Left for Dead (38 page)

Tim didn’t move. Could they see him from where they stood?

The banging noise stopped. Troy must have hurt his foot with all that kicking. After a few seemingly interminable moments, Fred shrugged his shoulders, then the two men stepped inside the cabin.

Tim ducked back into the car, and quietly closed the door. He could feel Troy rolling around in the trunk. The car wobbled.

Tim glanced at his wristwatch. Troy had said Claire was due to arrive in a half hour. He only had about fifteen minutes left. He didn’t know how many of them were gathering at the cabin tonight. But he was pretty certain Fred Maybon wouldn’t be the only one carrying a gun.

He was outnumbered. If only he could get to a phone. Claire’s life depended on it.

“Get me out of here!”
he heard Troy bellow. Troy began kicking at the trunk hood again.

Tim started the car. He had to take Troy someplace, then tie him up and gag him. He remembered Walt Binns’s cabin was about two miles down this back road.

And he remembered that Walt’s cabin had one of the only working phones in this part of the woods. He could call for back up.

With his headlights off, Tim headed down the muddy road toward Walt Binns’s cottage. All the while, he listen to the rain on the car roof, and to Deputy Landers screaming and banging against the trunk hood.

Claire kept drifting in and out of the chloroform-induced stupor. She felt a burning sensation on her face from the chemical’s residue.

She was in the passenger seat of Moorehead’s BMW. Partially restricted by the safety belt, she slumped against the door. Her right foot felt cold. Had she lost her shoe? Claire didn’t remember being carried to the car. Everything was kind of muddled.

She briefly glimpsed Moorehead at the wheel, then she closed her eyes again. They were moving. She listened to the rain. One of his windshield wipers squeaked.

She had a moment of déjà vu, of another long drive at night. But she hadn’t been in Moorehead’s car. No, she’d been lying across the backseat of Ron and Linda Castle’s SUV. Her hands and feet had been tied, and they’d stuck a piece of duct tape over her mouth. Ron had knocked her over the head with something. They’d drugged her too.

Claire felt sick. She breathed through her nose, and listened to the SUV’s engine. Occasionally, another car’s headlights or a street sign illuminated the SUV’s interior for a moment. Then it was dark again.

Ron was at the wheel, and Linda sat in front with him.
“We’ll just have to use her own makeup,”
Linda was saying.
“It won’t match with the others, but it’ll have to do.”

Claire heard the squeaky windshield wiper again, and realized that she was in Linus Moorehead’s car. There weren’t any lights. They were driving into the woods. Where was he taking her?

Moorehead had tried to give her a pill earlier tonight. Yet she could almost hear Linda insisting that she take a tranquilizer:
“You need it, Claire. You’ve been through a lot tonight. This will calm you down.”

She took Linda’s pill. It made her so drowsy, she thought she might pass out. She was sitting on the bed in her and Harlan’s room. Listlessly, she watched Linda packing clothes and cosmetics in her overnight bag.

“You ought to sleep over at Ron’s and my casa tonight.”
Linda’s voice seemed to be coming through a fog.
“We’ll have a girl’s day in the city tomorrow. You need to get away…”

The memories were coming to her in fragments. Suddenly, she was cold and shivering. The SUV’s back door was open. The chilly air had an underlying stench.

“Well, how do you expect a garbage dump to smell, hon?”
Linda was telling her husband. She leaned over Claire in the backseat of the SUV, and hurriedly patted rouge on Claire’s cheeks. Linda was practically jabbing at her face with the brush.

“Looks like she’s coming out of it,”
Ron said.

“She’s been in and out of it for the last twenty-four hours,”
Linda replied, taking out a mascara wand.
“Just keep the flashlight on her, hon. I need to see what I’m doing. This isn’t easy, y’know.”

Claire remembered Ron holding her while Linda pulled a clear, plastic bag over her head. They were in standing in the middle of a junkyard. Claire tried to struggle, but her hands and feet were still tied.

Through the steam-fogged plastic, she saw Ron Castle take something out of his jacket. It looked like a gun.

