Deep Sky

cheat sheet, and failing that, they would at least prevent anyone else from getting into that house and obtaining it —if it still existed at all. And while those who’d sent them probably wanted some muscle close at hand to protect the mine if the need arose, Travis wasn’t surprised these guys were staying back. Being kept back, more likely, by strict orders. They were almost certainly nothing more than hired guns; why let them sniff around the mine at all? Whatever the Stargazer was doing in there, it was doing without anybody’s help. All it needed was for Allen Raines to stay dead, and none of his powerful friends to show up in his place.

“Two hundred yards isn’t much,” Travis said, “even with tree cover. But maybe it’s enough. Maybe we can get in there from the uphill side without them seeing us.”

The sound of a loud engine faded in. A second later an old pickup went by, heading out of town, its bed loaded with boxes and bags.

Travis put aside the mine for the moment, his thoughts going back to earlier questions. He turned to Jeannie. “What about the man I mentioned before? Ruben Ward.”

“I never heard that name until today,” Jeannie said, “when the others came in and asked about it.”

“And none of these old stories talk about the summer of 1978?” Paige said.

Jeannie shook her head.

“Do you have paperwork for who lived here back then?” Travis said. “I know it’s a long shot—”

“It’s possible,” Jeannie said. “There are old file boxes in the office—”

She stopped and cocked her head.

Travis listened too, and heard another engine rumbling. Another loud one, though it sounded different from the truck. Jeannie appeared to recognize its tone.

“Shit,” she whispered. “I only meant to complain.”

“What are you talking about?” Travis said.

“When you went downstairs I called the number they gave me earlier. I yelled at them for sending in the good cops.”

The engine grew louder, drawing very near now. Its growl spoke more of power than age. A second later it cut out and brakes whined, somewhere just out of view past the edge of the glass front wall.

“That’s one of the Humvees,” Jeannie said. “They know you’re here.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Storage room, back right,” Jeannie said. Her hand shot out toward the corner of the building opposite where the Humvee had stopped. “No screen in the window.”

Paige and Bethany were already moving. Travis took a step after them, then pulled up short. He looked at Jeannie and the two kids.

Jeannie shook her head. “We’re fine if you’re gone. You left three minutes ago.”

Travis nodded, spun and ran after the others. He’d almost cleared the room when Jeannie called after him. He stopped again and faced her.

“Cell phone number,” she said. “I’ll find the old paperwork.”

From outside came footsteps and men’s voices.

Travis said the number aloud once. Didn’t wait to see if she’d caught it all. He sprinted for the back room, and in the same second that he slipped into it, he heard the front door open.

Paige already had the window up: an old single-pane affair with about ten layers of paint on its frame. It was on the side wall, leading out to the back stretch of the alley they’d walked down earlier. Bethany slipped through; the alley’s pavement was only a couple feet lower than the floor. Travis motioned for Paige to go ahead of him, and took hold of the raised sash as she let go of it. He went through after her, got his feet on the concrete and stood upright, his hand still holding the sash in place.

He considered just leaving it up—an open window in a back room shouldn’t stand out as unusual, if any of the men from the Humvee came to check this part of the building. Travis relaxed his hand on the bottom of the sash.

It immediately slipped downward a quarter inch, its sides lightly shuddering against the frame. If he let go entirely it might stay where it was, or it might hold for five seconds and then drop, making all the sound in the world as it went.

He heard Jeannie’s voice, through the doorway and down the hall. “Is ‘Go to hell’ too subtle for you people to grasp?”

A man replied, his tone coming from a deep, broad chest cavity. “Where are they?”

“Probably bullshitting the shop owner next door. They’re your people, why don’t you call them?”

No reply. Just boots thudding around on the ancient wood floor.

Travis leaned back inside and looked around for something with which to brace the window.

There was nothing.

He’d have to shut it, and not quickly—he couldn’t trust it to stay quiet at any real speed. There were long vertical abrasions where it’d rubbed against its frame over the decades, probably on humid days when the wood had expanded. Days like this one.

He began to ease it downward, making about an inch per second.

“You saw which way they went?” the deep voice said, still somewhere up front by the bar.

There was no audible reply. Travis pictured Jeannie just pointing, too pissed to speak. She would send them along Main Street back in the direction of their Humvee, to keep them from walking past this alley.

He had the window half shut now. Twelve inches left.

Paige and Bethany were right beside him, watching the progress with gritted teeth.

Nine inches. Eight.

“Sorry to bother you when you’re this busy,” the deep voice said. The boots clumped away toward the front door.

Six inches.

Then a bird started screaming, somewhere above Travis. He looked up sharply at the sound.

A blue jay. Right on the cornice ten feet overhead. It scolded in loud, double squawks. It probably had a nest up there. The cries went on for four seconds and then the bird flitted out of sight onto the roof.

Silence followed, outside and inside. The boot steps toward the front door had halted.

Then they began again—thumping quickly over the hardwood toward the back room.

“Shit,” Travis whispered.

He lowered the window the last six inches in the next second, risking the sound. It made none.

Paige and Bethany had already covered the distance to the back corner of the building across the alley—ten or twelve diagonal feet. Travis followed, got past the edge and stopped alongside them, his back against the old cedar siding. They listened.

At first there was only silence.

Then came the scrape and whine of the window going up. The sill creaked as heavy weight leaned onto it. Travis waited for the clamber of a body coming through, and the scuff of soles on pavement, but all he heard was a fingertip drumming idly on wood. After a moment it stopped. There was a click and a wash of static, and then silence again.

“Anyone copy at the Raines house?”

Static as the man waited.

Then a tinny voice: “Go ahead.”

“Leave three men up there, send the rest down here for a coordinated search. Bring every Humvee.”

“Got it.”

“Put the three that stay behind on lookout. Eyes on the slopes below the treeline. These people didn’t come in a vehicle.”

“You want to take Holt up on his offer? Grab law enforcement from nearby jurisdictions? We could have an