mine was. And he was so obsessed with his quest that he'd been willing to kill for it.

“There is no mine,” she said, quietly. “It's a myth.”

“There is! It's here. The son of a bitch wouldn't give it up! I don't know what happened. We were yelling at each other and the old bastard grabbed his rifle. Honest to God, I never meant to kill him, Mick. But he pointed the gun at me and I jerked it away and pointed it back at him. The next thing I knew the damn thing went off. Honest to God! That's how it happened.”

“So you set Aaron's cabin on fire to cover up his murder. But then you got worried that someone investigating the fire would discover how Aaron died. So you started El on his killing spree.”

Another realization struck her. “You knew all along,” she whispered. “You knew El was dangerous and you've always told me that he wasn't. You've been planning this for years!”

“No!” he shouted. “I knew about the guns, sure. But El could have been controlled. I
was
controlling him. It was me that kept him from hurting anyone all this time.”

“Aaron crawled out. I found him across the clearing.”

“No way.”

“He would have burned to death.”

“I didn't mean to kill him,” he repeated. But the thought of burning Aaron alive seemed to touch something human in Damon. His eyes softened a little. The shotgun dropped a notch so that Micky wasn't staring directly down the long dark barrel.

Dawn took a step backward, out of Damon's peripheral vision.

“How did you start El on his spree?” asked Micky.

She understood now. Damon knew that if he could get El to kill someone, then everyone would assume that El had murdered Aaron as well. Two separate killers in one day in a town the size of McRay would be just too unbelievable.

“It wasn't like that. I didn't mean for him to kill anyone.”

“Really? And what was going to stop him?”

Dawn reached down and quietly retrieved El's pistol. Micky wanted to signal to the girl somehow. To let her know the gun was empty. But she didn't dare draw Damon's attention to Dawn. He might just spin around and kill her.

“El trusted me. I was the only one who talked to him. All I had to do was tell him that everyone in McRay hated him. That they were planning on killing him today. He ate it up. Said he'd known it all along. Said he knew just what to do.”

“You set him loose like a mad dog, Damon. You're as bad as Vegler.” She spit out the name and Damon looked as though she'd slapped him in the face. “Vegler made you sick. And now you're no better than he is.”

“I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt,” Damon whined.

“So you made sure El thought that I was his friend,” said Micky.

“I did, yeah. But I knew he wouldn't hurt you anyway. I didn't
think
he'd hurt you. He already had plans for you.”

“I'll bet.”

“I wasn't going to let him hurt anyone. It was all a mistake.”

“A mistake? Damon! Six people are dead!”

The shotgun shook in his hands. “I followed El to Terry's place. I still had Aaron's rifle. I was going to stop El before he hurt anyone. Kill the son of a bitch. I was!”

“Then why didn't you?”

Dawn raised the pistol with both hands. She pointed it at the back of Damon's head.

“The fucking gun jammed. I was running down the trail after
El and I went to cock the rifle and it got stuck. The bullet was all crumpled inside and I panicked. I'd just got to the edge of the clearing when I heard Terry screaming. I saw Dawn running into the alders, and then Howard showed up.”

“And El killed him.”

“Yeah.”

“What then?”

Dawn gritted her teeth, pulling the hammer of the pistol with both thumbs.

Micky tensed.

“I followed El,” said Damon. “Waiting for my chance. But the son of a bitch kept wrecking all the guns. He smashed Howard's before he threw them into the woods. He even burned all of Clive's ammunition.”

Micky thought of the Glock, resting in a pile of melted plastic. But she shook her head.

“El's place was full of guns.”

“And there was a bear there. I damn near walked right into her.”

“I wish you had.”

“Don't say that, Mick.”

“What are you going to do now?”

His eyes hardened again. His finger tightened on the trigger. “I can't go to jail, Mick. You know I can't. I'd go crazy.”

“You're crazy now, Damon. They'll catch you. The cops will go over every inch of this valley with a fine-tooth comb. They'll figure out what happened.”

“I'll be gone by then.”

Dawn clicked the hammer back on El's pistol, but Damon never looked away from Micky. The smile that crossed his lips was as sad as his eyes. He raised the shotgun again.

“I love you,” he said, speaking directly to Micky, ignoring Dawn, “but I can't go to prison. You know I can't. I'm sorry.”

“You never loved anyone but yourself,” said Micky.

Dawn pressed the cold barrel against the back of Damon's head. “You killed my mother,” she said.

“That gun is empty,” said Damon.

Dawn pulled the trigger.

Two shots roared.

T
HE TOP FINIAL OF
the swaying rocker hung by a splinter. Micky let out a long, slow breath, cautiously searching herself for new wounds. But there were none. Dawn helped her to her feet and they both stepped across Damon's body, heading for the door.

The girl's face was deathly pale and her eyes were wide. Micky knew that she had to reassure her before she went into shock.

“Thank you,” rasped Micky. “You saved our lives. You didn't just run and hide like I did when I was your age.”

They staggered out onto the landing and leaned on the railing. Neither of them looked down at Stan.

“I was so scared,” wept Dawn. “I thought Damon was right. I thought the gun was empty.”

“So did I,” said Micky, wondering if her luck was changing. She searched for Rich, over the trees. “At least you won't have to live the rest of your life not knowing if you could have done something.”

“My mother,” said Dawn. “I didn't do anything.”

Yes.

What do I say to that?

