Tom climbed in the passenger seat. Henrickson yanked the car around in a tight circle and took it fast onto the main road, passing Big Frank's and heading east.
Tom thought, but couldn't be sure, that he saw Connolly watching them from the windows of the bar.
'Jim, where are we going?'
'To talk to someone,' the man said. 'Someone who knows a lot more than they've been letting on.'
— «» — «» — «»—
The man said nothing else on the half-hour journey. Tom knew where they were going long before the car turned onto the lonely road that led up into the development no one had wanted. Henrickson parked on the windy, empty road, five yards from the gateway to the Anders property. He left the engine running but killed the lights. Darkness fell like a stone.
'Wait here.'
Tom watched as the other man got out of the car and walked up ahead. By the time Henrickson was past the wooden sign it was hard to make him out. Ten minutes later he came back.
'Somebody's home this time,' he said. His face looked cold and hard and there was wet ice in his hair. 'Or isn't hiding well enough to remember to turn out all the lights.'
He pulled the car forward and through the gate. Drove slowly down the track between the trees.
'You haven't put your headlights back on.'
'That's right.'
As they took the penultimate bend the lake became visible, frigid in straggly moonlight. It looked flat and eldritch, proud that nothing had changed for it, ever, that it had always been this way. Then Tom could see the dark shape of the cabin, huddled in the trees, with two small, dim rectangles of yellow light.
Henrickson pulled the car over, turned off the engine. Sat a moment, watching the house.
'Okay,' he said. 'Let's go. Shut your door quietly.'
'Look, Jim,' Tom said. 'We can't do this now. We should have called ahead. We can't just turn up. Two guys appearing at her door, it's going to scare her to death.'
Henrickson turned to him then, and did something with his mouth. It wasn't a grin. It wasn't a smile, even. It was similar enough to the things he had been doing with it all along, however, and it made Tom wonder, with a low, quiet dismay, whether any of them had been grins after all.
'Get out,' the man said.
Tom climbed out into the cold, squinting against the sleet. He shut his door silently, looking over at the cabin. If Henrickson was right, this woman had lied to make him look foolish. At least once, maybe twice. Of course Connolly was going to believe her instead of him, especially as he evidently hated the mere idea of Bigfoot. And through her lies, this woman had destroyed his story. She'd taken away the only thing that could make his life take him back.
If it took a little surprise in the evening to undo that, maybe it was okay.
He turned at the sound of Henrickson opening the trunk of the car. The man pulled a large rucksack out and looped it over his back in one smooth movement. Then he leaned in again, reaching with both arms. When he straightened once more, Tom gaped at him.
'What the fuck is that?'
It was a stupid question. It was obvious what the man had slipped over his shoulder. It was a rifle. It was also obvious that the shorter, blunter thing he had in his hand was a large-calibre handgun. Neither looked like the sort of thing you saw in hunting stores. They looked like the kind of weapon you saw on the news, with plumes of smoke in the distance behind.
Henrickson closed the trunk. 'The forest can be dangerous,' he said.
'It certainly is now,' Tom said. 'Jesus. Look, can we leave those things in the car?'
The other man had turned and was walking towards the cabin. Suddenly very unsure about what was happening, Tom hurried after him. By the time he caught up, Henrickson had already rapped on the front door. They waited. Henrickson was just raising his hand again when he stopped, head cocked. Tom hadn't heard anything.
There was the sound of two bolts being pulled, and then the door opened.
Patrice Anders stood inside. Beyond was a small, cosy room. She looked a little older than Tom remembered, and smaller. But she didn't look afraid, or even much surprised.
'Good evening, Mr Kozelek,' she said. 'Who's your friend?'
'You know who I am,' Henrickson said.
'No,' she said, 'I don't. But I know why you're here.'
'That should make things easy.'
She shrugged. 'It does for me. I'm not telling you anything.'
'You will,' Henrickson said. There was something off about his voice. He walked straight past the woman and into the cabin, eyes raking the walls and surfaces. He yanked the phone out of the wall socket. He found the woman's cell, knocked it to the floor and stood on it.
'Jim,' Tom said, aghast. 'This isn't the way to go about this.'
'Go about what?' the old woman said. She was trying to seem unperturbed, but her voice was constricted and her face pinched. 'What do you think he's here for?'
'He's a reporter,' Tom said, stepping inside. 'He wants to write a story about what I saw. That's all.'
Patrice looked at him. 'God, you're dumb,' she said.
'What do you mean?' he snapped. He was tired of feeling that everyone understood things except him.
'He's not here to write. He's a hunter. He's here to kill.'
'Kill what?'
'Bear, I assume. Only thing we've got in these woods.'
Tom looked at Henrickson, and had to concede that his friend didn't look like a reporter any more. Partly it was the guns, partly the way he was yanking open the cupboards that lined the back wall of the room, rifling through the contents as though the fact they were someone else's possessions was of absolutely no moment. 'Jim, tell me this isn't true.'
'Ms Anders is dissembling, but otherwise she and I are in total agreement,' Henrickson said, without turning. 'On both my intentions and your intelligence. Aha.' He pulled out a thick bundle of rope and threw it to Tom. 'Tie her hands behind her back.'
'You're kidding me,' Tom said. 'I'm not doing that.'
The butt of Henrickson's rifle whipped round in a short, clipped arc that ended with Tom's face. He didn't even see it coming.
He crashed backwards into a kitchen unit, slipped on the rug, dropped to the floor. He was dimly aware of Henrickson stepping over him and kicking the front door shut; then of him grabbing the old woman by the hair. He shook his head, to try to clear it. It felt like someone had hammered a screwdriver up each side of his nose.
'You may as well do it now,' he heard the woman saying, through a fog. 'Because I'm not going to help you.'
Henrickson's response was a blow that sent her across the couch. Then he was standing over Tom, holding the rope.
'We're going to find this thing,' he told him, quietly. 'And I am going to do what I came to do.'
Tom stared up at him, feeling blood pouring out of his nose and knowing why Henrickson's voice sounded different. His accent had gone, the folksy lilt and the backwoods terms. Now he had the voice of a stranger. Tom felt as if he had never been in a room with this man before, and that anyone who had heard this voice would be likely to remember it, and remember it the rest of their life. His voice said that he knew you. That he knew you, and all about you, and all about everybody else too.
'You're going to help me because otherwise I will make you kill her, and I don't think you'll enjoy doing that.'
All Tom could do was shake his head.
'You'll do it,' Henrickson said. 'After all, it won't be the first time. Different circumstances, I'll admit.'
'Shut up,' Tom said. The woman was staring at him now.
'Tom's already on the board,' Henrickson told her. 'Used to be a partner in a design firm down in LA. Everything in place — cute car, cute family, regular fuckfest with one of the cute little designer girls driving the big-screen Apple Macs. One night they work late in the office and have a drink on the way home and round the corner from her apartment Tom slides a red light — can't be too late back, not again — and a Porsche smacks into the passenger side. The girl dies looking like modern art. So does the little boy Tom didn't know she was carrying inside. Tom's just under the limit, and fortunately the Porsche driver is completely shit-faced. So Tom walks.'