Extreme Denial (51 page)

“Where’s the damned carry-on bag? When I drove past the lane, I saw you taking it into the cabin.”

Decker nodded. “That’s where I left it.” He glanced toward the blazing cabin.

“You didn’t bring it out with you?”

“No.”

“You
left
it in there?”

“That’s what I said.”

“
My million dollars?
”

“Minus a couple of thousand I spent on equipment.”

“You’re
lying.
”

Decker glanced again toward the flames, trying to prolong the conversation. “Afraid not.”

“Then prove it,” Renata snapped.

“What are you talking about? How could I possibly prove it?”

“Bring me the money.”

“What?”

“Go in there and get my money.”

“In the fire? I wouldn’t have a chance.”

“You want to talk about taking a chance? This is the only chance you’re going to get. Go in the cabin and ... get... my ... money.”

The flames roared.

“No,” Decker said.

“Then I’ll make
her
go in for it.” Renata dragged Beth across the clearing, toward the stairs up to the cabin. At the same time, she yelled toward the dark forest behind the burning cabin: “Pietro! Get down here! Guard him!”

Beth’s eyelids fluttered. Her hands stopped fighting to pull away Renata’s arm. Her face an alarming color, she went limp, the pressure around her neck so severe that she lost consciousness.

“Pietro!” Renata yanked Beth up several log steps. “Where are you? I said come down here!”

The flames roared higher, covering the exterior of the cabin, filling the interior with churning smoke and a fierce crimson glow.

Renata jerked Beth to the top of the steps and halted, repulsed by the savagery of the heat. She released Beth’s throat and straightened her to shove her into the flames.

Decker could no longer restrain himself. Even though he knew he’d be shot, he charged wildly toward the steps, desperate to help Beth.

“Pietro!”

Decker reached the first step.

“Shoot him, Pietro!”

Decker was halfway up.

Shoving Beth toward the flames, Renata simultaneously turned to aim at Decker.

The barrel of her pistol was leveled at Decker’s face as a hand from behind her came crashing down on the pistol. The hand belonged to Beth, who had only pretended to lose consciousness. After Renata had pushed her, she had lurched toward the flames, staggered back, pivoted, and flung her weight onto Renata. She wedged her thumb between the pistol’s hammer and its firing pin an instant before Renata pulled the trigger, the hammer’s powerful spring driving the hammer into Beth’s flesh. Beth’s unexpected weight caused Renata to lose her balance. The two women tumbled down the steps, rolling, twisting, bumping, striking Decker, carrying him with them.

They jolted to a stop at the bottom, the three of them tangled on the ground. Beth’s thumb was still wedged beneath the pistol’s hammer. She tried to yank the pistol out of Renata’s grasp but didn’t have the strength. For her part, Renata gave a mighty jerk to the weapon and wrenched it free, ripping Beth’s thumb open. Flat on the ground, his arms caught beneath the two women, Decker couldn’t move as Renata swung the pistol at him. Wincing, in agony, Beth rolled over Decker, clutched the pistol, and struggled to deflect the gun.

The ground heaved, the explosive in one of the canteens detonating, a blazing roar erupting from the far side of the clearing. A second explosion, a little closer, tore up a crater. A third explosion, halfway across the clearing, threw Beth and Renata back from the shock wave. A fourth explosion, nearer than halfway, deafened Decker. Someone was setting off the canteens in sequence, marching the explosions across the area.

Smoke drifted over Decker. Stunned, he took a moment to recover from the surprise and force of the detonations. In a frenzy, he rolled through the smoke to find and help Beth. But he wasn’t quick enough. Amid the smoke, he heard a shot, a second, a third. He screamed and lurched forward, hearing a fourth shot, a fifth, a sixth. The shots were directly in front of him. A seventh. An eighth. A breeze caused the smoke to clear, and as Decker heard a ninth shot, he gaped down at Renata and Beth locked in what might have been an embrace.

“Beth!”

A tenth shot.

In a rage, Decker stormed toward Renata and yanked her away, ready to snap her arm so she’d drop her pistol, to crack her ribs, to smash her nose and gouge out her eyes, to punish her for killing Beth. But the deadweight he held, the blood oozing from numerous holes in Renata’s body, dribbling from her lips, showed him how much he had been mistaken. It wasn’t Renata who had been shooting, but Beth.

