“But proof,” Mason said. “Unless Deborah Strong talks, or slips up, we need evidence that can connect her. Where are we with the DNA from the Schrade knife handle, and the latent partials from the meat cleaver?”
Fielding consulted his watch. “I was told we’d have those results today. We should have them in by now.”
Mason’s satellite phone rang. His energy quickened. He stepped aside and connected the call.
“Mason, it’s Callie.”
A sense of warmth washed through him at the sound of her voice. “Go ahead, Callie.”
“We found it. The K9 team has located Katie Colbourne’s camcorder. It was in the water, hung up in rocks along the riverbank.”
Adrenaline coursed into his blood. This could be it—what they needed to break the case. “What’s the condition?”
“It’s pretty bashed up, but it looks like it might still be functional. It’s one of those hardcore adventure cameras designed to take everything from knocks to underwater immersion.”
His pulse raced, and he smiled inside. “Good work, SAR one. Damn good work. Thank you.”
Callie laughed. “Over and out, Sergeant.”
Mason signed off. Fielding and Jayne were regarding him intently.
“They found it. Katie Colbourne’s camera. In the river where Stella Daguerre went down.”
As he spoke, his radio crackled. “Sergeant Deniaud. Sergeant!”
Hubb.
Quickly he keyed his radio. “Go ahead, Hubb.”
“We have a situation. Hospital.”
NOW
STELLA
I’m in a dark, murky place, but it feels warm. Soft. Like a lukewarm ocean, and I’m floating—rising, falling on gentle swells, the sun shining red through veins in my closed eyelids. My body lifts on a surge, higher, higher, then I feel a gentle plunge into the valley between swells. Suddenly I go under the water. Down, down, down. Spiraling, headfirst, deeper into the ocean, hair floating out around my head. It gets darker down here, colder. Underwater pressure squeezes my ears and chest. Panic licks. I start to thrash. No air.
Help!
Deeper I go, faster. I flail at the water, trying to fight back up. But something is tugging my ankles from the bottom, something strong dragging me down to the dark, deep bottom of the sea.
Suddenly a shape appears. I can’t see properly through the water. But I can hear a voice. It comes from inside me, but it’s not my voice.
No, no, don’t fight. It will be all right, Stella.
I still.
Franz? Is that you, Franz?
Relax. It’ll be okay. Give in to it.
Franz? Is that you?
I’m calm now, blinking, trying to see into this strange space.
Am I dead, Franz?
I hear him laugh—that wicked, guttural chuckle I love so much, coming from a dark corner in his grand and fantastical old study in his mansion on Galiano. I can almost scent the fine whiskey in his glass, and the aromatic smoke from his Cuban cigar. Almost hear the soft crackle of flames in his hearth. I smile. Or it feels like I’m smiling. My body lifts in lightness a little at the sound of him. I’m dead. I must be. Because Franz is dead. So I must be if I am here with him. Where is here?
I try to turn my head, turn around to see the rest of this place. But my movement spins me into a kaleidoscopic vortex of swirling water. Other noises creep in. Snatches of words. Machines. A smell of antiseptic. A woman’s voice. A hard slice of cold light shocks through me and seems to intrude from somewhere very far above.
I’m going up again. Up. Up.
I hear yelling. An alarm.
I frown. Suddenly I stop again, and sink slowly back down to where Franz is.
A memory curls through me—how I felt when I saw my plane was gone from the dock, the severed rope ends in my hands.
I never meant to kill anyone, Franz. I don’t even know if I killed Dan Whitlock—I don’t know if he died in the end . . .
I left before I could see if he suffered, or how sick he might have gotten . . . You were right about one thing, Franz—trap a bunch of people with secrets together, cut them off, make them scared, and you cannot imagine how they will spin out. But as you said, they always do. They always collapse under the weight of their own monsters.
And then they turn on each other.
Tears fill my eyes. I see my boy’s little body again. Broken on the paving. Rain falling upon his innocent face, into his open, sightless eye. I reach out my hand in this strange, dark limbo of a place, blindly feeling the space.
