The Stars Shine Bright (53 page)

Her mouth trembled.

“I thought you were somebody else.”

I closed the door. I felt a wave of vertigo. When I looked up, Handler was standing at the end of the hallway. The old dog stumbled to his side.

“I could've told you,” he said. “She's got cancer. She's dying. Are you satisfied?”

I nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Now get out before I call the cops. Again.”

Chapter Sixty-One

S
itting in the car, I wondered about my sanity.

I kept looking back at the farmhouse. How could I have been so wrong? The pink shirt. The retching. But that woman, gasping like a dying breath. I closed my eyes, trying to get rid of the image, and somewhere far away I heard horns. Brass. Ringing inside my purse.

I flipped open the phone and stared at the caller ID.

“Never mind,” I said. “You're too late.”

“That's impossible,” Jack said. “I have perfect timing.”

The sun had slipped behind the western hills. A half-moon was rising in the gloaming light, its ivory edges hazy. In these last fractional moments of day, under the heathery blanket of dusk, everything looked fragile. Perishable. The barns, the horses, the fences.

“You're late and I was wrong.”

“Well, you're definitely wrong,” he said. “But I'm not late.”

I tucked the phone between my ear and my shoulder and shoved the gear into first. The driveway was rutty. The Ghost resented the gulleys.

“Thanks for rubbing it in,” I said. “Just what I needed.”

“Harmon, what you need is another check on those trailers. There's more than one plate.”

One foot slammed into the clutch. The other hit the brake. “What did you say?”

“Turns out there are two EKWAS plates. One belongs to Corke. But the other one belongs to Handler. It has an Oregon title and registration.”

“How did you find out?”

“Remember what I said about taxes? Well, Communist Oregon is worse than the People's Republic of Washington. And since I have an actual job”—he cleared his throat, significantly—“I decided to run one big general IRS check on Handler. He's delinquent on taxes in Oregon and has been accruing fines. But the fines on a horse trailer are small, so they haven't come after him. Yet.”

“Oregon?” I stared out the windshield. The purple light in the sky was turning black. “What was he doing in Oregon?”

“From his paper trail, it looks like Handler had a horse farm around Eugene. Right after he left Corke's place. But he lost the property two years later. Foreclosure. He came back to Washington and next thing you know, he's the owner of that parcel of land outside Yakima. And if you were still working here, you could find out how he paid for it.”

I glanced up into the rearview mirror. The farmhouse windows threw columns of light on the dark ground.

“But,” Jack said, “as a final favor I decided to check. Final, Harmon. Did you hear that?”

“Yes.”

“His cosigner on the mortgage is a company called Abbondanza.”

A white noise was ringing in my ears. And my second wind shifted into third. Farther down the driveway, by the ranch's entrance, I could see a faint outline of the yurts, illuminated by the flickering orange light in the fire pit. People were moving around the fire. Dancing, it seemed. They looked like Kokopelli figures.

“Harmon.”

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“At Handler's.”

“That's what I thought. I'm calling Ortiz.”

“Jack, I'm already her—”

He hung up.

I drove onto the grass and hid the Ghost behind the trailers at the base of the hill. I got out, shoved the gun into the waistband of my jeans, at the small of my back, and would've donated an ovary for a Maglite. All I had was the half-moon and my cell phone's LCD screen. In the night air, the sound of the dry grass cracking under my tennis shoes sounded as loud as twigs snapping. I leaned down, searching for any trailer that even vaguely matched Juan's description. I finally found a white single and rubbed my fingers over the license plate, trying to read the embossed metal like Braille. I lifted the phone, squinting.

EKWAS. Oregon.

It was parked all the way in back, with its hitch pointed toward the open field. The moon shining on my back stretched my shadow over the white doors. I grabbed the handle, then remembered how the other EKWAS trailer squeaked when Handler opened it. Just in case, I turned it by centimeters. The moon made the paint look silver. And when the door opened, I could see her eyes.

Her terrified eyes. Like the woman in the bedroom.

But Ashley Trenner had another reason to be scared. A dull swath of duct tape covered her mouth. Her wrists were bound together, and something was tied to her body. My eyes were still adjusting, but suddenly I could see them. Bricks. Taped bricks. And there was enough light for me to see the black irrigation line. It snaked around her like an asp.

The bomb.

Ashley shook her head.

“You're going to be okay,” I said.

She tried to talk. But the tape blocked her words.

“Don't worry. I've got—”

The pain came suddenly. Stabbing between my shoulder blades. I looked at Ashley. Her eyes were too large. Scared.

“Get in,” he said.

I didn't move. He stabbed again.

I picked up my right knee, as if to step into the trailer. But I kicked back, like a donkey. My foot connected. Hard enough that air
oomphed
from his lungs. I dropped my cell phone and reached for the gun. But as I spun around, something hit my wrist. The gun fell. I dropped to my knees.

The girl named Bo held a burning torch. “Get her gun!” she yelled.

I was slapping my hands on the stiff grass, searching. I felt something hard, grabbed it. My cell phone. I swept my hand over the ground. Desperate for the gun. But suddenly I couldn't breathe and my teeth had clacked together. I felt myself lifted off the ground, landing on my back.

I looked up at the night sky. The torch. And a moment later, my gun.

The tattooed bald guy aimed the barrel at my face.

“Now we understand each other,” he said. “Get in the trailer.”

My abdomen ached. I rolled over slowly, trying to breathe. I was on my knees when I looked up again. Brent Roth stood behind him.

Worse, I could see the weapon in Brent's hand. A stick. He got me with a stick.

“We found the smoke detectors,” I said. “And we know what's missing.”

