The Naked Edge (49 page)

Cavanaugh glimpsed a shadow in the fog.

“But of course, that'll be too late. I'll be far away by then.”

Taking advantage of Carl's distraction, Cavanaugh charged.

From experience, he knew that the surprising rush would provoke Carl's startle reflex, gaining the second he needed to strike a lethal blow, but as he raced toward the shadow, plunging his knife into flesh, feeling blood on his hand, he realized with sickening dismay that what he stabbed was the dog.

Carl held the corpse in front of him. Before Cavanaugh could pull the blade free, Carl twisted the carcass sideways, wrenching the knife from Cavanaugh's hand. Carl shoved the dead animal at him, knocking him backward, the dog's weight thrusting him to the ground.

The impact jolted Cavanaugh's breath from his lungs. Wheezing, he rolled. Simultaneously, he felt a sharp impact in his right side as a crack and a flash came from Carl's direction.
Jesus, he has a gun! He shot me!

Continuing to roll, his lungs wheezing, Cavanaugh realized that the bullet had passed through the dog before it struck him. The bullet had penetrated him but not deeply enough to hit a vital organ. Lunging to his feet, he ran. But now his urgent footfalls were forceful enough to make sounds on the wet grass. He heard Carl chasing him. The collision had been so disorienting that he lost his bearings in the fog. Possibly, he raced toward West Benton Street, possibly toward the creek, possibly toward—

A branch struck his face. The trees! He'd run back to them! As Carl's footsteps pounded closer, Cavanaugh scurried into the bushes. A sudden glow struggled to pierce the fog—from a flashlight Carl held. Frantic, Cavanaugh shifted deeper into the trees.

“I did play fair sort of,” Carl said. “The gun's part of a knife. You remember those combination models Lance showed us?” He referred to an antique style in which a barrel formed part of the back of a blade. The hammer was the top of the guard, the trigger the bottom of the guard. “Of course, you can't get much accuracy and power. You got hit with a thirty-two. I expect
that
won't kill you.”

Feeling blood swell from his side, Cavanaugh backed from the searching flashlight and bumped against something that stung his leg. Peering down, he saw a stake on the end of a branch, one of the booby traps he'd sprung.

The weak light pivoted through the darkness and the fog, moving in his direction. He moved farther backward, forcing the branch to bend behind him.

The flashlight beam settled on him.

“You don't look like you're hit bad at all.” Carl shifted toward him through the bushes. “Not to worry about taking another bullet. It's a single shot. I don't have another round for it. Always had a fondness for this thing. Two weapons in one. Saves room in my bug-out bag.”

Cavanaugh kept backing away. He bumped against a tree trunk.

Holding the oddly shaped knife, a barrel along the back of the blade, Carl stalked toward him. “Hate to do this. A knife against bare hands. But as you're dying, I want you to bear in mind, I'll be going for your wife next.”

Carl lunged.

Cavanaugh jumped free of the branch.

It whipped forward.

Carl screamed as the stake plunged into his thigh.

35

Jamie and Rutherford drove past the park. Two exits along West Benton Street, they turned right and then right again, finding themselves on the street where Cavanaugh had lived. The fog kept the van's headlights from reaching the park. As they got out, a dim streetlight allowed Jamie to realize that Rutherford had parked in front of what had once been Cavanaugh's house.

They secured their jackets and started down toward the invisible park, only to pause when they heard a distant
crack
.

They waited. The sound wasn't repeated.

“What was that?” Jamie whispered.

“It sounded like a—”

“Shot?” Jamie's face tingled, only partly from the chill of the fog.

“Low caliber, I think.”

They waited a moment longer. Then Rutherford crouched, as if tying a shoe. He straightened and handed her something.

“A gun?”

“My emergency pistol. I keep it in an ankle holster.”

“You're trusting me with this?”

Rather than discuss it, Rutherford continued through the fog. As Jamie caught up to him, she heard what might have been muted voices in the park, too low and indistinct to be identified. They walked faster, then started to run when they heard a scream.

36

“You cocksucker!” Wailing, dropping his flashlight, Carl stumbled backward, the stake in his thigh tearing flesh as it pulled free.

Cavanaugh rushed him, then dodged away as the flashlight on the ground glinted off the knife Carl swung at him.

