Missing in Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  He walked around the house, peering at every possible place that cat could have gotten herself stuck. Troubling him, however, was that he didn’t hear a single mew. If the cat was in trouble, it should be calling for help. They usually did.

  A gust of wind caught him, reminding him the weather was about to turn bad and the cat must be found, Maine coon or not.

  Sighing, he started to survey the area around the house. A culvert, maybe? But coyotes could get in there. Ruffles didn’t seem like the kind of cat that would allow herself to be cornered.

  Then he spied a big old cottonwood, bare of leaves for the winter, but still high enough to attract a climber. Giving a mental shrug because he’d never known a cat to get stuck in a tree—they always seemed to find a way down, usually by jumping—he started to walk that way anyway. He’d made a promise.

  As he walked, he scanned the ground almost out of habit. He could read the tracks of animals that had wandered through here before the winter had hardened the earth to cement.

  Yeah, lots of coyotes, he saw. A wolf? Maybe, although they usually came in packs. Probably someone’s stray dog. Cat tracks, mountain lions. They didn’t usually come down out of the mountains this far, but one of them would be big enough to give Ruffles a bad time.

  Then he saw a scrap of pink cloth. Just a torn scrap, but a different color from the one from last night’s stuffed rabbit. Bending, he looked at it, then scanned the area around. Nothing for over a mile. Still...

  First he took a photo with his cell phone, crouching close. Then, touching the scrap only with his glove, he picked it up and tucked it in a seldom-used breast pocket on his jacket. Screw DNA, he guessed, but if he left it here it would blow away. Probably a useless exercise anyway.

  Standing again, he continued his trek toward the tree. It was beautiful in the spring and summer, when it was all leafed out. Worthy of photographing. Right now it looked like a bunch of skeletal fingers, something he didn’t want to think about.

  If that cloth in his pocket had come from one of the missing teens... No way to know. Pink fabric was everywhere, and where could anyone be out here? Mrs. Jackson would know what was in her basement, and she wasn’t likely to be involved in a kidnapping.

  Still, he’d bring it to the sheriff’s attention. Maybe they’d want to look around more out here. In case.

  And all the cases were ugly.

  “Ruffles.” He called for the cat, hoping to see a huge Maine coon come running out of the sagebrush. No such luck. A big tumbleweed came at him, though, brushing by before the wind died again.

  It was then he thought he heard a faint sound. “Ruffles?”

  Another gust snatched it away and he froze, waiting to hear it again. He needed to locate it, and one sound wasn’t enough out here. Sounds, he’d long ago learned since moving here, could be terribly deceptive in the wide-open spaces. Almost as bad as when they echoed among the rocks of mountains.

  He resumed his march toward the cottonwood but kept scanning the ground. Where there was one pink piece of cloth, there might be another. There might even be a trail.

  Like bread crumbs in Hansel and Gretel, he thought with sour amusement. Yeah, they should be so lucky. Those girls should be that lucky. Damn near three weeks now, and he was holding out very little hope.

  He’d had to stop by the Episcopalian church two days ago, a tiny little building, to help the pastor with a barn owl that seemed to be caught in the belfry. While he was there he’d seen Jane’s mother lighting a candle. Lighting a candle. It was enough to tear out a man’s heart.

  But hope endured, somehow. That woman hadn’t given up but by now she must be wondering if God was even listening.

  He reached the foot of the cottonwood and saw the ground had been ripped up. Coyotes. Then he heard another, faint mew.

  Looking up, he saw Ruffles, her flecked brown coat blending well with the tree branches. Well, that explained a lot, he thought. Coyotes had treed the cat and she was afraid to come down. Must have been a pack of them or she’d have used her claws and teeth and sent them packing.

  “Hey, Ruffles,” he said in a soothing tone. “Rescue has arrived. Wanna come down?”

  Because he sure didn’t want to climb that tree. Winter slumber had probably made a lot of branches brittle, and there didn’t look to be many really strong limbs positioned for a man to climb.

