“The whole front right wing's crumpled,” Clare observed. “How did anybody survive?” The words came out a lot more accusing than wondering.
“I'm sorry about that. We aimed specifically for the front.”
“We're still here,” Terrick said by way of acceptance. “They can trace the plates and what will that tell them? Only that I'm not from around here. I ain't without resources myself.”
More houses passed, all owned by the affluent judging by their size. Dominic wasn't kidding. There were high-end sedans everywhere. The street opened up for a moment to show a quaint parish church with a small spire in the distance. Then the scenery returned to dense foliage revealing nothing except a large restaurant marked 'The 873 Café' that had seemingly been carved into the forest.
“People like their space up here then,” Clare said. Nobody replied.
Ashby disappeared into the background, claimed by the forest. They were alone on the highway but for trees, powerlines and the green support vehicle. Dominic had been right. Nobody had noticed them. How would anybody notice a guy being tracked down and killed in this wilderness? They needed an advantage. They needed someone to draw the creature out, make it desperate.
Out of nowhere an open section of land appeared, the trees only dead trunks now, the branches bare of leaves.
“Those aren't trees ready for winter.” Clare opened the window to get a better look. Cold air cut her face, stinging her eyes. “Those trees are dead. What happened here?”
“Time to pull over, Sheriff,” Dominic let go of Clare's hand to point off to the left.
Terrick did as bidden, stopping the car. Everybody got out and they stood as a group looking over the dead terrain.
“It's so alien,” Clare said.
“Been like that ever since the Viruñas got to Logan. Chased him down in a car, ran him off the road right into the middle of the forest and started feeding right there. They reckon he was getting desperate both for food and time. But for the wreckage they would never have found him. It's so uniform around here. The trees died within a year, the death spreading out a few hundred metres in every direction.”
Clare turned back to the car. On the other side of the road the trees were dead too, but not as far back into the forest.
“It's like someone dropped a biological bomb on the landscape.”
“That's exactly what it looks like. We found this in the past. There are records of forests dying out where the creature had passed. Something it releases poisons the ground. Imagine the damage it would cause if it were to get into a hospital in the middle of a city rather than picking on vulnerable individuals in the wilderness?”
Clare stared at Dominic for a moment, and then smiled. “I've got an idea.”
Chapter Nineteen
Dominic's demeanor changed in an instant, assumed an air of if not business, at the very least authority. “You will do this for us?”
“I feel you always assumed that I would. Just tell me one thing. How far gone was Jarret Logan?”
“The last blood test he submitted showed his blood sugar nearing the maximum reading a testing meter can cope with. He was pretty sick. Yet for all of that he wanted nothing more than to catch Viruñas. He was approached just before your parents became the creature's victims. The night of their death, he argued with Harley about hunting this thing down. They came to blows. Harley already had influence by then and skipped the chain of command to have Logan transferred. He has a history of transferring those he fears.”
“So I understand. Why's he involved in all this anyway? Whoever your paymasters are, surely they don't have to deal with the likes of him.”
“Sometimes in order to remain anonymous, one has to play in another's backyard. They often have a different set of rules. Harley is the big fish in the Worcester pond. He has been for over a decade. You should know, Clare. You've been dancing to his tune your entire career. The time to trade up is coming soon. Ask yourself this: Why has Andrew Harley been so persistent in keeping you from trying to become a detective? Is it because of a misogynistic desire to suppress the advancement of women? Or is there something more…”
“He had Jarret transferred out of Worcester shortly after we recruited him. There's a possibility Harley knew the detective was unwell. Maybe he knew with what. Despite my organization's best-laid plans, Logan still ended up dead or as near as was possible before we could close the trap. Viruñas had an advantage.”
The chill breeze was beginning to numb Clare's hands. She moved back to the car. “I'm getting out of this wind. This place reeks of death.”
Getting in, she pulled the door to with a loud 'clunk'. Terrick and Dominic continued to talk outside, the conversation appearing to become animated as the sheriff waved his hands about. Clare watched from under drooping eyelids, not even trying to listen.
“Hey,” Dominic's gentle voice said.
Clare started. “What?”
“You dropped off there.”
Clare looked around. She was inside the car. Terrick was still outside, stood a few metres toward the skeletal treeline, looking away from them. “What'd I miss?”
“Just the conclusion of our heated debate about what's best for you. From my point of view I'll be honest; I want to see this thing captured or dead. I won't beat about the bush here, Clare. You are the best chance, perhaps the only chance to see that come to pass. It's not about the person for me, even though it's you. It's about some unholy creature killing innocents. It's about seeing an end to the murder.”
“And Terrick? His view is somewhat more protective.”
“The sheriff would see you in hospital right now, on an intravenous drip of insulin and fluids. He's right to want that for you. He's a good guy, going out of his way to protect one of his own. But he understands duty. He knows both the gravity of the situation and the next step you need to take should your resolve be adamant.”
“It is. This man… this creature killed my parents. I need to find it, look it in the eye, and ask what they did to deserve death. Was it personal or was he just hungry? Perhaps you both need to consider that I know what's best for me.”
