Destroyer Angel: An Anna Pigeon Novel (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) (34 page)

Michael was a twin, she remembered, an identical twin. Michael was a handsome, winsome man.

Hard to believe the dude—she couldn’t bring the twin brother’s name to mind—was any relation at all, Leah thought as she studied him covertly. Like Michael, the dude was tall, with a broad chest, wide of shoulder and narrow of waist. They shared the same dark hair and olive complexion. The same cheekbones. The dude’s nose had been broken, probably more than once, and not healed straight. Of course, he was fourteen years older than Michael had been when Leah knew him.

Michael. The dude. It was as if she were being shown before-and-after pictures. Michael as a lovely young man, then Michael after a holocaust or some other prolonged, painful, embittering experience.

The young Michael’s eyes were dove-colored and clear as glass. The corners had tiny lines from laughter. He quoted Shakespeare, told jokes, read Greek and Latin. He had a miniature wire-haired terrier named Cleo. Cleo accompanied him everywhere, her collar a string of pearls. Michael had been kind to Leah; he made her feel normal instead of like an Einstein Monster.

The dude was a cold, dead-eyed man. Age, hairstyle, the mustache, broken nose, and a hairline scar through his left eyebrow changed his countenance to a degree, but even without the disguises, Leah would never have recognized him. The difference between the brothers was as marked as the difference between a stained-glass window flooded with sunlight and that same window at midnight.

Leaning her head back, watching him through lowered lashes, Leah tried to remember everything she could about when she’d met Gerald and Michael. Gerald was thirty-two, ten years older than Leah. Michael was close to that. Michael would have been—the dude was—in his forties now. Gerald and Michael owned a sporting goods store in Montreal that specialized in camping and backpacking equipment. They were partners.

“My God,” Leah whispered. The dude flashed her a glance. She closed her eyes and her mouth. Gerald had not “turned out to be gay,” as she’d always believed. Five years into a lucrative marriage, with a child, he hadn’t suddenly realized his sexual orientation and come out of the closet. Gerald had known he was gay when they met. Michael had loved him, Michael, the loving partner, in his business and his bed.

Details of the past were hazy. She’d been so young and so unaccustomed to dealing with anything outside academia. Gerald hung on her every word, seemed fascinated with her plans and designs and ideas. His attention swept her off her feet.

Gerald was not pushy about sex; he didn’t grab or grope or implore. It had made her feel safe, made her feel as if he loved her, cherished her innocence, wanted it to be “right” for her. The truth was Gerald was gay. He didn’t want her, he wanted the beautiful, charming Michael. Another woman might have noticed. Not Leah, the princess recently released from the ivory tower.

In a whirlwind that left her gasping, Gerald asked her to marry him, and they eloped to Niagara Falls. The next morning Gerald had returned shaking and pale from a walk. He said he was scared she wouldn’t like her wedding gift. Gerald’s wedding gift was that he’d bought Michael out of the partnership and sold the store. Most of the money would go into a lab for her. The rest would go to online marketing. Their honeymoon week was spent moving to Boulder, Colorado, and finding an apartment. Leah had never seen Michael again.

The dude said he was dead.

The dude hated Gerald. When she’d begged him to save Katie because she was an innocent, he’d said, “Tell that to Gerald.”

Michael had been an innocent. When in earnest, he swore by the Virgin Mary. Every Sunday he went to mass. Gerald teased him that he had to chew the host or he wouldn’t have a sin to confess the next week.

Michael was her husband’s lover. He was dead, an innocent, and, in his brother’s mind, at least, it was Gerald’s fault. Gerald had dumped Michael and run off with the golden goose to live the heterosexual life. Had Gerald cheated Michael out of his share of the business and, now that Michael was dead, the dude wanted revenge? After fourteen years it would be a very cold dish.

The dude was punching numbers into the cell phone. Mr. Big, Leah guessed. The mastermind, the person who would get the lion’s share of the ransom money. The person who had looked for rich ladies who were foolish enough to wander around without protection.

“Bring my cut,” the dude snapped into the phone. “I’m not going north with you.” He punched the disconnect before whoever it was could reply, then turned the phone off. This was not open to negotiation; he didn’t want to be called back.

Charlie, his name was Charlie. Leah remembered Michael opening half of his sentences with “My brother, Charlie.” Leah knew who he was. Katie knew enough to set hounds on his trail. The dude was Charlie Bagnold of Montreal, Canada. He wanted the cash up front, and he wasn’t going north with Mr. Big.

