Catherine Coulter - The Cove

Of course, we also have a chairperson for each service. We are an intelligent, loyal, industrious group of older citizens. Each of us has a responsibility, each has an assignment."

"Who selects the victims?" Corey asked. She was standing beside Thomas, her hand on his shoulder. He was still conscious, but his face was white as death. She'd wrapped a hand-crocheted afghan around him. It looked as if a grandmother had spent hours putting those soft pastel squares together.

Quinlan stared at that afghan. Then he stared at Martha. He'd be willing to wager that she had knitted the afghan. No accounting for grandmothers. Martha was a vicious cold-blooded killer.

Martha laughed softly. "Who? Why all of us, Ms. Harper. Our four gentlemen who play gin rummy around their barrel? Yes, they look over everyone who drives in for refreshment at the World's Greatest Ice Cream Shop.

"Zeke down at the cafe eyes every tourist from his window in the kitchen. When he's too busy, then Nelda pays attention when folk take out their wallets to pay.

"Sherry and Delia run the souvenir shop in that little cottage close to the ocean cliffs. They check out tourists there. As you can imagine, we must make decisions very quickly." She sighed. "Sometimes we've erred. A pity.

One couple looked so very affluent, drove a Mercedes even, but we only found three hundred dollars, nothing else of any use. All we could do was send Gus to Portland with the car to sell it. It turned out it was leased. That was close. As I recall, Ralph refused to lay them out, didn't you, Ralph? Yes, that's right, you said they didn't deserve it. And we all agreed. They weren't honest with us. They lied."

"Exactly right," Ralph Keaton said. "I just wrapped them each in a cheap sheet, the dirty liars. Helen wanted the name Shylock on their grave marker, but we knew we couldn't be that obvious so we changed it to Smith, so nondescript it was like they'd never even existed."

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"This is amazing," Sally said, looking at each one of those old faces. "Truly amazing. You're all mad. I wonder what they'll do with all of you. Put you all on trial as mass murderers? Or just chuck you into an insane asylum?"

"I hear a helicopter," Reverend Hal Vorhees said. "We've got to hurry, Martha."

"You're going to shoot us?" Corey asked, stepping away from Thomas. "You honest to God think you can get away with killing all of us?"

"Of course we can," Purn Davies said, rising from the sofa, looking a bit less pale. He picked up a shotgun from beside him and walked forward. "We've got nothing to lose. Nothing at all. Isn't that right, Martha?"

"Perfectly right, Purn."

"You're all senile and stupid!" Sally screamed.

In that instant, when most attention was focused on Sally, Quinlan grabbed Purn Davies's sawed-off shotgun and leaped to Martha. He took her down and rolled over her. He had his arm around her throat and the gun digging into the small of her back. His right hand was tangled in the chain that secured her glasses.

There was stunned silence. Thelma Nettro slowly turned around in her chair. "Let her go, Mr. Quinlan. If you don't, we'll just kill her along with the rest of you. You agree, don't you, Martha?"

There was no choice, none at all. Quinlan knew that. He knew he had to act quickly, with no hesitation.

He had to make them believe. He had to scare them shitless. It had to be shocking. It had to punch these old people back to reality, out of the insane world they'd created and inhabited. He had to show them they had no more control. Quinlan raised the shotgun and shot Purn Davies in the chest. The blast knocked the old man off the floor, against an ancient piano. Blood spewed everywhere. The old man didn't make a sound, just slid onto the floor. There were a dozen screams, curses, and just plain horrified yells.

Quinlan shouted over the din, "I can get at least three more of you before you get me. Want to bet it's not going to be you? Come on, you old geezers, come and try it." The shotgun was double-barreled. One of them would realize quickly enough that he had only one shot left. "Corey, grab my gun, quick."

She had it in an instant. Reverend Hal Vorhees raised his pistol. Quinlan shot him cleanly through his right arm. Corey threw Quinlan his SIG-sauer.

"Who else?" Quinlan said. "This gun is a semiautomatic. It can take you all down. Anybody else? It will make a bigger, bloodier mess than that wimpy little shotgun did on old Purn. It'll spew your ancient guts all over this room. I'll bet none of you has ever dispatched your victim with a semiautomatic. It ain't a pretty sight. Just look at Purn. Yeah, look at him. It could be you."

Silence. Dead silence. He heard someone vomiting. That was amazing. One of them could actually throw up seeing Purn Davies after they'd killed sixty people? Thelma Nettro said, "You all right, Martha?" "Oh, yes," Martha said. She flexed her hands. She smiled. She kicked back against Quinlan's groin. He felt searing pain, felt his head swim with dizziness, felt the inevitable nausea. He took the SIG-sauer and hit her on the temple.

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He didn't know if she was dead. He didn't particularly care. He said between gritted teeth as the nausea began to get to him, "Sally, get me Gus's gun. Be sure to stay clear of any hands that could grab you. The rest of you, drop all your weapons. Ease those old bones of yours down to the floor. We're going to stay here nice and quiet until my guys arrive."

Thelma Nettro said, "Did you kill her, Mr. Quinlan?"

"I don't know," he said, the pain still roiling through his groin.

"Martha's like a daughter to me. Don't you remember? I told you that once." She raised a pistol from her lap and shot him.

In the next instant, the front door burst open. Sally, who was running to Quinlan, heard a man shout,

"Nobody move! FBI!"

33

"MR. QUINLAN, CAN you hear me?"

"Yes," he said very clearly. "I can hear you, but I don't want to. Go away. I hurt and I want to hurt alone.

My Boy Scout leader told me a long time ago that men didn't whine or moan, except in private."

"You're a trooper, Mr. Quinlan. Now, I'll make that hurt go away. How bad is it?"

"On a scale from one to ten, it's a thirteen. Go away. Let me groan in peace."

The nurse smiled over at Sally. "Is he always like this?"

"I don't know. This is the first time I've ever been around him when he's been shot."

"Hopefully that won't happen again."

"It won't," Sally said. "If he ever lets it happen again, I'll kill him."

The nurse injected morphine into his IV drip. “There,'' she said, lightly rubbing his arm above the elbow,

"you won't hurt very soon now. As soon as you have your wits together, you can give yourself pain medication whenever you need it. Ah, here's Dr. Wiggs."

The surgeon was tall, skinny as a post, with the most beautiful black eyes Quinlan had ever seen. "I'm in Portland?"

"Yes, at OHSU, Oregon Health and Sciences University Hospital. I'm Dr. Wiggs. I took that bullet out of your chest. You're doing just fine, Mr. Quinlan. I hear you're a very brave man. It's a pleasure to save a brave man."

"I'm going to get even braver soon," Quinlan said, his voice a bit slurred from the morphine. He was feeling just fine now. In fact, if he weren't tied to this damned bed with all these hookups in every orifice of his body, he'd want to dance, maybe even play his saxophone. He'd like to call Ms. Lilly, maybe even tell Marvin the Bouncer a joke. He realized his mind wasn't quite on track. He had to remember to ask Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html