She heard a shot go off. It seemed to echo in the quiet night. All at once, she felt a terrible blow to her chest. It burned. She couldn’t breathe. Claire felt herself falling.

She gasped, and started to lurch forward. But the seat belt held her back.

Claire realized she was in the Dr. Moorehead’s car. She heard the rain on the roof and that squeaky windshield wiper. She caught her breath and gaped at him.

Sitting behind the wheel, he smiled at her. “What is it, Claire? A bad dream?”

Tim stood in the downpour, staring at the house and shaking his head. The window shutters were all closed. Walt’s cabin had been boarded up and battened down for the impending storm.

From over where he’d parked the car, Tim could still hear Troy’s muted protests.
“Get me out of here, goddamn it!”
He kept pounding and kicking against the trunk hood.

Tim tried the cabin’s front door. Locked. Having checked out so many of these shacks in the last couple of days, he’d become an expert at finding where some of the owners hid their keys. Tim felt along the top of the doorway frame, and checked under the matt. He tipped over two potted plants near the front stoop, but still couldn’t find a key.

He tried kicking down the door. It didn’t budge.

Wet and shivering, Tim went from one boarded-up window to the next, pulling at the shutters. It wasn’t any use.

A couple of tree branch had fallen in the yard behind the house. Tim glanced up at the power and phone lines. They were still intact. He looked back at the tool shed by the patio and barbecue. Maybe Walt had the house key hidden in there. At the very least, Tim figured he might find a crowbar or something to pry open a window shutter.

He ran to the shed, only to see the door had a padlock on it. “Jesus, God, give me a break!” Frustrated, he kicked at the door. The hinge holding the lock rattled.

Tim glanced around for a rock or something to break it off. He spotted a rusty spatula and a large fork hanging from the side of the barbecue. He grabbed the fork, and jiggled on the lock hinge until it snapped off.

It was dark, but very tidy inside the little, windowless shed. The rain echoed on the tin roof. Astroturf covered the floor. Tim found a flashlight on the shelf. He switched it on, and shined the light on an extension ladder, leaning against the wall, where rakes, shovels, and hoes were hanging.

He figured he could pry open one of the window shutters with a shovel. Tim grabbed a long-handled spade, and started to back out of the shed. But he accidently knocked a couple of things off the shelf. As they fell to the Astroturf floor, there was a strange, loud snap.

Tim shined the flashlight on a rat-trap, which must have been activated when it hit the floor. Next to it was a box. Keeping the light steady, Tim read the label:
U.S. ARMY K-RATION MEALS—3 PACK.

“My God,” he whispered.

In the autopsies, they’d found K-rations in the stomachs of three Rembrandt victims.

Tim turned the beam of light toward the shelf, where several more boxes of K-rations were stored, along with a case of bottled water.

He glanced back at the boarded up cabin. Was Tess Campbell locked away in there?

Heading out of the shed, Tim almost tripped over a patch of Astroturf that was askew. He kicked at the carpet, flipping it over to expose a section of the cement floor—and what looked like a piece of wood. Tim kicked at the Astroturf again, exposing more of the cement beneath it. He realized it wasn’t a piece of wood in the middle of the cement foundation. It was a little door.

Tess’s hands were raw and bloody, but she didn’t stop digging. She chipped away and gauged out the soil with the make-shift pick. The aluminum bar from her bed-frame worked a hell of a lot better than the shoes. The earth seemed softer, more pliable.

Against the dirt wall, a large mound of earth had accrued under the tunnel opening. But it wasn’t solid enough for Tess to stand on. She’d shoved the rickety little table beneath the crater, and precariously balanced herself on that. She could almost stand inside the tunnel now. But every time she took a breath, she’d get a mouthful of dirt and soot.

Still, Tess figured she was getting much closer to ground level—and fresh air. She kept hoping the next clump of soil she’d scoop out would have grass on it.

Suddenly, the tunnel caved in on her, and she was suffocating. For a moment, she was trapped. Tess struggled to back out of the crater, but the soil encased her head and arms. Flailing her legs, she dislodged herself and slid out of the hole. A pile of earth followed her.

