___________________________
It is said, that in the moment before we die, our life flashes before our eyes. Mine didn’t. I was too busy cursing myself for being so damn stupid.
Miraculously, Engel’s weight lifted.
I twisted my face sideways out of the mud and sucked in precious air. I coughed and spluttered and blinked to see Engel taking off again. The world was on its side, cracked. Through streaming eyes I saw him sprint across the vertical backyard and disappear down the side of the horizontal house.
Only two shells in the shotgun, I realized.
Had Engel loaded three, I’d be dead right now.
I scrambled to my feet, wiped cold slush from my face, and gave chase.
Sucker for punishment.
___________________________
Who really knows why people react the way they do?
I clattered down the side of the house, almost losing my footing in my haste, almost going down again face-first. I had no idea why Engel was making a bolt for it. He could have simply retreated into his workshop, rolled down the shutter and battened down the hatches. He had the place shored up like Fort Knox. There was little chance of a heavily-armed SWAT team breaking their way in, let alone an unarmed me.
I came round the front of the house. Engel was already out on the jetty. He wasn’t alone, I saw. Locklear was blocking Engel’s escape route. They were deep in a heated exchange. Looked like Locklear was pleading with Engel to desist and see sense. I ran on bendy legs toward the beach. Saw Engel heft the 12-gauge and slam the butt into Locklear’s stomach. The Kodiak cop folded like a bad hand of poker and crashed to the deck. His furry ushanka rolled across the timbers like roadkill.
I hammered down the gravel track and leapt onto the jetty, sliding onto the boards in the same instant Engel leapt onto the back of his motor yacht. Locklear was writhing round on the full width of the planking, struggling to breathe. My footfalls echoed as I ran toward him. The twin engines on the cruiser spun into life. The boat started to creep away from the dock, kicking up frothy white plumes behind it. I went to hurdle Locklear and take my chances making a jump for it, but Locklear was reaching up with a desperate hand, his panicked face sucked in like a popped balloon. Engel’s strike had knocked the wind out of him, good and proper. The distraction was enough to allow the gap between the yacht and the jetty to widen beyond the point of a successful leap, and I came to a slippery halt.
The motor yacht picked up speed and took off.
I rolled Locklear into a crouched position. Held on to him until his stunned diaphragm rebooted. Watched as the cruiser roared away into the night, disappearing within seconds. Sounded like it was heading east at an increasing rate of knots. I tried to follow it with my eyes, but it was impossible. I did spy something else, though. Something f
ar out across the bay
. Something higher, in the air. It was a
n intense white dot, glowing brighter and bigger by the second. Smaller green and red points becoming visible with it.
“That’ll be the US Coast Guard helicopter, out of Kodiak,” Locklear wheezed.
I sat him up and patted his back. “You okay, Locklear?”
He shook himself. “Only thing wounded is my pride.”
“I can’t believe that crazy old son of a bitch slugged you. What did he say?”
“Nothing, except for me to get the hell out of his way.” Locklear pushed himself to his feet. He trudged over to his hat and scooped it up.
“What the hell was he thinking?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him behave that way before. Looked like the devil was after him. What happened back there?”
“Aside from a mess? Engel must have thought I was an intruder and tried to fill me with buckshot. When that didn’t work out, he hightailed it. What I find harder to understand is why he didn’t stop the second he realized you were with me.”
Locklear made a
to hell if I know
face.
I mirrored it with one of my own.
The recognizable roar of rotor blades began to rip across the bay. Rumbling off the nearby cliffs. The intense white dot had grown into a powerful searchlight, lancing through the dark. Within seconds, a red Dolphin helicopter came into view, fifty feet up, coming right at us across swirling water, the din of its turbine completely drowning out Engel’s trance music. The searchlight swept suddenly along the jetty, then dazzled our eyes. A second later, the whole pier shook as the chopper thundered by overhead. Snow and ice rose in its wake. The Dolphin pivoted on a dime, then settled onto the beach, sending more snow aloft.
I braced myself against the fierce downdraft and worked my way off the jetty. Locklear was tight on my heels, holding onto his hat.
A hatch popped open. A woman in a parka jumped out. She stooped her way across the shingle toward us. Mahogany hair blustering like windswept flames. She looked about ready to punch someone. Probably me.
