Dead Man’s Run

ROBERT REED

Here’s another novella by Robert Reed, whose “A History of Terraforming” appears elsewhere in this book. Here, Reed does an excellent job of making this simultaneously a murder mystery and a valid science fiction story where the SF element is essential to both the resolution of the plot and the solving of the mystery; it also functions in a vivid way as a sports story, since the sport of running is integral to the plot, and Reed’s obvious familiarity with runners and running—he’s used the sport before in other stories—shows through to excellent effect as Reed sprints the reader along to the finish line.…

ONE

The phone wakes him. Lucas snags it off the nightstand and clips it to the right side of his face. The caller has to be on the Allow list, so he opens the line. Lucas isn’t great with numbers and even worse reading, but he has a genius for sounds, for voices. A certain kind of silence comes across. That’s when he knows.

“When are we running?” the voice says.

“You’re not running,” Lucas says. “You’re dead.”

He hangs up.

Right away, Lucas feels sorry. Guilty, a little bit. But mostly pissed because he knows how this will play out.

The nightstand clock and phone agree. It’s three minutes after five in the morning. What calls itself Wade Tanner is jumping hurdles right now, trying to slip back on the Allow list. That race can last ten seconds or ten minutes. Sleep won’t happen till this conversation is done. But calling Wade’s home number makes it look like Lucas wants to chat, which he doesn’t. And that’s why he tells his phone to give up the fight, letting every call through.

The ringing begins.

“You know what you need?” says a horny foreign-girl voice. “Fun.”

Lucas hangs up and watches. A dozen calls beg to be answered. Two dozen. Obvious adult crap and beach sale crap are flagged. He picks from what’s left over, and a man says, “Don’t hang up, I beg you.” The accent is familiar and pleasant, making English sing. “I live in Goa and haven’t money for air conditioning and food too. But I have a daughter, very pretty.”

Lucas groans.

“And a little son,” the voice says, breaking at the edges. “Do you know despair, my friend? Do you understand what a father will do to save his precious blood?”

Lucas hangs up and picks again.

The silence returns, that weird nothing. And again, what isn’t Wade says, “What time are we running?”

“Seven o’clock,” Lucas says.

“From the Y?”

“Sure.” Lucas has a raspy voice that always seems a little loud, rolling out of the wide, expressive mouth. Sun and wind can be rough on runners, but worse enemies have beaten up his face. The bright brown eyes never stop jumping. The long black hair is graying and growing thin up high. But the forty-year-old body is supremely fit—broad shoulders squared up, the deep chest and narrow trunk sporting a pair of exceptionally long legs.

“Are you running with us?” says Wade.

“Yeah.” Lucas sits up in bed, the cold dark grabbing him.

“Who else is coming?”

Whenever Wade talks, other sounds flow in. It feels as if the dead man is sitting in a big busy room, everybody else trying to be quiet while he chats. That’s how Lucas pictures things: Too many people pushed together, wanting to be quiet but needing to whisper, to breathe.

Wade says, “Who else?”

“Everybody, I guess.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, but I need to sleep now.”

“Sleep’s overrated,” says Wade.

“Most things are.”

The voice laughs. It used to be crazy, hearing that laugh. And now it’s nothing but normal.

“So I’ll leave you alone,” says Wade. “Besides, I’ve got other calls to make.”

And again, that perfect nothing comes raining back. The sound the world makes when it isn’t saying anything.

*   *   *

Lucas can’t sleep, but he can always drink coffee.

By six-thirty, an entire pot is in his belly and his blood. Fifty-two degrees inside the house, and he’s wearing the heavy polypro top and blue windbreaker and black tights, all showing their years. But the shoes are mostly new. On the kitchen television, Steve McQueen chases middle-aged hit men instead of doing what makes sense, which is scrogging Jacqueline Bisset. McQueen drives, and Lucas cleans the coffee machine and counter and the Boston Marathon ’17 cup. A commercial comes on—another relief plea—and Lucas turns it off in mid-misery. Then he drops the thermostat five degrees and puts on clean butcher gloves and the wool mittens that he’s had for fifteen years. The headband slides around his neck and he pulls on the black stocking cap that still smells like mothballs. His pack waits beside the back door, ready to go. He straps it on, leaving only one more ritual—throwing his right foot on a stool and twisting the fancy bracelet so it rides comfortably on the bare ankle, tasting flesh, telling the world that he is sober.

The outside air is frigid and blustery. Lucas trots down the driveway and turns into the wind. Arms swing easy, lending momentum to a stride that needs no help. Even slow, Lucas looks swift. Every coach dreams of discovering a talent like his—this marriage of strength, grace, and blood-born endurance. Set a mug of beer on that head and not a drop splashes free. The stride is that smooth, that elegant. That fine. But biology demands that a brain has to inhabit that perfect body, and there’s more than one way to drain a damn mug of beer.

A person doesn’t have to read the news to know the news.

Two sets of sirens are wailing in the distance, chasing different troubles. Potholes and slumping slabs make the street interesting, and half of the streetlights have had their bulbs pulled, saving the city cash and keeping a few lumps of coal from being burned. Every house is dark and sleepy, stuffed full of insulation and outfitted with wood-burning stoves. Most yards have gardens and compost piles and rain barrels. Half the roofs are dressed in solar panels. When Lucas moved into his house, big locusts and pin oaks lined the street. But most of those trees have been chopped down for fuel and to let the sun feed houses and gardens. Then the lumberjacks planted baby trees—carbon patriots lured by the tax gimmicks—except the biggest of those trees are already being sacrificed for a few nights of smoky heat.

You don’t have to travel the world to know what’s happening.

The last house on the block is the Florida compound. Those immigrants rolled in a couple years ago, boasting about their fat savings and their genius, sports hero kids. But there aren’t any jobs outside the Internet and grunt work in the windmill fields, and savings never last as long as you wish. Their big cars got dumped on the Feds during an efficiency scheme. Extra furniture and jewelry were sold to make rent. A cigarette boat and trailer were given FOR SALE signs to wear, and they’re still wearing them, sitting on the driveway where they’ve been parked forever. Then came the relatives from Miami begging for room, and that’s when police started getting calls about drinking and fighting, and then a couple of the sports heroes were jailed for trafficking. Then it was official: These were refugees, and not even high-end refugees anymore.

Cheeks ache when Lucas runs at the wind, but nothing else. Turning west, the world warms ten degrees. In the dark it’s best to keep to the middle of the street, watching for anything that can trip or chase. People will abandon family and homes on drowning beaches, but not their pit bull and wolf-mutts. It’s also smart to run with your phone off, but Lucas is better than most when it comes to handling two worlds at once. His piece of Finland is a sweet little unit powered by movement, by life. A tidy projection hangs in front of his right eye. He’s ignoring the screen for the moment, running the street with the imaginary dogs, and that’s when the ringing starts.

“Yeah?”

“You leave yet?” Wade says.

“Nope, still sitting,” says Lucas. “Drinking coffee, watching dead people on TV.”

That wins a laugh. “According to GPS, you’re running. An eight-minute pace, which is knuckle-walking for you.”

“Do the cops know?” says Lucas.

“Know what?”

“That you’re borrowing their tracking system.”

“Why? You going to turn me in?”

No, but that’s when Lucas cuts the line, and an old anger comes back, making his legs fly for the next couple blocks.

*   *   *

Bodies stand outside the downtown YMCA. Swimmers and weightlifters sport Arctic-ready coats, while the runners are narrower, colder souls wearing nylon and polypro. Gym bags clutter up the sidewalk. Every back is turned to the wind. When someone breathes or speaks, twists of vapor rise, illuminated by the bluish glare escaping from the Y’s glass door.

Lucas slows.

A growly voice says, “Somebody got the early jump.”

Passing from the trot into a purposeful walk, Lucas looks at faces, smiling at Audrey before anybody else.

“Where’s your bike?” the voice asks.

“Pete,” says Audrey. “Just stop.”

But the temptation is too great. With amiable menace, Pete Kajan says, “Did the cops take your bike too?”

“Yeah,” says Lucas. “My bike and skates and my skis. I had that pony, but they shot him. Just to be safe.”

Everybody laughs at the comeback, including Pete.

Lucas slips off the pack and shakes his arms. The straps put his fingers to sleep.

“Seven o’clock,” Pete says, shaking one of the locked doors. “What are the big dogs doing today?”

“Sitting on the porch, whining,” Lucas says.

Runners laugh.

“How far?” Audrey says.

Pete says, “Twelve, maybe fourteen.”

“Fourteen sounds right,” says Doug Gatlin. Fast Doug. He’s older than the rest of them but blessed with a whippet’s body.

Doug Crouse is the youngest and heaviest. “Ten miles sounds better,” he says.

“Sarah and Masters are coming,” says Fast Doug.

“They wish,” says Pete, laughing.

Rolling his eyes, Gatlin tells Crouse, “They’ll meet us here and turn early. You can come back with them.”

“Where’s Varner?” Crouse says.

Pete snorts. “He’ll be five minutes late and need to dump.”

Runners laugh.

Then a big-shouldered swimmer rattles the locked door.

Crouse looks at Lucas. “Did he call you?”

“Yeah.”

“He called me twice,” Gatlin says.

“Everybody got at least one wake-up call,” Pete says.

The runners stare into the bright empty lobby.

“He usually doesn’t bother me,” says Crouse.

“A bad night in heaven,” Lucas says.

People try to hit the proper amount of laughter. Show it’s funny, but nothing too enthusiastic.

Then the swimmer backs away from the door. “Dean’s here,” she says.

Dean is a tall, fleshy fellow who does everything with deliberation. He slowly walks the length of the lobby. As if disarming a bomb, he eases the key into the lock. The door weighs a thousand pounds, judging by its syrupy motion. With a small soft voice, Dean says, “Cold enough?”

Muttered replies make little threads of steam.

A line forms in the lobby. Audrey puts herself beside Lucas. “You think that’s it? He had a bad night?”

“I’m no thinker,” Lucas says. “If I get my shoes on in the morning, it’s going to be a good day.”

TWO

Fingers and thumbs are offered at the front desk, proving membership. A red sign warns patrons to take only one towel, but a Y towel can’t dry a kitten. Lucas grabs two, Pete three. The Dougs lead the way up narrow, zigzagging stairs. Signs caution about paint that dried last week and forbid unaccompanied boys in the men’s locker room. At the top of the stairs, taped to a steel door, a fresh notice says there isn’t any hot water, due to boiler troubles. Gatlin flips light switches. The room revealed is narrow and long, jammed with gray lockers and concrete pillars painted yellow. The carpet is gray-green and tired. Toilet cleansers and spilled aftershave give the air flavor. Bulletin boards are sprinkled with news about yoga classes and winter conditioning programs and words about winning at life. Questionable behavior must be reported to the front desk. Used towels are to be thrown into the proper bins. Lockers need to be locked. The YMCA is never responsible for stolen property. But leave your padlock overnight on a day locker, and it will be cut off and your belongings will be confiscated.

“This is your YMCA,” a final sign says.

Pete rents a locker in back. Lucas camps nearby. From the adjacent aisle, Gatlin says, “What’s the course? Anybody know?”

“I know,” Pete says, and that’s all he says. In his early forties, he has short graying hair and a sturdy face. He glowers easily, the eyes a bright, thoughtful hazel. Pete doesn’t look like a runner, but when motivated and healthy, the man can still hang with the local best.

Lucas digs out his lock, dumps his pack and secures the door. Again, he puts his foot on the stool, adjusting the ankle monitor. Water sounds good, but the Freon was bled from the fountains, saving energy. It’s better to run the cold tap at a sink and make a bowl with your hands, wasting a couple gallons before your thirst is beaten back. The paper towels are tiny. He pulls five and dries his hands, watching an old guy plug in an old television that can’t remember yesterday. The machine has to cycle through channels, reprogramming its little brain. That’s when Lucas starts to feel the coffee. The urinal is already full of dark piss but won’t flush until the smell is bad enough. He comes back out to find the Big Fox playing. A blond beauty is chatting about the cold snap cutting into the heart of the country. “We have an old-fashioned winter,” she says, leading to thirty seconds of snow and sleds and happy red-faced kids.

“Well, that’s not me,” says the old guy.

Then the news jumps to places Lucas couldn’t find on any map. Brown people are fighting over burning oil wells. Skinny black folks are marching across a dried-up lake. A fat white man with an accent makes noise about his rights and how he doesn’t appreciate being second-class. Then it’s down to Pine Island and the wicked long Antarctic summer. Another slab of glacier is charging out to sea, looking exactly like the other ten thousand. But the blond gal is a trouper. Refusing to be sad, she reminds her audience that some experts claim the cold melt water is going to shut down this nastiness. More sexy than scientific, she says, “The oceans around the ice sheets will cool, and a new normal will emerge. Then we can get back to the business of ordinary life.”

“Well, that’s good news,” says the old guy, throwing out a pissy laugh as he starts hunting for better channels.

Pete and the Dougs have vanished. Lucas starts for the stairs and the steel door bangs open. In comes Varner, still wearing street clothes.

“I’ll be there. Got to hit the toilet first.”

The man is in his middle-thirties, red-haired and freckled and always late. Lucas gives him a look.

“What? It’s two minutes after seven.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, well. Our ghost already called me three times, telling me to hurry the hell up.”

Lucas retreats downstairs. Audrey stands in the lobby, reading the Herald on the public monitor. She’s tall for an elite runner—nearly five-nine—but unlike most fast girls doesn’t live two snacks clear of starvation. Her face is strong but pretty, blond hair cut close, middle-age lurking around the pale brown eyes. She wears silver tights and a black windbreaker, mittens and a headband piled on the countertop. Audrey always looks calm and rested. Running is something she does well, but if nobody showed this morning, she’d probably trot an easy eight and call it good.

“Where are the boys?” Lucas says.

“Around the corner.”

“Any news about me?”

She blanks the screen and turns. “Where’s your bike?”

“Too cold to peddle.”

“If you need a ride, call.”

“I should,” he says.

With a burst of wind, the front door opens.

Ethan Masters walks out of a sportswear catalog and into the YMCA. Jacket and tights are matched blue with artful white stripes, the Nikes just came from the box, his gloves and stocking cap are carved from fresh snow, and the water belt carries provisions for a hundred-mile slog. But the biggest fashion statement is the sleek glasses covering the middle of a lean, thoroughly shaved face. More computing power rides his nose than NASA deployed during the 20^th Century. The machine is a phone and entertainment center. Masters always knows his pulse and electrolyte levels and where he is and how fast he’s moving. It must be a disappointment, falling back on old-fashioned eyes to tell him what’s inside the lobby. “They’re still here,” he says. “I told you we’d make it in time.”

Sarah follows him indoors. As short as Masters is tall, she has this round little-girl face and long brown hair tied in a ponytail. Unlike her training partner, she prefers old sweats and patched pink mittens, and her brown stocking cap looks rescued from the gutter. They are married, but not to each other—ten thousand miles logged together and the subjects of a lot of rich gossip.

“Are you everybody?” says Masters, throwing himself against a wall, stretching calves. “If we wait, we’ll tighten up.”

“Varner just went upstairs,” Audrey says.

“So we’re not leaving soon,” says Masters.

Sarah is quiet. Flicking her eyes, she places a call and walks to the back of the lobby.

Lucas follows and walks past her, rounding the corner. Behind the lobby is a long narrow room overlooking the swimming pool. Treadmills and ellipticals push against the glass wall. Pete and the Dougs are yabbering with some overdressed, undertrained runners who belong to the marathon clinic. Which means they belong to the bald man sitting alone beside the Gatorade machine.

“How far, Coach?” Lucas says.

The man looks up. Cheery as an elf, he says, “We’re doing an easy sixteen.” As if sixteen were nothing. As if he’s making the run himself. Except Coach Able is dressed for driving and maybe, if pressed, a quick stand on some protected street corner. Deep in his fifties, he carries a bad back as well as quite a lot of fat. And for thirty years he has been the running coach at Jewel College, his clinic something of a spring tradition for new runners.

Able gives Lucas a long study. He always does. And he always has a few coachy words to throw out for free.

“It looks like you’re running heavy miles,” he says.

“Probably so,” Lucas says.

“Speed work?”

“When I remember to.”

“Try the marathon this year. See if there’s life in those old legs.”

“Maybe I will.” Lucas looks at the other runners. A man with an accent is talking about the weather, about how it was never so cold in Louisiana. Pete shakes his head, a big snarly voice saying, “So grow some fins and swim yourself back home again.”

