The Ridge

“Sun’s hardly up,” Shipley said. “But it’s never too early to toast a comrade, is it?”

“I suppose it never is.”

Shipley nodded, went inside, and returned with a bottle of Jim Beam. “To Pete Wolverton,” he said, and took a pull. His hand was trembling. His face was pale and his blue eyes rimmed with dark circles. Kimble thought, He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, but then realized that he himself couldn’t look much better. Hell, Shipley hadn’t slept much in days.

Shipley passed the bottle to Kimble.

“To Pete,” Kimble said, and then he tasted the bourbon and found it an unsatisfactory substitute for the morning’s coffee. His stomach roiled, but maybe that wasn’t because of the whiskey. Maybe that was because of what he was thinking of Shipley, who stood there in his jeans and sweatshirt with somber face, looking every bit the same young man in whom Kimble would have once entrusted the future of the entire department. Now he was looking at him as a murder suspect.

Bound by balance, Ryan O’Patrick had said. Anyone who bargained at Blade Ridge was required to take a life. And Wesley Harrington would have settled no debts for Nathan Shipley. In the end the cat got him, not the bullets. If Shipley had fired the bullets, they had cleared no debts for him. The ghost with the torch, Kimble believed, was not interested in the blood of animals.

They sat on cold plastic chairs as the breeze blew down off the peaks with frosty teeth, and Kimble said, “Tell me about last night, would you?”

Shipley blew out a long breath and said, “It wasn’t a fun one.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t like it out there, chief. Don’t hardly feel like myself.”

“Explain that.”

“Ever since the accident,” Shipley said. “I just don’t care to be back out there. Get odd memories. You were right about things getting stuck in my head. So I just don’t care much for the place. As for the cougar? If he was out there, I didn’t know it.”

“Why don’t you care for the place?”

“Same things I told you before. What I remember compared to what I was told happened, you know? What I remember, it—”

“Feels vivid?” Kimble said. “Real clear, but you still know it couldn’t have happened that way? Don’t trust your own memory, your own mind?”

“Exactly,” Shipley said, and he jutted his chin, looking at Kimble with a hard, thoughtful stare. “Pretty good summary, chief.”

He couldn’t have killed one of our own, Kimble thought. There’s no way he could not have put a knife to Pete Wolverton’s throat.

But so many of the ridge survivors had killed one of their own. Friends, husbands, business partners, bosses. When that blackness rose up, it seemed decision-making and control were not possible. Shipley wouldn’t have known what he was doing. If O’Patrick and Jacqueline were to be believed, he wouldn’t have recalled a thing but blackness until he was done, like some sort of eclipse of the soul. He would know that he’d done it, though. He would know that by now.

“You saw Pete at, what, midnight?” Kimble asked.

“Ten till. He came out early. You know Pete.”

“Sure. And you hadn’t seen anything on your shift that was cause for concern? No sign of the cat or… or of anything else?”

Shipley looked away from him, out where the fog was rising in wraiths and then fading into the gray sky of a cold, bleak day.

Kimble said, “Nathan? What did you see?”

“Nothing of that black panther. But I hung pretty tight to the preserve, too. I’ll tell you something, if you watch those cats enough? They’re unsettled. It’s a strange thing, but I feel like they get it. They don’t like the place either. They understand some things about it. That could be bad.”

“Bad for who?”

Shipley’s eyes shifted back to Kimble. “Anyone who’s out there.”

There was a long pause, Kimble considering the various tracks that he could pursue, considering how many of his cards to show. In the end, he decided to hold them tight for now. He would need more facts and better understanding before he’d chance confronting Shipley with the knowledge that he’d been gathering about the bloody history of Blade Ridge.

“So when Pete came on shift, it was ten till midnight, and you spoke?” he said, returning to the procedural realm, his supposed reason for being here.

“Just a quick update. Told him things were cool, and then I bailed. Got home, went to bed.”

“Yeah? You look awfully tired.”

“I haven’t been sleeping all that well. Not since the accident.”

“How you feeling, though?”

“Lucky. Damned lucky. You saw the car, and now you see me.” Shipley waved both hands over his chest, indicating the specimen of unscathed strength that had crawled out of that demolished cruiser.

“Yes,” Kimble said very softly. “I saw it, and now I see you.”

For a time it was quiet, and then Kimble said, “You’re scheduled today?”

“Yes. Was expecting to be back at the preserve, though. That was what you’d told me.”

“Not anymore. Property is closed. And I’d like you to take the day off.”

Shipley’s eyes hardened briefly. One flicker, then gone. “Why?”

“I might need you,” Kimble said. “As I work through this thing with the cat, I might need you. I want you handy.”

“I’ve got a cell phone and a radio. I can be handy from anywhere.”

“I know it. All the same, just stick tight to the house, get some rest, okay?”

Shipley cocked his head. “Chief, is there something else on your mind?”

“Yeah,” Kimble said. “Pete Wolverton. I was out there, Shipley. I saw him. He’ll stay on my mind for a while. Now, I’d like you to hang close by and wait until you hear from me today. I may be needing you.”

“All right. Just say the word.”

“Appreciate it, son.” Kimble got to his feet, and when Shipley extended his hand, he didn’t want to take it. He did, though, feeling a ripple of displeasure at the touch, and then he followed Shipley back into the old farmhouse and toward the front door. He made sure to keep the younger man in front of him. They were halfway to the door when Kimble pulled up, listening. He could hear water moving through the old pipes, then a hiss and churning in a nearby room.

“Damn, kid,” he said, “you don’t waste time before starting your laundry in the morning, do you?”

Shipley smiled. “Most times it’s a pile halfway to the ceiling. I just needed the uniform washed.”

Kimble got a smile out to match. It wasn’t easy.

32

AS THE MORNING WIND PICKED UP and a few stray snowflakes drifted down off the ridge, Audrey called Joe Taft in Center Point, Indiana. Joe had been David’s inspiration. His facility in rural Indiana was the nation’s largest, and he’d rescued cats of every species. Joe was the man the federal agencies called on for help seizing cats from terrible situations and was the only man David had ever admitted might be better with cats than Wesley Harrington.

He’d also been the only man who had offered to take the cats off her hands when David died.

“I thought you’d just relocated all of them, Audrey,” Joe said when she asked if his offer still stood.

“That’s right.”

“It’s not working out?”

Audrey looked out to the woods where she’d seen one of her cats crouched over a blood-soaked body and said, “No. It’s not working out.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Joe said. “When we talked before, I had some options for you, but you were