“In that case, he should have brought this one back yesterday,” another man said, and they all laughed.
Teague allowed himself a small smile, to go along. “A bad one, huh?”
“Let’s just say he thought highly of himself. Isn’t that right, Cate?” Walter said as the Nightingale woman approached with Teague’s muffin and coffee.
“Isn’t what right?”
“This last client of Josh’s, the one who was in here with him on Monday, was a real likable guy.”
She snorted. “Yeah, I just loved the geography lesson he gave us.” She turned to Teague. “Where’re you sitting?”
“I’ll just stand,” he said, taking the plate and cup from her. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She smiled and whisked away. He watched her take note of the level of coffee in every cup she passed and then go straight to the coffeemaker, where she lifted a pot off the heating plate and then went around the room providing warm-ups. Because he was a man, he also watched her ass. Like Goss said, it was an eye-catcher.
“Cate’s a sweet woman,” Walter said, and Teague looked around to find all the occupants of the table watching him with various levels of aggression. Protective of her, were they?
“No need to look at her like that,” an old man who looked close to ninety said. “She’s spoken for.”
What was up that they felt the need to warn him away from Cate Nightingale? Teague manufactured another smile, which was about his limit, and lifted one hand. “I was just about to say she reminds me of my daughter,” he lied. He didn’t have a daughter, but these old farts didn’t know that.
It worked. They all relaxed, and the smiles came back out. Walter leaned back in his chair and returned to the original subject. “Josh might come in here when his client leaves, might not. He’s not a regular like the rest of us. Did you leave a message on his answering machine?”
“No, I didn’t bother. Someone told me I might find him here,” Teague answered. “This guy I know is trying to find a guide for some important client who decided out of the blue he wanted to go hunting, so I thought of Creed. Since the guy needs someone pronto, no need to leave a message. I’ll just tell him to move on to the next name on the list.” He paused. “Unless Creed has a satellite phone, maybe?”
Walter rubbed his jaw. “If he does, he’s never mentioned it. Can you call a satellite phone from a regular phone?”
“Have to be able to; otherwise there’s no point in ’em,” the old man said testily.
“Guess you’re right,” Walter admitted. He looked back at Teague. “Josh is the best guide there is, no doubt about it. His clients bag trophies more often than anyone else. Too bad your friend missed him.”
“His loss,” Teague said briefly. Holding his coffee in one hand and balancing the plate on top of the cup, he lifted the muffin and took a big bite. His taste buds exploded with delight. He could detect walnuts and apple, cinnamon, and something else he couldn’t identify. “Damn,” he muttered, and took another bite.
Walter laughed. “Cate bakes a mean muffin, doesn’t she? Every time I have one I think, no way can her scones top her muffins—but then on Scone Day I wish she’d make scones more often.”
Teague had heard of scones, but he’d never tasted one, and wasn’t really certain what one was. He hated fancy food, and usually wouldn’t even touch a muffin, but he was glad he’d taken this one. Assuming Ms. Nightingale lived through Toxtel’s plan for Trail Stop, Teague thought he might have to stop by the B and B again; these muffins were tasty.
He’d found out what he needed to know about Creed, so there was nothing else to do now except keep watch and see what happened. Did a kid show up after school? Did the climbers leave? Did anyone else come to stay at the B and B? And if Creed didn’t come to Trail Stop often enough to be considered a regular, then Teague would have to come up with some way to neutralize him, which could get messy.
After the breakfast bunch had cleared out and she and Sherry had cleaned up, Cate checked out her climbing group and saw them on their way. She didn’t have anyone else coming in until the following weekend—another group of climbers—which she now realized wasn’t good. With the boys gone, she would have preferred to stay busy.
Sherry left after the cleaning was finished, and Cate was alone in the house.
The silence was painful.
Because no one was arriving immediately, she didn’t have to hurry to clean up all the rooms, but she threw herself into it with a vengeance. After stripping the beds and getting started on the mound of laundry, she cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed, dusted, and even cleaned the windows.
