He stepped forward and almost tripped over her gun. He looked down and picked it up, turned it over in his hand, examining it as if it were an alien artifact.
Shit
.
“So, came packing, didn’t you? I told Travis you couldn’t be trusted,” said Jason. He put the gun in the waistband at the front of his pants.
“What did you expect?” said Diane. “This isn’t about trust. Where is Andie?”
“What makes you think you’re calling the shots?” he said.
“What makes you think you are?” asked Diane.
“She’s got a point,” said Travis. “Settle down, Jason. She’s going to be stubborn about this. That’s okay. Me and her are friends. I told you she liked me. Let’s just humor her. All I want is the diary and my gold. I’ve worked hard for it.” Travis walked off in the direction of the cave.
“Did you have a hand in the murders, or are you just a run-of-the-mill drug addict?” said Diane.
“Who you calling a drug addict?” he said.
“You’re acting like one. You’re over-the-top and working against your own best interests. You’re high,” said Diane.
She watched him standing, snarling at her, anger written in every line of his body. She wasn’t sure why he was angry. Perhaps it was just the drugs in his system. Perhaps his upbringing had been as bad as Travis’.
Travis returned with Andie in tow. She stumbled as he pulled her along. Their arrival stopped whatever retort was on Jason’s trembling lips.
“Andie, are you all right?” said Diane.
Andie looked exhausted. Her hands were duct-taped behind her and she had been crying. Her arms were raw where they ripped off the previous tape. Probably more than once. Andie nodded and Diane started toward her, but Travis pulled Andie back.
“No. Here we are with Andie. You show us the diary.”
“It’s a ways back through the woods,” said Diane.
“She’s lying. I watched her the whole way through the woods. She never once stopped to hide anything,” said Jason.
Jason leered at her, knitting his brow together over his dark eyes. “They are not coming, you know,” he said, grinning.
“Who?” said Diane.
“Your policeman friend, the army guy—they’re not coming. I saw to that.”
Diane felt fear creeping up her spine.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“I’m talking about what’s going to be on the news. Mysterious crash. Mysterious sniper. I knew they were coming. I told Travis you would double-cross us. I laid in wait when you left the museum and I shot their tires out on Highway Seventy-nine.” Jason laughed. “You should have seen that SUV roll.” He laughed again and drew his gun. “They’re dead, dead, dead.” He pointed his gun three times as if he were shooting, to emphasize the words “dead, dead, dead.”
The fear that Diane had been keeping at bay tore through, cutting her stomach and raising bile in her throat. She tried to keep her face calm.
“What’s he saying?” said Andie.
By the reedy pitch of her voice, Andie sounded like she could be pushed over into hysteria with another cruel statement.
You’ve done so well
, thought Diane.
Hold together just a little longer.
“He’s saying that he’s as dumb as a sack of pig shit,” said Diane.
“What are you talking about?” Jason said. “I’ll kill you, you fucking bitch.”
Jason was the one who wrote the messages, Diane realized at that moment. She wondered what drug he was on. She hoped it wasn’t PCP. Nothing like a maniac who couldn’t feel pain.
“They had the diary,” said Diane.
“What?” said Travis. “Jason, you pissant. I never said to go shooting things up.” Travis turned to Diane. “Are you saying they had the diary with them?”
“Yes,” said Diane. “It was my insurance. I gave it to them to look after until I could get Andie.”
Jason looked scared for a fraction of a second, then enraged. He jumped at Diane. She sidestepped and kicked his gun from his hand as he flew past, which only enraged him more. He lashed out at Diane and caught her in the side with a glancing blow. He grabbed her and pushed and pulled her to the edge of the creek. Diane struggled to regain her balance.
“You’re going to get it, bitch. Oh yeah, you’re going to get it.”
Jason fell on top of her and pushed her head underwater. The cold mountain water washed up to her shoulders. Her face hurt against the rocky bottom. Diane felt for some kind of weapon but found none. She’d seen a small log wedged near the rocks as he was pushing her head under, but she couldn’t lay her hands on it.
