Lynn was watching her with fascination. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“And you think you could make that toss? Because I doubt we’d have much time, and if it goes wrong, I don’t want you electrocuting yourself.”
“I don’t want that either.” She mimed the toss once more, then nodded. “I could do it. Tailgating experience.”
“Pardon?”
“Horseshoes, beanbag toss, even darts. I always won those. I’m a tailgating champ.” She had started to laugh, and not in a healthy way.
“This won’t be a game,” Lynn said, staring at Sabrina as if her sanity were slipping away. That was probably what it looked like, Sabrina realized, yet she couldn’t stop laughing. Tailgating. That had been her life once, and not that long ago. Montana Grizzlies home games, loud music, beer in red Solo cups-that had been real? It couldn’t have been real. She’d been born in shackles, hadn’t she?
Lynn said, “You need to-” but Sabrina cut her off.
“It won’t be a game,” she said. The tears that had come to her eyes with the laughter were leaking down her cheeks now, and the laugh was gone. “I’ll make it. If I get a chance, then I will make it. I can only control the second part.”
“It would be best to do it in the dark, I think. When they’d have more trouble finding us.”
“Yes.”
“But we might not get to call that shot. They’ve got big plans for the day.”
“It seems that way.”
“So…are we agreed? Next time out, we try this?”
Sabrina’s throat tightened and her stomach growled around cold acid. She couldn’t conjure so much as a smile, let alone the wild laughter she’d just displayed. Her tears cooled and dried on her cheeks.
“Next time out,” she said. It was supposed to be firm; it came out in a whisper.
“All right. We’ll have to deal with Violet in here, though. She’s taking us to the bathroom one at a time and locking doors behind her. Any attempt to come back will slow us down too much. When this happens, it has to happen fast.”
“Right.” Sabrina worked her tongue around her mouth, which had gone very dry.
“I’ll take Violet, and I’ll trust you with the fence. Sound right?” Lynn asked.
Sabrina just nodded. The thought of the attempt had stolen her voice. She was thinking of the chicken with the ruptured eye.
There are only two relevant parties now, Eli Pate had told her. People and power. Who has power, and who deserves it.
53
They stole an F-150 from the parking lot of a bar on the outskirts of Byron. The windows were open a crack, leaving it easy to get into, but it had been near the side of the building, not thirty feet from the door, and Mark was reluctant to try it.
“Somebody in there hears something, we’re going to end up with a shitstorm on our hands, Uncle. And this is Wyoming-ten-to-one odds that everybody inside that place is packing.”
“You’re probably right,” Larry said. “So I’d suggest we hurry with it.”
It took Larry less than three minutes, and he didn’t make much of a sound until the engine turned over.
“Do I want to ask why you’re in such good practice?” Mark said.
“Just get in the damn truck. Remember, I was asleep in my own bed when you showed up this morning.”
This morning. It seemed impossible that this was still the same day.
Mark climbed in the passenger seat, and they drove away from the bar and toward town.
“Pretty nice ride,” Larry said. He had the window down and his arm resting on the door, relaxed as could be, no indication that he’d just stolen the truck.
“Isn’t it neat how these modern ones can shift gears all by themselves?” Mark said. “I’ve heard the brakes even work without a rosary.”
“You were more respectful when you were a kid.”
They drove west, out of town. Mark was thinking of Lauren and Sabrina Baldwin, of Jay asking him what he’d have done for a second chance, when Larry threw the truck into a hard left turn.
“Whoa, here we go,” Larry called. They’d been traveling at a good speed, and the truck fishtailed briefly but Larry straightened it out and they bounced along a gravel road that led away from the highway and toward the Shoshone River. A few miles later, the road curled out of the gulch and toward the river and Mark saw an RV parked beside a copse of scrub pines. It was a large, expensive model, at least forty feet long, black and gold, though the paint was covered by a thick layer of dust.
“Is that Scott Shields’s?” Mark asked.
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t seem like he made it to Alaska.”
“Nope.” Larry cut the engine, and Mark saw that his gun was already in his hand. “And that gives me more than a few questions for him.”
They got out of the truck. The sun was high in a cloudless sky and between that and the lingering dust from the truck’s rattling ride, the place felt desertlike despite the pines. There were still patches of snow in all directions and yet the day had been sunburn-bright and plenty warm. Springtime in the Rockies.
Everything was still as a portrait. Mark could hear Larry’s breathing. He stood stock-still, like a dog smelling the air, hackles up.
“There’s a bad feel here,” Larry said, and then he walked up to the door and knocked. “Scotty? Scotty?”
No answer. Also no vehicle beside the motor home, although hard-packed ruts made it clear that there was usually a truck there. Mark was just about to ask where Shields might be found in town when he saw the blood.
“Uncle.”
Larry turned to him, and Mark pointed. Neither of them said a word as they followed the blood trail. It led from the tire tracks all the way to the front door.
Larry took his ball cap off, pushed his long hair back over his ears, put the cap back on, and bent the bill. He was bowstring-tense.
“Give me cover just in case,” he said.
“No. I’ll go in first,” Mark said, but Larry ignored him and walked to the RV with a brisk stride. Mark was expecting him to at least try the door. Instead, he simply raised his boot and kicked it. The door held for the first kick and snapped open on the second, and Larry reeled back like he’d taken gunfire. Mark was just behind him in a shooter’s stance, but he couldn’t see anything.
“What’s wrong?” he said a second before the answer arrived to Mark on the windless air.
The smell of death wafted out, pungent and nauseating. Larry gagged and spit into the dirt.
“Hang on,” Larry said. He went to the truck and found two rags and splashed a small amount of motor oil on them. He brought the rags back along with two pairs of weathered canvas work gloves. His eyes were grim. “Let’s have a look,” he said, and then he put the gloves on and held the oil-soaked rag to his nose.
Mark followed. Mark took the gloves and the rag, and they walked through the dust and up the steps of the RV. Even against the oil, the smell was strong.
The steps led into a small living-room area with a built-in sofa, empty. To the right of that was a booth and a table, also empty, and then the driver’s cab. The inside of the RV had the feel of the Mary Celeste, an abandoned ghost ship.
Except for that smell, and the streaks of blood along the floor.
Mark followed the streaks to an accordion door like those in airplane bathrooms. The door folded inward, and now the smell’s source had shape. There was a dead man sprawled on the bed.
Mark couldn’t see evidence of a killing wound until he took one step closer to the body, his stomach roiling, and saw a neat hole where each of the dead man’s eyes belonged. Mark could look straight down through tunnels of black blood that carved through the brain and out of the skull and into the mattress below. Twin shots in the eyes. A.22, probably, held right up against the eye sockets.