Tess felt utterly used, drained, and helpless. Three times the whip had cracked, and three times she had felt the searing pain on her back. She heard Maureen crying somewhere behind her, begging the man to stop. But her own voice was silent. She didn’t have the strength. Not even enough to beg.
“How ya feeling there, sweetheart?” the leader asked. “Think you’re ready to dance the hokey-pokey with me yet?” A brief pause. “No? Well, here we go again.”
Tess heard the crack of the whip. Reflexively, her eyes clenched shut.
Wait a minute. That was something different. That wasn’t a whip. That was a gunshot. Somewhere behind her.
“All right, freeze!” The voice sounded mechanical, like it was coming through an electric bullhorn. “This is the sheriff. Nobody move.”
All at once, the seven masked men scrambled for cover. They moved in every which direction at once, diving into the nearest available brush.
“I said freeze!” The gun fired again, somewhere over their heads. An instant later, there was not a masked man in sight.
“Damn.” She heard the sound of movement. A few seconds later, Sheriff Allen came into view.
“They’re getting away,” Tess murmured.
“I know that, damn it,” he said. “But I think it’s more important that I get you folks some medical attention.” He glanced at her exposed back, then winced.
“Rick,” Tess whispered. It was still hard to muster the energy to speak. “He’s in bad shape.”
“Worse than you? Hell.” He jogged over to Rick, then saw the damage. “Damn. Damn!” He jiggled the cuffs pinning Rick to the tree. “I don’t suppose those boys gave you the keys?”
Rick didn’t respond. He didn’t appear to be conscious.
“Didn’t think so. I’ll be right back.” Allen darted off into the darkness.
About a minute later he returned, this time carrying a small hand axe. “Good thing I had this in my truck. Brace yourself.” He swung the axe around hard, severing the chain between the two handcuffs. Released, Rick tumbled to the ground.
“Thought that’d work,” Allen mumbled. “Cheap plastic cuffs, anyway.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Tess saw the sheriff heading in her direction. Thank God, she thought. Her arms ached with the thought of being released, of being free again. The nightmare had been real, but now, at last, it looked as if she was about to wake up.
Loving thought he was a goner; there was no way he could survive another blow from a baseball bat direct to his head. But just before the bat cracked his skull, Vincenzo hesitated.
Loving didn’t know why, and he wasn’t going to stop to ask, either. He rolled away, out from under Vincenzo, then pushed himself to his feet and ran. He felt embarrassed-like a damn chicken, but Vincenzo would’ve been a challenge for him even when circumstances were equal. When Vincenzo had a baseball bat and Loving was still recovering from a bad blow the night before, circumstances were hardly equal. The smartest thing he could do was run, so he did.
He raced down McKinley, hearing Vincenzo close behind him. He didn’t dare look; even a momentary decrease in his speed might be fatal. He rounded the corner, spiraling out onto Main, where he saw a patrol car heading his way. Thank heaven-who said you can’t find a policeman when you want one? Loving began flailing his arms, desperately trying to get the man’s attention.
The deputy driving pulled the car over to the side of the road. “What’s the trouble?”
“There’s a man following me with a baseball bat, that’s what. Trying to kill me.” Loving turned, but Vincenzo had disappeared. “He must’ve ducked down that alley. Don’t let him get away!”
The deputy jumped out of the car and pulled his weapon out of the holster. Loving and the deputy both headed down the street, Loving leading, the deputy close behind. They rounded the corner and ducked into the alleyway, not breaking their speed. Loving tried to look every which way at once, checking all the side alleys, the doors, the windows. Finally they made it back to the bench where this disaster had begun.
Vincenzo was gone. In the blink of an eye he had vanished. Like he’d never been here at all.
Loving saw the deputy looking at him quizzically. “He was here,” Loving said. “He was.”
It was then that Loving spotted it, tucked just behind the bench.
The baseball bat. The thick length of pine that had almost shattered Loving’s skull.
Vincenzo had left Loving something to remember him by.