Jason pulled her head out of the water and pushed it back under again. The water wasn’t deep, just deep enough for her head to be covered and for her to drown. Her body hurt where his knees pressed against her. But she was grateful that his rage made him want to kill her with his bare hands and not shoot her. Diane fought panic from his drugged violence. She could hear Andie screaming in what sounded like the distance.
Diane had an interesting talent that was mostly just fun back when she was in college. She’d used it once before to evade men chasing her when she first came to the museum as director. Diane could hold her breath an inordinate amount of time.
She had an idea, but she was afraid she would panic in the middle of it and it would be over for her. She forced herself to relax and be still, to ignore the pain in her back and face as he held her under. She was counting on being able to hold her breath longer than he was willing to wait, holding her down. She was betting on his impatience. She counted the seconds. She was good for two minutes. He had been holding her for thirty seconds. She counted another fifteen before he lifted himself off of her.
“Take that, bitch,” she heard him say. “Yeah, take that.”
She heard Andie sobbing in the distance.
Travis was yelling at Jason.
Jason was yelling at Travis.
All of it filtered through the water.
In an easier motion than she thought herself capable of, Diane got herself up, picked up the log, and rammed the end of it into Jason’s lower back in the center of the lumbar vertebrae. She heard the vertebrae crack. He went down immediately, clawing at the air, then at the ground, probably wondering why he couldn’t move his legs. He looked frightened as he gazed up at Diane. He probably thought he had drowned her and, like in a horror movie, there she was, hurting him after all.
In the commotion Andie had fallen to the ground and rolled, hitting Travis’ legs and knocking them from under him. He hit the ground and Andie tried to get up—hard to do with her hands tied behind her. Travis was back on his feet quickly and he was picking up Jason’s gun from the ground. Diane fumbled, looking for her gun that Jason had put in his belt. Jason had his hands on it first and Diane wrestled it from him, hitting him in the chin twice.
Diane rolled away, aimed at Travis, and—Travis went down as he was reaching for Andie. He lay on his face. Blood slowly spread in a circle on his upper back. Odd, thought Diane. She hadn’t fired.
She looked up to see Liam holding a gun. He stood still for a moment, suspended in time, waiting maybe to see if he needed to take another shot. Then he ran to Andie. Diane felt herself being pulled up off the ground and held around the waist.
She looked up at Frank. He had a cut over his eye and his nose looked broken. Diane tried to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out. Her face was cold and numb. She kept working her jaw.
“I thought . . . I was afraid,” she whispered. “Jason said he shot . . .”
“We survived and got a ride to the edge of the woods,” said Frank. “We’re a little banged up, but fine. Seat belts. I recommend them.”
Diane put her arms around Frank and leaned against him, feeling his warmth on her cold cheek.
Frank walked her over to a log and they sat down. Diane stared over at Jason, lying unconscious with his legs dangling in the rushing water of the creek, and then shifted her gaze to Travis, lying facedown, dead, never knowing it was all a fake, a false dream, that everything he did was for nothing.
“Neva, David, the others,” said Diane. “All that work, and we didn’t use any of it.”
“I doubt they’ll complain,” said Frank.
Diane leaned against him and watched Liam hold on to Andie. A great fear in the pit of her stomach melted away. She had been afraid that Liam was too good to be true and Andie would be hurt even more. There were worse things than loving the wrong person, and Andie could obviously take care of herself. Diane smiled.
“Yes, I could,” she said, shivering, snuggling closer to Frank, soaking in his warmth. Mountain streams were damn cold.
“Could what?” asked Frank.
“In answer to your question earlier this week. I could marry you and be happy, if you were to ask.”
“I don’t know,” he said, pulling her in to him. “You’re awfully high-maintenance.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beverly Connor
is the author of the Diane Fallon forensic investigation series and the Lindsay Chamberlain archaeology mystery series. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and geology. Before she began her writing career, Beverly worked as an archaeologist in the southeastern United States, specializing in bone identification and analysis of stone tool debitage. Originally from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, she weaves her professional experiences from archaeology and her knowledge of the South into interlinked stories of the past and present. Beverly’s books have been translated into German, Dutch, and Czech, and are available in standard and large print in the UK.