| |
Jericho and Nashida walked back to the edge of the woods where Officer Hart's squad car sat, abandoned. Neither of them said a word to the other. They were cold, exhausted, and more than a little hungry. Six more RCMP squad cars surrounded the scene. Jericho saw a slight twinkle in Nashida's eye.
"Don't even think about it."
Nashida turned back to his uneasy ally. "What do you mean?"
"You wanna hightail over to those red coats and turn me in."
"No!" Nashida said with a slight smirk, reminding Jericho of the arrogant agent who got the drop on him a week ago in Nightmute. A lot had happened in a week.
"Yeah, I get it." Jericho said, "The boys of the badge always stick together. Here's the reality. They're gonna ask why that window's kicked out. You think of yourself as Johnny Honesty, so you're gonna take them back there and show them the bodies. What do you say?"
Nashida's slightly cocky smirk vanished.
"That's right,” he continued. "You wanna tell them about the Wendigo? The Whisper? You think they're gonna believe that? Nope. They're gonna lock you up too and send us both to a padded room."
"I'll just tell them you did everything.” The cocky smirk was back.
"Really? You'd lie to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI to watch me go down?"
Nashida wanted to say yes, absolutely. But he didn't, and Jericho knew he wouldn't. Self-righteous pricks can't be self-righteous if they're no better than you. A lot of guys in his situation would have lied and been happy to do so. Nashida wasn't that guy.
"What do you suggest?" the agent finally asked.
"Head back into the woods and keep on walking for a few miles.
"I have no interest in going back in there."
"Me neither, but we need to lay low. At least for a couple miles. After that, we pick up the road again. Maybe a semi picks us up."
"What about them?" Nashida pointed to the shining red and blue lights.
"They're gonna find 'em. All of them. They'll also walk over the shattered pieces of their killer and won't even realize it."
Nashida wanted to argue, but Jericho was right. Admitting that hurt his pride. Whatever was left of it. "Hey, Jericho. What happened here? For real?"
"Something about these woods ain't right. There's places like this in the world that, when people see them, they should keep on walking."
Jericho headed back into the brush as the sun rose over the cold Canadian wilderness. Nashida took one last look at the crime scene and felt for the boys up there who'd lost a brother, but would never quite figure out how.
"I'm telling you, keep on walking. We'll be at High Level in no time."
Nashida sighed and turned away from the scene, again doing as he was told.