by Leslie Wolfe
Thirty-Eight
The Hunt
Out of all places where he found them, Miramonte Restaurant was his favorite. The patio was large, and everyone’s gaze was on the landscape, not on him. From the side of the patio, where he liked to sit, he could see the interstate ramps, knowing instantly which travelers were headed north toward Mount Chester. A little attention paid to the small talk ensuing between travelers and their servers, and he’d know if the woman was headed to Mount Chester or the ski resort. Only those were worthy of his attention.
It didn’t make much sense, he knew that. Why would it matter if the girls were headed to Portland, for example? Why would he care enough to let them pass through, to let them live? But it somehow mattered, as if their destination, the place where he was born, grew up in and then was shunned from, was marking them somehow, as if their destinies were intertwined with Mount Chester as the only common denominator he cared about.
He’d seen a few others, over time, who felt just right, but then he’d let them go, finding they were headed to Seattle, Portland, or just over the Oregon state line, to camp in one of the state forests. But he liked the game of catch and release. It was as if he was asking fate to choose for him, to make sure he chose right, he made no mistakes, and he could still control his urges. It wasn’t easy to let go of someone amazing just because she was going someplace else, but delayed gratification had its rewards. The intensity of the release, once it came, was unparalleled. The excitement building up in his entire body, the way it prickled his skin and lit his blood on fire, the way it turned his nights into sleepless visions of exhilaration led to a superlative experience, once it came to be fulfilled.
If he couldn’t live there, if his own mother had forced him to leave, these women, who chose freely to be in Mount Chester and were allowed to, had to be punished for their freedom, for their undeserved right to set foot where he was no longer welcome. The place he could no longer call home was to become their grave.
A red Ford crossover exited the northbound interstate and signaled the turn into Miramonte’s parking lot. A quick grin fluttered on his lips. The car was the typical rental, new, compact, sparkling clean, easy to spot. Behind its wheel, a young woman, whose long hair was blowing in the wind. She drove with all the windows down, music blaring, and over that music, her voice occasionally hit high notes sung vigorously. A tourist.
If only she’d be going to Mount Chester.
He turned his chair slightly to face the patio, then perched his left ankle across his right knee and undid the button on his jacket. He munched casually on the remaining fries on his plate while the woman got seated, her back to the restaurant entrance, her face lit by the sun and turned toward the distant peaks of Mount Chester.
She was stunning. About thirty years old, with beautiful skin that glowed in the afternoon light. She smiled almost incessantly, probably thinking of something exciting, maybe her upcoming vacation. Her features showed strength, determination and grit.
She’d be a pleasure to possess. To spend winter with.
The woman’s first exchange with the server brought little clarity as to her destination, only her choice of soup and salad. Yet soon after the server went away with her order, she noticed him, making lingering eye contact that he found promising, enticing.
Yes, she could bring him lots of pleasure over the long, frozen months to come.
Breaking off eye contact, she turned away, looking at the snow-covered peaks, but a smile hovered on her lips. He could only see her profile, but he could tell. She’d seen something she liked. Wouldn’t it be interesting if she were to make a pass at him?
He looked at her intently, unable to take his eyes off her broad shoulders, the curve of her full breasts pushing through the fuzzy cashmere of her sweater, the line of her neck, and the way her hair flowed around her head, shining like a halo against the sun.
He’d love to braid those long, silky strands. The sensation of her hair touching his fingers, even if only in his mind, stirred him below the belt. She was perfect.
The server brought her soup and a tall glass of iced water, and quickly went away. The woman started eating, apparently having forgotten all about him. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, his eyes drilling into her as if sheer willpower would make her disclose her intended destination somehow or would grant him the ability to see inside her mind.
She was the one, he knew that clearly now. He could feel it in the heat spreading inside his groin, in the dark urge swelling his chest.
And each time, he wanted it to be better than last time, more intense, an addict to his own body and its brutal demands.
Briefly, for only a split second, she made eye contact again, but quickly turned away. Yeah, she was interested.
He’d love to hear her scream. See her fighting him off, kicking and clawing, only to be defeated, subdued, taken.
The server came by his table, but he waved her off with a smile. From there, she walked to the woman’s table, asking how everything was. They chatted for a short while.
“Oh, this soup is amazing!” the woman said in a crystalline, joyful voice. He loved the sound of her.
“Can I get you anything else?” the server asked, ready to offer the check.
“I’m still working on the soup, but let me think for a moment,” she replied. She dipped her spoon and stopped midair. “How much longer to Mount Chester, do you know?”
Hiding a satisfied smile, he pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and placed it on the table under the soda glass, so the wind wouldn’t blow it away. Then he left, using the patio side door that led to the parking lot. Before turning the corner, he gave the woman one last look.
Yes, she was the one.
He stopped briefly by his car and opened the rear door, where he kept a scratch awl tucked under the rear passenger seat. He took the tool, holding it so that the handle was hidden in his fist and the long, sharp steel spike was along his arm. From a distance, no one could tell he was holding anything in his hand.