Clare emerged from the Chrysler, aching. She moved with next to no sound, the hushed whisper of the wind through dead trees the only noise. The cold made the backs of her fingers prickle as the blood rushed to withdraw from her extremities. She shivered, wrapping her arms about her body.
Terrick made no movement to indicate he knew she was there. “If this is about vengeance, we part ways right here. I'll not get involved in a blood feud between you and some skulking nastiness.”
“Yet if you could do something to make a difference? If you could stand up and say 'I count. I'm that person who is going to stand between you and them. They will live on because I'm gonna do my darndest to make sure you don't succeed and they die, even if it costs my life.' Would you be that person?”
Terrick didn't reply. Clare understood why. “I know you already are. What I've come to realize is I can be that person too. There are people depending on me. Strangers I will probably never meet. Two more people have a chance at life in this moment. Who knows how many more would be saved in the future if we stop this now? Six more? Sixty? Six hundred?”
Terrick turned to her. “And what are you doing about Harley?”
“He's tied up in this, for sure. If these people refuse to finger him after everything, I'm not gonna go after him directly. If we find any evidence that implicates him, so be it. This is not about personal vengeance.”
“No?”
“Not any more. It was once but there are bigger issues.”
“Well if you ain't gonna go all Inigo Montoya on him, I guess I can help you a little further.”
Clare stuck her left thumb up behind her back so that Dominic could see. “Now's not the time for spur of the moment heroics, girl. You need a plan. It has to be well-conceived, thoroughly considered with every possible weakness eradicated. This is your life we are talkin' about and if
I'm on board, you'll not be losing it on my watch.”
“I have a plan,” Clare admitted. “Don't know about flawless but it's not gonna put me out here in the wilderness to die on my own. Let's get in the warm and we can discuss it on the way to wherever we're going.”
Clare turned with Terrick to find Dominic stood by the open passenger door. “This is where we part ways,” she said with a smile.
“Why?”
“This is my journey, Dominic. I'd love it if we meet again, but we can't catch this creature out in the wilderness. Look what happened to Logan. If anything that's proof you just gave Viruñas too much space to vanish. We need to trap it in an environment it has a much harder chance of avoiding detection. Plus, you have your hands full with Logan and Alden. Allow me to do this. My way.”
Dominic nodded. “Okay, so you're gonna try and pull it back into the city? We tried trapping it before. You think you stand a better chance?”
“Exactly. With surveillance technology as advanced as it now is, we can track it. I know exactly where to focus our efforts.”
“Will you do me a favour before you go back? There are some people I'd like you to meet who can help you with your plan. It is on the way to Worcester. With the increased police presence due to the prison situation, they might be able to help you get back in undetected.”
“Where are these people?”
Dominic nodded toward Terrick. “He knows. He'll see you there safely. In the meantime, I've stocked you with as much relevant reading material as possible. You don't want to get caught in possession of that, by the way. It's somewhat incriminating.”
A leather briefcase sat on the backseat, alongside a holstered gun. “What's that for?”
Dominic smiled. “In case you ever need use of a gun that can actually fire. I don't know where you got that hand-cannon you waved at me but had you loaded it and squeezed the trigger, you'd have more likely blown your own hand off. It was in dreadful condition. That's a Walther P99 right there. It has minimal recoil and is already loaded. If you point and squeeze, you might actually hit something.”
“See her safe,” Dominic instructed Terrick, who nodded. To Clare he said, “I'll be watching. If you're sure you're up to the task, good luck.”
Terrick turned the car and began to head back toward Ashby once Clare was secured in the passenger seat. She still felt weary but that was never going to leave her. It was the kind of weariness that one didn't mind, like a child waking up too early on Christmas Day. Clare had direction and purpose. More than that, she had a deadline. In her case, it was literal. If she didn't draw Viruñas out soon she'd be too incapacitated to do anything about the remaining killings. She might fail and become another Logan.
“Are you havin' doubts?” Terrick asked.
“No. Not at all. Any conflict in my mind was cleared up the moment I saw Jarret Logan. I won't become a victim like him. Or my parents. Now's not the time for that. Let's find these people and see what they have to offer.”
Clare looked out the window for a moment. The white 'Welcome to Ashby' sign flashed past. “You sure we're going the right way?”
“Yeah. The place Dominic told me about is off a road to the south. Keep yer head down and we'll be through here in no time.”
“Let's hope so.” She reached over to the backseat of the Chrysler, the pale-gray leather of the passenger seat creaking as she hauled the case through to the front. Flicking the clasps open, she cross-checked mental notes she had made at Logan's lodge. Dates, names and as many previous victims as she could recall. Inside lay several laminated folders marked 'Special Investigation File.' She gathered the top two and closed the case, placing it in the foot well.
Clare stared at the dates on the recovered police files, noting the expected similarities. They were onto it in a big way.
Terrick took a right. The sudden change in direction caught at her stomach, reminding her she had overeaten. Closing her eyes, she took a series of deep, slow breaths.
