Chapter Forty-One
I stand slowly, my hands raised, as Gilcrest edges into the field. “What are you doing here, Charlie?” he asks.
“I should ask you the same thing,” I say, though I can imagine him hearing Seton’s call for backup over the radio and telling Maggie to stay put at Idlewood while he responded.
“Should you? I’m the cop, not you. And last I checked, there are dead bodies piling up faster than I can count.” He waves the gun toward a spot beside the stone wall and waits for me to move. “You should be at your aunt’s house. Asleep. And far away from whatever’s happening here.”
Beside me, Ginger whines. Gilcrest is the only person other than Freya whom the German shepherd trusts.
He could have hiked the trail here earlier, when he heard Freya shooting at targets.
Maybe he watched from the cover of the forest before creeping out while Freya had her back to him, her headphones on.
Maybe, for a moment, Freya was glad to see him.
He keeps the gun trained on me, eyes alert, scanning the darkness, as he crosses the grass to where Ginger sits.
He offers her a hand to sniff, then retrieves a bottle of water from his coat pocket, twists the cap off with his teeth, and drizzles the water slowly enough for Ginger to lap at it thirstily.
“How long has she been out here by herself?” he asks.
“You tell me,” I say.
“Lose the attitude and answer the questions or I’ll release her,” Gilcrest says. “She’ll make you tell me what the hell is going on. Where’s Freya? She wouldn’t leave Ginger tied up in the middle of nowhere like this.”
Ginger finishes lapping at the water. Gilcrest tosses the bottle aside and strokes her between the ears. She closes her eyes, presses against his leg, and sighs. “You’re okay, girl,” Gilcrest says. “We’ll get you off this mountain.”
Gilcrest isn’t here as a kidnapper or a murderer.
He isn’t here as a cop. He’s here because of someone he cares about, someone he may love.
I take a chance, and decide to trust him.
“I don’t know how long Ginger’s been alone,” I say.
“I was at the farm and heard barking. Freya’s truck is parked in Paul’s sugarhouse.
Someone stabbed my father. He’s barely conscious but alive. And I couldn’t find Paul anywhere.”
Gilcrest takes in what I’ve told him. “Sounds to me like your father really did come to the Landing that night. That’ll be good for the podcast.”
He holsters the gun and punches a number into his phone. He gives our location and a brief synopsis of the situation. “Be fast,” he says as he clicks off. “That was the chief. She’s sending an ambulance to take care of your father.”
I glance up the hill. “When I got here, Ginger was focused that way. There’s a cabin at the summit. If Freya’s anywhere nearby, we should start there.”
Gilcrest surveys the trees around us, then comes close to me and places his phone in my hand.
When he speaks, his voice is soft, barely a whisper.
“The passcode is 0221. It’s the day I met Freya.
You’re a runner. Take the phone. Run all the way to the trailhead, as fast as you can.
If you get in trouble along the way, call the chief and tell her where you are and what you need. Otherwise, keep moving.”
“What about Ginger?”
“She’ll be fine. She had water, and the other cops will take care of her.”
Gilcrest and I aren’t competing, not anymore. “I can help you,” I say.
“You’ll help by getting yourself away from the scene. The less I worry about, the easier my job will be. And later, when this is all over, we’ll grab a drink and work through your story. By now, I think we have enough material for a TV series.” He presses his forehead to mine. “Go. Please.”
I take a step backward.
“And, Charlie,” Gilcrest adds, “tell Seton to hurry.”
“I will,” I say.
Gilcrest removes his gun from the holster as he edges along the fieldstone wall and fades into the dark, toward the cabin.
Ginger watches him go, a whine beginning at the back of her throat.
I toss her the last of the biscuits and give her permission to eat them. At least this time, she doesn’t snarl.
“Take care,” I whisper as I retreat into the trees and start to run. I’ve covered a few hundred yards when gunshots fill the night, followed by dead silence. I freeze in place, crouching in the shadows.
Far off in the distance, sirens scream. I picture EMTs swarming the farm as they pull my father from the back of Freya’s truck.
I hope he stanched the blood long enough for them to save him.
Seton must have arrived by now, too. She should be jogging onto the trailhead and along the brook, cursing my name for getting myself involved.
It takes me ten minutes to run from the trailhead to the summit. It’ll take anyone else fifteen.
Fifteen minutes too long.
I retrace my steps to the field. Ginger faces away from me, toward the trail where Gilcrest disappeared moments ago. She’s silent now, even when I whisper her name.
I keep to the shadows and make my way past the wall. As the path arcs toward the summit, I stop. The sound of my heart beating fills the night, but there, beneath it all, I find shallow, panicked breathing.
“Charlie,” Gilcrest mumbles.
I crawl toward his voice. When I reach him, I feel along his coat, to his side, where my hand comes away covered in something warm and viscous, with a distinct smell of copper.
“You should be long gone,” Gilcrest gasps.
“I’m not great at doing what I’m told.”
I tap Gilcrest’s phone. The brief light from the screen reveals blood oozing from a wound in his shoulder.
“Gunshot,” he says. “Couldn’t see who it was.”
I put an arm around his back, forcing him to sit. “Get out of here,” he says, between gritted teeth.
“I would if I could,” I say, dragging him as gently as possible across the forest floor until he’s propped against a tree. I reach under his coat, into the holster, but it’s empty.
“Gone,” he says, his head falling to the side.
“Don’t close your eyes,” I say. And please don’t die, I think to myself. “Tell me anything you want. How about what you want to tell Freya when you see her next?”
“Love her,” Gilcrest manages to say. “And sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I say. “You and I, we were a couple of assholes earlier, out in Paul’s driveway. But that’s not the dumbest thing I’ve said to her. We were in bed together, and I told her she reminds me of Maude from Harold and Maude.”
Gilcrest laughs, then winces in pain. “Smooth move, Harold.”
“So, so dumb,” I say. “And I’d take it back in a second if I could. I wish I had half your confidence. I don’t have any game.”
“Slicker than you know,” Gilcrest says.
I scroll through the contacts on his phone until I find Seton’s name.
“Haviland,” she says when she answers, her breathing heavy. “On our way.”
“It’s Charlie,” I whisper. “Gilcrest’s been shot. He’s hurt badly and needs transport off the mountain. He’s about a hundred yards from the summit, near the cabin, right off the path.”
“We’ll be there soon,” Seton says. “Ten minutes.”
I fold Gilcrest’s hand over the phone and put it to his ear. “Keep talking. Make sure Seton knows where you are. And whatever you do, don’t close your eyes.”
Ahead, up the path, a light flickers inside the hunting cabin. There, in an open window, sits Freya, her auburn hair tied in a ponytail, a gag in her mouth.
I hear Freya’s voice in my ear, Gina Shock’s, too, and imagine them both at that whiteboard, talking to the CBI team: Follow the evidence.
There’s Seton’s advice, too: Go with the simplest explanation.
Who discouraged Freya from buying the house at Burkehaven?
Who wanted her to return to New York and dismiss the life she’s tried to forge here?
Who’s known Freya for decades and had access to every aspect of her life, her every move?
And who, unlike my brother, wasn’t a teenager when Freya played Brenda Jackson on Eternal Flame?
Only one person ticks those boxes, and it’s not Gilcrest, and it’s certainly not my brother.
“Tell Seton to be very quiet when she gets here,” I say to Gilcrest. “If she isn’t, Paul will kill Freya.”