Reverse Metamorphosis book one of the Irrevocable Change trilogy (42 page)

Turning east he followed the highway to De
Grand’s lane and entered it slowly. A snow plow had been there
since the previous evening and a single lane had been cleared. Four
areas two lanes wide had been cleared for a second car to wait in
if multiple cars were using the lane. Clay knew from his report the
De Grand team used a Chevrolet Suburban which was left at the
airport between trips. The road twisted several times and rose and
fell over ridges and gullies on the way to the lodge. Riding slow
Clay looked for a possible ambush spot and found one about half way
to the turnoff. De Grand would be hit on his private roadway by an
uninvited guest.

A
t seven the next morning Clay was in
position. He expected De Grand to leave the lodge between eight
thirty and nine to go to one of the nearby ski slopes. His usual
routine was indicated to vary somewhat from trip to trip. Sometimes
Charles would ski on Sunday morning, other times he would defer to
Monday morning. But with a storm bearing down on the area chances
were excellent he would want to hit the slopes ahead of the
inclement weather. At least it made sense to Clay.

The accumulated snow depth gave some support,
but still he was trudging through a foot and a half of loose snow
and would also need to lie on it. He unfolded the snow mobile cover
and spread it over a thick layer of spruce branches to make a
shooting platform. The site was at the top of a six foot high bank
through which the roadway had been cut. De Grand’s party would be
entering a sharp ‘S’ curve in front of him at a distance of seventy
yards. He had the scope turned down for the distance, but would
need to make the shots quickly in order to not have to refocus. The
approaching vehicle would be visible to him a quarter of a mile
away as it topped another rise in the road. Plenty of time to
remove his warm mittens, flop down on the cover and be prepared to
fire. The sky was overcast, with clouds completely blocking the
sun.

At ten minutes to nine he saw what he was
waiting for; a black suburban on the far rise. Lying on the cover,
his body was out of sight because of the downward slope from the
cut bank. Only his head, covered by the white hood, and the white
coat on his shoulders would be visible. The rifle pointed at the
targets would come into their view only seconds before being
fired.

Clay positioned the rifle and watched
alongside the scope for the vehicle to emerge around the curve.
Suddenly it was there. The truck was at a slight angle to him with
the passenger side prominent in his view. Switching to the scope he
saw two men in the front seat and two figures in the back seat.
Finding the drivers chest he squeezed off two shots and quickly
moved the crosshairs to the front passenger for two more rounds.
Movement in the back seat revealed the locations of two passengers
and he fired three shots at each of them. As he was pulling the
trigger on the last victim he noted the long black hair and facial
feature of a woman. The passenger in the front seat blocked his
view of the person behind him, but Clay was sure he had hit the
back seat passenger at least once.

Leaving the rifle on the cover, he made his
way down to the roadway and to the black vehicle. The truck had
idled to the left side of the lane and was stopped in the plowed
snow ridge with the engine still running. Ten small holes in the
windshield with spider web cracks around them were the only
indication of what had just transpired. The driver moved his head
and Clay aimed and shot through the windshield. Revolver in hand,
he opened the rear passenger door of the Suburban, stepped inside,
and pulled it shut behind him. Blood had splattered onto the back
seat occupants and had left dark red speckles over most of the
truck’s interior. His last shot at the driver had left a fist sized
hole in the back of the man’s head and showered blood all across
the rear passenger’s door. A bullet was fired into the back of the
other guard’s head and then two were fired into De Grand’s
forehead. The sound of the magnum was deafening inside the enclosed
vehicle, and as De Grand was shot Clay detected a twitching
movement of the woman’s left gloved hand. She was in her early
forties, slender, very attractive and still breathing. But she
wouldn’t be alive long, if the visible blood was any indication.
Apparently most of the shots to the passenger side had hit the
guard in the front seat; she was only hit once, in the left side of
her chest and apparently in a lung. Clay watched as a thin red
ribbon ran from the corner of her mouth down to her chin, dripping
onto the bright yellow ski jacket. She coughed and spit out blood
and mucus as she drowned on her own fluids. Her eyes suddenly
opened and focused on his, causing him to turn away to escape her
pointed gaze. The expression implied a loathing for this intruder
who had so forcefully injected himself into her life. She appeared
to fully understand what had happen. He thought the make up on her
thin facial features and high cheek bones fit the high maintenance
look of her expensive ski clothing.

