Notorious Read online

  Joe’s hand froze in midair, the glass halfway to his mouth. “What?”

  Jon-Michael frowned warily at Joe’s intensity. “What part didn’t you understand?”

  “Patsy and Hayley together! That’s not good.” Joe reached out to grip his arm. “There is something really wrong with Patsy—and it’s centered around Hayley.”

  Frostbite raced up Jon-Michael’s spine. “Define wrong.”

  The chill spread when Joe described his wife’s obsession—especially when he got to the part where Patsy’s hero worship had turned to blame. “Why the hell didn’t you warn Hayley?” Jon-Michael snapped.

  “I couldn’t wrap my head around it, man. I’ve been married to Patsy for a long time and kept telling myself the hairs on the back of my neck did not stand on end last time I talked to her. But when you said they’re out together and Patsy has her bow…shit. I can’t keep fooling myself. This is trouble, man. Big trouble.”

  Jon-Michael pulled out his phone and hit Kurstin’s number.

  She picked up after the second ring. “I’m almost there—”

  “Where were Hayley and Patsy going?” he interrupted.

  “She didn’t say. But they went to Mavis Point last time and Hayley likes to shake things up. So I would bet on Big—”

  Jon-Michael hung up before she finished. “Call the Sheriff’s department and tell Paulette what’s going on,” he said over his shoulder, then pushed through the door before Joe or Bluey had time to reply or reach for a phone. Just before the heavy oak panel closed behind him, he called back, “Tell her they may have started from Big Bear.”

  Reaching his Harley, he slung a leg over and kick-started the machine. A moment later, as he thrust a foot to the ground to control his skid during a sharp turn onto the road, he saw Kurstie’s car approaching. She made a U-turn and fell in behind him. He also noticed Joe’s big Dually turning onto the road.

  Then, emptying his mind of anything not relevant to his goal, Jon-Michael opened the throttle.

  The train tracks appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly they were just there, seemingly headed straight toward the path Hayley ran before both railroad and trail gently curved west toward Big Bear Gap.

  All she cared about was reaching the tracks without Patsy catching up with her. Realizing her luck could change any second, Hayley ran as fast alongside the rails as her poor pounding heart and abused lungs would endure.

  A minute later she burst out into the clearing that edged the cliffs. With the trees now at her back, the early evening sunshine lost its filter and struck her fully in the face. Blocking the glare as best she could with a shielding hand, Hayley stepped onto the tracks. She trod the rustic ties cautiously until her eyes adjusted. Then she took off like a cat with a starved fox on its tail.

  Suddenly she was on the trestle over the water, the shades of blues and greens far below indicating the varying depths. And there was no turning back.

  Hayley blew out a pithy pfft. Who was she kidding? Turning back had ceased to be an option the minute Patsy shot at her.

  Her feet set up a rhythm against deck tie after deck tie, and before she knew it she had passed the trestle’s halfway mark. The glimpses of lake through the gaps between the rough timbers settled her nerves and she began to believe she was almost home free.

  “I am going to enjoy killing you, you hypocritical cunt!”

  Patsy’s strident voice nearly on top of Hayley’s new conviction she had a chance at escaping screwed up her rhythm. The toe of one shoe skidded into a gap between the ties, sending her sprawling.

  She caught herself before she face-planted, abrading the heels of her hands. Looking at them, she snorted. Bloody scrapes were small spuds. She whipped a look over her shoulder as she shoved herself upright.

  And strung together a mixed-up string of prayers, pleas and obscenities. Her former friend was farther across the trestle than she expected. Being batshit crazy, as Ty had so aptly called her, seemed to have erased Patsy’s lifelong fear of the trestle.

  At the moment she was struggling with the bow. To Hayley’s dismay, the rock with which she’d struck her former friend had damaged the hand holding the bow rather than the one needed to draw back the arrow against killer tension. She had forgotten Patsy was a leftie.

  Hayley barked out a laugh sounding scarily close to hysteria. As if she’d had a plan for anything that happened from the moment Patsy first shot at her. She launched off the tie like a runner from a starting block. By the time she hit the third timber, she was running flat out.

