Си Бокс - Dark Sky

Price flinched and shook his head. “Who?”

“My Sophia,” Earl said. “My Sophia.”

“ I killed her?” Price asked, obviously confused. “I don’t even know her. I don’t know anyone named Sophia. Jesus—this is insane.”

Earl’s face got dark and Joe took in a breath, anticipating the rifle fire. He could see Earl’s index finger whitening on the trigger.

“No,” Earl said to Price, “you don’t even know her. She’s nothing to you. Nothing. And that, you little prick, is a big part of our problem here.”

Price looked to Joe and pleaded with his eyes for him to intervene.

“Sophia,” Joe said to Earl as calmly as he could. “She was your daughter, right? Brad and Kirby’s sister?”

“She was.”

“He always liked her best,” Brad said without malice.

Price looked from Earl to Joe to Brad, as if watching the most confusing tennis match he’d ever seen.

“I’m sorry to hear that, I really am,” Price said. “But what about her? How could I hurt someone I don’t even know?”

“Because that’s what you fucking do,” Earl said to him. “That’s how you make millions of dollars.”

Joe wanted to talk Earl down, but he wasn’t sure what to say. He remembered Marybeth looking up from her laptop the year before and saying how sad it was that a beautiful local girl named Sophia Thomas had taken her own life. It was such a tragedy, Marybeth had said. Sophia had been in Lucy’s class at Saddlestring High School. Joe hadn’t known her, but he was aware of the Thomas family, especially Kirby.

Earl said to Price, “You let them torture her until it became unbearable. You allowed that to happen.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Price said.

“You’re a liar,” Earl said. “I called you. I called your company thirty times to complain. I left messages every time, but I never talked to one living person and no one ever called me back. All I got was automated voicemail. You just sat there in your fucking headquarters and minted money while my Sophia was being hounded to death.”

Price slumped forward and placed his head in his hands. “I have no idea what’s happening here!” he cried.

Joannides broke in for the first time. “It’s company policy to disregard individual user complaints,” he said calmly to Earl. “We don’t react until there’s a groundswell or unless an important influencer has a reaction online. Steve-2 thinks there are too many users to respond to each and every time there’s a complaint.”

“I wasn’t a user,” Earl said. “I was Sophia’s father and I had to watch her spiral. So fuck your company policy.”

Joannides didn’t argue, but he looked away furtively. Joe noted that he didn’t seem scared or frightened by the Thomases, and he wasn’t bound. That didn’t quite fit with the scenario. Just like the fact that Boedecker still had his weapon.

Just then, Earl gestured to Boedecker in the tent. “You can go now,” he said. “Just don’t tell anyone what you saw here today.”

“I won’t,” Boedecker replied. “Will you let Joe go with me? That was part of the deal.”

“What deal?” Joe asked, stunned.

Boedecker wouldn’t meet his gaze. Joe realized the rancher had been in on it from the beginning. That’s what his early warnings and his antipathy toward the hunting party had been about.

Joe felt sick to his stomach.

“For a year I tried to figure out how to get at this guy,” Earl said to Joe about Price. “But God works in mysterious ways. I never could have imagined he’d be delivered to me. So for that I have to thank you, Joe Pickett.”

“Yeah, thank you, Joe Pickett,” Brad echoed.

Joe looked to Price and saw absolute fear in his eyes.

“I had nothing to do with this,” he said to him.

“Thank the governor, too,” Boedecker said as he stepped out of the tent. “That bastard finally did something right.”

Joe sensed Kirby relax behind him. The knife point was withdrawn, but he still stood there, ready. Kirby lowered Joe’s pack to the ground at their feet. It seemed as if he were about to be released. He doubted Price and Rumy would get the same deal. He wasn’t sure yet about Joannides.

Boedecker grasped his personal gear bag and started to walk in the direction of the horses.

“No,” Earl called to him. “You need to hoof it yourself.”

Boedecker turned. “They’re my horses.”

“And they’ll stay with us,” Earl said to him. “It’ll take you two or three days to get back down to the trailhead. We need the time in case you change your mind and start yapping.”

“I won’t change my mind,” Boedecker pleaded.

“Start walking before I change mine,” Earl threatened.

“My radio is in the pannier of my horse,” Boedecker said. “You know that one Brad told me to keep on? I might need it in an emergency.”

Joe thought, A live radio in Brock’s gear? So the Thomases had been listening to them?

“No,” Earl said to Boedecker. “You’ll need to be radio-silent so we can do what we’re here to do.”

While the two of them went back and forth, Joe noticed in his peripheral vision that Rumy had regained his wits on the ground. Although he still lay motionless on his side beneath Brad, his eyes darted around and he was carefully working on loosening and stretching out the rope on his wrists so he could get his hands free. Brad was preoccupied watching the exchange between Boedecker and Earl.

Rumy, Joe thought, was preparing to make his move.

“I want to get those horses back from you as soon as I can,” Boedecker said to Earl. “I’ve got clients coming.”

“I’ll get ’em back to you,” Earl said.

“They’re my best, you know.”

“I know. And leave that handgun. I’ll give it back to you when this is over.”

Boedecker was alarmed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I am not. I’d prefer it if you weren’t armed.”

“What about bears?”

“Make plenty of noise.”

“Earl, this isn’t the arrangement we discussed.”

“Seems like you want to argue some more.”

Boedecker apparently thought it best to shut up. With a curse, he turned his back on Earl and began to trudge away.

At that moment, Joe saw movement from the camp and he turned his head to see Rumy roll onto his back. He kicked up at Brad with one decisive movement. His boot came up between Brad’s legs and hit with an ugly thump . Brad gasped and stepped back, doubling over. He still grasped his shotgun.

Rumy continued his roll until he was on his hands and knees. Then he launched himself up and ran through the campsite and toward the trees to the east. He didn’t even look over his shoulder as he did so. Not protecting his boss, Joe thought, but saving himself.

“Fucking Brad,” Kirby hissed behind Joe.

“Get him,” Earl ordered to Brad. “Get him before he reaches the trees.”

Brad moaned and then howled. He sounded like a wounded animal.

“ Stop him! ” Earl shouted.

Brad took a raggedy breath and placed his big hands on his knees and pushed himself back up to his six-foot-four height. His face was a twisted red grimace.

All eyes in the camp were on him as he raised the shotgun to his shoulder. Rumy was thirty yards away—nearly out of effective buckshot range. Five or six full strides and he’d be into the timber.

The blast split open the still morning, and Rumy’s arms shot out from his body and he tumbled forward. He was obviously wounded but likely not yet dead.

“Go finish him off,” Earl ordered. Brad grunted in pain and lumbered in Rumy’s direction. He jacked a fresh shell into the receiver of his weapon as he did so.