  But the cat, like most cats, had a problem. She couldn’t back down the tree. Cats just wouldn’t do that. They had to see where they were going.

  “Come on,” he said. “You don’t want to be the first cat I’ve ever seen who couldn’t get out of a tree. I bet there’s a can of food waiting for you right now. Aren’t you cold?”

  Talking to a cat. Okay, he was crazy, but at least it was harmless crazy. Anyway, hearing his voice, Ruffles appeared to be relaxing a bit. No coyotes were going to come if the man was here. He just hoped she realized that.

  He was also glad this wasn’t their first encounter. Ruffles knew him so she had no reason to fear him. He wasn’t a stranger. Given the solitude in which Mrs. Jackson lived, there probably weren’t a whole lot of people whom Ruffles knew and would trust.

  “Come on, sweetie. Did those mean coyotes scare you? I wouldn’t have thought they could tree you like this. You prefer life on the ground, don’t you?”

  Maine coons were definitely not tree cats, preferring to be on the solid earth, but Ruffles must have been terribly scared to perch herself up there.

  Not knowing what else to do, he unzipped his jacket and spread his arms invitingly, ignoring the cold and hoping he looked like a safe landing place.

  Ruffles looked in every direction, assessing threats, he assumed. Then her green eyes fixed on him again. Much to his relief, she started to ease her way down. Not easy, headfirst, and she froze often, as if uncertain of her purchase.

  Then, in one daring leap, she jumped down on him. He just managed to catch her, feeling her claws trying to dig in through his sweater, and hold her close. Those green eyes stared at him, then a purr told him most of what he needed to know.

  Good. He grabbed a flap of his jacket and wrapped it over her. Then he spied some flecks of blood, almost invisible on her mottled coat. Hell, those coyotes had gotten a piece of her.

  “I’ll get you fixed up,” he told her soothingly. “Bet you’d never guess I have a first aid kit for animals in my truck, would you? But I do. Some safe antiseptic. If you get to licking your coat, it won’t sicken you. I think of everything, don’t I?”

  Ruffles’s purr grew louder. Happy cat. All was well. For the cat and Mrs. Jackson at least.

  * * *

  RUFFLES HAD SOME scratches and had lost a few tufts of fur but no apparent bite marks, even though he and Mrs. Jackson went over every inch of her. Of course, that thick coat of hers had probably protected her from worse. Once he’d put the antiseptic on her, Al went down into the basement and checked out the heater. Everything appeared to be in working order, and the battery in the carbon monoxide detectors both in the basement and upstairs appeared to be reasonably fresh. He found some new ones in a drawer and changed them out anyway.

  Her cupboard wasn’t exactly overloaded with food, but she had considerably more than a can of beans. She’d be able to heat food on her propane stove.

  Then, as she sat in her rocking chair with a now-happy Ruffles in her lap, he squatted before her.

  “The storm is going to get very bad, Mrs. Jackson. No one can say for sure how many days you might be cut off from the world after it passes through. Would you rather I take you and Ruffles to the church shelter?”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine. Besides, I was born in this house and if I’m going to die, I’d rather do it here. Been through bad storms before, Al. We’ll do all right.”

  He nodded. “Just call if you need anything. I’ll find a way to get here. Promise me?”<
br />
  “I promise.”

  He had to be satisfied with that, he supposed. Then he hit the road again, wondering if he should take the scrap of cloth directly to the sheriff or wait until he finished his rounds.

  Damned if he knew what use it would be, but maybe he ought to just turn it in. It felt almost as if it were burning a hole in his breast pocket.

  So at the end of the driveway, he turned back toward town. The eerie light had changed and become purely leaden.

  Winter was about to do her worst.

  Chapter Ten

  Day 20

  “That piece of cloth has been gone for more than a day,” Jane remarked wearily. “I told you it wouldn’t do any good.”

  “I think we should try another one.”

  “You would. Don’t you ever give up?”

