Deadfall Read Free Page A

about who was coming. The group had moved into the B&B on Shatu’ T’ine Way.
    Tom spotted the Hummer just beyond the wreckage. One of the visitors stood at the curb opposite Kelsie’s, in front of the used-book and curio store. Maybe twenty, he was sloppily dressed in a Rolling Stones T-shirt that skimmed over a fat belly and hung straight down. Pudgy, sweatpants-clad legs appeared from under the stomach’s overhang. Wisps of hair clung to his cheeks and chin in patches. A baseball cap was turned backward on his head. He lifted a professional video camera up to his eye and pointed it at the burning car. Another man—bald, black, young—nudged the cameraman, spoke to him.The camera panned to take in Tom’s approach.
    A teenage girl clung to the arm of a man in his late twenties. Flawless skin, freckles, and short-cropped brown hair could have conspired to make her seem more youthful than she was. Still, he didn’t like the idea of a girl so young paired with such an older man. It was an observation he would not have made had the contrast between adult and child not been so acute.While the man appeared smug and insouciant, the girl bounced excitedly. She bore a broad, open-mouthed smile, which she reined in by biting her lower lip when she saw Tom appraising her.
    A glance around revealed smiles on all of the visitors’ faces. Except one: a young boy with ruddy cheeks not yet ready for a razor stood away from the rest. Frowning, he fidgeted from one foot to the other and went from clasping his hands to crossing his arms and back again.
    â€œWhat happened?”Tom asked, eyeing the car. Instead of the outward rending of metal he had expected, the roof had been crushed in by something circular, as though a peg-legged giant had nailed it as he strode past. The four corners had buckled upward. The wheels and tires—the two in Tom’s view were ruptured—canted out, as if they’d experienced an unbearable weight before rising with the fenders. The vehicle rested on its undercarriage. Every window had shattered onto the street. Thousands of tiny squares of safety glass sparkled with reflected fire like diamonds. Flames filled the roof’s concavity, reminding Tom of the cauldron that held the torch fires during the Olympic Games.
    â€œThis looks like Roland’s Subaru,” he said to no one in particular. Roland was a local hunting guide and trapper. His all-wheel-drive station wagon boasted more dings, bangs, and chips than a space shuttle after reentry. He peered into the passenger compartment, through the slits that once were side-window openings. Flames owned that space as fire did a crematorium’s furnace. Heat radiated out with more intensity than seemed right to Tom; he wondered if an accelerant had doused the interior. Bending at the waist, he sidestepped around to improve his view.
    â€œWas anyone—” he started. The next word jammed in his throat. On the street behind the wreckage, the charred remains of . . . of what appeared to be a smoldering human body. It looked like tightly packed ash over burnt wood, positioned to somewhat approximate the shape of a man. One arm jutted up out of the cinders, as though in a final grasp for salvation. Its fingers were gone.
    Tom backed away. The evidence of violent death sent his hand automatically to his holster. He unclipped the retaining strap but did not withdraw the weapon.
    â€œMusta been lightning, Sheriff.”
    He turned his head. The cradle robber was watching him. His twisted half smile seemed calculated to either intimidate or provoke. The man wore gray denim pants, tight on his legs and hips, flaring a bit where they covered the tops of gray-and-black boots. The boots were square-toed and made of some scaly reptile hide. A black T-shirt clung to his torso, accentuating his physique: sinewy muscles, no fat. He wore an expensive down vest, black and unzipped. It was insufficient protection from