Джеймс Паттерсон - Three Women Disappear

But Clay chimed in. “Terrence!” I hoped, his way of saying don’t .

“Get on your knees!” he shouted at me, his rifle emphasizing his fury. He was thrusting it toward me, like a jab with an invisible bayonet. “On! Your! Knees!”

While Terrence kept his gun aimed, Clay made a show of slinging his rifle onto his back. I kept my hands halfway up. I absolutely did not want to provoke unnecessary bullets in my direction. No, thank you. My hands were going to remain very visible.

“Don’t shoot her, Terrence,” said Clay, calmly, authoritatively.

“Then tell her not to move.”

“Miranda?” said Clay. “Nice to meet you face-to-face. Please don’t move.”

“I won’t,” I said, beginning to kneel. “My husband is mortally wounded. I’m here to negotiate. In fact…” I cleared my throat. “I already have a proposition that you won’t want to refuse.”

“Liar!” said Terrence, who was clearly on edge.

“Relax, Terrence,” said Clay.

“I’m on your team, Miranda,” he said. “I’m willing to compromise in every way possible. But I need you to take me to Aaron first. That’s the only condition on my end.

“The reason is timing. We don’t have time,” Clay continued. “No, wait, let me rephrase that. Your husband doesn’t have time. As you said, he’s mortally wounded. I need him to be alive to fight the good fight. And you need him alive because he’s the father of your child.”

There was no way I could take Clay with me to Aaron. I’d be powerless if something went wrong.

“He needs a doctor,” I said.

“She doesn’t trust you, Clayton,” murmured Terrence.

“She’s a wise woman,” said Clay, looking directly at me. Talking about me while talking to me. “She needs me to convince her.”

He held his knife outward for me to see it. It looked like he was going to lay it down as a peace offering.

He raised his knife. He was behind Terrence, so it almost looked like he was going to poke him with it. For just a half second, I wondered if he would, a delirious thought. Because that would make no sense at all.

Yet that is exactly what he did.

Clay Hobson plunged his knife into the neck of his partner.

CHAPTER 19

TERRENCE SLUMPED FORWARD onto his knees. I didn’t move. I didn’t scream. All I could do was stare as a large stream of dark red liquid began to cascade down his chest, shining in the sunlight.

I was still down, so now the two of us were kneeling mere yards away, facing each other, like some sort of bizarre warrior ritual. The blade was lodged. As Terrence reached back to grab the handle, he found that he couldn’t even raise his arms. All he could do was look at me. Toward me.

Why?

Clay must have seen it on my face. Why did you stab your friend?

“To protect you,” answered Clay without my asking.

He stepped forward and withdrew the blade from Terrence’s neck. I was watching close, petrified. He looked up and held my gaze. Then he seemed to recognize my fear and tossed it on the ground, seemingly in demonstration of a truce.

“I never wanted it to come to this,” he said. He was about to bare his soul. I could feel it. “Sadly, these are the forces we’re up against.”

Exhibit A. He gestured toward Terrence’s body. Exhibit B. The body of the SUV driver. Exhibit C. The body floating down the river.

“Aaron and I…” he said. “We’re facing powers well beyond our control. I had to find the right moment. Terrence wanted to kill you, and I desperately needed to protect Aaron.”

I was trembling. “W-what is this?” I asked, referring to the entirety of the debacle. The company. The men. My husband. The history. Everything.

“There isn’t time,” he replied. “We have to hurry.”

Terrence was on the ground, facedown. It was over for him.

I felt sick, despite the fact that this wasn’t even the first dead body I’d seen on this wonderful vacation. Clay used a booted foot to push him over, and it rolled with a strange limpness. There’s something rather vacant about a corpse, the way the shoulder flops over. The feet surrender. The expressionless face.

Clay kneeled, inspecting the body. I doubted it was easy for him to do what he did, but it was hard to detect telltale signs of a conscience in Clay. He seemed fine.

He looked over to tell me the heavy words I knew were eventually coming.

“Aaron’s not innocent.”

I didn’t have a response.

“But he’s a good man,” he continued. “And you’ll need my help if you want to bring him to a doctor.”

He let that sit for a second. He stood up. Need his help? His help? I was suspicious but I knew I had no choice.

“A doctor?” I questioned.

“The clock’s ticking.”

I had to oblige him. In all these outlandish happenings, it made sense that the only way out was an outlandish offer.

“All right,” I said. “But on one condition.”

“Name it.”

“The keys to the SUV… I carry them.”

He dug in his pocket and tossed them to me. No hesitation. He was willing to do whatever I wanted.

I had more to say, more to demand. “The rifle… I hold it.”

There was a natural pause here but I hit him with a third condition before he could object.

“And you…” I said. “You keep in front of me.”

He weighed his options, looking across the canyon and the river, with so many nooks and crannies where one might hide. He stepped forward, closer to me but not intrusively so. I nodded to the river. He seemed to know immediately what I meant. We’d be hiking upstream.

I slung the rifle over my shoulder. The upper hand was mine now. It was tangible. Not because of the weapon, but because of the map in my head.

“Let’s go,” I said to him.

“Let’s go save lives,” he said back.

CHAPTER 20

I GUIDED CLAY through the canyon without saying anything other than where to turn. Dark thoughts were swarming around my soul like flies on a carcass. Aaron isn’t innocent. Aaron may have hurt people. Aaron hid something.

“Veer toward the crest,” I said to Clay.

You start a marriage with two eyes open, you stay in it with one eye closed. This is the standard advice. Yet had I proceeded along with both eyes closed? Was I also wearing earplugs? And a sensory deprivation suit? Did I know my husband at all?

I finally spoke up about a half hour into our hike. “Okay, fine, let’s hear it,” I said. “What sort of cataclysmic thing could you and Aaron be involved in?” I had a thousand questions, but needed to ask him things without telling him things.

“Oil,” replied Clay.

We were hiking across the eastern vista, in the midst of the most spectacular sedimentary erosion I’d ever seen. Everything out here looked like a beautiful forgery of the Grand Canyon. If only I were in a place to enjoy it.

“Oil,” I scoffed.

“The answer to ninety-nine out of a hundred questions.”

“Is money.”

“Is oil,” he insisted.

My rifle was pointed at his back. I know there’s safety protocol to weapons and triggers and where you aim, but I was done being safe. If I accidentally tripped on a pebble and shot him in the spinal cord, so be it. I’d apologize in the eulogy.

“Did your husband ever tell you about the case of Drake v. Llorenzo ?”

“No.”

“That family?”

“No.”

“From the town of Chasm? Drake v. Llorenzo? He really never told you?”

“Keep facing forward.”

I was lying. Aaron had told me, but I wasn’t intending to trust Clay yet. I needed to keep my guard up. Both verbally and physically.

“Llorenzo’s family got long-term illnesses from a water supply polluted by fracking,” he said. “Drake Oil’s fracking lines.”