by C. J. Box
“What you did to Raheem,” Kyle answered. “And Tiffany.”
He looked up to see several men emerge from the forest with their long guns aimed at Ron’s body. With them was a woman he recognized instantly.
* * *
CASSIE DUCKWALKED TOWARD PERGRAM with her arms outstretched, gripping and pointing the gun in her hands. She couldn’t see if Pergram had another weapon but she sensed movement from him. She had no idea what had happened to him.
Had he tried, once again, to blow himself up? Did he just detonate some kind of suicide belt?
When Pergram grunted and attempted to rise she stopped ten feet away. He reached for a grip on the log wall to try and pull himself up.
That’s when he looked over and saw her for the first time. His eyes met hers and widened with recognition and then revulsion.
She said, “It’s me,” and she fired. The muzzle flash lit him up orange and she glimpsed his face. He was enraged. He’d thought he’d killed her in Grimstad and here she was.
She didn’t stop pulling the trigger until the slide locked back on her Glock because the magazine was empty. She’d fired all ten rounds.
Pergram’s body lay still. She could smell blood, viscera, and gunpowder. Her ears rang from the multiple concussions of her weapon.
She felt a firm hand on her shoulder. Pederson.
“He moved. I thought he was going for his gun.”
“I saw it,” Pederson said. “It was a righteous shooting.”
She didn’t believe he’d seen anything but it was good enough.
“Damn, Cassie,” Bull said with undisguised amazement from the dark. “Damn.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
LOTTIE WAS THE LAST PASSENGER from the plane to appear at the top of the escalator in the Bozeman Yellowstone airport. She looked tiny, frail, and confused. She hesitated to take the first step to descend.
Ben was right behind her with Isabel and when he saw Cassie at the foot of the stairs he waved frantically. Isabel looked annoyed about something, as she so often did.
Cassie’s heart filled at the sight of her son and when he descended she hugged him until he was struggling to get free.
* * *
“IT JUST DIDN’T make any sense,” Lottie said from the backseat of Cassie’s Escape. “We flew the wrong way at first to Minneapolis, then we had to get on another plane and fly back across North Dakota to get to Montana. It just doesn’t seem like a very efficient way to run an airline to me.”
Cassie smiled into the rearview mirror. “First time on a plane?”
“Yes.”
“Me too,” Ben said. “But I thought it was great. The mountains looked so cool when we came in to land.”
Isabel said, “I’m missing the closing on our homeless shelter.”
“Really?” Cassie said, impressed.
“Where do you think your determination to get things done comes from?” Isabel asked, her eyes fierce.
* * *
AS CASSIE DROVE east on I-90 toward town Ben said, “You got him.” He was beaming.
“We got him,” Cassie echoed. She still had trouble wrapping her mind around it. Ronald Pergram was a monster but he’d died like a dog. If she could kill him again, she thought, she would.
And as if to remind her that the Lizard King had spent so many years free and on the highway, a black eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer with a Peterbilt cab roared past them in the left lane.
“I heard the sheriff got his job back,” Isabel said to Cassie.
“He did. The commissioners offered it back to him to finish out his term.”
She didn’t say that Kirkbride had called with congratulations on rescuing Kyle and Amanda and taking the Lizard King down once and for all. He’d said, “You did it, Cassie. You got him. You’ve been exonerated!”
Then he asked her to come back and resume her career as chief investigator in the department and, he hoped, take over when he retired officially.
She told him thank you but she’d have to think about it.
* * *
“AND KYLE’S OKAY?” Lottie asked.
“He’s being evaluated in the hospital.” After a beat, she said, “Physically, he seems okay.”
“I can’t wait to see him and hear all about it,” Ben said.
“He might not want to talk about it right away,” Cassie said. “Kyle has seen things. Ben, he might not be the Kyle you remember.”
“He’ll be Kyle,” Ben said as if he knew something she didn’t.
Which maybe he did, Cassie thought.
“I still don’t know why you didn’t just bring him back,” Isabel said to Cassie.
“I told you,” Cassie said. “Kyle needs to be evaluated and give a sworn statement. I’m scheduled to give more statements to Montana law enforcement myself to wrap things up. So I thought it would be better for you to come here until we’re done and so Lottie could see Kyle with her own eyes.”
“Still…” Isabel grumbled.
* * *
SHERIFF PEDERSON WAS WAITING for them in the lobby of the hospital with Rachel Mitchell and Bull. Cassie introduced them to Lottie, Isabel, and Ben.
“So you’re Ben,” Pederson said to him. “How do you like Montana so far?”