Charlie Bagnold didn’t intend to leave either her or her daughter alive.

FIFTY

Anna woke only when the first light of the sun struck the field, an hour or more after dawn. On her right side, to keep her injured arm elevated, she lay beside Heath. Elizabeth snuggled up to her mother on the other side. Not to be left out, Wily curled around their two heads like a mangy brown fur hood. One of his paws was on E’s shoulder. The girl’s hand rested atop it. Momentarily, Anna felt abandoned. Wily had been …

Magic, delusion, projection: Anna’s sister was a psychiatrist; she’d ask Molly when she got the chance.

Her intention was to rise quietly, stealthily, so the others could continue sleeping while she went on reconnaissance. Weakness turned those intentions into paving stones on the road to hell. During the night her arm had swollen alarmingly. The flesh was tight against the sleeve of her shirt. As she rolled from her side onto her back, the arm fell off her rib cage like a sausage rolling off a chopping block, and hit the ground with much the same sound. Unable to stop herself, she cried out as her body seized with an agony she had not known the nerves were capable of.

Elizabeth was awake instantly and, nearly as instantly, on her feet. To be fifteen and whole, Anna thought. It must be like being a god. Before Elizabeth could utter the inevitable and unanswerable “Are you okay?” Anna said, “I am jim-dandy. Never better. If you have a bit of rope or a gun, please put me out of my misery.”

“I was dreaming this was all a dream,” Heath said. “I was so relieved, I cried.”

“Good morning,” Anna said. Pushing down on Elizabeth’s shoulder with her good hand, she managed to rise to her knees. “Wait until you try to get up. That’s when crying might genuinely become a factor.” Sweat beaded on her forehead, though the morning was cold. Her breath came in shallow gasps that puffed in the air like smoke signals.

Anna pulled one knee up, rested a few seconds, then tried to rise to her feet. “Damn it!” she said, muttering, “Elizabeth, give me a hand, will you?”

E reached out to help, but her mother stopped her.

“Wait, Elizabeth, I didn’t quite hear what Anna said,” Heath said sweetly.

“Mom,” Elizabeth chided.

Heath laughed and, annoyed as she was, hearing it gave Anna strength. “Give me a hand up, will you, E?” she said clearly. “I need all the help I can get.”

Quiet chuckling followed her as Elizabeth helped her to her feet. “Very funny. Don’t even look at me, Wily. One of you is bad enough. Coffee,” she said and sniffed the air. “They have coffee. Another reason to kill them.”

“Even if they did, you couldn’t smell it over a hundred yards away,” Heath said.

“Wily taught me to find my wolf nose,” Anna said, then smiled so Elizabeth and Heath wouldn’t think she was crazy. “E, come with me.” Looking pointedly at Heath, she added, “In case I fall down and break a hip.”

“Where are we going?” E asked as they walked the few yards toward the clearing and the burned hulk of the airplane.

“Just walking, seeing if there’s anything we need to see,” Anna said. “Mostly I need to move, get my blood flowing. So does Heath. When we get back, make her do whatever she does. The leg is a mess, but she’s got to get warm somehow.”

At the edge of the trees, still in the shadows, they stopped. The field was empty. At the far end smoke curled up into a pellucid blue sky, perfect flying weather. Reg stood by the fire. The dude, Leah, and Katie were not visible. “Probably still sleeping,” Anna said.

“Are we going to stay hidden until everyone is gone?” Elizabeth asked.

“That’s the only logical way to go,” Anna said.

“They’ll take Leah and Katie?” Elizabeth asked.

“The Hendrickses have plenty of money,” Anna said. “Leah’s husband will buy them back.”

Elizabeth’s full lips thinned, and she wouldn’t look at Anna. “I think the dude has it in for Leah.”

“Nah,” Anna said dismissively. “She’s just money to him.”

“You didn’t hear him. He said Gerald’s name at the rocks and then went ballistic when Katie said she’d seen a picture of him. It’s personal with him,” Elizabeth insisted.

“That’s a bit of a stretch,” Anna said. “He was probably just cold and hungry and tired like the rest of us.”

Anna turned away from E and walked slowly back into the trees. She needed a sling to keep her arm from driving her mad with pain; she needed a drink of water and the last of the aspirin. The list of needs had the potential of consuming the rest of the day. She quit thinking about it.

