Cold Hit

Chapter 60

Zack and I made our way slowly back down the hill toward the road, our footsteps deadened by a heavy bed of pine needles. I heard Zack wheezing in front of me, breathing through his mouth. After about ten minutes we stopped and kneeled in the dense brush beside the road.

"We need to set up an ambush," he whispered.

"We should sneak back up the road to their car," I responded.

"Right." But he stayed where he was, hunkered down in the brush. "You didn't really think it was me murdering those homeless guys, did you?"

I didn't want to talk about this now. We needed to keep moving.

"I gotta know," Zack said. "You really thought I was the unsub?"

"I'm sorry, Zack. But you looked pretty good for it. I couldn't get past the Vaughn Rolaine coincidence and how fucked up the murder book was. It was almost like you were trying to tank the case. And then after you damn near killed me. . I'm sorry, but for a while, that's the way I saw it."

He shook his head, looking down at his shoes. "Guess loyalty just ain't one a your strong suits," he said, softly. "What's important is, I was wrong."

He was still kneeling there, shaking his head while cradling the automatic weapon in those huge, fleshy forearms. "You know how completely fucked that is?" His voice was loud, carrying in the still forest.

Suddenly, I felt very strange about all this. I hadn't exactly proved that Sammy was the unsub. Boiled down to its essence, that was just a promising theory. I gripped the hunting knife tighter, wondering whether I'd just made another terrible mistake.

When Zack looked up at me, he had tears in his eyes. "I'm afraid to let the people I love get close," he said. "Zack-"

"My dad committed suicide when I was eight. It hurt so much I swore I'd never let anybody hurt me like that again. The day he did it, he told me he was gonna go help pour out the rain. Thought he was talkin' about our rain cisterns out back. But that wasn't what he was talking about at all."

"Zack, we gotta keep our mind on business here. These guys aren't pushovers. We gotta keep moving."

I looked up the hill behind me. I couldn't see or hear anybody up there, but my combat training told me we'd stayed in one spot too long.

"Zack-"

"Shut up, okay?" he interrupted. "I gotta tell you this. It may be our only time." He took a deep breath. "I found him down in the basement. His brains were on the ground, maggots crawling in his head. I puked. Couldn't touch him-my dad, and I couldn't touch him." He shook his head. "After that, Mom stayed drunk for two years. Her liver was so stewed they had t'put her in a hospital to dry her out. Kept my brother but dumped me in foster care, same as you. Only I was this fat kid nobody wanted and my foster folks kept throwing me back."

Then he looked directly at me. "You asked me why I hung on to you when you were so wasted. That's the reason, man. That's why I did it. I knew I couldn't let you go, 'cause you were just like me. It wasn't that you were too drunk to testify at my shooting reviews. It was because I understood you, Shane. I understood because your demons were the same as mine."

We were quiet for a minute, both thinking about that shared emptiness.

Then we heard voices in the distance. Zack rose out of his crouch. "Let's go."

We took off, moving just off the road, hiding in the brush. It took us almost twenty minutes to travel three hundred yards. When we finally got close enough, Zack held up his hand, signaling me to stop.

We could just make out the black Cadillac through the brush, parked on the road about twenty yards away. One of the Russians was leaning against the car. Then, almost as if inviting an attack, he set his pistol down on the trunk to pull out a cigarette.

Zack pointed at me, then at his eyes, indicating he wanted me to keep an eye on him while he moved up closer. I was only armed with a knife, so I wasn't going to be much backup unless I got in close. I held up my knife and pointed at myself, then to the car. He shook his head violently, and before I could argue, moved off in a low crouch, staying by the side of the road.

He was almost halfway there when he stepped on a piece of wood.

There was a dry snap and all hell broke loose.