The Mercedes rested in its same place, still filthy with its fuzzy carpet of sap, pine needles and a thousand pats of green-white bird guano. But here and there the hard rain was loosening the crusted blanket into spots of bubbling paste that had begun to run down the sides of the car in dirty little rivulets, like the car had become something evil, molting, shedding its skin.
There were no other cars there, no tan Buick. The clearing and the back of the cottage appeared deserted, yet something flashed bright in the gloom, down by the water. Staying inside the trees, I moved to the shore. An orange rowboat with an outboard motor attached to its stern bobbed high, despite the rain, at the end of Lamm’s dock. I edged closer to see into the water. The barely floating boat I’d bent to look at last time, the instant before I’d been shot at, had gone. Canty had said it had been a second boat. I hadn’t believed it then; I didn’t believe it now. There’d been no other boat. Someone had bailed out the one I’d seen earlier, attached an outboard motor, and used it to go off somewhere.
‘We’re gonna be rich!’ a man screamed in a strange, singsong voice from inside the cabin.
I crouched, and moved back deeper into the woods. I knew the voice. It was Delray Delmar, no doubt yelling at Wendell.
I pulled out my cell phone to dial 911. There were no bars. No service.
I backed farther into the woods. Still no bars.
I did the minutes in my head. Fifteen to run back to the Jeep, maybe forty-five minutes to make it through the storm either to the sheriff’s department or to the pay phone in Bent Lake. No matter which way I chose, the sheriff might not get there for two hours.
Still, the cops would arrive well before noon, when Delray told me I had to be up in Bent Lake.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Delray screamed.
I turned to run back into the woods, to the Jeep.
A bolt of lightning lit the dark sky, and a second later, thunder shook the ground.
A gunshot fired.
I turned around, charged the back door, twisted the knob and shouldered it open.
And got clubbed on the back of the neck with a million-pound bat.
SIXTY-TWO
I came to on my belly, trussed like a hog. My wrists were tied together behind my back with rope that was then crisscrossed down to tug up my ankles before it was knotted behind my knees. A blanket was thrown over my head. I could barely breathe through the suffocating wool. I couldn’t see a thing.
‘Dek Elstrom to the rescue.’ The unnaturally high voice giggled faintly.
‘You’re a shit, Delray,’ I said to the floor.
‘You’ve brought treasure?’ His voice was skittish, insanely wrong.
‘Wendell Phelps.’
‘The money, honey,’ Delray sang.
‘Wendell,’ I called into the floor.
In an instant, a steel rod, likely the barrel of a gun, was jammed through the wool into the center of my neck. It surprised me. I thought Delray was across the room.
I didn’t resist, concentrating instead on keeping my body loose. There was play – an inch, maybe two – in the rope. Tugging would only tighten the loops around my wrists and ankles.
He pressed down on the big knot. Pain like I’d never known shot through my shoulders and legs as they were drawn closer together. I shut my eyes, and tried to focus on sucking more air through the wool.
‘The money!’ Delray screamed, so seemingly distant. Strangely, he’d said nothing about me arriving hours early.
‘Wendell!’ I shouted. ‘Tell me where he is, and I’ll tell you where I’ve got the money.’
He pressed harder on the knot, ripping new pain into my shoulders, knees and legs. But there had been a lag for just a fraction of a second. For sure there was play in the rope.
‘The money,’ he called out in that faraway voice.
‘Wen-’
A gun fired just above my ear, shattering glass somewhere and filling my head with thunder.
I yelled fast, for surely Delray had gone insane. ‘Follow the road to town, go into the fire lane. My Jeep’s there. I buried the case at the base of a tree, fifteen paces perpendicular to the right front wheel.’
‘See?’ Delray shouted from far away. ‘All is good!’
Footsteps, loud in heavy boots, thudded across the plank floor. The door creaked open.
The gun fired twice, something thudded, and the door slammed shut.
The thud, I was sure, was the sound of a body falling. Wendell.
‘Damn you to hell, Delray; damn you to hell,’ I managed, in little more than a whisper, beneath the wool. ‘Damn you too, Wendell; damn you as well.’
I had to get away. Delray would come back to kill. Ten, fifteen minutes was all he’d need to get to the Jeep, walk off the paces, paw through the leaves and find the metal case. He’d check it and he’d come back, wild-eyed and furious, eager to torture. He’d want everything, and then he’d want me dead.
‘Delray!’ I shouted, to be sure.
No answer. He was gone. I was alone, but only for a few minutes more.
I tried to roll up onto my side, to shake away the suffocating blanket. Pain tore at my shoulders as the weight of my legs tried to tug them from their sockets. I teetered up for only an instant before I fell back on my belly, still covered by the blanket, and now even more desperate for air. I counted one, counted two, and lunged again. This time, I made it up on my side and held. The blanket fell away.
He was slumped against the front door. Laying on the floor, all I could see were his pants, his shoes. And the fresh blood puddling back toward the center of the room.
I took in a breath, and another. Another precious minute had gone, maybe two. Delray was pacing off the steps to the tree by now.
I flexed my shoulders back. Daggers shot deep into my back and arms, but the rope slipped an inch. I flexed again and my legs dropped another inch. I raised them back up, as tight to my back as the pain would let me. It was enough. The rope slacked enough to get my thumbs inside the loop around my wrists.
My mind flitted to the dark fury that would be contorting Delray’s face when he returned. I bit at my lip, pushed the image away, and kept working my thumbs. They were numb, unfeeling stubs, but somehow the cord around my left wrist loosened even more, and then my left hand slipped free. I pulled the cord from my right wrist, and then from my legs. I almost wept.
I rolled onto my knees and started to stand. Too soon. I fell back. I crawled across the room.
The body had two gunshots: one to the head, one to the heart, leaking red on the floor.
Not Wendell.
Delray Delmar looked back at me through dead eyes.
SIXTY-THREE
There was no time to make sense of it, only to get away. Surely Lamm – for it had to be Lamm; Wendell wouldn’t hunt me – was coming back with hellfire in his eyes. By now he knew what I’d done.
I staggered out the front door on trembling legs, braced for the sudden bark of a gun, the cold fire of a bullet tearing into my skin. Incredibly, nothing sounded in the now softly falling rain. I still had a minute, maybe more. I looked back. The Mercedes was still parked there; he’d gone through the woods. I hobbled down to the water and into the trees, for it would be the fastest way back to the Jeep. I could only hope to spot him and drop down before he saw me; he had the gun.
I stumbled into a jog along the shore. When Lamm returned to the cabin and saw I’d escaped, he’d race back to the Jeep. He’d run better than me, quicker. I had to get to the fire lane first.
Sooner than I dared hope, the red of the Jeep appeared faintly through the gray of the rain. I dropped to the sodden ground and crawled the last few yards to see.
To my left, the fire lane stretched clear back to County M. It was lined thick enough with trees to hide anyone waiting to squeeze a few shots into the Jeep. But Lamm couldn’t be there. He’d be racing back to the cabin.
I moved forward a few yards, enough to see that the leaves had been clawed from the base of the tree. Lamm had found the aluminum case. He would have opened it, to be certain.