Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

would go right and I should go straight, and before I knew it, she had peeled off among the trees and disappeared.

I swore violently under my breath. It is easy to get lost in a forest in broad daylight. In the middle of the night, it is almost impossible not to. Thankfully, the trees were less dense here and some moonlight did filter through, plus we were on a slope that I guessed ran down to the lake. I slowed from a mad dash to a steady run, trying to listen for sounds ahead. I could clearly make out the noise of heavy bodies crashing through the undergrowth, but whether it was Don, Stuart or Dehan was impossible to tell. And the peculiar acoustics of the forest made it equally impossible to pinpoint the location.

I had figured that if the track we were on led to the lake, it was a fair bet there was a boat at the end of the track. If Don made it to the boat and managed to row to the other side of the lake, it would be impossible for us to catch him. But a more immediate worry was that, though Stuart was in the grip of a wild rage right now, he was not a killer. Don was, and I had no doubt Don would kill Stuart to get away. And all of that added up to the fact that I had to catch Don, and I had to catch him before Stuart did.

The trees started to thin and suddenly I had broken out onto a moonlit beach. Globules of amber light warped and glimmered on the black water. Ten paces away, the black hulk of a rowboat loomed on the shore. A man stood motionless beside it. It was impossible to tell if he was facing the water or facing me. I had my back to the mass of the trees and I wondered if he could see me. I stepped silently forward a few paces.

Then there was a sound, a movement. A shadow rose up out of the black form of the boat. It swung an object, possibly an oar, and struck the motionless figure on the back. There was a grunt and a thud, but by then I was shouting, “Freeze! Drop it! Freeze!”

I ran forward and came around the hulk of the boat. I could see them grappling now in the sand. Stuart was screaming, making shrill, incoherent noises, gripping Don’s throat. Don was pounding his face with his fists, but it seemed to have no effect. I holstered my weapon and moved forward to grab Stuart’s collar, but suddenly Don was kicking sand and scrambling to his feet, running for the lake, and Stuart was up and going after him. Don’s plan was clear and I shouted, “Stuart! No!”

I had no shot. The risk of hitting Stuart was too high. I swore for the second time and made to run. But in that moment there was a streak across the sand. A black form hurled itself at Stuart’s legs and he went down flat on his face.

I ran to him and as I grabbed his wrists and knelt on his back, Dehan snarled, “Cuff him!” And she was off.

Don’s tall, willowy form was wading into the water. For a moment, he looked like some strange, ancient creature of the woods, tall, thin, and angular, waving his arms like branches as he went deeper into the dark liquid, with the pale moon touching his skin and the small waves around him.

The moment didn’t last. Dehan crashed through the water, holding her weapon in both hands, shouting at him to stop. He turned to face her, almost waist deep now. Perhaps she thought he was going to surrender. Perhaps that and the dark, and her innate reluctance to shoot an unarmed man, all conspired against her in that moment. But he lunged, took the gun from her hands, and in the next moment, he had dragged her under the water.

It may have been a fraction of a moment. It seemed to be an eternity of stillness and silence while he stood, with his back arched and Dehan gone beneath the black, enveloping water of the lake. I was not aware, in that moment, of what I was doing. I heard a voice screaming Dehan’s name. I felt the splash of cold against my body. I saw an automatic weapon in front of me in the darkness, in the strange moonlight. I saw it kick once, twice, three, four—seven times, and then it was just clicking. Don’s dead body lay on the surface of the lake, staring blindly up at the universe, at the empty stars that in the end had given him nothing. I screamed again, “Dehan!”

I dropped the gun and reached beneath the small waves with frantic hands, searching for her clothes or her hair, or anything to grab hold of. And then the lake exploded, and Dehan erupted from the inky depths like a whale, spraying foam and hair in all direction, screaming, “Son of a bitch! Where are you, you mother…!”

Her fist and elbows were going like a windmill on speed. I reached for her with both hands. “Dehan! Dehan, it’s me, Stone, stop! Stop!”

“Don! Where is he? Where is he?”

“Dead. He’s dead. I’ve got you. Come here…”

She came to me and I held her tight, and we stood and trembled together, waist deep in the cold black lake, under the moon, with Don’s dead form drifting slowly toward the shore.

Epilogue

We eventually pulled Don’s body ashore, dragged him onto the sand, and covered him with a tarpaulin from the boat. I then un-cuffed Stewart, who was sobbing and shivering like a small child, and we had walked back up the track to the cabin. There we had found that the colonel had telephoned the sheriff’s department and