The crowd was silent, watching, waiting.
Malcolm’s face was grim, eyes locked on his target, the sheriff. “Put the gun down, Deputy, or I’ll shoot your boss right now.” He risked a glance at the woman with the gun. “Put it down! Now! Do what I – ”
Lilith let a bullet fly through Malcolm Laurie’s forehead. Bone fragments scattered, and blood sprayed from the hole. There was time for him to register surprise, but only just. An accident of perfect balance kept the body standing for another moment, but he was dead before he toppled forward and hit the ground.
And now they heard the sirens.
A convoy of police cars roared down the road from the highway, perhaps twenty pairs of lights shining in the night. The remains of the crowd scattered, fleeing the brightness of burning Owltown.
Lilith Beaudare climbed down from the roof of the car. She was stiff in her movements. Her body had lost its fluid grace as she walked toward Malcolm’s corpse with slow, halting steps. She stopped to look down at her gun, as though surprised to see it there and wondering who that killing hand might belong to.
Mallory had to call Lilith’s name twice to break her trance, and now they stared at one another. The spinning lights of the sheriff’s car turned their faces blood-red with every revolution. Glowing cinders swirled above them and came back to the earth in a brilliant rain of slow-falling stars.
CHAPTER 28
“Best to take him in the car,” said the sheriff. “That damn chemical plant is still pumping out casualties. We’ll be here all night waiting on an ambulance.”
“No problem with that.” The young state trooper closed his first-aid kit and looked down at his patient. “He’ll be fine in the car. It looks a lot worse than it is.”
But Charles did not believe Riker could look much worse than this without being dead. Every rib had been taped, one arm rested in a makeshift splint, and a good portion of the man’s face was swaddled in heavy bandages.
The trooper helped them settle Riker into the back of the sheriff’s car beside Mallory. She covered him with a blanket, tucking him in like a child. He was semiconscious, opening and closing his eyes.
The police officer leaned down to the open window on Mallory’s side. “I called this in to the hospital. Detective Riker’s got top priority in the emergency room. If they jerk you around and make you wait for that X ray, you got a two-car escort of cops to back you up, okay?”
“Thanks,” said Mallory, as if she might actually need help.
When they were alone, with Riker dozing between them, Charles said, almost incidentally, “Did you notice that Augusta was burning Owltown?”
“She’s cleaning,” said Mallory.
“Pardon?”
“It’s her land now. She can do what she likes with it.”
“You mean Augusta is the one who bought out the New Church land holdings?”
Mallory nodded, as she pulled the blanket up around Riker’s face. “She owns the commercial section and all the waterfront property. She wants to redevelop it as an owl habitat.” She turned to the rear window. “Ah, look at that.” Behind them, another building burst into flames. “Another eviction notice.”
He saw Augusta’s slender silhouette moving away from the flames as the sheriff and his deputy climbed into the front seat. The car was rolling past the smoking remnants of Owltown. Charles leaned closer to Mallory. “But shouldn’t we at least speak to her about – ”
“There’s not much left, Charles, just that one building.” She pointed to the last storefront, saved from its burning neighbor by a wide gap of land. “Oh,” she said, as this too went up in a roar of flames like so much kindling. “All gone.” She turned to Charles and smiled. “Damn.”
The sheriff swung the car around and pointed it back toward the highway, heading for the hospital. His rearview mirror was bright with the flames of Owltown. He turned to his deputy, who had not said a word since the shooting of Malcolm Laurie. “You earned your salary today, Lilith. Your dad is gonna be real proud of you.”
From the backseat, Mallory said, “She was slow with that damn bullet. She still needs work.”
“But she didn’t give up her gun,” said the sheriff in Lilith’s defense. “And her aim was damn good.”
“You’re right,” Mallory conceded. “Not your basic rookie. But she’s got to shoot faster.”
“Well, I can’t let her practice on any more Lauries. Wouldn’t be sporting. They’re limping targets now.”
“Where – What happened?” Riker’s eyes were half open. He turned his head slowly from window to window, trying to fix his place in the world.
“It’s a wrap,” said Mallory. “Go back to sleep.”
“Hardly a wrap,” said Charles. “We still don’t know who killed Babe Laurie.”
“And we may never know,” said the sheriff, not seeming to mind this in the least. And suddenly Charles knew the sheriff had solved that little mystery, for the man reflected in the rearview mirror was smiling contentedly. Mallory seemed unconcerned, disinterested.
“Hey, kid,” said Riker.
“Stay quiet,” said Mallory. “We’re almost there.”
“You remember when you were a little squirt, and I was still allowed to call you Kathy?”
“Yes, I remember. Rest now. Close your eyes.” It was unmistakably an order, but her voice was gentle, soothing. She might have been talking to a child.
Riker did not take direction well. His eyes were all the way open now. “We’ve been through a hell of a lot together, haven’t we?”
“Yes, Riker.”
“So, can I call you Kathy now?”
“No.”
Riker smiled and closed his eyes, drifting off again, mumbling something which might have been derogatory. But even now, Mallory would not let him have the last word. She leaned her head very close to his and whispered, “Sleep.”
Charles toted up the damage to his traveling companions. The sheriff wore a large square bandage above his right eye, but he seemed to be in the best of moods. Riker was defying Mallory and coming back to consciousness. Mallory had shot and wounded all those people, yet she seemed only a bit tired after a long and busy day.
Lilith was another story, for she had just killed a man, and she was not fortified with Mallory’s damaged psyche.
Charles watched the deputy’s profile as she stared out the side window. He caught the almost imperceptible movement of her head from side to side, fighting that slow slide into shock. Her lips were pressed together in a grim tight line. To stifle a scream? Her eyes, so sad, were slowly closing.
Charles intuited a sense of loss, something spoiled.
The passenger window framed an engorged yellow moon suspended over the sugarcane fields. The alignment of the car created the deceit that the moon was also in motion and racing them along the black ribbon of highway, darting behind the odd building and reappearing on the other side.
Lilith’s chin lifted slightly. Her eyes opened, and in the dark mirror of the window glass, Charles noted a hardness in her expression. Her gaze might have been fixed on the same moon that kept pace with them, the same fields, but he thought not. He believed she was looking out on an entirely different landscape.
Death had changed everything.
CHAPTER 29
Mallory had abandoned the boots for a new pair of running shoes. She stood apart from the rest of the party, holding an heirloom wineglass up to the window and staring at the etching of the Shelley family monogram. All the furnishings of this elegant formal dining room had been taken down from Cass Shelley’s attic for this occasion. The long rosewood table was laid with antiques of gleaming silver, crystal and lace.
Charles watched as she carried her glass into the adjoining room, a library of bare shelves. He would have followed her, but his hostess stood in front of him now, blocking the way.