Winter at the Door (33 page)

And he must know he’d have to go alone, not take his stolen family. Or not all of it; only the baby, Lizzie was willing to bet.

Only his own flesh and blood. As if to prove it, he shoved her aside, ducking into the lean-to and emerging with the child under his arm, wedged there like a bundle of rags. The woman scrambled after him, her arms stretched out imploringly. But then she stopped short, her face upturned in a mask of anguish.

The child whimpered as the guy hefted him a little higher under his arm, ignoring the weeping woman.

“Keep the gun on them,” he told Spud. He eyed Chevrier and Lizzie flatly, then looked back at his helper, who by now seemed extremely nervous.

“But what if …?” Spud began, an anxious whine creeping into his voice. The baby stopped crying, then coughed several times, a thick, wet hacking that Lizzie didn’t like the sound of one bit.

The guy didn’t seem to notice. “Don’t worry,” he told Spud. “You’ve got the gun, remember?”

He looked down at Lizzie, then at Chevrier. “So if either one of them moves one freaking muscle,” he finished flatly, “just kill them both.”

The two cops spoke quietly to each other. Spud didn’t try to stop them; after all, what could they do?

And anyway, the guy hadn’t said not to let them talk. So he watched silently, proud of the responsibility he’d been given, waiting for his newfound friend to return.

Around him the trees seemed to wait silently, too. The wind had dropped off, snow gusts no longer blowing into the campsite, and the fire’s flames aimed straight up as if pointing out the clearing sky overhead, stars winking between the treetops.

But as the clouds thinned, the cold bit down hard. Spud’s skin chilled down as well, wet from the snow that had melted into his clothes. The fire helped a little, but not nearly enough.

His feet throbbed miserably; he imagined how his toes must look. Red and swollen, as they had when he was a kid and stayed out too long sledding? Or was frostbite transforming them to dead flesh, blackened gangrene that would rot off and—

“Hey, Spud.”

He grunted irritably. Why Lizzie Snow thought anything she said might interest him was beyond him. Didn’t she know she was going to die out here soon?

“It’s not that easy, you know,” she said. “Killing people, I mean. You’d better make sure you’ve got the stones for it before you try aiming that thing and pulling the trigger.”

See? Right there she proved how ignorant she was, how much she misunderstood the whole situation. “Uh-huh,” he said.

Let her chew on that, see how little effect anything she had to say could have on him.

Far away, the thin wail of a siren floated on the icy air. A cop car, Spud thought with an inner lurch of alarm. After the guy fired shots out there, someone must’ve called for help somehow. Now a bunch of reinforcements would swarm in and …

But no, Spud realized, relaxing slightly and sneering at the cops in front of him. First of all, they’d never find this place; the way in was twisty and hard to follow even without snow.

Anyway, the guy was out there; he’d take care of whatever—or whoever—needed to be dealt with. An arrow flying out of the darkness at some poor dope lit up by his own headlights …

Yeah, that would do it. Just like it had before. But Lizzie Snow wasn’t finished blabbering.

“I guess you’ve got to be a little upset, anyway, at the way things are going.”

Spud couldn’t help himself. “Yeah, right,” he replied. “I’m, like, totally shaking in my boots.”

Actually he was. Damn, it was cold out here. Still, he could keep it together for a little longer. Pretty soon the guy would come back.

“Good,” said Lizzie Snow, unfazed by his attempt at sarcasm. “Because you should be. I mean,” she added, glancing at the dying fire, “you’ve got to admit, things look pretty grim for you.”

He glanced up at her. On the one hand, he knew she was only trying to mess with his head, provoke him into doing something or not doing something that she could take advantage of.

But on the other hand …“What d’you mean by that?”

Carelessly she shrugged. “I mean your pal there, the Lion King or whoever it is he thinks he’s dressed up as—”

“Hey, don’t make fun of him.” Spud waved the gun, noting that his hand didn’t want to unclench from around its grip.

Too cold.
Too stiff. Could you even pull the trigger?

He brushed the thought away. “He’s my friend,” he went on stubbornly. “We’re a team, him and me.”

At that, Sheriff Chevrier spoke up. “Yeah, he’s your pal, all right. That’s why he’s loading up his vehicle with his stash out there. What did he do, hide his van right near the road so he could make a quick getaway?”

Spud didn’t know. The guy, he realized suddenly, hadn’t confided his plans, only given orders.

