Page 115 of South of Nowhere

Coyne skidded to a stop and they climbed out. They were in a weedy clearing and ahead of them was a thick band of trees. Through them he could make out the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle at the mine entrance. The Olechu County Sheriff’s Office had finally arrived. They were probably a perfectly competent law enforcement agency but Shaw sensed they would move methodically—read slowly—and that wasn’t good enough for Shaw. He wanted Bear. And he wanted him now.

Coyne asked, “What’re we looking for?”

He pointed to the fence with his tactical flashlight. He handed his spare to her and she turned it on. “The bomber disappeared into this part of the woods. We want footprints, tire prints.”

Eyes on the ground, sweeping the beam, Shaw walked toward the road, looking for a muddy patch. There was a lot of ground cover here and he could find no tire treads. Coyne joined him. “And who is this guy?”

“We know he’s professional. Mercenary probably. I thought he was working for Redding—I saw him at the mine. But now we’re thinking he’s on somebody else’s payroll. Whoever writes his checks writes big ones. He uses high-end aftershave.”

She turned his way but he offered nothing further on the subject.

“There.” Shaw had found treads of a parked vehicle. And shoe or boot prints leading from the driver’s door to the rear, where presumably, the IED had been stored.

He examined the tire treads and measured them, jotting the results in his notebook. You couldn’t narrow down the make and model, but Shaw deduced he was in a pickup truck. He took a picture of the tread marks but there probably wasn’t enough detail to nail the brand.

He then retraced the steps from the tread marks to the highway, staring down at the bright disk of halogen.

“Looking for anything in particular?”

“If he dropped something. Doesn’t happen often but after perps commit the crime they’re more careless. They want to get away fast. I’ve found business cards and hotel room keys. But Bear—what I’m calling him—apparently not.”

“Youarelike a cop. I mean, I guess you have to be, in the reward business, looking for escapees and fugitives.”

So. She’d looked him up.

He called Debi Starr.

“Hey, Colter.”

“I found where Bear parked.” He sent the picture to her. “Here’s a tread mark. Not very detailed.”

A pause. “No. Can’t make the brand. The track? A pickup, right?”

“I’m guessing.”

“My, that narrows it down to…Let me think. Oh, right…One hundred and twelve percent of the county. Anything else?”

“No.”

She thanked him and they disconnected. Coyne and he returned to the Jeep.

Coyne was saying, “I was thinking of you being a cop. I remember my dad and I used to watch the old detective shows, likeMatlock,Hill Street Blues,Law and Order.” A sad laugh. “Nice times.”

They climbed in and drove back at a less frantic pace.

Coyne seemed thoughtful, and Shaw supposed she was reflecting on her history with Redding. Maybe thinking of the poker game where Redding’s father took advantage of hers. Losing that four hundred acres probably changed the entire nature of the farm, shifting it from comfortably profitable to a challenge to stay afloat every season.

And what would happen now that her rival was no more?

They returned in silence to the house and she drove over the drawbridge, parking beside the Yamaha.

She swung out and stood for a moment, hands on her hips, looking up at the sky. Then her gaze dropped to the trenches. Now that she’d learned that there was a real possibility that the levee would still blow, she was assessing.

She seemed confident they would save the farm from disaster. And turned to him with a smile. “That beer now?”

“Sure.”

As they walked to the house, Shaw noticed that they were the only ones on the property. “Your workers? They’ll be all right?”

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