Текст книги "Visions"

Автор книги: Kelley Armstrong

Соавторы: Kelley Armstrong,Kelley Armstrong
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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Gabriel fell asleep before we hit the outskirts of Cainsville. This would have been much more troubling if he’d been the one behind the wheel.

That left me with a sleeping passenger and a long stretch of road to play with. A boring, straight stretch. The scenery wasn’t much, either. Farmer’s fields on my left, the river to my right. The river would have been lovely, if I could have actually seen it—it was at the bottom of a gully. So a boring road and boring scenery, but the car made up for it, so smooth it was like riding on glass. The June sun was just beginning to dip, the car interior cool, the leather seats comfortable, the music …

Well, the music needed a shake-up. It was Chopin’s Funeral March, which was appropriate, given our destination, but really not a driving tune. I flipped through his library, looking for a Mendelssohn piece I’d heard earlier. I finally found it, and the information scrolled across the display. It was the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

As I heard Rose’s voice, quoting from the fairy play, I looked back at the road. There, in the distance, was a hound. Standing on the road.

I hit my brakes, but as soon as I did, metal crunched and the car swerved. The side air bag whacked into me as the car sheered off the road.

It went over the gully, careening down, then hitting something and flipping and—

The front air bag slammed me in the face. I didn’t pass out, but it was as if I mentally left for a few seconds, shock shutting down thought until the car stopped … and I was hanging upside down.

I clawed at the seat belt, desperate to get free. Then I managed to stop myself. Nothing was burning. Slow down. Assess.

It took a second for me to even remember what had been happening before the crash. All I could see were the air bags, deflating around me.

I was in Gabriel’s car.

Gabriel.

I twisted, calling his name. He was there, slumped onto the roof.

“Gabriel?”

No answer.

I reached over and nudged his shoulder. “Gabriel!”

Still nothing. That’s when I scrambled to get free again, caution be damned. I got halfway out of my belt before I found the release. I hit it and fell, knocking my head hard on the roof.

I twisted and writhed, hearing my shirt rip as it caught. My skin ripped, too, warm blood welling up on my arm. I ignored it and got myself right side up, crouched there between the seat and the roof.

I could reach Gabriel, but he was doubled forward. I couldn’t see his face. I couldn’t get to his neck or wrist to check for a pulse. The solid wall of his shirt blocked me.

I backed out through the driver’s window. It was shattered, the remaining safety glass crumbling when I went through. As I pushed myself out, I could see the driver’s door was bashed in. We’d been hit. That’s why the side air bag deployed. Someone had hit us. Pushed the car over the embankment.

I craned to look up the gully. It was only about a thirty-foot drop, but nearly perpendicular. The top was clear. No sign of another vehicle. No sign of a passerby who’d witnessed the accident. There’d been no one else on the damned road. So where had the other car been—? A billboard. There were several along this stretch.

Had someone been lying in wait?

Was I really trying to figure that out while Gabriel lay in a car wreck?

His window had smashed, too, on the roll down the gully. I swiped out the remaining glass and shoved my head and shoulders through. Gabriel’s head hung down, but I could see his face from this angle. There was a moment there when I don’t think he was breathing. Then it came, that faint rasp, and when I pressed my hand to his neck, his pulse was strong.

He’d laid his jacket in the back before we set off, and there were only a few drops of blood on his white shirt. I searched for the source. A wound on his head.

As much as I wanted to get him out of there, I knew better than to move him, in case there was spinal damage. It seemed as if he was only hunched awkwardly—his height not accommodating the crushed roof—but I wasn’t taking any chances. I backed out. That’s when I saw the smoke.

The engine was on fire, wisps of smoke snaking from under the hood. There are a half-dozen flammable things in an engine. While they’re well contained, they aren’t meant to withstand a serious crash and a rollover landing. And the barrier between the engine and the passengers isn’t good enough to hold off fire for long.

I ran to the front of the car and peered under the crumpled hood, praying I wouldn’t see—

Flame. I saw flame.

I tore back to the passenger side, squeezed in, and undid Gabriel’s seat belt. It wasn’t jammed. Gabriel was, though—wedged in tight enough that he didn’t even budge when the belt came loose. As I tugged at him, he groaned.

“Gabriel?” I said. “Gabriel!”

I shook him, but he slid out of consciousness again without even opening his eyes.

