The Beast in the Bone

by Blair Lindsay

She met Sanders’s gaze, her own pleading. “Please…”

  Sanders gritted her teeth and shook her head but didn’t try to move her away.

  The cops parted to let one of their own through, and within the shed Keller saw the round black mouth of a concrete access way leading into the ground, almost like a sewer entrance, with handholds made of rebar set into the wall.

  One of the RCMP officers shone her flashlight down the passageway and peered in. “About thirty feet down,” she called out to the others watching, then she listened for a moment. “I hear voices.”

  They could all hear it now. Cries from below. The voices of girls, yelling and screaming.

  Keller pressed forward, but Sanders pulled her back.

  “You really know how to push your luck, lady.” But she must’ve seen some measure of despair in Keller’s eyes because her face softened.

  They brought the girls up, one by one. All crying, all filthy, all bruised and bloody. Four in total, ranging in age from about ten to fifteen. The last was Kayla, her hair askew and her face smeared with dirt, and when she recognized Keller she shrieked and ran at her.

  Keller gathered the girl up in her arms, both of them sobbing. “Are you sure that’s all of them?” She could hear hysteria in her voice. It felt as though her sanity was flying apart. No no no, that bastard couldn’t have, couldn’t have.

  Hardy looked from her to Sanders and back again, his face drawn and pale. He nodded at her.

  Keller went numb, holding on to Kayla as the girl clutched at her. Sanders’s arm was around her again and they were all swiftly escorted from the ladder toward the ambulances, to Chandra and the other medics.

  “You were looking for someone in particular, weren’t you?” Sanders said as they walked.

  “Robin Wolf Child.” Keller gasped it through tears. “At Oakes’s house… she saved my life.”

  Kayla shook her head against Keller’s shoulder. “Robin wasn’t… I didn’t see her.”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” Keller whispered. “Don’t worry. It’s okay, now.”

  “I’m sorry, Ash,” Sanders said.

  Back at Chandra’s ambulance, another of the girls was already on the stretcher. Keller helped Kayla climb in to sit on the bench seat, then drew back out of earshot.

  “Ash!” Kayla protested.

  “It’s okay, they’re not leaving without me.” She locked eyes with Chandra, who nodded.

  “There’s nothing more you can do here, Ash,” Sanders said.

  Keller drew close to her. “Ressler said he slit Robin’s throat. That he buried her.” She nodded at the field north of them. “Over there, I think he meant.”

  “Okay,” Sanders said. “I’m sorry… We’ll start looking.” She glanced back and forth, taking in the wide field, the stable, and the other buildings. “We’re going to be all over this place.” She turned back to Keller. “Let’s get you all warm.”

  They climbed into the ambulance and Keller settled beside Kayla, who sidled up to her immediately. Keller took another look at the girl on the stretcher. Pale, with long dark hair. A bare shade over twelve years old, she guessed. The girl’s jeans and shirt were bloody and she had bruises and cuts encircling her wrists. Her face was slack and her eyes unseeing as Chandra piled blankets on her and his partner, a wide-eyed PCP, took the girl’s blood pressure.

  Chandra lifted an eyebrow at Sanders. “We can get going, I guess?”

  Sanders nodded, and after an okay from Chandra, the PCP slipped around front into the driver’s seat.

  With Sanders’s help, Keller struggled out of her wet coat and hoodie and draped a blanket proffered by Chandra around her shoulders. As they lurched out of the yard and onto the highway, Keller leaned back against the wall, feeling utterly empty inside, as though her heart had been scooped from her body, leaving nothing of importance behind.

  After a few minutes, the girl on the stretcher, her gaze equally vacant, turned to Keller. She took in the cuts and bruises on Keller’s arms and the bandages on her wrists, then looked up at Keller’s face, at the tears running down her cheeks.

  “Did the bad man hurt you too?” Her voice was just a whisper.

  Chandra turned to listen, pausing in his preparation of an intravenous, his face drawn. Sanders, standing awkwardly at the rear of the unit as it bounced along the road, was writing in a notebook.

