Part 26 (1/2)
Bernstein appeared to be in charge, so I'd direct my plea to him. Soon as I opened my mouth, though, he unleashed a quick rabbit punch, short, compact, concentrated, just below the rib cage, a precision shot to the kidneys. My legs buckled, forcing me to a knee, gasping.
”Don't waste your breath,” Bernstein said. ”We told you to drop this. You didn't listen. That's on you. Let's go.”
I winced up from the ground, wicked st.i.tch in my side, sucking air. The sonofab.i.t.c.h had managed to find the same exact spot, reopening whatever internal wound he'd ruptured the first time. Just trying to breathe hurt.
”You have two choices,” Bernstein said. ”One, you walk out onto the ice. Voluntarily. Like a man. Two, you stay on your knees like a chickens.h.i.+t and I shoot you in the stomach. Then I drag you out on the ice, let you bleed out. No one's coming up here. The ice will break. Eventually. You ever get shot in the stomach? You know what that feels like? You won't die right away. But you'll wish you did.”
”Michael said no guns-”
”I don't give a s.h.i.+t what Michael said. He's not here, is he? And in a few minutes neither will we.” Bernstein pulled his gun, pointed it at my gut. ”What's it gonna be, smart guy.”
Didn't take long to decide. Wasn't much choice. A nudge encouraged me to hurry. The glint of a barrel added to the urgency.
The first step onto the ice, I felt the buckle. The second, I heard the crack. By the third, I accepted my fate was no longer in my hands or beneath my feet. The Universe, G.o.d, some other Great Decider would cast judgment and let me know soon enough. By the fifth, twelfth, twentieth steps, I began feeling better, almost confident. This was out of my control. I let go of caring. That surrender, coupled with sleeplessness and rarefied air, conspired to create an almost dizzying euphoria.
”Hurry up!”
”What the h.e.l.l's taking so long?”
”Just put a bullet in the back of his head.”
”Harder to explain a bullet hole than bloated body that floats up with the spring thaw.”
”The lake never gives up her dead.”
”True to a bone to be chewed-”
I couldn't really hear what they were saying, words receding into the howling ravine, nothing discernable above the echo of the canyon. Deep cracks rivered the ice, kaleidoscopic trees branching out, cold water burbling to the surface. I eyed the beach on the other side. I decided then to take back my fate and make a run for it. I'd outrun splintering floes and escape this watery grave. I took off, pumping my legs. I looked down and saw I hadn't moved an inch. I'd been running in place.
I felt the pain in my leg before I heard the gunshot, teeth clamping to the bone, like I'd stepped into a bear trap. I dropped to the ice and saw the long shard that had torn through my jeans and punctured my flesh. The muscle shredded, deep tissue flayed, blood gus.h.i.+ng from a primed spigot. I hadn't been shot. The surface had split open before the undercurrent slammed it back shut, trapping my lower leg, hermetically sealed. A jagged spike impaled my calf, rupturing a vessel, which hemorrhaged, sh.e.l.lacking the ice red.
A captive audience, I watched the gunfight erupt on the sh.o.r.e behind me. Turley crouched behind his police car. Exposed on the banks, the Longmont cops, without cover, marched forward, unloading clips, peppering the cruiser's doors, window, and roof. Turley waited out the attack, timing his moment. As the cops refitted their clips, Turley popped over the hood. Two quick shots, like distant firecrackers on the 4th of July. Both men dropped to the ground.
The ice fractured all around me, spreading outward.
”Hold on, Jay!” Turley shouted from the strand. ”I'm coming.”
Water bubbled up through the cracks. I tried to pry my leg free, but the more I tugged, the deeper the blade plunged, slicing ligament and sinew, cold lake water rising, me sinking.
Turley scrounged around the brush and pond detritus, wrenching free a frozen, fallen branch, stepping onto the ice. I was a good forty yards away.
”You won't make it, Turley. You're too . . . heavy.”
He kept coming at me, forked branch extended like some mystic searching for the spring. I tugged on my knee, tried to wriggle free, retrace the grain of the hook back through the meat, but the pain was excruciating. I'd lost a lot of blood. I felt like I was going to lose consciousness.
