Cold Wind - C. J. Box [115]
The locals who worked at the club signed employment agreements to keep quiet about who the members were—CEOs, celebrities, politicians, magnates, a few trust fund moguls—and what went on inside. Still, most people in town seemed to know both, including Joe. What had always impressed him was how un-awed the locals were about the famous people who ventured down from the club and shopped and dined among them. There were never any public scenes of gasping recognition or autograph requests. Joe attributed the phenomenon to a wonderful mixture of proprietary pride—These rich folks could live anywhere in the world and they choose to live here with us!—and a stubborn independence and the optimism that perhaps, someday, they’d be members, too.
Joe had been within the boundaries of the club only a few times in his career. During his first year as district game warden, he’d located a rogue colleague holing up with a rich wife whose husband was away on business. Since then, he’d been on the grounds on calls where game animals had been found killed or local trespassers had been spotted. While he was there, he’d been shadowed by private resort security vehicles whose occupants had watched what he did and where he went through spotting scopes.
Access to the resort was via a guardhouse manned during the daytime hours by Keith Bailey. At night, members gained entrance by calling the security people at the front desk of the clubhouse. Closed-circuit cameras were hidden in the brush along both sides of the driveway and throughout the massive compound.
Joe drove up the driveway and punched in the numbers Keith Bailey had given him. The iron gates clicked and swung away. He eased his pickup past the empty guardhouse, looking both ways for security personnel who might swoop down on him any second. No doubt his entrance was being captured on videotape. Joe chose to believe that no security people were watching the monitors live, since it was September and most of the members had already left.
As the gates wheezed shut behind him, Joe crept along the banked blacktop entrance to the heart of the club. The road ran along the rim of the bluff, and the lights of Saddlestring were splayed out below to his right. Subtle lights marked both sides of the road.
He crested the hill and turned left, past the turnoff for the main clubhouse up on the hill. There were a few lights up there, but no activity he could see. The road dipped slightly, with large set-back houses on both sides, and he strained to see the plaques with the names of the owners in the grass marking each driveway.
He looked for a sign that read SKILLING. Kimberly Alice Skilling, heir to Skilling Defense Industries of Houston. She owned not only a large house on the grounds but also two guest cottages. And she’d asked Keith Bailey to keep a special eye on her place, especially one of the cottages where the pipes had burst the winter before.
Joe gave some credit to Bud Longbrake. Hiding in plain sight all this time.
36
Nate nosed his Jeep into a thick stand of tall willows on the riverbank, making sure his vehicle couldn’t be seen from the road. He spooked a cow moose out of her resting place as he drove up, and she scrambled to her feet, all legs and snout in his headlights, and wheeled away from him and high-stepped off.
He killed the engine and the lights and climbed out. As he strapped on his shoulder holster and darkened his cheeks and forehead with river mud, he could hear the moose grunting and splashing and crashing downstream. He’d hoped to proceed soundlessly. He hadn’t counted on the demolition derby-like grace of a wild moose in the same area.
When his eyes became