Although she hadn’t realized such a thing was possible, she knew she had wept while she slept because, when she awakened, her face was wet with tears. She struggled to sit up and wiped the dampness away with her fingertips. Noticing the makeup on her hands, she’d decided to go back upstairs to powder her face again when she thought she heard the sound of a car coming up the drive. Still somewhat disoriented, she staggered to her feet, adjusted the lapels of her jacket, and walked into the dining room to look out the window at the circle drive. Her gate was stiff and unsteady.
A silver Cadillac DeVille came screeching around the curve. “Now, who could that be calling at such an early hour?” Anne asked. She checked the time on her Bulgari watch—another gift from her beloved Eric—and was astonished to see that it was after nine in the morning.
Anne stepped back into the shadows as the car came to a rocking stop. The door opened and a woman with the most frightful look on her face leapt out. She slammed the door shut, then opened the back door.
The woman looked vaguely familiar, but Anne couldn’t remember where she might have seen her before. Her face was contorted with rage, and though Anne couldn’t hear what she was saying, she knew she was talking because her lips were moving.
Was she Jilly? The stranger did have blond hair, and she was tall and shapely, as Carrie had described, but she certainly wasn’t what Anne would consider beautiful by any means. Perhaps, if her expression weren’t so hostile and if she were smiling instead, she might be pretty. But not beautiful.
Her complexion was lovely. She’d give her that. From a distance it looked almost flawless, and Anne decided she really must find out what kind of facial cleanser the woman used to get such perfect skin. Or was it heavy makeup? Anne made a mental note to find out.
Her haircut was a little too short and spiky, but the color was wonderful. Highlights, Anne thought, and she wondered if the unpleasant woman would give her the name of her stylist. Why, she’d kill to have highlights like that. Suddenly feeling self-conscious about her own appearance, she patted her hair down, certain she’d gotten it mussed during her little nap.
“My goodness,” Anne whispered when she saw what the woman was carrying. She had a red gasoline can in one hand and an ax in the other. “What does she think she’s doing?”
The woman’s head was down, and she hadn’t spotted Anne yet, but as she strode to the steps, Anne remembered where she’d seen her before. She was pictured in one of the clippings she’d found in the chest. Oh, yes, she remembered now. The woman and her ex were fighting over ownership of this house.
Anne rushed to the foyer and stood in front of the elongated beveled glass panes that framed the door. She could hear what the woman was saying now. She was spewing filth. Anne’s hand went to her throat. She was appalled by the vulgarity. The woman must have said the “F” word a good ten times, enraged at a judge for giving her house away.
Ah . . . now Anne understood. The house had been awarded to the husband. Anne didn’t have any sympathy for the crude woman. She obviously hadn’t been a good wife. Shouldn’t the husband make all the important decisions? He’d paid for the house. He should keep it.
The woman rushed up the porch steps, screaming now. “That son of a bitch thinks he’s going to take my house and leave me penniless? Screw the prenup. He thinks I’m bluffing. I told him he’d never live here. Surprise, surprise, bastard. When I’m finished redecorating . . .” She spotted Anne and came to a dead stop. Then she roared, “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my house?”
“Hello there,” Anne called out. “What are you doing with that ax and that can?”
“None of your fu**ing business.”
“I really would appreciate it if you wouldn’t use obscenities in my presence. It offends me.”
The woman put the can of gasoline down, dropped the ax, and reached into her pocket to get her key out.
“Did the bastard hire a housekeeper?” she yelled loudly enough so that Anne could hear through the door.
“I assure you I’m not a housekeeper.”
“Open the fu**ing door.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
The woman shoved the key in the lock and tried to turn it. When she realized it wouldn’t work, she screamed, “Damn him to hell. How dare he change the lock. How dare he. He knew . . . He had that judge in his pocket. Well, f*ck him.”
She pulled the key out of the lock, threw it down and glared at Anne. “If you don’t open this door, I’m going to use this ax. You don’t want to mess with me, bitch. Not today.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Open the damned door.”
The sneer was the last straw. Tears flooded into Anne’s eyes as she swung the door open and forced a smile. “Won’t you come in?”
There was a second’s delay, long enough for the woman to shove Anne back and step over the threshold.
