Mean Streak(34)

It took him less than two minutes to make up his mind, then he was on the phone again, booking an early flight, arranging for a car service to take him to LaGuardia at six o’clock in the morning, and reserving a rental car in Seattle. As he packed a roll-aboard suitcase, he acknowledged that the trip would probably turn out to be the last in a long line of wild-goose chases.

The last one being to Salt Lake City, preceded by Wichita Falls, Texas. Before that, Lexington, Kentucky. Seemingly random places and individuals, unrelated except for a single commonality—one man.

He was already in bed but not asleep when Greer—who, it seemed, never slept—called back. “I have an address. Grace Kent actually lives across the Sound, not in Seattle proper.”

“How do you get over there?”

“Ferry.”

Wonderful.

Jack typed her street address into his phone, gave Greer his basic itinerary, and closed by saying, “For the time being, nobody needs to know I’ve gone. In fact, I’m out sick with the flu.”

“Got it.”

As he lay staring at his bedroom ceiling, he placed odds on the likelihood of Grace Kent being Rebecca Watson. He was going on nothing more than Rebecca’s friend, Eleanor Gaskin, who hadn’t laid eyes on her in four years, picking her out of a jostling crowd in a news video of mediocre quality. Based on that alone, he was making the cross-country trip.

Would it be asking too much that he catch a break and the picket carrier turn out to be Rebecca? Dare he hope that she would cooperate and tell him where her brother was? As long as he was fantasizing, why not imagine that her brother was visiting her, and that he would answer the door when Jack rang the bell?

He could trust Greer’s discretion, so at least if this turned out to be another false lead, another dead end, no one would regard him as a complete fool.

Except himself.

And he was used to that.

*





“When will we be there?”

“When we get there.”

Emory clutched the edge of the seat as he steered the pickup around another hairpin curve. The headlights had been their only source of light since the abrupt departure from the cabin. If there was a moon, the cloud cover obscured it completely.

They hadn’t passed a dwelling or structure of any kind. Nothing. It was as remote a road as she’d ever been on, and certainly the most hazardous. As feared, there were icy patches beneath the accumulation of snow, invisible until the truck lost traction.

As they took the turns, the headlights swept over unforgiving rock formations that rose straight up out of the narrow shoulder, some encrusted with ice where waterfalls had frozen. Where there weren’t rock formations there was forest. The massive tree trunks wouldn’t have yielded to a tank. Or, most terrifying of all, the lights cut into black nothingness. One skid and they could plunge over the edge into the void.

She wanted to shut her eyes so she wouldn’t see the hazards that threatened, but she didn’t dare because of the ridiculous assumption that strictly by her will to live she could help keep the truck on the road.

He’d told her that he was accustomed to these mountain roads with their curves and switchbacks, but he drove with single-mindedness, not nonchalance. His gloved hands gripped the steering wheel, his eyes never left the road.

Answers to her questions about the Floyd brothers had been brusque and monosyllabic, if he answered at all. She had stopped asking. Whatever had happened between him and his unkempt neighbors had prompted him to take her home, or at least to drop her somewhere so she could get home. That was all she cared about.

She told herself that was all she cared about.

“What are all the guns for?”

“What are guns usually for?”

“To shoot…things.”

He shrugged as though that’s all the debate the issue warranted.

“It’s dangerous to have them around. What if I’d accidentally shot you?”

“It would have been a miracle.”

“You’re a large target. At that range I couldn’t have missed.”

“Probably not, but there wasn’t a cartridge in it.”

“It wasn’t loaded?”

He came as close to smiling as he ever did. “Doc, a word of advice. If you aim at somebody with the intention of shooting him, make sure the weapon is locked and loaded, ready to fire. If you don’t intend to shoot him, don’t point the thing at him in the first place.”

“You sound like an expert on the subject.”

He didn’t say anything in response to that, nor did he say anything as he navigated the next series of switchbacks.

Finally, she asked. “How much farther?”

“A few miles.”

“Do you mind if I turn the heater up a bit?”

“Go ahead.”

Before leaving the cabin, he’d draped a coat of his over her, telling her that her running clothes wouldn’t be sufficient to ward off the cold. The coat swallowed her, of course, but she was grateful for it and pulled it more closely around her now.

“I really would be cold without your coat. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

She didn’t want to distract him with conversation, but she was desperate to know what lay in store. “Will you… What will you do?”