Cold Ridge

Thirty-Two

The shot had been close enough that Carine had felt its concussion, as if the air around her was compressed, the oxygen sucked out of it by the velocity of the gun burst. Itwassounexpected,sostartling,she'dalmostscreamed, and ended up biting the inside corner of her mouth.

Turner didn't have her. In fact, he'd slipped out of the warming hut and was moving around back, near her position in the trees. She was cold-no hat, no gloves, just her barn coat. At least she was basically out of the wind.

"Carine," Turner said softly, dried leaves crunching under him, "I know you're here. I have a soft spot for you. Join me. You didn't know about North's trust fund, did you? We can get away from here. I won't hurt anyone if you come with me."

Maybe North had a trust fund, maybe he didn't, but she didn't believe Turner planned to do anything but shoot her the first chance he got. Either he really was losing his grip on reality or he was just pretending to, toying with her, manipulating her. She sank low behind a low-branching white pine. If she moved, he'd hear her-she couldn't see him, but she knew he was close.

"I'm sick. I have cancer. It's all through me. No one's fault."

If true.

"It gives me perspective." His voice was eerily calm, almost toneless. "I know what I want before I die. Who I want to see die first. But I'd give that up if I could spend my last days with you."

She stiffened to keep herself from shivering with fear, the cold. She didn't dare look around the tree, make even the slightest sound.

"Tony-Louis-and I had a good thing going. I planned to live out my last months in style. I had a wife." His voice cracked. "The smuggling was to help set her and her idiot brother up for the future."

Carine had no choice but to let him talk. If he was talking-hunting her-he wasn't shooting anyone else. But had he seen her, heard her? Was he just playing with her before he pounced?

"Jodie Rancourt took up with Louis a year ago, before you took the pictures of our base of operations. She knew he was up to something, but she liked the sense of danger, the risk. She let us try out her and her husband's expensive guns."

Good God, Carine thought, wishing she had a tape recorder.

"He had them for show," Turner said as he crept around in the woods to her right, nearer the Rancourt house. "Louis wanted to kill you. I stopped him. I wanted to get the camera, make sure there were no incriminating pictures and make sure you were too scared to talk. Then the PJs and Hank Callahan showed up on the scene. I had to cut my losses."

She spotted him in the trees, up on the hill above her, still to her left, but if she stayed where she was, he'd see her. She picked up her rock and eased around the other side of her pine, making relatively little noise in the bed of red-brown pine needles. She hit grass, then quickly slipped into the back door of the hut.

Maybe it was what he'd planned all along. Corner her. Shoo her into the hut with Eric and Hank.

Eric was in the corner, sobbing and choking for air. Carine knelt down, setting the rock on the floor next to her, and quickly undid the bungee cords around the boy's wrists and ankles. "You heard your dad out there, right?"

The boy nodded. "He-he only tied me up this morning." But talking was clearly difficult for him, and once free, he immediately grabbed his inhaler, then sagged and threw it down. "None left."

"Look-sit tight," Carine said. "I'm going to untie Hank. Turner's outside looking for me. Maybe your dad and Tyler will intercept him."

She quickly ran to the front of the hut, where Hank was bound and gagged next to the small potbellied woodstove. Carine pulled the gag.

"Eric-he's going out the back. If Turner sees him-" Hank sat up straighter. "Go after him, Carine. I'll be okay."

He was bound with thin rope, the knots pulled tight. She tugged at them, trying to stretch the rope. "I can't get them without a knife."

"Go!"

She could hear Turner out front, stepping onto the ground-level porch. "What the fuck's going on in there?"

"We're out of time," Hank hissed.

She ducked down and ran toward the back of the hut, diving outside and down behind a woodbox next to the door. Eric was up by her pine tree, but he didn't stay put. He made a mad dash up the hill, into the woods, thrashing through the dried leaves.

Carine took a breath, pretending she was the one making the noise. "Gary," she said. "I told everyone you weren't trying to kill me that day last fall. The shack- you set it on fire?"

He was inside, moving toward her position. "I had to burn down the evidence. Manny Carrera was almost there-"

"He would have waited for the police. He was unarmed."

"I couldn't take that chance."

"What happened?"

"My wife was there. She tried to talk me out of burning everything down. She didn't want to give up. She and Tony Louis-they thought we could kill all of you."

He kicked at something on the floor just inside the door, probably Eric's bungee cords. "They were right. I should have listened. The explosion and fire killed her. I watched the woman I love burn to death."

"I'm sorry, but why didn't anyone find her body?"

"I buried her in the woods, before the ground froze. She didn't die right away, but I couldn't take her to the hospital. Louis ran-Jodie Rancourt helped him. I don't know if she guessed who he was then, knew it all along. I hid in the woods for weeks. I got a skin infection. Frostbite. I lost my fingers, a couple of toes."

"I'm sorry." She held her rock, wondering if he'd come outside and she could bonk him on the head before he shot her. "But hurting people because you're hurting-that's not your way. I can tell."

"I don't expect you to understand. It'll feel good to see those bastards go before I do. They think they can do anything."

He was out the back door, two feet from her. She didn't dare breathe.

"Are you armed, Carine?" he asked in a conversational tone. "The boy won't last. There was peanut oil in the energy bar I made him eat a little while ago. He doesn't know. He's deathly allergic to peanuts.

"North! Carrera!" It was Hank, yelling from inside the hut. "Eric's free. Turner's going after Carine. I'm setting this place on fire. I'm his only hostage."

Turner spun around. "What? Goddamn it-"

The sound of crashing metal-the potbellied stove- came from the hut, Hank still yelling information, instructions. Carine shot out from her woodbox cover and beaned Turner with her rock and ran, darting up the hill into the woods. He swore viciously, and she glanced back, seeing him down on one knee, grabbing his head where she'd hit him. He hadn't dropped his rifle.

She knew she'd only bought herself a few seconds.

But she could smell smoke. Hank had set the hut on fire, presumably creating a diversion-confusion, chaos-for Manny and Ty to act.

Carine zigzagged up the hill from tree to tree, trying to pick up Eric's trail and stay out of Turner's sight. Had he gone back into the hut to grab Hank? He wouldn't want to lose his only hostage.

But if he had, it wasn't for long.

She could hear him down the hill, behind her in the woods.