I could smell the smoke now and hear the whoosh of fire. No time to second-guess. I grabbed his shirt by one shoulder and heaved, my other hand bracing his head. I had to brace my legs, too, against the car, using every bit of leverage I could, until—

His head and shoulders swung free and he fell, nearly knocking me down with the dead-weight drop. I dragged him out of the car. Smoke billowed, making me cough, my eyes tearing up. I had Gabriel out on his back, my hands wrapped in his shirt, and thank God it was well made, because I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten him very far otherwise. As it was, the seams still ripped while I dragged him over the rocky ground.

Once he was out of the smoke, I went for my cell phone … and remembered it was in my purse. I dropped down beside Gabriel and patted his trouser pockets. No phone. It must be in his jacket.

I raced back to the car. Flames poured from the engine, but they hadn’t yet broken through to the interior. I fell onto all fours and pushed in through the passenger window. The interior was filled with smoke, and I had to close my eyes, pull my shirt over my nose, and feel around blindly. I couldn’t find my purse. I didn’t try hard because I knew Gabriel’s jacket was in the back. I located it after fumbling and groping. I backed out of the car, sputtering now, eyes streaming tears as I returned to Gabriel’s side, where the air was clear, reached into his jacket and—

There was no goddamned cell phone.

I crouched on the ground, heaving breath, my lungs burning.

Get Gabriel somewhere safe and go for help. There was no other option. The car was on fire. I’d never find my phone in time.

I looked around for a place to drag Gabriel. The car had landed at the base of the cliff, twenty feet from the river. That limited my choices.

I grabbed Gabriel’s shirt again and hauled him another ten feet before the fabric gave way. I tried putting my hands under his armpits, but I couldn’t get any leverage. He was too big.

I looked back at the car. Fire still burned in the engine compartment. How much longer until it reached the gas tank? Even if it did, Gabriel was far enough away.

I tried rousing him again, but after dragging him twenty feet from a burning car, I had to acknowledge that he wasn’t waking up. I hoped he was just out cold. Otherwise … I wasn’t even thinking of “otherwise.” I already knew the damage I could have caused, hauling him from that car.

I made sure he seemed okay, then started climbing the embankment.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

I got about halfway up the cliff, grabbing whatever I could and hauling myself up the nearly perpendicular incline. Then there was nothing else to grab, and I scrabbled for a hand-hold, my fingers digging into dirt, nails breaking as I frantically pulled myself—

I lost my grip and fell backward, my ass hitting the ground hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. I scrambled up and looked around.

The gully was shallower farther down. I really should have looked before trying to scale the damned cliff.

I ran, pain jolting with each stride. I was still exhausted from the fever, and climbing the cliff had me panting already.

I saw a path heading up the gully. Just another twenty feet. Ten—

There was blood on the cliff side. A patch of bright red, just ahead. My feet skidded to a halt as my brain processed the sight.

Not blood. Poppies. Growing on the cliff.

I whirled back toward Gabriel.

A dark shape rose from behind a bush.

I hit the ground. Even as I dropped, my brain said, What the hell are you doing? But I dropped anyway, and a bullet hit the cliff beside me, dirt exploding.

My gun. Where was—?

In my purse. With my cell phone. And my switchblade.

God-fucking-damn it! I armed myself and then stuck it all in my purse like I was still a goddamn socialite.

I dove behind a boulder as the second shot fired. As I did, I thought of Gabriel. Unconscious. Defenseless. With a killer between us.

I dashed to the next boulder. Then the next. Drawing the shooter away from Gabriel.

Yet as I ran, no shots rang out. Instead, a voice called, “Stop.”

It was a woman’s voice. Macy’s.

I darted to the next source of cover, a sofa, dumped over the cliff.

“Do you think I won’t shoot you?” She fired a bullet into the sofa as I dropped behind it. “You’re not going to make it to the road, Eden, and even if you did, do you have any idea how long it would take for someone to find you? I was behind that billboard for twenty minutes and yours was the first car I saw. I could have killed you, you know. We’re both lucky that fancy car has side air bags.”

“We’re both lucky?” I croaked a laugh. “I could have sworn you were trying to kill me.”

“No. I thought he’d be driving. The lawyer. It’s his car.”

She sounded put out, as if I’d deliberately thwarted her plans.

“I bet you’re wondering how I intercepted you so fast,” she continued.

Um, no. Last thing on my mind, really.

“I was at a motel off the next exit,” she said. “Trying to figure out how to talk to you. How to make you listen to me. Then Kendrick called.”

“And you decided the best way to talk to me was to run me off the road?”

“No, I realized we were past the point of talking. You’d figured everything out. It was time to cut a deal. Or kill you.”

“I’d prefer a deal.”

She laughed. “I’m sure you would.”

