He heard another shot ring out, but it was blind, nowhere close to where Finn was running. Perry had lost him, and now Finn was deep into the trees. He stopped, keeping a tree between him and the area where he assumed Perry must be hiding. He took his gun from its holster, dropped to his knee, and looked out from the cover of the tree, completely motionless.
He stared for a few seconds, seeing nothing. Then he spotted a disturbance in the air—Perry’s breath billowing out into the cold. He was obscured by a tree, but there was the hunting rifle leaning against that same tree. Perry was probably looking through binoculars, scanning the deepening woods for signs of Finn, no doubt becoming more nervous with each failed scan of the terrain.
Perry and the gun were about thirty yards away. Finn looked at the snowy path between him and his target, scanning the gentle undulations for signs that there were obstacles over which he might trip or stumble. It looked clear. He checked his pockets, making sure he had quick access to the spare magazines.
Finn started running, fast, covering ten yards before Perry realized something was amiss. Even when Perry’s senses kicked in, he probably didn’t know where Finn was, only that there was the sound of movement. He reached down for the gun, but Finn was ready.
He fired off a couple of rounds, deafening in the chill stillness of the woods, one getting lucky and hitting the stock of the gun, knocking it to the floor. Perry recoiled and set off, darting away through the trees. As Finn reached the abandoned hunting rifle, three of four shots sounded in quick succession, blind. It was covering fire from Perry even as he continued to run, inadvertently letting Finn know that he also had a handgun.
Finn stepped out from behind the tree, studied Perry as he weaved desperately away, then fired a single shot down the central line along which Perry was moving. Occasionally, a shot like that proved lucky, but it wasn’t what Finn was expecting and it wasn’t what he got. He stepped behind the tree as Perry responded with another desperate volley of shots.
Perry was running away from the house, and Finn wondered where he was heading. It didn’t look like a strategy, more like a panicked escape, but if that was the case he was surely heading in the wrong direction, unless he intended to run all the way around the lake and back again.
Finn sprinted after him, waiting thirty seconds before firing off another round. The same volley came back. Finn wondered what he was carrying, how many bullets in a magazine, whether he had spares—possibly not if the gun had been only a backup for the hunting rifle.
He repeated the same actions: sprinting, a single round, taking cover. A shot came back, the closest yet, clattering through the snow-covered branches to the left of where Finn stood, but it came alone. As the thunderclap of the first shot faded, Finn heard the failed click of the next.
He looked out and saw Perry running, a sudden change of direction, toward the lake. If he’d had another magazine, he would have stayed out of sight until he’d reloaded, or he’d have run on, changing it in flight. Perry was out of ammunition, and if Finn had read him right, he was trying to cut back along the lakeshore to the house.
Finn fired a shot off to his left, aiming about twenty yards in front of the line Perry was taking, then set off after the bullet. Perry, sensing that he was about to be intercepted, made what seemed like a calamitous decision; Finn listened in amazement as he heard Perry’s hard footfall stamping across the ice.
Finn ran faster, spotting him a few paces before reaching the open shore. Perry was about ten yards out on the ice, just about to cross Finn’s line of sight. And Finn could see his reasoning, at least, because it was a shortcut back toward the house, but no less ill-judged for that.
Finn fired a shot into the ice in Perry’s path, and watched as he came to a stumbling halt, staring down at his own feet for thirty seconds, getting his breath before slowly turning to where Finn stood at the edge of the lake.
Two bullets, thought Finn, he had two bullets left in this magazine and he had to make them count, because changing the magazine at this point wasn’t an option.
Perry was wearing a heavy parka but no hat, suggesting he’d left the house in a hurry once he’d heard the car. But he’d known in advance that Finn was coming, that was certain, and he looked back at Finn as if he’d expected nothing less.
“How did you know I was coming, Ed?” Perry didn’t look inclined to answer. “What—you just guessed that if I killed Gibson and Taylor, I’d probably want to come after you and Karasek?”
“Gibson!” It was obvious he’d known that Gibson had been playing both sides. “You know, Louisa isn’t the only one with undercover sources—and mine know what they’re doing.”
“Hasn’t helped you, though.” Again, Perry didn’t seem inclined to respond. “Why couldn’t you just leave me alone, Ed? I left six years ago. You should have just left me alone.”