  Chantal struggled until she could reach her friend’s hand. “What’s the point in giving up?” she asked, her voice raspy. “At least we’re trying everything we can. Better than just waiting to die.”

  Which was what they seemed to be doing. As far as they knew, the guy hadn’t come back. The water supply was diminishing. The food bars had become a smaller pile. Jane mentioned rationing what they had, but neither of them had the brainpower left to figure out how.

  They just resorted to sharing the food bars when they absolutely had to eat and taking only small sips from the water bottles.

  “You haven’t given up either,” Chantal said. “If you had you’d finish the water or food.”

  Jane was silent for what seemed like a long time. “It’s night out there,” she said finally. Her voice sounded rusty. “Night. You hear the wind? Bad weather.”

  Indeed Chantal could hear the wind. Whatever cracks this place possessed often whistled from it.

  “That’s why the cloth blew away.”

  “Then let’s try a piece of my sweater instead of my undershirt. It’s thicker. It’ll jam in better.”

  “And unravel.”

  “God, don’t be so down. I can tie off the threads. I’m a knitter, remember? I made this darn sweater.”

  “At least it’s bright green.”

  “Most visible color in the spectrum,” Chantal mumbled, remembering her physics class. “Chartreuse. Okay. It might take me a while, but I’ll unravel enough to stick in the crack.”

  “Better than doing nothing, I suppose.”

  Yeah, it was, thought Chantal. She was so weary she had to struggle to keep her eyes open, and she couldn’t seem to stop shivering. Shivering was a good thing, right?

  She twisted, crying out once as her wrists screamed, but she got hold of the bottom of her sweater near the seam. She’d made that seam, she could unmake it.

  Then they were going to fly another little flag.

  * * *

  REVE THOUGHT OF the girls in the cellar a mile or so from his house, but with the storm coming and the roads covered with cops doing welfare checks, he decided it would be smart to leave them alone. They’d either make it or they wouldn’t.

  Since Spence had shot off his fool mouth, though, Reve had been questioning if he’d been wise to abduct those girls so close to home.

  He’d had his eye on them for a while, of course. Bright shiny faces, youthful healthy bodies. He saw them in church when he felt like going and then he’d heard they were planning a New Year’s get-together at the tavern.

  It had seemed like a golden opportunity to stop dreaming and start enjoying his fantasies in real life. He was good at planning, too. He’d even managed to slip them just enough of the drug that they’d been able to get out to their car and start driving home.

  It would have been hopeless if they’d passed out in the bar. Instead they had grown cautious because they weren’t feeling well and finally had drifted off the road as easily as they fell asleep.

  A great plan, one leaving no tracks that would lead to him. But the first one had proved to be a mistake, and now the other two had been in that basement for so long that the smell was sour when he opened the storm doors.

  He wasn’t sure he even wanted them anymore. Yeah, they could shower, but that wasn’t going to put meat back on them. At his last check a few days ago, they’d looked almost like skeletons.

  He didn’t find them attractive anymore. What was he going to do? Drag their submissive, weakened butts out of the hole and fatten them up again? Hoping they’d be grateful to him? That they wouldn’t act like the first one once they got a little energy back?

  Much as he hated to admit it, despite everything he’d done right, he’d messed up. He should never have taken all three at once. He shouldn’t have done it so close to home, not when a so-called friend like Spence was going to shoot off his mouth.

  He tried to tell himself that Spence had merely diverted attention with his behavior. After all, no cop would expect the kidnapper to draw attention to himself.

  But maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe the guilty often liked to needle the cops. Hell, he’d read about how many guys had been caught simply because they couldn’t avoid going back to the scene of the crime to watch. To enjoy their own handiwork.

  He for sure wasn’t that dumb. Hence finding a place far enough away, long enough abandoned, that it didn’t look as if anything could possibly live in there except some rats and ground squirrels. It wasn’t even on his property. No one could conceivably know that he’d shored up the root cellar to make a small prison.

