“STOP . . . DON’T MAKE ME SHOOT you!”
Marlene and Stupenagel raised their hands and turned slowly around. They found themselves facing a terrified young woman who was pointing a pistol at them. Her hand trembled and their first concern was being shot accidentally.
“Jenna Blair,” Stupenagel said calmly. “Take it easy, honey, we’re here to help.”
“Yeah? Like the last guy? The guy who killed Sam? That kind of help?” As she rattled off her comments, Blair cried and waved the gun dangerously.
“The man with the Marine Corps tattoo, right?” Marlene asked.
Blair scowled and sniffed. “Yeah. Friend of yours?” She aimed the gun at Marlene’s head.
“No, but we’re pretty sure he has something to do with Sam’s death,” Stupenagel answered.
A look of doubt passed over Blair’s face, then she began to cry again, though she didn’t lower the gun. “He had everything to do with it,” she sobbed. “I saw him kill Sam.”
“You saw him? You were there?”
Blair shook her head. “No. I was at my apartment.” She pointed to the laptop on the desk. “But I recorded it with the webcam, though I didn’t know it until Monday.” The young woman’s mood shifted again as she yelled, “You know that, though! You were sent to kill me! Just like he was!”
“No, we weren’t,” Stupenagel said. “We came here to help you. We didn’t know what the people involved in this wanted with you—though it’s pretty obvious now—but we knew you were in trouble. Jenna, please point the gun at the floor.”
“No!” Blair screamed, and extended her gun hand.
“Jenna, please! I’ve known Sam for more than twenty years. I saw him last Friday at the White Horse Tavern. He told me about you and some other things. He said you were going to come here last weekend. That’s why I thought to look here for you.”
The doubt returned to Blair’s face and she lowered the gun. “Who are you?”
“I’m Ariadne Stupenagel and this . . .”
Stupenagel’s attempt to introduce Marlene was cut short by a sob from Blair, who dropped the gun and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God, I’ve been so scared.”
“You know who I am?”
Blair nodded. “Before he . . . he . . . he . . . died, Sam talked about you,” she said between gasps. “He sent me an email last night with your name and phone number. But I was too scared to call at first. And then when I got here there was no reception.”
“Did he say anything, or send you an email last night?” Marlene asked.
“Just a line from The Last of the Mohicans and my birthday.”
Both older women furrowed their brows. “I don’t understand,” Marlene said.
“I didn’t at first either,” Blair said. Then she pointed at the open wall safe. “The bookshelf opens when you pull on The Last of the Mohicans, and he changed the combination to my birthday.”
“How’d you figure that out?” Stupenagel asked.
“After that guy came to my apartment and I got away, I was at Grand Central trying to decide what to do when I remembered how he seemed to think it was important that I know how to locate the safe. He didn’t tell me he changed the combination to my birthday, and it took me a while after I got here and had a chance to think about it, but eventually I tried it and it worked.”
“He sort of did the same thing with me,” Stupenagel said. “Out of the blue he asked if I remembered how to get to the cabin. We used to . . .” She stopped suddenly, realizing what she had been about to say to Blair.
Blair looked at her curiously, then she knew why the other woman had stopped in midsentence. “You were lovers,” she stated.
Stupenagel nodded. “It was a long long time ago, before he was married,” she said. “We’ve been friends ever since, though we’d been out of contact for a while. Still, I knew him pretty well, and I was amazed at how deeply he loved you.”
Tears rolled down Blair’s face, but she smiled. “Thank you.”
“What was in the safe, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Blair bit her lip. “Some of it was personal . . . for me.” She choked and had a hard time getting the next sentence out, but finally she half-whispered, “I think the rest of it was why Sam was killed.”
“You mean what happened in Chechnya?” Stupenagel asked.
“He told you?” Blair exclaimed.
“Some of it,” Stupenagel replied. “And that someone was using your . . . your relationship with him to blackmail him.”
Blair hung her head. “Yes. It’s my fault they could hold that over his head. But you know Sam, I think he knew he had to tell the truth and that’s why they killed him.”
“Do you know who ‘they’ are?” Marlene asked.
“Yes. But maybe you should hear it from Sam, and then I’ll fill in the blanks,” Blair said, and walked over to the desk, where she picked up one of the DVDs and then walked over to the entertainment center and inserted the disc in the player.
Sam Allen appeared on the television screen. “My name is Samuel H. Allen, lieutenant general U.S. Army retired. What follows is a recording of the testimony I intend to swear to under oath in front of the congressional committee hearing on what occurred at the U.S. compound outside of Zandaq, Chechnya . . .”