Gagging, she spit dirt and pebbles out of her mouth. She had soot lodged in her ears, and up her nose. Blindly, Tess crawled around the cold floor until she found the bottled water. After rinsing out her mouth, she located the flashlight and switched it on. She was still having difficulty breathing, and it wasn’t just the dirt in her nose and throat. There didn’t seem to be much oxygen left in the little bunker. Not much left of the water supply either. Only one bottle remained.

Tess shook the dirt out of her hair and her ears. That was her third cave in; and so far, the worst. But she was breathing a little easier now.

She heard a noise from above.

Suddenly she couldn’t breathe again.

He was back. How much time had passed since he’d last checked on her? Was it four or five hours—or just one? She wasn’t sure anymore. He hadn’t done anything the last time. She’d just heard him walking around up there.

Now Tess listened to his footsteps once more, and she wondered if he was just checking on her again. Or would he be coming down this time?

Grabbing the flashlight, she scurried back toward the dirt wall and searched for the aluminum bar. She’d dropped it during the cave in. She couldn’t think of anything else she could use to defend herself.

He was still up there. She heard him. He’d just dropped something.

Tess pushed aside the plastic tarp, and frantically dug through the pile of clothes and dirt. She couldn’t find the damn aluminum bar.

He was dragging something across the floor.

Tess stopped to look up toward the trap door. A light shined through cracks in the wood. He was coming to get her.

“Oh, God, please, please,” she whispered, trying to find the aluminum bar. Tears streamed down her face.

She heard a hinge rattling.
“Tess Campbell?”

She switched off her flashlight, then froze. The portal above her started to open. She saw his silhouette, hovering over the trap door. He shined a light down into the pit.

Tess heard rain on a tin roof. She could smell the damp, fresh air. She half-hid behind the plastic tarp. “Tess?” he said. “Tess Campbell, are you down here? I’m a police officer…”

She almost called back to him, but hesitated. She still couldn’t see his face.

“Is anyone down here?” he asked. The flashlight beam wove around the confines of her bunker, then it stopped on her. “Tess? Are you okay?”

Trembling, she squinted up at him.

“I’m a cop. I’m a friend of Claire’s…”

“Oh, thank God!” she cried.

“Are you okay?”

Tess let out a delirious laugh. “Christ, no…”

“Hold on,” he said. “There’s a ladder here. I’ll come get you.”

Stepping under the opening, Tess anxiously watched as he lowered an extension ladder into the pit. She couldn’t believe it. She could breathe again. She was talking to another human being.

“I’m Tim Sullivan,” he said, climbing down a couple of rungs. He paused and shined the flashlight on his own face so she could see him.

Tess smiled. He was a handsome guy. “It’s pretty damn terrific to meet you,” she managed to say. “I didn’t think—”

A loud shot rang out.

Startled, Tess gazed up at the trap door. Someone else was there.

Tim Sullivan dropped his flashlight. It knocked against the bottom rung of the ladder, then rolled onto the bunker floor.

A moment later, Officer Tim Sullivan fell down on top of it.

Claire listened to the squeaking windshield wiper. She still felt dizzy and tired. She wanted to roll down the window—just a tiny bit—for some fresh air, but Moorehead wouldn’t let her.

Vacantly, she stared at one of her loafers on the floor. Until now, she hadn’t noticed she wasn’t wearing the shoe. It must have fallen off when Moorehead had been loading her inside the car. With her toe, she moved the loafer around.

Rain continued to tap on the roof of his BMW. They were driving on the wooded back routes, and even in her stupor, Claire could tell Moorehead wasn’t having an easy time of it. The roads were slippery and littered with tree branches. They’d skidded twice already.

Strapped in the seat belt, Claire closed her eyes and hoped for another memory. Now that she was trying, nothing came. Even in her mind, she couldn’t escape from Moorehead’s car.

