The Ridge

“There is a fire. I haven’t seen it in a while—I’ve been otherwise engaged for a few years, you know—but I can’t imagine that it’s gone, either. It had been burning for a long time when I saw it, and I think it will burn for a long time to come.”

“I don’t follow this.”

“Of course you don’t. That’s why I tried not to tell you. You had to have it your way, though, and so now I’ll tell you and live with the response, I guess. There is a fire on the rocks below the trestle. When Wyatt made his visit, it was still burning. I can almost assure you that it still is now.”

Kimble had passed under the trestle with Wesley Harrington at his side the previous evening. There had been nothing there.

He said, “Okay. A fire.”

“Already you’re giving up on me,” she said. “I can see it in your face.”

“No, I’m not. But you should know that I was just down there, and I didn’t see a fire. Neither did the man I was with. So unless we both have really bad eyes…”

“You wouldn’t be able to see it,” she said. “Not yet. And I hope you never can.”

Her face was grim.

“The first time I saw it, Kevin, I was in the water and the rocks. I was dying. Make no mistake about it—I wasn’t just in pain, I was dying. And I knew then that I didn’t want to die. More than anything in the world, I didn’t want to die. The river was pulling me downstream, but I got hung up in the rocks and then I could see the fire. It burns blue, and there are people all around it. One man stepped away from it, took one of the sticks out of the fire, and held it like a torch.”

Please, stop, Kimble thought, trying to hold her eyes, trying not to betray the sickness. He needed her to be sane. He needed her not to belong in this place, but with every word she was validating the orange uniform.

“He waded out to me, just glided through the water, holding that blue torch. Told me that I was dying, and made me an offer.”

“An offer?”

“That’s right. He told me that I was dying, and I knew that I was. He told me that he could enable me to walk away, and I knew that he could.”

“This man healed you.”

“I didn’t say healed.”

“Then what did he do?”

“He bargained, Kevin. And I accepted.”

He looked at her, not really wanting to hear the answer, and said, “What did he want in exchange?”

“I think you know that.”

“No, I don’t, Jacqueline.”

“What I promised him,” she said, “I provided him.”

He was silent.

“You don’t just walk away from the devil,” she said. “Not for free.”

21

IRA MELTED INTO THE HILLS and did not surface. While Audrey and Dustin worked together to complete the day’s feedings and clean the cages, the two deputies who remained at the preserve took their weapons into the woods, armed with binoculars and, in one case, a rifle scope, and searched for some sign.

They didn’t come up with any.

Dustin, who hadn’t seemed to have recovered his strength after finding Wes that morning, who looked unsteady with every step, watched the police in the woods and told Audrey they were up to something.

“What? They’re looking for the cat.”

He shook his head. “No. They’re going along the fence line right now, Audrey. Watch them.”

She lowered the wheelbarrow full of raw meat—they kept it frozen, then thawed it each evening so it would be ready to go in the morning—and studied the police as Dustin was. They did seem to be walking along the edge of the fence, looking in instead of looking out.

“They don’t expect to find Ira hiding against the fence,” Dustin said. “So what are they doing?”

Looking for breaches, Audrey thought. They were looking for some indication of poor security, something that could potentially allow a cat to escape. Something that could potentially provide the sheriff with the ammunition that Kimble had hinted he would want. Well, that was ridiculous. The preserve was secure, and she knew it.

“Let them do their job,” she said. “We’ll do ours. Look at Lily. That girl is hungry.”

The blind white Siberian tiger was trotting back and forth in her cage, looking like a kitten with too much energy. She could hear them and smell the food; she knew it was close, she just couldn’t see it.

They fed Lily, then moved on to the next enclosure, which held two cougars. They were siblings. At one time the cougars on the preserve had fascinated visitors. Then Ira came along, and the standard variety was no longer of interest. People like the unique specimens, even when they know nothing about the basics.

But the two cougars Audrey and Dustin were feeding now were plenty unique. They were two of five cats that had been rescued from what Wes had deemed the worst conditions he’d ever encountered. The cats were at a facility licensed by the USDA for breeding purposes, which was an idea that David and Audrey abhorred—the cats were not supposed to be pets, and most of them wouldn’t be suffering if some jackass hadn’t decided he wanted a cougar or a lion for a pet.

The place was in Georgia, and all of the cats needed rescue. The owner simply told authorities that he’d “gotten in a little over his head.” Being in over his head meant forgetting to feed the animals, apparently. The cats were housed in filthy, small cages with no food or water in reach. Every bone in their bodies showed beneath matted fur. Often taking strange cats could be a challenge, even requiring sedation. In this case, the only thing that was needed to lure the animals out and into the transport cages was a bucket of clean water.

Cody, one of the cougars, was in such bad shape that he required two weeks of antibiotics just to stabilize enough so the vet could remove several infected teeth. He now had a hilariously crooked smile, which he showed often, and his ribs were no longer pushing against his flesh. His brother, Otto, had suffered frostbite so severe that his ears were mangled shreds.

Audrey looked at the two cats, healthy and happy and eager for food, and said, “Let the sheriff’s department try its worst. I run one of the best facilities in the country, and I’m not closing it. The escape was not due to our facility. It was due to a cat that is something strange. Our fence height exceeds the minimum. If he jumped over it without help… well, good for Ira. But we couldn’t stop it.”

“They say those black cats are supposed to be witches,” Dustin said. “I remember reading about it with David.”

She looked at him and sighed. “Helpful, Dustin. I’ll just call the old witch defense into play. When they’re burning me at the stake, remember that it was your suggestion.”

They were cleaning one portion of the cougar enclosure while the cats were isolated with their meat in another sector. Audrey always worked this way in the preserve. David and Wes would sometimes go in the enclosures, but Audrey never did. Dustin was watching the police, and Audrey looked up, too. One of them— Wolverton—appeared to have found something. He called to Shipley, who walked on slowly, carefully—every move Shipley made out here seemed cautious—and knelt beside his comrade. They turned something over in their hands, whispering.

“What did you find there?” Audrey called, walking toward them. A plastic bag appeared, the item went into it, and then the bag disappeared into Wolverton’s pocket.

“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Clark. Nothing here.”

She frowned and turned back to Dustin. His pale face was grim. “They found something, all right.”

“What?”

“I think it was a shell.”