Джеффри Дивер - The Goodbye Man

Busted...

“Well. About that, Velma.”

There was nothing to do but tell her the truth.

The woman sighed. “Let me get this straight. You gave away a fifty-thousand-dollar reward, and then, for no money whatsoever, you spent the last few days nearly getting killed by Charles Manson and family.”

He sought grounds for dispute but found none. “Pretty accurate.”

“Lord, Colter, you’re not made of money.”

“You got a Barkley stuffed dog out of the situation.” Shaw nodded at the toy he’d bought for her on the drive here.

“Be still my heart.” She grunted, which given her melodious voice was a pleasant tone nonetheless. “Set a spell, Colt.”

“The boondocks’re growing on you, bride.” Teddy chuckled. “‘Set a spell’? You’ve never used that expression in your entire life.”

She opened her arms. “Look around you. You gotta talk Western.”

Shaw said, “Got some things to take care of right now. I’ll see you at dinner.”

Shaw walked into the kitchen where his mother was chopping vegetables.

Mary Dove resembled a lean frontierswoman, her gray hair in a braid. Her present appearance wasn’t very different from that of years ago, when she was a star medical professor, grant director and psychiatrist/general practitioner in the Bay Area. Her quiet yet unyielding demeanor also was largely unchanged. After Ashton’s death, most in the family assumed she’d resume her life in San Francisco. Colter had known she wouldn’t, though. Here she’d remain, practicing general medicine and physical therapy, hosting retreats on topics like women’s health and psychopathology, and delivering the occasional baby.

“Well?” She gestured vaguely in the direction of Echo Ridge, miles away and not visible from the cabin.

“Found it.” He told her where the package was, that he’d get it in the morning.

Mary Dove was incapable of registering surprise but her son thought that maybe, just maybe, her eyes widened a millimeter or two.

“We’ll talk when you do. Decisions’ll have to be made.” Mary Dove’s voice was firm. After all, what Shaw had found at Echo Ridge was this secret that had led to her husband’s and others’ deaths. She was not a vindictive woman by any means — revenge, as Victoria had suggested, is a waste of time at best and leads to misfortune at worst. But self-preservation and survival of the family? That was paramount. Shaw had seen his mother calmly lift a .30–30 to her shoulder and squeeze off a round to drop a rabid wolf. To learn Ash’s secret meant to understand a lethal threat. And once you comprehended a risk, you could minimize it.

Or, better, eliminate it.

Mary Dove now poured two cups of coffee, added some milk to each. Shaw took them from her and walked into the living room of the cabin and looked out the window. He said, “Always liked this view.”

“Beautiful,” said Victoria Lesston, who was sitting on the couch. He handed over a steaming mug and sat down beside her.

When she’d fallen, she’d fallen into water, not upon rock.

In anger or dismay, Samuel hadn’t planned his assault; he’d simply picked the target he could succeed with. He knew he’d never beat Colter Shaw. So he’d flung Victoria over the cliff, assuming that a rocky shore lay below. Or perhaps not assuming anything at all.

In fact her landing bed was the deep lake that stretched to the foothills below the soaring peaks in the distance.

Shaw had run to the cliff’s edge. And peered down to the place where Victoria floated faceup, bobbing, bobbing.

Samuel too floated but his back was skyward.

Shaw had called Special Agent Slay’s number, gave his location and said, “Now. EMTs.” Then he assessed. Eighty feet. Not an impossible dive but one whose trajectory would have to be planned perfectly, and practiced.

No time for that. He pulled off his shirt, shoes and socks. Then he’d climbed down to a narrow ledge about twenty-five feet below the crest.

Shaw gazed down. The shade of the water suggested it was deep.

No time for percentages. Victoria was going under.

He leapt, windmilling his arms to stay vertical, which never worked as well as you’d hope, he’d learned. Jumping from this height he hit the water at twenty-five miles per hour. He reflected in the three-second descent that one can still float with two broken ankles.

Then the jarring impact, compressing bones and muscles and organs. Shaw managed to fill his lungs an instant before hitting the surface. The stinging cold, though, had the effect of pushing out all of that air.

His soles stung like hell but the complex architecture of the ankles remained intact; water had not shattered bone, and the lake bottom was far beneath.

He kicked hard to Victoria and, in a lifeguard’s grip, got her to the shore.

Shaw had looked back. Samuel might have been alive when he hit. Probably wasn’t now. In any event, survival involves triage, the decision-making process about assessing who is likely to live and who is not. Shaw had removed Inner Circle Journeyman Samuel from his thoughts.

Soon, fire and rescue had deposited them both on the top of the cliff. The medics examined Victoria, ran their tests and determined that nothing was broken; her spine and legs were fine. She had, however, walloped her shoulder. Maybe dislocation, rotator cuff issue. They affixed her arm to her body with flesh-colored bandages to keep it from gritty movement and she was offered painkillers, which she declined.

She also vetoed a trip to the local hospital.

“Been hurt worse. This’s nothing.”

With her good arm hooked through his, Victoria and Shaw, in fresh clothing walked back to the staging area in front of the YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW gate. The place still bubbled with chaos. FBI and state police crime scene evidence technicians were doing their meticulous job, as busy and efficient as accountants on April 14. Other investigators were under tents, which had appeared miraculously, vacuuming up details from the Companions and staff.

Shaw had noted that many of the law enforcers used tablets just like those the Foundation staff carried around.

Victoria released him and snagged her backpack with her good arm.

Shaw asked, “You drove, didn’t you?”

“My pickup. There. The black one. It’s got a manual, so I’m not driving anywhere soon. I’ll bus it to wherever they drop us off. Call my parents or brother or a friend.”

“Where’s home?”

“My parents’re in Glendale.”

Not really an answer to the question. He assumed a woman of her age who is a security consultant/former soldier doesn’t live with Mom and Dad. However, no need for her to be completely forthcoming. Shaw, after all, was not unspooling his own pertinent data to her particularly quickly.

Victoria had continued, “It’ll be an adventure. I haven’t stayed in a hotel across from a bus station since that post-college junket to Europe. I’ll bet there’s even a Jack-in-the-Box on the corner.”

Shaw fished his truck keys from his pocket. “Let me throw an idea out there.”

She glanced his way, her eyes tinted with cautious reception.

He pitched his thought, and, after some mental juggling, she said, “Sure.”

An hour later they were on their way to Tacoma, where he would return the Silverado and pick up the Winnebago.

On the way, Shaw negotiated the switchbacks and Victoria handled the phone, trying to get details of the pursuit of David Ellis and Hugh, whose last name turned out to be Garner.

Special Agent Slay and the state police, though, were still not having any luck in tracing them.

Once in the Winnebago, they hit the road, south. They made good time. The first rest break was well past Oregon’s southern border, in the small town of Barkley Heights, California. The burg’s WELCOME TO sign sported a cartoon dog, its open mouth raised skyward, tongue dangling.