Backwoods (6 page)

“Shut up.” Moore made a show of conspicuously
thumbing off the safety on the pistol. “Who are you? How did you
find me here?”

At a loss, Andrew shook his head. “I told
you. I’m a forester. My name’s—”

“I know what you said.” Spittle sprayed in
fine droplets from his lips as Moore’s voice rose a ragged,
scraping notch. “Now I want the truth.”

In three swift strides, he collapsed the
space between them. Andrew hunched his shoulders, closing his eyes
as Moore shoved the gleaming barrel of his pistol against his
temple.

“Please don’t,” Andrew whispered, frightened
now; damn near the closest he’d been in his adult life to
unadulterated terror.
Because this guy wants to kill me. This
isn’t a game. He’s come here to shoot me.

“How did you find me?” Moore demanded. “How
did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t,” Andrew said, wincing as the
muzzle dug more fiercely into his head. “I swear to God, I don’t
know what you’re talking about. Please, I swear.”

The gun remained pressed against his skin for
another long moment, then at last, Moore drew it away. Uttering a
shuddering sigh, Andrew remained rooted in spot, eyes closed.

“Haven’t you people done enough?” Moore
asked. Some of that furious venom had been stripped from his voice,
leaving a hoarse, nearly pained tone. Andrew opened his eyes
hesitantly, and inexplicably found the older man staring at him
with a pleading sort of expression, the pistol now dangling in his
hand at his side.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Andrew said, and Moore’s face hardened again, that cleft between
his brows deepening. Again, the pistol raised and Andrew cowered as
Moore crammed the muzzle into his brow once more, forcing him to
his knees.

“Please,” Andrew gasped. “Please, don’t.”

He gritted his teeth, his body tense as he
waited for the horrible, thunderous report of gunfire, for what he
assumed would be searing pain as the bullet punched through his
skull. Moore pulled the gun away again, but Andrew remained rigid,
frozen in place, paralyzed with fear.

“No,” Moore said, his voice low and guttural,
nearly a growl. Andrew heard the soft sound of his footsteps and
risked opening his eyes in time to see Moore walking out the door
to his room. “That’s your way. Not mine.”

****

What the hell have I gotten myself
into?
Andrew thought again as he walked downstairs, because
things were sliding progressively from bad to worse to plain old
fucked up at entirely too fast a pace for his liking.

He hadn’t decided if he should tell Major
Prendick about his encounter with Dr. Moore and his pistol. Given
the Major’s reception—which had likewise involved a pistol aimed at
his head—Andrew suspected Prendick might not have been too opposed
to the idea of Moore popping a cap in his ass. Hell, he might have
even instigated the entire confrontation.

At the foot of the stairs, Andrew was struck
by a strong smell emanating from the dining hall. Not entirely
unpleasant, it wasn’t exactly appetizing, either, and reminded him
of the way the corridors in elementary school had smelled in his
youth close to lunchtime: the intermingling odors of canned corn
and fish sticks.

Ahead of him, he could see a large gathering
of uniformed soldiers at the doorway of the dining hall, lined up
and ready to fill their trays.

“You don’t want to do that,” he heard Suzette
say as he headed in that direction. He glanced to his left, found
her crossing the lobby toward him.

“I was just on my way to find you,” she said
with a smile. “Invite you to join me for dinner.”

He laughed without much humor, given that the
imprint of Dr. Moore’s gun barrel was now outlined in a dim bruise
against his temple. “You must really want to see me killed.”

She looked quizzical, the good cheer
faltering in her smile, and he told her about what had
happened.

“Oh, my God,” she said, seeming appropriately
aghast. “I can’t believe he did that. He wouldn’t have shot you.
Trust me. He’s all bluff and bluster. He wouldn’t have the
balls.”

Despite this reassurance, Andrew didn’t find
himself so easily convinced.

“Come on.” Suzette took him by the hand. “Eat
with me down the hall, in the rec room. Dr. Moore likes to have
dinner alone with Alice in the apartment. It’s their special time
together. Or some such bullshit.” She cut her eyes toward the mess
hall line, then back to him as she stepped closer. Near enough so
that when she raised onto her tiptoes, stage-whispering into his
ear, her breath tickled his skin, she said, “Besides the grunts all
take turns in the kitchen fixing food. And none of them can cook
worth a damn.”