22

Beth’s eyes communicated an emotion close to hysteria. She was about to shoot an eleventh time but then realized that Decker was in the way and slowly lowered the weapon, then sank to the ground.

Surrounded by smoke, Decker dropped Renata and hurried to her.

“There wasn’t anything wrong with my
left
arm,” Beth murmured in what sounded almost like triumph.

“Are you hurt?” Decker asked.

“Sore all over. God, I hope there aren’t any more of them.”

“There was one in the forest. He should have moved against us by now.”

“He’s dead,” a voice said from the other side of the drifting smoke.

Decker looked up.

“They’re
all
dead.” Silhouetted by the flames from the cabin, Esperanza stepped specterlike from the smoke. A rifle was slung over his shoulder. In his right hand, he held the bow Decker had bought. In his left, he held a quiver of arrows.

“When the explosions went off at the cabin, I shot two men who were guarding the exit from the lane,” Esperanza said. “Back that far, the .22 didn’t make enough noise to be heard with all the other commotion. But I couldn’t use it on the man Renata called Pietro. He and I were too close to the clearing. She might have heard
those
shots, realized you weren’t alone, panicked, and killed both of you before she had planned to.” Esperanza held up the bow. “So I used this. No noise. Good thing you bought it.”

“Good thing you know how to use it.”

“I meant to tell you. Every fall, during bow season, I head up into the mountains and go hunting. I haven’t failed to bring back a deer since I was fourteen.”

“It was you who set off the explosions?” Decker asked.

“Renata was going to shoot you. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I couldn’t take a shot at her with you and Beth in the way. I couldn’t get to you fast enough to grab her. I needed some kind of diversion, something that would startle everyone and give you a chance to recover sooner than
she
did.”

“It’s Beth who recovered first.” Decker looked at her with admiration. “Help me get her into the car.”

The moment she lay in the backseat, Esperanza anticipated what Decker was going to say next. “Clean the area?”

“Get everything we can. The authorities in Pecos will be up here to investigate the explosions. That fire will lead them right to this cabin. We don’t have much time.”

Decker ran to get Beth’s shotguns while Esperanza threw the .22, the bow, and the quiver into the Cherokee’s storage compartment. The firearms were important because their serial numbers could be traced to the store where Decker had bought them and would eventually be traced to him. When Decker returned with the shotguns, Esperanza was disappearing into the forest, presumably getting the Winchester and the car battery. Decker dug up the remaining canteens. He pulled out the lightbulb filaments, gathered the wires, and set everything into the back of the car. Meanwhile, Esperanza had returned with the equipment from Decker’s hiding place.

“I’ll get the money from where I buried it,” Esperanza said. “What else?”

“The Remington bolt-action. It’s in the pit we dug near the bridge.”

“I’ll get that, too,” Esperanza said.

“Beth’s crutches. The hunting knives.”

“We’d better make sure we collect all the boxes of ammunition. And the arrow I shot.”

“... Esperanza.”

“What?”

“I had to use your handgun. Two shell casings are in the bushes up there.”

“Jesus.” In the firelight, Esperanza seemed to turn pale. “I loaded it before all this happened. I wasn’t wearing gloves. My fingerprints will be on those casings.”

“I’ll do everything I can to find them,” Decker said. “Here are my car keys. Get the money, the knives, the Remington, and the boxes of ammunition. Drive Beth and yourself the hell away from here. I’ll keep searching until the last minute, until police cars are pulling into the lane.”

Esperanza didn’t respond, only stared at him.

“Go,” Decker said, then raced up the slope toward the trees and bushes on the right of the burning cabin. One of the shots from Esperanza’s pistol had been next to a large pine tree, just about—

Here! Decker thought. He tried to reenact what he had done, how he had dropped to the ground when the gunman shot at him from deeper in the woods, how he had scrambled to the right of the tree, how he had knelt and pulled the trigger and—

The ejected shell casing would have flipped through the air and landed about three or four feet from—

Firelight reflected off something small and metallic. Breathing fiercely; exhaling in triumph, Decker dropped to his knees and found one of the 9-mm casings he was searching for. Only one more to go. As he surged to his feet, he discovered Esperanza hurrying toward him.

