“Ever been there yourself?”
“Once. It’s a real place, even if the witch thing is bullshit. It’s just ruins now, of course. Christ, you’re not thinking of going are you?”
“CMB,” I say, avoiding the question. “We did a job with a guy named Brierley. Chet Brierley. He was off his rocker. Cut someone up pretty good for no reason at all but the fun of it.”
“Bill mentioned him. Just a few weeks back.”
“Did they do a job together?” It wasn’t completely out of character for Bill to pick up extra work without me, but I was usually the first to know.
“I think so, although he hasn’t been forthcoming lately. We’ve been, well, distant. Whatever happened between Bill and this guy, it seemed to upset him.”
We search each other’s eyes, and in the searching there is understanding. I stand up, thumb the cylinder of the Colt .357 I keep in my shoulder holster. “I’ll follow you to the fire road,” I say. “If whoever did this to Bill wants me to follow his little clues, I’m willing to oblige. If it’s Brierley, I’ll even enjoy hunting him down.”
Judi sets the bottle down and comes to me, pats my chest gently. “Whatever you do, don’t get yourself killed.”
• • •
I call my guy in Knoxville on the way and have him do a quick workup on Brierley.
Chester Michael Brierley.
CMB.
Turns out he did three years in Morgan County for attempted murder, other stints in county jails all over the state for assault. He was a suspect in a double homicide two years back where the victims were found badly mutilated, but they never hooked him for it. There were rumors that he came from a wealthy mining family in West Virginia, the kind whose bank accounts are flush as the number of family tragedies.
Money can cure a plethora of ills.
Insanity isn’t one of them.
It isn’t long before Judi pulls off the highway, idling the car on the dirt fire road. I pull next to her and get out, walk to the driver window. She watches me in the dim glow of the dashlights.
“Check your phone,” she says.
I look. “One bar, eighty percent charged.”
“Doesn’t matter what the charge is if you got no service.”
“I got some cat videos I could watch.”
“I’m serious, Keeler. Kill the son of a bitch if you have to, but be careful. I don’t want to find you the same way I found Bill.”
“I promise.”
I watch Judi back the car onto the highway. She heads north, back toward the cabin. Tail lights winking into a distant curve.
She’s got a hell of a mess on her hands.
I don’t envy her that.
• • •
I drive slowly up the forest road. Insects streak and flare in the headlights and there’s a fine dust spooling over the fenders. The dead crunch of gravel like the grinding of bones. I flick my phone and watch the reception subtract to null, then regain a single bar. I hammer out a quick text to Judi, flicking my eyes at the road and back to the screen. The progress bar stalls and the message hangs in limbo. I lift the phone to the roof of the car for better reception and suddenly the windshield fills with a piercing light.
A car horn blares.
Tires skidding.
I pitch the wheel to the shoulder.
The windshield blows out in a cataclysm of glass. A fir branch punches through and pierces the passenger seat headrest. Smoke jets from the stalled engine. The car settles and I pat myself down, feel my face for blood.
I try the key: nothing.
Just the starter hammering a dead flywheel.
The driver door doesn’t open easily, so I give it a hard shove with my shoulder, and then another until it parts with a metallic groan. I step to the road. The air is cool, moonlight spilling over the roadway. A silver Toyota is spun the other direction, the back end sunk in a shallow ditch. Headlights crooked at the sky. I pull the pistol and keep it flush along my leg, walk slowly across the road.
There’s movement inside the car. A woman sobbing and the panicked voice of a young man. I move closer, peer into the driver’s window.
When he sees me, the driver’s face fills with terror. Eyes like moons. He throttles the engine, tires spraying gravel into the tree shadows. Screaming. The car is highcentered and it isn’t going anywhere. I holster the pistol and rap my knuckles on the fender, spin my finger in the air as one might roll down an old car window.
There’s a moment of confusion in the car. A deliberation between the occupants. Neither realizes the dome light is on and they are illuminated as if by stagelight. Finally the driver window comes down and the young man asks who I am and if I’m friendly.
I tell him my name, but he doesn’t return the courtesy.
“Are you hurt?” I say.
“I think my girlfriend broke her arm,” says the young man.
I get a glimpse of the girl, her face pinched in agony.
“If you’re okay, why don’t you get out and we can push this thing back on the road?”
The car door opens, the driver steps out. He’s young, maybe eighteen. Meager stubble around his cheeks and chin. “We’re freaking out,” he says. “We saw somethin’ up thataways and it scared the shit out of us. Sorry if I ran you off the road. I think I was havin’ myself a panic attack. I’m tellin’ you, man. It was ugly.”
I glance at my car, still smoking against the fir tree.
No use punishing him for it.
“Tell me what you saw.”
The kid looks up the road to the jet black hills and shudders. “It got dark so fast. It’s the solstice, you know? Supposed to be the longest day of the year but it sure don’t feel like it. It was so dark up there.”
“What did you see?” It comes out as an impatient