For the first time since he’d opened his door
to find Dr. Moore on the other side, Andrew relaxed enough to
smile. “But you can?”

Her smile widened, coy and enigmatic. “Dr.
Moore didn’t hire me for my medical background,” she replied. Still
holding him by the hand, she gave his arm a light tug. “Come on.
I’ll prove it.”

****

“Someone firebombed his house,” Suzette said.
They had the rec room to themselves. She’d trundled a Styrofoam
cooler down from the upstairs apartment and had everything set up,
waiting for them.

“How’d you know I’d say yes?” Andrew had
asked.

“I didn’t,” she’d replied. “But either way,
I’m not eating that shit.”

“Dr. Moore, I mean,” she continued as she
pulled a foil-wrapped package out of the cooler. If the smell from
the dining hall could have best been described as banal, then what
wafted from that cooler was something akin to heaven. “It happened
a couple of months ago. That’s why Alice had to come stay here, why
he had to hire me. Her previous caregiver died trying to get out.
Of the house, I mean. Not the job.” She snickered. “At least, I
don’t think that’s the case.”

“Do they know who did it?” Andrew asked.

Suzette shook her head. “Dr. Moore told me
the local police, the FBI, the Massachusetts Fire Marshall’s
office, they’re all investigating. He had a nice house in Weston, a
ritzy suburb of Boston, but he wasn’t there at the time. There was
no one home but Alice and the nurse, what’s-her-name. They think it
might have been a group of animal rights zealots. PACA, I think
they’re called. People Against Cruelty to Animals.”

She peeled back the foil to allow a puff of
steam to trail out. “I hope you like fried chicken. It’s still hot.
Probably crispy, too, for the most part.” With a wink and a smile,
she added, “It’s my grandmother’s recipe, passed along from
generation to generation of women in my family since the Great
Depression.”

“Top secret?” he asked. “You’d have to kill
me if I learned it?”

This time, she laughed. “Now you’re catching
on.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Not good,
Andrew thought some time
later, flat on his back, naked except for sheets that lay swathed
around his hips.

After the meal, Suzette had pulled a fifth of
tequila out of the cooler. “How about a shot?”

“How about,” he’d agreed, figuring what the
hell. In the past forty-eight hours, he’d nearly died in a car
wreck, been arrested on federal felony trespass charges and been
shot in the face. Twice.
I’ve earned a drink, if nothing
else.

Two hours later, Suzette slept on her stomach
beside him, her face turned away, her arms and legs spread-eagle,
her blonde hair spread about her head in a messy tumble.

Not good,
he thought again.

They’d downed tequila until they’d both been
slurring and shit-faced. When she’d stood, wobbling off balance and
stumbling, he’d leaped to his feet, catching her clumsily against
his chest. “I think I’d better go to bed,” she’d told him with a
laugh. Then, in a lower, husky voice, she’d added slyly, “Want to
tag along?”

Moore had promised to shoot him if he caught
him in the apartment. In equally no-uncertain-terms, Prendick had
promised to have him arrested and prosecuted for similar trespass.
But as Suzette’s hand trailed to the waistband of his jeans, then
further south from there, Andrew had found all at once, he hadn’t
given a shit.

“Yeah,” he’d told her. “I think I will.”

Not good,
he thought again, pinching
the bridge of his nose, behind which a dull but steady throbbing
had begun to stoke. Slowly, he sat up, wincing as the mattress
beneath him creaked. He glanced at Suzette as she murmured in her
sleep, but she didn’t stir.
Not good. Not good at all.

Not the sex. That part had been good indeed.
Very, very good. But the sound that drawn his tequila-sedated mind
out of the murky depths of unconsciousness had been the sound of
the front doors to the apartment opening, of footsteps fading as
they crossed the foyer.

Dr. Moore had returned.

And that’s very, very bad,
Andrew
thought. He leaned over, hands outstretched, groping in the dark
until he found his jeans. Piece by piece, he recovered his
discarded clothes, which had been shrugged, kicked and tossed in
every which direction.

