Dead End (44 page)

The floodlights flashed. Every minute or so they came on, then went out again. The interior lights remained off.

“She may not even be here,” Reb said, sounding uneasy. “If she were, she’d see it was us and let us in.”

“Not if this is something automatic and mostly designed to keep animals away. Let’s find out.” Side by side they covered the rest of the distance to the house, climbed steps to the gallery, and pulled the chain on an antique bell hanging beside the door.

The jangle sounded deafening and sang on too long.

Reb tugged Marc’s arm and pointed. Oribel’s bike lay on the gallery floor as if she’d simply dropped it on her way in...Wally’s was there, too.

The outside lights cut out and didn’t come back on.

Marc couldn’t have explained why the hair on the back of his neck rose. Even in the gloom he saw Reb’s eyes grow huge. “Why would Wally be out here?” she whispered.

He knew she didn’t expect an answer. Evergreens around the house stood, shoulder to shoulder and black against a gunmetal sky. The bone chill of the ice plant remained with him and he shivered, and felt Reb’s responding shudder.

“We’d better make a call,” he told Reb. “I don’t want to make a wrong move if it could put them both at risk.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t feel good about this. Like you said, why wouldn’t Oribel come to the door as soon as she saw it was us?”

“I didn’t feel like it.” From the steps they’d just used, Oribel shone a flashlight in their faces. “I don’t like uninvited company.”

Reb jumped so violently, Marc steadied her.

“It’s a good idea to take precautions,” he said, but the hair on his neck didn’t stop bristling. “I wish you’d persuade Reb to follow your example.”

“Why are you here?”

“To visit you,” Reb told her. “We wanted to see how you’re making out. Cyrus is worried about you.”

“Not really,” she said, amazing Marc. “He’s got his interests, and older women aren’t one of them.”

Reb squeezed his fingers tightly enough to hurt. “You know that’s not true,” she said, and laughed. “Cyrus treats everyone the same and cares about everyone the same. Where’s Wally? I think he gets lonely a lot. It’s nice of you to bring him out.”

Oribel didn’t reply at once. Then she said, “You shouldn’t have come. Now it’s too late. You’ve ruined everything.”

“It’s cold out here,” Reb said. “I’d love to see your place, if that’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

What Marc felt was danger. It was raw and it was real, and he could tell Reb felt it, too. The most important job they had was getting Wally out of here.

“I apologize,” he told Oribel. Her face was indistinguishable behind the flashlight beam, but her solid body seemed tensed. “I’m not too fond of visitors myself.”

“You never should have come back to Toussaint. Your kind don’t belong here any more than a lot of others do.” She laughed, a humorless laugh on a single note.

“We’ll put Wally’s bike in the back of Marc’s vehicle and take them both back. Wally should be in bed by now.”

“His folks never know where he is. They’ll think he’s taken off. Just one more runaway.”

Marc’s mouth dried out. “Aren’t you cold, Oribel? Reb and I are. I could use some of your hot tea.”

“I don’t make hot tea. Don’t believe in it. You think you’re being clever, but you’re not foolin’ me. You’ve figured stuff out—maybe. People didn’t do as they were told, that’s why. They can’t keep secrets. Why do folks have to turn against the one who knows best? Causes nothin but problems and extra work.”

For the first time in his life, Marc wished he were carrying a weapon.

Oribel sniffed. “I haven’t done anything wrong, only tried to look after the ones I love because they can’t look after themselves.

“What am I thinking of?” she added. “I forgot for a minute. Wally’s gone home. You go home, too.”

Sweat had formed between Marc’s palm and Reb’s. “We’ll do that. And you get a good night’s sleep. How did Wally get home?”

“He walked. The light on his bike wasn’t working. I went with him out to the road. That was a time ago. He’s probably in his bed by now.”

How long would it take Wally to walk twelve miles in the dark? Marc itched to test the bike lamp.

“You’re bothering me.” Oribel’s voice rose. “Run. I want you to run.”

“Not without Wally,” Reb said.

Marc wished she’d held her tongue. “We should call Doll and Gator to see if he’s there, in case we ought to be looking out for him on our way back.”

A shot, fired into the air, silenced him.

“Got your attention?” Oribel said. “Start runnin’.”

And wait for
a bullet in the back?

“Run,” she shouted. “I won’t be wastin’ any more bullets. The next one’s for you, Doctor Reb.”

