The Nightmare Thief (23 page)

Then they stopped. The wind swirled, and Jo heard the pickup’s engine. She heard it change gears.

The lights reversed direction and swept back toward the clearing.

“Up,” she said. “Hurry.”

Autumn struggled to pull herself into the saddle. The horse stamped its feet and tried to spin. Jo held tight to the reins. Autumn swung a leg over the horse’s back and grabbed Jo around the waist and struggled onto the horse’s rump behind the saddle.

“Who killed them?”

“Kyle.”

Autumn went rigid. “Kyle?
Kyle?
He’s one of them?”

“And he’s in that truck. He tried to drive up the track all the way to the gorge, but obviously couldn’t. He’s come back, looking for another way to get there.”

The headlights swept across the trees, strobing like an old-time movie reel. They caught Jo and Autumn, and stopped. Spotlight.

“Hang on,” Jo said.

She kicked the horse, whipped it with the end of the reins, and held her breath. They took off east toward the forest.

T
he horse clattered over the rough ground, gaining speed, working hard with two riders on its back. Jo urged it forward with her hands. Behind her Autumn bumped around, squeezing tight to her waist. From behind them, the headlights illuminated their path. That was incredibly helpful and very bad. Through the wind Jo heard the round growl of an old, big internal-combustion engine.

“He’s coming,” Autumn shouted.

Jo squeezed the horse’s flanks and fought to keep the toes of her hiking boots in the stirrups. “Hang on.”

She bent against the horse’s neck, flicked the reins, and shouted at it—“
Hah.
Go, boy. Go.”

The horse accelerated. They galloped across the pasture toward the trees. The rain was cold and stinging in the wind. She kept low, bending to the horse’s neck, keeping her weight over its shoulders. She might make it. She started to believe. She could get up the hill, get to the ridge and down the other side, all the way on horseback if she had to. In the truck, Kyle would not be able to do that.

It was four hundred yards farther on, in the near dark, that she saw what she had forgotten. The barbed-wire fence.

 

 

In the garish light from the pickup’s headlamps, the wire was a dull glint. Jo wouldn’t have seen it if not for the rain. They were headed straight for it.

“Oh God.”

She pulled on the reins, turned the horse right, and spurred it parallel to the fence. Ahead the cows were bunched, heads in, growing unsettled by the noise of the approaching hooves and the truck.

“I’m slipping,” Autumn said.

Jo felt the girl jerk up and down behind her. “Hang on.”

“I can’t.”

Behind them the truck broke from the trees and jounced across the field toward them, lights jinking crazily over the rough ground. The engine gunned. Lightning flashed, and the horse spooked.

It bucked and took off across the field, kicking its hind legs. Autumn cried out, lost her grip on Jo’s waist, and thwacked to the ground.

Jo hauled back on the reins. “Whoa. Whoa.”

“Help,” Autumn shouted.

Jo tugged and groaned and got the horse to slow down and turn. It was frightened, and she knew her own fear was transmitting to it. She kicked its ribs and nudged it forward. The truck was coming.

“I’m caught,” Autumn shouted.

Jo saw her in the zigzagging lights of the pickup. She had been thrown into the barbed-wire fence. She had flown through the gap between two strings of wire—and caught her shoulders on the upper wire, her legs on the bottom. She was tangled like Raggedy Ann, her butt on the ground on the far side of the fence, her clothes and hair snagged on the barbs, pinned.

Jo swung down from the horse’s back. Holding on to the reins, she ran to Autumn’s side.

“Hurry,” Autumn said.

The lights of the pickup grew brighter. The cattle lowed and milled behind them. Jo picked at Autumn’s sleeves. The barbs had gone through and twisted inside the fabric of her sweatshirt.

“I have to pull the sweatshirt off,” she said. “Wriggle your arms out.”

Autumn panted and twisted and her hands disappeared up the sleeves of the sweatshirt. Jo pulled the sweatshirt over the girl’s head. Blood streaked the girl’s arms, but Autumn didn’t react. Jo picked her jeans free of the barbs. Autumn’s gleaming leather riding boots didn’t catch on the fence.

“Clear,” Jo shouted.

