Victor raised his face to the darkening sky. “Lissy! Oh, God, Lissy, you can’t die, you can’t!” He wept like a lost soul from hell.
73
PEAS RIDGE, GEORGIA
Whistler looked down at her, and Ethan took his chance. He threw himself at Whistler, hurled him against the wall. His gun went skidding across the floor.
“Autumn, untie me!”
Autumn fell to her knees beside her mother and began to work at the knots. Joanna had to watch Ethan and Whistler trade blows until finally she pulled free. Joanna staggered to her feet and pushed Autumn behind her. She wanted to help Ethan, but she’d seen him fight. He didn’t need her.
Whistler was stronger than Ethan had thought, but he had no real chance. Ethan had rage on his side, rage so deep it resounded in the most primitive part of him. He wanted blood. He staggered Whistler with a kick to his chest and managed to grab his head between his hands. He pounded his head against the white wall. He didn’t stop even when he saw smudges of red against the stark white, heard Whistler moaning.
“No!” Theodore Backman stumbled off the high dais, fell to his knees. “No!” he yelled again and pointed a long finger toward the two men. He turned to look at his granddaughter, that precious little girl he had waited for to be the future of his family. He felt a searing pain in his chest, slowly fell onto his side. He sucked in air, trying to breathe.
Ethan smashed Whistler’s head a final time against the wall and released him. Whistler slid down the wall, leaving his blood to streak in bizarre patterns, as if painted on by smudged fingers.
Ethan stood over him, sucked in air, and tried to quiet his rage. He turned to see the old man lying on the beautiful rug, his legs drawn up. He was awake and staring at Ethan. “You killed Caldicot?”
“I doubt it.” He did not say whether he’d tried. Ethan turned to Autumn and Joanna. “Are you all right?”
Autumn nodded as Joanna hugged her close, smoothed her hand over her daughter’s hair. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay now. We’re all right, Ethan. You?”
Theodore Backman called out, sitting up on the floor now, his hands outstretched to Autumn. “Autumn! My precious grandchild, you will reach the stars with me, you will conquer the heavens. Come here, child, come to your grandfather.” He turned his head slowly toward the door. They stared at it, watched it open slowly.
There stood Blessed, his dark eyes burning bright with anger.
Theodore yelled, “Blessed, my son. Quickly, the sheriff and Jo anna!”
But Ethan didn’t look at him. He kept his head down and bulled ahead at Blessed, throwing himself as hard as he could into his stomach, sending Blessed back through the open door and hard against the hallway wall. Blessed moaned with pain as the dressing on his shoulder turned red with blood. But he slammed his elbow into the back of Ethan’s head, sending him staggering to his knees.
Joanna flew at Blessed, knocked her own head into his chest just as Ethan had done. Blessed grabbed her neck and jerked her upright, but Joanna wouldn’t look at him. “It doesn’t matter.” Blessed struck her hard in the jaw. Joanna went down.
“No!”
Blessed came running back into the room just as Autumn landed against him. She screamed at him and pummeled her fists into his stomach. Blessed grabbed her, shook her.
Autumn looked up and stared at him. He whimpered, deep in his throat, and fell backward. He hit the wall behind him and slowly slipped to the floor, unmoving.
“Mama!” Autumn ran into the hall, fell to her knees, and shook her mother’s shoulders, lightly tapped her face, crying, begging her to wake up.
Ethan was at their side in an instant. He gathered Joanna up in his arms and rocked her. They turned as one to see Theodore Backman stagger toward them. He yelled, and his voice echoed in the small space, like Moses calling out from the mountaintop, “You have failed me, Autumn. You are not worthy to carry on my name. You are like your common mother, of no use at all. I disavow you as I disavowed your father!”
He raised his gun and fired.
The bullet struck Autumn in the chest.
74
PALMERTON COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
TWENTY MILES EAST OF PEAS RIDGE
It was a miracle she’d survived the transport, Joanna told Savich, but she had. She’d survived two hours of surgery and was still alive when Savich and Sherlock got to the hospital the next morning, Savich on crutches. He ignored the pull of the newly sewn stitches on his thigh, and he ignored the constant hurt too, now, in the face of Autumn’s dying.
Ethan had told the hospital staff he and Joanna were married, he’d explained to Savich on his cell when their FBI helicopter landed at Ricketts Field, only five miles from the hospital, so there would be no question he and Joanna could remain with Autumn in the ICU.
Ethan had called in a huge favor and gotten a medevac helicopter to pick them up in the clearing by the barn. He’d told Sherlock, his voice too calm—numb, really—that Peas Ridge Chief of Police Annie Parkes and all six of her deputies had arrived to deal with Theodore and Blessed Backman, and with Caldicot Whistler, all of them still alive, just as the medevac helicopter arrived. He’d told her about Kjell, about the people who’d stayed hidden when the violence had erupted, and about those who couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He told her to look for a fresh grave when it was light again.
Savich and Sherlock looked at Autumn through the open curtain of the ICU cubicle, her pale little face very still, both her impossibly small wrists tethered to IVs, an oxygen mask on her face. She looked terrifyingly fragile, and Savich hated it. He kept talking to her in his mind, telling her over and over that she would pull through this, that he’d introduce her to Sean and she could be his big sister and boss him around. He told her he wanted to see her smile, just for him, told her about Astro, how when she was well, she and Sean could throw a Frisbee for him, and how he’d lick her mouth if she wasn’t careful.
He never heard a whisper of her voice, never felt even a shadow of her. He prayed somehow she would hear him. He felt he had to keep talking, since there was nothing else he could do. And he wondered again and again how a small being like that could survive a bullet to her chest.
It was a good sign, an ICU nurse told them, that she was breathing on her own and didn’t need a respirator anymore.
Dr. Maddox, Autumn’s thoracic surgeon, fresh from a few hours’ precious sleep, followed Ethan and Joanna out of the cubicle. He said to them, “I won’t lie to you, like I told you, it was close, but she came through surgery like a champ”—a lie, but Dr. Maddox wasn’t about to tell her parents he’d nearly lost her. “She’s a strong little girl.”
“She’s so small,” Sherlock whispered. “She looks smaller than Sean.” She turned in to him. Savich stroked her back as she sucked in a light breath, holding back tears that stung his eyes. He swallowed He remembered his