Mommy.
A quickening, heart-stopping moment.
Zeke? Ezekiel?
Mom.
Are you here, baby?
I have wanted to be dead for so long. I was so prepared for this to be my exit. I was going to hang myself in the woods, or just let the wilderness claim me. After they’d all looked into my eyes and said they were sorry for what they’d done to my boy.
Ezekiel, baby . . . where are you?
Suddenly he’s there. In front of Franz in the shadows. He’s on a stool, eating his Tooty-Pops, watching a cartoon. Swinging his feet under the stool. It’s a perennial Saturday morning with lemon-yellow sunshine coming through the leafy trees of our house in Kitsilano. I’m on a layover between flights.
Honey?
He looks up and smiles that smile with the dimple I love so much. I hurry over and kiss my boy on the head. His hair smells like hay, and kittens, and soft puppies. My heart sings. I put on the coffee, make toast.
The kitchen fills with the smell of coffee and the fresh, toasting bread. Fruity Tooty-Pops in milk. I can smell the sweetness of it all. My sweet baby boy. The pure sweetness of life.
A noise. Cold. Black. That beeping again. An alarm! Smell of antiseptic. Sliver of white light so bright it hurts. Voices—a man and a woman—arguing, fighting? Then it all fades. Confusion twists around my head. It’s tugging me away from Zeke, away from Franz . . . yanking, ripping me away.
No . . . no! I reach for Zeke’s hand. He’s holding it out.
Mommy! Don’t leave me! Mom!
Zeke! His hand . . . Suddenly it’s lying motionless on the cold dark street. Blood leaks from his mouth, and the rain falls into puddles around his face. I start to sob.
Zeke.
I hear the voices. I’m breathing again, no longer beneath water. I hear a man with a deep voice say clearly, “Deborah Strong, step away from that bed. Now . . . You’re under arrest . . . You have the right to retain and instruct counsel of your choice . . .”
Panic flutters in my heart.
Police? Here? . . . In hospital room. Need to talk . . .
But I can’t break through. I can’t move. I try to talk, but no noise comes.
No, Stella, no panic. No need to panic. You can choose. Simple. Just make a choice.
Franz, is that you talking?
Mommy.
I go still at the sound of my son’s voice. I turn my head away from the hospital noises, from the police, from the sense that Deborah is in the ward. I turn toward Zeke and Franz.
I feel myself going down, down, down. And it’s no longer cold at the bottom. It’s soft. Warm. Like a baby must feel in a womb.
I go down farther this time, spiraling, deliciously, gently, and it’s all so beautiful.
Zeke is there. He smiles. I crouch down, open my arms so wide.
He barrels at me on his little legs with skinned knees. Crashes into me, and I fall back into green grass with yellow dandelions.
I laugh and stroke his hair.
You came home, Mommy.
I can’t speak. Emotion is too thick. Tears are running down my cheeks. I nod, stroke his hair. My voice comes back.
I’m never going to let you go again, Zeke.
Franz is suddenly standing there. His strange little half-secret smile curving his mouth. Smoke trailing from a cigar in his hand.
I did it, Franz. I take my son’s shoulders in my hands and look him directly
in eyes that are the same color as mine. I did it, Zeke.
They suffered. I made them suffer. They all knew why they were there in the end, and was it worth it? Was that justice? Did the punishment make me feel better? I didn’t like hurting them. They were just people trying to survive. Even Steven.
Most of all, I’m free now, because I no longer need anything from them. What I needed was to let them go.
So I forgave them.
Forgiveness is really about freeing yourself from the hate and self-pity, which eats like a cancer into your brain day and night, year after year. That’s all we can want, isn’t it? To let it go, to stop allowing it to drive us, and to finally be free?
Zeke flings his arms around my neck.
And I drown in his love, his touch. I’m home. I’ve come home. Finally. After so long. After so much pain.
But I’m home now. I’m with my son.
And then there was one.
NOW
MASON
Mason pulled up outside the health care center in his RCMP truck, bar lights flashing. Hubb was pacing agitatedly in front of the accessibility ramp, her exhalations condensing in white puffs around her pink face.
