Stone Cold Read online

  ALSO BY C. J. BOX

  THE JOE PICKETT NOVELS

  Breaking Point

  Force of Nature

  Cold Wind

  Nowhere to Run

  Below Zero

  Blood Trail

  Free Fire

  In Plain Sight

  Out of Range

  Trophy Hunt

  Winterkill

  Savage Run

  Open Season

  THE STAND-ALONE NOVELS

  The Highway

  Back of Beyond

  Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

  Blue Heaven

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

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  Copyright © 2014 by C. J. Box

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Box, C. J.

  Stone cold / C.J. Box.

  p. cm.—(A Joe Pickett novel ; 14)

  ISBN 978-0-698-15017-1

  1. Pickett, Joe (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Game wardens—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 4. Wyoming—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3552.O87658S78 2014 2013046857

  813'.54—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  In memory of my dad, Jack,

  And Laurie, always . . .

  CONTENTS

  Also by C. J. Box

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgments

  It’s not inequality which is the real misfortune, it’s dependence.

  —VOLTAIRE

  I’ve got a shotgun, a rifle and a four-wheel drive

  And a country boy can survive

  —HANK WILLIAMS JR.

  Fort Smith, Montana

  Nate Romanowski pushed the drift boat onto the Bighorn River at three-thirty in the morning on a Sunday in early October and let the silent muscle of the current pull him away from the grassy bank. Eight miles downriver was the fortified and opulent vacation home of the notorious man he was going to kill.

  It was twenty-four degrees and steam rose from the surface of the black water in thick tendrils, and he was soon enveloped in it. The craft floated quietly and he manned the long oars to keep the upswept bow pointing forward. Gnarled walls of river cottonwoods closed him in, their bare branches reaching overhead from both banks as if to try and join hands. For ten minutes between Third Island and Dag’s Run, he couldn’t see a damned thing and operated exclusively on feel and sound and experience. He kept to the main channel and avoided the shallows so he wouldn’t scrape bottom and could float as swiftly as possible.

  He’d made the run before in preparation—so many times, in fact, that the rhythm, mood, and temperament of the river was as familiar to him as his falcons, his weapons, and his code. Or what was left of his code, anyway, he thought, and grinned bitterly to himself in the dark.

  While doing night reconnaissance, he’d worn the narrow compression pack on his back that he wore now, and he was so used to the dead weight of the gear inside that he almost forgot it was there. His .500 Wyoming Express five-shot revolver, the most powerful handgun on earth, hung grip-out from its shoulder holster below his left ribs, its security tether unsnapped.

  Over his shoulder, the massive concrete spillway of the Yellowtail Dam glowed light blue in the muted light of the stars and the scythelike slice of moon. A single cumulus cloud, its rounded edges highlighted by starlight, moved from north to south, blotting out the continuity of the brilliant Milky Way. It would be hours before fly-fishing guides and anglers—men, women, but mostly men—arrived at the launch near the dam and started their half-day or daylong drift floats down the legendary Bighorn. Nate slipped a cell phone from his breast pocket and powered it on. When he had a signal and the screen glowed, he called up the only number stored in it and texted: It’s a go. And sent the message.

  Within a minute, there was a response: Go do some good.

  Nate turned off the phone and slipped it back into his pocket.

  • • •

  NATE WAS TALL, angular, and rangy. He didn’t row with the oars but used them to steer the boat by lowering one or the other into the current to bring the bow around. He had worked on his technique so it was smooth and he wouldn’t splash. The oars were an extension of his arms, and his movements were smooth and unhurried.

  His friend Joe Pickett had once described his face and eyes as “hawklike.” His blond ponytail, constrained by leather falcon jesses, had grown to midway between his shoulders. It was tucked into the collar of his tactical sweater so it wouldn’t be noticed. His eyes were blue and piercing, and the planes of his face were flat, severe, and aerodynamic. He wore a dark camo slouch hat, and his sharp cheekbones were darkened with soot so the moonlight, such as it was, wouldn’t reflect.

  • • •

  THERE WAS NO DOUBT, Nate had been told, that the world would be a better place without Henry P. Scoggins III in it.

  Scoggins was short, fleshy, stooped, and walleyed, and was the last direct heir of the Scoggins pharmaceutical empire of Newark, New Jersey. Unlike his grandfather, the senator and ambassador, or his father, the well-intentioned philanthropist, Henry the Third, as he was known, used his billions to manipulate monetary currencies around the world, corner the market on fourteen of seventeen rare earth metals, and lavishly fund activist groups that advocated legalized prostitution, drug use, and polygamy. He enjoyed the company of corrupt machine politicians, gangsta rap artists, foreign dictators, and domestic organized-crime figures. Several of his lurid divorce proceedings were front-page news over the years, as well as the Los Angeles murder trial where he’d been accused of shooting a hooker in the face and killing her on the front porch of his mansion. He had been found innocent w
hen the jury bought his lawyer’s claim that Scoggins mistook her for a homicidal home invader threatening his Beverly Hills neighborhood at the time.

