A while later, a strong hand gripped her shoulder and she looked up. Dallas knelt beside her and put his arms around her. She collapsed against him and pressed her face into his chest.
He held her until the tears stopped. Then he lifted her to her feet and took her back up the staircase to the house.
After showering and slipping on clean jeans and a warm sweater, Amy combed her wet hair into a ponytail, and started downstairs. As she descended the stairs, she became aware of sounds emanating from the kitchen. There was the clatter of pots and pans, the sound of rummaging, and the voices of two men attempting to cook something. Near the bottom step she stopped and listened, a smile playing at her lips.
Gramps: “You think there’s any bread?”
“Try the breadbox.”
There was a loud crash. “Damn, rice of all things”
A moment of silence, then Dallas said, “Hellndamnation. It’s everywhere.”
“Well, don’t stand there, Wayburne, start frying the eggs. I’ll sweep up.”
There was a clatter of pots, the fridge door closed, and a moment later Amy heard Dallas say, “Never could crack eggs. How do I get out the pieces of shell?”
“Scramble the works.”
“Hey, what’s that? Something’s burning. Oh no. The toast!”
Another silence. “Scrape off the black part. She’ll never know the difference.”
Amy heard scraping sounds and then Gramps yelled, “You watching those eggs, Wayburne? They smell scorched.”
“Yup. What now?”
“Put the top part on the plate and the burned part in the sink.”
Things were quiet in the kitchen. Then, Dallas said, “Looks like the dog’s breakfast.”
Amy threw her head back, and erupted into laughter. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dallas and Gramps pop out of the kitchen.
With a worried frown Gramps yelled, “She’s lost it.”
Dallas added, “Too much pressure.”
Amy caught their words and collapsed on the stairs in uncontrollable laughter.
Both men watched in alarm. Gramps said, “What’re we going to do? She’s a goner.”
Dallas chuckled and reached out to help Amy up. “Nah, they say laughter’s the best medicine.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Hey, Babe. We got food on the table.”
Amy burst into another gale of laughter.
Eventually, she made it into the kitchen and, trying not to notice the rice on the floor, she sat down. There, on the table was
the meal.
The toast was limp and in a post-burn state. The eggs smelled scorched. Amy picked up her fork and as Gramps and Dallas watched expectantly, she stabbed the eggs, desperate for a diversion. It was probably the worst meal she’d ever tried to eat, but it was made with love. Through the kitchen window, she saw red and blue flashing lights over on the point. “It’s become a regular crime scene around here lately,” she said flatly.
Dallas reached across the table for her hand. “How’re you holding up?”
She smiled. “Well, to tell you the truth, I feel much better now. You two in the kitchen are a cure for anything.” Amy became serious. “When this is over, I’ll let myself grieve for Dan. I can’t do that right now or it’ll be the end of me. I have to stay sharp and keep my wits about me if I want to get Jamie back.” She looked at her grandfather with his old steel wheelchair angled toward her. “Besides, I have a lot to be thankful for. I was a second from being shot in the back when Gramps came to my rescue,” she told Dallas. Amy reached out for her grandfather’s hand. “Don’t know what I’d do without you two. For a guy in a wheelchair you sure get around. And speaking of getting around, how did you get out of your house while it was burning?”
“It was a close call, I’ll tell you,” Gramps replied loudly, “Some big thug broke in while I was watching TV. Guess he thought I’d be easy pickings, with my bad legs. So this guy comes in throwing gas around the living room, tosses a match to it, and goes after me with a tire iron. I wasn’t going down without a good fight. He misjudged my upper body strength. Got my hands on the tire iron and I made it out. He didn’t. Kind of figured, with my wheelchair missing, you and Amy would figure it out.”
Amy exchanged a look with Dallas and shook her head. She decided it was best that Gramps didn’t know she went inside the burning house to look for him. Satisfied that Dallas understood, she turned back to her grandfather. “What happened after that?”
“Charlie next door heard all the yelling and came over to see what was going on. He helped me out, and took me to the hospital. Then, they airlifted me to Portland.”
Amy motioned for him to lower his voice. “Is that where you’ve been these last few days?” Amy asked, perplexed.
