by Sean Black
He found a bump in the terrain, and lay belly down, using the contour of the ground to provide him with cover. As he raised the binoculars to his eyes and racked the focus wheel, a muddy, battered SUV pulled in behind the truck. The driver’s window slid down, and the business end of a semiautomatic popped out and let off a three-round burst toward the ridge.
Lock used the haphazard and unwelcome covering fire from the ridge to take a peek. He narrowed his eyes to make sure that he really was seeing what he thought he was. Next to the sniper, whose face was covered with a ski mask, was a young boy with a fringe of brown hair that fell over his eyes.
All four doors of the SUV were flung open, and four men in hunting gear, each wielding an assault rifle, began to rake the ridge with gunfire. Lock waved at them, shouting to be heard over the barrage of rounds. ‘Hold your fire! There’s a kid up there!’
Either they didn’t hear him or they were past caring. They moved forward in a line, each taking it in turns to launch a fresh barrage of random gunfire at the ridge.
Lock saw the sniper began to scoot backwards. He tapped the boy, whom Lock was sure was Jack Barnes, on the shoulder as Lock got to his feet, still screaming at the four idiots to stop firing until he had to draw breath.
Lock ran for the ridge, the binoculars dropping from his hand. That was when he saw the boy make an amateur mistake. Rather than staying on his belly, and snaking down the other side of the ridge, with his elbows and knees, he stood up.
The sniper grabbed for him, but it was already too late. At least two of the four vigilantes had noticed the movement, and the figure silhouetted against the sky. They sighted their weapons, finally drawing down on an identifiable target. There were two separate cracks, separated by less than a second.
The shots were followed by a cry, sharp and high, and the boy fell forward. The four vigilantes stopped in their tracks, and Lock saw two of them exchange a high five. It was as much as he could do not to kill them where they stood.
Lock continued his charge toward the ridge. His heart sank as he drew closer. He turned back to the road and waved down Svenson, who had finally slunk out from behind her police cruiser.
On the other side of the ridge, where the road curved round, he heard a truck engine roar to life and a door slam as the sniper took off. He crested the top of the ridge.
The body of Jack Barnes lay in the snow. He was on his front, his head twisted to one side. His eyes were open, the pupils wide with shock. Next to the boy lay a dozen shell casings. There was no one else to be seen. The weapon was gone. In the distance, through the shimmer of the quickening snowstorm, Lock caught the red brake-lights of a truck as it careened down the mountain road back toward Harrisburg.
Sounds came and went. Lock brushed a lock of brown hair from the boy’s eyes. ‘Jack? Can you hear me?’
His eyes opened. That was good. Lock got in close and listened to the boy’s breathing: shallow but steady. The shallowness could be down to shock, the second main danger, after loss of blood, when it came to a gunshot victim.
He scanned the boy’s body. He had been hit in the leg ‒ that much was clear from the blood that had soaked through his clothes, turning the snow crimson.
Because of the boy’s history, Lock knew he had to be careful about touching him. Any extra anxiety would elevate his heart rate and deepen the shock he was in. At the same time, he had to figure out where he’d been hit.
He spoke quickly, keeping eye contact, trying to discern if the boy was taking in any of what he was saying. ‘Jack, listen to me. I’m a trained trauma medic. I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve been shot and I haven’t let one die on me yet.’ That last part was a lie. Lock had seen more than one victim of a gunshot wound die in front of him. But right now the truth didn’t matter. ‘You understand me? You don’t have to talk, you can nod if speaking’s too painful.’
‘Yeah,’ Jack said, his voice high and strained.
‘That’s great. Okay, so I have to take a closer look to see where you’ve been hit. In the left leg, correct? It’s sore there?’
Jack nodded. ‘And the arm,’ he said, clenching and unclenching his left hand with a grimace.
‘You’re doing great, buddy,’ Lock told him. ‘Now, I’m going to sit you up, see if we can’t slow the bleeding a little. If anything else hurts, you tell me. Okay?’