Sheriff Allen took Tess, Maureen, and Rick to the Magic Valley Hospital. Tess’s wounds were washed and dressed. They were serious, and they hurt every time she moved. But there was no reason for her to remain in the hospital.
Rick was a different story altogether.
“This is a hell of an avocation you folks have,” Allen remarked. “Just when your one friend looks like he might get out of the hospital, your other friend is going in.”
The lacerations on Rick’s back were severe, traumatizing. He had regained consciousness, but he was unable to move, and the chance of infection was great. The doctors wanted him to remain under observation, at least for a few days.
Once Rick was deep in the throes of Seconal sleep, Sheriff Allen escorted Maureen and Tess out of the hospital. He made the two women fill out a complaint, although he admitted the chances of tracking down their assailants, when they hadn’t seen any faces or recognized any voices, was remote.
Afterward, he took the two women back to their Jeep and helped pull it out of the ravine. Once it was back on the flat of the road, it seemed to work fine. It was banged up badly, but still operational.
Sheriff Allen bid them adieu. Maureen drove; Tess still had a hard time sitting up straight. About twenty minutes later, they pulled into the Green Rage camp.
Or what was left of it.
“Oh my God,” Maureen said breathlessly. “Oh, God.”
Tess couldn’t think of anything to add.
Their camp had been destroyed. The tents had been leveled, smashed to the ground. All their equipment, including Deirdre’s expensive scientific gear, had been smashed and destroyed. All their supplies had been dumped on the ground, ruined. Their clothes, books, and papers were strewn across the clearing. Some of their belongings had been burned. Tess saw all the pages of Deirdre’s extensive dendrochronology notes crumpled and strewn about the clearing. Everything had been ripped, broken, or destroyed.
Worst of all, there was no sign of life. Not Doc, not Deirdre, not Molly, not any of the rest of the Green Rage staff. They were gone.
Tess’s hand pressed against her mouth. After all they had been through-to come home to this. It was just too much, more than a person could bear.
Maureen’s face was steely and her eyes were dry. Tess knew she was struggling, forcing herself to maintain control.
“Well,” Maureen said evenly, “you warned us that the Cabal was planning some major retaliation. I guess tonight was the night.” Her face began to crumble. A cheek twitched, a shoulder shuddered. And then all at once she fell apart. She bent over, pressing her head against Tess’s shoulder. And she began to cry.
Tears streamed out of Maureen’s eyes. Tess placed her hand on the woman’s head, stroking her hair, trying to comfort her. But how could she possibly provide comfort, she wondered, when she felt so little herself? So much had happened tonight. So much had happened that-
Her eyes suddenly widened. In the midst of the excitement, she had almost forgotten. Forgotten what she had finally realized earlier that night.
She knew who had killed Dwayne Gardiner. And she thought she could prove it.
She knew.
It didn’t seem fair, Sasquatch mused. One gaffe, one minor slipup, and the whole house of cards could come tumbling down. All the plans, all the goals, all crumbled into nothing. It just wasn’t right.
But grousing wouldn’t help anything. The fact was, there had been a mistake. Not a huge one; most people would’ve missed it altogether. But not her, not given who-or what-she really was. She may not have picked up on it immediately, but she would. If she hadn’t already.
Whether it had worked its way to the forefront of her brain or was still lodged somewhere in her subconscious, the end result was the same.
She knew.
There was no question in Sasquatch’s mind. No amount of hand-wringing and self-recrimination would help. There was only one choice now, only one possibility.
It was time for action.
Tess O’Connell could not be permitted to make use of what she knew. Most of all, she could not be permitted to tell what she knew, not in a newspaper article or anywhere else. She had to be silenced.
Blackmail? Bribery? All interesting possibilities, but Sasquatch knew ultimately they would not be successful. Even if she accepted, there would always be a partly opened door, the possibility that she would change her mind, that she would want more. That she would fall in love or get drunk or get greedy and say too much.
No. No halfway measures would be acceptable. She had to be silenced-and in the only ultimately reliable way.
The fatal way.