Middle Of Nowhere

   What Bryce Abbott Flek did not know was that she had spent the last ten to fifteen minutes scrunched down into one corner of the locked trunk, the right taillight's plastic housing pulled away, shorting out its connection in an endlessly repeating stream of three short, three long, and three short bursts. They had traveled good road for most of that ride, and she had to think that some car or truck had been back there, some Boy Scout or former Marine alert to a taillight blinking Morse code. She counted on someone having taken down the plate number, of calling it into authorities on a hunch that the SOS meant something. This, along with Boldt's earlier call into Poulsbo for backup, a call she was also counting on having been made, seemed certain to alert authorities to her general vicinity. The psychologist in her wouldn't succumb to the evidence at hand—the fact that Flek looked and sounded unstable, apparently the victim of another glow plug or two, that he held her weapon in the waist of his pants and had a glassy look in his eyes that forewarned her of that instability. That he was capable of violence against her, she had no doubt. She had already witnessed this firsthand. But a larger agenda loomed behind those eyes, and she wanted her chance to redirect its course. The first step was the gag. She needed the gag removed to have any chance whatsoever. She made noise for the first time, sounding like a person with no tongue.

   She had no idea of their location. She guessed they were somewhere on or near the Port Madison Indian Reservation because it was dark as pitch out, only a faint amber glow to the bottoms of clouds many, many miles away. The road was gravel and mud. Though in a partial clearing, they were surrounded by tall giant cedars, ferns, and thick vegetation. She heard a stream or river nearby. If she could run to that water, she could swim it, or float it, and he'd have a hell of a time finding her. She could climb a tree and hide. Wait out the sunrise. She clung to these positive thoughts in the face of her impending execution. Did he know enough to blame her for his brother's murder as well? On the surface, Flek seemed to be explaining why he was now going to kill her, though the psychologist knew that if that had been his intention he'd have already carried through with it. Either he was plagued by doubt, or he had something else in mind. She tried to talk at him again, the rag tasting like gasoline on her tongue.

   "When you talk," he said, "you'll tell me his phone number—I don't want to hear nothing else from you, not another word. Just the phone number. This Lieutenant Louis Boldt. This one did this to Davie. A pager's fine. His cell phone. But nothing in no office. No land lines. I call once. One call. You understand? You screw this up, and it's on you what happens next. Maybe I fuck you. Maybe I just snuff you sitting right there like that—all wet and disgusting. Maybe you go out ugly, lady. Ugly and unlaid and dead. Not much worse than that."

   She tried again. Grunts and groans lost on him. Swallowed by the relentless rain.

   "This is very important what I'm telling you," he said. "Just the man's phone number. That's all. Then the rag goes back on. You can nod now and let me know you understand. Anything more than the phone number right now, and I'll knock your teeth out with the butt of the gun, and then you will pay. God Almighty, how you will pay. So how 'bout it? Do I get a nod?"

C H A P T E R

55

"L isten up," a stranger's voice demanded over Boldt's cellular phone. He had been expecting the report from Gaynes. The ferry had slowed and was nudging toward the small but well-lighted dock at Winslow. "Badge number six five six four. Your partner, Matthews. Right?"

   "I'm a lieutenant. I don't have a partner. Who is this?" Boldt said. He already had LaMoia's attention. He gestured toward the phone and pointed back into the dark of the Sound, toward the city, and LaMoia got the idea; the sergeant pulled out his own phone and made the call to Gaynes. Boldt placed his thumb over the phone's talk hole and whispered, "It could be Daffy's, it could be his."

   "Got it!" LaMoia said.

   Flek announced into Boldt's ear, "I've got her badge in my hand or I wouldn't know the number. Right? Even a dumb cop can figure that out. You want her alive, you come get her alone. That's the deal. And believe me, I'll know if you're alone or not. And if not, then not. No second chances. A hunter'll find her in a couple years."

   Boldt pushed the phone's antenna down, held the device away from his mouth and said, "You're breaking up . . . I can't hear you. Hang on—" He disconnected the call.

   While Boldt was still staring at the phone, secondguessing himself, LaMoia, with Gaynes on the line, said, "What's up?"

   "I hung up on him before he could give me the drop point."

   "You what!?" LaMoia hissed through his teeth loudly enough to attract attention.

   The ferry gently bumped the dock and weary passengers headed toward the exits.