“You said Max tried to rape you,” I say softly. “Tell me what he did.”
“Not till we’re safe. We’re sitting ducks out here. You said it yourself.”
“Okay,” I tell her, twisting to pull my shirt back on. “That’s the best we can do. Bring the hammer. We’ll dump it far from this hill.”
After we climb out, Jet cocks her arm to throw Max’s car keys into the dense woods lining the edge of the road.
“Not yet,” I warn her.
She freezes. “Do you think he’s watching us?”
“He might be. Do you feel like you can run?”
“How far? I feel like I might vomit.”
“Fifty yards.”
“Go. I’ll keep up.”
Ten seconds of jogging brings us within sight of the parked Explorer.
“Wait!” Jet cries as it materializes in the road ahead of us. “Somebody else is up here!”
“That’s mine,” I explain, reaching for her hand. “Take it easy.”
We’re both breathing hard, and even in the dark, she looks paler than I’ve ever seen her. She’s staring at the Ford Explorer like it might hold a squad of hit men.
“Whose truck is that?”
“Dixie Allman ran out of gas on Highway 36. I was helping her out when you and Max rode by. I switched cars with her so I could follow you without Max noticing.”
“Why’d you block the road?”
“To make sure Max couldn’t get away with you while I was climbing up. Come on, this is our ride home.” I pull her forward and we run to the Ford.
“We’re leaving?” she asks hopefully.
“Not yet. But soon.”
The Explorer’s doors open with a grating of steel, but the engine cranks readily. Is Max lying up on the hill somewhere, listening? I wonder.
“Why can’t we go yet?” Jet asks, climbing into the seat beside me and dropping the hammer on the plastic floor mat.
“We need to make sure Max doesn’t come walking down this road. And that nobody comes to pick him up.”
“How could they? He can’t call anybody. I have his cell phone.”
“I know. And Max is probably bleeding to death up there right now. But let’s just give it a half hour to make sure.”
Jet groans with frustration, but she doesn’t argue.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” I ask.
“Are we just going to sit here in the road?”
“No.” Shifting the SUV into reverse, I back down the narrow hill road with only the brake lights for illumination.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“I want to be farther down the hill, and I’m not going back up to the top to turn around. I also want to be on the front side, so we can see the gate. Watch for an opening in the trees where I can get this thing turned around.”
“Up there on the left. You already passed it.”
I hit the brakes, then pull forward twenty yards, shift into reverse, and back into the opening between an oak and some popcorn trees. The rear end of the Explorer dips, then kicks up hard, but I manage to go far enough back to rotate the steering wheel and get our nose pointed downhill. Shifting into low, I nurse us back onto the road. There’s enough moonlight to see under the overhanging branches, but just. We coast forward in the darkness, steadily descending.
“Look for a spot where we can hide but still see the gate down on the flats.”
“Thirty yards ahead, on the right,” Jet says. “Can you fit through there?”
She’s pointing to a narrow gap between two pine trees. It looks iffy, but with careful use of the pedals, I manage to back us off the road and under cover. We end up nose-down about thirty-five degrees, but the trees on the other side of the road are thin enough to give us a clear view of the fields below. A half mile away, a lone pair of headlights moves west along Cemetery Road.
“Do you think Max is dead?” Jet asks.
“Anybody else would be.” I kill the engine, then reach over and gently take her left hand. She’s shivering. “How did you end up with Max this afternoon?”
“He surprised me in the alley behind my office. After work, when I was going to my car. He said he needed to talk to me about Sally. He was freaked out. He told me his partners were trying to kill him. The Poker Club. Half of them, anyway.”
“That might be true.”
“He said he was being followed. He was yelling about microphones everywhere. He said he’d swept his truck with some kind of wand, and the truck was the only space he trusted. Even though he was in a wild state, I figured that might be my best chance to get hold of his cell phone.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“The thing is, once I got in with him, he asked me to give him my cell. Like a fool I did, because I was so intent on stealing his from him. He shut mine off, wanded it, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he drove us out of town on Highway 36.”
“That’s where I picked you up.”
“He was headed out here the whole time. I think half that paranoia was an act to get me to come out here with him. He wanted me where no one could hear me scream.”
Something cold and clinical takes hold of my heart, like a wet latex glove. “Max brought you out here to rape you?”
Jet lifts her closed fist to her mouth and breathes slowly. She looks like she’s struggling not to hyperventilate.
“My father-in-law,” she says at length, “is obsessed with me. I know you think you know him, but you have no idea, okay? Max is sick. All those business trips he takes to Vietnam? Because of their lumber business? He goes to relive his war years and have sex with fifteen-year-old prostitutes. He’s told me I’m the closest thing around here to French-Vietnamese girls, which he claims are the most beautiful in the world. Today’s big news? He thinks about me every time he masturbates.”
My stomach rolls like it does when a plane hits an air pocket, and a tingling fight-or-flight sensation goes through my legs. “How long has this been going on? His behavior, I mean.”
“He’s always had a thing about me. But watching you and me make love two days ago pushed him over the edge. He’s snapped, Marshall. Halfway up this hill, he took out his cell phone and played me the video of us on the patio. He acted like I’d cheated on him, not Paul.”
Again I remember Max sitting in my kitchen, casually commenting on Jet’s body and talking about wanting to screw Nadine. “I’m not surprised about Max being sexually aggressive. Even Dr. Kirby called him a ‘pussy hound’ yesterday. But why is he obsessed with you? His son’s wife?”
Jet cuts her eyes at me but says nothing. This is clearly tough for her to talk about.
“So he didn’t talk to you about the case at all?”
“Nothing new. He was just stalling.”
“What happened once he got you out here?”
She settles back in her seat and recounts her story in a mechanical voice. “He drove right through the trees and parked by the water. I asked why he’d come here, but he just got out of the truck and told me to follow him. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had a bad feeling, but he’d taken the keys with him. Before I got out, I looked around for anything I might use as a weapon. He keeps a tool bag in the backseat, just like Paul. I wanted a screwdriver, but I couldn’t get one without crawling back there. That hammer was sticking up, though, and I could just reach it. It was too big to hide, so I dropped it on the ground as I got out. At least it would be close in a crisis.”