Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(102)

Peter didn’t know anything about the Yeti, but the man wasn’t just paranoid. He was trapped in his own past, or maybe had locked himself away there voluntarily. In the days or years when he still had a wife and daughter, before his mental disorder had driven them away.

He said, “Hello, sir, I’m Peter,” and put out his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Likewise,” the Yeti said, and shook.

Peter’s big hands were strong and calloused from his years as a Marine and carpenter. The Yeti’s were on another scale entirely, more like a catcher’s mitt left out to bake in the sun. But he didn’t crush Peter in his grip the way some giant men might have. Instead it was the handshake of a minister at a joyful occasion, two-handed and full of kindness.

“I just got back from a long backpacking trip,” said Peter. “You know how you can lose track of time in the mountains. Can you tell me, what day is today?”

The Yeti shook his head and chuckled. “I stopped keeping track myself,” he said. “That’s one thing I love about living in this valley. Time just about stops here.”

“Actually,” said Peter, “I was gone so long I missed the presidential election, and I haven’t seen a newspaper. Who won?”

The Yeti looked thoughtful for a moment. “I thought it was George W. Bush,” he said. “But it seems like he’s been president forever. Did some black guy win, can that be right?”

June clutched Peter’s arm, tears streaming down her cheeks.

The man wasn’t faking it.

Peter had thought the Yeti was a chess player, ten steps ahead of him.

Peter was wrong.

But if this wasn’t the Yeti’s play, whose was it? Chip Dawes, trying to hijack some technology? Maybe so. He wouldn’t be the first. But how did the Yeti come into it?

Maybe he’d never know. Maybe it didn’t matter. He still had to shut down whoever kept coming after them. If it was Chip Dawes, he’d be along anytime. Then they’d figure it out.

He said to June, “You need to talk to Sally.”

“She was hinting at this, wasn’t she?”

Peter nodded.

This whole time the Yeti hadn’t let go of Peter’s hand. Now his grip tightened. Peter looked back and something had changed in the big man’s eyes, as if an infinitely thin film had been momentarily peeled away. He peered intently at Peter’s face.

“I know you,” the Yeti said quietly. “You’re the man by the river, in California. With my daughter.”

“Yes,” said Peter. Very aware of the size of the man, how close he was, and the fact that he seemed to have just awakened from a long sleep. His grandfather had gone in and out of the present, too. Peter had learned to recognize these moments of clarity, of connection. “She asked me to help her,” he said. “Was that you, watching? Overhead?”

The Yeti smiled, just a little. “Son, you don’t have the clearance for this conversation.”

“Dad?” said June. “We need to know what’s going on.”

The Yeti let go of Peter and turned to his daughter, his face infinitely gentle. “Honey,” he said. “You really don’t have the clearance. You don’t want the clearance. These are not good people. In fact, you should go.” He looked at Peter. “Can you get her out of here? I’m not in charge here. I can’t protect her anymore.”

“Goddamn it, Dad.” June stamped her foot, hands on her hips, eyes blazing. “They killed Mom. They tried to kill me. Leo, the guy you hired to be my landlord, helped them track me through my phone and laptop. They burned down my apartment, behind the house you bought in Seattle. So I have the fucking clearance, okay? I need to know what’s going on.”

He looked at her.

“What?” she said.

“I just want to remember this,” he said. “I want to remember your face. My daughter all grown up.”

She flew at him and buried her face in his chest and held on tight. He wrapped his enormous arms around her and closed his eyes. Father and daughter. They stayed like that for a long moment.

Peter watched the trees, leaves moving in the breeze.

Then the Yeti opened his eyes and cocked his head, listening to something Peter couldn’t hear. “Why don’t you get your truck off the road,” he told Peter, and pointed his chin at a patch of dirt corrugated with tire tracks. “Now would be good.”





49





Peter hustled to move his pickup and limped back to the wide cement apron in time to see a shadow flash up the road toward them.

Chasing the shadow twenty feet above the pavement came something like a giant bird, blue-gray on its underside, completely silent and very fast. Its wingspan was considerably wider than the road.

“Holy shit,” said June.

It pulled up at the last moment to rise again in a steep, elegant ellipse, shedding velocity on the turn, wingtops parallel to the high granite scarps and gleaming gold in the morning sun. It circled back over the orchard, lined itself up with the road, then dropped down and down to finally merge with its shadow on a skeletal tripod of wheels.

Peter and June just stood and stared as it rolled up the road.

As it lost momentum, Peter heard the soft sound of a window fan on a summer day. Bending down, he could see the blurred propeller pushing it the last few yards to the concrete apron between the barns. Peter walked over, wanting to get a closer look as it passed, the medical boot an unwelcome weight on his foot.