Reilly 02 - Invasion of Privacy (28 page)

"How long ago?" She moved away from him. This was no friendly interaction.

"About an hour. The van stopped for the traffic light on A1 Tahoe at the corner of Highway 50. We’re searching the area, but he may have hitchhiked. Or an accomplice picked him up."

"I was in court. I don’t know anything about it. He’s not violent, Collier. Please don’t go looking for him with guns out."

"I don’t believe you," Collier said. "You know where he’s headed. If you don’t tell me right now, that makes you an accessory. Talk to me. Don’t make me arrest you."

She pushed her files into the briefcase, thinking fast.

"You’re in love with him," Collier said, a slight vulnerability sneaking into his voice, sounding a little more forlorn than a prosecutor out to track down a killer ought to sound.

She didn’t have an answer ready.

"Are you helping him escape because of your son? Help me now, and I’ll try to help you."

"No! I had no idea he was planning this."

"You set up the doctor’s appointment," Collier said. "You told Milne he needed to be seen. Either you helped him deliberately, or he used you."

"Unless you’re going to arrest me, I’m going now."

"I should," he said. "For your own good."

"Haven’t you noticed yet, I get to decide what’s good for me?" She picked up her papers and turned her back on him, heading for the parking lot.

"Nina!" he called sternly after her.

She ignored him. Her power walk to the Bronco took forever. She hustled the car into gear and took off before he had time to develop further plans for her.

Driving home, she looked back now and then to see if she was being followed. She found Bob in the backyard with Andrea, clipping dead heads off the white-flowered marguerite bush. Taking Andrea aside, she said, "Kurt’s escaped."

Andrea gasped and looked over at Bob, who clipped energetically away, felling a low branch full of dead leaves. "Timber!" he called out.

"What do you want me to do?"

"If he comes here, he might see Bob. They look so much alike—Kurt would know. I’m not ready for this."

"Does he know where we live?"

"He knows Matt’s name, and Matt’s listed in the phone book. Andrea, the police will be after him with guns. You’ve got to get out of here."

Andrea said, "Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll call Matt and then the shelter. I’ll take the kids over there and spend the night there with them. It’ll be safer than staying here."

"Perfect. Thank you, Andrea. I’ll make it up to you."

"Let’s go pack some bags," Andrea said. "So now the director of the shelter for battered women is taking shelter there. My clients might find that pretty funny."

"I don’t. C’mon. Let’s get busy," Nina said.

Fifteen minutes later Andrea left with the kids. Nina got on the phone to Sandy. "I need Paul," she said.

"He’s working with Wish. They check in at five."

"Doesn’t he have a cellular phone?"

"Won’t use one. Says they cause brain tumors and absorb the last remaining solitude on earth. What are you going to do about Kurt? Do you know where he is?"

"I have an idea," Nina said. "Tell Paul, when he calls, to drive up to Fallen Leaf Lake and take the road around the south side of the lake. When he gets to where the cabins are, tell him to locate the dirt trail up to Angora Ridge. Tell him I’ve gone there."

"Kurt’s up there?"

"I sincerely hope not," Nina said. "Just tell Paul to find me there."

"Wait for Paul," Sandy said.

"Kurt’s my client," Nina said. "He’s not dangerous, and I can bring him back with me safely if I can get to him. But I have to hurry." She hung up, ran into her bedroom, and undressed quickly, pulling on jeans, a T-shirt, and hiking boots. Surprising herself with the impulse, she threw a shovel into the trunk of the Bronco before taking off.

29

"SHE’S WHERE?" PAUL SAID TO SANDY OVER THE phone.

"No need to holler." Sandy gave him the directions. "Take Wish," she said.

"Why didn’t you stop her?"

"She ran over me like a V10 pickup," Sandy said.

Benignly neglected to discourage the weekend tourist, the green-fringed road around Fallen Leaf Lake narrowed to one lane soon after the turnoff from the highway. As she bumped over the potholes, Nina wondered how Kurt could have gotten to this area, which was several miles from the main road.

How could she second-guess him? Had she in her wildest dreams thought he would initiate something that would compromise them both so utterly?

If she had any luck at all, at this very moment he sat high in the cab of a semi, a hard-driving trucker at the wheel, heading east on Highway 50, across Nevada toward Utah. A runner from way back, Kurt would run straight out of her and Bobby’s life, and they could go back to the old life without him.

