Jamming the Explorer into Drive, I gun the motor and tear across the flats toward the great dark hump. Forty seconds at seventy miles an hour carries me to the broad base of the hill. I figure Max is five hundred yards ahead of me. The road that climbs Parnassus is barely wide enough for one vehicle, and it encircles the hill the way roads climb the Smoky Mountains. At the crest, the road ends in a small turnaround cut into the woods. From there a narrow footpath leads to the pool. Max will reach the top before me, and if he shuts off his engine—and they get out of the truck—they’ll surely hear the Explorer climbing the hill.
Pressing harder on the gas pedal, I begin circling up the hill, keeping my eye on the ragged edge of dirt to my right. About eighty vertical feet from the crest, I stop the Explorer in the road. My first instinct is to back into the trees, but I decide to leave the Ford where it is. I don’t want Max racing back down with Jet while I’m climbing this damned hill on foot. The Explorer is wide enough to stop him from getting past, and best of all, Max doesn’t know the vehicle. Pocketing Dixie’s keys, I get out and look up the dirt road. The underbrush is too thick here to try to climb straight up through the trees. After making sure my pistol is snug in my waistband, I start running up the road.
Using a pace count I developed long ago running track, I cover four hundred yards in a minute and a half. This brings me to within forty yards of the turnaround. Slowing to a walk, I cross the last twenty yards as quietly as I can, in case Jet and Max are sitting in his truck.
The turnaround is empty.
There’s no way Max could have driven down the hill without me seeing him. Looking around the clearing, I see a place where the undergrowth has been pushed down by a vehicle. Max must have used his F-250 like a bulldozer and driven right up to the pool.
Instead of walking up on them from the footpath, I backtrack about seventy yards and start working my way through the trees, which should bring me out on the opposite side of the water from Max and Jet. This way, even if they detect my approach, they’ll assume the noise is being made by deer or an armadillo. Progress is slow and difficult. The brush under the trees is thick, thorn bushes plentiful. Also, the risk of stepping on a copperhead or rattlesnake is significant this time of year, especially in the darkness under the canopy.
Halfway through the ring of trees that surrounds the pool, I hear music. The truck’s radio. It’s Creedence, the music of Max’s youth, and the last thing Jet would choose. Confident that the music will mask my approach, I push harder through the brush. Another thirty seconds’ struggle takes me to the edge of the trees, where ten feet of muddy ground separates the woods from the water.
It felt like night under the trees, but here twilight still diffuses through the clouds, and the water picks it up like a mirror. A hundred yards across the pool, the running lights of Max’s truck shine like red beacons. The tree line on the far side looks black, but staring through the dusk I see two figures silhouetted against the white paint of the truck. For a moment I’m confused; then I realize Max and Jet are standing on a little pier that juts out at an angle from the far bank. If it weren’t for Max’s truck parked behind them, I wouldn’t have seen them at all.
It’s unsettling to find Max and Jet where she and I spent so many hours together. They appear to be facing each other and standing close together. I can’t hear their voices, only John Fogerty singing “Someday Never Comes.” A waxing gibbous moon is rising in the southwestern sky. What are they doing here? I wonder. Did she want to be close to water, so that if she can’t steal his phone outright, she can destroy it?
As I stare through the dusk, a sharp cry cuts through the music. The smaller of the two figures runs down the pier and vanishes against the trees. The larger follows, but only at a walk. A sound that must be Max’s voice rolls over the water, and then he disappears as well. My heart starts to pound again. If they get back into the truck and drive down the hill, I’m screwed. I can’t possibly get back to the Explorer before they reach it. Risking exposure, I step out of the trees and crouch in the mud, squinting through the darkness.
At first I see nothing. Then Jet darts across the whiteness of the truck. Max follows, and suddenly I’m watching a shadow play staged against the backdrop of his F-250. As the song fades, Max bellows something. Three feet away from him, Jet screams back. He moves forward, reaching. Jet lets him take hold of her, pull her to him. They spin in a circle. I can’t tell if they’re arguing or kissing. Dizzy with confusion, I feel relief as Jet violently shoves him back, removing all doubt. They’re fighting. I’m rising to my feet when Jet ducks down, then pops back up and raises her right arm as though swinging a tomahawk.
I gasp in disbelief as she drives her arm forward.
Max staggers back, wavers on his feet, then drops to his knees. Jet draws back her arm again, but Max topples over onto his back. Jet falls to her knees and starts grabbing at Max’s body like she’s going through his pockets.
What the hell has she done? Has she killed him?
Shaken from my trance, I start racing around the pool, but I haven’t covered twenty yards before Jet raises her arm again, preparing to slam whatever she’s holding into Max’s motionless head once more.
“Jet!” I scream. “Don’t! Jet . . . ? STOP!”
She freezes, probably looking my way, but it’s too dark to tell. For a second she kneels motionless, like a cave woman in some museum diorama. Then she scrambles to her feet and jumps into Max’s truck. The engine roars, and two seconds later, she’s backing through the woods as though fleeing a forest fire.
If she races down the hill road at full speed, she’ll slam into the Explorer. My only chance of stopping her is to cut her off at the road, and I’ve got maybe twenty seconds to do it. I charge into the trees, bulling through the brush without regard for consequences. Thorns and branches tear at my face and arms, but my only concern is avoiding the trunks.
I burst from the woods as Max’s truck rounds the curve above me, accelerating with a roar. Seeing no alternative, I run to the middle of the road and start windmilling my arms like a sailor waving off a fighter jet during a carrier landing. Max’s high beams stab my eyes, but I stand my ground. Surely Jet will recognize me before she runs me down—
The F-250 shudders to a stop six inches short of crushing me.
I run around to the passenger door and bang on the window glass.
“I’m sorry!” Jet cries in a muffled voice. She hits the unlock switch. “I had no idea who yelled back there! That was you?”
I yank open the door and climb up into the big Ford, which smells like a wet baseball glove. “What did you do to Max? What did you hit him with?”
She reaches down to the floor and brings up a claw hammer with blood and hair on its head. “I stole it from his toolbox.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s why you were about to hit him again?”
She hesitates, then nods.
“Jet, what the fuck? What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you, I swear to God, but can we please get out of here?”
“No! We have to see if Max is dead or alive.”
Terror lights her eyes. “Why?”
“To know what to do next! A lot of people could have seen you riding in this truck with him. Plus, you can’t steal this thing. Not after what you did. You have to leave it here, and your prints are all over it.”
“How did you even get here?” she asks. “Were you following me?”
“Yes and no. Too long a story. Pull back up to the turnaround.”
Terror lights her eyes again. “No! Marshall, please. We have what we need. Look!” She digs a large cell phone from her pocket.
“Is that Max’s phone?”
She nods with excitement. “No more video! No more blackmail.”
“Great. You’ve traded blackmail for a murder charge. Jet, back this thing up to the turnaround, or I will.”
“Let’s just leave the truck!” she yells. “We can talk somewhere else. Anywhere.” She grabs my arms. “Please get us out of here. I’ll throw Max’s keys into the woods. If Max dies, he dies. Nobody will ever know we were here.”
“Jet—” I reach down and yank the door handle, then push the door open.
Her eyes go wide again. “Where are you going?”
“To check on Max.”