I shifted behind the couch. As I did, I swore I smelled cat pee, as I had hiding behind the sofa at Will Evans’s house, the odor triggering some hidden memory that started my gut twisting.

There weren’t enough cover spots for me to dodge my way to safety. My best bet was to stall and hope Gabriel woke up. Which, given that he hadn’t done so before now, seemed unlikely. Failing that, maybe if I talked long enough, I’d actually come up with a plan.

“You killed Ciara,” I said.

“No.” The denial came hot and fast. “I wanted to talk to her, but she kept screaming. The sedatives weren’t working, and she wouldn’t be quiet. I just wanted her to be quiet. I wasn’t trying to choke her. It was her own fault.”

“And then you embalmed her.”

“It was his idea. Tristan’s.”

“He’s the one who told you who you were.”

“Yes. Tristan told me about my birthright. About Ciara. He took me to see her, that rich bitch, turning her back on a good life to tweak in a scummy apartment. She belonged with my family—she’d fit right in.”

“And you belonged with hers. So Ciara dies, and Tristan has you embalm her and cut off her head—”

“No, he cut off her head. But only to protect me. To erase any evidence I left strangling her. Afterward, he realized he could use her head to get your attention.”

Tristan had done his work here, weaving Macy a story that she could accept. Sprinkled with pixie dust to make it go down easier.

A shadow passed. I looked up to see a raven circling, leisurely, as if getting the lay of the land.

Are you here to help? To observe? To gloat?

The raven winged off toward the wreck, as if to check that out, too.

Not hindering. Not helping, either. There was no help here. No sudden brainstorm that would solve my predicament. Only the obvious plan—play along and watch for my opportunity to get that gun from her.

“You mentioned a deal?” I said.

“I want you to tell the police about the switch. That’s what Tristan said you’d do. You’d investigate, and you’d realize what happened, and you’d tell the police. And then it wouldn’t matter how Ciara died, because my real parents would have their real daughter and they’d be happy. Her real parents wouldn’t care who killed her. They only care about themselves. Everything would be fixed.”

Did she really think a murder investigation could be halted if no one cared about the victim? That the Conways wouldn’t care about the girl they’d raised?

“So you want me to forget what I know about Ciara’s death and go to the authorities with the DNA results.”

“Exactly.”

I pretended to weigh the moral ramifications of this. Except there were no ramifications, because once I got to safety, there would be nothing to stop me from turning her in.

“All right,” I said. “You walk away. I’ll say I fell asleep at the wheel. I had a fever last night, which my doctor can verify. I drifted off and crashed the car. Then I’ll turn over the DNA results.”

“Do you really think I’d make it that easy?” Macy said. “You walk away scot-free?”

Why shouldn’t I? I wanted to say. I haven’t done anything. But I bit my tongue and said, “I’ve crashed a very expensive car. I’m battered and bruised. I might have seriously injured a guy who won’t hesitate to sue me for every penny of my trust fund. That’s not scot-free.”

“You’re right. You need to get rid of the lawyer.”

“Exactly. I’ll fire him.”

“I mean kill him.”

“What?” I prairie-dogged up for a split second before dropping behind the sofa again.

“Is that a problem?” she said.

“Is murdering someone a problem? Hell, yes. You know who my parents are, so maybe you think that makes it easy for me, but no, I’m not going to kill Gabriel. I’ll deal with any fallout—”

“It’s not an option,” she said. “You’re going to shoot him with this gun. I’m going to take a video of you doing it. If you double-cross me, I’ll hand it over to the police. Refuse, and I will shoot both of you.”

She wasn’t as stupid as I’d thought. Just crazy. Another shadow passed, and I looked up to see an owl now, silently winging past to land in a distant treetop. Ravens and owls. Not so much an omen as a reminder of the puppet master pulling Macy’s strings.

“Does Tristan know you’re doing this?” I said. “I bet he doesn’t. He wants me alive.”

“Because you’re valuable?” She spat the word. “Tristan is full of shit. I figured that out at that psych hospital, how he treated me there, like a prop in his play for an audience of one. You.”

“Do you know why he thinks I’m important?”

“Because you’re rich. That’s why everyone is important. Your adoptive family has the kind of power and money that makes the Conways look lower-class. And you don’t deserve it any more than Ciara did. You’re the child of murdering freaks. You should have been locked up with them, before you grew up into a monster, too. But no, you got special treatment. A special family. They put me with the Shaws and put Ciara with the Conways. And you? They put you with the goddamn Taylor-Joneses.”

