“You can’t tell the police about me. You can’t.”
“Then you’ve got to tell me why.”
Jay’s voice was softer when he said, “You were right. They’ve got cameras inside. I finally found where. Thanks for going back to this place and not the door.”
“Who is watching you?” Mark said. “Is it Pate or somebody else?”
Jay took out his cell phone and fumbled with it and for a moment Mark thought he was making a call. Then he shoved it toward Mark. On the screen was a photograph of a woman with a disoriented, foggy gaze. She wore a blue nightgown and her hair was disheveled and there was a handcuff on her right wrist.
“That’s my wife.”
It took Mark a moment to find his voice, and when he did, it was ragged. He said, “I’m not taking any of your options off the table. I promise you that.”
Jay Baldwin nodded without a word and put the phone back in his pocket.
“Let’s talk fast,” Jay said. “They’ll notice if I’m outside too long. Trust me.”
They stood in the cold dark while Jay Baldwin told Mark what he knew of Eli Pate, told the story of the night of the vandalism on the high-voltage lines and how he’d returned home to find Pate present and his wife missing. He told him of the ride to Chill River and the video of his wife in shackles. He wept while he told it.
“He sends pictures, and video clips. She’s alive; she doesn’t seem hurt. She’s still alive. That’s why I can’t…I just can’t risk doing anything. If you’d met him, if you’d seen that man’s eyes or heard him talk, you’d know. You’d know.”
Mark said, “The woman who was working with me is gone, Jay. We were together just a few hours ago, and then I left and came up here, and by the time I got back she was gone. She’s a federal agent, by the way. Not a private detective. I didn’t know that myself. But when I say there are going to be police all over this, we are talking big-league ball. You might have to cooperate. But right now I need to know how they knew we were in town. Did it come from you?”
He looked away, his cheeks wet with tears.
“Jay…I just need the answer.”
“Yes.” His voice was choked. “He calls, and he watches. He told me what would happen if I lied, and so I told him…I told him that you’d come by. I told him what you’d asked about. And what you were driving.”
What they were driving. That was all it would have taken. Red Lodge was a small town with only a few motels. They’d parked the Tahoe directly in front of their rooms.
“Lynn Deschaine didn’t disappear tonight without his help,” Mark said. “So he won’t be surprised when the police hit town, and he won’t be surprised if they find their way to you. I think he probably trusts you to say the right things.”
“You’re not going to tell them?” Jay’s face was so desperate it hurt to look at him.
“I’m not going to close any doors for you, Jay, but I don’t know that you’re making the right choice either.”
“It’s the best I have,” Jay whispered. “You think I haven’t thought about it? It’s all I think about, every minute, but the thing is…I believe him.” He was wearing just a T-shirt and the night was cold, but his shiver had nothing to do with the weather. “When he says that I have only one choice? I believe him. If you’d ever met him, you would too.”
“So you’re going to do it. You’re going to try to shut that place down.”
“As long as I know he has Sabrina, I am going to do what he asks.”
Mark did not condemn him for this. If someone had told Mark that he could have Lauren back if he blew up a power plant, his only response would have been Where’s the fuse? There was absolutely no way Mark could blame Jay for his decision, but he also didn’t think it would work. If Jay Baldwin was going to see his wife again, it wouldn’t be because he’d followed Eli Pate’s instructions. That wasn’t Mark’s call to make, though. He wasn’t going to take the choice away from Jay either. He couldn’t bear to.
“When are you supposed to do it?” he said.
“I don’t know. Soon. That’s all he told me.”
“Okay. So you’ve got no timeline, and until then he watches your movements with the GPS chip and cameras, and he calls you to check in.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea where he is?”
“I don’t even know who he is. I just came home one day and he was here. It was like being picked by the devil.” He’d taken to rubbing his hands together, the muscles in his forearms bunching. “Tell me something-do you think he’s alone?”
“No.”
That dismayed Jay. “You know anything about who’s with him?”
“The man who killed my wife.”
The wind gusted and tousled Jay’s hair and flapped his T-shirt around him and he looked into Mark’s eyes and then away, and for a moment Mark thought he was going to slide down to the pavement again as he had before. The more Jay had heard, the stronger he’d seemed-until Mark’s last disclosure.
Mark said, “I’m leaving you to your choice, Jay. I don’t know if the police will come for you or not. They know that the woman who was with me is missing, but I don’t know if they have any idea that we came here. You were my idea, not hers.”
“How did you know?”
“Because I’ve been you,” Mark said. “A version of you, at least. When do you think Pate will call next?”
“I’m not sure. But he will. Maybe an hour. Maybe two.”
“When he does, you tell him that I’ve gone to Lovell to find him. You don’t know my name, but you do know that I’m in Lovell looking for him. You’re going to tell that much of a lie for me. It’s not so much to ask, and it’ll help you. I think I’ve got a shot at him, Jay. A better one than most, probably.”
“Where are you really going?”
Mark shook his head. “I’m letting you keep your secrets, Jay, because I understand your reasons. You gotta let me keep mine.”
He left then and got into the Tahoe. Back in town, he could see the lights of a single police car. Jeff had made the call, at Mark’s request, and now the locals were doing their preliminary work. It wouldn’t be long until the Red Lodge police realized they were overmatched.
Lynn Deschaine, Special Agent, Department of Homeland Security.
No, it would not be long at all.
Mark pulled onto 212 and looked to the right, where the Beartooths loomed in the darkness. The quickest way to Cooke City was to follow 212 over the pass, but even though there wasn’t a trace of snow in Red Lodge and the temperature had been in the sixties during the day, he knew that there was no chance the pass was open. Where it crested at nearly eleven thousand feet, there would be snowpack as tall as three men. In a good year, they got it open by Memorial Day. Sometimes it was closer to July.
You could still get to Cooke City, though. The Chief Joseph highway was open. It took longer than 212, but you could get there.
Mark left Red Lodge and headed into the mountains in search of an uncle he hadn’t seen in more than fifteen years.
38
The white-haired man with the hounds in the kennel hadn’t even finished bleeding out before Doug began to fall apart. They were in the yard, and Janell was busy transferring their gear from the red truck to the GMC Yukon that reeked of wet dog fur. Working alone, because he was standing in the driveway, bitching.
“This was never part of it,” he said as she shoved past him with another bag. “What happened with the cop-okay, maybe you needed to do it, or felt like you needed to. But inside that house? That was fucking murder.”