She ran toward the truck as Mason swung open his door.
“Podgorsky stopped her, sir!” Excitement glittered fierce in her eyes. “Like you said, we just watched her, hands off. Podgorsky was in place, waiting behind the curtain. I followed her—she came right here after leaving the station. Like you thought she might. She swallowed the bait—hook, line, sinker. I radioed Podgorsky that she was entering the facility. He kept out of sight, but kept her in his line of vision from behind the curtain, in case she did something to the victim. She attempted to extubate the victim, Sarge. Deborah Strong tried to kill Stella Daguerre.”
“Where is she? Where’s Podgorsky?”
“He’s holding Deborah Strong inside. He’s placed her under arrest and cuffed her.” She hesitated. “Sir?”
Mason stopped at the tone in the officer’s voice.
“What is it, Hubb?”
“She’s dead, sir.”
“Strong?”
“Stella Daguerre. She’s been pronounced dead by the doctors.”
“You said Strong attempted to—”
“Yes—Podgorsky stopped her from disconnecting the ventilator. But Daguerre passed anyway.”
Mason stared at Hubb, his brain racing. This could be on him. This could be on Podgorsky. He brushed past Hubb, strode up the stairs, taking two at a time, and pushed through the doors of the health care facility.
“It’s that way, Sarge.” Hubb hurried ahead of him.
She waddled fast down the corridor, her duty belt hampering her short arms, and opened a door into a small utility room. Podgorsky stood beside Deborah Strong, who sat on a plastic chair, her hands cuffed, her eyes wild.
Podgorsky’s features were tight. Mason’s gaze locked on to his officer’s.
“I’ve explained her charter rights, sir,” Podgorsky said crisply, making an uncharacteristic attempt at sounding formal. “She’s requested legal counsel of her choice.”
Mason looked into Deborah Strong’s eyes, and she held his gaze, unflinching.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t kill her. She was a murderer. She did this.”
“Take her to the station,” he ordered Podgorsky. “Hubble, go with. Both of you, stay with her at all times.”
He called Gord Fielding on his sat phone. “My officers are bringing Deborah Strong in. Stella Daguerre has passed. I’m going to speak with her doctor.”
Mason hung up and found the physician still with Stella Daguerre’s body. There was blood on the sheets and her pillow. His pulse kicked.
The doc glanced up as Mason entered. The man’s features were drawn.
“I’m sorry, Sergeant. She’s gone.”
“What happened?” Mason’s gaze shot to the ventilator, the tubes.
“Hemorrhagic stroke—massive bleeding in the brain, possibly caused by her head trauma. It happened fast. Nothing we could do.”
Mason drew in a deep and uneven breath. He stepped closer to Stella Daguerre’s body, and he looked into her face. She had blood on the side of her mouth, and under her nose. It stained the pillow under her head. But something about her features told Mason she was finally at peace.
He swallowed, feeling a strange surge of empathy braided with hot frustration. They’d just lost a key witness.
“Did the suspect do this—did Deborah Strong cause this?” Mason asked the doc.
“Like I said, it was probably a result of head trauma sustained before you brought her in.”
“So it would have happened irrespective of what just transpired in this ward between my officer and the suspect?”
“That would be my theory.” The doctor reached for a sheet. “An autopsy will confirm.”
So not Podgorsky’s fault. Not a law enforcement miscalculation on his part. Mason breathed out a chestful of air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He watched as the doctor drew the sheet up over Stella Daguerre’s face.
Deborah Strong was unlikely to cooperate from this point. Retrieving the footage from Katie Colbourne’s damaged camera was now essential.
Mason left the small hospital and stepped into the bracing wind. He stood still for a moment. In his mind he saw Luke running down the frozen street toward him, the wind ruffling his hair, his little school backpack bobbing on his back. He heard Jenny laugh. He felt them both here. He sucked in a deep breath of the cool mountain air. Yes, they’d followed him up here to this remote town in the faraway wilderness. But for some reason, Mason was no longer trying to outrun them. He was comfortable just having them near. His ghosts.
