Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

The sheriff and I went through the side door of the building onto the courthouse lawn. The flowers were blooming in the gardens along the walkways, the maples darkening with shadow against the western sun. “What is Surrette going to do next?” he asked.

“Cause as much injury and suffering as possible.”

“You think the waitress is alive?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Surrette doesn’t take chances. And he’s afraid of his victims.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“All serial killers are cowards. They want their victims to remain terrified. They don’t want their victims to see the frightened child living inside them.”

“Where’s the Horowitz woman?” he said.

“At Albert Hollister’s place.”

“No matter how this shakes out, I think she should move on.”

“Somebody tried to bait her into a spring-loaded bear trap.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“That’s why she didn’t report it,” I said.

“Dixon called you a believer,” the sheriff said. “What did he mean?”

“Who knows what goes on in the mind of a guy like that?”

“I think you do. I think you and he are of one mind. That’s what bothers me about you,” he said.

I drove back to Lolo. The sky was blue and ribbed with strips of pink cloud above the mountain peaks in the west, but I couldn’t get my mind off the abducted waitress. If she was dead, Asa Surrette would be seeking a new victim soon. He had tried and failed with Gretchen. Would Alafair be next? I couldn’t bear thinking about it.

THE MORNING AFTER Gretchen’s life had been saved by the snowshoe rabbit, she climbed to the top of the ridge and tried to track the man who had mocked and almost killed her. She found broken branches in the undergrowth, skid marks where he probably slid down a trail, and the muddy print of a hiking shoe on a flat rock. Down below, she could see the fenced pasture that Wyatt Dix

on rented for his horses. To the south, toward the two-lane that led over Lolo Pass, she could find no sign that anyone had passed through the foliage or rock slides or the damp areas where springs leaked out of the hillside. To the north, there was an escarpment that only a desperate person would try to scale. Where had the man on the ridge gone?

There was another possibility: What if he hadn’t gone anywhere? Maybe he had doubled back on his trail and was hiding in the woods in another cave. There were only two or three houses north of Albert’s ranch, all of them located in a natural cul-de-sac formed by cliffs and steep-sided hills that no one would try to climb in the dark.

She decided to retrace her own tracks and start her search all over again. She began by returning to the place where she had almost been caught in the saw-toothed jaws of the bear trap. The trap and the chain and the steel pin that had anchored it were gone.

She turned in a circle and stared at the dust floating in the shafts of sunlight that shone through the canopy. “You out there, bubba?” she called out. “You had plenty to say last night! Let’s have a chat!”

She heard her voice echo off the hillside.

“You’re not going to let a woman run you off, are you?”

Nothing.

Now it was Tuesday, and she had no evidence to prove that anyone had tried to maim or kill her on the hillside behind Albert’s house. That afternoon, she packed her gym bag and drove to the health club on the highway between Lolo and Missoula, unaware that she was about to face her oldest nemesis, namely, her fear that disobeying her instincts and placing her trust in others would lead invariably to betrayal and manipulation.

SHE DRESSED IN a pair of sweatpants and a sports bra and running shoes and a Marine Corps utility cap and did three miles on the indoor track, up on the second floor. Then she went into an alcove on the edge of the track and slipped on a pair of gloves with dowels inside them and started in on the heavy bag, hitting it so hard, it bounced on the suspension chain and swung into the wall. After every fourth blow, she twisted her body and delivered a kick to the bag that made such a loud whap that people running on the track turned and stared, almost in alarm.

She pulled off her gloves and wiped her face and neck with a sweat towel, then loaded an audiobook into her iPod and went to work on the speed bag. She started out hitting doubles, two blows with one fist, two blows with the other. After fifteen minutes, she switched to singles, creating a bicycle-like motion, allowing one fist to follow the other without interruption, the bag thundering off the rebound board. All the while, she counted her strokes under her breath, making bare-knuckle contact with the leather sixty times in forty seconds. The bag looked like a black blur thudding off the board.

She went to the water fountain and took a long drink and walked back to the alcove just as a runner came around the bend in the track. The runner was a short woman with very pale skin and black moles on her shoulders. Her hair was thick and sweaty and held a dark luster and streaks of brown. Her face was heated from running, her breath coming short in her chest. She slowed to a stop when she recognized Gretchen. “How do you do?” she said.