“Dawn, there was nothing you could have done. You were alone. You didn't have a gun.”

“You're losing a lot of blood,” said Dawn, staring at Micky's shoulder and making a face.

Micky peeled back the blood-soaked cloth. The bullet had clipped her collarbone and left an open track across her shoulder. She didn't think an artery had been hit or she would have been dead already. But if the bone was completely broken, it was going to mean more painful rehab.

“I'll be all right.”

“What can I do, now?” asked Dawn.

“Flag Rich down,” said Micky, knowing it was important to keep the girl busy. She pointed out into the clearing. “He'll come down for you.”

Dawn did as she was told and Micky noticed the girl's shoulders straighten when she had a job to do.

I haven't saved her yet.

Not if she blames herself.

I won't allow that.

Rich dipped his wings in a final pass and disappeared over the trees toward the strip.

Dawn glanced back toward the store, awaiting further instructions.

“Go get him!” Micky shouted. “It's up to you.”

M
ICKY SAT ON THE
concrete bench in the center of the vast open rotunda that was the entrance and focal point of the new Wellsgate Mall, on Houston's ever-expanding west side. Behind her a fountain played the high keys as water tinkled and gurgled along the blue-tile runway that fed an indoor jungle.

Shoppers hurried past, eager to be the first into stores that offered spectacular savings on Grand Opening Day. Highclass home furnishings, state-of-the-art electronics, and upperend men's and women's fashions, including a fancy negligee store that men kept not quite glancing at. Outside, the temperature was nearing one hundred. But inside, the world existed forever at the meat-locker chill Texans loved.

Micky ignored the bustling crowd. Instead, she studied the stained-glass skylight overhead, half the size of a football field, showering rainbows on the floor below. It had taken her two years to complete the giant work and her fee was more than many artists earned in a lifetime. But more than the money, she was proud of the work.

She noticed shoppers stopping in their feverish search for bargains to follow the train of light upward from their feet, staring in wonder at the glass above. The sheer size and complexity of the work gripped them. The changing light
from outside brought the glass to life, shimmering and flickering as though electrified. On every face, Micky saw awe, wonder, and, occasionally a nod of understanding.

That gladdened her.

Her heart was in the work.

It had a brooding quality that caught the eye, like a roll of distant thunder over an unseen horizon. But as the noonday sun approached zenith, the darkness was diminished, then subdued, and ultimately defeated. Then the ceiling of glass glowed with an inner fire, radiating hope and renewal.

Rebirth.

That was what she called it, although only the few who read the small brass plaque beneath the You Are Here map would ever know that. Micky Ascherfeld's name would never be a household word. But she was all right with that.

“It works,” Micky muttered, thinking of what it had cost to get to where she was.

She thought of Marty. She'd received a couple of letters from him in the four years since the murders. He'd been in the hospital six weeks longer than she was but then moved right back to McRay. He'd laughed off his scars, but couldn't laugh off the loss of his best friend. But Micky had been gladdened to hear that a family with two young boys had moved into the Cabels’ building. At least he wasn't by himself any longer.

A couple of months after that first letter, Marty wrote again. He sent her a piece of ore with an inch-thick layer of bright yellow gold in it. And a copy of a deed to the mine naming her and Dawn as coowners with him.

There really was a mine.

Damon had been right.

Aaron had known where it was all along.

Almost as soon as Marty returned to McRay he began working his claim again. A year after he got back, he had hiked up to Aaron's to see if there might be a shovel left in the old man's toolshed. Even without Stan, Marty was still going through shovels. He said he felt guilty about busting the lock on Aaron's storehouse. But he needed the tool and the place was going to pot anyway. When he kicked open the door he nearly fainted.

It wasn't a shed at all. It was the entrance to the lost mine.

Aaron must have discovered the mine years before, hidden in the underbrush. He'd built the lean-to to disguise it. That was why he moved out of Micky's cabin down by the store and high up into the valley.

Not to get away from people.

To be close to his mine.

She smiled, thinking of the old man knowing all along. What a great joke he must have thought that was.

Micky tried to spot the stone in the center of the window above but it was invisible at that distance.

Dawn had moved in with her aunt in California after the murders. But she had become powerfully attached to Micky. So after getting out of the hospital, Micky had moved to San Francisco to be close to the girl. Their continued relationship had been good for both of them. As she grew up, Dawn developed all her mother's dark beauty with none of the aura of tension and fear that had been Terry's constant companion.

Micky built a studio and sold her works through a local gallery. Eventually she took on commissioned work as well. But she refused to go back to her old style. Instead she opened herself to new, wilder forms that bubbled up from some deep wellspring within. With each new piece her reputation grew, until she'd received the commission to do the skylight for the mall. For that she had had to move back to Texas and lease a large warehouse space. By that time Dawn was eighteen and had enrolled in the University of Houston.

Micky had insisted that Dawn see a professional therapist in San Francisco and continue seeing one in Houston. But Dawn never failed to point out Micky's own refusal to submit to therapy.

The light through the abstract glass danced at their feet and Micky watched it create strange new patterns.

“You're
my therapy,” she said.

When she realized that she had spoken out loud she blushed, then smiled, not sure whether she was talking about Dawn or the skylight.

She wiped a tear from her eye and held the glittering liquid, like shattered glass, in her palm, watching the droplets come together again, forming one whole. Then she tilted her hand and let the teardrop spill into the waterway.