Cavanaugh grabbed a thick limb from the ground, the size of a baseball bat. He braced himself to strike as Carl hobbled toward him, slashing his knife up and down and from side to side in a buzz-saw blur.

Cavanaugh swung the club. Carl dodged. Cavanaugh swung again, wincing from the wound in his side. Carl leapt back. Breathing heavily, facing one another, they turned in a circle, looking for an opening, ready to strike, the flashlight casting shadows across them.

At once, Cavanaugh realized that Carl had maneuvered so that his left hand now pulled back the branch with the stake. Lurching away as Carl released it, Cavanaugh struck a fallen bough and dropped backward, the stake zipping past him. Shouting, Carl charged, and all Cavanaugh could do was roll away from the light. Keeping his hand on the club but in no position to use it, he surged to his feet and raced from the trees.

The picnic table
, he thought. Its dark shape was suddenly before him. He almost banged into it but managed to slow in time to drop to his knees and scurry under it, carefully avoiding where he'd secured the stake. He groaned as Carl's blade sliced across his back. But he forced himself to keep crawling, sensing Carl leaning fiercely under the table to stab him.

Something made a grotesque, liquid, popping sound. Carl's scream communicated sanity-threatening pain. Cavanaugh tightened his grip on the club. Rising beyond the table, he swung over it, aiming toward Carl, who twisted in a frenzy, his left hand clutching his left eye.

The club whistled past Carl, who now did an amazing thing, the one mistake an experienced knife fighter never makes. Don't throw your knife at your enemy. You might miss, and then you're without your weapon. But in this case, it wasn't a mistake. At so close a range that the sounds Cavanaugh made guided Carl's aim, relying on surprise, Carl threw the knife. Hurled it with all his might. Cavanaugh wailed from the pain of the knife striking his ribs, chipping bone. The only thing that saved him was that the blade was upright and didn't slip between ribs to puncture his ribs or his heart.

Nonetheless, he felt dizzy, in shock from blood loss. Gasping, he wavered. He fumbled, trying to find where the knife dropped, but Carl was suddenly on him, knocking him to the sand, his fingers around his throat, squeezing.

Blood dripped from Carl's missing eye onto Cavanaugh's face.

“Want to make a bet, Aaron?”

Wheezing, Cavanaugh grabbed a handful of dirt from under the table and threw it at Carl's bleeding eye socket.

Carl hissed as if the dirt were hot coals. But his hands remained firm on Cavanaugh's throat.

Flesh separating on his sliced back, Cavanaugh reached painfully up to shove a thumb into Carl's empty eye socket. He actually got it in, feeling blood stream down his thumb. But before he could probe, his hand sank, his mind swirling, Carl squeezing harder.

Carl's head jerked up, his remaining eye scanning the fog. Distant footsteps ran across the invisible soccer field.

“You still can't do this without help, huh?” He leaned down, so close that he breathed against Cavanaugh's left ear. “I bet your friends never find
either
of us.”

As Cavanaugh's mind swirled faster, Carl's last words echoed and faded.

37

Running toward the park, Jamie and Rutherford heard a shout. Reaching the grass, they heard a scream. Charging across a fog-shrouded field, they heard another. Instinctively, they knew when they were close enough that they needed to slow their frantic pace or risk giving away their position in the dark and being shot.

Pistols aimed, they shifted carefully toward the last sound they'd heard.

38

Cavanaugh woke in darkness. Not the darkness of the night and the fog in which there'd been gradations of blackness and shadow. This was absolute darkness, made worse by foul air and the press of Carl's body against him. His neck felt swollen, the inside of his throat burning from having been choked. His sliced back felt on fire, blood streaming from it, making his mind swirl again. His wounded side throbbed. He almost vomited. It took him several moments before he overcame panic sufficiently to realize that he and Carl lay on their left sides, Carl's chest against his back. He felt Carl's labored breathing against his neck.

“Awake, Aaron?” Carl whispered.

Cavanaugh felt breath against his ear. He didn't respond.

“Sure, you are,” Carl said. “I feel your heart beating faster.”

Cavanaugh didn't see a point in pretending any longer. “Where are we?” The words stung his irritated throat.