“You ok?”
“Can we stop somewhere along here? I want to get through these files before we lose the opportunity.”
Terrick nodded, muttering under his breath, “Barely started and already we stop.”
Clare smiled inside. Terrick would know this was important.
A couple of minutes later a huge lake came into view on their right, stretching off to a distant treeline, the surface calm and undisturbed by the breeze that had made the skeletal forest so unappealing. Terrick pulled off the highway onto a dirt track, a couple of scrawny pines the only thing between them and the water. Clare looked out the window; they were so close to the lake's edge it gave the impression of disappearing under the car.
Across the road, what seemed the entire population of Ashby had gathered at a street-fair; the scent of spiced chicken wafted toward her, mixed with the sweet smell of cinnamon on waffles. Clare's stomach flipped and she gulped down what was left of her bottle of water, draining it in one go. Trying to ignore the travel sickness, she continued.
The two kids who died here ten years ago were killed just before the transfer of Jarret Logan. “These records all tie in with the last round of deaths, including my parents. Yet nobody at Worcester has ever mentioned Logan…”
“You think Harley's people'd let on if there was a grand conspiracy?”
“The file Tina copied: It's here. The author of the report is a John Hope on this version, not Jarret Logan.”
“Who? You think it's the same man?”
“I believe so.”
“That means someone on high has been messin' with these reports.”
Terrick was right. Anybody party to this would be deep in cahoots with Harley.
“This report seems to say that somebody responsible for the mishandling of the investigation had been relocated. There's more at play here than just covering tracks.”
“Harley,” Clare said aloud, banging her fist on the plastic dash. The captain's influence amongst his peers reached for many miles, far out of Worcester. Clare knew her prejudice against the man was likely to colour her views, yet what other answer was there? Four kids this time, you evil son of a bitch. Twelve on record, who knows how many more before that? He might not be directly responsible for the killing but he was damned-well responsible for keeping the facts from the public, leaving nothing more than whispers and rumours. Indirectly or not he was hiding the killer, this abhorrent monster that drained kids dry, from detection and ultimately justice.
But why keep her close? Then it hit her.
“Because when the time is right, I will conveniently disappear, another unsolved mystery,” she said aloud, causing an old lady who was passing by to stop and stare at her before scuffing on up the sidewalk. “Don't you see? Harley is hiding somebody and doing his darndest to make sure there's no paper trail. I think I know why the Ashby cops were waiting for us. I'll bet somebody was coming up here to make sure I suffered a similar fate to Detective Logan. Somebody, or something.”
Chapter Twenty
“We'd better get goin”', said Terrick. “The longer we wait here the more chance they'll see us. You feelin' better?”
“I'll live.”
Terrick waited for her to put the files away before starting the car once more and moving off. The street fair continued unaffected by the loitering of strangers and the last suggestion of Ashby was soon out of sight behind them.
Clare settled back to wait as Terrick drove them down the road. The car bumped across repeated cracks in the asphalt, the yellow markings barely visible. The dense forest was interspersed with areas of stagnant pooled water, more dead trees clawing through, as if once again desperate for life. The sun shone down on these areas, attempting to give them beauty through light. Clare was dazzled by the reflection. She imagined a creature with glowing eyes, grinning as it slathered over an immobilized victim. Clare imagined how the children must have felt before they were drugged into insensibility and it twisted her insides.
“Are
we far away?”
“I ain't tellin',” Terrick replied with a smile. “Sometimes, you just gotta trust that the right decisions been made, and go along with it. Destiny forms part of belief, girl. Have faith in a bigger plan and acceptance of both the plan as well as your place within it. Just trust that I'll get us there. It's not far.”
“I can't wait. I've had enough of driving through forests.”
Terrick's face gave nothing away, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. What wasn't he telling her? He remained silent.
In time, the tedious forest road became interspersed with signs declaring their impending arrival in the town of Fitchburg. Clare knew little about the place, except that the residents were heavily devout. And so it proved to be. Even on the outskirts of the town, placards had been placed in neatly-trimmed flower borders proclaiming obedience to God, adherence to His Word and the damnation of those who would not. Other than the abundance of religion, the town was much like any other. Stars and Stripes hung from every available flagpole, three-story buildings loomed about the centre of town, worn at the edges but cared for. Newly-painted window frames gleamed in the bright sunlight, standing in stark contrast to crumbling red brickwork. Weeds sprouted from cracks in a worn path within stepping distance of a glorious fountain erected in His honor. People traversed sidewalks, cars filled the roads. It was nothing out of the ordinary, except for the sign on the church.
Terrick had reached the middle of the town and was waiting to cross what passed for the main junction in the town, where three highways met when she first spied it. The hall was red brick walls filled with huge arched windows and set off with a grand white spire. The parishioners of this particular church clearly knew they were the centre of town. A majestic and yet pride-filled building that seemed to say, 'There are other churches, but this is the church.' They passed around the front, revealing both the name, The First Unitarian, and a sign.
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