The Ridge (33 page)

“I want to know what you see,” he said.

“And you think I will see something? Still?”

“Yes,” he said. “There’s a folder back there. Pictures inside.”

She picked it up, opened it, began to sift through.

“Do you recognize any of them?”

“I’m supposed to recognize someone from photographs this old?”

“I thought you might.”

She looked up, and when he looked in the mirror he could see her eyes narrow.

“You think one of them is him,” she said.

“I don’t know. Wyatt French had the pictures. You were among them. So were the others like you. And then there are many that I don’t understand. I hoped you might.”

She fell silent for a time as she went through them one by one.

“No,” she said. “None of them are him.”

“You’d actually remember?”

“Kevin,” she said, “it’s not a face that you forget.”

“I think I know who he was,” Kimble said. “Who he claimed to be, at least, what he called himself. Silas Vesey. Does that mean anything to you?”

“No. How did you find the name?”

He told her about it as he drove, told her about all the work Roy Darmus had done, the story of the trestle and the fever and the man who’d wandered out of the hills with breath that smelled like cold ashes and said that he might be able to bind people to the bridge as Whitman had wanted, but that it would be far easier to do so with the sick and desperate men.

“Do you believe that story?” he asked her.

“It’s the truth,” she said simply. He looked at her in the mirror
again, saw her sitting in the backseat staring out the window like a child on a car trip.

“You can’t be so sure of that.”

She turned to face him. “I think I can. I’ve been one of them. The desperate. I’ve seen him. Kevin, that story is the truth.”

It was full night by the time they reached Sawyer County, and Kimble was driving with caution, the roads slick with a light dusting of snow. There was more on the way tonight, the forecasters said. He stared out into the moonlit countryside of this place he’d known so well for his entire life and suddenly felt as if he did not know it at all, the beauty of rocky peaks and wooded hollows shifting on him, developing a constant, whispering menace.

They rounded the curves of County Road 200 and then turned onto Blade Ridge Road. Kimble had called Audrey Clark to tell her that he’d be making a patrol and not to be alarmed if she saw a police car—it would just be him, passing through. He didn’t want to have to stop at the preserve and allow her the chance to see him with Jacqueline.

As they drove down the rutted gravel track the lighthouse came into view, and Jacqueline turned to stare at it.

“Dark again,” she said.

Not completely,
Kimble thought.
With any luck, not completely. If Wyatt knew what he was doing with those infrared lamps, it only
looks
dark to us.

They passed by the gates to the preserve, and Jacqueline said, “Are those
lions?
”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think this is such a good place for cats like those.”

“That seems to be a growing sentiment,” he said. They went on past the preserve and all the way to the end of the road, where the gravel ended in trees. Kimble brought the car to a stop and turned out the lights.

“Here we are.”

“Yes.” She was quiet, subdued. He looked at her in the mirror and saw that she was watching the dark trees with apprehension.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “I can take you back and—”

“I have to, Kevin. You need me to. Don’t deny that.”

He shut the engine off, left the car, and opened her door. She stepped out and wrapped her arms around herself, and he realized for the first time that she had no jacket. He took off his own and held it out, and she gave him a faint smile.

“Thank you.”

When she turned and slipped into it, first one arm and then the other, her hair was close to his face and he could smell her, feel her back brushing against his chest.

“Such a gentleman,” she said. “Will you still hold my coat for me on the second date, or does it fade quickly?”

He opened his mouth but didn’t get out a response. His tongue was wooden, his throat tight. She zipped up his jacket and smiled at him. He couldn’t see the orange of the prison uniform now. Couldn’t see anything but the fine lines of her face in the moonlight and the dark hair cascading over his coat.

“A romantic walk in the woods, is that the plan, sir?” she said.

“Sure,” he said. His voice was unsteady.

Jacqueline looked at the outline of the mountains in the moonlit night, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

“Years,” she said. “It has been
years
since I stood anywhere and felt free.”

He didn’t answer. She stood with her eyes shut and one snowflake fell into her hair. He reached out, without thinking, to brush it away. When she opened her eyes and took his arm, he stiffened. She kept her hold on his arm and tugged gently. He took a step forward, and she came in to meet him, leaned up, and kissed him. When her lips touched his, Kimble’s legs trembled. The presence of her weakened him. Gloriously.

She shot you
.

He stepped back, almost stumbling, said, “Jacqueline we’re here to—”

“I know what we’re here to do,” she said. “I know that better than you do, Kevin. But I needed that moment. I’m sorry.”

He said, “Thank you.” It wasn’t what he should have said, but it was all that came out.

She smiled again, smiled in that way that slid right through him.

Just like the bullet, Kimble? Does it slide through you just like the bullet?

“All those visits,” she said. “All that faith. Thank
you,
Kevin.”

It was silent, and he looked up at the trees and the path that led into blackness. “Maybe we shouldn’t go out there.”

She let out a breath, looked over her shoulder, and said, “It’s why you brought me here. You want to know what I see, right? Well, let’s have a look.”

“All right,” he said, and he could still taste her on his lips as he followed her into the darkness.

W
HEN SHE HEARD THE SOUND
of a car approaching, Audrey went to the window and peered out. A moment later it came into view, and she saw the now far-too-familiar sheriff’s decal on the side, the light bar on top.

“Kimble,” she said, and felt relieved. She liked Kimble. Trusted him.

