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Part 3

Quiet and cat-like he slipped from the table and approached the door quietly, gun at the ready. She could see the corded muscles in his forearms as he held the weapon steady.

“Really, dear brother, you do me a rudeness, making me stand out here on the doormat, addressing you through this wooden door. Shall I make an opening so that we can hear each other more clearly? Better still, I could make an opening in both the door and your woman at the same time. I have always enjoyed efficiency.”

“An opening like that would much improve my own aim,” he answered, just loudly enough to be heard. His voice was strong and composed, and she wondered at the calm, confident air in a man who was facing the brother who had been draining his very blood.

There was a laugh. “And sacrifice her? My dear brother, you are growing quite callous. You really should take up an occupation more suitable to your disposition. This FBI nonsense can get very wearing. I sometimes read about your exploits. Astonishing the Boy Scouts didn’t see you as an appropriate fit. They were mistaken, weren’t they?”

While the man outside was still laughing, the man inside suddenly grasped the knob of the door, flung it wide, and fired point-blank. The sudden roar of the gun made her jump.

There was a pause, and then somewhat breathlessly, “Bravo, frater. I would never have dreamed you would have it in you, shooting me like this. Well struck.” He managed a short laugh. “You realize, of course, that if something should happen to me and I do not return to my estate, you, this woman, this place...gone in but a second. If I do not return tonight.” She heard the man laugh again. “You must have realized I arranged for that contingency already. You cannot kill me here and now.”

The gun roared one more time and this time she couldn’t control a gasp. Was he killing his brother on her doorstep regardless?

But no, the voice started again, somewhat strained. “Twice? You wound me twice?”

Then at last the man in black spoke. “I have wounded you once in each arm. You will not be able to shoot me, or her. At least not today. But you will be able to go back to your estate, so this woman and this place will remain intact. And that is what you are going to do. You are going to leave and never come back. You will not harm this woman ever. Is that understood? Should anything happen to her, and you do realize that I know your signature quite well, I promise you I will take every last diamond in Enoch’s collection and destroy it.” The drawl that had made his voice so warm and comforting when he spoke to her now shifted into something cold and hard, tempered steel.

“You don’t know where they are, brother. It is so unlike you to make empty threats.”

“Au contraire, mon frere.” There was just the slightest sneer in the quiet voice. “It is so unlike you to make assumptions. You are not the only one to have the resources to find them. I know where every single one of them now reposes. Harm this woman and those diamonds will cease to exist in this world. I promise you this. I will pulverize each one of them myself.”

There was a pause. “Check, frater. You understand I make no promise regarding you, or anyone else you may hold dear in your pathetic Boy Scout life.”

“I believe we understand each other.” She could almost picture a lazy smile on the pale countenance, as the rest of the reply was drawled out. “But you cannot kill me here and now, either. It may take some time for those muscles to heal. And the tendons.”

“Oh, very well. Adieu, brother. At least until we meet again.” The voice dwindled as the speaker moved away. “Oh, and it turns out your blood is quite useless to me. Certainly of less use or interest than all those creatures whose heads I displayed so lovingly for you to look at while you were my guest. Funny thing about those animals, though. You had a hand in that. You see, I didn’t collect your blood after I took it from you. I just poured it out in the woods and let the animals have at it. They had quite a party with it, all those nights. What a perfect killing field...” A final laugh came back to them from a distance and lingered on the cold air.

At last he closed the door against the night, gun still held tightly in his hand, and collapsed against the wood of it, sliding his back down the rough surface until he sat down on the floor with a bump. He looked at the gun in his hand as if he didn’t remember how it had gotten there, and put it down on the floor beside him. He was shaking.

She moved then, gathering him up in her arms and bringing him back to the fireplace. “I’ll get some more wood,” she said.

“No.” He pulled her down with him onto the blankets, his grasp strong and sure, and after wrapping her arms around him tightly, he fell asleep against her warmth.



He left the next afternoon. “Even out here, remote as it can be, someone will come to investigate those gunshots.”

She tilted her head to look up at him. “Maybe. Maybe not. This is, after all, Northern Wisconsin.” She smiled crookedly at him and was pleased that he smiled back, the same warm, heart-stopping smile she had seen so briefly the night before. “But you have no shoes,” she pointed out. “You have no coat and it is quite cold out there. Are you sure...?”

“I used your phone this morning and arrangements have been made. Someone will be waiting for me just a little way down the road.”

She nodded. “You be careful. Make sure you drink enough to replace the blood you lost. And eat enough meat.”

“I will take care of myself,” he said quietly. “And you?”

“Me? I choose life,” she said. “Thank you.”

He leaned forward and kissed her then, a soft touch of his even softer lips against hers. “I owe you much. But I do not believe we will ever see each other again.”

She smiled at him and touched his pale hair, his ear, and ran her fingertips along the side of his face one last time. His skin was soft and warm. “I will see you, perhaps,” she said. “I have visions.”

He inclined his head by way of reply and quietly let himself out the door.

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