Douglas Preston - Cold Vengeance

“What was the name of the B and B?”

“Casa Magnolia. A beautiful place. Within walking distance of the Mercado de Artesanias.”

Betterton took a deep breath. He could think of no other questions. And the man’s frank ingenuousness left him with nothing to follow up on. “Well, I thank you for being candid.”

In reply, Brodie nodded, picked up the dish and the dish towel.

“May I call you? If I have any further questions, that is?”

“You may not,” June Brodie said crisply. “Good morning.”

Outside, walking to his car, Betterton’s step grew jauntier. It was still a good story. All right, not the scoop of a lifetime, but it would make people sit up and take notice and it would look good among his clips. A woman who faked her suicide, got her husband to join her in exile, then returned home after a dozen years: a human interest story with a twist. With a little bit of luck, the wire services might get wind of it.

“Ned, you rascal,” he said as he opened the car door. “Okay, so it isn’t Watergate, but it just might get your sorry ass out of Ezerville.”

June Brodie watched through the window, face impassive, cold blue eyes unblinking, until the car receded into the distance. Then she turned toward her husband. “Do you think he bought it?”

Carlton Brodie was polishing the china plate. “The police bought it — didn’t they?”

“We had no choice about that. But now it’s public.”

“It was already public.”

“Not newspaper public.”

Brodie chuckled. “You’re giving the Ezerville Bee too much credit.” Then he stopped and looked at her. “What is it?”

“Don’t you remember what Charles said? How frightened he always was? ‘We must stay hidden,’ he’d insist. ‘Stay secret. They can’t know we’re alive. They would come for us.’ ”

“So?”

“So what if ‘they’ read the paper?”

Brodie chuckled again. “June, please. There is no ‘they.’ Slade was old. Old, sick, mentally ill, and paranoid as hell. Trust me, this is for the better. Get it said, and said our way — without a lot of rumor and speculation. Nip it in the bud.” And he walked back toward the kitchen, still wiping the plate.

Cairn Barrow

D’AGOSTA SAT IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT of the rented Ford, looking disconsolately out at the endless gray-green moorlands. From the height of land on which he’d parked, they seemed to stretch into a misty infinity. And for all the luck he’d had, they might as well go on forever, cloaking their dark secrets for all time to come.

He was wearier than he’d ever been in his life. Even now, seven months later, the gunshot wound was still kicking his ass: here he was, winded by something as simple as climbing a set of stairs or walking through an airport terminal. These last three days in Scotland had driven it home with a vengeance. Thanks to a solicitous and competent Chief Inspector Balfour, he’d seen everything there was to see. He’d read all the official transcripts, depositions, evidence reports. He’d been to the scene of the shooting. He’d spoken to the employees of Kilchurn Lodge. He’d visited all the houses, farms, barns, stone huts, mires, tors, dingles, dells, and every other damn thing within a twenty-mile radius of this godforsaken place — all without success. It had proven exhausting. Beyond exhausting.

And the cold, drizzly Scottish environment hadn’t exactly helped. He knew the British Isles could be damp, but he hadn’t seen the sun since he left New York. The food was lousy, not a plate of pasta within a hundred miles. He’d been persuaded to eat a dish called haggis the evening he’d arrived and his digestive system hadn’t been the same since. Kilchurn Lodge itself was elegant enough, but it was drafty, and the cold worked its way into his bones and caused his old wound to ache.

He took another glance out the window, fetched a sigh. The last thing he felt like doing was going out onto that moor again. But in the pub the evening before, he’d heard by chance of an old couple — mad, or just a little touched, depending on whom you talked to — who lived in a stone house out in the Mire, not far from the Inish Marshes; they raised their own sheep and grew much of their own food, and almost never came into town. There was no road to their place, he was told, only a small footpath marked by rock cairns. It was in the middle of nowhere, well off the road and twelve miles from where the shooting had taken place. It was impossible, D’Agosta knew, that a gravely wounded Pendergast could have reached it across all that distance. But nevertheless he owed it to both himself and his old friend to check this one last lead before heading back to New York.

He took a last look at the topographic map he had bought, folded it up, and shoved it in his pocket. He’d better get started — the sky was lowering, and threatening clouds were gathering in the west. He hesitated a moment longer. Then, with a grunt of effort, he opened the door and heaved himself out of the car. He pulled the waterproof tight around himself and started out.

The trail was clear enough: a gravelly path that wound among tussocks of grass and patches of heather. He spied the first cairn — not the usual pile of rocks but a tall, narrow slab of granite sunk into the ground. As he approached, he noticed that something had been carved into its face:

GLIMS HOLM

4 MI.

That was it, the name of the cottage they’d mentioned in the pub. He grunted with satisfaction. Four miles. It would take maybe two hours if he took it easy. He set off, his newly purchased walking shoes crunching on the gravel, the keen edge of the wind in his face. But he was well bundled against the cold, and he had a good seven hours of daylight.

For the first mile or so, the trail remained on solid ground, following a faint elevation that extended into the Mire. D’Agosta breathed deeply, surprised and more than a little pleased that all his traipsing around these past few days seemed to have left him a bit stronger, despite his weariness and the ache of his injury. The trail was well marked, with long, narrow pieces of granite stuck into the ground like pikes to guide the way.

Deeper into the Mire the trail itself grew fainter, but the markers were still visible for hundreds of yards; at each one he paused, searched the landscape ahead, located the next, and continued on. Even though the ground seemed relatively flat and open, as he proceeded he realized there were many folds and gentle rises that made it difficult and deceptive to get the lay of the land and maintain a straight course.

As eleven o’clock neared, the trail began to descend, ever so slightly, toward lower, more boggy moorlands. In the vast distance on his right, he could see a dark line that, according to his map, marked the border of the Inish Marshes. The air became still, the wind dying to nothing, the mists collecting in the hollows and rising in tendrils over dark bogs. The sky darkened and clouds rolled in.

Hell , thought D’Agosta, looking upward. That damn Scottish drizzle was starting. Again.

He soldiered on. Suddenly the drizzle was interrupted by a terrific gust of wind. He heard it coming before it arrived — a humming noise across the moors, the heather flattened in its wake — and then it buffeted him, flapping his raincoat and tugging at his hat. And now heavier drops of rain began to patter over the ground. The mists that had settled in the low areas seemed to jump out and become clouds tumbling across the moors, or maybe the leaden sky itself had lowered to the ground.

D’Agosta checked his watch. Almost noon.

He stopped to rest on a boulder. There had been no more signs for Glims Holm, but he figured he’d gone at least three miles. One more to go. He searched the landscape ahead; he could see nothing that might be a distant cottage. Another gust of wind swept across him, the cold raindrops stinging his face.