Somehow he can say words like that, and everybody finds it funny.

The coach coughs—a hard wet bark meant to win attention. “Tell me, Pepper. In your life, have you ever tried running a marathon hard? Train for it and push it and see what happens?”

“Well now, that sure sounds like work.”

“I think you could beat 2:30,” says Able. “And who knows how fast, if you managed a full year without misbehaving.”

Lucas rolls his shoulders, saying nothing.

“There’s software,” the coach says. “And biometric tests. With race results, we’d be able to figure out exactly what you would have run in your prime. 2:13 is my guess. Wouldn’t it be nice to know?”

“That would be nice,” says Lucas. Then he shrugs again, saying, “But like my dad used to say, ‘There’s not enough room in the world for all the things that happen to be nice.’”

*   *   *

Audrey appears. “We’ve got our Varner.”

Lucas and the other men put on stocking caps and follow. Eight bodies bunch up at the front door. The sun is coming, but not yet. Everybody wears a phone, and with tiny practiced touches, they adjust the settings. Only hair-on-fire emergency calls can interrupt now. Then the group puts on mittens and gloves and steps outside. Giving a horse-snort, Masters says, “We should run north.”

“We’re not,” says Pete. “We’re doing Ash Creek.”

Everybody is surprised.

“But you want to start into the wind,” Masters says. “Otherwise you’ll come home wet and cold.”

“There’s not two damn trees up north,” Pete says. “I’m going where there’s woods and scenery.”

“What about the usual?” Varner says.

They have a looping course through the heart of town.

“Normal is fine with me,” Audrey says.

Lucas wants to move. Directions don’t matter.

Then Pete says, “We’ve got company.”

Trotting across the street is a kid half their age. Dressed in street clothes and a good new coat, Harris carries a huge gym bag in one hand. “Which way?” he says. “I’ll catch up.”

Pete says, “The usual.” No hesitation.

“East around Jewel?” says Harris.

“Sure.”

The kid scampers inside.

Then Pete gives everybody a hard stare. “Okay, we’re doing Ash Creek. No arguments.”

Eight liars trot west, nobody talking, the tiniest guilt following at their heels.

THREE

Tuesday meant speed work at the college track—a faded orange ribbon of crumbling foam and rutted lanes. Lucas showed last. It wasn’t as hot as most August evenings, but last night’s storm left the air thick and dangerous. The rest of the group trotted on the far side of the track. Nobody was talking. Lucas parked his bike and came through the zigzag gate, and he crossed the track and football field and the track again, walking under the visitor’s stands. Pigeons panicked and flew off, leaving feathers and echoes. He opened his pack and stripped, dressing in shorts and Asics but leaving his singlet in the bag. He was packing up when he noticed his hands shaking, and he stared at the hands until his phone broke the spell.

He opened the line.

“Are you up at the track?”

Wade’s voice. “I am.”

“Do you see me?”

“Wade?”

“I haven’t been updated,” the voice said. “It’s been twenty-four hours. I’m supposed to call you after twenty-four hours.”

Lucas stepped out from under the seats. “Who is this?”

“Wade Tanner kept an avatar. A backup.”

“I know that.”

“I’m the backup, Lucas.”

The group shuffled through the south turn, and Wade wasn’t any of them. “Did you try the store?” Lucas said.

“No, because you’re at the top of the list,” the backup said. “One day passes without an update, and I’m supposed to contact you first.”

“Me.”

“You live close and you know where the spare key is. We want you to search the house.” The voice went away and then came back. “I’ve studied the odds. Check the shower. Showers are treacherous places.”

Walking across the brown grass, Lucas started to laugh. Nothing was funny, but laughing felt right.

“What’s your workout tonight?” said the voice.

“Don’t know.”

“It’s humid,” the backup said. “Do quarters and walk half-a-lap before going again. Take a break after six, and quit if you forget how to count.”

It could have been the real Wade. “You sound just like him.”

“That’s how it works.” Then after a pause, the backup said, “I’ve got this bad feeling, Lucas.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m voicemail, too. And people have been calling all day. Nobody knows where Wade is.”

Lucas said nothing.

“You’ll check the house?”

“Soon as I’m done running quarters.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

The line fell silent.

Most of the people were sharing the same patch of shade. Audrey was walking back and forth on the track, talking on the phone. Only Gatlin and Wade were missing. The new kid jumped toward Lucas, saying, “Are we running or not?”

“Leave him alone,” Pete said. “Our boy put in a rough weekend.”

Harris had a big sandpaper laugh. “I was at the party. Yeah, I saw him drinking.”

People look away, embarrassed for Lucas.

“I’ve known a few drinkers,” the kid said. “But I never, ever saw anybody drain away that much of anything.”

Lucas looked past him. “Anybody see Wade?”

“Bastard’s late,” Pete said.

The others said, “No,” or shook their heads. Except for Harris, who just kept grinning and staring at Lucas.

Lucas needed a breath. “Wade’s backup just called me. It hasn’t heard from him, and it’s worried.”

“Why would the backup call you?” Sarah said.

Lucas shrugged, saying nothing.

“Wade has an avatar?” said Harris.

“He does,” Masters said. “In fact, I helped him set it up.”

Lucas waved a hand, bringing eyes back to him. “I know what they are,” he said. “Except I don’t know anything about them.”

Masters stepped into the sunshine, his glasses turning black. With his know-everything voice, he said, “They’re basically just personal records. Data you want protected, kept in hardened server farms. They have your financial records, video records. Diaries and running logs and whatever else you care about. You can even model your personality and voice, coming up with a pretty good stand-in.”

“Wade has been doing this for years,” Sarah said.

People turned to her, waiting.

Quiet little Sarah smiled, nervous with the attention. “Don’t you know? He records everything he does, every day. He says it helps at the store, letting him know each of his customers. He even leaves his phone camera running, recording everything he sees and hears to be uploaded later.”

“That’s anal,” Crouse said.

“Who’s anal?” said Audrey, walking into the conversation.

“Storing that much video is expensive,” Harris said. “How can a shoe salesman afford a cashmere backup?”

“That shoe salesman had rich parents,” Pete said. “And they were kind enough to die young.”

With that, the group fell silent.

Lucas approached Audrey. “Was it Wade’s backup on the phone?”

“No. Just my husband.”

Harris got between them. “Let’s run,” he said.

“Not in the mood,” Lucas said.

The kid looked at everybody, and then he was laughing at Lucas. “So what happened to you? You were drinking everything at the party … and then you just sort of vanished…”

“He had an appointment,” Pete said.

“What appointment?”

Pete shook his head. “With the police.”

Audrey wasn’t happy. “Everybody, just stop. Quit it.”

Masters was talking to Sarah. “How do you know so much about Wade’s backup?” he said.

Sarah shrugged and smiled. “I just know.”

Masters ate on that. Then he turned to Lucas, saying, “The call was a glitch. Wade didn’t get things uploaded last night, and it triggered the warning system. That’s all.”

Lucas nodded, wanting to believe it.

“Let’s just run,” Harris said.

“Is this how they do things in Utah?” Pete said. “Pester people till you get what you want?”

“Sometimes.” The kid showed up at the track six weeks ago—a refugee running away from drought and forest fires. Harris liked to talk. He told everybody that he was going out on the prairie and build windmills. Except of course he didn’t know anything about anything useful. His main talent was a pair of long strong and very young legs, and there were sunny looks and a big smile that was charming for two minutes, tops.

“I’m running,” he said, smiling hard. Then he walked to the inside lane.

Others started to follow.

Not Lucas.

A little BMW pulled off the road and Gatlin got out. He wasn’t dressed to run. A fifty-year-old man with wavy gray hair, he looked nothing but respectable in a summer suit and tie. Coming through the zigzag, he moved slowly, one hand always holding the chain-link. He seemed sad, and then the sadness fell into something darker. And with little steps, he walked toward the others.

“Well, now we’ve got to stop talking about you,” said Pete.

Gatlin’s mouth was open, a lost look passing through his dark brown eyes. “I just got a call,” he said. “From a friend in the mayor’s office. He thought I’d want to know. Kids playing near Ash Creek found a body this morning. And the police think they recognize the man.”

“Wade Tanner,” said Lucas.

Surprised, Gatlin straightened his back. “How did you know?”

“We had a hint,” said Pete, and then he couldn’t talk anymore.

Nobody was talking. Nobody reacted or moved, except for Gatlin who was embarrassed to have his awful news stolen from him. Besides the wind, the only sound was a soft low moan rising from nowhere.

Then Sarah closed her mouth, and the moaning stopped.

*   *   *

Downtown fights to wake up. City buses roll past on their way to still-empty stops. Bank tellers move through darkened lobbies while bank machines count piles of electronic money. Apartment lights come on, but the hotels have never been dark, filled with anxious refugees living on the government plan. A pair of long-haul boxes point in opposite directions, burning soybean juice to keep sleeping travelers warm. Out from the bus station comes a bearded man wearing a fine suit and carrying an I-tablet. Except the suit is filthy, both knees looking like they have been dragged through grease, and the tablet is dead, and talking in a loud crazed voice, he says, “Stop being proud. Accept Satan as our leader, and let’s build a clean, efficient Hell.”

The pace lifts, the group crossing into the old warehouse district. Concrete turns to cobblestone and black scabs of asphalt. Low brick buildings have been reborn as bars and pawnshops and coffee shops, plus one little store dedicated to runners. Dropping to the floodplain, the street ends with a massive stone building from the 19^th Century. In one form or another, this place has always served as the city’s train station. Half a dozen travelers are waiting with their luggage, hoping for the morning westbound, and the little boy in the group gives the runners a big wave, saying, “Hey there. Hi.”

Nobody talks. The group turns south, gloom following them into Germantown. Warehouses give way to little houses, and they turn right, pointed west again, and the pace lifts another notch.

“Slow down,” says Pete

Nobody listens. Runners and the street cross an abandoned set of railroad tracks. Little twists of vapor mark their breathing, shoes slapping at the pavement. Then comes the Amtrak line, and that’s when the houses start to wear down. Cars sporting out-of-state plates are parked on brown lawns. A solitary drunk stands at a corner, calmly waiting for the race to pass before he staggers a little closer to what might be home. The final house has been reborn as a church, its walls painted candy colors and holy words written in Vietnamese. That’s where the street ends. A barbed wire fence breaks where a thin trail snakes up through flattened prairie grass. The sky is dawn-blue with a few clouds. And somebody is running on top of the levee: A narrow male with tall legs and long arms carried high. It’s a pretty stride. Not Lucas-pretty, but efficient. Strong. The man’s legs are bare and pale. He wears a long-sleeved t-shirt, gray and tight, and maybe a second layer underneath. White butcher gloves cover big hands, and riding the head is a black baseball cap set backwards, the brim tucked low over the long neck.

As if their legs have been cut out from under them, people stumble to a halt.

“What’s he doing here?” says Sarah.

Crouse is first to say, “Jaeger.” Normally easygoing, almost sweet, Slow Doug puts on a sour face and says, “That prick.”

“What is he doing?” Masters says.

“Running, by the looks of it,” says Pete.

Jaeger is cruising south on the levee road, heading upstream. The other runners stand in shadow, but he is lit up by the dawn, his gaze fixed straight ahead, the sharp face showing in profile.

“So what?” says Audrey. “We’ll just run the other way.”

“I’m not,” says Pete.

People glance at each other, saying nothing.

Starting toward the fence and trail, Pete says, “I don’t change plans for murdering assholes.”

Gatlin and Varner fall in behind him.

Lucas turns to Audrey. “Want to go back?”

She pulls off her hat and a mitten, running her hand through her short, short hair. “Maybe.”

“We can’t just stand here,” says Masters.

“I’m not turning around,” says Sarah, short legs working, the ponytail jumping and swishing.

Crouse trots after her. Then Audrey sighs and says, “I guess,” and catches them before the fence.

“This is stupid,” says Masters. But then he starts chasing.

Lucas stands motionless. Nobody can run out of sight on him, except Jaeger. Maybe. He has time to pull off a mitten and wipe his mouth, ice already clinging to his little beard. Then he touches his phone to wake it, pulling up the familiar number with an eye and placing his call.

“How’s the run going?” says Wade.

Lucas doesn’t talk.

“I see where you are,” Wade says. “Are we running the creek today?”

“We’re supposed to.”

“So why aren’t you moving, Lucas?”

“Jaeger’s up ahead.”

There is a pause, a long breath of nothing before the voice returns. “You know what I want,” Wade says. “I told you what I want. Find out who killed me, okay?”

FOUR

Wade was five days dead.

The heat and drought had returned, and the Saturday group met long before the Y opened. Standing in the broiling darkness, they said very little. Even Harris was playing the silent monk. One minute after six they took off to the east, aiming for Jewel College. Harris grabbed the lead, Lucas claimed the empty ground between him and the pack. Then Crouse put on a surge, catching Lucas. “Have you tried Wade’s number?”

“Why would I?”

“Maybe you’re curious,” Crouse said.

“Not usually,” said Lucas.

“Well, you can’t get through. Voicemail answers, but even if you leave a message, the backup can’t call you back.”

“Why not?”

“He’s evidence,” Crouse said. “And maybe he’s a witness. That’s why they’ve got him bottled up.”

“I forgot. You’re a cop.”

“No.” The man hesitates, laughs. “But remember my sister-in-law?”

“The gal with black hair and that big bouncy ass,” Lucas said.

“She’s a police officer.”

“That too.”

“Anyway, she’s got this habit. She has to tell my wife everything.”

“Okay. Now I’m curious.”

Crouse was running hard. Whenever he talked, he first had to gather up enough air. “Wade ran for Jewel.”

Lucas glanced at him. “Everybody knows that.”

“Came here on a scholarship. Able recruited him. Wade was the big star for the first year. Then this other guy showed.”

“Carl Jaeger,” said Lucas.

“You probably know the whole story,” said Crouse, disappointed.

“Wade told it a couple times. Every day.”

“Know where the coach found Jaeger?”

“In Chicago, in rehab. There were legal hoops, getting him out from under some old charges. But the kid had ruled Illinois during high school, and that’s why Able brought him here. He wanted Jaeger to be his big dog, to help put Jewel on the map.”

Crouse nodded, fighting to hold the pace.

Lucas slowed. “You’re new to this group. You didn’t know. But Wade and Jaeger never liked each other.”

“What about the girl?” Crouse said.

Lucas said, “Yeah.” But then he realized that he didn’t know what they were talking about. “What girl?”

“Wade’s girlfriend in college. Jaeger got her. Stole her and got her pregnant and even married her for a couple years.”

“What’s her name?” Lucas said.

“I don’t know. I didn’t hear that part. But the virtual Wade remembers everything.” Crouse was happy, finding something fresh to offer. “The police department brought in specialists to sort through the files, the software. The AI business. The technology’s been around for a few years, but the experts haven’t seen a backup with this much information.”

“That’s Wade,” said Lucas. “Mr. Detail.”

“He kept training logs,” said Crouse.

“Some of us do.”

“You?”

“Never.”

Crouse found fresh speed in his legs. “Wade’s logs are different. They reach back to the day he started running, when he was eight. And there’s a lot more than miles and times buried in them.”

“Like what?”

“Sleep. Dreams. Breakfasts. And what he and his friends talked about during the run—word for word, sometimes. And he spends a lot of file space hating Carl Jaeger.”

The girl news was unexpected. Lucas thought about it for a minute. Then he said, “So what’s happening? Are the cops looking at Carl?”

“Oh, I’m not saying like that,” said Crouse, reaching that point where his legs were shaky-weak. “I just thought you’d be interested in what’s happening. That’s all.”

*   *   *

Runners are strung out along the levee. On the left little houses turn into body shops and junkyards and a sad pair of gray-white grain elevators. Ash Creek runs on their right, the channel gouged deep and straight and shouldered with pale limestone boulders. Fresh thin ice covers the shallow water. Pete and Gatlin run in front, Varner tucked into their slipstream. Snatches of angry conversation drift back. With a big arm, Pete points toward Jaeger. He curses, and Gatlin glances back at the others. Then the leaders slow, forcing the others to drift closer.

“I can’t believe this,” Masters says. “Why would the man run this course?”

“He likes the route,” Lucas says, his legs deciding to leap ahead, quick feet kicking back gravel.

Crouse hears the stride coming. “Hey, Lucas,” he says. And a moment later, he is passed.

