The Winner

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  The rain had finally slackened off but the spring showers were far from over. LuAnn had tacked up a blanket over the shattered window of the cottage. Riggs had turned the heat fully on and it was comfortable enough. The remnants of a meal rested on the kitchen sink. Riggs eyed the stains on the dining room floor. His blood. Charlie and Riggs had pulled mattresses down from the upstairs bedroom and laid them out on the floor. They had decided the cottage was the best place to spend the night. Charlie and Riggs had argued with LuAnn for hours trying to change her mind. Finally, she said they could call the FBI in the morning before she called Jackson. It was possible the FBI could trace the call. That had appeased the men enough that they agreed to let LuAnn keep the first watch. Riggs would relieve her in two hours.

  Exhausted, both men soon began snoring deeply. LuAnn stood with her back to the window and silently observed them. She looked at her watch; it was after midnight. She made sure her gun was loaded, then she knelt next to Charlie and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. He barely moved.

  She moved over to Riggs and watched the even rise and fall of his chest. Brushing the hair out of his eyes, she watched him a while longer. She knew the odds were not good that she would ever see either man again. She kissed him gently on the lips and then rose. For one long moment she leaned back against the wall, taking deep breaths as everything she was confronted with threatened to simply overwhelm her.

  Then she was on the move again, climbing through the window to avoid the squeaky front door. She put up her hood against the fine rain falling. Ignoring the car and the unavoidable noise it would make, she went to the shed and opened the door. Joy was still there. LuAnn had forgotten to call anyone to come get the horse; however, the shed was dry and warm and there was still water and hay left. She quickly saddled the animal and swung onto Joy’s back. Easing her out of the shed, they made it to the woods with scarcely any noise.

  When she reached the edge of her property, she dismounted and led Joy back to the horse barn. She hesitated for a moment and then she took the binoculars off the wall, edged through the thick brush, and set up surveillance in a narrow break in the tree line, exactly where Riggs had earlier. She scanned the rear of the house. She jerked back as a car’s headlights glinted off the binoculars. The car pulled around to the garage side, but the garage doors didn’t budge. As LuAnn watched, a man got out of the car and walked around the rear of the house as if on patrol. Under the rear floods, LuAnn could see the FBI insignia emblazoned on his windbreaker. Then the man got back in the car and it pulled off.

  LuAnn broke from the trees and raced across the open ground. She made it to the side of the house in time to see the car head back down the private drive toward the main road, the one where she had fled from Donovan, the encounter that had started this whole nightmare. The FBI was guarding the entrance to her home. She suddenly remembered that Riggs had mentioned that to her during his conversation with Masters. She would have dearly loved to have enlisted the agents’ very able assistance, but they no doubt would have arrested her on the spot. Yet fear of arrest wasn’t the chief factor. She simply refused to involve anyone else in her problems. No one else was going to be stabbed or killed because of her. Jackson wanted her and only her. She knew he expected her to walk meekly to him, to receive her punishment in exchange for her daughter’s release. Well, in this case, he was going to get more than he wanted. A lot more. She and Lisa were going to survive this. He wasn’t.

  As she started to head back to the rear of the house, she noticed something else. Sally Beecham’s car out front. That puzzled her. She shrugged and went around to the rear door.

  The sound she had heard in the background during Jackson’s call to her was what had brought her here. The absolutely unique sounds of the old clock, the family heirloom, passed down to her from her mother, the very same one LuAnn had diligently refused ever to part with. It had proved to be the most valuable possession she had because she had heard it in the background during her phone conversation with Jackson.

  Jackson had been in her house, had called from her house. And LuAnn was absolutely convinced that Lisa was there now. Jackson was here too, she knew. LuAnn had to admire the man’s nerve, to come here, with the FBI waiting just down the road. In a very few minutes, she would come face-to-face with her worst nightmare.

  She pressed herself flat against the brick wall and peered in the side door, squinting hard through the pane of glass to see if the alarm light that was visible from this point was red or green. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she saw the friendly green. She knew the code to disarm it of course, but disarming it would produce one shrill beep that might jeopardize everything.