“Glad to see y’all having a regular beach party while I run my sweet ass off doing all the legwork round here,” she shouted.
“Rae, I can explain.”
“Save it, Gabe. There’s been a development. We’ve had a hit on Cornsilk’s credit card. He used it to book a seat on a flight to LAX. We have less than five hours before it lands in LA. This is our best chance to grab him before he disappears on the mainland. We need to go. Now.”
I didn’t need telling twice.
___________________________
The Coast Guard helicopter leapt vertically into the night sky, taking us with it. My stomach followed a second later.
Rae and I were seated opposite each other, knees touching in the cramped space. Everything shaking noisily. Everything rattling, including me. Rae was doing everything to snare my gaze while I was doing everything to avoid it. The flight technician checked our safety harnesses and gave a thumbs-up. The chopper swung dangerously low over Engel’s brightly-lit house, gusting snow off the roof, then began hurtling inland.
“How’d you know where to find me, Rae?” I shouted above the roar of the engine.
“I tracked your cell phone’s GPS signal,” she shouted back. “You know, Gabe, it’s really impolite not to pick up when a girl calls. I’ve been trying your number constantly since you scooted.”
“I’m sorry, Rae. I had it on silent. It’s just that . . .”
“What? Don’t go giving me any more bullshit, Gabe. I’ve had it with you. I mean it. No more running round like a chicken with its head cut off. You owe me an explanation for disappearing back there like that.” She leaned forward and nudged my knee. “I’m serious. Right now you’re scaring the bejesus out of me. Whatever this is, we’re in it together. We’re partners, don’t forget. I have your back. I need to know you have mine.”
“I do.”
“So level with me.”
I had a hornet in my mouth. A whole nest of them in my stomach. Rae could see it. She could see the turmoil churning behind my taut expression. She knew there was something terribly wrong. And I knew she wouldn’t let up until I let her in.
Strangely, I wanted to.
I reached into my pocket and drew out the photograph burning a hole in it. Passed it over.
Rae’s eyes narrowed. “The photograph from Westbrook’s lockbox?”
It was still inside its plastic envelope. She took it from my hand and examined the picture. I saw her brow crease and her freckles try to flee her face.
“What is this?”
I said nothing.
She turned it over and read the words scrawled on the back, glanced up, “This makes about as much sense as a trapdoor in a canoe. Is this for real?”
I nodded, tightly.
“I don’t understand. Why would Westbrook have this photo, of all things?”
Still, I said nothing. The truth had me gagged.
Freezing mist was streaming past the hatch window, illuminated in the navigation lights. I could feel it thumping at the fuselage. Knew that it would take just a second or two to pop my buckle, open the hatch and let the fog swallow me up.
Then what?
A death fall to the craggy peaks below.
I fixed my gloomy gaze back on Rae and saw the penny drop behind her eyes. Saw the color drain from her face. Rae had seen enough of life to know that not everything came with a money-back guarantee.
“This is bullshit,” she breathed.
“No,” I said.
“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe this.” She waved the photograph at me. Tears were beginning to pool in her eyes, magnifying her pupils.
“I can’t change what it is, Rae.” My voice was hoarse, split with upset. “It’s the real deal. No matter which way you cut it.”
The five-by-seven color print was the picture of a woman and a young boy. The woman looked around thirtyish. The boy looked about five or maybe six. They were hugging. Smiling. Looked deliriously happy.
Were
deliriously happy. Not a care in the world, happy. A snapshot of pure mother-and-son love, frozen in time.
It had been taken on a day trip to the zoo on a bright, tee-shirts-and-shorts summer’s day. One of those vibrant Technicolor days that sticks in the memory, like a fly in amber.
I knew all about it because I’d had one just like it.
A long time ago.
The same one, in fact.
A tear trickled down Rae’s cheek. “Gabe, you need to explain this to me right now. Why does Westbrook have a photo of your wife and son in his possession?”
The truth will always come out.
“Because Westbrook isn’t his real name, Rae. It’s an alias. A dead cop’s stolen identity. Nathan Westbrook is a cover for The Undertaker. And The Undertaker is my boy. Westbrook is George. He’s my son.”
