He did his best to shrug the sharp branches off and slide by; years ago he'd become adept at it. By watching the tree-tops against the sky, with a nearly full moon, he could tell the thin spots in the forest. By avoiding wet areas and staying as high as he could on the gently sloping terrain, he avoided the brush associated with moist soil.
Every twenty or thirty paces he stopped abruptly and listened so that he could discern if anyone was near. He heard only shouts in the distance from men who wanted an alternative to wandering through a dark forest looking for a mad Scots Indian.
Sam needed to know that Haley was all right; finally he could afford to find out. He slowed his pace, pulled out his cell, and dialed.
She answered, breathless.
'Are you okay?' he asked.
'Running like crazy,' she said. 'No time. I'll make it. Are you?'
'Worse for the wear, still at it, running through the woods like we talked about. I think I have fantastic stuff.'
'I'm scared for Sarah. Frick's men have her.'
'They won't kill her right away because they want information.'
'I sure hope so,' she said. 'I'm feeling desperate for her.'
'Then run fast,' he said. 'We'll find her.'
'What did you find?'
He tried to explain that he'd found more than he'd been able to read.
'You'II read it. This is no fair,' she joked, grunting as she jumped or ducked under something. 'You're having all the fun. Please stay safe. Please. I'll be there.'
Fun?
Next Sam called the dispatcher.
'Detective Ranken is dead,' Sam said baldly. 'He was killed by Garth Frick. Frick drained his blood into a barrel.' He let that sink in, then explained where to find the evidence. 'You might want to let the state and the FBI know.'
'We already found the body, and you're wanted for that crime, Mr. Chase.'
Sam knew that the dispatcher was not supposed to say that, even if she believed it.
Obviously she was shaken and he could only imagine how the rest of the deputies felt.
He needed to call Ernie.
'He went out Anderson's office window,' Khan said. 'They're chasing somebody on Warbass, maybe from Opus Magnum. '
'Give me an earpiece.' Frick wanted to be directly connected to the action.
'We think maybe somebody came out of the water near where Opus blew up. We followed her. It looked like Haley Walther.'
'Stop her. Bring her here.'
'Roger that.'
'He jumped off the roof and went into the woods,' Khan interrupted.
Frick covered the receiver. 'How the hell can somebody do that? It's a forty-foot drop, or better.'
'Well, he's not lying dead on the ground.'
'The men with Sarah James are on the phone,' Delia said.
'Where the hell are they? It's been forty-five minutes?' Frick picked up the other line.
'Well, we thought you wanted information,' Khan's man said. 'Maybe we got a little carried away. We threatened to strip her down, and you know…'
'Strip her?' Frick closed his eyes.
'We didn't actually. Just said we had to search. Played with her. Scared her.'
'Nothing we couldn't explain or lie about,' the man's partner chimed in.
'What happened?' Frick asked.
'She told us Ben's boat was in the bay. You said we could take a look.'
'Did you look?'
'There was a boat,' the man said. 'She says it's his. It had drifted onto the mud near the head of the bay. Harder than hell to get to. We had to wade. That's why it took so damn long.'
'Yeah, yeah,' Frick said. 'So where the hell is Ben Anderson?'
'That's the thing. We don't know. But there's the boat-'
'Why would she lead you to his boat?' Frick interrupted. 'Did she want you to think he was on the island?'
'Well, we can't figure it. But he could be on Lopez.'
'Bring Sarah James here and let us do the questioning,' Frick said.
'Well, there's a problem there.'
'What the hell do you mean?'
'You said to soften her up. We thought we could get some more info out of her. And you know she seemed more afraid of the one-eyed monster than anything-well, Shawn was pretending like he was going to get on top of her, just scaring her, not raping her or anything, and she got his gun.'
Frick gripped the handset, his knuckles whitening. 'Are you saying she got away, or you had to kill her?'
'Got away. Back up to the dock at Lopez. Up the bay.'
'That makes no sense,' Frick said. 'Why wouldn't she take off from the island, head to Anacortes or Orcas or something? Why back to Lopez, where you just caught her?'
'I can only tell you what she did.'
'Go find her and bring her here. Think about why she went right back-if thinking is part of your repertoire.'
'I'm all wet,' the moron said.
Frick hung up in disgust, turning to Khan.
'This Sam character ran into the woods,' Khan said.
'And your guys lost Sarah James. Call the dispatcher. Get the damn K-nine, he should have arrived from Orcas in the plane.' Frick then said to Delia, 'We'll start on Sam with the dog. But send more men to Lopez to help those incompetent bastards find the James woman. I can't believe I paid for this.'
Frick thought for a moment. 'We have a list of Sarah James's friends. We'll start there.'
'We're running low on men.'
'I'm sure that's exactly what the Indian bastard intended,' Frick said. 'Pull some of the men off the search for Sam. The dog will do more than ten men.'
McStott showed up looking nervous, no doubt aware of Frick's murderous rage. He mopped the sweat from his brow with a yellowed linen handkerchief.
'Go ahead,' Frick finally said.
'We found summaries-abstracts, they're called-referring to papers that analyze the psychological effect of an antiaging regimen. One study proposal apparently deals with the effects on people who don't get the various serums once they learn that it is available. Questions like, would they start a political movement? Would they be violent?
And how would the government respond? Would the government control who we give it to and how we give it, that sort of thing?' McStott watched Frick obviously trying to gauge whether he should continue. 'I mean, are you going to have a checklist to qualify?
Bad grades and you die young? Guys with criminal records or drunks with bad livers?
How about guys who are just recognized assholes?'
'You mean like you and me,' Frick said.
McStott thought better of responding to that. 'You know you have a lot of people standing in line to live a few hundred years and you may have to choose who gets it.
Will the government decide that? Will Sanker? What'll be the rules for getting the live-longer-now juice? Would people have an inalienable right to this stuff? Even if Sanker owns it, maybe the government controls it.'
'It's a cinch all the politicians will get it,' Frick said. 'So where are the actual papers discussing these
