Mortal Fear (75 page)

 “Harper—”

 “Tell Baxter to get somebody out here as fast as humanly possible. I’m hanging up now.”

 “Wait!”

 “Ciao, pal. Good knowing you.”

 With an eerie sense of resignation, I hang up the phone, then walk to the office door and lock it. The heavy window blinds make it virtually impossible for someone outside to see into the room. From my desk I pick up a legal pad and a pen and scrawl,
Berkmann may be here. Stay calm. I’m calling for help. Keep talking
. Then I carry it over to Drewe and hold it where she can see it.

 Her composure melts like ice thrown into a fire. My immediate concern is her voice. Berkmann can’t hear the fear crackling through it like electricity, but if she loses enough control, the voice-rec program may stop functioning. As she struggles to continue the conversation, I dial her father’s house. There are two other options—Sheriff Buckner and Wes Killen—but Bob will come faster. Besides, I made him a promise.

 While the phone rings, I walk to one of the two front windows, slide the blind to the side and peek out into the blue dusk. The deputy’s car is still at the end of our drive, nose angled toward the highway. Because of the fading light and the car’s position, I can’t see whether he’s in it or not.

 “Hello?”

 “Mrs. Anderson, it’s Harper. I need to talk to Dr. Anderson right now.”

 “They’re not here.” Margaret’s voice is cold. “I’m here with Holly.”

 “Who’s they?”

 “Bob and Patrick. They went out to the cemetery to visit Erin.”

 “At night?”

 “That’s what they wanted to do. They’re grown men.”

 “Do they have a cellular phone?”

 “No. They took Bob’s old truck. You sound funny. What’s—”

 I disconnect and dig Wes Killen’s cellular phone number out of my back pocket. My thumb is touching the keypad of the cordless when Berkmann’s voice shocks me into stillness.

 “What’s the matter, Drewe?”

 “Nothing. Why?”

 “Your voice-recognition program is missing words, sending errors. As though you’re under great stress.”

 Drewe looks back at me, her face pale. I motion for her to keep winging it while I dial Killen’s number.

 “I shouldn’t be stressed?” she says. “After all you’ve told me about my husband?”

 “What is Harper doing?”

 “Wes Killen.”

 “This is Harper Cole! I need you! Berkmann’s alive!”

 “I just got off the phone with Baxter,” Killen says. “I’m running to my car right now. You know Mike Mayeux? New Orleans cop?”

 “Yes.”

 “He’s out there. At your place. Right now.”

 “What?”

 “He never thought Berkmann died in the crash. He took a couple of days off to watch your place. He didn’t want you to know. Wanted you to act natural.”

 “Thank God! Look, there are two guys headed out to Erin’s grave. Family. Don’t get panicky if you see lights.”

 “I see lights now. Are you armed, Cole?”

 “I’ve got a thirty-eight revolver and a twenty-five auto.” Through the phone I hear Killen’s car engine firing up.

 “Get into a bedroom,” he says. “Cut off the lights, put your wife under the bed, and get low in a corner with the thirty-eight. Make sure your hall light’s on. If Berkmann opens the door, you’ll have him in silhouette. Easiest shot in the world. Blow him down.”

 “Just hurry!”

 “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

 Drewe is speaking too rapidly now, her voice like a fraying cable. With the news about Mayeux pumping through me like amphetamines, I dial Sheriff Buckner’s office. As the phone rings, I peer out at the parked cruiser.

 “Sheriff’s department.”

 “This is Harper Cole. Give me Sheriff Buckner right now. It’s life or death.”

 “Who is this again, please?”

 “I SAID NOW GODDAMN IT!”

 A match flares in the deputy’s car. It glows steadily, flickers, then disappears. The tiny orange ember of a cigarette takes its place. I touch the grip of the .38 at my belt, wondering whether I should fire through the window. One shot would bring both the deputy and Mayeux running, but Berkmann could be anywhere. He might be in a position to ambush both men without even breathing hard.

 “This is Sheriff Buckner. Who the hell’s this?”

 “Harper Cole! You’ve got to get somebody out here!”

 “Cole? I’ve already got somebody out there.”

 “The killer’s here, damn it! Maybe outside my house!”

 “What?”

 “Radio the deputy you have here! But he’s got to be careful. Berkmann could be—”

 There is no sound so dead as a dead telephone. Very slowly, not wanting to believe it, I put down the cordless.