  Kayla reached out and placed her hand over the other girl’s. “This is Ash. She came to get us. It’s going to be all right now. We’re going to be safe.” She looked up at Keller, tears running down her cheeks. “Aren’t we?”

  Keller drew in a long slow breath. “That’s right, sweetheart. That’s exactly right.”

  Eighty-Nine

  November 14

  Keller pushed open the door of the coffee shop to find Sanders already there, sipping at a coffee. Trying to tamp down her disappointment that Sanders was alone, she went to the counter and ordered herself a skinny latte.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Sanders said when Keller settled across from her.

  The shop was a mom-and-pop venture, Keller guessed. Not part of a chain where venti or grande meant anything, and likely why Sanders had chosen it. There was a miniature artificial tree in the corner, the angel on its peak askew and its halo snapped in two. Through a radio in the corner, Mariah Carey was singing, assuring one and all that she didn’t want a lot for Christmas.

  The snow might have borne some responsibility for the shop’s lack of clientele, Keller decided. It had started coming down hard the night before and traffic was tangled all over the city, but paramedics and cops were not scared of snowstorms. The fact was, there wasn’t really too much that frightened Keller anymore. Philby would not have been pleased by the thought, but that was too bad.

  “Sorry I couldn’t meet you earlier,” Keller said, “but I just needed…”

  “I get it.” Sanders looked Keller over. “You’re taking care of yourself? You look like you’ve lost weight.”

  “Grief diet… I’m all right.” The truth was, she felt empty and directionless, but the bad dreams had waned somewhat and despite the perfect recipe for relapse—He force-fed me narcotics, Philby, can you blame a gal for climbing back on the bus?—she’d managed to stay away from fentanyl. “How’re you doing?”

  Sanders shrugged. “Back to homicide last week. Got a year-long set of appointments with the department shrink to look forward to, but he’s not too bad.” She shrugged again. “All in all, all right, I suppose.”

  Keller nodded reflexively. “Can you tell me about Kayla?” Ever so briefly, she had flirted with the idea of trying to adopt the girl, but she was a recovering drug addict and just plain recovering, and she knew the girl deserved better than that.

  “She’s with a nice family and doing well in therapy.” Sanders flashed a grim smile. “We managed to shield them all from the media—publication bans on names. No one will ever know who they are.”

  Too bad. Maybe people should know who they are so they don’t forget them or the other seven thousand kids in care in Alberta. But all she said was, “And the news has forgotten about me again, finally. Thank god.”

  Sanders’s mouth twitched in a smile. “They’ll have other things to occupy them in a day or two.”

  “Oh?”

  “Arcand created something the cybercrime guys call a ‘drop-dead’ file. It’s an email sent out automatically when he wasn’t alive to stop it. It fired a stash of evidence to every major police department in western Canada, to newspapers in every city, and to the National Post for good measure. Harry’s going to arrest Dennis Hunt this afternoon. The RCMP wanted to slap the handcuffs on, but Harry fought for it. He’s going to do it personally.”

  Sanders must’ve seen her face brighten because she added, “We’ve all been pretty busy—Harry especially, as soon as they sprang him from hospital. That’s the only reason he’s not here.”

  Keller had had no contact with Decker since she’d visited him briefly on t
he ward after surgery, still in her own wheelchair. He’d been pretty doped up and she wasn’t sure he’d even remember her kissing his forehead, or the murmured thank-you.

  You could’ve called, Harry. Even just to tell me you forgive me for getting you shot.

  She saw Sanders watching her and shook her head to disabuse the woman of any interest she had in Decker’s comings and goings. “No worries. I’m just glad one of you could—”

  Sanders laughed, a cop after all. “A little advice, Keller? Don’t ever start playing poker, and be careful about setting your sights on a cop. Goddamn Harry’s even more stubborn now that you filled him with that donkey IV fluid.”

  Keller worked to hide a smile. Sanders had gotten something wrong, and she seemed a little more human for it. The fact was that Keller was content with being alone for now and for the foreseeable future. She liked breathing easy in the morning, not having any responsibility to anyone but herself.

