Michael Koryta - Last Words

“He’s having some issues with the plow. It’s a long driveway to work with just a snowblower.”

“It sure is.” But Lou was curious now, maybe suspicious.

“Your boys ever spend any time down in the cave when it was open?” Mark said. “I hear it was a popular place back in its day.”

“For tourists maybe. I never cared for caves. Claustrophobic. Anyhow, we’ll get you on the list, and when it snows, Cecil won’t have to worry.”

“Appreciate that.” Mark turned to the window and waved a hand out at the fields. “Some beautiful horses there. You take care of them?”

“Yup. I never cared for horses much myself, but it’s part of the job.”

“What’s the job?”

“Just what it looks like — tending the farm. All leased land now. People who own them horses are from Indianapolis. Had an idea about turning this place into some sort of a riding camp, training kids, crap like that. Poured money into the barn, but I ain’t seen any dollars come back in from it yet. They don’t need any, though. Funny how that goes — the people who own the land don’t need the money from it; the people who live on it do. Ain’t that the way all around?”

“I couldn’t say. Your boys, do they tend to the horses as well?”

“Why in the hell are you so damn interested in my boys?”

“More interested in the horses, honestly. Look like nice animals. Well cared for.”

“I suppose.”

“Stable looks pretty well equipped too.”

Lou tilted his head, eyeing Mark uneasily, and said, “What’s it matter?”

“You ever hear of ketamine, Lou?”

“Nope.”

Mark nodded. “Maybe your boys have,” he said. “It’s a horse tranquilizer.”

Lou Leonard stared at Mark grimly. “What are you really after? What’re they into?”

“I’ll be real clear here,” Mark said. “Your boys are going to want to speak with me. You’re a smart guy, you get it. There are different roads I could take. The road they want to take? The road you want them to take? It starts with them coming to see me, Lou. Trust me on that.”

“I don’t know you. Sure as hell don’t trust you.”

“Sometimes you’ve got to gamble, Lou. I’ll let you think on it.” Mark gave him a little salute, turned, and left the house.

The black holes in Mark’s memory hadn’t swallowed his first visit to Trapdoor, and he noticed some changes there immediately: The gate at the top of the drive had been expanded with long strands of barbed wire, and the chains and locks were brand-new.

Mark pulled his rental car into the same place where they’d found the one that had been stolen, killed the engine, and sat in the silence for a few minutes, studying the property and trying to ignore the question dancing in his mind.

Is this the second time you’ve driven here or the third?

It was the second. He had to prove it, but he knew this.

Do you?

For the first time, he felt confident that he did. The ketamine explained what he could not. The proximity of the Leonards’ farm seemed to go a long way toward explaining the rest of it, but he wanted to see how one would get down the bluffs to the cave entrance and whether they’d left any trace. He opened the door and stepped out into the snow. The waterproof boots held up well, and the jacket kept the wind from cutting him. All the same, each step was agony. He’d done nothing but drive and walk today, but his body felt pushed to its limits, and the physical aches were beginning to move toward mental, leaving him feeling feverish and a little dizzy.

He didn’t make it nearly so far as he had on his first visit before he was interrupted.

“Unless you’ve got a badge, you better get the hell off this property or I’ll call someone who does have a badge,” Cecil Buckner began, boiling out of the garage as if he’d been lying in wait. He held a shotgun this time. Security at Trapdoor had been stepped up in the face of crisis, evidently. When he was close enough to see Mark’s face, he pulled up short and squinted. “You got to be shitting me. You’re back? ”

“I’ve got some more questions,” Mark said. “They’re different this time around. I’d like to know how I got inside your cave.”

“You ain’t alone there, pal. I got my ass ripped good for it, like it was my fault.”

Cecil propped the barrel of the shotgun in the snow and leaned on it as if it were a cane. Maybe it wasn’t even loaded. Maybe he was just an idiot.

“I might know how to get us started answering them,” Mark said. “What do you know about the family who lives in the farm up there?”

“The Leonards? Trash and trouble. Old Lou, he’s not so bad, but those boys he raised are a different story.” Cecil pointed in the opposite direction of the bluffs, off to the southwest, where the fields ran up alongside the road and a dilapidated trailer was barely visible. “Lou’s sister lived right there, and she raised the only child in this county who could compete with his boys.”

“Evan?”

“You know all the names, don’t you? Yeah, that was his boyhood home. Nice place, ain’t it? Now, you tell me, why in the hell would anybody want to rent to a family like that? It doesn’t make sense. But Pershing—”

“Cecil?” A voice sharp as a gunshot snapped at them from the deck of the big house. “Who is it?”

Mark looked up and saw a woman framed in the doorway of the house. At the sight of her, Cecil went from cooperative gossip to guard dog in a flash, lifting the shotgun back into firing position and straightening up, like a sentry who’d been caught sleeping.

“It’s that asshole who broke into the cave! I was throwing him out. You want me to call the police?”

There was a pause as the woman considered this information. From a distance, Mark couldn’t tell much about her other than that she was young and slim and looked very cold on the deck. Outlined against the white landscape of the farm fields beyond, she also looked very alone.

“Bring him up,” she said.

Cecil looked at Mark with a touch of pity. “That’s Danielle MacAlister, Pershing’s daughter. You’re going to wish I’d just called the police.”

The woman met them at the front door. It hadn’t been a long walk, but Mark was winded by the time they arrived.

“Trespassing and breaking and entering could already be established, but now you’re back,” she said. “Perhaps stalking begins to apply.”

She was young, maybe not yet thirty, wearing jeans and a button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up to expose thin forearms that were adorned with bracelets. An attractive woman, certainly, but if she had any charm to match her looks, it was well hidden. She had the bearing of someone used to being the boss but without the age that usually went with it.

“The breaking-and-entering charge might be useful,” Mark said, “but it won’t be levied against me. I was brought into the cave against my will. If you’re scrambling for legal grounds, you might want to spend a little time brushing up on your own liability. I nearly died in a cave that you own and claim is secure.”

“It’s been secure for ten years, and I hardly think I’m liable when someone pries bars apart so he can—”

“I’m not really interested in the charges,” Mark interrupted. “Go ahead and file them. I’ll deal with them as they come. That’s the least of my problems. I’m going to find the people who put me down there, and I’m going to find out why Ridley Barnes has such clout in a place where he’s supposedly loathed and what inspired him to try to hire detectives to put him in the electric chair.”

She’d wanted to continue the hostility, had been bracing for further argument, but something knocked her off stride.