The Ridge

Even Wes seemed uncertain. He repeated his request for the cat to relax, and Ira responded by slinking toward the center of the cage and hissing. He locked his bright green eyes on the deputy and spread his jaws wide, showing every tooth in full glory, his front paws flexing.

“I know he’s behind a fence,” Shipley said, “but I’m still scared of that boy.”

“He’s the wild one,” Wes said softly. “Hasn’t been moved before. He’ll settle down.”

When Ira sprang onto the wooden platform, the deputy dropped his hand to his gun and Audrey joined him in taking yet another step back. Wes stayed where he was, and Ira ignored them completely, turned away to stare out west, toward the river. He gazed into the gray sky for a moment, then raised his head and screamed. There was no other word for it—cougars flat-out screamed, and Audrey had heard them before.

But she’d never heard anything like this.

“He’ll settle down,” Wes repeated.

“Sure,” Audrey said, her arms prickling, going to gooseflesh.

Behind them, the other cats had begun to stir.

Ira swung his head around, ears pinned back, and studied them. Then he jumped back down, and they all shifted when he landed, nobody—not even Wes—able to stay completely calm after that scream. The cat stalked toward them, sleek belly barely above the grass, tail swishing, each muscle loaded with coiled energy.

“Wes,” Audrey said, “maybe you should get the tranquilizer rifle.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“Wes, please.”

Wes looked from her to the cougar and then moved around the side of the truck. He opened the door and came back with the rifle, which fired sedation darts. Wes hated to use them, but right now Audrey thought they should have the option. She’d never seen any of the cats look this aggressive.

“I think we should just give him some space,” Wes said as he stepped back toward them. “Just give him —”

The cougar saw the rifle in his hand then, let out another chilling scream, and spun away from the fence. He darted to his left, then cut right, dodging between the platforms they’d built for him, almost as if he was seeking a screen against any attempt to shoot, and then, at the far end of the enclosure, he crouched and sprang.

And cleared the fence.

Shipley said, “Holy fuck,” and drew his gun. Wes pushed on his arm, preventing him from raising it and taking a shot, and Audrey just stared in astonishment as the cat vanished into the woods, running low and fast, a deadly shadow slipping back into the mountains from which it had come.

“It just jumped that fence,” Shipley said. His voice was trembling. “How tall is that fucking fence?”

“Fourteen feet,” Wes said. His voice was lower, but not all that steady either. “Fourteen feet, with a recurve at the top. It’s impossible for a cat to clear that thing. I built all of these enclosures myself. They can’t get out.”

He’d just watched it happen, but still he was insisting.

“What do we do?” Audrey said. She found it hard to speak. Her eyes were still on the place where the black cat had disappeared. Around them, the other cats were crowding to the edges of their enclosures, well aware that something was amiss. “How do we get him back?”

“I’ve got to call this in,” Shipley said in a stunned voice. “I’ve got to report this. That thing’s a mountain lion. We can’t just let it run around.”

“It was running around before,” Wes said, and he stepped away from them, went up to the fence, and ran one palm along the chain link, staring at it, this device that had betrayed him. He turned back to look at them, and his eyes were wide with wonder.

“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.