Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(20)

The hunters. The black Tahoe.

He tried to open the door, but it was stuck. He looked for the bow, couldn’t find it. He looked down at June’s feet and saw a black short-barreled revolver on the floor. “What the hell?”

He forgot he was belted in when he bent over to get it, and his ribs howled in protest. He gasped and straightened enough to unbelt himself, then bent again. His cheek brushed against her thigh as he reached for the gun, pressed against fine blond hairs and warm tanned skin. Her legs smelled like sunshine and lotion and he wanted to fall asleep right there. His hands were shaking with the aftermath of the crash and it took him a few fumbling seconds to come back up with the gun.

“Hey,” she said, “I always wondered where that went.”

She was dazed but oddly lucid. Peter figured she was in shock.

“My dad gave it to me. I was fourteen. Kind of a weird birthday present if you ask me. My mom kept telling me to get rid of it, but then I couldn’t find it. That was years ago. I haven’t cleaned out this car in forever.”

It was a Colt .38, the walnut grips worn but solid, the finish starting to go, maybe an old police model long out of service. It looked clean enough except for the gum wrappers and dust from where she’d lost it under the seat. He found the cylinder release and flipped it open. Five beautiful brass rounds, nothing under the hammer, a lovely circle of daylight through the barrel. He’d been a little worried he’d find a crayon jammed in there. He snapped the cylinder shut with a flick of his wrist.

“Stay here a minute,” he said. He’d check her more fully when he came back. “Don’t go anywhere. Okay?” Without waiting for an answer, he stood on the seat to climb painfully out through the sunroof.

The Tahoe lay on its side like a beached whale about thirty yards away.





8





He climbed down to the dry riverbed, hurting all over but more or less functional. His forehead felt warm and wet. He put his hand up, felt the slickness of blood, and wiped it away, reminding himself that head wounds always bleed like crazy.

He knew too much about damage to human bodies.

He also knew that he would succeed at this next task only if he was the first to act.

The Tahoe’s partially crushed roof was facing Peter, blocking his view of the inside. He was expecting someone to pop up with a rifle any second.

Between the two vehicles, one of the hunters lay on the rocks like a thrown doll, all wrong angles. A black man. Was this the man who’d shot at them, or the driver? He saw no weapon. The man’s eyes were open, his neck bent strangely, and the side of his head had a softball-sized dent that Peter figured would match up nicely with the profile of some nearby rock. Blood had only just begun to seep from the wound before the man’s heart had stopped pumping.

One down. Three to go.

He limped on toward the ruined truck, left leg strangely sore down by his ankle, the .38 in his left hand. Tall trees to each side, the clouds dark with threatening rain.

The Tahoe was bashed and bent like a soda can some kid had kicked down the block. It had obviously rolled a few times, too. He approached it from the back, where anyone inside would be least likely to see him. The glass was tinted and opaque from hundreds of tiny fractures and he couldn’t see inside.

There was no sound other than the ticking of the cooling metal, the uneven scuff of his boots, and the sound of his own breathing.

Fuck it. He limped behind the undercarriage, through the chemical stink of leaking fluids and the ruptured fuel tank. Peter wasn’t worried about gas. He knew it only exploded in the movies. If it caught fire, he’d have some notice. He was worried about his leg, and the men he could neither see nor hear. He wanted them all to be dead so he wouldn’t have to kill them. He wanted at least one to be alive so he could ask some questions.

On its side, the Tahoe was too tall for him to see through the broken-out windows. He didn’t want to climb it, not with this leg, although he would if that was his best option. He stepped back for a better view, and that’s when he saw the arm. It stuck out from under the truck like it had grown from the ground, the flannel shirt and big black wristwatch as clean and unmarked as an REI mannequin.

If the arm’s owner was still alive, he wouldn’t be for long.

That was two.

Peter limped forward, feeling more confident. His leg wasn’t getting worse, and he thought he’d worked out what had happened. When the Tahoe had rolled, it had thrown the front passenger clear and crushed the driver. Probably weren’t wearing seat belts.

He rounded the accordioned front end. The windshield was an irregular mat of cracks and holes, pushed in by the accident to lie loose against the pale pillows of the deflating air bags.

Now he heard a low moaning.

He needed to get in there. He needed to know who was left, and what they knew. But he didn’t like the idea of going in headfirst to face someone who’d been trying to kill him just a few minutes before. Especially not a group of pros, like these. He glanced around for a long stick.

“Hey, buddy, y’all okay?” It was the driver of the logging truck, working his way down the riverbank. “Lemme help you out. That was one helluva accident.”

He wore blue Dickies work pants and a plain white T-shirt with red suspenders that bowed around his hard round belly. His hair was a gray fringe around a new Crimson Tide cap, his round red face creased with worry.