David Morrell - Double Image

In the trees at the edge of the clearing, he was only a hundred feet from the cabin. He didn’t need his zoom lens to see Tash and Walt beyond the sliding glass door. Walt continued to grip her shoulders. Tash continued to stare up at him.

Then Walt kissed her again, and this time, Tash set the mug on a table, raised both hands, and kissed him back. She held him tightly, receiving, giving, and Coltrane heard another click and whir as he took a second photograph. Then he heard something else – an unwilled sound that came from his throat, as if he was being choked.

STUNNED, he sank into a drift. With his back against the rough bark of a pine tree, he hugged himself but couldn’t subdue the spasms shaking him. This can’t be happening, he thought. He shook his head insistently from side to side. From where he was slumped, he could still see the sliding glass door, see them kissing. Walt’s hands were under Tash’s sweater. Her mouth was pressed against his. She fumbled at his belt, and Coltrane screamed.

Before he knew it, he was on his feet, surging from the trees. He raced across the clearing and charged onto the hollow-sounding wooden porch, seeing the startled look on their faces when he yanked at the sliding glass door. His shoulder felt a shock of pain as the door held firm.

“I want to talk to you!”

Tash stumbled back.

Walt lunged toward something on the right.

“You told me I meant something to you!” Coltrane yelled.

His belt still dangling, Walt reappeared, jabbed at the lock, and shoved the door open.

Coltrane tried to veer past him. “ Why did you lie to me ?”

Walt struck him.

Coltrane lurched back. Ignoring his bleeding mouth, the same spot where Nolan had struck him in Mexico, he again tried to get to Tash. “ Why did you make me think you loved me ?”

Walt knocked him off the porch. But the moment Coltrane landed in a drift, he scurried to try to stand, only to lose all power of movement when he saw the revolver six inches from his face, aimed between his eyes.

“I could blow your head off.” Walt’s breathing was hoarse.

“ Why did you lead me on ?” Coltrane screamed at Tash.

“With your history. With the two men you’ve already killed,” Walt said.

“What?”

“Peeking through windows, taking pictures. Stalking a law-enforcement officer, trying to break into my home. There isn’t a grand jury anywhere that would blame me for defending myself.”

Tash backed away in fright.

“Especially if I put an unregistered pistol in your hand,” Walt said, “and squeezed a shot through that glass door, so you’d have powder residue on your glove and there’d be no doubt about your intentions. So go ahead. Try to get past me. Give me a reason to pull this trigger.”

“ Why did you lie to me ?”

“You just don’t pay attention,” Walt said.

The gunshot was deafening. The heat of the bullet sped past the left side of Coltrane’s head, singeing his hair. He didn’t hear the impact of the bullet behind him. Couldn’t. Could hardly hear Walt shout in his face, “Get out of here! Before I think twice and aim where I should have! If I ever see you around here again, if I ever see you anywhere -”

Walt fired again, this time to the right side of Coltrane’s head, and the agony of the assault on Coltrane’s ears made him clutch them and fall back, writhing in the snow. Walt pulled Coltrane’s hands away and grabbed his camera strap, yanking the camera over Coltrane’s head, hurling it against the side of the cabin, smashing it. He dragged Coltrane to his feet and shoved him across the clearing, thrusting him out of the driveway and onto the road, where Coltrane fell in a daze, gripping his ears again, unable to stop the torturous disabling roar in them.

“I NEED A ROOM.”

The motel clerk straightened. “My God, what happened to you?”

Coltrane could barely hear him. “I had a skiing accident.”

“Man, you look like you ran into a tree.”

“Another skier.”

“Does he look as messed up as you?”

“He never got a scratch.”

THE ROOM WAS SPARTAN BUT CLEAN – a small bed, a nineteen-inch television, a plastic ice bucket. Coltrane barely noticed. All he cared about was locking the door behind him, going over to the window, opening the draperies, and satisfying himself that traffic was vividly close. The motel was on Big Bear’s outskirts, close to the road that Walt would have to use to drive into town. With the glare of headlights, Coltrane knew that he had little chance of recognizing Walt’s Mountaineer if it went past tonight, but tomorrow would be another matter.

He picked up the phone and called Big Bear information, his ears still ringing so badly that he had trouble hearing the operator. “Do you have a listing for Natasha Adler?… How about Walt Halliday?”

He used a pencil and notepad on the bedside table to write down the number.

The phone on the other end rang five times. Maybe they’re out, he thought.

“Hello?” Tash’s throaty voice made Coltrane feel pressure in his chest.

“Just help me understand! Tell me why-”

Click.

Coltrane frantically pressed the numbers again.

The phone was picked up halfway through the first ring.

“You’re going to be very sorry about this,” Walt said.

The connection was broken.

Coltrane pressed the numbers again, but this time, all he heard was the pulsing beep of a busy signal. He called every ten minutes and continued to hear it.

THE DAY WAS CLEAR AND BRIGHT. In his chair, Coltrane stared out the window, traffic close enough for him to read license plates. Wrappers from sandwiches that he had picked up the night before littered the floor around him. Using the television as radio, he heard the CNN anchors tell him about a famine in Africa, an explosion at a school in Northern Ireland, a mass murder in Germany, an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and mysterious deformities in frogs all over the world. Yeah, things are tough, he thought, never taking his gaze from the window.

The Mountaineer passed Coltrane’s window just after four in the afternoon, Walt’s big-boned no-nonsense face behind the steering wheel, Tash next to him. Coltrane sprang to his feet and grabbed his ski jacket. His car was directly outside the door of his motel room. Thirty seconds later, staying far enough back to hide in traffic, he again had the Mountaineer in sight.

It parked at the post office, but both Tash and Walt went into the building, so Coltrane lost that chance to speak to Tash alone. They came out and drove to a hardware store, both entering. Another lost chance. They drove to the parking lot of a duplex movie theater, bought tickets, and went in. After giving them time to get settled, he bought a ticket for Meg Ryan’s newest film, but when he sat in the back, he didn’t see any profiles that resembled Tash’s and Walt’s, so he went out, pretended to use the bathroom, ducked into Tom Cruise’s latest, and saw them almost at once.

They were on the aisle, about halfway down on his right. At this hour on a weekday, there were plenty of seats available. Choosing one in the middle at the back, Coltrane watched them watch the movie. They ate popcorn and sipped from straws in paper cups. They leaned toward each other and whispered. Totally focused on their silhouettes, Coltrane had no idea what was happening on the screen.

But despite his concentration on Tash, she almost caught him by surprise when she stood and came up the aisle. He slid down just in time to avoid being noticed. A light haloed her as she opened the door and went out to the lobby. Immediately, Coltrane exited through the door on the other aisle, but not in time to intercept her as she walked down a corridor next to the door she had used and entered a door at the end marked WOMEN.