Autumn rolled away, breathing hard, and clambered to her feet on the far side of the fence.

“Run,” Jo said.

She took off across the barren ground, aiming for the hills and the tree line two hundred yards away.

The truck was nearly upon Jo. For a second, she thought about crawling through the fence and making a dash for it behind Autumn. But she didn’t have the time or the speed. Only the horse did.

She grabbed the saddle horn, jammed her left foot in the stirrup, and shouted crazily at the animal. The cattle scattered in all directions behind her as the truck pounded through the pasture.

The truck’s headlights swelled. The horse broke into full flight, with Jo hanging off its left side, one foot dragging on the ground. The horse was powerful, bunching and stretching, racing across the field. If she lost her grip on the saddle horn, she’d fall with her foot caught in the stirrup, and she’d be dragged. Her arms ached. Her hands were wet from the rain. The truck roared across the field.

She smelled leather and the strong, dusty scent of the horse and ozone from the lightning. With a shout, she hauled herself up and threw her upper body across the saddle. She thumped up and down. The horse was running, simply running from the truck alongside the barbed-wire fence.

The truck had not chased Autumn. It was coming after her.

It scattered the cattle and plowed across the field, bucking almost worse than the horse. The horse’s head bobbed as it galloped across the pasture. Jo jammed her foot securely in the stirrup and held on to the saddle horn and, teeth gritted, grabbed its mane. For a moment she bounced, out of synch. Then she found the rhythm. She got her balance in the stirrup and swung her right leg over the saddle.

She pressed her knees into the saddle and against the horse’s flanks. Behind her the headlights dipped and rose, like a boat on a crazy sea. The truck’s suspension crunched.

Fence posts raced along to her left. The night ahead swallowed the view. The headlights caught her, swung up, down, centered again.

Straight ahead, the fence made a ninety-degree turn to the right. It turned in a neat rectangular corner, like the land grant plot it probably had been back in Gold Rush days. Adrenaline flooded her system, scalp to fingers to toes. The horse was blowing. She bent to make herself as tight against it as she could. They raced across the ground, the horse’s mane hitting her in the face.

The headlights threw the horse’s shadow ahead of Jo, stretching toward the barbed wire, the wire now gleaming and rain slick in the lights.

Then the truck slowed and the lights veered away, to the right, sweeping an arc across the pasture and the night. Jo let out a cry.

The driver had seen the fence. He was anticipating that she would turn. And he was going to cut her off by turning first.

By turning inside her, he would put the driver’s window side-on to her. And by doing that, he would give himself a big, unobstructed field of fire. He had the rancher’s shotgun. And as an old hunter once told her, the best thing about a big shotgun was the margin of error.

She kicked the horse. She whipped it with the reins and screamed out loud, and she aimed straight at the fence.

U
nder the amber lights in Jo’s kitchen, Tang punched numbers on her phone. She said, “I need you to connect me to the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office.”

Tina paced like a frantic cat. Evan couldn’t get the young woman to slow down. She took up pacing with her.

Tang squinted out the French windows as, apparently, the call was connected. “This is Lieutenant Amy Tang of the San Francisco Police Department. I need to speak to the watch commander. It’s urgent.”

A moment later, she said, “Sergeant, I need you to check on a possible missing person.”

She laid out the basics quickly and aggressively. Evan could barely hear the Tuolumne County sergeant asking questions. From Tang’s face, he seemed to be asking the right questions.

“Dr. Beckett is investigating a murder. She hasn’t been seen since reporting from her foray on foot to the abandoned mine.” She gave him Jo’s last-known coordinates. “Thank you. I’ll be on this number.”

She hung up. “He’s on it.”

Tina finally stopped pacing. “What’s he going to do?”

“Send a deputy to the spot where Jo most likely parked.”

Tina tipped her head back. “Why couldn’t Jo have a quiet psychotherapy practice, like a normal shrink? Why does she have to put herself on the line?”

Tang said, “We’re doing everything we can.”

Tina nodded and caught her breath and put her hands to her eyes. “Okay.”

Tang glanced at Evan and nodded her into the living room. The cop moved with sharp economy. In black, with the elbows and spiky hair, she reminded Evan of a stealth fighter. Swift, quiet, giving nothing away.

