Cover Of Night

"I hope she didn’t argue," Creed said grimly.

"She didn’t. In the meantime, I was going into town to pick up some stuff, and I stopped by to get her mail. I thought she was acting weird, kind of jumpy and distracted, and when she gave me her mail, she’d put the stamps on upside down."

He saw Creed make the leap. "Smart girl," lie said approvingly.

"I took the chance I was jumping into idiot-land, parked the truck down the road, and got the shotgun out from behind the seat. Then I sneaked back and went in. Found one guy in the foyer, pistol in his hand, sneaking peeks out the window. Clubbed him in the head, and went looking for Cate. I heard voices upstairs, followed them to the attic, Cate was hauling Layton’s suitcase out, and this other guy was holding Neenah by the hair, her head jerked sideways, with the barrel of his pistol jammed against her temple. I got the drop on him, convinced him his only way out alive was to drop his weapon and let Neenah go. Cate gave him the suitcase, and I saw them on their way."

He’d left a lot out of the telling, but Creed had known him a long time and could read between the lines; he knew exactly how Cal had sneaked up on the two men.

"This was Wednesday?"

"Yeah," Cal reaffirmed.

"Fuck."

That needed no response. Creed’s instinct was to hunt them down and make them pay – very painfully – but the incident had happened three days ago and they were long gone.

Creed made a frustrated sound in his throat, then sagged onto Cal’s secondhand sofa. "Are they okay?" he asked. "Neenah and Cate?"

"Cate was shaky, but her mother was here to help, plus Cate had the twins to take her mind off things. Neenah didn’t have anyone – in private, I mean. All the neighbors gathered round, but you and I both know the reaction kicks in when everybody leaves and you’re alone."

Creed leaned forward to prop his elbows on his spread knees, his hands dangling down. Cal watched him closely as he continued, "I can tell she’s having a tough time dealing. She’s withdrawn, and she’s got circles under her eyes like she isn’t sleeping. Plus there’s that big bruise on her face."

Creed’s hands knotted into fists, but he didn’t move from Cal’s sofa.

Cal leaned down, looked his former commanding officer in the eye, and very softly said, "You’re a candy-ass coward if you don’t go hold that woman now when she needs holding."

Creed shot to his feet and opened his mouth to deliver a blistering tirade, then abruptly shut it. "Fuck," he said again. "Fuck!" Then he stomped to the door and was gone, the stairs thudding beneath his boots as he went down them two at a time.

A slight smile curving his mouth, Cal shut the door.

Teague couldn’t believe his luck. Sometimes the sunshine just poured down on a man, now didn’t it? That bastard Creed had driven straight to Trail Stop, of all places.

They weren’t likely to have a better opportunity than this. The hour wasn’t as late as he’d like, but most people in Trail Stop were middle-aged, at least, with a few old geezers, so it wasn’t as if they were hitting the singles bars every night and staying out until the wee hours. There were a few younger people, like the Nightingale woman, and one couple looked about the same age as her, but that was about it. He’d bet every inhabitant was at home, snug as a bug. Come to think of it, he ions betting on that – betting the success of this plan on what he knew from observing people and his skill in reading them.

"Hurry up," he whispered into the two-way.

"I’m hurrying," Billy whispered in return. He was tinder the bridge, putting detonators into the packages of explosives they’d stolen from a construction site some months before. Teague believed in being prepared; you just never knew when you might need to blow something to hell and back. Billy had to move carefully because the slabs of rock under the bridge were wet with spray, and slippery; one false step and he was in the swiftly moving creek, being swept toward that murderous river.

Slowly Billy made his way out from under the bridge, carefully unrolling the reel of wire in his hand. Teague could have gone with wireless detonators, but in his experience they weren’t as reliable – not to mention they could be accidentally set off by a signal from someone else. Not good. Playing out the wire in this terrain took time, time during which Creed might leave, but like almost everything else in life, using wire was a judgment call and Teague had made it.

His nephew Blake was set up at the nearest firing position, infrared scope attached to his hunting rifle. As soon as Billy had turned over the wire to Teague, he would get into position at the next firing position over.

Troy, his cousin, was up the nearest utility pole with his insulated cutters, waiting for league’s signal. Because Trail Stop was so small and so isolated, the power company and the phone company shared the poles. Troy would cut the power line first, then the phone line – and then Teague would blow the bridge.

Creed hesitated on Neenah’s porch, his fist raised to pound on her door. He was so wound up that instead of driving he’d walked to her house, which was about a hundred yards from the feed store with another house tucked between them, but the hundred yards had done nothing to ratchet down the tension coiling in him.

Only the knowledge that he would scare her half to death if he started beating on her door staved his hand. Hell, she’d probably heard him stomp across the porch with all the lightness and grace of Paul Bunyan and had run out the back door in fear for her life. He grimaced. What in hell was wrong with him? He’d spent a lifetime, two lifetimes, moving soundlessly behind enemy lines and across this damn mountain range: now all of a sudden he was stomping?

He knew what was wrong. It was the sudden, gut-wrenching knowledge that Neenah could easily have died on Wednesday – and not only was there nothing he could have done to save her, she would have died without knowing how he felt. He’d have lived the rest of his life knowing he hadn’t taken the chance and now it was too late. All the excuses he’d given himself over the years – very good excuses – suddenly seemed pretty lame. Call was right. He was a candy-ass coward.