“Well, I was trying to get out of there. The docs said I had a concussion, smoke inhalation, cracked ribs, stuff like that, but frankly, I couldn’t take the place any longer. Checked myself out a few hours ago. Got the van from the rental company and headed over here, looking for you. Instead, I saw the window blasted out of the study and the front door blown to pieces. Heard shots out on the bluff. Got over to the lighthouse just in time to send that miserable bugger to his maker before he blasted you in the back.”
Dallas said, "And now we’ve got another murder investigation to deal with. You’re going to have to turn over your gun, Art. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Figured as much.”
Amy had listened quietly and then she said, “Gramps, did it occur to you, when you were in the hospital, to call me? I thought you died in the fire. Would it have been too difficult to ask a nurse to make the call, if you couldn’t?”
Gramps dropped his head and said softly, “Sorry, Girl.”
A heavy silence descended over the three of them. Dallas looked at his watch. “We’ll need to get your statements. Do you want to do it now? Tell me what happened here, in detail?”
Amy began with Dan’s phone call a couple of hours earlier. When she was finished, she stood up and walked over to the counter to pull a tissue out of the box. “Dan and I were standing in the study when a gunshot blasted out the window. Or rather half of the study.” Amy wiped her eyes and looked up at Dallas. She explained the rest and finished by saying, “I left Dan down on the beach thinking I could get him help. Poor Dan. He didn’t have a chance.” She put her head in her hands.
Dallas went over and put his arms around her and held her. She looked over at Gramps and then up at Dallas. “Jamie left a message on my answering machine. I taught him to memorize our phone number in case of an emergency. So, he called here and said that he isn’t far away. He can see the caves from his window. I think he’s at The Cliff House. I want to go there and get him.”
“Smart little guy,” Dallas said, pushing a stray lock of hair from her eye. “But getting him isn’t going to be simple. Eickher’s at The Cliff House along with Doc Johnstone, his nurse, a security guard, a bodyguard, and possibly your twin, Alesha.”
“And maybe Eickher’s wife,” Amy added, recalling the message from the spike-haired woman. “How do you know who’s down there?”
Dallas replied, “Nita. She was trying to have you charged. Which reminds me, do you have a gun?”
Amy screwed up her nose. “Not anymore. It was probably carried out to sea.”
Dallas’s cell rang. He pulled it from his belt. “Wayburne.” He listened, and then said, “Okay, I’ll be right over.” He looked at Amy. “I have to get over to the lighthouse.” He touched her cheek. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Hold on a little longer.”
Amy watched him step out the French door and disappear. She squeezed her eyes shut and threw her head back. “I can’t wait, Gramps. Jamie’s down there. God knows what's happening to him.” She whirled around and looked at her grandfather. “Dallas could be tied up here for hours. I need to get Jamie out of there
now
.”
Gramps turned the chair toward the back door and the wheelchair ramp. “I’m coming with you, Girl.”
The silver Mercedes was blocked on the drive by the sheriff’s Yukon and a police car. Without explanation to the deputy who was standing outside, Amy opened the passenger door of the Mercedes and helped Gramps into the seat, collapsed the wheelchair, stowed it in the back, and jumped into the driver’s seat. She turned the wheel hard left and drove out over the lawn. “I worked on The Cliff House during my first year with the firm,” Amy told Gramps. “The parking area is monitored by cameras. If they see Dan’s Mercedes, they won’t suspect anything. It gives me a better chance of getting inside.”
Raindrops splattered the windshield and Amy flipped on the wipers. Looking at the speedometer, she was amazed. She would never have been able to take the curves this fast in her Jeep.
Gramps seemed to read her thoughts. “Dan always knew how to live. Tell me, what part did he play in all this?”
Amy tried not to break her concentration. “A pawn, like me. His father, Dr. George Johnstone, spelled with a T, was Mom’s OB/GYN. Along with his wife, Vera, they delivered my twin and me…and a lot of other infants. Dan was their son and Nita is their daughter.”
“
Johnstone.
Kind of wondered if there was a connection, the name being so close. Wish that I’d looked into that years ago. What’s the rest of the story?”
Amy turned off Lighthouse Road and sped through town toward the coast highway. She let her grandfather grasp what she was saying before continuing, “Your other granddaughter, Alesha, grew up in a research facility in Paraguay. From what Dan said, I doubt that she ever lived a normal life.”
