“So now the big question: Which victim was the one that mattered?”
“When I meet the Good Shepherd, I’ll ask him.”
“And you think that’ll happen tonight?” Clinter’s voice was pulsing with excitement.
“Max,
“Understood, laddie. One more question, though: How does your theory of the old murders explain the current ones?”
“That’s simple. The Good Shepherd is trying keep us from realizing that the original six victims were the sum of one and five. Somehow
“A very desperate man.”
“More practical than desperate.”
“Christ, Gurney, he’s murdered three people in three days, according to the news.”
“Right. I just don’t think that desperation has much to do with it. I don’t believe the Shepherd regards murder as that big a deal. It’s simply an action he takes whenever it seems advantageous. Whenever he feels that killing someone will remove more risk from his life than it will create. I don’t think desperation enters into-”
A call-waiting signal stopped Gurney in midsentence. He checked the ID. “Max, I have to go. I’ve got Lieutenant Bullard from BCI trying to get through. And, Max? Stay away from here tonight. Please.”
Gurney glanced out the window. The weird black-and-silver landscape raised gooseflesh on his arms. He was standing in a shaft of moonlight that crossed the center of the room, projecting an image of the window, along with his own shadow, on the far wall above the bed.
He pressed TALK to take the waiting call. “Thank you for getting back to me, Lieutenant. I appreciate it. I think I may have some-” He never finished the sentence.
There was a stunning explosion. A white flash accompanied by a deafening blast. And a terrific impact to Gurney’s hand.
He staggered back against the table, unsure for several seconds what had happened. His right hand was numb. There was a stinging ache in his wrist.
Fearing what he might see, he held his hand up in the moonlight, turning it slowly. All the fingers were there, but he was holding only a small piece of the phone. He looked around the room, searching futilely in the darkness for other areas of damage.
The first explanation that occurred to him was that his phone had exploded. His mind raced around the edges of that improbability, trying to imagine a way it could have been set up, a time when the phone might have been accessible to someone capable of that kind of sabotage, how a miniature explosive device could have been inserted and then triggered.
But that wasn’t just improbable, it was impossible. The concussive impact, the sheer force of the explosion, put its source beyond anything he could conceive of being fitted into a functioning phone. A dummy phone, perhaps, built for the purpose, but not the phone on which he’d just been speaking.
Then he smelled ordinary cartridge gunpowder.
So it wasn’t a sophisticated mini-bomb. It was a muzzle blast.
However, it was a muzzle blast far too loud for any normal handgun-which was why he hadn’t reached the right conclusion immediately.
But he did know at least one handgun that could produce a report of that magnitude.
And at least one individual with the accuracy and steadiness of hand required to put a bullet through a cell phone by moonlight.
His next thought was that the shooter must have fired into the room through one of the windows, and he instinctively dropped to a crouch, peering up at the window over the table. However, it was still closed and the panes illumined by the moonlight were unbroken. Meaning the shot must have come from one of the rear windows. But given the position of his body at the moment of impact, it was hard to see how the bullet could have reached the phone in his hand without passing through his shoulder.
So how…?
The answer arrived with a small shiver.
The shot hadn’t come from outside the cabin.
Someone was there, in the room, with him.
The realization came to him by sound rather than sight.
The sound of breathing.
Just a few feet away.
Slow, relaxed breathing.
Chapter 49
As Gurney looked in the direction from which the sound was coming, he saw, interrupting the strip of silvery light across the cabin floor, a dark rectangle where the trapdoor had been opened. On the far side of the opening, there was just enough faintly reflected moonlight to suggest the presence of a standing figure.
A hoarse whisper confirmed the impression. “Sit at the table, Detective. Put your hands on top of your head.”
Gurney quietly followed the instructions.
“I have some questions. You must answer them quickly. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“If the answer is not quick, I will assume it’s a lie. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. First question: Is Clinter coming here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just told him on the phone not to come.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you expect him to come anyway?”
“He may. I don’t know. He’s not a predictable man.”
“That’s true. You must keep telling me the truth. The truth will keep you alive. You understand?”
“Yes.” Gurney sounded perfectly calm, as he often did in extreme situations. But inside, at that moment, he was full of fear and fury. Fear of the situation he’d walked into and fury at the arrogant miscalculation that had put him there.
He’d assumed that the Good Shepherd would conform to the timing he’d spelled out in his scene with Kim and that the man would show up at the cabin two or three hours before Clinter and Gurney’s supposed midnight meeting. In the welter of facts and twists and what-ifs swirling around in his head, he’d failed to consider the obvious possibility that the Shepherd might show up much earlier than that-maybe a good twelve hours earlier.
What the hell had he been thinking? That the Shepherd was a logical man and the logical time to arrive would be a few hours before midnight. And therefore that’s what would happen, issue resolved, on to the next point? Jesus, how fucking stupid! He told himself he was only human, and humans make mistakes. But that didn’t take the bitter edge off his making such a deadly one.
The throaty, half-vocalized whisper grew louder. “It was your hope to trick me into coming here? To somehow take me by surprise?”
The aptness of the question was unnerving. “Yes.”
“The truth. Good. It keeps you alive. So, now, your phone call to Clinter. You believe what you told him?”
“About the killings?”
“Of course about the killings.”
“Yes, I do.”
