The Little Death (42 page)

Pop.

He froze. Was that a gunshot?

He wasn’t sure. It had been a good ten years since he’d heard a gun fired outdoors. Qualifying in Palm Beach was done at the indoor range, where the padded ear protectors and concrete walls made the noise sound like bullets ricocheting inside an oil drum.

God. He was a cop. How could he not know something like this?

He took a quick look behind him and then broke into a trot toward the cattle pen. He was far closer to it than he was to Aubry’s, and he wasn’t wasting time going back. It might only be one of Aubry’s men taking pot shots at something, but if it wasn’t, then somebody was in trouble.

The moon disappeared again as he drew close to the pen. He stopped at the first fence to catch his breath and raised his flashlight. The beam moved with a nervous shiver over the gray wood. Nothing. He scaled the fence and wound his way through the maze, stopping as he tried to figure out where the central pen was.

“Hello?” he called.

Silence, then a low moan. Or was it just the groan of an old wooden gate?

Swann kept moving, his eyes alert for the slightest movement, ears tuned to the smallest sound. He saw and heard nothing, but still his veins were starting to burn with a trickle of adrenaline.

Another fence. He stuck a shoe on the lower rail and climbed over, dropping quietly to the ground on the other side. He was in another small pen. He stood, holding his breath and listening again for the moaning sound. He heard nothing but the dripping of water.

“Hello?”

Then the sound came, guttural and pained.

Swann hurried to the far fence and stepped up onto the rail to give himself the best view. The beam of his flashlight bounced wildly, and he had to force himself to steady it.

It was the main pen. There, near the rear…

A man on his back, his face turned away from
Swann’s light. It had to be Byrne Kavanagh. And if he was moaning, then he was still alive.

Swann vaulted the fence and started across the pen, then stopped. His first instinct had been to run to Kavanagh, but that same adrenaline that moved him forward now stopped him cold.

Where was Kavanagh’s attacker?

Swann leveled the flashlight and made two slow sweeps, peering hard into the darkness beyond the reach of the beam.

Another moan.

Swann swung the light back to Kavanagh. The collar of his white shirt was soaked in red, the skin above it slashed and oozing blood.

Swann hurried to him and dropped to his knees. For a few seconds, all he could do was stare at the gaping wound in Kavanagh’s neck.

Don’t freeze. Not now. Stop the bleeding.

He set the rifle down and ripped open his raincoat to get to the handkerchief in his pants pocket. It was small and thin, but he had nothing else. How was he going to get Kavanagh back to the house? Why hadn’t he brought a radio?

A sudden blur in the corner of his eye. A flash of silver coming down in an arc.

He threw up his arm and ducked away. The machete blade sliced through the sleeve of the raincoat and into the meat of his shoulder. The pain seared through his muscle as he tumbled backward.

Jesus! Get the gun! Get the damn gun!

But he couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t even see it. All he could make out were dark legs and boots and the
blur of movement as the blade slashed the air above him.

He rolled and crawled and finally struggled to his feet, falling twice in the mud before he reached the fence.

The fence. He’d have to jump it.

A
crack-zing
of the rifle. The scorching rip of a bullet through his thigh. It crippled him like a crowbar to the back of the knees. He stumbled forward, too weak to grab the rail. He collapsed, his back against the fence, his lungs burning.

She came into focus slowly. The pale khaki jacket. The dark pants. The flaming red hair.

Oh, God…

“Damn, damn,” she hissed. “Goddamn it.”

Sam Norris stood a few feet away, the rifle propped clumsily against her hip as she tried to work the bolt action to load a second cartridge. He could tell by the rattle of metal against metal that the rifle was jammed.

Time. That gave him time, but how far could he get?

She heaved the rifle across the pen and drew the machete from the sheath on her belt. She started toward him.

Dark eyes. White face. Nothing there but rage.

Chapter Thirty-nine
 

He heard the crack over the grind of the Jeep’s engine.

“Rifle,” Louis said.

“Near the pen,” Aubry said.

Aubry gunned the engine, bypassing the road and cutting diagonally across the open land toward the pen. Louis leaned forward, trying to see ahead of them, but the headlights were dirty and old.

First, he saw the wood of the fence, and beyond that the faint outline of the slanted roof of the lean-to. Then Aubry made a small turn, and the lights swept left, washing over a woman standing in the pen. She spun toward them, frozen in the white glow.

Khaki jacket. Dark pants. Flaming red hair. A machete in her hand.

She bolted, running away from them toward the darkness beyond the pens.

“Burke, find Andrew!” Louis shouted.

He pushed from the Jeep and ran toward the pen. The gates were too far away; he had no choice but to jump the fences. He misjudged the first, toppling over it into the mud and scrambling back to his feet. He sailed over the second without losing a step.

Away from the headlights, everything was fuzzy and black, but he pushed forward, catching a glimpse of a body lying in the dirt. A small part of his brain registered it as not Swann but Kavanagh. But even that thought vanished when he caught sight of a red tail of hair slipping through an open gate—only one of many in the maze, he knew. She’d have to zigzag through them. He could vault over the last fence and catch her in the open field beyond.

But the last rail was rotted, splintering under his weight and sending him again into the mud. He struggled to his feet, trying to catch his breath as his eyes
scoured the darkness. The moon gave him a fleeting flash of her jacket far ahead.

