The Stone was finished, and Peake understood the point, but Sharp said
impatiently, “So? I still don’t see what it has to do with me.”
“Oh, I think you do,” The Stone said quietly, and the eyes he turned on
Sharp were so intense that the deputy director winced.
Sharp looked down at the directions on the piece of paper, read them,
cleared his throat, looked up. “This is all we want. I don’t believe
we’ll need to talk further with either you or your daughter.”
“I’m certainly relieved to hear that,” The Stone said. “We’ll be going’
back to Kansas tomorrow, and I wouldn’t want to think this will be
followin’ us there.”
Then The Stone smiled. At Peake, not at Sharp.
The deputy director turned sharply away and stalked down the hall.
Peake returned The Stone’s smile, then followed his boss.
OF THE THE steam-whistle cries of the cicadas pleased Rachael because
they were reminiscent of grade-school field trips to public parks,
holiday picnics, and the hiking she had done while in college.
However, she quickly grew irritated by the piercing noise. Neither the
brush nor the heavy pine boughs softened the racket. Every molecule of
the cool dry air seemed to reverberate with that grating sound, and soon
her teeth and bones were reverberating with it, too.
Her reaction was, in part, a result of Benny’s sudden conviction that he
had heard something in the nearby brush that was not part of the
ordinary background noises of a forest. She silently cursed the insects
and willed them to shut up so she could hear any unnatural soundssuch as
twigs snapping and underbrush rustling from the passage of something
more substantial than the wind.
The Combat Magnum was in her purse, and she was holding only the
thirty-two pistol. She had discovered she needed one hand to push aside
tall weeds and to grab convenient branches to pull herself over steeper
or more treacherous stretches of ground. She considered getting the
.357 out of the bag, but the sound of the zipper would pinpoint their
location to anyone who might be seeking them.
Anyone. That was a cowardly evasion. Surely, only one person might be
seeking them out here. Eric.
She and Benny had been moving directly south across the face of the
mountainside, catching brief glimpses of the cabin on the slope a couple
of hundred yards above, being careful to interpose trees and brush and
rock formations between themselves and the large picture windows that
made her think of enormous, square eye sockets.
When they had been about thirty yards past the cabin, they had turned
east, which was upslope, and the way proved sufficiently steep that they
had progressed at only half the speed they had been making previously.
Benny’s intention had been to circle the cabin and come in behind it.
Then, when they had ascended only about a hundred yards-which put them
still a hundred yards below and thirty south of the structure-Benny
heard something, stopped, eased up against the protective cover of a
spruce trunk that had a five-foot diameter, cocked his head, and raised
the shotgun.
Reeeeee, reeeeee, reeeeee .
In addition to the ceaseless cicada chorus-which had not fallen silent
because of their presence and, therefore, would not fall silent to
reveal anyone else’s presence, either-there was the annoyance of a noisy
wind. The breeze that had sprung up when they had come out of the
sporting-goods store down by the lake, less than threequarters of an
hour ago, had evidently grown stronger.
Not much of it reached as far as the sheltered forest floor, barely a
soft breath. But the upper reaches of the massive trees stirred
restlessly, and a hollow mournful moaning settled down from above as the
wind wove through the interstices of the highest branches.
Rachael stayed close to Benny and pressed against the trunk of the
spruce. The rough bark prickled even through her blouse.
She felt as if they remained frozen there, listening alertly and peering
intently into the woods, for at least a quarter of an hour, though she
knew it must have been less than a minute. Then, warily, Benny started
uphill again, angling slightly to the right to follow a shallow dry wash