Colby’s stomach tightened. “Harry, you’re going to risk a murder charge for no good reason. I’m not going to take a dime of Margaret Fulbrook’s money. I never have and I never will. She knows that. I made it clear to her this afternoon.“
“So maybe shell leave it all to Brandon. Who knows? That’s why I have to get rid of both of you.“
“Are you going to pull that trigger right here? There’ll be blood, Harry. Lots of it.“ Colby called on all the creative writing talent he could muster on such short notice. He’d written scenes like this one. He knew how they went. “You’
ve never killed a man, have you, Harry? You don’t know what’s it’s like to see someone die. It’s hard to believe how much blood there is in the human body. It’ll just pour out all over. It’ll get on your hands when you try to move me. It’
ll get all over the trunk of the Cadillac when you shove me inside.“
“Stop it. I won’t kill you here unless I have to. Ill take you up high into the mountains.“
“That won’t make it any cleaner, Harry. You’ll still end up covered in my blood. Dead bodies are real messy, Harry.
It isn’t just blood that gets all over everything. The body lets go of other stuff as well. All the muscles just suddenly relax. Can you imagine what that means, Harry? You’re going to have to get real dirty before this is all over…“
“Shut your mouth, damn you. I’ve done enough hunting in my time. If I can gut a deer, I can handle your body.“
“You think so? Can you handle two dead bodies? Because you’ll have to go through it all again when you pick up Brandon. You’ll have all that blood to deal with a second time. You’re going to have nightmares about that blood, Harry. You’re going to wake up screaming in the middle of the night. You’ll look across the room and you’ll see me looking back at you from the shadows. The blood will never go away. Every time you go to sleep, you’ll wonder if this is another night you’ll have to relive the murders. Pretty soon you won’t be able to sleep at all…“
“I won’t have any nightmares, damn you. If I do, I’ll just think about all the money. That will give me sweet dreams.
Now just shut up and get down on the ground. I’m going to tie your hands behind you.“
The crash of splintering glass shattered the tension. Harry flinched, shouted incoherently and whirled around to confront the noise.
Colby launched himself at Harry’s back as Brandon quickly dropped to the ground on the other side of the Cadillac.
Colby slammed the heel of his palm into Harry’s neck. The big man staggered and fell to his knees. Colby tried a second blow and this time Harry toppled slowly onto his back. The revolver fell from his hand.
Brandon appeared from around the hood of the car. He had the lug nut wrench raised and ready for action.
“I don’t think we’ll need that,“ Colby said, rubbing his aching hand. “But keep it handy while I find something to tie his hands.“ He ended up using the rope in the trunk of the Cadillac that Harry had undoubtedly intended to use on him.
Five minutes later the job was done. Colby stood up and studied Harry’s half-conscious form lying on the ground.
“Now what?“ Brandon asked.
He stared at his father, his voice still tense with the unfamiliar adrenaline that Colby knew must still be rocketing through him. Colby experienced a flash of pride at his son’s coolness in the bizarre situation.
“We’ll contact Gil. He’ll be able to handle it from here.“
“Should we put him into the Cadillac?“ Brandon asked worriedly.
“Too much trouble.“
“It’s really cold out here, Dad. If we leave him on the ground, he might die.“
Colby groaned and reached down to grab Harry’s ankles. “You’re right. We don’t need the extra complications.
You get his shoulders.“
It took a lot of doing but they finally managed to wedge Harry into the back seat of the Cadillac. Their victim groaned but he didn’t fully regain consciousness.
Colby opened die front door and reached toward the dash to switch off the lights. His hand paused for a moment as a tiny flicker of memory jogged through him. For a minute he gazed through the heavily starred windshield, studying the kaleidoscopic pattern of fragmented headlight beams that still cut a swath through the night.
“You worried about the windshield. Dad?“
“No,“ Colby said absently, struggling to pin down the elusive sense of wrongness. “I owed Harry a broken windshield. What do you want to bet that if she lives, your grandmother makes me pay for it, though?“
“Breaking the windshield was the only thing I could think of to distract him.“
“It worked. Like I said, Brandon, this time around you were my sucker punch.“
“That was some spiel you gave him about blood and bodies. It even made me a little queasy. It was getting to him.
I wonder if he would really have been able to pull that trigger. If you’d kept talking long enough…“
“Brandon, keep quiet a minute. I’m trying to think.“
There was silence for thirty seconds and then Brandon couldn’t resist. “About what?“
“Did you overhear our whole conversation?“ Colby straightened up from his contemplation of light through a ruined windshield. He looked at his son.
“Yeah, I guess so, why?“
“He said something about telling Eddy last summer that things would be different this time around.“
Brandon nodded. “I heard him.“
“Just before Diana and I left town last summer, I had a talk with Eddy. He told me he was onto something big, that he was finally going to get his big break. That was the night I had the flat tire and nearly got my skull caved in by Harry.“
“Dad,“ Brandon said softly, “it was Eddy who told us the ‘vette would be out here on River Road tonight. Instead of the mystery car, we get Harry in an old Cadillac. You think maybe your good buddy set you up both times?“
Colby swore. “Diana. If anything happened to us, she wouldn’t rest until she turned this whole town upside down. She’d go straight to Gil Thorp and he’d help her shake out the answers. Harry must have known that. He couldn
’t let her live, either.“
Brandon’s eyes widened. “She’s alone at the cottage.“
“And Eddy’s still running around out there somewhere.“ Colby opened the rear door of the Cadillac again and reached inside to pull Harry to a sitting position. Harry blinked groggily.