TWENTY-FOUR

P atricia realized that from a distance and in the gloom, the shooter must have thought there was only one target he (or she) was aiming at. She stayed with Carla’s corpse, trying to blend in and make it appear as if there were only one person on the ground, rather than two.

Although, technically, Carla wasn’t a person anymore.

Doctor Augustus Moran approached the body, air-rifle held casually at his side. There was a large, bloody dent in the side of his head, and Patricia couldn’t imagine how he was up and walking around, let alone going on a murder spree with what looked like a hundred-year-old air gun.

Cursing, Moran now realized Patricia was there too, and began fumbling to reload his one-shot weapon.

Patricia ran off, headed for the Tower, but the old man was after her. She thought about traveling the treetops again and ambushing him, but that scenario wasn’t as attractive when her pursuer had a rifle. If he saw her before he came close enough for her to pounce, he’d pick her off easily at a distance.

The Tower was a better option, a level playing field; Moran would have a hard time aiming the air gun in the twisting and turning corridors.

She made it to the ruins of the Tower, well ahead of Moran, who had fallen behind due to age and his poor physical condition. She ran past the corpses of Richard, with his extra mouth, and Jack Hare, with his extra eye, and dashed in the stone archway entrance. She made two revolutions up the ramp tunnel which curved around the inside circumference of the Tower, and peered out a second-story window in time to see Moran creeping in the entrance at the Tower’s base.

From the second level, the curving ramp ended and turned into a narrow staircase. Patricia padded up the crumbling stone as quietly as she could, and arrived at the fourth level. She stopped there and ducked in an interior room. The next level up was actually the open- air roof of the Tower, bounded by parapets and ramparts; she didn’t want to be trapped there. She planned to wait in the shadows to the side of the doorway and let him pass. Then she would either follow him and ambush him on the roof, or descend quickly, though quietly, and run like hell for Pemberley.

“Miss Wi-ald-maaan,” called Moran. “Oh, Miss Wi-ald-maaan. Come out and play, won’t you? Won’t you come out and play with kindly old Doctor Moran?”

There came a high-pitched whine which lasted almost a minute. When it died, he continued: “Did you hear that, Miss Wildman? Can you guess what that was? No? It was a pneumatic compressor, a nice, modern, portable model. The air gun’s all primed and ready for you now, Miss Wildman. How’s that for you, you were running from an old man who didn’t even have a shot. But I do now, Miss Wildman, yes I do!”

Patricia held her breath as he approached, continuing to mock and tease her. “I was only knocked out, you know, Baroness. I’m a tough old bastard, yes I am! And after all I’ve done for her, after all the years, almost fifty years, the old bitch wasn’t even going to put me in the will with an equal part after running you off... Just a small sum and free lodging, that’s it. But it works out, after all, doesn’t it? Nothing to gain from the will, so no one will suspect me; me, kindly old Doctor Moran. Oh, Miss Wildman, I’ve got the cure for what ails you, I do indeed. Get my hands on that Robbery money, and live in style, I will. But then poor Austin showed up, must’ve heard some of the commotion, and I had to shoot him first before chasing you and Carla. Got to kill everyone, you see. And I’ll kill the last remaining witness, Miss Wildman, beautiful Miss Wildman, wipe all the prints off the trusty air gun here, go put it in Miss Belville’s cold fingers, rebury the swag, and collapse somewhere in the forest with my caved-in skull. Poor old Doctor Moran, the only survivor of a heinous assault by the poachers. They’ll have a devil of a time reconstructing this crime scene, and the dead tell no tales—which means you, my dear Miss Wildman, you, have to die.”

Moran passed Patricia’s hiding place and she held still. He was still chortling and congratulating himself as he mounted the narrow steps to the roof.

Patricia didn’t actually think his plan could succeed, but he did make it sound reasonable in his madness. And he was mad. Perhaps it was almost fifty years of abuse from that harridan, the Dowager. Or perhaps it was this morning’s violent events. Or both. But whatever the reason, he was undoubtedly mad, and that made him more dangerous.

Patricia didn’t care. She was tired of being on the defensive. She went up the stairs after him.

The stone stairway opened up to the roof through a hole at one end, and Patricia slowly raised her eyes past ground level, ready to duck and run at the first sign Moran noticed her. He was at the edge of the bulwark, facing away from her.

She crept up further and crested the last step.

Then she slipped and fell on the rain-slicked stone pavers.

Moran whirled. He raised the air gun stock to his shoulder and aimed it at her forehead.

A figure in motion blurred from the left side of her field of vision. Parker tackled the old man and sent him tumbling, spiraling like a pinwheel, screaming, over the ancient stone blocks of the rampart walls, onto the ground below.

Patricia shook a little but waved Parker off. She leaned over the edge and peered down. Yes, the old man’s head really was smashed this time, like a watermelon on a hot summer sidewalk.

She turned around and realized Parker was staring in frank admiration at her nakedness. “Good old Peeping Pete. Getting another eyeful while you can, my friend, just like the other night?”

“Now, Patricia, it wasn’t like that, I swear—”

“I know, Pete, I know that now. I just enjoy making you miserable.”

“—and besides, you are naked, and for God’s sake look at you, I mean, you’re beautiful, and that bronze skin, and those big brown eyes, and those weird gold flecks in them—”

“Pete, shut up. Yes, I’m naked. And it’s raining. That means I’m cold. Be a gentleman.”

Then she allowed Parker to put his jacket around her—it was a few inches shorter than some of her shortest miniskirts, and thus left some of her tanned bottom exposed—and take her in his arms.

But if he expected tears and sobs, he was going to be disappointed.