He had run and walked for what seemed like miles and hours, even though his smartphone told him it had been only forty-five minutes. But he was exhausted. The shotgun was a burden, but not one he could afford to discard; he might have to use it.
Well, he would just have to continue, looking for some—
The noise of a distant motor …
At first he couldn’t tell from which direction the sound was coming. But within half a minute he knew it was behind him.
And getting louder.
His heart began to race. He gripped the shotgun tightly in both hands and began to run down the path.
Within another two minutes, he realized it was futile. He was too tired, and the noise was only getting closer. It sounded now like a lawnmower or small tractor—
An ATV …
He looked around desperately into the near-pitch black of the woods. The area to his left looked as if it might be easier to move through. He plunged off the path in that direction.
In a moment he found himself in obsidian darkness, barely able to see branches until they swept by, inches from his face, or scraped his exposed knuckles. His knees crashed through weeds and small bushes, the shotgun that he held protectively before him bumped small limbs, a branch slashed painfully along his ribs. He had to veer around several trees that materialized out of nowhere.
He found himself at the foot of what seemed to be another slope rising into the graphite sky, a sky almost obscured through the spiky branches overhead. He stomped and pushed his way forward, as the throbbing noise of the engine behind him grew ever louder, ever nearer …
… then died abruptly.
He staggered to a halt, tottering in place, trying to stifle his loud panting. He pivoted slowly in a complete circle, straining his ears for any sound from the ominous shadows.
And heard nothing.
That chill silence scared him more than the engine noise. The vehicle had stopped close by, near where he had left the path. As if they knew where he was. Maybe they had seen his footprints or some branches he’d broken.
He had to find a place to hide—fast.
He tried to keep quiet as he continued pushing forward. After another minute or two, he found just what he needed: a thicket so dark and dense that he would be invisible. He moved around it, searching for an access point. On the far side, he found an indentation in the vegetation and slipped inside. He faced inward, away from the opening, hoping to hide the glinting metal surface of the shotgun.
It was almost totally dark in there, and so quiet that he thought he could hear his own heart beating in his chest. He stood as still as he could, sweat soaking the inside of his clothes.
Stood there, listened, and waited …
Moments passed. At times he thought he heard something, and he tried to focus on the sound—only to conclude after a few seconds that his fevered imagination was playing tricks.
He was wondering how long he would have to remain still when something hard crashed into the back of his skull …
Hunter lowered the butt of the Remington. He stared at the glowing green heap lying in the glowing green brush, and released a long-held breath.
“All right, Grant. I have him. He never saw me coming. Thanks for being our eyes and ears tonight.”
“Glad to be of help,” came the voice through the earpiece. “Guess I can send our bird and its flight crew home, now.”
“Roger that. I don’t think either of us wants anyone to be looking over my shoulder from this point on.”
“For sure … Well, I’ll be heading home, now, too. Just make sure that the death of Boggs’s partner looks like the result of some kind of falling-out between the two of them.”
“Annie’s already taking care of that,” he said, then added: “Grant … thanks again.”
His ex-boss didn’t respond immediately. When he did, he said, “You and I need to have another chat when you get back.”
Through the NVGs his eyes were fixed on the motionless figure at his feet.
“I know.”
He gagged and trussed up the unconscious man, dragged him through the woods back to the ATV, and dumped him into the rear cargo bed. He emptied his pockets, picking up his smartphone carefully so as not to leave his own fingerprints on it, and sealed it in a small plastic bag. Then he consulted his own smartphone—the one he had left in his car, before he entered Adair’s house—for a sat map of the forest.
As the crow flies, his destination was perhaps five miles away. But nothing ran in a straight line through the forest, and he couldn’t risk using any paved roads, where he might encounter patrolling rangers. He had to follow meandering ATV trails and little-used dirt roads, then find shallow spots to ford creeks. After a while, he thought he heard Boggs moaning in the back, but the engine noise drowned him out.
It took well over an hour to reach the place where Forest Service Road 209 crossed Otter Creek. He followed the bank of the creek a fair distance, well out of sight and earshot of the road and the few isolated homes in the area.
He chugged along slowly, looking for a good spot. Found it. He stopped and shut down the engine.
Now he could hear Boggs groaning through the gag.
He went back and undid the ropes securing him inside the ATV, then pulled him out and dumped him onto the ground. Boggs gave out a muffled yelp through the gag.
Hunter grabbed him by the rope that bound his ankles and dragged him over the rough ground to the base of a large maple. He left him there, whimpering in the dark, and returned to the ATV to fetch what he needed. He stuffed the items inside a plastic garbage bag and brought it along.
He hauled Boggs to sit upright against the tree. Then he raised the goggles from his face. He took out a small flashlight, clicked it on, and set it on the ground, aiming it so that it would illuminate both of them.
Hunter leaned in.
“Look at my face, Zachariah. Look very closely. Remember me? I’m the guy that beat the crap out of you and your gang at the diner a few weeks ago.”
Boggs eyes, glistening with tears, suddenly widened in shocked recognition.
Hunter grinned.
