“Thank you,” she said, to Whoever, and struggled to her feet.
Then, as Jericho had trained her, she did her sums. First, the basement. The door stood open. She listened, but heard no shouting, and no pounding either. She wondered whether Maxine had escaped. Maybe it was Maxine who had set off the explosion in the garage. Pete said he had seen a man enter, but there was no power for the floods, and the night was dark, and if she did not get herself moving, she would fall asleep on her feet, right here at the top of the basement stairs.
Rebecca shut the door and slammed home the bolt.
From the kitchen drawer, she took a couple of knives. She found another flashlight in the same closet as before. Ready at last, she stepped into the hall.
The van had long since burned down, but the garage was still a torch in the night. One of the wide windows to the living room had burst, and embers were flaking in through the mesh. Soon the books would catch, and then the house would start. Beck ached, unexpectedly, for the loss of Jericho’s vast library, but there was nothing to be done.
She ran for the stairs, blundering through Jericho’s maze of chairs, not worried about stealth because there was nobody to hide from. On the landing, the cone of her flashlight picked out Pamela, no longer crumpled on the floor, but in a sitting position against the door to the hall bath. Beck crouched beside her, and found her still breathing, but unconscious. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. A fresh towel had replaced the one Rebecca had—
Wait. That was no towel.
It was a bandage. The wound had been cleaned and wrapped.
Either Pamela had somehow found the strength to unearth the first-aid kit—heaven knew from where—or else—
Shakily, Beck got to her feet. She clutched a knife at the ready. Jericho had taught her how to shoot, not how to cut, but she figured her intuition would be enough. With the flashlight pointed at the floor, she lunged for the master suite.
And found it empty.
She was too late.
(iv)
“That’s why the back door gave so easily,” she told Pete Mundy, the two of them huddled in the woods once more, with Pamela moaning between them as they carried her. “They’d been in there already. They went in, they got Jericho, they left.”
“Funny they took the time to tape her up.”
“Maybe that means the federal government has him. I hope so.”
Pete found a laugh somewhere. “You have a higher opinion of the feds than I do, Beck.”
He had come upon her on the stairs, as she tried to carry Pamela down the fireman’s way, over her back. Pete had eased the unconscious woman from Rebecca’s grip, and hefted her to his shoulder the way one would a baby. Beck was surprised by such strength in a man so slim. He and the sniper had exchanged fire for a while, Pete said, and then the sniper had just quit. Pete had climbed to the man’s position and found him gone. Plenty of expended shells, but no shooter. He had gone to the truck and called for help, then returned to the house to search for Beck.
“We still have to be careful,” the deputy warned, as they moved through the woods. “He could be around somewhere. I think I winged him, but I’m not sure.”
Winged him
. Showing off for her. Any other day, she would have laughed.
They trudged on, keeping once more to the east. “Pete?”
“Hmmm?”
“When are they coming?”
He stopped short and held up his hand, then was shoving her toward the ground. They put Pamela down so fast they nearly dropped her. But the noise was only a panicked deer, not sure which way to run from the fire.
“Half an hour, I’d guess,” he said. “Maybe a little less.”
“Maybe we should wait in the house.”
“I don’t think we should risk the sniper a third time. We can’t go to the truck.” He hesitated. “Beck, look. I peeked in the basement, where you stashed Miss Kelly? She’s not there.”
Rebecca rubbed her eyes. No Jericho. No Maxine. A sniper still active in the woods.
“We should sit tight,” she said.
Pete shook his head. “I think we should go back to the well.”
“The well?”
“They’ve got Mr. Ainsley, but maybe we can still help him if we can find whatever’s down there.”
She was tempted. She needed whatever was down there as her protection, and her daughter’s. On the other hand, with Jericho gone, she had a hunch that Jack Notting was busy running for cover. Unless of course it was Jack who had Jericho, in which case—
“Pete, listen. You just told me the sniper’s out there. Maxine is out there. Whoever took Jericho is out there. I think we’re better off waiting where we are until help comes. The last thing we should do is head down the hill behind the house, which is kind of an obvious escape route.” Her laugh was brittle. “And look at Pamela. We can’t be carrying her down the ravine to the well—”
“I’m sorry, Beck.” The gun was pointed her way. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist.”