“Hey, he’s probably got the heater running, too,” Chevrier said, “while you’re freezing your ass off here.”

Spud shifted uncomfortably, stopped when he noticed Chevrier watching. “Shut up. He’ll be back.”

But it hadn’t escaped Spud, either, that when the guy had left, he’d taken the kid with him. Lizzie Snow started in again:

“He’s not coming back, Spud. All he wants is his own child, not you or any of us. You know that, Spud, don’t you?”

Then Chevrier: “But hey, stick with him if you want. Believe whatever lie falls out of his mouth.”

Enough
 … If he could, he’d have shot them both right then just to shut them up.

“I promise you,” Lizzie Snow said, “that if he does come back, it’ll only be to take that weapon from you. And before he leaves, he’ll put a bullet in your head with it.”

“Shut up.” He was freezing now, really freezing to death. His feet ached all the way to his hips, his eyes burned, and his nose felt like it might crack and fall off his face.

Still she yammered on: “Because give me a break, Spud. I mean, think about it: what the hell does a guy like that need with you?”

“Shut up, shut
up
!” he bellowed. Where the hell was the guy, anyway? What the hell was he doing, lallygagging around out there in the warm van while Spud waited here, dying of cold?

He tried blowing his breath onto his fingers, to warm them. That way, they’d be all flexible and trigger-ready when the time came.

Noting this activity, Chevrier spoke. “Yeah, loosen up. He’s going to get you to do it, see? And then he’ll do it to you.”

“I told you, shut up.” Spud forced the words from between gritted teeth. But Chevrier only snorted dismissively.

“You think he wants a girl-killer riding shotgun with him?” Chevrier asked, sounding as calm as if he was sitting in a booth at Grammy’s Restaurant.

Spud made himself remain still. Guessing, Chevrier was only guessing. There was no way anyone could’ve …

“Kid gave you a ride, didn’t he?” Chevrier went on, wearing that look Spud hated, that I’m-better-than-you look. The girls had all worn it, too … until they didn’t.

“Uh-huh,” said Chevrier, either not noticing or not caring that Spud was ready to shoot him in the head right now, just to shut his freaking mouth for him.

But first he had to hear what that freaking mouth said.

“Dropped you in Bangor, on his way back to school,” said Chevrier. “But after he dropped you off, he turned around and came back.”

Didn’t, thought Spud. No, he damned well …

“Yep. Forgot to bring along a term paper he wrote.”

Chevrier turned to Lizzie. “Yeah, I never got the chance to get you up to speed on that part, did I?”

He went on. “I talked to the kid’s folks. Turns out he had to have
that paper, turn it in on time to keep his scholarship. But there was nobody home to email it to him, so he had to go back and get it himself.”

“You’re lying,” Spud managed. Because for one thing, even if the kid had come back, how would—

Chevrier shook his head. “But then he rolled his car on the highway just outside of Bearkill. And when we got to the scene, guess what we found? That nose stud of yours, the one you don’t have anymore. And that’s why you don’t have it, isn’t it?”

Spud forced himself to shrug carelessly. “Lots of people have those.”

But the sheriff had an answer for that, too, and where
was
the guy, anyway? By now he could’ve loaded up a tractor-trailer full of whatever it was he was hauling out of here.

“Yeah. They don’t all have your DNA, though, Spud. DNA that I swabbed off of your little nose doodad and that the lab down in Augusta is going to match with some of the spit I took off your coffee cup from Lizzie’s office. Heck, results are probably back by now.”

Now Spud knew he was lying. That wasn’t even possible, was it? Or at least not so soon …

Surely it wasn’t. But the cop’s smirk broadened. “Yeah, we got you. So I just hope your pal left you some bullets to go with that little popgun you’re holding, buddy.”

Spud glanced nervously at the gun, realized he didn’t even know how to tell if it was loaded.

Now Chevrier laughed. “Just funnin’ with you, kid. See the clip sticking out of the bottom of the grip?”

Spud tipped the weapon slightly as Chevrier went on. “Yeah, there’s bullets in it.”

A brief pause, then: “So, listen, whyn’t you just put one in your brain right now, save yourself and everyone else a whole lot of trouble? I promise,” Chevrier added, “I solemnly promise you that if you do, it won’t hurt a damned bit.”

