Kilt at the Highland Games (22 page)

“I spotted Martin Eldridge out on Owl Road a couple of hours ago,” he repeated.

His words sounded no better the second time. This was
so
not good.

“I lost sight of him before I could do anything,” Murch continued. “I've been driving around ever since, keeping my eyes peeled, but no luck.”

“Did he have a car?”

“He was on foot when I saw him, but he must have one stashed somewhere. He had a rental at the hotel.”

“Exactly
where
on Owl Road?”

Murch's description confirmed Liss's worst fear and had her running for her car, fumbling with her keys as she went. Angie trotted after her, alarmed by the way Liss had suddenly bolted. Dolores followed, too, her ears stretched so she wouldn't miss of a word of Liss's end of the conversation.

“That's where Boxer lives, Jake. If Eldridge was there when my cousin picked up his car, it's possible he followed him straight to where Angie and the kids have been staying.” She rattled off directions as she slid in behind the wheel and stuck her key in the ignition.

She could hear Jake cussing on the other end of the line. He'd been heading home for supper when he called and wasn't much closer to Moosetookalook than Sherri was.

Breaking the connection, Liss tossed the cell phone to Angie. “Hit three on the speed dial and tell Sherri we're headed back to Ledge Lake. I need both hands free for driving.”

Chapter Eighteen

“I
t will be okay,” Liss said for the hundredth time since leaving the parking lot. “We're worried for nothing.”

She didn't believe it any more this time than she had the first, and Angie, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the passenger-side armrest, wasn't buying her logic, either. If Martin Eldridge had followed Boxer as far as Patsy's camp and then trailed Liss and Boxer through the woods, they might already be too late.

It was no good trying to phone and warn the young people. Boxer kept his “stupid phone” turned off when he wasn't using it. Beth didn't have a cell phone, and there was no landline at Patsy's neighbor's camp.

Moments after Liss turned onto the camp road and accelerated again, her car hit a pothole. In spite of her seat belt, she was bounced high enough to smack her head on the underside of the roof. She took that as a warning to slow down. She and Angie weren't going to do anyone any good if Liss knocked herself out or ran off the side of the road and into a ditch.

They couldn't go in with tires squealing, either. If Eldridge was there but hadn't yet harmed anyone, the last thing they wanted was to give him warning of their arrival. When she reached the top of Patsy's driveway, she pulled onto the grass, parking next to Boxer's car. It was still the only vehicle there, but somehow that didn't reassure her as much as it should have.

“What are you doing?” Angie shrieked. “Go on to the next driveway.”

Although Liss's every instinct cried out to do exactly that, she shut off the engine and killed the headlights. “Listen to me, Angie. You can't go charging in like the cavalry. We need to creep up quietly and stay out of sight. That way, we should be able to see Eldridge, if he's there, before he realizes we're back.”

Her face set in hard, determined lines, Angie got out of the car. “Let's go, then. I have to get my children out of there.”

As Liss fumbled for the flashlight she kept under the driver's-side seat, her common sense, somewhat belatedly, reasserted itself. Acting on impulse could end disastrously for them all. She was convinced that Martin Eldridge was a cold-blooded killer who had stabbed two people, one of them fatally, and if what she'd gathered from Gordon and Sherri was accurate, he'd walked off with Jason Graye's gun. He was armed, dangerous, and desperate enough to attack anyone who tried to stop him from taking his revenge.

One horrifying scenario after another unfolding in her mind, Liss scrambled to catch up with Angie. She'd had to stop at the tree line in order to look for the all-but-invisible opening that was their end of the path. When Liss joined her there, Angie grabbed the flashlight out of her hand. The beam moved erratically, but it took only a moment for her to pick out the break between two towering pines. Angie set off at a trot.

Liss caught her arm. “We can't afford to do anything stupid.”

Angie shook her off and increased her speed. “You do whatever you want. I'm going after Beth and Bradley.”

Fearful that their voices would carry and alert Eldridge to their presence, Liss spoke in a whisper. “We've got backup coming. You need to wait for them.”

Sherri was on her way. So was Murch.

Angie made a strangled sound that Liss belatedly recognized as a laugh. “There's the pot calling the kettle black.”

