The pair of insurgent soldiers he’d shot in the firefight weeks later had been righteous kills, too. For a reason, for a purpose. Same here with the kid polluters in the sleeping bag and the drunk molesting the three sea lions and the clear-cutting caretaker and the abalone poacher. And with the loony up on the lane a few minutes ago. Justified.
The woman and the deputy wouldn’t be. Not righteous no matter how much of a spin he tried to put on it.
Still, what else could he do?
He couldn’t just leave them here trussed up and hit the road. Somebody’d find them, or the woman would find a way to work herself loose. They’d both seen his face, they could identify him. And the deputy had seen the car, could identify that, too. He wouldn’t get far even if he picked up a different set of wheels.
Besides, there was still work to be done. Not along this part of the coast anymore, he’d have to move on no matter what and that was a damn shame because he loved it here, really loved it, it was the first place that’d ever felt like a real home. But there was more pristine coastline up north—the Lost Coast, the whole length of Oregon—and just as many spoilers to be dealt with up there.
The woman was saying something to him again. He looked over at her sitting on the edge of the lumpy brown sofa in her torn raincoat, hands and face scratched and blood-marked, legs pressed together and fingers gripping her knees. She looked wet and miserable and she had to be scared, but she didn’t show her fear. He felt sorry for her. It wasn’t her fault she’d got herself snagged up in this craziness tonight, any more than it was his.
“I’m not lying to you,” she said for the second or third time. She’d started talking to him in a low, steady voice as soon as he sat her down and had kept it up ever since, saying pretty much the same things over and over—that she was from the cottage next door and she’d been out alone in the storm because her husband had had some kind of attack and she couldn’t drive out for help because a tree had blown down and was blocking the road. “If he doesn’t get medical attention soon, he could die.”
Medical attention.
Flashback. Sudden and bright white the way they always came to him, like when a rocket exploded and lit up the night sky: Men down, soldiers and civilians dying all around him from the roadside bomb. Blood everywhere, bodies and body parts torn up like butchered meat. Medic! Medic!
The scene flared out. He rubbed his eyes, and he was seeing the woman and the room again.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “there’s nothing I can do for your husband.”
“So what, then? What’re you going to do to me?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Kill me?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
She was quiet again, but not for long. “How long have you been here?”
“On the coast? Six months.”
“Not living in this cabin the whole time?”
“No. The last two and a half weeks. Campgrounds, mostly, before that. But I needed a place for when the weather turned bad.”
“Whose cabin is it?”
“Caretaker. Old man who was clear-cutting trees so the owners could have whitewater views. I hate that kind of crap.”
“Where’s the caretaker now?”
“He’s dead.” And buried in the woods behind the cabin. Always clean up your messes.
“Did you kill him?”
He didn’t say anything.
“You killed the man on the lane tonight.”
“That wasn’t my fault. He was acting crazy. Waving a gun, yelling something about his wife. Didn’t leave me any choice.”
“Brian Lomax,” she said.
“Who?”
“He owned the house at the far end.”
Another neighbor. He hadn’t even known he had neighbors until tonight. Well, once he’d gone out on the platform behind the estate house and he’d seen lights in the big place up there, but he’d never seen the people. Never given them any thought. He’d spent most of the past two and a half weeks forted up right here. Pretty spot even with all the old-growth trees along the crease clear-cut down to stumps; that was why he’d decided to squat here for a while, and most of the necessary provisions had already been laid in by the old man he’d buried in the woods. He’d only left the property a few times, for long drives along Highway 1 and once to buy some stuff he needed in the store in Seacrest.
“You shot all those other people, too,” she said. “The Coastline Killer.”
“I don’t like that name. I’m not a murderer.”
“You’re going to murder me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then let me go so I can get help for my husband.”
“I can’t do that.”
On the floor the deputy twitched a little, moaned, but didn’t wake up. When he was quiet again, the woman said, “What happened with him? Why is he here?”
What happened. Come snooping around, that was what happened. Pushed his way in through the locked gates and walked down here through the rain with a flashlight and an umbrella, looking for the caretaker because somebody in Seacrest had mentioned not seeing the old man for a while. He’d claimed to be the old man’s nephew, but the deputy wouldn’t buy it. Suspicious looks, suspicious questions, then a sudden move for his sidearm. Not quick enough, though, not a well-trained soldier like he was. Easy enough to get the jump on him. He’d come close to putting a bullet in the deputy instead of cracking his head with the Glock. Why hadn’t he? The uniform, maybe—the army taught you to respect a uniform, military or civilian. He wished now that he had popped the deputy, because at the time it would’ve been justified, another case of self-defense.
Couldn’t shoot him after he was down, unconscious. Couldn’t make himself do it. Tied him up instead, then took his keys and went up to move the cruiser inside the estate gates in case somebody came along. Just got the driver’s door unlocked when he saw the woman’s light; jumped quick into the woods before she spotted him. Would’ve stayed out of sight if she hadn’t come right up to the cruiser, opened the door … he knew she was going to use the radio as soon as she got in. Couldn’t just pop her, either, so he’d catfooted up and dragged her out. More damn hassle, then—a kick in the shin and an elbow in the gut and having to chase her around in the dark before and after that asshole with the sidearm, what was his name, Lomax, showed up.
It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. All this crap blindsiding him, screwing up his life just when he thought he had it on track and running smooth for the first time ever. No control over any of it, forcing him to take the kind of action he didn’t want to take. A woman and a deputy and an armed head case. How could you guard against anything like that?
The Glock was right there on the table in front of him, three inches from his hand. The deputy’s service revolver was in his coat pocket—he’d thrown Lomax’s piece into the woods. Plenty of firepower … against a defenseless woman and an unconscious, duct-taped cop. Shit, man. Slaughter was all it would be. He might not lose too much sleep over killing the deputy, but doing the woman … that’d be the hardest thing he’d ever faced and he knew he’d hate himself for it later on. Never forget it, never forgive himself.
Maybe he should buy a little more time to come to terms with it. Bind her hands and feet, too—he hadn’t done that yet, hadn’t touched her at all—and then do what he’d intended doing before, go up and move the deputy’s cruiser inside off the lane before any more crap went down.