Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

“Too fast,” Hart muttered. To put it mildly.

“I know some people in Kenosha. There’s money there. Illinois money, Chicago money. So how ’bout it? You and me.”

“Go on.”

“I was thinking of this place outside of town, Benton Plastics. You know it?”

“No.”

“It’s on Haversham Road? Big fucking place. Sell shit all over the world. On payday they have this big-ass check-cashing truck. The guard’s this lazy asshole. We could walk up and clear twenty, thirty thousand. If it was early on Friday morning. How ’bout that?”

Hart was nodding.

Lewis continued, “I’d get all the information. You know, like reconnaissance.” He patted his shirt, felt the cigarettes but it was like he was doing it from habit. He wasn’t about to light up out here. “I’m a good listener. Everybody talks to me, tells me all kinds of shit. One time this guy and I were bullshitting and he mentions the name of his dog, along with a bunch of other stuff. So, guess what? I boost his ATM card and the dog’s name is his PIN. I cleaned him out. I got that just by talking.”

“That was pretty slick.”

“So, whatta you say?”

“You know what, Comp? I like the idea.”

“Yeah?”

“We’ll look at the details. And put together a plan. Do it right this time.”

“A hundred ten percent.”

“One ten. Now, I’ve rested enough. We’ve got unfinished business. And our girlfriends could be calling in the cavalry right now.”

“You feeling okay?” Lewis asked.

“No, sir,” Hart whispered, laughing. “I just got shot. I just got snakebit. And let’s not leave out I nearly took a shower in ammonia. No, I’m not feeling okay at all. But what’s a man going to do?”

Lewis picked up the shotgun and they started to walk in the direction the tracks seemed to lead.

Hart flexed his snakebit hand. It felt fine. He asked, “That tobacco and gunpowder-what exactly does it do?”

“You ask me, it doesn’t do shit. Excepting, it calms you down.”

Hart inhaled deeply. “Nothing like the smell of country air. Our luck’s changing, Comp. Let’s go that way. I think I see a path. Looks like the Trickster’s on our side now.”

“RIGHT DOWN THERE,in that hollow.”

Charles Gandy led them along the dim path toward the camper. It was a big one. Their escape vehicle, a long panel van, like an Econoline, sat nearby.

Gandy’s friend was back.

“I’m freezing,” Michelle muttered.

Gandy smiled. “You can sit right in front of the heater in the van if you want.”

“I want. The coldest I’ve ever been was skiing in Colorado. And you can head back to the lodge anytime. This’s a little different.”

They plunged along another path, steeply downhill. The camper was in a crumbling parking lot. An old building being reclaimed by the forest was nearby.

They were fifty feet from the lot when Brynn, inhaling the cool night air, stopped suddenly. She turned back, played her eyes up the path they’d just descended. She lifted the gun. The others stopped too.

“What is it, Brynn?” Michelle asked.

Gandy took a step forward, paused, scanning the forest. “What?” he whispered.

Brynn said to Gandy, “Get down. I heard something over there to the right. See anything?”

The man crouched and studied the trees.

Brynn pulled Michelle into a crouch on the other side of the path. She leaned close to the woman’s diamond-studded ear. Smelled sweat and very expensive perfume. She said softly, “We’re in trouble here, Michelle. Don’t ask questions and don’t say a word. You remember the rallying point?”

The young woman froze. Then nodded.

“When I tell you, run for it. Run like hell. Keep that with you.” Glancing at the spear.

“But-”

Brynn waved her hand, dismissing the young woman’s perplexed frown. Brynn turned to Gandy and in a normal voice asked, “See anything?”

“No.”

Brynn clicked the safety off on the Savage, pointed the weapon at Gandy, who blinked in shock.

“What’re you doing?”

“Now, Michelle, run!”

The man stepped back, but stopped as Brynn tensed.

“Run!” she cried. “I’ll meet you where I said.”

Michelle hesitated only a moment, then fled back up the path. She melted into the night.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Gandy stopped, eyes wide in confusion.

“Get down on your knees, hands on your head.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Now, who’s in-” Her words were cut off as a hand grabbed her collar from behind and tugged hard. Off balance, she stumbled backward. A large woman with straight hair and fury in her eyes stepped in front of her and swung a fish-killing club into her belly. Brynn dropped to her knees and vomited. The gun fell to the ground and the woman snatched it up.

“The fuck is she?” the woman muttered.

Gandy strode forward and pulled Brynn to her feet. He searched her and pulled the knife out of her pocket. He hit her in the face with a hard fist; the pellet wound opened. She cried out and shoved Gandy away hard, making a grab for the rifle in the heavy woman’s hand. But the man twisted the deputy around and got her in a neck lock. “Don’t fucking move.”

Brynn slumped, defeated. When he relaxed his grip she stomped on his foot, high and hard, and he let go a fast scream. “You fucking cunt.”

The woman aimed the rifle at her and growled, “That’s it, honey.”

Brynn looked at her pinprick eyes.

“You okay?” the woman asked Gandy.

“Do I look okay?” he spat out. He peered up the path. “Was another one. She got away.”

“Who is she? They with Fletcher?”

He grabbed Brynn by the collar and hair. “How’d you know? Goddamn it, how’d you know?”

She didn’t tell him that the distinctive smell of cooking methamphetamine-propane, chlorine and ammonia-had wafted to her on the damp night air.

The camper was a portable lab.

“Let’s get inside,” the woman said, looking around. “We’ve gotta tell Rudy. He’s not gonna be happy.”

Gandy dragged Brynn along the path. He snarled, “You scream, you say a word, you’re dead.”

“You’re the one screamed,” she couldn’t resist saying. And was rewarded with another fist in her face.

THE CAMPER WAS filthy, filled with plates of old food and discarded beer cans and clothing and other trash.

And it was hot. A half dozen metal pots sat on two propane stoves. Canisters of anhydrous ammonia lined one wall; a workstation for cutting apart lithium batteries was in the corner. There were also huge piles of matches.

Gandy pushed Brynn inside and tossed her knife on a table.

“Who’s she?” said a scrawny, twitchy young man in an Aerosmith T-shirt and filthy jeans. He hadn’t shaved in some time or washed his hair. His fingernails were black crescents. A heavier man in overalls, with curly red hair, looked Brynn over.

The overweight woman who’d slugged her with the club said to a little girl, about nine or ten, in a shabby T-shirt and stained denim skirt, “Keep going. You’re not through yet.” The girl-Amy, the stepdaughter, Brynn assumed-blinked at the visitor and returned to filling larger plastic bags with smaller ones containing the finished product.

The skinny man said, “Lookit her face. It’s all swole up. What’s going-”

“Shhh,” the heavy one snapped. “What’s the story?”

Gandy grimaced. “She’s a deputy, Rudy.”

“Bullshit. Dressed like that? And she’s a fucking mess. Look at her… She’s from Fletcher’s crew.”

“I saw her ID.”

Rudy was looking Brynn over carefully with a disgusted visage. “Well, fuck me. Police? I don’t want to burn this place too. Fuck, I don’t want to do that. After all this work.”