The Descent From Truth (5 page)

Chapter 6

Alex tensed, every muscle on high alert, when Pia’s image appeared on the cabin’s television screen. The cops wouldn’t suspect a kidnapping just because the boy and his nanny were missing. Without some evidence to the contrary, they would assume she had wandered away from the wreck in search of shelter.

“The person of interest is Pia Ulmer,” the newscaster said. “As recently as two years ago, she was a member of a rebel militia active in Colombia and Peru, a group that routinely uses kidnapping and ransom demands to finance their rebellion.”

His brain cycling madly, Alex processed the information. Pia had mentioned past association with rebels but obviously hadn’t told him the whole story. She might have gotten separated from her cohorts during a melee after they intercepted Frederick’s limo and forced it off the road. If she was kidnapping the Koenigs’ child, she had practically made Alex an accomplice.

What was she doing in the kitchen? Lots of potential weapons there, and if she was a kidnapper and realized he was on to her, killing him was the obvious solution.

He eased his knife from its sheath. Holding it tight against his thigh so she couldn’t hit it with a makeshift club, he crept to the kitchen door.

She could be waiting, her body flattened against the wall just inside, ready to lash out in ambush. He hesitated for another moment and then sprang forward, diving through the doorway, and executed a shoulder roll to come back onto his feet in a crouch. Spinning, he took in all quadrants of the room.

No Pia, no Frederick. The kitchen had a door to the outside, and his cold-weather gear was missing from the corner where he had piled it.

He found them on the back stoop. Frederick, blanket-wrapped from head to foot but with his mitten-sheathed hands poking through holes, played with the big wooden spoon that had become his favorite toy. Pia concentrated on fitting Alex’s snowshoes onto her boots. Frederick saw him and gurgled a baby-talk greeting that alerted Pia. She reached for the boy, but the snowshoes hampered her movement.

Alex lunged and snatched Frederick away. Hugging the child close, he stepped back.

With a feral shriek, Pia charged.

Using a fistful of her coat as a handle, Alex jerked in the direction of her momentum. He swung her around and flung her into the snow.

Her fall knocked a snowshoe loose. Panting, she regained her footing and stood with one leg buried in a snow bank, the snowshoe-clad foot planted on the surface.

Frederick howled. He squirmed and flailed his arms and legs. His frantic twisting made him hard to hold.

Pia renewed her attack. Silent this time, her face a frozen mask of determination, her fingers curled like a cat’s unsheathed claws, she went for Alex’s eyes.

He landed an open-handed blow to the side of her head. It knocked her onto her backside in the snow.

Sitting with sprawled legs, she glared up at him. The fight seemed to drain out of her.

Alex nestled Frederick to his chest. “It’s all right, tiger.” He poked gently at blanket-wrapped little ribs and put as much cheer in his voice as frothing emotions permitted. “It’s just a game.”

Frederick’s screaming diminished to a fret, and Alex signaled to Pia with a nod toward the cabin door. To Frederick he said, “Let’s go inside, little man.”

Pia labored to her feet. Limping on the single snowshoe, she trudged into the cabin.

Following close behind, Alex patted Frederick’s back and made cooing sounds that the boy didn’t seem to hear. Inside, he balanced the youngster on one arm and reached back with his other to close the door.

Pia grabbed the cast-iron skillet in which they had pan-fried their steaks. Grasping the handle with both hands, she swung at his head.

Twisting, Alex took the blow on his shoulder. The shoulder and arm went numb. With Frederick squirming in his one good arm, he couldn’t lash out or even defend himself.

Pia swung again, bringing the heavy skillet down in an overhead arc. Alex dodged, and it hurtled toward Frederick. She jerked it back just in time. The narrow miss left her off balance.

Alex tried to grab her, but his arm refused to obey his brain. Rubbery legs buckled. His shoulder slammed into the wall. The kid!

