man’s knee. Stone bent but he didn’t topple. It was enough for Cork. He turned and fled through the sumac, a desperate swimmer in a crimson sea. He heard Stone huffing at his back, crashing through the brush behind him. Cork raced across the grass where Lizzie danced and he headed for the lake. With a long arcing dive that took him beyond the rocks of the shoreline, he split the surface. The shallows dropped away quickly to a jumble of stone slabs that littered the lake bottom ten feet down. Cork swam deep, planted his feet on the gray stone, and turned to meet his adversary.
He’d done all this without thinking, but somewhere in his brain was the knowledge that water would equalize them, slow Stone’s hand as it wielded the knife, handicap them both equally in their need for air.
Stone came with a splash, trailing a wake of bubbles and white water. He swam straight for Cork, using both arms to propel himself. Cork watched the knife hand, and when it was drawn back at the end of a stroke, he thrust himself from the bottom and caught Stone before he could bring the blade into striking position. Without hesitation, he went for the man’s eyes, driving the fingers of his right hand into a socket. Even in the muffle of deep water, Stone’s bellow was a roar. He curled, kicked out, landed a boot in Cork’s ribs.
Once more, Cork used the opening to retreat. He clawed to the surface and stroked hard to shore. Hauling himself onto the island, he sprinted past Lizzie, who watched him fly by with her eyes wide, as if he were some mythic creature or spirit, a manidoo that had sprung from the lake. He hit the sumac and made for the hilltop and the rifles there. He didn’t look back to see if Stone was at his heels, but put all his energy into the race for a weapon. When he grabbed his rifle, he spun around.
Stone had not bothered to pursue him. He’d stopped where Lizzie, in her clouded state, had watched the struggle. His big bare left arm pinned her to him with an iron grip, and in his right hand the blade of the knife pressed against her throat. Her eyes were no longer dreamy but full of terror as she comprehended that her death was no farther away than a twitch of Stone’s hand.
“She’ll go first, O’Connor. You know I’ll do it. Drop the rifle.”
Cork did.
“Come down here. We still have business, you and me.”
Cork descended, brushing aside the blood-red sumac leaves. He stepped onto the grass.
Stone’s left eye socket was a raging red and already swollen nearly shut. “You try to run again, I’ll kill her.”
Anger like acid pulsed through Cork, rage that Stone would use the girl this way. The hell with all the reasons Stone was the man he was. He would be a better man dead.
“Turn her loose and let’s get to it, you son of a bitch,” Cork said.
Stone flung Lizzie aside. She tumbled to the ground with a small cry. Stone set his mouth in a line that showed teeth-a grin or grimace, Cork couldn’t say. Stone’s hard body tensed and the muscles swelled under his taut skin. His good right eye, the pupil dark as an empty grave, regarded Cork intensely. Cork readied himself. Stone let out a scream, a kind of war cry, and charged, galloping across the grass, his knife lifted high, gleaming in the morning sun as if white-hot.
Then his chest opened, a portal that spouted blood, and he fell, collapsing far short of where Cork stood. At the same instant, the crack of a rifle shot broke over the island. Cork looked toward the lake. In the bow of a canoe, paused midway between the campsite and the big island, sat Henry Meloux. In the stern knelt Dina Willner, cradling a rifle and still squinting through the scope. In the heat of the battle, neither Cork nor Stone had seen them coming.
Blood wormed from the entry wound dead center between Stone’s shoulder blades. Cork turned him over. The exit wound in his chest was the size of a man’s fist, the edges ragged with fragments of white bone. His mouth hung open and his eyes looked stunned. It was illusion, for Stone felt nothing now, not surprise or bitterness or betrayal. He was dead. Simply dead.
Cork sat down, suddenly too weak to stand. He watched Meloux and Dina Willner paddle toward the island. Lizzie lay in the grass, crying softly. Cork thought he should go to her, offer comfort, but he couldn’t move. The canoe touched shore. Meloux climbed out and after him came Dina. The old Mide went to the girl and spoke to her in a low, gentle voice.
Dina sat down beside Cork.
“Thanks,” he said.
“I told you. It’s what I’m good at.”
The whack-whack-whack of chopper blades came from the distance. The critical response team.
Meloux left Lizzie, who’d ceased her weeping. He walked to the body, sat cross-legged beside it, and in his ancient, cracked voice began to sing, guiding Stone along the Path of Souls.
Cork was soaked and shivering now.
“Cold?” Dina asked.
“Freezing.”
“Here. Let me help.”
She put her arms around him, offering her warmth, for which he was grateful. He was even more grateful for the gift she’d already given him. His life.
42
First thing, Cork called Jo.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
“Cork!” she said, her voice full of joyous relief.
“Bos told me you’d talked to her.”
“Oh, Cork. Thank God. I was worried.”
“I knew you would be. That’s why I didn’t tell you I was going.”
“Did you get Lizzie?”
“She’s fine.”
“And Stone?”
“We brought him in. Not alive.”
“Does that mean it’s over?”
“Not entirely. I still think someone hired Stone to kill me, and I still don’t know who.”
She was quiet. “So they may try again?”
“It’s certainly a possibility.” He wanted to give her more, an absolute reassurance, but that wasn’t something he could offer. “How are the kids?”
“Fine. Rose and Mal took them all to South Bend today to visit Notre Dame. I stayed. I didn’t want to miss this call.”
“You mean if it came.”
“I knew it would. Cork, when can we come home?”
“Soon, I hope. We’ll be interviewing Lizzie shortly. Maybe we’ll know more after that. I have to go, sweetheart. Things still to do.”
“I know. I love you, cowboy.”
“I love you, too.”
Lizzie Fineday had been fed a decent meal and coffee, and was coherent. Although she distrusted cops, she was grateful for what Cork and the others had done and was willing to talk. She waived her right to counsel but asked that her father stay with her during the questioning.
Stone, she said, had enlisted her help to play a joke on the local cops, something she didn’t mind doing. He told her that afterward they’d do a little Ecstasy. The afternoon of the shooting, they’d parked his Land Rover at the bridge over Tick Creek. He got out and told her to wait five minutes, then follow him on foot to the Tibodeau cabin. She’d wondered about the rifle he took with him, but not much. On the Iron Range, everyone seemed to have a rifle. Just as she started for the cabin, she heard two shots. She didn’t know what that was about.
“The dogs,” Cork said. “He shot the Tibodeau dogs.”
