Flash drive. So that's what they wanted. But Cate had a computer; if there had been anything electronic in Layton's belongings, Cate would have recognized it, realized that was likely what they wanted. She hadn't, because it wasn't there. It had gone out the window with Layton.
"I thought you said he was highly recommended." Huxley had draped the folded blanket over his arm. Something was funny about the way he was holding it, with his hand inside the fold.
"I called a guy I know." Mellor muttered, tinning back. "I trus - "
Huxley fired three shots, the sound muffled by the blanket, so it wasn't much louder than if it had been suppressed. Mellor jerked as two shots hit him in the chest, a double tap, then the insurance tap to his forehead. He went down like a sack of feed. Huxley didn't check to see if he was dead, didn't spare his erstwhile partner a second glance; he simply turned and walked away, back the way he'd come.
Now, wasn't this interesting? A falling out, or a hidden agenda? Silently Cal followed, blending with the shadows, a part of the night itself. Huxley made no attempt at silence; he strode up the road as if he were on a sidewalk in the city. Around a curve he left the road, took a newly beaten-down path to the left. The vehicles would be tucked back in here, Cal thought; the flattened bushes looked as if something wide had been over them.
There was a tent set up in a clearing, with five vehicles parked around it: four pickup trucks and one Tahoe. A camp lantern hung inside the tent, shedding its less-than-sufficient light on two men playing a halfhearted round of poker. Through the opened flap, Cal could see sleeping bags rolled up on the floor of the tent.
"Toxtel in love with standing watch?" a big man with a huge, vivid bruise on his face asked, looking up. "Or does he think they'll suddenly start talking tonight?"
"Just conscientious, I guess," said Huxley, who brought his arm up, started pulling the trigger. Either he had given a lot of thought to how he was going to do two men, or he'd practiced until it was second nature. There was something almost mechanical about him: no hesitation, no excitement, no emotion at all. Two shots here, to the big man first, then two more to the other man, following so swiftly the second man had no time to read. Then the barrel swept back to the big man, the motion perfectly controlled, and he delivered the insurance tap. Back to the other man. once more, without feeling, taptap, taptap, tap, tap. Almost like a dance.
Huxley squatted beside the big man's body, stuck his gloved fingers in the right pants pocket, and came out with a set of keys. He tossed the pistol on the ground between the two bodies and walked out of the tent to one of the picktips.
Cal watched him drive away, his gaze narrow and thoughtful. He could have taken him at any time, but the guy was doing his work for him and at the same time effectively putting him completely in the dear, so this seemed best. Let the cops figure out what happened. Whatever Huxley's agenda was, it hadn't included his partners.
Cal went into the tent and took a set of keys from the second body. Glancing down at the key, he saw it was for a Dodge, and without hesitation he walked to the big four-wheel drive Dodge Ram and climbed in. He would be at Creed's place in fifteen minutes.
Neenah stayed with Creed at the clinic the next day while his leg was X-rayed and Cal's handiwork examined. When the doctor asked who did the suturing, Creed merely said an old buddy who'd had some medical training in the Corps, and left it at that. It was enough; the doctor immediately assumed "medic" and was satisfied.
Turned out he had a hairline fracture - like Cal hadn't already told him that - and they put him in a soft cast instead of a plaster one. He was to wear the cast until he came back in two weeks for more X-rays, but the doctor thought the fracture would be healed by then. All in all, good news. They gave him a pair of crutches; the doc ordered him to use them and give his leg as much rest as possible, and said that if he did what he was supposed to, in two weeks he'd be walking on his own two feet again.
Neenah smiled in relief when she heard Creed's prognosis. "I was afraid you'd done some sort of permanent damage, hobbling around the way you did," she said as he got into her rental car. How she'd gotten a car so fast, he didn't know. Maybe someone in the sheriff's department had helped. She had driven up to the clinic steps to pick him up, to keep his walking to a minimum.
"That's the only way I know how to hobble," he retorted, making her laugh. He loved her laugh, loved the way she tilted her head back and her eyes sparkled. The tension and strain of the past few days had left dark circles under her eyes and occasionally he'd seen grief etched in her face, but for a moment all that was gone. He'd like to keep it that way, keep the pain away from her. He knew he couldn't, knew everyone who had been in Trail Stop would have to deal with what had happened, each in his own way. He hadn't escaped unscathed himself, and he wasn't thinking about his leg. Old memories had resurfaced, brought back by the violence that had touched their lives. He'd dealt with them before and he would this time, too, the memories shared by all men who had been to war. The details differed, but friends had been lost.
The Trail Stop Massacre, as it was already being called by the bloodsucker press, was big news right now. A steady stream of reporters was flowing into town, which created an instant motel-room shortage because the Trail Stop inhabitants were already here and needed places to stay.
Eventually everything would settle down, but now the sheriff's department was taking statements from everyone and scrambling to find accommodations for so many people until the electricity and phone service could be restored to the community, which some people were saving could take until the bridge was rebuilt. Bridges weren't thrown up overnight, not even small bridges. The word was they might not be back in their houses by Christmas.