Clay pulled the gloves from De Grand’s pale
white hands and removed a gold ring with five large diamonds in the
setting. Under the woman’s gloves she was wearing a wedding band
and an occasional ring on her tanned fingers, plus a diamond
bracelet on her right wrist. Clay removed the jewelry from the
delicate, fragile looking hands and then had an insightful
thought.

On sudden impulse he gently grasped her chin
with his left hand and leaned her head back against the seat,
telling her to relax because he would soon leave. Watching him
through a helpless fog, her eyes expressed a pitiful acceptance of
her plight before she closed them, repulsed by the death laden
scene around her. Groping in his coat pocket he found and removed
the .32 automatic, and in one swift motion swung the pistol toward
her face with the barrel angling upward. At the same time he
started his trigger squeeze her eye lids opened and she stared in
horror as he fired a bullet through her left eye into her brain.
Her injured body barely flinched and her head jerked only twice
before relaxing as her final life’s breath escaped. Flipping his
wrist, he shot another round into the right eye of the corpse and
then emptied the rest of the clip below her stomach. The
authorities might spend precious time investigating her as their
primary victim if she appeared to be the main target. They might be
led to conclude the motive for the deaths to be a very personal and
hateful revenge killing of the woman. Before exiting the truck he
surveyed the carnage while trying to ignore the twin crimson
rivulets of blood flowing down the once beautiful lady’s
cheeks.

Outside the vehicle Clay gave in to the
overwhelming urge to throw up, and made it to the edge of the road
before the uncontrollable heaving started. Grabbing snow in both
gloved hands he washed his face in the cold flakes and then took a
big mouthful to wet his dry throat and try to calm his stomach.
While kicking snow on his vomit he made his mind blot out the dead
woman and concentrate on his escape. Focusing on the surroundings
he carefully looked around while reloading both pistols; no one in
sight. Back at his original shooting blind he used snow to dull
specs of blood on his right coat sleeve, then gathered and loaded
the equipment. Mounting the snow mobile he drove onto the private
lane and out to the highway. Running along the edge of the roadway
he made his way back to town to fill up with gas and oil. He had no
idea how long he would have before the death site was discovered,
but hoped to be well away from the town before an organized search
could be started. Before paying a sleepy eyed teenager who was
hopping up and down to a rock and roll tune, he donned the dark
framed glasses. He had picked up six prepared ham and cheese
sandwiches from a cooler and a cup of hot black coffee at the
counter, and then stood at the back of the grocery area eating two
of the sandwiches. Once on the trail he wouldn’t stop until dark;
unless the inbound weather forced him to change his plan.

The sky was getting more overcast ahead of
the approaching storm; it was now a light gray and people were
stopping in the store to get supplies for the next several days.
Once he had left the main road not many people were visible at ten
o’clock to observe him as he headed south away from Crowsnest
Pass.

He had made enough trips to his campsite to
encounter no difficulty in finding the trail again. Earlier in the
morning he had broken camp and left most of his gear above the tent
site in a stand of spruce trees near the base of a stone
outcropping. After loading both packs and assuring himself every
thing was secured, he set out at a fast pace, retracing his
original route. Shortly after noon snow began to fall. Large
flakes, dropping so fast and thick visibility was quickly reduced
to fifty feet. Still, he pushed the machine as fast as he dared,
without taking undue risk; trying to evade the law and escape the
image of the woman he had mutilated. He intended to cross the
border before night fall and then make camp. If he could make it
across the high point of the mountain and past where he had camped
his first night out, he would be in forested terrain and his track
would be harder to spot from the air.

