Unauthorized Access (38 page)

“Watch him,” Rob said, “and use this if you have to. I’m going to look for Lesley.”

Dysart looked at the gun as if it might bite him.

“But what about Tim?” he said. “Won’t you need this?”

“You need it more. Do you have your cell phone with you?”

Dysart nodded.

“Call 911,” Rob said. “Tell them we need the police.”

Rob didn’t wait for an answer. He hurried out the door and across the clearing as quickly as he could toward the spot where he had left his Pathfinder. When he reached it, he pulled up short in dismay.

The hood of his car was open. A second car sat nearby, which Rob assumed was Landry’s. Tim’s Camaro was parked behind that.

Rob could see under the hood in the bright moonlight. A quick look was all he needed. The spark plug wires had been ripped out of his car. They didn’t appear to be lying on the ground nearby. The Pathfinder wasn’t going anywhere.

With his heart pounding, Rob pulled open the passenger door.
Please, oh please.
He needn’t have worried. Kirsten’s gun was still fully loaded and in the glove box where he had left it. He clicked the car door closed and moved back to the edge of the clearing where he crouched down, unsure how he should proceed.

His first instinct was to head off into the woods and cover as much ground as possible, catch up with Lesley quickly so Tim couldn’t hurt her. But the woods were vast. Tim and Lesley had a considerable head start and Rob wasn’t able to move very quickly. Realistically, his chances of finding them were slim at best. And what if Tim heard him coming? Rob would be no help to Lesley if Tim shot him. Rob could try to move carefully and quietly, but then the amount of territory he could search would be even smaller.

And what if Tim doubled back to the Camaro with Lesley while Rob was out searching?

That did it. Rob found a spot behind a stand of bushes where he could see the cabin and Tim’s car at the same time. His compulsion to rush off and protect Lesley made him jittery, but he quelled his impatience as best he could and settled in to wait.

* * *

Lesley hunched her shoulders with fear as she crashed through bushes and dodged around tree trunks, all the time imagining the imminent shotgun blast that would slice into her back. The cold night air chilled her face and hands, but she barely noticed. Fallen logs loomed out of the darkness, threatening to trip her up, break her kneecap and leave her at Tim’s mercy. The woods taunted her, playing on childhood phobias of darknesses that hide the demonic. Leafless branches ripped at her robe and pajamas, forcing her to flail one way, then another.

“Lesley! Let me explain!”

He sounded so close. She heard nothing, everything, a jumble, a cacophony. She broke left, broke right, lost track, stumbled over a rocky outcropping, scrambled desperately to get up, get moving, expecting his hand to fall on her at any moment, to clamp down. The imagined scream felt real in her throat, as if it had happened. Breaths came harder, with a stitch in her side. Clamping a hand on the spot, she stumbled on. Her chest heaved and burned as the need for oxygen grew. Still she moved, dodging and weaving, always turning, hoping to lose him. The sounds behind her were far away, then close on her heels. Did her mind invent them? Were they echoes of her own flight? She tripped again, rolling onto her back. Up immediately on all fours, crab-like, scrambling backwards in sheer terror. And then she stopped.

Alone.

No Tim behind her.

Absolutely still now. Listening, soaking in the slightest tremor of sound, sorting and searching for signs of human movement. She moved her head slowly around in all directions, trying not to breathe, suddenly certain he must be ahead of her, circling, setting a trap for her to blunder into. She saw nothing, sensed nothing.

Long minutes passed while she absorbed all there was around her. Finally she believed she was alone. Lesley got to her feet, brushing dirt and debris from her knees and bottom. What now? She swiveled her head, trying to get a bearing on direction. Which way was the cabin?

* * *

Dysart went to the door and watched Rob head off into the darkness. He waited until he was sure Rob wasn’t coming back, then closed the door and turned back to Landry.

“What did you expect me to do?” Landry said immediately. “I couldn’t very well kick her out and talk to Rob alone.”

“I specifically told you not to touch her.”

“I had to improvise.”

“You should have done what I said,” Dysart roared.

Landry stared at Dysart with cold eyes.

“Okay, I screwed up. Won’t happen again.”

“You won’t go anywhere near her.”

“No problem.”

Dysart could feel his pulse throbbing in his temple. He returned Landry’s stare and tried to get his breathing under control.

“Did I hear right?” Dysart said. “You got a keyword?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

Landry spelled it for him. “I was trying to figure out if it was real when you barged in.”

“By beating Lesley.”

“Haven’t we been through this?”

“It would have taken my computer guys all of five minutes to confirm whether it was real,” Dysart said. “There was no need to do that.”

“My cell phone is busted so I couldn’t call you. Besides, did you really want Lesley to find out afterward that you magically came up with a keyword at the same time I phoned someone?”

He had a point, but Dysart wasn’t about to admit it. He pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket and called John Kelleher with the good news. Kelleher promised to have it tested immediately.

“You need to let me loose now,” Landry said after Dysart flipped the phone shut.

“Then what happens?”

“I leave, that’s what. You never hear from me again. As long as the rest of my payment shows up, that is.”

Dysart looked at him doubtfully. “But people are going to know I let you go.”

“No they won’t. Tell them I got a hand free, surprised you, managed to grab the gun. Something like that. No one will have any reason to think otherwise.”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Landry said, “here are your options. You can leave me in this chair, in which case the cops eventually arrive and I reduce my sentence by telling them you hired me. We both end up in prison, and a short time later I hire someone to put a shank in your throat. If you shoot me, the cops’ll find out from Donovan that I was helpless when he left us and you get charged with murder. Or you can get me out of this chair before I really lose my temper. Then maybe you live to see your retirement.”

