The Winner (61 page)

And then a loop of thick cord was around LuAnn’s neck, was pulled tight, and LuAnn’s breath was suddenly gone; her gun fell to the floor.

Lisa screamed and screamed in agonizing silence, the tape still tightly across her mouth. She kicked at her chair, trying to topple it over, trying to reach her mother, help her in some way before this man killed her.

Jackson was fully behind LuAnn now. He had watched from the darkness next to the dresser as LuAnn had sailed toward Lisa, oblivious to his presence in the room. Then he had struck. The cord had a piece of wood attached to it and Jackson was winding it tighter and tighter. LuAnn’s face was turning blue, her senses were slipping away as the cord dug deeply into the skin of her neck. She tried to punch him but it was too awkward, her fists flailed helplessly, sapping away what remaining strength she had. She kicked at him, but he was too quick and dodged those blows as well. She dug at the rope with her strong fingers but it was so imbedded in her skin that there was no space left to get a grip.

He whispered into her ear. “Tick-tock, LuAnn. Tick-tock of the little clock. Like a magnet, it led you right to me. I held the phone right next to it so you couldn’t help but hear it. I told you I find out everything about someone I do business with. I visited your trailer in good old Rikersville. I listened to the rather unique sounds of that timepiece several times. And then seeing it on the wall of the bedroom the night I first visited you. Your little, cheap family heirloom.” He laughed. “I would have loved to have seen your face when you thought you had outsmarted me. Was it a happy face, LuAnn? Was it?”

Jackson’s smile deepened as he felt her giving way, her vaunted strength almost gone. “Now don’t forget your daughter. There she is.” He hit a light switch and swung her around violently so that she could see Lisa reaching for her. “She’ll watch you die, LuAnn. And then it will be her turn. You cost me a family member. Someone I loved. How does it feel to be responsible for her death?” He yanked on the cord harder and harder. “Die, LuAnn. Just give in to it. Close your eyes and just stop breathing. Just do it. It’s so easy. Just do it. Do it for me. You know you want to,” he hissed.

LuAnn’s eyes were close to erupting out of their sockets now, her lungs almost dead. She felt like she was deep under water; she would give anything to take one breath, just one long drink of air. As LuAnn listened to those taunting words she was swept back to a graveyard, to a plot of dirt, to a small brass marker in the ground many years ago. Exactly where she was heading.
Do it for Big Daddy, LuAnn. It’s so easy. Come and see Big Daddy. You know you want to.

From the corner of her blood-filled right eye she could barely see Lisa silently screaming for her mother, reaching for her across a chasm that was barely seconds from becoming eternal. At that very moment and from a place so deep that LuAnn never even knew she possessed it, there came a rush of strength so unbelievably powerful that it almost knocked her over. With a shriek, LuAnn jerked upright and then bent forward, lifting an astonished Jackson completely off the floor in the process. She clamped her arms around his legs so that she was carrying him piggyback style. Then she exploded backward, her legs pumping like a long jumper about to erupt into flight until she slammed Jackson violently into the heavy dresser against the wall. The sharp wooden edge caught him dead on the spine.

He screamed in pain but hung on to the cord. LuAnn reached up and dug her fingernails right into the recent wound on his hand—the one from the fight at the cottage—tearing the cut wide open. Jackson screamed again and this time he let go of the cord. Feeling the rope go lax, LuAnn whipped her torso forward and Jackson went flying over her shoulders and crashing into a mirror hanging on the wall.

LuAnn staggered drunkenly around in the middle of the room sucking in huge amounts of air. She reached up to her throat and pulled off the cord. Then her eyes settled dead center on the man.

Jackson grabbed at his injured back and struggled to stand up. It was too little too late, as with a guttural scream LuAnn pounced. She flattened him to the floor and pinned him there. Her legs clamped against his, immobilizing them. Her hands encircled his throat and now
his
face started to turn blue. The grip he felt against his throat was ten times as strong as the one he had battled on the cottage porch. He looked into her blood-filled eyes, red with burst capillaries from her near strangling, and he knew there was no way he could ever break her choke hold. His hands groped the floor as she continued to squeeze the life out of him. A series of visions proceeded across his mind, but there was no rush of strength to accompany it. His body started to go limp. His eyes rolled in their sockets, his neck constricted to the breaking point under the ever increasing pressure. His fingers finally closed around a bit of glass from the shattered mirror and held. He swung it upward, catching her in the arm and cutting through her clothing and into her skin. She didn’t release her grip. He cut her again and then again but to no avail. She was beyond pain; she would simply not let go.