Twenty minutes later, Allen concluded his statement, “At this time, I apologize to my family, my sons, and my wife for whatever pain I have caused them—that was never my intent and I accept fully that I was wrong to break the vows of my marriage in this manner. However, I cannot, will not, deny my love for the woman whose companionship and love has renewed this old soldier’s heart. These people are innocent, and while I will answer any questions about my own conduct as candidly as possible, I hope that the media will respect their privacy.”
Allen looked out from the screen and blinked hard. “As a result of both the methods used to try to ensure my silence, as well as my own actions, I feel I have no choice but to step down from my position as acting director of the CIA and withdraw my name from further consideration. Thank you.”
When the screen went blank, Marlene and Stupenagel looked at each other and then at Blair. “I guess we don’t have to tell you how damaging this would be to the administration and why Fauhomme and Lindsey would stoop to blackmail and murder,” Marlene said.
Blair covered her face with her hands and sobbed. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”
Stupenagel moved forward quickly and took the young woman into her arms. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “Sometimes we just follow our hearts over our heads. These people are ruthless.”
“You don’t understand,” Blair said, stepping away from Stupenagel. “They used me to get to him.” She then told them about her past and how she was introduced to Sam Allen and for what purpose. “But I fell in love. . . . I never spied on him and wouldn’t take their money.”
“I believe you, honey,” Stupenagel said. “And believe me, I’m about the last person in this room who should cast any stones. I’ve done some pretty questionable things for the sake of a story myself. Sometimes we know what we’re doing is wrong, but everybody makes mistakes. It’s what we do to fix them that matters in the end. But like he said on that recording, he was in love, too.”
Blair smiled slightly. “I know,” she said, walking back over to the desk and picking up the second disc. Five minutes later all three women were crying and continued after Blair showed them the diamond ring in the small jewelry box.
“That was beautiful,” Stupenagel sniffed.
Finally, Marlene pointed out, “We haven’t seen what your webcam recorded. Would you mind?”
They gathered in front of the desk as Blair showed them what had occurred in her lover’s room while she was in the shower. “Oh, Sam . . .” Stupenagel sighed. But Marlene’s face was set and angry.
“What do you think we should do now?” Stupenagel asked her friend.
Marlene looked at her watch. “It’s almost ten o’clock,” she said. “I’m worried about how we’re going to get Jenna and all of this evidence secure and safe; sooner or later, they’ll come looking here. I need to call Butch; he’ll know what to do and has the power to get it done. Besides, Jaxon was on his way over to see Butch—maybe something to do with Lucy—and I’m dying to know what it was about. I think for now we’re as safe here as anywhere; at least I can talk to my husband. But to do that I need to head toward town until I can get reception.”
Marlene turned and looked at Blair. “Did you tell anybody you were here or make any telephone calls on your cell phone?”
Blair shook her head. “No, I read somewhere that they can track you with your cell phone so I turned mine off. The only person I’ve contacted was my mom— I sent her an email about noon from the town library. I wanted to let her know I was okay and not to believe anything until we’d had a chance to talk.” She caught the other two women giving each other a quick look. “What? Was that bad, too?”
“Probably not,” Marlene said. “But I’m sure they’re watching your mom and these people are capable of intercepting her email.”
Blair looked frightened. “I didn’t say where I was.”
“You wouldn’t have to,” Marlene said. “Every internet provider source, like the library, has a specific IP address that identifies where an email was sent from. They might have tracked it to the library.”
Stupenagel raised her eyebrows. “Change of plans?”
Marlene thought about it for a moment. “No, not yet anyway. This place was hard enough to find in the daylight, much less in the dark. I think you two should lie low here, and I’ll go to town and summon the cavalry. I have GPS in my truck that will help me retrace our steps so I shouldn’t get lost.”
Twenty minutes later, Marlene had almost reached the main road into town when a dark SUV headed in the opposite direction went past her. The windows of the vehicle were tinted so she couldn’t see inside and she wondered if she should turn around and follow. Nah, you’re being paranoid, she told herself. If you try to follow every car that goes by tonight you won’t get anywhere.
Just outside town, Marlene’s cell indicated she had service, so she pulled over to the side of the road and called Butch. He didn’t pick up. She tried the home number and reached Giancarlo, who said “Dad” had called to say he was working late and wasn’t sure what time he’d be home. She was trying to decide whether to call Jaxon when an SUV pulled up behind her.
