Cold Springs(87)

“Two shooters,” she said. “They could've killed you and Mallory—all of us. So why didn't they?”

Chadwick had no answer.

“We've got to find her,” Olsen said.

Kindra pushed her on her bad shoulder—the one Mallory had stabbed. “We? Girl, you're the one who lost her.”

Olsen winced. “Smart was hurt. I didn't think—”

“You got the last part right.”

“Kindra,” Chadwick said. “Check a car out of the pool. Meet me at the gate.”

Kindra waited for Olsen to return her challenge. Olsen didn't.

“No problem,” Kindra told Chadwick. “I'll try to get us something fast. Something dependable.”

She turned and stormed off.

Hunter and Kreech were still talking by the sheriff's car. Special Agent Laramie sat in the back seat of the police car, talking on his cell phone.

“You warned me on Thanksgiving,” Olsen told Chadwick, “you told me to watch out for her. And I promised her I wasn't going to leave her for any reason.”

“This isn't your fault.”

“I want to go with you. I want to help.”

“They need you here. Leyland will have his hands full calming down the other kids.”

“It won't matter. He'll cancel Survival Week.”

“No,” Chadwick said. “Hunter won't. He'll want them back in the woods as soon as possible. Order restored. The program goes on.”

“That's crazy.”

“That's Hunter.”

Water was dripping from the roof of the Big Lodge, slower and slower, thickening into nubs of ice.

“I failed her,” Olsen said. “Out on the ropes course, when Mallory started to fall. I understood how you felt, that day you almost let Race Montrose kill you. I just stood there . . . I let Leyland handle it. I should've been out on the ropes. I froze.”

“She'll be all right.” Chadwick tried to sound more confident than he felt. “I'll find her.”

Olsen pulled her collar tighter around her throat. “Damn weather. I move to Texas and it freezes over.”

The police lights pulsed on the back of her coat as she walked away.

Hunter shook hands reluctantly with the sheriff, then turned and came over to Chadwick. They watched the police cars disappear down the road.

“I don't have to tell you this is a nightmare for the school,” Hunter said. “A kid escaping—that's worse than the shooting. Compromises the whole program.”

“We both know those were no hunters in the woods.”

“Maybe. Maybe Kreech knows it, too. We also know how much the lazy SOB will follow up. He never wanted us in this county. He'd be delighted to have us shut down by a scandal. As for Laramie, he doesn't give a damn about the girl. He's already on to the main course—you.”

“It's up to us to find her.”

Hunter glanced at Chadwick.

“This is what I do,” Chadwick reminded him. “I find kids and I bring them in.”

“You're in enough trouble,” Hunter reminded him.

“If Mallory got a ride, the driver might've stopped for the night. There aren't too many options out here. I need to get moving.”

“And if this Pérez got her?”

“Let's hope like hell he didn't.”

Hunter pondered that. “I'll need to call the mother. Get her approval.”

“I've already done it.”

Hunter scowled.

“We'll go by standard policy,” Chadwick promised. “Treat it like any pickup on a runaway. Jones goes with me.”

Hunter's boot traced two lines in the gravel before he nodded.

“Chadwick, in case you were wondering, I'll back you up one hundred percent. They try to get to you, my lawyers are at your disposal, but you have to watch your ass.”

There was a new darkness in Hunter's eyes—the look of someone who'd just seen something evil and was trying to burn it out of his mind. Chadwick realized that Hunter's conversation with the sheriff and Laramie had not been about Mallory—not entirely.

“They asked you to sacrifice me,” Chadwick guessed. “Make me the scapegoat and spare the school.”

“No one asked me anything,” Hunter said. “I'm just telling you, I'll stand by you, but we play this very, very carefully.”

Chadwick hesitated, then took Mallory's compass from Hunter's outstretched hand. He went to find Kindra Jones and—for the first time in many years—to load his .38 service revolver.

23

In the wee hours of morning, the little town of Fredericksburg pretty much shut down.

A single lonely street lamp burned in front of City Hall. Banners for an art and wine festival sagged over the intersections, and the darkened limestone storefronts made the shopping district look almost like the city fathers wanted it to—a quaint Old West village. Main Street was a pastiche of white picket fences and barbed wire, grapevine arbors and prickly pear cactus, rose gardens and restored log cabins, B&Bs and Mexican restaurants—the Western and German and South-of-the-Border influences all wrestling for the soul of the town, and all of them losing to the tourists.