Destroyer Angel: An Anna Pigeon Novel (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) (35 page)

“Hurry,” Heath urged.

“I love you, Mom,” Elizabeth said as she left the clearing. Then, “You, too, Anna. I guess.” Fleet footsteps faded quickly in the direction of the logging road.

“You sure raised one stubborn girl,” Anna said.

“Yes I did,” Heath agreed. “What are we going to do?”

“I have no idea. We wait for an opening. Tie my arm to my chest?”

“Shhh.” Heath held up a hand.

Men talking.

Anna slipped back to the fringe of brush around the clearing. Maybe there were fewer leaves than the day before. Maybe she was just feeling more vulnerable. Crawling commando-style, throwing herself to her belly—those marvelous feats were beyond her now. Not all of the fainting and fogging had been assumed for Elizabeth’s sake.

Using trees and hoping for luck, she could see the field in its entirety. Reg and the dude had brought the hostages to the center of the cleared area. Their hands had been retied behind their backs. The dude was taking no chances. He barked an order that sounded like “Down.” Before there was time to respond, he grabbed Leah by the shoulder and shoved her to the ground. Hands bound behind her, she couldn’t break her fall and slammed facefirst into the weeds. Katie quickly got down.

Orders were given that Anna could not hear. Both Leah and her daughter stretched their legs out in front of them, feet together, like Barbie dolls on a shelf. Reg knelt and began tying their ankles with strips of cloth. Finally, they had run out of plastic ties.

Anna was mystified. Why leave their nice cozy pen with the food and the fire to stand in the middle of an open field on a cold morning? Unless the plane had left wherever it left from in darkness, it would be a while before it arrived. Satellite phone: The dude would know its ETA to the minute. Was he afraid the pilot wouldn’t see them in the shelter? That was absurd. Smoke from the campfire marked the spot beautifully.

The plane was coming in minutes; the thought cut cold through Anna’s mind. No. Were the plane imminent, they wouldn’t tie Leah’s and Katie’s feet. They’d have to untie them to get the women into the plane, unless they planned on loading them like gunny sacks full of grain.

Anna tried to put herself in the dude’s place. Why would she leave the comfort of the camp they’d made? Because it was a trap. Because she didn’t want anybody sneaking up on her from behind the three standing walls or around the corner of the barracks building. The dude must have finally figured out they were not alone in these woods. That, or Leah or Katie had told him she was here; she was responsible for Jimmy’s decimation of the troops.

Damn.

Having finished tying Leah’s and Katie’s ankles, Reg rose to his feet. The dude issued a few more sotto voce orders.

“No fuckin’ way,” Reg ejaculated.

The dude argued. Reg shuffled.

“You go,” Reg said.

The dude had the rifle under his arm. His gun hand twitched toward the pocket of the coat. Reg turned and stared at Anna. She flinched, but he hadn’t seen her. His eyes were searching the tree line. The dude knew, or suspected, Anna existed. He was sending Reg to search the area beyond the burned-out plane hulk.

Sulkily, like a recalcitrant teen with an attitude, Reg started in the direction of the plane, the direction of Anna, of Heath.

Anna backed away until she could no longer see him, then turned and walked as rapidly as she dared to where she’d left Heath. There was no way Anna could move her. With luck, she could scrape enough forest detritus over her to camouflage her from a casual glance, no more than that. The red-and-black checkered coat could be buried under duff. Signs of their disturbance couldn’t be erased even if she had fifteen minutes. They’d been there too long, rearranged too much.

“They’re coming?” Heath asked as Anna walked into their primitive camp.

“Reg,” Anna said. “I think the dude knows I exist. He’s not leaving Leah and Katie. He’s got them tied hand and foot in the middle of the clearing. I don’t think he knows you’re alive. Can we use that?”

For a minute or more neither woman spoke.

Heath drew in a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. “Give me your pants,” she said.

Since Anna had no better idea, she undid the top button of her trousers and let Heath skin them down to where she could step out of them. Working on nothing but trust and hope that Heath actually had a plan, Anna asked, “Do you want my tank top as well?”

“No,” Heath said. “I have good breasts. These breasts have been known to freeze men in their tracks for three to five seconds. They should be good for at least half that with Reg, given he thinks they’re returned from beyond the grave.”