Put me? Had I been placed with my family? A child of fae blood slipped into a human home, a better home? Just like Ciara?

Everyone wondered how I’d vanished into the system. How the child of serial killers ended up with the Taylor-Joneses. How the Larsens “lost” me in a so-called bureaucratic mix-up.

The owl rose from its tree, winging to a closer one. I watched it.

“Who put me with my family?” I asked.

“The same people who switched me,” she said, with a snap in her voice, annoyed with me for being so dense.

“What people? Why?”

“If I knew who did it, I’d be going after them, wouldn’t I? As for why, money obviously. It’s always about money.”

“So these people are switching babies for profit. And that’s all they are: people. Like Tristan. He’s just a regular guy. Nothing more.”

A pause. “You know who’s behind this, don’t you? Is it the government? Is that what you mean?”

Macy had no idea what she was really involved in. Why would she? She didn’t have the blood. No one cared about her. Tristan was only using her as a means to his end. He certainly wasn’t going to share their secrets.

“Enough of this,” Macy said. “Time to make your choice.”

“Fine. I’ll kill Gabriel. But I’m not coming out of here while you’re holding a gun on me.”

She laughed. “Should I toss it to you?”

“No, just hold it up, in one hand, over your head. Then start walking to the wreck.”

“Giving you the chance to jump me from behind?”

Damn, I really wished she was dumber. “Walk backward, then. Gun in the air.”

The gun rose, where I could see it. I crept from behind the sofa, and we started for the car.

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

While I would have liked to get that gun from Macy before we reached Gabriel, her gaze never left me, and she made me stay ten feet away—too far to dash and catch her off guard. I kept hoping she’d trip as she walked backward. She didn’t.

What I really needed was that damned owl or raven to swoop at her head. No such luck. If they were still around, they were observing only, as they had at the psych hospital, each watching the situation for their respective team.

Barring interference by the birds, I hoped Gabriel had woken and could suss out the situation and distract her while I got the gun. Again, no such luck. I could see him ahead, lying exactly where I’d left him. So it was all up to me.

“You’re really going to kill him?” she said, as she stopped ten feet behind Gabriel’s head.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You can die with him.”

“Not really an option.”

She smiled. “I didn’t think so. Now come over here, on that side of him, put your hands around his neck, and squeeze.”

“Wh-what?”

Another smile as she shook her head. “You thought I was going to give you the gun? Not a chance. He’ll die the way Ciara did. Strangulation. It’s easier than you’d think.”

Shit. Still not stupid.

When I didn’t move, she said, “Trying to find a way out of this? There isn’t one. You’ll kill him or you’ll die.” She paused. “Or there is a third option.”

“What?”

“God, you’re quick to jump on that, aren’t you? I guess you aren’t your parents’ daughter after all. Can’t kill someone even to save your own life. Or does it depend on who the someone is? I bet you’d have killed me, if Tristan had given you this choice in that hospital. But him—” She motioned at Gabriel. “He’s different. So here’s option number three. You crawl back into that burning car. You die in there. He lives.”

I looked over sharply at her. “Bullshit. You wouldn’t let—”

“Why not? You dragged him out and went back in for something and died. Tragic accident. Once you’re dead, Gabriel Walsh won’t care about Ciara and the case. Tristan will accept that it was an accident, and I’ll get my DNA results another way.”

“The moment I’m in that car, you’ll shoot Gabriel.”

“If he’s dead of a gunshot, that’s no accident.”

“Then you’ll drag him back into the car.”

“With what? A crane? I can’t make his death look like an accident, Eden, so he gets to live. That’s the deal. The question is, will you take it?”

I looked at her. I looked at Gabriel. She was too far away for me to get a jump on her. I had no weapons. My gun was …

I looked at the smoke-filled car. The flames were in the front seat now, licking the fabric. If I could find my purse …

What exactly were the chances of that? Finding my purse and getting my gun before passing out from smoke inhalation? Not good. But the alternative? There wasn’t one.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

She didn’t answer, just looked at me as if I was a fool.

I walked to the car. Heat and smoke streamed out. I couldn’t even see the door, just the dark shape of the black car, lost in the smoke. I dropped to all fours.

“Don’t stall,” Macy said. “If you give me any excuse, I have a backup plan. I’ll shoot you both.”

I crawled through the smoke, eyes closed as I breathed through my nose. My fingers touched the side of the car, and I let out a yelp, metal burning my fingertips.

“Keep going,” Macy said. “If I can still see your shoes in ten seconds—”

A shot fired. I hit the ground, flat on my stomach.

Oh God, she’d shot Gabriel.

