The Goodbye Man
- Автор: Дивер Джеффри
- Серия: Colter Shaw #2
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: G. P. Putnam’s Sons
- ISBN: 978-0-525-53597-3
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Goodbye Man». Краткое содержание книги:
Then the jarring impact, compressing bones and muscles and organs. Shaw managed to fill his lungs an instant before hitting the surface. The stinging cold, though, had the effect of pushing out all of that air.
His soles stung like hell but the complex architecture of the ankles remained intact; water had not shattered bone, and the lake bottom was far beneath.
He kicked hard to Victoria and, in a lifeguard’s grip, got her to the shore.
Shaw had looked back. Samuel might have been alive when he hit. Probably wasn’t now. In any event, survival involves triage, the decision-making process about assessing who is likely to live and who is not. Shaw had removed Inner Circle Journeyman Samuel from his thoughts.
Soon, fire and rescue had deposited them both on the top of the cliff. The medics examined Victoria, ran their tests and determined that nothing was broken; her spine and legs were fine. She had, however, walloped her shoulder. Maybe dislocation, rotator cuff issue. They affixed her arm to her body with flesh-colored bandages to keep it from gritty movement and she was offered painkillers, which she declined.
She also vetoed a trip to the local hospital.
“Been hurt worse. This’s nothing.”
With her good arm hooked through his, Victoria and Shaw, in fresh clothing walked back to the staging area in front of the YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW gate. The place still bubbled with chaos. FBI and state police crime scene evidence technicians were doing their meticulous job, as busy and efficient as accountants on April 14. Other investigators were under tents, which had appeared miraculously, vacuuming up details from the Companions and staff.
Shaw had noted that many of the law enforcers used tablets just like those the Foundation staff carried around.
Victoria released him and snagged her backpack with her good arm.
Shaw asked, “You drove, didn’t you?”
“My pickup. There. The black one. It’s got a manual, so I’m not driving anywhere soon. I’ll bus it to wherever they drop us off. Call my parents or brother or a friend.”
“Where’s home?”
“My parents’re in Glendale.”
Not really an answer to the question. He assumed a woman of her age who is a security consultant/former soldier doesn’t live with Mom and Dad. However, no need for her to be completely forthcoming. Shaw, after all, was not unspooling his own pertinent data to her particularly quickly.
Victoria had continued, “It’ll be an adventure. I haven’t stayed in a hotel across from a bus station since that post-college junket to Europe. I’ll bet there’s even a Jack-in-the-Box on the corner.”
Shaw fished his truck keys from his pocket. “Let me throw an idea out there.”
She glanced his way, her eyes tinted with cautious reception.
He pitched his thought, and, after some mental juggling, she said, “Sure.”
An hour later they were on their way to Tacoma, where he would return the Silverado and pick up the Winnebago.
On the way, Shaw negotiated the switchbacks and Victoria handled the phone, trying to get details of the pursuit of David Ellis and Hugh, whose last name turned out to be Garner.
Special Agent Slay and the state police, though, were still not having any luck in tracing them.
Once in the Winnebago, they hit the road, south. They made good time. The first rest break was well past Oregon’s southern border, in the small town of Barkley Heights, California. The burg’s WELCOME TO sign sported a cartoon dog, its open mouth raised skyward, tongue dangling.
“A barking dog? Not the friendliest of logos,” Shaw said.
“Why not a seal? Seals bark,” Victoria pointed out.
“Don’t imagine there’s a seal within four hundred miles.”
“Logic and town planning,” she said, “don’t always go hand in glove.”
They looked around them for a restaurant or bar.
“Not much of a town,” Shaw observed.
“But I’ll bet you can buy plenty of Barkley the dog toy souvenirs and T-shirts.”
They parked and walked into the only diner on the main drag.
Victoria won the bet.
76
Now, in the Compound, they sat on the old couch, which was covered with a Native American blanket. Shaw sipped from the coffee mug and asked, “You okay?”
“The worst movie line ever written,” Victoria replied.
“Hm?”
“Movies. Big gunfight. Car crash. Tornado. Sharks. Aliens. There’s a lull in the action. Hero A — that’s you — says to Hero B, me, ‘You okay?’ Cliché. The scriptwriter’s asleep at the switch.”
“That may be. But it’s a valid question. You fell off a cliff.”
“Was thrown.”
“And the answer is?”
Victoria said, “Better every day. She’s good, your mother. I’ve had PT, time to time, and I know a pro when I’m worked on.”
They were facing east, and the lowering sun behind them was igniting mountaintops in a most impressive way. Even in this gentle month, defiant snow embraced the staunch peaks.
Shaw had originally thought, believing Victoria to be beset by the loss of spouse and child, that he might arrange for her to see Mary Dove for psychological help. That plan had been negated by the facts: she was homicidal, not suicidal. But, after Samuel’s attack, it had then occurred to Shaw that Victoria might benefit from some time in the Compound where his mother’s physical therapy skills might be of some help.
“What’s her plan?” Victoria asked. She was referring to Anne DeStefano, the deprogrammer. Shaw had spoken to the woman at length about the Osiris Foundation.
DeStefano had said, “A lot of cults talk about immortality. Not a lot of them encourage you to see if their theory holds up. And people seemed to buy it?”
“Enough did.” Shaw had given her the relevant details.
“I’m going to get on top of it now. Since most of the members were in for the short-term — just three weeks’ indoctrination — it shouldn’t be hard to reverse most of the damage. The ones who came back for the follow-up sessions will take a bit more work.”
Shaw told Victoria that DeStefano would be in touch with the authorities interviewing the Companions and give them her name and the names of psychologists and deprogrammers in the areas where they lived.
Shaw had also heard from Walter and Sally, who had returned home safely to Chicago. Abby was staying with them for the time being but would soon be released to child protective services in her hometown. Frederick and Shaw had spoken several times. He was working with the police to build the case against Eli and Hugh.
Movement from their left. Chase plodded close, moving with purpose. Like an airplane easing into the airport gate, he turned and slowed to a stop between them. Then flopped down, his chin on Victoria’s sneakered foot.
She looked into the sky. “Hey, there. Is that a... another golden eagle?”
Shaw squinted. “Believe so.”
Their mascot. A thought Shaw kept to himself.
The dark brown form was winging muscularly back toward the forest and cliffs. “That’s a male. It’s mating season now and the mother will be with the eggs for about a month. They don’t make nests. They build platforms.”
“So Dad’s been grocery shopping.” She then asked, “What’s the latest on the Guiding Beacon and his sidekick?”
Shaw shook his head. “Not good. According to that agent, Slay, they were spotted getting into Canada, but then disappeared.”
The authorities had contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who were sympathetic, but the area of southern British Columbia was huge and the Canadians simply didn’t have the manpower for the kind of search necessary to track down Eli and Hugh.