Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(45)

Shepard hit the Bluetooth button. “Yes?”

“Bert reported back. He found Smitty’s team, up in the mountains.” Over the rental car’s poor speakers, he sounded more than ever like a pitchman doing a radio commercial. “A total loss.”

Four trained men, thought Shepard. Experienced men. Not at his own level, but very few were. It was enough to get his attention.

“How?”

“It looks like they were in pursuit but somehow left the road. Rolled their vehicle. It was burned to the frame.”

Vehicles didn’t simply burn, thought Shepard. Not without help.

“Tell me.”

“A logging truck was parked on the road nearby. There were a bunch of skid marks in the gravel. Bert said it’s a narrow road, not really wide enough for two, and he thought the logging truck forced the play. Smitty’s last report was that they were chasing the girl’s car, and from the tire tracks and debris, it looks like she left the road, too. But the girl and whoever she brought in to help, they drove out of there.”

“She had help?”

“Smitty’s report mentioned a man. That’s all I know.”

“How did they die?”

“The rollover killed two. One thrown, one crushed. Multiple gunshots on the third, probably after the wreck happened, he was still inside.” The salesman paused a moment. Then he said, “The fourth was killed by an arrow to the chest.”

Shepard felt his eyebrows rise. Perhaps this would become interesting. “And the truck driver?”

“He’s dead, too. Multiple gunshots.”

A clean slate. Good technique. “The vehicle, how did it burn?”

“Bert said it looked like someone took a can opener to the gas tank, probably used the gas as an accelerant. He could see the smoke from five miles away. Said it stank like hell.”

Shepard nodded to himself. He knew that smell, the combination of burning plastic and roasting human flesh. It was a stink he’d never forget.

Shepard had enjoyed those years in the desert. Shepard as asset, the salesman as controller, new challenges every day. The desert was where he had honed his abilities, where he had accepted that the only rules that applied were the ones he made for himself. The only limits were in his own mind.

Things were more complex in his current situation. Multiple clients, overlapping priorities. More caution was required, because circumstances were at once more constrained and more fluid. But he continued to exercise his abilities, to make a decent living and save his money.

And Shepard was now no man’s asset but his own. Despite what any of them thought.

Perhaps these were the best years now, even if he was turning forty. Wasn’t that supposed to be the human ideal, to have your current life be your best life? That’s what Oprah had told him in all those hotel rooms, as he waited for the next job to begin. He’d watched Oprah and Ellen and Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer and all the rest. He thought Oprah might know what she was talking about. He wasn’t so sure about Jerry Springer.

But Shepard knew he couldn’t live this life forever. It was only a matter of time. The internal signals were becoming clearer.

Perhaps his next life would be better still, growing tomatoes. He was considering including heirloom varieties. But it wasn’t quite time yet.

“What’s her latest location?”

“That’s the other reason I called. We got a quick ping from the girl’s laptop at a hospital in southern Oregon. Bert’s team is on the way.”

“Bertram and his men are a blunt instrument. You need a scalpel. Tell them to find a hotel and wait.”

“There’s a lot at stake here. This is looking more and more like the big one, the one we’ve been waiting for. The payoff will be, well, substantial.”

The salesman had always required some kind of external motivation, thought Shepard. In the old days it was recognition from his superiors, rationalized by some vague notion of national security. Now it was a desire for financial gain at the very highest level.

Shepard had always taken whatever money came along. He had enough already, but he knew that more money meant more choices in his next life. He also enjoyed managing it, the clarity of the financial markets. There was something pleasing in the purity of numbers that allowed him to set aside the complexities of the human world. But at the end it was just a form of play, like his work with the salesman. Once he’d crossed a certain threshold, money was incidental.

He’d always felt that the challenge of work was its own reward.

And this job was starting to look more challenging than any he’d seen since the desert. Not the girl, but her helper. Her protector.

A bow and arrow, of all things.

“You have my attention,” he told the salesman. “I’m on my way.”

His tomatoes would have to wait.





20





PETER



It was after midnight, and the highway ahead was lit only by their headlights. They were driving through the night, staying off the interstate, heading for Seattle.

June had the cruise control set only a few miles over the speed limit. It was Peter’s idea, to keep her from going ninety. His foot was up on the dash, the protective boot removed, a fat plastic bag of ice draped over the swollen spot. They were trading it back and forth, his leg to her lip. They’d each had some ibuprofen. Peter wouldn’t have minded a beer.