  LuAnn inserted her key in the lock and slowly opened the door. She paused for a minute; the gun she held made quick, darting movements all around. She heard nothing. It was well past midnight now so that wasn’t so surprising. Something was bothering her, however.

  Being back in her own house should have brought some comfort to her, but it didn’t. If anything it was close to unnerving. Letting her guard down now, letting herself be lulled by the familiarity of the surroundings, could easily result in her and Lisa’s not being around to see the sun come up.

  She continued down the hallway and then froze. She heard voices clearly. Several people; she recognized none of them. She slowly let out her breath as the music from a commercial came on. Someone was watching TV. A glint of light came from a doorway at the end of the hallway. LuAnn quietly moved forward, stopping right before her shadow would pass across the small opening between door and wall. She listened for a few seconds more. Then she edged open the door with her left hand as she pointed her gun through the opening with her right. The door swung silently inward and LuAnn leaned in. The room was dark, the only light coming from the TV. What she saw next made her freeze once again. The dark hair, cut short around the neck and built high up in the form of a modified beehive, was directly in front of her. Sally Beecham was in her bedroom watching TV. Or was she? She was sitting so still that LuAnn couldn’t tell if she was alive or not.

  For an instant: the image of LuAnn threading her way through that trailer ten years ago, spotting Duane on the couch. Going toward him, walking right up to him. And seeing him turn, turn so slowly toward her, the blood all over his chest, his face as gray as a Navy ship. And watching him fall off that couch, dying. And then the hand clamping over her mouth from behind. From behind!

  She whirled but there was no one there; however, her abrupt movements had made some noise. When she looked back Sally Beecham was staring at her with horror in her eyes. When she recognized LuAnn she seemed to catch her breath. A hand fluttered up to her chest, which was heaving.

  She started to say something, but LuAnn put a finger up to her lips and whispered, “Shh.”

  “There’s someone here,” LuAnn said. Sally looked confused. “Have you seen anyone here?” Sally shook her head and pointed to herself, the worry lines sprouting all over her ghastly pale face.

  And that’s when it hit LuAnn, and her own face went pale.

  Sally Beecham never parked in front of the house. She always parked in the garage which led directly into the kitchen. LuAnn’s hand tightened on the gun. She looked at the face again. It was hard to tell in the dark light, but she wasn’t taking any chances. “I’ll tell you what, Sally. I want you to get in the kitchen pantry and I’m going to lock you in. Just to be safe.”

  LuAnn watched as the eyes darted over her face. Then one of the hands started to move behind the woman’s back.

  LuAnn thrust the gun forward. “And we’re going to do it right now or I’ll shoot you right here. And pull out the gun, butt-first.”

  When the pistol emerged, LuAnn motioned to the floor. The gun clunked when it hit the hardwood.

  When the person moved in front of LuAnn, LuAnn quickly reached out and jerked the wig off, revealing the man. He had short, dark hair. He jerked around for an instant, but LuA
nn shoved the gun in his ear.

  “Move, Mr. Jackson! Or should I say, Mr. Crane?” She had no false hopes as to the fate of Sally Beecham, but with everything else confronting her, LuAnn did not have the opportunity to dwell on it. She hoped she would have the chance to grieve for the woman.

  When they reached the kitchen, LuAnn shoved him inside the pantry and locked the door from the outside. The door was an original from the house, solid oak, three inches thick with a deadbolt. It would hold him. At least for a while. She didn’t need long.

  She raced to the end of the hallway and flew up the carpeted stairs. LuAnn made her way from door to door. She was fairly certain that Lisa was in her mother’s bedroom but she couldn’t take any chances. Her eyes had adjusted well to the darkness and she quickly surveyed room after room. All empty. She went on. There was only one more bedroom left: hers. LuAnn willed her hearing to the highest possible acuity. All she wanted to hear was Lisa sighing, mumbling, breathing, anything to let her mother know she was okay. She couldn’t call out, that was too dangerous. She recalled that Jackson now had someone with him. Where was that person?

  She reached the door, slid her hand around the doorknob, took a deep breath, and turned it.

