Ice Run (23 page)

Simon Grant coughed a few times and then he reached over to his son. Marty Grant didn’t move.

“Now that I’ve told you this, Martin … I know I’m getting close to the end of my life. I hope you’ll see what a life of hating can do to a man. I hope you’ll let me take it right to the grave with me, son. Please bury it with me. You gotta promise me one thing, too.”

Marty looked up.

“You can’t tell your brother Michael about this. You know how he is.”

Both men sat there for a long time, not saying a word. Finally, Marty got to his feet and came toward the camera. The last shot was Simon Grant alone in his hospital bed. Then the tape ended.

The football game came back on. I paid no attention to it. Vinnie sat next to me in silence. Natalie stood at the window. In my mind I saw the photograph again. The three men. Luc Reynaud in his gray suit, Jean Reynaud in light linen, holding the hat over his head like a trophy.

Because he had just taken it from his father—his father’s gray hat that went perfectly with his gray suit. It had been on his father’s head, and now it was on his, his young wife taking the photograph to record the moment forever.

“The devil of Blind River …” I said.

“It wasn’t my father,” Natalie said, finally turning around to look at me. “It was my grandfather.”

“The devil’s hat, filled with ice and snow …”

“He wouldn’t do that, Alex. Not my grandfather.”

“It was so long ago,” I said. “There’s no way to know what really happened out on that ice.”

“He wouldn’t sell out his partner like that. Or set up those other men.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just tell me, what does all this have to do with you being here on this island? And Albert…”

“He’s here,” she said. “Somewhere.”

“Why? What does he want?”

“That’s an easy one,” she said. “He came here to kill me.”

A lone snowmobile roared by on the street below. The sound got farther and farther away until it was gone.

“This is why Marty Grant came looking for us,” Natalie said. “He wanted my mother to have a copy of this tape, so she’d know the truth. Albert killed her first husband.”

“Natalie …”

“He killed my father, Alex.”

“He didn’t kill anybody,” I said. “Simon Grant did.”

“Try telling that to Marty. Albert set the whole thing up. He’s the one who made it all happen.”

“No, Natalie. He just pointed Simon in the right direction.”

“It doesn’t matter, Alex. Whatever happened, Marty wanted my mother to know. Obviously, he didn’t want to tell anyone while his father was still alive.”

“He came looking for your mother? Is that why he was up in Batchawana Bay?”

“Yes,” she said. “That was the day you saw him up there. I didn’t know anything about it at the time. I had already come to get her out of that house.”

“So I followed him back to Michigan,” I said, “and got into it with his brother at the garage. Michael said he told Marty about that, and about you. He even told him that you lived in Blind River. That’s the last time he heard from him.”

“Yes, that makes sense, because he showed up that night. God, what a horror show that was.”

“Natalie, what did he do?”

“It wasn’t him so much. I mean, all he did was tell me he wanted to see my mother, said he had something important to show her. I didn’t like him being there, but he said it would mean a lot to her. She came to the door and started talking to him. The next thing I know we’ve got the VCR pulled out and he’s showing us this videotape. You can’t imagine, Alex .. . what I was thinking of while I was watching that. When it was done, I said to him, okay, I’m glad I know this now, but I wish I had seen this tape while Albert was still alive so I could have beat his head in with my hockey stick.”

“God, Natalie. And you had no idea he’s still alive …”

“No, that was my little surprise for the evening. Marty told me that he had looked up Albert DeMarco. He’s living in the States now, out in Las Vegas. He’s got all these real estate deals going on, building houses. He owns part of a casino, too. He’s gotta be what, over seventy now, but he started over with a young wife, two kids in high school—you know, buying himself a new life. Marty said he was going to send him a copy of the tape, just to let him know that his past wasn’t a total secret.”

“What did you say, Natalie? What did your mother say?”

“You have to remember, Alex, this was the biggest lie she ever told me. But as good as she is at lying, she’s just as good at explaining herself after it all falls apart. She did it for me, she said. To make me feel better. To help me forgive her, all these years later. And you know what? I wanted to believe he was dead. I really did. So one drunken night, two years ago, she calls me up and she tells me the monster is gone. She wants to see me. She wants to be with me again. She wants to be my mother again …”

Natalie stopped to wipe her face with her hands.

“Two years, Alex. Two years I thought he was dead. I was up in Hearst, remember. Way the hell up there. What was I supposed to do, start calling people to make sure he was really dead?”

“Okay, so then what?”

