Cold Heart (29 page)

And then, as she watched El's back disappearing up the stairs, she had felt as though even that bit of salvation was going to be denied her. She had screamed to distract him, never believing that it would work. But her screams were all she had.

And he had been diverted.

At least for now.

The problem was that she had no idea what El would do next.

He was staring directly at her, and with his stiff motions and the gleaming knife in his hand, he reminded her of Jack Nicholson in
The Shining.

Should I talk to him?

He'd told her to shut up.

Would I be better off obeying?

Outside she could hear Rich's Supercub circling the clearing.

Even if Rich hadn't spotted Stan's corpse, he'd be wondering why no one was coming outside to greet him. If the explosion had been El's cabin, as she suspected, then that, too, would surely have set Rich's antenna buzzing.

What had happened at El's?

Had Marty somehow blown himself up?

Or had he intentionally destroyed the cabin as a warning to Rich?

She didn't think Marty was in any shape to accomplish that but she prayed it was so. Still, a part of her mind warned her to prepare for the worst.

She watched El, waiting.

“Five o'clock,” he said, shaking his head.

What was he talking about?

“Five o'clock,” he repeated, hurrying past her to the window.

He craned his head, watching the plane circle overhead.

She was hoping that he would do something stupid, like going out front and shooting at Rich. It was damned near impossible to hit a moving plane and do much damage with a revolver and Rich was certain to see El and realize that something had gone terribly wrong in McRay.

But El just waited.

Would Rich land? Or would he call Anchorage and then circle, waiting for help?

That would be the sensible thing to do. The thing a lone officer might do. But Rich wasn't a police officer. He was a mail pilot in a remote bush village. He might very well land at the strip and come in to investigate.

Of course he'd call Anchorage first.

Wouldn't he?

She heard the plane disappearing to her right and over her shoulder. She could see El leaning hard against the front window.

To her dismay, he slipped the knife back in the boot sheath and retrieved the rifle. He turned to stare at her and she gave him what she hoped was a hateful look.

“I'll be back,” he said. Again the voice was deadly calm but she noticed that his hands were still shaking.

Nerves or fear? Or both?

She didn't say anything. She wanted him to leave.

God help her, she wanted him to go out to the airstrip after Rich so that she and Dawn would have a chance to escape. She prayed that Rich would see El and fly away, but beyond that, she just wanted El to take his knife and his gun and get out long enough so that she and Dawn could make a break for it. She knew that if they could get away, the two of them could make it out into the woods. They could hide long enough for the authorities to come, even if it took days, even if Rich hadn't made the call.

If they could just get away from El.

E
L STEPPED OUT ONTO
the front deck of the store. He glanced at Stan, draped motionless over the railing. Why had the plane come before five o'clock?

El knew that the mail would be arriving at five o'clock because that was the way he had planned it.

Howard had surprised him by appearing unexpectedly at Terry's, and Dawn's running into the creek hadn't been planned either. But both of those events had been fortuitous. He just put Howard in Terry's cabin and assumed that Dawn would bleed to death deep in the alders.

Everything had been going according to schedule.

He had destroyed Howard's guns and prepared the bridge for when Stan and Marty either happened along or came to find out what the noise was about. And he was ready at any time to confront Micky if she showed up.

But what he hadn't expected was the bear and Stan and Micky, charging him out of the woods.

His first thought was that Stan and Micky had somehow trained the bear. The animal was attacking
him.
But, even as he pulled the trigger, he had already realized that the big grizzly was in fact attacking Stan. There was a pang of disappointment when he knew that he could have let the bear do his work for him but it occurred to him that the animal
might have attacked Micky too and he just couldn't chance that.

Bears were just too unpredictable.

Bears were crazy.

And that was when things started to go wrong.

He had planned to shoot Stan inside the store. But Stan had surprised him by making a break for it. Still, that was no problem. All he had to do was tie Micky up and drag Stan into the shed with Clive.

But then he discovered that Dawn wasn't dead in the woods. That she was alive, somehow inside the store…

And the explosion.

What the hell was that?

Five o'clock!

The mail plane was supposed to show up at five!

El slapped the pistol grip so hard a ribbon of pain shot up his arm.

He had planned to be finished at the store in time to take a leisurely ride out to the airstrip and wait for the plane to arrive. He had gone over the scene again and again in his head because, of the entire plan, only the killing at the airstrip could have an almost certain chance of going off exactly. And it needed to go off exactly.

Because only Clive and Rita or Rich could talk to people outside of McRay.

Was Rich nervous now?

Had he spotted Stan?

El glanced at Stan's body and his mind twisted and turned in that strange way that it had of molding events to fit El's reality.

No.

Rich had seen nothing.

Rich would have no warning.

He wouldn't have heard shots fired.

Wouldn't have heard the ammo going off out front of the store.

He'd land and when he saw El sitting on Clive's fourwheeler he might wonder why Clive wasn't there to meet him, but he'd be more curious than alarmed.

I'll wait and wave like a good old boy, while Rich unloads the mail.

Then I pull up under the wing and shoot him dead.

Five fucking o'clock.

He strapped Stan's and Micky's rifles on the handlebars along with Rita's shotgun and rested Clive's rifle clumsily on top of them, keeping it in his left hand as he gunned the fourwheeler with his right thumb. The ungainly pile of weapons made the Honda damn near unmanageable but he felt that he needed all the guns now. He had to have them near him.

El smiled.

With any luck at all, Rich's curiosity would kill him.

M
ICKY LISTENED TO THE
four-wheeler rasping away with the closest thing to relief she'd felt all day. She stared up at the landing and prayed that she had been right.

There was no blood on the knife.

