Cold Springs(114)

“The sheriff won't believe us, even if we had time to persuade him. We have to get to Mallory now. Ourselves.”

A knock on the door—hard, insistent.

Chadwick held Ann's eyes. If she opened that door, if she trusted the police, Mallory died. And yet, he knew there was no winning for him. Even if Ann trusted him, he felt certain he would leave this room having lost her—having finally awakened her to the fact that he was as good for her as a cold knife across her neck.

A muffled male voice told Ann to open up. The voice called her by name, announced himself as a police officer.

A screen rolled shut over Ann's face—the intimacy of last night, the tenuous happiness of five minutes before completely locked away.

“Go,” she whispered. “I'll stall them. Go out the window.”

“But—”

“My daughter,” she said, her eyes hard. “Save her if you can, Chadwick, but I won't trust you with that alone. I'm talking to the police. I'll open the door whether you're here or not. Now get the hell out.”

And then he was on the porch, and over the railing.

From his own balcony, Chadwick would've landed in the snow—a short, gentle slope, only a few feet from the concealment of the woods.

From Ann's balcony, he realized where he would land only mid-fall, after gravity made second thoughts impossible. He dropped straight onto the back deck of Hunter's office, crashing on top of a county deputy. The deputy's temple connected hard with the icy wooden railing on the way down. Hunter and Sergeant Damarodas stood three feet away, frozen in mid-conversation. In that second, Chadwick might've escaped—over the edge of the deck and into the trees—but by the time he recovered his own equilibrium, Damarodas had a pistol in his hand.

“Mr. Chadwick,” he said. “You're working on your entrances.”

“Stow it. Mallory Zedman is in danger.”

Hunter and Damarodas traded looks, as if this continued a topic they'd just been discussing. Chadwick sensed a kind of reluctant alliance between them, and he registered what an odd pair they made—Asa in his brown Armani suit, his hundred-dollar silk tie, the outfit he reserved for courtrooms and television appearances; Damarodas looking like a fast-food restaurant manager in his polyester blends and his blue tie that might've been a child's clip-on. Only their expressions made them soul-mates. They were soldiers pinned down in the same trench—men who had been forced to swallow a sour solution to a mutual problem.

“We got to stay right here, amigo,” Hunter told him. “My lawyers are on the way. Until then, I'm afraid you've already given Laramie and Kreech enough rope.”

“Asa, give me the GPS locator. Otherwise Mallory's going to die.”

The tendons in Hunter's neck strained to burst his collar. “Jones is on the way to pick her up. Olsen is following her in the woods. She'll be all right.”

“You're wrong.” Then Chadwick told them about the call from Race Montrose. At Chadwick's feet, the crumpled deputy groaned, curling tighter into fetal position.

“The sheriff will never believe this shit,” Damarodas said, but Chadwick could see his mind working furiously, fitting the pieces into place. “We leave this lodge, especially with an injured deputy lying there—we're going to bust open a legal shit-spout a mile high. Special Agent Laramie's gonna get a hell of a promotion.”

“Damn,” Hunter said. “God damn it—nobody f**ks with my trust that way.”

He reached in his coat pocket and threw Chadwick the GPS locator—a green bar of plastic the size of a deck of cards. “You'll never make it on the roads. Police got the gates blocked.”

“Straight overland,” Chadwick said. “Faster, impossible to follow. Gray levels should have the stables open by now.”

“You're certifiable,” Hunter told him. “Damarodas, give him your gun.”

“What?”

“He overpowered you,” Hunter said. “Remember?”

From somewhere inside the lodge, Sheriff Kreech's voice called out, “Mr. Hunter! Where the hell'd you go?”

Chadwick locked eyes with the sergeant.

Damarodas raised his gun. Then he dropped it, raised his hands in surrender. “Shit-spout a mile high. I'm going to f**king hate myself in the morning.”

Chadwick scooped up his gun and hit the railing—tumbling toward the woods and the river, where islands of snow were spinning downstream.

36

After her gory breakfast, Mallory cleaned up at the river as best she could. Her whole body was sore, her abdomen taut with menstrual cramps. She had no pads, no tissue, nothing except her clothes, but at least her flow wasn't as heavy as it had been the day before, and her uniform was black and already filthy.

She warmed herself by the fire until the wet sleeves of her jacket turned stiff and hot.

She wanted to bury the gutted shell of the armadillo. She owed the animal that much. But the ground was too hard to dig, even with her knife. Finally, she decided on cremation. She dropped the remains in the hot coals, and watched the tiny hairs curl to ash.

She adjusted the knife strap on her leg. She tugged at the GPS bracelet, still blinking on her wrist. She made sure her fire was out, the scorched armadillo shell covered in the ashes.