Turning back one last time, she looked at Charbonneau, at the expression on his face, at the blood collected beneath his cheeks, like a tick ready to burst.
“And right now I’m thinking I’ve got a damn murderer to catch and three attempted murderers to run down, and I don’t have time for this shit.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
The walk from the wreckage of Lou’s truck took almost an hour, starting with a run and slowly losing steam. Wanting to put as much space between us as possible, I had crossed over the short expanse of open grass and into the woods, working my way along the bank.
After that, it was that same feeling as early in the morning, running the trails I had grown up on, muscle memory hurtling me forward.
Setting a heady pace, I went until the dust of the forest and the sweat from my scalp burned my eyes and throat before slowing, covering the last mile or two back in around twenty minutes.
Nearly all of that I spent with the grip of the Beretta never more than six inches from my hand.
How Baxter’s team had known when I arrived, there was no way to be certain. Conventional wisdom dictated that they must have had some form of surveillance in place, and anyone there in person would have made a move on me the instant I appeared.
Showing up alone under cover of darkness, there would be no better chance.
That meant the more likely truth was that they had electronic oversight in place, starting to move the second I appeared, but being thwarted by the media and Lou’s combined arrivals.
It also meant that their willingness to come after us while parked along the side of the road, in a clearly marked Sheriff’s Department vehicle, was a mark of desperation.
What had put it there, I couldn’t be certain, but finding the answer to that question was next on my to-do list.
Coming up on the motel from the opposite direction as that morning, I overshot the place by a few hundred yards, retrieving my other duffel from its hiding place along the path.
Returning to the Charger a few minutes later, I found it untouched, one of a random assortment of vehicles still strewn throughout the parking lot. With sweat streaming off me in random rivulets, I opened both front doors, letting some of the bottled heat inside sift out, before sliding down into the passenger seat, my wet skin slipping over the warm leather without opposition.
Leaving the Beretta buried under my front thigh, I cocked my body so I had a view of the rest of the lot, my foot perched on the edge of the frame, ready to push forward in an instant if need be.
On the opposite thigh I balanced the laptop, tapping back into the motel’s wireless network and going to work.
Moving straight to Google, I ran a quick search for Eric Baxter, a list of entries several hundred thousand in length popping up instantly. Scrolling through them, I found most to be dated years before, rehashing everything I already knew far better than I ever wanted to.
In a couple of places there was even mention of the mystery assailant and witness, though nowhere did my name ever surface.
Apparently, WITSEC could do some things better than I had given them credit for.
Finding nothing of use, I returned out to the basic search engine page, staring at the blinking cursor before me.
Nearby, a pair of construction workers in dirty jeans and neon shirts shuffled toward the motel, appearing to have just gotten off work for the day, returning to another low-rent dive their company was putting them up in. Neither so much as looked my way, locked in an animated discussion about the Atlanta Braves.
As if a more boring topic of conversation had ever been hatched.
Returning to the computer, I sat and thought a moment, drawing in deep breaths, slowing my thinking.
Vic was the one in charge, but this had to be about Eric. Six years had passed, and it seemed unlikely that this exact moment just happened to be the one where they finally unearthed Uncle Jep to get to me.
There must have been some reason they wanted me back, had made a run at me within minutes of showing my face in public.
Just wanting revenge wasn’t strong enough. Their actions reeked of something distressed, as if a clock was hanging over their head.
Blinking twice, a thought occurred to me, pulling me back to the screen. Entering my query, I scrolled past the first couple of entries in the response before finding what I was looking for and clicking on it.
With each word I read, I could feel my insides growing tighter. Venom boiled up, everything from the death of Uncle Jep to the attempted murder of Lou and I coming alongside it.
I knew why they had chosen that moment to make a move, to try and pull me out of hiding.
In cases of attempted murder, an inmate with good behavior became eligible for parole after six years.
Most of the time, initial requests were denied, unless something fundamentally altered the original facts of the case.
Something like the only material witness in the matter suddenly disappearing.
Chapter Fifty-Four
There was at least a fifty-degree difference between their previous two locales, a shift felt the instant the plane rolled to a stop and the automated door began its slow descent. With each inch it rolled down, more hot air wormed its way into the cabin, raising the temperature precipitously.
Combined with the anxiety, the adrenaline, that each person crammed into the cabin was already feeling, it made the interior feel like a pressure cooker.
On the ground no more than a minute, Deputy Marshal Abby Lipski peeled away the suit jacket she was wearing. Leaving it lying on the seat, she was the first to climb out, the leather straps of her shoulder holster in one hand, a Kevlar vest in the other.
Having spent the vast majority of her life in Oregon, never had she had any occasion to come to the South, though she’d heard enough stories about NRA rallies and people with extreme affinities for weapons to know not to step outside without either.
Or to bring anything bearing the emblem of a federal agency if she could help it.