  Damned if she planned to die today at the hands of a woman she’d once called friend.

  As though Hayley’s unamused laugh was the catalyst to set the other woman off once again, Patsy began raving nonstop, threatening all manner of chilling mayhem and torture. Hayley tuned it out as best she could and focused on hauling ass to the other side of the Gap.

  She was within a yard of her goal, almost close enough to jump to solid ground, when an explosive blow to her upper arm sent her staggering. Her vision went red around the edges and she fell to her knees. Slowly she looked down. An arrow had stabbed through her triceps. The point and three inches of shaft stuck out in front of her arm. The feathered end stuck out the back and blood oozed a viscous red trail to her elbow.

  Her head went swoopy. Knowing Patsy would be on her to finish the job if she passed out, Hayley swallowed the saliva pooling in her mouth, breathed in deeply then slowly exhaled through her nose until the nausea retreated. Bracing her good hand on the track, she pushed herself up.

  And screamed at the top of her lungs when agony seared her arm. Simultaneously, cold horror iced her gut.

  The rail beneath her hand had begun to vibrate.

  “Oh, shit.” Gritting her teeth, she made herself climb to her feet. She found clutching her elbow to her side with her free hand stabilized the arrow and dialed back the pain from This is fucking killing me to a mere Hurts, hurts, hurts!

  Somewhere in the distance a male voice called her name and her heart slammed against the wall of her chest. Recognizing the precious voice, she screamed Jon-Michael’s name. With Patsy growing closer, moving now was imperative. At least the other woman had yet to nock a second arrow. It gave Hayley some hope she could make it off the tracks without being shot again.

  Fiercely focused on placing her feet, she entered the shade of the woods before she realized solid ground supported the ties she navigated. Stepping onto a rail preparatory to getting the hell off the tracks, she could feel how much its vibration had intensified.

  And, dammit to hell, knew she had to warn Patsy.

  It was without a doubt the stupidest, most reckless idea she had ever had. Yet no matter how crazy her old schoolmate had become, despite Patsy doing her damnedest to kill her, Hayley did not have the stomach to leave her to be mowed down by a train. Not without at least attempting to save her.

  She turned back toward the sunny cliff.

  I am within a reachable distance of the solid cliffs on the other side of the Gap when Hayley, who should be fairly far ahead of me by now, suddenly emerges from the woods. “Patsy!” she yells. “Hurry up. The train is coming!”

  What the—? She wants to help me? I did not see that coming. Not after watching my arrow knock her on her face. So why the hell is she out in the open, warning me of some stupid train?

  The big compound bow hangs limply from my left hand, my messed up right hand throbs like a bitch, and I blink at her. “What?” Is this some kind of trick?

  “Patsy, please, move your ass!”

  I stare at the arrow sticking out of my one-time friend’s arm and feel a savage sort of satisfaction. And yet…

  "You know, Mrs. Dutton," I hear her voice saying to Mother in such polite but firm tones, "perhaps if you weren't always riding Patsy so hard you would see that, far from being stupid, she is actually one of the smartest kids in our graduating class."

  I stare at the arm she hugs to her side. At the arrow through her flesh.
And the blood. “Oh, God, I did that,” I say. I am simultaneously proud I hit my mark under less than ideal conditions—even if it was a body shot I was after—and horrified right down to my socks. “And—shit on a shingle!—I killed Ty!”

  “Ty is not dead, Pats. He’s badly hurt, but last I saw of him he was alive.”

  “He was?” I’m not really sure how I feel about that. Part of me supposes the fact I am not the stone cold killer Hayley called me earlier is a good thing. And yet— “I liked it when I thought I had killed him,” I murmur. Then I shake my head, because let’s be honest. “No, I loved it.”

  I am momentarily swamped with self-loathing. “Who does that?” I stare again at the bloody arrow through Hayley’s arm. “Who shoots one of her oldest friends?”

  “Someone who needs help. Come with me and I’ll see you get it.”

  I stand there, curiously indecisive. But it is hard to hear over the roaring noise in my head.

  Until, over it, Hayley yells, “Move it, dammit! The five o’clock is gonna be here any minute.”

