Cold River Resurrection (34 page)

The odor – omigod – the odor.

Stephanie appeared to be sleeping, crumpled on the bed, lying on her side, her arm flung over her head, the lights in the adjoining bathroom lighting the bottom of the bed, and then the walls shouted color at Natalie, red walls above the white and gold headboard.

“Stephanie . . . oh, God!” Natalie cried. Her knees buckled, and with tears streaming down her face, she knelt by the end of the bed. She put her face in her hands. She didn’t approach her sister – wanting to, needing to – but she knew it wouldn’t do any good, because she had seen dead people before. Lots of them. Natalie Collins was a detective sergeant in the homicide unit of the Portland Police Bureau.

This was family, and she couldn’t move.

Minutes later, in her grief, she went to her thirty-two-year-old sister. She stayed there with her, touching her, the emotions pushing away the intellectual part of her brain that screamed to stay away, to let others do the job of piecing it together. Another person would have run screaming from the bedroom, calling medics, calling for someone to breathe life into a loved one beyond caring or repair. It was the curse of Natalie’s job that made her know with a certainty that this was Stephanie’s last day on earth.

She stayed there, not really knowing how long, sitting on the bed with her sister, sobbing, thinking then that she should have been here for Stephanie, to help her so she wouldn’t do this . . . this thing to herself.

Natalie heard a soft cough from the doorway just to her right, the doorway to Stephanie’s bathroom, and suddenly she was aware that she and Stephanie were not alone. She slowly swung her feet away from the bed and reached for her gun, knowing before her hand reached out that her off-duty gun was on the kitchen counter in her handbag, and with her ears ringing with her mistake, she felt a shadow rush toward her, a shadow framed in the bathroom light.

Oh, God, Natalie, you didn’t check the house. You didn’t check the bathroom!

She lunged for the end of the bed, the motion bouncing Stephanie in an eerie parody of living movement, and she knew it wouldn’t be soon enough, she wasn’t close enough, and the shadow fell on her, as she scrambled for the door, for the kitchen and her gun, as much to avenge Stephie as to protect herself, screaming, “Nooooooo!”

As she fell off the end of the bed, she twisted around, and a knee slammed into her back.

The blow drove the wind out of Natalie’s lungs, her face mashed into the carpet, paralyzed, trying to scream, trying to move, pushing her knees up, grunting, crawling toward the open doorway of the bedroom, a crablike, painful movement.

Gotta get out, oh God, gotta get out!

And she had the wildest thought that her front door was opening, crashing, when powerful hands caught her. She kicked and gasped for air as she was flipped over to face her attacker. A face loomed over hers, a face shadowed by the backlight from the bathroom. She slammed her right arm straight up into the face, the blow glancing off a cheekbone, the flesh feeling cold, tenebrous.

A face with dead flesh, a rubber face, a . . . a mask!

The rubber face flinched, and an arm raised, blocking the light, raising to strike, and Natalie’s skin tightened painfully, waiting for the blow, and her head was slammed back against the bed frame, her eyes watering, her vision dim, and suddenly the face was gone, the rubber face lifted up and away, almost as if her attacker had reached the bottom of a bungee cord and was springing upward on the elastic band. There was an arm around his neck.

Natalie watched, stunned, trying to breathe, the breaths coming ragged and weak. She struggled to sit up against the bed and then pushed herself across the carpet and away from the man with the mask and the figure that was now struggling with him.

My gun – gotta get my gun. They killed her, she didn’t do it to herself.

Then she glimpsed the man who had pulled her attacker away, a bearded man.

The bearded man on the sidewalk, the man with no raincoat.

The two men crashed against the dresser, fighting, struggling in a silent, evil choreography, the bearded man swinging at the rubber face, trying to hit the mask, his beard wet with rain, his face a contorted twist of hatred. The man in the rubber mask broke free and swung at the bearded man, striking him on the cheek, drawing instant blood, knocking him back against the bed, and Natalie threw herself at the man in the rubber mask, knowing then with a horrible certainty that Stephanie hadn’t shot herself, that the man in the rubber mask had killed her little sister. Natalie was quick, an athlete with a daily regimen of weight lifting and running, but the man in the rubber mask was as quick and hit Natalie with a forearm, knocking her backward. She fell against the dresser, bright lights exploding in her head.