No. They would never be the same.

And she knew him well enough to know how he thought, and where he would go first. He would probably need some tools.

Rounding a bend in the road beyond the country store, she spotted the metallic roof of the cabin in dense woods up an overgrown dirt road.

The Bronco kicked up a storm of dirt as she pulled over into a wide area and parked. The trail to Angora Ridge was nearby. By standing in an open field off the road, she could just see the tip of the fire-tracking station that sat near the top of the trail. She could follow parts of the ridge trail, straining with her eyes.

She saw no movement up there.

Wind through trees. An airplane far off. Quiet. Many of these lonely cabins were unoccupied except on weekends.

Climbing onto the sagging porch, she tried the knob. Something broke and she pushed the door open. Inside, undisturbed dust on the floor told her right away the place was empty.

"Kurt," she whispered. She felt his presence. Fallen Leaf Lake, the cabin with the stone fireplace ...

Memory mixed with fear. She remembered him as he had been, so beautiful in his youth and strength, his kisses, his hands.... She didn’t know. She just didn’t know. Was she running after him to bring him back? Or was it the promise of him free again, without the glass wall to keep them apart?

Out back, the toolshed had been recently disturbed. The rusting lock had been knocked open.

Brushing aside cobwebs, she examined the assortment of old tools that lay scattered on the floor. A rake. A plastic snow scoop. A hoe hanging loose on its screw. A trowel without a handle. And a relatively clean spot on the floor suggesting that he had found the tool he needed.

She did her best to replace the lock on the shed, and hefted the shovel she’d brought from home in her right hand, walking the few hundred yards to the trailhead the led up to Angora Ridge.

The sun glanced through the pines. The air filled with peeps and flutters, as unseen birds, small ground animals, and insects burrowed and buzzed their way through the forest. Ahead of her in the path, she saw several kinds of shoe prints, and the prints of a dog far apart. She could picture the dog off his leash bounding ahead of its slowpoke two-legged owner. She stopped. From far away, down in the more settled area near the lake below, she heard a whistle.

Unaccustomed to such a steep climb, she felt her knees begin to quiver about a quarter of a mile up. Soon she saw areas of brush flattened regularly, every fifty feet or so, and small dirt piles. "Kurt?" she called, but there was no reply. She rested her knees and continued.

The trail became rockier. She came to a place of granite boulders, the kind of place she usually stayed away from because bears liked the caves they made. Kurt had called it "beartown." ... The memory was so sharp she could see it descend like a transparent veil over the present, turning the scene before her into one layered with the emotion of the past.

She heard a shovel clang against rock.

"Kurt!"

Nothing.

"Kurt! It’s me. I’m alone."

Shuffling feet. Kurt came around the corner, holding a shovel.

He dropped it, throwing off some gloves, and held his arms out to her. She saw again the livid scar from the bullet that had nicked him.

She went. Their bodies met. They held on, Nina holding her arms around his neck and her head pressed against his chest, feeling his heart beat, and smelling dust and sweat. He stroked her hair.

"Kurt," she said. And "Kurt," again.

"Don’t let go," he said.

"No."

"I love you."

She didn’t answer. Like ivy vines that had rooted and tangled together, they supported each other. Then he put his arms around her and squeezed her, lifting her from the ground, swaying her back and forth, back and forth.

After a long time, he set her down carefully, saying, "Now I have everything I want. I’ve held you. But ..."

"You’ve found something, haven’t you?"

"Yes."

"Show me."

He led her across a grassy space behind the flat boulder Nina could now recognize from Terry’s film. A small black opening about eighteen inches high and two feet wide formed where the boulder met other, smaller rocks. He replaced the gloves he had taken off.

He reached in. "Don’t be afraid," he said. He pulled out a long bone.

Leg bones, bones of a big animal. And ... shreds of faded cloth, tattered, musty, begrimed. More bones, many more.

A skull, blond hair still clinging to it in tufts and patches.

Tamara?

His body half propped against rock, half falling toward the dark hole he had exposed, Kurt dug with increasing frenzy, as if afraid a bit of Tamara might remain forever lost in the cave. He continued a heap he had already begun in the dry ditch, made of dirt, rock, pieces of a girl, determined to complete what he had started, intent on his task, as if he’d forgotten that her eyes were taking in the macabre scene.