By three o’clock he knew he had no chance of
traversing the mountain during the storm. A thermometer taped to
his machine indicated the temperature to be minus twenty one
degrees and he judged the wind to be blowing at thirty miles an
hour with gust as high as fifty. An hour before he had been forced
to reduce his speed to ten miles per hour. Even then he worried he
would drive off the sheer cliffs to his left and plummet several
hundred feet or more to the bottom. The snowfall had become so
intense visibility was practically zero; the overcast sky so gray
it might as well have been dark. Hugging the walls of rock to his
right Clay spotted a snow pack where wind currents had collected
snow in a block fifty feet wide and at least twenty feet high,
tapering out to where he viewed it. The machine was shut down at
the base of the snow pack and he removed a shovel from his gear; an
aluminum scoop shovel, smaller than a grain shovel used on a farm,
but right for the job at hand. Removing his coat he placed it on
the snow mobile and then put the cover over the machine and the
rest of his gear. The howling wind fought him fiercely, but
gradually he secured the ties. Setting a steady pace he began to
dig the snow away, carving a horizontal pathway into the snow bank
until a vertical face at the end of it was six feet high. Then he
cut into the snow wall two feet above the pathway and dug a four
foot entrance upward at a forty five degree angle and six feet
deep. Steps were cut and stomped into the snow so he could advance
further. At the end of the angled space a room began to take shape;
seven feet wide by six feet deep, and five feet high to the top of
the domed ceiling. Before it was completely dark outside he had
stopped using the flashlight and gone to his gear to locate
candles. One candle lit inside the snow cave was enough to provide
light to work by and raise the temperature significantly. On the
far wall a two feet high by three feet deep ledge was left for a
bed. He used his rifle to punch a hole in the ceiling out to the
edge of the snow bank for ventilation. At eight he had carried his
coat and all of his gear into his new quarters and piled what was
not needed in front of the entrance to partially block it. The
temperature with the candle was enough to remove his parka and
still be warm, even after he cooled off from shoveling. This would
be his home until the snow stopped and he could continue. The
temperature was above twenty degrees inside and it was quiet;
deathly quiet. Outside the cave the wind could be heard howling,
sucking the warmth from every living thing it swirled around and
over.

When he stopped digging and sat to catch his
breath he was again confronted by the memory of the lady in the
back seat of the truck. Rummaging through his pack he located the
bottle of bourbon and began to throw shots down. Sleep finally came
but her ghostly image haunted him kept him restless and in pain. At
four in the morning he awoke to screaming and sat upright to
confront himself, screaming in mortal fear of the face with bloody
eye sockets; it had chased and caught him throughout the night.
Curling up in a fetal position and drawing his parka up to his
neck, he sobbed and tried to justify his cruel treatment of the
innocent woman.

Late Tuesday afternoon Clay was squatted in
the cave entrance surveying the snow field in front of him when he
heard the drone of an approaching single engine plane. The pilot of
the small plane was east of the cliff face and flying low. After
grabbing his binoculars from the cave Clay focused on the plane’s
markings; RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He surmised they
were out after the storm looking for tracks. Surely if they didn’t
see any they wouldn’t return to the same area. But, just to be
safe, he would put off digging out through the three feet of new
snow and wait another day to make his run to the valley below.

Back in his sleeping bag he had the same
nightmares he had suffered with for the past two nights; the lady
sitting next to Charles De Grand. He couldn’t put her act of
resignation out of his mind. She had to know she was going to die
and simply closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable; but why did
she choose to reopen them at the worst possible moment? She was
condemned to perish because she was in the company of the wrong
man; a man marked for death. She was one of the innocents,
desecrated by a violence engulfing her; violence she neither
engaged in nor understood. And for Clay, once the destruction had
begun, there was no turning back. Occasionally people unexpectedly
crossed his path and they had to be dealt with quickly and with
finality. His reputation was built on results, and final, permanent
closure was all his clients were interested in. No tears were shed
for her, unlike the two previous nights, but sleep again came
slowly and fitfully as his mind evaded the touch of the crimson
streaked face.