When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [6]
“I’m your new tenant. I signed the papers this afternoon. They said you left everything in their capable hands.”
“You’re kidding. You rented my cabin?”
I’d almost forgotten I’d put the cabin on the block. It’s a quarter of a mile back in the woods behind the clinic, and it used to be a hunting shack until David and I moved in. After David died, I started sleeping in a small room at the clinic. A whole lot of things changed for me back then, none of them good.
“So? Can I see the place?” L. L. Bean said.
“Just follow the footpath behind the clinic,” I told him. “It’s a four- or five-minute walk. It’s worth it. Door’s not locked.”
“I don’t get the guided tour?” he asked.
“Much as I’d love to, I’ve still got a couple of chickens to kill and some spells to cast before I sleep. I’ll get you a flashlight—”
“I’ve got one in the car,” he said.
I lingered in the doorway as he crunched back to his Jeep. He had a nice way of walking. Confident, not too cocky.
“Hey,” I called out to him. “What’s your name?”
He looked back—hesitated for a half second.
“Kit,” he finally said. “I’m Kit Harrison.”
Chapter 3
I WILL NEVER FORGET what happened next. It was such a shock for me, a hard kick in the stomach, or maybe even the side of my head.
Kit Harrison reached into the Jeep—and he did the unspeakable—he pulled a hunting rifle off a silver-metallic gun rack. That son of a bitch.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My flesh crept.
I yelled at him, loudly, which is so unlike me. “Wait! Hey! You! Wait right there, mister! Hold up!”
He turned to face me. The look on his face was serene, cool as it had been. “What?” he said. Was he challenging me? Did he dare?
“Listen.” I let the big screen door bang shut behind me and marched fast and hard across the gravel beachhead. No way was I going to have somebody with a hunting rifle on my land. No way! Not in his or my lifetime.
“I’ve changed my mind. This is no good. It’s not going to work. You can’t stay here. No hunters. No how, no way!”
His gaze returned to the Jeep’s interior. He snapped the glove compartment shut. Locked it. He didn’t seem to be listening to me at all.
“Sorry,” he said without looking at me. “We made a deal.”
“The deal’s off! Didn’t you just hear me?”
“Nope. A deal’s a deal,” he said.
He grabbed a torch lamp from inside the car door, a reddish duffel bag, then he took up the hideous rifle in his other hand. I was apoplectic, kept sputtering, “Look here.” But he ignored me, didn’t seem to hear a word.
He kicked the Jeep door shut, flicked on his Durabeam flashlight, and casually headed down the path into the woods. The woods sucked up the light and the sound of his retreating footsteps.
My blood was knocking hard and fast against my eardrums.
A goddamn hunter was staying in my house.
Chapter 4
IT WAS NEARLY DARK and the hunters still hadn’t found the girl’s body. They were bitterly cold and hungry and frustrated as hell, and they were also scared. There would be unfortunate consequences if they failed.
They had to find the girl.
And the boy as well—Matthew.
The five of them walked through the thickly wooded area where they believed the girl had fallen. She should be right there! They had to locate the specimen called Tinkerbell and destroy her, if she wasn’t already dead from her fall and the gunshot.
Put Tinkerbell to sleep, Harding Thomas was thinking as he led the search team. It was a euphemism he used to make moments like this easier:Put somebody to sleep. The way they do with animals. Not death, not murder—just peaceful sleep.
He thought he knew the precise area where the girl had dropped like a shot from the sky, but there wasn’t any dead body flattened on the ground, or hung up in the towering fir trees.
They certainly couldn’t leave her out here, couldn’t risk hikers or campers finding the body. What a titanic disaster that would be.
“Tinkerbell, can you hear me? Are you hurt, honey? We just want to take you home. That’s all.” Thomas called in the gentlest voice he could manage. It