A few empty spots over, the red Ford she’d come in, facing the alley, was easy to get to. The grille posed no problems, its openings wide enough for him to do his job. He checked the surroundings casually, then walked past the car, barely slowing as he pierced the radiator discreetly with one quick, strong stab of the awl. Then he continued walking to the front of the parking lot, as if looking for someone. He then turned around and climbed behind the wheel of his Cadillac.
Smiling.
Soon, after she left the interstate, taking the road to Mount Chester, and drove about twenty miles of steep, curvy mountain roads, the loss of coolant would be severe enough and the engine would overheat, forcing her to pull over.
And he’d be close by, waiting.
He loved this manner of disabling vehicles. He didn’t want to put her life at risk with a cut brake line or something that extreme. A forensic team would spot tampered brakes in a minute, and it would also be difficult to do in plain sight. And he wouldn’t want her hurt, damaged in any way when she came to him.
He wanted to be the one to make her scream, not her stupid car.
With a little bit of luck, when her Ford would force her to stop, she’d be over the ridge, where even the most expensive smartphones couldn’t get a single bar. That would be fate’s final say about her.
Then he’d get to meet her, to run his fingers through her silky hair.
To take her home.
Thirty-Nine
Brother
Kay approached High Desert State Prison with a sense of dread like she’d never felt before. During her FBI days, she’d visited inmates routinely and thought she was used to it, calloused even. Knowing her little brother Jacob was inside those gray walls changed things, unsettling her in ways she didn’t think possible, making the bile rise in her throat and filling her with unspeakable rage.
At the same time, she bowed her head under the burden of her own guilt. She’d promised herself she’d reach
out to the judge who’d imposed such an unreasonably harsh sentence on her brother for his first offense. A bar brawl, no injuries, and it landed him six months in High Desert? If that were the norm, the bars would be all empty, and the prisons filled to the brim with drunk and disorderlies.
She passed through security with the familiarity of repetition, but without the preferential status offered by an active law enforcement badge. She was just a family member visiting an inmate, and no one on duty that day at the front gate remembered her from prior visits. After she cleared security, she was escorted to the visitor room, where she was assigned a booth and took her seat.
When Jacob approached, at first she didn’t recognize him. He looked frail and weak in the oversized orange jumpsuit. His beard had grown since she’d last seen him, and a fresh bruise adorned his right cheek. Another punch had clearly landed squarely on his jaw, leaving its mark, now yellowish, the swelling still tugging at his swollen lip. And he’d only been locked up for ten days.
Paralyzing fear unfurled in Kay’s gut. He wasn’t going to last in there.
“I told you not to come,” he said, skipping over pleasantries.
He avoided her scrutiny, keeping his eyes lowered or shooting sideways glances, checking to see if anyone could overhear their conversation.
“I had to,” she whispered, putting her hand on the glass divider, wanting to touch his bruised face, to hold his hand. She stopped short of asking him how he was. “Tell me what happened,” she said instead. “I need to know everything, step by step.”
He looked at her briefly, with the pained gaze of a beaten dog. “Leave it alone, sis. There’s nothing you can do.”
“There probably isn’t anything I can do,” she admitted. “I still want to know how this happened.” Then she noticed the cameras above their heads. “Be careful, there’s no privacy to inmate family visits, not unless I’m your lawyer.”
He cursed under his breath. “Figures,” he eventually said. “There’s no privacy anywhere.” He shifted in his seat, clasping and unclasping his hands in his lap. “What’s there to tell?”
“How did it start?” she asked. “That night, at the bar.”
“I—I don’t know,” he said, lowering his head. “It’s not the first time I’ve been there to grab a couple of beers after a shift. But he came at me, this guy.” He stopped talking for a while, a deep frown furrowing his brow while his eyes flickered with anger. “He was in my face, all the time, picking on me. Every time he passed by, he shoved me. Then he mocked me for being, um, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. What?”
“A pussy,” he whispered. “I punched him. Once. He fell like a log.”
“Did the ambulance come?”
“No, only the cops,” he said with a sad chuckle. “Someone was in one hell of a rush to call them. They were there in five minutes, but he was fine by that time, drinking with his buddies and calling me names.”
It made absolutely no sense. That type of intoxicated dust-up almost never involved cops.
“Sis, I’ve been an idiot,” he said. “I know better, and I just… I don’t know what came over me that night.”
“What did they charge you with?” she asked, ashamed she hadn’t found the time in the ten days since she’d returned to Mount Chester to look up that information or to ask Elliot to pull the arrest record. Instead, she’d immersed herself in the Silent Lake murders investigation, forsaking her own brother. Now Elliot definitely wasn’t going to do her any favors, and she’d wasted ten days in which she might’ve been able to do something. Like make law history for example, because once a sentence was imposed, it wasn’t going to be changed only because a family member said please, banging on the judge’s door. Not ever going to happen.
He inhaled before replying, his breath shattered. “Felony assault with premeditation,” he said, his voice loaded with frustration. “There was no premeditation; I don’t know why they said that.”
“Did you know this man?”
“Rafael? The guy I decked?”
“Yes, him. What’s his full name?”