Bo lifted the torch. Her freckles were like soot, smeared on her skin. She glared at Brent.

“How does she know?”

“She doesn't,” he said.

I stood, moving by inches. The trailer's back edge pressed into my calves. One step backward and I was gone.

“The FBI's on its way,” I said.

“What?!” The Skull shook the gun.

“She's bluffing.” Bo turned to Brent. “Isn't she?”

He stared at me. The nice assistant vet was gone. I felt a stab of shame, looking at him.
How did I miss this?
His skin was waxen. The cold, dead look in his eyes.

“No,” he said. “She's not bluffing.”

“But you just said—”

“I changed my mind!” He snarled. “She wouldn't be here unless she knew. And the Feds will bust us for the labs.”

Bo waved the torch, cursing. And the Skull was shaking; I could tell because the Sig's barrel was moving around too fast. But Brent seemed calm. Preternaturally still. The pocked skin was slick with perspiration. And I could smell his odor. That was the stench in Ashley's room. The poison, leaking from his body.

“Give up now,” I said, “it'll be a lot easier. For all of you.”

He looked over my shoulder. Squinting to find Ashley.

“She didn't tell me,” I said. “And you need to get to a hospital. Right away. You're very sick. You're dying.”

“Nice try.” He smiled, coldly. “I'm a doctor.”

“You're not even a vet. You're a physics dropout.”

The Skull's mouth fell open. “They're onto us, Thor!”

Thor?

I looked at Brent.
Thor?
I tried to recall Ortiz's surveillance photos. That mop with glasses. Running through the pet store. The hair was short now. And the next thing hit like a thunderbolt. Why he squinted so much. No glasses. It was Thor. Right in front of me. Ortiz would kill me.

If they didn't do it first.

And they were arguing which to do—kill me, then kill Ashley. Or kill Ashley, then kill me. And what about getting to the track? Maybe, Bo said, they could hook me and Ashley to the bomb. Get rid of us both at the same time. I was listening to them but was also having one of my out-of-body experiences, when my mind went somewhere to think, floating up above the fear and panic, and in that moment I saw something move behind them. It crept. Sneaking up. I glanced at Bo. Her eyes were wild, the torch swinging back and forth, and when it swung back again, I could see it clearly.

And then I heard it. Unmistakable.

The racking shotgun.

“Youse three,” he said. “Add your faces to the dirt.”

They looked at me. But I didn't understand either. His gruff voice was foreign. Russian?

“Ey-yay-yay. Faces, I tell you. To the dirt. Or I will appreciate to shoot you very much.”

Hard on the consonants, mangling English. I combed through the words, translating. He said “youse three.” I took a chance.

Reaching out, I snatched my gun from Skull. Bo held the torch, and the light showed her face. It looked fisted with anger. Furious.

“I'm sure you can count,” I said. “It's two guns, one torch, you lose.”

Thor was moving to his knees. He folded down like a stick man, breaking in pieces. The Skull went down too, face to the ground as the man had asked. Only Bo hesitated.

“Hands on the back of your head,” I said. “Rainbow.”

When she went down, there was nothing between me and the man with the shotgun. I lifted the torch, wondering if he planned to shoot me after he killed them. Steal the bomb? Right now, anything seemed possible. And nothing made sense. There were shiny circles on his clothing. Buttons, I realized. On a dark suit. It made him look stumpy. He was short, his hair oiled and forced back from his square Slavic forehead. Left hand forward on the shotgun, he steadied the long barrel, keeping it pointed at the three people on the ground. But in the flickering torchlight I saw a flash of metal. Gold. On his finger. A ring. A gold ring on his pinkie.

Just like the one shining through the Cadillac's windshield.

My shadow. In the flesh. Sal Gag. He must have figured out where Ashley was.

The stubby man lifted his eyes to me.

“Toots,” he said. “You got cell phone?”

I nodded. His accent broke each word. Every syllable a full stop.

“You make call. Police? Say, We got bad guys.”

I wanted to make a call, all right, but I needed to find my phone. Keeping one eye on the man, I lifted the torch and searched the grass. Then I shoved the torch's staked bottom into the dry ground until it stood upright. Each shove dimmed the flame. And I refused to let go of the Sig. I flipped open the phone, ready to press “1,” but I never got to make the call.

A siren screamed behind me. I turned. Red lights flashed against the night sky, and they were followed by blue lights. And white headlights that sliced through the dark like swords. I glanced at the Russian.

He was gone.

I leaned forward. Blinded by the lights, I thought. My eyes weren't adjusting.

But he wasn't there.

I could hear cars skidding on the gravel. Doors slamming. I held the Sig pointed at the people on the ground, who had followed the man's orders and put their faces to the dirt. And when Ana Ortiz came around the side of the trailer, she was her own beam of light. Headlamp strapped to her forehead, she held an MP-3, poised and ready. The semiautomatic rifle was compact and lethal. Like the agent.

I raised my hands. “It's me.”

“Who are they?”

“Meet Thor.”

She smiled. The big teeth glowed in the dark.

“Rainbow's here too. I don't know the other guy.”

“I do,” Ortiz said. “Name's Snake.”

More car doors were slamming. Headlights bounced over the grass. I saw flashlight beams raking across the trailers. Four officers came up behind Ortiz. Each one was twice her size and each one accepted her barking orders. Cuff the three people on the ground, round up the rest of the ranch hands.

Slowly, very slowly, I slid the Sig into the small of my back. The cops had cuffed Bo, Thor, Snake. I took five steps forward. The grass was broken, the blades snapped in half. I looked out, into the dark. The field stretched thirty yards, then disappeared around the hillside.