The women are shoulder-to-shoulder. Audrey says a few words, laughing alone. Then she looks back at Lucas, her smile working. “What are those boys proving?”

“Don’t know,” Lucas says.

Audrey says, “Men,” and laughs again.

Lucas runs on the grass beside them. Pete is forty yards ahead and surging, body tilting and arms churning. Nobody in that trio talks, every whisper of oxygen saved for the legs.

“Look at them,” says Audrey.

“What about them?” Sarah says, her voice small and tight.

“They won’t catch Carl,” says Audrey.

“The man was in jail,” Sarah says. “For months.”

Audrey’s face stiffens. “We’re talking about Carl. There’s no way they can close that gap.”

Jaeger’s legs and lungs are almost lost in the sunshine. But he isn’t increasing his lead. Maybe he’s starting out on a lazy twenty and holding back. Or he knows they’re following him, and he just wants a little fun.

Lucas glances at Audrey.

“You don’t have to chase,” she says, her voice sharp.

He surges.

“Please, Lucas. Be careful.”

*   *   *

The man who sold shoes to every athlete in town was lying inside a closed box, waiting to be set into the ground, and the church was full of skinny people and beefy old friends, with a few distant relatives sitting up front, hoping for a piece of the Wade pie. Everybody made sorry sounds about the circumstances. Every male tried to spot the ex-girlfriends in the audience. Wade was no beauty, but he had a genius for pretty girls who fell for charm and little hints of marriage. There were maybe a dozen exes in the crowd, some crying for what had happened and others for what hadn’t. Lucas and Pete were pallbearers. They served with cousins and college buddies who didn’t know them from a can of paint. It was a cousin who mentioned that the cops were done with the backup. He said anybody could call the machine and it was almost fun, talking to a voice that remembered when you were ten-years-old and sitting together at Thanksgiving, watching relatives get drunk and funny.

Lucas did call Wade’s old number. But not right away and only twice and both times was surprised by the busy signal. Then he tried after midnight and got thrown straight into voicemail. Which pissed him off. Not that he was hungry for this chat, but it was sure to happen and why did things have to be so difficult?

His phone rang during next morning’s coffee. “You know what surprises me? It’s the strangers who read an obit and think it’s neat, calling you for no reason but to chat. And it’s not just local voices either. This is the big new hobby, I’m learning. Dial the afterlife. Listen to a ghost telling stories.”

“How you doing?” Lucas said.

The backup said, “I’m busy. And that’s a good thing.”

“What’s ‘busy’ mean?”

“Well, I’m running again. For instance.”

“How do you do that?”

“I’ve got video files, and I’ve built all of our favorite courses. The hills, the effort levels. How my body responds to perceived workouts. I can change the weather however I want it. You’d be amazed how real it looks and feels. And the food here doesn’t taste too wrong. Of course the sense of smell needs work, but that’s probably good news. When it’s polypro season.”

Then Wade stopped talking, forcing Lucas to react. “Is that why I’m getting busy signals? You’re making new friends?”

“And talking to people you know.”

“But you’re fast. Computers are. Why can’t you yabber to a thousand mouths at once?”

“Some of my functions are fast. Scary fast, sure. But right now, talking to you, my AI software has to work flat-out just to keep up.” Part of the software made lung noises. Wade took a pretend breath, and then he said, “I still need sleep, by the way. Which is why I didn’t pick up last night.”

Lucas didn’t talk.

“So tell me, Lucas. In your head, what am I? A machine, a program, or a man?”

“I don’t know.”

“Actually, I’m none of those things.”

“Because you’re a ghost.”

The laughter rattled on. “No, no. In the eyes of the law, I’m an intellectual foundation. That’s a new kind of trust reserved for backups. I’ve been registered with a friendly nation that has some very compassionate laws, and to maintain my sentient status, I have to keep enough money in the local bank.”

Lucas said nothing.

The silence ended with a big sigh. Then the intellectual foundation said, “So, Lucas? Do you have any idea who killed me?”

A little too quickly, Lucas said, “No.”

Another pause. Then Wade said, “It was a nice funeral.”

“You watched?”

“Several people streamed it to me. You did a nice job, Lucas.”

It was peculiar, how much those words mattered. Lucas took his own breath, real and deep, and then he said, “You know, I am sober.”

“What’s that?”

“Since the party, I haven’t had a taste.”

Uncomfortable sighs kept the silence away. Then a tight quick voice said, “Tell me that in another year. Tell it to me thirty years from today. A couple weeks without being shit-faced? I think it’s early to start calling that good news.”

*   *   *

The lead pack works, but Lucas catches them easily. Legs eat the distance, the lungs blow themselves clean, and he tucks in behind Pete, shortening his stride and measuring their bodies. Nobody talks, but the men trade looks and the group slows, making ready for the next miserable surge.

The levee curls west toward the bypass and dives under the bridge. Jaeger has vanished. He isn’t below, and he’s not up on the highway either. They follow the levee road down, gravel replaced with pale frozen clay. The air turns colder, tasting like wet concrete. Water sounds bounce off the underside of the bridge. Then the road yanks left and starts a long climb.

Jaeger is above them, and then he is gone.

Pete curses. Sweat bleeds through his windbreaker and freezes, a little white forest growing on his back.

Topping the levee, they hold their effort, gaining speed on the flat. But the road is empty. Except nodding brown grass, nothing moves, and there isn’t anybody to chase.

The pack slows.

“Look,” Varner says. “That pipe.”

The sewer pipe is fat and black, jutting out of the levee’s shoulder, a thin trickle of oily runoff dripping. Jaeger stands on the pipe, facing the stream. With his shorts yanked down, he holds himself with both hands, aiming long, urine splashing in the oil.

Pete pulls up. The rest of the group stops behind him, watching. Then Jaeger turns towards them and shakes himself dry before yanking up his underwear and then the shorts.

“Let’s please turn,” says Audrey.

No one else talks.

Jaeger climbs back to the road, watching them.

“Hey, asshole,” says Pete. “Hey.”

The last months have taken a toll. Jaeger’s face remains lean, but wrinkles have worked into his features. The short black hair shows white. He breathes harder than normal. Forty-three years old, and for the first time anyone can recall, he looks his age.

“I don’t like this,” says Masters.

Pete laughs. “What are worried about?”

Jaeger’s body turns away, but not his face.

“There’s eight of us,” says Pete.

“What’s that mean?” Crouse says.

“Depends,” Pete says, his bulldog face challenging them. “We’re here, and that man is standing over there. And he beat our friend to death with a chunk of concrete.”

Jaeger starts running, the first strides short.

Audrey shakes her head. “What are we doing?”

Sarah knows.

“We’re just following the man,” Sarah says, her voice slow and furious. “Jaeger can’t be in great shape. But we are. So we’ll keep close and talk to him, and maybe he’ll say something true.”

FIVE

Lucas rode to the airport, the chain clicking. A gray-haired woman handed him the entry form, and he filled in the blanks slowly, paying the late fee with two twenties. Then he pinned the race number to his shorts and strapped the chip to his right shoe, and the new t-shirt ended up tied beneath the seat of his bike.

The pre-race mood was quiet, grim. Conversations were brief. Race-day rituals were performed with sluggish discipline. The normally bouncy voice on the PA system growled at the world, warning that only twenty minutes were left until the gun. Bikes don’t get bodies ready to run. Lucas started running easy through the mostly empty parking lots, past a terminal that looked pretty much shut down, and that’s when a tall man stepped from behind an Alleycat Dumpster.

“Pepper.”

Lucas nodded, lifting one hand.

Jaeger fell in beside him. He was wearing racing flats and shorts and a White Sox cap twisted around on his head. Saying nothing, he ran Lucas back to his bike, watching him strip the shirt he wore from home and then tie it to the frame.

“Lose your car?” he said.

“I know where it is.”

“Got fancy jewelry on that ankle, I see.”

Lucas lifted his foot and put it down again. “Jealous?”

“Jail time?”

“If I drink.”

“With your record? They should keep you in a cage for a year.”

“The jail’s full.” Lucas shrugged. “And besides, the case wasn’t strong.”

“No?”

“Maybe I wasn’t driving.” Shame forced his gaze to drop. “Somebody called the hotline, but it was a busy night. One cop spotted my car and flashed her lights, and my car pulled up and a white male galloped off between the houses.”

“That cop chase after the driver?”

“On foot, but she couldn’t hang on.”

“I bet not,” Jaeger said, laughing.

“A second cruiser found me half a mile away, while he was investigating a burglary. Just happened to trip over me.”

Lucas’ phone started to ring.

“I don’t know how you run with those machines,” Jaeger said. “Mine’s an old foldable, and I put it away sometimes.”

Lucas opened the line.

“Five minutes,” said Wade.

“Five minutes,” said the public address voice.

Wade said, “How do you feel?”

“Talk to you later, okay?” Lucas hung up.

Jaeger was watching him and the phone. He didn’t ask who called, but when Lucas looked at him, the man offered what might have been a smile, shy and a little sorry.

“See you out there. Okay, Pepper?”

*   *   *

The levee twists to the southeast, ending at the park’s north border. Hold that road, and Jaeger will work his way back into town. Any reasonable man would do that. But as soon as he hits Foster Lane, Jaeger jumps right and surges. And just to be sure that everyone understands, he throws back a little sneer as he crosses Ash Creek.

Pete and Varner are leading, milking the speed from their legs. Audrey is beside Lucas, but she won’t chase anymore. Arms drop and her stride shortens. “You can’t catch him,” she says.

“Watch us,” says Pete.

“Then what?” she says.

Nobody answers. They make Foster and turn together, bunching up as they cross the rusted truss bridge. Pounding feet make the old steel shiver, and the wind cuts sideways, sweaty faces aching.

“I can’t run this fast,” Sarah says.

“Nobody can,” says Crouse.

Up ahead, past the bridge, the road yanks to the left, placing itself between the water and tangled second-growth woods. They watch Jaeger striding out, and then Masters says, “We’ve got to slow down.”

But Pete has a plan. “If he runs the trails, we’ll cut him off.”

“He won’t,” Audrey says. “That would be stupid.”

They come off the bridge, and Pete slows. “We’ll split up,” he says. “Fast legs chase, the rest wait up ahead.”

Jaeger is pushing his lead.

“A turnoff ’s coming,” Lucas says.

“Half a mile up,” says Gatlin. “The park entrance.”

“No, it’s there,” he says. “Soon.”

And just like that, Jaeger turns right, leaping over a pile of gray gravel before diving into the brush. Two long strides and he becomes this pale shape slipping in and out of view, and with another stride, he’s gone.

Varner curses.

“Run ahead or chase,” says Pete.

Sarah and Masters fall back. And Crouse. Then Audrey says, “No,” to somebody and drops away too.

Pete and Varner accelerate, Gatlin falling in behind them. Lucas holds his pace, looking at his feet, measuring the life in his legs. Then he slips past everybody and yanks himself to the right, plunging into the bare limbs. The others miss the tiny trail and overshoot. Alone, Lucas drops off the roadbed, following a rough little path to where it joins up with the main trail—a wide slab of black earth and naked roots that bends west and plunges.

Gravity takes him. Lifting his feet, Lucas aims for smooth patches of frozen ground, dancing over roots and little gullies. Then the trail flattens, trees replaced by a forest of battered cattails.

Lucas slows, breathes.

The others chug up behind. “I don’t see him,” says Varner.

Far ahead, an ancient cottonwood lies dead on its side—a ridge of white wood stripped of bark, shining in the chill sunshine. Before anyone else, Lucas sees the black ball cap streaking behind the tree, and he surges again, nothing easier in the world than making long legs fly.

*   *   *

“Five minutes,” said the rumbling PA voice. But a minute later he said, “No, folks. We’re going to have a short delay.”

People assumed that a plane was coming, which was a rare event and every eye looked skyward. Except nothing was flying on that hot September morning. Lucas lined up next to Audrey, toes at the start line. Pete and Gatlin and Varner were on the other side of her. Crouse was a few rows back with Masters. Sarah was missing, and Lucas couldn’t see Jaeger anymore. Like a puppy, Harris sprinted out onto the empty runway and trotted back again. Then he wasted another burst of speed, and Pete said, “What lottery did we lose and get him?”

Laughter came from everywhere, and then it collapsed.

Carl Jaeger had appeared. Where he was hiding was a mystery, but he was suddenly standing at the line. He had come here to race. Inside himself, the man was making ready for the next ten kilometers. Forty-plus years old and nobody could remember him losing to a local runner. It was an astonishing record demanding conditioning and focus and remarkable luck. Staring at the tape in front of his left toes, he didn’t seem to notice the detectives pushing under the barricade, coming at him with handcuffs at the ready.

“Keep your hands where we can see them,” said the lead cop.

Jaeger’s legs tensed, long calves twitching. He looked up, saying, “You don’t want me.” Then he looked down, staring at the gray pavement, and talking to his feet, he said, “Just let me run this. Just let me.”

SIX

The trail leaps out of the marsh and flattens, fading into a lawn of clipped brown grass. Stone summer-camp buildings have been abandoned for the winter, every door padlocked and plywood sheets screwed into every window. Lucas holds his line, and the buildings fall away. Then the trail is under him again, yanking to the left, and the clearing ends with trees and a deep gully and a narrow bridge made from oak planks and old telephone poles.

Habit keeps him on the trail. Seepage has pooled at the bottom and frozen on top, and the ice broke where Jaeger’s right foot must have planted. The muddy water is still swirling. Lucas cuts his stride. His legs decide to jump early. He knows that he won’t reach the far bank, and his lead foot hits and breaks through, and he flings his other leg forward, dragging the trailing foot out of the muck before it’s drenched.

The effort slows him, and the next slope is dark and very slick and slow, and that’s how the others pass him.

Shoes drum on the oak planks. Pete is up ahead, hollering a few words that end with a question mark.

“What?” Lucas says.

Varner slows, looking down at him. “Where is he?”

Then Pete says, “Got him.”

Lucas is on the high ground again. The woods are young and closely packed, the trail winding through the little trees until it seems as if there is no end. Then everybody dives again, back down into the cattails. Jaeger is a gray shape catching the sunshine. Bent forward a little too much, he swings his arms to help drive his legs, attacking the next rise.

A second cottonwood lies in the bottoms, the trunk and heavy roots made clean and simple by years of rot.

“Shortcut,” says Lucas.

Pete says some little word. He and Varner are suffering, pitching forward long before they reach the slope. Only Gatlin looks smooth, his tiny frame floating out into the lead.

Lucas steers left, meaning to leap the tree, but he doesn’t have the lift, the juice. His lead foot hits and he grabs at the wood with the mittens, then the trailing foot clips the trunk and slows him. He stops, looking down from a place where he’s never been before. A thin old trail leads up the middle of the cattails. He jumps down and runs it, alone again.

A distant voice drifts past. No word makes sense. Then the only sound is the wind high above and the pop of his feet. Lucas’ face drips. Still running, he pulls off the mittens and bunches them together and shoves them into his tights.

Again, voices find him.

To his right, motion.

Jaeger appears on the high ground, body erect, the stride relaxed. He looks like a man riding an insurmountable lead. Watching nothing but the trail ahead, he dives back into the bottoms, slowing a little, and Lucas surges and meets him where the trails merge. Looking over his shoulder, Jaeger gives a little jump. “No,” he says. And a big nervous laugh rolls out of him.

Lucas tucks in close. Again the trail climbs out of the marsh. And when Jaeger rises in front of him, Lucas reaches down, catching an ankle, yanking it toward the sky.

Jaeger falls, one hand slapping the frozen earth.

Grabbing the other ankle, Lucas says, “Run.”

Jaeger kicks at him.

“What are you doing?” Lucas says. “You’re an idiot. Run the hell out of here. Are you listening to me?”

Voices drift close. Varner says, “Pepper,” and Pete says, “We got him,” and that’s when Jaeger scrambles to his feet. His eyes are wild, fiery. With a matching voice, he says, “What do you know.” Not a question, just a string of flat hard words. Then he runs, his right leg wobbling. But the stride recovers, and that endless strength carries him off while Lucas watches, hoping for the best.

The others catch up and stop, bending to breathe.

“Good idea,” says Pete.

Varner says, “What’d he tell you?”

Lucas looks at the butcher’s gloves on his hands and puts his hands down, and Gatlin says, “Did you hurt him?”

“No,” says Lucas.

“Too bad,” Varner says. “Next time, break his legs.”

