Squinting and scanning the area, Ryan grunted when he noted her body. “Shit. She was good. She drove getaway a couple jobs for me and lost investigation reports at the sheriff’s office. That sucks.”
It did. All the more because a couple of times she’d spent the night at Moll’s house. It was after Chloe and before Jean. She’d been more interested in the faux furniture than the sex but that was more or less true for Moll himself. He said he’d paint her a piece but never got around to it.
The two kids removed Bushmaster M4s from the cases — short, black assault rifles. They went through the ritual of loading and charging. Moll had never understood the label, and the stigma attached to it. “Assault.” They were no different from any other semiautomatic rifle — one finger pull, one shot. A deer did not care one bit if it was hit by a slug from a scary-looking soldier’s gun or one from an elegant walnut-stock hunting rifle with an engraved, blued barrel and receiver.
Though, for his part, he would never own anything but the latter, like the Winchester he gripped now.
One sneery boy, the skinniest, said, “I’m a shot. Want me to take out a tire?”
Moll said, with a hint of exasperation, “Do you think it might be better to wait till they were all inside the vehicle? Or do you want to dig them out of the cabin?”
The kid said nothing, not appearing offended, and Moll supposed it was a helpful quality to be able to accept your own dimness.
The other sneerer asked, “What’d that kid do that Harmon wants her gone?”
“Do not know.” When Marty Harmon had hired him and Desmond for the special services, the CEO had not shared. Fine with Moll.
He said to the newcomers, “They think it’s only the two of us. No idea it’s five, and that we’ve got those.” A nod to the M4s. “They’ll keep the car dark and hit the driveway as fast as they can. They’ll think we’ll have time to get off maybe two, three shots and then they’ll be gone.”
Desmond said, “But when they get to that spot—” He pointed to a patch of dirt and grass at the end of the parking area. It was an unobstructed view from the ridge here. “—we’ll open up.”
“Good kill zone,” the chastised sneerer said approvingly, as if he spent a lot of time thinking about things like that.
Desmond led the two younger men down the ridge and positioned them with a good view of the clearing.
Ryan squinted once more. “Can’t see in the cabin.”
Allowing himself a contraction, Moll said, “We’ll know. When we hear the engine.”
Which, just at that moment, sparked to life.
86
When Jon Merritt started the deputy’s sedan, Colter Shaw climbed from the side window of the cabin and dropped into the brush below the sill. He scanned the landscape, sweeping the Glock, two-handed, from right to left, back again.
“Clear,” he whispered, then tucked the gun away, reached up and guided Allison Parker out and to the ground. She winced not a bit. The drugs that Jon had relieved the foot-shot tweaker of were doing their job.
Hannah climbed out after her mother, needing no assistance. She’d brought the brick bolo, which Shaw was ninety-five percent sure she’d never get a chance to use. With her too was the water clock. She had summarily rejected Shaw’s suggestion to leave it behind.
The three now moved north into the brush and forest — mostly pine and hemlock — that filled the land between lake and road, which ran parallel to the water. Across the overgrown driveway, to the right, the ground rose steeply to the hills where the Twins waited with their long guns.
They were about fifty feet into their escape when the sound of the engine revving hard reached them. This was followed by spinning tires. And then the grind of metal as Merritt would have driven the car onto a boulder, as if he hadn’t seen it. The engine roared and more dirt scattered. Hanging the car up and making a commotion to free it was a solid idea.
Hannah turned and gazed back, slowing. In the duskiness, her expression couldn’t be seen clearly. Was she alarmed? Proud? Worried?
Shaw touched her shoulder and nodded. She refocused on their transit. And on helping her mother, who might have been largely pain free for the moment, but was prone to stumbling, in her opioid haze.
Eighty, ninety yards from the cabin, a thick hedge of greenery arose on the right side of the road. No one on the hill would be able to see them, and Shaw directed the others onto the roadway itself, where they could make better time.
A snap. Another.
Like a soldier on point, Shaw held up a hand and they stopped. While it would have been impossible for a hillside sniper to target them, one of the Twins might have suspected an end run like this and come down here to see.
Shaw scanned around, peering into the dark. Two-handed again, he swept the ground with his pistol. No visual threat. He heard: wind, early autumn leaves rustling, the click of branches.
Another snap.
Then the intruder waddled past: the beaver that had led them to the cabin, or maybe its mate or sibling.
Offering an irritated glance toward the humans, it stalked on.
Shaw caught Hannah’s eye and they shared a smile, then continued along the overgrown road that promised at least the hope of safety.
87
On the ridge, the men looked down toward the grind and engine roar as those in the parking area below tried to dislodge the car from where it had beached on a rock.
Moll rose from his nest and joined Ryan. Together they walked into the trees just above the car.
“The hell,” Ryan muttered. “Didn’t they plan it out? Know where the rocks were? We don’t have a shot.”
Moll nodded. He wanted to pull the spray out and hit his arms and neck. But Ryan would see it as a sign of weakness. Later.
Now the sound of the car shifting: forward, reverse, forward, reverse. After a moment Moll could hear what sounded like a ratcheting jack. Tough to get a car free that way — the parking area was dirt and clay and the tool would sink under the big car’s weight. But it might lift the front end high enough to roll it backward off the rock.
Come on. Get it done.
Moll heard a voice from below, half whispering as it called, “Not working.”
Ryan said, “That’s Merritt.” After a moment: “We need to get this over with. We’ll give it a few minutes, then move in.”
“I do not want to do that,” Moll whispered in a foreboding tone.
“What choice is there, they can’t get that damn thing loose?”
Moll inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of tree bark and dirt and fragrance from petals brilliant during the day and colorless now. Soon, all scents would be hidden under the aroma of the chemical scent of burnt smokeless gunpowder.
What a few days this had been.
“See anything?” one of Ryan’s men called.
“Quiet,” Moll snapped in a whisper. You didn’t telegraph your location to a deer; why do so when your prey were armed humans?
Ryan glanced his way, eyebrows raised. It was an apology of sorts for his man’s carelessness. Moll wondered if either youngster was kin.
Kristi’s car still idled, but the jack was now silent.
Had they given up that—
The faintest of crackles behind them. He glanced to Ryan, who was frowning. Their eyes met and they turned.
The light was almost completely gone but there was no missing Jon Merritt holding a shotgun aimed steadily at the two of them. The man’s head was tilted slightly and his expression might have been one of surprise. Of course: He hadn’t expected other shooters, much less Dom Ryan himself.
So the car had been a diversion.