The explosion blew half the mountain away.
Chapter 24
KEEPING UP WITH JILLY WAS A FULL-TIME JOB, BUT MONK found it thoroughly exhilarating. He hadn’t felt this alive in years. He was the cautious one, of course, while she, with the enthusiasm of a novice, planned her grand schemes, never worrying about the little mundane things, like the FBI tracking one of the credit cards she’d used.
Monk couldn’t fault her for making that mistake. He blamed himself because he should have destroyed the cards after he’d used them. He kept all of his credit cards under various names and addresses in his attaché case, and Jilly had simply helped herself to the first ones her hand touched.
The result hadn’t been as bad as it could have been, though. John Paul Renard was now involved, and Monk was absolutely delighted about that turn of events. He’d known that Renard was trying to track his movements for over a year. He’d intercepted several inquiries Renard had made to various law enforcement agencies in Europe. Now Monk had the opportunity to get rid of the pest before he caused real trouble, and Monk could humor Jilly at the same time.
Before they’d settled on using Utopia to bring the women to Aspen, his beautiful fiancée had had the time of her life, sitting at the table hour upon hour, poring over her notes. Oh, how she loved the intrigue, the excitement, and most of all, the danger, and she was trying to teach Monk how to have fun too. Whenever he did anything to please her, such as agreeing to last-minute changes in her complicated plans, she aptly rewarded him in creative ways. All of them of a sexual nature. Just thinking about some of the things she’d done to him and allowed him to do to her made him blush like a teenager.
She was turning him into a true romantic, but he didn’t view that as a weakness, for his obsession was with Jilly and no other. He believed with all his heart that, if the erotic games they played in bed didn’t kill him, they would grow old together.
Oh, yes, she was an obsession. His every waking minute was spent thinking about her, protecting her from harm. As long as he maintained his vigilance and cleaned up her mistakes, they would be safe.
Monk had had to talk Jilly out of one scheme. She had briefly toyed with the idea of kidnapping Avery and sitting down with her to tell her the truth about Carrie. Jilly was such an innocent. She believed she could convert her daughter. Monk gently explained that, after all the years of brainwashing by Carrie, Jilly would never be able to convince her daughter that she was, in reality, a loving mother.
Jilly wasn’t perfect by any means. She had a twisted view of motherhood, for she believed that because she had brought Avery into this world, she owned her. She spoke of Avery as her possession, not a person, and Carrie had taken that precious treasure away from her. For years her anger at her sister had festered, but Jilly was patient when it came to vengeance. No matter how long it took, she would get even.
She insisted on being the one to push the button that would blow the house apart. She promised Monk she wouldn’t shed a tear over her sister’s death. Carrie had brought this on herself. She was the reason Jilly hadn’t succeeded in life; she was the reason Avery hated her. She was the reason for every one of Jilly’s failures. And so it was only fair that Jilly get to watch her sister die.
Monk wasn’t put off by Jilly’s brutal honesty. How could he cast the first stone? She had accepted him with all his sins, and he could do no less for her.
Now he was trying to clean up the mistakes at the abandoned mine. Jilly had been sure they would climb down into the shaft to find the next clue as to Carrie’s whereabouts, and then Monk could have dropped a couple of explosives into the hole, sealed it, and followed Jilly back to the retreat.
Monk hadn’t believed Renard would go into the shaft, and he had been proven right. He had thought, however, that he could get a clear shot at the two and toss the bodies down the hole, but he missed his chance when they scrambled up the rocks and leapt into the river.
He was methodically tracking them now. He’d lost precious time backtracking to his vehicle and crossing the river, but with his car he’d been able to make up some time by speeding down the mountain road and cutting back to where he anticipated they’d be heading.
Renard hadn’t left any tracks, but then Monk knew all about the ex-Marine and hadn’t expected less. When he’d done his research on his stalker, he’d read his history, and he’d been impressed. He believed that under different circumstances they could have become friends. They were, after all, very much alike. They were both professional killers. Monk had murdered for money, while Renard killed for honor. That didn’t make him superior, however. If anything, Monk believed it made him a fool.