She tried to make sense of the memory fragments that had come to her earlier. The story Linda had told the police must have had some half-truths in it. Now she remembered Ron and Linda coming over on that Friday night. Linda had given her the tranquilizer.
“She’s been in and out of it for the last twenty-four hours,”
Linda had said later at the garbage dump. It must have been the following night, Saturday, when they’d shot her. Obviously, they’d wanted it to look like a Rembrandt murder. But why did they want her dead? Did it have to do with an incident at Silverwater Creek? Or was it related to the sudden disappearances of Brian and Derek?

She closed her eyes again, and wished she could remember. “Was Brian a
‘threat to the community,’
Dr, Moorehead?” she asked. She kept moving the shoe around the car floor. “Or was he like Derek,
‘belligerent and hopeless’?”

Claire opened her eyes. Moorehead glanced at her for a moment, then turned his attention back to his driving.

“I’ve seen your files,” she said, taking a deep breath. “But I couldn’t find Brian’s. I need to know, does he have a red dot by his name?”

Moorehead gave her a little smirk. “So—you figured out my system. Smart girl.”

“You make all the decisions, don’t you?” she whispered. “You decide whether they live or die. Did you get to play God with my son, doctor?”

Claire stopped poking her toe in the loafer, and shoved it to the side, between the edge of her seat and the car door. She sat up. Suddenly, her heart was racing. It was as if she were waking up from an awful nightmare, only instead of fear, she felt a terrible rage.

“Did you give the order to have Brian killed?” she pressed.

He threw her a warily amused look. “I think you might need another whiff of nighty-night, Claire. Looks like that dose is wearing off.” Eyes on the road, he started to pull over toward a turnaround area. “The truth is, this community—this island—is well rid of your precious son.”

Dazed, Claire studied the smug profile of this man who had ordered her son’s murder. An intense anger surged through her. She wanted to kill him.

Claire felt around for her loafer, and grabbed it. With all her might, she swung the shoe at his face—and the heel connected with his right eye. There was a bone-crunching pop, and Moorehead howled in pain.

Claire reeled back to hit him with the shoe again, but the BMW lurched forward. His foot had slipped onto the gas, and the car was out of control. Claire braced herself.

Moorehead brought a hand over his face. “You bitch!” he wailed. “Goddammit…” He couldn’t have seen where the car was going. But Claire could. They were about to crash into the trunk of an evergreen tree.

Walt Binns hoisted the extension ladder out of the bunker. From the shed, he looked down at them through the open trap door.

Tim Sullivan was curled up on the floor. Crying, Claire’s friend hovered over him. It was so dark down there, he couldn’t quite see if Tim Sullivan was dead. Alive or dead, he wasn’t going anywhere.

With his foot, Walt kicked the trap door shut. Then he bent over and readjusted the Astroturf carpet. While tidying up the shelf, he could still hear Tess Campbell’s muted screams.

Walt stepped out of the tool shed, and frowned at the broken hinge on the door. He opened his umbrella, then started for the house.

He’d originally swung by the cabin for a bottle of wine. Among other duties, Walt was in charge of props for tonight. Harlan’s gun was a necessity, of course. But Claire’s overnight bag would help set the scene, and Walt figured a bottle of wine on the bedroom nightstand would be a nice touch. He had a respectable Merlot at his cabin. So he’d bypassed the rendezvous spot, and drove the extra couple of miles to his place.

He’d thought about adding a couple of wineglasses to the set as well, but figured that was a little too refined for the cop. Wine in jelly glasses was more his speed.

How ironic, he’d been thinking about Tim Sullivan just as he’d pulled up to the cabin and spotted Tim’s car. He hadn’t planned on seeing his lady-in-waiting until much later tonight.

Well, now she had some company in her little waiting room—even if that company was a corpse.

Walt retrieved the bottle of Merlot from his cabin. On his way back to his Range Rover, he passed Tim Sullivan’s car again. Earlier, he’d ignored Troy Landers—pounding and yelling inside the car’s trunk. And Walt continued to ignore him now. He’d never cared much for Deputy Landers, ever since Nancy Killabrew had told him during one of their secret meetings that Troy had come onto her.

