They were directly behind the women on a relatively flat stretch of forest, mostly oak and maple and birch, that seemed to end in a clearing about a quarter mile ahead. To the right the ground dropped sharply toward a small, rocky trough--a streambed feeding what seemed to be a small lake, surrounded by dense pine forest. On their left the ground rose to a series of ridges, some covered with trees, some dotted with brush and rock, some bald.
Hart crouched, motioning Lewis to join him. The man complied instantly.
"We're going to split up here. You go way round to the left. That ridge, see it?"
A nod.
"You'll be in grass, so you can move faster. Then come in and get close to them on their left flank. I'll keep going straight, come up behind them. When they hit that place there--see that sweet little clearing?"
"Yeah, got it."
"I'll wave the sock." He tapped his pocket where he'd stuffed the billiard ball cudgel. "You shoot. That'll keep 'em down. I'll come up behind and finish them."
"Bodies?" Lewis asked. "We can't leave 'em. The animals'll carry the parts off all over the park. That'll be a lot of evidence."
"No, we'll bury them."
"Been cold this April. Ground's pretty hard still. And what'll we dig with?" Lewis looked around. He pointed at a small lake to their right. "There. We could weigh 'em down with rocks. Probably nobody comes there. It's a pretty shitty little lake."
Hart glanced at it. "Good."
"Now, I'll set the choke wide but if I don't hit both of 'em with the first shot the other'll go to cover right away. We'll have to track her down. Who'd I ought to target first? Michelle or the cop?"
Hart was watching the women make their way through the forest, casual as oblivious tourists. "You get Michelle. I'll take Brynn."
"My pleasure." Lewis nodded. It was clearly his preference anyway.
THE WHITE F150
sped out of Humboldt and onto the highway. The pickup truck was doing close to fifty, the gassy engine accelerating hard.
Graham Boyd was driving and his only passengers were three azaleas in the truck bed, which he hadn't bothered to untether. He'd locked away the pellet gun in the same closet that contained Joey's skateboard.
After the confrontation with his stepson he'd gone into the boy's room to talk to him but he was pretending to sleep. Graham had called, "Joey," twice, in a whisper. Part of him had been relieved that the boy didn't respond; he'd had no clue what he was going to say. He just hated that all this tension was unresolved.
He'd thought about taking the game cartridges, the computer and the whole Xbox itself and locking them in the toolshed. But he didn't. It seemed to him that when it came to children, decisions about punishments shouldn't be made in anger.
You're the adult, he's the child.
Chalk that one up to instinct.
He'd checked five minutes later and the light under the boy's door was still out.
"I'm pretty worried, Graham," Anna had said.
He'd stared again at the picture of his wife in her velvet helmet and riding outfit and then walked out the back door, with a full beer bottle in his hand, so cold it stung his fingers. He'd stood on the small deck, which he'd built himself, and looked up at the half-moon.
He'd fished his phone from his pocket, intending to try to reach Brynn.
But then paused. What if the man answered again? Graham knew he wouldn't be able to stay calm. If he gave away that they were suspicious and the police were on their way then the man might hurt Brynn and flee. He'd dropped the phone into his pocket and poured the beer onto a mulch bed surrounding a Christmas azalea behind the deck.
When he'd returned to the living room he'd blinked in surprise. Joey had come downstairs, in his pajamas. He was curled up on the couch beside his grandmother, his head in her lap.
Anna was whisper-singing Joey a song.
Graham's eyes had met his mother-in-law's. He'd pointed to himself and then the door.
"You sure you want to do that, Graham?" she'd asked softly.
No, he'd thought. But nodded.
"I'll hold down the fort here. Be careful. Please be careful."
He'd fired up the temperamental engine and sped out of his driveway, tires skidding and scattering gravel.
Now he gripped his phone again, started to type in a number--Sandra, of course, wasn't on speed dial. But he hesitated and decided not to call her. He slipped the device back into his pocket. The protocol was off; the hour was late and he'd already talked to her earlier, briefly, sneaking a call when Anna was in the bathroom, to tell her he couldn't make it tonight. And even if she answered now, which she probably would not, what would he tell her?