CHAPTER 38
The Pouch
(i)
Rebecca felt no surprise. She felt nothing, other than the raw, icy pain on her hands, and the sinking dullness of another failure. She had known. Of course she had known. She had known since their abortive date, and maybe since the night he tried to pick her up at Corindas, if not earlier that same day, when he ignored the sisters and handed her his card.
They were back down in the dip, and Beck was back at work. Pete explained that he would be happy to help, except that the task would require him to put down the gun. They had left Pamela on the edge of the dip. Beck had wanted to bring her, but Pete had said no.
“You’re a bastard,” she muttered, tugging once again at the impossible weight of the hose. She tugged and groaned, tugged and groaned, increasingly certain that she was on a fool’s errand, and certain, too, that it hardly mattered, because her mortal body would be receiving, any moment, the bullet.
“Need to rest?”
“No.”
“I don’t want to make this harder than it has to be.”
She bared her teeth in a fierce grin. The gun was still clutched at his side, barrel toward the frozen earth. “You didn’t even call anybody, did you? Or did you call whoever you’re working for?” Another thought
struck her. “Were you and that sniper even really shooting at each other? Or are you on the same side?”
“I’m sorry” he said, and looked away.
His uneasiness emboldened her. “Pamela could die up there, Pete. Have you given that any thought?”
“You don’t sound scared.”
“Sorry.” She dropped the hose, took off her mittens, rubbed her hands together, blew on them. Her shoulders ached. “I’m too tired to be scared.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he said, and sounded as if he meant it. When she looked at his earnest face, she saw genuine pain. “I wish—well, I wish things were different.” He shook his head. “But they’re not, so we better finish. By the way, how’d you figure it out?” He shrugged, but the gun was steady. “You weren’t surprised.”
“I didn’t figure it out, Pete. I’m never surprised when a guy who seems nice turns out to be a shithead instead. That’s life.” She pulled the mittens back on, bent to the hose once more. “So—you’re the bad guy, and Sheriff Garvey is the good guy. No wonder he wanted to keep us apart. He was suspicious of you all along, wasn’t he?”
“He’s not as big a fool as he looks,” the deputy agreed.
“And that story you told me? The men who came to meet him, the chief deputy resigning? Was any of that true?”
“Every word.” He continued crouching beneath the tree, the gun pointed at the frozen soil between them. “Garvey’s not an innocent, Beck. He’s involved, just on the other side.” A humorless chuckle. “One of the other sides, anyway.”
“And you? Which side are you on?”
He lifted his head again, listened. “We don’t have much time.”
She almost laughed, understanding at last why the dying Jericho grew irritated at every tiny reference to minutes or days passing. “
We
don’t have much time? Get real, Pete. I’m the one with no time. You’re going to kill me as soon as we find out what’s down in the well.”
“Hurry up,” he said, not meeting her eyes.
Beck cocked her ears but heard nothing. Still, she had not grown
up in the mountain forest. She wondered what Pete heard that she did not.
She bent back to her work, tugging the heavy hose from the earth. It coiled around her feet like an endless black umbilical cord. A part of her did not want to know what the well would birth.
“I don’t have a choice here,” Pete blurted in sudden self-justification. “I know that’s not much of an excuse, but it happens to be true.”
Another maybe: maybe if she let him keep talking, he would talk himself out of it. She continued to heave, said nothing.
“You can stop now,” he said. “I’ll finish.”
“You mean, after you shoot me?”
He was standing now, and closer, but not close enough. “You think I like this?”
She was breathing harder. “I’m too tired to play twenty questions. Now, you can do one of two things. You can kill me, or you can help me pull this pump out of the ground.”
That lazy smile again. “And give you the chance to conk me on the head.”
“I was kind of hoping, yes.”
“Step away.”
“Pete—”
“No, no, it’s time to get real.” Gesturing with the gun. “Move away from the well, Beck.”
She swallowed. Her exhaustion was ebbing. The fear she had denied was seeping through. She wondered who had Jericho; and whether Pamela was still breathing.