Behind her Dustin Hall peered over her shoulder.

“He’s not getting out, is he?” he said.

“I don’t know. He told me he would be making some patrols tonight. That was all.”

“Well, after last night, I hope he’s not intending to walk around alone.”

“I know,” she said. Dustin’s presence had been Kimble’s idea, but Audrey was beginning to think it was a bad one. As competent as he’d been during the day, he was jittery at night. Then again, maybe he was just picking that up from her. She’d been pacing nonstop, making regular trips to the window, matching the restless behavior of the cats. They were peaceful tonight,
though—no roars, no rattling of fences, no stretching upright and craning to see into the darkness.

Please, let it stay that way,
she thought.
One night of peace. That’s all I’m asking for.

But of course it was not. She would need more than one night. It would take time, Joe Taft had said. How much time, she wasn’t sure. But it would be much more than one night.

When it was done, though? When whatever amount of time Joe needed had passed and the cats she’d devoted the past several years of her life to were gone? What then?

Back to the legal world. She’d been thrilled to get away from it. The idea of returning to Lexington or Louisville and working in an office every day, drawing up wills and endowments and business mergers and handling corporate disputes, felt so wrong. She could go somewhere else entirely, of course, pass the bar in a new state and find a new city and get involved with a new kind of practice.

That didn’t seem any more appealing, though. Her life had become these cats. She didn’t want to lose that. Part of aging was adapting, was acceptance that all the planning in the world didn’t stand a chance against the fickle winds of fate, but hadn’t she adapted enough lately? Did she have to turn her back on the preserve that held her heart?

Dustin said, “What are you thinking about, Audrey?”

He was wearing his Whitman College sweatshirt and looked impossibly young. She was not inclined to tell him the truth. That all the best-laid plans of youth could be shattered in a slip-and-fall, a single misplaced step in the night, and the life you thought was promised to you would begin to vanish until the very memory of your plans seemed ludicrous.

“I’m thinking,” she said, “that I could use a glass of wine.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

“Are you even old enough to drink?”

He smiled. “I’m twenty-four, Audrey.”

Of course. He was a graduate student, working toward his doctorate in biology, just as David once had. Audrey was only nine years older than he was. How was that possible?

“Well, then, we’ll have a drink,” she said.

She went into the kitchen, trying not to concentrate on the fact that Kimble’s car had not returned up the road, that he was indeed making his night patrol on foot in the woods.

Surveillance looked a hell of a lot more exciting in the movies. This was no stunning revelation, but the understanding of just how tedious it was came as a painful surprise to Roy.

He’d been parked in the abandoned gas station parking lot for hours now, his back and legs stiffening as he stared out at a dark country road where few cars passed at all. At first he’d been worried about missing Shipley’s truck because of traffic. Now he was worried about missing Shipley’s truck because of falling asleep.

He made a pass down the road just to see how things looked at the home, found no sign of activity, and returned to his position. Within ten minutes, he wanted to make another pass. It was hard to just sit in the dark and stare at nothing.

He ran the Honda’s engine for a while, keeping the lights off, to let the heater fill the car with warm air again, then used the radio to get a little rock ’n’ roll going to help him wake up. He wished he’d thought to bring a thermos of coffee. Rookie mistake.

The heater pushed the chill from the car, but the warm air made him drowsier. He leaned back in the seat, yawned, and fought the heavy eyelids.

He hoped Kimble was making progress.

T
HEY WALKED IN SILENCE
, and Kimble kept his hand on his gun, well aware of the black cat. The woods were quiet, but did that mean anything? He’d seen enough of these cats now to know that when so inclined, they could move with all the advance warning of a gust of wind.

When they reached the edge of the trestle, fog draped around them and the moonlight painted the steep stone cliffs a sparkling white. He stood beside Jacqueline, cold now that he’d given her his jacket, and watched her face as she swiveled her head slowly, taking it all in.

“Do you see anything?”

She didn’t answer, just took a few hesitant steps forward, then ducked and slipped through the torn-up stretch of chain link that had once—many years and many vandals before—kept people from reaching the trestle.

“I’d like to go out onto the bridge.”

He didn’t particularly like that idea, not after the tale Darmus had recounted earlier today—
those last nails were driven by dead men—
but he didn’t argue. Just followed her, one hand on his gun.

They walked out ten paces, the old boards creaking beneath their feet.

“All right,” he said, and his voice seemed too loud. “Stop here. Let’s have a look.”

He turned and stared off to the south, following the river’s path.
This is madness,
he thought.
You’ll lose your badge for it and you should; no one who would do a thing like this has any right to a badge, has any right—

Jacqueline said, “You’re looking the wrong way.”

She’d been at his side just a blink ago, had moved away in swift silence. She was five paces from him and at the other side of the bridge, facing north, looking into the rocks below the trestle. Kimble watched her stare out into the darkness and the mist and he felt afraid in a way he never had before. Or at least in a way that he hadn’t been in years. Not since he was down on the farmhouse floor with his blood all around him and she was moving in the shadows.

“What do you see?” he said.

She shifted, arching her back as if for a better view, watching that spot in the rocks like a fan in the nosebleed seats of a football stadium craning to see the action. Kimble followed the path of her stare, tried to see something, anything, and could not. He still hadn’t taken his hand from his gun.