“Separate,” Reb whispered fiercely. “Confuse her.”

He knew the potential wisdom of the idea, but he wasn’t letting her go. “I can do more if I know where you are.”

“Shut up!” Oribel said.

“On three, hit the deck and do what I do,” he told Reb. “One, two, three.” Down they went and wriggled on their stomachs to the edge of the gallery. They were rolling off when the next bullet skimmed close. “Under the house,” he said, crawling rapidly in that direction. “She’ll have to use the flashlight and that will tell us where she is. We’ll hide behind the cinder pillars.”

“And we’ll pray,” Reb told him.

He was grateful the house was as close to the ground as it was. It should stop Oribel from following, since she’d have more difficulty firing at them. If they got to the other side—and Oribel didn’t meet them there—they might be lucky enough to make it out alive. They couldn’t do a thing to help Wally in their present situation—if he was still alive to be helped.

Reb scooted as fast as Marc over ruckled black paper covered with heaps of wet mud and animal droppings. He shoved her behind a big mud heap and flattened her, resting an arm across her back.

Their heads were side by side, and Reb pressed her cheek to his and murmured, “Where is she, Marc?”

“Don’t know. She’s crazy, isn’t she?” he said.

“Yes,” was all Reb said.

Marc heard a scuffle and squeezed Reb’s shoulder. She muttered, “Oh lordy,” and huddled close. “I love you, Marc. I wanted you to know that.”

“Don’t try to get out of that later. I’ll hold you to it.”

Not a regular giant rat, but a big white nutria, its pointy fangs glinting, squatted a couple of feet from their faces.

“Yuck,” Reb said. “Let’s move.”

“Not till we see that flashlight. We don’t want to go toward her.”

Reb muttered and said something that sounded suspiciously like, “Shush,” to the transfixed critter. “Go. Shoo.”

Marc put his mouth next to her ear and said, “Shut up, cher. He’s not botherin’ us.”

“He’s bothering me.”

“There.” The flashlight beam did what it shouldn’t be able to do if Oribel had been where Marc expected. It passed over their length. “Hustle.”

He rolled over and over, making sure Reb copied him. He heard her harsh breathing and the way small sobs broke in her throat. Sweat soaked his body.

“Now scoot on your belly,” he told Reb. “Fast. She’s lost us for now.”

Crunching together, they arrived behind another pillar, but facing the same way as before. “Guess we think alike,” Reb said. “Too bad she’s likely to figure we’d try this.”

The beam traveled, swept the confined space.

A shot ricocheted off cinder blocks several pillars to their left.

Reb’s breathing grew harsh. She dragged air in and panted.

“Hold on,” Marc told her. He blinked repeatedly to clear his eyes of stinging sweat.

“She thought we’d expect her to come at us from the opposite direction,” Reb whispered. “The pile of mud over there could be us from where she is. The shadows look right. That’s what she shot at, but she isn’t going to quit. We aren’t going to get out of here.”

“You believe that?”

“I’ll say no if that’s what you want to hear.”

“That’s what I want. Now keep your face down and push slowly backward.”

She did as he told her.

“Damn it all.” Oribel said, and they heard objects cracking together. She switched on her light but not to shine it under the house.

“She tripped,” Reb said. “I think she’s lost us.”

“For now,” Marc told her. They continued to shimmy backward. “Maybe she’s hurt.”

“Too bad the doctor’s not in,” Reb said.

The beam was still on and wavered. From the noises Oribel made, Marc decided he was right about her being hurt.

Reb squirmed and looked in the direction they were going. “A few feet more is all,” she said. “Make a rush for it.
Now.
”

That was an order, and he followed the command, slithering with her into fresh air there was no time to appreciate. They didn’t talk. Holding hands again, running wildly with no attempt to avoid obstacles, they dashed, bent over, around an outbuilding that might have been intended as a garage and into the cover of the closest trees.

“I’m calling Spike,” Marc said.

Reb told him, “Be sure you don’t draw her to us. We’ve got to get Wally.”

Marc hit a button on his phone and covered it, and his head, with his jacket. Spike answered at once, “Devol.”

“Oribel Scully is trying to kill us. She may already have killed Wally. We’re holed up in the trees at the northeast corner of the property—not far from the house. We can’t leave the boy, and we don’t know where he is.”

