Parting Shot

Fifty-eight

As Cory inserted the key into the cabin door, he considered ways to get rid of the body.

He hadn’t thought things through very well when it came to his girlfriend. Carol’s car with Dolly’s body had to have been found by now. He should have taken more care, thought of a way that neither of those things would have been discovered for some time, if ever. He had to admit it. He’d panicked. Had he had more time to think things through, he could have run them off a bridge, for example. Left them at the bottom of a river.

He needed to do something like that with Carol’s body.

Once she was dead, he’d put her in the van and look for a suitable spot to dispose of her. Deep in a forest, say. Maybe he’d get lucky and find a shovel in the cabin somewhere that he could take with him. He’d dig a deep hole, toss her in, cover her up. Someone might find her some day, but it could be weeks, even years.

At least now he had more time to do things properly. When he was getting rid of Dolly and Carol’s car, he was working to a deadline. He was on the trail of Jeremy Pilford and didn’t want to lose him.

Well, so much for that project now.

Cory’s priority was saving his own ass.

He got the door open but did not run his hand along the wall searching for the light switch. He couldn’t have anyone looking in, certainly not as the road began to fill up with gawkers and emergency equipment. Even with the flimsy curtains pulled across the windows, the silhouette of a man moving a woman’s body was very likely to attract attention.

He would kill Beakman — smothering her seemed the best way to go — then move her body out and wipe down the cabin. Doorknobs, toilet handle, anything he could think of he might have touched. Leave no personal traces behind. Get behind the wheel and slowly drive away.

Cory knew he could never go home again, that he had seen his father for the last time. He was simultaneously depressed and delighted. He loved the man, at some level, but despised him, too.

The relentless belittling with a dollop of tenderness. “You should try harder to make something of yourself, but maybe you are what you are.” Followed by a look of resignation and disappointment.

He slipped into the cabin and closed the door silently behind him. Even though it had been dark outside, his eyes needed to adjust further to the gloom of the cabin. But he was able to make out the basic shapes of its contents. The wooden table and four mismatched antique chairs in the center of the room. The sink and counter along one wall. The wood-burning heater on the opposite side of the room, the chimney pipe leading straight up and through the ceiling.

And, finally, the two beds along the left wall. One empty, one not.

Yes, suffocation seemed the simplest way to go. Clamp a hand over her mouth, squeeze her nostrils shut, and wait until the life was snuffed out of her.

You did what you had to do.

He worked his way carefully across the darkened room and stood beside the bed.

“Everything’s gone wrong,” he said. “It’s all gone to shit. Someone else tried to do it, and he fucked it up. I’ve lost my chance. I have to leave.” He paused. “I can’t take you with me. At least, not... Well, I can’t. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and put a hand out to rest it on her back. He felt a strange need to comfort her before he did what he had to do.

But his hand found nothing. It went all the way down to the surface of the bed. Frantically, he patted the bed from head to foot.

“Where are you?” he shouted, turning sharply to look into the dark room.

His first thought was that if she’d managed to get loose, she wouldn’t have stayed around to await his return. She must be gone.

But then he thought he heard breathing.

Someone else was in the room.

“Where are you?” he said again, rising off the bed and whirling around, just in time to see a shadowy figure swinging something his way.

The steel poker from the wood-burning stove caught him across the side of the head and he staggered across the room. Feebly he raised his arm to ward off a second blow, but the poker hit him so hard he was sure he felt the bone in his forearm snap.

He dropped to his knees as the poker came around for a third time, this time catching him across the neck.

He hit the floor, writhing and gagging. He rolled onto his back, and as he looked up, a sliver of moonlight coming through one of the windows briefly lit up the face of his attacker.

What Cory saw was so unimaginably horrible he managed to utter a gasp between choking noises.

“Nice to see you again,” said Craig Pierce.