His face in the dark was intense, fired. “I was born to greatness. I’ve known that all my life. Even when things started going bad, it was like I was favored by the gods. Fate smiled and everyone who could incriminate me was eliminated. My father, Lytton, the Blackwaters. I was clear of it all. No one was even looking in my direction except for that fucking husband of yours.” Sandy peered intently through the windshield and slowed the Cherokee to a crawl. “There it is.”
Jo could see the sauna, square and black, and farther up among the trees the light from inside the cabin. Cork had turned all the lights off when they left earlier. That meant he was there now, waiting innocently for them to arrive. Her fault! God, how could she have been so stupid, so blind?
Sandy stopped the Cherokee behind the sauna, out of sight of the cabin. He slipped the key from the ignition and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. “This shouldn’t take long.” He lifted the revolver from his lap.
“You’re not-” she began.
“Going to shoot him? In cold blood? If I have to. But I don’t think I will. Not yet.”
He took the roll of duct tape from his pocket, tore off a strip, and pressed it over her mouth. He reached into the glove compartment and drew out a flashlight. Stepping from the Cherokee, he came around to Jo’s side and opened the door. He took out his jackknife and snapped out the blade.
“I’m only going to cut your feet loose so you can walk. I’m not going to hurt you. But if you try something, I will.”
Slowly he knelt. He reached out carefully with the knife and cut the tape from her ankles.
“In here,” he said, leading her to the sauna door.
He switched on the flashlight. There were three tiers of seats in the sauna, hard, bare cedar planks. Sandy guided her up to the top, forced her to sit, and bound her ankles again with tape.
“I’m just going to have a peek and make sure Cork’s not planning any surprises of his own. I’ll be right back.”
He stepped down, clicked off the flashlight, and left her in total darkness. The boards creaked on the small deck outside as he crept around to the side of the building and headed toward the cabin. She waited a few moments after the creaking had stopped, then she rolled to her side and bumped down the tiers of cedar planks. She felt a jolting pain in her right shoulder as she hit the floor. She scooted toward the door, which opened inward. Pushing herself against the wall, she managed to slide to a standing position. With her hands bound behind her, she groped in the dark for the knob, finally found it, and opened the door a crack, just enough to wedge her body through. She tumbled onto the deck outside.
Like an inchworm, she coiled and uncoiled herself, crawling along the deck toward the edge. She came to the end, a sudden drop-off with the ice three feet below. She brought her body around until she lay parallel with the edge of the deck, then she rolled off. The wind had blown the snow on the ice into uneven depths; where she hit there was almost nothing to cushion the blow on her head. For the second time that night, she was stunned to the point of seeing lights. Her head felt thick and burning as if full of some scorching liquid. Vital seconds passed, a fact she was aware of even through the haze that clouded her thinking. On her side, her injured shoulder taking the brunt of the struggle, she began to move away from the sauna toward a pine tree backed by a small thicket just beyond the shoreline a dozen yards away. She dug at the ice, propelling herself with the side of her boot. Her jacket was a down-filled nylon shell, and the slick material helped her slide easily over the ice, the only piece of luck she’d had all night.
Five feet. Ten. She struggled against fainting. Goddamn it, no! She fed her pain to her anger. She wouldn’t give in. She wouldn’t give Sandy the satisfaction. The pine and the thicket seemed an enormous distance away. If she couldn’t make it there, she’d find another way. Desperately she scanned the area around her, looking for a drift against the shore that might be deep enough to burrow into, to cover herself with snow. Could he find her then? Could he follow a worm’s trail in the night? She was wearing dark clothing, a mistake she regretted now as bitterly as she regretted loving Sandy. She was too easy to see, especially in the unnatural brightness from the northern lights and the rising moon. Her best hope still was to make the thicket before Sandy came back.
She breathed heavily, pushing hard, turning inches into feet, feet into yards. The tree was almost within her reach. She glanced back at the snow-draped thicket just beyond. If she could reach it, nestle in, he might never find her. She hoped he wouldn’t kill one of them unless he was sure he could kill them both.
Ignoring the pounding in her head, the burning in her shoulder, she redoubled her efforts. A moment later she bumped into something hard. The trunk of the pine, she thought with relief. She looked back to gauge the distance left to the thicket and found that the pine tree had not stopped her. It was Sandy Parrant’s left leg.
“I would have been disappointed in you if you hadn’t tried,” he said. “One of the things I’ve always found most attractive is your tenacity.” He took out his jackknife, knelt, and whispered, “You’re also one hell of a piece of ass.” He cut her ankles free and lifted her brusquely.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Our pigeon is roosting.”
47
Cork sat at the kitchen table facing the back door. He wore his coat and his stocking cap, but he’d taken off his gloves and they lay crumpled in front of him on the table. It was warm in the cabin, but that wasn’t why he’d removed his gloves.
The back door swung open and Parrant brought Jo in. Cork looked at her bound wrists, the tape across her mouth, and the familiar revolver in Parrant’s hand.
“Going to kill the whole county?” he asked.
“If I have to.”
“Starting with us,” Cork concluded.
“That depends,” Sandy replied.
“We both know it doesn’t.” He addressed Jo, “You okay?”
She nodded.
“We have a lot of talking to do before I decide on anything,” Parrant said.
“Bullshit. You’ve already decided.”
Parrant put the revolver to Jo’s temple. “I want to know one thing. Does anyone else know about the negatives?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“You expect me to answer that? It would be like signing a death warrant.”
“Not necessarily,” Parrant said. “Some people can be bought. Most people in fact. Or they can be scared easily enough. Who else knows?”
“I lied,” Cork told him. “No one else knows.”
“I don’t believe you.” Parrant rubbed at his nose, thinking. “Tell you what I’m going to do. From now on, every time I get an answer I don’t believe-” He put his arm around Jo to hold her and he pointed the barrel of the. 38 at her foot. “-I’ll put a bullet through one of Jo’s extremities.”
“You’d really do that?”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m lying. But think about it. What have I got to lose? A man who aspires to the White House ought to be able to be ruthless if the situation demands. So, what do you think? Will I really do it?”
Parrant’s eyes were quite clear and unblinking as a snake’s. “Let’s begin again,” he said. “Did you tell anyone else about the negatives?”
“No.”
“Did you talk to anyone else about your suspicions of me?”
“No.”
The sound of the gunshot made Cork jerk as if he’d been struck by the bullet. Jo tried to yank free, almost separating from Parrant as she screamed into the duct tape. From under the table, where it had lain cradled on his lap, Cork swung the Winchester. The safety was off, a cartridge chambered. For the briefest instant he had a shot at Parrant. Not a clear shot, however, for Parrant was struggling to pull Jo back. Cork hesitated. That was all Sandy Parrant needed.
“Drop it!” he shouted at Cork, jamming the revolver into the back of Jo’s head. “She’s not hit. But I’ll kill her, I swear to God.”