___________________________
I’d taken George to Alaska for his thirteenth birthday.
Just the two of us.
Father and son, pitted against the elements and play-acting old-world pioneers. A coming-of-age for both of us, out in the wilds.
Seemed like a lifetime ago.
Someone else’s.
We’d spent a short but memorable week on Kodiak Island, scouring the narrow rocky beaches around Alitak Bay. Exploring the many inlets and rivers, searching out brown bear, then running a mile when we’d spotted one.
Amid our adventures, George had spent long hours sitting by the water, by himself, watching the reflections of clouds scudding across the bay. Spent an equal amount of time inspecting the configurations of rocks and pebbles making up the shoreline. Come to think of it, I’d never seen him more content, before or after. The remoteness somehow complimenting his own.
For me, our Alaska trip had been a chance to spend a week of quality time with my son, to make up for years of my job taking priority. For him, it had been a means to prove his worthiness – not to me – to himself and especially to the untamed world.
We’d both returned home irreversibly changed. Me, with a little more fearful insight into my son’s introversion. George, with both feet planted firmly in men’s boots.
Tears were tumbling down Rae’s cheeks. “George is The Undertaker?”
It seemed unthinkable,
was
unthinkable – that the little boy she’d once known had grown into a killer.
But every killer starts out as a child. And no parent knows for sure if theirs will be the one.
I waited for the flight tech to look the other way. He had a headset on, but I didn’t want him eavesdropping. I’d known all along I’d have to come clean with Rae about George and our terrible family secret. Never like this, though. Not so soon.
“I told you: Cornsilk is obsessed with payback. His main goal is to kill me and The Undertaker. Westbrook is The Undertaker. And The Undertaker is an alias for George. Somehow Cornsilk found out he was using Westbrook’s identity and followed him out here. He overpowered him and left him burning like a beacon on that isolated beach. Why else would Westbrook have a picture of Hope and my son, with the words
Momma & Me
written on the reverse, unless he and Westbrook were one and the same?” I didn’t hold back. I’d never spoken those words to anyone out loud before. Not even to myself. It should have felt awkward. It didn’t.
Rae was staring at me like someone who had just been told something bad had shown up on a scan and it needed taking out. I saw implications impinge on her world. Felt bad for her.
“Who else knows?”
There were only two people that I was aware of in the whole wide world who knew with absolute certainty the true identity of
The Undertaker
. I was one and Cornsilk wasn’t the other. Even though Cornsilk had killed
The Undertaker
, in his eyes he’d killed Westbrook. Not George.
“Mason Stone. That’s about it.”
It took her the whole of two seconds to put together everything she knew about
The Undertaker
, about me, about my son and about how I’d ended up in the asylum. Didn’t make for light reading. Didn’t repulse her. Instead, she popped the buckle on her safety harness and threw her arms around me. The flight technician went to intervene, but she shook him off. Pressed her damp cheek against mine. Clung on. I felt hot breath against my ear. Felt her body quake as she squeezed me hard.
“I am so sorry,” she breathed. “It must have been awful for you. A living nightmare. You should have told me.”
“I couldn’t.” It was the squeak of a mouse, of a coward. Another lie. I squeezed her back, but I felt like a fraud.
Truth was, I had plenty of people in my life who cared about me – Eleanor, Sonny, Grace, Celeste, plus a dozen others – people I could open up to if I really wanted it that way, to confide in. They would have listened, empathized with my situation, offered advice, probably encouraged me to turn my serial killer son in to the authorities. Let them handle it. But not one of them would have understood my reason for keeping George’s secret. Not sure if I did.
Rae was sobbing. Not for George, but for me. But I didn’t deserve her sympathy. My deadly intentions had gotten my son killed. There was no way back from that.
I clung on, letting her cry the tears I could no longer shed.
No matter how many times we go through the process of losing loved ones, it never gets any easier.
There is no manual for dealing with death.
No crash course for the cursed.
No way to shore up the mind, the heart or the soul against the emotional tsunami.
Each time the surge touches us, it is as cold and as cruel as its first contact.
Snakeskin had murdered my murderous boy.
And I hated myself.
Not for failing to prevent it, but for feeling relieved.