Kneeling, Anna helped Heath pull on her trousers as best she could. With one arm screaming every time she moved, she wasn’t terribly effective. “I don’t want him to see my legs, the bandage, all that. It will spoil the effect,” Heath explained as she zipped and buttoned. “Grab the strips of your shirt.”

Anna did as she was told.

“Give them to me.” Heath quickly tied three of them together into two ropes each several feet long.

“Help me get up, then tie me to the tree,” she said.

The plan finally came together in Anna’s mind, the fruition of blind faith. “Got it,” she said. With Anna’s hand and knee, Heath pulled herself up until she was hanging from Anna’s good shoulder, her back against the tree. Overhead was a small branch, no more than two inches in diameter and a few feet long. Anna supported her until she got one hand around it.

“I’m good for a second,” Heath said. “Hand me the first strip. Good. You take one end.” Heath held her end in her free hand as Anna passed the other around the trunk.

“Brace me,” Heath said.

Anna wrapped her good arm around Heath’s waist and took her weight on her hip as Heath tied the strips tightly under her breasts and tucked the tails in where they didn’t show.

Without awaiting instructions, Anna handed her one end of the second rope, ran it around the tree trunk, then held it in place while Heath tied it tightly around her hips. “That should keep me from suffocating for at least four minutes,” Heath said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Anna said. “He’ll probably shoot you on sight.”

“See that he doesn’t.”

Anna turned to go see if Reg was coming their direction.

“Wait,” Heath said. “Cross my ankles so I look casual, and hand me that cigarette.” She pointed to the disreputable-looking cigarette in the folds of Jimmy’s coat.

Anna did as she was told, then threw the coat behind the tree where it was out of sight.

“Go,” Heath said.

Holding her rotten arm with the one in slightly better shape, Anna trotted the few yards to the edge of the clearing. Reg, his Walther swinging in short arcs like the cane of a blind man searching for obstacles, was walking warily toward the burned plane. The sun was well and truly up. Autumn sunlight, rich and warm as clarified butter, poured into the clearing.

“Nothing,” Reg shouted to the dude.

“Check out the tree line,” the dude called back. He put the Colt in the waistband of his pants. Rifle at his shoulder, he watched Reg and the trees through the site.

He did know Anna existed. He was using Reg as bait to draw her out.

Reg circled the rubble, all that remained of the Cessna, and walked in halting baby steps toward Anna. As he closed the distance, Anna slipped back to Heath.

“It’s now or never,” she whispered. “Wait until I’m set.”

The only chunk of anything remotely solid that she could wield with one arm was a pine branch three feet long and slightly bigger around than her wrist. Rot had set in. Like as not, it would shatter on impact, but it might suffice to give her the time she needed to get his gun.

Might was such a peevish little word.

Backing behind an old oak where she could see Heath but couldn’t be seen from any other angle, she nodded.

“Hey, Reg,” Heath called softly.

“What the fuck?” Reg said. Anna leaned back until she could just see him through the berry bushes. He’d stopped and was rolling his head around, trying to find where the voice came from. He even searched the heavens in case the gods were calling his name.

“Reg, come over, would you?” Heath asked pleasantly.

Anna marveled at the calm and ease in her voice. The ties had to be cutting off half of her oxygen supply.

“Shit, man,” Reg muttered and crept closer to the bushes, his head forward, his gun leading the way.

“God damn it, stop fucking around and get over here,” Heath said.

The cigarette between her fingers was shaking as if it had a life of its own and struggled to take flight.

Reg stepped into the trees and was gone from Anna’s view. In seconds he would see Heath. He had to come far enough in so Anna could see him and knock his miserable head off his miserable shoulders. She wished she had two good arms. She wished she had a gun. Most of all, she wished she had her pants on. Defending the right and just was hard enough without having to do it wearing nothing but filthy lace panties.

He walked into Anna’s sight line. Heath smiled at him. Raising the cigarette to her lips, she said, “Got a light?”

Reg screamed and bolted.

Anna swung the rotten branch with all her strength.

She struck out. Only empty air remained where once had been a thug.

FIFTY-ONE

The dude had skinned out of his bulky coat and was following Reg’s every move with the rifle. Something beyond the tree line had snagged Reg’s attention, and he’d followed it until he was swallowed by the half-denuded bushes. Leah eyed the Colt in the waistband of the dude’s trousers but could think of no way of getting close to it, except by biting him on his hip pocket.

