by Jeff Carson
Wilson opened the rear door, got in the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. At almost the same instant there were two flashes inside the house and two pops of a gun, barely audible to Wolf over the roar of the Explorer’s starting engine, but unmistakable nonetheless.
He froze and put his wrist to his mouth. “What happened?”
“He’s … I don’t know,” Rachette’s voice was faint and raspy, more like a burst of static than a sentence.
Wolf put his hands over his ears and tried to understand as Wilson drove away.
“… him,” Rachette said.
“What? Repeat.”
“He’s … I think he was just trying to intimidate him.”
Wolf took off in a high-knee run through the snow of the front yard toward the kitchen wing. His feet thumped with bad timing at first, but he got his rhythm and his quads and glutes burned as he kicked through the deep powder.
“I don’t know,” Rachette hissed. “He’s already stuck the gun against his forehead, then he shot twice right next to his ears. What should I do?”
“Speak up, that’s what you should do,” Wolf said in between breaths. “That means Ash can’t hear anything.”
“Oh, yeah. Where are you?”
Wolf rounded the edge of the house and stopped just in time to avoid colliding with Patterson.
She looked up at Wolf with wide eyes and wiped a fresh dusting of snow off her face. Wearing large headphones, she was kneeling on the ground in a small dug-out clearing and had two glowing laptop computers in front of her, propped on piles of snow at eye level. She’d built herself a small audio-visual command center, like a kid would have built a snow fort.
“Sorry,” Wolf said.
She nodded without speaking and then pressed some buttons.
New sounds erupted in Wolf’s ear, and he nodded and gave the thumbs-up.
Patterson looked back to the video feed in front of her.
Rachette stood a few feet away with a hand on the doorknob of a side door. He swiveled out of the way, keeping his hand firmly on the knob.
Wolf walked up to the edge of the house next to the door and untied his boots as fast as he could.
Rachette pulled open the door and Wolf slipped out of his boots and stepped inside the dark room.
A second later the door sucked closed behind Wolf and he was left standing in enveloping warmth.
He froze, peering into the darkness to get his bearings. A bench was to his right, running the length of a long wall, and a row of coats hung along the opposite wall.
“You snuck in the back,” Charlie Ash said in his earpiece.
Wolf cocked his head. The voice was faint and hissed with static, echoing like it was in a cathedral.
Wolf walked on moist socks across the tiled floor of the mudroom and entered the kitchen. It was brightly lit and very large, like half-of-Wolf’s-house large. Wolf kept his eyes on the hallway ahead and shuffled forward, not worrying about the details of the immaculate space.
“Sit down!” Kevin’s voice yelled, now just as clear in the hallway ahead of Wolf as in his earpiece.
“Shoot me!” Ash said.
Wolf pulled his pistol and peered around the corner. The hall extended far longer before exiting into the great room than Wolf had envisioned from the diagram Kevin had drawn. Wolf felt like he was losing time and needed to move fast.
Kevin had said, Sit down. Did that mean his father was coming at him?
Wolf ducked back into the kitchen and held up his wrist. “What’s going on?” he murmured into the mic.
“You’ve gotta get in there,” Patterson said quickly. “It looks like Charlie’s stepping forward toward Kevin. Looks like he might make a move.”
Wolf ran out into the hall and trotted along the right wall, then slowed as he reached the end. He inched forward until he saw Ash’s right arm. Ash was right where they’d told Kevin to put him, but he was standing rather than sitting.
If this turns into an all-out brawl and either of them get hurt … Wolf didn’t need to finish the thought. He’d already run over it in his mind a thousand times. He was treading on both sides of a fine line that divided ethical police work and vigilante justice. It was too late now to consider the consequences of failure.
Wolf stopped and listened closely, sensing the mounting tension in the room around the corner.
“Here’s a little secret that is just going to kill you,” Ash said, clear as a squad siren in Wolf’s ears this time.
Wolf held his breath, knowing they’d roped Ash in. But doubt niggled at him. Ash had to suspect something was going on when he’d learned that Wolf was lying to him. And now he was up and standing in front of Kevin. Did he suspect the bullets were blanks and was about to charge his son?
“I killed Mary Richardson,” Ash said.
Wolf closed his eyes and let out his breath.
“Got it,” Patterson said into Wolf’s ear.
“I killed her. I drugged you, and killed her, and then put you next to her,” Ash said.
“Got that,” Patterson said.
“It feels good to finally tell you. I was surprised when you started …”
The room fell silent and Wolf decided it was over.
“What the hell is going on?” Ash asked.
Wolf was going to enjoy telling him. He opened his eyes and stepped forward.
Ash was standing across from Kevin with his head cocked to one side. His forehead was creased, eyes darting around the room, and when he saw Wolf his face fell, like he’d just found a bomb with a ticking timer with three seconds left until detonation.
“You pieces of shit!” Ash yelled. Then he reached his right arm around to the back of his pants and pulled a pistol.
Wolf raised his gun, aimed and shot.
Ash’s shoulder jerked back and he twisted and landed on the ground.
