Winter at the Door (30 page)

As he spoke she felt Brantwell’s gaze on her in the dimness of the Blazer cab: gloating, triumphant.

“So I’ll just shoot him,” Brantwell said.

She managed a laugh, not wanting him to see how the threat affected her. “Well, then, you might want to adjust your target. Heck, I’ve wanted to put a bullet through Dylan’s head myself.”

No answer from Brantwell. Ahead, Chevrier’s taillights pulled swiftly away. He had much more practice on snowy roads than she did, and tonight was a hell of a night to be learning, but she was going to have to keep up, like it or not.

She stepped on the gas and felt the Blazer surge forward.

The handgun Brantwell had chosen, she’d noticed when she glanced at it, was an HK P30, and she particularly did not enjoy thinking about the external safety indicator the weapon possessed; the red stripe showed a round in the chamber.

The silence lengthened.
Let it go on
, she told herself.
Wait for him to
—

“I know what you’re thinking.”

—
talk
. “Yeah? You mean how’d a guy like you get into a mess like this? You’re right.”

He wasn’t. But she might as well let him believe it. Maybe he’d say something to give her an edge.

“Missy’s mom is sick,” he said. “Pretty soon she’s going to need care. Expensive,” he added, “residential care.”

Another puzzle piece slotted into place. “The forgetfulness Missy mentioned? You mean she’s—”

Brantwell nodded, staring ahead. “It started a couple of years ago. Not Alzheimer’s. But like that. Nothing bad, little things she’d forget. But the doctors said it would get worse.”

He paused, then went on. “And now it has. Just in the past few weeks, she leaves the stove on, she’s wandering at night. Now this thing with Jeffrey, I’m sure that’s how it must’ve happened. She just lost track.”

His voice thickened; he got control of it again. “We don’t have long-term care insurance. Once she had a diagnosis, it was too late, we couldn’t afford it. But pretty soon she’s going to need twenty-four hour care, either at our home or in a …”

He stopped, went on. “A facility. They say eventually she’s going to forget how to swallow food, how to …”

Another silence. Then: “So I needed money. I needed it soon. Laying off help, selling acreage, that wouldn’t be enough.”

“Have you talked it over with Missy?”

Twenty miles out of town, no more ditches lined the road. Instead, short upslopes led from the pavement to the forest’s edge, where white-clotted scrub trees and thickets of brush intermingled with old, wide-trunked evergreens.

Brantwell shook his head. “I should have. But I wanted to protect her. And anyway, what could she do about it?”

“So you had to find a way yourself.”

“Yeah. No choice. I started skimming off the farm’s books, putting money away. But that wasn’t enough, and it couldn’t go on forever. My foreman sees those books, too, and sooner or later he’d put two and two together.”

Outside, the dark night went by, the storm hurling snow at the windshield and the wipers slap-slapping it away while Lizzie forced the speedometer upward, trying to keep pace with Chevrier.

Brantwell continued: “And then, out of the blue, right after Jeffrey was born, this Daniel guy pulled up alongside me one day in his van and just … I didn’t know about him and Missy. I don’t even know how he knew me. But he just laid it all out for me, what he wanted.”

“And what he would pay. For you to be a drug courier.”

This last silence was the longest of all. Finally: “Yeah. It was a lot. And then it got to be more. The New York people, they wanted things moved, too. Connecticut, Massachusetts—that I-95 corridor, you know—I was on it often anyway. So I made stops.”

Made deliveries, he meant, or pickups. She squinted ahead; by now the snow was nearly blinding, Chevrier’s vehicle appearing between gusts and then vanishing again.

“So how d’you think Daniel realized you’d be open to his—”

The words caught in her throat as something big bounded all at once from the side of the road, loomed huge in the Blazer’s headlights, and missed the bumper by inches. Reflexively her foot went for the brake pedal, touching it before she could think.

A deer. “No,” Brantwell said urgently, “stay off the—”

The barest touch of the brakes sent the Blazer sideways on the iced roadway, the rear end fishtailing as she gritted her teeth and forced herself to steer into the skid.
Wait. Hands on the wheel, but lightly, easy does it …

Just for an instant, the Blazer was crossways in the road, aimed at the woods. But then it straightened seemingly on its own with a liquid-feeling glide, the front end swinging around back into its own lane.

