They were getting too lax! They needed to be watching him.
"Connor, I don"t think that you have to worry. Your dad is a doctor, and I think he would have thought about getting to that car whether it"s actually your mom in it or not. Whoever is stranded probably needs help," he said.
"I have to go," Shayne said quietly.
Stacy looked at her son for a long moment. "Yes, of course you do," she said.
"You realize," Luke DeFeo called from his booth. "Gabe wants two of the able-bodied men out of here because he"s planning something. This could be a fool"s errand; that car could have been stranded since last night, and whoever is in it is probably dead."
Genevieve started to sob. Stacy picked her up. "Honey, it could be someone else"s car, and your mommy may be safe in a nice warm chalet somewhere," she said.
"And there are two able-bodied men and a few strong boys here as well," Mac protested in a growl. "Shayne, there"s a rescue kit on the back wall of the kitchen-take that. The snowmobile keys are right by it. You and Bobby get going. You"ll be back here in no time, and you"re going to want to be back before dark."
"We"ll be here-Mac and my family and I," Brian Williamson said firmly. "Everything will be status quo."
"We"ll be fine, won"t we, Mom?" Morwenna said, setting an arm around her mother"s shoulders.
"At least grab a piece of turkey before you leave," Stacy said, forcing a smile.
"All right, we"re going," Shayne said. Genevieve came running over to hug his legs; Shayne picked her up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Don"t you worry, munchkin. And Connor, you watch out for your sister for me, right?"
Connor nodded gravely.
The two grabbed their coats and headed around the bar to go out through the kitchen. Mike was staring worriedly after his sons; he held the shotgun in a lax position.
Morwenna turned to Gabe. "You! Back to the table," she told him.
"This worries me sick!" DeFeo said from his position in his booth. "They"re on a fool"s errand. The snow is blanketing all kinds of hazards. And," he said, looking directly at Morwenna, "your brother hates his ex-wife." Genevieve gasped.
"You shut up, and shut up right now," Morwenna said, approaching the table. "One more word, and you may be the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover, but I"ll knock you out flat with my rifle b.u.t.t and not feel a twitch of guilt as I do it!" she warned.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
And they all heard the motor of the snow mobile start up and rev.
Morwenna looked from DeFeo to Gabe Lange, who had taken his seat again. He was watching her. He smiled when their eyes met. "They"re going to be fine," he told her with a.s.surance.
"Maybe," DeFeo said, sounding weary. He groaned. "I really wish you could see what"s happening here. This man is being as nice as he can be. He"s trying to make you all like him. He"s pretending to be good and kind, and worried about you rather than himself. That"s his act. He"s seducing you all with his gentle personality. And then he"ll strike."
They were all silent for a minute.
"Eat your turkey!" Stacy told him. "Before we lock you in the outhouse!"
DeFeo smiled. "There"s an outhouse?"
"We can arrange for one," Mike a.s.sured him.
"I wish you"d let me help you," DeFeo said. "You"re good people. I wish I could make you see what you"re doing, and that you"re being used, which puts you into a greater realm of danger."
Bobby was glad that Mac Scott was a real mountain man; his survival kit contained rope, carabiners, pulleys, water, bandages, water and medical supplies. His snowmobile had three compartments, and one held a heavy windbreaker and blanket, while another held flashlights and emergency flares.
He convinced his brother to sit behind him and let him do the steering; Shayne was feeling desperate, he knew, but his brother was never stupid. Bobby did know the mountain best.
Still, it was rough going. The snow was deep, and all discernible lines between the road itself, the embankment on the right and the guardrails on the left had all but disappeared.
Bobby kept the speed in check. At the best of times, in a car with the world"s finest tires, mountain roads could be treacherous. No one in their right mind would have been on the roads late yesterday; only those who really knew the mountain could have foreseen just how bad it was going to be.
Were they crazy? Was Cindy in Europe? Were they really on a fool"s errand, whose only possible end would be to come across a corpse frozen in place behind the wheel?