 Drewe is still speaking into the headset. I watch her trail off, then wait for Berkmann’s response.

 There is none.

 Drawing the .38 from my holster, I walk over and say softly in her ear: “Berkmann’s outside. He just cut the phone lines.”

 She closes her eyes like someone who’s just been read a death sentence. I gently pull the headset off her and drop it beside the keyboard. Strangely, the modem still shows a live connection. Maybe Berkmann left the phone line to the EROS computer open. Hitting the space bar just in case, I ask Drewe where her gun is.

 “In my purse,” she replies.

 “Where’s your purse?”

 “In the bedroom.”

 “Did you reload it?”

 “Yes.” She grips my forearm hard enough to cause pain and looks up with terror in her eyes. “Harper, let’s run! Get your keys and we’ll run for the Explorer.”

 “He’s expecting that.” I lay an open hand against her cheek. “We wouldn’t have a chance.”

 “Drewe? Speak to me.”

 At the sound of Berkmann’s voice, Drewe’s eyes go blank as a stroke victim’s. “He left the data line connected,” I tell her, squeezing her shoulders. “There are two cops outside. Answer him. If you can keep him occupied, we’ll be okay.”

 Moving like a zombie, she dons the headset again. “I’m thinking,” she says in a cracked voice.

 “What about?”

 “Everything you’ve said.”

 “You’re not being truthful, Drewe.”

 She hits the space bar again. “For God’s sake, Harper! We’ve got to run!”

 “We can’t. He could be anywhere. We’re safer in here. You’ve got to keep talking. Give Mayeux a chance.”

 She shakes her head. “We’re sitting ducks in here! I feel it.” Wild hope flashes in her eyes. “You said he didn’t actually kill the EROS women! And we both have guns!”

 “Listen to me, Drewe. I know he has a tranquilizer pistol. He’d probably shoot me with a dart to get me out of the way, then take you with him.”

 Her mouth drops open as the enormity of the danger sinks in. “But . . . but what if we risk that? If he takes me, I could pretend to go along, then shoot him when I got a chance.”

 “What if he shoots me with a forty-four Magnum instead of a dart? We don’t know what he’s got out there, Drewe.”

 “We can’t just sit here and wait for him!”

 I squeeze her shoulders again, trying to reassure her. “We’ve got no choice.”

 She jumps up from the chair and pulls away from me. “God, why did you bring him here? How could you be so stupid?”

 “Why isn’t he talking?” I ask, turning to the EROS screen.

 At that instant the muffled crack of a gunshot bounces off the front of the house.

 Drewe screams. Snatching her arm, I run for the door, praying that shot came from Mike Mayeux’s gun.

 “Could the deputy have shot him?” she asks.

 As my hand touches the doorknob, Berkmann’s digital voice says:
“I suppose we all know where we stand now.”

 I tear open the door and pull Drewe after me, up the dark hall and into the kitchen. We stare dumbfounded at the two-by-six planks I nailed across the pantry door yesterday. I start to break for the back door, then stop. The gunshot came from the front of the house, but I can’t be sure who fired it. It’s fifty feet from our back door to the edge of the cotton field. Fifty feet without cover. Handing Drewe the .38, I try to tear one of the planks down from the pantry door, but it doesn’t budge. I plant my right foot against the door frame and yank again, but Drewe stops me.

 “What is it?” I shout.

 “He knows about the tunnel! Remember he talked about you hoarding your gold like Midas? He could be in there right now!”

 I hesitate. “If he is, the gunshot doesn’t make sense. I think that crack was just a figure of speech.”

 “You want to bet our lives on that?” she asks, trying to pull me away from the door. “Harper, listen to me! I’m sorry I lost it back there. You were right. We’ve got to stay. If we run, we might get away, but
he
will too. Then what happens? A week or a month or a year from now he snatches me out of some parking lot? Or cuts your throat while you’re sleeping?”

 Drewe has gone from blind panic to rigid control in less than a minute. “What do you want to do?” I ask.

 “You called for help, right? Even if he killed the cops outside, somebody’s got to get here in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

 “He could kill us twenty times in twenty minutes!”

 “But does he
want
to? Listen! He’s still talking to me.”

 She’s right. Berkmann’s digital voice is still droning up the hall. Somewhere outside our house, he is crouched over a notebook computer and cellular phone, too afraid or unsure to make his move.