Gramps sat silently for a long time. “Poor girl. What a life, living like that in Paraguay of all places. The end of the earth. Think for a minute, what this Helmut Eickher, has done to our family: the deaths of Sharalynn, Dave, and now Dan, the hurt and threats to all of us, burning down my house, sending killers after you, is there anything I missed? Who knows what he did to the other families. The man’s a psycho.”
Amy wasn’t going to tell him what happened to Grams, nor her previous run-in with the meat cutter. Not now anyway. They drove in silence for a while, then Gramps said, “We’re heading into the lion’s lair and neither one of us have a weapon.”
Doris Eickher sped toward The Cliff House. That morning, she had followed in Alesha’s footsteps and gone to Beaverdale where a woman with spiked hair blew smoke in Doris’s face and gave her Amy’s number. Doris tried to get up the nerve to call but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Finally, she had decided to go to George Johnstone’s house. Sooner or later Helmut would show up there. Doris knew that when he was in the U.S., Helmut split his time between The Cliff House and Vera Johnstone’s bedroom. His visits weren’t frequent, but they were often lengthy.
Clutching a map, Doris had gone up and down the coast highway, turning down every road near the caves. Now, she was on a washed out track that ambled through the trees. Worse, it was climbing in elevation. Where was the sea?
She wiggled higher in the seat struggling to see over the wheel and through the torrential rain that defied the wipers. The road turned sharply left and suddenly she found herself in a well-lit parking area. Three cars were parked in front of a high concrete retaining wall, but there was no house or building in sight.
She parked her rental next to the Bentley and sat for a moment, wondering if she was in the right place. She picked up the old flip style cell phone and keyed in the first few digits of Amy’s number, then stopped. There was so much to tell the young woman, but she couldn’t do it on the phone. She needed to meet with her. But first, she had to find Alesha.
When Doris stepped out of the car, her feet sank into a mulch of wet leaves. The wind tore the umbrella from her hands and the rain drenched her. “Such a miserable climate,” she grumbled aloud, making her way to a recessed area in the corner. As much to get out of the weather as anything, she hurried toward it, and was surprised to find herself in front of two black metal doors. An elevator! To one side was a two-button panel with a red light and a thin slot for a key card. She felt in her purse for her ring of keys and pulled it out. On it was her key card. Each of them had one for the elevators at the facility. She wondered if Helmut & Johnstone would have used the same code. She slid her card into the slot and the light turned green. She could hear the elevator coming up the shaft. There was a whirring sound and the door slid open revealing a large brass-walled interior. She stepped inside. The door closed and she stared at the four buttons. She pressed
Main Level
and the elevator descended.
Stepping out, she found herself in a vast atrium filled with potted trees and plants. In the center was an oval pond teaming with Koi. She disliked Koi. A staircase curved dramatically toward the skylight, four stories up. Opposite her, was another staircase, leading down to the floors below. Doris realized she had parked on the roof. George Johnstone had always boasted his house was impossible to find. This must be it!
No one seemed aware of her arrival. In the distance she heard a man’s voice lecturing, admonishing. It was the same voice that had ruled her life for almost forty years. Yes, she was at the right place.
Doris reached into her purse and pulled out the handgun she had bought when she arrived in Portland. It felt powerful in her hand: an equalizer. She had never held a gun before, but she knew it would be needed to persuade Helmut to release Alesha. Forty years with the man had taught Doris that she held no power of persuasion with him.
Doris knew that Alesha’s unscheduled departure from the Paraguayan facility would enrage Helmut to the point where he would likely immobilize Alesha, as he’d done in the past. Nothing made Doris angrier than Helmut treating her beautiful daughter like a prisoner. It broke Doris’s heart to think of it and it was this deep concern for Alesha that had brought Doris to Oregon.
As she listened to Helmut’s voice, she thought about all the years she had cared for the man, served him faithfully, jumped to meet his every need, and loved him. Yes, she had loved him. As a doctor, she had worked her lifetime to advance his research. She had been loyal in every way for almost four decades. And for what? What had he given in return? Love? No! What she had mistaken for Helmut’s apparent love had turned out to be his best effort at assimilating an emotion he couldn’t fathom. He was incapable of love. He was incapable of feeling for others. She knew that now.