Читать книгу The Goodbye Man - Jeffery Deaver, Jeffery Deaver - Страница 13

T his bullet hit its mark …

A golden eagle, troubled by the sharp crack of the pistol rolling through the valley, lifted off and descended away from the human disturbance in stately urgency.

Colter Shaw glanced down, noting the sizable gunshot hole in the Kia’s right front tire. The car knelt.

Now free from the vehicle, Shaw pushed through the forsythia and watched the shooter walk across the road, dusting away pollen and burrs from his sleeves and jeans.

Fully bearded, Dalton Crowe was two inches taller than Shaw’s six feet even. Broad shoulders, ample chest, both encased in a black and red plaid lumberjack shirt. Camo overalls. His belt was well tooled, and well worn, shiny and unevenly dark. The holster for the long-barreled revolver was cowboy style, brown and glossy and chrome studded.

Each of the men had bestowed scars upon the other, about the same number, the same length, the same depth. The bruises had long fleshed away. The confrontations were not intended to be lethal but simply to derail the other’s success in finding the suspects in reward jobs. In one instance, Crowe wanted to stop Shaw so he could get one hundred percent of the money for an escaped prisoner; Shaw wanted to stop Crowe from gunning down the trapped, unarmed man.

Crowe ambled across the road and looked at the tire. “Hmm.”

“You fired in my direction,” Shaw said. His tone was scolding only; he hadn’t felt himself in much danger. He’d known to a certainty that the rock-tipper and shooter was Crowe and not the suspects, Adam Harper or Erick Young.

For a big man who would look right at home in Hells Angels’ attire, Crowe had an eerily high voice. “Nup, Shaw. None of that. I was saving you from a snake.” He was from Birmingham, Alabama, and came equipped with the accent. “Timber rattler and a damn big one.”

Shaw glanced down. “Don’t see him.”

“Aw, I just fired to scare him off. Which I did, as you can see. I like all of God’s creatures, rattlers included. Sorry about your tire.”

Shaw looked at the boulder, completely blocking the highway.

Crowe didn’t bother to spin a tale about that.

“These boys’re mine, Shaw. Adam and Erick. I’m going to find ’em and I’m going to bring ’em in. I got to Gig Harbor ’fore you did. So, dig yourself out and head on home.”

“How’d you find me?” Shaw asked.

“I’m the best, that’s how.” Crowe slipped his gun away. Shaw wondered if he ever twirled it on his finger like gunslingers do in the movies. Shaw had once seen somebody shoot himself in the armpit doing that. Human stupidity has no bounds.

“You heard my piece. That’s all there is to it. I’ve got a yellow Volkswagen to catch up with.”

Shaw’s brows compressed. “How’d you know they were …” His voice faded, as if he’d slipped up, confirming a fact that Crowe hadn’t known for certain.

“Haw. Now get that tire of yours fixed, call Triple A or man the jack yourself.” Crowe looked around, at the boulder, then back to Shaw. “On these roads, in that breadbox of a car … you could come to real grief. Not from me, of course, saving your ass from rattlers. But somebody aiming at you. I’d hate to see that happen.”

The threat delivered, Crowe turned and plodded up the road, then disappeared into the bushes. A moment later his silver SUV drove onto the road, on the other side of the boulder, and turned away from Shaw and the rock. A hand appeared from the driver’s window of the Bronco. The gesture seemed to be a wave but it might have been ruder.

He called 911, reporting the fallen boulder to the state police. The obstacle was in the middle of a straightaway and could be seen fifty yards away from either direction. Still, Colter Shaw was hardwired to save people from disaster, even if it was their own failings that put them in peril. Someone cruising along while texting might deserve the air bag slap; his or her children did not, however.

Shaw spent a few minutes checking the tires and backing out of the razorish weeds. It took some rocking and some tire spinning but eventually the car rolled onto the road again.

Once on the asphalt, he changed the tire and searched the wheel wells. He found the GPS tracker Crowe had hidden. He clicked the off button and stowed the device in his backpack.

Then he turned around and sped back the way he’d come, the exact opposite of the direction that Dalton Crowe was headed. Shaw checked his map and estimated that he should intercept Erick Young and Adam Harper in less than a half hour.