Walt wore a red checked shirt. The magnification of the camera wasn’t strong enough to reveal the slight scar above his right eyebrow, but the sand color of his mustache was readily discernible. Walt turned to his right, Coltrane’s left, and spoke to someone. With the zoom lens at its maximum, Coltrane concentrated on Walt’s lips but couldn’t read them. Someone came into view at a sliding glass door farther to the left. Coltrane aimed the camera in that direction, and if he hadn’t already held his breath to avoid clouding the viewfinder, he would have done so now, for what he saw made his soul ache.
Wearing jeans and a gray rag-wool sweater that accentuated her lush hair hanging loosely, framing her heartbreakingly beautiful features, Tash had both hands gripped around a coffee mug. Coltrane so projected himself within her that his hands could feel the heat from the mug. She looked out at the snow-covered porch, then turned to speak to Walt, who moved toward her, his imposing body close to her. She was tall, but he was taller. He placed his large hands on her shoulders in a gesture of domination. She returned his stare.
He kissed her.
Coltrane flinched, almost charged from cover, almost raced toward the porch. But shock overwhelmed him. He heard a click and whir, and discovered that he had taken a photograph. What am I seeing? he thought. Walt’s hands remained on her shoulders. She made no effort to set down the coffee cup and embrace him. She didn’t move her head to avoid his kiss, but she didn’t accept it, either.
Walt studied her. He asked her a question. Whether Tash’s response was one of rejection or affection, Coltrane couldn’t tell.
I need to get closer. Not caring whether his tracks would be seen in the morning, Coltrane responded to his sense of urgency and headed down the slope. Failing to look down, he stumbled over a snow-covered log and barely managed not to fall. With a lurch that jarred him, he came to the bottom half-running and strained to avoid tree limbs he scraped past. Frantic, he took slower steps and at last came to a stop, alarmed by how forceful his breathing was, how fierce his heartbeat.
In the trees at the edge of the clearing, he was only a hundred feet from the cabin. He didn’t need his zoom lens to see Tash and Walt beyond the sliding glass door. Walt continued to grip her shoulders. Tash continued to stare up at him.
Then Walt kissed her again, and this time, Tash set the mug on a table, raised both hands, and kissed him back. She held him tightly, receiving, giving, and Coltrane heard another click and whir as he took a second photograph. Then he heard something else – an unwilled sound that came from his throat, as if he was being choked.
13
STUNNED, he sank into a drift. With his back against the rough bark of a pine tree, he hugged himself but couldn’t subdue the spasms shaking him. This can’t be happening, he thought. He shook his head insistently from side to side. From where he was slumped, he could still see the sliding glass door, see them kissing. Walt’s hands were under Tash’s sweater. Her mouth was pressed against his. She fumbled at his belt, and Coltrane screamed.
Before he knew it, he was on his feet, surging from the trees. He raced across the clearing and charged onto the hollow-sounding wooden porch, seeing the startled look on their faces when he yanked at the sliding glass door. His shoulder felt a shock of pain as the door held firm.
“I want to talk to you!”
Tash stumbled back.
Walt lunged toward something on the right.
“You told me I meant something to you!” Coltrane yelled.
His belt still dangling, Walt reappeared, jabbed at the lock, and shoved the door open.
Coltrane tried to veer past him. “Why did you lie to me?”
Walt struck him.
Coltrane lurched back. Ignoring his bleeding mouth, the same spot where Nolan had struck him in Mexico, he again tried to get to Tash. “Why did you make me think you loved me?”
Walt knocked him off the porch. But the moment Coltrane landed in a drift, he scurried to try to stand, only to lose all power of movement when he saw the revolver six inches from his face, aimed between his eyes.
“I could blow your head off.” Walt’s breathing was hoarse.
“Why did you lead me on?” Coltrane screamed at Tash.
“With your history. With the two men you’ve already killed,” Walt said.
“What?”
“Peeking through windows, taking pictures. Stalking a law-enforcement officer, trying to break into my home. There isn’t a grand jury anywhere that would blame me for defending myself.”
Tash backed away in fright.
“Especially if I put an unregistered pistol in your hand,” Walt said, “and squeezed a shot through that glass door, so you’d have powder residue on your glove and there’d be no doubt about your intentions. So go ahead. Try to get past me. Give me a reason to pull this trigger.”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“You just don’t pay attention,” Walt said.
The gunshot was deafening. The heat of the bullet sped past the left side of Coltrane’s head, singeing his hair. He didn’t hear the impact of the bullet behind him. Couldn’t. Could hardly hear Walt shout in his face, “Get out of here! Before I think twice and aim where I should have! If I ever see you around here again, if I ever see you anywhere-”
Walt fired again, this time to the right side of Coltrane’s head, and the agony of the assault on Coltrane’s ears made him clutch them and fall back, writhing in the snow. Walt pulled Coltrane’s hands away and grabbed his camera strap, yanking the camera over Coltrane’s head, hurling it against the side of the cabin, smashing it. He dragged Coltrane to his feet and shoved him across the clearing, thrusting him out of the driveway and onto the road, where Coltrane fell in a daze, gripping his ears again, unable to stop the torturous disabling roar in them.
14
“I NEED A ROOM.”
The motel clerk straightened. “My God, what happened to you?”
Coltrane could barely hear him. “I had a skiing accident.”
“Man, you look like you ran into a tree.”
“Another skier.”
“Does he look as messed up as you?”
“He never got a scratch.”
15
THE ROOM WAS SPARTAN BUT CLEAN – a small bed, a nineteen-inch television, a plastic ice bucket. Coltrane barely noticed. All he cared about was locking the door behind him, going over to the window, opening the draperies, and satisfying himself that traffic was vividly close. The motel was on Big Bear’s outskirts, close to the road that Walt would have to use to drive into town. With the glare of headlights, Coltrane knew that he had little chance of recognizing Walt’s Mountaineer if it went past tonight, but tomorrow would be another matter.
He picked up the phone and called Big Bear information, his ears still ringing so badly that he had trouble hearing the operator. “Do you have a listing for Natasha Adler?… How about Walt Halliday?”