Authors: Nevada Barr

Boar Island (44 page)

“Bullshit.” Denise pressed the muzzle of the gun hard against Anna’s forehead. “Now I can’t miss.”

“Wait,” Anna begged desperately. “You pull the trigger, this close, and the report will deafen Olivia. Rupture her eardrums. She’ll be deaf as a post her whole life, and it will be all your fault.”

“Put your fingers in her ears,” Denise snarled.

“I can’t,” Anna said.

Denise glared at her. Turning suddenly, she yanked open the door and stormed out of the room. Through the open doorway all was in darkness until, about forty yards away, the overhead light in the SUV came on. Denise dove into the vehicle, only her legs sticking out.

Anna took the time to look around the room. The place was childproofed. Nothing that could be used as a weapon, even if she had use of her arms and hands, came to her attention.

A squawk made Anna’s heart lurch; then a voice called her number, then Artie’s. An NPS radio lay on the low table under the fake windows.

The caller was the superintendent. They’d discovered Olivia was missing. Panic vibrated in his voice. Anna had to stop herself from shouting that Olivia was okay, that she had her. Not only would Peter not hear, but Denise would be interrupted in whatever she was doing in the Volvo and hurry back to the shed.

Without fingers or even toes, pushing the
TALK
button on the side of the radio to reply would be an interesting exercise in ingenuity. Since that was Anna’s only option, she wriggled around until her back was to the radio and, shoving with her heels, began pushing herself along the rag rug an inch at a time toward the low table. “Sorry, Olivia,” Anna said as she managed to lever herself to her knees by bracing one elbow on the tiny chair by the crib. If she’d already killed Peter’s child, it wouldn’t matter. If she hadn’t, this wouldn’t be the fatal move.

Anna nosed the unit over to the wall, then pressed her chin as hard as she could into the
TALK
button. Maybe she depressed it a hair, maybe not; still she said, “Anna Pigeon, maybe near the Duffy house. Help!”

Denise banged back into the shed, slamming the door behind her. “Stupid bitch,” she hissed. In two strides she’d crossed the room. The radio was slapped onto the floor. “Sit.” Denise shoved Anna until she fell back against the wall and her rump slid down to the floor.

A pair of Bose earphones was in Denise’s free hand. She squatted beside Anna, then carefully settled the phones over the baby’s ears.

“There!” she said, standing. Snatching the gun out of the waistband of her pants, she pressed the muzzle to Anna’s temple. “This time, promise me you’ll die.”

Anna closed her eyes and wondered what a person was supposed to think at a time like this.

“Denise? Honey?” The door was pushed open. Paulette stood in the faint spill of lamplight, her pink scrubs as rumpled as pajamas in the morning. “My God!” She stepped in and closed the door behind her. “Denise, what are you doing? Put that gun down.” Her eyes on the baby, she stepped onto the rug in front of Anna. Dropping to her knees, she wailed, “No! You promised you wouldn’t take the baby.” She reached out as if she’d scoop it out of Anna’s tape-and-bone bassinet, then froze. “This isn’t the Frazier baby. Denise! What have you done?”

“She’s kidnapped Peter Barnes’s daughter, Olivia,” Anna said. “The baby is sick. It was in the hospital for observation.”

“Shut up!” Denise snarled.

“You’re dead!” Paulette exclaimed, noticing Anna for the first time.

“Yes I am,” Anna replied, wondering if it was true. “I’ve come back to save this child. If we don’t get her back to the hospital, she’ll die.”

“Olivia Barnes? The three-month-old admitted for a seizure? Denise, you said you were going to save a life!” She looked up at her twin accusingly.

“I did, Paulette,” Denise said, the gun lowered to her side. “I did. It was the only way. Lily, her mom, has Munchausen-by-proxy syndrome. She poisoned Olivia with ergotamine so she could go to the hospital and be the big hero. If we don’t get the baby away, eventually Lily will kill her.”

Paulette rocked back on her heels. “How could any mother … Oh, Denise! This is so awful. What can we do?”

“We have to get the baby and ourselves away from here, leave no hint to where we’ve gone, or that it was us who saved the baby,” Denise said.

