Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [161]
Mac seemed to know where he was going, however. He had a hard, lean look on his face, pushing himself forward and determined to take both of them with him.
A lumbering shape appeared to their left. Kimberly watched in awe as a full-grown black bear went running by not ten feet away. The big animal didn’t spare them a glance, but kept on trucking. Next came deer, foxes, squirrels, and even some snakes. Everything was clearing out, and normal food-chain rules did not apply in the face of this far greater foe.
They ran, sweat streaming down their arms and legs. They ran faster, Tina beginning to mumble incoherently, her head lolling forward on Mac’s shoulder. They ran harder, the smoke penetrating their lungs, making them all gasp.
They squeezed through a narrow space between two towering trees, rounded a large patch of thickets and came face-to-face with Ennunzio. He was on the ground, propped up against a tree trunk. He seemed unsurprised to see them burst through the roiling smoke.
“You shouldn’t run from the flames,” he murmured, and then Kimberly saw what was at his feet. A coiled nest of brown mottled skin. Two pinpricks of red showed on Ennunzio’s calf where the rattler had bitten him.
“I shot him,” he said, in reply to their unasked question. “But not before he got me. Just as well. Can’t run anymore. Time to wait. Must take your punishment like a man. What do you think my father thought about, each time he heard us scream?”
His gaze went to the muddy shape on Mac’s back. “Oh good, you found her. That’s nice. Out of four girls, I was hoping you’d get at least one right.”
Kimberly took a furious step forward and Ennunzio’s hand immediately twitched by his side. He was holding his gun.
“You shouldn’t run from the flames,” he said sternly. “I tried it thirty years ago, and look what happened to me. Now sit. Stay a while. It only hurts for a short time.”
“You’re dying,” Kimberly told him flatly.
“Aren’t we all?”
“Not today. Look—sit here all you want. Die in your precious fire. But we’re out of here.”
She took another step, and Ennunzio immediately raised the gun.
“Stay,” he said firmly and now she could see the light flaming in his eyes, a feverish, rabid glow. “You must die. It’s the only way to find peace.”
Kimberly pressed her lips into a thin, frustrated line. She shot a glance at Mac. He had a gun somewhere, but with his hands full trying to keep Tina on his back, he was in no position to do anything quickly or stealthily. Kimberly shot her gaze back to Ennunzio. This one was up to her.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Frank or David?”
“Frank. I’ve always been Frank.” Ennunzio’s lips curled weakly. “But do you want to hear something stupid? I tried to pretend in the beginning that it wasn’t me. I tried to pretend the killer was Davey, come back to do all those terrible things, because I was big brother Frank and I’d gotten out and I wasn’t going to be anything like my family. But of course it wasn’t Davey. Davey got beat one too many times. Davey stopped having any hope. Davey, given a choice between running and dying, chose dying. So of course it could only be me, hunting down innocent girls. Once I had the tumor removed, I could see more clearly. I had done bad things. The fire had made me do it, and now I must stop. But then the pain came back and all I could dream of was bodies in the woods.”
The smoke was growing thicker. It made Kimberly blink owlishly and become even more aware of the intense heat growing at her back. “If we fashioned a tourniquet above the bite, you could still live,” Kimberly tried desperately. “You could walk out of this swamp, get yourself some antivenom, and then get yourself some serious psychological