Scott Free (27 page)

“He set me up,” Isaac mused aloud, genuinely amazed that he'd taken the boy's bait. “He knew I'd go for the obvious and he doubled back on me.”

A buzzing sound, not unlike that of an angry insect caught his ear, and he cocked his head curiously as he stared down at the telephone. The line was open!

Scowling, Isaac brought the phone to his ear. “Scott!” someone yelled. “Scott, are you there?”

“Who is this?” Isaac asked.

“Oh, thank God!” the voice exclaimed. “Is that you, Scott?” Then, as if to someone else, he said, “It doesn't sound like Scott.”

“Who are you?” Isaac asked again. “Are you his father?”

“Yes, I'm Brandon O'Toole, Scott's father. Is he there?”

“I'm afraid your son is dead,” Isaac said. “And I'm the man who killed him.”

He disconnected the line, then opened it again for one more call.

I
T WASN'T JUST HIS HANDS
and feet anymore.

As Scott tore through the wilderness, the wind lashed at his face and his ears as well, making them feel brittle as glass. Tears flowed from the onslaught, only to freeze on his face. If he didn't find shelter soon, his escape would mean nothing, merely an opportunity to die somewhere else in the vast wilderness. Even the invincible, it turned out, could freeze to death. For a while, he tried backing off the throttle to cut down on the wind, but then he worried about the additional exposure time, and then he sped up again.

He found himself longing for the times when a mere plane crash seemed like a huge problem.

Speed, time and distance had no meaning for him anymore, all of it measured in slices of forever. A crushing fatigue overtook him without warning, leaving him dizzy and slightly disoriented. For a moment there, as he contemplated what life would be like without fingers and toes, it seemed as if the woods were moving past him at a rate much faster than the snowmobile was moving forward. Sven's warnings about death by exposure tried to infiltrate his thoughts, but he pushed them away, wishing that he'd never attended that goddamn gloomy class.

When he first saw the glimmer of light ahead through the trees, he assumed it to be a hallucination, and sure enough, when he blinked his eyes, it was gone. A few seconds later, though, it returned, only to blink away again, and Scott realized that the trees and hills were playing hide-and-seek with him. On one sighting, it would be on his left, and then as he steered his way down the trail, it would reappear on his right, only to disappear again among the trees.

At first, he thought the light was moving—maybe another vehicle—but as he got closer, he realized that with the twists and turns in the trail, he was the one moving relative to the light, not the other way around.

Scott smiled, in spite of his agony. It was a house, that much he could tell. And the trail led right to it. Elated, he tossed his head back and cheered, “Invincible!”

He was going to make it, after all. He'd step inside, tell the owner what had happened, and wait for the police to come and rescue him.

He thought of Isaac again. Surely he knew where the trail led, and just as surely, he'd be along soon to settle all accounts. Okay, then, new plan: He'd alert the owner to the danger ahead, and they could drive together to safety. It couldn't be any simpler.

Scott slowed to barely moving as he navigated the last turn, finding himself at a T-intersection with what looked to be a driveway.

The snow here was churned and broken, two tire tracks clearly visible, leading to an old pickup truck parked in a doorless garage. Scott pulled to a stop as close to the front door as he could manage, peeled his numb fingers from the handlebars and dismounted. It wasn't like walking on broken glass anymore. It was like walking on fire.

The door opened as he raised his fist to knock, revealing a short disheveled old man who smelled of stale sweat and alcohol. His stringy yellow hair hadn't been washed or combed in days. “Come in,” the man said. “You look like hell.”

Scott more stumbled than stepped into the little house. It smelled like a concentrated version of the old man, and was furnished in Salvation Army rejects. He could see the whole place in a single glance. “Thank you,” he said.

“Take the chair by the fire. Get yourself warm. You're lucky if you ain't frostbit.”

