Jeffery Deaver: The Never Game

Keeping low, Shaw moved to the closest of these, eyes scanning the vista, noting the vantage points from which a shooter could aim. While he had no particular gut feeling that he was in fact in any cross-hairs, the lock that should have been locked and wasn’t flipped a switch of caution within him.

Bears’ll come at you pushing brush. You’ll hear. Mountain lions will growl. You’ll hear. Wolf packs’re silver. You’ll see. You know where snakes’ll be. But a man who wants to shoot you? You’ll never hear, you’ll never see, you’ll never know what rock he’s hiding under.

Shaw looked into each of the warehouses, pungent with mold and completely empty. He then moved along the wide driveway between these buildings and the big manufacturing facility. Here he could see faded words painted on the brick, ten feet high, forty long, the final letters weathered to nothing.

AGW INDUSTRIES, INC.—FROM OUR HANDS TO Y

Shaw stepped across the driveway and into the shadows of the big building.

You’re the best tracker in the family …

Not his father’s words, his mother’s.

He was looking for a trail. In the wild, cutting for sign is noting paw prints and claw marks, disturbed ground, broken branches, tufts of animal coat in brambles. Now, in suburbia, Colter Shaw was looking for tire treads or footprints. He saw only grass that might have been bent by a car a month ago—or thirty minutes.

Shaw continued to the main building—the loading dock in the back, where the vehicle might have stopped. He quietly climbed the stairs, four feet up, and walked to a door. He tried to open it. The knob turned yet the door held fast.

Someone had driven sharp, black Sheetrock screws into the jamb. He checked the door at the opposite end of the dock. The same. At the back of the dock was a window of mesh-impregnated glass and that too was sealed. The screws appeared new, just like the lock.

This gave Shaw a likely scenario: X had raped and killed Sophie and left the body inside, screwed the doors and windows shut to keep trespassers from finding her.

Now, time to call the police.

He was reaching for his phone when he was startled by a male voice: “Mr. Shaw!”

He climbed off the loading dock and walked along the back of the building.

Kyle Butler was approaching. “Mr. Shaw. There you are!”

What the hell was he doing here?

Shaw was thinking of the open gate, the likelihood that the kidnapper was still here. He held his finger to his lips and then gestured for the boy to crouch.

Kyle paused, confused. He said, “There’s somebody else here. I saw his car in a parking lot back over there.”

He was pointing to the line of trees on the other side of which was one of the outlier structures.

“Kyle! Get down!”

“Do you think Sophie’s—” Before he finished his sentence, a pistol shot resounded. Butler’s head jerked back and a mist of red popped into the air. He dropped straight to the ground, a bundle of dark clothing and limp flesh.

Two shots followed—make-sure bullets—striking Butler’s leg and chest, tugging at his clothing.

Think. Fast. The shooter would’ve heard Butler calling him and would know basically where Shaw was. And to make the headshot, he would have been close.

But the shooter—most likely X—would also be cautious. He would have seen Shaw at San Miguel Park and suspected he wasn’t the law but he couldn’t be sure. And would be assuming Shaw was armed.

Shaw glanced at Kyle Butler.

Dead, glazed eyes and shattered temple. Much blood.

And then, for the moment, Shaw forced himself to forget about him entirely.

He backed away, crouching, heading for the drive where he’d spotted the bent grass. As he did, he punched in 911 and reported an “active shooter” at the old AGW plant off Tamyen Road.

He whispered to the dispatcher, “Do you know where that is?”

“Yessir, we’ll have units responding. Stay on the line, please, and give me your—”

He disconnected.

All Shaw had to do now was find cover and avoid getting shot. He guessed that X would figure that he, whether civilian or cop, would have called for help. The kidnapper would flee.

Except, apparently, X hadn’t done that at all.

Above Shaw came a crash of shattering glass and around him shards fell to the ground as he crouched and covered his head with his arm.

X wasn’t finished yet. He’d gotten into the factory and climbed to an upper floor where he’d have a clearer shot at Shaw. He was now about to stick his head and arm out the window he’d just smashed and pepper Shaw with rounds.

There was no cover here, not for fifty feet.

Shaw turned and began sprinting toward the closest warehouse, waiting for the pop, then the slam of the slug in his back.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, he heard from inside a woman’s fierce scream. He stopped and looked back.

It was Sophie Mulliner who stood at the shattered window, her face turned toward the bloody body of Kyle Butler.

Then she looked at Shaw. A look of pure rage filled her face. “What’ve you done? What’ve you done?”

She vanished inside.

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