  He hadn’t even had to buy any materials for the job. His long-gone family had left enough crap in his barn that he could probably build an ark for Noah. The thought amused him while the TV, with a snowy picture as usual, blathered on about how bad the storm was going to be.

  At least he didn’t have to go to work at the garage. His boss, Keeb Dustin, had told him to stay home. After the storm they’d probably work around the clock trying to jump-start dead batteries and repair bent fenders and snapped belts. The cold, this kind of cold, was cruel to cars.

  And then there’d be the tows. A lot of people might well get stuck trying to get out of their own driveways, especially outside town. Or stuck in ditches because it was a strange fact that every single year people needed to learn to drive on snow all over again, and this would be the first snow this year.

  So yeah, he’d be plenty busy for a few days after the storm. He might even pick up a few hours driving a plow if they got really buried.

  Which left the girls. And leaving them was just about what he’d convinced himself to do. Too much trouble. Try another time. Learn from this and move on.

  Hell, the cold from this storm would probably kill them in a few hours, and damned if he was going to drag them out of their hiding places and bring them here. Just his luck some cop, like that Kelly Noveno, would stop by to check on him and one of those damn teens would start screaming her fool head off.

  Leave them, he thought. Let nature take care of them.

  There were plenty more where they came from.

  * * *

  AL TURNED IN the scrap of cloth he’d found while rescuing Ruffles and Gage slipped it into an evidence bag with tweezers before looking it over. “Did you record where you found this?”

  Al pulled out his cell phone and showed him the information. “I got it all, including the GPS, but I don’t know what good it does us.”

  “Maybe nothing yet. Maybe nothing ever. But one of those girls was wearing a pink parka when she disappeared and this appears to be the right kind of nylon fabric. Then look, did you see the teeth marks?”

  Astonished, Al leaned forward for a closer look. “It was chewed,” he said.

  “Yeah, it was. Which is an odd thing to do with one’s parka, I have to say. Looks like it was deliberately ripped off.”

  Al’s heart stuttered to full speed. “Maybe I should look around some more near Mrs. Jackson’s. I didn’t see any buildings anywher
e near but...”

  Gage nodded. “Wind,” he said. “It’s lightweight.” Then he motioned Al over to a wall map of the county, one that was decorated with pushpins. “Here’s Mrs. Jackson’s place. Nearest structure is probably...five miles? There might be some old line shacks out there, but nothing that’s occupied. Wouldn’t hurt to look around some, if you feel like it.”

  Then Al’s radio clamored for his attention. A family of felines had been dumped by the state highway, spotted by a trucker who couldn’t stop for them. “I’ve gotta go,” he told Gage.

  “Yeah. I’ll think about this,” he said, indicating the swatch of fabric. “Maybe something will come to me.”

  “It better come soon. That storm is supposed to hit tomorrow night or the next morning.”

  Gage merely nodded. Because, of course, he already knew.

  * * *

  KELLY WATCHED THE sky thicken with threat and was glad she was out doing the rest of the welfare checks. The predictions for the storm had grown so much worse that sometimes entire families were telling her they were moving into town to stay with relatives and friends, or at one of the church shelters.

  Few wanted to be caught out here if something went wrong. One grizzled rancher wanted a few minutes of conversation and she was happy to provide it.

  “Can’t go into town,” he said. “I got me some forty cows in the barn I gotta look after. Thank the good Lord I could get them all in.”

  “Can someone stay with you?”

  He laughed. “I’m moving in with the cows. They’ll keep me warm as toast and I’ll have ice cream fresh from the tap.”

  She joined his laughter. “It is going to be bad.”

  “I reckon.” He looked up at the sky. “You can laugh if you want, Deputy Kelly, but I’ll tell you anyway. Spent my whole life out here. This ain’t normal weather we been having, not for a few years now. And this storm? Nothing like it ever before. Them folks can laugh at climate change all they want, but I’m living close to it and I see it. It’s not the same, not the way it was. So let ’em tell me it’s just one storm and doesn’t mean a hill of beans.”