Chapter Seventeen
Hulett, Wyoming
The post office sat in the broiling sun and Rene sat, broiling with frustration, across the street. Ken had his headphones on and was listening to his music. He listened absolutely quietly, without moving his lips or his body. He was the perfect killer’s companion because he was never annoying. Ken sat motionless, patient as the dead, waiting for Rene to decide what to do.
That was the trouble. Rene had no idea what to do. There was no way for them to get the Reed’s location from the post office. There were too many people coming in and out. Since Joe and his friends had gotten back to the ranch, Rene was fairly sure they’d already warned the postmaster. The police, too, although Rene could see no sign of a sheriff. The local bar was crowded with early evening diners. Rene’s tentative plan was to go in to the one diner after it closed tonight, a clean looking place called the Tower Pub and Grill, and take the owners hostage. Once they’d given Rene the information he needed he’d kill them, as messily as possible, as one more victim of a fictitious serial killer.
The problem was the sheriff, of course, and time. Who knew what the police detective was cooking up, her and her mysteriously competent friends? Every minute of delay was a minute that help could be on the way, or their prey on the run. Rene had no illusions about the young lioness Eileen Reed. She’d killed a man face to face, a child serial killer who’d been in the midst of a new kidnapping when she happened upon him. She knew how to kill, this detective.
“Hot out there,” Ken said mildly.
Rene sat up in his seat. Hot, and cloudless, like each day before. There was a wisp of a thought crossing his mind, a potential plan. Perhaps they could –
“Hey, boss, look at that!” Ken said. Across from them a large, pale yellow truck had pulled up into the post office parking lot. Instantly a small crowd gathered around the truck. The truck was decorated with a drawing of a swan and had many small latched doors along the side.
“Ice cream man?” Rene said, annoyed. The thought that was forming in his head was elusive and now he’d lost it.
“No, a Schwan’s delivery guy,” Ken said. The small crowd of mostly children was mobbing a man in a uniform shirt who’d gotten out of the tall cab and was opening one of the doors in the side of the truck. He hauled out a box and handed some sort of ice cream treats out to the eager children. “That looks good,” Ken said in simple greediness. The Schwan’s man smiled and handed the last of the treats to a few adults, locals by the look of them. One of them clapped the Schwan’s man on the shoulder and they exchanged a few words.
“Why are you pointing this out to me?” Rene said. “Your reason?”
“Well, it’s just that Schwan’s delivers food, boss,” Ken said. He was chewing on the side of his mouth. “Back where I’m from they deliver in the towns, but if he’s out here that must mean—”
Rene held up his hand and leaned forward like he was taking a bead on a rifle. Which, in a sense, he was. The Schwan’s man was powerfully built, probably from hauling boxes in and out of his truck, but he didn’t have a soldier look to him. He looked like a kindly, capable young man who liked to give out a box of treats to kids. His hair and eyes were brown and with a hat on Rene thought Ken could probably pass for him for a few minutes, at a distance.
A few minutes were all they were going to need. Rene became aware that he was licking his lips, and stopped.
The Reed Ranch, Wyoming
Lucy, lost in the web of the Internet, heard nothing. Joe Tanner, who was watching Lucy’s traversal of sites forbidden to him, listened with half attention to the sounds outside the study door. There were thumps of hurrying feet and the constant banging to and fro of the front door.
Eileen chewed her lip while she watched. Lucy, once she was on the Internet, moved to a site that required her name, a badge number, a password and an identification number that she read from a tiny card she carried in her fanny pack. Joe, curious, asked to look at it after she was done with it. Lucy refused, but held it up so he could look at it. The card was a simple liquid crystal display that held a twenty-digit number. As Joe watched, the number changed. Lucy put the card back in her little pack, where there was a small collection of gadgets along with Hank’s emergency diapers and a package of diaper wipes. Joe suppressed a longing to rummage through Lucy’s pack.
“The card’s number changes every minute,” Lucy said, waiting for her information to be received. “And it’s synched with the Central Intelligence Database. You can’t touch it because it has a fingerprint reader on the bottom side. If anyone but me puts a finger on the underside, the card goes dead. Permanently. Just another way to try and keep secure. This is my second card. Hank got hold of the first one and I had to fill out about a million forms. Here we go.”
The screen flashed and Lucy leaned forward, typing rapidly. Within a few minutes she was entering all the information from Rene Dubois’ passport and driver’s license. In addition, she had Joe read her the serial numbers off four random bills from Rene’s wad of money. While the search engine was looking for information Lucy fired off a rapid e-mail to her boss. She described the attempt on Joe’s life, the attempt on Ted and herself, and their current situation in such rapid, clear, crisp prose that Joe was amazed.
