The Shadowkiller Read Online Free PDF Page B

definitely weird.
    He kept his eye on the guy and went back to sorting the morning newspapers. That was one thing his boss had been adamant about: “Put the papers out the minute they come in.” As he straightened a stack of the local Snohomish Daily News, his eyes gravitated to a headline he found a little grabbier than usual.
    It intrigued him enough to scan a few lines about some guy who’d disappeared from his truck and left his engine running. Todd wasn’t a good reader but the bits of info he gathered made him wonder why a guy would do that. Weird, man. He shrugged it off as shit happens and stuck the papers in their slot.
    He looked out again and the dude in the cool car was wiping his eyes and drinking some more. Todd shook his head. That’s fucked up, man.

5
    D aylight slowly crept into western Washington, and warm ocean air from Puget Sound glided over the chilled layer from the upper reaches of the Cascades, creating wonderfully buoyant air currents. A western red hawk wheeled lazily a half mile above an asphalt ribbon dividing lushly carpeted peaks. The hawk watched that dark ribbon and followed a small speck as it climbed higher and higher up the mountain track.

    Inside the speck, a year-old dark metallic green Jeep Grand Cherokee, Mitch Roberts absentmindedly pushed a Springsteen CD into the dash player, then immediately punched the eject button, mindful of the man next to him, whose arms were crossed, his head bent in a light sleep.
    Mitch was clean-cut in a square-jawed, buttoned-up, Christian Coalition kind of way. To kill time and keep his mind busy he invented a mental game of juxtaposing his life with that of his snoozing companion and fellow litigator. Mitch had been married for eleven years and had two kids. Mitch’s companion, Jack Remsbecker, had been with Mitch’s law firm for about two years and had never been married. Mitch had been with the firm longer and was making partner first. Jack was almost as good as Mitch was but had a few more years before the partners would invite him into the inner sanctum. Mitch’s recent promotion was marked by a gigantic suit filed five years prior that had just paid off in a massive settlement. Partnership was a done deal.
    They had spent the previous evening in very different ways—Mitch with his family in their home on the west slope of Queen Anne overlooking downtown Seattle, while Jack partied with a girl named Shannon he had met the night before at a bar on Lake Union. Having left Shannon’s apartment on Capital Hill only two hours ago, Jack found his way back to his condo in Kirkland just in time for Mitch’s five a.m. knock at the door. Now he was making up for lost sleep on the ride up Highway 2.
    An avid hiker, Mitch had conned Jack into tackling a trail by Mount Brayton, a seventy-two-
hundred-foot knob northeast of Seattle near the loggers’ havens of Sultan and Gold Bar. Mitch figured hiking could kill two birds, fostering camaraderie while giving them yet another goal to achieve together.
    Mitch steered off a ramp and climbed a dirt and gravel road for about five miles, smiling to himself that the slightly muddy lane-anda-half was about the most challenge he had given this four-wheel drive since he bought it. To his mental checklist he added a note to wash the Cherokee when he got home. He slowed at the turnoff and pulled onto the apron near the trail head.
    Mitch tapped Jack. “Wake up call. Caravan leaves in five minutes.”
    Jack blinked to a pained squint and glanced at his watch. “Forty-five minutes? You must have been driving eighty.”
    The rush of cold dampness gripped them as they opened the doors. It was a week before Thanksgiving. Snow had fallen in the past couple of days but had mostly melted off. Thirty-eight degrees at best, gray clouds floated in to block the predawn sky. Mitch stepped to the back of the Jeep, opened the hatch, and pulled two day packs to the lip of the