At First Sight

Chapter 44

HE GRABBED THE DEER RIFLE OFF THE YAMAHA AND pointed it at me. "Get up. Start walking."

"What are you going to do?" I stammered through chattering teeth. He poked me in the back with the barrel, so I got to my feet and started to walk.

He followed on the snowmobile, ranting as we went. I could only hear snatches of what he was saying over the whining engine.

".. hard to find… no way she could have… The bitch… Chandler… " He was rambling. Occasionally he would stop and shout directions.

"Right, dammit! You have to go right!"

We were way off the highway. I was trudging through almost two feet of fresh snow while the Yamaha's headlamp lit the terrain in front of me. I couldn't feel my feet. My clothes were sopped, my body shivering uncontrollably. My fingers and toes had gone mercifully numb.

I didn't know where Chick was taking me. I stumbled along in front of the snowmobile until he finally yelled for me to stop. Then he climbed off the Yamaha carrying the rifle. He pushed me forward. I stumbled, unable to even feel my legs now. My jaw was clenched so tightly against the cold that I wondered if I would even be able to open it to beg for my life.

"That's far enough," he growled.

I stopped and wiped my eyes with a wet sleeve. I glanced around and saw that he had brought me to the edge of a cliff. I was standing on the lip of a deep ravine.

"You see my problem?" he said, his voice harsh and accusing.

I dragged my sluggish brain back and tried to focus on what he was saying. I felt like I was in the early stages of hypothermic ataxia. "You ruined it. Now I have no choice but to do this."

I tried to say something, but my jaw was locked, clamped shut.

"You… you were everything, y'know? Everything. I would have given it all to you. Evelyn just took, but I would have gladly given everything to you."

At that moment, I was wishing he'd go ahead and push me over this cliff or put a bullet in me, whatever his plan was. I was so bone-freezing cold that anything was better than standing here listening to this lovesick drivel while my body and brain were going dead, inch by paralyzing inch.

Then as I stood waiting to die, I heard the same voice that had warned me not to go when I was back at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena. It was close to my ear, or even inside my head this time. The strange thing was, this voice wasn't a memory or a thought, it was a clear voice and it was speaking directly to me.

"Paige, you can take this guy," it said.

It was so real that I actually glanced behind me. There was nothing there but a snow-filled ravine that dropped down hundreds of feet. "You can take him, Paige. Forget the pain. Just do it."

I know it's crazy. But that's what it said. And then, with the next sentence, I knew the voice was Chandler's.

"It's not your time yet," he whispered. "You can take him, babe. You're at the twenty-mile mark, just like last year. Do it! You can make this finish line, too."

It sounds nuts, I know, but it was him. He was talking about the Boston Marathon last year. By the twenty-mile mark, I was so spent I didn't think I could take another step. But I had. I had pushed myself beyond my endurance and had finished the race with my best time ever. Chandler was telling me to do the same thing now. Only this time my life depended on it.

"I loved you," Chick was saying, "but I can't go to jail. I can't pay for all this?'

He raised the rifle and pointed it at me.

Without thinking, I lunged and grabbed for the gun with numb fingers. We struggled on the edge of the cliff. I yanked on the barrel, pulling the rifle toward me. The muzzle ended up buried in my stomach. Call it luck or fate, but for some reason the gun didn't fire. I shoved it aside. Chick and I fought on silently, two or three feet from the lip of the ravine.

With no feeling in my arms and legs, I wasn't doing much damage. But I managed to hang onto the gun, trying without luck to pull it out of his hands. I could smell his hot, sour breath on my cheek as we fought for control. But I was weakening rapidly. I was losing.

He finally wrested the rifle from my grasp and pushed me down at his feet. It was finally over. I had nothing left.

Then I heard the gun cock… the sharp ringing sound of steel against steel. Time slowed. I waited for him to fire. Waited for the end.

