Джеффри Дивер - The Goodbye Man

“A barking dog? Not the friendliest of logos,” Shaw said.

“Why not a seal? Seals bark,” Victoria pointed out.

“Don’t imagine there’s a seal within four hundred miles.”

“Logic and town planning,” she said, “don’t always go hand in glove.”

They looked around them for a restaurant or bar.

“Not much of a town,” Shaw observed.

“But I’ll bet you can buy plenty of Barkley the dog toy souvenirs and T-shirts.”

They parked and walked into the only diner on the main drag.

Victoria won the bet.

Now, in the Compound, they sat on the old couch, which was covered with a Native American blanket. Shaw sipped from the coffee mug and asked, “You okay?”

“The worst movie line ever written,” Victoria replied.

“Hm?”

“Movies. Big gunfight. Car crash. Tornado. Sharks. Aliens. There’s a lull in the action. Hero A — that’s you — says to Hero B, me, ‘You okay?’ Cliché. The scriptwriter’s asleep at the switch.”

“That may be. But it’s a valid question. You fell off a cliff.”

“Was thrown.”

“And the answer is?”

Victoria said, “Better every day. She’s good, your mother. I’ve had PT, time to time, and I know a pro when I’m worked on.”

They were facing east, and the lowering sun behind them was igniting mountaintops in a most impressive way. Even in this gentle month, defiant snow embraced the staunch peaks.

Shaw had originally thought, believing Victoria to be beset by the loss of spouse and child, that he might arrange for her to see Mary Dove for psychological help. That plan had been negated by the facts: she was homicidal , not suicidal. But, after Samuel’s attack, it had then occurred to Shaw that Victoria might benefit from some time in the Compound where his mother’s physical therapy skills might be of some help.

“What’s her plan?” Victoria asked. She was referring to Anne DeStefano, the deprogrammer. Shaw had spoken to the woman at length about the Osiris Foundation.

DeStefano had said, “A lot of cults talk about immortality. Not a lot of them encourage you to see if their theory holds up. And people seemed to buy it?”

“Enough did.” Shaw had given her the relevant details.

“I’m going to get on top of it now. Since most of the members were in for the short-term — just three weeks’ indoctrination — it shouldn’t be hard to reverse most of the damage. The ones who came back for the follow-up sessions will take a bit more work.”

Shaw told Victoria that DeStefano would be in touch with the authorities interviewing the Companions and give them her name and the names of psychologists and deprogrammers in the areas where they lived.

Shaw had also heard from Walter and Sally, who had returned home safely to Chicago. Abby was staying with them for the time being but would soon be released to child protective services in her hometown. Frederick and Shaw had spoken several times. He was working with the police to build the case against Eli and Hugh.

Movement from their left. Chase plodded close, moving with purpose. Like an airplane easing into the airport gate, he turned and slowed to a stop between them. Then flopped down, his chin on Victoria’s sneakered foot.

She looked into the sky. “Hey, there. Is that a... another golden eagle?”

Shaw squinted. “Believe so.”

Their mascot. A thought Shaw kept to himself.

The dark brown form was winging muscularly back toward the forest and cliffs. “That’s a male. It’s mating season now and the mother will be with the eggs for about a month. They don’t make nests. They build platforms.”

“So Dad’s been grocery shopping.” She then asked, “What’s the latest on the Guiding Beacon and his sidekick?”

Shaw shook his head. “Not good. According to that agent, Slay, they were spotted getting into Canada, but then disappeared.”

The authorities had contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who were sympathetic, but the area of southern British Columbia was huge and the Canadians simply didn’t have the manpower for the kind of search necessary to track down Eli and Hugh.

His phone hummed with a number that was only slightly familiar, like that of a cousin you’ve met only once, at a wedding a few months ago.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Shaw, Bob Tanner.”

Erick Young’s attorney in Tacoma, Washington.

“Just wanted to let you know that the charges’ve been dropped. The police tracked down a couple of kids in a neo-Nazi cell east of Tacoma. Forensics on the graffiti on the church matched cans of paint in their possession. They pled. And when the detectives interviewed the lay preacher? It was like you said: the janitor started shooting at Erick and Adam, and Adam only returned fire. After the boys fled, he gave the gun to the preacher and told him to hide it. He didn’t have a license.”

Shaw thanked the attorney and disconnected. Victoria knew something about the reward for Erick and Adam and he explained how the job had been resolved.

Shaw and Victoria sat in silence for a moment.

“Just for the record, I’m no longer murderous.”

“So my mother can get the sharp knives out?”

She clicked her tongue. “Sometimes normal gets bushwhacked.”

How well Colter Shaw knew this — the man who traveled the country, picking through the bones of mysteries that some people hadn’t been able to solve, and others simply didn’t care about and still more decidedly did not want to be solved.

Shaw received a text. He read it twice and rose. “Have an errand to attend to.”

Victoria said, “See you at dinner?”

“Probably not.”

Shaw preferred his Winnebago and motorcycle for transportation. However, he picked the vehicle to suit the need.

Presently he was fourteen thousand feet in the air, aboard the Learjet, an older model, a bit battered but dependable. The trip was expensive, as all private aviation flights are. Yet he had no option. Time was critical, and commercial wouldn’t get him to the town he sought quickly enough.

As they flew, he thought of the box hidden at Echo Ridge. What would it contain?

Whatever that might be, it was worth killing for. Torturing too. He pictured Ebbitt Droon’s face, determined to get the treasure, as he pointed a gun at Shaw’s knee.

A voice from the cockpit. “We’re landing, Mr. Shaw.”

The plane swooped down toward the runway, the craft skewing sideways at an acute angle — it was called crabbing and would be alarming if Shaw had not experienced small aircraft landings several dozen times. The Lear straightened at the last minute, flared and touched down smoothly. They taxied to the fixed base flight operation and cut the engines.

Shaw rose and stretched — to the extent he could in the low-ceilinged interior — and walked to the door.

“This won’t be long.”

“What should I do about the flight plan?”

“One option is I’ll be going back home. The other?” He shrugged. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

“Sure, Mr. Shaw. Good luck.”

The spread was pretty much as Shaw expected: a rambling one story house with two garages and a workshop attached. A shed behind the home that could’ve inspired the set designer for Texas Chainsaw Massacre . As he drove the rental up the dirt drive, he passed a messy shooting range, in which were mounted dozens of black iron targets. They’d ring like gongs when hit. The ground was littered with fun targets: exploded milk jugs and glass soda bottles blown to dusty smithereens.

The Montana hills were in the background, and ridges of trim forests surrounded the place. The grounds here, though, were mostly scruffy and overgrown. Dead stumps and fallen branches protruded from thick, mustard-colored swamp. The smell was what you’d expect.