He wasn't sure.
Besides, he reasoned, it was better to concentrate on his driving. He was going just over seventy in a forty zone, defying any trooper to stop him.
What exactly he would do when he got to Lake Mondac, he had no idea.
Why he was doing this was even more of a mystery.
For his part, he longed to be lying in bed, end-of-day groggy, with his arm around his wife's tummy and lips against her shoulder. Talk about his day at work and hers, a dinner party coming up on Friday, their child's braces and report card, a refinancing offer on the mortgage, until they dozed off, one after the other. But that wasn't apparently to be his fate. Would it ever be? And when? Tomorrow? Next year?
Defying the troopers further, he edged the boxy truck up to eighty, as the kidnapped azaleas shivered in the back.
"THERE!" BRYNN WHISPERED
excitedly. "See that?" "What?" Michelle was following Brynn's extended arm as they crouched behind a still-bare dogwood, the ground beneath them thick with crocus shoots and fragrant decay.
In the distance, a thin sparkling ribbon.
"The river. The Snake." Their lifeline.
They walked for five minutes without another glimpse of the water. Brynn was looking around to orient herself and make sure they were traveling in the right direction when she froze.
"Jesus." She crouched, a hum of fear in her chest.
It was one of the men: the one with the shotgun, Hart's partner. He was no more than two hundred yards away, on a ridge to their left.
"It's my fault...." Michelle's face was grim. "I had that fucking outburst!" Her face revealed the self-disgust of earlier. "They heard me!"
Spoiled little girl...
"No," Brynn whispered. "They couldn't be here this fast if they'd bought our trick at the cliff. They rigged something with the flashlight. Hart did. To fool us."
Same way I tried to fool him. Except his trick worked.
And where was he, Hart? She remembered a recent tactical training course. The instructor had lectured about pie-wedge crossfire. Never directly opposite, of course--risk of friendly fire injuries. Hart would be coming up behind them, not from the right flank.
She couldn't see him but she knew he was back there someplace.
Which meant the men had spotted them and were moving in for the kill.
They were on flat ground here, headed for a clearing, which Brynn had been looking forward to--no dense tangles to fight through, just planes of low grass, flat. But now she steered Michelle to the right toward a steep, rocky hill, several hundred feet long, descending to a creek bed. At the bottom there was no moonlight and they'd have good cover. "There, down into the ravine. Do the best you can. Come on. Fast."
They started down the hill, sticking to the thicker clumps of oak and dense brush, where they'd be less of a target. They half slid, half ran, scrabbling down the steep slope, Michelle in front, Brynn behind her.
They were doing well until, halfway down, Brynn tripped, her foot catching on a vine or branch. She landed hard on her butt and slid on the slick leaves right into Michelle, taking her legs out from under her. They began a long, unstoppable tumble down the hillside, Brynn desperately trying to keep a grip on the spear so it didn't slash either of them to death.
They ended up in a shallow ravi
ne.
The knife in Brynn's pocket had poked through the ski parka but the blade hadn't cut her. Michelle lay on her back, frantically patting her belly. Brynn was terrified that the younger woman's knife had cut her deeply.
Gasping for breath, Brynn whispered, "You all right?"
Michelle's hand found the knife inside her jacket. It hadn't apparently done any damage. A nod.
Brynn slowly sat up, gripping the spear. She looked around and saw a depression in the dry creek bed. They headed into it. Brush and a natural line of three-and four-foot boulders gave them some cover.
"Look," Michelle whispered and pointed.
Brynn watched Hart's partner, holding the shotgun ready to shoot, moving east--toward them--in a jog. The breeze was busily stirring leaves but he must've heard something. He was looking directly at the spot where they'd fallen. Then he gazed around him and vanished into a thick copse of trees to the north.
Brynn gripped the spear handle, staring toward him. "How's your ankle?"
"Okay. I fell on my other leg."
Scanning the hill. Neither of the men was visible.