El hadn't said anything about finding Dawn.

She'd heard no screams. No struggle.

And he hadn't come back down the stairs muttering to Dawn's corpse.

But of course now Micky was duct-taped to a chair. Trussed like a Christmas turkey. That presented a little problem.

“Dawn!” she screamed. “Dawn! Can you hear me? El's gone.”

Silence.

“Dawn! It's all right! He's gone. Answer me!”

Silence.

Am I wrong?

Is the girl dead after all?

No.

She can't be.

Micky refused to accept that possibility. She knew exactly what was happening.

She'd been Dawn.

The girl was paralyzed. Just as she had been.

And Micky knew that her own paralysis had cost people their lives, no matter what the police said. No matter what the shrinks said. No matter what Uncle Jim or Damon or Aaron said. Hiding had saved her life. But there had been a dreadful cost.

“Dawn!” she screamed again. “You have to listen to me! He's gone but we don't have much time!”

D
AWN COWERED UNDER THE
sleeping bag, still unable to believe that El wasn't tricking her. Wasn't waiting with raised knife for her to move. Her eyes were closed so tightly that the lids hurt and tears leaked onto the backs of her hands. There was nowhere else to go, nowhere to run, nowhere else to hide.

She heard Micky screaming but she tried to block the cries out. She couldn't believe that El was really gone and, even if he was, what could she do? There were no guns left and she wouldn't have the courage to face him with one if there were. He had killed everyone in town but her and Micky and now he was going to kill Rich.

What did Micky expect?

Dawn just wanted to sleep. She wanted to keep her eyes closed until her mind went blank, and then everything would be all right. Then nothing could hurt her. She would just disappear and, if she ever came back, things would be better. The police or someone would have come and taken El away or killed him.

I hope they kill him.

She pictured different ways for him to die. She wanted him to suffer the way her mother had suffered. She wanted them to cut him up into little pieces and then burn the pieces.

Go to hell.

She remembered old Howard, staring straight into the barrel of El's gun and saying that. She wished that she had Howard's strength. She wished that she had had the guts to pop up in El's face like a nasty Jack-in-the-box and rip his glasses off his face and spit out that same curse. She knew she'd be able to hear Howard for the rest of her life.

Go to hell.

“Dawn! You have to help me!”

Micky's shout cut through the cobwebs in Dawn's brain.

She closed her eyes even tighter and tried to close her ears as well.

What does she want?

Should I go?

What if it's a trick?

What if El's holding a gun to Micky's head, making her call me?

He would do something like that. Then when she showed herself, he would squeeze the trigger and blow Micky's brains out right in front of her eyes. Before he came for
her.
Came up the stairs again with that robot face and those alien eyes and that ugly knife. Came to cut and stab.

And kill.

“Dawn, honey! He's gone. I know what you're going through! But if you hide, he'll come back and, even if you live, you'll hate yourself! Help me!”

What is she talking about?

Why won't she shut up?

Dawn already hated herself.

She didn't need Micky to tell her about it.

She moved her left hand, ever so slightly, gently lifting the bag a half inch off the floor.

Then she listened.

No movement.

No breathing.

It was only her mind that insisted that El was still lurking over her.

But that didn't mean that her second guess was wrong.

He might very well be holding the gun to Micky's head or the knife to her throat. Making her call out.

But Micky wouldn't do that.

Dawn's eyes opened just a slit when she realized that.

Micky would never call for her.

She'd let El blow her brains out first.

And another little voice told her it wasn't likely that El would hold a gun to Micky's head because an inkling of El's plan was starting to seep into her mind.

He hadn't killed Micky the way he had her mother or Howard.

He had left Micky alive in the store and hunted Dawn instead.

Because he expected Micky to stay with him when everyone else was dead.

He was in love with her!

Or whatever passed for love in his screwed-up brain.

He wasn't going to kill Micky.

And if he wasn't going to kill Micky, then Micky was her only hope.

Dawn lifted the bag enough to glance over the one box that still barred the tunnel. A feeble light shone against the rafters and exposed pink fiberglass insulation.

But no shadow.

She drew a deep breath and pulled the bag off her back, biting her lip at the slithering, silky noise of it. A mouse probably couldn't have heard it but the sound of it in the confines of her tunnel made Dawn wince.

“Dawn! Please, honey! We don't have much time!”

The voice was pleading and Dawn wondered if Micky could really help or if she was only giving up her hiding place so that she could die sooner.

Maybe Rich has a gun.

Maybe Rich will kill the bastard.

“Dawn!”

I'm coming!
she thought, mouthing the words silently.

She crept ever so slowly around the last box.

E
L STOOD AT THE
end of the short gravel runway. To his left, through a narrow stand of spruce and birch, he could barely make out the muddy flow of the Kuskokwim in full spring swell. The river was so wide that he couldn't see the far shore.

The four-wheeler was hidden in the trees.

The mail plane had circled once overhead, close enough for him to see Rich's face in the pilot's seat. The Supercub was a powerful little machine, favored by bush pilots for its lifting ability and the fact that it could take off and land on a postage stamp. But most of the planes were well over fifty years old and as it cruised overhead now the engine didn't sound much larger than the one on the four-wheeler. El was tempted to pull out the pistol and blow the little aircraft out of the sky.

He had to tie up all the loose ends.

Rich was the only remaining connection to the outside.

The telephone was no problem.

He'd overheard Clive before, sending in the weather report. El had contrived to be there on numerous occasions when Clive reported in with it and he knew exactly what to say. He had considered pretending to
be
Clive but thought better of it. He would simply say that Clive was busy and then tell them later that Clive got sick and died.

People died in the bush.