Dead Wrong (40 page)

“Mara?” he called.

He walked into the hall to the bathroom. The door was open, and the small room empty. He looked into each of the three bedrooms. All empty.

He stepped outside onto the deck and called her, his voice hanging over the clearing like a cloud. Nothing.

He went back inside, into the kitchen, down the steps into the basement, calling her name.

Damn. She’d gone off without him.

Back upstairs, he sat on the sofa while he put on his shoes and wondered how he expected to find her in these unfamiliar hills. Maybe with luck, he could find and follow her trail.

The fancy handle of the pretty handgun he’d been admiring the night before picked up the light that sparkled through the front window. He went into the bedroom and opened the drawer, took out the bullets he’d found there, and fully loaded the chamber. There’d been too much talk about bears and mountain lions. Hopefully, that would be the worst threat that lurked there in the hills.

You never went anyplace without backup.

Once outside, he stopped at the car, unlocked the glove box, and took out his Bureau-issued Sig Sauer, which he slid into the waistband of his jeans at the back. Aidan had no qualms about being a one-man search party, but he wasn’t going to be stupid about it. He’d carry the antique handgun, which was too big to fit anywhere but in his jeans pocket, and since he wasn’t sure just how tight the trigger was, he didn’t think carrying it in his pocket was a good idea.

A glance at his watch told him the sun hadn’t been up for long. Mara must have left the cabin at dawn to look for Spike.

Damn. She should have awakened him.

He stood in the clearing in front of the house where the road ended, wondering which way to go.

“Might as well flip a coin,” he muttered, and took the opposite path from the one they’d taken the night before.

Aidan hobbled slowly up the sloping ridge to the top and followed the trail through the trees, every once in a while stopping to call her name.

He stopped after twenty minutes, hoping to ease the throb in his leg. His hip was bothering him now, too, the result of climbing over the uneven terrain. It didn’t bode well for his chances of ever serving the Bureau in full capacity again. He was wondering if maybe he should think about another line of work, when he reached the topmost portion of the ridge. From the narrow valley below, he heard voices. He crept to the edge of a huge boulder and looked down.

For a moment, he thought his heart had stopped beating.

In the clearing fifteen feet away stood Curtis Channing, holding a knife to the throat of a pale and shaking Mara. Aidan could not make out the words Channing spoke, but the tone was taunting.

“I’d trust you with my life. . . . ,”
she’d told Aidan.

Kneeling slowly, Aidan swore that Mara would walk away from this alive, even if it cost him his own life.

He transferred the gun into his left hand, cursing himself for not having gotten out to the range to practice, and prayed that he could still hit his mark with his nondominant hand.

“Let her go, Channing.”

Curtis Channing looked up calmly, as if Aidan had been expected all along.

“Who are you kidding?” He sneered. “You’re not going to fire that pistol. You’ll hit your girlfriend before you hit me. I think I have the advantage here, Mr. FBI. I have the girl, and I am—please take notice here—holding a knife to her throat. If you think I won’t use it, you’ll be terribly, regrettably wrong.”

He turned Mara’s body abruptly so that the sunlight filtering through the trees bounced off the blade.

“So this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to slide that gun right down here to me. No, don’t throw it, slide it, right down the rock there.”

When Aidan hesitated, Channing laughed. “Please don’t think to be a hero. I will kill her. It’s not the way I’d planned—I was looking forward to many pleasurable hours in the lady’s company. After all I went through to have her, well, I guess you know that I want to make it worth my while. But if I have to kill her here, and quickly, well, I’ll do what I have to do. Your choice, Mr. FBI. Your choice.”

Aidan stepped to the edge of the ravine and slid the old pistol down the rock, just as he’d been told.

“That was the right choice.” Channing nodded and bent to pick up the gun, his eyes never leaving Aidan. “Now, if you’ll just stand a little straighter, I’d like to do this cleanly, with one shot—”

In a blink, Aidan had flattened out on the rock, his Sig Sauer in his hand.

“Oh, for crying out loud. Why did you do that?” Channing laughed again. “What’s the point? I have a gun and the girl. You don’t put the gun down, I shoot her. Then I shoot you. Either way, you lose.”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?” Channing’s eyes narrowed.

“Mine is fully loaded. Yours only has one bullet.” Aidan spoke calmly.

Channing frowned. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Well, if you know anything about antique handguns, you’d know that many of them only take one shot at a time.” No need to tell him that the gun had been fitted with modern chambers. “Not to mention that they are highly inaccurate, except maybe for a marksman. And we know that you do your best work with a knife, right? So you just go ahead and take your best shot. But if you miss, you’re a dead man. So anyway I look at it, I win.”

“It’ll take only one bullet to kill her. You’d take the chance that I’d shoot her?”

“You’ll be dead before she hits the ground.”

“Well, then. This is an interesting scenario. . . .” Channing mused.

“Just drop the gun, let the girl go.”

“And then what? You’ll take me in? Make the big collar? Isn’t that what you law enforcement types say?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“I don’t see that you have a whole lot of options, Channing. You can die here, or I’ll take you in and you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison. But, hey, maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll put you in with your buddy, Vince Giordano.”

“Who?”

“Oh, come on, Channing. By the way, how did he get you to do his killing for him? What’s in it for you, anyway? What was the deal you made with Vincent Giordano?”

Channing smirked. “Never heard of him.”