Still, he would have liked to have had the opportunity to sit down with him, share some cold beers and talk about their past exploits. But Renard would never go for that. The man was too honorable for his own good. According to his sealed file, which Monk had gotten unsealed, Renard was suffering from burnout. Monk didn’t believe such nonsense. He thought Renard had left the job when he realized he was beginning to enjoy the power he felt every time he pulled the trigger. Honor be damned.
Was Renard as curious about him? Did he fantasize about sitting down to discuss the thrill of the hunt, the exhilaration of the kill? Monk wished he could find out. Maybe if he was able to wound him, paralyze him, then Monk could sit down beside him and chat it up like old friends until Renard bled out. Wouldn’t that be something, to talk to an equal, to commiserate, to boast?
Monk chuckled. Now who was fantasizing? He checked the time and then shook his head. If he didn’t spot the couple soon, he would have to get to his car and drive to where Jilly waited. She was anxious to get back to the little mountain retreat to see how her sister was holding up. By now, the three women had probably turned on one another like polecats, each one slowly going out of her mind with terror. That was what Jilly hoped anyway.
Stop daydreaming and get back to business, he told himself. He lifted his high-powered binoculars and scanned the terrain once again. He was turning toward the north when he saw the observation tower in the distance, maybe a mile away. Climbing down was a forest ranger. Monk watched until the man was standing on the ground.
“Well, well,” he whispered as he calculated. “Just my size.”
Exactly one hour later he was leaning over the rail at the top of the tower, scanning the hills. Looking down at the bushes below he saw the white T-shirt of the forest ranger he’d shot in the temple and then stripped.
He was just about ready to give up the chase when he suddenly spotted the couple. Avery’s blond hair, so like her mother’s, shimmered gold in the sunlight. Monk couldn’t believe his good fortune. There they were, all right, walking down the mountain as pretty as you please, looking as ragged and worn-out as any two people he’d ever seen. His burst of laughter echoed around him. Wait until he told Jilly. He knew what she would say. She’d tell him he was an exceedingly lucky man.
He’d agree, of course, even though he knew luck had very little to do with finding his prey. After poring over his map, he’d anticipated that if they survived the white water, they would get out before that tremendous drop below Coward’s Crossing.
Monk decided to meet them head-on. He climbed down the ladder and walked around to the path, his head down, the bill of his cap concealing his face.
When he reached the wide-open space between the trees, he ever so slowly turned and pretended to notice them near the peak. He raised his hand to wave.
Avery heard John Paul behind her. “Fall down, Avery. Do it now.”
She didn’t hesitate. Pretending to stumble, she went down on one knee. John Paul caught up with her and dropped to put his arm around her shoulders to steady her.
“Act like you hurt yourself.”
Rolling to her side, she clutched her ankle and gave an exaggerated grimace. She wanted to cry from disappointment. “He’s not a forest ranger, is he?”
“No.”
She kept rubbing her ankle. “How do you know?”
“I saw his rifle. Forest rangers don’t have scopes on their rifles.”
She looked up at him. “You saw the scope from this far away?”
“The sun caught it just right,” he explained. “I think it’s him. I’m not saying it’s Monk, but . . .”
“Thinking he might be is enough for me,” she said.
“Okay, I’m gonna help you stand. You lean against me, and we start down the hill again, but we’ll angle toward the west. When we reach the trees, we run like hell.”
“He’ll come after us.”
“Ready?”
He didn’t give her a chance to answer, but hauled her up, lightly bracing her against his side.
“Limp,” he ordered gruffly as they once again started down the hill. They were walking like two drunks, staggering toward the west as they moved along.
He was deliberately keeping them out of Monk’s range. He was sure now that the man dressed as a forest ranger was the killer because he hadn’t moved from his spot at the base of the trail. Rangers were helpful, weren’t they?
“He’s waiting for us to get within firing range.”
“Oh, God.”
“You scared?”
“Duh . . .”
Her response made him smile. “That’s good,” he said. “Okay, sugar. Start running.”
She immediately bolted toward the safety of the trees. John Paul was right behind her, but he dared a quick look down below and saw Monk running toward them. They had a good head start. Avery led the way steadily downhill, hoping to intercept the road below Monk, all the way praying there would be campers or real forest rangers around who could help them.
