Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

and she silently thanked him for making noise and disturbing the vegetation. Faye’s critters were doing everything they could to make her hard to track.
    A gunshot rang out and the possum dropped bloody to the ground, effectively removing any desire Faye might have to risk giving away her position by moving, ever again. There were no more shots. Faye realized that he was hoarding his ammunition, saving it for likely targets at close range. How much did he have? It only took one bullet to end a life. Could she wait him out?
    The chittering screech of an enraged squirrel sounded in her right ear and she proved the power of the human mind over ancient animal reflexes by refusing to scream.
    Then the squirrel whispered, “Faye.”
    She inched her head gingerly toward the right and saw Joe lying on his belly just outside the palmetto patch. He crooked his finger and she inchwormed her way toward him, sliding around one treacherous stalk at a time.
    By the time she reached Joe, her hands were pinned to her sides and all she could do was incline her head toward him. He leaned forward, lips against her ear and murmured, “He doesn’t know I’m here. I can lead him away. When it’s safe, run to the house, all the way to the little room up top. I’ll come for you.”
    She opened her mouth to argue and he covered it with his hand. Then he slid snake-like back to the woods and the path that led through it. She saw him sprint silently along the path, away from the house and toward the far shore. He stopped, ruffled the branches along the path with his hands and stomped down hard on a dry branch before disappearing down the trail. Hardly a minute passed before the Senator passed the same spot in hot pursuit. When he was out of sight, she leapt up, running for Joyeuse like a child taking a skinned knee to her mother.
    Her thigh was swelling. It jiggled every time her foot struck the ground. She told herself that it wasn’t infected. She told herself that Joe was younger and stronger than Cyril and that a fifty-five-second head start would negate the advantage of Cyril’s gun. She told herself that Joe had a good reason for sending her to the cupola rather than to her boat, but all she wanted to do was escape.
    She reached Joyeuse and remembered something she’d forgotten to worry about. There was a bloody spot in the grass where Douglass had fallen, but where was Douglass? She saw no other blood anywhere. Had he crawled into the woods to hide? Maybe she could spot him if she climbed to the cupola.
    She rushed inside, instinctively avoiding the spiral staircase. It was too exposed and it took too long to climb. Any fool with a gun could pick her off if he caught her halfway up the spiral. She rushed to the sneak staircase and flung open the hidden door.
    There, behind it, was Douglass and all the rest of his blood. The carpet at the foot of the stairs was soaked with it. When he saw her, he tried to use the arm on his uninjured side to push himself into a sitting position, but it didn’t work. Bracing against the narrow walls of the closet-sized stairway for leverage, she wrestled him to his feet.
    It took forever but she worked him up to the top floor and lowered the ladder to the cupola. With Douglass dragging himself upward one-handed and with her shoulder to his butt, she managed to get them both through the trapdoor, but she didn’t dare close it before Joe came. What if it stuck again?
    And she didn’t dare let the sticky trail of Douglass’ blood lead the Senator to their hiding place. Leaving Douglass sprawled on the cupola floor, she grabbed some rags out of the storage bench in the cupola and hurried back down the stairs. It was important to clean up the blood in the basement and especially on the landing beneath the cupola. Their trail must not be found because, from the cupola, there was no place to retreat.
    She was wiping the landing clean when Joe bounded up the stairs and climbed the ladder to the cupola, extending a hand down to help her up. She kept him waiting as she ducked into her bedroom to salvage William Whitehall’s journal. Armed with her most treasured possession, she climbed the ladder and helped drag it into the cupola after them. As the trapdoor closed, Faye watched a killer emerge from the woods and walk into her home, gun in hand.
    The view from the cupola was surreal. It was her island, but it wasn’t. The sea had pulled away, leaving immense wet beaches on the Gulf side and isolated