  A long bolt of lightning cut across the sky, followed by a deafening clap of thunder. At the same instant, the blanket was blown off the window and rain started coming in. The combination of these events finally woke Riggs. He sat up, disoriented for a moment, and then looked around. He saw the open window, the wind and rain coming through. He glanced over at Charlie, who was still sleeping. Then it hit him.

  He staggered up. “LuAnn? LuAnn?” His cries roused Charlie.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  In a minute they had searched the small cottage.

  “She’s not here,” he screamed to Charlie.

  They both raced outside. The car was still there. Riggs looked around bewildered.

  “LuAnn,” Charlie screamed over the sounds of the storm.

  Riggs looked over at the shed. The doors were open. It hit him. He raced over and looked in the empty shed. He looked down at the mud in front of the shed. Even in the darkness, he could make out the hoof prints. He followed the tracks to the edge of the woods. Charlie ran up beside him.

  “Joy was in the shed,” he told Charlie. “It looks like she’s gone back to the house.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  Riggs thought hard for a minute. “Were you surprised she agreed to finally calling the FBI tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” Charlie said, “but I was too damn tired and too relieved to think much about it.”

  “Why would she go to the house?” Riggs repeated Charlie’s question. “The FBI is guarding the place. What would be there that she’d take that sort of risk?”

  Charlie went pale and he staggered slightly.

  “What is it, Charlie?”

  “LuAnn once told me something Jackson had told her. A rule he lived by.”

  “What was it?” Riggs demanded.

  “If you want to hide something, put it out in plain sight because no one would see it.”

  Now it was Riggs’s turn to go pale as the truth hit him. “Lisa’s at the house.”

  “And so is Jackson.”

  They raced to the car.

  As the sedan flew down the road Riggs picked up the portable phone. He dialed the police and then the local FBI. He was shocked to hear Masters’s voice come on the line.

  “He’s here, George. Crane’s at Wicken’s Hunt. Bring everything you got.” Riggs heard the phone drop to the desk and footsteps running off. Then he clicked off the phone and floored the car.

  As the door swung open, LuAnn darted into the room. Smack in the center was a chair and in that chair was Lisa, slumped over, exhausted. The next sound LuAnn heard was the labored ticking of that clock, that wonderful, beautiful clock. She closed the door behind her and ran to her daughter, hugged her. Her face dissolved into a big smile when her daughter’s eyes met her mother’s.

  And then a loop of thick cord was around LuAnn’s neck, was pulled tight, and LuAnn’s breath was suddenly gone; her gun fell to the floor.

  Lisa screamed and screamed in agonizing silence, the tape still tightly across her mouth. She kicked at her chair, trying to topple it over, trying to reach her mother, help her in some way before this man killed her.

  Jackson was fully behind LuAnn now. He had watched from the darkness next to the dresser as LuAnn had sailed toward Lisa, oblivious to his presence in the room. Then he had struck. The cord had a piece of wood attached to it and Jackson was winding it tighter and tighter. LuAnn’s face was turning blue, her senses were slipping away as the cord dug deeply into the skin of her neck. She tried to punch him but it was too awkward, her fists flailed helplessly, sapping away what remaining strength she had. She kicked at him, but he was too quick and dodged those blows as well. She dug at the rope with her strong fingers but it was so imbedded in her skin that there was no space left to get a grip.

  He whispered into her ear. “Tick-tock, LuAnn. Tick-tock of the little clock. Like a magnet, it led you right to me. I held the phone right next to it so you couldn’t help but hear it. I told you I find out everything about someone I do business with. I visited your trailer in good old Rikersville. I listened to the rather unique sounds of that timepiece several times. And then seeing it on the wall of the bedroom the night I first visited you. Your little, cheap family heirloom.” He laughed. “I would have loved to have seen your face when you thought you had outsmarted me. Was it a happy face, LuAnn? Was it?”

  Jackson’s smile deepened as he felt her giving way, her vaunted strength almost gone. “Now don’t forget your daughter. There she is.” He hit a light switch and swung her around violently so that she could see Lisa reaching for her. “She’ll watch you die, LuAnn. And then it will be her turn. You cost me a family member. Someone I loved. How does it feel to be responsible for her death?” He yanked on the cord harder and harder. “Die, LuAnn. Just give in to it. Close your eyes and just stop breathing. Just do it. It’s so easy. Just do it. Do it for me. You know you want to,” he hissed.