Liss knew she deserved the rebuke. She'd been known to rush in when she shouldn't . . . in the past. She hoped she'd matured since then. At least she had sense enough to know that this situation was fraught with peril. As Angie plowed forward, moving ever deeper into the trees, Liss hurried after her.

“Angie, think! If he's in there with a gun, you don't want to do anything to make
him
act impulsively.”

“Shut up, Liss.”

Liss opened her mouth and then closed it again. Angie was only throwing her own advice back at her. They needed to be quiet as little field mice. In the still night air, every sound was magnified.

The flashlight might also give away their presence, but without it they couldn't find their way along the narrow, twisting path. Angie must have had the same thought, because she shifted the direction of the beam until it was aimed at the ground. Silently, walking single file, Liss followed her as she stepped over gnarled roots and protruding rocks. Every step brought them closer to the camp where they'd left Boxer, Beth, and Bradley.

Angie turned the flashlight off just before they rounded the last twist in the path. Still sheltered by the trees, she stopped at the edge of the clearing. Liss came silently up beside her. She had a clear view of the side of the camp with the stairs leading up to the deck and the sliding glass door. The interior was well lit, making it possible to see part of the living room.

Someone moved in front of a lamp, causing Liss's breath to catch. His size and shape, even in silhouette—and the fact that he had a cane tucked under one arm—gave away his identity.

“Eldridge.” Angie's voice shook as she spoke his name.

Liss caught her arm, preventing her from rushing out into the open. “Wait.”

“I don't dare. Look.”

Eldridge had turned, one hand raised. What he held in it was unmistakable—a gun.

* * *

Sherri turned the Moosetookalook police cruiser onto the dirt road, squinting to see better. Her headlights didn't add much to the visibility when trees grew close to the shoulder on both sides.

At one time or another, as Moosetookalook's chief of police, she had patrolled every rut-filled, one-lane cow path in her jurisdiction. She knew exactly where Patsy's camp was located and where Angie and her kids had been hiding out. What she didn't know going into this situation was how volatile it was. She'd heard nothing more from Angie and Liss since the frantic phone call Angie had made en route.

Sherri had already alerted both the sheriff's department and the state police, but for the moment she was on her own. She'd wait for backup if she could. If Eldridge was already at the camp, the best-case scenario was a hostage situation. She didn't even want to think about what the worst-case scenario would be.

The cruiser's lights picked out the back of Liss's car parked next to Boxer's old clunker and instantly showed her that no one was sitting inside either of them. So much for the vain hope that Liss and Angie would wait for her!

The presence on the scene of two emotionally involved civilians was a complication Sherri did not need. The odds that either Angie or Liss would do something stupid were way too high for her peace of mind.

It was only after she'd slowed to a stop that she spotted two more vehicles. Both pickup trucks, they had been parked haphazardly partway down the driveway that led to Patsy's lakeside camp. One, clearly the first to arrive, since the other now blocked it in, was light-colored but angled so that Sherri couldn't get a good look at it. She had no such difficulty identifying the other one. Red and dilapidated-looking, it sported a vanity plate reading MURCH PI.

Murch himself emerged from the surrounding darkness the moment she stepped out of the cruiser. “I don't know where to go from here. I've been looking around, but there's no one in the camp.”

“Wrong camp,” Sherri said. “Looks like we'd best approach the other one through the woods.” Clearly, that was what everyone else had done.

She set off at a trot, flashlight in one hand and the other resting on the firearm holstered on her utility belt. Murch was right behind her.

“There's something you should know,” he said as they ran. “Eldridge has been in a mental institution for most of the last twelve years. Word is that he's obsessed with revenge.”

Since she already had an inkling of how dangerous Martin Eldridge was, Sherri wasn't entirely surprised by this news. Still, Murch's words sent a chill straight to the marrow of her bones. She had dealt before with people who were off their meds. There was no way to predict how they'd react. At any moment, she expected to hear a volley of gunshots blast through the stillness of the evening.

She lobbed a question over her shoulder, careful to keep her voice low. “Did you see anyone else around when you got here?”

“Not a soul.”

Driven by a renewed sense of urgency, Sherri ran on.

* * *

This is crazy
.

Against her better judgment, Liss followed Angie as she circled the camp to the entrance that faced the road. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that there were no lights on in the kitchen. She was less sure how she felt when Angie turned the knob and the door silently swung open. It didn't matter. She was committed. A moment later, both women slipped inside.