*   *   *

Voices come through the trees. A woman shouts; a man speaks. Then the woman shouts again, her voice scary-angry and making no sense. Lucas surges, pulling away from the others. Wide and carpeted with rotted wood chips, the main trail points south, climbing a final little slope up onto Foster Lane. Jaeger has already passed. Masters stands in the middle of the road, hands on hips. Sarah is closest to him. “Do nothing,” she says. “Just do nothing.”

Masters says something soft.

She says, “God,” and swats the air with her mittens.

Masters looks at Lucas, cheeks red and his mouth tiny, some wicked embarrassment twisting his guts.

“Asshole, run,” says Crouse. The man is angry, but only to a point. A sports fan yelling at the enemy team, he cups his hands around his mouth. “We’re chasing you, asshole.”

Nobody moves.

Pete staggers up to the road, face dripping. Varner and Gatlin cross it and stop at the mouth of the next trail, and Gatlin points. “There.”

“Chase him,” Sarah says.

She isn’t talking to Masters. Grabbing Lucas by the elbow, she shakes him and says, “Go.”

Varner and Gatlin are running into the trees again.

Hands on knees, Pete says, “Foster goes where? Down the west side of the park, right?”

Lucas nods. “A couple trails pop out.”

“We’ll watch for him.” Then Pete coughs into a fist.

“Oh, he’s gotten away,” says Sarah. Pink mittens on her head, she says, “There’s a million trails in there.”

“Come on,” says Crouse, setting off down the road.

Pete trots after him.

Masters watches Sarah, glasses like volcanic glass, the mouth pressed down to a scared pink dot.

Audrey stands aside, her bottom lip tucked into her mouth, little teeth chewing. She acts like a bystander unlucky enough to stumble across an ugly family brawl.

“With me?” says Lucas.

Then he runs, saying, “Somebody.”

Small shoes dance across dry gravel.

Lucas shortens his gait, giving her no choice but to fall in beside him.

“What did you do?” Audrey says. “His knee’s bleeding.”

The trail is wide and heavily used, slicing south through old timber before crossing one of the gullies that feed Ash Creek. “I spilled him,” Lucas says.

“Spilled him.”

“Stupid,” he says.

The gully is wide, choked with muck and dead timber. The long bridge is made from pipe and oak planks. Lucas jumps on first, feet drumming. “I wanted to scare him. Get him to run somewhere else.”

They come off the bridge and the world turns quiet. The trail splits, one branch heading west, but Lucas presses south.

“We were talking,” says Audrey. “Up on the road, waiting, Masters made a joke. He said we should tackle Jaeger, and right away Sarah said that was a good idea. But when Carl finally showed up, nobody moved.”

Voices drift in from the west, from deep in the trees.

“Should we have turned back there?” Audrey says.

“The other trail just makes a little loop. Jaeger can take it to the road, or he comes back to us.”

She pulls up beside him, and neither of them talks.

Then he says, “Nothing’s going to happen to the guy.”

“Promise?”

He slows.

She passes him and looks back. “What?”

“We’re here. Stop,” he says.

The trail jumps left where the woods end. In front of them is twenty feet of vertical earth falling into cold slow water. The secondary trail pops out on their right. “Hear anything?” says Lucas.

“No.” She tilts her head. “Yes.”

The gray T-shirt appears first, and then the pale face. Jaeger spots them. Three strides away, he stops. His right knee is trying to scab over. He breathes hard, big lungs working, his face holding a deep, thorough fatigue. But the voice is solid. Ignoring Lucas, he says, “Not you.”

More sad than angry, Audrey says, “Just tell me, Carl.”

“Tell you what?”

“Did you kill Wade?”

Jaeger throws a look back up the smaller trail. Gatlin and Varner stand in the trees, both men heaving. And Jaeger turns again, looking only at Lucas. He doesn’t say a word, but an odd little smile builds. Then he runs again—a handful of lazy strides pushing him between Lucas and Audrey—and the big legs kick into high gear, frozen twists of mud scattered on the ground behind him.

*   *   *

“You could have won.”

It was Wade’s voice, and it wasn’t.

“They just posted the results,” he said. “You should see the splits. At five miles, Harris had you by eleven seconds. If you’d kept close, you would have toasted him at the end. The kid thinks he has a kick, but he doesn’t.”

Lucas was sitting in his kitchen, finishing a pot of coffee. Orcs and humans were fighting on the television, ugly evil pitted against the handsome good.

“Are you listening, Lucas?”

“Yeah.”

“You haven’t won a race since you were sixteen.”

Lucas put down the mug. “How do you know? Did I tell you?”

“I’ve been reading old sports stories,” Wade said. Except something about the voice was different. Changed. Not in the words or rhythm, but in the emotions. Wade was always intense, but usually in a tough-coach, in-control way. Usually. But this character was letting his anger creep into everything he was saying. “You had your chance, Lucas. With Jaeger out of commission and all.”

“You know about the arrest?”

“An article just got posted. There’s a nice picture of me from ten years ago. And a real shitty shot of Jaeger. I’m hoping Masters has the arrest on video. That’s something I’d like to see.”

Lucas reached across the table, turning off the television.

“Two witnesses put Jaeger running with me,” Wade said. “I just read all about it. We’re in the park that Monday, at the north end heading south, and both witnesses claim the mood was ugly.”

“But you don’t remember.”

“Wade uploaded his days at night,” Wade said. “That was his routine.”

“I remember.”

Silence.

Lucas waited. Then he said, “You think Carl did it?”

“Killed me?” An odd laugh came across. “I don’t know. I really don’t. But I’ll tell you how this feels. Suppose you’re at a theatre watching some movie. It’s a murder mystery, and there’s this one character that you really, really care about. You want the best for him but you’ve got to pee, and that’s when this person you liked is killed. You’re out of the room, and he gets his skull caved in. And now you feel angry and sad, but mostly you just feel cheated.”

Lucas lifted the mug, looking at the stained bottom.

“Maybe Carl did it, and maybe not,” Wade said. “But I missed that part. And now I’m sitting in the dark, waiting to see how things end up. Just so I can get on with my life.”

*   *   *

Mountain bikes and hiking boots have carved a broad rut down the trail’s middle. Runners keep to the rut, single-file, jumping the bank when the trail twists, slicing the turn. Lucas leads and Audrey is behind him, watching her next steps. With a tight voice, she says, “I can’t believe this.”

“So quit,” Varner says.

Jaeger is forty feet ahead. Where the trail pulls left, he cuts through the woods, adding a half-stride to his lead.

Varner surges, passing Audrey and clipping Lucas’ heel with a foot.

Lucas slows and turns north, wind gnawing at his sweaty face.

The next bridge is a tall smear of red just visible through the trees. Jaeger is almost there, slowing his gait, getting ready to jump on the stairs.

Varner surges again, lifting himself to a full sprint, just managing to pull around Lucas.

Jaeger looks back, squinting, the wide mouth pulling air in long gulps. Then he turns and leaps, his right foot landing on a pink granite step. And he pauses, calculating distance and his own fatigue before jumping again, breaking into a smooth trot across the bridge.

Varner staggers, stiff legs climbing after Jaeger.

The others bunch up behind.

Lucas gasps, scrubbing his blood before pushing back into the lead. Ash Creek is wide as a river, and the long wooden bridge shakes with the pounding. Jaeger is twenty feet ahead when he reaches the end, leaping over the steps, hitting the ground hard. His posture is surprised. He stands where he landed, glancing back at Lucas and almost talking. Almost. Then he starts running again, not quite trusting his right leg.

Lucas dances down the steps and runs. The next stretch of trail is wide and straight—an old road through what used to be a farmer’s yard. Someone with affection for poplars planted them in rows, skinny white trunks looking sickly without the glittering leaves. Again, the wind pushes the runners. Again, everybody accelerates. The old yard ends with a massive oak and deep woods. For Wade, this was always a traditional turnaround point from the Y. By this route, they have covered a few steps more than seven miles.

Jaeger disappears into the trees.

Lucas slows and says, “There’s another bridge.”

Audrey pushes close. “What about it?”

“It’s closed. Since last summer.”

“We can still cross,” Gatlin says.

“Yeah,” Lucas says. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

The bridge rises in the distance. It looks wrong. Four tall posts sag toward the middle. Last June, a flash flood roared down the tributary, cutting at the banks and undermining the foundation. Jaeger is driving hard, pushing away from them. Varner is scared that he might get away, and the adrenaline gives him just enough speed to catch Lucas and trip him by clipping his heel.

Both men tumble. Lucas slaps the ground where an exposed root cuts through a butcher’s glove, ripping into his right palm.

Audrey stops.

Gatlin is past, gone.

Varner groans and finds his feet, giving Lucas an embarrassed but thoroughly pissed look before wobbling away.

“Are you okay?” says Audrey.

Lucas stands, watching the blood soak the cheap white fabric. Wincing, he says, “Come on,” and breaks into a slow trot, eyes down.

DANGER, CLOSED reads the sign nailed to crossed planks.

Jaeger has crawled past the barricade. Steel cables serve as railings, and with arms spread wide, he slowly drops out of view.

“We’re beaten,” says Audrey. “We’re done.”

She sounds nothing but happy.

Gatlin stands on the ramp. Then he lifts an arm and waves at someone on the far bank.

Past the bridge is a trailhead and parking lot. If people ran the road down the west side of the park, following Foster, even a knuckle-walking pace would take them to these trailhead before any greyhound could sprint down these trails. Gatlin and Varner stand at the crossed boards, staring across the slough. The suspension bridge looks tired and old and treacherous, sagging in the middle as if holding an enormous weight. Jaeger stands at the bottom. He doesn’t move. With feet apart, Pete guards the opposite barricade. Masters and Crouse are behind him, and Sarah hovers to the side, nothing but smiles now.

Pete says, “Look at you.” Then he punches the boards, saying, “Unless you sprout wings, we’ve caught your ass.”

*   *   *

“See the news today?”

Lucas was making a fresh pot. “Besides murder stories, you mean?”

The dead man laughed and then fell silent. And out from the silence, he said, “There was a thunderstorm yesterday. In Greenland.”

Lucas didn’t talk.

“You know where Greenland is, don’t you?”

“Well enough,” Lucas said.

The next laugh was smaller, angrier. “It wasn’t a big storm, and it didn’t last. But if rain starts falling hard on those glaciers, it’s going to be a real mess.”

“I thought we had a real mess.”

“Even worse,” Wade said.

Mr. Coffee set to work, happy to prove itself.

“Our weather wouldn’t be this crazy,” Lucas said. “If the Chinese hadn’t burned all that coal.”

“Which authority is talking? You?”

“Masters, mostly.”

“It wasn’t the Chinese, Lucas. It was everybody.”

Lucas said nothing, waiting.

“Smart people can be stupid,” Wade said.

“I guess.”

“And I know guys who can’t read a map, but they still see things that I’d never notice.”

Lucas poured a fresh cup.

“Did I tell you? Climate is the biggest reason I got made. And it wasn’t just the rising oceans and ten-year droughts and those heat waves that hammered the Persian Gulf. Climate does change. Always has, and life always adapts. Except the earth today has two big things that didn’t exist during the Eocene.”

Lucas said the new word. “Eocene.”

“The earth has its money and it has politics. And those very precious things are getting hit harder than anything else. The sultans can fly off to cool wet Switzerland, but the poor people have to die. The Saudi government has to collapse. But meanwhile, engineers get to sit inside their air-conditioned bunkers, using robots to run oil fields cooking at a hundred and fifty degrees. As if this was some other planet, and they were noble astronauts doing good work.”

“I guess,” said Lucas.

“Political stability and wealth,” the voice said. “People depend on those two things more than anything else. And the poverty and riots and little murders and big wars are just going to get worse. Hour by hour, year by year. That’s why I put my savings into this venture. Why Wade did. Sure, we were hoping for fifty years of tweaking, but at least we had enough time to pack up everything about me and put it here. My whole life, safe as safe can possibly be.”

Lucas sipped and looked out the window. Or he didn’t look anywhere. He was thinking, and he had no idea what he was thinking until he spoke.

“Nobody would do that,” he said.

“Do what?” said Wade.

“Take everything.” Lucas wiped the counter with a clean towel. “It’s like this. You’re putting your life into one big bag. But there’s always going to be choices. There’s always embarrassing ugly dangerous shit, and you’ll look at it and say, ‘Hell, that crap needs to be left behind.’”

“Think so?”

“I know it.” Lucas watched the coffee wobbling in the mug. “That’s probably another reason why Wade did what he did. Getting free of the past.”

The line was silent.

“And you, the poor backup … you can’t even know what’s missing.” Lucas was laughing but not laughing. “Right there, that says plenty.”

SEVEN

Jaeger stands at the bottom of the slow-swaying curve, turning slowly and staring up at the people on both ends of the bridge. His chest swells, drinking the cold air. The muscles in his bare legs look like old rope, bunched and frayed, and the right knee keeps bleeding, a red snake glistening down the long shin. With filthy butcher gloves, he holds onto the steel cables. Old wood feels his weight, groaning. He doesn’t seem to mind. If the bridge collapses, he falls ten feet into icy mud and nothing happens, nothing but pain and mess. Jaeger spent two months sitting in jail. He was too broke to make bail or find an adequate attorney. The city’s murder rate had exploded in the last few years. A hundred other cases needed to be chased. But a popular citizen had been brutally murdered, and that’s why the police and prosecutors threw everything at the suspect, trying to wring a confession from him. But there was no confession. And when key bits of physical evidence were finally attacked by the full powers of modern science, they were found wanting. Witnesses and odd circumstances don’t make a case, and the court had no choice but to order Jaeger released. And that’s why this bridge is no obstacle. None. Nothing will make the man meaner or any harder. That’s what he says with his body and his face and the hard sure grip of his hands. That’s what he says to Lucas, staring at him with those fierce green eyes.

And then Jaeger blinks.

He takes another breath and holds it. His head tips on that long neck. Maybe he feels cold. Anyone else would, dressed as he’s dressed and standing still. Then he exhales and makes a quarter turn, wrapping both hands around the same fat steel cable.

Pete says, “Hey, prick. Tell the truth, and we’ll let you go.”

Jaeger stares at the slough. With a plain voice, not loud but carrying, he says, “That’s what I am. A prick. And Wade was this righteous good guy, and everybody liked him, and dying made him perfect.”

Nobody talks. Except for the wind in the trees and a slow trickle of water, there is nothing to hear.

“No, I wasn’t with him when he died,” says Jaeger. “But I know how he died. Even after the rain, there were clues: A big chunk of skin was found south of here, down near the water. It came out of his shoulder, and it was the first wound. Somebody was swinging a piece of rebar with a lump of concrete on the end, and they clipped Wade from behind, on his left side, probably knocking him off his feet. Giving his attacker the chance to grab his phone, leaving him bloody and cut off from the world, but mobile.

“That’s when the chase began,” he says. “There was a blood trail. DNA sniffers and special cameras showed where he ran, where he was bleeding. Twice, Wade tried doubling back to the nearest trailhead, but his enemy clipped the shoulder again and then bashed in one of his hands. The experts could tell that from the clotting. They know how fast the blood flowed and where Wade collapsed. He was up on the abandoned rail line, probably trying to get back to town. That’s where his killer used the club to bust one of Wade’s knees, crippling him. Then his jaw was broken, maybe to keep him quiet. After that, his killer dragged him down into the brush and with a couple good swings broke his hip. Then for some reason, the beating took a break.”

Jaeger pauses.

Almost too soft to hear, Sarah says, “What are you telling us?”

“I’m explaining why you’re idiots.” Jaeger looks at her and back at Lucas. “Fifteen, twenty minutes passed. The killer stood over Wade. Talking to him, I guess. Probably telling him just how much he was hated. Because that’s what this murder was. That was the point of it all. Somebody wanted to milk the fun out hurting him. He wanted Wade helpless, wanted him to understand that he was crippled and ruined.”

Sarah makes a soft, awful sound.

Jaeger shakes his head. “Twenty minutes of talk, and then three or four minutes of good solid hammering. Wade died within sixty seconds, they figured. But he was a tough bastard and maybe not. Maybe he felt the one side of the face getting caved in and the ribs and arms busted and the neck shattered.”

Lucas leans against the barricade.

Jaeger pushes into the cable, long arms stretched wide and holding tight. The steady drumming of his strongest muscle causes the steel to shudder. Anyone touching the bridge can feel his heart beating hard and quick.