“I just had to get away from her. I went outside for a while, just walked around, freezing my ass off. I almost went down the street to Mrs. DeMarco’s house, like I did when I was twelve years old. But I couldn’t, you know? That was Albert’s house, too. It was like I couldn’t escape him, no matter what I did. He’d always be there haunting me. So eventually, I just went back inside. Marty was gone already. I got in a big fight with my mother, told her I wished she was dead …”

She stopped again.

“And then I called you,” she said. “I called you and I told you it was over between us. I’m sorry, Alex. I just didn’t want you to be a part of it anymore.”

“You should have told me what was going on,” I said. “I would have helped you.”

“I know that.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“It was my problem, Alex. You’ve already been through enough for me. My God, just look at you.”

She reached out and touched the bandages on my neck. “What’s this, anyway?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said. “Just finish your story.”

“The next day, my mother was up early. She was actually cleaning the house if you can believe it. She acted like there was nothing going on, but I knew better. I finally got it out of her. When she was alone with Marty the night before, they hatched up this plan. They were gonna blackmail Albert.”

“With what? That videotape?”

“That’s what I said. It’s an old man talking about something that might have happened thirty years ago. Albert would just laugh at her. You know what she told me?”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“She told me that nothing on that videotape was a surprise to her. Albert had told her the whole story a long time ago. A full confession. You know what else? Apparently, Albert paid Simon Grant ten thousand dollars in cash after he killed my father. He was a full accessory, before and after the fact. My mother would be willing to testify to all of this in court.”

“But Simon didn’t say anything about money on that tape. And why would Albert—”

“Alex, did you hear what I just said? This was
my mother’s
story.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Of course. But you’re telling me she’d actually say all of this under oath?”

“She’d tell it to a lie detector, Alex. She really would, and I’m sure she’d pass.”

“Okay, so what happened next?”

“I told her it would never work. Albert would know it was all a lie. But then it occurred to me that Albert would also know how good a liar she was. That’s when I started getting a headache. Anyway, the plan was that Marty Grant would come out here to his house on the island and call Albert, and tell him he had twenty-four hours to get out here with a hundred thousand dollars. He didn’t want my mother to be here, but he wanted her to stay by the phone so he could call her when Albert got there—you know, in case he needed to hear it from her directly. If he didn’t show up, they’d go to the police in Las Vegas, the Gaming Commission … they’d even send copies of the tape to his wife and kids. It was all a big bluff, of course. The whole thing. I told her they were both crazy. And now …”

She looked out the window.

“They didn’t know who they were messing around with, Alex. They had no idea.”

“So what did you do?” I said. “How did you end up out here?”

“My mother didn’t have Marty’s phone number. She just knew he was going to call her. So I took the tape and I told her to stay put. I came out here to give it back to him, and to tell him to forget the whole thing, to leave my mother alone or else I’d find a way to have him arrested. When I got out here, it wasn’t hard to find his place. It’s such a small island, and Mrs. Larusso downstairs knows everybody. When I got to the house, it was empty. But I knew somebody had been there. I started to get a bad feeling about it. I called back home, but nobody answered. That didn’t make any sense, because I knew my mother …”

She swallowed hard.

“I knew she was waiting by the telephone. But I just figured … I don’t know, maybe that she was drinking again, that she was passed out somewhere. So I left. I caught the next plane out and drove back to Blind River. When I saw what had happened to her …”

“We got there later,” I said. “Michael and I came out to the house.”

“Michael Grant?”

“Yes. When we found your mother, Michael panicked. I remember him saying .. . what did he say? Something about Marty, no, why did you do this …”

“He thought Marty killed my mother?”

“I don’t know what he was thinking,” I said. “He tried to kill me. He grabbed an old shotgun from your basement, from that stash of guns in the closet.”

“What happened?”

“The barrels exploded. He bled to death.”

She closed her eyes. “God,” she said. “When does it end?”

“Natalie, what did you do after you found your mother? Why did you come back here?”

“I called him, Alex. I knew Marty was able to contact him, so I called information out in Las Vegas. He wasn’t listed, but they had a number for his company. The DeMarco Group. I called and I got this woman on the line and I told her Albert needed to call me right away. I gave her my name, told her he’d know who I was. It didn’t take more than five minutes, Alex. He called me back. All of a sudden it was that voice on the phone, that voice I hadn’t heard in thirty years. He pretended he had no idea why I was calling. I asked him what kind of man would do that to a woman he once loved so much? He said he had no idea what I was talking about. He had been there in his office all day, he said. I told him he hadn’t changed one bit. He was still getting other people to do his killing for him. He asked me if I was about done because he’s a busy man, and I said, no, I’m not done. I’m going to call your wife and tell her what you did to me when I was a kid, and what you did to my father … and my mother. I’m going to tell her everything I know about you so she won’t feel so bad when I come out there and kill you.”

