Jason Pinter - The Fury

And last night she was killed when a bullet severed her brain stem, fired from less than a foot away. Death was almost instantaneous.

Almost.

And I wondered if Beth-Ann Downing had even known what her friend was running from.

We'd given our statement to Deputy Reece Watts of the Indian Lake Police Department. I took a little extra time washing the blood off my fingers.

We told the police everything we knew. From early forensics, it appeared that an SUV or van of some sort approached the Gaines residence during the night, when both Helen Gaines and Beth-Ann Downing were asleep.

They pried open the storm shutters and snuck in through the basement.

Beth had awoken, and went downstairs to check on the noise. She saw the intruders. The police confirmed there was more than one. Several pairs of footprints, they said. They chased her to the bathroom, where they shot her. In the confusion, Helen Gaines had escaped.

That's why we saw tire tracks leaving the cabin.

Helen had fled while her friend was being murdered.

Nobody had any idea of the whereabouts of Helen

Gaines. She hadn't called the police. Hadn't stopped anywhere for help.

She'd just disappeared.

It might have just been me, but that didn't seem like typical behavior for a woman whose only son had just recently been killed. Especially when the alleged murderer was locked up awaiting trial.

I had no idea how this would play in regards to my father. Stephen Gaines was still dead. The police were still figuring out if anything in the cabin was missing.

If they could chalk it up to a burglary gone horribly wrong. Or if there was something else. Another reason the intruders had come to that cabin in the middle of the night.

Regardless of how the autopsy and discovery came out, I couldn't believe the murder was the result of a botched robbery. The killers had brought in weapons.

For protection? Maybe. To scare any residents?

Perhaps. Or maybe they brought them because they were there for the sole purpose of killing Helen Gaines.

And Beth-Ann Downing just got in the way.

On the ride back from Blue Lake Mountain, neither

Amanda nor I said a word. The iPod sat on the armrest untouched. We had no coffee, no snacks. It was just completely and utterly silent.

I parked the car on the street near my apartment.

Amanda came upstairs with me.

Upon opening the door, I had a momentary burst of fear. I generally took my safety for granted, despite the fact that I'd been the recipient of some fairly severe beatings over the past few years. I had scars on my leg, my hand and my chest as a result of in truders. Yet I wanted to believe I was safe. With

Amanda I usually felt that way. But tonight, after seeing how another person's life-a helpless person-could be invaded and snuffed out so quickly, it made me rethink the simple dead bolt that protected my apartment.

"Did you see," Amanda said, forcing the words out,

"all that blood?"

I nodded. Went into the kitchen and poured us each a glass of water. Amanda gulped hers down while I sat there holding the cool glass in my hands, wondering just what the hell was going on.

It didn't make sense that Helen Gaines would be on the run. I had to assume my father did not kill Stephen

Gaines. I also had to assume that Helen Gaines knew who the real killer was. And if that was true, she fled because she did not feel like contacting the police. She fled because of something she knew, either about her son or his killer.

She'd gone to upstate New York to hide from some thing or someone. And not just from her son's killer.

From something larger. If you fear one person, that fear can be contained, limited. Controlled. You can seek the help of cops, lawyers. There are always people who can help.

What exactly was Helen Gaines fleeing from?

I thought about what Binks and Makhoulian talked about at the medical examiner's office. Binks said that

Stephen Gaines was killed by a pistol likely covered by some sort of makeshift silencer. That insinuated the murder was premeditated. Of course, any prosecutor could make the claim that my father made up his mind to kill Stephen, that his death would allow my father to keep on living without paying the money Helen wanted, or exposing his bastard child to his family. The motive would still hold up.

But then I thought about seeing Beth-Ann Downing lying facedown in that pool of blood. The scene was gruesome and hard to look at, yet I'd trained myself to do just that. You had to divest yourself of any emotional attachment. Present the facts. They would tell the story themselves.

Beth was lying in a pool of blood. I remembered seeing something floating in that pool. A small piece of gray hair. I hadn't thought much about it then, merely processed it into my memory, but now I called it back up.

The strand was very thin, very short, almost a hair's width. But it wasn't hair-it was metal.

The conversation with Binks and Makhoulian came back to me. The silenced gun that was used to kill

Stephen.

Most silencers were not professional. They were made from simple items. A pillow. Aluminum tubing.

Aluminum tubing filled with steel wool.

I looked up at Amanda.

"Steel wool," I said.

"What?"

"The gun that was used to kill Stephen-whoever did it used aluminum tubing filled with steel wool to create a silencer. They didn't find evidence at Stephen's murder scene, but the coroner said the wounds sug gested a silencer. But it was impossible to tell what kind of silencer was used. When I saw Beth-Ann

Downing, there was a piece of metal near her body. I'm positive it was steel wool. Which means the intruders knew where Helen was. And between the silencer and the offroad tires, they didn't want anyone to know they were there."

Fear grew in Amanda's eyes. "That means the same people who killed Stephen probably killed Beth."

"And are still after Helen," I said. "Not only that, but they're actually taking precautions during the murders.

According to Makhoulian, no shell casings or bullets were found at Gaines's apartment. Whoever killed him took them to prevent analysis, but left the gun itself.

Somehow I don't see my father on his hands and knees picking up spent shell casings, or digging a bullet out of the wall. And why would they leave the gun?"

"Someone out there has the answer," Amanda said.

"We need to find Helen Gaines," I said. "She has to know what's going on. And something has to be fright ening her enough to stay away from the cops."

"If someone doesn't want to be found," Amanda said, "they won't be found."

"Not necessarily. If you have the resources, anyone can be found. The trick isn't going from point A to point Z. There are stops in between. Each one will lead you closer. We need to find the next step, even if it only takes us a little bit closer."

"So who knew Helen Gaines besides Stephen and

Beth?" Amanda said. "And who knew Stephen besides

Rose Keller?"

"The question isn't necessarily who knew Helen and

Stephen," I said, "but who else knew Rose and Beth?

Beth-Ann Downing had a daughter. Sheryl Downing, who now goes by the name Sheryl Harrison. She's thirty-five, and according to the Indian Lake officer who spoke to Sheryl, she and Beth hadn't spoken in nearly ten years, ever since Sheryl moved to California.

For there to be that kind of estrangement, something had to have driven mother and daughter apart."

"But it could be anything," Amanda said dubiously.

"Maybe Beth disapproved of her daughter's husband.

Maybe Sheryl didn't like her mom's cooking."

"Or maybe there was something else," I said. "It took a lot more than burned meat loaf to make me want to leave a burning trail of rubber when I left Bend."