And yet it was true; Shayne had panicked because of his ex-wife. But, if he had realized that he could reach the car and that it might be occupied, he would have come out anyway. No physician had ever taken his oath more seriously.
He was jarred from his thoughts as the snow-mobile suddenly bounced high and slammed back down-he"d hit a rock or obstruction on the road. He heard Shayne swear, and felt his brother"s arms tighten around him. When they landed, he cut his speed, slowing almost to a stop and shouting back at Shayne, "You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, slow her down more, I guess," Shayne said.
"Can"t save anyone if we"re dead or broken," Bobby agreed.
He"d almost come to a stop; he revved the motor again, making sure to keep it alive as well. The snowy air hit his face with a fierce blast-stinging. He hugged the mountain as closely as he dared. They were on a road, d.a.m.n it, but they might as well have been on a field of snow. Only the towering heights of the pines and evergreens on the mountainside gave him any sense of direction.
He should have grabbed a ski mask. He felt as if his nose was so cold, it was burning off.
He rounded bend after bend, and slowed as the slope became greater.
He blinked hard as his eyes watered at the cold air. He didn"t dare look too far to the left; they could see the towns in the valley below, so far down that they looked like little houses in a Christmas display.
He focused on driving, and again, they curved down another bend.
And there they saw the moss-green Subaru, slammed against the overhead, and the embankment, and far too close to the ledge.
If Morwenna had been feeling fraught with tension before, it was nothing compared to the way she was feeling now. Shayne and Bobby were gone, and from the time they left, she discovered that she was looking up at the big, carved bear-framed clock over the bar.
Seconds ticked by so slowly.
Brian and Mary Williamson and their boys had been a G.o.dsend; Brian had gotten it into his head to teach the boys how to play pool, and so he and Mary-an excellent player herself-were distracting them to the best of their ability. Stacy was keeping Genevieve as busy as possible, having her help out, putting down and picking up plates and refilling beverage gla.s.ses.
Mac and Morwenna had gotten the rest of the turkey dinners out, only everyone had seemed to have lost their appet.i.te. The boys ate a few bites between shots; Morwenna played with her fork, herself, pushing her food around on her plate.
Only their two prisoners seemed to clean up their turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and cranberry sauce.
They, too, seemed to be watching the clock.
It had seemed like forever before the day had begun-it was only four in the afternoon. Morwenna prayed that her brothers would return before the sun fell in earnest.
The TV had given nothing but static since it had last gone out.
"Hey!" Gabe called to her softly.
She narrowed her eyes, looking at him. It was best, she"d decided, to keep away from both the men. Gabe had thought immediately that Shayne and Bobby should risk their own lives. DeFeo had openly voiced the thought that if it was Cindy in the stranded car, she might well be dead.
"Is that a jukebox? A working one?" he asked her.
She looked down past the pool tables.
"Yes, it still works."
"Maybe it has some Christmas carols," he said. "May I go look?"
Morwenna looked at her father. Mike now maintained an iron grasp around the shotgun.
Her father shrugged. Stacy looked up; Genevieve was on her lap and they were drawing pictures on a c.o.c.ktail napkin.
"Go ahead. And, remember, Dad will shoot you if you make a wrong move," Morwenna said.
Gabe eased himself out of the booth and headed down past the pool players. For a moment, Morwenna feared that she had been an idiot; Gabe could have stopped by one of the boys, slipped his bound wrists over the head of one of them and threatened to strangle him. He could have then threatened a life...using a child as a hostage to escape.
She pictured the scene in her mind"s eye, and she almost cried out in fear and warning. But she saw that her father had no intention of risking the children. He had risen, and though Gabe couldn"t see him, Mike had kept himself in a position to shoot if Gabe had made so much as a move in the wrong direction.
Gabe walked right by the pool players and down to the jukebox.
He looked back at her with a rueful smile. "It works off of quarters."
"Here!" Mac spoke up from behind the bar and opened the cash register to find a handful of coins; he handed them to Morwenna. She met his eyes, and he nodded. "Lord knows, we could use something in here beyond the sound of that TV static," he said.
