by C. J. Box
* * *
KYLE WATCHED THE SMUDGE of light bob away until it vanished. His insides were in knots and he felt sick to his stomach.
He didn’t realize Ron had a shotgun in the truck. The man kept his secrets well.
Kyle hoped the explosion hadn’t hurt any well-meaning people who had come to rescue them. Had they seen his message in the grocery store restroom? Was that why they were in the mountains? Had he caused their deaths?
He stepped away from the window and closed his eyes and bent over and placed his hands on his knees and breathed deeply.
He thought about the possibility that the people who triggered the explosion were hurt or maimed. Wouldn’t they be likely to tell Ron why they’d come? Wouldn’t Ron make them tell?
From her bed Amanda said, “Well, I guess he thinks that he put you in your place, didn’t he?”
Her tone was spiteful. Kyle didn’t respond.
“You think you’re his special little buddy now, don’t you? But he put you right back in your place.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
She took a deep breath and said softly, “Be careful around him, Kyle. He seems to like you. He certainly likes you more than he likes me, anyway. But he’s an evil man. Don’t fall for it.”
Kyle said, “I don’t. I thought you were falling for it.”
She wrung her hands and watched them. She said, “I admit there are times when saving myself and making him happy are the only things I think of. I admit that. I don’t think I’d be human if I thought any other way. But I won’t turn on you to save myself. I hope you know that and I hope you won’t do that to me to gain his favor.”
Kyle rose and looked hard at her. They’d been in the same boat for a long time. He wanted to think of her as his friend—as a wise and friendly adult. He wanted to trust her.
He said, “I’d never do that.”
“I’m not gonna tell him you were watching his every move when he went outside,” she said. “If he knew that he wouldn’t be happy about that. He’d expect me to tell him what you’re up to, you know.”
She looked up. There was desperation in her eyes. “Please don’t do anything that I can’t tell him about, okay Kyle? It’s like we talked about a long time ago. Don’t do something that will get either of us hurt.”
Kyle said, “Only you talked about that.”
After a beat, she asked, “So what are you up to?”
* * *
CASSIE RODE WITH HER HEAD bent forward so when the branches reached out for her in the dark they wouldn’t claw her face. The horses were nose-to-tail now and she’d learned to surrender her trust to both Gipper and Bull to lead them in the right direction.
They’d climbed up the mountain and were exposed briefly above the timberline before plunging back into the forest on the other side. The moon was as thin and pale as a fingernail clipping but the stars were bright and hard. She’d looked around her in the open to confirm that Pompy and Thomsen were right behind her.
They seemed to be on a game trail because they were no longer pushing through downed timber or meandering through the trees. She could see her breath in pale puffs and her fingers were cold.
The men didn’t talk at all. Not that they should, but the fact they didn’t drove home how serious it had become. She wished she could talk to Leslie and tell her what they were doing. It always felt good to talk things out.
But not now.
When they left the timber and found themselves in a starlit mountain meadow, Bull turned his horse to the side and stopped until everyone was accounted for. In the stark pale light the old man looked tough.
“How close are we?” she whispered to him.
“Couple of miles. We’re close.”
When they were gathered in the meadow and the condensation clouds puffed out and rose from both the men and their horses, Cassie leaned forward in her saddle to address them. She spoke softly.
“Remember, this is the guy who’s killed dozens of women and never got caught. He faked his own death and wiped out some good men in my sheriff’s department, including my fiancé. When we get close to those cabins we need to keep alert.”
“For what?” Pompy asked.
“Booby traps—ambushes. I don’t know.”
Pederson said, “I think your friends might have already found one.”
Cassie nodded.
“I can’t see worth shit,” Thomsen said.
“None of us can,” Bull said. “What you need to do is keep all your senses wide open. Don’t get keyed up and distracted. Look around you. Listen. Smell. Remember that he can’t see shit either.”
A half hour later the game trail merged onto a rough two-track. Pederson dismounted and shined a mini Maglight on the road. Cassie could see fresh tire tread tracks in his beam.
“Somebody’s been up here, all right,” Pederson said as he climbed back on his horse.
Bull led them right down the middle of the old road. Now that they didn’t have to worry about the terrain or overhanging branches, they picked up speed.
* * *
RON FOLLOWED THE ORB of his headlamp down a different two-track. It was so dark that his world was only what he could see when he turned his head one way or other.
But he hadn’t gone a half mile from the cabin when he gleaned an idea of what he would find further down the road. Acrid smoke—the smell that came from burning fuel and plastic—crept along the ground.
He no longer thought an animal had tripped his wire. No elk, moose, or bear would smell like that. He knew how animals smelled when they were set on fire because as a teenager he’d observed them. Animals smelled of burnt hair and fat, like grease. No, this smell was from burning vehicles.
Then the pleasant smell of pine. The kind of smell that came when a tree was split or felled. Or blown to pieces.
Ron rounded a long oxbow turn in the road and orange light emerged through the trees in front of him. He reached up and choked his headlamp off. The light from the fire up ahead would be enough to see.
He paused and reached back to touch the grip of his pistol to assure himself it was there. Then he checked the loads in his shotgun and thumbed the safety off.
