A Charmed Place (49 page)

Joan's dark eyes were filled with sympathy. Somehow, more than anyone else, she came closest to understanding. But even she felt bound to say, "It sounds so romantic—and yet you're so miserable."

Maddie smiled wanly and said, "Just don't tell my mother that."

They moved on to other subjects. Half an hour later, they were wiping the dishes as clean as they could with paper towels before using precious water on them, when they heard a car pull into the drive. Maddie's ears pricked up. "That sounds like Michael's car."

Joan ran to the window and said, "It's Michael, all right."

"Is Tracey with him?" Maddie said instantly.

"No, he's alone. He's bringing a box of Dunkin' Donuts."

"Shhh. Move away from the window," Maddie said, waving Joan back. "I don't want him to know I'm home."

Unequal to the task of facing him, Maddie sat without moving while they waited for him to go away. Instead, they heard Michael let himself in through the front screen door, calling Maddie's name cheerfully as he walked through the house.

"I'm in the kitchen, Michael," Maddie said, dismayed that
he hadn't bothered to knock. Where was Tracey?

He turned the corner from the hall. "Joannie!" he said, surprised. "Long time no see. How you doin'?"

"I'm okay, I guess," said Joan, clearly uncomfortable.

"Where's Tracey, Michael?"

"I didn't expect to see you here," he said to Joan, ignoring Maddie's question. He set the doughnut box on the counter along with the pink and white bag. "I would've brought three coffees instead of two. Cream and just a touch of sugar for you, Maddie," he said, lifting out a paper cup and then a second one from the bag. "Milk, no sugar for me."

He slid Maddie's half full mug of coffee to one side, then set the paper Dunkin' Donuts cup in its place, carefully peeling back the sipping tab for her.

"Michael, will you please answer my question?"

"Actually, I should've brought three coffees in any case," he said, returning to the counter and the box of doughnuts. "Because the chances were good that I'd find Dan Hawke hanging out here—I'm right, am I not?" he asked with a bright smile.

His voice didn't match the look in his eyes. Nothing could match the look in his eyes. The lids were too intensely open, as if he were keeping them propped that way with sticks. He frightened Maddie. This was not a Michael she'd ever seen before.

"What have you done with Tracey?" she said, more desperately now.

"Didn't she tell you? She's at a sleepover. Oh, I know: adult supervision, yadda, yadda, yadda. Don't worry; the parents were home."

"She's up there now? But
... couldn't you have brought her with you—at least for the day, since you're down here anyway?"

He looked delighted to be asked the question. "Funny you should ask. Tracey
wanted
to come down, sweet wife of mine. For good. Oh, yes; she's ready to come back home. She phoned me at seven this morning—our Tracey, awake at seven!—to inform me of this latest whim."

"Whim?"

"What else could it be? I told her that it wasn't convenient; that it absolutely did not fit in with my plans for now."

"What
... did she say to that?"

Michael sipped his coffee and smacked his lips. "Ahh-h-h
... good. By the way, did she tell you the latest? She has—she
had
—the chance to make really big bucks. Geoff Woodbine wanted her for testing. A brand new project, a brand new grant, a brand new scam: kid psychics. Doncha love it?"

His revelation, hard on the heels of the news that Tracey was ready to come home, had Maddie reeling. "Michael, what're you talking about? Tracey didn't say a word about that. She talked about
... about walking dogs," Maddie stammered.

"Dogs! That's rich! But don't worry; something tells me the Woodbine project's not going to fly."

Even as he said it, Maddie made a connection that had eluded her up until now.

"Geoffrey Woodbine! He's the one who called Tracey here at the house! He called, and when he heard me pick up another phone, he hung up on her. It wasn't the first time he tried to reach her. I'm sure it wasn't!"

Michael got an odd look of distaste, as if he'd eaten bad meat. "I'm not surprised. He was a fool. And a con. And, alas for your family, a murderer.
Where is he
?" he said with sudden violence, and Maddie knew they weren't talking about Geoffrey Woodbine any longer.

"Dan's not here," Maddie said, her voice gone so faint that it sounded as if she were lying. She tried
to put indignation into it. "
Why
would
he be here? You made your terms clear."

"Yeah, right." He seemed not to hear her; he was looking down into the box, picking over the contents, searching for—what? A jelly doughnut?

He lifted out a gun.

And aimed it at her.

Joan had been backing away from him steadily, drifting toward the hall.

"Stay right there!" he barked.

Joan froze, and he turned back to Maddie. "Now. Where were we? Oh, yes. Hawke. Where is he, sweet love of my life?"

"He's not
... here, Michael," Maddie said, staring at the gun. She had the insane idea that if she kept her eye on the barrel, she could duck when the bullet came out. "You know he's not here."

"He
was
here, damn you! He was here during the hurricane. You broke your promise, Maddie. Why did you do that, Maddie?" he asked, cocking his head. "Huh? Why?"

Unable either to answer his question or deny it, Maddie said instead, "They'll hear the gun, Michael! It's as quiet as a church around here." Even as she said it, the loud racket of someone's generator rang in her ears.

"Hey, guess what? I don't care!" he answered cheerfully. "If I get away, I get away. But I
... don't
...
care.
That's the beauty of this plan, Maddie. It's win-win. You see? I've worked it all out. I spent the night working it all out. I admit, I blacked out there for a little while, or I would've been here earlier."

He swung the gun in Joan's direction. "If I
had
got here earlier, you wouldn't have been here and Dan Hawke would. It's really too bad. All I can say is—I wish you were Dan Hawke. But you know what they say: 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.' Sorry 'bout that, Joannie."