“Pete, listen to me. Listen.” Pointing. “What if I’m wrong? What if nothing’s down there but mud?” The gun never wavered. “If you kill me, and there’s nothing down there, who’ll figure out the clues?”
The deputy thought this over. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, finish up.” He crouched, but moved no closer. “Let’s see what’s down there.”
So Beck leaned in and gave another tug, and, just like that, the pump itself popped out, dark metal glinting in the moonlight.
Attached to the hose just above the nozzle was a plastic waterproof pouch. It was soldered shut with the same magical mastic that was used to protect the wires that ran power to the pump itself. As a rule, the plastic lasted the life of the pump.
She knew because she had read it in a book.
(ii)
Now Pete Mundy waved her away. He wanted her nowhere near the pouch. “Over there,” he said, and she dutifully trooped several paces off.
He bent over and tugged at the pouch. It was tightly attached, and for a moment she harbored hopes that he would have to put down the gun and pry with both hands. But Pete Mundy was a practical man. He slipped a Swiss Army knife from his belt, opened a blade, slit the bindings, and pulled the pouch free.
“What’s in there?” she asked, because he was taking a peek.
“Photographic negatives. They look like copies of documents.” He laughed. “Jericho Ainsley is so old-school. Nobody uses film any more.” He straightened. “Are you ready, honey?”
“You don’t have to do this,” she said. But she was remembering what Dak had told her. Jack Notting would have left behind no incriminating document, and, regarding the least defensible of its deeds, neither would the Agency. Was the packet another wisp? Or was Jericho playing a deeper game than anybody—
“I do have to do it, honey,” said the deputy. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s your boy, isn’t it? Jack Notting has your boy in his sights.”
She could not be certain, but she thought the gun wavered. Beck inched closer. Pete did not want to kill her. Hope battled terror. He was not an evil man, she told herself. She wondered how strong her own conscience would be if Notting had put the gun in her hand and told her that either Nina or Pete would die.
“You might want to close your eyes, honey,” said Pete. “They say that makes it easier.”
She shook her head. She had started to tremble, but still sensed his reluctance. “If you’re going to do this, you’re going to look me in the face and do this.” The barrel wavered again. “Come on, Pete,” she said, emboldened. She crept closer. “You’re the police. You can call people. You can protect your boy.”
“You don’t know what these people are like,” he said. “I like you, Beck. I like you a lot. But if it’s you or Billy, I have to choose Billy.”
“He’ll kill Billy anyway. And you.”
“Stand still,” he said. “That’s close enough.”
“We’re supposed to be the good guys—”
“Close your eyes,” the deputy repeated. There was no tremor in his voice, and no waver in the gun. This time, without conscious thought, her lids dropped. Her hearing sharpened. All around were the night sounds of scurrying animals and blowing snow. She wondered if it was true what they said, that you died without ever hearing the shot. She found herself praying, desperately, that Audrey’s God would look after Nina.
She waited. No shot. “I’m sorry Beck,” he said. “I—I have to do this.”
“No, you don’t,” she said gently, and, when he made no response, she realized that he was not going to pull the trigger, that he could not bring himself to kill her in cold blood. Eyes still closed, she took a cautious step in his direction. “It’s okay, Pete,” she said. “We’ll find a way to—”
The shotgun blast shook the woods.
Rebecca opened her eyes.
Pete Mundy was a bloody mess on the forest floor. Standing behind him, a shotgun cradled under his arm, tall and strong and not at all sickly, was the great Jericho Ainsley.
“I’m feeling much better now, Becky-Bear,” he said.
(iii)
They stood there in the clearing, the wind whipping the fire around. So far it had not reached the trees or the main house. Sooner or later, as the late Pete Mundy had said, people in town would notice the flames, and somebody would come. She wondered how long it would take. She concentrated on all of these questions in order to avoid accepting the sheer impossibility that Jericho could be standing here with a shotgun, having just saved her life.
“What’s the problem, Becky-Bear?” he murmured with the old roguish grin. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”
“What are you doing here?” she said. She was shivering, as much with fear as with cold, for the adrenaline rush had not released her. “I don’t understand.”