Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

“Ah.”

“Stay close. I scored second in the department shooting competition.”

“Well, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to have two at least.”

Munce considered this. He returned to the car, unlocked the shotgun, pocketed a half dozen shells. He locked the car door and returned to Graham. Together they walked to the edge of the forest and peered down the slope of boulders and trees. To their left the river, a hundred feet down the sheer gorge walls, roared as it broke over boulders and tree trunks and a small dam, at the bottom of which was an eerie sinkhole where leaves and trash spiraled into a foul broth and disappeared.

“Looks like the waterway to hell.”

“Thanks for this, Eric. You going to get into trouble?”

“Sheriff sent us out to search. I said I was checking some roads north. I just didn’t say how far I was going.”

“Tom’s a good man but I have a feeling he’s wrong on this one. I know my wife.”

For a few minutes they wound, or muscled, their way through stands of thick brush, then over a soft bed of pine needles, which was a pleasure after the ornery forsythia, vinca and other viney and stalky plants that seemed unnaturally attracted to their boots. The hussssh of the water from the Snake River grew louder.

“Time to get serious here.” Munce bent down, spat in the dirt and made mud. He smeared it on his face and cheekbones. Graham hesitated, feeling foolish, then did the same.

“Okay. Well, let’s do it.” Munce racked the shotgun, put the safety on and led the way. They started downward into an impossible tangle of trees and branches and rocks and shadow.

Graham whispered, “Eric, curious. Was it Brynn who beat you?”

“Beat me?”

“In the shooting competition. You said you were second.”

“Oh, no, was Dobbie Masters. Boy come outa his momma’s tummy with a pistol in his hand. But I will say this, Brynn may not be the best shot, but she empties the clip and reloads twice as fast as anybody on the force. In a firefight, that counts for more. Believe me.”

JAMES JASONS FINISHED his second hamburger, which was cold but he wanted the calories. He drove along the interstate, glancing from time to time at the screen on a small box stuck to the Lexus dashboard.

The indicator told him he was about one mile from his target, which had stopped moving and had been parked by the roadside for about ten minutes.

Jasons assessed his performance as the Feldmans’ grieving friend Ari Paskell, which was one of his four identities, complete with car registration and driver’s license. When you work for somebody like Stanley Mankewitz the budget isn’t quite unlimited but it’s big enough that you can afford the tools to do your job with-the union boss’s favorite word-efficiency.

Back at the Feldman house, as he’d pretended to compose himself after hearing the sad news, he’d learned plenty. He’d made up the story about a phone call from Steven to learn what the police actually suspected, that there were two of them and they weren’t physically large, thank you, Deputy Munce.

He’d also told the story to plant the seed that the killing was locally motivated; it didn’t originate in Milwaukee. He couldn’t tell if Dahl believed that or not.

Jasons had also overheard other snippets, giving him a good idea of what the police knew about the crime, while pretending to make a phone call-you’re invisible when you’re on your mobile; nobody thinks you’re listening. The sheriff missed that completely but Jasons didn’t put him down as a small-town rube. Brilliant people always look for the simplest, most logical explanation for a situation and Jasons had offered one: a grieving friend, a driver’s license and a legitimate tag number on a nice car.

It helped too that Jasons had left soon after, as he’d been asked to, before the sheriff started to wonder about this continued presence.

In fact, he didn’t need to stay. Because his next steps had nothing to do with how the police were handling the investigation. No, he had focused on the husband of that woman deputy who’d fled into the woods, escaping Emma Feldman’s killers. Noting the conspiratorial conversation that Graham Boyd had had with Munce, Jasons deduced that they were planning their own renegade search, independent of the sheriff’s plan.

Dahl might’ve known his staff and he might’ve known logic, and human nature in general-all good cops did-but he hadn’t known the sort of things you learn about a person by sharing his life and spending bedroom time with him. Jasons just had to look at his own relationship with Robert to know this was true.

So he put his money on the husband and Munce to lead him to the deputy-named Brynn-and to the Feldmans’ friend, the witness to the murder.

The two women who were the moths drawing the men Jasons was trying to keep alive tonight.

He recalled, back at the Lake Mondac house, Graham shaking “Paskell’s” hand and giving his sympathies. Then Jasons had wished them luck with the search. Graham had then turned away and spoken to Munce, the deputy looking down as he considered the words. Munce then said something back and they’d both looked at their watches.

Might as well shout their intentions over a megaphone.

But, it turned out, everybody else was concentrating on the business at hand and the exchange had gone unnoticed. On the pretext of asking another officer for directions, Jasons had passed by the husband’s pickup truck and dropped what looked like a small chip of wood inside the bed, behind some potted plants. The wood chip contained a GPS tracker-originally designed for hunters to use to track their dogs should they get overly enthusiastic when going after a shot bird and vanish into the distance.

Jasons owned and had used lots of equipment from security services, some of it worthy of master spies. But these dog trackers, which sold for about five hundred dollars, were far superior to the security equipment that cost ten times as much (even more if the customer was the federal government, he’d learned).

Now, as he approached what a sign reported was the Snake River Bridge, the tracker was humming steadily. Then he saw the white pickup and a squad car parked off the road, half hidden in some bushes about two hundred yards this side of the bridge.

Jasons piloted his Lexus past them.

So this was where they believed Deputy McKenzie and the two killers were heading.

Jasons drove over the bridge, below which was an impressive moonlit gorge. Then as soon as the interstate was deserted he made a U over the flat, grassy median and crossed the bridge again going the other way. Then, about even with where the men had parked, on the other side, he nosed his car into a woody area off the shoulder and pulled to a stop.

He climbed out and stretched. He opened the trunk and replaced his sports coat with a windbreaker and his dress shoes with boots. He took out a canvas bag, which he slung over his shoulder.

Waiting for a massive Peterbilt tractor-trailer to pass, swirling dust and grit in its wake, he crossed asphalt, the median and then more road and vanished into the woods.

AT THE POND, an oval far smaller but no less dark and eerie than Lake Mondac, Brynn touched her finger to her lips and glanced at Amy, smiling.

The little girl nodded. She was wearing Brynn’s dark sweatshirt over her white T. Her legs were bare and pale but she didn’t seem cold. She’d given up asking about her mommy and now walked dutifully beside Brynn, cuddling Chester, a stuffed creature of indeterminate species.

Surveying the pond, their rallying point, Brynn thought how happy she’d been when she’d first met Charlie Gandy. An ally, a weapon, a ride to safety.

Control.

And it had all been just a cruel joke. She didn’t even have her spear anymore. She felt wholly depleted. She pulled the girl down beside her and continued to scan the pond carefully.