But then, near the top of the rise to the logging road, I found the hat.
Spotted it out of the corner of my eye as I was climbing, a pale blob caught behind a moss-covered tangle of broken tree limbs. That was why I hadn’t seen it on the way down. I veered over there, caught it up.
Wide-brimmed straw hat. Kerry’s sun hat.
Recognition brought a rush of relief. If the hat was here, then she had to be somewhere close by.
But neither the deadfall nor the vegetation that stretched out around it had been disturbed. No marks in the grass, no trampled ferns, no torn boughs or trunk-bark scratches. Just the hat.
I plunged along the slope to the west, stumbling, sliding, pawing through the ground cover, shouting her name. A hundred yards, two hundred, until I could see Skyview Drive through a break in the trees. Nothing to indicate that she’d come this way. I dropped down lower, groped my way back past the faint animal trail to search and call in the other direction.
Still nothing.
I must have gone another four or five hundred yards, up and down the slope, before I gave it up and dragged myself onto the road. And then along the road to where it began a steep, curving climb up toward the ridge. And then back along the slope on the other side.
No Kerry, no other sign of her.
By then, my breathing was so labored I began to feel light-headed. Muscles quivered all through my body. If I didn’t quit moving, rest a while, I was liable to keel over.
I found a rotting log, sat with my legs splayed out and my head lowered until I had control of my breathing again. The dial on my wristwatch swam into focus through a blur of sweat. Christ. Not even nine o’clock. It seemed as though I’d been out here half the day. Three-plus hours gone, and already I was low on stamina. Sixty-four years old, not in prime physical condition… I could not keep making unreasonable demands on my body, or I’d end up having a stroke or a coronary, and then what good would I be to Kerry?
The straw hat was still clenched in my hand. I turned it over and over again, staring at it. If her hat was here, she’d been here. So why hadn’t I found her? Lost the hat, then somehow got herself lost? No. If the hat had fallen or been knocked off and she wasn’t hurt, she’d have been sure to retrieve it. Favorite of hers, she wouldn’t just abandon it.
Hurt somehow… but please, God, not too badly? She might have managed to walk or hobble a distance away from here, trying to get back the house, looking for help or shelter. Maybe she had made that trail I’d followed down to the Verriker property after all No, no, you couldn’t see the property from up here; she wouldn’t go downhill through heavy timber to an unknown destination. She hadn’t been anywhere near the Verrikers’ house when it exploded, or somebody would have found her by this time. I’d already settled that in my mind.
If she had been hurt, it had to’ve been up here on the trail-there’d been no evidence of a fall down the slope anywhere near where I found the hat. In that case, logic said she’d have stayed on the road until she reached Skyview Drive. Made no sense she’d have gone the other direction, up that long steep incline toward the ridge. Besides, there was no evidence on the road to support that explanation, either.
Something else had happened here.
The grassy place across the road, where a vehicle had been parked recently… suppose the vehicle had been there when Kerry came along, suppose whoever owned it had been there. The spot wasn’t far from where the hat had lain.
I went over there, walked around carefully so as not to disturb any of the signs. Look closely, and you could see the tire indentations in the grass, the slide marks on the needle-covered earth that had been left when the vehicle backed up and turned around. One of the indentations was clear enough and deep enough to indicate that the vehicle had been heavy and broad-beamed-SUV, van, pickup. I could make out other marks, too, less distinct, that might have been made by shuffling feet.
A coldness moved through me, tightening my gut, stiffening the hairs on the nape of my neck. Negative vibes, hypersensitivity, sixth sense-call it whatever you wanted to. I’d had it before and I’d learned to trust it, and in this place, it scared the hell out of me.
Something had happened here, all right.
Something bad.
10
PETE BALFOUR
First thing, before he did much of anything else, he went out to check on the woman.
He felt snake mean this morning. She was one reason, and his pounding head and sour gut from all the booze he’d sucked down last night was another. But Verriker still alive was the main one. Nobody better give him any shit today, or they’d regret it.
The shed was up on a little rise next to the garage. Built it and fixed up the whole place himself, with the only help a couple of spic illegals he’d hired for the grunt work. Good with his hands, the best carpenter, best builder, best repairman in the valley. But did anybody appreciate what he could do? Hell, no, they didn’t. Carped at him about cutting corners, doing shoddy work, that was all they ever did. Miserable bastards.
Balfour unlocked the shed door, toed it open, and clicked on the overheads to see where she was before he went in. Still on the canvas where he’d put her, but rolled up in it now, lying on her side, staring at him with round, scared eyes. Part of one bare leg was out where he could see it. Pretty nice leg for an old broad. She must be more than fifty, but well preserved. Good body, slender, the way he liked them.
He had the notion again, looking at that bare leg, same one he’d had after he stopped himself from strangling her yesterday. That was part of the reason he’d stopped-a small part. Just a notion that slipped into his mind and slipped out again pretty quick. He liked his women young, the younger the better. Never had a whore over twenty-five. Never had any woman over twenty-five except for Charlotte, and she hadn’t been much more than that when he married her. Pigs, all of ’em. Never had a good-looking woman in his life, not old ugly Pete Balfour. This redhead, she must’ve been some sweet piece when she was young. Now she was just too damn old to bother with.
He moved over to her, reached down to unwrap the canvas from around her body. She cringed back away from him. Scared, all right, but not so scared she wasn’t looking him square in the eyes. Hell, most women would’ve peed all over themselves by this time.
“You… untie me now?” The words came out sounding funny, half whisper and half croak. The bruises on her throat… he’d come damn close to crushing her windpipe yesterday.
“No way, lady.”
“Please. I can’t… feel my… hands.”
“No.”
Balfour bent down again, pushed her over on her side. Whimper came out when he touched her, the sound like an ass-kicked dog made. But all he wanted to do was check the duct tape. It was okay around her feet, but there was a couple of tears and some up-and-down scratch marks where it was wrapped around her hands and wrists. Been scraping it on something, trying to get loose. Good luck with that. He thought about putting on a few more loops, but why bother? She wasn’t going nowhere even if she freed herself and managed to find a way through the locked door. Bruno would see to that. Chew her up into dog food if she tried to get past him.
“Why?” she said.
“Huh? Why what?”
“Why are you… doing this?”
“Shouldn’t of been in those woods, that’s why. Your fault, not mine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t need to. None of your business.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
Didn’t have an answer for her. He shook his head, looked at her a little longer-notion in, notion out-and then turned for the door. Went on outside and locked up again.