 “He doesn’t want to kill me,” Drewe says, clutching my upper arm. “He wants to take me with him. That’s why he hasn’t broken into the house! I can control him, Harper.
I’ve
got the power right now. I can keep him on a string for twenty minutes. You just be ready to shoot him if he tries to break in.”

 Suddenly I see a great irony. By declaring his desire to possess my wife—and by believing he has destroyed me in her eyes—Berkmann has given me the upper hand. He has made Drewe
my
hostage.

 “We can do it!” she insists, handing the .38 back to me. “Twenty minutes.”

 An image of Michael Mayeux comes into my mind. That hardheaded Cajun could be stalking Berkmann right now.

 “Okay,” I tell her. “Move! Get back to the computer!”

 Drewe races into the hall and toward the office. I veer into the bedroom for her Charter Arms .25, then follow. When I reach the office door, I remember Wes Killen’s advice and switch on the hall light. Then I lock the office door behind me.

 Drewe is already speaking into the EROS headset.

 “What was that gunshot?” she asks.

 “Time is running out,”
Berkmann replies.
“We must act quickly.”

 “What do you want from me?”

 “I want you.”

 “But . . . how? What do you want me to do?”

 “Walk outside with your car keys. I have a plane nearby. We can be airborne in three minutes.”

 My chest constricts with panic. Drewe whirls to face me, stunned. I can scarcely speak. “The strip Miles used,” I whisper. “He must have stolen a plane.”

 “I thought your plane crashed,” Drewe stammers.

 “Of course you did. But I never meant to leave without you, Drewe. I knew that as soon as I saw your picture. Fate used Harper’s sins to bring me to you. And to stay near you, I had to appear to die. I would have come to you sooner, but you moved into your father’s house. There were guards. I had no way to contact you safely.”

 Drewe is shaking her head. “Were you at my sister’s burial?”

 “Yes.”

 “Did you leave sunglasses in her grave?”

 “I dropped them. I couldn’t risk retrieving them.”

 “But . . . where have you been staying for the last two days?”

 “In a cotton gin. I had electricity and water . . . all the necessities except food.”

 “My God.”

 “Time is short, Drewe. You were going to leave Harper anyway. Now you know how right that instinct was. Now you have a place to go. I am taking you to a future you cannot even imagine.”

 “But. . . .”

 “I know Harper is there. You must convince him that to obstruct us means death.”

 “It’s not that simple. He has a gun, and it’s pointed at me. He’s not about to let me go anywhere.”

 Silence.

 “Then I shall kill him.”

 “Let me talk to him, Edward,” Drewe implores. “I’ll make him understand how it is.”

 This time Berkmann does not respond. Drewe reaches out and grips my left hand in hers. I clench the .38 in my right, looking back over my shoulder at the window blinds.

 “Five minutes,”
Berkmann says finally.
“In five minutes you walk out the front door alone, or I set the house on fire.”

 CHAPTER 49

 “He’s bluffing,” I say, trying to believe it myself.

 Drewe throws down the headset and hits the space bar. “We’ve got to run! We’ve got to use the tunnel now!”

 I lay the .25 in her lap and shake my head. “We can’t run. We lost our chance. We don’t know where he is now.”

 “He’s going to set the house on fire!”

 “He won’t do it with you inside.”

 “He might!”

 Something is working at the edge of my consciousness, like a comet too distant to see but hurtling toward me at great speed.

 “Harper!”

 “We can’t run. And he knows it. We already made our choice.”

 “What if we tell him I’m coming out, then just sit here in the dark? He’d have to come in for me. Then we could shoot him. It’s two against one.”

 “Berkmann knows about killing, Drewe. It’s our house, but he’s been here before. If we end up in the same room with him, we’re going to die.”

 She is near to hyperventilating, and she knows it. She clutches the .25 to her chest and shakes her head as if to shake off her terror. “What about—?”

 “
Please
be quiet, Drewe.”

 She groans and closes her eyes.

 I turn away and gaze around the office. Somehow, I have to kill Edward Berkmann. But the gun in my hand is not the answer. Facing him down like John Wayne would be suicide. As I turn slowly, I am suddenly and keenly aware of Miles as he was on the morning he completed his Trojan Horse program while Buckner’s men hammered on my front door. Desperate for time and needing to run, he looked around this room and realized that everything he needed to fool the police was right in front of him, if only he could see it in the proper light.