Michael Koryta - Last Words

“We’re close,” he said, and then he used the open knife to guide Julianne back toward the door.

Mark was driving too fast over the icy roads when he called Danielle MacAlister, but the Ford held steady in its lane.

“You said your father bought his land for timber rights,” he said.

“Well, hello, Mr. Novak. Nice to hear from you again.”

“You said your father bought his land for timber rights,” he repeated.

“Correct.”

“He never did any cutting.”

“The cave redirected him, obviously.”

“But he owns property in all directions and most of it is open field, no timber at all. There’s a local who rents it for horses. The cave maps that Ridley drew are guides, but they’d have nothing to do with ownership. Those would be standard maps. Parcel maps. Ridley stopped drawing the underground maps at one point. Stopped sharing them with your father, at least.”

“We’ve already discussed this.”

Mark made a turn, felt the tires slide, and corrected for the skid. “I disagree. You told me what you wanted to share. I have new questions. I’m on my way to see you, in fact.”

In truth, he wasn’t even sure of his questions. The property mattered to Ridley. The property mattered to Pershing MacAlister’s family.

“You’re making a mistake,” she said.

“Explain how.”

He could hear her breathing. For a moment he thought she was going to offer something, but all she said was “I’ve taken enough of your questions. You have no legal authority. If you come here, it’s trespassing. I can have you arrested.”

“Tell Cecil to open the gate. It’s what he’s there for. To keep an eye on things, make sure there’s no trouble.”

“Do I have trouble, Mr. Novak?”

“If you didn’t think that you did, you wouldn’t have come up here. You damn sure wouldn’t have stayed.”

“You broke into our property and got lost in the cave. That’s why I’m here.”

“It’s not why you stayed. You stayed to know what Ridley was telling me.”

“You’ve already earned that confession once. I’m not hiding that interest.”

“What are the stipulations of the land trust?” Mark asked. “The property just sits there untouched, forever, is what Cecil told me. Your father felt that strongly about it?”

“About a girl being murdered on his property, a girl who’d been about to join his family? Yes, he felt strongly about it. He didn’t want to let this become a sideshow, an exploitation of tragedy.”

“Your father sounds like a shrewd businessman. But rather than bring a concrete company down here and just fill that entrance in and call it a day, he makes the decision to pay a caretaker to live on the property. For ten years, he does this. He’ll do it for another ten? Twenty?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice was tight.

“How do you not know? It’s your property.”

“It’s in a trust. The environmental stipulations of the trust might preclude that sort of—”

“No legalese, no stipulations. You’re an attorney, you know what it says. What will the situation at Trapdoor be in ten years?”

“Probably not what you think, but it’s none of your concern. I’ve been patient enough with you and I—”

“Show me the trust documents, then. You won’t even have to talk to me this time. Just show me those documents and I’ll be on my way.”

“You won’t see me if you come here. I’ll send for Cecil. It’s his baby now. I’m done with your questions, Mr. Novak. If you come here, you’ll need to deal with Cecil.”

“This is why he’s worth keeping on for a decade, Danielle? To keep trespassers away from the cave and questions away from your family?”

The line went dead.

Mark didn’t call back. Just kept driving. Snow was falling again. The conditions and his speed would have bothered him when he arrived in Indiana but they felt familiar now. Muscle memory. Sometimes the things you thought you’d left behind circled back for you.

The door was in sight and the keys were in hand but still the surface world wouldn’t grant Ridley access without resistance. He and Julianne were no more than fifty feet from the entrance when the security floodlights went on.

The footbridge and the gate were instantly illuminated, and the light spread out almost far enough to reveal Ridley and Julianne. They were in the farthest reaches of the shadows. He stopped walking and grabbed Julianne’s arm to bring her to a halt. The lights had come on without warning, as if tripped by a motion sensor, but he knew that the lights here didn’t operate on motion sensors. Someone had turned them on, which meant someone had seen them.

There was the sound of a door opening and closing — not just closing, slamming — up at the big house just above them, and then a flashlight beam appeared.

Ridley pushed Julianne farther from the light. This required leaving the creek bank and moving out onto the ice itself. They’d made it three steps when there was a single loud crack followed by an uneasy yawning sound all around them as the stressed ice fought to hold. Ridley stopped moving. If the ice broke beneath them, it would draw that flashlight beam their way, and then he would have to act fast.

Water bubbled up beside Julianne’s foot but the crack didn’t spread. The ice sheet creaked and strained but it held. Ridley kept his eyes on the house, and a few seconds later the source of the flashlight appeared: Danielle MacAlister, walking with hostile purpose, walking toward them. Ridley’s jaw clenched as he reached for his knife. He did not want Danielle to be part of this but he could not allow her to disrupt him either. He simply couldn’t.

He had put the knife to Julianne’s throat and was ready to push her into the light, ready to show Danielle the consequences that awaited, when Danielle turned away from the creek without breaking stride.

She wasn’t coming to the cave. Wasn’t coming to confront them. She was following the driveway.

When it was obvious that she wasn’t approaching them, Julianne did a strange thing. Despite the knife at her throat, she leaned her head against Ridley’s shoulder. A gesture of relief, which made some sense, but almost intimate as well, and even more fascinating, the relief didn’t seem to be entirely on her own behalf. She seemed relieved for him as well.

Maybe you are wrong about her.

No. She had a knife at her throat, that was all. Of course she did not want him to be forced to use it. Her relief was only a product of self-preservation.

Still, he felt a connection to the touch that suggested they were in this together. Did she understand now? She was an intuitive woman. Did she realize that he’d told her only the truth, always?

Ridley looked at her face and then back up at Danielle MacAlister, who was walking away from them, toward either Cecil’s apartment or the front gate. If she was headed to Cecil’s, that meant he was about to be freed and the police called. Trapdoor would be a scene of chaos soon, and that couldn’t be allowed. All Ridley needed was time. They wouldn’t understand that, though. Never had.

“I need to stop her,” he whispered. “I have to.”

Julianne lifted her head from his shoulder, twisted to face him, and shook her head. Slowly and emphatically. Then she tilted her head pointedly to the right. Toward the cave. He followed the gesture with his eyes, saw the door, so close to them now. When he looked back at her, she flicked her eyes down at the keys in his hand, then back up to him. Held the stare.

She was right, he realized. There was no need to intervene with Danielle MacAlister. Not when they were this close and he had the keys. Let Danielle call the police, let them come for him. Once he was inside the cave, they wouldn’t catch him. Once he was inside, he could stay as long as he wanted, as long as he needed.