“How long have you known this?” Luke asks.

“Just a few days. Apparently he was living on some kind of Russian troll farm. Now he’s not.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, Luke. I’m sorry.”

“What do you know?” Luke asks.

“All right now,” Marty warns, “it’s not her fault.”

“No,” Charley says, “he’s got a right to be upset.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke mutters. “I just . . . What do you know?”

“He’s how they’re finding the killers. The ones I go after.”

“Oh, OK,” Marty says. “Well, he’s using his powers for good, then. Maybe they’ll use him to find the smoking gun on Jordy and his merry band of shit monsters.”

“Uh-huh,” Luke says, “and that info will go where and do what exactly?”

Marty doesn’t respond; maybe because he just noticed Charley’s look telling him not to.

His elbows resting on his knees, Luke stares out at the lake, occasionally brushing his chin with his clasped hands. She hasn’t seen him this close to tears in a while. Maybe it’s a testament to his character. After all the trauma they’ve been through, the one thing that still gets to him is Bailey, his only living blood relative.

“My brother.” There’s a stammer in his voice, but he takes a deep breath and continues. “Every time I try to help him, every time I try to make us a family, he throws it back in my face like it’s shit. Like it’s complete shit. And now this. One of the most powerful men in the world offers to give him a clean slate so he can come home and actually have a family, and what does he do? I mean, what the hell does he do? He goes to work for the guy! He chooses to stay a criminal. He’d rather live in hiding than ever lay eyes on me again.”

“Well,” Marty says, “he’s got a habit of spying on people through their devices, so maybe he’s laying eyes on you all the time and you just don’t know it.”

“Marty, please stop helping,” Charley whispers.

“Sorry,” Marty mumbles.

“Luke,” she says, “we don’t actually know if Cole really made that offer to Bailey. It might have been conditional.”

“What do you mean?” Luke asks.

“Meaning Cole said you either go to work for me or your record stays the way it is and you freeze to death in Russia every winter.”

“Maybe,” Luke says. True or not, this possibility doesn’t seem to dull his pain.

Nobody says anything for a while. Once again, a sound that should be peaceful, the gentle lapping of the lake water against the sides of the dock, feels as invasive as harsh knocks against a thin door.

“I just need a minute,” Luke says. “OK? Can I have a minute to myself?”

Before Charley can say anything, Marty gently takes her arm and starts leading her away from the bench. “Sure thing, podnah,” he says. “We’ll be right over here when you need us.”

They’re halfway up the dock when Charley says, “This sucks.”

“Hardest thing you ever have to do in a relationship.”

“What, telling them what they don’t want to hear?” she asks.

“Nope,” Marty says. “Giving ’em a minute.”

31

The problem with Pete Henricks, Jordy Clements realizes once they’ve left town, is that he can’t focus.

When he first met the guy, he seemed like a pretty good listener. But now that Henricks feels more comfortable in Jordy’s presence, he won’t shut up, and it’s giving Jordy a protracted and unwanted glimpse into the guy’s squirrelly mind.

One minute the dude’s talking about how when he was a kid he almost drove into that old oak they just sped past; the next second, he’s explaining how the women he’s dated were all proof that there’s a connection between an inability to measure spatial relationships and a lack of emotional discipline. In women, that is.

Maybe he’s nervous about this unexpected ride out of town. Or maybe he’s just a class-A idiot. Given his behavior the past few days, Jordy figures it’s the latter. But he wants to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. For the next hour or two, at least.

Shortly after he got to town, Jordy had some of his guys follow all four of the regular sheriff’s deputies for several weeks to see which one might be the most amenable to a new business arrangement. The reports all came back the same: Pete Henricks was the best candidate. A lifelong resident of Altamira and a community college dropout, he was rumored to have declared bankruptcy before getting hired by the department. He also had a rep for explaining to anyone who would listen how common sense was usually the best sense and government usually made a mess of things.

Luke Prescott, on the other hand, was a no go. By all accounts, the guy was an asshole who fancied himself too good for his hometown, probably thanks to his higher education. No doubt his time in San Francisco, Sodom by the Sea, had indoctrinated him in all sorts of diseased ways of thinking.

And boy, had that turned out to be the truth.

He had to give props to the guys who’d warned him off Prescott.

But those same guys had steered him toward Henricks. Should he blame himself for making the final call or take it out on the foot soldiers who steered him in Henricks’s direction? That would all depend on what was about to transpire up here in the mountains just west of town.