Deception Cove

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Deception Cove Page 11

by Owen Laukkanen


  “Bryce Whitmer.” Harwood was already crossing to the closet and pulling on his pants. “Had some prowlers lurking around back of his place.”

  “So send Dale. He’s Bryce’s brother, for God’s sake.”

  Harwood buttoned his shirt, grabbed his Stetson. “Dale’s off tonight. You know how it works.”

  His wife sighed, long and expressive. Opened her book again. “They’d damn well better make you sheriff of this county,” she said. “For all the bullshit they throw in our lap.”

  Nineteen

  Jess drove that Chevy fast, headed west on the state route away from Deception Cove, no idea where she was going. As soon as she’d coaxed Lucy away from the gate, she’d booked it for the truck—the dog hesitating a moment, then loping behind, as if she knew she was being rescued and was damned ready for it.

  Before she’d had to debate whether to go back in with the shotgun to get Burke or simply drive off, the man had dropped from the sky and come limping around the side of the truck. Panting for breath and bleeding from somewhere, or a few somewheres.

  But Jess hadn’t had time for triage. Bryce Whitmer wasn’t about to concede defeat—and sure enough, he’d come around the front of the farmhouse as the truck sped past. She hadn’t seen him, but she’d sure heard his gun going off.

  He hadn’t hit the truck, though, and now Jess pushed the gas pedal down as far as she dared, taking the twists and turns like a racer, the forest looming out of the dark at the edge of her headlights, the curves coming almost too fast to register.

  She was driving on instinct. She’d been working on instinct since she blew that gate open.

  Burke sat wedged against the passenger door, gripping the oh-shit bar above his head with one hand and the dog with the other. Lucy leaned into him, whimpering a little bit, twisting her thick neck around to lick his face whenever Jess hit a straightaway, like Burke could somehow stop this ride.

  The truck raced past Shipwreck Point, the ocean on the passenger side, right up against the road now. Every quarter mile there was a pullout with a picnic table, and every half mile a flimsy cross dug in along the shoulder, memorial to a drunk driver or a victim thereof. The ocean was a black nothing outside Burke’s window; Jess couldn’t even see the shore to tell whether the tide was up or down.

  The highway was empty. No headlights oncoming, none in the rearview. Jess kept on the gas regardless, knew that by the time she saw Whitmer or the deputies coming up from behind, it’d be too late.

  Burke said something beside her a couple of times, but Jess didn’t hardly hear him. She was somewhere else, just driving, and he wasn’t there with her. After a while he shut up and just held on for dear life and let her get them where she was getting to.

  Adrenaline wouldn’t last forever, though, and Jess could already feel the comedown. Could feel instinct start to slip away, letting her conscious mind back into the game, and that wasn’t good news for anyone.

  She didn’t know where she was going. There wasn’t much west of here, not on this highway or anywhere else; give it ten miles and they’d reach Neah Bay and the Makah reservation, where the highway ended. Beyond that was the lighthouse at Cape Flattery, and that was the end of America, geographically speaking. There was only one road out of Neah Bay too, unless you wanted to brave the logging roads south along the coast, and that was a fool’s errand this time of year.

  She’d trapped them.

  Jess didn’t realize she had slowed the truck until she heard Burke say her name. Then she blinked back to now. She’d parked them on the shoulder, one of those pullouts, the crash of the surf audible over the engine. Burke was looking at her, and Lucy whining and trying to get over to her, and Jess wondered how long she’d kept them stranded here.

  This was what happened when the adrenaline was used up. When instinct decided it wasn’t needed anymore and checked out.

  Her mind came back, and her mind remembered: the shotgun and Whitmer’s gun and the dogs squealing and barking and the fear and the thrill of it, that galvanizing tension and the excruciating release in the aftermath.

  Shit, she was spent. Jess stared at the steering wheel and heard the rain on the roof, and Burke saying her name again, but she just couldn’t wrap her head around an answer.

  * * *

  “Jess?”

  Mason repeated her name, but Jess didn’t so much as blink. She was gone. She sat there with her hands on the wheel, ten and two, the engine still running, gearshift in P. She stared down at the dashboard and didn’t say a word, didn’t move but for the shivering.