Scott did him one better, limping to a spot ten inches in front of the fire. The intensity of the heat was nearly as agonizing as the cold. “Thank you so much,” Scott said again. “But we can't stay here. There's a man chasing me—”

“I know,” said the old man, drawing a curious look from Scott. “You're Scott O'Toole. I've been expecting you.”

That's when Scott saw the gun in his hand.

 

B
RANDON SAT ON THE SOFA
, his arm around Sherry, watching Barry Whitestone hang up the telephone. He didn't like the look on the chief's face. “What?”

The chief cocked his head curiously. “The call traced to Waco, Texas.”

“That's ridiculous!” Sherry blurted. Brandon agreed.

“I asked them to recheck twice. That's where it came from.”

“Do you have a name?” Brandon asked.

“That'll take a little longer,” Whitestone said. As much to himself as to anyone else, he added, “That just can't be right.” He looked to Brandon. “Tell me again what he said.”

Brandon started at the beginning and plowed through it all for the fourth time. “It's not going to change, Barry,” he said at the end.

James Alexander had been the last to arrive, and had been listening quietly from the foyer. When he cleared his throat, all heads turned to face him. “That business about the president,” he said. “I think we need to get the Secret Service involved.”

Whitestone sighed. As much as he hated the notion of prolonging his exposure to those sons of bitches, once someone breathed the word
assassination
it all became a new ball game. He nodded and made it so. To Brandon, he said, “We need to shift this meeting to our office.”

Brandon nodded. “I'm coming with you.”

“Suppose he calls back?” Whitestone asked.

“He called on the cell phone. I'll have it with me.”

Whitestone wasn't in the mood to argue. “We'll see just how many people one little police station can hold. James, make your phone call.”

Alexander tossed off a two-fingered salute and headed for the phone. He hadn't taken two steps when he stopped. “Wait!” he exclaimed, launching everyone out of their chairs. “Waco? I know what that's about.” He thought for a moment to recover the name. “Terrastar. You familiar with it?”

“Sounds like a software company,” Sherry said.

“It's a satellite phone company,” James corrected. “One of those little portable jobs, works anywhere. I have one of them on my boat. The phone bills all originate in Waco, Texas. That's the local number for them.”

“No matter where you are?” Whitestone asked.

Alexander nodded. “Right. Think about it. The whole concept works on shooting a beam to a satellite instead of a cell antenna. No matter where you are, the satellite thinks that Waco is home.”

The room fell silent for ten seconds as they all contemplated this.

“So, Scott is still local,” Whitestone said. “And I'd bet real money that he's still alive.”

Sherry sat up straight, wiping her eyes. This sounded like something she needed to hear.

Whitestone explained, “It doesn't track for me that he's dead. From everything said, it seems we're working with a professional killer. Wouldn't make sense for him to taunt you like that.”

“But why would he say it if it wasn't true?” Sherry asked.

“I'm guessing frustration. Anger.” He turned to Brandon. “That's one resourceful kid you've got.”

Brandon smiled. “What did I tell you?”

 

S
COTT STARED AT THE PISTOL
, his mouth agape. “W-What are you doing?” Tears pressed behind his eyes as his hope for rescue evaporated. “Who
are
you?”

“Wayne Pembroke is my name,” the old man said. The pistol looked like something out of an old cowboy movie, and it seemed to take everything Pembroke had just to keep it pointed at him. “Mr. Clavan called me a few minutes ago. Told me to keep an eye out for you. Said you stole his snowmobile and was headin' this way. Said if I saw you, to keep an eye on you till he got here. Shouldn't be more than a few minutes.”

“I didn't steal anything!” Scott protested.
Jesus, how many names does this guy have?
“He's trying to kill me, and I got away.”

Pembroke laughed, as if that were the most ridiculous story he'd ever heard.

Scott rose tentatively back to his feet, prompting the old man to cock the pistol. “Stay back,” Pembroke said.