I jumped up into a crouch—

“Don’t move or I fire again.”

I froze there, brain stuck on the words. No, not the words. They were exactly what I’d expect. It was the voice that stopped me.

“Olivia? Are you all right?”

Gabriel’s voice. Then his footfalls.

I staggered from the smoke to see him jogging toward the car with my gun trained on Macy, who was hunched on the ground, her hand pressed to her side, blood streaming through her fingers. Her gun hung from her other hand.

I wheeled on Gabriel. “Make her drop—!”

“Drop the gun,” he said before I could finish.

She raised her head and looked from him to me, her eyes dull with shock.

“I said drop it.” Gabriel took two steps toward her. “You’re injured. Perhaps badly. You need an ambulance, and as soon as you put that gun down, I will call one.”

She lifted the gun, slowly, training it on me. Gabriel fired. His shot hit her in the leg, and she fell back with a stifled scream.

“I won’t kill you,” he said. “No matter how much you might want that. I will simply continue to shoot you until you pass out and drop the gun.”

She raised her head and stared at him, her eyes blazing, furious. She’d go to jail for killing Ciara, and that reunion with her real family would never happen. It was over, and all she wanted now was some final satisfaction. To die knowing we’d suffer, too, fighting to clear our names. If we wouldn’t give her that …

“She’s going to—” I didn’t get the rest of the words out.

Macy swung the gun up. Gabriel fired. She did, too—gun trained upward, shot going through the bottom of her jaw. She was dead before she slumped to the ground.

Gabriel still ran over … to grab the gun from her hand as it dropped to her side. Only then did he seem to realize the shot had been fatal, and he stood there, looking down at her. Then he lowered himself to one knee, reached into her pocket, took out her cell phone, and called the police.

“I think we’ve been here before,” I said to Gabriel as he sat on the back bumper of the ambulance while a paramedic examined the gash on his head. “Except last time, I didn’t total your car.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “And it’s well insured.”

“I still feel bad.”

A soft chuckle, pointing out, I suppose, that of everything that had happened this evening, his car ought to be the least of my concerns. I was more worried about him, but I knew better than to say that. I’d asked, of course, right after he’d called the police, and he’d brushed the question aside with a brusque “I’m fine.”

Now he was struggling to sit with relative patience as the paramedic checked him over. I’d already had my examination—Gabriel had insisted I go first. I’d swallowed some smoke, bumped my head, sliced open my arm, and possibly cracked a rib in the crash, though I’d begun to notice the pain only after everything settled down.

Macy was dead. How did I feel about that? Relieved that Gabriel hadn’t been the one to shoot her, because I didn’t want him dealing with that, either legally or emotionally. As for how he’d gotten my gun, he’d apparently regained consciousness while I was hiding behind that couch. My purse—with the gun—hadn’t been in the car at all, but had been thrown free from the wreck. He’d spotted it, retrieved the gun, and played possum until he got his chance.

Otherwise, what did I feel about Macy? Not much. She’d had a crappy life, but that didn’t justify murder. Ciara hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been struggling with the biological destiny of having fae blood. Her death was a tragedy. Macy’s was not.

Macy’s death was, however, a problem, because, as I said, Gabriel and I had been here before, a month ago, police and paramedics called to the scene after someone tried to kill us. There’s a limit to how often that can happen before the cops start to wonder what the hell you’re up to. I think that limit is one.

Gabriel’s basic advice was to keep my mouth shut. We’d both suffered head injuries. Given the crash and the aftermath, we could claim confusion and trauma, and say as little as possible.

The paramedic finished and proclaimed that Gabriel might be suffering from a mild concussion. He should get himself to the hospital, and he should be woken every hour tonight. I doubted I’d get him into a hospital, but I promised to look after him.

When the paramedic left, Gabriel stood. I would have sworn it wasn’t possible for someone with skin so fair to turn pale, but he did. There was a tinge of green there, too.

“Take it easy,” I said.

“I’m—”

“I didn’t ask if you were okay. I know better than to do that more than once, and even then not to expect an honest answer. I’m just asking you to take it easy, because you look like you’re going to throw up, and that will get you hauled to the hospital whether you like it or not.”

He nodded and straightened, tugging on his shirt and adjusting it, as if it wasn’t blood-spattered and filthy. Then he looked down at me. “I am a little queasy. And my head hurts. Also, there’s a slight pain in my shoulder, but it didn’t seem worth mentioning. None of that, however, will impede me.”

I smiled. “Nothing ever does. Come on. Let’s talk to the police and get out of here.”