Brynn was estimating distances and speculating where the partner might've gone. Michelle whispered something. Brynn didn't hear. She was lost in consideration. She made a decision. Then surveyed the ground. "Okay. We're going to split up. I want you to move that way, stay in the ravine and keep your head down. Over there, see that dip? Get down into it and cover yourself up with leaves."
"What are you going to do?" Michelle asked, her eyes wide.
"See it?" Brynn repeated firmly.
"You're going to go after him, aren't you?"
Times to run, times to fight...
Brynn nodded.
"I want to come with you. I can help."
"It'll be a bigger help to me if you just stay hid."
Michelle looked somber for a moment. Then smiled. "I won't worry about breaking a nail, if that's what you mean."
Brynn smiled too. "This is my job. Let me do it. Now go on down there, cover yourself up. If they get close and you have to run..." She looked along the dry streambed and pointed to the lake, which was really no more than a pond. "That'll be our rallying point. The near shore, by those rocks."
"Rallying point. What's that?"
"Where soldiers meet when they get split up. It's not a cop thing. I got it from Saving Private Ryan."
Drawing another smile from Michelle.
CHARLES GANDY,
a lean, bearded man in his early thirties, wearing a North Face insulated windbreaker, stood beside a Winnebago camper parked in the woods of Marquette State Park, next to a ramshackle ranger station that had been abandoned years ago. The camper was nicked and dented and the butt end sported a half dozen bumper stickers extolling the importance of green energy and listing such accomplishments as mountain biking Snoqualmie Pass and hiking the Appalachian Trail. "You hear anything else, honey?" asked Susan, a round woman with straight, light brown hair. A few years older than Gandy. She wore a necklace in the shape of an Egyptian ankh, two braided friendship bracelets and a wedding ring.
"Nope."
"What was it?"
"Voices, I'm pretty sure. Well, sounded like a shout almost."
"The park's closed. And this time of night?"
"I know. When's Rudy due back?"
"Any time."
Her husband squinted into the night.
"Daddy?"
He turned to see his nine-year-old stepdaughter standing in the doorway, T-shirt, denim skirt and old running shoes. "Amy, it's time for bed."
"I'm helping Mommy. She wanted me to."
Gandy was distracted. "All right. Whatever your mom says. But go on inside. It's freezing out here."
The girl disappeared with a swirl of long blond hair.
The camper had two doors, front and back. Gandy walked to the back one, stepped inside and found a battered deer rifle. He loaded the clip.
"What're you doing, honey?"
"I've got to go see."
"But the rangers--"
"Not around here and not now. You lock up tight, pull the curtains and don't open the door for anybody 'cept me or Rudy."
"Sure, honey. Be careful."
Susan climbed the steps inside and closed and locked the door. Shutters closed and the camper went dark. The faint sound of the generator was pretty much covered up by the wind. Good.
Zipping up his jacket and pulling on a gray knitted hat that Susan had bought him for his birthday, Gandy started down the small path that led eventually to the Joliet Trail, the rifle held in the crook of his arm.
He made his way south and east. They'd been here for four days and he'd spent much of that time hiking nearby. He knew the place well, had found impromptu paths and trails, made by deer--trampled leaves, broken branches and pellets--and people (ditto, minus the shit).
He moved slowly, cautiously. Not afraid of getting lost, afraid of whom he might run into out here.
Had that sound been a scream or not? he wondered.
If so, human or animal?
Gandy now walked two or three hundred yards in the direction he thought he'd heard the sounds, and then knelt down, surveying the moonlit forest. He heard snaps and a crack or too, not far away, maybe branches falling, maybe deer, maybe bear.
"Or maybe my damn imagination."
But then he tensed.
There, yes...No doubt about it. He was looking at a person--a woman, he was sure--moving from tree to tree, keeping low. She was carrying something in her hand. It seemed thin. A rifle? He gripped his own, a Savage .308, tightly.
What was this all about? Shouting and howling in a deserted, and officially closed, state park so late at night? His heart was slamming. His instinct was to get back to the camper and get the hell out of here. But the rattling diesel engine could attract unwanted attention.