She let out her breath. Ahead, Chevrier’s brake lights came on very briefly; so he’d seen it in his rearview, the deer in her headlights. But then he rounded another curve and was gone.

“You do that again,” Brantwell grated, his ugly side back in control, “I’ll—”

“What?” she snapped. “Shoot me? Hey, put a lid on that crap, okay?” She peered ahead. “You clip me while I’m driving, I’ll be dead, all right. Or as good as, maybe. But you might be, too.”

They’d been on the road nearly an hour now; it couldn’t be much farther. “Or maybe you’ll wind up paralyzed, huh? Neck down, hooked to a respirator for the rest of your life.”

Chevrier’s taillights appeared again. And here the roadway was protected somewhat by the big trees, so the snowplow drifts on either side of it weren’t very high.

She could ditch them here, throw him off balance and get the gun—she hoped. On the other hand, once she got off the road, she’d have to
miss
the trees …

But that was a chance she’d have to take, and if she was going to do it, she didn’t have much time.

“Yeah, that’ll be you. Just a head in a bed, and how will you care for your wife then?” she said, and yanked the wheel hard left, hitting the gas and slapping on the Blazer’s high-low siren switch at the same time.

“Hey!” yelled Brantwell as the Blazer spun into a 180, slid sideways, then shot off the road, ramming into the fresh snow heaped up there and straight through it.

It happened fast, but it seemed to take forever: Brantwell’s head flying back, his gun arm sailing up; the exploding airbags blocking out his snarl of mingled fury and alarm.

Yeah, you’ll shoot me, all right
. At the last instant, a tree trunk loomed up in the windshield; yanking the steering wheel, she prayed those new tires would catch traction somewhere, hearing the Blazer’s siren still howling bloody murder.

Yeah. You’ll shoot me. But first
—

The Blazer’s right side panel scraped the tree with a sound like a giant tin can being torn open. The bouncing stopped. The pounding stopped. The Blazer stopped, clouds of steam rising from its crumpled hood.

And then … nothing. A thick coating of airbag powder made her cough, but nothing was bleeding or broken as far as she could tell.

But Brantwell wasn’t so fortunate. He’d disdained the seatbelt; now he groaned, half-conscious. Meanwhile, the gun—

The gun, dammit
. Clumsily unbuckling herself, she shoved aside the limp remains of the passenger-side airbag, scrabbled around on the floor by his feet, and—

Got it
. Straightening, she tucked the thick, blocky little weapon into her bag and zipped it.
Yeah, you’ll shoot me
.

Now that he no longer had the thing aimed at her, anger washed over her.
But first
—

First you’ll have to get your head out of your butt
.

Chevrier’s Blazer roared up outside. Moments later, someone began pounding on her window, shouting something at her, but she couldn’t hear through the strange howling—

Howling. Oh, yeah …
 As she snapped off the siren, her door opened and she half fell out, into Dylan Hudson’s arms.

“Lizzie? You all right?” He set her on her feet.

Briskly, professionally. No embrace. “I’m … fine.” Dazed, roughed up a little. But nothing worse. “Really, I’m absolutely—”

Her legs went out from under her as Missy Brantwell and Chevrier came running up. “Dad!” Missy cried. “Are you okay?”

“Sit Lizzie down, Hudson,” Chevrier ordered sharply, turning back toward his vehicle. “I’ll call the—”

Paramedics: an ambulance ride, an ER checkup. “No!” She sat up. “Go look at Brantwell, I think he hit his head.”

Too bad it wasn’t on a baseball bat
, she thought.
Or maybe a brick
. “And send those EMTs to my office in Bearkill. Washburn’s in there and he’s hurt.”

Missy bent to her father. “Dad?” But he only turned his face away, the girl peering up uncomprehendingly as Lizzie went on.

“Cody, cuff him up, will you? He’s a collar.”

“But he didn’t do anything, you can’t just—”

Brantwell turned back to her. “Shut up, Missy,” he said tiredly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, and that’s my fault. But just shut up, okay? It will,” he finished as Chevrier bent over him, “be easier for me if you do.”

The girl stared, shocked silent. Meanwhile Dylan crouched by Lizzie.

“So you’ve got him cuffing people now, just on your say-so? Guess he’s starting to trust you a little bit.”

No concern for possible injuries; no warmth in his voice, either.
The hell with you, buddy
.