Looking in her side mirror, she saw Constable Spooner, who got out of his car and walked toward her. She rolled down her window. “Evening, Tom.”
“Evening,” he replied. “You find the cabin?”
“Yes,” Marlene said. “My friend, Ariadne, wanted to spend some time alone sitting on the front porch with her memories. I needed to make a call so I came back to town.”
“Well, she might not get much of that alone time,” Spooner said. “I just talked to our town librarian at the Lucky Duck bar and grill and she said two federal agents came to her house. They showed her a photograph of Sam Allen’s young lady friend and she told them she’d seen her earlier that day at the library. She said she told them the girl might be staying at the cabin . . .”
“What!” Marlene exclaimed, suddenly picturing the dark SUV. “Did she describe the federal agents?”
“As a matter of fact she did,” Spooner said. “Gertie’s our town spinster, and if you’re male, single, and still alive, she’s interested. She was all aflutter about this guy who was apparently a dead ringer for James Bond. I don’t know that she got a look at the other one, but she said there were two. Why?”
Marlene turned the ignition. “I’m sorry. I have to go. My friend may be in danger! Those men are killers.”
Spooner frowned. “Then maybe I should go with you. Let’s get in my car; we’ll make better time, because I know the roads and a shortcut. And maybe you can tell me what’s really going on. I suspect this isn’t all about old memories.”
Something about Tom Spooner told Marlene she could trust him. So as he drove, she told him a condensed version of the story.
When she was done, the constable looked stunned. “Holy cow, you girls sure know how to ruin a fellow’s romantic plans!” He looked at his radio. “Maybe I ought to call in reinforcements?”
“Please don’t,” Marlene said, reaching into her purse and pulling out a .45 Colt Mustang Ladies Edition. “I don’t know if they have a police scanner in their car. They’re professional killers and I think our best chance is the element of surprise.”
Spooner glanced at her gun. “Well, I don’t know why I’m trusting a complete stranger,” he said, “but I do. And you seem like a gal who knows what she’s doing, so I’ll just follow your lead.”
The constable demonstrated exceptional driving skills on the dark, rough roads, and they made good time back to the cabin. Just before they arrived, they came upon a black SUV parked on the side of the road. It was empty.
Spooner turned off the lights of his vehicle before they came into view of the cabin and then turned off the car as it rolled into the driveway. Before he could stop, Marlene had jumped from the SUV and was running up to the cabin. No lights were on, but the door was wide open.
Marlene went in with her gun at the ready. No one was inside, but she saw that Blair’s laptop and the evidence from the safe were all piled on the kitchen counter next to the door. She went back out just as Spooner reached the front porch carrying a shotgun.
“Nobody home?” he asked quietly.
“No, and I don’t know where they went,” Marlene replied, desperation in her voice. She jumped at the sound of a shot that came from the woods near the lake and took off running.
• • •
Big Ray Baum hadn’t heard the other car pull into the driveway leading to the cabin. He was too busy watching the two women digging the hole that would be their grave and idly wondering if he should rape one or both of them. I haven’t raped a woman since Afghanistan and that might be just what the doctor ordered, he thought. But he decided to wait and see what his partner, Craig, wanted to do when he got done getting the stuff at the cabin together and joined him.
He’d been fantasizing about having a go at the Blair woman ever since following her and the general down the beach during the Fourth of July party, watching her undress and then sitting on the other side of the dune listening to their lovemaking. His boss had been pleased later that night when he reported that the little whore had seduced the target. Fauhomme wasn’t as happy the next day when she told him she wouldn’t spy on Allen, but when Connie told him later that Blair and Allen were seeing each other, he’d changed his mind.
“Let’s get some photographs of them together and anything else you can get,” the politico told Baum. “A little blackmail material can go a long ways toward keeping our ‘friend’ in line if necessary.”
So Baum had followed the couple to the Casablanca and the bed and breakfast in the Shenandoah Valley, snapping photographs and making notations of dates and times. But Fauhomme had him doing a lot of other things, so he’d apparently missed their assignations at the cabin.
Fauhomme had proved to be prescient in regard to Allen’s being unwilling to always toe the party line. When it became clear that the general wasn’t going to stick to the “talking points,” he’d played the blackmail card. But Fauhomme hadn’t counted on a man like Allen’s sense of honor, probably because he had so little himself.