“Home, sweet home. Check out the expert workmanship. Feel the fine wood.”

Cavanaugh's arms were pinned along his side. The narrow space, which increasingly reminded him of a coffin, made it impossible for him to touch what he now identified as wood against his cheek (a floor) and against his forehead (a wall).

Carl's right arm was free. In the absolute darkness, he reached over Cavanaugh and tapped the wood, causing a muffled echo. “The best plywood available on the junk heap of a construction site. A sheet of plastic's above the roof so water can't seep in. Comfy, huh? Just the thing for spending a couple of days and nights. Of course, I didn't plan for company. When I was the only occupant, I had room to drink from a water bottle and eat beef jerky. Not too much, of course, because I didn't want to foul my dream house with more piss and crap than was necessary.”

Cavanaugh almost threw up.

“So relax. We'll find out if I win my bet. But I'm sorry to say, this is going to be a one-sided conversation from now on. You might try to shout and attract your friends. There's an air hole above my head. I can't take the chance they'd hear you. Open your mouth.”

Cavanaugh didn't. In the darkness, he felt something sting his neck. The point of a blade.

“I picked up my knife before I carried you here. Open your mouth, or else I'll slice the artery in your neck.”

Cavanaugh obeyed. He felt a gritty, musty rag being shoved into his mouth.

“I hope you don't have asthma,” Carl whispered. “I wouldn't want you to suffocate. So here we are, snug as two bugs in a rug. How do you suppose we should pass the time?”

Behind him, Carl's voice was so soft that Cavanaugh could barely hear it. His hushed breath drifted past Cavanaugh's ear.

“Why don't I give you a little lesson? You know the old saying, ‘You can't pick your family, but you
can
pick your friends.’ Isn't that the truth? If only Lance had been my father. Wouldn't
that
have been great? Me and the old man making knives. As for friends, well, most people throw that word around. What they really mean is ‘acquaintances’. They mean people they spend time with because they happen to live next to each other or work together or play sports with each other or belong to the same club or whatever. People who don't make trouble. People who don't ask for much, who don't inconvenience them.

“But a true friend, Aaron. That's rare and special. A friend is somebody who accepts your faults, who's there for you always, even when you're not your best, somebody who'll do anything for you, somebody you can count on totally, just as a friend can count on
you
. It's the most powerful relationship there is. Most marriages don't come close, because in a lot of marriages the partners aren't really friends.

“I chose
you
as my friend, Aaron. My
only
friend. I never felt closer to anyone. There isn't anything I wouldn't have done for you. Imagine how I felt when I realized that you weren't
my
friend, that you were just another self-centered asshole who said
adios
when the going got rough.”

In the pitch-blackness, the gag absorbed moisture in Cavanaugh's mouth. It made his throat dry. It made the fetid air he breathed tickle his bronchial passages. He feared he would cough. He feared he would choke.

“When you think about it, we've never been closer than we are right now,” Carl said. “It's not a bad way to die. Pressed against the person we love.”

Fighting not to panic, Cavanaugh held his breath in the hopes of stifling his impulse to gag. He failed. His stomach heaved. Bile soared up his throat.

39

Where?
Jamie mentally yelled, not daring to speak and make herself a target. Where
are
they?

Rutherford moved next to her, aiming to the right while she aimed to the left. They continued slowly, warily, into the fog. As much as she could estimate in the darkness, the screams had come from straight ahead. With her attention focused there, the ground beneath her suddenly collapsed. She fell, sliding downward, tumbling into water. Rutherford splashed next to her, sprawling, the creek flowing over them.

They scrambled upright, but any element of surprise was now lost, and Jamie's stomach seemed filled with sharp heavy stones as she peered over the top of the opposite bank. More darkness and fog awaited them. She aimed to the left, listening intensely for any indication of where Cavanaugh might be. But what caught her attention wasn't a sound.

It was a glow so faint that it might have been marsh light. Climbing from the creek, aiming, she crept toward the pale illumination, Rutherford moving next to her.

They reached trees. The glow was stronger. On the ground. Among bushes. A flashlight. When Jamie picked it up, she did what Cavanaugh had taught her to do, keeping it away from her center of mass so that a bullet aimed toward the light wouldn't hit her chest.