Mood swings was an understatement; she sounded so rational, so believable, that for a second Anna wondered if it could be true. “Ergotamine,” Anna said suddenly. “How do you know the baby was poisoned with ergotamine?”

Paulette looked from her sister to Anna, then back to her sister. “The doctors didn’t know what made the baby sick,” Paulette said. Tears flooded her eyes. “Oh, Denise! You did it! You poisoned one of my babies. You …

“Help!” she screamed, scrambling to her feet. “Help! Somebody help me!” She reached the door and pulled it open.

The gun rose from Denise’s side, leveled on Paulette’s back.

“Gun!” Anna yelled because that’s what she’d been trained to do.

A flash of muzzle fire and a blast, so loud in the small room that it numbed Anna’s eardrums, shook the shed. Denise was turning, gun in hand. Before she could aim a second shot, Anna fell to her side, the baby affixed to her chest toppling with her, and whipped her legs out, knocking Denise’s feet from under her. The gun hit the floor and skittered to the center of the round rug.

Cursing, Denise crawled for it. Whiplashing her feet, Anna managed to kick the SIG Sauer. The pistol slid over and stopped against Paulette’s thigh. Paulette Duffy lay facedown, halfway in and halfway out of the nursery, a stain of blood blooming across the pink teddy bears on the back of her scrubs. There might have been life left in the woman, but Anna doubted it. The bullet had entered the left side of Paulette Duffy’s back below the shoulder blade near the spine. The heart had probably been next on its trajectory.

Denise followed the gun. Trying to beat her to it, though the gun was out of her reach now and, she expected, forever, Anna flipped open and shut like a broken jackknife, getting nowhere. No crying from the baby. She hoped she hadn’t smashed it.

Denise didn’t grab up the SIG Sauer. Coming to her knees beside her sister’s bleeding body, she covered her mouth with both hands. Moving in slow motion, she turned her head toward Anna. The hands floated down.

“What have I done?” she asked in a bewildered tone.

“You’ve killed your identical twin sister,” Anna said. “Shot her in the back.”

With a keening wail, Denise dragged Paulette up from the floor, cradling her in her lap. Denise’s newly blond hair fell over Paulette’s face, mingling with Paulette’s bleached mess until no difference could be seen between them. Identical noses close, one face in repose, the other in a rictus of grief, Denise’s tears dripped onto Paulette’s cheeks.

From somewhere in the room the radio crackled. “Anna … Duffy house … Roadblocks…” Anna’s message had gotten through.

Arms wrapped her around her sister, Denise began to rock. As if an invisible hand arrested her movement, she stopped suddenly. Misery blinked out, cheeks still awash with tears, Denise looked almost happy. Anna watched as her hand dipped into the pocket of Paulette’s smock. Pulling out an empty unused syringe, she held it up to the lantern light and smiled.

Using her teeth, Denise uncapped the needle. Thumb on the plunger, she jammed the needle into her carotid artery and ripped downward. Blood sprayed out in a crimson wave, then pulsed ever smaller fountains of red. The sisters’ blood mixed until both were dyed red with it and Anna couldn’t tell where Denise began and Paulette left off.

Sirens sounded in the distance. “Your daddy is coming,” Anna whispered to Olivia.

Expelling a sigh, Anna looked away from the tragedy clogging the door, her eyes moving to the painted sunlight through the fake windows.

There had been an instant, a moment in time, when Anna might have been able to say or do something that would have stopped Denise, saved her life.

But it would not have been a kindness.

A
LSO BY
N
EVADA
B
ARR

FICTION

Anna Pigeon Books

Destroyer Angel

The Rope

Burn

Borderline

Winter Study

Hard Truth

High Country

Flashback

Hunting Season

Blood Lure

Deep South

Liberty Falling

Blind Descent

Endangered Species

Firestorm

Ill Wind
(a.k.a.
Mountain of Bones
)

A Superior Death

Track of the Cat

OTHER NOVELS

Bittersweet

13½

NONFICTION

Seeking Enlightenment—Hat by Hat

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

NEVADA BARR
is a novelist, actor, and artist best known for her
New York Times
bestselling, award-winning novels featuring Anna Pigeon. A former National Park Service ranger, she currently lives New Orleans. You can sign up for email updates
here
.