Page 84 of South of Nowhere

So, Lavelle’s car had not proceeded straight down the mining trail from Route 13, as they had driven, but had swerved right, toward the river.

The men walked forward to the edge.

Millwood froze, choking. “My God!”

The Camaro lay upside down in about six feet of water. It was clear to Shaw that she had gotten stuck in the mud near the edge ofthe cliff and had tried to work her way out. She must have hit the gas too hard, and wheels spinning, the car skewed sideways—tumbling over the edge into the stream, which was here about eight feet wide.

He noted the doors were closed but the window nearest to where they stood—the passenger side—was partly opened. Though the vehicle was too close to the side of the gulley for an adult to climb out.

The other side?

He couldn’t tell.

Shaw dropped his backpack, opened it and reached inside for rope. He got as far as saying, “Here’s what we’re going to—” when John Millwood stripped off his jacket—the name Armani briefly visible—and flung it aside.

“No!” Shaw called.

The man paid him no mind but kicked his shoes off and leapt into the water.

He was instantly caught in the fierce current and his efforts to grip the car were useless, as he was carried past it into the whitewater torrent in seconds.

“Help me!” Millwood cried, grabbing momentarily onto a rock outcropping.

As he lost his grip and was swept away, he shouted some additional words in a desperate, choking voice.

He could not swim.

36.

Time Elapsed from Initial Collapse: 12 Hours

Keep the boss happy.

Never piss off the boss.

Never disappoint the boss.

Despite what absolutely fuckingawfulcircumstances you’ve found yourself in.

Hire Denton drove the hobbling Jeep along a strip of mud, gravel and rocks that passed for a trail.

Which it really wasn’t.

It was a strip of mud and gravel and rocks.

Trailswere more or less smooth and more or less obstacle free and wide enough so that—unlike here—you didn’t fall off the side and tumble fifty feet into a gulley if you as much as sneezed or looked away for a half second.

Careful.

Hire was his legal name. Being on the mission he presently was engaged in, he thought again how it would look on his tombstone. Like an advertisement for a day laborer.

Thank you, Mom and Dad.

He could always leave instructions for the undertaker to make it “H. Denton.”

Or just change it.

But that meant going to a lawyer or going to a courthouse and filling out papers and it was really just too much trouble.

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