Steele stared at him. “So where is he then?”
“I don’t know but I’m going to look for him.”
Steele shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere tonight. You’re on suspension.”
“You don’t have the authority,” Louis said. “I’m going to look for Jesse.”
“I could arrest you and detain you for hours.”
Louis closed his fist around the rabbit’s foot. “Look, I know Gibralter. I know how he thinks. Now let me go so I can join the search.”
Steele’s eyes hardened as the wind blew snow across his face. Louis shook his head in disgust and turned to walk away.
Steele’s voice sounded behind him. “Lockhart!” he called, waving to a trooper just exiting his car.
Louis turned. Steele met his eye briefly then looked at the trooper. “Take Kincaid back to town.”
Lockhart nodded and opened the back door to his cruiser. Louis slid in the back. He pulled his parka up around him. The stiff nylon was raw against his face.
“Turn up the heat, will you, guys?”
Lockhart’s partner nodded and after a few minutes the back began to warm up. Louis stared at the backs of their heads through the mesh screen as the cruiser bounced down the snowy hill. After a while, it hit a logging road and Lockhart sped up as he threaded through the trees toward the highway.
Where would Gibralter have taken Jesse? To his own home? To Zoe’s cabin? Neither of those choices made sense. He wasn’t sure Jesse was even alive. If Jesse had decided to turn against Gibralter he might be dead out in the woods somewhere.
Think. Think. Think about the man. Think like he thinks.
Even if Jesse had turned he couldn’t see Gibralter killing him. It was more logical that he do something to intimidate Jesse until he could win back his loyalty. But what? Gibralter had always used people’s weaknesses to control them — Cole’s fear of abuse, Louis’s need for justice, Zoe’s fear of being alone. Gibralter controlled Jesse all his life. How would he do it now?
The cruiser rumbled over one last set of rocks and hit pavement. The black road stretched out into the night.
Louis closed his eyes. Gibralter would take Jesse to a place that instilled fear, a feeling that if he didn’t come around he would die. It would also be a place where Gibralter could return to, once again playing the role of savior.
Louis stared out the fogged window as the lake came into view. He wiped away the condensation with his sleeve. There was a faint pink glow in the eastern sky, dawn. Out on the dark expanse of the lake he saw a soft glow. A lantern, someone firing up a fishing shanty.
His eyes swung to the mesh screen that separated him from the two troopers.
Louis put a hand on the screen.
Lockhart glanced back. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Louis looked back at the lake. He knew. God, he knew.
“Turn here. Turn left up here,” Louis said.
“What?”
“I said turn left. Here!” Louis shouted.
Lockhart cruised on past the snowy side road. “Where?”
Louis hit the screen with his palm. “Stop! Jesus Christ, turn around. Turn around now!”
Lockhart backed up, swung the cruiser around and started down the narrow road.
“There,” Louis said, “at the end, by the shore. That green house. Pull in there.”
The cruiser edged closer, bogged down by the deep drifts.
“We’re going to get stuck,” Lockhart warned.
“Fuck it,” Louis said. He moved to open the door but realized he couldn’t. It only opened from the outside. “Let me out. Come on, let me out!”
Lockhart stopped the car and jerked open the back door. Louis jumped from the cruiser and ran through the snow. He fell, scrambled up and rushed on.
When he hit the porch of Lovejoy’s cabin he tore off the yellow crime-scene seal on the door and pushed. It was locked.
“Goddamn it!” he shouted. He kicked at the door then kicked again. Using his full weight, he shoved at the door with his shoulder and it sprang open.
He stumbled through the dark living room, grappling for lights. The walls were like ice, the air so cold it burned his lungs. He tripped on a small table and kicked it aside. He hurried through the darkness, shoving open the bedroom door at the end of the dark hall.
His hand shot to the switch and he slapped at it, flooding the room in light. His heart stopped.
Jesse was in the dog cage, both wrists handcuffed to the wire, his head resting against the cage, the dog blanket across his legs. His face was covered with a light frost, his lips were purple and there was a thin line of dried blood on his cheek.
Louis dropped to his knees, stuck his hand through the wire and pressed two fingers against Jesse’s neck. A pulse. He could feel a pulse.
“Jesus Christ,” Lockhart whispered from behind him.
Louis threw out his hand. “Give me your cuff key.”
CHAPTER 43
A rush of warm air greeted Louis as he pushed through the double glass doors of the hospital. Seeing his police parka, the woman at the reception desk nodded at him, and he hurried to the elevator.
Only nine hours had passed since he had pulled the trigger on the shotgun and only a little less than that since he had carried Jesse’s half-frozen body out of Lovejoy’s cabin. But it felt like a lifetime had passed, as if the world had been tilted onto a new off-balance axis.
Early that morning, he had checked Jesse into the hospital then gone to the station to write his report for Steele. The report had stretched to seven pages. He had left it in a sealed envelope, not wanting the mob of reporters to get wind of it before it was necessary.
At home, he had tried to sleep. But finally he had given up, showered and put on a fresh uniform. He thought of going to Zoe. Someone, another man in a uniform, had already been to see her that morning, to tell her about her husband. He wondered if they told her how he died. He wondered if they told her who had killed him. He knew he would have to face her soon. He just didn’t know how.
Finally, not knowing where else to go, he had come to the hospital. He wanted to be at Jesse’s side when he woke up.
Louis punched the elevator button and waited.
“Kincaid.”
Louis didn’t turn at the sound of Delp’s voice coming from behind him.
“I knew you’d show up here,” Delp said. “I’ve been waiting.”
“What do you want, Delp?” He punched the button again.
“A quote I can print.”
“I can’t talk about anything yet. It’s still under investigation.”
“But you shot Gibralter, right?”
The door opened and Louis got in. Delp followed.
“Did you shoot Lacey, too?”
Louis wouldn’t’ look at him.
“Come on, man,” Delp pressed. “You promised me the story.”
The door opened and Louis stepped out. Down the hall, he saw a trooper standing outside Cole Lacey’s room, talking to a tall man in black. It was Steele. Steele looked up at the sound of the elevator, staring down the hall at Louis.
Louis hesitated then walked slowly toward him. Steele saw Delp trailing behind and shot him a contemptuous look.
“Leave us alone, please,” he said to Delp.
“I’ve got a right to — ”
“Get lost,” Steele hissed.
With a frown, Delp moved away. Steele waited until Delp retreated behind the window of a waiting room.
“I read your report,” he said. “I also spoke to Cole Lacey. Your stories don’t jibe.”
“What?”
“Cole says you both took him from Read Oak, that you held him down while Gibralter threatened to sodomize him with a branch and that you held his father while Gibralter shot him.”
Louis shook his head slowly.
“He also says you talked him into throwing down his weapon then shot him.”
“He’s lying.”
“Ballistics showed your gun fired both the bullets we dug out of Cole and his father.”