NOW
Mark’s body felt empty and yet heavy, rooted. Like it wanted to go back into the earth, where it belonged. I moved out from under him and lowered his head to the ground. This time, I knew he was truly gone and I felt something crack inside me. It wasn’t a breaking. It was more like the way an earthquake will move a river and realign mountains. A shift.
I lifted my face to the sky. The snow tapped cold on my cheeks and lips. I was free now but at what cost? And how would I tell Xander that his father was really dead this time?
The crack of wood just outside the clearing stopped my thoughts. I scrambled over and grabbed Mark’s gun. Had the assassin changed his mind? I jumped to my feet, holding the weapon in two shaking hands and pointing it toward the sound, remembering only then that I had no idea how to fire a gun. Wasn’t there a safety button you had to push or something?
Instead of the assassin, however, it was Angela who burst out of the forest. I sagged with relief.
“I heard a gunshot,” she said. Her face was mottled red from the cold and from exertion. Her gaze went to Mark’s body. “Oh my God,” she cried, “is he dead?”
All I could do was nod.
The snow was falling hard now, an icy white curtain that blurred the brush and the trees.
Angela ran toward Mark’s body and knelt next to him. She put a hand to his cheek. “My love,” she cried, “what did she do to you?”
“What?” I lowered the gun. “I didn’t do anything.”
Angela peered up from where she crouched. “Then why is his blood all over you? Why are you holding the pistol?”
“It wasn’t me.” I set the weapon on the ground. It felt dangerous to even hold it. “It was the partner, Timur. He found us. Mark used my credit card at the store. They tracked us.”
Angela stood slowly. Her cat eyes went hard. “And the guy just left you? That’s not how they work.”
“I told him about Xander and he said he wouldn’t shoot me. He had a brother.” Even as I said the words, I felt how unbelievable they sounded. I glanced toward the forest where Timur had disappeared. “We should leave in case he comes back.” I took a few steps toward the zigzag trail. “It isn’t safe here.”
The words came out of her mouth like a hiss. “I don’t believe you.” She stepped over Mark’s body. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
“What? No. Why would I kill Mark?”
She walked toward me. “Because you were jealous. Because you’re old and I’m not. Because your capacity for love is so limited. Because you believe in lies. You thought you could drive Mark away from me. You wanted him all for yourself, and when he wouldn’t give me up, you got angry. He loved me, you know.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t like that.”
“I mean, it’s not like it’s the first time you murdered somebody because you were angry. I know what happened, remember?”
The breath swooped out of me.
“I didn’t kill my mother. Or Mark. What’s wrong with you?”
She ignored me. “I told Mark right from the beginning that you weren’t ready for this life but he said to give you a chance. He said I had to love you too in order to show you how abundance worked.” She mimicked Mark’s voice: “ ‘You need to accept her, Angela. You need to make her feel welcome.’ Well, I did, and look what happened. You tricked me. You pretended to be my sister, while the whole time, you were trying to turn Mark against me. Just like Alvin tried to do when I came to the farm with Mark. Just like Diana did by blaming me for her accident. All of you are jealous of the way I’ve been able to evolve. Of the higher consciousness I’ve achieved. You couldn’t stand that I was better than you, so you lured Mark up here. One last try to get him to make me leave. I saw your tracks. You were going to show him, weren’t you?”
I took a step back. “I didn’t—”
Her voice rose. “Nobody does that to me and gets away with it. My dad used to say, ‘Annalise May, you’re too vengeful for your own good.’ ”
Annalise May. The name I’d seen on the Social Security card in Rudy’s hut.
Like I said before, sometimes there are so many clues, you don’t know which are important. Now, however, I did. The evidence lined up and fell into place: the strange note about the Skull; Alvin’s driver’s license; the way he had apparently left so suddenly, without a word to his aunt or a goodbye to Mark; his good-luck medal hanging in the tree.
My gaze went to the sunken patch of earth. My scalp tingled. I backed away.
Angela followed my glance. “What else could I do? He snooped through my things. He found my ID and looked me up on the Internet. He found out how me and my brother were wanted for killing my uncle. Alvin should have minded his own business and just left for Thailand, but no. He writes Mark a note telling him to come up here so he could show Mark the story he’d printed out and my ID and convince him I needed to be turned in. Luckily, I found the note before Mark did.”
“You told me your uncle went on a trip.”
“A trip to hell, maybe.” A smile touched her lips and then disappeared. “That guy got what he deserved for treating me and my brother like dirt. One good whack with a shovel and then a nice hole in the ground out in the brush. Like my daddy said, ‘Nobody messes with Annalise May.’ ”
I thought of her tale of abuse and abandonment. I’d fallen for it so easily.
