She frowned. “But, we don’t have matches. Like, can you start a fire?”
He nearly smiled. “I can.”
Her look said, I should have known.
Shaw cut small holes in the curtain at one of the front windows. And one at each side. “Your peepholes. You’re in charge of surveillance.”
She seemed pleased he’d given her the assignment.
He added, “Don’t touch the curtains.”
“Never present,” she replied.
A nod.
Hannah said, “What about the back?”
“Maybe. But that’d expose them to our imaginary rifle.”
She looked out the kitchen window, nodding. “I’d make it a five percent possibility.”
“I think five percent is just about right.”
78
As the cabin’s interior grew dimmer with the lowering sun, Shaw assembled the meager weapons — the knives, the hammer and the paddle. He set them on the coffee table in the living room.
Using the tool, he pounded several bricks from the fireplace. He placed each into a separate pillowcase and tied it closed just beneath the stone. Crude bolos, the Argentinian weighted lasso. He could fling one fairly accurately, making an armed attacker dodge, giving him a chance to get within hand-to-hand combat distance.
Knife-fighting distance too.
He examined the ten-inch blade. The stainless steel was not high carbon. It was cheap and dull.
He pounded another brick out of the fireplace and began whetting the knife.
Hannah glanced back from her surveillance station at the broken fireplace. “Hm. Second house we’ve screwed up today.”
He lifted an amused eyebrow and continued honing. Shaw had always enjoyed sharpening blades. He liked the sound of steel against stone, he liked rendering dull into keen. He finished one and had just started on the second, when he heard Parker’s voice from the parlor. Soft.
“Colter? Can I talk to you?”
He said to Hannah, “Keep watch.”
“Got it.”
Shaw walked into the parlor. “You all right?”
“Feeling better. Something to say.”
He pulled a chair close.
“You asked me about November, if there were some gaps I wanted to fill in.”
“You don’t need—”
“I do.” She adjusted the cushion she was using as a pillow to sit up slightly higher. “That night. Jon’s back at the house. Drunk. I’m bloody, lying in the snow beside the pool, my cheek is cracked.”
“I remember.”
Another hesitation. She inhaled deeply, and this was not from the pain in her leg. Then: “Colter? Jon never touched me that night. November. He never touched me.” Her voice caught. She controlled it and continued, “I got his gun. I hit myself in the face a dozen times. Hard. Really hard. I crawled inside the house — left a trail of blood. I called nine-one-one and said he beat me and said he was going to kill me. Two squad cars came right away. Jon had passed out, and I was a bloody mess. They cuffed him and recovered the gun. I told them I got it away and threw it into the bushes.”
“Explaining why your prints were on it.”
She wiped a tear. “A wife of a cop knows cop things.”
“Was he so drunk he thought he’d actually hit you?”
“No. He knew I was setting him up. But his lawyer said the jury would never buy it. My word against his, and I would win. He could get twenty years for attempted. They worked out a plea for the thirty-six months.
“Oh, God, I didn’t want to do it. I tried everything I could not to. I got him into therapy, into programs, but none of it worked. If I brought up divorce, that only made him angrier. I knew some night he was going to hurt me or Hannah, bad. Maybe accidentally, thinking we were intruders. But it was going to happen. And then there was the psychic toll on her. I could see her declining. I wasn’t going to let that happen. When he left that night I decided: I had to sacrifice my husband for my child.
“So, in answer to your question, back at the fishing lodge: that’s why he’s after me. Every night I hear his voice as the cops led him off. Looking back at me and saying, ‘Why are you doing this to me? Why are you doing this to me?’ ”
“So, he never hurt you?”
“No.”
Shaw recalled that the only other person who’d said Jon had hurt her was her mother, Ruth. And she’d been referring to the attack he now knew was staged. “You haven’t told anyone else?”
She shook her head. “You’re easy to confess to, Colter.”
He heard that a lot.
“Hannah?” he asked.
“She suspects. It just sits there between us. It never goes away.” A sigh. “A thousand times I thought about confessing. But then I’d go to jail for perjury, and Hannah’d be raised by a dangerous, angry drunk. And my daughter would know what I did. No, I had to stick to my decision.” Her eyes looked around the parlor. “Now, Colter. One more thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“If anything happens here, get Hannah out. Leave me. Promise.” Her tone said that this was inflexible.
“All right.” No point arguing at a moment like this.
“Now, the Kia, at Timberwolf Lake, the glove compartment. You’ll find an envelope. Black. Fireproof. If I’m not around, I want you to get it to my mother. There’re instructions inside.”
A will? he wondered.
“It’s got blueprints and diagrams of a dozen inventions of mine. Technical things, control systems, industrial mechanics... I did them on my own time. They’re mine, legally. Not HEP’s. They’re not all finished, but I’ve got the names of some patent lawyers who can find some people to help. I’ve left notes, explaining everything.” She glanced toward where Hannah stood, peering out the front window. “She doesn’t know about it. I’ve kept it from her. I don’t need to freak her out with endgame strategies now. She’s been through enough.”
Shaw had a sense that the girl would be fine with endgame strategies. But he said, “I’ll take care of it.”
She squeezed his hand, a weaker gesture than he’d hoped. They’d need that hospital soon.
Parker closed her eyes and lay back.
He returned to the living room and finished sharpening the second blade. Good, not great. Sharp is a function of the quality of the metal, and this knife might cut paper once or twice but would need steeling right after. How would it do on flesh?
Well enough.
Then Hannah cocked her head. Shaw heard it too, the sound of tires in brush and on gravel. He gestured her back and looked carefully through the curtain.
A dark sedan rocked over the uneven, overgrown drive. It pulled into the parking area in front of the cabin. Though dusk was descending, it was still light enough to see the driver.
Sheriff’s deputy Kristi Donahue.
Shaw called, “Our ride is here.”
“Dope!”
The deputy climbed out, hitched up her service belt and, after looking around, started toward the cabin.
Shaw opened the door. “Deputy!”
“Colter! You’re here.”
“Keep down. Two hostiles, the high ground behind you. The pair from the hotel.”
She stepped back to the car, crouching, using it as cover. She scanned the forest, her hand on her gun. “You’re with Ms. Parker and her daughter?”
“They’re here. Allison’s hurt. Bullet wound. Missed the vitals but we need to get her to surgery.”
“There’s a hospital twenty minutes away. I’ll help you.” Staying low, Donohue started toward the cabin.
She got only halfway.
Jon Merritt burst from the brush beside the driveway, a backpack over his shoulder, a pistol in his hand. He leveled the revolver at the woman and before Shaw could bark a word of warning, he fired two rounds, striking her in the head.