“What’s going on?” Rachette screamed into the mic, and then Wolf heard frantic squeaking footsteps in the kitchen down the hall.
“It’s okay,” Wolf said into his mic.
Kevin stared wide-eyed at Wolf for a few seconds, then looked over at his father.
Ash was writhing in a growing pool of blood on the hardwood floor, spitting strings of spittle and obscenities out of his mouth.
Wolf walked to Ash and picked up the revolver, tucked it in the back of his pants, and then walked to Kevin with his hand out.
Kevin stood still, studying his father with a blank expression, and then raised the pistol to give it to Wolf. The index finger on his left hand was still taut on the trigger.
“Kevin,” Wolf said.
Kevin blinked and looked at Wolf, and then gave him the gun. “Thank you,” he said.
Chapter 32
The little boy sitting in the gondola car in front of Patterson wore silver-mirrored goggles and hadn’t moved his head an inch in the past few minutes.
She smiled again at him, receiving no response. Or at least none that she could see. The kid had a neck warmer pulled over his mouth, too.
Both parents were tapping thumbs on their phones, oblivious to the Colorado bluebird day with six inches of fresh powder outside.
Two kids? She couldn’t even get this kid to acknowledge her. How could she expect to swoop into the lives of two children, as some sort of mommy-stand-in figure no less, and expect anything but a complete disaster?
She looked out the window of the gondola car and directed her thoughts to Edna Yerton.
Rachette had promised Patterson last night that he would check on the old woman this morning. He had volunteered because he was trying to schmooze Patterson rather than taking an easier and more appropriate approach … like apologizing to her face about lying about Scott Reed’s marital status.
But that’s not how Deputy Tom Rachette worked. In fact, he was probably clueless that he had done anything wrong.
It doesn’t matter now, she thought. Whatever was going on between her and Rachette, at least Edna Yerton would be the be
tter for it.
Fatigue pulled at her eyelids as she watched a skier bounce effortlessly over the blanketed terrain below. Probably a local, she thought. Locals often skied mid-week to avoid weekend madness. And since she knew only a handful of townspeople at best, she had no clue who the man sailing down in a cloud of powder was.
And she was getting tired of that.
She was sick of nightly television shows for a social life and sick of being a stranger in her own town. But barhopping wasn’t the answer. She was going to change things, and she would do it her way.
Her palms sweated under her gloves and her bowels squirmed. It was going to be nice when this was over, whatever came of it.
Then again, maybe she would just ride the gondola back down and save herself the embarrassment. Oh, God. Kristen would give me hell for that. She took a quaky breath and looked back at the boy.
Still unmoved. The kid was a rock.
The gondola bounced over a tower’s cable wheels, and the little boy started to lean to his side. Then he slid forward, bonked his helmet on the window and hit his face. He jerked upright, reaching out his hands and wobbling his head.
Patterson blew air out of her nose and smiled wide as she realized the kid had been asleep.
The parents glanced at her and burrowed themselves back into their display screens.
When she looked back at the boy, he had pulled his neck warmer down and was smiling back, showcasing a mouth with more than a few missing teeth.
She shook her head, grateful that the gondola car was only another tower from the upper terminal. Staring at that gapped smile any longer and she would have probably started laughing uncontrollably.
The interaction with the child steeled her to finish what she’d come to do, and as the gondola slowed and the door clicked and opened, she took a deep breath and waved the family first. She gave a little wink to the boy as he left, and then followed the family out the door, leaving them fumbling with their equipment as she walked on.
The morning was bright, crisp, and clear, and not many skiers were milling around on top of the mountain. If she weren’t on scheduled duty within the hour, she’d have been skiing.
She walked down the grated steps and onto the soft packed powder. Her heart fluttered and her breath caught when she saw the snow cat in the distance. She felt unnerved when she saw Scott Reed sitting on the wheel track.
He wore dark sunglasses, and he sat tall and stared in her direction, but he wasn’t smiling. His eyebrows were knitted together like he was confused as to why she would visit him.
Her courage drained through her legs, and just when she thought she’d really screwed up his face lit up into a smile that made it seem the sun had risen higher into the sky.
“Hey!” he said, getting up from his seat and walking briskly toward her.
His ski pants swished as he stepped with strong legs, covering a lot of distance with each stride. He was wearing a gray hat, a gray heavy-knit sweater, and a blue-and-red scarf wrapped around his neck. It was pseudo-European looking, and Patterson realized that the man was a little bit of a fashionista. The thought made her smile even wider than she already was.
They were coming toward one another at speed, like in the movies when the girl flies into the guy’s arms and they embrace for half the morning. She decided she had to control herself and slowed down holding out her hand in greeting.
He seemed to have had a similar thought, because he stopped quickly too, putting his sunglasses to his forehead with an awkward smile. His Caribbean-lagoon-green eyes darted around and he seemed a little embarrassed after looking so happy to see her a few moments before.
Or she could have been seeing things. Again. And it was time to put a stop to this torture.