“I wish I could come up with reports like that,” Eileen murmured, watching Lucy.
“Me too,” Joe said.
“Practice,” Lucy said, and sent the e-mail. “Best to get this off in case we don’t get out of here. One would hope the CIA would follow up and avenge us, but…” she shrugged. “Who knows.” Obviously Hank and Ted were far from her thoughts right now. She was in full analyst mode, thinking not of personal blood and death but of the analysis of her long-dormant missile defense case.
“I’d say we can spend no more than twenty minutes on-line,” Eileen said.
“Why’s that?” Joe asked.
“Sheriff King might be calling my mommy and daddy,” Eileen said sarcastically, then grimaced. “Or he might call to warn us about seeing Dubois and his buddy. Any indication in his wallet who his buddy is?”
“No,” Joe said, searching through the empty wallet. “Hey, what’s this?”
Lucy leaned back and Eileen pressed in closely on his side. He felt a thin, almost weightless slip of paper in an inner pocket, one of the tiny slits in a man’s wallet that can hide any number of important papers. It took him a moment or two to figure out where the opening to the hidden pocket was. When he discovered it, he withdrew a black and white photograph.
“That’s an old photo,” Eileen said. “Look at the hair styles.”
Joe looked at the picture of the happy father and his laughing child. The father wore a very dated turtleneck and jacket. He had a big gold cross around his neck. Despite the garish outfit he was handsome, with tousled dark hair and dark eyes that were full of laughter. He held a toddler in his arms, a boy who could be no more than four. The boy was wearing a polyester shirt with a zipper up the front and bell-bottomed trousers in a horrible paisley print. He was as cute as a button. The boy and his father were gazing at each other, looking very happy and very much alike. The boy’s face was recognizable, though years of fat and killing had turned his lovely little features into a grotesque parody. The boy was Rene Dubois.
“Damn, nothing but an old picture of his dad,” Lucy said, turning away. “I’m getting some information, let’s see what they’ve got in Interpol for us.”
Joe continued to look at the picture as though hypnotized. What had turned that cute little kid into a killer? How could that laughing little face have turned into a man who’d taken Sully’s beautiful head in his hands and turned it, snapping her spine as though he were killing an insect?
“What kind of killer carries around a picture of his dad?” Eileen asked. She was still at his shoulder, staring down at the photograph. Joe felt a sudden wave of fear so complete and deep that it was almost like a cramp. He had to clench his teeth together to avoid crying out. He had put all these people in danger. He should never have come.
“They might have gotten us both, if you’d stayed,” Eileen said, as though he’d spoken to her. “Put it out of your mind. We have work to do.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Joe said, feeling the fear recede like a cramp coming unknotted. It would come back, though, he thought grimly. It would come back.
“Here’s our fat ugly slug,” Lucy said. “Rene Dubois. Hasn’t been in official trouble with the law since he was eighteen and killed a robber at the wine shop where he worked.”
“That sounds like a good guy to me,” Eileen said doubtfully.
“That’s just the beginning. The robbers were part of some chintzy low-grade Russian Mafia gang and they took him into their organization. Looks like he branched out on his own a few years after that. The French police keep tabs on him but they’ve never been able to pin anything on him. He does insurance investigation contract work, all above board. Underneath it looks like he was contract muscle.”
“What does that mean?” Joe asked.
“He beat people up for money,” Lucy said shortly. “Maybe killed them. This means we have to find out who’s paying him. He’s a nobody, he’s just muscle. Somebody behind him has brains, they’re the one’s who are paying him and they’re the ones I want.”
“Time, Lucy,” Eileen said.
“I’m disconnecting,” Lucy said. She shut down Paul’s computer and massaged her fingers, staring at the dark screen as though it were still on.
“I think he’s got lots of brains,” Joe said firmly. Lucy turned to him and her cool analyst face was gone. She was Lucy Giometti again, Hank’s mother and Ted’s wife, and she looked scared to death.
“I do too,” she whispered. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“You said it,” Eileen said. “I bet I can pack my bags quicker than either of you two prima donnas.”
“Ha!” Joe laughed. “I have one bag with ’Berto’s clothes. I’m already packed.”
“Darn,” Eileen said. “You’ll have to help Lucy pack all her frocks and pearls.”
“Ho, ho,” Lucy said, her look lightening. “If you think I’m going to let Joe Tanner look at my dainty underthings you’ve got—”
“Let’s go, kids,” Tracy said, opening the door to the study. She was dressed in hiking boots, tough twill khakis and a lavender tank top. A lavender headband held back her flyaway hair and a pair of sunglasses sat askew atop the headband.
“I’m packed, Mrs. Reed, can I help with anything else?” Joe asked.