At first the general had pretended to give in. But Fauhomme’s decision to have Baum keep an eye on him until the hearings had paid off. He’d followed him from D.C. to New York thinking that the general was just going to see his mistress. When he saw Allen meet the tall blonde at the White Horse he’d wondered if the general had another girl on the side, though it didn’t seem to be his style. So after she left, he asked the bartender if he knew who she was.
“Yeah, that’s Ariadne Stupenagel,” the bartender said. “Haven’t seen her in here for a while. Fine-looking piece of ass even at her age.”
“What’s she do?”
“Never heard of her, huh? You must not read the newspapers and maybe you didn’t see that press conference with the president the other day when she went after him on the Chechnya thing? She’s an investigative reporter and a damn good one.”
The woman’s identity had been alarming. The bartender got suspicious when asked if he knew where she lived, so he left.
Then the situation got worse after Allen picked up his girlfriend and then managed to elude him when he left town for the weekend. Fauhomme had been pissed as hell and tore him a new one. Baum noted the fear in his voice and wasn’t surprised when the fat man decided not to take a chance on what the general might tell Congress. “Check with that hotel he likes . . . the Casablanca . . . and find out if he’s got a reservation before the hearings on Tuesday. If so, do it there. One way or the other, you’re going to have to stop him before he goes before the committee.”
Arriving at the Casablanca, Baum had walked into the hotel on Saturday and up to the front desk. He’d said he’d served under the general in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Best man I ever met,” he said, laying it on thick. “He said to meet him here and we’d have a drink for old times’ sake.”
The desk clerk had smiled and looked in the reservations book. “Well, I’m really not supposed to say when General Allen is staying with us—we call him Mr. Stibbards—but since he obviously told you where to find him, I think it’s okay. Let’s see . . . oh, sorry, he’s not due back until tomorrow night. Are you sure he said to meet him here today?”
Baum looked perplexed. “You know, I just flew in from overseas and it’s entirely possible that I got the dates mixed up,” he said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
The next day he’d returned with the bottle of Macallan scotch he’d spiked with Valium, carefully replacing the seal. “Looks like I might get called out of town,” he told the same clerk. “Would you give this to him with my compliments?”
“And who shall I say left it?”
“Peter,” Baum said, knowing that a bottle of scotch from Peter Oatman, the commandant at West Point and Allen’s friend, would not be suspect.
On Sunday, Baum had waited at a coffee shop across the street for the general to enter the hotel. After giving Allen enough time to check in, he’d gone back for a third time.
“You’re back!” the desk clerk said with a smile.
“Turned out I didn’t have to go,” he replied. “Sam just gave me a call and said he was here.”
“He checked in a little while ago. I gave him the scotch and he said he was going to try some straightaway.”
“That’s great, thank you,” Baum said with his most winning smile. “I’ll join him in a bit. Do you have another room? Don’t tell him I’m back; I want to surprise him, but I’d like to clean up a little first.”
“Sure, I can put you on the floor right below him,” the clerk said. “It’ll be nice for you two to catch up.”
“Yeah, it will be great.”
It was Baum who had come up with the idea of lacing the general’s scotch, one of his few known vices, to make it appear that Allen committed suicide.
Fauhomme liked it. “We let it slip to somebody we like in the press that he was having an affair with Blair and that she was blackmailing him,” he said. “He was about to be disgraced, lose his family, his legacy in the toilet . . . and no way he would get confirmed as director of the CIA . . . so he offs himself.” But then the fat man frowned. “What if he doesn’t drink enough? Maybe he only gets drowsy or calls 911 in time to get him to the hospital? We’d be fucked.”
“I’ll get into the room when I think he’s out,” Baum said, “and give him a hotshot under the tongue to finish him off. This stuff I got is practically undetectable unless you look hard for it, and with the ‘obvious’ cause of death in plain view, no one will look.”
“What about that reporter?” Fauhomme said. “I remember the bitch from the press conference. She’s not one of ours.”
Baum had grinned. “New York is a dangerous city to live in. A lot of violent crime. I’ll take care of her, too.”
Everything had gone as planned. Wanting to make sure that Allen was drinking the scotch to incapacitate him, he intercepted the general’s room service waiter, gave him a hundred-dollar bill, and said, “I’m an old army buddy and staying on the floor below. They’ll tell you at the front desk. I want to surprise him.” He’d let himself in with a high-tech skeleton key and even carried on a conversation with his intended victim.
“Would love to, sir, but I’m on duty, and they frown on it.”
