Carolyn had felt a tingle of excitement as they drove past the dark cane fields, like she was in some grand adventure. But when Sam slowed the Bentley and Carolyn caught her first look at the old fence, she knew it was no game.
Sam prodded the groggy Durand into a pen and ordered him to strip. When he refused, she pulled out a whip and, with one quick move, cracked it across Durand’s back. Carolyn backed up against the fence in horror.
But Tink…
Doped up on her Valium and vodka, she had watched with fascination at first, then broke into cheers when Sam started to crack the whip repeatedly across Mark’s back. Before it was over, Tink had wrestled the whip from her and took her own turn. By the time Mark had stopped moving, Tink had collapsed in the dirt, half laughing, half crying. Sam ordered Carolyn to take Tink back to the car and wait.
They sat silently in the dark of the Bentley. Sam finally emerged from the pen, the whip coiled around her shoulder. As she slid in behind the wheel, Carolyn saw her hands, red with blood.
Sam, what did you do?
Never mind. Let’s go.
It was two days later that Carolyn read the story in the newspaper that Reggie Kent had been questioned in the murder of Mark Durand. When Reggie was arrested, Carolyn finally called Sam. That was when Sam told her she had put a pair of Hap’s boots on Reggie’s patio.
Don’t worry, Carolyn. It’s all under control.
A moaning sound brought Carolyn back to the present.
Byrne was lying in the mud, holding his head.
“Keep the gun on him,” Sam said to Carolyn as she started toward the back of the Bronco.
Carolyn kept the gun down at her side. She had shot a gun before, back when her father took her out in the groves to practice on cans and bottles. But that was a lifetime ago. Tucker’s gun felt heavy and slippery.
Carolyn heard a thud and saw Sam coming around from the back of the Bronco. She was holding a whip in her left hand and a machete in her right.
“No, Sam,” Carolyn said.
Sam smiled. “I don’t think you have any bargaining chips here, Senator.”
She stuck the machete into a leather sheath hanging from her belt and looped the coiled whip over her shoulder. She pulled out a nylon cord and, kneeling next to Byrne, bound his hands in front of him. He screamed as the cord tightened around his broken wrist.
Tink dropped down into the mud next to him, crying.
Carolyn closed her eyes. There was nothing to do but go through with it now. She just had to get through this night and get back to the protection of the island. That was her plan, to do whatever she needed to do to survive tonight.
Tink started to wail. Carolyn’s eyes shot open.
“God damn it, shut up!” Sam yelled.
Suddenly, Sam stood up and looked at Carolyn. “Shoot her.”
“What?”
“Shoot the bitch! Now!”
Carolyn shook her head and started to back away. Sam lunged at her and wrenched the gun from her hand.
“No!”
A flash, a boom. Tink fell back into the mud.
Carolyn couldn’t move, couldn’t even pull in a breath. She stared at Tink, hair splayed in the mud, a small dark hole in her forehead. Her eyes were still open.
The jab of the gun butt in her stomach jolted her back.
“Take it,” Sam said.
“No, I don’t want-”
“I don’t care what the fuck you want. Take it!”
Carolyn took the gun with shaking hands. She watched through tear-blurred eyes as Sam went back around the Bronco and yanked Byrne to his feet. He stood there, wavering, his face white and slick with sweat in the moonlight.
Suddenly, Byrne swung his bound hands up. His fists caught Sam in the jaw, and she fell backward. Byrne began to run.
Sam stumbled to her feet, holding her cheek, her eyes raking the brush and trees. Carolyn saw what Sam saw: the white blur of Byrne’s shirt disappearing into the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Swann shifted the rifle from one hand to the other and kept walking. He could see nothing behind him but the shrinking yellow glow of Aubry’s stable light. And he could see nothing in front of him but darkness. But he walked on, his step surer than it had ever been.
He didn’t know why he was going back to the cattle pen. He just knew he couldn’t sit there one more minute listening to the cowmen’s voices on the walkie-talkie.
A sliver of light moved across the ground in front of his feet. He stopped and looked up. The last of the clouds were drifting east, unmasking a full bone-bright moon.
He pushed off his hood. The cool air brought a clarity he hadn’t felt all day, and he realized that the hangover he’d woken up with that morning was finally gone.
Jesus, was that only twelve hours ago?
He moved on, grateful for the asphalt when he got to the two-lane road. He used the butt of the rifle to tap the mud from his shoes and looked down the road. It wasn’t far to the gravel road that led to the pen. Maybe ten minutes on foot.
The moon disappeared, cloaking Swann again in darkness. He stopped and reached into his raincoat pocket for his flashlight, but before he turned it on, the moon reappeared. He could see the sparkle of gravel ahead.
Pop.
He froze. Was that a gunshot?
He wasn’t sure. It had been a good ten years since he’d heard a gun fired outdoors. Qualifying in Palm Beach was done at the indoor range, where the padded ear protectors and concrete walls made the noise sound like bullets ricocheting inside an oil drum.
God. He was a cop. How could he not know something like this?
He took a quick look behind him and then broke into a trot toward the cattle pen. He was far closer to it than he was to Aubry’s, and he wasn’t wasting time going back. It might only be one of Aubry’s men taking pot shots at something, but if it wasn’t, then somebody was in trouble.
The moon disappeared again as he drew close to the pen. He stopped at the first fence to catch his breath and raised his flashlight. The beam moved with a nervous shiver over the gray wood. Nothing. He scaled the fence and wound his way through the maze, stopping as he tried to figure out where the central pen was.
“Hello?” he called.
Silence, then a low moan. Or was it just the groan of an old wooden gate?
Swann kept moving, his eyes alert for the slightest movement, ears tuned to the smallest sound. He saw and heard nothing, but still his veins were starting to burn with a trickle of adrenaline.
Another fence. He stuck a shoe on the lower rail and climbed over, dropping quietly to the ground on the other side. He was in another small pen. He stood, holding his breath and listening again for the moaning sound. He heard nothing but the dripping of water.
“Hello?”
Then the sound came, guttural and pained.
Swann hurried to the far fence and stepped up onto the rail to give himself the best view. The beam of his flashlight bounced wildly, and he had to force himself to steady it.
It was the main pen. There, near the rear…
A man on his back, his face turned away from Swann’s light. It had to be Byrne Kavanagh. And if he was moaning, then he was still alive.
Swann vaulted the fence and started across the pen, then stopped. His first instinct had been to run to Kavanagh, but that same adrenaline that moved him forward now stopped him cold.
Where was Kavanagh’s attacker?
Swann leveled the flashlight and made two slow sweeps, peering hard into the darkness beyond the reach of the beam.
Another moan.
Swann swung the light back to Kavanagh. The collar of his white shirt was soaked in red, the skin above it slashed and oozing blood.
Swann hurried to him and dropped to his knees. For a few seconds, all he could do was stare at the gaping wound in Kavanagh’s neck.
Don’t freeze. Not now. Stop the bleeding.