After a time he heard footsteps crunching through the snow behind him. The sound of reckoning.

The footsteps neared, but he didn’t dare turn around, didn’t dare move. Not until a kick to the kidneys knocked him to the ground. Dex stood over him, his head cocked with some sentiment that couldn’t quite make it to his eyes. Two narcos flanked him, their AKs pointed at Evan’s chest.

Dex’s big hands swung at his sides, the tattoos flashing. Too-broad smile. Bloody scowl.

One painted mouth dipped into a cargo pocket. The fingers came out gripping the hinged-open shock collar. Wearily, Evan lifted his head from the snow to see the big hands nearing. His vision clouded.

Even so he could hear the collar clank shut around his neck.

40. People Who Deserve It

40

People Who Deserve It

Evan’s feet dragged lifelessly behind him, leaving ski tracks in the snow. The morning glare off the ground was piercing, forcing him to squint. His legs and arms throbbed from the cold. His head hung forward, hair latticing his eyes. A narco had him by either arm, Dex leading the merry little charge.

They hauled him into the barn and threw him onto the wrestling mat. Shuddering, he curled on the blue rubber. Only now did he allow himself to register the state of his body. The chill crept into his bruises, stung the ring of raw flesh around his neck. His head swam from the cold, from the exertion, from more kicks and punches than he could keep track of. He could no longer feel his nose or his lips. His ankles ached. His thighs burned, his calves were on fire, his breath growing more ragged by the second.

If he died here in this desolate valley, he’d be another in a long list of people who had failed Alison Siegler and the boy.

And yet how could he rescue them when he was in need of rescuing himself?

There was a lesson in that somewhere, of that he was sure, but he didn’t know what. If Jack were alive, he’d summarize it neatly into something pithy—part koan, part fortune cookie. He’d put the situation into context, salvage it by turning it around on Evan, transform impotence into insight.

Evan stared at the circle of narcos penning him in and tried to convert his helplessness to rage, but the old tricks no longer worked. Not right now. He felt undressed, vulnerable.

Defeated.

He heard the barn door roll open. Footsteps.

He caught a whiff of familiar cologne. It smelled like a country club.

René’s voice settled over him. “Your plan didn’t work out very well.”

“No,” Evan said. “Doesn’t seem to have.”