The Ridge(97)

“Damn it!” Roy shouted, and then he called back and got the same response, and now he was faced with a decision. Did he just sit there and let time pass? Or did he follow? The road ahead was a long, winding path toward the highway or town. Shipley wouldn’t turn off it for a while. Roy could catch up.

“Go for it,” he decided, and he dropped the phone into the console and put the car into gear, pulling out of the lot and onto the road. If he drove hard and fast he could catch up, and then, if Kimble would just answer the damn phone, he’d be able to tell him—

He’d made it a quarter of a mile down the road when he saw the truck pulled off on the shoulder, its lights off, sitting in shadows. He registered that first, and then he saw the man standing in the middle of the road, holding a badge up with one hand and a gun with the other.

Roy put on the brakes and rolled to a stop. For one wild moment he considered pounding the gas instead, driving around the deputy or, hell, right over him. Anything seemed preferable. But he was a rational man even on an irrational night, and he trusted in his ability to bullshit. Shipley didn’t know him. Roy would give him some song and dance about car trouble and then be on his way.

As Shipley approached, though, there was something in his face that suggested bullshit might not work. The gun was not being held casually. His finger was on the trigger.

Roy slipped his hand down to the console, punched redial on his phone, and then turned it over so the illuminated screen was hidden. If Kimble picked up, great. If he didn’t, at least he’d get to hear a voicemail preserving whatever was about to happen.

Shipley rapped on the window with his knuckles, and Roy slid it down.

“Why are you standing in the road?” Roy said, trying to look indignant, the concerned citizen, the intrepid reporter, the man who was not scared of police because he trusted police.

Shipley leaned in, his face lit by the glow from the instrument panel, and said, “I would like to know why you’re watching my house.”

“What? Who are you?”

Shipley smiled. His face was very pale in the glow, and his eyes were hooded. He brought the gun up and laid it on the doorframe, pointed right at Roy’s head.

“Slide over,” he said.

“I’m not doing that. I have no idea what you’re—”

“You’ve driven past three times,” Shipley said. “And you’re parked at an empty gas station. You’re not out here to look at the stars, pal. You’re watching me, and not very well.”

He tilted the gun so that Roy could see how tightly he had his index finger wrapped around the trigger.

“Slide over,” he said again.

Roy looked into the barrel of that gun, and then he unfastened his seatbelt and climbed over to the passenger seat. He was very careful not to hit the cell phone.

Shipley popped opened the door and got behind the wheel. There were no other cars on the road.

“We’re going to take a ride back to my house and talk,” Shipley said, and then he lowered his gaze, just for a moment, and looked at the phone. It lay upside down on the console, but there was a thin band of light around it. Shipley kept the gun pointed at Roy’s head while he reached for the phone with his free hand, picked it up, and turned it over.

Connected, the display said. Kimble, the display said.

“Kevin Kimble,” Shipley said. “I’ll be damned.” He put the phone to his ear, listened for a moment, and smiled.

“Voicemail. That’s what you’re leaving? Not a bad try. Not bad at all.” He pressed the pound key, and now Roy could hear the faint, tinny voice giving a series of options.

“To delete your message and record again, press seven.”

Shipley pressed seven, then disconnected the call.





41


JACQUELINE,” KIMBLE SAID, the muzzle of his own gun sliding over his Adam’s apple, “don’t do this. Whatever it is you’re thinking, don’t do it.”

She slid off him carefully, her thighs gliding over his, the gun never wavering. She knelt, fumbled along the floor in the darkness, and then Kimble heard a metallic clatter and knew what she was after. Handcuffs.

“No,” he said, and he started to sit up, but she rose swiftly and pressed the gun to his heart.

“Kevin,” she said, “I shot you once before. Do you really think I won’t do it now?”

He was more frightened by the emptiness in her voice than he was by the gun. More defeated by the realization that those few moments in which she’d lain silent and warm against his side had been a lie, a fantasy. A dead dream.

“You can stop now,” he said. “You can put that gun down and this can go away. You’ve seen me put things like this away before.”