Dead Edge: the gripping political thriller for fans of Lee Child. Jack Ford
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most of the assembled men and women walk out. Envied the fact they could use the restroom.
COLORADO, USA
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Maddie drove. Hard. Fast. Making sure Cooper felt every moment of it. Every bump. Every Goddamn pot hole on the road back home. To the home they’d once shared before life with him had become too complicated. To the home their six-year-old daughter, Cora, had loved.
To the home where she’d packed her bags, taking too long about it, just in case he’d come back home and begged her to stay.
That had been last year. And she wished she could say she’d never looked back. But she had. Damn, had she. She’d looked back so many times her neck hurt. She didn’t even bother trying to deny to herself how much she still loved him. But loving someone wasn’t enough if they were hell bent on destroying themselves. And Cooper was. And like a maelstrom she knew he’d pull and draw everyone who was near enough down with him.
‘You want to slow down a bit, Maddie?’
Maddie side-glanced Cooper, as they sped along Colorado’s dirt track roads in the heat of the afternoon sun. The dial hit eighty-five miles per hour, and the dust blew from underneath the wheels as if on fire, and the wind billowed in through the open Chevy windows, and she brushed away spiraling curls from her eyes and shouted over the sound of the engine. ‘No, actually I don’t, Tom. You know what I actually want to do? I want to go faster…’
She put her foot down.
Hard.
Harder.
Pushing the engine. Swerving those holes in the road. And not giving a damn.
‘Remind you of anyone, Tom? Do I? Bring back memories from your cannonball run?’
‘Jesus, slow down, Maddie! What the hell’s got into you? I know you’re mad at me, but wasn’t leaving me in a cell punishment enough?’
‘Mad at you? Oh you haven’t seen mad, Tom. You wanna see mad, Tom? ’Cos I can show you that.’
Maddie pushed down on the accelerator, touching the worn out brown carpet of the Chevy floor with her equally worn out cowboy boot.
‘Whatever it is you’re pissed about, killing us both won’t solve things.’
‘Won’t it? Isn’t this what you want, Tom? Isn’t living on the edge what you want to do?’
‘I won’t tell you again Maddie… slow down.’
‘No, Tom, because this is the only way you feel isn’t it? Fast. Dangerous. To hell with anything else. With anybody else.’
‘Maddie…’
‘You feeling this, Tom? You feeling it? Doesn’t it feel good…? Or are you feeling scared? Desperate? Out of control? How about powerless? You feel that one? Powerless. That one’s good. Eats your soul. Like there’s nothing you can do to stop, and any moment you’re going to watch a car crash and feel the pain that goes with it.’
Cooper brushed the sand out of his mouth. ‘I’m sorry… Okay. I’m sorry!’
The car hit ninety-five and Maddie glanced over at Cooper. ‘Not good enough, Tom! Everything’s just a big-ass sorry with you… Do you know how hard we’ve all tried to stop loving you? Because we would, you know, if we could. We’ve all been through hell, thinking that we’re going to lose you. And then just as things start to quieten down you go and do it all again like the last time, and the time before Goddamn that.’
‘Maddie…’
‘No, you promised, and you just couldn’t keep your promise could you? And before you ask, these aren’t tears in my eyes, it’s the Goddamn wind.’
Cooper let go of the seat he’d been holding onto. Tightly. Still shouting. Still not quite sure what had brought this on. ‘I don’t get it, Maddie, because remember, it was you who walked away. You walked out on me. You didn’t want us anymore.’
Maddie screamed at the top of her voice. Shrill and high, reminding herself of the bobcats which roamed and hunted the Sonoran Desert at night. ‘How dare you, Tom!? God, I always wanted us. I always loved you. But you? Most of our marriage you weren’t even present. And when you were, you never even noticed I was there.’
‘That’s not true.’
Maddie swerved the car. Had Cooper holding back onto his seat. ‘It is true, Tom, and you know it.’
‘You’re acting crazy, just stop the Goddamn car and we’ll talk.’
‘I thought crazy was where it was at.’
Maddie slammed her foot on the brakes. The ’54 Chevy churning up the earth like a cyclone.
Cooper flew forward.
Banged his head.
Sense told him it was best not to look for sympathy.
Pushing open the door, Maddie marched round to the trunk. Banged it. Sprung right open. Pulled out a Beretta 87. Marched right on back to Cooper.
‘There you go, Tom. Take it.’
Cooper cocked his head. Hadn’t a hell clue what she was talking about. But then women and sense weren’t always an equal equation in his experience. ‘What? I don’t know what all this is about.’
Deep brown eyes stared at Cooper. Pain filled them. Love filled them. But most of all anger lounged and simmered in them.
‘You’re right, Tom. It wouldn’t have made any sense at all if we’d crashed back then. Both of us dying. Now that wouldn’t be good. So as this is about you… here you go.’
Cooper’s strawberry blonde hair blew over and covered his eyes. One blue. One green. He didn’t need to look at her to know the woman had lost all sense. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you.’
‘Don’t you, Tom?’
Maddie pulled back the hammer on the single shot nine-inch pistol. Span round a one eighty. Faced and aimed towards the bottom of a flowering cactus. Two shots. Two dead shovel-nosed cobras.
She turned back to Cooper and said, ‘No, you probably don’t. You don’t even have a clue… Now your turn.’
Cooper gave a half smile to Maddie. She was one of the best shots he knew. Hands down there was no competition. And many a time her steady hand had gotten him out of scrapes.
‘Can I pass on this?’
Maddie shook her head. Spun the gun. Pushed the pistol grip towards Cooper.
‘Hell, no.’
Cooper held onto his sigh. Then couldn’t hold it in any longer. He let it out. Hard and loud. Irritation began to seep up and over Cooper. Patience wasn’t always his strongest point. And right now, after almost a week in a cell and his tongue feeling like he’d caught it in a vice, his patience had just gone and run out. ‘Maddie, just give me the Goddamn keys, I want to go home.’
‘Do it.’
‘Do what? For Christ sake woman, I love you. You hear that. I love you. But this… This, what we’re doing right here, can we do it another time? Because I’m beat.’
Maddie didn’t take away her gaze. ‘If you’re so hell bent on killing yourself, why don’t you just go on right ahead and do it? Put the gun against your head and pull the trigger. Go on… Save us all the time and heartache, Tom. Then we can lay you to rest on the top of a hill somewhere. I could pick some daisies from the ranch and Cora and I – remember her, Tom? Your daughter? Well, we could make the grave look real pretty. And we’d give you a big old stone with your name on. Here lies,