  She was shaking hard. Mason didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he imagined it had something to do with why she’d been given Lucy in the first place. The dog sure seemed to notice; she hadn’t taken her eyes off of Jess since they pulled over, kept squirming to get free of Mason and over to her. Mason unbuckled his seat belt and let Lucy go. The dog leapt across the bench seat, tail whipping around like a weapon, sidled up beside Jess, and leaned her weight onto her owner, licking her face like she was covered in peanut butter. Jess’s shaking seemed to subside a little bit. She still wouldn’t move otherwise.

  They couldn’t stay here. This highway ran twisted, but there weren’t many ways off of it, not that Mason had seen. The ocean on the one side effectively blocked off all means of escape, and aside from the odd logging road disappearing into the woods on the other, you pretty much had a straight shot from the Whitmer property to wherever here was.

  They’d be coming, he knew. And he didn’t want to be sitting here in this truck in the middle of nowhere when they arrived. Not with Jess in this state.

  He opened the passenger door. Ducked out into the rain and heard the sound of the ocean beside him, could glimpse the crashing surf just offshore. He circled around to the driver’s side and opened Jess’s door and hunched down beside her.

  He said, “Why don’t you let me drive for a while?”

  Jess didn’t answer. Lucy looked at him with big, worried eyes, looked at Jess and then at Mason again, like she wasn’t sure what to do either. The dog had grown since he’d last seen her, he realized, filled out and built muscle. She didn’t look like the runt anymore, but he could see in her eyes how she’d likely always carry scars from the men who’d laid claim to her before Linda Petrie came along.

  “Come on, Luce,” Mason said. “Let’s get you guys moved over.”

  He leaned over Jess to reach her seat belt, caught the scent of gunpowder and sweat and something flowery, too, her shampoo or something.

  “I’m going to move you now,” he said. “Just a little bit. Just so I can get in here and drive.”

  “Fine,” she said, almost inaudible.

  He put his arm under her legs and the other behind her back, guided her over the transmission tunnel and across the bench to where Lucy sat waiting, watching every move Mason made, almost like she didn’t trust him to take care of Jess properly. He got Jess situated, leaned over again, and fastened her seat belt, and Lucy promptly laid herself across Jess’s lap as Jess leaned against the passenger door.

  It seemed to work.

  Mason climbed into the driver’s seat. Shifted into gear and pulled back onto the highway, trying not to think about how he hadn’t driven a car in a good fifteen years, and hoping the rules of the road hadn’t changed in the meantime.

  Twenty

  “The hell do you mean you let him go, Cole?”

  Outside the Whitmer property, Harwood’s truck was pulled to the side of the highway, Sweeney and Dale parked close behind. In the pissing rain again, Bryce Whitmer pacing a track in the mud, fondling that six-inch, nickel-plated Colt Python like it was his actual dick.

  Sweeney’s hat was pulled low, but even underneath it Harwood could see the kid blush. Sweeney shifted his weight, stammered a little bit.

  “I mean, heck, Kirby, the guy was unarmed,” he said. “He was flat on his back. I couldn’t just put a hole in him.”

  Harwood glared at the youn
ger man. “You couldn’t, huh?”

  “I just—it wouldn’t be honorable, is all. I just didn’t think it’d be right.”

  Harwood crossed to Sweeney in two long steps. Reared back and caught him with a backhand, sent the kid stumbling down into the mud.

  “You think Okafor gives a shit about honorable, Cole?” Harwood said. “Those Nigerians will cut off your face and feed it to you if we don’t get their money back in time. You hearing me?”

  “I’m sorry, Kirby,” Sweeney said, on one knee in the mud. “I thought I could scare him off. I didn’t think he’d come back.”

  “The man did hard time for murder. You thought waving your little gun in his face was going to teach him anything?”

  Sweeney said nothing. Touched his fingers to his lips, examined them.

  “Anyway, it don’t matter now,” Harwood said, turning away. “Doesn’t even matter that they came for that dog, though I have to say, Bryce, I’m a little disappointed in the security measures around here.”