“I didn’t hate the man,” says Jaeger. “You know me, Audrey. You too, Lucas. I’m wrapped up in myself, sure. But this feud ran in just one direction.” He laughs and grabs both cables again. “Yeah, we ran together that Monday. And we were talking. But after a mile or so, I turned and he went on. For me, Wade was nothing. He was just another body in the pack. I didn’t hate him. Not till I spent two months in jail, thinking about him and his good sweet friends. And you know what? I’ve got this feeling. This instinct. I didn’t have any reason for killing, particularly like that. But I’m thinking that killing Wade Tanner is something one of you bastards would do. Easy.”

*   *   *

The building began as a factory and became a filthy warehouse. Then the property sold cheap, and the investor put loft apartments into the upper stories and The Coffee Corner took over the loading dock and west end, while the backside was reborn as a fashionable courtyard complete with flower pots and a broken fountain. Lucas was walking past the courtyard’s black-iron gate. Saturday’s run was finished and coffee was finished and he was thinking about the rest of his day, and from behind, Sarah said, “I need new shoes.”

She was talking to him, Lucas thought, turning around.

To her phone, she said, “What kind should I try?”

The odd funny weird thing about the moment was her face. Sarah looked happy, which was different. The smile lit her face and made her eyes dance. She was listening to a voice, and he realized whose voice. Then she noticed Lucas and turned away, suddenly embarrassed, muttering soft little words nobody else needed to hear.

Sarah went through the gate. Lucas followed. The original pavers made the courtyard, dark red and worn smooth by horses pulling wagons. Maybe the horses were coming back someday. It was something to think about as he followed the little woman. A glass door led into The Runner’s Closet, and the owner had just opened up. A few minutes after ten, in October, and his day was starting off fine. He had two customers at once, and the guy had to grin.

Lucas stumbled over names. Tom? Tom Hubble, right.

“He wants me to try the Endorphins,” Sarah said. “The ones with the twin computers and the smart-gel actuators.”

“Good choice,” Tom said. “What size?”

She told him and he vanished into the back room, and then she turned, watching Lucas. She didn’t talk. She was listening and smiling. Then she said, “Lucas is here too,” and nodded as Wade talked. Then she told the living man, “He says you need new shoes too.”

“Yeah, but how does he know?”

“Wade still helps here. Keeps track of who buys what, and you haven’t bought for a long time.”

What was strangest was how much all of that made sense.

Lucas sat on the padded bench, Sarah settling beside him, still talking to Wade. An oval track had been painted on the floor, wrapping around the bench. She listened to the voice, and Tom brought out a box of shoes and put them on her and laced her up and watched her jogging a few strides at a time, smart eyes trying to see what was right and wrong in her step.

Sarah giggled. Not laughed, but giggled.

“I need new shoes too,” Lucas said.

“What kind do you like?” Tom said.

“What I have,” Lucas said.

“What’s the model?”

“I don’t remember,” Lucas said. “Ask Wade.”

Tom nodded, watching Sarah finishing her lap. She said, “Bye,” and touched her phone. “I’ll take them. And he said pass his commission back to me, please.”

“Sure,” Tom said, rising slowly.

Sarah started following him toward the counter but then stopped and looked at Lucas. “You know, I talk to him more than ever,” she said, smiling but not smiling. Happy in her core but knowing there was something wrong, something sick about feeling this way.

*   *   *

Jaeger grabs the cables and drives with his legs, climbing the far side of the swaying bridge. Pete holds his ground, waiting. The four people wait, shoulders squared but the feet nervous. Everything will be finished in another minute. A fight is coming, and the four people on the north bank can only watch, each of them feeling lucky because of it.

Pete’s face tightens.

Jaeger says, “Move.”

Nobody reacts. Pride holds them in place, right up until Pete dips his head, throwing a few words at the others as he backs away.

Masters retreats, relieved.

Not Crouse. He replants his feet. Unimpressed, Jaeger grabs the barricade and jumps, one foot landing where the planks cross. Then he yanks the foot free and drops beside Crouse, saying nothing while staring down at him, and Crouse nearly trips backing off the wooden ramp.

Only Sarah remains. She makes fists inside her mittens and steps forward, waving the fists while sobbing, fighting for breath.

Jaeger pushes past her and runs, vanishing in a few strides.

Pete waves. “One at a time.”

Gatlin goes first. The little body slips under the barricade and runs to the bottom and runs up to the far side. Varner chases, every step ridiculously long, the bridge bucking and creaking. Audrey is next, but she won’t let go of the cables and she won’t run. Halfway down, she looks back at Lucas, and he says, “Let’s just leave. We can head back.”

She shakes her head and says, “But what if they catch him?” Just the possibility makes her tremble, and she hurries, finishing her trip down and then up again.

Cupping a hand against his mouth, Pete says, “Are you coming?”

Lucas says, “No.” Maybe he means it. Anywhere else in the world would be better than being here. But he watches himself bend and climb through the barricade, and he lets his legs run. Planks rattle as he stretches out, and then without a false step or stumble, he charges up the far side.

Only Pete waits. He looks in Lucas’ direction. He talks to Lucas, unless he’s talking to himself. “I don’t know,” he says to one of them. “I just don’t know.”

The trail follows the slough to its mouth and then follows Ash Creek again. Cottonwoods stand among the scrub elms and mulberries, and the woods give way to dead grass and a parking lot of rutted gravel. Past the lot is West Spencer Road and another mile-deep slice of parkland. The rest of the group stand beside the lone picnic table, bunched together and silent. A rhythmic shriek begins, cutting at the cold air. Jaeger has claimed the old-style pump, lifting the handle and shoving it down again. A rusty box fills with water and brown water spouts from the bottom into a rusted bowl, spouting even when he stops pumping, bending over to drink.

Once he has his fill, Jaeger straightens, wiping his chin and his mouth. Then he trots to the next trail and stops again, looking back at them.

“He’s waiting on us,” Varner says.

And with a quiet sick voice, Audrey says, “Who’s chasing who?”

*   *   *

Sarah paid for the shoes and left, and Tom vanished into the back again. His voice drifted out of the storeroom—one side of the conversation exchanging pleasantries before asking the real question. Lucas drifted to the front of the store, up where a tall sheet of corkboard was covered with race results and news clippings and free brochures telling new runners how to train for competition. A younger, badly yellowed Wade smiled down from a high corner, holding a famous pair of shoes in one hand. Tom came out with a box while Lucas was picking his way through the news clipping, one word after another.

“I’d pull that old thing down,” Tom said. “But people expect it. I’m afraid customers would get mad, not seeing it there.”

“I wouldn’t,” Lucas said.

Tom examined the clipping. “I was here that day. In fact, I saw the kid snatch up those shoes. Out the door and gone, and Wade came charging from the storeroom to chase him. I told him not to. The kid was on meth. I could tell. But you know Wade.”

“Yeah.”

“I knew he’d catch the thief, and that’s what scared me.”

Lucas gave up reading. It was the photograph that mattered. It was that big smile and the hair that was still thick and blond and the rugged looks wrapped around a crooked nose, and it was how that younger Wade held those shoes up to the camera, no prize in the world half as important.

“That shoe thief had a knife,” Tom said.

“I remember.”

“But things worked out. Wade just kept running him until he collapsed, and nobody got cut.”

Lucas dropped his eyes, watching the floor.

“He was the first salesman that I hired,” said Tom. “Wade was still in college. I had no idea he’d stay here for twenty years. Honestly, I didn’t think he would last that first week. He was too intense, I thought. Too perfect, too driven. The crap he would pull sometimes. God, these are just shoes. The world isn’t going to end if you don’t happen to make that one sale.”

Tom was looking at the same piece of the floor, explaining. “But like nobody I’ve ever known, Wade had a talent for names and faces. For feet and gaits. He was everybody’s first doctor when they got hurt, and he loved selling shoes, and even dead, he’s still practically managing this place.”

“What else?” Lucas said.

“What else what?”

“What stupid crap did he pull? Besides chasing shoe thieves, I mean.”

Tom swallowed, thinking before answering. “He fired clerks for little things. No warnings, just gone. If a customer gave him a bad check, he wouldn’t take another check from that person. Ever. And he couldn’t keep his nose out of private concerns. He had this need, this compulsion, to steer the world toward doing what’s right. You know what I mean.”

“Oh, sure.”

“I was at that party too, Lucas.”

Lucas looked at him.

“I never would have called the cops on you.”

Lucas didn’t know what to say. He tried a small shrug.

Tom was nervous but proud. He thought that he was making a customer for life. “Wade was a good man, but he thought everyone should be.”

One last glance at the photograph seemed right.

“Ithaca Flyers. Is that your shoe?”

“Sounds right.”

“This is the new model, but he says you’ll like it.”

“Well,” said Lucas. “The guy was usually right.”

*   *   *

The group shuffles over to the pump. Masters pulls a little bottle off the back of his belt, sharing the blue drink with Sarah. Pete gives the handle a few hard shoves and drinks, and then the others take turns. Everybody is tired, but not like runners beaten up by miles. They look like cocktailers after Last Call, faces sloppy and sad and maybe a little scared by whatever is coming next.

Lucas drinks last, holding the frigid bowl with his bloodied palm, the water warm and thick with iron.

“Sucking the ground dry?” says Jaeger.

Lucas stops drinking. But instead of standing, he drops down, stretching his legs with a runner’s lunge.

Jaeger turns and leaves.

“Hurry,” Sarah says.

Masters is squeezing the last taste out of a gel-pack.

She says, “Now.”

He nearly talks. Words lie ready behind those big sorrowful eyes. But he forces himself to say nothing, folding the foil envelope and shoving it into his belt pocket before taking a last little swig from the bottle, diluting the meal before it hits his defenseless stomach.

Everybody is stiff from standing, and nobody mentions it. Nobody does anything but run, lifting their pace until they see Jaeger floating up ahead. Sarah is in front, sniffling. A flat concrete bridge carries West Spenser across the stream. Jaeger throws back a quick glance before following the trail under the bridge, hugging the east bank.

“It was him,” Varner says.

Crouse says, “Sure.”

“Wade was our friend,” Varner says. But that isn’t enough. Shaking his head, he says, “Wade was my best friend. He got me into running. Sold me my first shoes, when I was fat. And he was a groomsman at my wedding. Remember?”

With an edge, Pete says, “Yeah, none of us had reasons.”

Sarah slows. “What does that mean?”

They bunch up behind her.

“One of us had a motive?” she says.

Pete drops back to Audrey. “What do you think, princess? Your old boyfriend kill Wade, or didn’t he?”

The trail dives and widens, its clay face pounded slick. The stream lies on their right, pushing past the concrete pilings and dead timber, the wet roar hitting the underside of the bridge before bouncing over them. It is hard to hear Audrey saying, “I never believed he was guilty.”

They come out from under, emerging into the calm. Climbing the slope, nobody talks. Then Audrey says, “Carl is self-centered and stubborn, like a little boy. But he’s never been violent. Not around me.”

Carved by chainsaws, a simple bench sits beside the trail, waiting for the exhausted. They run past and the trail drops again and hits bottom, and Crouse gasps as they climb. “You two dated?” he says.

“Years ago,” she says, ready to say nothing more.

Crouse has to surge to catch her. But it’s worth the pain to tell her, “I don’t see it. I don’t understand. Why is Carl attractive?”

For several strides, nothing happens. The trail twists away from the stream, nothing but trees around them. Then Audrey slows and looks at Crouse, her face pretty and pleased when she says, “Look at that body, those legs. And now guess what I saw in him.”

The man reddens.

She laughs, saying, “Little boys can be fun.”

Jaeger looks back again, holding the gap steady.

“So did he ever talk about Wade?” says Pete.

She keeps laughing. “Carl loved, and I mean loved, how that man kept trying to beat him. It fed him, knowing one person was awake nights, trying to figure out how to pass him at the finish line.”

Nobody reacts.

Then she says, “Lucas,” and comes up beside him. “I don’t think I ever told you. But when you started training with Wade, Carl wasn’t sure how long he would stay on top. ‘Wade found his thoroughbred,’ was what he said.”

Everybody but Pete glances at Lucas. Pete just dips his head, asking the trail, “What about you, Pepper? Is Jaeger the killer?”

Lucas drops his arms and slows. The stream comes back looking for the trail. Suddenly the world opens up, and they chug along a narrow ribbon of earth, perched on a bank being undercut by every new flood. To their right is nothing except open air. A string of bodies are pushing against the brush on the left. Audrey is in front of Lucas, Pete behind. Pete says, “If it isn’t Jaeger, who was it?”

Lucas runs with eyes down, and a quiet, puzzled voice says, “If it wasn’t Carl?”

“Yeah?”

“Me,” he says. “I could have beaten Wade Tanner to death.”

EIGHT

Audrey slows, nearly tripping Lucas.

He says, “Sorry,” and drops his hands on her shoulders.

“Was it you?” says Pete.

“No,” Lucas says.

“How can you even think it?” says Audrey.

Lucas lets go of her, eyes down, head shaking.

Varner and Gatlin are in the lead. Feeling the others fall back, they pull up reluctantly, and Varner says, “Who’s hurt?”

Nobody answers. Six runners stand on the crumbling trail, flush against the drop-off. Lucas turns his back to the water. “It’s just how things look,” he says to Audrey, to everybody. “If you think about it.”

“Keep talking,” says Pete.

But Masters speaks first. With a voice nobody has ever heard—an angry, sharp, defiant voice—he says, “Wade was an ass.”

Everybody turns.

The man’s face is red, his jaw set. “I’m tired of thinking about the man,” he says. “I’m tired of talking about the man. And I don’t want to have another conversation with that goddamn software.”

“Don’t,” says Sarah. Then again, softer, she says, “Don’t.”

Nobody wants to look at her. It is easier to stare at the madman with the sleek black glasses and the long-built rage.

“Let’s run home,” says Audrey.

Varner and Gatlin return to the pack. “Who’s hurt?” says Varner.

Pete says, “Nobody. We’re just having a meeting.”

“We couldn’t have,” Sarah says. “Nobody here would kill him.”

Which makes Pete laugh. Except his face is flushed and he can’t stop shaking his head, blowing hard through clenched teeth. With one finger, he pokes Lucas in the chest. “Was it you?” he says.

“No.” A spasm rips through Lucas’ body. One foot drops over the soft lip of the trail, and he brings it back again, stepping forward just far enough to feel that he won’t fall in the next moment. Then Pete puts a hand flush against Lucas’ chest, not pushing but ready to push, waiting for the excuse.

And now another voice comes in.

“I’ve got a list of suspects,” Jaeger says. “Why don’t you listen to me now?”

*   *   *

The old burr oak stands on the bank, undermined to where a tangle of fat curling roots juts into the open air. Jaeger stands in the shadow of that doomed tree, smiling. Pulling off the baseball cap, he uses the long sleeve of his shirt to wipe his eyes and the broad forehead. Then he puts the cap back where it belongs, and he says nothing, the smile never breaking.

“Give us names,” says Pete.

“Okay, yours,” Jaeger says. “And Varner.”

“Why?” Varner says.

“Cause you’re mean boys. I barely know either of you, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve never hurt you. But here you are, chasing me, both of you looking ready to bust heads. All you need is a reason. So maybe Wade is a good reason. Who knows?”

Varner curses. Pete gives a horse snort.

“Then there’s the little guy,” says Jaeger. “I’ve got a guess, Mr. Gatlin. But it’s a sweet one.”

“What?” Fast Doug says.

“You ran for mayor when? Three, four years back? And Wade helped. I heard he gave you names and phone numbers for every runner in town. Stuffed envelopes, dropped money in your lap. But then news leaked about some old business back in Ohio. Sure, those troubles were years old. Sure, the girl stopped cooperating with the cops and charges got dropped. But you know how it is. Nothing’s uglier than reporters chasing something that looks easy.”

Gatlin opens his mouth and closes it.

“Did Wade know your sex-crime history?” says Jaeger. “Was he the leak that got the scandal rolling?”

Quietly, fiercely, the accused man says, “I don’t know.”

Jaeger laughs. “But it could have been Wade. We know that. Love him or not, the guy had this code for how people should act, and not living up to his standards was dangerous. He could be your buddy and remain civil, but if you were trying to run for public office and he decided that you were guilty of something, he’d happily drop a word in the right ear and let justice run you over. That wouldn’t bother the man for a minute.”