“Yep, that was me. I won’t bother to explain it to you. I’ll leave it for you to puzzle out. After all, you’re a genius—right? So much smarter than the rest of the world. Besides, you’ll have plenty of time to ponder the mystery.”
He drew the blood-covered hunting knife from his boot.
“Recognize this? Ah, I see you do. Know whose blood that is?”
Boggs recoiled from the knife, horror in his eyes.
“That’s right. That’s Rusty’s blood. Poor Rusty. It was a pretty nasty death, too. He was in a lot of pain, and it took a while for him to bleed out. So much blood in the human body …”
He tapped the blade against the Bogg’s cheekbone, causing him to flinch.
“You know, all the way here, I’ve been debating with myself whether to use this knife on you. Carve you up, right here, and leave the pieces for the animals. And why shouldn’t I? You hid a bomb in my cabin. It almost blew my girlfriend to pieces, except for the last-minute intervention of my cat. Oh yes, almost forgot: You left my cat outside to die, too.”
Hunter placed the knife under Boggs’s runny nose, giving him a metallic whiff of Rusty’s blood. He cringed back against the tree trunk and whined.
“But I haven’t made up my mind about that. Not yet. Since you played a game with me, offering me a fake chance to survive, I thought I might play one with you, now. The only difference is that, unlike you, I’m a man of my word. You called it my ‘black and white’ moral code—remember? So, if you tell me what I want to know, right now—the whole truth, and no bullshit—I promise you that I will not use this knife on you. You have my word of honor. Is that a deal? Nod if that’s okay.”
Boggs couldn’t take his eyes off the knife. He nodded rapidly.
“Hey, that’s great. I prefer it that way, frankly, because I like this jacket a lot and I don’t
want to get your blood all over it. So, here is what we’re going to do. I’m going to take off the gag, now. Then I’ll ask you some questions, which you will answer fully and completely. If you do, I promise that I will not carve you to pieces. Understand?”
Boggs nodded frantically.
Hunter reached around to the back of the man’s head, grabbed the end of duct tape that held the gag in place, and gave it a hard yank, ripping it around the front of his mouth. Dark wads of hair and beard came along with it. Boggs shrieked and spat out the wad of cloth from his mouth. Then sat shaking and sobbing.
Hunter got inches from his face.
“Now, I need to know something. You are working with somebody. Somebody powerful, somebody connected.” He waved the knife in front of the killer’s face. “Remember our deal. If you don’t want to feel even more pain, pain like you’ve never experienced in your life, you’re going to tell me who that person is.”
He pulled out a microcassette recorder and pressed the “record” button.
Eyes glued to the blade, Boggs began to talk.
And once he started to talk, he couldn’t stop. Without further prompting, he just kept talking, sobbing and talking, a torrent of words, words filled with apologies and excuses and information. Boggs told him everything.
Hunter listened, absorbing it, saying nothing. When the flood of words finally slowed to a trickle, then dried up, he lowered the knife. Switched off the recorder.
“Well. That was extremely interesting, Zachariah. Your testimony in court would be devastating. Unfortunately, though, this taped confession out here has been coerced, and it would never stand up in court. You could and probably would deny everything you just told me. But even if you didn’t, there’s one thing that prevents me from exploring that option.”
“What?” he whimpered.
“These days, even a guilty verdict to first-degree murder would leave you and Ashton Conn alive. And that is simply unacceptable. That is just not going to happen.”
“Wait a minute! You can’t do that! You promised—”
“I promised I wouldn’t use the knife on you. And I won’t. In fact, I’m not even going to kill you outright tonight.”
He pulled a roll of duct tape from the plastic garbage bag. Used the knife to cut off a long strip. Boggs sensed something unpleasant was about to happen and began to yell; a quick punch in the solar plexus shut him up. Hunter retrieved the wet ball of cloth from the ground, yanked open Boggs’s mouth by the beard, jammed it back inside, and immediately slapped the strip of tape across his lips, so that he couldn’t spit it out. As Boggs gagged, Hunter cut off another, longer strip of tape and wrapped it across his mouth and around the back of his head.
Then he reached inside the garbage bag and pulled out two other items from Adair’s workshop.
A thin, one-foot-square scrap of sheet metal.
A battery-powered nail gun.
He placed them on the ground. Boggs was so focused on them that he never saw the punch coming. It knocked him senseless—not entirely unconscious, but close enough.
The rest was a bit awkward. Standing over him, Hunter picked up the sheet metal piece and nail gun and tucked them under his right arm. With his left hand, he grabbed Boggs’s bound wrists, raised them above the man’s head, and pressed them against the tree trunk. Using his left knee to hold Boggs’s forearms in place there, he took the metal sheet in his left hand and positioned it flat across the forearms.
Then, aiming carefully, he fired a large nail through the metal and into the man’s right forearm, pinning both the sheet and the arm to the tree.
Boggs, still dazed, jerked with the impact, but only groaned.
He fired another nail through the sheet metal, this time into his left forearm.
Another into his right.
And another, into his left again.
