She’d never have enough time.
Tracy slid to the edge and rested the barrel of the rifle on a rock. She lowered her body to a prone position and slid forward, pressing her eye to the scope, fighting to focus. The gun was too low.
Fields was on the move again, up the hillside. She could only guess Andrea Strickland was frantically trying to reload.
She grabbed a couple of flat rocks, stacking them, throwing others away, and repositioned the rifle. She pressed her eye tight to the scope. Fields closed ground on Penny Orr, who lay on her side, not moving. Tracy’s vision blurred from the rain rolling down her forehead into her eyes. She pulled her eye from the scope and blinked away the water, then fit the eyepiece tightly to her socket. She struggled to align the crosshairs on Fields, who continued to move. She’d never hit his head. A center mass shot to the chest was her only real chance. She hoped the deputy had recently calibrated his weapon. She would either be dead-on, or, at that distance, she could miss by two feet.
Fields reached Orr, pistol in hand. He stood over her, alternately looking down at her and raising his gaze, presumably in the direction of Andrea Strickland. Then he smiled, a smug you’ve lost smile, raised his arm, and took aim.
Tracy pressed the trigger halfway, released a low whistle of air, and pulled the trigger.
I shot a second time. Fields fell quickly. For a moment I thought I’d hit him. Then, slowly, he rose to his feet. I’d missed. The shotgun was made for close range and only held two shells. Fields smiled. Then he raised his pistol and fired at me, causing me to drop to the ground. When I looked up, he was on his feet, moving up the mountain, toward my aunt. I sat up, groping in my pockets for the extra shells, but my hands had become cold and stiff from the rain and the drop in temperature. I was having trouble getting the shells out of my pocket. When I did, I realized I hadn’t cracked open the barrel of the shotgun.
I looked up. Fields was within yards of my aunt. Close enough to kill her.
I dropped a shell and watched it roll down the hill and out of reach. Shaking, I cracked the barrel, blew into my cupped hand to warm my fingers, and fumbled for the second shell in my pocket, but I was distracted, looking at Fields. He was nearly on top of my aunt. I couldn’t insert the second shell, fingers cold and fumbling. Fields looked up at me and smiled. I slipped the shell into the barrel. Fields took aim with the handgun, my aunt still lying prone on the ground. I wouldn’t be in time. I snapped closed the barrel and shouted.
“No!”
Tracy saw the burst of red, an explosion of blood.
Fields’s upper body twitched, a spasm, as if he’d been struck by a jolt of electricity. The arm holding the gun swung wildly. She kept aim through the scope, prepared to fire again, but Fields pitched backward, rolling down the mountain, tumbling head over heels, then sliding and not coming to a stop until he was nearly at the trail.
Tracy kept the scope trained on him, watching for movement.
Seeing none.
She moved the scope back up the hill. Andrea Strickland slid and sidestepped down the mountain to her aunt. When she reached her, she dropped to her knees, and they embraced. They stayed that way for a moment, then Andrea looked up to the ridgeline, to where she’d likely heard the shot, to where Tracy crouched.
Tracy pulled the scope from her eye, watching the two women without the aid of magnification. She knew how they felt. Tracy’s mother had been her only relative after her father’s suicide, but they’d had too short a period of time together. Her mother died of cancer just two years after Sarah disappeared, leaving Tracy alone. She hoped Penny Orr lived a long time. She hoped the two women, both damaged, could be the support each other needed.
She sat back against the rocks and tilted her head to the sky, feeling the rain on her face, hearing it splatter around her on the rocks. She thought of Penny Orr and Andrea Strickland. She thought of the sister she’d never grow old with. She thought of her mother and father and the life she’d once had, and the life she’d once lived.
She wished she had one relative still alive, somebody to hug.
Then she thought of Dan and the thought made her cry.
She was glad Andrea Strickland would have a baby, a child of her own to adore, to spoil, to love. And in that moment, she realized it was never too late to bring a child into the world, not one you intended to love with every ounce of your being.
In the distance, lightning crackled, a burst of blue-white light that lit up the clouds. Seconds later, thunder rolled, the storm drifting farther and farther away.
CHAPTER 36