From the woods came the echoing report of a single gunshot, so near that Spud jumped and for an instant thought he had actually done it.

But he hadn’t. “Shut your mouth,” he told the sheriff, then sat back
down on the log, reassuring himself again that the delay meant nothing ominous.

That a single gunshot meant only that the guy had abandoned the bow and arrow for a deadlier weapon, and when he came back, he and Spud could get the hell out of here.

And if the guy wanted Spud to shoot anyone first, like these two cops and the woman with the scar, too, maybe …

Hell, at this point he’d be
delighted
to do it.

The little girl was crying. “Get in there, tell her to shut that kid up,” Spud ordered Lizzie irritably.

She slipped into the lean-to, now dim-lit by a battery lamp. The little girl’s blond head popped up from behind the woman.
Blue eyes full of tears, that cornsilk hair …

“Nicki?” The child’s eyes widened, but she didn’t answer.

Forcing herself to stay calm, Lizzie sat back on her heels and waited. The little girl wiggled free of the blankets.

“Hi. My name’s Lizzie. What’s yours?”

No answer. The little girl crept forward. By the weakening battery lantern’s dim glow, her eyes gleamed blue.

But then the first unwelcome prickle of doubt came. Nicki’s eyes were blue. But the bright aqua hue of this little girl’s eyes wasn’t a normal human eye color. And that cornsilk hair …

She forced herself to remain still even as sorrow hit her. The child gazed up at Lizzie, the part in her pale hair showing the dark brown at its roots.

Biting her lip, Lizzie smiled through her tears. The hair color on this child wasn’t real. It had been bleached, the most recent application several weeks ago by the look of it.

Lizzie put her hand out, turned the little girl’s face very gently to see the faint line of the blue contact lenses in her eyes, knowing now that the child had been deliberately disguised.

Dark hair, eyes some other color besides blue … it wasn’t Nicki. “Lovely,” Lizzie managed, caressing the pale hair lightly. “Now get back under those blankets, hmm? It’s cold.”

She didn’t know how she got the words out past the lump in her throat, how she smiled again at the child.

So pretty, so sweet and obedient. And so not the child that she sought.
It’s not her. It’s just not
.

For a moment, disappointment overwhelmed her:
I came all this way, I gave up everything …

But none of that mattered now. It was over, and it had all been for nothing.

“Are you a cop?”

Lizzie jumped startledly. The woman with the scarred face was looking at her; she’d been so silent that Lizzie had nearly forgotten her.

“Yeah,” Lizzie answered. “That’s the county sheriff out there. We’re here to take your boyfriend into custody.”

Outside, Chevrier tried another angle with Spud. “So who’s the woman?” he asked. “In the lean-to, with the little girl. You know her?”

“Nah” came Spud’s response. “She’s with him.” His tone was dismissive.

“I see.” Chevrier sounded calm. “So what’s the deal, then? You’re all going to be one big, happy family? Or,” he added insinuatingly, “do you think maybe you’ve got a chance with her?”

Spud made a sound of disgust. “You kidding? Jeeze, have you seen the face on that chick?”

Inside the lean-to, the woman looked down at her hands.

“She’s like the Joker from the Batman movies,” Spud went on as the woman listened.

Thoughtfully, turning some small object that Lizzie couldn’t see over and over in her lap.

“Guy prob’ly took pity on her,” Spud elaborated, “took her in when no one else’d have her, you know?”

The woman’s lips pursed in a near smile. She seemed to be thinking hard about something. Then she got up, gesturing at the child to stay back while she crept toward the lean-to’s mouth.

Lizzie moved, too, sudden suspicion seizing her. “Wait,” she began. But it was already too late.

Chevrier turned, his eyes narrowing in surprise. Then Spud looked up, frowning.

“Hey,” he objected, “you’re not supposed to—”

Damn
, thought Lizzie,
she’s got a
—

“Gun,” Chevrier said flatly, gathering himself to charge at the woman, but at her sharp gesture with the weapon he sank back.

“You,” she said clearly to Spud. “You’re a fool, you know?”

Her voice wavered on the edge of hysteria. But she kept it together long enough to finish what she had to say.

“You think he took me in. That I’m so ugly that nobody else would have me. So it’s a kindness, him keeping me here.” She jerked the gun at him. “Is that it?”

He looked around helplessly, seeming to realize he couldn’t take back any of what he’d said.