“Rafael Trujillo,” he said, then spelled the last name for her as she took notes. “He and I used to work together on a construction site, but I hadn’t seen him since July.”
“Did you ever exchange words with him or fight with him until that night?”
“No,” he replied quickly, looking at her briefly. “He kept with his buddies, and I’m a loner. We barely talked.” He scratched his beard, then sighed. “He’s got a record too, and it still didn’t matter. And my lawyer was one of those court-appointed idiots, who didn’t argue much in front of the mighty DA. I was surprised he didn’t drop to his knees, right there in court, to kiss—”
He stopped himself and blushed like a teenager. Jail was rubbing off on him; her little brother didn’t use to speak like that, not before. Memories of their father’s sickening oaths had probably been enough to keep him from swearing for as long as she could remember.
“Who was the judge?”
“Judge Hewitt,” he replied, staring at the floor again. “He preached like the pastor at Sunday sermon before handing me the sentence. How this cannot happen in our community, how elements like me cannot be walking free, endangering people, and that kind of crap. He spewed the words as if they were snake venom, although he knew nothing about me.”
The more Kay listened, the more she realized something was off with Jacob’s story. Maybe there was a detail, an apparently insignificant aspect of his case that he didn’t think to mention, and that had changed the way the judge considered his sentencing. But, even before that, why was he arrested in the first place, and why was he indicted with such a trumped-up charge? And what the hell did that lawyer do, instead of defending her little brother?
That’s where she needed to start.
“Who’s your lawyer?”
“Mr. Joplin, Shane Joplin, I believe. A smug son of a bitch. He just as soon sold me out, that’s what he did.”
“Court appointed?”
“Yeah,” he replied, smiling shyly. “I can’t afford lawyers, sis. I haven’t won any lottery since you left.”
A bulky guard approached them stepping heavily on crooked legs, his face bearing a permanent scowl. “Five more minutes,” he said, pointing at the clock on the wall above the entrance. “Wrap it up.”
Jacob looked at her intently, his eyes pleading.
“Don’t worry, sis, I’ll manage somehow. Thanks for… you know, coming here, living at the house. Watching over things,” he added, lowering his voice to a barely audible whisper.
She felt herself breaking into a sweat. “About that,” she said in a low voice, keeping her head turned away from the cameras, “are you, um, sure, everything is still there?”
His eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Him?”
“Uh-huh,” she replied with a quick nod. “And the, um, hardware. Is that still there?”
“The knife?” he mouthed silently, staring at her in disbelief. “Sure, it’s in there,” he whispered. “Why the heck would you ask me that now, after all these years?”
“Oh, nothing,” she replied with a pained sigh. “Just being there, at the house, does weird things to my mind, that’s all. I thought I’d seen that object in the house somewhere.”
“Nope, no way,” he said, shaking his head strongly. “Must’ve been something else you saw.” He continued to stare at her. Since that fateful day sixteen years ago, they’d never spoken a word about it.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said after a beat, smiling sheepishly.
When he smiled, his swollen lip cracked, and a tiny drop of blood appeared. Her heart twisted inside her chest, ripping the breath from her lungs.
“Jacob, listen to me,” she added hastily, seeing the guard approaching. “Keep your head low, and just wait it out, okay? I’ll wait for you. I’ll be here.”
The guard had laid his heavy hand on Jacob’s shoulder, and
he stood, ready to go back. He signaled he’d heard her by holding his thumb up and smiling weakly, then disappeared through the side door.
She sat there, looking at that closed door, unable to believe he’d been taken away, locked up, and she couldn’t run to him and hold him in her arms. A sense of doom wrapped around her entire being, chilling the blood in her veins. What was that gut of hers trying to tell her?
Standing, she shook off the sense of foreboding and remembered that someone had put her brother in there for something not worthy of being called a crime, and that someone had some explaining to do.
“Okay, Mr. Joplin, let’s see what you have to say for yourself,” she mumbled, looking him up on her phone.
It turned out that he wasn’t the typical court-appointed lawyer. He was a successful attorney, a partner at a major San Francisco law firm, where his name was billed second. Her brother’s defense couldn’t have been handled by a better lawyer, one who could’ve kept Jacob out of prison without lifting a finger.
And still, there she was, visiting her brother in prison.
It was pitch dark when she arrived home, after having spent two hours driving and thinking. Of Shane Joplin, the hotshot lawyer who couldn’t salvage her brother’s case. Of her father’s fingerprints on that knife, showing up after spending sixteen years in the ground. Of the unsub who was playing tricks with her mind, forcing her off the case. That meant she was getting close, and he was getting desperate to throw the investigators off his scent and onto hers.
Nevertheless, that also meant he knew about what lay buried between the willow trees, and somehow, he’d gotten to it. The ground was undisturbed, but he could’ve dug it up some time ago, or maybe he knew how to lay it down perfectly, so she wouldn’t know, so she’d slowly go insane wondering. There was no peace to be had unless she could be sure. Unless she found out how much the unsub really knew, and how much he’d taken from what Jacob had buried there.