Fatal Consequences Page 2

  Was it teenagers playing a prank? Or a thief with the mistaken idea that an old man would be easy prey?

  Trano smiled as he slid a double-barreled shotgun out and loaded in two rounds of rock salt. It wouldn’t kill, but it would hurt like a bastard. He’d used the gun not two weeks earlier; blasted away a couple of squirrels who’d started raiding the bird feeders he kept in the backyard. So he knew his aim was still spot on.

  Flicking the safety off, he headed across the room toward the kitchen, wondering how long the intruder had been watching him. Fifteen minutes? Twenty?

  Jesus. He could have killed me and stolen everything. The fact that the mysterious person had chosen to play a prank instead led him to believe it was just teenagers. Probably those idjit Olsen brothers from down the road, whacked out on dope as usual. It was for that reason he’d only chosen rock salt. Killing the neighbors wouldn’t be the best idea, even though he’d be doing the world a favor by preventing them from breeding more idiots.

  Maybe I can shoot them in the groin.

  A quick glance at the kitchen showed it was empty. There were no places to hide in the small room. He was about to turn back when a slight movement caught his eye.

  A large carving knife hovered in the air by the sink.

  Trano had time to think What the hell? and then the knife turned into an arrow, shooting across the room and burying itself to the hilt in his chest. He opened his mouth to scream but the only sound that escaped him was the hissing of air leaking from his punctured lung. There was a moment of horribly intense pain, an agony so great his legs gave out and he collapsed to the floor. Then all feeling disappeared, leaving behind a gray fog that covered his vision and numbed both body and brain.

  As the last seconds of his life ticked away, he thought he heard someone laughing.

  “Guilt is a lot like rage, Alec. It can drive you crazy. Heck, it can kill you. It eats you up from the inside until there’s nothing left but a shell. That’s why I’m glad you’re here.”

  Dr. Beth Tetler smiled at Alec, unaware that each word she spoke pierced his heart like a tiny blade coated in vinegar.

  He nodded, hoping she couldn’t see through him to the real cause of his guilt. He’d stopped seeing her while Casey was still in the hospital, convinced that nothing she said would ever lift the heavy tonnage of self-reproach off his back. But after Father Hayden’s sermon, and his own reaction to it, he’d decided it was time to let the poison out, tell the truth about what had happened that day, and who better to confess to than a person bound by law to keep it a secret? It probably wouldn’t change things with him and Casey, but maybe, just maybe, Dr. Tetler might have some advice as to how he could manage his guilt better until he worked up the courage to confess to his wife.

  Except now that he’d settled into the black leather recliner, facing his shrink eye to eye, he found his nerve was deserting him faster than a rat fleeing a sinking ship.

  And I’m the rat. Of course, he couldn’t say that out loud. Instead, he found himself telling his usual story of being haunted by feelings that he could have—should have—done more.

  “What more could you have done?” Dr. Tetler asked, her deep green eyes filled with compassion behind her trendy cat’s eye glasses. “That’s the question you have to ask yourself. If the answer is nothing, then you have no reason to feel guilty.”

  “So why do I?” Alec felt the truth cringing deep inside him, curling into the fetal position inside that little box he kept triple-locked and hidden in the back of a mental closet. He wished he could join it.

  Tetler gave him a half smile that blended in with the lines on her face and neck until it almost disappeared.

  “If I knew the answer to that, I’d be a millionaire. Guilt is a funny thing, Alec. It has the ability to take the truth and twist it around, mold it into things that seem right but aren’t. It defies logic. Think about it. A man decides to take a different plane than the one he was scheduled for. The first plane goes down and everyone dies. So why does this man suffer from survivor’s guilt? He didn’t cause the plane to go down. He didn’t know anyone on the plane. He should be rejoicing that he lived, but instead he feels an irrational guilt for not dying.”

  Tetler pointed a pencil-thin finger at him.

  “And that is you to a tee,” she said. “What could you have done differently? Gone back in time and attacked the bear before it got to your camp? Or perhaps used your ability to see into the future and camped somewhere else? Or maybe just waited an hour to go get wood for the fire, waited until after dark so you could break a leg in the woods.”

  “I see your point.” Alec made sure he sounded like he really believed her. “I need to think logically, rather than emotionally.” He was parroting her own words from a previous session back to her, but she nodded emphatically.

  “Yes! You must be like Mr. Spock from that space show. In this case, if you keep telling yourself there was nothing else you could do, eventually your subconscious will begin to believe it as well, and then the guilt will no longer control you.”

  The tiny clock on the doctor’s desk dinged softly, indicating their time was up. Alec wondered how she timed things so well. He sighed and stood. Although he took care not to show it, he wished he hadn’t come. It had been a waste, thanks mainly to his own cowardice.

  Always the coward. There. Here. At home.

  “Thanks, Doc. I’ll try to do that.”

  “Yes, good.” She walked him to the door and said goodbye. As he walked down the hallway, she called out to him.

  “Remember. Just ask yourself, what more could I have done?”

  He waved, fighting back a scream of frustration.

