FORTY

  

Vaughn heard gunshots through his open car windows, but he still couldn’t find the damn turn-off. It was just too dark. He had a sense of where the road should be, though. Using the sounds of the shots as guides, he parked and started hiking along the road. Eventually, he saw a gap where the trees didn’t quite meet. He bent down and touched dirt. Bingo. He sprinted back toward his car.

Where were the police? They’d sounded unconvinced but had agreed to send a car. Hopefully they’d arrive soon. Vaughn would call again, once he saw what was going on. If they had Allison…he didn’t even want to consider that possibility. The thought of explaining all this to Jason left him cold.

He pulled the BMW onto the dirt road, following it as fast as his chassis would let him. If these situations continue, he thought, I’m getting myself a more rugged vehicle.

And a damn gun.

  

Allison’s lungs were searing. Mark was still behind her. He fired off another shot, then another. She stumbled, almost fell. He was gaining on her. She dug deep, willing herself forward.

“Damn,” she heard Mark hiss. She closed her eyes when she heard the click of the trigger. Then nothing.

He was out of bullets. Allison swung behind a tree, resting her back against the rough surface of the trunk to catch her breath. Her eyes, now fully adjusted to the darkness, could make him out, down below on a small ridge. He was bent over double, staring at the gun he’d flung to the ground. Giving a silent prayer of thanks, Allison took off again, heading in the direction Eleanor had gone.

She didn’t get far. About fifty yards away, she found Eleanor kneeling on the ground, her hand covering her upper left thigh. As Allison approached, Eleanor said, “He got me.”

Allison looked behind her, debating. Finally, she squatted beside Eleanor. The woman was shivering, and while Allison couldn’t see the extent of the damage, she saw enough blood to know it was serious.

Rustling from below caught her attention. “He’s coming,” Allison said.

“Don’t leave me.”

Allison stood. She should leave her, just like Eleanor had gone ahead without her. But she couldn’t. If she was going to die tonight, Allison didn’t want her last act to be one of cowardice. With a resigned huff, she put her arms around the Eleanor and helped her up. “We need to wrap that leg,” she whispered. “But not here.”

“I know a place,” Eleanor said. “Go that way.”

Eleanor pointed off to the left and Allison followed her direction. Eleanor was leaning on her, which made going tougher, but the woman was still strong. Allison soldiered on.

A few hundred feet later, Eleanor whispered, “Over the ridge. There’s a shack. Beyond that, there’s an abandoned cottage. Go there.”

But Allison couldn’t make out anything other than more trees. The sun was rising over the horizon, but in this pocket of the woods, it was still dark.

Although, she reminded herself, as the hunted, not the hunter, darkness was an advantage.

Together, they crossed the ridge. As Eleanor had promised, they came upon a small shed and, beyond that, a dilapidated cottage. Evoking memories of another time, another murder, Allison headed reluctantly toward the cottage. What choice did they have? At least there they could hide.

  

The scene was pure chaos. Two men down, one woman shot. Vaughn rushed to the woman first. She was older, out of shape, and had the dull look of someone who spent way too many hours watching television, but she was alive. A gunshot wound to the shoulder had rendered her helpless. Vaughn grabbed her rifle and jogged toward the other two forms. One he recognized as Brad Halloway. The other, a dark-haired man in his thirties, was a mystery. Bic Friedman, maybe. Didn’t matter now. He was dead.

Brad was alive, but with the wound in his stomach, maybe not for long.

Vaughn ran into the house and called 9-1-1 from the house phone. Maybe now the cops would show. He should help Doris and Brad, but he had other things to attend to first, like finding Allison.

  

Allison helped Eleanor to the back of the cottage. With all the might she could muster, she pushed open the rear door and dragged Eleanor into what had once been the kitchen. Allison got three feet inside and stopped. She heard rustling.

“Raccoons,” Eleanor whispered. “Look in the pocket of my parka.”

Allison felt around and found a head lamp. She put it on, directing the light into the room’s interior. Two beady eyes stared back at her from underneath an old table. More rustling, and it was gone.

After gunmen, raccoons were nothing.

“Here.” Allison pulled over an old chair and eased Eleanor down on it. “I think we lost Mark. For now. Let’s look at your leg.”

A cursory examination showed a small wound and a lot of blood. Allison was no doctor, but she could tell Eleanor was close to shock from cold and blood loss. She peeled off the parka and wrapped it around Eleanor. She had nothing to staunch the bleeding, though, unless she wanted to risk hypothermia herself.

“Stay here,” she whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

Eleanor put her head back against the wall and shut her eyes. She nodded.

Allison skirted her way around the spot where the raccoon had been and walked gingerly through the rest of the downstairs. Like the kitchen, the house was semi-furnished and full of clutter. Allison went from room to room as quickly as she dared.

In the bedroom, she found what she was looking for: rags, in the form of old sheets. She grabbed them and went back to Eleanor, who was alive but weakened.

Allison used a ragged piece of wood from the old cabinetry to make a tear in the sheet. She ripped a piece off lengthwise and tied a tourniquet, or as close as she could get to a tourniquet, above the wound in Eleanor’s leg.