  In video clips, Scoggins spoke in a deliberate mid-register timbre that belied his habit of constantly and furtively looking over the heads of the listeners, as if searching for someone more worthwhile, better-looking, or less threatening in the room. He had the arrogant look of a bully who had insulated himself so he’d never have to directly confront a challenge, the kind of man comfortable with rewarding his friends in person and punishing his enemies from a distance.

  Isolating the man was the problem. Scoggins surrounded himself with armed bodyguards, and his five U.S.-based homes—Newark, Manhattan, Aspen, Palm Beach, and the infamous Beverly Hills manse—were set up with elaborate security systems. His overseas properties in Caracas, Abu Dhabi, and Grand Cayman were protected by security contractors who were ex–Black Ops.

  Few people were aware of the six-million-dollar log home Scoggins had recently purchased through a holding company on the bank of the Bighorn River. The reason: he wanted to learn to fly-fish. The rumor was that Scoggins thought he was buying the river itself.

  • • •

  FOR THE PAST WEEK, in addition to the late-night reconnaissance floats, Nate had scouted the Scoggins property on the ground by trespassing through an adjoining landholding and avoiding the caretaker. There were very few private residences in the river valley, and the few that were there were massive and expensive. They were accessed by a private road that paralleled the bends of the river. Only a couple of the structures could be seen from the road itself, due to high stone walls and steel security gates. The Scoggins property had not only a swinging gate operated by remote control but also a small guardhouse manned by an armed employee during daylight hours. At night, visitors—mostly delivery trucks—had to identify themselves via the closed-circuit camera at the gate to be buzzed in. Additional closed-circuit cameras that swept the grounds were mounted on poles within the compound, and Nate counted two men—one openly armed with a combat shotgun—lazily patrolling the grounds. He had dubbed the gate operator Thug Two, and the men on patrol Thug Three and Thug Four. All wore loose-fitting untucked shirts and cargo pants.

  Nate noted the disparity between the massive homes built of logs, stone, and glass, complete with guesthouses and outbuildings and sweeping manicured lawns, and the utter squalor of the Crow Indian Reservation just beyond the fence.

  On Friday he’d caught a glimpse of Scoggins in person. He’d been glassing the grounds through his spotting scope, memorizing the layout of the buildings and internalizing the contours of the ground, when a thick metal door opened and two women tumbled out. They had long brown legs and jet-black hair and they were wearing only lingerie. As Nate focused in, he felt the hair on the nape of his neck rise. They were Indians, likely Crows from the reservation. They wore too much makeup and they clutched bundles of their clothing under their arms, as if they’d been in a hurry to gather it up before they were thrown out of the house. The taller one reminded him of a woman he’d once loved named Alisha, who was a Shoshone and a teacher on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. It jolted him to his core. She wasn’t Alisha but a prostitute, obviously, and she was being unceremoniously kicked out of the house before she could even get dressed.

  The shorter of the two women spun on her heel and shouted something Nate couldn’t hear at someone out of view inside the house. The taller woman paused, dropped her head in fear or panic, and reached out to the shorter woman to urge her on.

  Then Scoggins appeared, flanked by a barrel-chested younger man who had the build of a weight lifter and a smirk on his face. He also wore an oversized shirt and cargo pants. Nate had deemed him Thug One because he rarely left Scoggins’s side.

  Scoggins wore a loose-fitting robe and oversized slippers on his feet. Two thin white naked ankles could be seen beneath the hem of the robe. Maybe it was Scoggins’s hunched slouch and widespread eyes that, even at that distance, reminded Nate of a toad. He was smirking as well, but also flipping his fingers at the women, obviously urging them to go away.

  When the shorter woman kept talking and gesticulating and wouldn’t leave, Thug One shouldered around Scoggins and rushed her with three long and quick strides. As she turned to run, the big man kicked her hard enough beneath her buttocks to lift her off the ground and send her sprawling. When she scrambled to retrieve the clothes that had flown into the air, the thug wound up for another kick and the taller hooker yanked the shorter one down the pathway, leaving the clothes strewn on the grass.

