His mind jumped to the obvious explanation that the apartment had been leased as a third potential sniper site. Why the other two had been used instead was a question that would need more thought. At the moment, however, it was outweighed by his desire to visit Rapture Hill. Perhaps when they were considered together the purpose of each location would become clearer.
Gurney by nature tended to go where his curiosity drew him without being overly concerned about backup. Oddities and discrepancies attracted his attention, arousing a desire to examine them more closely, even under conditions that might give others pause. In fact, it was his intention to proceed directly to the house at the end of Rapture Hill Road and no doubt that’s what he would have done, if Madeleine had not called while he was on his way.
She said she had no special reason for calling him, just a free moment and was wondering what he was doing. As he answered in some detail she was silent; he sensed the situation he was describing was making her uncomfortable.
Finally she said, “I don’t think you should go there alone. It’s too isolated. You don’t know what you could be walking into.”
She was right, of course. And while at another time he might have dismissed her concern, he was now inclined to be guided by it. At the next intersection he pulled over in front of an abandoned farm stand. The faded word “Pumpkins” appeared on a deteriorating sign.
He thought about the possibilities for backup. Any solution involving Kline, the WRPD, or the sheriff’s department would create its own set of problems. He decided to try Hardwick.
“Rapture Hill? The fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a house in the middle of nowhere, where Dell Beckert might possibly be holed up.”
“What makes this a possibility?”
“The house was leased by Blaze Jackson, who almost certainly had some sort of relationship with Beckert. She paid the eighteen-thousand-dollar annual rent in advance. I doubt she had access to that kind of money herself, but I’m sure Beckert did. And the house is just a few miles from the gas station where his Durango was sighted a day or so after he disappeared. So it’s worth a look.”
“If you don’t mind wasting your time, go look.”
“I intend to.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“A possible welcoming committee.”
Hardwick paused for a moment. “You want Uncle Jack to ride shotgun again to cover your cowardly ass.”
“Something like that.”
“If the son of a bitch is there, maybe I could find a reason to pop him.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“You’re taking the joy out of this. The only upside of riding shotgun is getting to fire the fucking thing.”
“Well, there’s a chance we might run into the Gorts.”
“Okay. Where do I find you?”
The meeting place Gurney chose, after consulting Google Maps on his phone, was the intersection of a winding wilderness lane called Rockton Way and the starting point of Rapture Hill Road. When he got there he parked in a weedy space between the road surface and the evergreen woods.
According to his dashboard clock, a quarter of an hour had now passed since his call with Hardwick. He figured it would take Jack another half hour to make the trip from Dillweed. He fought an urge to proceed at least part of the way up Rapture Hill on his own. Not only would that defeat the purpose of having called Hardwick, it would increase the level of risk in return for no benefit other than learning thirty minutes sooner whatever there was to be learned.
He tilted his seat back and waited, occupying his mind with various permutations of who might have set up whom for each of the seven murders and why. He kept coming back to the question that had been haunting him for some time. Did the murders necessitate the apparent frame jobs, or were the frame jobs the goal that necessitated the murders? And did the same answer apply to each case?
After twenty-five minutes, he heard the welcome rumble of Hardwick’s GTO pulling in behind him. He got out to meet him.
The man’s favorite weapon, his Sig Sauer, was strapped on over the black tee shirt that had become as characteristic a part of him as those unsettling pale-blue eyes. In his left hand he carried a scoped AK-47 assault rifle.
“Just in case things get interesting,” he said with a manic gleam in his eye that might have unnerved someone who didn’t know him as well as Gurney did.
“Thanks for coming.”
He coughed up a wad of phlegm and spit it onto the dirt road. “Before I forget to mention it—I got in touch with that boarding school Cory got sent to in Virginia, plus Beckert’s old prep school. Nobody at either place had any idea if Beckert owned any property down there. I spoke to half a dozen county clerks in the areas around those schools and the areas around the Beauville family tobacco farms, but none of them would give me the time of day. So much for that—unless you want to spend the next week of your life in the ass end of that state going over tax rolls. Which I think would be an incredibly stupid idea.”