“You can help with the horses,” Tracy said. “Thank goodness. We’re going to let them loose in the backcountry. We’ll have to catch them again when we get back, but at least these men won’t be able to harm them.”
“What about Brumby?” Eileen asked, stopping abruptly. Lucy, who’d gone first, paused in the hallway to listen. Joe could see Eileen’s face and she looked stricken.
“He’ll be fine, Eileen,” Tracy said, but her face looked worried. “He’s your father’s pride and joy, I know, but he’ll be just fine. He’ll probably decide he’s a stallion again and try to gather up a herd. Now go, we’ve got less than an hour before we’re supposed to leave.”
“Mrs. Reed, I just wanted to say—” Joe began, as Eileen followed Lucy up the front stairs. Tracy waved a hand in the air, stopping him.
“I don’t want to hear it, Joe. They’re bad men and I don’t want you trying to take responsibility for what they’re doing. Enough. Go help Paul with the horses, and don’t watch him release Brumby. He doesn’t admit how much he loves that bad-tempered lug.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Joe said numbly. He went out the front door and tried to hurry down to the barn, but his feet felt like blocks of lead. The day was even hotter than before, a dry shimmering heat that took his breath away and made him break into a sweat almost instantly. He could smell crushed grass and oats and horses.
In the short time he and Lucy and Eileen had been in the study, Howie and his crew had packed their things. They sat by the barn door, waiting to be loaded into the truck. Howie’s battered guitar case sat on top.
As Joe entered the barn he saw Paul checking the hooves of an enormous brown horse, his face carefully blank. The brown horse reached around and tried to take a nip out of Paul’s backside. Paul elbowed the horse in the jaw without looking around, and the horse shook his head up and down, teeth bared, as though laughing.
The barn was cooler than the yard, and dark. Howie and his hunters still looked like shrubs. They were already in the barn checking the hooves of the other horses. Joe stumbled over a pile of long objects stacked upright by the door. He realized they were compound bows and stepped backward carefully. Each one of the capped quivers, he knew, bristled with razor edged arrows. Best not to fall into that.
“What did you find out?” Howie asked. He was working on a spotted mare, cleaning out the inside of her hoof with a rounded metal scraper. She stood calmly, her head in a bucket of oats, happily munching at the unexpected treat. Paul had evidently gotten all the horses some oats as extra food before they were released.
“Not too much,” Joe said. “He’s a contract killer, but we don’t know who hired him. His name is Rene Dubois.”
“Best take him alive, then,” Howie said. He dropped one hoof and started on the other one.
“Joe, we’ve got the horses,” Paul said, elbowing aside another vicious bite from Brumby. “Can you fill the automatic feeders in the chicken coop? Make sure the water line is clear. If there’s any chickens out, get them back into the coop. They’ll be fine for up to a week, if the feeders are full.”
“Okay,” Joe said. He turned to the barn entrance and stopped. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He felt as though all the life was draining out of him and soaking into the baking hot ground at his feet. He made a hoarse gargling sound in his throat.
Instantly, Paul was at his side. He held his shotgun in his arm. Howie, Nolan and Mark snatched up their bows.
“What is it?” Howie hissed.
Joe pointed, his throat still unwilling to work.
“Look at Zilla,” Paul whispered.
In the space where the road swept from the ridge and into the ranch, Zilla stood. Her tail was wagging uncertainly. Her ears were up, her head high. She was looking up the track that led to the highway.
A voice spoke from the hunter’s belts, with no crackle or beep. It was Jimmy, as clear and quiet as though he stood in the shadows of the barn. “Howie, this is Jimmy. We have a truck coming in from the highway. He’s moving slowly, but he’s coming your way.”
Paul lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth. “What kind of truck?” he asked. His face was ghost pale. His hand trembled slightly.
“Yellow, big, has a name on the side. Wait a second, I’ll tell you. Says Schwan’s.”
Paul’s shoulders slumped in relief. “That’s Doug,” he said. “The Schwan’s delivery man. Don’t worry, Jimmy, stay there. Did anyone follow him in?”
“No,” Jimmy said. “He’s alone.”
“Why isn’t Zilla jumping around like she usually does?” Nolan asked suddenly. Howie and Mark, who’d been at the point of putting down their bows, paused and looked back. Zilla stood at the entrance to the road, her tail wagging. They stood in a bunch, frozen, watching Zilla’s tail like a pendulum slowing down. Her tail wagged slower, slower, and then stopped.
“Holy Jesus, it’s them,” Howie said. Paul snatched another walkie-talkie from his pocket. It was bright yellow instead of being camouflaged and was obviously tuned to another channel.