A scream ripped the fabric of the still morning, a skin-shriveling, bowel-loosening shriek that sounded more animal than man. On the heels of the shriek, Reg burst from cover. Instead of running back toward Leah, Katie, and the dude, he veered left and pelted pell-mell down the old logging road at the end of the clearing.

“Holy smoke,” Leah murmured.

“Wolves?” Katie asked.

“Something put the fear of God in him,” Leah said.

The dude pressed his cheek to the stock of the rifle and pulled the trigger. A blossom of liquid red bloomed from the top of Reg’s skull. He fell in midstride, dead before he struck the ground. With Reg down, a second figure was revealed. Not ten feet beyond where Reg lay was Elizabeth. She was running, not away, but up the old road toward them. Without a change in expression, the dude pumped out the spent round and chambered another, then pressed his cheek to the stock.

Leah toppled onto her side, bunched her legs, and kicked out hard, hitting him in the ankle. The shot went wild.

“Get his gun!” a woman shouted.

Not Heath. Heath was dead. Anna, then. It had to be Anna. Leah had begun to think Anna, like the windigo, was a ghost story told to frighten children on winter nights.

The dude kicked Leah’s shins so hard she was spun halfway around. The intensity of the pain tore a squeak from her throat. A scream wanted out, but she didn’t want to scare Katie any worse than she already was. Fighting through the waves of pain, Leah rolled to her back and sat up. She needed to see what was happening. Planting his feet, the dude again took aim and fired at Elizabeth. In the instant the crack of the bullet hit Leah’s ears, Elizabeth dropped to her knees. Shot, downed like Reg. Leah couldn’t bear so much. She tried to shut out the image.

“She’s taking his gun!” Katie squeaked.

Not shot, just down, Elizabeth was snatching something from Reg’s dead hands. Holding it tightly against her belly, she slipped into the trees.

“Elizabeth got his gun!” Katie crowed.

“Shh,” Leah said, afraid the dude would vent his frustration on her daughter.

He seemed unmoved by this turn of events. Leah remembered hearing that it was hard to hit a target with a pistol at any distance, that even people who shot regularly couldn’t be sure of hitting a bull’s-eye at more than ten yards, or twenty, she couldn’t remember exactly. Maybe the dude didn’t figure a fifteen-year-old girl, scared half out of her mind, was much of a threat.

Without glancing back to see if Leah was planning another ground assault on his ankles, he calmly twisted the end of a tube that was slightly smaller and shorter than the barrel of the gun, and mounted right beneath it. Pulling the tube out, he looked into a hole. Counting his bullets, Leah realized. The only rifle bullets he had must be in the gun. The thugs hadn’t come prepared for an extended ordeal.

He eased the tube back in. Nothing on his face indicated whether he had plenty of ammunition or none. Raising the rifle again, he searched the line of trees and bushes at the edge of the clearing, waiting for Elizabeth to show herself.

Katie was scooting, pulling her rear end along with her heels, moving toward the castoff jacket on the dude’s far side. Leah wanted her to stop, to stay still, to stay safe, but there was no safe anymore. Katie reached the coat and fell over on her side. Leah was afraid to ask what she was doing, if she was cold, or going to take a nap. Katie looked at her. Leah raised her eyebrows in silent questioning. The look Katie returned said something important. Leah hadn’t a clue what it was.

Her daughter began nosing around in the folds of the hunting jacket like a puppy looking for a place to nurse.

“You said your brother died,” Leah said to keep the dude from looking in Katie’s direction.

“That’s right,” the dude replied without stopping his endless scanning.

“Did he die recently?” Leah asked because she couldn’t think of anything cleverer.

“He died on the sixteenth of July fourteen years ago.”

The sixteenth of July was Leah and Gerald’s wedding anniversary. Fourteen years. Michael had died on their wedding day.

Katie found whatever it was she was looking for. Her nose was burrowing into the checkered wool, into a pocket. Working her jaws, she bit at something.

“Suicide.” The realization came to Leah like a punch in the gut. “Michael committed suicide.” Gerald hadn’t bought Michael out, or cheated him. Michael committed suicide because Gerald dumped him. Gerald had inherited Michael’s half of the business when he died.