Stepping down off the ladder, she felt the heat rising up off the asphalt of the tarmac, passing through the soles of her shoes, rising along the inseam of her pant legs. Moisture appeared instantly on her brow and the small of her back, easily the warmest weather she’d experienced since a family trip to Kauai the year before.
An outing with a much different crowd under much different circumstances. The sort of place she never wanted to leave.
This one, she just wanted to accomplish what they set out to and get back, not spending one second longer on the ground than necessary.
Having a feeling that exact sentiment was etched across her face, she forced something resembling a smile onto her features. Extending a hand before her, she walked straight to the young man waiting beside a single black SUV, both the person and the vehicle a near copy of what they’d left behind in Bangor hours earlier.
“Deputy Marshal Lipski,” the man said, squeezing her hand harder than necessary, his forehead glistening with sweat, the lower part of his face largely hidden behind dark sunglasses. “Marshal Aaron Colvin, Knoxville field office.”
“Thank you for helping us under such short notice,” Lipski replied, releasing the grip and wiping her palm against the side of her leg, brushing away the sweat from his shake. Turning, she gestured to the same two-person team that had escorted her in Maine. “These are Marshals Burrows and Marlucci, also from the Portland field office.”
Nodding to each of them, Colvin looked to the plane. “Are they the only ones joining us today?”
“They are,” Lipski said. “The others will remain here on standby in case we need them.”
Pausing, his mouth poised open as if he might say something, Colvin stared at the plane a moment before bringing his hands together before him, his palms making a small clapping sound.
“Okay. Would one of you like to drive or should I?”
Knowing that none of the three had ever been to Tennessee, let alone the remote corner of
it they would soon be headed to, Lipski replied, “You, please.”
Without waiting for further comment, all four piled inside, Lipski taking shotgun, her two marshals seated in the rear.
The last hour of the flight had been spent in a huddle with everybody onboard the aircraft, an information dump of everything that had been gathered in the prior two hours.
Which was to say, not a whole lot.
It was determined rather quickly that the phone number that was used in Maine was nothing more than a false front, the sort of thing that basic technology could do with just a few keystrokes. Working backward from there, they were able to trace the signal through two routing stations – one in San Antonio, the other in Seattle – before bringing it to a cell phone with a local area code.
From there, a quick look through the billing history saw it was registered to a man named Simon Kentworth, someone that was last seen in the seventies, a casualty of the Vietnam War.
Same for the billing address attached, it also being a fake, a trip through Google Earth displaying the supposed stop to be nothing more than a field filled with soybeans already yellowing, wilted by the early summer sun.
Why nobody had thought to dig into this years ago when Scarberry first entered the system, Lipski had not the slightest clue. At that point, she was merely a marshal assigned to the team, not ascending to the top spot for more than two years thereafter.
Even at that, she was fighting a losing battle to keep from beating herself up over it, most of the debriefing period on the plane spent with her pacing the length of the aisle, wishing so badly she had something to punch.
Like, for instance, Tim Scarberry.
The thought of how many other things she had let slide since taking her new post was one she didn’t especially want to ponder, knowing only that once she returned to Portland, there would be a couple of unpleasant weeks ahead for her and her team.
But before that, she needed to make sure to finish things where she was at.
Positioning himself behind the wheel, Colvin reached out and adjusted the temperature control before raising his hand to the GPS unit mounted to the dash.
“Where to?” he asked, his tone as casual as if he were an Uber driver picking up a group of coworkers after a lunch meeting.
A sound that grated on Lipski’s nerves almost as much as the fact that he was still wearing his sunglasses inside the SUV.
“Monroe County,” Lipski replied.
In her periphery, she could see Colvin turn to face her, his expression still hidden behind the mirrored frames.
“Monroe County? Are you sure?”
The truth was, they weren’t. All they had was the last time the phone number Scarberry had spoken to was active, it had been generating a signal from that area.
“Absolutely.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Going back to the cabin – alone – was not something I was especially excited about doing. Knowing that Baxter’s people were watching the place, there was the distinct possibility that the other two men in the yellow pickup would show up again, if they weren’t already there waiting for me.
At the same time, I didn’t really have any other choice.
I knew who it was that killed my uncle, was now looking for me, but I didn’t have any idea how to find them.
I also now knew they were working on a very tight timeline, and would not hesitate to come after me again.
Unless I wanted to just keep dangling myself out there as bait, I needed to know how they were able to spot me earlier, how they got such a quick heading on me and Lou after we left.
Leaving the motel, my first stop was at a gas station to top off the tank and pick up provisions. Between the earlier trip to the cabin, our run-in with the shooters, and my return on foot, any hydration or nourishment I had was gone, burned off in a storm of adrenaline and sweat.
Grabbing two quarts of Gatorade and a couple of bottles of coconut water, I bypassed any form of lunch meat or tuna and snatched up two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches under cellophane, supplementing them with a pair of severely overpriced bananas.
