The Ridge by Michael Koryta Page B

the main bulb. What in the hell was he using those for? He moved away, leaving Wyatt’s treasured song lyrics where they belonged, on the front of the electrical panel, and returned to the stack of photographs and maps he’d placed on the desk. After a moment’s pause, he reached into his pocket, withdrew the photograph of Jacqueline Mathis, unfolded it, and added it to the collection. For a long time he stood above the desk, staring down at her face.
    One in the hole,
he found himself thinking numbly.
Rookie fucking mistake. Inexcusable error. It was your own fault.
    He’d taken the gun from her without incident. Ejected the magazine, slipped it into his pocket, and then, as her husband wheezed on the floor, he’d set the gun on the coffee table and turned to the dying man. Never pulled the slide, never checked the chamber. It was his own fault.
    She crossed the room for it, Kimble. That wasn’t your fault. She moved like a shadow, moved fast and silent, and she came ten feet across that room to grab the weapon and then she pointed at you and fired. That was your fault?
    She’d been scared. She’d been terrified, and he had to remember that.
    No. She
was
terrifying. There’s a difference.
    He could still remember the way she’d moved, remembered itso damn vividly that it made his whole body tense. It had been a feeling more than anything else, an instinct—he didn’t remember hearing her or seeing her. There’d just been some flutter of recognition in his brain, some primal warning, and then he’d glanced back and seen her in the darkness with the gun in her hand and a smile on her face.
    Well, no, she wasn’t smiling. That was just how he—
    Yes she was! Yes she was, don’t lie to yourself, she was smiling.
    Kimble remembered it, caught in his own trauma. Surely she hadn’t been smiling. She’d been frightened. Thought she was shooting at her husband again, thought she was protecting Kimble.
    Yes, that was it. She’d wanted to help him. Not kill him.
    He took the gun from her without incident initially. She didn’t fight, didn’t say a word, appeared to be in shock. They knew each other by then; he was surprised by her silence, but his oath to protect and serve covered the son of a bitch on the floor, too, and he had to attend to him. The house was in total darkness except for a patch of living-room floor illuminated by the flashing lights of Kimble’s cruiser. It had stopped raining, but there was still thunder on the other side of the mountains. She handed the gun, a Glock, over to Kimble calmly. Her eyes weren’t even on him, but rather on her husband, who lay on the floor in his own blood. He was still breathing, but there was an awful lot of blood. Later Kimble would find himself wishing that the man hadn’t been breathing. It was the breathing that rushed things along, the breathing that forced Kimble to handle the situation the way he did. The man was dying, and Kimble had to try to do something about that.
    It was just him, though, no backup yet, no ambulance. Everyone was en route, but en route was awfully damn different from being there, and it was just him and the dark house and the silent woman with the gun. He took the Glock and asked her what had happened and she did not answer, but she did not needto; he could see the bruises even in the shadows. He’d been in this house before. He knew what happened here.
    She was trembling, and she was glassy-eyed, and she was silent and passive, so passive. Even with the gun in her hand she hadn’t appeared threatening, and once it was out of her hand, what was there to fear? She’d called Kimble for help. The man on the floor was breathing, too, he was breathing and needed attention and Kimble had to move fast.
    So he didn’t cuff her. He told her to sit and stay, as if she were a dog, and she had lowered herself onto the floor with her back against the wall. Kimble was standing there with two guns in his hands—her Glock and his own, which