He didn’t answer, just walked to the steering console and brought the motor to life and pulled away from them, trying not to see Nora, trying not to remember the way she’d looked when he’d moved the gun. He’d turn his mind elsewhere, to the things that needed remembering, things like Ezra’s body under the water and Devin waiting at the cabin.
37
__________
Ezra liked the trees. Loved the trees. They belonged on land, high above the water, but instead they were in it, supporting him, holding him to the surface. The trees didn’t want to let him sink.
He imagined the bottom was way down there, forty or fifty feet at least. Maybe more. The trees that held him were massive. Oaks probably, or maybe birch? They were big boys, that was for sure. He hadn’t realized how high the lake had risen this spring. All the years he’d been out here, the water had never covered fifty-foot trees. Lucky thing for Ezra this was the year. It must have been a hell of a flood. Strange he couldn’t remember it.
Consciousness was difficult to hold, and the sky swam above him, but the trees kept his head out of the water and kept him breathing. There were moments when he’d start to slip, and the water would lap at his chin, but then—and this was the damnedest thing—the trees would grow. Grow. Right then in the moment he needed them most, they’d strain skyward and lift him an inch or two, whatever he needed. They were amazing trees.
He’d tried to use the branches to pull himself farther away, toward the shore, but pulling set off wild bells of pain, so he stopped that and just hung on, floating and waiting. No sense in going anywhere. The trees would grow when he needed them.
Vaughn was gone. Ezra had seen him take the boat, had managed to focus on that and actually lift his head a bit. Then the boat had moved away from him, down the shore and into deeper water, and there had been more gunfire, and though Ezra had no idea where it was coming from or who was causing it, he knew it was bad.
For a while he was waiting to die and not afraid of it at all, patient as could be. This was where he wanted to end. He wanted to bleed his life out into this lake, this beautiful lake that had given that very life to him. It was fine to end out here. It was right. He’d broken the vow he’d made so many years ago when he’d first come to this place, had taken a man’s life once more, and the lake would not allow that. Had not allowed that, had sent Vaughn to punish him. All those years in the jungle with men who excelled at combat, and more years back in Detroit with some of the meanest sons of bitches ever walked the earth, and Ezra had gotten shot by someone like Vaughn? It was tough to get your head around a thing like that.
So he’d killed again and the lake had punished him, but then it had sent the trees to hold him up, and that was confusing, because he’d been ready to die and the trees would not let him. He didn’t understand that. Perhaps the trees were a gesture of forgiveness. The lake had healed him once, and maybe it would heal him again.
A low grinding sound filled his brain, and for a while he was sure it was a motor, but then it went away, fading until it sounded like a drill bit chewing through wood. Maybe there was no sound, and that was just the pain fooling with his head. A bullet could do things like that to you.
A sprinkling rain started again, much lighter now, and it felt good on Ezra’s face, helped to push the fog back. He thought he’d been floating above the surface, but now, after a hard blink to focus, he realized that the water only rose up to his shoulders. The water really wasn’t that deep down here. Maybe if he reached with his foot . . .
Son of a bitch, he could touch the bottom. Now how was that possible? The bottom should be way down there, at the base of the tree trunks, fifty feet away.
He tilted his head to the left, studied the tree that held him. The branches weren’t so thick. In fact, they were little more than twigs. He wasn’t in a tree at all. It was a bush, really, one of the wild tangles that grew along the shore. He was very close to shore, had his feet on the ground.
Ezra was not going to die out here. Not today.
_______
Grady had stayed on 51 too long, had missed a turn that he should have taken, though he wasn’t sure what it would have been. His state map was useless up here, he hadn’t seen a single sign for the Willow Flowage, and Atkins wouldn’t answer his phone.
He finally gave up as a gas station came into view, the highway a two-lane now, and pulled off and into the parking lot, got out of his car and ran inside and shoved past an overweight woman who gasped in indignation.
“Hey.” The shaggy-haired kid behind the counter was looking down at the register, and when Grady stepped up he just lifted a finger, asking for a minute.
“Hey!” Grady said and slapped the countertop. When the kid looked up at him, a haughty expression on his face, Grady showed him the badge. “I need you to tell me how to get to Willow Flowage.”
“Shit, man, FBI? For real?”
“Just tell me how to get there.”
The kid frowned, offended, and pointed out the window. “Straight across the highway, man. Swamp Lake Road. Take that all the way in to County Y, then take that to Willow Dam.”
“Swamp Lake to County Y to Willow Dam?”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Look, I need to get to a cabin out there. I have no idea where it is. Could be anywhere on the lake.”
The kid shook his head, and now the fat woman was standing close, listening with undisguised interest and clutching an armful of soda bottles to her large breasts.
“Not many cabins on the lake out there. Not many at all. You sure it’s on the lake?”
“Yes,” Grady said. “A guy named Frank Temple owns it.”
That widened the kid’s eyes. “No shit? I heard all about him.”
“Fantastic. You know where—”
“Yeah, yeah, I can get you there.”
“How long of a drive?”
“Maybe twenty.”
Twenty minutes. Okay, that wasn’t bad. Grady still had a chance. He would not be too late. He would not be too late.
A gentle rain faded to nothing as Frank crossed the lake, the clouds still heavy and dark but quiet now, the wind settling, the surface of the lake smoothing again.
Frank ran the boat at full throttle, knowing that the big engine would give him just enough time. He’d make it to the cabin maybe ten, fifteen minutes before Nora and Renee got to the dam, and that would be more than sufficient. It wasn’t going to take long at all, maybe thirty seconds, walk through the door, put the gun in Devin’s face, squeeze the trigger.
Simple.
And a long time coming.
And right.
Yes, damn it, it was the right thing to do. Ezra was dead, and so was Atkins, and Nora could easily have joined them. Forget Frank’s father, forget the betrayal, forget the past entirely—Devin had earned it today. Earned more than handcuffs and a cell. It was time to bring him to an end.
The gun in Frank’s hand was the Ruger he’d taken from Renee, and he discarded it as he crossed the lake, took the Smith & Wesson back, loving the feel of it, that FT ii engraved on the stock. Here’s a bullet from the old man, Devin. Enjoy it. I know he will. Wherever he is, heaven or hell or somewhere in between, I know he will.
He was utterly alone on the lake, even when he came through the Forks and out into the southern portion where the most boat traffic could usually be found. Nobody was going to venture out after a storm like that, with more rain threatening.