  Nate could only guess the cause of the altercation. Maybe the hookers had objected to what they were asked to do, or they’d tried and didn’t satisfy their customer. Maybe one of them got mouthy or tried to steal something. Or maybe Scoggins decided to throw them out instead of pay them. Nate planned to find out.

  What he did know was that the altercation made his blood boil. It wasn’t Alisha, of course, because Alisha had been murdered. A lock of her hair hung from a beaded band on the barrel of his .50 caliber revolver. But she looked like Alisha and it brought back a wave of guilt, shame, and lethal rage. And when the thug kicked the girl hard enough to send her flying, Nate barely resisted drawing his weapon and charging down the hill to what would likely have been his certain death.

  Later, he watched through his spotting scope as Thug One came back out of the house and gathered the scraps of clothing the prostitute had left behind. He walked them over to a trash barrel behind a storage shed and burned them.

  “You bastard,” Nate whispered.

  • • •

  HE CAUGHT UP with the two prostitutes walking up the middle of the narrow two-lane highway in their bare feet. The taller one dangled a pair of spike heels from her index finger. The women were cold and disheveled, and when they heard him approach in his rented SUV, they turned and grinned desperately, hoping for a ride. Nate slowed and drove around them and signaled them in.

  “Car break down?” he asked.

  “Something like that,” the shorter one said, taking the backseat.

  “You are a sight for sore eyes,” the taller one said, jumping up into the passenger seat and dropping her shoes on the floorboard. The interior of his vehicle was suddenly filled with a combination of sweet perfume and musky sweat.

  The short one was named Candy Alexander and the tall one who looked less like Alisha than he thought previously said her name was D. Anita LittleWolf. Both were from Crow Agency on the reservation, but they wanted to get to Hardin to the north because that’s where they’d left LittleWolf’s pickup.

  “It’s parked on the side of a bar,” LittleWolf said. “I’m really happy you picked us up. Thank you.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Alexander said from the back. He glanced up and saw her dark eyes in the rearview mirror. Streaks of black mascara ran down her face from her lashes and she rubbed it clean with the heel of her hand.

  As he drove to Hardin, he made small talk with them about the weather, about fishing, about how odd it was to find two women in their underwear walking up a deserted highway in southern Montana. Although they didn’t get specific, they said they’d been invited to “party down” at a big house on the river, but the host had kicked them out and not even offered to drive them back to where they’d been picked up. Alexander was still fuming about it, but LittleWolf was serene and seemed to take it in stride.

  “So the owner of the house invited you to his place and then kicked you out?”

  “It wasn’t the owner who took us out there,” Alexander said, and described Thug One. “We didn’t meet the owner until we got there.”

  “He said he doesn’t like dark meat,” LittleWolf said without a hint of irony.

  “He sounds like a jerk,” Nate said.

  “He’s an asshole,” Alexander said, nodding. “They’re both assholes. I’d like to round u
p some friends of mine and go back there . . .”

  “Forget about it,” LittleWolf said. “You’d never get in that place again.”

  Nate feigned ignorance and asked her why she said that.

  After putting on clothes from overnight bags they’d left in their vehicle, LittleWolf and Alexander loosened up over beers in the bar and told Nate about their adventure, from being contacted by Thug One to being met by him at the bar and transported to the big house on the Bighorn River. How the man asked the gate guard to buzz him in. How he punched a keypad on the front door to unlock it. How the owner of the house had come down the staircase and disapproved of their looks and sent them away, the scene Nate had witnessed. Now that they were safe and warm and their pickup was just outside, they laughed about the details. LittleWolf said she was glad they were gone, because the owner of the place gave her the creeps.

  Nate asked them to back up to when they entered the main house.

  “There was a keypad?” he asked, and slipped his notebook out from his pocket.

  Nate asked D. Anita LittleWolf and Candy Alexander to close their eyes and recall what Thug One had done when he opened the door while it was still very fresh in their memory. LittleWolf said she couldn’t see the pad from where she had stood on the porch, but Alexander smiled and described the scene. The keypad was metal and had three rows of numbers: one-two-three on top, four-five-six in the middle, seven-eight-nine on the third row, and a single zero button on the bottom. Nate had sketched out the sequence of the pad on a napkin and handed it over. Alexander closed her eyes in recall, and punched 4-2-2 and another button in the third row. It was either an eight or a nine, she said. She wasn’t sure.

  When Nate asked her how she could recall the sequence, she said she learned it by looking over the shoulders of rubes using the ATM at the convenience store on the reservation across from the Custer Battlefield, where she used to work. Both women collapsed in laughter.

  “It eventually got me fired,” Alexander squealed. “But not before I scored a few hundred dollars from turistas.”