The Inn - James Patterson Page 0,53
would also keep him out of the office, away from the phone. He knew Marni’s autopsy was being rushed through, and the results would be reported to go into her case file with the department. He didn’t want to be there when the call came through. He wanted to be out, where he could see the stars.
It was one in the morning when Clay came upon the two young women crouched by the deserted roadside. Clay looked at the tire on the asphalt beside their car and tutted as he pulled over. The women, as they fumbled with the tire iron and read instructions from their phones, were a quarter of the way into the lane, and the spare was sitting maybe a third of the way in. He exited his vehicle and pulled up his gun belt.
“Morning, ladies,” he said as he approached.
“Oh, wonderful,” the younger one said, clapping her hands with glee. “Ronnie, it’s the sheriff. Can you help us, sir? We’re in big trouble here. Neither of us has ever changed a tire before. We’re totally stuck!”
“Let’s forget about changing the tire for now and get off the road.” Clay pointed to the roadside and the women went where he instructed. “You’re begging to get hit by someone coming up over the hill.”
Clay bent down, grabbed the spare from the asphalt, and rolled it toward the women. His head was down, hands on the rubber, when at the corner of his vision a boot appeared. Not a woman’s boot; a big, black, decidedly male one.
“Lights out, fat boy,” a voice said.
Clay heard a swish, and then there was only blackness.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
NICK AND I sent Effie up to the bridge to take care of the captain and hold a gun on him until we were done downstairs. We stood in the darkened hallway, our guns hanging by our sides, and I watched as that strange light flickered in Nick’s eyes, the same one I’d seen as we launched into an attack on Rick Craft at the Greenfish, the same one that lingered there as he stood in the freezing waters near our home. I wanted to ask if he was okay, but he sprang into the room before I did, his voice booming, the gun swinging between the two bewildered men in full-face respirators.
“On the ground! On the ground! On the ground!”
They didn’t go down easily. Gloved hands went up, and then they reconsidered, perhaps acting on a lesson Cline had drilled into them from the beginning about their fates should they ever let him down. The man nearest me grabbed a canister of red powder and flung it at us; the glass burst against a porthole window. I could taste the dust in the air, burning and metallic. I launched myself at him, and the edge of the table jutted into my hip; a tub of pills tumbled and scattered as we hit the floor together. I clubbed him in the back of the head with my gun and he gave the heavy exhalation of someone losing consciousness. Nick had abandoned his gun and pinned his guy up against the low cupboards on the wall, his arm bent backward.
“You stupid fucks.” The guy’s voice was muffled by the respirator. “You ain’t cops! Get out of here!”
“We’re not cops, but we’re not going anywhere.” I took the duct tape from Nick and began binding the man in front of me. “Not until we’re done.”
Nick’s guy watched me, realizing my mission as I finished binding my guy and then started scooping up the spilled pills from the floor. I stacked a couple of tubs, and his eyes widened behind the cloudy glass of his face mask.
“You don’t want to do this, man,” he said. “I’m telling you. I’m telling you, bro! You’re making a big mistake! Cline will put you in a hole. He will put you in the fucking ground.”
“Shut up, idiot.” Nick forced him to the floor and put his knee into his back, then wound the duct tape tight around his gloved hands. I took three stacked tubs full to the brim with colorful pills and walked back outside.
The pills disappeared into the white moonlit surf as I emptied the tubs one by one.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
DIRT. THE SHERIFF tasted it as he came to consciousness, granular on his lips and strangely reassuring. He had the sense that for some time he’d been lolling around the back of his own squad car, heaped on the seat like a