Then she got started on the boys’ room, which might or might not have been a good idea. It really needed cleaning, but being in there—putting away their toys, cleaning out their closets, and straightening their clothing—reminded her of their absence. She tried not to watch the clock, but she kept glancing at her watch anyway, trying to gauge where they were by the time. It was impossible, of course; she didn’t know if the plane had been delayed for an hour or two, though she hoped her mother would have called her in that case, knowing she’d be worried if she didn’t receive their safe-arrival call on time.
She didn’t pause for lunch, because preparing something just for her didn’t seem worth the effort. Several times she had to sniff back tears. This felt like grief, which was silly; she
knew
what grief really was. Still the feeling of having lost part of herself persisted, even though her apron strings hadn’t been cut, just stretched a little…if several hundred miles could be considered “little.”
“Apron strings, my ass,” she muttered to herself. “More like the
umbilical
cord.” And that comparison was extreme enough to make her laugh, just a little. They were fine. Her parents might not be fine by the end of the twins’ visit, but the boys would sail through. She’d worked hard to make certain they felt utterly secure, which had given them the self-confidence to fly off with their grandmother for a two-week visit. They were eager to be on an airplane. They’d flown before, of course, but they’d been infants and didn’t remember. She should be glad they were such brave little hearts.
Except two weeks was too long. She should have agreed to just one week.
When the phone rang shortly after three, she lunged for it.
“We made it,” her mother said, sounding exhausted.
“Is everything all right? Was there any trouble?”
“Everything’s great; there weren’t any problems. They loved pushing the luggage cart. They loved watching the planes take off and land. They loved the tiny bathroom, which they both had to use. Twice. The pilots stopped by to talk to them before takeoff, and both boys now have a set of wings, which they haven’t taken off.”
They would probably still be wearing those wings when they came home, Cate thought, tears sparkling in her eyes even as she smiled at the thought.
“The first thing they saw when we got home was the riding lawn mower,” her mother continued. “Your father is out there now with both of them in his lap, riding them around and around. The blades are disengaged,” she added.
Cate could remember riding with her father on the lawn mower, and she got a mushy feeling around her heart knowing that now he was doing that with her children.
“So now you can stop sniffling,” Sheila said. “They’re not only having a blast, they’ve exhausted me and are now working on your father, which should give you a nice warm sense of revenge.”
“It does,” Cate admitted. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Do you want me to send pictures? We’ve already taken a bunch.”
“No, it takes too long for them to download, since I just have dial-up. Print them out and bring copies when you come back.”
“Okay. How did
you
do today?”
“Been cleaning like a maniac.”
“Good. Now that you have afternoons free, go get your hair done.”
Cate laughed, and for the first time truly realized she
could
get a haircut. A trim, at least, wouldn’t cost all that much, and she desperately needed one. “I think I will.”
“Spend some time on yourself. Read a book. Watch a movie. Paint your toenails.”
After they hung up, Cate realized that her parents’ intention had been to give her a little break as much as it had been to have the boys to themselves for a while. She appreciated their concern, she really did, and would try to spend some time on herself. With that in mind, after she’d checked her e-mail and handled the reservations that had come in via the Web site, after she’d finished the laundry, after she’d copied down a list of ingredients for her next shopping trip—for some recipes she wanted to try—and after she had prepared supper for herself—a grilled cheese sandwich—she took her mother’s advice to heart and painted her toenails.
THAT NIGHT TEAGUE MET WITH TOXTEL AND GOSS AGAIN. The three men he’d called in came, too: his first cousin, Troy Gunnell; his nephew, Blake Hester; and an old friend, Billy Copeland. Troy and Billy were almost as good in the mountains as Teague was himself; Blake was pretty good, but his main accomplishment, and the reason he was included, was his marksmanship. If there were any tough shots to be made, Blake would be the triggerman.
The six of them went over the plan again and again. Teague had spent most of the day mapping it out, literally, using a combination of road maps, topography maps, satellite images, and maps he himself had made of the area. While he’d been in Trail Stop, he’d also surreptitiously taken pictures, using a digital camera, and printed out the photos on his computer. Using the photos and his own memory, he’d drawn a rough map of Trail Stop, showing the placement of the houses and their distance apart.