The general was slumped in his chair and all but out when he tilted his chin back and injected the poison beneath his tongue. He then dragged Allen into the other room and lifted him onto the bed, neatly arranging his robe and placing his hands together on his belly as though he’d taken his lethal dose and gone to sleep . . . permanently. He quickly arranged the scene and switched the bottles of Macallan. “Couldn’t have the Valium in the bottle,” he later explained to Fauhomme, “just his glass.” Then he typed the “I’m sorry” note and called Fauhomme saying, “It’s done,” before leaving the room.
The only thing he wasn’t happy about occurred when he was standing outside Allen’s door listening for sounds coming from within when a nosy old lady down the hall peeked out. He looked her way but she immediately closed her door without saying anything. She’ll think I was room service, he thought at the time, but still, she was a loose end.
At least he thought the old lady was all he had to be concerned about. Then Fauhomme called him the following morning. “You moron!” the boss screamed. “Jenna Blair was somehow recording what happened from her apartment. Get your dumb ass over there and take care of it.”
Ray Baum wasn’t afraid of much, but the idea that he’d been recorded committing murder sent a chill down his spine that nearly caused him to panic. He’d still been in his room at the Casablanca, laughing about all the police activity, when he got the call and rushed out, picking up Craig on the way. He had to admit the girl had been pretty clever, making him think she was in the bathroom drying her hair, buying herself enough time to get away. He’d been living in fear ever since that morning that she’d get her computer to someone in the press, like Stupenagel, or worse yet, New York District Attorney Roger Karp.
Then she made a fatal mistake by emailing her mother. Tucker Lindsey’s people managed to trace the IP address, so he drove north to Orvin a short time later. Once there he turned on the charm with a homely librarian whom he followed to her door.
“Sorry to bother you, miss . . .” he said when she came to the door.
“Gertie . . . Gertie Malcom,” she replied, trying to pat her hair into place and smile at the handsome stranger at the same time.
“I’m agent Mike Ralston and that’s my partner, Bob Kravitz, in the car. We’re trying to find this girl.” He showed her a photograph of Blair.
“Why, that’s General Allen’s girlfriend,” Malcom replied. “It’s such a shame what he . . . well, how he . . . well, you know.”
“Yes, it was,” Baum replied. “Have you seen her lately?”
“Yes, indeed, just today at the library,” Malcom said. “She was using the computer to get online. Did she do something wrong?”
“No, not at all,” Baum said. “We just want to make sure she’s okay. Do you know where she might be staying?”
“Well, I’d guess out at Sam’s old family cabin on Loon Lake. It’s pretty hard to find. Why don’t you come inside and I’ll show you on a map.”
“You’re too kind,” Baum replied.
Five minutes later, he was out the door and heading for his black SUV with Gertie Malcom trotting along behind.
“So you going to be in town long?” Gertie called after him.
“Afraid not, Gertie,” Baum replied. “But maybe next time I’m through we can have a coffee or a glass of wine.”
Gertie’s eyes about bugged out of her head. “I’d like that.”
“Okay, well, remember what I told you inside about my presence here needing to be a secret.”
“Oh, mum’s the word, my lips are zipped. You can count on me.”
Baum smiled. “I knew I could. Until the next time.”
“Au revoir,” Gertie called out and waved as he got in the car. She could hardly wait to head down to the Lucky Duck bar and grill and tell the other locals about her meeting with a secret agent. No details, she promised herself. But it won’t hurt to say I got a visit.
Baum and his partner made a couple of wrong turns on the way, but eventually spotted the place through the trees and matched the number on the Rural Route mailbox. At first the cabin looked dark and abandoned. He cursed, but then Craig pointed out how a small slip of light was escaping from behind one of the heavy drapes over a window in what turned out to be the office.
Creeping up to the cabin, he and Craig kicked in the front and back doors simultaneously and caught the two women by surprise. The big one, Stupenagel, had come at him with a letter opener and gashed him pretty good in the forearm before he disarmed her and knocked her woozy with a blow to the side of her head. He then stuck his gun in her mouth and demanded that Blair tell him if there was anything incriminating other than what he could see.
The frightened young woman said everything was on the desk, and he could tell from the fear in her voice that she was right now incapable of lying. He left Craig to gather the material and do a search of the house while he marched his captives toward the lake, grabbing a shovel that had been leaning against the front porch.
The moon was full and the walking was easy. They had reached a point halfway down the lake trail when he ordered them to take a detour into the woods. After scrambling through the underbrush, they entered a small clearing only about ten yards off the trail, but far enough, he thought. “Dig,” he demanded, throwing the shovel at Stupenagel.