  Confused, I frown down at the face of my watch. “But...it is almost five forty-five.”

  “For pity’s sake,” Hayley says, “Didn’t you learn anything hanging with Kurstie and me?”

  And, snap! My remorse disappears. Christ. I never learn, do I? Because, for Hayley, Kurstin will always, but always, come first. And I will forever be nothing but a pathetic, poor-ass second. I fumble for my last arrow. It nocks surprisingly smoothly and I bring up the bow, ignoring the pain in my right hand while I draw back the bowstring with my left.

  Hayley seems clueless, although she does take a step back into the woods, making it a lot tougher to see her in the deep, textured shade beneath the trees. It doesn’t matter. I know I have her. I savor the moment and ask if she has any last words.

  To my surprise, she says, “You should have paid attention, Pats. Because if it’s five-forty-five at the Big Bear Gap trestle, the five o’clock is right—“

  The train roars around the bend and heads straight for me. “On time,” I whisper even as I see Hayley’s lips mouth the same words.

  Engulfed by nameless dread and with only seconds to decide, I choose what strikes me as the easier of two deaths and step off the bridge. I immediately regret my choice as I plummet toward the lake. And I scream and scream.

  Knowing striking it will shatter me into oblivion.

  Twenty-Three

  Not even when he played varsity soccer had Jon-Michael run this fast. He’d left everyone who followed him to Big Bear trailhead in the dust. It felt like a lifetime but likely wasn’t more than four or five minutes between abandoning his Harley at a non-navigable protrusion of rocks in the path to bursting out onto the cliff.

  He skidded to a halt.

  It was empty, which sent his stomach plunging. Because, please, please! Do not let that scream have been Hayley dropping to the water or, worse, just before she was struck by the five o’clock.

  “Jon.”

  The faint voice had him whirling. At first he saw nothing and feared his mind manufactured the sound. But adjusting his sights downward, he located Hayley sitting, legs sprawled out in front of her and her back propped against a tree. At least the right half of her back was. The left side wasn’t because—bleeding Christ on a crutch—a fucking arrow stuck through her left arm.

  Grateful to find her alive, he closed the distance between them in two huge strides and dropped to his knees by her right hip. He wanted to haul her into his arms but could only reach out and hover a hand above the arrow.

  “It hurts like the fires of hell,” she said calmly, “but I think it missed the main arteries.” Then her face crumpled. “Oh, God, Jon-Michael, Patsy is d-dead. I tried to warn her the five o’clock was coming, but she wouldn’t listen. She was so damn messed up and she scared the shit out of me. I tried my best to knock her out when we were on the other side of the Gap, but I didn’t want to kill her. She truly, desperately needed help. More than anything, she needed that.” Tears flowed along paths that showed this was not her first cry. “Not to d-die!”

  Joe tumbled out onto the cliff in time to hear her, and abruptly sat. “Dead? How do you know?”

  Kurstin was next out of the woods. “Who’s dead?”

  “Patsy,” Jon-Michael answered before Hayley had to repeat herself. He succinctly summarized what she had told him.

  Hayley only corrected him once, when she said Patsy jumped off the bridge to avoid the train. “And I buried Ty on the other side of the Gap,” she added.

  Aw, dammit. Hayley knew even before Kurstin’s face turned bone-white she should have prefaced her statement with why Ty was buried. “He’s not dead!” she hastened to say. “I am so sorry, Kurst, this mother-freakin’ pain is making me stupid. But he’s alive.” She explained the situation in as few words as possible.

  “Tell me where!” Kurstin all but danced with impatience. “I need to find him.”

  “You can’t get him across the trestle, Kurst. He will have to be taken out, preferably on a stretcher, through the Mavis Point trailhead, the way Pa—“ She had to swallow hard. “The way we came in.”

