Adam said in a harsh, desperate voice, “Please, man. Let us go. You have to! This is all fucked up. You don’t understand.”
“We’ll talk later. Now, move!” Shaw gestured them along the road. “We have to get up that hill.”
The three of them broke into a jog, Shaw ready to grab or trip either of them if they tried an escape.
Erick whispered, “My parents?”
“They offered a reward to find you.”
This seemed to bewilder him.
“I couldn’t call them. The police would be tapping their phones.” A nod toward Adam, who was apparently the source of this warning.
“I’m parked on top of that hill.” Shaw gestured. “We have to get up there now.”
“Who wants to hurt us?” Erick asked.
“Local deputies. I thought they’d arrest you and hold you until detectives got here from Tacoma. But I’m pretty sure they want to kill you instead.”
“Why?”
“Later. On the drive.” They were almost to the spot where they could start the climb to Shaw’s car.
He said, “I saw you on your phone. You were calling somebody to meet you here. Who?”
“Nobody.”
The young man was lying—a conclusion that was obvious both from his tone and from his glance at Highland Bypass, the road from which presumably the “nobody” would soon emerge to meet the boys.
Shaw glanced at Erick, who said only, “I … Nobody.”
Didn’t matter, Shaw supposed, as long as they were out of the area in the next few minutes.
At the shallowest portion of the hill, where Shaw had walked down from his car, he had them stop. He pointed. “Up there. Climb slowly. The grass can be slick.”
Erick looked up and began to climb, his palms ahead of him gripping large clumps of grass and plant stalks to pull himself forward. He slipped and Shaw climbed up a few yards to help him to his feet.
Shaw glanced at Adam. “You. Now.”
The young man was looking around him. Shaw wondered if he was going to sprint down the road, and he tensed and readied himself to pursue.
“Hey, dude!” Adam called out. Erick looked down at him. “Remember what I told you. Your brother and everything? It’ll be all right. I promise.” A gentle smile crossed his face. He was muttering some words. One was “Goodbye”—and then something else that Shaw couldn’t hear.
He started sprinting away—but not up the road. He sped directly toward the cliff’s edge.
“Adam! No!”
Erick cried, “Hey, man, what’re you doing?”
Shaw ran after him.
Adam didn’t hesitate. He reached the cliff at full speed and launched himself into the air.
Breathing hard from the run and the shock, Shaw stopped just shy of the edge and watched the young man spiral to his death.
Sheriff Welles’s car eased to a stop on the shoulder of Old Mill, near the boulder the suspects had been sitting on.
A hundred feet below, Adam’s body was lying facedown, utterly broken, one leg twisted at a horrible angle. Blood pooled and glistened brightly in the sun, mocking the nearby river.
The sheriff climbed out of his sedan. The passenger door opened as well, as another man got out. It was Dodd, the sniper. His face was just as emotionless as before. Or was it? Did he register just a hint of disappointment that he hadn’t had a chance to shoot any heretics?
Both men hitched their belts simultaneously, as if it were procedure to do so upon exiting an official vehicle in Hammond County. They walked toward Shaw, the sheriff’s shoes scraping on the asphalt. Dodd wore rubber-soled hunting boots; his transit was silent.
When they stopped they too turned their gazes to the valley floor far below. The other deputies were there, near the bridge over the speedy river. Shaw would have thought they might cover Adam’s corpse. But no. Then he realized: Why bother? No passersby to shock. A blanket would also interfere with the selfies. He felt a wave of disgust, watching them click photos.
What the hell had happened? Killing himself? Adam must’ve understood that he’d get a fair trial back in Pierce County. Also, he might have hoped for a chance to escape from Shaw, given that he was only in wrist restraints and Shaw’s transport wasn’t a paddy wagon but a Kia sedan.
Why just give up and leap so casually to the flinty ground below?
Shaw was furious with himself. He knew that Adam was unstable. He should have kept the man closer to him, though he’d hardly expected his lightning-fast sprint to the cliff’s edge.
Welles said, “So. Guess they weren’t where you sent us.”
When would the man ask why Shaw had zip-tied the prisoners and had taken custody when he’d told them specifically he wasn’t here to apprehend? He wondered if he himself would see the inside of the Hammond County lockup.
Dodd asked, “Where’s the other one?”
“After Adam jumped I went back for Erick but he was gone.” Shaw pointed to a trail that led into the woods. “Went down there.”
“You zip-tie him too?” Welles asked.
“Yes.”
The sheriff was looking over the shoulder and the cliff. “He jumped, did he?”
“That’s right.”
“Not an accident, you sure?”
“No. We weren’t near the edge. He had to run for it. I have no idea why.”
“Where’s the weapon?”
“It wasn’t on him when I found them,” Shaw lied.
All three men gazed downward for a moment more, then Welles looked in the direction Shaw had pointed, the trail down which he’d said Erick had escaped. The sheriff asked, “You’re certain he went that way.”
Meaning: You lying to us again?
“Positive.”
The sheriff seemed to believe him. “Okay.” He pulled a walkie-talkie off his belt. “Jimmy?”
Clatter. “Sheriff.”
“You and somebody, head over to Morgan Road. The second boy’s probably gonna show up there, a half hour or so. He’s on the logging trail. He’s in zips.”
“His feet?”
“Of course not his feet. What’s he doing, hopping like the Easter Bunny?”
“Sure, Sheriff. Roger that.”
Welles slipped the unit back onto his service belt. “We’ll track him down. No hurry. Even if he gets scared and hides, don’t suppose a punk like that, from Gig Harbor, knows the lay of the land here. He’ll get hungry and break for the road, sooner or later. We’ll get him.”
Welles added in a low voice, “You sure pulled one over on us, Mr. Shaw.”
Here it comes.
Welles gave a wry smile. “But don’t you worry, sir. We’ll back you up.”
Dodd nodded and offered a semblance of smile. Shaw could tell it was an alien expression for him.
Welles