When Dysart still hesitated, Landry continued. “Look, it’s cool. Let me go and I’ll just drive away, I promise.”

A part of Dysart’s mind nagged at him not to believe. A larger part, however, yelled at him to save his own skin. He nodded once, curtly, then checked outside to make sure no one was nearby. Returning quickly to Landry’s side, Dysart began pulling off the tape.

When he was free, Landry stood up and offered his hand to Dysart.

“Thanks for the work,” he said, “and I really am sorry how it turned out with Lesley.”

Dysart saw only sincerity on his face. He shook the hand.

Landry jerked him forward, jammed his left hand into Dysart’s armpit and pivoted to drive him facedown onto the floor. All the air slammed out of Dysart’s lungs. Landry relieved him of the pistol and pointed it at his face.

“The only reason I don’t shoot you right now,” Landry said through clenched teeth, “is that it’s really bad business to kill clients.”

He gave Dysart’s head a vindictive shove into the floor and stood up.

“Plus I know you can never say anything about this, because you’d fall just as hard as I would. Now get up.”

Dysart got shakily to his hands and knees. He didn’t seem able to draw a breath. After a few moments his lungs opened somewhat and he was able to stand.

“Hands up high,” Landry ordered.

He patted the pockets of Dysart’s pants, then extracted the cell phone and a set of keys. Landry spun him around. “Change of plans. I’ve got a score to settle with young Mr. Donovan, so you’re going to get in that fancy Lexus of yours and drive away. And you don’t have to worry. I won’t touch your niece.”

Dysart felt a chill to the core of his body. He knew Landry was lying.

“If for some reason you get a pang of conscience and the cops show up here, then you will die,” Landry said. “I promise you that.”

He placed a hand on the base of Dysart’s neck and walked him rapidly outside to the car.

“And don’t come back,” Landry said. “Otherwise I’ll have to reconsider my policy on shooting clients. In fact …” He shoved Dysart against the side of the car, tossed him the keys and pointed the pistol at him. “… you’ve got five seconds to beat it or I’ll do it right now.”

Dysart clawed his way into the car and over-revved the engine as he started it. Gravel flew when he yanked the gearshift into Reverse, and again when he shifted to Drive. He barely noticed the three cars parked beside the driveway as he tore out onto the dirt road. After a few minutes of barely controlled jouncing, the Lexus slid to a halt and he sat there trying to catch his breath.

No headlights appeared in his rearview mirror.

He slumped in the seat and held his head in one hand. Landry was about to kill Lesley and Dysart knew it was his fault. What an idiot he was.

Could he live with himself if he sat by and did nothing? A spasm of nausea clenched his stomach. He had to choose between prison—or worse—and the torture of knowing he was an accomplice in Lesley’s murder.

He couldn’t stop Landry by himself. Did he have the courage to find a phone, call the police?

Dysart floored the accelerator and the Lexus shot down the dirt road.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
N
INE

TIM EMERGED FROM a stand of evergreens into a group of birch trees that were starting to lose their leaves. He thought the evergreens might be spruce trees, but the only thing he knew for sure was they scratched his arms plenty on the way through.

He had long ago given up on looking for Lesley. The trees were too dense and he couldn’t see far enough. The terrain he had covered while running from the cabin had been slightly downhill, so now he was moving up again, trying to find his way back. She might have returned to the cabin, and even if she hadn’t, Tim had had enough of wandering around in the darkness. If he found her there, he’d take her along and see where things led. If not, he planned to leave anyway before someone called the police.

The shotgun was heavy and cold in his hands as he started moving again, stepping carefully, as quietly he could. So intent was he on looking and listening for signs of Lesley that he didn’t notice all the noise he made. Twigs crunched underfoot with virtually every step he took.

A rotting log covered with lichen lay across his path at thigh height. He put a hand on it for balance and swung one leg over, then promptly lost his balance and fell. One foot landed on the side of a rock and turned over severely, twisting his ankle.

He yelled out in agony as he rolled to the ground. Pain roiled up and down his leg. His face was a sheen of sweat. He lay there for several minutes, praying for the throbbing to settle down.

Eventually Tim was able to regain his feet. He felt woozy at first, but then the feeling subsided somewhat and he was able to walk, albeit gingerly. After picking his way through the trees for what seemed like a long time, he began to doubt he was heading in the right direction. Then he froze when a twig snapped somewhere up ahead.

How far away was it? Couldn’t have been more than five or six yards. Trying not to move his feet, Tim leaned to his right to look around the bush in front of him. A thick clump of pine trees dominated the view. Beyond that he could see moonlight on open ground and the rear of the cabin. He had found his way back, and someone was near the edge of the clearing just ahead of him, probably on the other side of the pine trees.

Did they know he was there? If so, they gave no sign of it. Tim’s heart pounded as he concentrated, listening for any further noises.

What if it wasn’t Lesley? Tim realized with a start he had left the big guy’s pistol in the cabin, so whoever was on the other side of the trees might even be armed.

The hairs on his arms stood up as he heard a low sob. Who else but Lesley would be crying? Then a high-pitched whimper came, clearly from the direction of the pine tree. Tim smiled in the darkness. It was her.

His aches and pains forgotten, Tim gathered himself and prepared to make a surprise entrance. Taking a deep breath, he shouldered the bush aside and hobbled as quickly as he could around the pine trees with one arm out, ready to grab her before she could run.

“I’m home, dear,” he said.

Tim’s night exploded with noise and a flood of fiery pain as Ray Landry shot him in the gut.

* * *

Rob gripped the pistol more tightly with a sweaty hand and crouched down as low as he could. His racing heart seemed to pound in his ears, making it more difficult to listen for a repeat of the slight noise he had just heard coming from behind him, in the woods.