Finally, with the last bit of strength he had left, his fingers felt under her arm and he pressed as hard as he could. Suddenly, LuAnn’s arms went dead as Jackson found the pressure point and her grip was abruptly broken. In an instant he had pushed her off and sprinted across the room, gasping for breath.

LuAnn watched in horror as he grabbed Lisa’s chair and dragged it across the room to the window. She got to her feet, flying toward them. She knew exactly what he was going to do, but damn if she was going to let him do it. He was lifting the chair and Lisa with it, and LuAnn dove for it, her hand closing around her daughter’s leg as the chair smashed against the window that overlooked the brick patio almost thirty feet below. LuAnn and Lisa crashed to the floor amid the shattered glass.

Jackson tried to snatch up her gun but LuAnn was one step ahead of him. LuAnn’s leg flew up and caught Jackson, who had strayed a little too close, directly in the crotch. He bent down, groaning. She jumped up and landed a powerful right hand squarely against Jackson’s chin. He went down to the floor.

In the distance they all heard the police sirens coming. Jackson swore under his breath, picked himself up, and, clutching his privates, raced through the doorway.

LuAnn let him go, slamming and locking the door behind him. Screaming and crying in relief, she gently pulled off the tape and undid the ropes holding Lisa. Mother and daughter held each other tightly. LuAnn clutched at Lisa’s body, she pushed her face in Lisa’s hair, her nose drank in every wonderful smell of her little girl. Then LuAnn stood and picked up her gun and fired two shots out the window.

Riggs and Charlie and the FBI agents were engaged in an animated discussion at the entrance to the private road when they heard the shots. Riggs threw the car in gear and roared up the road. The FBI agents ran to their car.

Jackson bolted down the hallway, suddenly stopped, and looked in Sally Beecham’s bedroom. Empty. He spied the gun on the floor and snatched it up. Then he heard the pounding. He raced to the kitchen and unlocked and threw open the pantry door. Roger Crane, squinting and quivering, stumbled out.

“Thank God, Peter. She had a gun. She put me in here. I . . . I did exactly as you told me.”

“Thank you, Roger.” He lifted up the pistol. “Tell Alicia I said hello.” Then he fired point blank into his brother’s face. The next instant he was out the door and racing across the lawn for the woods.

* * *

As they jumped out of their car Riggs saw Jackson first and sprinted after him. Charlie, despite his weakened state, was right behind. When the lawmen pulled up seconds later, they ran to the house.

LuAnn met them on the stairs. “Where are Matthew and Charlie?”

The men looked at each other. “I saw somebody running into the woods,” one of them answered.

They all ran out onto the front lawn. That’s when they heard it, the drone of the helicopter as the blades cut through the rain and wind. It landed on the front lawn. They all saw the FBI insignia on the side. The group raced over; LuAnn and Lisa reached it first.

Several police cars pulled up next to the fountain and a small army of officers poured out.

George Masters climbed out of the helicopter followed by a team of FBI agents. He looked at her. “LuAnn Tyler?” She nodded. Masters looked at Lisa. “Your daughter?”

“Yes,” LuAnn said.

“Thank God.” He let out a deep sigh of relief and held out his hand. “George Masters, FBI. I came into town to interview Charlie Thomas. When I got to the hospital he was gone.”

“We’ve got to go after Jackson, I mean Peter Crane. He went into the woods,” LuAnn said. “Matthew and Charlie went after him. But I want Lisa safe. I can’t leave her without knowing she’ll be completely safe.”

Masters looked between mother and daughter, spitting images of each other. Then he looked at the helicopter.

“We’ll transport her to the FBI office here in Charlottesville in this helicopter. I’ll put her smack in the center of a room with a half dozen heavily armed FBI agents. That good enough?” He smiled weakly.

A grateful look crossed her face. “Yes. Thanks for understanding.”

“I’ve got children too, LuAnn.”

While Masters gave instructions to the pilot, LuAnn gave Lisa one more hug and kiss and then turned and raced for the woods, a swarm of FBI agents and police officers right behind her. As fleet of foot as she was, and knowing the terrain as well as she did, she soon left them far behind.