He reached under the boy and helped him sit. Jack winced and grimaced but he made a lot less fuss than most adults. Kids could be like that. Where adults screamed blue murder over a hangnail, some kids approached pain with fortitude.
Lock unzipped the boy’s jacket, talking to him the whole time, telling him what he was doing and why. His torso was clear of any trauma. That was about as good as it got in a situation like this. Lock ran his hands over the boy’s scalp, and down his neck. Clear. Head wounds from a bullet or fragment were usually pretty damn obvious but it was better to make sure.
He eased off the boy's jacket, ripped out the lining and began to tear it into strips. Down on the road an ambulance had pulled up and two paramedics had decamped. They waded through the snow toward the survivors and got busy doing basic triage, establishing who was a priority. Meanwhile, Lock rolled up the left leg of the boy’s pants. He must have been hit side-on because the bullet had gone straight through his calf, luckily missing the bone and, by the look of it, the popliteal artery, damaging only muscle. There was a nice neat exit wound on the other side. As getting shot went, the kid had been lucky.
Lock tied a strip of jacket lining just above the wound, pulled it tight-ish and tied it off. He wanted to staunch the flow of blood without cutting it off entirely and perhaps doing longer-term damage by depriving the lower leg and foot of oxygen. The kid had been through enough without having to face an amputation.
Behind the paramedics, Lock could see Kelly Svenson striding toward him, issuing orders over her radio as she walked. Now that the shooter was gone, she seemed to have snapped into something approaching a professional mode.
The paramedics arrived. One knelt next to Jack. Lock brought them up to speed on the boy’s condition, gave him some final words of reassurance, then went to speak to Svenson.
‘How is he?’ she asked, as the paramedics went to work.
‘He’ll live.’
‘He say anything about the shooter?’ she asked Lock.
‘I didn’t ask.’
Her jaw tightened. ‘What do you think this is about?’
Lock stared at her for a moment. ‘Hey, you’re the cop. You tell me.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe there was someone else involved with Becker and Reeves. Maybe he took the boy and was hiding out round here when the search party turned up. He panicked and started shooting.’
Lock didn’t buy it. ‘He had a truck. He wasn’t cornered. No one had found him. Why not just slip away? Why open fire and pretty much guarantee that you’re going to be found?’ He paused for a moment. ‘You have roadblocks up, right?’
‘We do, but there are plenty of off-road trails around here.’ She sighed. ‘At least we have the boy. I’d better go check on him. Say, Mr Lock, are you going to be sticking around?’
The way she said it suggested to Lock that she was hoping to hear a no. Lock surveyed the carnage of the slope, the blood vivid red against the virgin snow. It was a war zone. And he had a feeling that wasn’t about to change any time soon.
‘Yeah,’ he told Svenson, ‘I’ll be sticking around. This whole thing has me kind of curious now. Too many people with something to hide for me to leave now.’
77
Lock stood sentry outside the private intensive-care-unit room where Jack Barnes was being treated. His eyes narrowed as a tall, bearded man loped down the corridor toward him, but then he relaxed and smiled. Levon Hill stuck out his hand and the two men shook.
‘Hey, stranger,’ said Hill, his southern drawl dragging out the vowels. ‘How’s the kid?’
‘Critical but stable,’ Lock told him.
‘Dennis Lee told me you were there. You want to tell me what happened?’
A nurse flitted past them. Lock studied her for a second, making sure it was one of the seven medical personnel whom he knew were providing care for Jack Barnes. He had already stopped one reporter in a lab coat going into the boy’s room. Unless he knew precisely who they were, no one was getting through the door to Jack’s bedside. Especially not with the boy’s mother still missing and the gunman still on the loose.
‘Not a lot to tell. I was out helping a civilian search for the boy when a gunman started taking people out. Bunch of . . .’ Lock searched for the word. In this climate, they could hardly be called rednecks. He chewed over the appropriate terminology for a second more. ‘Bunch of assholes showed up, let loose, and the boy was caught in the crossfire.’
‘The boy was with the shooter?’ Levon asked.
‘That’s what it looks like.’
‘You see him?’