Turley wouldn't heed my warning, undeterred, relentless. He'd gotten within twenty feet when I saw the man behind him stagger to his feet and train an unsteady gun. I tried to hold up a hand to make him stop, scream for Turley to turn around, but I couldn't do either fast enough.
The bullet tore through Turley's shoulder, blood blowing out the other side. Pistol pulled, Turley spun, report reverberating with a perfect response between the eyes. The man fell. And so did Turley. Into a hole in the ice, sucked down into the swirling black waters.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
I WRAPPED BOTH hands around my knee and, fist over fist, jerked and yanked until the razor sawed through the muscle, exacting a sizeable chunk of circulatory and sinew, a glob of honeybee guts sacrificed to the stinger. But I was free.
The cold air cauterized the wound, or at least stopped the worst of the bleeding. Some of the pain abated, mostly because I couldn't feel my leg anymore. Not like my leg was dead or asleep. It wasn't working. It wouldn't move on its own, flopping like a boneless chicken. But I still had the other one. I hopped toward the hole, dragging the dead weight of my useless appendage behind me.
Staring into the abyss, I couldn't see Turley. Nothing moved below in the murky depths. I grabbed the branch he'd been carrying and jabbed it into the hole, poking around, blind. The sh.o.r.e was right there. Both Longmont cops were dead. Two cars sat with keys in the ignition. I could get to the hospital. Maybe save my leg. I could get out of here. But I wasn't leaving without Turley.
I screamed into the darkness for him to grab hold, even though I knew he couldn't hear me in the deep.
He's gone. Let's go. You're hemorrhaging. You won't last much longer out here. You'll get hypothermia. If you don't bleed out first- I'm not leaving without him!
I jabbed the stick farther into the void, poking, shaking, stabbing. At first I thought I'd snagged some milfoil or that the branch was tangled in c.o.o.ntail. But when I tugged and felt the tug back, I knew I'd hooked something much larger. Hobbled on one leg, with no way to gain traction on the ice, I twisted my torso, all arms and upper body, drawing on my days baling hay on the farm. A b.l.o.o.d.y hand broke the surface, followed by a gasp for air. Then Turley lost his grip on the stick and slipped back underwater. I dropped the branch and flopped to the ground, reaching in the cold lake, sweeping for his hand. I pushed my arm far as it would go, and then I pushed farther, past elbow and shoulder, frigid waves slapping against my neck. I swallowed water. I hadn't been fast enough.
It's too late! He's gone. You can't save him!
Shut up! Turley! Turley! I extended farther, submerging half my body until I was in danger of drowning too. I felt fingertips, and then a hand close around mine. I gripped the ice edge, arched my back and pulled. Turley bobbed out of the water gulping air like a trout in a shallow bucket. I grabbed the back of his sheriff's coat. He yelped when my thumb found the bullet hole. He splashed and flailed, a drowning man pulling me down too. I didn't let go.
Drifting in and out, present, cognizant, knocked out, awake, asleep, water, sky, hard earth. Turley's arm wrapped around me, carrying me past the dead cops. Black, blue, solid blocks of gray. Wound tied off, still no feeling in my leg. Next thing I know I'm staring up at the interior roof of a police car as Turley whisked us off the mountain. I propped myself up. He told me to lie back down. He was soaking wet, s.h.i.+vering, his skin an unnatural shade of purple.
I padded my coat for my cigarettes. ”Hey, man, you got a light?”
”What are you talking about? You can't smoke, Jay. What the h.e.l.l is going on? What were you doing out on the ice? Why were those men trying to kill you?”
My Marlboros were drenched anyway. ”The Lombardis don't like me any more than I like them.”
”Huh?”
I stared at my leg, which was wrapped in Turley's sheriff's coat. I fumbled to untie it.
”Let that alone. You need a tourniquet. You cut something pretty bad in there.”
I saw why Turley was s.h.i.+vering. He'd wrapped my leg in his s.h.i.+rt, too. He wore only the wet tee. ”You'll get hypothermia.”
”I got the heat on full blast. I'll be fine. Are you going to tell me who those men were?”
”You talked to them.” I was getting lightheaded. I'd lost a lot of blood. ”Cops.”
”Cops?”
”You said a couple Longmont cops. Looking for me.”
”Yeah. A pair from IA. I had to leave them at the station when I got the call.”
”IA?”