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“I thought maybe the Knights of the Golden Circle.”
“They’re the least of your worries.”
He kept the gun aimed. This idiot actually thought he could one-up him. Apparently his spate of good luck had been so good, and so long, that he thought himself invincible. The killing of Martin Thomas, finding the Trail Stone, shooting Stephanie, stealing the Heart Stone. Quite a run, though some of the cards had been stacked in his favor.
He tried one more time.
“Drop. The. Gun.”
* * *
Grant kept his finger tight on the trigger. He’d have only an instant once he turned. His hope was that this man, though equipped with a weapon, did not have the nerve to pull the trigger. Sure, in the heat of a moment, in reaction to a direct threat, to save their own hides, anybody would shoot. But if he was slow and careful he might be able to tick off a round before this guy knew what hit him. Then Proctor was next. And if he dawdled long enough perhaps Proctor would come looking for him and take care of this problem for him.
He heard the man order him for a second time to drop the gun.
But he ignored the command.
And slowly started to turn.
* * *
Cotton could tell that this guy intended to see how much nerve he possessed. That was the trouble with wise guys. They never knew when to quit.
Breckinridge slowly swung his body around, as if he intended to drop the gun and raise his hands in surrender. The right hand still held the weapon, the left empty and heading upward.
A diversion.
And a poor one at that.
He decided to give him every opportunity, hoping not to be disappointed.
And he wasn’t.
Breckinridge swung his right arm up, but never made it level.
One round left Cotton’s gun.
The bullet bore a neat hole in Breckinridge’s skull, passing right through, exploding a spray of brains and blood outward. Death came in an instant, the body collapsing in a lifeless heap.
He lowered the gun.
“That’s for Stephanie.”
But he immediately thought of Cassiopeia.
And ran back toward the ruins.
* * *
Cassiopeia lay on the rocky soil, the mountain lion’s staring eyes never leaving her, not even as the sound of Proctor approaching through the rock maze grew louder. The big cat heard it, too, tensing with a slight alteration of its shape and readiness, which it released, then built again, slowly rising to its feet.
She did not move a muscle, barely breathing.
“Be a good kitty,” she muttered, swallowing, trying to control the tremor in her voice.
She could see no escape from either danger.
All she could do was watch.
Proctor rounded a corner and spotted her, the rifle held ready as by a hunter on safari.
“You saved me the trouble of carrying your body down to the river,” he said.
The mountain lion growled.
Proctor heard it, too, and sent a bullet to the rock near the animal’s head.
Which sent the cat scurrying away.
“It would be a shame to kill something so beautiful,” he said to her. “Unfortunately, the same doesn’t apply to you.”
* * *
Cotton found Frank Breckinridge’s body, the old man shot dead. That meant only the one other man and Cassiopeia remained.
But where?
A gunshot cracked.
And not all that far away. Toward the river.
He headed that way, following an uneven gravel path strewn with dead limbs. Overhead a vulture circled, riding the day’s first thermals.
An omen?
He hoped not.
* * *
Cassiopeia had always wondered when the end would come. She’d tempted death many times, taking risks that most people went out of their way to avoid. Now she’d maneuvered herself into an untenable position, trapped on a riverbank, among a cluster of boulders, a man with a rifle staring her down.
“You do understand,” Proctor said. “This is not personal.”
“It is to me.”
He chuckled. “I suppose it might be.”
“My usefulness has waned?”
“I’m afraid so. The pilot of that plane is probably dead and you’re about to join him. Then we knights disappear back into the shadows.”
If that pilot was Cotton, she had to believe he was okay. And why wouldn’t he be? He was Harold Earl “Cotton” Malone. The best man she’d ever known.
So she decided to do something radical.
Something she hadn’t done since she was a child.
* * *
Cotton heard a scream.
Loud. Piercing.
Nearby.
At the river.
Since Cassiopeia was the only woman he’d seen for miles, it had to be her.
He ran toward it.
* * *
Cassiopeia kept up the ruse, feigning fear, buying time.
“I expected a little more courage from you,” Proctor said.
“Nobody wants to die.”
“No, I suppose not. But your time is here.”
“Any way to talk you out of it? Like you said in the diner, women have been known to offer things when cornered.”
He shook his head. “Not this time.”
He aimed the rifle.
She had regrets, but not all that many. She’d lived life her way, on her terms, and could not complain. There’d been ups, downs, mistakes, misfortunes, and great successes. The one major regret was Cotton. They wouldn’t get to finish what they’d started.
Which she hated.
/> But this fight was over. She could dive in the river, but Proctor would only shoot her. Without arms and hands she’d be little more than a floating duck. Apparently, there was no one around to hear her scream. It had been a calculated move that had not paid off. So in her final moments she dropped the pretense of fear, rose to her feet, and stared the gun down.
“Go ahead. Pull the damn trigger.”
“Killing is never easy,” he said. “But sometimes it’s necessary.”
She closed her eyes.
A shot exploded.
But no bullet pierced her body.
Instead Proctor lunged forward as something slammed into him from behind. Then another shot echoed and his head exploded from a high-powered impact. The body pitched from side to side before folding to the rocky ground.
She ran ahead, past the rocks blocking her view, and saw Cotton at the top of the bank. Relief swept through her.
God, she loved that man.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I am now.”
She climbed up, kissed him hard, and said, “I thought it was all over.”
“Never.”
She liked the sound of that. “I was hoping you’d hear that scream.”
“Good thing I came along to save your hide.”
He was right. Lately, it had been more the other way around. “About time you start repaying the favor.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
He found a pocketknife and freed her bindings. Her arms ached from being in one position for so long, her fingers numb and slow to flex. She stretched them toward the sky.
“What about the Breckinridges?” she asked.
“Both dead.”
“Your work?”
“Only for the one that mattered.”
“So that about wraps it up?”
“Not exactly,” he said.
She knew what he meant.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
CARSON NATIONAL FOREST
SUNDAY, MAY 30
Cotton stood beside the old horse trough, built—he now knew—by Angus Adams. Two days had passed since the carnage. They’d spent yesterday connected by the Internet to the Castle and Rick Stamm, where they’d combined all five stones into a single digital mosaic.
Cassiopeia had shown him the Alpha Stone that Frank Breckinridge uncovered in the church. The five images had all been similarly sized and scaled, just as if the actual stones had been lying side by side. When the Trail and Alpha Stones were placed alongside each other, with the Heart Stone inserted, the line with eighteen markers formed a clear path leading to the center of the heart.