  LuAnn’s eyes were close to erupting out of their sockets now, her lungs almost dead. She felt like she was deep under water; she would give anything to take one breath, just one long drink of air. As LuAnn listened to those taunting words she was swept back to a graveyard, to a plot of dirt, to a small brass marker in the ground many years ago. Exactly where she was heading. Do it for Big Daddy, LuAnn. It’s so easy. Come and see Big Daddy. You know you want to.

  From the corner of her blood-filled right eye she could barely see Lisa silently screaming for her mother, reaching for her across a chasm that was barely seconds from becoming eternal. At that very moment and from a place so deep that LuAnn never even knew she possessed it, there came a rush of strength so unbelievably powerful that it almost knocked her over. With a shriek, LuAnn jerked upright and then bent forward, lifting an astonished Jackson completely off the floor in the process. She clamped her arms around his legs so that she was carrying him piggyback style. Then she exploded backward, her legs pumping like a long jumper about to erupt into flight until she slammed Jackson violently into the heavy dresser against the wall. The sharp wooden edge caught him dead on the spine.

  He screamed in pain but hung on to the cord. LuAnn reached up and dug her fingernails right into the recent wound on his hand — the one from the fight at the cottage — tearing the cut wide open. Jackson screamed again and this time he let go of the cord. Feeling the rope go lax, LuAnn whipped her torso forward and Jackson went flying over her shoulders and crashing into a mirror hanging on the wall.

  LuAnn staggered drunkenly around in the middle of the room sucking in huge amounts of air. She reached up to her throat and pulled off the cord. Then her eyes settled dead center on the man.

  Jackson grabbed at his injured back and struggled to stand up. It was too little too late, as with a guttural scream LuAn
n pounced. She flattened him to the floor and pinned him there. Her legs clamped against his, immobilizing them. Her hands encircled his throat and now his face started to turn blue. The grip he felt against his throat was ten times as strong as the one he had battled on the cottage porch. He looked into her blood-filled eyes, red with burst capillaries from her near strangling, and he knew there was no way he could ever break her choke hold. His hands groped the floor as she continued to squeeze the life out of him. A series of visions proceeded across his mind, but there was no rush of strength to accompany it. His body started to go limp. His eyes rolled in their sockets, his neck constricted to the breaking point under the ever increasing pressure. His fingers finally closed around a bit of glass from the shattered mirror and held. He swung it upward, catching her in the arm and cutting through her clothing and into her skin. She didn’t release her grip. He cut her again and then again but to no avail. She was beyond pain; she would simply not let go.

  Finally, with the last bit of strength he had left, his fingers felt under her arm and he pressed as hard as he could. Suddenly, LuAnn’s arms went dead as Jackson found the pressure point and her grip was abruptly broken. In an instant he had pushed her off and sprinted across the room, gasping for breath.

  LuAnn watched in horror as he grabbed Lisa’s chair and dragged it across the room to the window. She got to her feet, flying toward them. She knew exactly what he was going to do, but damn if she was going to let him do it. He was lifting the chair and Lisa with it, and LuAnn dove for it, her hand closing around her daughter’s leg as the chair smashed against the window that overlooked the brick patio almost thirty feet below. LuAnn and Lisa crashed to the floor amid the shattered glass.

  Jackson tried to snatch up her gun but LuAnn was one step ahead of him. LuAnn’s leg flew up and caught Jackson, who had strayed a little too close, directly in the crotch. He bent down, groaning. She jumped up and landed a powerful right hand squarely against Jackson’s chin. He went down to the floor.

  In the distance they all heard the police sirens coming. Jackson swore under his breath, picked himself up, and, clutching his privates, raced through the doorway.

  LuAnn let him go, slamming and locking the door behind him. Screaming and crying in relief, she gently pulled off the tape and undid the ropes holding Lisa. Mother and daughter held each other tightly. LuAnn clutched at Lisa’s body, she pushed her face in Lisa’s hair, her nose drank in every wonderful smell of her little girl. Then LuAnn stood and picked up her gun and fired two shots out the window.