“Why do we need to know where the houses are?” Goss asked, staring intently at the map. There was no impatience in his tone, but a genuine interest. He was looking better than he had the day before; when Teague had commented on that, he’d admitted he’d been bashed in the head by Trail Stop’s handyman, whom Toxtel described as a skinny-assed bastard with a big shotgun.
“Because these aren’t people who’ll just throw up their hands and surrender,” Teague explained. “One or two might, but for the most part they’ll get mad, and they’ll try to fight back. Don’t underestimate them. These people have grown up hunting in these mountains, and there’ll be some damn fine marksmen among them. By choosing our spots, we can neutralize most of their avenues of effective fire; plus we need to get them congregated as much as possible. Makes them easier to watch. See how the houses are spread out?” he asked, tapping the map. “With the firing platforms I’ve selected, we have direct lines of fire at twenty-five of the thirty-one houses.”
“What about the bed-and-breakfast?” Toxtel asked.
Teague drew a dotted line from one of his selected firing positions to the bed-and-breakfast. There was a clear shot only to the upper-right corner room; everything else was blocked by another building.
Toxtel frowned at the dotted line. He’d evidently hoped for something more. “You can’t move your position and get a better angle?”
“No, not without repositioning way the hell up on this slope.” Teague tapped a spot on the map, at the northeast corner of Trail Stop.
“Why don’t you, then?”
“First, I’m not a damn mountain goat; that’s an almost vertical slab of rock. Second, it isn’t cost effective, because any attempts to escape won’t go in that direction. We’ve left them only one way out, and it’s through here.” He traced a route that ran roughly horizontal to the land peninsula on which Trail Stop was situated, then angled northwestward through a deep cut in the mountains.
“Why don’t you close that gap, too?” Goss asked.
“Last time I looked, there are only four of us. Six, counting you two, but I gather neither of you has any experience with a rifle. Am I right?”
Goss shrugged. “I don’t. Can’t say about Toxtel.”
“Some,” Toxtel said grudgingly. “Not much.”
“Then, what it comes down to is the four of us will have to split the watches into twelve-hour shifts. That’s tough enough as it is. At first there will be one of us with a rifle on each of these three firing positions, but after we drive most of the people to the far left corner, the position here at the bridge will be turned over to you two. They won’t know the rifles have been concentrated on the other two firing positions, and on the right the river makes an effective barrier anyway.”
“What about the nights? Do you have night-vision goggles?” Goss asked.
Teague gave a feral grin. “I have something better than that. FLIR scopes.”
“Flur? What the hell’s that?”
“Forward-looking infrared. FLIR. Picks out body heat. Camouflage can fool night vision, but it can’t fool the heat seekers. Our field of vision will be limited with scopes, so we’ll have to be on our toes, but by limiting the places where we’ll have to look, we can offset that shortcoming.”
Teague had put some thought into the scopes. For one thing, they were heavy, three pounds at least. That meant he and the others couldn’t hold the rifles for any length of time; they’d have to be on rests. And the battery packs lasted only about six hours—in optimal conditions, meaning around eighty degrees. He thought they’d be lucky to get five hours out of them. Given that daylight hours were shrinking daily, it was a given each man would have to change battery packs at least once a shift, and probably twice if the weather turned cold. Last night the temperature had dipped into the low forties. Snow wasn’t all that unusual in September, so the weather could turn bad without notice. To be on the safe side, he’d gotten twelve rechargeable battery packs, plus heavy-duty rechargers capable of handling more than one pack at a time.
“Billy got some collapsible sawhorses, painted them up to look like the ones used by the state, to block the road and keep nosy people out. We’ve also put a magnetic construction company sign on a pickup we can use, to make it look like work is being done on the bridge. I’m not worried about the state people. What worries me are the power and telephone companies. Everything they have is computerized. Are they gonna know when Trail Stop goes dark?”