“Who’s there?” Troy barked. He pounded against the trunk hood. “Let me out, goddamn it!”

Huddled beneath his umbrella, Walt tucked the wine bottle under his arm, and opened the back door. He grabbed the bag of magazines he’d given to Tim Sullivan last night, then he peeked inside.
Good.
The hotel coupons were still in there.

He needed to remove everything that connected him with the death scene. Walt wouldn’t deny knowing Tim, if asked. But he saw no point in having a bag of magazines he’d purchased last night—along with his hotel coupons—found in Tim Sullivan’s car.

Actually, those coupons with the date stamped on them didn’t make for such an airtight alibi. Yes, he’d checked into the hotel in Victoria the weekend Terrianne Langley had disappeared. He’d checked into the same hotel several weekends when “Rembrandt” had been a bad boy. Those weekends, the hotel bed never got slept in. Those weekends, he didn’t see his married friend, Suzanna.

“Who’s there?” Troy bellowed. “Goddamn it, I can hear you! Lemme out!”

With his wine and his bag of magazines, Walt hurried back to the Range Rover. Before starting up the car, he took out his cell phone and dialed.

Ron Castle answered. “Yeah?”

“Missing anything?” Walt asked.

“Uh-huh, I’m here at the cabin, scratching my balls. The doc and Claire are MIA, and there’s no sign of Troy and the cop—”

“Don’t worry about Officer Sullivan. I have him tucked away. He’s not going anywhere. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s dead already. I had to shoot him. But I used Harlan’s gun—so let’s not sweat it. I have all the other props with me.”

“Where the hell is Troy Landers?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine. I’ll come by with him and Officer Sullivan after I pick up Harlan.” He started up his Range Rover. “You said Moorehead and Claire still haven’t shown up?”

“Yeah. I’ve called his cell several times. No answer.”

“Well, some of those back roads are washed out. I’ll bet he’s stuck somewhere. You have the Jeep, Ron. Why don’t you try Heritage Way, and see if he’s out there?” One hand on the wheel, Walt navigated the muddy pathway by his cabin. “In the meantime, has Harlan left the plant yet?”

“Not yet. Ken’s been keeping him busy. He’ll call when Harlan takes off.”

“I’ll go wait for Harlan outside his house. See you at the cabin in about a half-hour.”

“Huh, yeah, maybe by then we’ll track down Claire and the doc,” Ron said. “Christ, what a day. On top of everything else, I haven’t heard from Linda at all. I’m really worried about her.”

Eyes on the road, Walt smiled. “Oh, I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

With her last bottle of water and one of the towels, Tess washed out the wound in Tim’s shoulder. She studied it with the flashlight. There was a lot of blood. From what she could tell, the bullet had entered his back and come out just above his chest.

She’d moved him to what was left of the dismantled cot. Half-draped with canvas, it looked like a broken-down beach chair. “You’re not dying on me, pal,” she said, catching her breath. “Not with a lousy little shoulder wound.”

She took his hand, then set it over the towel draped on his shoulder. “Keep applying pressure. It’ll slow down the bleeding.” Tess rolled up one of her predecessor’s sweaters, and set it behind his head. She covered him with the army blanket, and even tucked it under his chin. “How’s your foot feel?”

“Like I broke something,” Tim said. “Sorry I’m not much use to you.”

“The hell you’re not,” Tess shot back. “I’m digging a tunnel. You can tell me what’s up there. Are we under someone’s basement or what?”

“No, we’re beneath a tool shed in his backyard.”

Tess shined the flashlight on one side of the trap door above them. “You came down the ladder from that angle,” she said. Then she trained the light along the dirt wall to a huge tear in the plastic tarp, and the mouth of the tunnel. “I’m headed up that way. So far, I’ve hit everything but oil and gold. I must be near the surface. Tell me. Am I going to end up in his backyard or underneath a patio or something?”

