"He's right," she said simply. "I do not have the killer instinct. I hesitated, and killed my partner."
"The bad guy killed your partner, Carol. Maybe you could have prevented it, maybe not. Usually the way something like that gets prevented is for the cop to shoot first, and these days, there's a lawyer waiting behind every bad guy happy to make some money from any mistakes."
"Bet you could have prevented it," she said.
"At the end of my career? Sure, probably. As new as you were? When I was that age I would have gone for the hero medal and shot first-and probably missed and killed a passing nun. The key thing is this: If the incident destroyed your self-confidence as a cop, and the rest of the cops believed you owned it, then you did precisely the right thing-you got out."
"Would you have left the force?"
"Absolutely," I said. "The whole cops-and-robbers thing is usually a bluff, when you get right down to it. The bad guys see a confident crowd of blues surrounding them, they give it up. When one gets cornered and decides to actually fight, we usually lose some people. They're feral. They can smell a hesitation. It's atavistic."
"You make it sound so simple," she said, "but I still feel bad about it."
"You're human," I said. "That's almost a disadvantage when dealing with the wild ones. You have a conscience and some empathy. Most of the really bad guys we go up against have neither."
"And Callendar? Is he one of the feral ones?"
"He shot that woman practically in the face. He made her turn around first, because she was looking at the house. Yeah, he's one."
I felt her shiver in the darkness. "I think I want to go home," she said suddenly.
"Want me to escort you home in my car?"
"You're not mad?"
"Dear heart, I'm relieved. You don't need another trial by fire. I loved the company, but I don't need the distraction, either."
"Ow."
I laughed. "Take off, pretty lady. You're simply using your head. Call me when you arrive at the house and you're locked in."
"I'm so sorry, Cam," she said.
I hugged her and told her it was all right. "Beat it, Pilgrim," I said in my best John Wayne accent.
"That's terrible," she said. "Really bad."
She gathered her stuff from inside, and I walked her down across the wet grass to her car. I reminded her to call me when she was safe in the house, and off she went.
Fifteen minutes later my cell phone rang. It was Carol.
"Home safe," she said.
"Thanks for dinner," I said.
"You're welcome. It was just some leftovers I threw together."
"Okay, then. I'll call you in the morning."
"Yes, please do."
I hung up the phone and went inside. I couldn't lock the door from the inside, so I wedged a chair under the dual handles. I checked on the dogs and then stopped.
Some leftovers I threw together?
She hadn't cooked anything. She'd gone to the grocery store and hit the deli line.
Fuck me, I thought. That was a duress signal.
I called Sheriff Walker's office, got the duty officer, told him who I was, and asked them to rush a unit over to Carol Pollard's house because she might have an intruder holding her. The sheriff must have left some stringent instructions regarding any calls from me because there was no chatter, and two cars were dispatched at once.
Ten minutes later I got the call I'd been dreading. It was the sheriff himself.
"She's not there. Her ride's not there. I have a unit backtracking to your place, but there's no sign of her on the roads. What's going on?"
The sheriff showed up with two additional units a half hour later. I watched as he hurried across the grass through the light rain and then took down the barricade at the front door. I saw one of the cruisers turn around and go down the driveway, while the other crept around the hill to explore the barn area. We went into the back of the house to get away from all those tall windows.
"How'd you know?" he asked, and I told him.
"So he went to her house?"
"I think he was here, out front somewhere, and he either ambushed her on the driveway with some obstacle or got her at the gates. She would have shut the gates behind her, coming in."
"Contact?"
"Nothing yet."
Another thunderstorm was rolling across the distant countryside over on the Virginia side of the river, its thunder occasionally rattling the windows. It was going to be one of those nights.
"You know what the deal's gonna be," he said.
"Oh, yes."
He looked over at the Scotch bottle, and I went and fixed us up with two fingers each.
"You've got three options," he said. "He calls, you give it to us. That's the smart option. Or he calls and you tell him to fuck off."
"Or he calls and I go."
"That's the dumb option."
"Is it? This one's a killer. Remember the Craney woman? One round in the face? He made her turn around before he shot her. So she'd know."
"Of course I do," he said, "but one of my D's had the brilliant idea of going to his Web site, the one advertising the hunting expeditions. Talked to a couple of past clients. Guy's known in guide circles as a guarantee."
"What's that mean?"
"If he sets the client up on a trophy buck, and the client gets buck fever and blows it? He nails the buck, and then it becomes the client's trophy. His MOS in the army was sniper. Just like you. You wouldn't stand a chance."
"Nor does Carol," I reminded him.
He finished his Scotch, eyed the bottle, but then put the glass down on the table.
"I can try to cover you with a SWAT crew," he said.
"They're urban, not field guys, right?"
He nodded. We both knew they'd be mostly useless out there in the weeds at night. The Bureau's hostage rescue team could do it, but Callendar probably wasn't going to wait.
"Lemme show you something," I said, and we went down into the kitchen. He looked at the inscription on the mantel stone.
"Any ideas?" I asked.
"One," he said. "That looks pretty old. This might be what Hester Lee is afraid of."
"How so?"
"The train robbery. Maybe the original Callendar had something to do with that."
"Like what?"
"Beats me. Maybe he was the inside man."
My cell phone began to vibrate audibly. The sheriff looked at me.
"Showtime?" he asked.
The listing in the window said CAROL POLLARD. He was letting me know he did in fact have her. Then the screen shifted to a text message.
YOU FOR HER, it read.
"Showtime," I said. I texted back: WHERE amp; WHEN?
LOSE COPS, he answered.
I showed his answer to the sheriff, who wondered aloud how he could see us and then remembered the cruisers. There was another rumble of thunder across the river, although it didn't seem to be getting any closer. The rain outside had settled into a drizzle.
WHERE AND WHEN, I texted.
No answer.
"I've gotta do this," I said.
He nodded. "We'll leave here, go upriver to the highway bridge, cross the Dan, and come down on the q.t. to that burned-out house. I've got a boat out there. We'll muster some assets up at that carriage house and wait for your call."
That sounded like as good a plan as any. I thanked him for letting me take a shot.
"You like that lady?"
"I do, actually," I said. "We got comfortable with each other."
He finished his Scotch and then fished in his pocket for some spearmint gum. "You get this business done tonight, you better watch yourself," he said. "She'll git ya."
"I can think of worse things," I said.
"Me, too," he said.
I waited an hour while the storm across the river passed on to the east. It was still drizzling, and the occasional grumble of thunder could be heard across the entire countryside. I had everything I needed except some raingear. Wouldn't you know. Finally I turned off all the lights, called the dogs together, told Frack to assume the watch in the house, and took the other two out to the front porch with me. I was dressed in field gear and carried the shotgun and my SIG. I put my cell phone in a sock and stuffed it into my shirt pocket.