She crossed her arms and faced the bay window. “Finding Jo is mission critical. But it’s not my only concern.”

“The issue isn’t only where Jo is. It’s where Ruby Kyle Ratner is,” Evan said.

“Right.” Tang stared out the window. In the low light, her reflection was a dark wisp, backlit in gold. “We need to presume he’s a factor in the death of Phelps Wylie. An active factor.”

“He killed him, you mean.”

“And he may be a continuing source of momentum and entropy.”

Evan eyed her. “You think there’s some game going on, and he’s an active player.”

“That’s my fear.”

“Mine too,” Evan said. “ ‘Punishment.’ That’s the term the carjacker used. And it didn’t sound like a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Think Wylie was murdered because of something he had going with Ratner? Personal? Business?”

“Maybe. Or because of something Wylie had going as part of … call it a larger concern.”

“Because there’s no record of Ratner being a client of Wylie’s.”

“None,” Evan said. “Wylie’s firm handles corporations, financial entities, venture capital and hedge fund clients, and high-networth individuals. That doesn’t fit Ratner, unless his mother’s cowboy figurines are rare collectibles.”

Tang thought for a moment. “We need to find out where he is.”

She gave Evan a tart look.

“Yeah, I figured as much,” Evan said. “We’re going back to Ma Ratner’s hoedown, aren’t we?”

“The operative word being
we.
”

“You’ll be armed. But you want me to ring the doorbell.”

Tina walked in. “Open the trunk.”

She pointed at the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. Evan removed a stack of books and magazines and opened the lid. She nearly laughed in surprise.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll rely on my ability to jump into the bushes while Lt. Tang holds Ma Ratner at bay with her service weapon.”

“Think about it,” Tina said.

Inside the trunk, resting on a blue silk cloth, was a Japanese samurai sword. It was sheathed in a black lacquered scabbard that looked exceptionally old.

Tina walked over. “Tokugawa era. Our grandmother bequeathed it to Jo.”

“I have no doubt it would do the trick,” Evan said.

Evan wanted to say,
Who is she?
Who was Jo Beckett, who kept books on psychoanalytic diagnosis on her coffee table, beside her
Outside
magazines. Who had a
katana
within quick reach. And she decided that Tina’s words had a double meaning:
Think about it.
Think about Jo. Think about honor and about fighting all the way to the end.

On the mantel were framed family photos. One pictured Jo and Tina with a young man who had to be their brother. Another pictured a couple in their late fifties she took to be their parents. They had California tans and wore flip-flops and aloha shirts. The mom looked slightly more Asian than her kids. The dad looked slightly more Mediterranean. In another photo, Jo sat on a picnic bench, looking relaxed and sun splashed. Sitting beside her was a man in his early thirties, with strong looks and a grin that seemed both loving and watchful. He looked—Evan stared for a long, solid chunk of seconds—supremely fit. Deceptively relaxed. Cut from some sleek and polished brand of stone. He didn’t look proprietorial toward Jo, but there was no doubt they were together. Swimmer’s shoulders. That confidence. And something beneath the affable, “
it’s cool, bro”
smile.

“Is that Jo’s partner? The guy she’s with today?”

“Gabe Quintana,” Tina said.

Tang’s smoked-glass, mirrored gaze, which let her see out without letting others peer in, slipped for a moment. Her face registered a strong burst of emotion.

She said, “He’s a PJ with the One-twenty-ninth Rescue Wing of the Air National Guard. Nobody knows more about wilderness survival.”

Tina’s expression thinned. “That’s the situation you think they’re in?”

Tang’s mask came back down. “If they are, Jo couldn’t be in better company.”

Evan held her counsel. The strength of feeling in the room could have registered on a Geiger counter.

Evan had her little sister, Georgie. And she had her brother, Brian, a naval aviator. She adored them. She would do anything for her family.

Tina’s fear was naked on her face. So was her sense of helplessness. The
not knowing
was unbearable. Evan understood that sensation too.

She closed the lid of the steamer trunk. “Anybody who cares for a sword so lovingly has my vote. Tina, you keep it close. The lieutenant and I will try to find out more information.”