“So everybody but you is guilty,” says Pete. “Is that it?”

Jaeger winks at Crouse. “Wade liked pretty girls. And pretty wives were best. Which is funny, considering the man’s ethics. But adultery isn’t a crime. Romance is a contest, a race. There is a winner, and there is everybody else, and I’m looking at you but thinking about your wife. She is a dream. A fat toad like you is lucky to have her. And believe me, a guy like Wade is going to be interested, and by the way, whose baby did she just have?”

Crouse tries to curse, but he hasn’t the breath.

Audrey says, “Carl.”

“With you, darling, I don’t have guesses.” Jaeger’s face softens. “Maybe you two had a history. Maybe there was a good reason for you to cripple him and kill him. I heard your marriage fell apart a couple months ago. Anybody can draw a story from that clue. Except you never tried to kill me, not once, and I gave you a hundred reasons to cut off my head while I was dreaming.”

Audrey cries.

Jaeger points at Sarah. “But you,” he says. “At the races, I saw you chatting it up with the dead man. I’m not the most sensitive boil, but everything showed in those eyes. If you didn’t screw Wade, you wanted to. And maybe you didn’t do the bashing, but you’ve got a husband. And worse, you’ve got this tall goon following you around. What would Mr. Masters do if he discovered that his training buddy was cheating on her husband and on him?”

Breathing hard, Masters stares at the back of Sarah’s head.

“No end to the suspects,” Jaeger says.

“What about Pepper?” says Pete.

“Yeah, I was saving him.”

Lucas feels sick.

Pete turns and looks at him. “The party,” he says.

“At the coach’s house,” says Jaeger. “I’ve heard stories. Not that anybody invited me, thank you. But my sources claim that a brutal load of liquor was consumed. By one man, mostly. Years of sobriety gone in a night, and then the drunk drove away.” He smiles, something good on his tongue. “And that’s when somebody called the hotline. Somebody told the world, ‘Lucas Pepper is driving and shit-faced, and this is his license plate, and this is his home address, and this is his phone number.’”

Lucas manages ragged little breaths.

“A night in jail and your license suspended,” says Jaeger. “But there’s worse parts to the story. I know because my first source told me. That next Monday, when I crossed paths with Wade, I asked about you, Pepper. ‘Where’s your prize stallion?’ I said. ‘Why isn’t he running in this miserable heat?’ That’s when he launched into this screaming fit about drunks, about how stupid it was to waste effort and blood trying to keep bastards like them on track.

“I know something about ugly tantrums,” Jaeger says. “And this was real bad. This is what the witnesses saw when they saw us in that park. They assumed it was two men fighting. Which it was, I guess. Except only one of the men was present, and I was just a witness, trying to hang on for the ride.

“Wade told me about that party and how he watched you drinking and drinking, and then he made it his business to walk you to your car, and that’s where he got into your face. Standing at the curb, he told you exactly what you were, which was the worst kind of failure. He said he wasn’t sure he was going to give you even one more chance. Why bother with a forty-year-old drawerhead, spent and done and wasted?

“And that’s the moment I turned around. It was a hot sticky evening, and that was my excuse. But really, I was embarrassed for you, Lucas. I didn’t know that was possible. I turned and ran home, and Wade went on his merry way, and I can guess what happened if he came around the bend and ran into you trotting by yourself.”

Lucas stares at Jaeger but glimpses something moving. Something is running through the trees, and nobody else sees it.

With the one finger, Pete punches Lucas. “Is there something you want to tell us, Pepper?”

Sniffing, Audrey whispers his name.

Jaeger removes the cap again, wiping at his forehead.

Lucas is the only person who doesn’t jump when Harris trots up behind Jaeger.

“Hey, guys,” says a big happy voice. “I finally found you.”

*   *   *

In November, in the warm dark, Lucas rode up to the Harold Farquet Memorial Fieldhouse. He was stowing bike lights when Varner appeared. “I must be late,” said Lucas.

“What’s that mean?” said Varner, not laughing.

They went inside. Half an acre of concrete lay beneath a shell of naked girders and corrugated steel. The building’s centerpiece was the two-hundred-meter pumpkin-orange track. Multipurpose courts filled the middle and stretched east. Athletics offices and locker rooms clung to the building’s south end. Banners hanging from the ugly ceiling boasted about third-place finishes. The largest banner celebrated the only national championship in Jewel history—twenty years ago, in cross-country.

Thirty people had come out of the darkness to run. Most were middle-of-the-pack joggers, cheery and a little fat. Masters and Sarah were sharing a piece of floor, stretching hamstrings and IT bands. Audrey ran her own workout, surging on the brief straight-aways. Lucas watched her accelerate toward him and then fall into a lazy trot on the turn, smiling as she passed.

Varner vanished inside the locker room. Out of his pack, Lucas pulled a clean singlet and dry socks and the still-young shoes. His shorts were under his jeans. Kicking off street shoes, he changed in the open. His phone rang, and glancing at the number, he killed the ring. Then Audrey’s phone rang as she came past, and she answered by saying, “Kind of busy here, Mr. Tanner.”

The indoor air felt hot and dry. Lucas walked toward the lockers, bent and took a long drink from the old fountain, the water warm enough for a bath. Burping, he stepped away. Heroes covered the wall. Someone made changes since last winter, but the biggest photograph was the same: The championship team with its top five competitors in back, slower runners kneeling at their feet. Able and his assistants flanked the victors. The coach looked happiest, standing beside his main stallion. By contrast, Jaeger appeared smug and bored, his smile as thin as could be and still make a smile. The big portrait of the school’s national champion runner had been removed. Three different years, Carl Jaeger was the best in Division II cross-country. But that man was in jail, and the dead man had replaced him. Newly minted prints of Wade had been taken from past decades, each image fresh and clean. Testimonials about the man’s competitive drive and importance to the local running community made him into somebody worth missing. Lucas read a few words and gave up. Farther along was a younger Audrey, third-best at the national trials. Her hair was long but nothing else had changed much. He studied the picture for a minute, and then she came around again, saying, “Don’t stare at little girls, old man. Hear me?”

*   *   *

“You pointed east,” Harris says. “So I headed east. I chased you. Except nobody was there. Old farts start slow, and I didn’t see you after the first mile, so I figured you changed your minds.”

The kid is angry but smiling, proud of his cleverness.

“I thought about going north. But then I realized…” Harris stops talking. “Hey, Carlie. What are you doing with this crew?”

Nobody speaks.

Something odd is happening here. That fact is obvious enough to sink into Harris’ brain. The smirk softens, blue eyes blink, and again he says, “What are you doing with these guys, Carl?”

Jaeger turns and runs.

Harris is wearing long shorts and a heavy yellow top, his black headband streaked with salt. His glasses are the same as Masters, only newer. His shoes look like they came out of the box this morning. “You should see your faces,” he says. “You guys look sick.”

Pete steps away from Lucas.

“Anyway,” Harris says, “I didn’t know where you were, but I knew somebody who’d know. So I called Wade. He pointed me in the right direction, and I ran the train tracks to cut distance. I nearly missed seeing you, but I heard shouting.”

“Shut up,” Pete says.

“What do we do?” says Gatlin.

“Follow him,” Varner says.

Jaeger is crossing a meadow, the black cap bobbing too much.

Pete looks at Lucas, big hands closing into fists.

And Lucas breaks into a full sprint, cutting between bodies.

Harris smiles and says, “Pepper.” Then for fun, he sets his feet and throws out an arm. “What’s the password?”

They collide.

The young body is wiry-strong and tough. But Lucas has momentum, and they fall together. Lucas’ sore hand ends up inside the kid’s smile. Bony knuckles smack teeth and lips, and with a hard grunt Harris is down, the split upper lip dripping blood.

A wet voice curses.

Lucas is up and running.

Harris pokes at his aching mouth, and after careful consideration he says, “Screw you, asshole.”

Lucas charges past the oak and across the meadow. The black cap is gone. Lucas holds to the main trail, following it back into the woods where it turns cozy with the stream. A wild sprint puts him near a five-minute pace. Then he slows, feeding oxygen to his soggy head. Roots and holes want to trip him. Voices call out from behind, and he surges again. Somebody hollers his name. Lucas holds the pace. He has little extra to give, but his stride stays smooth and furious. A half-grown ash tree is dead on the trail, and his legs lift, carrying him over what is barely an obstacle. The stream is straight ahead, the bank cut into a long ugly ramp, rocks and concrete slabs creating shallow water where horses can ford. Lucas turns left, following a narrower trail, and the trail splits, the right branch blocked by a “CLOSED” sign.

Jaeger went left, gravel showing where a runner churned up the little slope. Lucas runs right on the badly undermined trail. Holes need to be leaped. Last year’s grass licks at his legs. The trail ends where the bank collapsed, probably in the last few weeks, and he pushes sideways and up through the grass, popping out on the wide rail bed.

Jaeger is close. Seeing Lucas, he surges, and where the trail drops back into the woods, he accelerates. But his head dips too much. Long arms look sloppy, tight to the body and not in sync. Lucas throws in his own surge, and catching Jaeger, he dips his head, delivering one hard shove.

Jaeger stays up but drifts into the brush, and his right leg jumps out. Both men trip and fall, bony arms flinging at each other, trading blows until they are down, scrapped and panting.

Lucas is first to his feet.

Cursing, he tries kicking Jaeger’s ribs and beats his toes into the frozen ground by mistake. Then Jaeger grabs the foot and tries to break it, twisting as hard as he can, doing nothing but forcing Lucas to fall on his ass again.

Lucas breathes in long gulps. “This is no fun,” he says.

“Better than jail,” Jaeger says.

“Not much.”

Up on the rail bed, Gatlin says, “I see them.”

Harris says, “He’s mine, mine.”

Jaeger finds his feet first. Then after a moment’s consideration, he reaches down and offers a hand to Lucas.

*   *   *

Pete emerged from the locker room, walking ahead of Gatlin. “Are you standing or running?” he said.

“I can do both,” Lucas said.

The men laughed and left him looking at pictures.

Audrey was taking another turn. She wasn’t talking to anybody now. Harris had come from somewhere, trotting next to her, chatty and happy. As if he had a chance with her. He said something and laughed for both of them, and Audrey did her best not to notice.

Lucas had no fire. He didn’t want to run, and that’s why he kept delaying. Walking the wall, he studied volleyball pictures and wrestling pictures and a big plaque commemorating Harold Farquet, dead thirty years but still looking plush in that suit and tie. Then he reached a bare spot. A rectangular piece of the wall seemed too bright, holes showing where bolts had held up something heavy. Curious to a point, he tried remembering what used to be there. He couldn’t. The adjacent hallway led to the offices, and someone was moving inside Able’s office. On a whim, Lucas knocked, and the coach came out smiling.

“What’s up, Pepper?”

“I like that stuff about Wade,” Lucas said.

“Yeah, we thought it was good to do. Glad you like it.”

“And you took down Carl.”

Able grimaced. “Yeah, we did.”

“There’s something else down,” Lucas said. “There used to be a plaque around the corner. About Carl?”

“No,” the coach said. “A few years back, we had an alum give the athletic department some money. We thanked him with a banquet and a big plaque in his honor.”

“So what happened?”

“Jared Wails. Remember him?”

“I don’t do names,” Lucas said.

“He was a slow runner, a businessman. Had that big title company up until last year.” Blood showed in the round face. “You saw him at races, probably. The rich boy who drove Corvettes.”

“The ’73 Stingray.”

“That’s him.”

“I remember. The guy was kiting checks.” Lucas nodded, pieces of the story coming back. “He told people he inherited his money, but he didn’t. And when it caught up to him, he drove out to the woods and blew his brains out.”

“And we pulled down his plaque.”

“Yeah, I knew him. I even talked to him a few times.” Lucas nodded, saying, “I liked the man’s cars. I told him so. He was the nicest rich guy in the world, so long as we were yabbering about Corvettes.”

“He wasn’t that nice,” the coach said.

“That’s what I’m saying.” Lucas wiped at his mouth. “We always had the same conversation: Cars and how much fun it was to drive fast, but gas was scarce, even for somebody with money. It was a nice conversation. Except he always changed subjects. He always ended up making big noise about hiring me.”

“You?”

“I was going to be his personal trainer. I was going to coach him to where he could run a sub-three-hour marathon, or some such crap. And he was going to pay me. He always gave me numbers, and each time, the numbers got fatter. Wilder. Plus he was going to drop ten pounds, or twenty, and then thirty. And I was going to run ultra-marathons with him, crossing Colorado or charging up that mountain in Africa. Kilimanjaro?”

“Lucas Pepper, personal trainer,” Able said, laughing.

“Yeah, Mr. Discipline. Me.” Lucas shook his head. “Of course Wails didn’t mean it. Anybody could tell. He always smiled when he talked that way. It was a smart bossy smile. The main message was that he had enough money to buy my ass. Whenever he wanted. And I needed to know it.”

The coach nodded. Waiting.

“The Program’s full of people like him,” Lucas said. “AA, I mean. It’s drunks and drawerheads who spend their lives lying about a thousand things to keep their drinking secret. That’s the feel I got off the Stingray man. The shiny smile. The way his eyes danced, not quite looking at me when he was telling his stories. Any story.”

“The man was a compulsive liar.”

“I guess.”

“No, after the suicide. Jared Wails had this big life story, but most of it was made up.”

“A lot of people try doing that,” Lucas said.

“But you saw through him.”

Lucas shrugged.

“So? You ever mention your intuition to anybody?”

“Yeah, I did.” Lucas nodded, looking out at the track. Ready to run now. “Once, I told somebody what I saw in that guy.”

*   *   *

What matters is the trail. Trees and brush and the wide sunny gash of the stream slide past, but they are nothing. What is real is the wet black strip of hard-packed earth that twists and folds back on itself. What matters is what’s under the foot and what waits for the next foot. A signpost streaks past—a yellow S sprouting an arrow pointing southwest. The trail narrows and drops and widens again, forming an apron of water-washed earth that feels tacky for the next two strides. The runners slow, barely. Lucas leads. Then the trail lifts and yanks left, and the pace quickens and quickens again, and a guttural little voice from behind tries to say something clever, but there isn’t enough air for clever. Jaeger settles for a muttered, plaintive curse.

Two strides ahead, Lucas’ clean gait skips over roots and a mound of stubborn dirt. His blue windbreaker is unzipped, cracking and popping as the air shoves past. Every sleeve is pushed over his elbows. The stocking cap and hair are full of sweat, but the face is perfectly relaxed. Except for little glimpses, his eyes point down, and he listens carefully to the footfalls behind him.

Jaeger slows, dropping back another stride.

Ash Creek takes a hard bend, and then it straightens, pointing due east. The water is wide and shallow, filled with downed timber and busy bubbling water heading in the opposite direction, and the trail hangs beside it, smooth and straight. Lucas pushes, and somewhere the water sounds vanish. The endless wind still blows, but he can’t hear it pushing at the trees and he can’t hear Jaeger’s feet getting sloppy, starting to scrape at the earth. Coming from nowhere is a great long throb, and the ground shakes. Lucas dips his head and turns it, and Jaeger says one word with a question mark chasing. Then Lucas slows enough to shout the word back at him. “Train,” he says.

The stream bends right, slicing close to the old rail bed. Last year’s floods endangered the tracks, and the railroad responded with black boulders dropped over the trail and bank. A big two-legged sign blocks the way onto the bed, stern words warning those foolish enough to trespass on railroad property. Lucas lifts his knees and drives, a few stones rolling, and he glances downstream, seeing sunlight dancing on the bright skin of the morning Amtrak.

The big diesel throbs, pushing against the steady grade. Then the driver sees runners and hits the horn, and every living organism within a mile hears the piercing furious white roar.

Lucas turns south and sprints.

One set of tracks fills the bed. Jaeger says a word and another word and then gives up shouting. Adrenaline gives him life. He follows near enough to be felt, and Lucas looks back just once more, judging the train’s speed. Some visceral calculation is made, and he believes he has time and enough speed. But the horn sounds again, shaking his body, and he can’t be sure. Arms pump and he drives off the balls of his feet, reclaiming the two-stride lead. Then the engine grudgingly throttles back, and knowing that he won’t have to leap onto the big black rocks, Lucas falls back into the sprint he would use on a hot summer track.

The trail dips between boulders, down into the trees again.