  “But I can dig him out so he can breathe fresh air and know he’s okay. I can sit with him until someone comes to take him to a hospital. Right?” She waved a hand. “I know you have good reason not to like him, Hayles, but—“

  “I’m warming up to him a bit,” Hayley interrupted. Then, starting from the point where the tracks disappeared into the woods on the other side of the trestle, she described the curves in the path as best as she remembered taking them. “I might be off by a bend or two, but look for a curved branch at the base of a fir tree. You can see it from either direction on the path. It’s the only deadfall right next to the trail.” She went on to describe how many trees beyond the fir on the other side of the path Kurstin should count before cutting into the woods. “Or, hell, just call out to him. He should hear you.” Unless he was in a lot worse shape than when she’d left him.

  Kurstie bounded off in her fancy ballet flats. When she barely slowed upon hitting the trestle, Joe murmured, “Jesus. If that was me, I would probably be crawling across the thing.”

  “Ty said the same thing when he told me to leave him behind.” Hayley rested her head against the trunk. “I don’t suppose either of you have an Aleve?”

  They did not, but minutes later she heard Paulette call out from the woods. Joe rose and went to meet her.

  A brief while after that, the sheriff squatted in front of Hayley.

  “God love us,” she said softly. “Joe said Patsy Beal did this to you? Where is she now?”

  “Oh, God, Paulette.” Hayley’s eyes welled with tears once more. “If she’s not dead I’ll be amazed.” She was thankful Jon-Michael once again took up the explanation.

  Paulette called the search and rescue team to start looking for Patsy’s body. Soon after, Ben Myers and Evie Bell, Gravers Bend’s EMTs, showed up, Ben packing a backboard under his arm like a surfboard.

  Looking at the narrow-headed target arrow sticking out of her arm, he squatted next to her and said, “I’m sorry, chickie, this is going to hurt.” He snipped its point off with a pair of powerful clippers.

  Hayley was still catching her breath when he suddenly yanked the projectile out. Red-hot pain exploded in what felt like her entire left side. “Seriously?” she panted.

  “Sorry. There is just no good way to do that. On the bright side, it doesn’t look like it struck anything vital.” He pressed a thick gauze pad against the wound and taped it down, then leaned Hayley against his chest so Evie could do the same to the exit wound. They slid her onto the stretcher, strapped her to it and smoothly rose to their feet with her on the backboard between them.

  Evie split a look between Jon-Michael and Joe. “Can one of you follow us to the Mavis Point trailhead? I want to get Hayley to the hospital and we could use an extra guy to help Ben pack out Holloway.”

  “I will.” Wi
th a final look down at the water where his wife had disappeared, Joe came over to join them. They all set off for the Big Bear trailhead.

  The journey was far from comfortable but every movement didn’t explode pain through her arm as it had with the arrow still in it. She was nonetheless happy to be loaded onto the ambulance that doubled as Graver Bend’s hearse.

  And eternally grateful not to be on her way to Swanson’s Funeral Parlor.

  They made a stop at the other trailhead, leaving Joe and Ben with a second backboard to collect Ty. Evie drove Hayley to the little two-story hospital. She and Jon-Michael, who pulled in right behind them, carried Hayley into the ER. The EMT gave the doctor on call her report then left to drive back to the trailhead to pick up Ben, Joe and Ty.

  The sun had long gone down by the time the ER doc finally cut her loose. Weary, sad and sore, Hayley wanted only to go home. But as Jon-Michael tied her shoes so she could leave in the wheelchair the staff insisted she would ride as far as the hospital entrance if she wanted out of there, Kurstin banged through the door.

  “Ty is leaving me to take some big deal job on the New York Times. For my own good, he says!”

  “Dammit, Kurstin, take care of your own problems,” Jon-Michael snapped.

  But Hayley spoke over him. “What? Oh, for God’s sake.” She waited until he finished tying the second shoe, then slid off the hospital bed and walked gingerly to the door. Stopping, she turned. “What room?”

  “Follow me.” Kurstin eased past her.

  Hayley took exactly one step before Jon-Michael raced up behind her with the wheelchair. “Sit,” he said in a you-don’t–even-wanna-mess-with-me voice. She sat, and still he swore under his breath the entire short trip down the hall.

  She, on the other hand, marveled over the drugs they had administered for her pain. They were suddenly damn effective. She was rejoicing over how they not only killed the pain but made her feel downright happy-happy, when Kurstin turned into a room. Jon-Michael wheeled her in behind his sister.