Then he cautiously walked ahead.
He was the Lizard King.
It was carnage. Mangled ATVs were thrown about like toys. Pieces of metal, plastic, and body parts flickered in the light of a gasoline fire from one of the four-wheelers. Lodgepole pines had been blown backwards exposing bright yellow-white fibrous breaks.
There were weapons, satellite phones, and clothing strewn about on the road. A boot with a man’s severed foot still in it sat upright like a bowling trophy.
He paused and counted the destroyed ATVs. There were six of them.
Then he heard a grunt.
Ron stepped around a burning four-wheeler and saw a man on the ground crawling toward the dark timber on the side of the road. He was using only his hands in an awkward swimming motion to advance himself. His legs didn’t seem to work. Blood glistened in the firelight on the back of his jacket.
Broken spine, Ron guessed.
He looked around to see if there were other survivors. He saw none. The fires crackled.
Then he approached the crawling man and stopped his progress by pinning down the man’s boot with his own.
“Hold up there, son.”
The wounded man looked back over his shoulder. His face was pale and his eyes were wide and scared. He was wearing outdoor clothing and tactical gear that looked straight out of the box. He had a nice haircut and bright white teeth. Ron checked to see if the man was armed and he appeared not to be.
“Who are you?”
“Nobody,” the man said.
That told Ron everything he needed to know. The wounded man was evasive, meaning he was up there to find him. Otherwise, he’d have asked for help. Plus, he was scared because he knew who had asked him the question.
Ron kept his boot on the man�
�s leg so he couldn’t move and he bent over to fish a wallet out of his cargo pants. He lit up his headlamp and flipped the wallet open.
“Avery Tibbs of Grimstad, North Dakota. You’re a long way from home. What is it you do there?”
“Please…”
“Please what? I asked you a question.”
The man looked over his shoulder and said, “I’m the county attorney.”
“Ah.”
“Look,” Tibbs said, “I have a lot of discretion. I have a lot of power. I won’t prosecute you if you let me go. In fact, I’ll vouch for your humanitarian instincts if you can get me to a hospital. I can’t feel my legs right now.”
“Really,” Ron said. “All that?”
“I just want to get home. I shouldn’t even be here. This agent from the FBI dragged me here despite my better judgment. He’s dead now, so we can make a deal.”
“You’d make a deal with me?”
“Absolutely. Of course. The only reason I’m here is because of Agent Rhodine and someone named Cassie Dewell. I’m just following up on a local problem. So if we can come to an agreement I can promise you you’ll walk. I mean, you aren’t responsible for this debacle, are you? We just blindly drove into it.”
Ron closed the wallet and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. The pocket was still filled with Tiffany’s collar so fitting the wallet in was difficult.
He said, “You lawyers always think you can talk yourself out of everything.”
“That’s not the right way to look at it,” Tibbs said quickly. “Not the right way at all. Look—we can decide who to prosecute and what to ignore. I’m a fucking master at ignoring things. We can spin this so you rescued me…”
“So you’re telling me the law is flexible?” Ron asked.
“Absolutely it is,” Tibbs nodded.
“Then that means there is no right or wrong.”
“Not in a court of law.”
Ron lowered the shotgun and shot Tibbs in the head.
* * *
CASSIE SNAPPED AROUND at the sound of the gunshot. It had come from somewhere through the trees to their right.
Pompy whispered, “That sounded pretty close.”
She nodded although she doubted she could be seen in the dark.
Gipper slowed to a stop and she realized Bull had halted in front of her. The five horses stacked up.
Bull turned and nodded toward Sheriff Pederson and both men stepped down out of their saddles. Cassie wasn’t sure what they were doing.
Bull approached her and put his hand on her knee and she bent toward him.
“Look, we’re close to those cabins now so I think we should dismount and go the rest of the way on foot. Let’s tie up the horses here.”
She nodded and stepped into the left stirrup and swung her right leg over the cantle. It seemed like a long way down to the ground. Bull took Gipper’s reins and led the horse away, and she bent and roughly massaged her legs to get feeling back in them.
Pompy and Thomsen soon joined her. She heard the soft snick-snick of Thomsen arming his AR-15.
Pederson whispered to the three of them, “Bull and I are going ahead to scout. Stay here until we come back.”
“You sure?” Thomsen asked.
“We want to make sure we’re in the right place,” Pederson said.
It was a long five minutes before they returned, Cassie thought. The cold seeped into her and she tried to ward away a tremble that was half from being chilled and half from being scared.
When she heard the crunch of a footfall in the forest she drew her Glock out of the holster and gripped it with two hands, muzzle down.
“Okay,” Pederson whispered from the trees ahead. “We found the cabin. There’s a light on inside.”
The sheriff stepped closer.
“Spread out and walk real carefully,” he said. “There are empty cans tied up by wires across the game trails. I almost walked right into one. So go real slow and watch out for trip wires. Push through the brush and stay away from game trails.
“Now lock and load. And no talking. When you see the cabin get behind cover and wait. Sooner or later someone will come outside and then we can move on them.”