Spike was a man who didn’t waste time being shocked. “Don’t move from where you are until evasive action becomes necessary. Dang it, Cyrus finished with William’s family—the brothers were at the house all the time—and he’s coming your way. With Madge. I’m already rolling. I’ll make contact with Cyrus.”

“He doesn’t like cell phones,” Marc said. “He doesn’t usually turn it on.”

Spike said something unintelligible, but Marc got the drift. “How about Madge?”

“Don’t know her number. Just a second.” Marc asked Reb, who shook her head no. “No help here.”

“I’ll try to track it down. I take it Oribel’s got a gun?”

“Uh huh.”

“Did you see it? What is it?”

“I didn’t see it, why?”

“It would be nice to know how many rounds she’s got in the clip.”

A twig snapped, and it wasn’t far away. Marc stabbed off his phone without any good-byes. Leaving it on would be nice if he had a vibrating feature instead of a ringer. “That was to the right,” he said. “Spike doesn’t want us to move unless we have to.”

Reb backed into him, put a hand behind her and into his stomach, and silently pushed him. Step by careful step they moved away from the direction of the sound.

“I’ve got you, y’know.” Oribel’s voice rang out from another direction entirely. “You won’t leave without Wally. He’s a nice boy. Told me all kinds of things tonight. I almost felt like letting him go.”

“Bitch,” Marc said under his breath. The woman seemed to be near to them, but not in the trees.

“We can’t shout back,” Reb said. “That’s what she wants so she knows where we are. I think she’s guessing now.”

“Know that nasty spider of his?” Oribel called. “The one he carried around in the open till Father told him it frightened people and he had to cover it? He put it in the grocery sack—in a box—or so he said. Seems he’d do anything to get attention. Well, it was his little joke. There wasn’t no spider in that bag, he just carried it around and pretended. Anythin’ to get attention. Devious. Even the children are devious.”

Marc held the back of Reb’s neck and squeezed. “I meant to say I love you, too.”

“I know,” she murmured. “I’m a lucky woman. Wally needs a real family. If I have my way, his folks will shape up.”

He didn’t mention how certain he felt that Wally wasn’t an issue anymore. “We can’t just stay here.”

“Spike said we stay, so we stay. Unless she sticks her miserable gun in one of our mouths.”

Still to their right, the snapping and swishing of more undergrowth moved toward the clearing. Marc hoped to hell it wasn’t Cyrus and Madge crashing around in there.

“You a bad woman,” a husky female voice announced. “But I don’t care what you do. I just want the money you promised my daddy and uncles for what they did.”

“Shut your mouth, Martha,” Oribel said. “I’ll deal with you later. Come on out and go in the house till I’m finished here.”

“Don’t go, Martha,” Reb murmured.

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere you say,” Martha announced. “My daddy did anythin’ you wanted. He was sweet on you. Now he’s gone, but he did your work. He moved that body like you asked. Now we got money comin’. You give it to me, or I tell Spike how you used the kid’s bike to follow that Bonnie—just in case someone got smart and found the tire tracks. You didn’t want ‘em to match yours. My daddy tried to hide the bike at our place while he was fixin’ up the scratches for you, but I seen and he told me. And he told me about driving that bird woman’s van for you ‘cause he was too scared not to do what you said. I come with a gun of my own now. What you think I am, anyway? Stupid?”

“Great,” Marc said. “Civil war, with us in the crossfire.”

A shot whistled by much too close.

“You are stupid, Martha,” Oribel said. “Come on out and we’ll talk now.”

“I can see you but you can’t see me,” Martha said. “My uncles give me some of them special glasses. You go get the money, bring it back, and then I’ll tell you where to leave it.”

“Your daddy turned on me. I didn’t want to do anythin’ to him, but he had to talk about tellin’ everything to Father Cyrus. I couldn’t let him do that.”

“Just you do what I said.” Martha sounded as if she was crying.

Oribel didn’t answer, but after a few seconds they heard her footsteps cross gravel, then stomp on wood. A door slammed.

“What about Martha?” Reb said.

“Loose cannon,” Marc told her.

“I don’t know who you is,” Martha shouted. “You what Oribel was talkin’ to. I don’t want no part of you. Just let me do my business and I’ll be on my way.”

No way would they be communicating with Martha.

Minutes went by, and they felt like hours. “Reb,” Marc said, putting his lips against her ear. “Oribel asked Spike about the tape recorder. The morning we were all at Jilly and Joe’s place. How would she know about it?”