‘Not much apart from his back,’ said Lock. ‘He was wearing a ski-mask. He was maybe six three, two twenty pounds. I’d guess Caucasian, but I couldn’t be a hundred per cent. Oh, and he could handle a gun. But we knew that already.’
Levon arched his eyebrows. ‘White? Well, that narrows it down.’
Lock laughed. ‘Yeah. Ty’s buddy the coach and some of the kids on the team are probably the only African Americans round these parts.’
‘I wanted to ask you about the coach, and what happened to his family,’ said Levon. ‘I saw the material Tyrone passed to us from the house.’
‘You see what we were saying about it being a set-up?’ Lock prompted.
Levon scratched at his beard. ‘And not a very good one at that. Tromso had the right idea in torching the place. If it had been me, I would have done—’ Levon stopped mid-sentence and Lock followed his gaze down the corridor. Kelly Svenson was heading for them. ‘This his replacement?’ Levon whispered.
‘That’s her,’ said Lock.
‘You think she was in on it?’ Levon asked.
‘No evidence that she knew, but I’d say there’s a good chance. There’s something off about her.’
‘How so?’ said Levon, as Svenson reached them.
‘Have you met Levon Hill?’ Lock said to her.
‘Briefly,’ she said, giving Levon a curt nod, then turning her attention back to Lock. ‘If you need a break, I can cover the door. I have an officer on the way to take over from you anyway.’
‘You want to get a coffee?’ Levon asked.
Lock looked from him and back to Svenson. He didn’t like the idea of leaving the boy. Not even with a cop. In fact, in this town, especially not with a cop. Still, he could hardly say that, and the small coffee shop was less than a hundred yards away, close enough for Lock to be back within seconds if anything happened. And the machines to which Jack Barnes was hooked up would set off an alarm if his vital signs began to dip.
‘I could use some caffeine,’ said Lock. ‘Thanks.’
As he and Levon walked away, she reached out and touched Lock’s elbow. ‘Do you have a moment?’
‘I’ll catch you up,’ he told Levon.
Levon walked away, leaving him with Svenson. She cleared her throat. ‘Back at the scene,’ she said. ‘I froze.’
‘I saw that,’ said Lock.
‘I don’t know what happened to me,’ she said.
Lock didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure why she was telling him this. He wasn’t her boss. She must have known that he had probably already shared with the feebs what had happened.
‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘it won’t happen again.’
Lock nodded toward the ICU room. ‘Make sure it doesn’t.’
Levon handed him a cup of coffee and they sat at a small table in the corner. Lock chose the seat with the wall behind it and a view into the corridor. He couldn’t quite make out Svenson standing sentry outside the boy’s room, but he was close enough to hear any commotion.
Levon spooned sugar into his coffee. ‘What she want?’
‘Good question,’ said Lock. ‘When the shooting started, she froze. Guess she feels guilty. So, what do you think is happening here, Levon?’
‘Well,’ said Levon. He stopped to take a sip from a cup that had to be half sugar and half caffeine. ‘Looks to me like we have another predator on the loose.’
‘To add to the two that are dead?’ said Lock.
‘If there were two acting in concert ‒ and we know that was the case ‒ then a third isn’t that much of a stretch.’
Lock knew that was the obvious answer. A third person who was so far undiscovered would have all the motive in the world to take Jack Barnes and his mother. ‘So why stick around?’ he asked. ‘Why not kill the boy and his mother or, better yet, just get the hell out of Dodge?’
Levon took another sip of coffee. ‘How do guys like Becker get away with what they do? They hide in plain view, right? They become part of the fabric of the community. And if that’s the case for mystery guest number three then it’s not so easy to up and leave without looking suspicious. The US government has a long reach. Russia might take in some spy or a whistleblower, but a Podunk child molester? No country in the world is going to offer asylum to someone like that.’
It made sense. But it still didn’t feel right, Lock thought.
Levon said, ‘You’re right, though. It still doesn’t explain why you wouldn’t just kill Jack Barnes and his mother.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘We have to remember, though, that someone like this, under pressure, might not be dealing with things entirely logically.’