“Tracy, code red, Tracy, get them to cover,” he snapped. “Do you read?”
“I read you,” Tracy said clearly. Paul dropped the yellow walkie-talkie into his pocket and took the shotgun into both hands.
“Let’s get to the house,” he said calmly. “Bows in carrying formation. Let’s go.”
“So what’s this, part of the Underground Railroad?” Ted asked Tracy.
“It was the old pantry, before we remodeled the kitchen and Paul built me the big pantry,” Tracy said. She stood with her back to Lucy, a hunting rifle in her hands, looking out the kitchen windows. Tracy had moved a pretty knickknack cabinet to one side. The cabinet was wheeled, and Lucy understood why when she saw what was behind the cabinet. Set into the wall was a narrow door, and behind the door was a small room that held two cots and blankets and a battery-powered lantern. There was a tiny portable privy and even a tiny bookshelf. “I’ll explain, sometime, why we hid it.”
Ted carried Hank, who was deeply asleep. He laid his son gently on one of the cots and turned around. “Come on, Lucy. I’ll guard outside the door.”
“You won’t,” Tracy said firmly. “Both of you, get in there with your boy.”
“You’re not coming in?” Lucy asked Tracy.
“I’m a fine shot with a rifle,” Tracy said. “Ted, Lucy, my child is out there. Think of Hank. You have to protect him. Both of you, get in.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lucy whispered, feeling like a coward. Ted stepped through the door and closed it behind them. He fumbled past Lucy and then there was a dim light. He’d turned on a small battery-powered lantern. They looked at each other as they heard Tracy moving the knickknack cabinet back over the door. The kitchen door slammed shut, faintly, and then they were alone.
“Oh, Ted,” Lucy said miserably, and he folded her in his arms. The shotgun got tangled between them as he kissed her. The kiss deepened, became something much more than comfort. Suddenly she felt completely, electrically alive. Every inch of her skin tingled with her heartbeat.
“I love you, Lucy,” Ted whispered to her.
“I love you too,” she whispered.
He set the shotgun against the wall and took her back in his arms and kissed her. Lucy pressed herself against him, running her hands up the back of his shirt and over his bare skin. He was hot already, his skin sheened with a light sweat that made her fingers slip deliciously over him. He broke away from her lips and kissed her on the neck, his hands already plundering her breasts.
They’d been apart too long, Lucy thought distantly. She wanted so much to forget everything but Ted, to take him to the ground and make love to him. But there was no time, no time to do anything but kiss. There was desperation in the way he kissed her, the way his hands came close to hurting her as he pressed her body against his. Lucy lost all thought of killers or sleeping toddlers or crystal skulls as she clung to her husband, feeling his heart pound against her own, shoving the world away with all her might.
Joe, unarmed and without camouflage clothing, felt naked as he ran with the other men towards the big ranch house. They reached the deep porch without incident. Zilla stood at the road, head high and her tail, unwagging, held straight out behind her. They were all breathing hard. Mark’s eyes showed white in his painted face. His teeth showed white, too; he was grinning and didn’t realize he was grinning.
“Here comes the truck,” Paul said tensely. “Zilla! To me, girl. Joe, get into the house. Don’t present a target. Howie, Nolan, Mark, spread out along the porch.”
Joe stepped through the screen door without another word, and then stopped. He had to see. He had to.
“What’s going on?” someone shouted, just as Joe’s ears caught the faint rumble of engine noise. He looked in the direction of the shout and saw Jorie standing at the far edge of the ranch yard. She had a baseball cap on and was carrying a knapsack. Joe saw Howie make a futile grab at the back of Nolan’s shirt.
Nolan leaped the porch railing and ran across the exposed ground of the ranch yard, his bow held upright in his hand. He’d taken the quiver cap from his arrows and they glinted like diamonds in the sun.
“Nolan, no!” Howie cried, and started off the porch after him. Paul reached out an arm and pulled Howie back as though he were no larger than a child.
“Hold, man, hold!” Paul ordered.
Nolan reached a stunned Jorie just as the engine noise crested the hill. He whipped an arrow out of his quiver and pulled his bow into full, steady position just as he stopped in front of her. He stepped backward into her body, his shoulders and arms covering her frame, aiming at the truck that was about to appear over the hill.
“Nolan!” Howie cried out in a choked voice.
“Good for you, Nolan,” Eileen said from Joe’s elbow. He gulped in relief as she pressed a gun into his free hand. It was her spare, her small LadySmith, and even though it was swallowed in his man’s hand he felt suddenly a part of the battle again, no longer a bystander. She held her SIG-Sauer ready in her hand, standing sideways with only her head showing in the doorway. He copied her and that was all he had time to do before the Schwan’s truck came over the hill.