Paying cash, I returned to the Charger and made a quick lap around the lake heading south, keeping a sharp eye out for any sign of our earlier attackers. As I drove, I shoved home as much of the food as I could, staying just below the speed limit, using the time to lower my body temperature, to sort through what I knew.
Once my revolution was complete, I used a trailhead parking lot to turn around and made a second pass going the opposite direction, the same way Lou and I had traveled earlier.
Going as slow as I dared, I spotted the place where we had pulled over, could see the sun twinkling off the cascade of glass that had been Lou’s rear windshield still spread on the ground.
A mile or two later, I spotted the misshapen streaks of black whipping across the road, the smell of charred rubber still faint in the air where the truck had made a hard turn.
Following the same path, I even chanced a quick trip down the road, tracing it for more than five miles before giving up, the network of backroads in the area too extensive to check everything.
They were gone.
Which left me with only one choice, the original one that I had been putting off for the better part of an hour, hoping that an easier option would present itself.
An option that now didn’t seem to have any chance of ever materializing.
With my hunger and thirst both sated, my skin and clothes both dry for the first time since leaving the motel that morning, I returned to the thoroughfare encircling the lake, finishing my second loop. Keeping a watch for anybody that seemed to be out of place, lurking with no real reason for being there, I spotted nothing more than a couple of fishermen wiling away the time, nowhere to be and all day to be there.
A lifestyle I could only dream of, an existence I hadn’t known in my entire adult life.
Maybe at the end of all this.
Assuming I was still breathing.
A quarter of a mile from the cabin, I turned down a dirt lane, taking it clear to the water’s edge. Ending in nothing more than a small turnabout carved into the hard-packed earth, I followed it three-quarters of the way around the circle before wedging the Charger between two trees and killing the engine.
As far as I knew, nobody had yet made the vehicle. I had taken special care to keep it hidden from sight, and I had to assume that if anybody knew that’s what I was driving, they would have made a move for me while I was outing doing reconnaissance.
Right now, it was an unmarked ride, a status I would like to keep for as long as possible.
Leaving it parked there, I grabbed up the duffel from the floorboard beside me. Extracting the Beretta, I slid the barrel into the pocket of my pants, the handle sticking up just in front of my hip, a new age take on the Wild West gunslinger.
The knife I stowed in the rear pocket on the opposite side, giving each hand an option at a weapon in short order should the need arise.
Leaving the rest with the car, knowing I would have time for nothing more than that if things came down to it, I eschewed the shoreline. Sticking to the trees, I cut a serpentine path amongst them, my footfalls silenced by the thick layer of pine needles beneath me.
In my nose was their heavy scent, as thick as cleaning solution as I worked my way forward, stopping frequently.
As best I could tell, the only sounds were the ones that were supposed to be there, a good sign.
As Uncle Jep had drilled into me more times than I could remember, a quiet forest was always the one to be concerned with. The animals have a far keener sense of danger than we ever could, with their own particular brand of warning us.
We just had to be smart enough to listen for it.
A full five minutes after leaving the Charger, I came upon the house from the opposite direction as earlier that morning. Stopping just shy of it, I forced myself to slowly count to one hundred, watching everything for movement.
Co
ntent that there was none, I stole my way along the back of the house, working from the corner to the outside of the deck. Staying on ground level, I made a quick trip the length of it before retracing my steps and heading in the opposite direction.
Best bet was, whoever had eyes on the place had them turned inward, peering through the glass of the rear doors. That way they could see everybody that came inside, regardless of their point of entry.
And that meant I needed to stay behind it, well beyond its sightline.
My first visit, I had just needed to get inside. Being seen wasn’t quite such a concern.
This time, I needed to be more cognizant.
After all, this wasn’t a fact-finding jaunt so much as a hunting trip.
Chapter Fifty-Six
The back end of Talula Davis’s department issue rig was mangled badly, but like Tim Scarberry had said, it was mostly cosmetic. By keeping the engine running as they talked along the side of the road, she had managed to avoid being contacted directly by the enormous pickup, a single shot of which would have folded the back end up like an accordion.
As it was now, she had no rear windshield, would have nothing to protect her if somebody were to take a second shot, no way of controlling the temperature inside or even really hearing over the rush of wind pouring in behind her, but those were all minor things she could deal with.
Especially given her mood in the wake of the meeting with Charbonneau, his red face and his raised finger images that kept playing across her mind, no matter how many times she tried to push them aside.
It was not the first time the man had had the temerity to be misogynist, that being something she had dealt with from him and Tanner both since the day she’d hired on. It wasn’t even the first time he had been condescending, speaking to her as if a small child in need of scolding.
But it was the first time he had done both, committing the triple indignity of questioning her integrity and ability as a deputy in the process.
Taken together, it had been too much.
The Subway Page 19
