Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

He continued to scan the nearby field and forest but saw no sign of Emma Feldman’s killers. They could easily have been here but it was impossible to tell with the dense vegetation.

And what about Graham and the deputy?

The gunshot he’d heard before the killers arrived at the rock ledge hinted at their fate. It was a shame-but you can’t get in over your head. Just can’t do it.

Jasons waited another ten minutes and decided it was time to get back to the interstate. He slung the canvas bag over his shoulder and without disassembling the rifle melted into the forest.

THEY CONTINUED ALONG the ridge of the gorge and toward the highway, the Snake River pounding over rocks far below.

Brynn didn’t dare look to her right, where ten feet away the world ended, a sheer cliff. She held Amy’s hand, and stared directly ahead at the path in front of them.

She paused once, looking back. Michelle was hobbling along well enough, though clearly exhausted. The little girl appeared almost catatonic.

The time was still very early and, from what they could hear, there wasn’t much traffic on the road yet. But an occasional semi or sedan would cruise by. And all they needed was one.

The bridge suddenly loomed ahead and to the right. They plunged into a band of trees and emerged into a strip of grass about thirty feet wide. Beyond that were the shoulder of the interstate and the beautiful strips of graying asphalt.

But Brynn held up her hand for them to stop; there were no cars or trucks in sight just yet and they’d come too far to make mistakes now.

They remained in the tall grass, like timid hitchhikers. Brynn found herself weaving a bit; this was about the first smooth, level ground she’d been on in close to nine or so hours and her inner ear’s gyroscope was having trouble navigating.

Then she laughed, looking down the highway.

A car was heading around a curve toward them, on the shoulder. It was a Kennesha County Sheriff’s Department car, its lights flashing, moving slow. A driver had heard the shots and called 911 or the State Police’s #77.

Brynn raised a hand to the car, thinking: she’d have to call in immediately about the shooter at the ledge.

The car slowed and swerved onto the shoulder and then eased to a stop between her and the highway.

The doors opened.

Hart climbed out of the driver’s side, his partner from the other.

“NO!” MICHELLE GASPED.

Brynn exhaled a disgusted sigh. She glanced at the car. It was Eric Munce’s. Her eyes went wide.

“Yeah, he didn’t make it,” said the partner, the man she’d come close to shooting back in the Feldman’s dining room. “Fell for the oldest trick in the book.”

She briefly closed her eyes in horror. Eric Munce…the cowboy had come out to save her. And charged to his own death, outmatched.

Hart said nothing. He held his black pistol and gazed at the captives.

The partner continued. “And how are you, Michelle?” Emphasizing the name. He pulled a woman’s purse out of his pocket. Stuffed it back. “Nice to make your acquaintance.”

The woman said nothing, just put her arms around the little girl protectively, pulled her close.

“You ladies have a nice stroll through the woods tonight? Good conversation? You stop for a tea party?”

Hart focused on Brynn. He nodded. She easily held his eye. He lowered the gun as a sedan on the far side of the divider cruised past. It didn’t even slow. In the pale dawn light it might have been hard to see the drama unfolding in the grass on the other side of the road. Soon the car was gone and the highway was empty.

“Comp?” Hart asked, his eye on Brynn.

The skinny man glanced over, kneading his earlobe. “Yeah?”

“Stay right in front of them.”

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

“You bet,” the partner, “Comp” apparently, said. “You want me to cover ’em?” He started to reach for the silver automatic pistol in his jacket.

“No, that’s okay.” Hart stepped directly in front of the man, facing him.

Comp gave an uncertain smile. “What is it, Hart?”

Only a moment’s hesitation. Then Hart lifted the gun to his face.

Smiling uncertainly, Comp touched the blue-and-red tattoo of a cross on his neck, then his earlobe. He shook his head. “Hey, what’re you-?”

Hart shot him twice in the head. The man collapsed on his back, left knee up.

Amy screamed. Brynn could only stare as Hart turned and, keeping his gun on the women and girl, stepped backward to his partner’s body.

Michelle’s eyes went cold.

Hart bent down and pulled Comp’s SIG-Sauer 9mm from his waistband and wrapped the dead man’s limp fingers around it.

So this was to be the scenario, Brynn understood. With the man’s hand around the Sig, he’d shoot the women, leaving telltale gunshot residue on the partner’s skin. He’d then stand over Brynn’s body to do the same, putting a second gun in her hand-Munce’s Glock, probably-and fire a couple of rounds into the trees.

The police would reason that the partner had killed the three of them and Brynn got off two final shots to take him out before she died.

And Hart would disappear forever.

A curious feeling, having only minutes to live. Her life wasn’t replaying itself. But she was thinking of regrets. She gazed at the woods, the smooth edge of trees and brush severed by the shoulder and highway, tamed. She nearly expected their wolf friend to stick its head out and look their way before vanishing into the woods again.

Then Hart was twisting the dead partner’s arm up and to the left, aiming at Brynn first with the SIG-Sauer.

Michelle pulled Amy even closer in front of her, and was reaching into her leather jacket, perhaps for their last Chicago Cutlery knife. She was going to fling it at Hart, it seemed.

A final, desperate gesture. And futile, of course.

Joey, Brynn thought, I-

Then came the shout, startling them all.

“Don’t move! Drop it!”

Breathless and limping, Graham Boyd pushed from the woods behind Hart, holding a small revolver.

“Graham,” Brynn cried in astonishment. “My God.”

“Drop it. Now! Put it down.” Her husband’s clothes were streaked with mud-and blood too, she could now see-and torn in several places. His face was bruised and filthy too and through the mask his eyes shone with pure anger. She’d never seen him like this.

Hart hesitated. Graham fired a round into the dirt at his feet. The killer flinched, sighed. He set the gun on the ground.

Brynn recognized the pistol; it was Eric Munce’s backup, which he kept strapped to his ankle. She remembered mentioning to Graham that he kept a second gun there. There were mysteries here but at the moment Brynn wasn’t speculating about how her husband and Munce had come to be at the Snake River Gorge. She stepped forward, took the pistol from her husband, verified that it was loaded still and motioned Hart out of the grass and onto the shoulder, where he’d be more visible. And a better target.

Control…

“Kneel down. Hands on the top of your head. If a hand comes off your head, you’ll die.”

“Of course, Brynn.” Hart complied.

More vehicles were hissing past now, drivers off late shifts or hurrying to early ones. If anyone inside the cars or trucks saw the drama unfolding on the shoulder, nobody was stopping

“Graham, get his Glock and the other gun.” Indicating the ostentatious silver SIG-Sauer that Comp had been carrying. “There’s one weapon unaccounted for. Eric’s. Search him.” Keith had taught her always to count weapons at scenes.

Graham did and found the deputy’s service Glock. He put Hart’s black gun and Comp’s silver one on the grass beside Brynn.