A blurred, squealing bundle of fabric and flesh, Frederick slid from his arms and plummeted to the kitchen floor. No movement from him. No sound.

Trying to focus, Alex stared at the crumpled child. A quick glance at Pia. Still grasping the skillet, holding it at her side, she too stared at Frederick.

A fresh bellow from the boy split the frigid air. Never had Alex heard a more welcome sound.

Pia hefted the cast-iron skillet again, holding it like a baseball bat. Brow furrowed, eyes glinting, she tensed for another swing.

Alex lashed out with his good arm, putting all the power of his legs and shoulders, all the energy of his frustration and anger, into a fist aimed to pulverize her face.

Stepping closer as she swung the skillet, Pia tripped on her single snowshoe. The fall saved her nose from being destroyed. She toppled toward Alex, and his fist slammed into her forehead. The blow connected squarely in the center. She crumpled to the kitchen floor. Twitched once. Went limp.

Alex cocked his boot for a kick to her head but caught himself. Corralling his rage, he stepped back.

Her features softened and smoothed. Except for her position, one leg twisted under like a broken doll, she might have been napping.

Alex hoisted Frederick in his arms. Cuddling the boy, he crooned softly until the wailing tapered off. “Sorry little man. Have to leave you on your own for a bit.” He eased the wriggling, fretting bundle to the floor and experimented with his aching shoulder, shrugging, raising the arm, rotating it. Pain, but everything worked.

In his backpack he carried a fifty-foot length of strong but lightweight rope, a safety tether for when he scaled bluffs or crossed frozen streams. He used one end of it to bind Pia’s wrists. None too gently, he looped the rope around her neck, pulled her bound hands close to her throat, and tied them there.

Frederick had resumed crying. Alex cuddled him again and peeled away the insulating blanket to check for injuries. He took the boy into the living room, sat him by the web belt and canteen, and handed him the big wooden spoon. “Have fun, tiger.” Back in the kitchen, he thumbed Pia’s eyelid and pried it open. Satisfied that she wasn’t faking, he posted himself in the doorway between the two rooms so he could watch both her and Frederick. He had overreacted, let his temper take control. She’d been dangerous—murderous—but she was already beaten by the time he punched her. She would have fallen on her own, probably stayed down. What kind of man was he, aiming his fist to destroy her face?

Her limbs began jerking. Her body flopped like a hooked trout.

Alex refused to surrender to remorse. He’d done what he had to, protected the kid. He stepped closer and waited for Pia to come alive.

The spastic movement eased, and she opened her eyes. Their pupils expanded—her world coming into focus. Punctuating each word with a brief pause as if it required heavy thought, she said, “Is Frederick all right?”

“What the hell do you care?”

“Frederick,” she called out. “Where are you, baby?”

“Shut up.” Her determination reignited Alex’s temper. He lashed out with his foot but avoided connecting. The boot came close enough to her face to make her shut her eyes against the expected impact. “Just shut up.”

Her eyes opened again. “Where is he?” She glared at Alex.

He cocked his foot for another kick.

She did not flinch or turn away.

She was a hundred-pound woman. On the floor, beaten and roped. Alex took a step back. “He’s in the other room. Playing.”

A condemned prisoner awaiting the executioner’s stroke, she looked up at Alex. Her forehead was darkening and swelling where his knockout punch had landed. The skin had split as if cut with a surgical knife. A thin line of blood oozed out.

No regrets, he thought. She deserved it. “What’d you do with my phone?”

“Buried it in the snow.”

“And tried to kill me when you realized I was on to you.”

“What would you do if someone tried to take your child?”

“Your child, yeah.” He hoisted her to her feet and supported her until she could stand. Using the rope as a leash, he started to lead her into the living room. She tripped on the single snowshoe and would have fallen had he not spun and grabbed her arms. He loosened the snowshoe and steadied her while she stepped out of it. Walking behind and guiding her with his hands on her shoulders, he maneuvered her onto the couch and ran a length of the rope behind and under it to fasten her neck tether to her ankles from the rear.