“What about Alice?” he’d groaned as he and
Suzette had stumbled together into her bedroom and she’d kicked the
door closed behind them. Already, they’d been tangled, kissing and
clutching at each other, yanking at shirts, fumbling with
pants.

“She’s sleeping,” she’d replied. “The other
side of the apartment, next to her father’s room. They have supper
together, then he puts her to bed, goes back to the lab until at
least midnight.”

Maybe I can still sneak out of here
without getting busted,
Andrew thought. Redressing clumsily,
wobbling and hopping from one foot to the other as he pulled on his
boxers and jeans, he kept a wary eye on the bedroom door, the thin
sliver of faint light he could see beneath its bottom edge.
Here’s hoping, anyway, since the last time I checked, I wasn’t
born bullet-proof.

He crept toward the door then hesitated,
returning to the bedside. “Suzette?” he whispered, leaning over,
giving her shoulder a slight shake.

She grumbled something inarticulate and
turned her head away from him, hidden beneath the nest of her
hair.

“Suzette?” he tried again, shaking a bit
more. She answered with a snore.

“Shit,” he muttered, because he figured
that’s what she’d think he was when she woke up and found him gone.
A big, steaming pile of shit.

On her bedside table, next to the empty
bottle of tequila and an opened pack of Marlboro lights, he saw a
notepad and pen. He jotted her a quick note:
Thanks for
supper.
Then, as an afterthought, because this still made him
sound like a callous jackass, he added,
And the rest.

He started to sign his name, then shook his
head. She’d know it was from him. Who the hell else would it be?
How many other guys did she invite for dinner and a fuck
tonight?

Biting back his breath as he eased the
bedroom door open, he slipped out into the hallway. He stole toward
the living room, watching as the front doors came into view around
the corner of the wall.

Almost there,
he thought, passing the
kitchen, hugging the wall, his gaze darting about.
Just a few
more steps.

“It’s locked.”

Alice Moore’s voice, coming from the
shadow-draped living room, was loud enough to startle him.

Andrew whirled, eyes wide. “Jesus!”

In the gloom, he could see her, a small
silhouette sitting on the floor by the coffee table. He didn’t need
light to know what she was doing. The soft
scritch-scritch-scritch
of her pencil tip against her
notebook page was a dead giveaway.

“Alice,” he whispered, managing a shaky
laugh. His heart was jackhammering beneath his sternum. “Hey, hi. I
didn’t see you there. I was just…uh, I…”

“I know what you were doing.”

He blinked. “You do?”

“Yes. You and Suzette were having sex.”

“What?” This came out as little more than a
gulp.

“Sex,” she said again. “I’m not stupid, you
know.”

“No, of course not,” he fumbled. “I just…I
didn’t think that.”

“I have an IQ of one seventy-five.”

Andrew blinked again, impressed enough to
momentarily forget his mortification. “One seventy-five? That’s
pretty good.”

“It’s considered high genius,” she said.

“
Really
good,” he amended.

“Benjamin Franklin is estimated to have only
had an IQ of one sixty. Charles Darwin, only one sixty-five.”

Only?
he thought.

The
scritch-scritch-scritch
resumed in
earnest as she worked on her mathematics equation and Andrew forced
himself to move, to hurry for the door.

“I told you. It’s locked,” Alice said.

Andrew froze. “What?”

“The door. You need the key code to get
out.”

By this point, Andrew was at the threshold.
Turning, he grabbed the knobs and turned them futilely. “Shit,” he
whispered, his panic level rising.

Suzette would know the code. He turned again,
meaning to retrace his steps, return to her room.

“She can’t help you.”

Frozen again, Andrew sought out Alice’s form
among the overlapping shadows. “Suzette knows the code, doesn’t
she? I mean, she goes in and out of here all the time.”

Alice stood, setting her pencil aside. “She’s
been drinking. She’ll be out until the morning. I said she
can’t
help you, not that she
couldn’t.”
Padding
around the side of the sofa, she drew near enough for the dim light
to cut across her face. “You don’t listen very well, do you?”

Andrew frowned. “I listen just fine.”

“No, you
hear
just fine,” she said,
her expression impassive, her eyes fixed on him. “You don’t
listen
for shit.”