‘Any news on the mom?’ Lock asked.
‘Not so far. You ask me, we’re lucky we have the kid back.’
That was true, Lock acknowledged. And once he was conscious, he would likely be able to solve the puzzle and bring the killing to an end.
* * *
The nurse opened the door and walked out. Kelly Svenson greeted her with a smile, and a pleasant ‘How is he?’
‘He’s come round. I’m just going to get Dr Daniels to take a look.’
‘That’s great news. Would you mind if I stole a minute with him?’
The nurse folded her arms. ‘Yes, I would. Once Dr Daniels has seen him you can talk to him about it. But until then . . .’
Kelly Svenson waited until the nurse had disappeared from sight, checked that no one else was looking, opened the door into the boy’s room and slipped inside. Her stomach lurched as she looked at him.
Quickly, she crossed to his bedside. She knelt down next to him, and began to whisper into his ear.
78
Ty’s search for Malik continued through every liquor store, dive bar and dope house he could find. When it came to such places, all that had changed from back home in Long Beach was the skin color of the clientele. In two more bars he found people who had seen, or thought they had seen, Malik. One had even called the cops, hoping to cash in on a reward, only to hear that Malik was no longer a suspect. By the time the cops had shown up, Malik had already slipped out the back way.
The news of fresh sightings cheered Ty and gave him the energy he needed to keep looking. If Malik had planned on taking his own life, he would probably have done it by now. Hell, he could have done it back at the motel.
As he walked, he tried to imagine what Malik might be going through. To lose Kim would have been heartrending enough. She and Malik had always been so close. But the kids as well? It was a reality that lay beyond nightmare.
How did someone come back from such a loss? It seemed impossible that anyone could go on after such a tragedy. Yet people did.
Lock had gone on with his life. It hadn’t been easy, Ty knew. Lock was a hard man to gauge, not given to even fractional displays of raw emotion. But Ty knew him well enough to see his partner’s pain. It had shown on Lock’s face when someone mentioned an impending marriage or one of Carrie’s favorite songs came on the radio. A thousand and o
ne reminders lay in wait for the grieving. But Lock had come through it somehow. He had taken one day at a time. He had returned to work and, Ty believed, through it he had found salvation. Their pursuit of a wealthy serial rapist into the drug-war-infested Mexican borderlands had been Lock’s moment of redemption. Since then his partner’s mood had lifted.
Would it be the same for Malik? Ty could only pray that it would.
The afternoon was drawing to a close as Ty started the long walk back toward the motel. As he walked, he checked back in at some of the places he had already visited. There had been no fresh sightings.
A local patrol car drove past. Ty flagged them down and spoke to the two officers. They assured him that they were on the look-out for Malik. Better yet, they told him that no fresh bodies had been retrieved from the nearby rivers or lakes, and no John Does were pending identification in any of the local hospitals.
Ty grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee from a convenience store. He ate the sandwich outside, his eyes scanning the street, praying for a glimpse of his friend. As night fell, his prayers went unanswered.
79
His legs dangling over the side of the bridge, Malik stared down at the oil-slicked ripples of the water twenty feet below. He reached out his right hand, his fingers closing around the neck of an empty bottle of Jim Beam. Somehow he had convinced himself that if he could let go of the bottle, and allow it to drop, he himself could do the same.
Rather than terrifying, the thought of falling, to be swallowed by the dark water, seemed comforting. He did not fear whatever lay beyond this life. Either he would see his family again or oblivion would end the ache in his heart. He closed his eyes. He could feel the glass neck of the bottle cool against the tips of his fingers as he closed his eyes and let it go. He kept his eyes closed, and listened for the sound of bottle hitting the surface, but the noise was drowned by a car engine.
A calmness settled over him. He had let go. He was beyond arguing with himself. The questions in his mind about what he should do were falling away to an echo. He had thought about seeking revenge, but against whom? Ty had told him that Tromso was dead. Laird was culpable, but he’d had nothing to do with the murders. In any case, more killing, more death, wouldn’t return what he had lost. There was already enough grief and loss to go round.