“Hey—”
“Hey—”
They laughed.
“I saw you and didn’t know if that was you or Rachette,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, that’s disturbing.”
He laughed easily and shook his head. “No, sorry. I mean, I have terrible eyesight at a distance when I’m not wearing my contacts, which I’m not.”
She laughed. “Ah, okay.”
Their laughter wound down and they were left with a few moments of silence, but there was no tension, because he had an air of easiness that made her feel comfortable. He just smiled and looked at her, as if she could get on with whatever she was going to say when she was good and ready, and he had all the time in the world.
She looked down and pulled a straggly piece of hair behind her ear. “Um, so I just came up here to ask you a few questions.”
“Okay, great,” he said.
She stared back for a few seconds, and then rolled her eyes. “Okay, listen. Are you married?”
“No. Why?”
“Because I heard you were.”
“And you believe everything you hear?”
She stared up at those eyes again.
He stopped smiling and pulled off his left glove and displayed his hand. “See?”
“That’s the oldest trick in the book for some men.”
“Not for me.” He held her gaze for a few seconds, and then concentrated on putting his gloves back on. “So … it matters to you whether I’m married or not?”
She hesitated, and then she didn’t. “Yes.”
“Good.” His smiled vanished. “Hey, is it true about Kevin Ash? He didn’t come into work today and there’s some serious rumors going around.”
“Like what?”
“Like he was the one who killed Stephanie, Matt, and the mayor.”
She looked back at the snow cat, wondering just how much information she could disclose. “You believe everything you hear?”
“Well, is it true?”
“If I said yes could I convince you to keep your mouth shut about it for a while?”
“You know,” he said, “Kevin Ash was with me that night.”
“What? Which night?”
“The gala night, Saturday. When I was driving Stephanie and that guy she was with. He was sitting right next to me in the snow cat. Said he was with a few other patrollers checking out the bowl underneath the lodge.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “He was sitting there chatting me up the whole time. When people were talking about what he did this morning, I got the serious creeps when I remembered that.”
“And were you going to tell your local Sheriff’s Department about this?”
He scratched his head and then shrugged. “I get off at noon today. I was sitting on the news, and was going to swing into the station and tell the prettiest deputy I knew about it.”
Despite silently screaming at herself to not do it again, she rolled her eyes.
“And if Deputy Rachette wasn’t there, I was going to tell you.” His face was deadpan.
She laughed. “I’ve obviously made a mistake coming up here.”
They laughed together and his face turned red, which made Patterson like him even more.
“But seriously,” she said, “that is a good idea for you to come down. We’ll need an official statement.”
He nodded. “And when you get off work tonight, would you like to go get dinner with me? Or if that seems too forward, we could go get a coffee, or—”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said. Then the curious voice in her head took over. It wouldn’t shut up.
“What?” Scott narrowed his eyes.
“I … never mind.”
“What? What?” His eyes were alight with childish curiosity, and it made her smile.
“I guess I just wanted to know how old your children are. I know it’s a weird question, but I just want to know. It’s just something I’ve—”
“What children?”
She closed her mouth.
“I don’t have any kids.”
Her face went red and her chest constricted. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“I thoug
ht you had two kids with your ex-wife.”
“I’ve never been married. I thought we just discussed that.”
She stood frozen in time for God knew how long, then shook her head. “No, you’re right. Never mind. I was just misunderstanding something, something that … I must have taken it the wrong way. Listen, I’ll see you later at the station when you come in. Have a good morning.”
“Wait, what if you’re not there? Can I get your phone number?”
She gave him a contact card and backed away with what she hoped looked like a smile.
“Thank you. Tell Rachette hi for me.”
She turned and left. “I’ll be telling him hi all right,” she said under her breath. “Upside his head.”
Chapter 33
Two Months Later …
Waves of snow descended the western slopes of the valley, pouring into the outskirts of Rocky Points. The first large snowflake hit the glass of Wolf’s windshield and melted, and then another dozen left their marks.
The late April snow would be thick and wet, breaking branches and collapsing old roofs if it got deep, which the forecasters were saying was likely.
He turned on the wipers and scrolled through his phone contacts, stopping at the inch of screen that displayed Kristen Luke’s and Sarah Muller’s phone numbers.
For two months he’d been ignoring Sarah’s hints that she might want to go for a drink or dinner. Or if he’d ever found himself alone with her, he’d pretend like he had to leave for fear she might start talking—telling him things he didn’t want to hear.
Because the truth was, what Charlie Ash had said that night in the entryway of his house had made perfect sense to Wolf. It had given perfect reason for Sarah’s actions since she’d gotten sober.
But since that night he hadn’t wanted to deal with the revelation. Not then, and not up until now. Not while he had more important things to worry about, like how he might have ruined the careers of three of his deputies.
Today was the day, he thought. Because everything else was coming to a head, and it might as well be the day. Because he was about to go talk to Burton—to face the consequences of his actions two months earlier—and he was ready to rip the band-aid off the Wolf–Sarah wound once and for all to see what was underneath.