Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

No weapons, no phones.

“Let’s see if we can find a map.”

They began to scour the shelves and stacks of papers. Brynn was looking through a bookcase when Michelle gave a cry.

Brynn gasped and spun around.

“Look! Somebody’s coming!”

The women dropped to their knees by the window. Brynn could see, several hundred yards away, headlights moving slowly down Lake View Drive toward the county highway.

“Are there any other houses past the Feldmans’?” Brynn asked. She seemed to recall that there were only three residences here.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a neighbor. Or the police! Maybe a police car came to look for you and we missed them. If we run we can stop them! Let’s go!” Michelle rose and in a frantic, limping rush started for the door.

“Wait,” Brynn said in a harsh whisper.

“But they’ll be gone in a few minutes!” Her voice was angry. “We can’t wait! Don’t be crazy!”

Brynn held up a hand. “Michelle, no. Look.”

The moon was higher now, bright enough for them to make out the car. It was the killers’ Ford.

“Oh, no,” the young woman said through set teeth. “How can they drive it with the flat tires?”

“You shot out two, they put the spare on the front and they’ll let the other one rim. It’s front-wheel drive; they’ll just drag the rear. Look, see the dust.”

“Can they get very far?”

“Miles, yeah, if they don’t go fast.”

The taillights cast a ghostly red aura in the dust kicked up by the dragging wheel. The Ford eased around the snaky road and toward the county highway. The lights were soon obscured by a tangle of jack pine, yew and elegant willow. The car vanished.

Michelle hugged herself. She sighed with relief. “So they’re gone… It’ll be okay, right? We can just wait here. We can put the heat on now, can’t we? Please.”

“Sure,” Brynn said, staring after the car. “Let’s put the heat on.”

LEWIS PILOTED THE limping Ford along Lake View Drive, past the house at Number 2 and then turned and continued along the winding road toward the county highway.

Hart said, “Was a good shot you made with that scattergun, hitting her car all that distance.”

Lewis offered a dismissive sneer but Hart saw that the words hit home; the punk was pleased. “I wanted to take her out. That’s why I was aiming high. Compensated for the wind too. Didn’t want to hit the tires. I didn’t hit ’em, you see?”

“I did.”

“But I led her just right, didn’t I? About four feet. And high. Didn’t think she’d go out of control.”

“Who’d guess that?”

A moment or two passed. Lewis said, “Hey, Hart?”

Looking at the woods around him. “Yeah?”

“Okay, what it is…I shouldn’t’ve said anything. About the keys.”

“Keys?”

“In the house. With the woman cop. I gave it away…you were right. I got excited. My brother always said I do things or say something before I think. I gotta watch that.”

“Who’d’ve thought, a cop?” Hart nodded at him. “Can’t stay on top of everything. But you did some fine shooting.”

The car was filled with the smell of hot rubber and metal from the self-destructing tire.

It was then that Hart glanced back. “Shit!” he whispered.

“What? Whatta you see?”

“I think it’s her. Yeah, it is! The cop.”

“What? She got out of the water? Fuck. Where is she?”

“In that other house. The one we just passed. Number Two. The cop.”

“No shit. You’re sure?”

“In the window. Yeah. I saw her plain as day.”

“I can’t even see the house.”

“Was a break in the trees. She probably saw us go past and stood up. Thinking we were gone. Man, that was stupid of her.”

“They both there?”

“I don’t know. All I saw was the cop.” Hart was silent a moment. Lewis kept driving. Hart continued, “I don’t know what to do. We’re doing pretty good with the tire.”

“She’s holding up,” Lewis agreed.

“And we’ll be at the highway in ten minutes. I’d love to get the fuck out of here.”

“Amen.”

“’Course, then we miss the chance for some payback. Jesus, that woman’s slugs came six inches away from my head. I don’t dodge lead the way you do.”

“True too,” Lewis said, thinking things over and laughing about the bullet dodging.

“And wouldn’t be a bad idea to get things finished up now so we don’t have to worry. Especially since she knows my name.” Hart shrugged. “But I don’t know. Whatever you’re up for. Get her or not.”

A pause. Then Lewis lifted his foot off the accelerator, considering this. “Sure. And Michelle, maybe she’s there too… Fuck her up bad is what I really want, my friend.”

“Okay, I say let’s do it,” Hart said. He looked around again and then pointed ahead to the driveway at 1 Lake View. “Shut the lights off and head up there. We’ll move around behind. She’ll never guess.”

Lewis grinned. “Payback. You son of a bitch, Hart. I knew you’d be up for it.”

Hart gave a short laugh and pulled his pistol from his belt.

In fact, Hart hadn’t seen anything in the window at Number 2. Like Lewis, he couldn’t even see the place. But instinct had told him that the cop was there. He knew she’d survived the crash; he’d seen footprints leading from the lake. She’d have gone toward the closest shelter she could find: the second house on Lake View, he’d concluded. None of this he’d shared with Lewis, though. Hart had been taking soundings for the past couple of hours and knew his partner definitely didn’t want to stay here. He wanted to head back to Milwaukee. He talked big about tracking down the two women and taking care of them. But Hart knew it was just that: talk. The man’d get lazy and forget about it-until somebody came for him in the middle of the night. But if Hart had insisted they remain here to hunt the women down, Lewis’d dig his heels in and there’d be a fight.

Hart did not need any more enemies tonight.

But seeing Lewis wipe the lip of the bottle, back at the Feldmans’ house, Hart had sized up the younger man and decided he could get Lewis to stay here if he played on the man’s insecurities: complimenting his shooting and making it seem like staying to get the cop was Lewis’s idea.

Hart was sometimes called “the Craftsman,” a reference to his hobby of furniture making and woodworking, though the term was usually used by people in his profession, the one that had brought him here to Lake Mondac tonight. And the number one rule of craftsmanship is knowing your tools: the animate ones, like Lewis, in addition to those made from steel.

No, Hart never intended to return to the city without killing these two women, even if it took all night. Or all the next day, for that matter, even if the place was swarming with cops and rescue workers.

Yes, he wanted to kill Michelle, though that was a lower priority than getting the policewoman. She was the one he absolutely had to kill. She was the threat. Hart couldn’t forget her. Standing by her car. Just standing tall and waiting for him. The look on her face, a flash of gotcha, which might’ve been his imagination, though he didn’t think so. Like a hunter, waiting for just the right moment to take the shot. Like Hart himself.

Only his instant reflex, diving to the ground, had saved him. That, and the fact that she’d fired one-handed, wisely not letting go of her car keys. He actually heard a bullet near his ear, a pop, not a phushhhh, like in the movies. Hart knew he was closer to death at that moment than when Michelle had snuck up behind him and taken her shot.

Lewis now continued up the drive of 1 Lake View. At Hart’s direction, he beached the Ford in a stand of brush behind the house. It was well hidden in the tall grass and shrubs. They climbed out and moved west, into the woods about thirty feet, and then started going north, parallel to the private road, moving as quickly as they could toward Number 2.