Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

Forever.

Wondering if that was true.

And as if he were reading her thoughts: “Where is your friend Michelle?” he said evenly.

“I don’t know.” Recalling that they’d found her purse. They knew who she was and where she lived.

Hart moved in the seat slightly and grimaced, apparently at the pain in his shot arm. “What’s that name-Brynn?”

“Norwegian.”

He nodded as he took this in. “Well, about Michelle, you’re lying to me. You do know where she is.” He actually seemed offended. Or hurt. After a moment Hart said, “I talked to somebody tonight, you know. On the phone.”

“Talked to somebody?”

“Your husband.”

She said nothing, thinking at first that he was bluffing. But then remembered that they’d taken her phone. Graham might have called and Hart might have answered.

“I pretended I was another trooper. I told him you’d been delayed. He bought it. I could tell. There’s nobody coming to save you. And before you get your hopes up I took the battery out. Can’t be traced. Now, where is she? Michelle?”

They held each other’s eyes. She was surprised at how easy it was.

“You killed her friends. Why would I tell you where she is, so you can kill her too?”

“So,” he said, nodding, “Michelle was a friend of the family? Is that how she got mixed up in this whole thing?” A laugh. “Wrong time and wrong place, you might say. A lot of that going around tonight.”

“We need to talk about making arrangements here.”

“I’ll bet this’s a first for you. Has been for me.”

“What?”

“The game we’ve been playing tonight. Like poker. Bluffing. You fool me, I fool you.”

Poker…

“My friend was telling me about this character. His mama or grandma, I forget, was talking about the Trickster. Some mythology thing, a fairy tale. He causes all kind of grief. That’s what I’ve been calling you all night, Brynn.”

Trickster, she reflected.

Hart continued, “That TV in the house at Number Two Lake View-finding a channel with women talking. That was smart. And the ammonia above the door. But now I think about it, you didn’t rig it to fall, did you? You’d worry about rescue workers or your cop friends getting blinded. Funny-knowing you didn’t come up with a cowardly trap…makes me feel better about you.”

Brynn McKenzie repressed a smile and didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.

“Then the canoe. And the blood on the ledge.”

“And you in the three-wheeled car,” she replied.

“Didn’t fool you, though, did it?”

“I can say the same. After all, here you are. You found me.”

He looked her over. “The blood at the ledge. You cut yourself extra for that?”

“Didn’t bring any ketchup with me.” She tilted her head so he could see the coagulated blood in her hair.” Then she added, “The flashlight tricked me, on the ledge. What’d you do, make a rope out of a T-shirt?”

“Yep. My friend’s. Got to see more of his tattooed body than I wanted. I used a branch too so it’d hang out a ways and dangle in the wind.”

“But how’d you find us?”

“BlackBerry.”

She shook her head, smiling ruefully. He has satellite. I have a homemade toy compass…though one worked as good as the other, Brynn thought. “The Sheriff’s Department won’t pay for those.”

“I figured you’d make for that trail, the Joliet, and north from there. And go to the interstate or Point of Rocks.”

“I’d decided on the interstate. The climb’d be a bitch but it’s closer and by the time we got to the highway there’d be plenty of trucks on the road.”

“How come you didn’t get lost?”

“Good sense of direction.” She looked him over closely. “Why are you doing this, Hart?” she asked. “It’s hopeless.”

“Ah, Brynn, we’re both too smart for hostage negotiation one-oh-one.”

She continued nonetheless, “Less than two percent of perps get away with murder-and those’re usually drug clips where nobody cares about the victim or there’re so many suspects it’s not even worth investigating. But tonight…they won’t stop until they get you… You’re not stupid, Hart.”

Again he seemed hurt. “That was condescending… And what you’re trying’s cheap. I’ve been treating you with respect.”

He was right.

He stretched and massaged his shot arm. The bullet hole was near the edge of the jacket. It had apparently missed bone and vital vessel. He mused, “Crazy line of work we’re in, don’t you think, Brynn?”

“We’re not in the same line of work.” She couldn’t help but scoff.

“Sure we are… Take tonight: We came up here to do jobs we’d agreed to do. And now we’ve still got the same goals. To stop each other and get out of this damn forest alive. Who writes your paycheck and who writes mine, that’s just a technicality. Doesn’t matter much why we’re here. The important thing is that we are.”

She had to laugh.

But he continued, as if she’d conceded his point. And looked into her eyes as he said, animated, “But don’t you think it’s what makes everything worthwhile? Even what’s gone down tonight, all this crap. I do. I wouldn’t trade the life I lead for anything. Look at most of the rest of the world-the walking dead. They’re nothing but dead bodies, Brynn. Sitting around, upset, angry about something they saw on TV doesn’t mean a single thing to them personally. Going to their jobs, coming home, talking stuff they don’t know or care about…God, doesn’t the boredom just kill them? It would me. I need more, Brynn. Don’t you?” He massaged his neck with his uninjured arm. “Tell me where she is. Please. It’s going to get bad.”

“I tell you and you let me live?”

A pause. Then: “No, I can’t hardly do that. But I have your phone number. I know you have a husband and you might have children, probably do. If you tell me, they’ll be fine.”

“What’s your full name?”

He shook his head, giving her a frown.

“Well, okay, Hart first or last name, listen: you’re under arrest.” She recited the Miranda warning, start to finish. She never used those laminated cards that bail bondsmen handed out. She’d memorized the language years ago.

“You’re arresting me?”

“Do you understand your rights?”

Amused, he said, “I know you know where she is. You had a meeting point somewhere, didn’t you? I know that. Because that’s what I would have done.”

Breaking the silence that followed he continued, “Life’s funny, isn’t it? Everything seems perfect. The plan, the background, the research, the details. You even nail that fishy human factor. Clear road, easy escape, you’ve distracted everybody who needs distracting. And then something small happens. Too many red lights, tire goes flat, an accident ties up traffic. And the psycho security guard, who just got a new forty-four Desert Eagle he’s itching to use, comes to work ten minutes early because he woke up before the alarm because a dog started barking two blocks away because a squirrel…”

His voice faded. He tented his gloved fingers, wincing slightly when he moved his left arm. “And all your plans go up in smoke. The plans that couldn’t go wrong go wrong. That’s what happened to us tonight, Brynn. You and me both.”

“Undo my hands, give me your weapon.”

“You really think you’re going to arrest me, just like that?”

“You weren’t paying attention. I already did.”

He stretched again. “Not as young as I used to be.” He massaged his left arm. “How long have you been married?”

She didn’t answer but glanced involuntarily at his gloved hand.

“Marriage doesn’t suit me. Does it suit you, Brynn?…Come on, what’s Michelle to you?”