Point Blank

Dix didn’t respond. They both looked out at the road in silence, and Ruth was left to wonder where Christie was. If she’d left, why hadn’t she taken her prized car?

After a couple of minutes, Dix said, as he wiped his gloved hand over the bit of fog on the windshield, “You guys okay back there? Enough room?”

Savich laughed. “I’ve been trying to talk Sherlock onto my lap, but no go. Yes, there’s plenty of room for us and all the lanterns, too.”

Ruth said, “Hey, Dillon, when I get my driver’s license replaced, will you let me drive the Porsche?”

“You think I’d let someone drive my Porsche who didn’t even know who she was until yesterday? Forget it, Ruth.”

Sherlock said, “Your amnesia has nothing to do with it, Ruth. He won’t let anyone drive that car.”

Chappy turned in the seat. “A Porsche?”

“Yes, sir, a 911 Classic. Red, nearly as old as I am.”

“You’re a big guy—you fit in that thing?”

“He fits great,” Sherlock said. “I have to beat the women off with a stick.”

“More often it’s the guys,” Savich said, “with their heads under the hood.”

Chappy had Dix turn right off Raintree Road onto a single-lane road that was covered in snow and badly rutted. Dix said, “No one’s ever plowed this road. The snow looks pretty deep but I think we can get through. The Rover has never let me down.”

It was slow going, the snow reaching nearly to the top of the Range Rover’s wheels at times, but they kept moving. They passed a couple of old wooden houses set in hollows of land a good ways back from the road, surrounded by trees, snow piled high around them and over the old cars parked in the driveways.

Dix said more to himself than to anyone else, “That’s Walt McGuffey’s place. It doesn’t look like he’s left the house in a while. I’d better call Emory, have him check to see if Guff is okay.” He pulled out his cell phone and called the station.

When he signed off, Ruth noticed how quiet it was out in the woods. The bright midday sun beat down, glistening off the white hills, sending drops of snowmelt falling in a rapid cadence from the naked oak branches.

The road dead-ended about fifty feet ahead. Dix said, “I don’t think we should go off-road in this snow.”

“Don’t try, we’re close enough,” Chappy said. “We’ve got us a little hike now. Ruth, you up for it?”

“Yes, sir,” Ruth said. “A little thump on the head wouldn’t stop me. I’m up for about anything.”

“Bring your shovel, Dix,” Chappy said.

The snow was so deep it was inside their boots within fifteen steps of the road. They heard a rustle in the trees to their left, and a rabbit appeared, stared at them, and hopped back into the woods, up to his neck in snow.

“I don’t think he’s one of the bad guys,” Dix said. “Look around you, it doesn’t get more beautiful than this.”

Chappy said, “Yeah, yeah, you’re a regular PR guy for Maestro, and here you are, a city boy.”

Dix rolled his eyes. “Not anymore, Chappy. I’ll tell you, when I visited my family in New York City last year, it seemed like I’d landed on a different planet.”

Ruth bent over to retie her boot laces. “How much farther, Mr. Holcombe?”

“Call me Chappy, Special Agent.”

Ruth laughed. “I guess you’d best call me Ruth.”

“I’ll try, Ruth. But you know, that sounds like you stepped out of the Old Testament or should be home, spinning cloth in front of a fire.” Chappy stopped a moment, scanned. “Over there, I think, another thirty or so yards,” he said, pointing. “You can see Lone Tree Hill—that single oak tree standing on top of that rise? It’s been standing sentinel up there longer than I’ve had feet on the ground. The snow’s really changed how everything looks—the snow and all the years.”

They trudged on toward that single oak tree. Nearly goose-stepping through the snow with the bright sun overhead, they weren’t cold, but their feet were wet through. “Rob’s got lots of wool socks he can lend us, if you need any,” Ruth said to Sherlock. “Dix can see to Dillon.”

Chappy held up his hand, stopped. They were standing some ten feet from the edge of a gully that fell at least twenty feet, forming a bowl of sorts some thirty feet across. The sides of the gully were covered with scraggly trees and blackberry bushes, all weighed down with snow. Lone Tree Hill stood to their left, upslope, the oak tree silhouetted against a cobalt sky, its branches laden with snow.