Bill Pronzini - The Hidden

“I don’t like that name. I’m not a murderer.”

“You’re going to murder me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Then let me go so I can get help for my husband.”

“I can’t do that.”

On the floor the deputy twitched a little, moaned, but didn’t wake up. When he was quiet again, the woman said, “What happened with him? Why is he here?”

What happened. Come snooping around, that was what happened. Pushed his way in through the locked gates and walked down here through the rain with a flashlight and an umbrella, looking for the caretaker because somebody in Seacrest had mentioned not seeing the old man for a while. He’d claimed to be the old man’s nephew, but the deputy wouldn’t buy it. Suspicious looks, suspicious questions, then a sudden move for his sidearm. Not quick enough, though, not a well-trained soldier like he was. Easy enough to get the jump on him. He’d come close to putting a bullet in the deputy instead of cracking his head with the Glock. Why hadn’t he? The uniform, maybe—the army taught you to respect a uniform, military or civilian. He wished now that he had popped the deputy, because at the time it would’ve been justified, another case of self-defense.

Couldn’t shoot him after he was down, unconscious. Couldn’t make himself do it. Tied him up instead, then took his keys and went up to move the cruiser inside the estate gates in case somebody came along. Just got the driver’s door unlocked when he saw the woman’s light; jumped quick into the woods before she spotted him. Would’ve stayed out of sight if she hadn’t come right up to the cruiser, opened the door … he knew she was going to use the radio as soon as she got in. Couldn’t just pop her, either, so he’d catfooted up and dragged her out. More damn hassle, then—a kick in the shin and an elbow in the gut and having to chase her around in the dark before and after that asshole with the sidearm, what was his name, Lomax, showed up.

It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. All this crap blindsiding him, screwing up his life just when he thought he had it on track and running smooth for the first time ever. No control over any of it, forcing him to take the kind of action he didn’t want to take. A woman and a deputy and an armed head case. How could you guard against anything like that?

The Glock was right there on the table in front of him, three inches from his hand. The deputy’s service revolver was in his coat pocket—he’d thrown Lomax’s piece into the woods. Plenty of firepower … against a defenseless woman and an unconscious, duct-taped cop. Shit, man. Slaughter was all it would be. He might not lose too much sleep over killing the deputy, but doing the woman … that’d be the hardest thing he’d ever faced and he knew he’d hate himself for it later on. Never forget it, never forgive himself.

Maybe he should buy a little more time to come to terms with it. Bind her hands and feet, too—he hadn’t done that yet, hadn’t touched her at all—and then do what he’d intended doing before, go up and move the deputy’s cruiser inside off the lane before any more crap went down.

“You didn’t answer me about the deputy.”

“Never mind the deputy.”

“How long has he been here?”

“Why?”

“Whatever his reason for coming, he must’ve notified his dispatcher where he was headed. They’ll be looking for him when he doesn’t report in.”

“Not right away. Not on a night like this.”

“Before too long, though. And when they do they’ll find his cruiser.”

“I know that.”

“Then you also know you can’t stay here. The sooner you leave, the safer you’ll be. Why not just go now?”

“And leave both of you here alive.”

“Why not? We haven’t done anything to you. By the time we’re found, you’ll be long gone.”

“You know what I look like.”

“Like any one of ten thousand young blond men—”

“No,” he said, “I’m different. Easy to recognize, no camouflage. A soldier never jeopardizes himself or his mission if he can help it, and that’s what I’d be doing.”

“What mission are you on?”

“To keep the enemy from destroying what God made.”

“What enemy?”

“Spoilers of nature,” he said. “The ones who turn beautiful places into wastelands. They don’t deserve to live.”

“I’m not somebody like that. Neither is my husband. Or the deputy.”

He looked at the Glock, looked back at her. “I almost wish you were.”

“Why? Because that would make it easier for you?”

Smart, clever, but she wasn’t fooling him any. All her talking was calculated to distract him, her eyes flicking here and there when she thought he wasn’t looking straight at her, searching for something she could use against him, a way to get free. Wasting her time. The cabin was just two rooms, three if you counted the tiny kitchen, and there wasn’t much in it; the old caretaker had lived a pretty lean life. Only a few sticks of furniture, bare walls, bare floor. There was a hunting rifle in the bedroom closet, but he’d unloaded it when he moved in. Fire tongs on a rack next to the woodstove, but she was too far away to get her hands on them quick enough and she was smart enough to know it.

He really did feel sorry for her. Liked her, too, because he could tell she had a soldier’s kind of courage. The way she’d fought him up there on the lane, not making a sound the whole time, as hard to hang on to as a bagful of cats. And when he’d caught her down here … no screaming or crying or begging, no fuss of any kind. Just accepted the situation and was dealing with it the best way she knew how, the way a trained soldier would. Calm and cool under pressure.

He’d always admired that kind of courage in women. It was one of the reasons he’d fallen in love with Georgia … main reason, maybe. Georgia wasn’t pretty, didn’t have a great body, but she’d been a hell of a soldier and she had the guts of a lion. He’d rather have her as a battle buddy than 95 percent of the men in his Third Infantry unit. They’d done some hot and heavy loving over there in her CHU, really making the bed in that trailer rock, before she lost an arm in a firefight in Fallujah and they’d shipped her back home to Fort Bliss.

A dozen times he’d e-mailed her at the VA hospital but she never answered even once, just cut him out of her life without any kind of explanation. PTSD, probably, like he and so many other combat soldiers had suffered and would go on suffering. He’d tried to find her after they gave him his medical discharge and sent him back stateside, but her relatives in Oklahoma City wouldn’t tell him where she was and he hadn’t been able to track her through anybody else he talked to. She hadn’t died, he’d’ve been able to find out that much if she had, so that was something to be thankful for. He hoped she’d rehabbed by now and was getting on with her life, wherever she was. She deserved some peace if anybody did.

He wondered if he’d’ve married Georgia if things had turned out differently in their part of the damn war. Probably not. He wasn’t husband material. Too unsettled, too much of a loner. Needed to go places by himself, see things he’d never seen before, like California and the Pacific Ocean, get as far from the heat and filth and death-stink of Iraq as he could. That was why he’d come here. Clean sea air, unspoiled beauty. Calm, peaceful. Running on tracks along the edge of the world.

The woman was saying something else now, something he didn’t catch. He said, “What?”

“How long are you going to make me suffer?”

“I’m not trying to make you suffer.”

“But that’s what you’re doing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t keep saying you’re sorry. I don’t want to die, I don’t want my husband or the deputy to die, but if you’re going to shoot me, why don’t you just go ahead and get it over with?”