C Box - Blue Heaven

“Hi, honey,” she said by way of greeting. Her voice sounded tired.

“Sorry to call so late,” he said, still looking at the reflection. “I’m going to run out to Jess Rawlins’s ranch before I come home.”

“Jess? Is he okay?”

“I think so,” he said, and tried to briefly tell her what he knew. As he talked, and she listened sympathetically (she had always disliked Fiona Pritzle), he almost didn’t notice the subtle change in the light reflection on his hood as a form passed in front of his car. Looking out the rain-streaked side window, he continued to talk as the form-a man wearing what appeared to be hospital whites with a heavily bandaged head-staggered between the row of cars, reaching from car to car to steady himself and maintain his balance.

“My God,” Hearne said suddenly to Laura. “You won’t believe who just walked by the car and didn’t even see me.”

“Who?”

“That ex-cop I told you about. The one who was beaten. Oscar Swann.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” he said distractedly, watching Swann lurch from car to car, now bending at each, looking inside. For what?

Hearne knew the answer when Swann opened the door of an aged red compact and the dome light came on. He watched the ex-officer painfully bend himself into the driver’s seat and heard the rough whine of an out-of-tune motor start up.

“He’s stealing a car,” Hearne said. He heard Laura gasp.

“I’m following him,” he said, knowing her protestation would be next.

SWANN APPEARED to be going home. Hearne held well back, and faded even farther when Swann drove the stolen car beyond the city limits onto the wooded state highway that led to his house. The banker could see taillights in glimpses as Swann cornered or there was a clearing in the dark trees.

Why would the man simply walk out of the hospital like that? And steal a car?

Hearne had his cell phone on his lap and watched as the signal bars decreased until the NO SERVICE prompt flashed. Wherever he was going, whatever he was going to do now, he would be out of touch unless he could find or borrow a land line. He wished he’d have asked Laura to call the sheriff, then thought how pointless that would have been given the condition the sheriff was in when he left the office.

It took half an hour for Swann’s brake lights to flash before he began the turn from the highway onto the two-track that led to his house. Hearne saw the flash, pulled to the side of the road, and cut his headlights. He waited until Swann’s car had vanished into the trees before turning his own lights back on and following.

HEARNE HAD never been to Swann’s house, and he knew he was on legal thin ice the moment he entered private property and began to climb the drive. He had no intention of confronting Swann, or even of approaching the house. All he wanted to do was see where the road took him, see that Swann had settled in (he hoped), and proceed to Jess Rawlins’s place.

Hearne felt equal parts thrilled and terrified by what he was doing. But the pure happenstance of seeing Swann in the parking lot and following him to his home had given him a purpose in a night where his ineffectiveness bludgeoned him blow after blow. Maybe following Swann would lead to nothing. In that case, only Laura would know.

When he could see a dull glow of lights through the trees, Hearne cut his own and pulled over. He didn’t want to drive right to Swann’s house.

He killed the engine and slid outside, careful not to slam the door. As he walked through the trees toward the lights, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and the tree trunks he had not seen earlier emerged from the gloom. The forest floor was spongy with moisture, and he walked carefully so he wouldn’t slip and fall.

He could hear movement, a drumbeat of footfalls, so he stopped and tried to see. A deer. His heart was racing in his chest, and he could actually hear it when he paused.

Seventy-five yards up the hill, Swann’s house was bright with lights both inside and out. In addition to the red car Swann had stolen, Hearne recognized Singer’s white SUV. There was also a shiny black pickup with chrome wheels. He immediately guessed the whole task force was there, at Swann’s house. Hearne felt real fear. Swann’s house seemed like a very odd choice for a meeting, when the group of ex-cops had the entire sheriff’s department and all of the county’s resources at their disposal. Something wasn’t right.

Fright gripped him, seemed to make his legs heavy and his movements slow. He walked close enough to a large pen to see movement in there: pigs. A massive hog false-charged him, grunting. Hearne jumped back, tripped over a tree root, and broke his fall with his elbows. While he lay in the mud he could hear the shallow, staccato breathing of the hog and smell its putrid hot breath.

His thighs were illuminated by a shaft of light from the house that slipped through the panels on the fence. As he scrambled back to his feet, his phone fell out of his shirt pocket and bounced off his knee and landed a few feet in front of him, in a pool of light.

As he stepped out of the shadows to retrieve it, the front door of Swann’s house was thrown open. Hearne froze and watched as three men-he recognized the profiles of Singer, Swann, and Gonzalez-stepped out onto the front porch. Could they possibly see him?

Hearne couldn’t breathe. He looked from the phone in the light to the men up on the porch. If he could see his phone in the light, they could too. They looked in his direction. He could see no weapons drawn.

Then Singer turned to Swann and said something he couldn’t hear while gesturing in Hearne’s direction. It was then Hearne realized the two men were looking down the dark road and not at him. Like they were waiting for someone. His breath returned, but it rattled in his throat.

Hearne backed up farther into the shadows but didn’t take his eyes off Singer and Swann. He prayed he wouldn’t step on a dry branch under the tree canopy, or trip again in the mud. He would leave the phone. He had no choice.

AS HEARNE felt his way through the trees toward his car, he thought about the accounts at the bank, the ones he had opened for Singer, the accounts that grew quickly with all-cash deposits, each deposit barely under the ten-thousand-dollar figure that would require the bank to notify the IRS. Hearne had advised his head teller not to worry about it, that the money came from donations all the way out in Los Angeles, that it was for a good cause. But he’d known from his first meeting with Lieutenant Singer and Tony Rodale that something didn’t quite fit. An initial deposit for $9,780 in tens and twenties? An additional deposit of $9,670 the next day, and the next?

Jim Hearne knew his culpability. He knew that by looking the other way he had opened the door to all of this, that his small transgression had begun a cascade of trouble and misunderstanding.

He had to warn Jess Rawlins. The ranch was just a few miles away. He would go there first.

SINCE JESS and Monica had cleared Kootenai Bay and headed north, the rain had been sporadic. She had brought nothing with her except a jacket from the closet because he had told her to leave quickly. The Winchester was between them on the bench seat, muzzle down, a smear of Swann’s blood on its butt plate.

In spare, halting language, he had filled her in. How her children had shown up in his barn, defended themselves, told him their story. Where things stood now.

“What are we going to do?” she had asked. “How will we keep my children safe?”

“I don’t know,” he said.