  Bryce didn’t reply, just glowered back at Harwood like he was itching to use that Python. That was a good sign as far as Harwood was concerned; the Whitmer boys were far more effective when they were pissed the hell off.

  Harwood was worried, but he wasn’t shitting his pants yet. He hadn’t counted on Mason Burke’s tenacity, hadn’t imagined Jess Winslow had any juice left in her batteries after three tours of duty overseas. Taking the dog had been a tactical error; they should have shot the thing immediately and leaned on Jess instead. But hell, even Harwood hadn’t much liked the idea of kidnapping a decorated marine, let alone trying to squeeze information out of her. He’d hoped the widow would roll over quick. She hadn’t.

  According to Bryce Whitmer, Jess and Burke had taken the highway west, and that was about the only positive development of the evening.

  “We have them trapped,” Harwood told his deputies. “They can’t stay up west forever, and they can’t get out without coming through here. Dale and I will head up to Neah Bay, see if we can’t flush ’em out. Bryce, you watch this road here, and you let me know right quick if you see that green Chevy.”

  Sweeney was on his feet again. “What about me?”

  Harwood looked him over. “You, Cole? Whyn’t you head back into town, run the detachment while we’re gone. We’ll need someone on duty in case Mrs. MacAdam’s cat gets stuck in that tree again.”

  Sweeney went red again. “Yeah, all right. Sure, Kirby.”

  “All right,” Harwood said. He turned back to his pickup. “Mount up, boys. And don’t be afraid to use those firearms of yours if the widow needs a little convincing.”

  Twenty-One

  According to the sign on the way into town, Neah Bay and the adjacent Makah reservation had a population of just over two thousand people. Bigger than Deception Cove, it looked slightly more prosperous; there were a couple of motels, two or three gas stations, a longer main drag, and a billboard advertising fishing charters and the tribal museum, with its replica longhouses and dugout canoes. Down at the bay more boats at the docks, a few ragged old trollers and some newer sport boats, a Coast Guard cutter and a big, oceangoing tug.

  Mason stopped the pickup outside one of the gas stations. Got the washroom key from the guy inside and circled around back to make use of the facilities. Jess stayed in the car, Lucy still piled on top of her. Jess looked catatonic, and no matter how many times Lucy licked at her face and snuggled against her, she hadn’t showed any sign of improvement. It wasn’t an encouraging situation.

  The little restroom stank of piss and was scrawled over with graffiti. Mason found a clear piece of mirror to examine his face. His lip was fat and red; he had something of a black eye. The side of his head was matted blood where Cole Sweeney had pistol-whipped him. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and that was starting to show. Whether it was the harsh light in the restroom or the fatigue, he wasn’t going to win any beauty contests until he’d had a long shower and a longer nap.

  His hands were cut up from clambering over those junk cars, too. He cleaned the wounds as best he was able, which wasn’t very well at all. Splashed some cold water on his face, tried to fix his hair so it covered the blood, tried out a smile for the mirror—quickly saw the error in the notion. He walked out of the restroom, to return the key and head back to the Chevy to see about Jess.

  Jess was sitting up straighter when Mason climbed back into the truck. She’d shifted positions and had Lucy beside her now, was scratching behind her ears as the dog leaned in and gave some deep kind of grumble of pleasure. Jess looked up when Mason entered the truck, couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I wasn’t planning on losing my shit in front of you, but sometimes…”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Mason replied. “You saved our asses on that farm. Least I could do is drive for a little bit.”

  Jess stopped scratching Lucy’s neck, and Lucy grumbled a little louder and pressed harder against her.

  “So what are you going to do now?” Jess asked him, her voice hollow. “You got your dog back, right, that mean you’re just going to screw off and go on back to Michigan or whatever, mission accomplished?”

  She still wasn’t looking at Mason, was staring straight ahead now, out at the gas pumps and the night and whatever else.

  “I mean, your work is done,” Jess continued. “You got what you came for, so I guess you can leave now, right? Is that kind of what you’re thinking you’ll do?”

