Killer Summer

“The Jefferson bottles are authentic.”

“I don’t remember discussing the Jefferson bottles…”

Walt looked Remy in the eyes. Tick, tick, tick, he thought. The lawyer will shut us down.

“I did very well off of that sale,” Remy said, his eyes devoid of light. “Then the economy tanked, and people weren’t exactly beating a path to buy wine. Up here in Sun Valley is different, I don’t need to tell you. ‘What recession?’ people are saying. But, still, the rest of the world is broke. So I decided to find some new bottles, something to tide me over. It didn’t come cheap. Neither did verification. I had to find an investor, which I did, who put up a substantial amount of capital. But then there were questions from one of the verification experts-”

“Amsterdam,” Walt interjected, wanting Remy to know he was ahead of him, thanks to Janet Finch.

Remy could not contain his surprise, though he recovered quickly.

“The theft… the attempted theft here… I’m being blamed for that?”

“Makes sense to me.”

“But it wasn’t me.”

“What’s done is done.”

“It wasn’t my investors either. But they think it was me. It’s a mess.”

“Tell me about your relationship with Christopher Cantell.”

“Never met him.” He waited for Walt to say something. “You don’t believe me!”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Walt said.

Tick, tick, tick.

Remy had gone ashen. He ran his hand through his stubby hair. He couldn’t stop looking toward the front of the bus.

“Have I heard of Christopher Cantell?” Remy said. “Of course I have.”

“That’s better.”

“No, you misunderstand… Have I met him? No. Spoken to him? Never. But he had his fifteen minutes. You’re aware of that, right?”

Walt’s head swooned. He cursed not eating. He should have looked more deeply into Cantell.

“You do go to the movies?” Remy asked.

“Apparently, not often enough.”

“Christopher Cantell,” Remy said. “That movie. Italian Job? No, that was a different one. Mark Wahlberg, right? Was it that one with Hanks? No, no, that was a con man, I think… I don’t know, I forget… But they made a movie based on this guy Cantell, a heist movie. Above average, nothing great. But I remember the press: they played up the real-life side of it… That’s as much as I know about him.”

“A movie,” Walt said. He felt the rug going out from under him.

“Look it up,” said Remy, “IMDb it. What do I care?”

“And you think Cantell just happened to go after your wine?”

“Ask him!”

A fine line of sweat pearls had formed on Remy’s upper lip. They both sensed the imminent arrival of the attorney.

“How should I know?” Remy continued. “There was lots of publicity, advance press-believe me, I saw to that. Churn up the market, you know? And part of that is churning up the rumor mill. The trades have been covering these bottles for the past six months.”

A man came onto the bus. Walt recognized Terry Hogue, one of the valley’s best attorneys. The Christensens had helped their friend out indeed.

“I forged those bottles,” Remy leaned forward and whispered harshly. “So, charge me.”

“A movie?”

“Charge me!”

“That’ll be enough, Sheriff,” Terry Hogue called out to Walt from the front of the RV. “We’re all through here.”

“Charge me!” Remy pleaded.

67

Ranches gave way to national forest, and soon there was not a structure in sight. The pale moonlight played off the towering blue-gray boulders to the right, the rolling carpet of evergreens to the left. A pair of amber eyes suddenly glowed at the side of the two-lane road, a black-tailed fox darting across in the glare of the headlights just barely in time to reach the other side.

“Sixteen miles on horseback,” Brandon reported, “four to five hours, if we can stick to the trail. If we’re lucky, we can cross to the east side of the Middle Fork by dawn.”

Jerry checked his watch. He’d been doing so often, far more than necessary. Walt was pushing seventy-five miles an hour with the light rack flashing.

“You understand, it could get ugly,” Jerry said to Brandon in the backseat.

Brandon looked up from the map and the handheld GPS, which he was programming, but didn’t speak. He and Walt met eyes in the rearview mirror.

“There are times to wear the badge and times to put it in the drawer,” Jerry said.

“That’s not the way we do it,” Walt said.

“If anyone survived, if anyone’s holding Kevin, it’s going to get wet. I just want both of you prepared for that.”

“Rescuing the boy and the girl is our first priority,” Brandon said. “I’ve got no problem with that.”

“The FBI gets hold of this…” Jerry cautioned. “I happen to know the SAC out of Salt Lake, personally. He’s a shock-and-awe advocate. Loves the heavy-handed approach. He’ll get them both killed. We’re not setting up comm lines, we’re not negotiating. We get our sights on these guys, we’ll drop them just like that. We’ve got to hit them hard without warning. We’ve got one chance. After that, they take control, and we oblige them. But we’re not going to let it get to that. Kevin is going to walk away from this.”

The whine of tire rubber on road filled Walt’s ears.

“I’m just saying,” Jerry continued, “that that’s the way it’s going to be. I need to hear you say it too, Brandon, or you can stay behind when we switch to the horses. I’ve got no problem with your doing that. It’s either all in or not in at all. An operation like this, it’s just the way it’s got to be.”

“We get it,” Walt said.

“I gotta hear him say it.”

“I’m in,” Brandon said.

“We might face charges,” Jerry said, “Walt and I… That boy’s our blood. It’s not fair to ask that of you, but I’ve got to lay it out the way I see it.”

“I’m in,” Brandon repeated. “And, just for the record, they fired first.”

Jerry turned to face Brandon for the first time.

He was gri

68

Cantell futilely sprayed the garden hose on the burning pile of wood while McGuiness shoveled dirt on it. Salvo was trying to flatten the pile and spread out the logs with a rake. For all their efforts, the fire continued raging, throwing sparks and smoke high in the sky. Leaning against the rocks behind them were a loaded rifle and a loaded twelve-gauge over-under shotgun. Cantell had no desire to use the guns but understood the authority they represented.

Other thoughts competed in his head. The fire had been deliberately set as a signal. The girl’s doing. She had a brain and a lot of nerve-information useful to him, but unwelcome.

“Matt, take over here!”

Cantell passed the useless hose to Salvo and took off for the front of the lodge. Throwing the door open and looking directly toward the study, he could see that its door remained screwed shut.

He hurried outside behind the lodge and double-checked the window to the study. Plywood was screwed down tight.

Back inside, he stood in the middle of the living room listening to the boy banging around in the closet like he’d been doing for the past ten minutes. It was driving Cantell nuts, but he had no way to quiet the kid, to warn him.

Cantell didn’t see the girl, but she could be hiding anywhere.

He pushed the front door shut.

“First and last chance, Ms. Sumner,” he called out.

The kid’s banging stopped.

“If you give yourself up,” Cantell said, “we’ll treat you okay. If not, you’ll be dealt with… well… it won’t be pretty. Your call… I need your answer right now!”

He waited.

It was only when his eyes alighted on the destroyed radio that his head cleared. The radio reminded him of the jet.

The girl has a key.

Preoccupied with trying to copilot McGuiness’s emergency landing, he hadn’t considered how his stowaway had gotten on the plane. But now…