James Patterson - Cross Justice

“Takes you up to Stark Lake,” Pinkie said. “There won’t be much traffic to hide in.”

“But there will be people up there?” she asked.

“Sure, summer vacationers and all. Campers at the state park.”

“Colored folk?”

“That too.”

“Then we’ll take our chances,” Bree said. She waited until Finn’s taillights disappeared into the trees before turning in after him.

Stark Lake did not resemble its name. The forest was lush all around it. Cabins dotted the shore; they were nothing like Marvin Bell’s place, but they were nice, well maintained. Bree drove along slowly, as if she were following directions, and peered down every driveway looking for the Bronco.

The road ahead cut hard right into a hairpin around a narrow cove.

“Stop,” Pinkie said. “Back up and turn around as if you’re lost.”

“You see him?” Bree said, braking the car to a stop.

“Turning into a cottage on the other side of that cove,” Pinkie said as she threw the car in reverse, U-turned, and drove away around a bend. “Pull in ahead there and kill your lights.”

Bree backed into the driveway of a dark cabin. They got out and ran to a stand of trees opposite that hairpin around the narrow cove. The water was no more than forty yards across and she had a good look at the cottage and the Bronco. No movement. No sound.

The cottage was nice, newer and more modern than the other places she’d seen on the lake so far. It wasn’t as nice as Marvin Bell’s, but it was still a trophy house by most people’s standards, certainly Bree’s.

A girl of nine, maybe ten, came out onto a wraparound porch that faced the water. Finn Davis came out on the porch after her. He was followed by a second man that Bree couldn’t see well. She raised her binoculars as the man turned to shake Davis’s hand, and she recognized him.

“Sonofabitch,” Bree whispered.

“What?” Pinkie said.

“Wait,” Bree said, staring through the binoculars to be sure it wasn’t a trick of the light on the porch.

No trick. That was Detective Guy Pedelini smiling and taking an envelope from Finn Davis. He tucked it nonchalantly in his pants pocket before putting his arm around the girl, whom Bree took to be one of Pedelini’s daughters. Davis headed for the Bronco.

Bree kept her attention on Detective Pedelini, saw his smile evaporate the second Finn Davis climbed into his vehicle. The detective and his daughter went back inside the cottage.

“Jesus,” Bree said, turning to run back to their car.

“What’s going on?” Pinkie demanded, huffing along beside her.

“That expensive cottage belongs to Guy Pedelini, the one man in Starksville that Alex and I thought was straight, and now it looks like he’s on the take from Finn Davis and probably Marvin Bell,” Bree said. “He’s also the cop who found Rashawn Turnbull and the detective investigating the drugs Marvin Bell’s niece planted on Jannie.”

“Fuck. Some things never change about Starksville.” Pinkie panted as headlights flashed back along the cove. “You can’t trust anyone but family.”

Davis’s headlights were coming closer. Bree and Pinkie skidded to a stop behind a big pine tree fifty feet from the rental. Finn Davis drove on by.

They ran to the Taurus, jumped in. Bree fired up the car, kept the headlights off, and drove out of the driveway and after Davis.

They lost the Bronco until it was almost back to the state highway. They spotted taillights down there on the flat, turning back toward town. Bree put on the headlights and sped up. There were more cars on the road. She hung back three cars from the Bronco as it passed the crumbling brick factory where Alex’s mother had sewn sheets and pillowcases. She stayed in that position almost to the old Piggly Wiggly store.

Right before the railroad crossing, Finn Davis turned hard left, along the tracks, and disappeared from view.

“Where’s that go?” she demanded.

“It’s a maintenance road, I think.”

Train tracks. Hadn’t Stefan Tate said there were strange goings-on along the train tracks that he’d been unable to figure out?

Bree made a split-second decision, pulled into the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, and jumped out of the car. She ran along the sidewalk toward the train tracks. The crossing lights began to flash. Bells rang. The gates lowered and she could hear the rumble of an oncoming train.

Bree scanned the area as the train horn blew. An abandoned building to her left. An empty lot with trees that lined the far side, separating the lot from the tracks. She dashed at an angle across the empty lot into the trees and found herself on a small bluff above the tracks. She pushed vines aside.

The headlights of the train and the Bronco lit up Finn Davis, who stood on the maintenance road a hundred yards away and not ten feet from the tracks. Bree got the binoculars on him. He didn’t seem at all concerned about the engine. He was looking at the cars behind it, which were rolling into view from around the bend.

Bree moved the binoculars to the boxcars and spotted the silhouettes of two men on top of one, two more four cars back, and another pair six cars beyond that. As they passed Davis, they raised their hands in some sort of salute that she couldn’t make out due to shadows.

But Marvin Bell’s adopted son was crisply visible when, in response to their salute, he raised his right hand and held three fingers high.

West Palm Beach, Florida

An hour later, in my bed at the Hampton Inn, I came wide awake, sat up, and said into my cell phone: “Those guys riding the train on our way into Starksville that first day, they did that same salute.”

“Definitely,” Bree said, back in North Carolina.

I shook off the cobwebs in my mind. “How many did you see?”

“Six total.”

“Were they on specific cars or random?”

“They were all on freight cars, mixed in with tankers.”

“What did Davis do after the train had gone?”

“Got back in the Bronco, turned around, and headed north, probably back to Pleasant Lake,” Bree said. “I abandoned the surveillance at that point.”

“I’m still surprised about Guy Pedelini. I pegged him as a good guy.”

“I did too,” Bree said. “But I’m coming over to Pinkie’s point of view.”

“Which is?”

“Don’t trust anyone in Starksville who isn’t family.”

“Cynical, but probably a good idea for the time being.”

“Here I’ve been hogging the conversation. Any luck down there?”

“Nothing but luck,” I said and then filled her in on my day.

“Wow, that was fast,” Bree said when I was done. “Who’s this minister you’re going to see?”

“Her name’s Reverend Maya and supposedly she knew Paul Brown. The funeral guys remembered her.”

“Well, that’s good. You’ll be able to talk to someone who knew your dad.”

“I think so,” I said. “Then I can put this all behind me and come back and hold you, and together we’ll figure out that three-finger-salute thing.”

“Tomorrow night?”

“More like first thing the following morning.” There was a silence between us before I said, “You okay?”

“Just trying to figure out where to go next. Any advice?”

“Try to see Stefan if you can. Find out what specifically made him suspicious of the area around the train tracks. I don’t think he mentioned it.”

“I already talked to Naomi,” Bree said. “She’s seeing him in the morning. What are you doing tomorrow until you meet the minister?”

“I told Drummond and Johnson I was free to help them,” I said. “Least I could do, considering how much they’ve helped me.”