"Oh, no
... please
... please
...."

****

Dan Hawke was in the hall, hoping to God that Michael wouldn't hear him breathing or smell the sweat running freely from every pore. The sight of the BMW in Maddie's drive had made Hawke's heart go flying out of his chest, and he'd been dizzy with fear for Maddie as he reconnoitered the cottage. This was it, his one best shot, with no time to think of an alternate plan.

He was about to charge into the kitchen when a car pulled up outside. Hawke glanced out the screen door and saw, improbably, a Yellow Cab in the lane. He was amazed to see
Tracey emerge from the back seat and walk slowly toward the front door, staring at her father's car as she passed.

Jesus Christ! Dan cocked his ear toward the kitchen. Joan was still pleading with Michael. If he hadn't fired the gun yet, then he wasn't necessarily going to. It gave Dan hope.

Tracey swung the door wide, saw Dan, and opened her mouth to say something. He silenced her with a fierce look and tried to make her stop where she was by holding his hand palm out. Instead, she came toward him as if he were some kind of Pied Piper.

He frowned and shook his head and tried to shoo her away, but she heard her mother's voice inside the kitchen saying, "Michael, don't do this! Don't, Michael!"

The girl let out a sound of alarm. Hawke grabbed her and spun her around, intending to hurtle her toward the front door and safety, but he never got the chance. A bullet rang out behind him, shockingly loud, and tore through his flesh, sucking the breath out of him as it went. He heard screaming from the kitchen at the same time that he felt Tracey slump forward in his arms. Dazed and wounded, he was aghast to see that the same bullet that had ripped through his side had gone on to hit Tracey. Unnerved now, he lowered the child to the floor to examine her wound.

He heard another scream, this one from Maddie, and looked up in time to see her rush toward them and fall to her knees beside her unconscious daughter. Behind her stood Michael, a look of baffled horror on his face. Was he still dangerous? Who knew? Without thinking, Hawke lunged for Michael from his awkward angle, knocking him back but not down. The gun went flying behind them, sliding across the red and white checkerboard floor of the kitchen.

Michael's grunt of surprise from the body slam turned into a bestial snarl as he rallied his wits and fought back. Hawke himself was furious now: furious from the pain, furious from the scare, furious that Michael had hurt a woman and then a child.

It became primal between them, ugly and vicious and battering. Strength held its own against street smarts, and a wounded Hawke realized that he could not prevail. They were in the kitchen and he was on his back fighting for his life when he felt the gun underneath his left side. With a last, exhausting effort, he rolled with Michael to the right, then grabbed the gun and aimed for Michael's head, wanting nothing less than to blow out his brains.

He missed. The bullet carried away Michael's earlobe, but that was all. Still, it had an effect: Michael was stunned into submission at last and lay docile on the floor.

Faint and losing strength fast, Hawke said to Maddie, "How is she?"

"Barely conscious
... bleeding," Maddie answered in anguish. "I've called an ambulance and the police."

"How?"

"Cell phone.
  New one. 
Are you—?"

"I'm
... okay," he told her, trying to sound okay. "Go. Stay by her." He could see that Maddie was in agony over him as well. "I promise not to take offense this time," he added, smiling through the pain.

Without even glancing at Michael, Maddie went around the corner to tend to her daughter in the hall. Where were all the neighbors? Hawke wondered. Probably on their boats, where the amenities were. He kept the gun aimed at Michael. He could do that for five lousy minutes. He peeled back his shirt and winced. There was blood, but he could feel it pooling more inside than out. He'd so much rather it were out.

He heard Joanie somewhere, sobbing uncontrollably.

Four minutes to go, with any luck. The gun in his hand felt like a cannon. It seemed to him that Michael was looking livelier now. He was sitting up—slowly, to be sure, but definitely the general direction w
as up. He didn't miss that ear
lobe of his one damn bit. Hell, why should he? He didn't wear earrings.

And meanwhile Hawke himself was sloping more and more heavily to the right. The cupboard door handle jabbed him in his back and it was really, really more annoying than the hole in his side. Michael was eyeing the gun now. Was it Hawke's imagination? Or was Michael reaching over for it, the way he might for a salt shaker at a picnic table.

In slow, slow motion, Hawke watched Michael reach, reach, reach and he thought, I'd better keep track of the time and
one
elephant
two
elephants
three
elephants
four
elephants and then the red and white squares on the checkerboard floor became very, very bright with white and with blood and a horrendous sound, oh, shit, a bullet; and that was all.

****

He opened his eyes to bright light and flowers in the air. They floated all around him, all the same ones, fat white roses climbing pale green trellises.

Heaven.

"I know this wallpaper," he said to the nurse.

"You ought to; you've been here for three days," the nurse said, grinning.

"This room's too
... nice
... for a hospital."

"That's because it's a cottage hospital. You stay right here," she said after she checked a monitor. She hurried out of the room.

"No, wait—"

Gone. He lay there feeling a little like after the tea in
Afghanistan
, only more anxious. He needed answers, needed faces—one face—and he kept his gaze fastened on the door, waiting for the one face.

A physician came in, wrong face, and then the nurse again, two wrong faces now.

And then, after a long time and pointless testing of his vital signs—the right face. She came in with her eyes all red with flowing tears and her mouth all crooked with trying to keep the tears back and he'd never seen such a beautiful, beautiful face in his life.

He smiled his own version of her crooked smile. "Maddie."

She seemed to float, like an angel, and drifted down into a chair alongside his bed. He thought that maybe he was in
heaven, after all. Whatever. As long as she was there with him.