Leah nodded.
Dax Blackwell smiled. “I like that,” he said. “Let them find him, then. They will, too. I’m sure of it. Family business.”
She had no idea what he was speaking of, but she wasn’t about to argue.
“And so here we part,” Dax said, and then, without another word, he started into the woods. He was heading northeast as if he had a plan, but there was nothing to the northeast but miles of dark forest. They wouldn’t be able to hide there. Not for long enough.
He walked on, though, purposeful, without a look back. When Bleak finally followed, he didn’t give Leah so much as a glance.
She watched until they were out of sight, then she took hold of Lowery’s body and headed for the water.
The plane waited in the dying daylight.
She didn’t look at Lowery while she dragged him through the tangled brush and down to the shore. She waded out into the cool water and tugged him along. When it was deep enough to float him, she finally looked at his face again. Blood painted the hollows beneath his cheekbones and caressed the creases of his dead skin. His eyes were open, the bullet hole between them.
She looked at him for a long time, wondering how it all might have been different had she managed to do this years ago. She couldn’t conjure the image, though. The past was gone and so she tried to see the future. Glimpses came and went. The house in Camden, the kids in their bedrooms. A house in Louisville, shaded by old oaks, Mrs. Wilson on the porch. The cabin at Moosehead, Ed’s truck in the driveway, Nick’s laughter in the air.
Too soon to tell, but it was all possible now because of a bullet hole between an old man’s eyes.
She didn’t want to believe that about the world, but there it was.
She shoved the body farther out into the lake. He drifted and sank, pulled down and away quicker than she’d expected. There was no current here and yet the water seemed to want him.
She turned her back on the sinking corpse and waded out of the chill waters of Three Cross Lake and hauled herself up onto the seaplane’s float. She felt fatigue in each muscle and nerve ending, like the ache that followed a terrible fever. It took her two tries to get the door open. The pilot looked at her, tape over his mouth, cord wrapped around his chest and wrists. He couldn’t have seen anything that had happened in the clearing, but she could tell he was both astonished and pleased with how things had turned out.
She leaned over and pulled the tape from his mouth. She tried to do it slowly, but he made a sound of pain. Then the sound repeated, and she looked down and saw that he’d managed to get his hands on the headset and turn the radio on. It had been a hard struggle and a pointless one, because with the tape over his mouth, he couldn’t say a word.
She said, “Those knots will take me a minute.”
The pilot said, “Your children are on the radio.”
“What?”
“Everyone’s looking for us now,” he said. “They don’t know it’s my plane they’re looking for yet, but they’re out there. Your children are okay, though. I heard them. I heard your daughter’s voice. She’s on the radio now. Explaining where they are.”
“Mind if I borrow that?” Leah said, picking up the headset. “I’ll deal with the knots in a minute.”
She put on the headset, dipped the microphone to her lips, and spoke.
“Hailey, Nick? It is your mother. You are safe.”
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to the great team at Little, Brown and Company—it remains a pleasure and a privilege to work with you all. Josh Kendall leads the way. Sabrina Callahan, Craig Young, Terry Adams, Bruce Nichols, and Michael Pietsch are wonderful, enthusiastic champions. And Sareena Kamath, Ben Allen, Karen Landry, Karen Torres, and so many others actually make the product go. I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank copyeditor extraordinaire Tracy Roe, too. (And I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t toss in that last comma just to exasperate her.)
Richard Pine and the team at InkWell Management couldn’t be better, and I’m fortunate to work with Angela Cheng Caplan on the film and TV side. I can’t thank Erin Mitchell enough, particularly for allowing me to outsource my working memory to her. It’s very refreshing. Gideon Pine provided wonderful notes. Tom Bernardo kept the great questions coming. Appreciate you both. I’m grateful to my family and friends, who always encourage me along the way, and to all the booksellers and librarians who have supported my work with such kindness and enthusiasm. And to Christine: always, all ways, grateful.
About the Author
Michael Koryta is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen novels. His previous novels—among them If She Wakes, Those Who Wish Me Dead, and So Cold the River—were New York Times Notable Books and national bestsellers and have won numerous awards. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages, and Those Who Wish Me Dead was recently adapted into a movie starring Angelina Jolie, Tyler Perry, Nicholas Hoult, and Jon Bernthal. Koryta is a former private investigator and newspaper reporter. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and Camden, Maine.
Also by Michael Koryta
If She Wakes
How It Happened
Rise the Dark
Last Words
Those Who Wish Me Dead
The Prophet
The Ridge
The Cypress House
So Cold the River
The Silent Hour
Envy the Night
A Welcome Grave
Sorrow’s Anthem
Tonight I Said Goodbye
Never Far Away Page 33