Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin… No reckoning made, but sent to my account, with all my imperfections on my head.
The coincidence was too great to dismiss-this combination of literature, horticulture and real-life drama. So what could Lis do but resist the urge to destroy it? She rooted the damn thing and wondered if the plant would survive. It of course proved to be one of her hardier specimens.
Lis stepped forward and cradled the flower. It was a paradox of her love for plants that her gardener’s hands had toughened so much that she could no longer feel the delicacy of petals. She brushed the backs of her hands over the blossoms, then started once again toward the door. She’d taken only a few steps when she saw vague motion from outside.
Walking cautiously to a window, thick with condensation and the sheets of rain, she wiped the glass with her sleeve and saw to her shock the indistinct form of a tall man standing near the house. Hands on his hips, he was trying to find the front door, it appeared. He wasn’t the young deputy. Maybe, she thought, another officer had accompanied him, though this fellow didn’t seem to be in uniform.
He noticed the side door that led into the utility room and walked to it, oblivious to the downpour. He knocked politely, like a man picking up a date. Lis walked cautiously to the door, and looked out through the curtain. Although she didn’t recognize him he had such a pleasant, innocent face, and looked so completely wet, that she let him in.
“Evening, ma’am. You must be Mrs. Atcheson.” He wiped his lanky hand on his pants, leaving it just as wet as before, and offered it to her. “Sorry to trouble you. My name’s-”
But he didn’t have the chance to complete the introduction just then because a large bloodhound pushed his way uninvited into the greenhouse and started to shake himself enthusiastically, showering them both with a million drops of rain.
Owen Atcheson, lying half in and half out of the chill creek, slowly came to. He sat up, praying that he wouldn’t faint again.
After the Cherokee had stopped tumbling, Owen hadn’t waited for Hrubek to come leaping down the hill after him. He’d examined his left shoulder and felt the indentation where the bone ought to be. He’d made certain his pistol and ammunition were in his pocket and flung the bolt of the deer rifle far into the dark creek, exhaling at the astonishing pain caused by this slight effort.
Then he’d straggled to his feet and run clumsily through the stream, putting distance between himself and the truck.
Two hundred yards into the forest that surrounded downtown Ridgeton he’d stopped and rolled onto his back, lying against a flat rock softened by an old growth of moss. He’d slipped a length of oak branch into his mouth and chewed down hard, gripping his left biceps with his right hand. With excruciating concentration he had forced himself to relax and slowly, slowly manipulated the bone, eyes closed, breathing staccato bursts and sending his teeth deep into the wood. Suddenly, with a pop, the shoulder had reseated itself in the cuff. He cried out softly as the amazing pain made him vomit and then he fainted and slid into the creek.
Now, his eyes open, he crawled to the shore and lay on his side.
He allowed himself no more than five minutes of recuperation before standing up. He removed his belt and tightly bound his left arm to his side. The temporary sling increased the pain but would safeguard against a catastrophic jolt of agony that might make him faint again. He lifted his head and breathed deeply. The rain was falling steadily now and the wind whipped into his face. He threw his head back and inhaled the wet air. After a few moments he began to struggle through the woods, slowly making his way north, around downtown Ridgeton. He didn’t want Hrubek to find him of course but neither did he wish to be spotted by anyone else-least of all a meddling sheriff or deputy. After a torturous mile he came to the intersection of North Street and Cedar Swamp Road. He found a pay phone and lifted the receiver. He was not surprised to hear only silence.
Driving north on Cedar Swamp was the only way to reach their address. It was possible to approach the house from the opposite direction but only after driving around two hundred acres of state park and into a different township then back south once again. Hrubek had rammed him so hard the Subaru was surely useless; the psycho would now be on foot too. If the Atcheson property was his destination, he’d have to come this way.
Despite the delay to reset his shoulder Owen doubted that Hrubek had preceded him here. Unfamiliar with the area the man would first need to find a map. Then he’d have to orient himself and find the correct streets, many of which were not clearly marked.
Owen struggled into the intersection cautiously-a soldier on advance patrol, sighting out ambush and fire zones, high ground, backfields, perimeters. He saw a drainage ditch and a corrugated metal pipe, four feet wide. A good hidey-hole, he thought, falling easily into combat-speak. He pictured Hrubek loping cautiously down the middle of the road then Owen himself stepping out, silently, coming up behind with the pistol at his side.
The rain was cool and fragrant with the scents of a deep autumn. Owen inhaled this liquid air deeply then slipped down into the icy water that filled the ditch, guarding his damaged arm. But he was no longer faint and was able to ignore the worst of the pain. As he moved in his military crouch, he recited to himself the profile of kill areas: chest head abdomen groin, chest head abdomen groin… He repeated this gruesome mantra again and again as around him the rain grew fiercer.
Lis Atcheson escorted the man into the kitchen and handed him a towel. She decided that in the baseball cap, with the curly hair dipping toward his shoulders, he looked very much like the backhoe operator who’d dug the trench for their new septic tank last year. He stood with one hip cocked in a stiff way that made her wonder if he had fallen and injured it. He looked mussed enough, she thought, to have taken a tumble recently.
“I’m from over in Hammond Creek? East of here?” Trenton Heck spoke as if no one had ever heard of Hammond Creek-a town with which she wasn’t in fact familiar.
Lis introduced Portia, who glanced at Heck in a dismissing way. With a juvenile grin Heck waited for an explanation of the exotic name. “Like the car,” he laughed. The young woman offered nothing but her hand, and that unsmilingly.
The young officer was in the squad car, trying to get an update on Hrubek’s whereabouts.
“Mr. Heck-” Lis began.
“Trenton. Or Trent,” he said good-naturedly, laughing. “Mr. Heck, ha.”
“Would you like something?”
He declined a beer but guzzled a can of Coke in less than thirty seconds then leaned against the kitchen island, looking out the windows in an analytical, self-assured way that made Lis wonder if he was an undercover policeman. But, no, he explained, he was more of a consultant. When he told her how Hrubek had led the trackers astray then doubled back, Lis shook her head knowingly. “He’s no fool at all.”
“Nup.”
“I thought he was supposed to be crazy,” said Portia, who was rubbing the dog’s head with an enthusiasm the hound did not share.
“Well, he is that. But he’s a clever son of a gun is what he is too.”
Lis asked how he happened to come here.
“I met your husband over in Fredericks. We found this woman. Hrubek told her he was headed for Boyleston. So I went that way and your husband was going to keep on coming this way. The deputy tells me they think Hrubek drove him off the road.”
“We don’t know where he is. We don’t know where either of them are. Why’d you change your mind and come this way?”