Heath turned down Anna’s offer to share the last three aspirins. Anna didn’t argue but washed them down with gratitude. Poor little white pills didn’t have a hope of fighting the kind of cruelty the bullet was dishing out. Swallowing them was an act of faith and optimism.

“Now, could some able-armed individual shred my T-shirt into strips?” Anna asked. “Then you can secure this wretched piece of meat to my chest.”

Elizabeth started to help Anna pull the T-shirt over her head. “Can’t,” Anna gasped. “Cut it off.”

“Duh,” Elizabeth mocked herself. “Right, we’re shredding it anyway.”

“That which isn’t already shredded,” Heath added. Eyes moving from Anna to her daughter, Heath said, “We remind me of that painting of the Revolutionary soldiers limping home, one with a bandage around his head.”

“Except they could walk,” Elizabeth said. “And the guy could hold a fife.”

“Can you return children to the breeder if they turn out to have defects?” Heath asked.

“E and I were talking when we went for our morning stroll,” Anna said. “The thugs don’t know I exist. They think you’re dead. Elizabeth is long gone, lost in the woods, for all they know. They probably won’t make much of an effort to find us. Probably won’t make any effort at all to find us. I think we should lay low until the plane leaves and whatever leftover thugs clear out down the logging road.”

Heath, propped up on her elbows, stared at Anna for a second, then said, “You’re right. All I can do is die again. You’re spent. Another night in the cold will do us both in, and I don’t like the looks of E’s eye.”

Elizabeth stopped her meticulous shredding of the black knit shirt. “You’d just leave Leah and Katie?” she asked her mother.

“There’s nothing we can do to help them, E,” Heath said. “Hey, look what I found,” From the folds of Jimmy’s much-abused coat, Heath pulled out a mauled cigarette. “Too bad I lost my lighter,” she said sadly. “Leah’s husband will pay the ransom and the kidnapper will cut them loose, E. They’ll be okay.”

“You didn’t leave me behind,” Elizabeth said.

Heath winced.

Anna wanted to slink cravenly away from the scene and leave it to mother and daughter. “That was different, Elizabeth,” Anna said. “That was something we could do something about.”

“We could do something to help Leah and Katie,” Elizabeth insisted.

“Don’t be an ass,” Anna snapped. “Two grown men, neither injured, two pistols, a rifle, and a plane on the way? Act your age. There is nothing we can do but get ourselves killed.” Rising without assistance, she left the clearing. Had she not been in the forest, she would have stomped out and slammed the door.

Several yards away white pines, tangled with winterberry bushes, provided cover. Anna stepped behind them so Elizabeth could no longer see her.

“I’m sorry Anna snapped at you,” she heard Heath say.

“I’ve never seen her being such a bitch before,” Elizabeth replied. Hearing the tears in her voice, Anna felt her own eyes sting.

“She has her days,” Heath said dryly.

Turncoat, Anna thought.

“She’s right, though,” Heath said. “I hate it as much as you do, but we haven’t a chance—especially if Anna’s lost her nerve. Throwing our lives away won’t help Leah and Katie, it’ll just break Aunt Gwen’s and Paul’s hearts.”

Anna counted slowly to one hundred, giving Elizabeth time to process; then she crunched around a bit to announce her arrival and returned to where they sat. “Sorry,” she said. “My arm’s killing me.” She sat down, ignoring the cold emanating from the teenager. “We’ll follow the logging road out,” Anna said. “It’ll take us somewhere there are people and cars.”

“Dragging Mom?” Elizabeth asked acidly.

“Can’t you carry her?” Anna asked.

“I’d bleed to death, Anna,” Heath said. “Leg. Holes on both sides. You remember.”

“There is that,” Anna admitted. “E and I can go. The faster we get help, the better your chances. Your golden hour is already shot to hell.”

“I won’t leave Mom,” Elizabeth said.

“Then I guess it’s me going for help,” Anna said. Painfully, she rose to her feet, Four steps later she fell to her knees. “Woozy from blood loss. Once I get moving I’ll be fine.” This time she didn’t make it to her feet before faintness hit. Staggering, she leaned against a tree, shaking her head to clear it.

“Go, E,” Heath said softly. “I’ll be okay. Run like the wind. Get us help. Stay in the trees until you’re out of sight of the field. If you hear a plane, duck back into the trees.”

“Mom…”

“Go now before things start to happen. We’ll be fine. They’ll never even know we’re here. I promise.”

Elizabeth got to her feet. Anna could feel her staring at her back. “Take the water bottle,” Anna said.