  “No,” Mason said.

  Jess didn’t say anything.

  “I didn’t come here to take that dog from you,” he said. “I came to see that she was kept out of danger. And I can’t see how we’ve accomplished that yet.”

  She blinked, tilted her head a little bit, but she didn’t break. “So?”

  Mason sighed. “So I’m thinking we need to stash this truck and hole up somewhere, figure out what we’re going to do next.”

  Jess may have nodded, she may not have.

  “Okay?”

  Now she did nod. “Okay,” she said, but she didn’t sound all that convinced.

  The sourpuss at the cash register in the Land’s End Motel had nothing but dirty looks when Mason and Jess walked in through the front door.

  “Only got single bedrooms,” she told Mason when he asked for a double room. “Maybe try the Harbormaster’s.”

  Mason and Jess swapped glances. They’d surveyed the town’s meager offerings and decided the Land’s End—off the highway, few cars in the lot, half the marquee burned out—was their best bet. Mason didn’t have the energy to go comparison shopping.

  Jess shrugged; he figured that meant she felt about the same.

  “One bed is fine,” he told the desk clerk. “It’s going to be cash up front.”

  The clerk wasn’t having that, either. “Need to have a credit card. I can’t give you a room without one.”

  “Just for the night,” Mason said. “We’ll pay double your rate.”

  The clerk looked him over, and Mason could tell she was seeing the black eye, the split lip, the butt end of Cole Sweeney’s pistol. He took the envelope of cash out from his back pocket, found a hundred-dollar bill, laid it on the table. The woman looked down at the bill.

  “I don’t want any trouble here,” she said.

  “We’re not bringing any trouble,” Jess cut in. “We just need a room for the night, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  The woman looked down at the bill some more. Muttered something under her breath, reached down and opened a drawer, and came out with a room key. Was about to hand it over to Mason when she looked past them, saw the Chevy in the lot out front, Lucy sitting stock-still on the passenger side.

  “No dogs allowed,” she said, taking the key back. “Especially not pit bulls. Hotel policy.”

  “That pit bull is a companion animal for a wounded United States Marine,” Mason replied. “Far as I know, the law says you have to accommodate he
r.”

  The woman closed her eyes. Shook her head. “Which one of you is the marine?”

  Mason pointed at Jess. Jess waved.

  “Going to need a pet deposit,” the woman said. “A hundred dollars up front.”

  Mason brought out the envelope again. “Thank you kindly,” he said, reaching for the room key. “We’ll be out of your hair by the morning.”

  Twenty-Two

  Jess and Burke found the room, and Jess brought in the shotgun from the Chevy and some extra shells, and an old blanket from the back seat for Lucy to sleep on. Burke brought in his duffel bag full of gear and laid it on a chair, and then he slipped out again with the keys to the truck, said he’d hide it somewhere far from the motel, somewhere Harwood and his boys wouldn’t find it right away.

  “You keep that door locked and chained,” he told her, standing at the threshold. “Don’t open up unless you’re sure it’s me. The secret password is ‘pineapple.’”

  “Pineapple?” she said, frowning.

  He smiled a little bit. “Because when in the world is Kirby Harwood ever going to have reason to say the word ‘pineapple’?”

  Then he was gone. Jess waited until the door was closed, and then she crossed the room and locked both locks. Turned on all the lights, and drew the curtains tight, and spread the blanket over the bed for Lucy.

  It was your standard motel room: a bed and some worn-out furniture, a bathroom in the back with a little window, frosted glass, looking out to the rear of the property. Nothing special. What struck Jess was the lack of a suitable exit besides the front door or maybe the picture window looking out onto the parking lot. If Harwood and his deputies found their way in, she would die in this room unless she could squeeze out through the bathroom.

  Jess took the shotgun out of its case, sat on the bed with her back up against the headboard, the gun in her lap and Lucy by her side. The dog had sniffed around the room when they first came in, checked it thoroughly for new smells and fresh threats, and now, satisfied, she’d turned her attention back to Jess, regarding her with those big, concerned eyes, like she remembered the episode in the truck and was afraid it might happen again.

 

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