“What?”
“Max is gone.”
“Gone? You said Shaun had him.”
“I can’t raise her.”
“I thought Shaun would have him by now.”
Gordon shrugged.
“What? You’re shrugging? You don’t know where he is? You don’t have a clue?”
“No, and so far, we’re OK. I’ve done damage control with the press and the cops. As far as they’re concerned, I’ve made it clear I’m safeguarding his privacy. But there’ve been so many sightings—the rumors are flying. I’ve put it out that he has a stunt double who looks a lot like him, which is true, one of the paps ran with it. There are all sorts of stories going around, which can only help us. As long as nobody knows anything, and we stick to the script, we should be fine.”
But Gordon didn’t sound fine. Jerry couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His brother—the stonewaller of the century—was having a major meltdown.
For a moment—a brief moment—Jerry savored this.
Then he decided it was time to get down to work. “Gordon, you’d better tell me everything. You said you fucked him up. What did you do? Did you plant anything in him that would turn him into a killer? Like The Manchurian Candidate?”
Gordon stared at him. His eyes were like fixed blue marbles in his tanned totem of a face. “No way. All I did was make him impressionable, so we could herd him the right direction.”
“You mean the stuff about freezing on command, right?”
“What do you think I mean?”
“Sarcasm isn’t going to help this situation, Gordon. You’ve been known to improvise.”
“Improvise.”
“Yes, improvise. You’ve really screwed it up this time.”
“Fuck you.”
“Well, fuck you.”
Gordon pinched the spot between his eyes and his nose. “Look, this isn’t doing us any good. I have to think.”
“Ha! You’re finally getting it that Shaun might not be the goddess you think she is. She snowed you, Gordon. Maybe she was good with the Russian mob, but why can’t she handle one drunk and stoned actor? Master criminal my foot! She’s barely sane.”
“I’ve seen her sharpshooter medals. She’s legendary.”
“Yeah, so?”
“She’s killed a lot of people, Jerry. And never went down for any of them.”
Gordon loved to use terms like “went down.” Like it made him sound tough. “OK, so she’s good,” Jerry said. “But maybe motherhood’s changed her.”
Gordon waved Jerry’s theory away. “That’s ridiculous. I’m sure she’s secured him by now and is on her way. We’ve got to have a little faith.”
“Faith, huh? We’re down to praying, now?”
“This is no time to switch horses. She’s the only one I know who can drill a man from ten feet away in the heart with a twenty-two. And kill him dead. That’s what I hired her for. Because she can shoot like that, and she can kill without conscience.”
“There are plenty of people like that, Gordon. You should have dug deeper.”
“Actually, there aren’t. In fact, there are very few with her particular skill set.”
“So where is she now, Gordon? Can you tell me that?”
“I don’t know.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
THE CAR CAME to rest upright—amazing. The Caprice had turned around, 180 degrees, and slid backward down the steep embankment.
Max thought: a big, heavy car. It had saved them. He looked at Tess McCrae. She was trying to get the seat belt off. Her movements were slow, but everything else was slow too, and when he moved his fingers it felt as if he were trying to pull taffy—everything seemed to slip out of his grasp. The gun was on the seat and he needed to pick it up, get some control here. His mind was so scattered he didn’t even think about the truck that had run them off the road until he heard the click of feet on rock.
Max glanced around—there seemed to be all the time in the world. Everything was quiet. He felt weightless, under water. But he could see the kid scrambling down the embankment, balancing a gun and his yo-yo. The kid shucked the yo-yo loop from his finger so he could hold the gun in both hands.
Max pawed at the gun on the seat again.
Tess was almost out of her harness.
They were in an amphitheater. No, that wasn’t right. But there were a lot of rocks—boulders. Big, round, vanilla-colored boulders and spears of yucca. There was a place in California where they used to shoot otters—he and his dad had gone out there once; most of it was long gone, but the area looked somewhat like this…Why was he thinking about that?
Pick up the gun.
He did.
Magically, his fingers came alive, wrapped around the butt.
Fire a warning shot at the kid. Scare him off.
He aimed through the window, shot to the right of the kid and down. Didn’t want to hurt him. He’d wanted to once, when he was in the culvert, but now he realized that he’d been wrong. You don’t hurt a kid.
Just scare him.
Both hands holding the gun, he shot. The gun kicked. He thought the butt hit his jaw.
Funny thing—the kid reacted. He fell over like a rag doll. Flopped for a second and was still.
Tess, who was still struggling with her harness, turned her head in the kid’s direction. Her face was pale. She said, “Did you shoot him?”
“No, no, I was aiming away from him!”
“Ricochet,” she said.
He looked at the surrounding rocks. The kid lay still, blood seeping out underneath him. He was dead. No question about it.
“Help me with this,” Tess said. “You may have to cut me out.”
He reached over, still in shock. He had a jackknife and he sawed on the shoulder harness belt’s heavy material. His thoughts were slow, but he knew he was missing something.
“Where is the woman?” Tess said.
The woman.
He squinted past the kid. Everything surreal. “I don’t see her.”
“Maybe she’s still in the truck. Maybe she’s hurt. Get me out of this and I’ll go look.”
He cut her loose and she shoved at the door. It creaked open. She slipped out. She ran from boulder to boulder, just like they did in the movies, and all Max could do was watch.
He stared at the kid. Thinking: get up.
The kid lay there. The blood soaking into the ground. It was a reddish stain, diluted by the dirt.
“Get up,” he mumbled.
Time floated.
Shower Cap peered in through the window and grinned.
“Where’s your boat?” Max asked.
He heard the Caprice door grate open. Tess leaned in. “You OK?”
“I think so.”
“The woman’s in the truck. She’s not moving—has a big bruise on her forehead. There’s a place up the road—I’m going to call it in. You should stay still. I don’t like that cut on your leg.”
He wished he hadn’t thrown her phone out the window. But it had seemed like a good idea at the time…He glanced down and saw blood. Moved his foot and heard the squishing sound of blood.
“Wait! I’ll go with you.” Realized he was shivering.
It was the wind. The temperature was dropping, the sky dark. The car must be facing west, because he saw the sun near the horizon like a baleful red eye, narrowing against the onslaught of the clouds.
She stared back up the embankment at the truck. Nodded. “OK, let’s go.”
They left the car and started walking along the highway. Max felt himself shivering. Thunder grumbled and the wind picked up even more. Rain spotted the highway with drops the size of quarters.
Then came the onslaught.
He looked back in the growing twilight of rain. One last ray of sun gleamed off the windshield. He squinted. Did he see movement? Or was the woman inside unconscious, or even dead?