Tim nodded. “You should be okay.” He shifted a bit beneath the blanket, then pulled out a gun and handed it to her. “Take this in case he’s still around. There’s a phone in his cabin. You need to call the police, the Coast Guard, whoever you can. Tell them you’re in the woods near the east shore of Deception Island. If you get the local sheriff here, we’re at Walt Binns’s cabin. Two miles down the road, there’s another cabin, and these guys are planning to kill Claire there tonight. They probably have her there already.”

“Oh, no,” Tess murmured, clutching the gun.

“So just keep digging,” Tim said, “Don’t bother coming back for me. Just look out for yourself.”

“I’ll be back for you,” Tess said.

She kissed his forehead, then turned away and hurried back to work on the tunnel.

Claire grabbed Moorehead by the scalp, and pulled him off the steering wheel. The BMW’s horn stopped blaring.

But smoke continued to spew from under its mangled hood. The front of the car was wrapped around the evergreen’s trunk.

Dr. Moorehead was unconscious, slumped back in the driver’s seat. He had a gash in his forehead. He’d hit the steering wheel when they’d smashed into the tree.

Except for being shaken up, Claire had escaped injury.

In fact, her adrenaline must have been pumping, because she’d managed to pry Moorehead—with all his dead weight—out of the car. Then she dragged him off the roadside. The cold rain actually felt good for a few moments.

Claire climbed into the driver’s seat. She prayed the car would restart. She held her breath and turned the key in the ignition. To her utter relief, the engine turned over. It was a sweet sound.

Claire backed the car away from the tree. She heard a grinding noise from the metal shifting. The smoke from under the hood seemed to get worse.

Still, she turned the wreck of a car around, and headed toward town. She wondered if—by any chance—Tim was still waiting for her at the Fork In The Road.

Standing beneath his umbrella, Walt waited for Harlan in the Shaws’ driveway. The rain had quelled to a dull drizzle.

Harlan’s Saab came up the cul de sac. Walt gave him a solemn wave. Then he stepped aside as Harlan’s pulled into the driveway. Harlan didn’t shut off the ignition. But he rolled down the window. “What’s going on?” he asked anxiously. “Is Claire all right?”

“I just know what the sheriff told me,” Walt said. “They think Rembrandt has her in one of the summer cabins near Alliance.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Harlan murmured, stricken.

“They just found out,” Walt continued. “I guess the detective—um, Tim, he’s out there too. They’ve phoned the state police, but it might be a while before they can helicopter over in the storm. It’s a lot worse on the mainland coast.”

“Hop in,” Harlan said. “We need to get over there.”

Walt ran around to the passenger side, then jumped into the car. “How’s the road to Alliance?” he asked.

“Half under water,” Harlan said, backing out of the driveway. “I got here by the skin of my teeth. Stalled out twice.”

“Half the island’s without power too,” Walt said. “Listen, it’ll be rough going, but I think we’re better off taking my boat around to the Alliance harbor. Then we can use one of the company cars.”

Harlan nodded. He turned onto Evergreen Drive—and sped toward the center of town. “Walt, if anything happens to her, I don’t want to live anymore.”

Walt Binns just patted his friend’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything.

The BMW had both headlights broken, a cracked windshield, and smoke belching from under its dented hood. With all this going against her, Claire could barely navigate the dark, wooded road. She may as well have been driving through a sea of mud.

It was another three or four miles to town. Claire prayed the mangled car could make it there without breaking down, stalling, or catching on fire.

Up ahead, she saw a pair of headlights. She was instinctively wary. Whoever it was, they probably couldn’t see her yet, because of her smashed front lights.

Spotting a little pathway that veered off the gravel road, Claire steered onto it. The trail was rough, with potholes, fallen branches, and puddles. The wounded BMW buckled over each obstacle. But Claire managed to turn the car around. Then she headed back toward Heritage Way. She wanted a better look at this other vehicle, and this person who was driving in the middle of a rainstorm, in the middle of the woods.

She recognized Ron and Linda’s Jeep as it sped by. Ron was at the wheel. Claire figured it wouldn’t be long before he discovered his fellow Guardian, Dr. Moorehead, along the roadside up ahead.