The shock of seeing the bones restored Nina to herself. "Kurt, stop!" she said. "The medical examiner has to see this intact. Don’t disturb the scene any more!"

"I can’t leave her like this," Kurt said.

"Sit down here with me for a minute. Please let me talk to you."

He looked irresolutely at the bones, then seemed to fall down beside her. She realized he was exhausted, near collapse.

"How did you get here?"

"I got a ride to the lake road," he said. "And then I ran. Do the police know I’m here?"

"No. I wish I didn’t. And I wish you hadn’t touched anything."

"Poor Tam. She never deserved this kind of ending. I didn’t plan to dig her up all the way. Just ... once I saw her, I couldn’t leave her like this."

"We don’t know it’s her yet, do we? I mean, until there’s some record checking."

"Are you kidding? I bought her the damn belt."

For the first time, Nina saw a silver buckle, shaped like an eagle’s head, that he clutched in one gloved hand. He took the gloves off again, laying them beside his shovel, and set the buckle on a flat part of the rock.

"I don’t think I’m going to make it," he said. "I’m cracking up. Those are her bones, Nina."

"You did what you set out to do. We have to go back now."

"Better if they shoot me and get it over with. Better for you too. Let me rest for another minute with you." They rested against each other. She felt disoriented by all the pieces of herself that wanted to come forward, mother, lawyer, lover, abandoned one.

"We’ll get you back. Quickly. Salvage the situation," she whispered.

"I’m not going back. Please try to understand. I can’t."

"Then you’ll stay afraid for the rest of your life. In hell."

"Better than a stinking prison!"

"Just don’t throw away all hope. Please—I have to tell you something—" She realized he was going to leave, and instinctively pulled his head toward her. He began to kiss her, her cheeks and nose and forehead, her wet eyes. His lips on her mouth were warm and soft, pressing harder as she let her body relax against him. She opened her eyes and looked into his. Time fell away. They were kissing at Fallen Leaf Lake, and they would be married soon....

"I have to go now," he said, drawing his head away. In a moment he would stand up and take the first step that would lead him forever out of her life....

Paul sprang from the bushes and pushed Kurt off her. For a moment Nina just sat there, unable to take it in.

They rolled into the side of a boulder and Kurt’s head hit it with a crack, but he managed to push Paul away. Before he could stagger up, Paul had grabbed his legs and brought him down again. His expression was distorted with anger.

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" Nina shouted. Kurt forced Paul’s head into a crevice between two rocks and she heard herself screaming, and saw for the first time that Wish stood behind the pile of bones waving Paul’s revolver and yelling at them to cut it out.

Kurt raised a rock above Paul’s pinned body and Nina shouted, "No!" and he heard her, turning to look at her, startled. Paul rolled away and jumped up.

This time Kurt had no chance. Paul moved toward him, light on his feet, and they grappled again. Paul wrestled him down and smashed him in the face.

Wish seemed paralyzed, the gun dangling from his hand. A trickle of blood ran down Kurt’s face.

Nina picked up a good-size rock, jumped on Paul’s broad back as he drew his arm back to pummel him some more, and hit him on the back of the head. He let out a grunt, toppled over, and lay on his back, his eyes closed.

"Did you kill him?" Wish said, running up. Kurt sat up slowly, unbuttoned his torn shirt and held it to his face.

"Shit," Paul said weakly from the ground. "It feels like she did." He tried to raise his head and Nina helped him sit up.

"What are all these bones?" Wish asked.

She moved toward them, but Paul said, "Stay away from him," never taking his eyes off Kurt.

"We’ll talk later," Nina said. "Did you come in the van? Help me get these two down there." Paul groaned. "We’re going to Boulder Hospital. Wish, help Kurt up. Give me the gun—you’re going to shoot someone by accident. Come on, help him up! Go on in front with him, and I’ll help Paul."

They would take him back now. He had almost escaped, and they had prevented it, reshaped his future. The responsibility was staggering. Should she have followed him here? Had she just condemned him?

Kurt leaned on Wish as he limped back down the trail. He didn’t look at Nina, and he didn’t try to take off into the forest. If he had, she might have let him go. She would never know. He went quietly, wiping his face on his shirt.