  What more could I have done? Fuck you, you old bat. I could have not run away! If you knew the truth, you’d be telling me what a piece of shit I am, not teaching me how to rid myself of guilt. Guilt that I deserve.

  He continued berating himself all the way to his car, but then paused as he unlocked the door.

  Teaching me how to rid myself of guilt.

  Did it matter if the guilt was logical or illogical?

  After all, could he have made a difference? He’d been twenty feet away from his wife and children when the bear attacked Casey. What chance would an unarmed man have had against a bear? Didn’t everyone tell him he was lucky he hadn’t been there, because he’d be dead too? Did the reason he wasn’t there really matter?

  Perhaps, in the end, it didn’t matter what he’d done or not done—the end result would have been worse had he acted differently.

  It wouldn’t be just Nick and Sue who were dead. All four of them would have been killed, leaving Jennifer an orphan.

  The question was, did he really believe that, and could he convince his subconscious of his new logic?

  He had to try. For his sake, for his family’s sake, he had to try.

  There was nothing else I could do. There was nothing else I could do.

  He slid behind the wheel, repeating his new mantra in his head as he started the car.

  As he drove, he did his best to ignore his subconscious, which kept trying to have the last word.

  You ran away and left them to die.

  Had he known it was his last day on Earth, Police Chief Homer Watkins might have done things differently.

  Then again, he might not have.

  His favorite thing in all the world was fishing. He’d loved it since the first time his father had taken him, way back on his eighth birthday. He’d tried to instill that same love in his own two children, Abby and Ellie, and for a while it had seemed as if they’d take to it, too. But girls will be girls and all too soon they’d reached that age where they preferred to do girl things with their mother and their friends. Then, of course, they’d found men. Eventually both had gotten married and moved away, Abby to Las Vegas, where she and her good-for-nothing husband worked
as blackjack dealers and lived in a crappy two-bedroom apartment, and Ellie to California, where she’d gotten divorced and moved in with her “friend” Serena, in a very nice one-bedroom apartment. Neither of them called home very often, partly because Homer objected to both their lifestyles, and partly because they’d both turned out to be rather selfish, concerned more with their own problems in life than the love of family.

  So it was no real surprise Homer had chosen to go fishing on his day off. He could have visited his wife’s grave, but lately he’d been finding excuses to avoid the cemetery. Not that he missed Helen any less, just that he’d begun thinking that after ten years in the grave perhaps she felt it would be good for him to not come every day.

  In a way, he had Alec Winter to thank for that. Not long after that terrible accident in the woods, and the subsequent rescue of Casey Winter, he’d started contemplating his life and how he’d been in a funk, as the kids called it, ever since Helen had died. Looking back, those years seemed all gray and fuzzy, as if he’d been living in a fog, living in it so long that he’d forgotten it was there.

  But the death of Winter’s children, and the amazing tale of Alec’s heroism and Casey’s survival, had woken him from his daze. Made him realize in ways his wife’s death never did that life is short, and you should try to be happy as much as possible.

  So he’d made a conscious effort to stop thinking about how and where he’d gone wrong with his kids, and how lucky other families were, and how much it totally fucking sucked that his wife was dead, and instead focused on what was good in his life. The good times he’d had with Helen. The fact that neither of his children were in jail, or dead, or druggies. The simple pleasures he could still enjoy despite getting on in years.

  Like fishing.

  Which was why when his day off came around, there’d been no thought of calling his kids, spending extra time at the station catching up on paperwork, or crying at his wife’s grave.

  The sun was shining, it wasn’t that hot for August, and there was a nice section of river running right through the back end of his property where he could fish without worrying about anyone interrupting him.

  So he’d gathered his pole and creel, packed a couple sandwiches and a thermos of coffee, and set off through the woods for a day of relaxation.

  It was the silence that gave Homer his first clue that something wasn’t right.

  Stream and river fishing is serene sport, with real enthusiasts choosing their spots carefully to maximize the tranquility factor. Homer’s regular place was a wide stretch of river with a short strip of sandy beach separating the water from the scrub forest that made up the back acreage of his property. No matter what the season, it was peaceful. But in summer it was also especially beautiful. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, creating a green dome through which zebra stripes of shadow and light patterned the sand where he faithfully placed his chair, so that he never got too hot or cold. It was the perfect spot as far as he was concerned, open enough so that the breezes off the river could reach him, secluded enough so that he could achieve his own state of personal nirvana.

  However, it was never completely silent.

  Once a person isn’t talking, isn’t listening to a radio, isn’t bustling about, it’s impossible not to notice that the woods are filled with sounds. Insects buzzing and chirping. Birds singing single and multi-tone melodies. Leaves rustling as a breeze weaves its way through them. The tinkling notes of the water as it ripples around rocks. The occasional burping of a frog or the splashing of a jumping fish.

  Small sounds, the kinds of sounds that quickly blend into the background, unnoticed as the sun warms the body and the mind drifts away in thought, or lack of it.

  Unnoticed until they’re gone.

