“Saw ’em go,” said Grue. “All three men. Leaving you alone.”
“Not alone.” She nearly screamed it, trying to calm down.
“They looked geared up for a fight. They were going to town, weren’t they.”
It’s over, she wanted to tell him. But that would only force him to act.
“Funny thing,” he said, his voice unreal in her ear. “I just called nine one one. Me, calling the police number. Only, it weren’t the police that answered.”
Before she could stop herself, Rebecca said, “No.”
“I told them your men were on the way. An ambush will leave you all alone here, for good.”
Rebecca slammed the phone back into its wall cradle and the others looked at her in alarm. When she realized she was covering her mouth, she removed her hands.
“He called the cons,” she said. “He told them Kells and Tom Duggan and Dr. Rosen were coming.”
“But...” said Mia.
“They’re walking into a trap,” said Coe.
Rebecca moved down the hallway to the front door, gaining speed. “I have to warn them.”
“But how?” said Coe, following. “They have a... a thirty-minute head start on you.”
She pulled on her coat as she moved into the parlor. “They were stopping to rest at the inn. Maybe I can catch them there.”
“But how?” said Mia. “With Grue waiting outside for you.”
Rebecca shouldered the laptop case containing her abortive novel.
“I’ll go with you,” said Coe.
Rebecca shot him an angry look as she moved. “No, you will not.”
He followed her back into the kitchen to the weapons bag. “But what if it’s a trap? What if he just wants you out there alone?”
Rebecca pulled a rifle out of the duffel bag and handed it to Coe. “You’re staying here with Mia. Anyone tries to get into the house before you hear helicopters, shoot them through the door.”
Mia was crying. “But you can’t catch them. How will you make up the time without a sled?”
Rebecca stopped a moment. She looked around the kitchen but she was actually visualizing the area outside the house, the woods, the street, the neighbors. “Horses,” she said. “That farmhouse across the street. There’s a stable.” She went back into the bag for guns.
“What if he’s there?” said Coe.
The only gun left was Polk’s old snub-nosed .38 revolver. She took it and stuffed it into her waistband against her back, grabbing a can of mace and an ice axe also. She stood and zipped her coat and fixed the Velcro loop of the axe to her laptop strap.
“You can’t go out there alone,” said Coe, gripping the rifle.
“How do you know that farmhouse isn’t where Grue is calling from?” said Mia. “What if the horses are dead? What if—”
“Stop!” Rebecca grasped their shoulders to get them to shut up. Speed was everything now, and if she didn’t get moving and keep moving, the others were done for. “Grue is out there. And now he knows I’m going out there.” She shook these off as mere facts. “I have to do this. Grue is only here because of me. He’s my responsibility.” She released them and moved to the door. If she paused to think anymore about it — her odds of success, the dangers she faced — she would not be able to leave. “Just hide. Please.”
She hurried out of the door into the freezing air. The snow formed a thick, luminous crust in the twilight. The woods were dark, and she stayed as far away from them as she could, moving along the driveway to the road.
He would be there soon. He would immediately pick up her trail. All her agonizing about Grue had been for nothing, all her running like standing still. And so near the end. Even in her lowest moments, Rebecca had always secretly believed she would walk away from Gilchrist. That was the arrogance of a born storyteller, a fantasist, a fabricator. Instead, she should have foreseen this happening and conserved her energy.
At least now she had a clear cause and direction. Necessity, not bravery, compelled her toward the road. It was smooth, white, silent. The axe handle flopped against her back. As she crossed to the other side, she shed a glove and took the revolver into her hand. Grue would anticipate the gun, but childishly she clung to this imagined advantage. She remained a number of paces away from the trees, tense and alert.
The faint sound of neighing horses thrilled her. She hurried along the roadside until she realized she was too far away for her presence to be disturbing them. Something else was making them cry.
She started to smell the smoke. Looking up, she noticed the glow beyond the trees, and Rebecca began to run again, leaping through the deep, crusty snow. A downed tree marked the end of the woods and the beginning of the wide clearing.
The farmhouse was on fire. Flames were taking the walls, and second-floor windows were popping, black smoke rushing out. A stable to the right of the house was not burning, though embers floating on the excited air drifted toward the haystacks like fireflies.
The blaze entranced her and for a few moments everything near — the forbidding trees, the distressed horses, the flames, and the flaring orange embers mixing with the dancing snow — took on an enchanted air. The conflagration of the farmhouse took on a poignancy she could not explain, and watching it rage, she felt at once a queer inner peace.
The horses whinnying returned her to the urgency of her task. The arsonist cons were near, as was Grue. She labored across the snow, hurrying in a straight line toward the stable to rescue the horses and take one for herself.
She did not see the ski tracks until she was nearly upon them. The bold light of the flames shadowed the grooves before the house and made them quiver. Rebecca slowed, following the tracks with her eyes to a two-passenger sled parked a safe distance away from the house.
A gruff voice called out to her over the crackling roar. Rebecca froze as the backlit form of a man emerged from behind the house, between it and the stable.
He was impossibly broad, a block form of a man, all shoulders and waist. He ran a few more steps toward her, aiming a silvery handgun.
It was not Grue. A second form then appeared behind the first, shorter and slightly hunched, wearing a dark pea coat and carrying a clublike torch.
They were the house-burning cons. Rebecca’s revolver was weightless in her hand, pointed down at the ground snow.
Burly, the ex-con, yelled something at her that was lost to the blaze. Menckley came next to him, moving more tentatively, the house flames enlivening his scarred face and making it seem even more grotesque. Burly shook his handgun and she heard his voice now, demanding to know who she was and if she was alone.
Rebecca was so dumbfounded by this sudden turn of events that she gave no consideration to answering. She was focused on only two things: The cons’ yells would bring Grue more quickly; and they would keep her from catching up with Kells and the others at the inn.
Burly came a few steps closer and ordered her to drop her gun.
Caught, she found herself wondering what Kells would do, and suddenly her choice was clear. Burly was agitated and would lose nothing by cutting her down right there.
She tossed Polk’s revolver out to the side. It made a perfect impression in the top layer of snow and promptly disappeared below.
Burly yelled at her to take off her pack. She would have done anything to quiet him. She slipped the strap off her shoulder and set it down at her feet.
Menckley was telling him to shoot her. Instead Burly ordered her away from the pack and she complied, moving back just a step or two.
Burly directed Menckley to retrieve the pack. They were close enough to Rebecca now that she could understand them.
Menckley wanted no part of it. “Just shoot!” he cried.