فصل 08 - بخش 11

8

From his perch atop the bluff, Jack saw them coming long before they reached the acre of parking lot. He checked his weapon – fully loaded, with one in the pipe. He had placed a flat stone at the edge of the drop. Now he lay at full length with the barrel resting on it. He sighted through the scope, putting the crosshairs on the driver’s side of the windshield. A sunflash momentarily blinded him. He winced, drew back, rubbed his eye until the floating spot was gone, then peered into the scope again.

Come on, he thought. Stop in the middle of the parking lot. That would be perfect. Stop there and get out.

The SUV instead trundled diagonally across the parking lot and stopped in front of the cave’s boarded-over entrance. All the doors opened and five people got out, four men and one woman. Five little meddlers, all in a row, lovely. Unfortunately, it was a shit shot. The sun in its current position cast the cave’s entrance in shadow. Jack might have chanced that – the Leupold scope was damned good – but there was the problem of the SUV, now blocking at least three of the five, including Mr No Opinion.

Jack lay with his cheek against the rifle stock and his pulse beating slow and steady in his chest and throat. He was no longer aware of his throbbing neck; the only thing he cared about was the cluster of meddlers standing below the sign reading WELCOME TO THE MARYSVILLE HOLE.

‘Come on out of there,’ he whispered. ‘Come out and look around a little. You know you want to.’

He waited for them to do it.