Blind Pursuit

31

Gund watched Annie steer the Miata through a squealing U-turn and race onto Craycroft Road, speeding south.

The letter hadn’t fooled her, as he’d hoped. If anything, it had reinforced her suspicions.

But he doubted that the police would view it in the same light. An overworked detective would seize on any plausible excuse to discontinue the preliminary investigation into Erin’s disappearance.

Annie, of course, had failed to think of that. Her mind didn’t work that way. She was not devious. To her, the phoniness of the letter was self-evident; naively she assumed that others would agree.

She was in for a disappointment. Well, there would be a worse disappointment yet to come. Because Erin was never coming back.

Gund entered the shop, flicked on the lights. Stuffed animals and garish pinatas peeped at him out of the foliage like huddled creatures in a forest.

He wondered how Annie would deal with it, how she would react as it became clear to her-clearer each day, each passing week-that her sister was gone forever, her fate a mystery never to be solved.

The loss would age her, surely. Kill her, even.

He frowned, lips pursed. No, he decided. It would not kill her. She was strong. As strong as Erin, though she probably didn’t know it.

She would live through this.

Unless, of course, Gund should find it necessary to No.

That never had been part of the plan. Erin’s… disposal… always had been an option, albeit one he’d preferred not to exercise. But Annie wasn’t part of this. Annie need not be touched.

“Need not,” he whispered, rubbing his hands together. “Need not.”

He set about drawing the blinds, dusting the counter, sorting currency in the cash register. These were things he could do automatically; his mind was still on Annie.

In her haste and agitation she hadn’t even noticed the damage to his van, though she had parked directly beside it.

Last night he’d replaced the flat tire with a full-size spare, then hammered the door frame on the driver’s side back into shape so the door would open and shut. The rest of the damage would require the services of an auto-body shop.

The front quarter panel on the driver’s side had been crushed like a beer can. One headlight was gone. Ugly grooves were etched in the passenger-side panel where Erin’s Taurus had scraped the van in the barn.

Gund carried no collision insurance. That little bitch had cost him a bundle.

Well, he’d seen to it that she paid for her disobedience. She would never give him any trouble again.

He nodded grimly. Never again.

Though he hadn’t heard a weather report, the morning seemed warm, the shop stuffy. He found the thermostat and turned on the air conditioning.

The sudden whir of the duct fans, a dull, throbbing burr, reminded him of the roar of flames.