“What did he say to that?”

“Not a word, Alex. Not a word. I told him I was heading back down to Mackinac Island. I told him I’d have the last copy of the videotape with me, and if he wanted it, he had to come get it.”

“Why here?”

“I couldn’t stay in that house,” she said. “Not with my mother there. I figured this was as good a place as any. Nice and isolated. Just me and Albert.”

“There’s no way he’d come alone,” I said. “You know he’s got somebody else here.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I honestly don’t know. For me, maybe he’d come by himself. He still thinks of me as that twelve-year-old girl.”

“No,” Vinnie said. It was the first thing he had said since we had come up to this room. “He wouldn’t come alone. Not if he’s a born coward.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “When I saw him getting off that plane …”

I tried to bring it all back in my mind. Standing there in the airport, looking at every face.

“There was another man with him,” I said. “He was big.”

“That’s at least one other man he has,” Vinnie said. “Who knows how well armed they are? We’d be fools to go out trying to find them.”

“You’re right,” she said. “We have to stay here. At least for now.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “We’re sitting ducks.”

“No, not here,” she said. “They’re probably up at the Grants’ house, waiting. If we go up there now, we’ll be playing right into their hands.”

“That’s true,” Vinnie said.

“I’m so tired,” she said. “I haven’t slept in two days.”

“If we do this in the morning,” I said, “you have to promise me something.”

“What’s that?”

“You have to promise me that we’re going to do this together. We’re going to be smart about it, and if it looks bad, we’re going to bail out.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Promise me,” I said. “We’re together, no matter what.”

“Okay,” she said. “I promise.”

“What do you think, Vinnie. Are you up for this?”

“I’m with you,” he said, looking at Natalie. “You know that, Alex.”

“We should try to get some sleep,” Natalie said.

“Good idea,” Vinnie said. “I’ll go see the woman downstairs about another room.”

He stood up, went to the door, then looked back at me. “Alex, you gonna stay here?”

“Yes, he is,” Natalie said. “If that’s okay. I’d rather not be alone.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. Then he left.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t even ask you if you wanted to stay.”

“It’s okay. If you don’t want to be alone …”

“It’s more than that.”

“Natalie, I don’t know where we stand right now.”

“Show me what happened.”

“What?”

“I can see the bandages. Show me where you got shot.”

“I didn’t get shot,” I said. “It was a piece of metal, from when the shotgun exploded.”

“Show me.” She pulled me to my feet.

“Natalie …”

She shushed me. She unbuttoned my shirt and touched my neck. “My God,” she said. “Look what happened to you.”

“It’s not that bad.”

She shook her head. “After everything you’ve done for me, this is what you get.”

I took hold of her hand. “We’re going to make everything right,” I said. “We’ll do that tomorrow.”

She kissed me.

“Why did you come here?” she said.

“I had to.”

“I pushed you away so hard. What kind of a man would do that?”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper now. “That much I know. This is better.”

She pulled my shirt off my shoulders. I reached my arms around her and held her tight. I put my nose in her hair and breathed in her perfect sweet scent.

“Everything’s going to be okay now,” I said. “I promise.”

She spun me around and pulled me down onto the bed. I kissed her, again and again. We pulled the rest of our clothes off. We made love on top of the covers and then under them when it got too cold. It kept snowing outside, more and more white flakes coming down like it would bury us forever.

Afterward I held on to her tight. She was breathing deeply. She was falling asleep in my arms. I tried to say something. This is how it should be. I am in bed. I should stay awake for a while, think about what we’re going to do tomorrow. No, I should sleep. Sleep.

The wind blew. The sound turned into the faraway droning of an engine. A snowmobile. Then the sound became the wind again.

“Natalie,” I said, finally finding my voice. I reached for her. There was nothing there. My left arm was being pulled upward now. It made my neck hurt.

“Natalie.”

A clicking noise. I know that sound. I’ve heard it before, a long time ago.

What’s wrong with my arm? I reached with my other hand and heard the noise again. A light came on, blinding me. I felt the pain in my neck again. Pain and what was that? Something cold on my wrists. A metallic rattling. Almost like …