Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “Mikayla Johnson.” Lyle didn’t like where this was going.

  “Yeah. Meanwhile, I got a visit from one of LaMar’s enforcers, a guy who helps run the North Country operation. He tells me to let him know when information surfaces about the kid, because he knows her, and he can take care of the problem discreetly. Not that that’s the word he used. The guy’s got the mental capacity of a fucking four-year-old.”

  “So when Sullivan came to you, you set up a meeting.”

  Davies spread his hands. “I trusted the guy to perform according to his assurances. I mean, he was way ahead of the curve, otherwise. He knew about the kid before LaMar got the word out. How was I to know he’d get totally tweaked on meth and set a fucking house on fire? Discreet, my ass.”

  “Who was it, Davies?” Lyle tried not to let his disgust for the man show in his voice. “Who was the enforcer you sent Sullivan to?”

  “I set up the meet with Annie Johnson’s boyfriend. Travis Roy.”

  12.

  Walking on water. Clare kept that phrase centered in her mind, even though their trek across the lake was more like slogging over broken glass. She trusted Russ to navigate, keeping her eyes on her next footfall.

  Clare was in the zone, all movement, no thought, so she almost yipped in surprise when Russ stopped. “What is it?”

  “We’re getting close enough to worry about someone spotting us. We’re going to hug the shore from here on in.”

  It was even harder going close to the land. Snow had accumulated on the edge of the ice, and the surface was littered with twigs.

  She couldn’t see anything past the screen of evergreens blocking the next property. Russ stopped again. “Now what?” she asked.

  Russ glanced up at the lowering sky. “Now we wait. I don’t want to make our move until well after dark.”

  “Wait where?”

  He turned and grinned wolfishly at her. “In there.” He pointed toward the house in front of them, abutting the lake.

  “Are you sure?” She floundered through the snow after him, breaking holes with her boots, then kicking free. Russ was already up on the front porch. “How are you going to—”

  He lifted one leg and smashed the heel of his boot into the door. It popped open as if it had been on an automatic timer. “Like that,” he said.

  “Oh.” She climbed up the steps and followed him inside. They were in a large cathedral-ceilinged room, with a galley kitchen toward the rear and a loft overhead. Chairs, sofas, and a large table were all swathed with mismatched sheets—someone’s third-best bedding demoted to dust covers. It was as cold inside as it had been out.

  “I’m going to see if they left any comforters or quilts behind.” Russ headed upstairs to the loft. “The electricity may still be on. Check the stove.”

  The fact that the burners began to glow when Clare cranked their controls felt like the best thing that had happened to her since the start of her honeymoon. Her happiness was complete when Russ returned with several heavy blankets. They were itchy and smelled of mildew, but she didn’t care. They sat in front of the open oven door, tented in wool, Oscar collapsed in front of them.

  For a while they sat in silence, soaking up the warmth. Clare’s legs felt twitchy, as if they were still shifting and balancing as she moved over the pockmarked surface of the lake. Ice legs, instead of sea legs. She stretched and flexed.

  Russ unzipped the day pack and handed her a bottle of water and a sandwich. “Don’t say I never take you out for dinner.” His tone was light. Beneath it, she heard Please let’s just forget what I said earlier.

  She made her voice playful. “Where’s my linen napkin?” Okay. Let’s move forward.

  He stood up. “I don’t know about that, but there may be a roll of paper towels left behind.” There was a tall, narrow cupboard next to the refrigerator.

  “I was just kidding. I don’t need—”

  He opened it. Inside, she could see spice jars, mustard, breadcrumbs—the everlasting cooking condiments people always had in their pantries. And booze. A shelf of booze. Gin, vodka, spiced rum, Jaeger—she was still counting when Russ shut the door.

  “Sorry.” His voice was gentle. “Nothing there we can use.”

  She swallowed. Stared at the glowing orange elements inside the oven. Weighed her next words. “Do you ever stop wanting a drink?” she finally asked.

  He sat down again. “Yeah. After a time, it’s not even the memory of a habit anymore, so you don’t think about it all that much. You can see a bottle or be around other people drinking and it doesn’t affect you. It’s just something you don’t do.”