  But you still could’ve called, Harry.

  She decided to change the subject.

  “I’m surprised it took so long—the arrests.”

  Sanders’s eyes narrowed. “Things like this, we don’t like to make mistakes. We connect everything twice, three times over. We needed time to seize emails, trace the links.”

  Keller sipped at her coffee and watched the snow batter against the window and sweep through the parking lot, painting the world white and pure, for as long as it lasted.

  “The field…” Keller felt a lump in her throat. “At Hunt’s place. How many…?”

  Sanders’s jaw tightened. “Fifteen bodies so far, none older than mid-teens. Youngest maybe twelve.” She reached out and put a hand on Keller’s arm. “I’m afraid it’ll be weeks before we get DNA results and know who they are.”

  “You’ll call me if they find any sign of her?”

  “You’ll hear it first. I promise.”

  They both fell silent, both looking at the snow dancing across the window, and then Sanders picked up the thread. “Heard your friend Kate was doing okay.”

  “How’d you hear that?”

  “You’d be surprised how nosy cops are when one of their own is involved.” She held Keller’s gaze.

  “Her boyfriend’s buying us all pizza tonight, actually.” Keller gave her a cautious smile. “She’s decided to get out of EMS. She wants to turn her ranch into a therapy centre for people with PTSD. Military, emergency services, kids…” Keller’s smile grew. “Long-term plans tend to be a good sign. She’s doing okay.”

  “I’m not surprised. You paramedics are a hard-headed lot.” She paused, still watching Keller. “And you? Got any long-term plans?”

  “One breath at a time. Might go someplace sunny for a while.” She saw Sanders parsing her lack of enthusiasm for the idea and pressed on. “Cops are fairly hard-headed too.” Her eyes narrowed. “Way I heard it, your boss called every manager in EMS to make sure they let me go back.”

  “Shit”—Sanders held up her hands—“I tried like hell to talk him out of that. Bosses never did listen to me, though.”

  “Or me.”

  “Not every manager, though.” Sanders halfway smiled. “Yours got…”

  “Suspended.” Keller left it at that but wondered if Sanders knew much about Grainger’s suspension for improperly accessing patient records. Five years too late, but you got what you deserved, you bastard, even if it wasn’t for the right offense.

  “So, new beginnings,” Sanders said archly.

  Keller gave a nod. “New beginnings.”

  They talked for a while longer about nothing in particular, for which Keller was grateful. Then Sanders stood, gathering up her coat and looking out at the storm. “Duty calls… Good seeing you, Ash. Lunch, next time, maybe.” Keller must’ve looked startled because Sanders smiled. “You’re buying, though.”

  “We friends now?”

  “Naw.” Sanders shook her head, her smile only growing more sly. “Just like to keep an eagle eye on the miscreants in my city, you know?”

  She breezed through the door, leaving Keller alone in the shop except for a fortyish man with a bad haircut working on his computer and the proprietor busying himself with cleaning the counter.

  Keller’s phone chirped and she dragged it out of her pocket. It was Apple’s newest iPhone—the cops still had her old device—but she’d managed to retain the same number. She swiped the password screen away and her heart caught in her throat as she read what was underneath.

  Hey sorry didn’t reply. Was OTG for a while hiking Great Divide with girlfriends. No phone no civilization. Lots of cute boys tho lol. Back in the cold now. You good? Whats new?

  Robin. OTG. Off the grid.

  The writer and the shop owner both looked up as she shrieked, then studiously went back to what they were doing as she broke down crying.

  Ninety

  Two Months Later

  Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

  Keller woke midmorning tangled in sheets, the tropical sun shining through the blinds already warming the room. It felt odd to wake without a dog bounding onto the bed, but Lang and Atchison would be enjoying having all three dogs back, even if Lang kept joking about a custody agreement. And Robin was in the midst of high school upgrading. One of her “U of C friends” and roommate was in nursing and Robin thought she might want that, too, since “Paramedics have it a little too tough.”