He rides the slope, Jaeger still chasing, and Lucas stops and Jaeger runs into his back as the Amtrak roars past. Neither man falls. The horn blares once more, for emphasis, and an angry face in the engine’s window glares down at them. Sleek old cars follow, and after them, new cars cobbled together in some crash program. Empty windows and one little boy stare at the world. The boy waves at them and smiles, utterly thrilled with a life jammed with spectacle and adventure.

Lucas waves back.

Jaeger collapses to a squat, unable to find his breath. The air is full of diesel fumes. He tries cursing and can’t. He wants to stand and can’t. All those weeks in jail have eaten at his legs, and for athletes in their forties lay-offs are crippling. Jaeger won’t win another important race in his life. He knows this, and Lucas sees it, and then the beaten man stands, his entire body shaking.

The train is far enough gone that the forest sounds are returning.

“So did you kill him?” says Jaeger.

Lucas shakes his head.

Jaeger nods. If he does or doesn’t believe that answer isn’t important. Looking straight at Lucas, he says, “Now what?”

“I’m going,” Lucas says. “Wait here for the others.”

“And then?”

Downstream from them, climbing out of the trees, the rest of the group is cautiously running next to the still-humming rails. “I don’t know who killed Wade,” he says.

“Too bad,” Jaeger says.

“But I know who paid to have it done.”

That earns a long, long stare.

“Keep that face,” Lucas says. “Tell everybody what I just told you. And we’ll see what happens next.”

NINE

“Jingle Bells,” the voice said.

“Merry Christmas to you.”

“No, I’m talking about the race. The 5K. If you don’t win this year, you aren’t trying. That’s what I think.”

Lucas poured a cup, not talking.

“I’m seeing improvement, Lucas. Every week, with your splits and overall times, you’re finding fire.”

“Thanks for caring.”

“Just want to help.” Then the voice went away.

Lucas sat on a kitchen stool, sipping. Outside it was cold and wet, and it was chill and damp in the house. The television had been showing an old Stallone movie, but the network interrupted with news about a big dam in China getting washed away. Serious stuff, and Lucas reached across the counter, turning it off.

The voice returned. “You there?”

“Still. Where did you go?”

“Another call. But I’m back.”

“You’re busy.”

“Always,” Wade said. “Have you entered?”

“The Jingle Bell? It’s not till next month.”

“I’ll do it for you. My treat.”

Lucas set the cup down, saying nothing.

“Okay, it’s done.”

“Like that?”

“Like that.”

“Thanks, I guess.” A long breath seemed necessary. Then Lucas said, “You probably heard, but they let him out. A couple days ago.”

“Yeah, Sarah called when it happened. And I read every story, too.”

“What do you think?”

“They don’t have enough evidence, I think.”

“The DNA tests didn’t work,” Lucas said. “That’s what I’m hearing. Not enough material, even with the fanciest labs helping.”

“That big rain screwed everything.”

“Lucky for Carl,” said Lucas.

Silence.

“Ever meet Crouse’s sister-in-law?”

“The cop with the jiggly ass?” Wade laughed. “Yeah, she’s a pretty one.”

“Well, she says the detectives can’t see anybody but Jaeger. He has to be the guy. But it’s the Wild West around here anymore, and there’s not enough manpower to throw at one case. So they let Jaeger go, hoping for something to break later.”

“I’ve studied the statistics, Lucas. Even in good times, a lot of murders never get solved.”

“Who else is there?”

The silence ended with fake breathing and an exasperated voice. “You know, I can hope it’s Carl. Because if this was a random thing, like some hobo riding the rails or something, then nobody’s ever going to find out what happened.”

Lucas tried silence.

After a while, Wade said, “You don’t have any excuses. I’m looking at the race’s roster. Your only competition is Harris, and he can’t hang with you.”

“It’s just the Jingle Bells,” said Lucas. “A nothing run.”

Another pause.

Another long sip of coffee.

Then the dead man said, “Win a race, Lucas. Just one race. Then you can talk all you want about nothings.”

*   *   *

Trees surrender to flattened grass and little stands of sumac. The sky hasn’t changed, but the scattered clouds seem higher than before and the polished blue above the world is bright enough to make eyes water and blink. Diving into the grass, the twisting trail decides to narrow, and then like a man regaining his concentration, it straightens—a tidy little gully etched into the native black sod. Lucas runs into the meadow, out where he can see and be seen, and that’s where he stops. Nobody follows. Certain teeth ache when he stares into the wind, and he pulls down his sleeves and kneels slightly, listening and waiting. He soon becomes an expert in the sound of wind. It isn’t just one noise, but instead wind is endless overlapping noises, each coming from some different place, each hurrying to find ears that want to hear voices and words and sad cries that were never there.

Lucas touches his phone. Eyes scroll and blink to make the call. What isn’t a second phone rings in a place that isn’t a place. After four rings, he expects voicemail. But the fifth ring breaks early.

“What are you doing?” says the voice.

“Standing. What are you doing?”

“Standing,” says Wade.

“Why aren’t you running with us?”

“Nobody wanted to talk before. So I turned early and finished.” A lip-smack sound comes across. “Have I ever told you? The coffee always tastes great over here.”

Lucas stands, knees a little achy

“Everybody’s panting, judging by these paces I’ve been watching.”

“Do you know where they are?” Lucas says.

“Standing where you left Jaeger, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“I’ve got one phone moving.”

“But you can’t watch Carl. He doesn’t carry a phone.”

“Even if he did, I wouldn’t know anything. A person has to call a person, and the line has to be opened. That’s how I get a lock on positions. And I don’t think the Jaeger wants to trade running stories with me.”

“By the way,” Lucas says. “Carl looks pretty innocent.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking the shit might have gotten himself a bad break.”

“And what do you think about me?” Lucas says.

Silence is the answer, persistent and unnerving.

“So how long does a phone lock last?” Lucas says.

“Four hours, give or take. Then the AI attendant spills me back into the normal mode.”

Lucas digs his mittens out of his tights, warming the fingers. “You said one phone is moving.” Then he says, “Never mind, I see her.”

A brown cap and a pale little face comes out from the trees, the ponytail swaying behind.

“How’s Sarah look?” Wade says.

“Real, real tired.”

“Poor girl.”

“Yeah.”

What isn’t quite a laugh comes into his ear. “I pester you,” says Wade. “I know you don’t like it sometimes. But she’s a lot worse about calling me, and usually for no good reason.”

“See you, Wade.”

“Yeah,” the voice says. “Take care.”

*   *   *

Sarah wants to hurry, but the legs are short and stiff. She shuffles and cries and then stops crying. She comes at Lucas with her face twisting, fresh agonies piled on the old, and as soon as she is in arm’s length, she makes a fist inside the pink mitten and jabs at his stomach. But even the arms are drained. Lucas catches the fist between his hands. She can’t hurt him, so he lowers his hands. “Okay,” he says, sticking his stomach out. “If it helps.”

Sarah doesn’t hit. She falls to her knees, sobbing hard.

Nobody moves in the woods to the north. To the west is the unseen creek with its shackling trees. The empty Amtrak line runs down the east side of the park. A quarter mile south stands a row of ancient cottonwoods, tall as hills, the silvery bark glowing in the rising light. Past those trees is a second rail line. A long oak trestle was built across the floodplain and the older line where the Amtrak would eventually run. Dirt was brought in and dumped under the trestle, creating a tall dark ridge. That line was abandoned decades ago. The rails were pulled up for scrap, old ties sold to gardeners. Only the ridge remains, sprouting trees and angling across the park on its way to towns that exist as history and as memory and as drab little dots on yellowed maps.

Sarah stands and takes in one worthless breath. “You told Jaeger,” she says. “You think somebody hired somebody.”

Lucas watches her.

“Somebody paid a professional to kill Wade. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“No,” he says. “I don’t think a person put down money to have it done.”

She watches him.

“Remember that guy who was kiting checks?” he says. “I once mentioned him to Wade, that I had this bad feeling about the Stingray man. What was his name?”

“Wails.”

“Something about Wails was wrong. Talking to the guy, I could see that he was full of shit. I didn’t think of check-kitting and stealing millions. That wasn’t what I expect. But I told Wade what I thought, and you know him. He took me seriously. ‘I’ll make some inquiries, see what’s what,’ he said. Then a week later, cops opened an investigation, and a couple days after that, Wails drove out here … to the parking lot we just ran through, if I remember this right … and killed himself…”

“But that was a year ago,” Sarah says. “Wade was still alive.”

“I didn’t say Mr. Wails hired it. I’m asking: What if he had a backup?”

She says nothing, staring past his face now.

“I’m not talking about an official, carry-the-same-name kind of backup,” he says. “There have to be ways to fake a name and slip clear of your past life, living in the clouds like Wade does. Being everywhere, nowhere. Sitting on whatever stolen money the man was able to hide, and nothing to do with its days but get angrier and angrier about the son-of-a-bitch that made this happen.”

Sarah lifts both hands, piling them on top of her head while she slowly rocks back and forth.

“Wail’s backup hates Wade Tanner. So he goes out into the living world and finds somebody to help get revenge. Maybe it’s for the money, or maybe for personal reasons. And like Carl says, it has to be somebody strong enough and fast enough to keep close to Wade when they’re running.”

Sarah drops her arms, leaning into Lucas.

He holds her and looks everywhere. The world moves under the wind, but there aren’t any people. After another half minute, he says, “I was guessing Pete. He’s got the muscle and enough pop in the legs. I figured I was going to see him come out of the trees, looking to shut me up. You I didn’t expect.”

“It isn’t Pete,” she says.

“Yeah, I don’t want it to be.”

“No. I mean it isn’t him.”

“Why not?”

She pulls out of his grip, wiping her swollen eyes. “Pete made us run this course. Remember? And Jaeger just happened to be up on the levee at the right time. Those aren’t coincidences. While we were chasing you, Pete explained everything. He said he bumped into Jaeger last week and threw a few insults at him, and Carl came back with the same arguments he used on the bridge. That’s when Pete started to believe him. He began wondering that if Carl wasn’t guilty, then maybe the best suspect left was you.”

Lucas keeps watch to the north, and nothing changes.

A hard sorry laugh comes out of her. “You won’t believe this,” she says. “Probably nobody would at this point. But I want you to know: I have never, ever cheated on my husband. Not with Masters, and not even with Wade.”

Lucas listens to the winds, waiting.

Then she giggles, brightly and suddenly, saying, “But of course it doesn’t count, playing games with a machine.”

Lucas shakes his head and breathes.

“Harris,” he says.

“What?”

“Maybe he’s the killer.”

“It can’t be,” she says. “Pete looked at the kid, sure. We know he’s strange and we don’t know much about his story. But like Carl says, this was a personal killing. A fury killing. Pete says that an ex-Mormon goofball who isn’t here six weeks isn’t going to want to hurt Wade Tanner. That’s why Pete sent him charging off in the wrong direction this morning. He’s not a suspect.”

“He’s telling you that? In front of the kid?”

She shakes her head. “No, Harris was gone by then.”

“Gone?”

“The train went past and we caught up to Carl, and Carl gave us your message, and then we stood there talking. And then Harris said we were nuts and stupid and he’d rather run with the deer than waste time standing around with old farts. So he ran back to the train tracks and headed … I don’t remember where…”

Lucas says nothing.

Sarah takes a breath and holds it. Then all at once, her eyes become big, and she says, “What if…?”

Lucas tells his phone to redial.

Wade picks up and says, “Still standing, still drinking my coffee.”

“So,” Lucas says. “You talk to Harris today?”

A very brief silence ends with the sound of people being politely quiet, ten million backups stuffed inside that very crowded room. And from the busy silence, Wade says, “Today? No, I haven’t talked to the boy. Why? What’s our new stallion up to?”

*   *   *

The meadow trail leads south to the cottonwoods. Where shadows begin, Lucas stops and stows the mittens and looks back. Sarah is slowly making her way to the north edge of the grass, and the rest of the runners have come out to meet her. Jaeger stands in the middle of the group. Hands on hips or on top of their heads, they look like soldiers in mismatched uniforms ready to quit the war. Sarah stops and talks, pointing back at Lucas, and everybody stares across the grass, and he can feel the doubts and suspicions thrown his way.

Turning, he settles into a lazy trot.

The forest trail snakes its way toward Ash Creek. The abandoned rail line stands on his left, capped with a second trail that leads over the Amtrak line and back into town. Harris could be running the old right-of-way. If he was smart, the kid is galloping home now to pack a bag and make some last-second escape. But that would be sensible, and sensible isn’t Harris. He’s a charger and a brawler. And besides, he found them in the middle of a forest. So the boy isn’t completely stupid, and he has some clever way of tracking people.

The five o’clock calls come back to Lucas—the sexy woman and the desperate father. Either one of them could have been Wails faking a voice to patch into the tracking system. But that feels unlikely. Why not just let him pick up, and then hang up? But maybe there’s some other trick. Trying to think it through, Lucas realizes that he isn’t running and can’t remember when he stopped. Staring at the ground, not certain about his own thoughts, his eyes grab onto his ankle, and he bends and pulls up the muddy black leg of the tights, staring at that fancy bracelet that does nothing but shouts at the world that he is here and he is sober.

Lucas straightens and turns one full circle. Something is moving on top of the old trestle, but then the background of tree limbs swallows it. Or it never was. Lucas falls into running again, easy long steps eating distance. Get past the trestle, and a dozen trails are waiting to be followed, and there’s a hundred ways out of the park. But the best obvious plan is dialing 911, or at least calling somebody closer. Audrey. Lucas decides on her and touches the phone, and he touches it again when nothing happens. But despite having power and a green light, the machine refuses to find the world beyond.

Lucas stops and looks left.

A yellow shirt is on the high ground, not even pretending to hide. The face above it smiles, and maybe it tries laughing. Harris wants to laugh. He stands still, looking down at Lucas while saying a word or two. His glasses are clear enough to show the eyes. He is close enough that the bloody lip looks big and sweat makes the boy-face bright. Some little voice needs to be listened to, and he nods and says something else. Then the right hand lifts, holding a chunk of rusted steel—a piece of trash shaped by chance to resemble a small hatchet.

Harris lifts a foot and drops it.

Lucas breaks, sprinting toward the creek. This time he doesn’t obey the trail, cutting across the hard-frozen dirt wherever the brush is thin. He looks down and ahead, and ten strides into this race he turns stupid. It isn’t just the world that narrows. His mind empties, his entire day going away. Oxygen-starved and terrified, the brain drops into wild panic, and every step tries to be the biggest, and every downed limb and little gully is jumped with a grace that will never be duplicated. He doesn’t know where Harris is, and really, it doesn’t matter. Nothing counts but speed and conquering distance, and that wild perfect urgency lasts for most of a minute. And then Lucas runs dry of fuel and breath.

He slows, tasting blood in his throat.

He throws a glance to his left.

The earth wall is close and tall, and Harris runs on top. The kid has never looked this serious, this mature. To somebody, he says, “Yeah.” Then he slows and makes a sharp turn, jumping onto a little deer trail that puts him behind Lucas, maybe twenty meters back.

That feels like a victory, owning the lead.

But Lucas can’t turn back now. Not without risking a hack from that piece of metal. Or worse than a hack. He throttles up again, and Harris matches his pace, and he cuts across that last loop in the trail, raspberry bushes snagging his tights. Then he slows, letting the kid buy maybe half of the distance between them while he makes ready for the next turn.

Rusted iron legs hold the vanished tracks high above the stream. The trail lurches to the left and drops under the trestle, and then it lifts again, flattening and turning right before reaching a long pipe-and-wood bridge. Lucas runs the curve tight, saving a half-stride. Maybe ten meters separate them. Maybe eight. He listens to the chasing feet, measuring their pounding. Instinct knows what happens next: As soon as Harris is free of the bridge, he surges. Youth and fear and all that good rich adrenaline are going to demand that Harris ends this race here, in the next moments. That’s why Lucas surges first. He leaps off the end of the bridge and gains a little, but the pounding behind him ends with some fast clean footfalls that halve the distance and then halve it again. Harris is tucked behind him. A small last surge will put him in range, leaving the boy where he can clip Lucas with his weapon.

