“Right. Good,” Ronald said. “You rest here, and I’ll be back later. Eat something, will ya?”
Ronald got up and left. He shut the door gently and managed to feel both guilty and resentful. He didn’t catch Vincent’s whisper in the empty house.
“It’s not personal; it’s business.”
He knew it the moment Gilman set foot out his front door. Ronald had had more than a good chance to become familiar with the man’s moods and how he carried himself. Timothy Gilman glanced left and right before he got into his black Camaro, and Ronald knew in his bones that the man was not going to the supermarket, and he was not going to his bar, and Ronald was afraid. To follow and be found out was suicide; to turn around and go home—well, he thought, it would just be another kind of death. Slower, maybe, but only marginally less painful.
Gilman took the I-90 and drove east, crossed Mercer Island and I-405, and continued through Eastgate first and then Issaquah. Five cars behind him, covered in a film of perspiration and wearing a pale green baseball cap, Ronald followed him.
Gilman kept a steady pace, just under the speed limit, and they soon went past Preston and North Bend. Ronald couldn’t even bear to keep the radio on: his eyes were fixed on the Camaro, and his hands gripped the steering wheel. When there were only three cars between them, he would slow down and fall back; when he couldn’t see Gilman for more than a minute, he would pick up speed until he saw the black car again. There was enough traffic for camouflage; nonetheless, Ronald could not allow himself to relax even for a second as exits came and went—Gilman could leave the Interstate at any time.
Finally, Gilman turned off just before the Olallie State Park and took the SE Homestead Valley Road due east. The woods were thick on both sides, and Ronald slowed down as much as he could while still keeping Gilman in sight.
The Camaro turned left into a narrow lane, and Ronald had no choice but to drive on, slouch in the seat, and throw a quick glance as he drove past.
Shit. He had stopped. Gilman had stopped only fifty yards into the dirt road, and there was another car parked there. The canopy of trees made the area dark, and he had hardly been able to see clearly, and yet he was sure of one thing: the black Camaro had stopped, and there was another car there, too.
Ronald looked around: the Homestead Valley Road was empty in both directions. He braked as softly as he could and reversed until he was seventy yards from the mouth of the lane. He prayed no one was watching and did a U-turn, as he fully expected whoever he was going to follow would get back onto I-90 after the exchange.
Ronald left the car on the shoulder of the road and stepped into the forest. It was cooler under the shade of the firs; he went ten feet in and then proceeded to walk parallel to the road until he was near the lane Gilman had turned into. He dropped and crouched and crawled behind a bush that kept him covered but gave him a view of the two cars and the two men talking.
Ronald lay flat on the dusty ground and pulled out a pair of binoculars he had bought at REI three days earlier for $19.95. He wouldn’t be able to spy on eagles flying around Mount Rainier, but he could see this, and this was enough.
He brought the lenses up to his eyes and held his breath. There they were. The other car was a midnight blue BMW, and the hood was up. Good idea, Ronald thought; anyone driving past would just think engine trouble. Both men were facing away from him and looking at the engine; he could see Gilman gesticulating and the other man listening.
Ronald breathed, and a puff of dust from the ground rose and fell; a small cloud of insects had found his exposed skin and were taking full advantage of it. He didn’t care. His eyes stayed on the two men whose faces he could not see, and just then he understood something. That dreadful day a week earlier had not gone as he had expected; however, it had not gone as Gilman had expected, either. The kid was supposed to die of his condition; he was not supposed to wake up and see them and make it necessary for them to kill him. What was Gilman telling the man? Was he telling him the truth?
No way. Gilman was a nasty piece of work, and he wouldn’t give himself any extra grief when he didn’t need to.
Ronald shifted on the forest floor as his body began to ache. The men turned, and for an instant he really was afraid that his detective work had all been for nothing and this was an accidental meeting with someone whose BMW had blown a fuse.
The other man was wearing a smart, dark suit, and suddenly Ronald saw him clearly, as if he was standing right next to them. Clearly enough to recognize him. And when the man took out a leather satchel from the trunk and passed it to Gilman, Ronald couldn’t blink as his breath caught in his throat. All was lost; all was gone. His puny little binoculars could only show him a hell that had no end, because it was worse than he could have ever imagined.