Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

‘I was driving with my parents, home from a family funeral.’ He smiled. ‘That was ironic. A funeral. Well, we were driving along and turned this corner in a hilly area and there was a truck in the Intersection right in front of us. My father hit the brakes...’ He shrugged.

‘An accident. Your family was killed?’

‘What? Oh, no. They were fine. They’re living in Florida now. Dad’s still a salesman. Mom manages a bakery. I see them some.’ A pallid chuckle. ‘They’re proud of the humanitarian work I do.’

‘The Intersection,’ Dance prompted.

‘What happened was a pickup truck had run a stop sign and slammed into a sports car, a convertible. The car had been knocked off the road and down the hill a little ways. The driver of the BMW was dead, that was obvious. My parents told me to stay in the car and they ran to the man in the truck — he was the only one alive — to see what they could do.

‘I stayed where I was, for a minute, but I’d seen something that intrigued me. I got out and walked down the hill, past the sports car and into the brush. There was a girl, about sixteen, seventeen, lying on her back. She’d been thrown free from the car and had tumbled down the hill.

‘She — I found out later her name was Jessica — was bleeding real badly. Her neck had been cut, deep, her chest too — her blouse was open and there was a huge gash across her left breast. Her arm was shattered. She was so pretty. Green eyes. Intense green eyes.

‘She kept saying, “Help me. Call the police, call somebody. Stop the bleeding, please.”’ He looked at Dance levelly. ‘But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I pulled out my cell phone and I took pictures of her for the next five minutes. While she died.’

‘You needed to take the next step. To a real death. Seeing it in real time. Not a game or a movie.’

‘That’s right. That’s what I needed. When I did, with Jessica, the Get went away for a long time.’

‘But then you took another step, didn’t you? You had to. Because how often could you happen to stumble on a scene like Jessica’s death?’

‘Todd,’ he said.

‘Todd?’

‘It was about four, five years ago. I wasn’t doing well. The college failures, the boring job... And, no, the video games and movies weren’t doing it for me any longer. I needed more. I was in upstate New York. Took a walk in the woods. I saw this bungee-jumping thing. It was illegal, not like it was a tourist attraction or anything. These people, kids mostly, just put on helmets and Go Pro cameras and jumped.’

‘What you mentioned earlier? The tape you sold to Chris Jenkins.’

He nodded. ‘I got talking to this one kid. His name was Todd.’ March fell silent for a moment. ‘Todd. Anyway, I just couldn’t stop myself. He’d hooked his rope to the top of the rock and walked away to the edge to look over the jump. There was nobody around.’

‘You detached it?’

‘No. That would’ve been suspicious. I just lengthened it by about five feet. Then I went down to the ground. He jumped and hit the rocks below. I got it all on tape.’ March shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you... the feeling.’

‘The Get went away?’

‘Uh-huh. From there, I knew where my life was going. I met Chris and I was the luckiest person in the world. I could make a living doing what I had to do. We started small. A single death here or there. A homeless man — poisoning him. A girl on a scooter, no helmet. I’d pour oil on a curve. But soon one or two deaths weren’t enough. I needed more. The customers wanted more too. They were addicts, just like me.’

‘So, you came up with the idea of stampedes.’

‘The blood of all.’

He told her about a poem from ancient Rome, praising a gladiator for not retiring even though the emperor had granted him his freedom and the right to leave the games.

March’s eyes actually sparkled as he recited:

‘That was two thousand years ago, Kathryn. And we’re no different. Not a bit. Car races, downhill skiing, rugby, boxing, bungee-jumping, football, hockey, air shows — we’re all secretly, or not so secretly, hoping for death or destruction. NASCAR? Hours of cars making left turns? Would anybody watch if there wasn’t the chance of a spectacular fiery death? The Colosseum back then, Madison Square Garden last week. Not a lick of difference.’

She noted something else. ‘The poem, the line about hand and heart... The name of your website. Sword in the hand piercing the heart. Little different from humanitarian aid.’

A shrug, and his eyes sparkled again.

‘I’d like to know more about your clients. Are they mostly in the US?’

‘No, overseas. Asia a lot. Russia too. And South America, though the clientele there isn’t as rich. They couldn’t pay for the big set-pieces.’

It would be a tricky case against many of these people — men, nearly all of them, Dance supposed. (She guessed the sexual component of the Get was high.) Intent would be an issue.

‘The man who hired you for this job, in Monterey?’

‘Japanese. He’s been a good customer for some years.’

‘Any particular grudge with this area?’

She was thinking of Nashima and the relocation center at Solitude Creek.

‘No. He said pick anywhere. Chris Jenkins liked the inn in Carmel. So he sent me there. It has a good wine list. And comfortable beds. Nice TV too.’

She began to ask another question. But he was shaking his head.

‘I’m tired now,’ he said. ‘Can we resume tomorrow? Or the next day?’

‘Yes.’

She rose.

March said to her, ‘Oh, Kathryn?’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s so good to have a kindred soul to spend some time with.’

She didn’t understand for a moment. Then realized he was speaking about her. The chill pinched once more.

He looked her up and down. ‘Your Get and mine... So very similar. I’m glad we’re in each other’s lives now.’ March whispered, ‘Good night, Kathryn. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Good night.’

‘Real, dude.’

Donnie and Nathan bumped fists. Wes nodded, looking around.

They were in the school yard, just hanging, on one of the picnic benches. There was Tiff; she looked his way and lifted an eyebrow. But that was it. No other reaction.

Some of the brothers, and there weren’t many of them here, were hanging not far away. One gave him a thumbs-up. Probably for track. Donnie’d just led the T and F team to victory over Seaside Middle School, winning the 200 and 400 dash (though, fuck, he’d gotten the branch once he’d gotten back home because he was one second off his personal best on the 400).

That was Leon Williams doing the thumbing. Solid kid. Donnie nodded back. The funny thing was that Donnie didn’t hate the blacks in the school at all, or any other blacks, for that matter. Which was one of the reasons that tagging black churches in the game was pretty fucked up. He disliked Jews a lot — or thought he did. That, too, was mostly from his dad, though. Donnie didn’t know that he’d ever actually met somebody who was Jewish, aside from Goldshit.

Donnie looked at his phone. Nothing.

He said to Nathan and Wes, ‘You heard from him? Vulcan?’