Angie froze at the sound of Martin Eldridge's smooth, polished voice.

Standing just behind her, Liss started to sweat. The sense of what Eldridge was saying was lost to the roaring in her ears. The hammering of her heart was nearly as loud. She swallowed convulsively, willing her legs, which had gone rubbery, to carry her to their right, into the shelter of the camp's bathroom.

Angie's plan was simple, and she was determined to carry it out, with Liss or without her. The bath in this camp, as in Patsy's, had a second door that led into the downstairs bedroom. That room also had two doors. The other one opened into the living room at the opposite end from where Eldridge was standing. When they got that far, they should be able to see Boxer, Beth, and Bradley.

If all three young people were unharmed, Liss prayed she could persuade Angie to pull back and wait for reinforcements. At the least, they needed to take enough time to assess the situation.

Angie eased the bathroom door closed as soon as Liss was safely inside, leaving them in inky blackness. Only the soft swishing sound her sandals made on the tiled floor allowed Liss to track her friend's progress toward the door to the bedroom.

It creaked when she opened it, a noise loud enough to send new waves of panic shuddering through Liss's body. She held her breath, but nothing happened. No one at the front of the house had heard the sound.

The door on the other side of the bedroom was already ajar. The light of a table lamp seeped inside, spreading its golden glow far enough to reveal a treacherous obstacle course. Angie, who had been sleeping in this room for more than a week, had never been a paragon of neatness, but she knew where to step to avoid discarded shoes, piles of dirty clothing, and a paperback book she'd apparently tossed aside. Liss, trailing after her, narrowly avoided cracking her shin on the edge of the hope chest positioned at the foot of the bed.

They both stopped short when they saw what lay beyond the door. Only a small section of the living room was visible, but it included the back half of one of the chairs. Liss recognized the person sitting in it by her dark hair, even though she couldn't see Beth's face. She felt her stomach clench and her mouth go dry. Eldridge had used a clothesline to tie Angie's daughter to the chair.

Angie backed up a step, her fist going to her mouth to prevent any sound from escaping. In the dim glow from the lamp, her eyes looked haunted.

Motioning for her friend to stay back, Liss leaned to one side, hoping to see farther into the living room. Beth didn't appear to be hurt. There was no blood. And as Liss stared at her bound hands, she saw Beth's fingers twitch.

Eldridge's soft voice had not paused once since Liss and Angie had entered the house. It was only now, however, that Liss was able to make out what he was saying. He was describing, in graphic detail, how he intended to kill the three young people he held prisoner.

He wasn't going to shoot them. Oh, no. He intended to make them suffer, especially Beth. A shudder of revulsion passed through her as he listed the torments he had in mind for his victims.

Hearing what he planned to do to her children cost Angie what little self-control she had left. With a cry of mingled anguish and rage, she charged past Liss, making a beeline for her daughter.

Eldridge's gun went off a second before Liss could follow her.

Still hidden from view, she froze, terrified of running straight into the path of a bullet. Moving only her eyes, she searched for Angie.

By some miracle, the bullet had scored a gash in the wall but missed her friend. Angie had thrown herself to the floor behind Beth's chair. Now, working with frantic, clumsy fingers, she struggled to undo the knots in the clothesline.

“Come out to where I can see you!” Eldridge bellowed.

With rapid but cautious steps, praying a man who killed with a knife was a novice when it came to handling firearms, Liss retreated. While Eldridge was distracted, she might have a chance to get behind him. She wasn't certain how much good that would do. She doubted she was strong enough to tackle and disarm him, but she had to do something to prevent him from slaughtering everyone in the living room.

She only stumbled once, tripping over a pair of running shoes, before she made it back to the bath. Then she was in the kitchen, and Eldridge was still unaware of her presence. She could hear him yelling at Angie to stand up and show herself, but at least he was not shooting at her.

Was it too much to hope that he might be out of ammunition?

There was enough light from the living area to reveal the countertop between the sink and the refrigerator. Liss looked around for a weapon. A knife. A cast-iron frying pan. Anything. But in contrast to the bedroom Angie had been using, the kitchen was as neat as a pin. There was not a single useful object in sight.

Liss didn't waste time searching through cabinets and drawers. Taking a deep breath, she headed into the living room. If she was going to get the jump on Eldridge, she had to do it now.