“Why should I?” the reporter retorted. “You’re just going to kill us anyway.”
“You got that right, bitch,” Baum said. “But unless you want me to gut-shoot you first, then dig the hole myself and bury you alive, you’ll dig your own grave and make it quick.”
So the two women took turns digging one hole. “You can be together for eternity,” he said with a smirk.
Baum doubted anyone would come looking for the women at the cabin and they were far enough off the trail to make it unlikely someone would stumble on the grave by accident. He’d toss some debris over the top and the fast-growing forest underbrush would do the rest in short order.
They got down about three feet. Stupenagel was digging while Blair sat on the ground in despair. Suddenly the reporter doubled over in pain. “Shit,” she gasped. “It’s my ulcer . . . oh, fuck, that hurts!”
Stepping forward, Baum pointed his gun at Blair and growled, “Take over; another foot ought to do it.” He realized his mistake in taking his eyes off Stupenagel only a moment before the flat of the shovel blade struck him on the side of the head. The blow dropped him to his knees.
“Run!” Stupenagel screamed as she started out of the hole, intending to finish him off.
Blair took off like a frightened rabbit. But it took too long to climb out of a three-foot-deep grave, and just as Stupenagel emerged, shovel raised for the coup de grâce, Baum recovered enough to point and shoot. He wasn’t sure where he hit her, but it was enough to send her sprawling backward and down into the hole.
Baum staggered to his feet just as Craig came running up with his gun drawn. “The girl’s running,” he shouted. He pointed back down the trail. “Go around the other side in case she doubles back. I’ll run her down this way.”
A moan escaped from the grave. “I’ll be back for you, bitch,” he snarled. Adrenaline and rage fueling his legs, Baum took off in pursuit of Blair.
• • •
Marlene almost ran past the spot where Baum had forced the women off the trail, but happened to stop in order to listen for any more sounds following the gunshot. She heard a woman groan. “Ariadne?” she called out softly, her gun ready.
“Marlene,” Stupenagel answered weakly from a small distance. “They’re after her. Save the girl, I’m okay.”
Torn between going to her friend, who was obviously not okay, and saving Blair, Marlene hesitated for a moment. Just long enough for Constable Spooner to come huffing and puffing up the trail. “My friend’s over there,” she said, pointing. “I think she’s hurt. Would you check on her, please?”
Spooner crashed into the bushes and Marlene took off again down the trail. Helped by the moonlight, Marlene flew over the ground, running as fast as she could and grateful for the roadwork she’d been putting in.
Near the end of the lake, she broke into a clearing and saw a man with his back to her aiming down at Blair, who’d fallen or been knocked to the ground. “Hold it or I’ll blow your fucking head off,” she said.
The man raised his hands, but he didn’t drop his gun. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” he said.
“I have a pretty good idea, and it starts with you, asshole,” she replied. “Now drop the gun.”
Then another man spoke up off to her side. “No, you drop your gun,” he said.
Baum’s partner had arrived. “Shoot the bitch,” he said. “Then I’m going to get me a piece of this one before I drag her ass back. Looks like we’ll need a bigger hole.”
Marlene started to turn and fire, knowing that the other man had the drop on her and she’d probably lose. But before she or the second man could shoot, a shotgun roared. And from the corner of her eye she saw Baum’s accomplice blown off his feet by a load of double-oh buckshot that caught him in the side of his chest.
At the same moment Baum turned to shoot, and might have won the battle, but Blair kicked at his legs just as he pulled the trigger, and the shot whizzed by Marlene’s head. Her .45’s first slug caught him in the stomach, doubling him over; the next shot hit him in the head as he tried to straighten up to shoot, and he was dead before he hit the ground.
Marlene ran up to where Blair lay on the ground crying. “You okay?”
“Yes, thank you, thank you,” she said before she broke down into uncontrolled sobs.
Marlene turned as Spooner hurried up and checked the assassin’s pulse. Unnecessarily, as it turned out. “Just in the nick of time, constable. I owe you big time.”
“You’re welcome,” Spooner said with a grin. “Your friend back there caught a bullet in her shoulder, but I think she’ll live. And boy howdy, she can curse up a storm, told me to get my fat ass on down here.”
“That’s Ariadne,” Marlene said with a laugh as Blair stood and they headed back up the trail. “Thanks again.”
“Think nothing of it. Sure beats the hell out of wrestling raccoons. Now what?”