He pulled his jacket zipper up higher around his neck and made for his truck.
NOW
MASON
Friday, November 13.
Five days after the death of Stella Daguerre and the arrest of Deborah Strong, Mason sat with Fielding, Jayne, and Hubb in the incident room, watching footage that had been retrieved from Katie Colbourne’s camera.
Fielding and Jayne had remained in town to oversee additional interrogations with Deborah Strong. But Strong had lawyered up and remained mute during interviews, refusing to cooperate in any way. The sheriffs had picked up Strong for transfer by plane earlier this morning. Fielding and Jayne were due to fly out later, but the techs had sent some of the retrieved footage for them to see before they departed.
They all watched in thick, tense silence as Stella spoke directly and softly into the camera, lit by a small circle of light in the blackness of the forest—an eerily glowing vignette that reminded Mason of illustrations in dark fairy-tale books.
“I don’t think we will last much longer. Steven is worsening. Faster than I thought he would. I . . . I’m not even sure this is recording properly . . .” She leaned forward, her face whitening and growing large as she came toward the light. The camera jiggled. Stella returned to sit on a log. She faced the camera again.
“I’m recording this because I want to document what happened. I’m not sure if the camera or our remains will ever be found, or if anyone will ever know what occurred. I didn’t know how this was going to play out. It was Franz’s idea. My brilliant Franz—” Emotion hitched her voice. She wiped her nose and cleared her throat.
Mason felt a reciprocal tightness of compassion in his chest. It came with a quickening of his pulse. He and the other cops exchanged glances. He could see that Fielding, Jayne, and Hubb were as tense as he was. As excited to learn what had happened out there in the woods.
Stella continued, her voice going hoarse. “He said I should follow through with it, even though he knew he was going to die. He came up with the idea, inspired by Agatha Christie’s mystery of the ten little soldier boys. The judge character in that book died, too. He left a message in a bottle for someone to find, explaining what happened. This is my message in a bottle.”
She paused, sniffed, and
wiped her nose against the cold again.
“Ever since Zeke was killed, I have wanted justice. For my son. For me. For our family. I wanted the driver caught, to stand public trial. To be punished. I wanted them all to pay for what they did. But justice never came. No one helped. A conspiracy of silence hid the truth.”
Stella pulled her woolen hat down tighter over her ears.
“I don’t know anymore what it means to get justice. I thought I did. I thought I knew what I wanted. I wanted them to pay. To suffer, and to know why they were suffering. To be sorry. But what I have done will not bring Zeke back. Maybe truth is a noble goal unto itself—I don’t know. But in the interest of truth, yes, I did what Franz suggested. I followed through with the plan he’d set in motion. Today is Tuesday, November third, and this is what I did . . .”
THE LODGE PARTY
DEBORAH
Tuesday, November 3.
Deborah sat sharply upright, fully awake. It was dark. Quiet. Cold. The fire was still glowing. Fear sparked through her—she hadn’t intended on falling fully asleep, not with the wolves so close. They’d seen one last night, in the twilight. A big black one with yellow eyes. It had been watching them from between the trees. Nathan had thrown a rock, and it had disappeared. But they knew the pack was still out there.
Waiting.
What had woken her? She peered, shivering, into the black shadows. Fog lay thick over the darkness. Trees dripped. She couldn’t see anything. She turned to the sleeping shapes around the fire.
Stella was gone.
Deborah’s heart began to pound. She listened carefully to the ambient sounds of the forest. She heard the soft hoot of an owl. No wolves. Water dripping. It was raining softly above the canopy. She stilled. She could hear something. A voice? Talking?
Quietly Deborah got up. She reached for a headlamp and the loaded rifle propped against a log. The others did not wake. Steven was near death. Nathan, too—feverish, alternately shivering and sweating from the infection caused by the broken bone sticking out of his leg. Delirious at times. Monica had mentally cracked. And now Stella was gone, and Deborah could hear murmuring coming from somewhere deeper in the forest.
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