As he hunkered low, spying on her, he wondered why she was acting like a soldier. Cautious, creeping from cover to cover. She was clearly no ranger. She didn't have on a distinctive Smokey the Bear hat or a typical ranger uniform jacket. It seemed she was in a ski parka.
His instincts told him she was a threat.
The woman disappeared behind a large clump of blackberry and he didn't see her emerge. Gandy rose and, holding the gun muzzle up, moved in her direction.
Just get the hell out of here, part of his mind shouted.
But then: No. You've got too much at stake. Keep going.
He stopped at a steep decline that led down to the forest floor, steadying himself with his left hand on thin birch and oak saplings and then, when the ground flattened, he moved toward the bush where the woman had disappeared.
He studied the area. No sign of her.
Then there she was, thirty or so feet away. She was in shadow but he could just make her out, lying half hidden beside the bush, her head down, like a lioness waiting for an antelope.
Very quietly he worked the bolt on the Savage, chambering a round, and started forward, picking his steps around branches and leaves, as if he were treading through a minefield.
Playing at being a soldier himself. A role he wasn't very comfortable with at all.
KRISTEN BRYNN MCKENZIE
crouched behind a gnarled but stately black oak, gripping the pool cue spear hard and taking deep breaths, her mouth open wide for silence. She'd climbed back up the hill toward the spot where the man had disappeared. Her palms sweated, though she was cold again, having slipped out of her parka and one set of sweatpants. The clothes, stuffed with leaves, now sat like a fallen scarecrow under a blackberry bush, bait to attract Hart's partner.
The trick seemed to be working. He was now approaching cautiously.
Still no sign of Hart.
Good, she'd thought.
One on one, I can take you.
She'd risked his shooting at her from a distance and stepped into the moonlight to give him a brief view of her, then disappeared fast behind the blackberry bush, where she'd stripp
ed off the clothes, and left them on the ground like someone hurt or hiding.
She'd slipped down the hill, circled back to this tree.
Praying that Hart's partner would take the bait.
Which he had. Gun pointed up, the shadowy form started down the hill toward the effigy.
Brynn now huddled behind the tree, tracking his progress by his footsteps. Her hearing was sharply attuned. All her senses were, in fact. The blade of the spear, the Chicago Cutlery knife, was close to her face, deep in the shadow of the tree, so that it wouldn't flash in the moonlight and give her position away. She reflected that it was curious that this unused knife's first task wouldn't be to trim a beef tenderloin or chicken cutlet but to kill a human being.
And she reflected too that this thought troubled her very little.
A faint snap, a rustle.
Then the breeze came up and blew hard. She momentarily lost track of his footfalls in the scampering of leaves and the hiss through branches.
Where? she thought in panic.
Then she could hear him again. The partner was still headed directly for the bait. His route would take him just past the tree where she was hiding.
Twenty feet.
Ten feet. The faint crunch of his steps.
She examined as much of the area as she could from her hunting blind, looking for Hart. Nothing.
Six feet, five...
Then he was even with the tree.
Finally, he walked past it.
Brynn looked out at his back. He'd swapped the combat jacket she remembered from the Feldmans' for a North Face ski parka, which he'd probably stolen from their house or from 2 Lake View. He'd put on a cap too, covering his blond crew cut.
Okay, now's the time, she told herself.
Her body filled with a calm, almost euphoric sensation. This had happened on other occasions but usually at the most unexpected times. A triple-combination jump with her atop a speeding chestnut mare in a horse competition. A frantic pursuit of a weapons dealer down a county road, hitting 140 mph. When she and Keith, on vacation, defused a potentially fatal fight by two teenagers in Biloxi.
Times to fight...
She now thought: Stun him with the bolo and charge in fast. Jam the spear into his back as hard as you can. Grab the shotgun.
And get ready for Hart to come. Because come he would--at the first sound of his partner's screams.
Brynn stepped from the tree, sized up her target, then swung the bolo and let it fly.