"Spencer,.Wen.-.Ukiah.4.-.Dog.Warrior.v2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spencer Wen)

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Dog Warrior
Book 4 in the Ukiah Oregon Series

Wen Spencer



Copyright © Wendy Kosak, 2004 All rights reserved


To David G. Kosak,
little brother of my heart


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gail Brookhart, George Corcoran, W. Randy Hoffman, Kendall Jung, June Drexler Robertson, Andi Ward, Aaron Wollerton
Special thanks to Ann Cecil


CHAPTER ONE

Ludlow Service Area, Massachusetts Turnpike,
Massachusetts
Sunday, September 19, 2004

Atticus smelled the blood first.
He'd parked the Jaguar under the floodlights, and he had just paused, door open, his cup of hot cocoa on the roof, in order to pull off his leather jacket before climbing back into the still-warm car. A blue Honda sedan came cautiously into the rest stop from the dark highway. The bitter cold wind blasted over the Honda and brought him the reek of slaughter.
He tracked the car's movements without looking directly at it. It paused at the decision point of turning into the parking lot or going on to the gas pumps, the right turn signal flashing a yellow warning. There were four people in the car, three men and a woman. The woman was leaning over the front seat, pointing toward the retro-styled McDonald's with the large yellow arches. Atticus turned his back to the Honda as the driver scanned the parking lot.
On the other side of the Jaguar, Ru picked up on his unease. "The Honda?" Ru pretended to ignore the sedan, seemingly focused on the coffee cup in his hands, tracking the car only with his dark eyes.
"Yes." Focusing on his sense of smell, Atticus grew aware of the Jaguar's hot engine, oil spilled on the asphalt nearby, food cooking in the McDonald's, the taint of the ocean a hundred miles away, and massive amounts of old blood. "They've got something dead in the trunk."
"Ah." Ru sipped his steaming coffee. "Things like that are always a bitch to explain."
"Do you see anything weird about it, Ru?"
The car cooperated and turned into the parking lot. The driver carefully used proper signals and slowly pulled into a nice dark corner of the parking lot, tucked behind an RV.
"Nada." Ru shrugged one lean shoulder, his black bangs falling into his eyes. "Maybe I need a closer look." Ru finished his coffee and walked to a trash can across the parking lot.
Atticus leaned into his car to place his hot cocoa into the front cup holder.
The woman all but bolted from the Honda, hunched over, clutching at her stomach, her face set in pain. She concentrated on walking, eyes focused on the ground. The men followed, intent on the woman, worried. All four were in their early twenties, wearing black running suits with jackets zipped over pistols in shoulder holsters. They smelled faintly of gunpowder, smoke, scorched hair, burned flesh, and blood.
The men had ignored Atticus, half-hidden in the Jaguar, but glared at Ru as he casually stuffed his empty cup into the trash can. Ru read the bulges under the jackets and the tense body language and didn't play any mind games with them. He studiously ignored them, walking back to the Jaguar, pulling on his leather gloves.
"A seriously scary foursome." Ru unzipped his jacket slightly, giving him access to his own gun, as the four vanished into the McDonald's. "I say we see what they've got in their trunk." He made a show of sniffing. "I'm sure I can smell blood now."
Atticus scoffed at the claim, while he considered the car parked upwind. More than the blood, there was a weird niggling feeling that something was drastically wrong with the car. It seemed to exude terror. How could a car feel afraid?
Ru rapped on the roof, his lock picks in hand. "They're not going to be in there very long!" he sang.
Atticus glanced toward the McDonald's. "Let's do it."
He shut the Jaguar's door and walked after Ru, keeping watch on the building.
Ru had the trunk open before Atticus even reached the car, murmuring. "Bingo: one body." Ru stripped off his right glove and reached bare fingertips to the body's neck. "Question is, is he really dead or just—Oh, fuck."
Atticus looked then. The trunk light shone on a young Native American face, battered and bloody, vaguely familiar.
I know this person, Atticus thought with a lurch.
"Atty," Ru whispered. "This is you."