Blake Crouch - Snowbound

Javier made no argument, carefully prostrating himself on the pavement.

She locked the cuff around his other wrist.

“Get up on your feet slowly.” He rolled over onto his back, sat up, then stood up. “Approach your car, lean against it, and spread your legs.” She frisked him, found nothing but his wallet and a BlackBerry in the knickers pockets. “Now walk to my car.”

TWENTY

The passenger door opened. Javier Estrada ducked his head and climbed into the front seat.

“Buckle his seat belt,” Kalyn said. Will hesitated. “He’s cuffed; he isn’t carrying any weapons. It’s fine.” Will felt Javier’s eyes taking inventory of his face as he leaned over and pulled the seat belt across the man’s chest and locked it into place. Kalyn shut the door, opened the one behind it, and climbed into the back. “Javier,” she said, “just so we’re clear, you have a Glock pointed at your spine through the seat. Drive, Will. Don’t speed, don’t run stop signs, and for God’s sake don’t get us into a wreck.”

It was the weirdest silence Will had been a party to—no radio or talking, just three strangers in a car, driving through Scottsdale, Arizona. Javier stared straight ahead. Will watched him out of the corner of his eye at the stoplights, the man at ease, collected.

As they neared the interstate, Kalyn said, “Take Highway Sixty east.”

Javier spoke for the first time since getting into the car, “Ah, the Superstitions. Am I right?” No one answered. “I’ve done business out there. That was an excellent takedown, by the way. Creative. Outside of the box. And the accent. Beautiful. You realize my mistake. I very nearly averted this entire situation. I keep a forty-five Smith & Wesson under my seat, and I actually started to reach for it before getting out of the car. Out of habit, you see. But I didn’t. Had I”—he caught Kalyn’s eyes in the rearview mirror—“you would be dead.” He looked at Will. “And so would you.”

They sped east, the sun sinking fast into the horizon, molten in the mirrors, on the glass and chrome of passing cars, the mountains in the distance getting bigger, vivid and deeply textured in the fading light.

“I have a question for you,” Kalyn said. “Did that situation back there ring any bells?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, I almost brought along a bat, or a crowbar . . . something to bust out your driver’s side window. Maybe, if I’d done that, you would have realized what was happening.”

Javier shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t see your point.”

“No worries. You will.”

The sun was just a flaming sliver in the west as Will drove past the ranger station into Lost Dutchman State Park.

Kalyn told him to park at the first picnic area.

It was late. Only two other cars. Both empty. No hikers in sight. Beyond lay miles of darkening desert and, farther back, the Superstitions, the summits catching light, the bases cloaked in mist.

Will turned off the engine.

Total silence, save for the wind. The car rocked imperceptibly.

“So,” Kalyn said, “have you figured it out yet?”

Javier smiled. “Do not flatter yourself to think you are the only ones who would like to be in this position with me. I have plenty of enemies. But friends also. And it is my friends, my brothers, the threat of them, that make my enemies wise to keep a respectful distance. In short, I am not fucked with. This is unheard of. You are not law enforcement,” Javier said, “though perhaps once you were. Will here is shitting himself. You’re trying, so far, to be impersonal, but I sense the rage in you. At me. I don’t know why. You will tell me?”

Kalyn reached into the front seat and dropped four photos in Javier’s lap.

“Line them up, Will, so he can see.”

Will arranged the photographs, two on each leg. Suzanne Tyrpak. Jill Dillon. Rachael Innis. Lucy Dahl. Javier looked down at them. Looked up. Shrugged. Kalyn pulled out her cell, flipped it open. Will saw her pressing buttons. She handed the cell to him, said, “Show him.” On the miniature screen was a digital picture of Misty and Raphael in the back of the Buick. Will hesitated. “Show him.” He held the cell to Javier’s face. Javier registered the image, then looked out the side window toward a distant forest of saguaros.

“You two,” Javier said, his voice low, deliberately measured, “may be the bravest people I have ever met.”

“Why don’t you look at the photos in your lap again,” Kalyn said.

“My family, they’re alive? Unharmed?”

“For now.”

Javier nodded. “I would like to speak to them.”

“Not possible.”

“Then I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”

Kalyn moved into the middle seat so she could see Javier’s face. “Look at me,” she said. “I’m going to tell you something, so you understand how serious we are. So you have no doubts of what we’re ready to do to you, Misty, and Raphael. Those photos on the right? That’s Rachael Innis, Will’s wife, and Lucy Dahl, my sister. So please believe me when I tell you that if you continue on this track, you and your family will have a very long, very bad night.”

“And if I were to provide the desired information?”

“They live. We aren’t like you, Javier.”

“And me? Either way, whether I tell you, whether I don’t, you will kill me, no?”

“You tell us what we want to know, and I leave you here, handcuffed to a picnic table. Maybe someone finds you tomorrow. Doesn’t matter. By then, we’ll be gone.”

“I don’t know that I believe you. If the tables were turned around the other way, I would get the information I needed, and then I would murder you.”

“What’d I just say? We aren’t like you.”

He looked out the window again, said finally, “I am afraid you won’t be pleased with my information, as I am only a small variable in the equation.”

“Just tell us what you know.”

As he spoke, he watched the color of the desert move through darkening shades of purple, noticed the mist slithering up the mountains. “It has been the same way every time. A man named Jonathan calls me and says, ‘They want another one.’ And so I begin looking. There are parameters of course. Caucasian. Big dark eyes. Black hair with abundant curls. Beautiful. They like my taste, I suppose. Perhaps I have a counterpart somewhere who specializes in blondes or redheads. When I find her, I follow her for several days. I learn about her. Patterns, habits. Then, when I feel it is time, I call Jonathan, and I tell him. When she’s in my possession, I call Jonathan once more. The time and place are set.”

“Where?”

“I think I will wait to tell you that. Suffice it to say that a journey of considerable distance is made. We meet. Jonathan is a large man, a truck driver. The woman is put into a trailer, and that is the last I ever see of her. Anywhere from five to ten days later, a deposit is made into one of my offshore accounts. A larger deposit each time. I require this. I do not speak to Jonathan again until he calls and says, ‘They want another one.’ ”

Kalyn wiped her eyes. She could barely form the words, and they came as a whisper. “How many women have you taken?”

“Five. It is not my typical line of work, but the money is good.”

“How did Jonathan find you?”

“Various channels. The first time we did business, he mentioned an important name. The right name. I took a chance.”

“Are there other people like you, people who Jonathan uses?”

“I have no idea. Ours is not a relationship of questions.”

Will said, “Look at me, Javier.” The man looked at him. Will reached down, lifted the photograph of his wife. “I want to hear about the night you took her.” He was trembling with fear, rage, sadness.