Morwenna walked down to the jukebox with the coins in her hand. When she reached it, she began to feed them into the machine.
"You all have to be careful," DeFeo said.
"I am careful-always," Mike told him.
Gabe was able to hit the b.u.t.ton that changed the pages.
"A17. Nice, Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing together, "Little Drummer Boy" and "Peace on Earth,"" he said.
"You"re letting him run the show!" DeFeo warned.
"He"s choosing a few Christmas tunes. A nice idea, really," Morwenna said.
"So, I"m stuck here in cuffs with a group that is going to be in big trouble when the real law arrives. But we all get to play Christmas tunes. Great!"
She opted to ignore DeFeo.
"Play what you choose," Morwenna said.
Gabe hit A17 without answering DeFeo. He flipped more pages. Morwenna was startled when Genevieve called out "Do they have "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"?"
"Well, I"ll just bet they do," Gabe told her. "And there it is! D22!"
"I"d like "Do You Hear What I Hear?"" Stacy called.
"And there"s the ever-popular "Rockin" Around the Christmas Tree"!" Mike called from the bar.
He was still seated on his stool, still clutching the shotgun. What a contrast to Genevieve, who wasn"t questioning what she believed in any way. She simply liked Gabe.
The faith of a child...
Gabe began to push b.u.t.tons. As he did so, Morwenna stepped back to join the boys gathered around the pool table. Connor grinned up at her; she realized that although he was still worried about his parents and aware of the tense situation in which the family found itself, he was doing all right.
Friends had made that so-learning pool tricks from the Williamson family was easing the day for him.
She smiled back at him. "A budding pool shark, eh?" she teased affectionately.
He smiled back at her. "My dad...my dad is going to be okay, right, Auntie Wenna?" he asked.
She saw that Gabe was still listening and obeying as the group in the tavern vied for selections on the old jukebox. His eyes were alight.
She had been suspicious of the man from the beginning. Then she had begun to believe in him. Then she had found her way back to mistrust. And why? Because someone else spoke against him.
She winced. Well, that hadn"t stood history very well. Proof was needed. Well, proof was what they awaited.
"You dad is going to be just fine, Connor," Morwenna said. "And so are we."
But just as the words left her mouth, the electricity went.
And the tavern was pitched into shadow.
Bobby braked the snowmobile just off the point where he thought the road made way for the lookout point. Shayne dismounted and instantly started for the car.
"Bro! We have to be careful. That car is right on the ledge," Bobby told him.
Shayne froze in his tracks, as if at his statement, and Bobby saw that his face was white. And then he knew why. He couldn"t see that it was indeed Cindy in the car, but he could see the driver.
And the driver was in a hooded parka, head down on the steering wheel. Frost and snow covered most of the windshield.
There was no way to tell, until they touched the driver, whether the person was alive or dead.
"All right, come on, Shayne, I want to bring you both-and me!-back alive. Let"s take it slow." He reached into the side compartments on the snow-mobile. He got out the rope and the pulley chair, and followed Shayne as his brother more cautiously approached the car. He saw one of the huge light poles by the side of the road. It wouldn"t carry the weight of a car if something happened, but it would carry the weight of a man-and a woman.
"Approach the car, and carefully open that front door just in case the ground by the back tires is-is gone. Grab the person out of the car, and screw whatever the h.e.l.l else is in it, okay?" Bobby said. "I"ll tie us together with the rope."
Shayne nodded. "Let"s hurry," he said.
Bobby took the rope to the ma.s.sive light stand and quickly tied it around, securing it with double loops. He hurried back to where his brother stood, already securing himself. He looked at Bobby. "Thanks," he told him.
"I"ll be right here, but not coming close. Until she"s out of the car, and you need me," Bobby said.
His brother moved toward the car then, taking every step carefully.
Bobby looked back at the rope attached to the giant light pole, and then frowned as he looked up at the light. Dusk was settling on them more heavily now with each minute that pa.s.sed.