“Now, we both know you’re lying—and not doing a particularly good job of it, I might add. Why would you be willing to go to prison—for the rest of your natural life or until they execute you—for the sake of slime like Giordano? I’d had you pegged as smarter than that.”

Aidan stared down at Channing, saw how the killer’s eyes flickered uncertainly.

“And you know, they’re gonna love you in prison, Channing. Now, I know you’ve never served any real time, so you don’t know what to expect. I can enlighten you, if you want.”

“Don’t bother trying to scare me with all that talk of prison rapes and solitary confinement. I can take care of myself. And I’m not afraid of being alone. But I gotta tell you, I admire your chutzpah. I really do. You got balls, Mr. FBI. You sure do.”

Channing raised the pistol and placed it to Mara’s temple.

“But are you bluffing?” He met Aidan’s eyes. “Shall I call your bluff, Mr. FBI?”

“Let her go, Curtis,” Aidan said softly.

“I can’t do that.”

“Channing, you know it’s over. There’s no way this can end well for you. This time, do the right thing. Let her go.”

Channing shook his head, but Aidan noticed that in spite of his bravado, the hand in which Channing held the pistol started to shake almost imperceptibly.

“Oh, hey, I almost forgot. Claire Channing sends her love.”

Channing visibly stiffened.

“She’s a lovely lady. You got lucky there.”

“When . . . when . . .”

“Oh, let’s see. Two days ago, was it, Mara?”

Mara nodded, her head jerking nervously.

“And you’ll be glad to know that she spoke glowingly of you. Isn’t that something? All these years, you haven’t kept in touch, but she still spoke so lovingly of you.”

Channing began to sweat. “Don’t . . .” he whispered.

“Oh, and she asked, if we found you, to let you know that your father died. Mr. Channing. He passed away a few years ago. She’d been hoping that you’d hear about it and come home to be with her. She still considers you her son, you know, but of course, she doesn’t really know you, does she? Not like we do. Now, how do you suppose she’s going to feel when she finds out you’ve been murdering women for . . . how many years has it been?”

Channing stood like a statue, Mara gathered close to him in his left arm, the pistol still in his right hand, the barrel to her temple.

“Yeah, she is going to be heartbroken, don’t you think? She told us how she and her husband wanted so badly to make things right for you, after you came to live with them. How they did all that they could to help you. They sure did love you, didn’t they? They never saw that ugly thing growing inside you. Not that they’d have believed it anyway, you know? Parents are like that. From everything she told us, it sure seems like they tried to be good parents to you. Tried to give you a good home, tried to make up to you for everything that had happened. Guess they didn’t try hard enough . . .”

“Don’t say that. It wasn’t their fault.” Channing’s voice was strained, gravely. “They did their best. . . .”

“Well, this was just a case of the best not being good enough, right? I mean, look how you turned out. . . .”

Aidan lowered his voice slightly. “You know, maybe this is all their fault. That could be part of your defense, Channing. If they’d tried harder, maybe none of this would have happened. Even in spite of all that your real mother did to you, if the Channings had done a better job, maybe they could have made up for all that.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t . . . say . . . that.”

“Well, it hardly matters now, right? I mean, either way, that woman’s heart is going to be broken, don’t you think? Here, she thinks you’ve grown up just fine, and you are . . . well, what you are. Going to be real hard for her to deal with that, to know that she failed you. She tried so hard, loved you so much, and all for nothing.”

Channing swallowed hard, the gun in his hand wavering.

“Boy, I wouldn’t want to be you, Channing. Having to look that wonderful woman in the eye when she finds out what you are. What you’ve done . . .”

“Don’t . . .” Channing licked his lips.

“When she realizes what a coward you are. That you hid behind a woman, even when you knew it was over for you. And it is over, Channing. It ends here.” Aidan’s eyes never left Channing’s. “How do you think she’s going to feel? I hope the shock doesn’t kill her. That would be real tragic.”

“Stop . . .” Channing’s voice was all but inaudible.

“How are you going to look her in the eye, Channing? Personally, that would be the toughest thing for me, if she had raised me, thinking she’d done a good job and all, and I’d turned out to be . . . well, what you are. But I guess that’s not going to bother you, to look that sweet lady in the eye, knowing that she still loves you so much. She’ll blame herself, though, don’t you think? Mothers always seem to blame themselves for everything, don’t they?”

“It’s not her fault. . . .” Channing’s voice was quivering.

Aidan kept his eyes on the gun that was still dangerously close to Mara’s head, Channing’s finger still on the trigger. Who knew what it would take to set it off? But Aidan had no choice. He had to keep talking. It was the only chance Mara had.

“I’d trust you with my life. . . .”

Aidan took a deep breath and forced his voice to remain calm, not for one second forgetting what was at stake.

“Now, you know what’s going to happen here, don’t you? You shoot your one bullet off, I can take you out in the blink of a eye. But right now, I’m thinking that the thing to do is to blast your kneecaps off, keep you alive—painful though that will be—so that we can bring you to trial. Shame for Mrs. Channing to have to go through all that, though, isn’t it? And you know she’ll stand by you. Probably come out here for the trial to be with you. That’s the kind of woman she is, don’t you agree? She really loved you the way a mother is supposed to love her son.” Aidan shook his head sadly. “And you know, this is going to kill her. She’s probably going to be called to testify, too, you know. At your trial. How do you think she’ll hold up under all that? Hell of a way to repay that good woman for all she tried to do for you.”