Ruth Kimball. And this morning, you came very close to killing Charley Kimball because she was snooping around down by the studio.”
“I didn’t know about all of it,” Trip said. “I swear to God. I didn’t know she was going to kill anyone. I thought it was just taking things.”
“Okay,” the woman said. “I think we should go outside now. Hand me the rifle, Trip.”
He hesitated and she turned around to look at him.
“No,” he said. He was crying. He dropped it to the ground, at Gally’s feet. Sweeney watched, aware of every muscle in her body, every pulse of blood through her veins. The woman lunged for the rifle and Trip pushed her away. “Get away, Rosemary,” he said. “I just want it to end.”
“It will,” she said. “This is it.” She moved slowly toward him, smiling, her hands out in front of her as though she were approaching a dog.
And in the instant she had turned her attention to Trip, Sweeney pushed past her and through the front door, yelling for Gally to follow her.
She had taken off her hat and gloves while she looked for the paintings and the freezing snow lashed her bare skin as she stumbled into the trees. If she could just find the path, if she could just get on the path, she might make it back. She stopped, but she had lost her bearings and she couldn’t find an opening in the trees, couldn’t find anything to set one patch of swirling whiteness apart from another. It was disorienting, like being under water, and when the wind died for a moment and she saw the silvery length of river below, she headed for it. If she followed the river, she would be okay.
When she reached the edge of the woods, she sat and slid down the little slope to the riverbank. Out on the river, she could see patches of ice interrupted by the swiftly moving water, dark and oily, and she could smell its peculiar scent. Even half-frozen, it exuded a green, live odor, like some awakening creature, waiting in the storm. The mist that the warmer snow made as it hit the cold water was like the breath of the beast, encircling and hovering.
Sweeney ran, but the snow by the side of the river was deep and it was hard going. She’d gone a few hundred yards when she turned to see if Trip and Gally were behind her. She stopped. The snow whipped at her skin.
All she heard was the howling wind.
And then she saw the rifle, raised, and the small figure standing very straight and still, only twenty yards behind her. Sweeney turned, but the riverbank had started to rise and she kept slipping as she tried to scramble up the bank. She was trapped. The woman was coming at her and the only thing she could think of was the water. She waded in, the iciness climbing her legs as she tried to run in the thin strip of unfrozen water at the river’s edge. There was ice on the riverbed too and Sweeny kept slipping.
It was only a couple of seconds before her legs began to go numb. They got heavier and heavier, the way they did in her nightmares, and she slowed, trying to talk herself out of it, but knowing there was nothing she could do.
She stumbled in the water, felt it come up around her like a blanket, and when she turned, she saw the woman, standing on the bank and leveling the rifle at her. Sweeney’s waist was tingling. She turned and looked at the dark water as it rose up to meet her. She turned back and waited for the shot.
But out of the storm, a figure came leaping off the riverbank. It was Trip and he landed behind the woman, knocking her off her feet. She fell into the water and he went in after her, struggling for the gun. She regained her balance stood up, then seemed to lose her footing.
Sweeney watched it happen, paralyzed. The woman slipped and screamed. And then the current drew her under the ice. Trip lunged for her as she was sucked under and she grabbed the edge of the ice and Sweeney saw the white of her hands, gripping the dark floe before she let go and disappeared.
Sweeney screamed and her legs gave way as Trip rushed out to catch her. The snow came down and they stumbled from the river.
THIRTY-FOUR
“BUT HOW DID