The metal sheet now sandwiched Boggs’s forearms to the tree, so that he couldn’t work them off the bare nails. Hunter tugged at the metal; it didn’t move.
He crouched in front of Boggs again. Held up the nail gun.
“You like symbolism, Zak. Well, this has a lot of symbolism. You and your gang used to spike trees. That’s what gave me this idea. And it also symbolizes all the nails you used in the bomb that butchered Adam Silva. And in all the other bombs you’ve used over the years to maim and kill innocent people.”
Boggs’s eyes looked glassy; he was about to pass out. Hunter slapped him hard and brought him around.
“You know, Zachariah, in exchange for all that useful information, I do feel that I owe you at least one explanation. You’ve probably been wondering: ‘Why did he drag me all way out here?’ Well, on the day you and I first met, a guy back at the diner unknowingly gave me the idea. He told me that there are bears down here around Otter Creek. Lots and lots of bears.”
Hunter paused to give him a little smile.
“Now, I don’t know much about the habits of the local bears. If you’re lucky, maybe they’re all still hibernating. Then again, hunters tell me that they see a few wandering around even in the dead of winter. Well, if any of them are prowling around out here tonight, I suspect they must be mighty hungry.”
Boggs was crying uncontrollably now.
“What’s the matter, Zachariah? I read that you’re always quoting John Muir saying, ‘If there is a war between the wild beasts and Lord Man, I would be tempted to side with the bears.’ Well, you picked your side. And now, you get to live with the bears.”
Hunter gathered the various items and put them back inside the garbage bag. He got to his feet and looked down upon the killer, hanging grotesquely from the tree by his arms.
“Oh, one more thing. This is for Dan Adair.”
He spat on Zachariah Boggs.
Then turned his back on him and walked back toward the ATV.
After about ten yards, he could no longer hear the weak, muffled moans.
FORTY
He took the roads back to the house, no longer worried about police stops. It was almost four in the morning when he arrived. Alerted by the noise, Adair came outside and greeted him at the front entrance.
“How did the hunting go?”
“Very well.” He added: “I’ve almost filled my quota for the season.”
Adair smiled slowly. Then extended his hand.
Hunter clasped it.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“In the guest bedroom. Nan made her a sandwich and some hot chocolate, then put her clothes in the wash while she showered. Leave your clothes outside the door and we’ll do them, too.”
“But I have—”
“Don’t argue. Both of you are too wiped out to go anywhere tonight. Sleep in as late as you want.”
“Thanks, Dan. Thank Nan for us, too.”
In the bedroom he found her asleep, huddled in an armchair, wrapped in a white terrycloth bathrobe. He knelt quietly next to the chair, bent and softly kissed her hand.
Her eyes blinked open. Then she smiled and raised her arms to him.
He held her tightly, his cheek pressed against her damp hair, taking in the floral scent, feeling her warm breath against his neck.
“You found him,” she murmured.
“No one else will.”
She squeezed him tighter.
After a while, she pushed back and wrinkled her nose.
“You need a shower.”
“I know. Get in bed, and give me five minutes.”
He stood under the hot spray much longer than that. He felt as if he were washing much more than dirt and blood down the drain at his feet.
When he emerged, she was asleep again. He tiptoed over, clicked off the bedside lamp, and slipped under the thick comforter. He curled up against her warm curves. Wrapped his arm around her.
In the morning they found a breakfast tray outside their door. They sat in the bed, the comforter drawn up around their bodies, sipping hot coffee poured from the carafe and eating buttered croissants.
“You take the car. I’ll fly your plane back to Bay Bridge Airport.”
He set down his cup. “You can fly? You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
He laughed.
“Annie Woods, to paraphrase someone I spoke with recently: You are a woman of many hidden talents.”
Her gray eyes twinkled. Holding his gaze, she let the comforter slide down her body, exposing her breasts. Then she lay back against the stacked pillows. Slowly slid the comforter down her thighs.
“Perhaps I should reveal a few more of my hidden talents.”
His picked up the tray and set it aside on the night table.
“Perhaps you should.”
He waved to her as she raced the Cessna past him, down the strip. He watched the wheels lift from the pavement, watched as she piloted it into the sunny blue sky, banked smoothly toward the south, then vanished over a forest-capped hill.
He had one more duty to perform before he drove back to Washington.
He arrived in the city of Warren twenty minutes later. He found the place east of town, in a wooded, residential neighborhood. He saw the hand-lettered name on the mailbox and turned into the driveway, then climbed a small incline to the house hidden back in the trees.
The acrid stench of burnt wood assaulted him from the pile of charred rubble not far from the house. The home itself stood largely intact, but he noticed that many of its windows still bore store stickers and looked newly installed. He parked in the gravel driveway. Walked across a yard still strewn with small scraps of debris. Mounted the steps to the front door. Took a breath. Rang the bell.
It was the boy who opened the door. He wore glasses and looked a lot like his dad. He also looked wary.
“It’s Martin, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Martin, we met—” He began again. “You might remember me from some days ago. I’m Dylan Hunter, the reporter from the Washington newspaper.”
BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) Page 38