But Chandler wasn't finished. He wouldn't leave me alone. "You can still win! Do it now, Paige. Do it!"

Somehow, with strength I didn't know I had, I lunged at Chick, rolling and twisting as I dove, trying desperately to take his legs out from under him. At first it was like crashing up against two solid tree trunks. He didn't move at all. But then I sensed him tipping. His knees buckled and he fell forward over my body, landing on my ribcage. Pain shot through me.

Suddenly, Chick let out a panicked shriek and I felt him roll over my back. He hit the ground on the far side of me and I heard the snow crunch as he began to tumble. I was too spent to get to my feet or even look, but I heard him scream-loudly at first-but slowly the sound fell away from me until it stopped abruptly with a distant thud.

I struggled to get my arms under me, but nothing would work. Total numbness. I couldn't feel any of my extremities.

I finally managed to get into a sitting position and pulled myself to the edge of the cliff. There, fifty feet below, lit by a sliver of intermittent moonlight, I saw him. His arms and legs were sprawled out at bizarre angles. Chick had landed on a small ledge that stopped his fall halfway to the bottom. I couldn't tell if he was alive or dead.

"Chick?" I called out.

He didn't answer.

I knew I had to get on that snowmobile and get the hell out of there before hypothermia shut me down completely. I dragged myself over to the red Yamaha and tried to climb on. At first, I couldn't even pull myself up onto the seat, but I finally managed to roll onto the saddle and fumbled for the key, which was thankfully still in the ignition. Just then, I thought I heard a faint voice calling to me from far away.

I hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was really him, or the wind, or just my imagination. Should I go back? As it was, I'd be lucky to get to the cabin before I froze to death. If he was alive, the only way I could help him was to call mountain rescue, get somebody out here who could rappel down with a stretcher and get him off that cliff.

Then I heard him again. His plaintive wail was clear in the still night. "Paige! Paige, please don't leave me! I still love you!"

Right. I struggled to turn the ignition key. The snowmobile coughed to life. I pressed the hand throttle slowly, afraid my numb fingers would not work properly and I'd shoot the Yamaha out over the edge and fall to my own death. But it finally started moving. I managed a U-turn and headed back the way I'd come, leaving Chick behind.

Half a mile down Highway 38 I saw a snowplow approaching, its headlights cutting holes in the curtain of snow. I pulled alongside and told the man behind the wheel my problem. He helped me into the cab where it was warm. Then he bundled a blanket around me and radioed for help. I knew it was going to be up to me to lead the rescue team back to the spot where Chick was stranded.

An hour later, Emergency Services hoisted that sorry son-of-abitch up off the ledge where he had landed. Two broken legs, a broken right arm, a crushed elbow, and two fractured ribs. As they rushed him to the hospital he was howling in pain.

Not long after that I was sitting at the Bear Mountain Lodge in front of a fire, with my hands and feet wrapped in bandages. The paramedics assured me I wouldn't lose any fingers or toes.

I was celebrating that fact with a blended scotch when Bob Butler walked in along with LAPD detective Apollo Demetrius. When he wasn't able to reach me, Bob had called Chandler's parents, who told him where I was. He had arrived only four hours late. Not bad. If I'd played my hand more carefully and not foolishly let Chick see his letter, Bob might have actually made it up there in time to save me.

My sad, dogged detective just looked at me with those friendly gray eyes and carefully held my bandaged hand. He was my real hero in all this. He never gave up. He had finally proven that Chick Best killed Chandler. It had taken him more than half a year working weekends and nights, but Bob Butler solved my husband's murder, just like he promised he would. Between the two of us, we now had enough evidence to prove it.

A few days later in L. A., Chick confessed to Evelyn's murder as well. His status-heavy Cavalli jeans had been trumped by an orange prison jumpsuit.

The story went wide. All the national news outlets picked it up. "Killer of Chandler Heir Arrested."

Two weeks later Chick finally got his feature story in People Magazine.

He made the cover.