“I like it,” Ben said. Then he looked carefully from Pederson to Rachel to Cassie. He’d picked up something in the interaction between Cassie and Pederson that obviously intrigued him.
“I think we might be here a while,” she said.
Ben grinned. He liked the idea.
Isabel looked around and said, “Maybe they could use me around here,” meaning either Bozeman or all of Montana itself, Cassie wasn’t sure.
“Follow me,” Cassie said. “Let’s go see Kyle.”
As she led them through the lobby she looked over to see Amanda Lee Hackl and her husband Harold eating lunch alone at a table in the cafeteria. Amanda wore a robe and fuzzy slippers and she seemed to be staring at something over the top of Harold’s head. Harold was busy attacking a plate of fried fish.
She looked lost. He looked hungry.
* * *
WHEN KYLE HEARD the elevator chime at the end of the hall he looked up from what he was doing. Voices—Grandma Lottie, Sheriff Pederson—filled the silence. Footsteps—a lot of them—echoed on the tile.
He was excited to see Grandma Lottie again and he was sorry for what he’d put her through. Cassie was always great to see.
He glanced quickly at the list he’d been working on. He could write it from memory.
Sleeping bag
Food
Fishing poles and tackle
Rain coat
Binoculars
Pistol or rifle
Journal for writing
He quickly closed the notebook cover and slid it behind him under his pillow.
As far as Kyle was concerned evil was all around and he’d experienced too much of it. It would be easy to go that route, like slipping off a log. But good was all around as well. It was harder but he knew now that was the direction he wanted to go. It helped that the people coming down the hallway were good and they cared about him.
Theodore Roosevelt had done it after his adventure on the river.
So would he.
Kyle would finish the list when his visitors were gone. And he’d talk to Ben about joining him this time. He knew Ben also wanted to see America.
They’d name their boat Raheem.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to sincerely thank Sheriff Scott Busching of Williams County, North Dakota, for his previous assistance, experience, wisdom, and expertise. Thanks also to Dallas Carlson and Fred Walker for their sharp North Dakota insight. The author would like to once again thank Butch and Dana Preston of Montana, two wonderful long-haul truck drivers, for technical assistance.
My invaluable first readers were Laurie Box, Becky Reif, Molly Donnell, and Roxanne Woods. Thanks again.
Kudos to Molly
and Prairie Sage Creative for cjbox.net, Jennifer Fonnesbeck for social media expertise and merchandise sales, and Becky Reif for legal advice and terminology.
It’s a sincere pleasure to work with the professionals at St. Martin’s Minotaur, including the fantastic Jennifer Enderlin, Andy Martin, Hector DeJean, and the incomparable Sally Richardson.
Ann Rittenberg, thanks for always being in our corner.
ALSO BY C. J. BOX
THE STAND-ALONE NOVELS
Badlands
The Highway
Back of Beyond
Three Weeks to Say Goodbye
Blue Heaven
THE JOE PICKETT NOVELS
Vicious Circle
Off the Grid
Endangered
Stone Cold
Breaking Point
Force of Nature
Cold Wind
Nowhere to Run
Below Zero
Blood Trail
Free Fire
In Plain Sight
Out of Range
Trophy Hunt
Winterkill
Savage Run
Open Season
SHORT FICTION
Shots Fired: Stories from Joe Pickett Country
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C. J. BOX is the bestselling author of Badlands, The Highway, and twenty other novels, including the award-winning Joe Pickett series. Blue Heaven won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 2009, and Box has won the Anthony Award, the Macavity Award, the Barry Award (twice), the Western Heritage Award for Literature, and the Spur Award. Box’s work has been translated into twenty-seven languages. He splits his time between Cheyenne and his ranch in Wyoming.
Visit him online at www.cjbox.net, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraphs
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part Two
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Three
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part Four
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Part Five
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Acknowledgments
Also by C. J. Box
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
PARADISE VALLEY. Copyright © 2017 by C. J. Box. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photographs: nature background © Jackson Herring; river © Trevor Payne / Arcangel; silhouettes © Outdoor-Archiv / Alamy Stock Photo
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Box, C. J., author.
Title: Paradise valley / C. J. Box.
Description: First edition. | New York: Minotaur Books, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017011481 | ISBN 9781250051042 (hardback) | ISBN 9781466851993 (ebook) | ISBN 9781250171498 (signed edition)
Subjects: LCSH: Policewomen—North Dakota—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3552.O87658 P37 2017 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011481
eISBN 9781466851993
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First Edition: July 2017