He threw off the bulky slicker and sprinted forward, praying that the ground stayed level and the moon stayed bright. His mind was racing with questions. Was Swann dead? Did Sam have his rifle? Was she the only killer? Was she the only one out here? And where was she running to?

Suddenly, she was gone again, swallowed up by the looming black shadows. He slowed, then stopped and stared.

Trees. Lots of them.

He glanced over his shoulder, then back to the woods, every second he stood here ticking off in his head as wasted time.

Go. Go after her
.

He leveled his Glock and walked into the woods, up a sloped and rocky path. The moonlight vanished. The air smelled thick, green, and dirty. The trees felt close, tightening around him like the press of an anxious crowd.

Take a breath.

He made his way up the path, turning from left to right and back again. The sounds were soft, floating on the air like broken leaves. It was hard to tell which direction they were coming from. The rustle of a branch. Was it behind him or ahead? The
plink
of raindrops. Close or far away?

Crack!

Something snapped across his back, ripping his shirt and stinging his skin. He ducked and spun, not sure where to point his gun, not sure what the hell had hit him.

Crack!

His sleeve was slashed, his skin on fire.

Crack!

The whip ripped across his knuckles, tearing the gun from his hand. He heard it hit the blanket of leaves, but he couldn’t see it.

Crack! Crack!

His hands were soaked in blood.

Crack!

“Stop it!” he screamed.

Crack. Crack. Crack.
The whip swirled through the darkness like a lasso, snapping thin branches and splattering up dirt like the kick of a bullet. There was nowhere to go, nothing to hide behind, and he couldn’t run. He couldn’t leave his gun for her to find.

Crack!

A snap across his legs.

Crack!

The tail of the whip sliced into his face like a hot wire. Stunned, he cried out and dropped to his knees, teeth gritted, tears blurring his eyes.
The gun… find the gun.

He threw a hand into the leaves.

Crack!

His fingers touched steel, and he came up in a spin, searching for that sliver of khaki in the tall, dizzying shadows of black and brown. For a second, it was still, the only sound the rush of his own breath.

Then the milky oval of her face took shape. A white mask with scorched black eyes.

His mind tripped with three thoughts.

Shoot to kill.

Shoot to wound.

Shoot to kill.

He aimed for her heart and fired.

Chapter Forty
 

The dawn sky was lilac and dove-gray. A fog hovered low to the ground, making the live oaks look like they were floating in the air.

The drone of the generator suddenly quit, and for a moment it was silent. Then came the morning song of the birds.

Louis looked over at the deputies who were starting to dismantle the floodlights. Hours ago, the cattle pen had been lit up like a garish arena. Now it had returned to its blur of bleached wood and weeds.

From his position sitting in the passenger seat of the open police cruiser, Louis watched the processing of the scene. They would go on all day, this careful army of deputies, detectives, and technicians, even though the bodies had been taken away hours ago.

Louis had watched as the two black body bags were loaded into the county van. He had been the one to identify them. Tink Lyons, found out by the Bronco. And Samantha Norris, lying under the giant oak in Devil’s Garden.

Byrne Kavanagh had been taken out in an ambulance, his throat slashed, half his blood gone from his body, but still alive.

And Swann…

Louis hadn’t even seen him as he raced through the dark after Sam. It was only as he walked back, holding his ripped cheek, that he saw Aubry cradling Swann in the high weeds. Swann’s shoulder had been slashed, and he had a bullet in his thigh. But by the time the sheriff’s deputies arrived, Swann was already trying to talk his way out of going to the hospital.

“Coffee?”

Louis turned. A tall man in slacks, dress shirt, and jacket was standing there holding a Styrofoam cup. There was a gold badge hanging from his breast pocket. His name tag above it read
MAJOR GENE CRYER
.

“Thanks, Major,” Louis said, taking the coffee.

Cryer looked out over the pen and the trees. “Lot of land,” he said.

“Four thousand acres,” Louis said.

Louis looked over to where Burke Aubry stood with three deputies. He had a map of the ranch open on the hood of the cruiser and was helping direct the search.

They had questioned Swann, Aubry, and Louis. Cryer himself had grilled Louis for more than an hour.

They had taken the rifle and Louis’s Glock; it was routine in any investigation. But after Louis had told them what had happened and that he hadn’t shot Tink Lyons, they had begun a search for a second gun. They were also looking for other victims. No one, not even Louis, could be sure there weren’t more.

“I’ve had some time to go over everything,” Cryer said. “And right now, I am inclined to believe you’re telling the truth.”

“What about Carolyn Osborn?” Louis asked.

“We’ll check her out.” He paused. “She’s a senator, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What makes you think she had anything to do with this?”

Louis was quiet for a moment. “I just know.”

“Well, senators are printed for security clearance. So, if she was in the Bronco, we’ll find out.”

The crunch of gravel drew Louis’s eye to the road. A tan sedan pulled between the cruisers and stopped. A bulky man got out and looked around.

“Christ,” Louis muttered.

Barberry spotted him and came toward the cruiser, his badge on its chain bouncing on his belly.

“Hey, Major,” Barberry said. He didn’t even give Louis a glance.