Page 11 of Never Flinch

Trig drags the woman through the bushes edging the trail and into the thin woods, looking both ways until he’s under cover. Cars are passing nearby, but he can’t see them.

The dog, he thinks.Someone will wonder why it’s out with its leash trailing. Or it will come back. I should have let it go.

Too late now.

He takes the leather folder from his pocket. His hands are trembling a lot now, and he almost drops it. There’s a dead woman at his feet. Everything she was is now gone. He fumbles through the slips of paper. Andrew Groves… no… Philip Jacoby… no… Steven Furst… no. Where are the women? Where are the goddamwomen? At last he comes upon Letitia Overton. A Black woman, and the woman he’s killed is white, but it doesn’t matter. He may not be able to leave a name with all his targets, but with this one he can. He puts it between two fingers of her open hand, then turns and makes his way back to the Trail. He pauses, still in the bushes, looking for hikers or bikers, but there are none. He steps out and heads west, toward the parking area and his car.

The poodle is still standing there at the end of its trailing leash. As he approaches, Trig waves both hands at it. The dog cringes, then skitters away. When Trig comes around the next curve, he sees the dog standing with its forepaws on the asphalt and its rear paws in the bushes. It backs away at the sight of him, waits until Trig goes by, thendashes back the way it came, its leash trailing. It will find its mistress and like as not begin barking:Wake up, Mistress, wake up!Someone will come along and wonder what that fool dog is barking about.

Because the Trail is still deserted, Trig breaks into a jog, then an all-out run. He reaches the parking area without being seen, slings his pack into the backseat, then sits behind the wheel, gasping for breath.

You need to get out of here.His thought, Daddy’s voice.Right now.

He turns the key and a chime bings, but nothing else happens. His car is dead. God is punishing him. He doesn’t believe in God, but God is punishing him nevertheless. He looks down at the console and sees he left the shifter in Drive when he shut off the engine. He shifts into Park and the car starts. He reverses out from behind the bucket-loader and drives back down Anyhow Lane, resisting the urge to speed.Slow and steady, he tells himself.Slow and steady wins the race.

The asanas, or sun salutes, or whatever they are, seem to be done. Men and women are chatting or returning to their cars. None of them look at the man in the brown cap as he drives by in his utterly forgettable Toyota Corolla.

I did it, he thinks.I killed that woman. Her life is over.

There’s no guilt, only a dull regret that makes him think of his last year drinking, when every first sip tasted like death. That woman was in the wrong place at the wrong time (although the right place and time for him). There’s a book she’ll never finish, emails and texts she’ll never respond to, a vacation she’ll never take. The Standard Poodle may get fed tonight, but not by her. She was looking at his map, and then… she wasn’t.

He did it, though. When the time came, he didn’t blow his foot off and he didn’t flinch. He’s sorry the woman in the jeans and hoodie had to be a part of his atonement, but he’s sure if thereisa heaven, that woman is already being introduced around. Why not?

She is one of the innocent.

Chapter 2

1

It’s a rainy morning in Reno and Kate wants a newspaper. Not any newspaper, either, but one of the sort she calls “a rag” or “a screed.” This particular screed isThe West Coast Clarion.

Corrie points to Kate’s laptop, but Kate shakes her head and flashes a grin. “TheClarionis strictly hard copy.” She lowers her voice. “The internet is a tool of the deep state. Although the people who write this pile of crap don’t mind having the juicy bits posted on social media. Where troubling things like facts and context don’t matter.” Then, as an afterthought (afterthoughts have a way of causing trouble): “And wear my hat.”

“Are you kidding?”

Kate’s Borsalino—a kind of fedora, comically large, almost a parody of what the well-dressedEsquireman would wear—is a McKay trademark. She wears it to all her events, sweeping it off and making an extravagant bow to acknowledge the preordained storm of applause (plus boos). She was wearing it on the cover of bothMs.andNewsweek.

“Zero kidding.” She’s making notes for her upcoming speech at the Pioneer Center tonight. Although the tour is barely underway, this isn’t Kate McKay’s first rodeo. She’s got a basic template, but she’s a believer in the Tip O’Neill maxim that all politics is local, and tailors each speech to the town she’s in. And the bottom line isn’tBuy my book, now on sale, because the book is already a bestseller, like the three that came before it. The book is simply the door-opener to her viewsand agenda. Applause follows, outrage follows, press and TV coverage follow; on to the next city. Which will be Spokane.

“I want to see what garbage they have to say about me. I may be able to use it tonight, but I don’t want you getting soaked. God forbid you get sick when the tour’s just getting started. It’s really coming down out there. I thought Reno was supposed to bedry.”

Corrie settles the Borsalino almost reverently on her head, cocking it to the left as Kate does. That way it obscures most of her face, thus assuring her of a trip to Saint Mary’s ER not long hence.

“That rag will squeal like a stuck pig,” Kate says, not without satisfaction. She’s looking out the rain-streaked sitting room window on the top floor of the Renaissance Reno Hotel. “But nothing will equal theBreitbartheadline when we kicked off the tour.”

That one had been THE B*TCH IS BACK. Kate had it framed, and by now it will be hanging in the study of her cliffside home in Carmel-by-the-Sea. She called it great advertising. Hattie Delaney, her agent, called it a recipe to bring out the kooks, nutbags, and True Q believers. Kate spread her hands and made a beckoning gesture with all ten fingers—another McKay trademark—and said, “Let em come.”

2

Corrie inquires as to where she can find a well-equipped newsstand and is told Hammer News on West 2nd Street should have everything she wants. She calls and asks if they carryThe West Coast Clarion. She takes the reply—“Does a bear do it in the woods?”—as a yes and sets out.

Is the redhead in the rainhat and belted trenchcoat sitting nearby in the lobby when Corrie asks for directions at the desk? Perhaps looking at a magazine or bent over her phone? Corrie thinks later—tells the police later—she must have been. Must have listened to the helpful concierge giving her instructions, then gone ahead to get in position.

Did Corrie see a woman precede her out of the hotel? She’ll say she honestly can’t remember. Nor does she care. In the ER she only caresabout two things. The first is whether or not she’ll ever be able to see again. The second is this: if she can, how ugly will be the face she sees looking back in the mirror?

Those things will be her concerns.

3

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