“Great. My heart’s desire achieved.” She made her own voice light, dug around in her bag for a tissue, and touched it to her cheek where the airbag had hit it. Her nose felt punched, too.

But she was okay. “Brantwell was a meth courier,” she said. “And
this Daniel guy that Missy’s been talking about, he’s in it as well, just like we figured.”

Dylan looked thoughtful. “So … Brantwell believed that if we got to Daniel, then Daniel might flip, rat Brantwell out?”

“Maybe.” She touched the tissue to her lip. It came away bloody. “But there’s a twist. Brantwell didn’t know until now that Daniel is the baby’s father.”

“Oh, I get it.” Dylan nodded. “Now, besides shutting the guy’s mouth, maybe Brantwell wanted a little payback.”

But then he frowned. “So then why didn’t Brantwell just keep his own mouth shut? Come with us to find Daniel, act like he’s on our side until we do, then shoot Daniel before Daniel could talk? Brantwell could say he panicked or—”

Lizzie shook her head. “Because he already had. Panicked, I mean, or at least I think that’s what happened.”

Getting up, she only felt a little bit like she’d been hit by a truck. “When Brantwell got to my office, Trey Washburn was already there. Brantwell must not have stopped to think. Not that he’s been thinking straight for a while, anyway. But he reacted by hitting Trey from behind with a brick.”

She winced at the memory, made worse by not knowing if Trey Washburn had survived the attack.

Dylan laughed without humor. “So you didn’t need detecting skills after that.”

“To figure out Brantwell wasn’t one of the good guys? Yeah, I guess not. Especially when he aimed Trey’s shotgun at me.”

They trudged to Chevrier’s Blazer, where Brantwell sat behind the perp screen with his hands cuffed in his lap. One side of his face was swollen and already showing a bruise, deep red darkening to purple; those airbags packed a punch.
Good
, she thought.

“And it wasn’t just Daniel he was after. Once we got to that campsite, I think he was planning to kill us all.” She turned to Missy. “Except for you, of course. And the baby.”

Missy shook her head in disbelief.

“I took a pistol off him,” Lizzie said. “HK semiauto, ten-round clip. And on the floor by his feet I found three more.”

Missy frowned. “What, three loose bullets?”

“No. Three more clips. Forty bullets in all. So I guess,” Lizzie added, “either he thought it was going to take a firefight to get your baby home again—”

She looked back at the wrecked Blazer. Its headlights carved white paths into the woods. But around them the forest was dark.

Dark and deep. And very soon she would be going into it.

“—or he figured ten bullets apiece would be enough to get the four of us,” she finished. “Us, and Daniel, too.”

Chevrier was in his Blazer; now he got out. “Okay, I’ve got a guy coming. Deputy, doesn’t live too far. He can do transport. Assault with a deadly okay with you?” he asked Lizzie.

For the charge against Brantwell, he meant. “That’ll do for a start. Missy, I’m sorry,” she added. “I’ll explain it all to you later, I promise. But for now you’ve got to trust me.”

In the gloom, the girl’s face was haggard. But the disbelief in it was beginning to fade, maybe because her dad wasn’t doing any of the things an innocent man might do: telling them they had it all wrong, for instance. Telling his daughter that there had been a mistake, that everything would be all right.

Or even talking about a lawyer. Instead he just sat there in the darkness behind the perp screen, staring at his cuffed hands.

Oh, yeah, this guy was toast and he knew it. Missy gazed at him in appeal. “Dad?”

No response. She waited a moment longer; still nothing. Then she turned. “Okay. I guess … Let’s go, then.”

She strode away from the vehicle without looking back, and Lizzie followed.

As she passed him Dylan put a hand out. “Lizzie, are you sure you’re …”

“Up for it?” She spun away from him. “I’m fine, okay? Don’t worry about me.”

Because there was a time and place for everything, including confronting Dylan Hudson about his lies.
And his moodiness, too; what the hell was the matter with him?
But this wasn’t it.

Ten minutes later the deputy Chevrier had called arrived to take
custody of Brantwell, and soon after that they were on the road again, heading deeper into the woods.

Spud staggered into the clearing and fell. The guy stepped around him, bent down, and unfastened his snowshoes. By the fire, he pulled off the thick fur wrappings and cap that he wore, letting his braid fall. Then he returned to crouch by Spud.

“Get up.”

Spud moaned. He was cold, wet, and exhausted beyond anything he’d even known was possible.