“Leave,” Decker said.

“Not without you.”

“But—”

“Show me where to look,” Esperanza said.

Skirting the flames from the cabin, they rushed toward the back and ignored the corpse of the man Decker had shot in the head, totally consumed by the hunt for the other casing.

“It could be there or maybe over there.” Decker’s chest heaved.

“The undergrowth’s too thick.” Esperanza got down, crawling, tracing his hands along the ground. “Even with the firelight, there are too many shadows.”

“We have to find it!”

“Listen.”

“What?”

“Sirens.”

“Shit.”

“They’re faint. Quite a distance away.”

“Not for long.” Decker searched harder beneath bushes, pawing in a frenzy over the murky ground. “Go. Get in the car. Leave. There’s no point in
all
of us being caught.”

“Or
any
of us. Forget the casing,” Esperanza said. “Come with me to the car.”

“If they find the casing, if they manage to lift prints from it—”

“Partial prints. Probably smudged.”

“You hope. You’d never be able to explain what a casing with your prints was doing up here.” Decker searched among dead leaves.

“I’ll claim someone stole my pistol.”

“Would
you
believe that story?”

“Not likely.”

“Then ...”

“I don’t care.” Esperanza crawled beneath bushes. “Just because I might be implicated, that doesn’t mean you and Beth have to be. Let’s get out of—”

“Found it! Oh, sweet Christ, I found it.” Decker leapt to his feet and showed Esperanza the precious casing. “I never believed I’d—”

They charged from the bushes and raced toward the car, scrambling down the slope so fast that they almost tripped and fell. Esperanza still had the car keys. He slid behind the steering wheel while Decker dove into the backseat with Beth. Before Decker could slam the door, Esperanza had the car in gear and was making a rapid turn in the clearing, throwing up dirt. Barely taking the time to flick on the headlights, he sped down the lane, bounced over the bridge, and veered swiftly onto the dark country road.

“Have we got everything? The money? All the weapons?” Decker asked, his voice loud enough to be heard above the walloping din of his heart.

“I can’t think of anything we left behind.” Esperanza pressed his foot on the accelerator.

“Then we got away with it,” Decker said.

“Except for ...” Esperanza pointed toward the growing wail of sirens in the darkness before him.

He slowed down and turned off the headlights.

“What are you doing?” Decker asked.

“Bringing back memories of when I was a kid.” Esperanza swerved into the lane of the property a quarter mile below the burning cabin. The flames rose high enough to be seen from a distance. Hiding the car in the undergrowth, Esperanza turned off the engine and peered through shadowy trees toward the road. The headlights and flashing emergency lights of a fire engine and several police cars rushed past, their outlines a blur, their sirens shrieking.

“Just like old times,” Esperanza said. Immediately he restarted the car and backed out onto the road, turning on his headlights only when forced to.

Twice more, they had to veer into a lane to stop from being seen by passing emergency vehicles. The second time, Decker and Esperanza paused long enough to get out of the car and strip off their camouflage suits. Beth winced when Decker took off hers. Using the inside of the suits, they wiped the camouflage grease from their faces, then spread the suits over the weapons in the back and covered everything with a car blanket. When they got to Pecos or when they reached Santa Fe, they wouldn’t attract attention now if a police car pulled up next to them.

Decker stroked Beth’s head. “Feeling any better?”

“My mouth’s awfully dry.”

“We’ll get you some water as soon as we can. Let me check those pulled stitches. You’re bleeding, but only a little. You don’t need to worry. You’re going to be all right.”

“The pulled stitches will make the scars worse.”

“I hate to agree with you, but yes.”

“Now we’ll have matching sets.”

Decker took a moment before he realized that, despite her pain, Beth was doing her best to grin.

“Like the bullet-wound scars you showed me,” Beth said. “But mine will be bigger.”

“You are something else,” Decker said.

23

Forty minutes later, Esperanza turned off Interstate 25 onto Old Pecos Trail and then onto Rodeo Road, heading toward the side street where he had his trailer. The time was almost 2:30. The late-night streets were deserted.