Natalie crumpled on the floor as the masked man jumped over her and went out the bedroom door. She felt rather than saw the bearded man launch his body over hers, yelling, trying to reach the assailant as he ran out of the room. Natalie shook her head as she heard a crash in the living room. She listened to the struggle, unable to move. She heard yelling coming from her living room.

“Caught you . . . Gonna kill you!”

The voice was so matter-of-fact, yet it was a voice of rage, and Natalie had a sudden wild thought that the two men knew each other.

And one of them killed my Stephanie. The son of a bitch killed my Stephanie, and they know each other!

Natalie pushed herself up and got her knees under her and then stood, holding onto the bed, her body swaying, and she lurched out the door and into the hallway. She heard what sounded like a chair slam into the wall in the living room, and she lurched down the hallway.

This can’t be happening. This isn’t real.

For an insane moment, the child in Natalie wanted to run to her bathroom and lock the door and hide.

Natalie entered the living room and put her hand out to the wall to steady herself, seeing movement on the floor by the front door, the door open, splintered door frame lying on the carpet, two dark figures struggling, swinging, punching.

Natalie lunged for the counter and grabbed her purse as she went by, throwing her body around the counter and into the kitchen, her cheek bouncing on the cold tile floor. She tore at the flap of her purse, jerking the small pistol out in one motion, and then she was up from behind the counter, holding the Beretta in a two-handed grip and she saw the man in the rubber mask stand up, moving now along the wall toward her. The bearded man was on the floor. Natalie fired three shots in quick succession.

A shot hit a lamp and the ceramic exploded in a white shower. The shade bounced crazily across the carpet and then the man in the rubber mask lunged for the open doorway, twisting, throwing his body outside.

Natalie knew as she pulled the trigger again that her last shot was through the empty doorway.

The man in the rubber mask was gone.

She stood there, holding her gun, her ears roaring, watching, her finger so tight on the trigger that the slightest twitch would touch it off. She saw movement on the floor by the door. The bearded man tried to sit up. Natalie moved her hand down slightly, until her gun was lined up on the gray sweatshirt. She squinted through the smoke from the rounds she had fired, her ears still ringing.

The man turned his head toward Natalie. He looked defeated. His wet, brown hair was plastered to his head, and blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.

The bearded man pushed himself up from the carpet.

“Don’t move!” Natalie said, holding her gun steady on his chest, and he stopped moving, remaining in a crouch. He spoke for the first time.

“He’s getting away,” the bearded man said quietly, “and I’m going after him.” He stood up slowly, his shoulders slumped in defeat, the gun following his movements, and they watched each other from across the room. They stood like that, the bearded man wet and bleeding, with Natalie holding her gun on him from the kitchen.

“My name’s Dan,” he said, “and I saved your life.” He spoke quietly, his voice breaking at the end. “I’m going to leave now to get him. So . . . shoot me if you have to.”

“What about my Stephanie?” Natalie asked quietly, talking more to herself than to him, the tears starting again.

The bearded man shrugged and then said something, something she remembered later: “I’m the only one who knows who he is.” He said it as he was turning for the door, and then he was gone, running wildly down the steps. She caught a glimpse of him as he passed the window by the door, and she tracked the running figure with her gun.

“I’m the only one who knows who he is.”

Natalie slowly lowered her gun and let the automatic pistol slide from her fingers. She slumped to her knees and sobbed, her body shaking, the pain in the back of her head roaring now, her face in her hands with tears spilling out between her fingers.

“Oh, Daddy,” she sobbed. “Oh, Daddy, now who’s gonna be my sister?”

After a while, she heard sirens.