It made sense, she thought. There was no reason to announce their presence and create the opportunity for a hostage situation or give Pergram an excuse to execute Kyle.
So she waited until Thomsen and Pompy moved away from her in opposite directions and she slowly stepped forward. As she entered the thick trees she glanced down constantly looking for the glint of wire or string in the starlight.
Although she couldn’t yet see the cabin she could pick up indications of it up ahead: the smell of woodsmoke, cooking smells that clung to the brush.
Then a single yellow square in the darkness.
She thumped against a downed pine tree and followed its trunk to the upturned roots and settled in behind it. When she raised up she could see the yellow square of the lighted window through a V of the broken roots.
* * *
“YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED to get in there,” Amanda said to Kyle with rising alarm. “He’ll know. And he’ll know I know.”
“Amanda, shhhhh,” Kyle said.
He was retrieving Ron’s metal “Oh Shit” box from under his bed.
“I’ll have to tell him,” Amanda said with panic. “You know I’ll have to tell him, Kyle.”
“Shhhhh.”
“Don’t shush me!”
She went on but Kyle ignored her. He worked the clasp and the metal lid hinged back. Like he suspected there were no weapons, just an old-fashioned videodisc player and dozens of DVDs in plastic jewel cases. Ron’s collection of Ron doing things to women back in the day.
Then he found what he was looking for.
Kyle drew out the remote control device with the red dot on it. It corresponded with Tiffany’s collar. Kyle turned it on and hung it around his neck.
Amanda’s face turned mean. “What have you got there? Kyle—what the hell are you doing? You’re going to get us both killed.”
* * *
RON THOUGHT HE HEARD a horse snort somewhere up ahead of him in the trees. He stopped and listened but he didn’t hear it again. He wondered if it could have been an elk or moose.
Surely Tibbs and his gang hadn’t sent others up the mountain as well?
It didn’t make sense.
But there was no doubt he likely had just a few hours to pack up and get off the mountain for good. They’d found him and they’d send more men once it was daylight.
It was over.
Sorry, Amanda. She was too much baggage to take along. His second family had been much better than his first—but still not good enough. It was possible they could become what he wanted but there wasn’t enough time to make it happen anymore.
Although he did like how Kyle had shown eagerness to go with him an hour before. He found himself getting attached to that boy but he couldn’t trust him completely yet.
Maybe he should have let Kyle come along? The kid could have put down that lawyer. Then Ron would know for sure if Kyle would develop into who he wanted him to be.
* * *
KYLE SAW THE HEADLAMP strobing through the trees in the direction Ron had gone.
“Here he comes,” he said.
“I’m going to tell him, Kyle,” Amanda said with her hands on her hips. “He’s gonna see that thing around your neck.”
“Amanda, please.”
“I’m gonna…”
Kyle said, “I turned on Tiffany’s collar.”
Amanda stared at him, uncomprehending.
“When I went to grab my parka I reached into the pocket of his coat and turned on her collar.”
“Oh my God,” she said. He couldn’t tell if she was scared or relieved.
* * *
CASSIE HEARD FOOTFALLS and saw a splash of light on the trunks of the trees to the right of the cabin.
Then a dark form with a headlamp.
Was it him?
She raised her weapon and rested it in the crux of the V. She could barely see the fluorescent dots on the front and back sights but she lined them up and aimed them center mass.
Should she let the man just walk up to the cabin and go inside? Could the others see him?
Then a horse whinnied back in the trees.
* * *
RON STOPPED TWENTY FEET from the front door of the cabin.
That time, it was a goddamned horse for sure.
He reached up and turned off his headlamp.
Then he was bathed in the bright white beam of a flashlight. It came from the trees to his left.
He broke into a run toward the cabin door.
A woman’s voice shouted, “Facedown in the dirt, you son of a bitch! Facedown!”
* * *
KYLE HEARD A SHOUT from outside. He looked out the window and saw Ron coming.
He raised the remote and pressed vibrate.
Ron froze a few feet from the door and looked down at his coat pocket.
Kyle said, “That’s right.”
* * *
CASSIE LEANED OVER THE UPROOTED pine tree with her Glock aimed at Pergram. She hesitated to fire because she didn’t want stray rounds to penetrate the wall and hit someone inside. And he’d stopped. He was just standing there looking down at his waist.
“Get down on the ground,” Pederson yelled from the dark. It had been his flashlight.
Cassie could see Pergram’s face in quarter profile. He’d raised his eyes toward the cabin, toward a face in the window.
Kyle.
Pergram slowly shook his head like he’d been betrayed.
But instead of raising his hands or dropping down, he turned toward Cassie. The muzzle of his shotgun swung up.
BANG.
The shotgun dropped out of his hands and Pergram staggered to his left. His coat was blown open into shards and his entrails tumbled out like a nest of uncoiled snakes.
He fell to his knees and toppled over, but not before turning his head one more time toward Kyle in the window.
* * *
KYLE HAD NEVER SEEN THAT expression on Ron’s face before. It was half surprise and half bitter resignation that he’d been betrayed yet again. When the man slumped to the ground out of view his after-image remained as well as his what-have-you-done-to-me eyes.