But Lucas shortens his stride, just to help his legs move quicker, and Harris is paying a cost for matching him. He gives a hard grunt before accelerating. Except he has somehow fallen back another couple strides, and his exasperation comes out from his chest. He curses—not a word so much as an animal sound that says everything. Those baby legs start to fill with cement. Frustrated and baffled but still too stupid and young to know what has happened, Harris slows down just a little more. His intention is to rest on the fly, gathering his reserves for another surge. This will be easy, in the end. He can’t believe anything else. Lucas is nearly twice his age, and there’s only one ending in his head, stark and bloody and final. Harris lets the old man gain a full fifteen-meter lead, and just to make sure that Lucas knows, he calls out to him. He says, “Give up.” He breathes and says, “You can’t win.”

Lucas has won. He knows it, and the only problem left is mapping out the rest of this chase.

During one of the big storms last summer, an old cottonwood tumbled across the trail. The city didn’t have the money to remove it, and feet and bike tires made a new trail before winter. Trees fall and detours are made, and that’s one reason why there aren’t many straight lines in the woods. Chainsaws and rot take away the trunks, but new twists are added and established and eventually preferred. The dead tell the living where to walk, and the living never realize that that’s what they are doing, and it’s like that everywhere and with everything, always.

Big turns are coming. Three, maybe four loops are going to practically double back for a few strides. Lucas doesn’t know which one to use, but his plan, much as he plans anything, is to work Harris into a numb half-beaten state and then take him around and jump through the brush, heading north again. But always keeping just ahead, teasing the kid with the idea that at any moment his luck will change, that his legs will get thirty minutes younger and he’ll close the gap between him and this gray old fool who doesn’t understand that he is beaten.

TEN

The annual track club meeting was held in the restaurant’s basement. A stale shabby room was crowded with long tables and folding chairs and fit if not always skinny bodies. Paper plates were stacked with pizza and breadsticks, tall plastic cups full of pop and beer. Conversations centered on the January’s fine weather and yesterday’s long run from the Y, bits of grim international news making it into the chatter. The Y group had claimed the back table, fending off most of the invaders. Chance placed Masters’ wife at one end—a heavily made-up woman who made no secret of her extraordinary boredom. Sarah sat between her husband and Crouse, her focus centered on photographs of the new baby. Pete and Varner and Gatlin ruled the room’s back corner, entertaining themselves with catty comments about everybody, including each other. Lucas was in the middle of the table, facing the rest of the party. Everybody was keenly aware that he was drinking Pepsi. Audrey had brought her daughter—the fastest fourth-grader in the state—and in a shrewd bid of manipulation set her next to Lucas. Children liked the rough voice and kid-like manner, and the girl was a relentless flirt. She said she liked watching him run. She said the two of them should run together sometime, and Mom could come along, if she could keep up. She asked Lucas how he trained and did he warm up ever and why didn’t he ever get hurt?

Harris was sitting on the other side of Lucas. A big bellowing cackle grabbed everyone’s attention, and with a matching voice he said, “He doesn’t get hurt because of the booze, darling. Beer keeps joints limber.”

Embarrassed silence took hold.

Even Harris took note. Trying to make amends, he gave Lucas a friendly punch in the shoulder, and when that wasn’t sufficiently charming, he leaned back and said, “Naw, I’m just teasing. Forget it.”

Pete noticed. Saying nothing, he stood and wormed his way along the back wall, reaching around Lucas to grab up the Pepsi, taking a long experimental sip. Then he smacked his lips, saying, “Just checking,” and he gave Harris a big wink, as if they shared the same joke. The kid laughed and shook his head. Pete set the cup aside, and as his hand pulled away, he kicked a table leg, and as the cup started to tumble, he made a show of reaching out, pushing it and its sticky dark contents into Harris’ lap.

The boy cursed, but in a good-natured, only half-pissed way. And the rest of the runners choked their laughs until he had vanished into the bathroom.

Sarah used the distraction to slip away.

Masters’ wife noticed the second empty chair. From her regal place at the end of the table, she said to her husband, “What’s your girl doing at the podium? She’s talking to that camera, isn’t she?”

Masters squirmed and said nothing.

Always helpful, Crouse said, “Wade’s backup is watching. Don’t tell him, but we’re giving him a special award tonight.”

The woman sneered. Then because it was such an important point, she used a loud voice to tell everybody, “The man is dead. He has been dead for months, and I think you’re crazy to play this game.”

A new silence grabbed hold. Some eyes watched Masters, wishing that he would say or do anything to prove he had a spine. Oddly though, it was Sarah’s husband who took offense. A boyish fellow, small but naturally stout, he possessed a variety of conflicting feelings about many subjects, including Sarah’s weakness for one man’s memory. But defending his wife mattered, and that’s why he leaned across Crouse’s lap to say, “You should know, lady. All that makeup and with that poker stuck up your ass, you look more dead than most ghosts do.”

The woman blushed, and she straightened. And after careful consideration, she picked up her tiny purse and said, “I’m leaving.”

Masters nodded, saying nothing.

“I need the car keys,” she said to him.

Then with the beginnings of a smile, Masters said, “It’s a nice evening, honey. Darling. A long walk would do you some good.”

*   *   *

The pace is barely faster than knuckle-walking. Lucas pushes north, crossing old ground, the wind chilling his face but nothing else. He’s going to hurt tomorrow, but nothing feels particularly tired right now. His breathing is easy, legs strong. The trail is smooth and mostly straight, and he has a thirty-meter lead, except when he forgets and works too hard, and then he has to fall back, pretending to be spent, giving Harris reason to surge again. Or he fakes rolling his ankle in a hole. Twice he does that trick, limping badly, and Harris breathes hard and closes the gap, only to see his quarry heal instantly and recover the lead in another few seconds.

The third ankle sprain doesn’t fool anyone. Lucas looks back, making certain Harris sees his smile, and then on the next flat straight piece of trail he extends his lead before turning around, running backwards, using the same big laugh that the kid uses on everybody else.

Furious, Harris stops and flings the steel weapon.

Lucas sidesteps it and keeps trotting backwards, letting the kid come close, and then he wheels and sprints, saying, “So after Wade died … why did you stay in town?”

“I didn’t kill the guy,” Harris says.

“Good to hear,” Lucas says. “But why stay? Why not pull up and go somewhere else?”

“Because I like it here.”

“Good.”

“I’m the fastest runner here,” he says. “And I like winning races.”

Slower runners are up ahead. Everybody looks warm and exhausted, survival strides carrying them toward Lucas. He didn’t expect to see them, but nothing that has happened today has made him any happier. “So you didn’t kill Wade?” he says.

“No.”

“Then why are you chasing me?”

Somehow Harris manages to laugh. “I’m not,” he says. “I’m just out for a run, and I’m letting you lead.”

Audrey and Carl are leading their pack. Lucas surges to meet up with them, and he stops and turns, and Harris stops with that good thirty meters separating him from the others. Everybody shakes from fatigue, but the kid can barely stand. All of his energy feeds a face that looks defiant and unconcerned and stupid. With a snarl, he says, “I brought the son-of-a-bitch back to you. See?”

Lucas shrugs and says, “Harris killed him. He told me.”

“I did not.”

“I heard you,” Lucas says. Then to the others, he says, “Take us both in. Let the cops sort the evidence. Like those glasses of his … I bet they’ve got some juicy clues hidden in the gears.”

Harris pulls off the glasses.

“Watch it,” says Pete.

Harris throws the glasses on the ground and lifts a leg, ready to crush the fancy machinery into smaller and smaller bits. But Carl is already running, and the kid manages only two sloppy stomps before he is picked up and thrown down on his side, ribs breaking even before the bony knee is driven into his chest.

“We weren’t sure what to do,” Pete says to Lucas. “Some of us thought you were guilty, others didn’t want to think that. We tried calling you, and when you didn’t pick up, I figured you had to be running for Mexico.”

Harris tries to stand, and Carl beats him down again.

“We took a vote,” Varner says. “Would we come looking for you, or would we just head back to the Y?”

“So I won,” Lucas says, smiling.

Audrey dips her head and laughs.

Sarah is next to Carl, watching the mayhem up close.

“No, you only got three votes,” Pete says. “But you know how this group makes decisions. The loudest wins, and Audrey just about blew up, trying to get us chasing you.”

Lucas looks at her and smiles.

And she rolls her eyes, wanting to tell him something. The words are ready. But not here, not like this.

Then Sarah steps up and hits the cowering figure. She kicks once and again, and polishing her technique, she delivers a hard third impact to the side of the stomach. That’s when Masters pulls her away, holding her as she squirms, saying words that don’t help. And Carl kneels and pokes once more at the aching ribs, and he picks up every piece of the broken glasses, talking to the ground as he works, saying, “Okay. Now. What are we going to do?”

*   *   *

Back from the bathroom, Harris made a final pass of the food table before reclaiming the chair next to Lucas. Then the track club president—a wizened ex-runner with two new knees—leaned against the podium, reciting the same jokes he used last year before attacking the annual business. Board members talked long about silly crap, and race directors talked way too long about last year’s events and all the new runners that were coming from everywhere to live here. Then awards were handed out, including a golden plaque to the police chief who let the track club borrow his officers and his streets. But the chief had some last-minute conflict and couldn’t attend, and nobody else from the department was ready to accept on his behalf. With a big mocking voice, Pete said, “They’re out in the world, solving crimes.” And most of his table understood the reference, laughing up until Coach Able and Tom Hubble met at the podium.

Both men were lugging the night’s biggest award.

For five long minutes, the presenters took turns praising the dead man. Lucas listened, or at least pretended to listen. Little pieces of the story seemed fresh, but mostly it was old news made simple and pretty. Mostly he found himself watching the serious faces at his table, everybody staring at their plates and their folded hands. Even Harris held himself still, nodding at the proper moments and then applauding politely when the big plaque was unveiled and shown to a camera and the weird, half-real entity that nobody had ever seen.

Then the backup’s voice was talking, thanking everybody for this great honor and promising that he would treasure this moment. Sometimes Wade sounded close to tears. Other times he was reading from a prepared speech. “I wish things had gone differently,” he said. “But I have no regrets, not for a moment of my life. And if there’s any consolation, I want you to know that I am busy here, in this realm, and I am happy.”

Then he was done, and maybe he was gone, and the uncomfortable applause began and ended, and the room stood to leave. Most of the back table wanted a good look at the plaque, but somehow Lucas didn’t feel like it. He found himself walking toward the stairs, and Harris fell in beside him, laughing quietly.

Or maybe the kid wasn’t laughing. Lucas looked at him, seeing nothing but a serious little smile.

“Want to run tomorrow?” said Harris.

“No.”

“Tuesday at the track?”

“Probably.”

Harris beat him to the stairs, and Harris held the door for the old man. Then as they were stepping into the cool dark, he said, “You know what? We’re all going to be living there someday. Where Wade is now.”

“Not me,” said Lucas.

“Why not you?”

“Because,” he said, “I’m planning to die when I die.”

ELEVEN

Another pot of coffee helps take the chill out of the kitchen. Out the back door, Lucas watches snowflakes falling from a clear sky—tiny dry flakes too scarce to ever meet up with each other, much less make anything that matters. He has been talking steadily for several minutes, telling the story fast and pushing toward the finish, and only sometimes does he pause to sip at the coffee. Once or twice he pauses just to pause. Then Wade comes out of the silence, making a comment or posing some little question.

“So after Sarah kicked the shit out of him,” he says. “What did you do with the bastard?”

“We picked him up and took turns dragging him and carrying him back to the old right-of-way, then across the creek and out to Foster. That was the closest road, and we got lucky. Some fellow was driving his pickup out of town, hunting for firewood. Except for his chain saw, the truck bed was empty. Gatlin promised him a hundred dollars to take us back to the Y, and Crouse called his sister-in-law, giving her a head’s up. The girls rode inside the cab, in the heat, and the rest of us just about died of frostbite. But we lived and made it back before ten-thirty, and the cops were waiting, and I’ve never been so happy to see them.”

“Has he confessed?”

“You mean, did Harris break down and sob and say, ‘Oh God, I did such an awful thing.’ No. No, he didn’t and he won’t. I don’t think he even knows that he’s a wicked son-of-a-bitch.”

“I guess he wouldn’t.”

“Harris probably doesn’t believe this is going to mean anything. In the end.” Lucas takes a long sip, shaking his head. “When we were marching him out of the trees, he said to me, ‘There’s nothing to find. That phone’s new. It isn’t going to show anything important. Any money that I’ve got has a good story behind it. And the physical evidence is so thin it took them months just to throw Carlie back into the free world. So what happens to me? A couple months in jail, a lot of stupid interviews, and I’ll tell them nothing, and they’ll have to let me go too.’”

Silence.

Lucas sets the empty cup on the table, using his other hand to shift the unfamiliar phone back against his ear. “I don’t know, Wade. Maybe you should be careful.”

“Careful of what?”

“Wails,” he says. “Yeah, I told the cops my guess. My theory. I don’t think they took it to heart much. But then again, this is a whole different kind of crime. Law enforcement doesn’t like things tough. They’re happiest when there’s bloody boot prints leading to the killer’s door.”

The backup laughs.

Lucas doesn’t. Leaning forward in his chair, he says, “My phone still doesn’t work.”

“You borrowed that one. I see that.”

“Masters says that it was a Trojan or worm or something. Set in long ago, ready for the signal to attack.”

“I’ll buy you a new phone,” Wade says. “That’s no problem.”

“Yeah, but there’s a bigger problem.”

“What?”

“Wails,” Lucas said. “I was tired when I remembered him this morning. My head was pretty soggy. But the story made a lot of sense, at least for the next couple hours. Except while I sitting at the Y, chatting with the detectives, little things started bugging me.”

“Things?”

“About Wails, I mean. Sure, the guy stole money and killed himself. But do we even know you were the reason he got found out?”

“I don’t know if I was,” says the backup.

“You’ve said that before. I remember. You aren’t sure what happened, because that’s one of those stories that the real Wade never told you.” Water is running hard in the basement. Lucas doesn’t hear it until it shuts off. “Anyway,” he says, “I think it’s a lot of supposing, putting everything on this one dead man. Yeah, the guy was a liar and a big-time thief, but that’s a long way from coming out of the grave to kill another man who’s did him harm.”

Silence.

“But somebody got Harris to kill you,” says Lucas. “And if it wasn’t Wails, that leaves one suspect that looks pretty good.”

“Okay. Who?”

“I’m just talking, my head clear and thinking straight now.”

“And I’m listening.”

“Okay, it’s somebody who wants everything to be fair. Somebody who would do anything he can to make the world right. The same person that let me climb into my own car drunk and watched me drive off and then went and called the cops on me.”

“I didn’t make that call, Lucas. Wade did.”

“But you’re based on him. Except for the differences, and maybe they’re big differences. I don’t know. Or maybe the two of you were exactly the same, and you’re Wade Tanner in every way. But Wade didn’t tell you everything about himself. We know that. And one day, maybe by accident, you discovered something about your human that really, really pissed you off. The man who built you was a lying shit, or worse. And there you were, wearing Wade’s personality. Wade wouldn’t let that business drop, and you couldn’t either. That’s why you went out into the world. You trolled for somebody with little sense and a big need for cash, and that’s why Harris showed up here. Maybe murder wasn’t your goal. There was that long break between the first hits and the killing. Maybe you were trying to keep Harris from finishing the job. But that’s the pretty way to dress up this story. I’m guessing the delay was so that you got your chance to scream at the dying man, telling Wade that he was a miserable disappointment, and by the way, thanks for the money and the immortality and all that other good crap.”

Silence.

“You still there?”

“I can’t believe this,” the voice says.

Lucas nods, saying, “But even if I believe it, nothing is proved. There’s probably no evidence waiting out there. Voices can be doctored, which means Harris probably doesn’t know who really hired him. Besides, even if I found people to buy this story, something like you has had months to erase clues and files, and even more important, make yourself comfortable with the situation.”

“But, Lucas, how can you think that about me? Even for a minute.”

“I’m talking about a voice,” Lucas says. “That’s what you are. At the end of the day, you’re a string of words coming out with a certain sound, and I can’t know anything for sure.”

Silence.

“You there?”

Nobody is. The line has been severed.

Lucas pulls the phone away from his face, setting it on the table next to the empty mug. Then Audrey comes out of the basement, wearing borrowed sweats and heavy socks.

She sits opposite him, smiling and waiting.

“I need to shower,” he says.

She smiles and says, “How does it feel?”

“How’s what feel?”

“Being the fastest runner in the county.”

He shrugs and says, “Not on these legs, I’m not.”

She says, “I heard you talking just now. Who was it?”

He watches her face and says, “It’s snowing out.”

She turns to look.

“No, wait,” he says. “I guess it stopped.”