Fatal Justice (Jack Lamburt #1)(27)

I opened the Ziploc bag and tossed it in the well. Then I pushed the stone back over it. I’d have to come back here soon with my backhoe to fill the well up with dirt. Maybe I’d locate Ostrich Boy by then and I could reacquaint him with his buddies.

That brought up an interesting quandary. Would he have been able to make it through the night? He had to be injured from the fall in the well, and I knew he was soaked to the bone. The temps last night had hit a low of twenty-two degrees, so unless he’d managed to build a fire, he would have frozen.

If he had lived through the night, would he even have been able to find his way out of here? That was no easy task. We were in the middle of a gazillion-acre forest, and I could have been wrong, but I couldn’t picture Ostrich Boy as being that backwoods savvy.

Then it hit me. I smacked my forehead and groaned. Holy crap, I should have believed my eyes when I’d thought I’d seen him ball up when I’d tossed him down the well. He had been conscious, and that was how he’d made it out of the well! I chastised myself for underestimating him. I would not make that mistake again.

I had to get rid of the SUV, so on the way down the tractor trail I stopped at one of my large barns and retrieved my motorbike. I threw it into the back of the SUV and climbed in the driver’s seat.

My tractor trail intersected my driveway right where it met the East Road. It wasn’t really a road; it was nothing more than a single-lane dirt path through the forest. Instead of making a right turn and heading down to Summit, I made a left and continued deeper into the woods. About halfway down to West Kill Road, I made a right onto an access trail. Access trails are paths that are cleared through the forest so that the lumber harvesters can haul out their goods. They don’t even qualify as dirt roads, since they’re lined with old pine needles and littered with tree stumps.

I went to the end of the trail and made my own trail deeper into the woods—no easy feat in the dark. After I’d gone as far as possible, I opened every window, the sunroof, all the doors, and even the hood. I killed the engine for the last time and removed my motorbike from the rear of the vehicle. I wiped the interior down with some of the sanitized paper towels I’d saved from my Ziploc bag. I punctured all four tires with my Swiss Army knife and ripped out some engine wires for good measure.

This section of state land had been logged recently, and wasn’t scheduled to be logged again for another seventeen years, so the odds of someone finding the vehicle were slim to none. With all doors and windows opened, I estimated that nature would wipe clean the interior in a few weeks, and any traces of my DNA that I might have missed with my wipe-down would be gone forever.

I took one last look at the hulking machine. It looked so out-of-place, every opening opened and sitting in the dark forest. The interior lights were still on, and the door chimes still tried to tell its moron driver that the doors were open.

I climbed on my motorbike, started her up, and made my way back to East Road. I was relieved to be rid of the open door chimes that would probably go on for days. I felt a sudden sense of pity for all the animals that had to put up with that. I vowed to myself that next time I’d remember to bring a wrench to disconnect the battery.

I took the less traveled roads back to Summit to avoid being seen. Except for the unknown about Sam’s existence, I was happy with the way that things had worked out. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that Sam was dead, lying frozen somewhere in the deep woods.

When I got to my truck, I saw that Debbie’s car was gone. I wondered if she’d spotted mine. That could lead to some awkward questions. Hopefully she was so excited to get to my place that she hadn’t noticed it.

I threw the motorbike in the back of my pickup and took off for Eminence.

I texted Debbie, while driving, and she replied that she was almost there and there was no way I was getting out of pleasing her all night, so I’d better bring my A game.

I smiled to myself.





29





When Sam woke up, his fire was almost out and it was already dark out. He’d slept a little longer than he’d planned, but at least his clothes were dry and he was warm except for his feet. As cool and hip as his two-thousand-dollar pair of boots made him feel, they didn’t do shit to keep his feet warm.

His plan to retrace his way back to the well and then down the trail might have to be put on hold. The moonlight provided some light, and the light layer of snow made it a little easier to see, but he had mixed feelings about trying to travel in the dark. What if he got lost?

He stood up and stretched his arms over his head, pleasantly surprised that he wasn’t sore from sleeping on the ground. He studied the surrounding landscape. It was vital that he be sure about which direction to go before he moved from his base. He knew from his Boy Scout days that starting off in the wrong direction in the middle of the forest would be a disaster, and silently thanked his scoutmaster for driving into him the importance of visually marking landmarks as he traveled through the woods.

He recognized the closer landmarks, but had a moment of doubt because everything looked different at night. He mulled over his options for a few minutes and decided that he would get the hell out of here. He took a deep breath and started walking. This was it.

Within a few minutes, he spotted the next landmark and continued acquiring and following landmarks until he came upon the clearing around the well. A sense of relief swept over him. He was home free now, and he felt like singing when he picked up the tractor trail that had brought him here. He followed the trail.