  She dressed—hardly—in a bikini and wrap, and wandered down to the resort buffet, piling eggs and fruit and slices of avocado onto her plate, waving away the waiter and his cheerful small talk and avoiding the eyes of her fellow diners. Afterward, she wandered past the resort pools down to the sea, feeling like a ghost as she weaved between the other tourists.

  Her hotel was three miles north of El Arco—the giant arches of rock cleaving the Baja Sea from the Pacific Ocean—and once she hit the sand, Keller turned toward them and walked the beach. The seascape was beautiful, almost primal, stretching north and south as far as the eye could see.

  Swimming in the sea wasn’t recommended. Rip tides and such. Too bad, really. But she wasn’t disappointed. The resort had lots of pools, all equipped with swim-up bars, something the ocean was sorely lacking.

  There were lots of men around those pools and a few who were more than pleasant to look at. But she was content in her isolation, not having to touch the world, talk to it or fix it. So she swam or lay in a recliner by the water and read, and drank Cuba Libres.

  On this particular morning the beaches had been wiped smooth by a high spring tide and the sky was a perfectly empty cerulean blue. Keller set her sights on the Arch and headed south into the warm tropical wind, walking the tideline and letting the sea wash over her tanned legs.

  In one of the bare patches on the beach where no hotels had yet been built—and so, few people walked—she sat in the sand, wrapped her arms around her knees, and stared up into the unbroken sapphire sky, letting the tropical wind envelop her. Was this what true peace felt like? She hadn’t been sure she would ever feel it again.

  A wave of indeterminate sensation fluttered through her, an impossible mix of emotion so powerful it was akin to epiphany. At first she thought she was going to cry, and then euphoria was surging through her in drumbeat time with her suddenly racing heart.

  After a while, the simple feeling of peace returned and she rose to her feet and looked out toward Baja, at the sea churning against the beach, then looked back the way she had come, at her footprints tracing the tideline, at the waves washing them away.

  She lifted her face to the sun and felt something dark unclench from her heart and fall like dust from her bones.

  Overhead, a flock of sea birds rushed past, flying southward, crying and calling as they went as if in invitation.

  She turned and walked on.

  #

  About the Author

  I grew up in Dollard Des Ormeaux on the beautiful island of Montreal, and I am endlessly grateful to my wonderful parents for many thing
s, not the least of which is that they were both avid readers; and so I grew up in a house chock-full of books and developed a life-long love of reading.

  We moved Airdrie, just north of Calgary, Alberta, in 1981 and going from an island of several million people to a small town of 8,000 induced in me no small amount of culture shock. But that was when I found my calling in Emergency Services. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a high school work experience program at the Airdrie Fire Department. I had been dreaming about being a Paramedic/Firefighter ever since discovering the old 1970s show “Emergency”. Clips of the series can be found on YouTube and the show appears dated now, as most 70s TV does, but for those of my era who craved to work in the Emergency Services field, “Emergency” was the veritable bomb, and Paramedic/Firefighters John Gage and Roy DeSoto were everything we aspired to be, even if we’d never admit it.

  In the early 1980s (and, I am quite sure, today), the Airdrie Fire Department was staffed by a dynamic group of smart, talented and dedicated professionals. Within a week of beginning my work experience program, my goal of becoming a Paramedic was set in stone.

  I became a volunteer firefighter almost right away. Not what I initially intended but I quickly came to love it. Firefighting is as close as the average person can really get to being an adventurer, I think. A different job every day. One call and you might be down in a sewer. In the next, crawling under a partially collapsed building. Yes there were animal rescues - even a cat out of a flooded basement once, though the weirdest was almost certainly winching a horse out of a root cellar… And there were the fires, of course. Grass fires that we chased over miles of farmland (and that sometimes chased us). Car fires where explosions were always potentially imminent (and one memorable one where boxes of bullets in the trunk began going off). And then there were the house fires and the heart-breaking consequences of those. Even if everyone inside survives, there are few things worse than seeing someone’s life burn down.