  Homer grew aware of the unnatural quiet when he opened his eyes to reach for a beer. His hand was halfway to the cooler when he stopped, trying to figure out what it was that didn’t seem right.

  In a silence broken only by the melodic sounds of the river, the only other thing he could hear was the ringing of his ears, that buzzing, cricket-y noise you normally only hear when you wake up late at night in an empty house.

  Somethin’ ain’t right.

  His instinctive reaction was to jump up from his chair and turn around, his eyes scanning the woods and his hand automatically dropping down to the pistol holstered at his waist. Ever since that bear attacked the Winter family, he’d never gone into the woods unarmed.

  Nothing moved at the tree line, or as far back into the woods as he could see.

  Homer stood perfectly still, decades of hunting and law enforcement training coming together, his body doing exactly what it was supposed to without any conscious thought on his part. He strained his ears, trying to catch any sounds that might indicate something was out there. A branch snapping. Brush rustling. A grunt or growl.

  Nothing.

  In his mind, he ran through the checklist of dangerous animals in the area. Black bear were pretty common, although they rarely bothered people.

  Tell that to the Winters’ children. But then that had been an aberration. The bear had been half-starved and in pain, thanks to an infected wound from a gunshot. No, more often than not bears preferred to go out of their way to avoid humans.

  There were still some bobcats left, but they weren’t large enough to send the whole forest into hiding. A mountain lion might do it, but it’d been decades since one had been seen in the area.

  That left only one other possibility: a person.

  Although anyone in the woods would’ve had to cut through Homer’s property to get there, it wasn’t unheard of. A few of the local fellows, trying to get a fat buck before hunting season started, wouldn’t give a damn about No Trespassing signs. And they could be more dangerous than bear, with itchy trigger fingers and brains that had to work overtime just to form a sentence.

  On the other hand, he knew how to take care of a few half-wit poachers. Unless they were completely drunk, they’d head for their trucks as soon as they knew he was there.

  “Hey!” He let the echo of his shout die away before continuing. “This is Chief Watkins! If there’s someone out there, you’re on private property. Private property owned by a cop. You hear me? Either show yourselves or get the hell out of here!”

  His words faded away, leaving only that strange silence. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that someone was watching him. You couldn’t be a good cop without having a sort of sixth sense for danger, and for knowing when someone had their eyes on you. He felt their gaze, the impression of being stared at heavy in the atmosphere.

  “Hey! You hear me? I know you’re there!”

  This time there was a noise in the aftermath of his shout. A giggle of laughter, so light and quiet it blended into the watery chime of the eddies in the river.

  Tinkle-tee-hee-tinkle.

  Homer frowned. It wasn’t the sound he’d expect an adult to make, even if that person was playing games with him. It was too silly and self-indulgent.

  Childlike.

  The laughter came again, closer this time, and it sent shivers up his back. The innocence of it was oddly menacing, as if it was somehow too pure, too sweet. It brought a long-lost image to Homer’s mind. He’d been eight years old and one of his classmates, a boy named Mark Sperry, had shoved a pin right into the big bubble in the throat of a frog he’d caught. Just to see what happened.

  Mark’s laughter had been full of innocence too, while he watched the frog’s eyes pop clear out of its head.

  Last I heard, Mark was doing hard time for rape.

  His hand, which had strayed from his gun when he thought it might just be small children in the woods, returned to the comforting grip of the pistol.

  Homer kept his eyes to the woods, the sensation of being watched growing stronger, the silence growing more intimidating. He waited f
or more laughter, hoping to get an idea of where the little bastards were hiding, but either they’d gotten control of themselves or they were trying to convince him they were gone.

  He didn’t believe it for a second.

  Something splashed loudly in the river behind him, too loud to be a fish. A stone thrown from the woods, most likely. He prepared himself for what was probably coming next. The little fuckers planned on tossing rocks at him? Well, let them try. He pointed the gun at the sky and fired a single shot, the report echoing off the water and rocks before the forest swallowed it. A few birds took off from their hidden roosts, circled several times and then alighted again.

  Then nothing.

  Homer waited, a tiny smile curving the ends of his lips. Had he scared them off? Were they even now slinking back down a trail to the road? Or were they cowering behind a tree, afraid the big bad man with the gun was going to come looking for them? Either way, it didn’t matter. He’d accomplished his goal of letting them know who was boss. Maybe they’d think twice next time before starting—

  Sudden pain flared in the back of his leg and he almost fell onto the sand. He turned and saw a golf ball-sized rock rolling away.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  The little bastards were on the other side of the river, too. They’d set him up. He waved the gun in the air.

  “You want some of this? I’m a cop, dammit! Git your asses home before you get in real trouble!”

  Frustration replaced his previous fear and the self-satisfaction that had followed it. He was pushing sixty-three. No way could he chase kids through the woods and hope to catch them. And he certainly couldn’t shoot them. That’d be a PR nightmare. He’d lose his job, his pension, everything. Even if it was justified because he felt his life was in danger. Hell, he couldn’t even call the station and have a few men sent out, since he never brought his cell phone with him when he fished.

  Which left only one option.

  Admit defeat and go home.