Cut and Run

Chapter 9

February in Maine. It sounded like the title of a song; like something that Bing Crosby or maybe Nat King Cole would have crooned over. Those old masters would have made the place sound beautiful and romantic, but Imogen Ballard didn’t see things like that. It was just too damn cold and wet to get maudlin over.

Everything was grey. The trees, the sky, even the blacktop that her feet skated over. Maybe taking a run to clear her head wasn’t her greatest idea. A roaring fire and scalding hot coffee would have been better. But it was too late for that now: she was two miles out from home, jogging along the coast road, overlooking the equally grey sea.

The rain was a fine mist that clung to everything. It had soaked her clothing within minutes of setting off, and now sat in heavy beads on her shoulders and on the wool cap pulled down over her short hair. Her effort kept her warm inside her clothes, but she was uncomfortable. Maybe the run wasn’t so bad an idea after all: concentrating on her miserable state kept her mind off her sister. Or it did until that errant thought.

Imogen pushed harder at the road surface, exhorting herself to greater effort. The cold air bit at the back of her throat. She began to sprint, challenging the incline ahead to shake Kate loose. But she was right there, all the way up the hill, watching her — figuratively speaking — all the way to the top.

She regretted involving Kate in her problems. It was her stupidity that had killed Kate.

All her decisions had been made too rashly, she saw that now — especially her decision to move out here to Ass-end, Maine. At the time, she’d thought it was the best thing for her, being close to her parents and siblings who were buried in the family plot. She’d come here because it was the only place she felt safe. And to heal.

She’d lived through a terrible ordeal. Her lover, William Devaney, had been murdered, and so had Kate. She had heard of something called survivor guilt syndrome, and wondered if that was what she was really hiding from. Her little sister had died protecting her. Joe Hunter and a couple of his friends had gone up against some seriously dangerous men to protect her, too. Imogen had done nothing but get them all in a fix. Guilt was a burden that she had to carry, and it was extremely heavy ploughing upwards to the top of this hill.

At the crest, Imogen came to a halt. She fisted both hands on her hips, and then bent at the waist to suck in lungfuls of air. A stitch felt like a hot brand creasing her left side. Now this was penance, she decided.

Back in the here and now, Imogen turned to look down the hill she’d just conquered. The blacktop was a glistening ribbon, some of the greyness refracted by the equally glistening trees standing like sentries at the roadside. The run uphill had looked ugly, but now she saw the beauty that beckoned her back down the hill. Her house stood on a promontory overlooking the Atlantic. It was hidden by the trees and the folds of the land, but it was a beacon. She set off jogging again, down the decline, feeling the tug of gravity at the centre of her chest. It was as if she was being reeled in on an invisible line. She felt light and easy now.

A truck came over the hill behind her. She heard its grumbling engine and the whistle of thick tyres on the slick road surface. Without pausing in her run, she moved to the side of the road, kicking up wings of water in the puddles that gathered there. She glanced back, ensuring that the driver had seen her in the poor conditions. The truck swept past her, and cold droplets splattered off her face. She blinked against the sting and her lips pulled into a grimace.

The truck was a blocky white shape. FedEx, she saw, delivering packages. Maybe the driver was headed for points south: Lincolnville or Camden, perhaps.

The brake lights flared and the truck drew to a slow halt.

Imogen wasn’t concerned. FedEx trucks were a regular feature here. Maybe this was a driver unfamiliar with the area who’d decided to stop and ask for directions.

She continued to jog towards the back of the truck. She heard the clunk of the driver’s door being opened and saw a tall, muscular man in a FedEx uniform hop down from the cab. He was holding a clipboard in his hand. Yeah, she decided, he was lost.

‘Hi,’ the man said. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your run, ma’am.’

Imogen slowed down, and then jogged in place. Her trainers made squishing sounds on the asphalt.

‘I’m looking for…’ he inspected the clipboard as though for confirmation. ‘Yes, I’m looking for a Miss Imogen Ballard.’

Imogen made a living by designing websites, but she sidelined in wildlife photography for magazine publishers. It wasn’t unknown to receive packages of proofs from the publishers. Her eyebrows went up, even as a hand went to her chest.

‘You’ve found her.’

‘Wow,’ said the man. ‘That was very fortuitous.’

Too fortuitous to be real, Imogen was slow to realise. Who used words like fortuitous these days? She squinted at the man, and his lips pulled into a sneer. Something about the coldness of his eyes warned her that his accidental luck was her misfortune.

From under the clipboard he pulled out a gun. It had a long broad barrel that glistened under the same refracted light that made the road seem ethereal. There was nothing beautiful about it.

‘Oh!’ Imogen said. It was all her mind could come up with while it was feverishly computing the information her senses fed it. She was thinking: Joe Hunter had killed all of my enemies, so what’s this about? She should have been thinking how to get out of this alive. Then there was no more time for thinking, or for anything.

The man lifted the gun and shot her once in the chest.