John Miller - The Last Day

“Which one is the wife he wants to kill?”

“I'm both,” Natasha said dryly.

“Nice to meet you.” Alice chewed on a fingernail for a second. “And he could have killed me?”

“Yes,” Todd said. “I doubt he wants to kill you, but since you're here, who knows. He won't want to leave any witnesses.”

“So you like saved my life?” she asked Todd.

Ward nodded. “He probably did.”

“Gismano won't harm her,” Leslie said. “Will he, Todd?”

“He's not killing anybody tonight,” Todd said. “I'm assuming Thumper either is neutralized or isn't who I thought he was.”

He took his Colt from its holster. “I'm going to work my way away from here until I can get a signal, and make some calls. I need to give my guys a heads- up on what we're facing here now and get some deputies with guns out here.”

“Maybe you should stay here until they come.” Natasha said. “If we stay together, with you and Ward armed, wouldn't that be preferable to splitting up?”

“Maybe Natasha's right,” Ward said.

“I agree,” Leslie said.

“We're not voting,” Todd replied. “Gismano could kill my guys if I don't warn them. If Thumper is Gismano, he could ambush them because they know him. Whatever his plan is, I need to short- circuit it. There's a definite range on jamming devices. So, once I get out I can make the calls, and even if we don't stop him tonight, it'll be over for now.”

Ward followed Todd to the door.

“I'll go around and make my way to the subdivision back there. Even if the cell doesn't work, there are phones in the houses. It's probably safer than trying to go to the road down the driveway. I suspect he'll be out there waiting for one of us to try that way. I'll knock on the door when I get back.”

In the darkened garage, Ward triggered the roll- up door closest to them. He waited until

Todd, 45 in hand, bowed down and slipped out into the darkness before he rolled the door back into place.

Ward looked out across the backyard from the dark kitchen. He thought he saw a shape moving fast up the slope beyond the pool. In the den Alice had seated herself on the hearth. She was staring into a candle.

“This candle is about shot,” she said. “You got any more?”

“Yes,” Natasha said. “In the kitchen. I'll get one.”

“I'll get it,” Leslie said. “Where are they in the kitchen?”

“The drawer next to the fridge,” Natasha said. “There are a dozen or more.”

When Leslie came back, she lit a long candle from the dying one, and pressed it into a vacant ring in the candleholder. Ward noticed the large butcher knife in her hand.

“Just in case,” she said, holding up the knife so the blade caught the light. “I, for one, will not go gently into that good night.”

“Not a bad idea,” Natasha said. “What time is it?”

Ward glanced down at his watch. “Ten,” he said.

“Do you have a flashlight or anything, besides that candle?” Alice asked.

“Yes,” Ward said, “but we don't want the guy out there to be able to see what we're doing in here.”

“God, this is all so freaky, don't you think?”

“Yes, Alice,” Natasha said, looking at Ward. “We certainly do.”

“So, you're like a little-kid doctor? And what're you?” she asked Leslie.

“I'm a secretary,” Leslie said.

“Oh,” Alice said. “So you're like a typer?”

“Yes,” Leslie said. “And also a filer, and a phone answerer.”

“Cool,” said Alice. “How much money do you make?”

Even in the low light, Ward saw Leslie roll her eyes.

“You know, my mother went off the deep end and I need some funds quick, so I sure could use a job.”

“Too bad we don't have any jobs that entail stealing our inventory,” Leslie said.

“So, Mr. Hartman told me your kid died,” Alice told Ward. “You didn't tell me that. You definitely told me you didn't have any kids. I remember stuff like that.”

“I didn't want to go into it at the time.”

“When did he die?”

“It happened a year ago today,” Natasha said.

Ward thought about the circle around the date on the calendar in the kitchen.

“If you'd have told me the truth, I wouldn't have taken his toy car, you know. I'm not heartless. I'm basically a good person.” She took a picture from the mantel and held it so she could see it in the candlelight. “Is this him?”

“That's him,” Ward said. “His name was Barney.”

“He was a cute kid. Let me ask you something,” Alice said. “You remember drawing my picture on the plane?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, something happened to the picture. And I really liked it a lot. What I wonder is, could you like maybe draw me again?”

“I'd be happy to,” Ward said.

Alice looked at Natasha. “He can really draw people good. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” Natasha said. “Ward's a very talented man.”

“Well, he should draw all the time. He could like sell pictures of people. He could make some money drawing like kids and stuff. I really wish I hadn't torn it up. It was just because that investigator dude pissed me off. Do you mind me talking so much? I mean, I could shut up.”

“No.” Natasha smiled warmly. “It's distracting.”

“So, do you like living out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“Most of the time the inconvenience is convenient,” Natasha said.

“That doesn't make any sense,” Alice said.

“Well, when you're out here, it takes effort and energy to go anywhere. So instead of going to stores and spending money when you get bored, you don't leave home. And it's isolated, which is a good thing most of the time.”

“But like if you need the cops, like now, they're a long way off,” Alice said. “Wild animals make me nervous. Not to mention murderers running around in the woods. Why is a killer trying to kill you?”

“He thinks we did something to him, which we definitely didn't do.”

“Like what?”

“He thinks Dr. McCarty killed his son,” Leslie said.

“I thought your son was dead?” Alice said, confused.

“Our son died because of an accidental electrocution. The man outside's son was hit by a car, and I operated on him. There was something else wrong; and he died from that. He didn't die because of anything I did, but because I didn't know he had something else wrong. There was no way for anybody to know.”

“So, just tell him that,” Alice said.

“He wouldn't believe it,” Leslie said.

“Is he crazy?” Alice asked.

Leslie said, “Seems pretty obvious he's past the reasoning stage.”

Cupping his hands to keep light from leaking, Louis Gismano used his penlight to look at the picture of Gizmo one last time. “This is for you, little guy,” he told the picture. Placing the photo in his front pocket, Louis stood from his crouching position and raised his hands over his head to stretch his arms and loosen his tense shoulder muscles. He had just dragged a warm corpse, now lying at his feet, deep into the woods. Opening the dead man's cell phone, he broke it in half and, winding up like a major-league pitcher, threw it off into the woods, hearing it shatter against a tree trunk.

For the past twenty years Louis had exercised religiously, even doubling up on his repetitions since leaving the Army because if a man ever slows down, his reflexes rapidly go to shit. He'd seen it happen, and slowed reactions meant the difference between life and death-a bullet slamming home because you didn't move fast enough, or a sudden scraping of the tip of a blade nicking the inside of your spine as it sliced through your neck.