And a gun in his hand.
“Stuart?” Woody said.
“Hello, Woody. Lotta water under the bridge.” Stuart Speerman turned to Anna, his face grave. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“But I know who you are,” Anna said. She felt strange, and disconnected. It was as if she were watching all this from someplace else. At this point she was beyond surprise.
At last everything made sense. The violent, unbalanced brother, living here with Jack, staying out of sight except for an occasional drive down the road behind the house to intersect with Highway 25 and the unsuspecting motorists traveling there. The perfect hideout, for both himself and the bodies of his victims. The perfect opportunity to strike and take cover and strike again.
“Why?” Anna managed to ask.
Stuart’s face grew even more solemn. “Voices,” he said. “They told me to do it. I had no choice.”
She shook her head. “Three innocent people. You’re insane.”
He shrugged as if that might indeed be a possibility.
Anna turned to Jack. “And you helped him.”
“I protected him. There’s a difference.”
“Was it your car that stopped those women?”
“No,” Stuart said. “But it was his light bar. It fits pretty well on the top of his other car. The one the voices told me to drive.” He grinned then, and for a moment Anna could clearly see the gleam of madness in his eyes. “It’s amazing — nobody worries if there’s no uniform, or markings on the car. That flashing light’s all it takes. Besides, I work at night.”
“Worked,” Jack corrected. “You promised me it was over.” He turned to Anna and Woody and said wearily, “It’s over now.”
“Well, it will be.” Stuart’s smile was back again. “After we do a little cleanup.”
Woody was staring at his old friend. “How could you do it, Jack? I mean, you’re a peace officer.”
The muscles in Jack’s face seemed to slacken. “He’s my brother.” As if that explained everything.
“So you’re going to shoot us both? Is that it?”
“He won’t,” Stuart said. “Somebody from the gas station might hear it.” Slowly, casually, he took a noise suppressor from his pocket and screwed it onto the end of his pistol. “Besides, there’s no real need for that. That well’s ninety feet deep.” Stuart grinned again. “Minus maybe ten feet of dirt and bodies. Still a long way to the bottom.”
“Wait a minute,” Anna blurted. “You’re forgetting about our other friend. Mary. I told her what I suspected — she’ll call the police. The real police, I mean.” Even in her terror she gave Jack a withering glare. “And she knows where we are.”
Jack shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. I never mentioned your location when I spoke to you on the phone, and I heard most of what you said to her just now. All she knows is what I told her — you and Woody had car trouble somewhere.” Jack still had a haunted, sorrowful look, but there was no fear of discovery there. He was in control, and he knew it.
But Anna and Woody were about to die, and Anna knew it.
As if to confirm this, Stuart raised the silenced automatic and pointed it at Woody. “Gentlemen first,” he said.
And Anna did the only thing she could think of to do. Moments earlier she had unbuttoned the cuff of her left sleeve so the collapsed steel bar resting against her forearm could be easily removed. Now she snatched it out with her right hand, flicked it to its full length even as she spun around, and hit Jack Speerman with it, square in his left temple. As he went down, she turned again and threw the heavy bar as hard as she could, end over end, at Stuart.
“Run, Woody!” she shouted. “RUN!”
But Woody didn’t run. He didn’t run and he didn’t attack. He didn’t do anything but stand there, frozen and wide-eyed. Stuart Speerman, who had frantically ducked the bar Anna had thrown at him, stood straight up again, aimed the pistol, and shot Woody once in the chest.
Anna screamed, a primitive, blood-chilling scream that made Stuart turn and point his gun at her this time. The problem was, this target wasn’t stationary. Anna was sprinting toward him, face contorted and teeth bared in fear and rage, and in his surprise both his shots missed her. She crashed into him at full speed, biting and clawing, and both of them fell to the ground. But as short as Stuart Speerman was, he was not weak. He pulled his right arm free and clubbed her viciously in the forehead with the heavy automatic, and then hit her once more, on the left side of the head. Anna rolled off him and onto her stomach two feet from Woody’s sprawled body and four feet from the edge of the well. She was still conscious but was so stunned her world was spinning and full of stars. She tried to move but found she couldn’t.
At the edge of her fading eyesight she saw Stuart’s shoes take a step toward her, heard him say, “Good try.” And knew, although she couldn’t see his hands, that his gun was now aimed at her.
In those final seconds, a dozen thoughts ricocheted through her brain. Memories, loves, thrills, regrets. One was the realization that she should’ve gone for Jack’s gun after hitting him, should’ve tried to grab it off the ground or out of its holster or wherever it was, and shot Stuart with it. But she suspected that wouldn’t have worked either. The only difference was, she’d have died already, and twenty feet farther west.
It was all over now anyway.
Just as she was wondering whether to close her eyes or leave them open, another pair of shoes, these black and gleaming, stepped into her field of vision. She heard a grunt of great effort, and saw Stuart’s brown loafers rise an inch or two off the ground. With a huge push she managed to force herself onto her side so she could see, and when she looked up she saw Jack Speerman, bright blood oozing from his ear and nose, lifting and squeezing his brother from behind. Stuart’s arms were pinned to his sides, his gun useless. Grunting, the two men struggled there for several long seconds.
Then something happened that Anna would never forget. Jack looked down at her, looked down past his shorter brother’s shoulder, and Anna saw a strange peace deep in those eyes. A moment later, Jack moved slowly past her, still holding Stuart in a bear hug, and stepped into the well.
Neither of the brothers screamed, or said a word. They just vanished into the pit. After what seemed an extremely long time, she heard a muffled thud as they hit bottom.
She turned her head to look at Woody, lying beside her in a spreading pool of crimson, and thought, Help him. I have to help him. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even help herself. A moment later her eyes clouded, the incredible pain in her head washed over her—
“—and she passed out.”
Little Charlie was still asleep in his car seat, but Deborah sat and stared at her mother with eyes as big as quarters.
“You passed out?” she said. “What about Woody?”
“She — I— didn’t know, for a long time. I woke up two days later, in a bed at Baptist Hospital in Jackson. I barely pulled through, they said. Woody was in a room down the hall. It took five months for him to heal, but the bullet had missed his heart, and he made it. Both of us made it, physically speaking. But...”
“You didn’t stay together.”
“No.” Anna McDowell looked at her daughter, then back at the road ahead. “Thinking back on it now, I realize that I could never in a thousand years have suspected your father of having done what I — incorrectly — suspected that Woody Prestridge had done. If you truly know and love someone, those doubts just wouldn’t be there, no matter what. I think Woody and I were never able to get past that.”
“And then you met Daddy.”