The Ridge(33)

“I always told you he decided to join us,” he told Audrey. “I wasn’t wrong. He could have left whenever he wanted to, and he knew it.”

“Well, why did he pick today?” Audrey said, and as Shipley pulled out his radio and began to report the fact that they’d just lost a two-hundred-pound predator in the woods, Wes looked at her grimly.

“It’s this spot,” he said. “He didn’t like this spot. And you know what else? None of them do. Come sundown, you’ll see just what I mean.”





14


KIMBLE HAD ALREADY BEEN at Blade Ridge for two hours when he heard about the cat escape.

He’d gone there in search of the security cameras Wyatt had paired with infrared illuminators, only to confirm what he’d initially thought: there were no cameras.

Kimble scoured the grounds, the top of the lighthouse, the base. He checked the wiring leaving the circuit breaker, he tapped on the walls in search of hollow spots, he turned the desk inside out again.

There were no cameras.

Maybe they’d been part of the long-range plan; Wyatt had invested in the illuminators first, and never got around to the cameras.

But the longer Kimble searched, the more convinced he became that the infrared beams weren’t about capturing an image at all. They were simply about light.

They pointed in every direction, offering unseen illumination to the road and the woods, and Kimble remembered the initial fights about the light, the complaints that it was too bright, that it presented a danger. Wyatt had toned down the bulb, and apparently added invisible lighting. His idea of a compromise.

And the point?

Well, that was anyone’s guess. Kimble sure as shit didn’t have one.

The only find he made wasn’t a camera but another light. When he pulled Wyatt’s cot out from the wall, he found that the man had built a shelf beneath the bed, near where his hands would have rested while he slept. The contents: an empty holster that would have once held the Taurus .45 he’d used to kill himself, a hunting knife, a leather strop for sharpening it, and a spotlight.

The spotlight had a pistol grip and a trigger, and the lens was outfitted with a cherry-red filter. Two million candlepower rechargeable, a label on the handle boasted.

One hell of a bright light, Kimble thought, and then he squeezed the trigger and got nothing. He frowned, looked directly at the lens, and squeezed the trigger again. There was the faintest of crimson glows, as if the flashlight were draining away the dregs of its battery. When he touched the lens, though, he found it very hot. In fact, he could move his palm back from the light a good distance and still feel its warmth.

“An infrared flashlight,” he said aloud, turning the odd device over in his hands. Of course. If the power went out, you needed a flashlight handy. Particularly an invisible one.

He set the light back down, then inspected the knife and strop. It was a serious cutting instrument—six-inch stainless steel blade going down to a military-grip Teflon handle, and it was seriously sharp. The leather strop was worn from countless repetitions. Wyatt had spent a lot of time sharpening his knife. And, Kimble remembered from handling the suicide piece, oiling his gun. He’d wanted to be prepared, and was determined that the equipment would not let him down when the time came. This would be why a man slept each night with a gun, a knife, and a flashlight with a two-million-candlepower invisible beam within immediate reach. He wanted to be ready. The only question was, for what?

Kimble had promised him that he pursued the truth always, but maybe there was no truth to be found here, just madness. Maybe that was the truth when it came to Wyatt French.

He hit the spotlight trigger again, felt the warmth of the lens, and recalled Nathan Shipley’s statement about his wreck. He’d talked about seeing some strange light. Kimble looked down at the two-million-candlepower light in his hand and wondered about it. Was the thing truly invisible to the naked eye? What if it hit you just right, found just the proper angle? Those ridiculous laser pointers could do some damage to the eye, couldn’t they? Well, what about a two-million-candlepower infrared spotlight? It seemed plausible that if it were beamed just right, a flash of momentary blindness could ensue.

So what are you thinking, Kimble? That Wyatt was perched on a dead-end road, hoping for some poor lost soul to wander by so he could blind him with a flashlight? Come on.

He shoved the cot back into place, then sat on the dead man’s bed and wondered what Wyatt had known about Jacqueline that Kimble didn’t. Or what he’d known that Kimble did.

Had he known about the Bakehouse, for example?

Nobody should have. Nobody except Kimble and Jacqueline. And even between them, the coffee shop had never been remarked upon. Probably never would be.