Kneeling where Frederick played with the canteen and wooden spoon, he checked the kid’s diaper. It was wet. He changed it and tried to put the boy down but almost dropped him when Frederick lunged toward Pia, arms outstretched.

“Pee,” he called between whimpers. “Pee.”

“He wants to nurse,” Pia said, her voice low and hoarse.

Carrying him, Alex approached the couch. Uncertain about how to proceed, he stared down at his captive.

“He always nurses when he’s upset. Untie me so I can feed him.”

“And give you another shot at me?”

“Are you going to let him go hungry?”

Alex untied her wrists but left the rope that ran behind the couch to bind her neck and ankles together. He sat Frederick in her lap and stood behind her while the boy nursed. Then, sitting beside her, he shifted Frederick to his lap so he could bind her wrists to the neck tether as before.

He played with Frederick until, after two hours that seemed like two days, the boy began fretting and rubbing his eyes. They went through the nursing procedure again, and Alex carried him to the bedroom. Once there, he held the warm little bundle against his chest and rocked him from foot to foot, lulling him to sleep.

Frederick relaxing against him comforted Alex. Shortly before his mother’s death, when he exploded in anger over one of his father’s extended absences, she’d told him that during his early years his father had soothed him to sleep that way almost every night.

He and his dad had been so close. Then his father began disappearing for long, unexplained intervals, and it all unraveled. The rift grew with every unshared childhood triumph, every uncomforted adolescent hurt, until it became an unbridgeable chasm when his father missed his mother’s funeral. Living with his grandparents while attending high school, Alex had tolerated paternal visits with icy correctness. He and his father could have been client and paid counselor as they discussed Alex’s educational progress and his plans for the future.

Frederick’s breathing settled into the rhythm of sleep, and Alex pushed the childhood memories aside. He tucked the boy into bed, pulled blankets up to the chubby little neck, and brushed a smooth cheek with his lips.

Back in the living room, he put a big log in the fireplace. There was a good bed of coals, so the log would smolder all night.

Sitting with closed eyes, her face frozen in a pained grimace, Pia made no sound other than labored breathing. With her bound hands tucked under her chin, she looked as if she were praying. Swelling made the broken skin on her forehead gape. Blood-tinged tissue, bulging through the fissure, glistened in the firelight.

She would have killed me, Alex reminded himself. He dipped a cup into their pot of melted snow and rummaged through kitchen cabinets until he found a bottle of ibuprofen. “Open your mouth.” He placed two tablets on her tongue and held the cup to her lips.

“More,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

He fed her another cup of water, refusing to meet her gaze. Then he refilled the cup and swallowed two ibuprofen tablets himself. The ache in his shoulder where she’d connected with the iron skillet, and thoughts of what she might have done to Frederick, strengthened his resolve to leave her trussed overnight. Mostly, he felt stupid. He wasn’t about to give her a second chance. He covered her with a blanket and retreated to the bedroom.

Deep into the night he prowled the room, wall to wall, back and forth. He had done the right thing. She would have kept fighting until one of them was unconscious. It could have been him, and he would be dead by now. Who could say what she’d have done to Frederick? Lying in bed with the boy, he curled his arms around the warm little body. After a while, he turned his back on the sleeping form and stretched full-length. Would morning never come?

By degrees, the black rectangle that was the bedroom window turned gray. When morning light filled the cabin, he rekindled the fireplace and checked on his captive.

The lump on her forehead had turned a deep purple. Swelling held the wound open, and blood-laced mucus draining from the split skin had oozed into one eye, plastering it shut. Fatigue lines creased her face. Exhaustion dulled her open eye.

No need to feel guilty. He’d done what his training dictated: overwhelming force, maximum speed. He pushed the sofa closer to the fire, got more ibuprofen and another cup of water, and sat by her.