Riggs could hear the feet flying in front of him. Charlie had dropped back a bit, but Riggs could hear his heavy breathing not far behind. The woods were wreathed in almost complete darkness and the rain continued to pour down. Riggs blinked his eyes rapidly to gain some degree of night vision. He pulled his gun, slipped the safety off with a quick punch of his finger. Then he halted abruptly as the sounds ahead of him stopped. He crouched and swept the area with his eyes, his gun making wide arcs. He heard the sound behind him an instant too late as the foot slammed into his back, sending him lunging forward and then down. He hit the wet ground hard, his face sliding painfully across the grass and dirt, and he ended up slamming against a tree, his gun smacking hard against the trunk. The impact caused his wounded arm to start bleeding again. When he flipped over on his back, he saw the man flying at him, the foot poised to deliver another crunching blow. Then Charlie blindsided Jackson and the two men went sprawling.

An incensed Charlie pounded Jackson with his fists and then cocked his arm back to deliver a knock-out punch. Quick as an eel, Jackson made a direct hit on Charlie’s wound, a blow that made him scream and double over. Then, with the same motion employed in striking a cymbal, Jackson smashed both palms against Charlie’s ears, forcing a sudden, painful rush of air into his ear canals and rupturing an eardrum. Nauseated and dizzy from the combined blows, Charlie fell off Jackson and lay on the ground groaning.

“I should’ve slit your throat at the motel,” Jackson spat down at him. Jackson was about to deliver a crushing kick to Charlie’s head when he heard Riggs scream at him.

“Get the hell away from him before I blow your damn head off.”

When Jackson looked over, Riggs’s gun was pointed directly at him. Jackson stepped away from Charlie.

“Finally, we meet. Riggs the criminal. How about discussing a financial arrangement that will make you very rich?” Jackson said. His voice was hoarse and weak from his near strangling by LuAnn. He clutched at his torn hand; his face was bleeding from Charlie’s blows.

“I’m not a criminal, asshole. I was an FBI agent who testified against a cartel. That’s why I was in Witness Protection.”

Jackson circled closer to Riggs. “Ex-FBI? Well, then at least I’m certain you won’t shoot me down in cold blood.” He pointed a warning finger at Riggs. “Understand though, if I go down, so does LuAnn. I’ll tell your former employers that she was in on everything, even helped me plan it. I’ll paint a picture so dark that she’ll be grateful for a life sentence. My attorneys will see to that. But don’t worry, I understand you can have yearly conjugal visits in some prisons now.”

“You’re going to rot in jail.”

“I hardly think that. I can only imagine what sort of deal I can cut with the Feds. I would think they’d do anything to avoid public disclosure of all this. When this is all over, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again. In fact, I look forward to it.”

Jackson’s mocking tones burned through every fiber of Riggs’s body. What was even more maddening was the fact that everything Jackson had predicted could very well happen. But it wouldn’t, Riggs swore to himself. “That’s where you’re wrong,” Riggs said.

“About what?”

“About killing you in cold blood.” Riggs pulled the trigger. The sound that
didn’t
occur seemed to drive all the blood from Riggs’s body. The gun didn’t fire; the impact with the tree had jammed it. He pulled the trigger again with the same sickening result.

Jackson instantly drew his own gun and pointed it at Riggs.

Riggs dropped the useless pistol and backed up as Jackson advanced. He finally stopped retreating when his foot felt nothing but air. He looked behind him: a sheer drop. Down below, the fast-moving water. He looked back at Jackson, who smiled and then fired.

The bullet hit right in front of Riggs’s feet and he stepped back a half inch, teetering on the edge.

“Let’s see how well you swim with no arms.” The next shot hit Riggs’s good arm. He grunted in pain and doubled over, clutching it, trying to maintain his balance. Then he looked up at the sneering face of Jackson.

“Take the bullet or the jump, it’s your choice. But do it quick, I don’t have much time.”

Riggs had only an instant. As he crouched over, the arm that had just been hit slid up the length of his sling—a very natural movement under the circumstances. Jackson had underestimated his resourcefulness. Jackson wasn’t the only one who had lived by his wits, who had gotten himself out of tight spots by acting nimbly. What Riggs was about to do had saved his life while working undercover during a drug deal that had gone sour. It would not save his life this time. But it would save several others, including one that he cared more about than his own: LuAnn’s.