“How long were you out there?”
“I climbed up just before Brian got here.” The words had a staccato sound because of the way her teeth were chattering. “If I hadn’t seen him before he saw me … I hid behind one of the sheds until I saw him leave.”
“Climbed up? You don’t mean from the beach?”
“Yes, the beach.”
“In this storm, with those big waves down there?”
“There wasn’t any other way. He had the front gates locked … I was afraid he’d catch me if I tried to get out there.”
“You could’ve been battered against the rocks, washed out to sea.”
“I almost was. A wave knocked me down, I lost the flashlight I had …” A tremor shook her, strong enough to create a rippling effect like an aftershock. “Never mind that now. We have to get away from here before he comes back.”
Macklin moved over to lean against the breakfast bar. He still felt pretty good, almost normal in fact, as if he hadn’t had a cardiac episode. Illusion. He’d had one, all right.
“We can’t do that,” he said.
“Why can’t we? You don’t understand, he’ll kill me if he finds me. He will, I’m not making that up—” She broke off, her gaze taking in the shadowy emptiness of the room. Most of the candles were out now, all except one on the counter beneath the bar top and another in the kitchen; the light from the waning fire tinged the murkiness with an eerie glow. “Where’s your wife?”
“Gone for help.”
“Help? In your car? Your car’s not here?”
“Outside somewhere, but the storm blew a tree down across the lane. There’s no way past it except on foot.”
She stared at him, disbelieving. “You mean we’re trapped?”
“Until Shelby gets back, yes.”
“No, no, no!” Claire’s head shook loosely from side to side like a bobble doll’s—an involuntary reflex that went on for several seconds. Then she made a little keening sound and said in desperate tones, “Have you got a gun?”
“No.”
“Not even a rifle?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Shit! He’ll shoot me if he comes back, don’t you understand that? He’ll shoot both of us!”
“He didn’t seem that crazy,” Macklin lied.
“But he is. You don’t know how crazy.”
She stumbled around the breakfast bar into the kitchen, began rummaging through drawers. He knew what she was after, saw two of them in her hand when she came back into the living room—butcher knives.
“Those won’t do any good against that automatic of his.”
“We have to have something …” She extended one of the knives, and when he didn’t take it she dropped it clattering onto the bar. She seemed to be seeing him clearly then for the first time, the blanket he held tight-wrapped around him; a frown put lines and ridges in her ravaged face. “You said Shelby went for help. Why? What happened?”
“I had a cardiac episode.”
“You … what?”
“Heart attack. Mild one, I hope, but—”
Laughter burst out of her, sudden and hysterical. Witch’s sounds to go with the witch’s face, like mad echoes of the storm outside. It lasted ten seconds or so, morphed abruptly into sobs that shook her whole body. She moved away from him, sank into one of the dinette chairs. Sat slumped there with the butcher knife in her lap, shaking and sobbing.
There was nothing he could do, no comfort he could give her. He said, “You’d better get out of those wet clothes. Shelby’s about your size—put on something of hers.”
Claire didn’t seem to hear him. Lost in the clutches of her fear.
He had to say it twice more before the words penetrated. “Go on. Take a candle into the bedroom, the one on the right. Her clothes are in the closet.”
Another tremor prodded her off the chair. He handed her the candle from the bar; she peered at it, peered at him. Illuminated by its flame, the whites of her eyes had the look of clabbered milk spiderwebbed with thin red veins.
When she’d gone to the bedroom, Macklin walked slowly across to the hearth. Among the set of black-iron fire tools was a heavy poker with a hooked protrusion at the end; he caught it up, hefted it. Not much of a weapon against a handgun, but better than a knife would be. He leaned forward gingerly to poke the fire, then brought the poker back to the bar and rested a hip on one of the stools. Still feeling okay. The last of the weakness in his legs had disappeared.
Claire seemed to have marshaled her defenses when she came back wearing one of Shelby’s sweaters and a pair of her jeans, the towel-dried blonde hair frizzed around her head like a fright wig. The terror in her eyes wasn’t quite as stark now.
She said in a scooped-out voice, “You don’t look like you’ve had a heart attack.”
“Maybe not, but that’s what happened.”
“But you’re only … what, forty?”
“Thirty-five. But age doesn’t have much to do with it,” Macklin said. “I have a blocked artery … need surgery after the holidays. Too much stress brought it on.”
Claire moved over by the fire. He told her to add another log from the dwindling supply in the woodpile; she did that, then stood off to one side, slumped and sag-shouldered with her arms hugging her breasts. Like a woman hanging from a nail.
“Everything happens at once,” she said. “Brian, the storm, lane blocked, medical emergency … it’s like a nightmare.”
Yeah, Macklin thought, only this is the real thing.
“I don’t want to die,” she said.
“You’re not going to die, not tonight.”
“He’s coming back.”
“I don’t think so.”
“He is. You don’t know him.”
“There’re dozens of places you could’ve gone, could’ve hidden. He can’t look everywhere in the dark. He won’t know you’re here.”
“He’ll know. He’ll be back.”
“If he does, we’ll be ready for him.”
“Stab him? Beat his head in with that poker?”
“If we can catch him by surprise.”
“I’m hurt, you’re sick, we won’t stand a chance. He’ll kill us.”
Macklin said, “No, he won’t,” making it sound definite. Then, “Why are you so sure he wants you dead?”
“He swore he’d do it if I told on him, tried to leave him. But I knew he was planning to do it anyway, no matter what I said or did. Tonight, tomorrow … that’s why he was keeping me prisoner. Working himself up to it. I could see it in his eyes. It’s the only way he can ever be sure.”
“Sure of what?”
She didn’t answer. He couldn’t be certain in the weak light but he thought her eyes were shut.
He stood, slowly walked to the couch. Leaned against it and asked again, “The only way he can ever be sure of what, Claire?”
“That he’ll be safe.”
“From what?”
“The police.” Whispering now.
“Why would the police want him?”
“For murder.”
“… Murder? Whose murder?”
“Gene,” she said. “He’s the one who killed Gene.”
T W E N T Y - T W O
THE SUDDENNESS OF THE attack was alarming. Shelby’s first thought was that it must be the sheriff’s deputy, that he was protecting county property and would release her once he had her clear of the cruiser, but it didn’t happen that way. He twisted her sideways, kicked the door shut to cut off the dome light, and kept right on dragging her backward across the blacktop.