Snow gathered on Angela’s shoulders. “Alvin was so surprised when I showed up for the meeting instead of Mark. You should have seen him. I told him that Mark wasn’t coming, that I’d sent him down valley to the vet to get medicine for one of the goats. I said the goat had mastitis, which it didn’t, but how would he know? Alvin said that I was a psychopath and that I couldn’t stop him from telling Mark. That’s when I shot him.”
I glanced at the medal, which now swung in the wind.
“I know,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have left it, but I liked the irony. Besides, Mark never came up here.”
I thought of Alvin rotting in the dirt beneath our feet and felt a rush of clammy nausea.
“It was easy after that,” Angela said. “I packed up Alvin’s things and drove his car into the woods on an old mining trail and hiked back, and when Mark got home that evening, I told him Alvin had just packed up and left for Thailand, accusing us of taking advantage of his generosity. I came back up a few days later and buried the son of a bitch.” Her eyes narrowed. “And now you tried to do the same thing. How did you find out?”
I backed up and attempted to keep my voice calm. I’d seen her kind of craziness before in my mother.
“Listen, I didn’t kill Mark and I never meant to hurt you. All I ever wanted was to leave.”
“If you wanted to leave, why did you get pregnant, huh? Didn’t you say having a child together was a sign of commitment and love?”
Too late, I realized wounding words could also hurt those who wielded them.
“And don’t try to pretend you’re not knocked up.” Angela took another step toward me. “You never asked what we did for our periods out here and I know you didn’t have any tampons or pads left because I looked. How stupid do you think I am?”
“It wasn’t like that. Mark forced himself on me. I didn’t want it.”
“You’re such a liar.” She lunged forward suddenly and grabbed Mark’s gun, then pointed it at me, her eyes blazing.
I lifted my hands like a shield. “What are you doing?”
“What you deserve for killing Mark and for trying to turn him against me and for taking what I wanted most. I should have been the one having his baby, not you.”
My heart pounded in my ears. Desperation filled me. I nodded toward the phone lying facedown on the snowy ground. “I called the cops. They’re coming. If you kill me too, they’ll find out.”
Angela took another step toward me. Her fingers tightened on the pistol grip. “I’ll say it was self-defense. Or maybe I’ll just bury you where you’ll never be found and tell the cops you killed Mark and then took off. I’ll tell them that you left Xander behind and that I will take care of him. Wouldn’t that be the nicest revenge?”
“Shit,” I cried. “He’s back!” I didn’t know what else to do.
Angela whirled.
I ran.
I sprinted down the zigzag trail. The thin layer of snow made the ground as slippery as glass.
Angela shouted. A gunshot sounded. The trail switchbacked down the hillside.
I could see Angela through the trees above me. She was running too. I hit the first hairpin turn, windmilling my arms to keep upright. Another shot cracked. A piece of bark flew off a tree six feet in front of me. I didn’t know if Angela was a good shot but I didn’t want to wait to find out. I lengthened my stride and skidded around another turn. My knee twinged with pain.
I knew I was stronger than Angela. I’d been training to escape, after all. She, however, was younger and probably faster, and I wasn’t sure I could outrun her to the cabin, especially with my knee.
My boots pounded on the trail. Another switchback. Another windmill of my arms.
I could hear Angela behind me, closing in.
I leaped off the trail then, cutting down the steep hillside, grabbing at the branches of small trees to keep from falling. Twigs whipped my face. My feet slid on the snow-crusted duff.
A crash of brush came from behind me. Angela had followed.
She was close enough that I could hear the ragged bursts of her breath.
I wove right and then left through the trees in order to be a harder target. Finally, my boots skidded onto flatter ground. I had two choices. I could turn right and bushwhack through the thick forest, where I’d have a better chance of hiding and of being less of a target, or I could turn left onto the trail to the cabin. That option would be faster but more open.
I turned left.
Another shot whizzed over my head. I wondered how many bullets the gun held.
I pumped my arms and ran faster than I’d ever thought I could. Ahead of me was a lightning-struck tree I recognized. The cabin was still a quarter mile away. My breath huffed white into the cold air. My head buzzed with adrenaline.
Just past the tree, the trail forked and I turned left again. Twigs snapped beneath Angela’s boots. I thought perhaps I’d gained a few yards on her; however, I couldn’t be sure.
The path arced around a dark boulder, then straightened. It took me a half second to recognize what I saw just ahead of me then: a small stack of three stones beside the trail.
Angela shouted something.
I didn’t look back.
I pumped my arms harder.
Three steps, two steps, one. I leaped.