“Look at me, for God's sake!” Scott proclaimed. “I'm barefoot. I got no gloves, no hat. Do I look like somebody who's out to steal a snowmobile?” In spite of the danger, he found himself laughing at the absurdity of it all. “Wouldn't you at least think I'd bring
shoes?”

Pembroke's face darkened as his eyes dropped to the boy's feet, and then back up to his eyes. He looked half-sold.

“I was in a plane that crashed,” Scott explained, wishing for all the world that he had a story that was less outrageous. “Maybe you heard about me on the news? The author's kid who was lost in a plane crash in the snowstorm?”

“Ain't had no TV here since ninteen and ninety-seven,” Pembroke said.

Scott limped a couple of steps closer. “Just trust me, okay? I'm telling the truth. I hiked through the woods and I stumbled upon Isaac DeHaven's house. His ranch. The bootlegger's place.”

“Isaac who?”

Scott instinctively checked out the window, expecting to see headlights in the driveway. “DeHaven. The guy you call Clavan. Some guys came to the house this afternoon, and they thought his name was Powell. The guy's got like a thousand names.”

It all seemed too much for the old man. “You're talking crazy,” he said.

“He's a killer, okay?” Scott blurted. His voice rose an octave. “Clavan—whatever you want to call him—he's a killer. And he's planning to kill the president.”

“Of the United States?” Pembroke scoffed. “He's staying here on vacation.”

Scott gave him an expectant look, waiting for him to put it together for himself. He rapped his own forehead with his knuckles. “Hel-lo. That's the point. The president of the United States is here. The killer is here.”

“Clavan is always here,” Pembroke said. “He
lives
here.”

“I watched him kill two people today, Mr. Pembroke. Saw it with my own eyes. He made up some story about the witness protection program, but I guess he knew that I saw through it, so now he's coming after me.”

“This is crazy,” Pembroke said. But his face showed a crack in his commitment.

“It
sounds
crazy, I know,” Scott granted. “But I'm telling you, every word of it is the truth.”

“If he's a professional killer, then how come you're still alive?”

“Because I never was where he thought I was going to be. Christ, he shot at me—” Scott paused, suddenly struck with an inspiration. “Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.” He headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Outside. I want to show you.”

Pembroke raised the revolver a little higher. “You just sit down like I told you in the beginning.”

“There are bullet holes in the snowmobile,” Scott explained. “He shot at me when I was leaving—”

“Of course he did. You was stealin' it.”

“I wasn't stealing—” Scott let out a roar of frustration. “He was going to
kill
me for stealing a damn snowmobile? Does that make sense to you? If he was so attached to the machine, why would he shoot it full of holes? Come here, I'll show you.”

Scott watched as the wheels turned in Pembroke's head. He was coming around.

“He's trying to kill me,” the boy said softly. “And after he's done it, he can't afford to keep you alive, either.” That piqued the old man's interest. “You'd be a witness. In his line of work, witnesses are bad. That's why he's after
me.”

Bingo. Scott actually saw his argument strike home.

“So,” Scott pressed, “all we have to do is call the police—”

“No!” Pembroke said it so suddenly, with such force, that Scott jumped. “No cops.”

“But he's—”

“No cops!” Clearly, this was nonnegotiable. “I've done some business with Clavan over the years, mostly taking care of equipment for him—that snowmobile, in fact. I don't need no cops snoopin' around here and findin' that out.”

“So, what do you suggest?”

Pembroke gave him a hard look. “My instinct is to throw you back like a fish that's too small to eat,” he said. “I don't need none of this shit, okay? My instincts say if I shoot you myself, nobody'll be the wiser, and won't nobody be on my back.” He paused, his gray eyes narrowing. “But they also say that if I was Clavan, I'd think that you probably told me all of this, and if it's true, then you're right, he'd have no choice but to kill me, too.”

The old man took a deep breath and scowled. “Goddammit,” he growled. “What size shoe do you wear?”

“Excuse me?”

“Shoes, boy!” Pembroke roared. “What size do you wear?”