scope. He lowered the infrared binoculars and looked through the scope, running the plan through his mind. He found success more achievable if he imagined it first. This close to a kill, however, he more than imagined it. He relished it.
In his mind’s eye, he could see it unfold. The target approaching the car, taking the bait. The cross hairs in the night scope converging behind his ear. One squeeze of the trigger. The head snapping back. The knees buckling. The lifeless body falling to the ground.
Rusch would approach and finish the job with a double-barreled, twelve-gauge shotgun. The boss wanted it to look like a suicide — Duffy blows up his wife and her lawyer, then blows his brains out. The barrel would go into the mouth, and a simple squeeze of the trigger would unleash enough buckshot to make it impossible for any medical examiner to determine that a sniper’s bullet was the actual cause of death. The Mercedes would be his getaway car. He’d try to position Duffy at the perfect angle, so the blood, shattered skull, and flying bits of brain didn’t splatter on the paint job. But neatness wasn’t essential. He would have to dump the car at a chop shop anyway.
Especially with what was already inside.
He saw someone coming up the road, heading toward the Mercedes. The fantasy was over. Back to reality. He got in position and braced his rifle for the kill. He peered through the scope. Locked in the crosshairs, the target crossed the parking lot. Sixty yards away, now fifty. His finger caressed the trigger. Forty yards and closing. He could fire anytime. He had a clear head shot. Then he froze. He lowered the rifle in confusion and grabbed the binoculars. His instincts were right. The scope hadn’t lied.
It wasn’t Ryan Duffy.
Marilyn approached the Mercedes cautiously, one step at a time. Loose gravel crunched beneath her feet. Water running beneath the dam was like static in the background. Or maybe that was static from the radio. She was so nervous that it was hard to tell if her earpiece was even working.
“Jeb, you there?” She spoke like a ventriloquist, trying not to move her lips.
The reply buzzed her ear. “Stay calm, Marilyn.”
“I’m almost at the car.”
“Then stop talking. If he thinks you’re wired… well, that won’t be good.”
She swallowed hard. Jeb was a master of understatement.
She stopped a few yards from the driver’s door. Dark-tinted windows made it impossible to see inside. She checked around the car for footprints in the gravel. She noticed none. That meant one of two things. Either someone had meticulously swept them away. Or he was in there, waiting. She waited, too. She glanced toward the reservoir, beyond the outer ridge of the dam. The trees had grown, but the slope of the land and rock formations brought back memories. At first it was a trickle. Then the emotional dam burst.
The Mercedes was parked in the very same spot — exactly where the rape had taken place, more than forty- five years ago.
It suddenly didn’t seem that long ago. Her hands began to shake. She drew a deep breath to calm her nerves. She knew the car couldn’t have been positioned there to taunt her. Rusch had had no way to know Marilyn was coming. It was there to fool Duffy, to give him all the more reason to think Marilyn was inside. That, however, was little consolation. Whether she’d been targeted or not, the past was staring her in the face. Though she had few memories of that night, returning to this place had torn open the wounds. She had been raped. It had started that night, and it had lasted forty-five years. He had physically assaulted her. Made her accuse the wrong man. Deceived her into marrying him. Kept her under his control to this very day.
And if her suspicions were correct, he might have killed her best friend.
The wave of fear turned to anger. She had a wild thought — but one she had to act upon. She had an overwhelming instinct that it wasn’t Rusch inside the car. It was Joe Kozelka.
On impulse, she charged toward the car and tried the door. It was locked. She dug her keys from her coat pocket. She still had the remote. With a push of the button, the lock disengaged. She pulled open the door.
The front seat was empty. The rear made her gasp.
A young woman lay across the seat. Lifeless. Her hand draped limply onto the floor. A trail of blood ran from a bullet hole in the left temple, having spilled onto the carpet.
Marilyn tried to scream but was mute, paralyzed with fear. Images flashed through her head. She saw herself as a teenager passed out in the back of Frank Duffy’s Buick. She saw Amy’s mother on her deathbed with a bullet in her head. She took a step back. Her voice was suddenly back.
Her scream pierced the night as she ran toward the dam.
The scream rattled the van, sending the decibel meters on the tape recorder well into the red zone. Jeb Stockton called frantically on the radio, but he got no response. “Damn it, Marilyn, where the hell are you?”
“Don’t lose her!” said Amy.
“It’s pure static.”
“Rusch must have her. He must have ripped off her headset.”
“Don’t panic on me. She could have just run into a low tree branch or something that knocked off the headset.”
“Keep listening,” said Amy as she leaped into the driver’s seat. The motor was already running.
“Can you drive this?” asked Jeb.
She slammed it into gear. Tires spun and gravel flew as the van shot from the turnout. It leaned left, then right, squealing around corners at three times the speed limit, barely gripping the road.
“Guess so,” he said, holding on for dear life.
She skidded through the last turn, which was sharper than expected. Amy momentarily lost control. The headlights seemed to point in every direction, then finally locked onto the Mercedes straight ahead. A man was running away from the car. Amy steered the van around the back of the Mercedes and slammed on the brakes. The van fishtailed, nearly knocking the man to his feet.
Jeb jumped out, gun drawn. “Freeze! Hands over your head!”
The man raised his hands. Amy hit the emergency blinkers for better light. In the intermittent blasts of orange light, she could see it was Ryan Duffy.
“What did you do to Marilyn!” she shouted.
Ryan kept one eye on the gun, the other on Amy.
“I never saw Marilyn. I just heard a scream and ran over here. The body was already in the car when I got here.”
“Body?” Amy’s voice was filled with panic. She hurried toward the Mercedes.
“Don’t look,” said Ryan.
It was too late. The sight of the body sent Amy back on her heels. “Who is that?”
“It’s a woman I met in Panama. She was supposed to meet me here tonight. Apparently somebody got to her before I did.”
Jeb moved toward the Mercedes, took a quick look for himself. “You’re lying. You killed that woman.” He took aim at Ryan’s forehead, cocking the hammer on his revolver.
Ryan swallowed hard. “What the hell are you doing, old man?”
“Pat him down, Amy. Check for a gun.”
Ryan said, “It’s inside my jacket. Check it, please. You can tell it hasn’t been fired. I didn’t shoot this woman.”
Amy cautiously stepped forward, unzipped the jacket, and pulled out the pistol.
“Bring it here,” said Jeb.
She handed it to him. His gun aimed at Ryan, he sniffed the barrel for fresh powder and checked the ammunition clip. It was still full. “He may be telling the truth.”
A scream echoed from somewhere near the dam. All three of them froze, trying to pinpoint the exact location. It had been deafening and shrill — the kind of scream Amy had heard in her nightmares about the night she’d found her mother.
Another scream followed, even louder than the last. It seemed to have come from beyond the hill, along the hiking path that led to the dam.
“It’s Marilyn!” Amy grabbed Ryan’s gun from Jeb, then turned and ran toward the opening in a stretch of woods at the edge of the parking lot.