“Thanks,” Eleanor said.

Allison didn’t respond. All she could think about was Jason. If she made it out of here alive, and that was still a big if, she had some soul-searching to do. This whole mess was her doing. If she hadn’t had the affair, she wouldn’t be here now. It was possible she’d never see Jason again.

“I loved him, you know,” Eleanor said. Her voice was so low that Allison had to strain to hear her. “Before he left me, that is. He wasn’t like other men.”

Allison latched on to the second part of her statement. “Is that why you had him killed? Because he left you?”

Eleanor’s heavy eyes widened. “You think I had Scott killed?”

“Yes, you. You knew Duane from Wilderness Journey—” But even as the words were out of her mouth, she knew she was wrong. Yes, Eleanor knew Duane, but now that she’d met Eleanor, Allison realized she was hardly the type to befriend a kid, needy or not. But Brad was. And who had been involved with more philanthropic activities than Brad and Antonia? Wilderness Journey was just the type of nonprofit Brad would support. Hadn’t Brad taken Delvar under his wing? Perhaps he’d tried with Duane as well, personally or financially. And if Duane hadn’t come around after Brad’s ministrations…well, in Brad’s view, maybe getting him to commit something like murder was justified. A lost cause.

Like Allison.

How easy it would have been to get Scott into the city. How easy to set him up and have him killed?

Eleanor nodded. “Brad,” she said. “All of them, including Mark. Scott had become a liability.”

“Because he was threatening to blow the whistle.”

“Scott had put bits and pieces together.” Eleanor grimaced through some unseen tremor of pain. “He had enough information to have an idea what was going on. Nothing concrete. He called the SEC, but they didn’t listen. He couldn’t offer them anything but theories.”

“So he asked you about it. You’d been in on it all along.”

Eleanor nodded. “After the smear campaign Mark and the others put Scott through, no one would believe him. He needed evidence.”

“And you told him the truth.”

“I saw opportunity. Mark hadn’t been fair.”

Allison suddenly understood. “This was all Mark’s idea?”

“Mark’s a cunning bastard. Brad was looking for legal advice after the news about China came to light. Brad says he knew nothing about the pollution or the labor law violations, and on that point, I believe him. Brad had been blamed. He was angry, hurt, and, most of all, worried.”

“About Antonia. Because of the AIDS diagnosis.”

Eleanor nodded. “I’d known Brad from Wilderness Journeys. I’d had some…relationship issues…with a rich donor. It was a fun fling. The program got money, I got a new house. A win, win from my point of view.”

Eleanor spoke glibly, as though she were discussing a delayed flight.

“The man’s wife didn’t see it that way,” Allison said. She’d been leaning against the far wall so that she could see out the back window, but now she moved closer to the back door, senses alert.

“No, she didn’t. I’d raised a lot of money and positive attention for Wilderness Journeys, so Brad took care of things. I did well in the arrangement. In exchange for my silence.”

“Ultimately branding you as a harlot and a criminal in Brad’s eyes.”

Eleanor nodded. She closed her eyes again, this time for longer. Allison knelt down, risking light from the headlamp to look at Eleanor’s leg. It was still bleeding, although not nearly as badly.

“When they needed a purchasing agent who would look the other way, he thought of me.” She shrugged. “In exchange for quarterly payments, I didn’t bat an eye when Brad signed purchase orders with companies that existed only on the fringes of the imagination.”

“But you got greedy.”

Eleanor’s eyes opened. Allison saw the first flash of real emotion. “I got wise. Between Friedman, Mark, Brad and Cummings, they were going to make a killing. Their plan was so deviously simple: reduce the value of the company, sell it to Cummings’ venture firm, recoup on the backside. My tiny slice didn’t seem fair.”

“But Scott found out, and he wouldn’t play along.”

“Surprising everyone,” Eleanor whispered. “Even himself.” She closed her eyes again. “He’d been pushed too far.”

Eleanor stopped talking. Allison watched as the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, illuminating Eleanor’s complexion, which had gone from white to gray. Allison was starting to believe Mark Fairweather wasn’t waiting in the trees for them to emerge. She was starting to believe they would make it.

She bent to check on Eleanor. Her breathing was labored and slow. She needed medical attention.

Allison looked around. There was no way to carry her in this condition. She’d have to hike out to the road alone. She looked around for a weapon, eventually spying a sledgehammer in the corner. The handle was broken. Allison stepped on it, completing the break, and took the jagged piece with her. It was something.

She covered Eleanor with the sheet, tucking it carefully around her. She felt nothing but pity. To look at the life only through the lens of self and to have such a limited view of love…sad.

Allison walked outside. She felt tired and cold, but also happy to have some closure.

Not everything was settled, but she knew how to handle that, too.

About a quarter of a mile down the road that paralleled Dunne Pond, Allison heard a car. Pulse racing again, she backed into the tree line, blending into the woods, her stick at the ready. But it was Vaughn.

She wasn’t surprised.