  “Do you ever want a drink?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sometimes I’ve had a real good day, and there’s a game I’m looking forward to on the tube, and I’m kicked back in my chair and I’ll think, Man, I wish I had a cold beer.” He slanted a look at her. “But I can’t have a beer. With me, it’s twelve or nothing. So far, I keep choosing nothing.”

  She had the uneasy feeling she wasn’t choosing not to drink so much as making sure she didn’t have a choice.

  “Clare, about what I said—”

  “It’s okay, Russ. We’ve gone from a honeymoon to a scene out of Deliverance in the past four days. You were stressed. People say things.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—you know I’d rather stab myself with a fork than make you feel bad.”

  She reached out from beneath her blanket and took his hand. She noticed he didn’t say anything about being wrong, or it not being true. She felt a kick inside. Then another. The baby, lulled to sleep during their hike, had awakened. She didn’t mention it to Russ. For the first time, she was scared. Not for her safety or her employment prospects, not even for the baby’s health. Scared that she had broken something between the two of them and she wouldn’t be able to fix it.

  13.

  They left their unknown benefactor’s house well after dark. The plan was simple: Clare would pass Roy’s cabin, staying on the lake side. She and Oscar would keep on past the next three houses, then climb up to the road and wait for Russ. If anything happened to him, she was to get off the road and keep traveling toward Cooper’s Corners until she got a cell phone signal or found help.

  Meanwhile, Russ would circumnavigate the other three sides, using his rifle’s sight to peer into the windows. If the truck was nearby, he’d take it, picking up Clare on the fly. If not, they would hike out together.

  Clare had argued against that last part. Why tip Roy off with the sound of a truck leaving when they could walk to the nearest inhabited home without him knowing?

  “Because we don’t know where the nearest inhabited home is,” Russ said, wedging a shim beneath the door he had kicked open. “We know things were bad this morning when Bob got here. It’s got to be much worse by now. If the power’s gone at Cooper’s Corners, the people living there may already have cleared out. Better we’re able to drive for help.” He tested the door to see if it would stay shut. “I’m not as good at hot-wiring cars as I am with breaking and entering.”

  He had insisted she take the Maglite, and she accepted. It was pitch black outside; the heavy clouds dropping their load of icy misery blocked out any trace of moon or starlight. Without the flashlight, she probably would have stumbled and fallen a dozen times before drawing even with Roy’s house. She couldn’t imagine how Russ was making out among all the trees.

  She could easily see which house was inhabited. The windows shone bright and cheerful, a promise of warmth and safety that wasn’t true. She kept close to the edge of the shore as she passed, ready to douse the flashlight and freeze if she saw any movement in one of the windows.

  And there it was. She stopped where she was, switching off the light and sliding it into her pocket. She held herself still. Someone inside, with light-adapted vision, would notice movement if they saw anything in the rainy dark. She thought she heard a scraping noise coming from the house, but that might have been an ice-laden branch, ready
to fall. The shape at the window moved—ducked, maybe?—and then Clare could see what the noise had been. Someone had slid the sash up, opening the window to the freezing night.

  Clare waited, unmoving, her hand wrapped around the flashlight. Was this an escape attempt? Had the inhabitants of the house heard Russ somehow? Or was it just a smoker, clearing out the room?

  The figure in the window vanished. Clare stood there, counting in her head. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. No shots, no shouts, and no one making an unauthorized exit. She shifted her weight and walked on slowly, taking each step with care. She had gone only a few feet before she realized Oscar was no longer at her side. She spun around.

  In the faint glow of the window’s light, Clare could see the dog galloping up the incline toward the house. He bucked through the crusted snow, the sound of cracking ice and scrabbling nails half-hidden by the rain’s percussion. “Oscar!” she hissed. “Oscar! No!”

  Reaching the open window, the dog reared up on his hind legs. His head was just below the ledge. He began barking, a booming, full-throated bark that could have been heard all the way across the lake.

  “Oscar!” Clare yelled. “Oscar, come!” He ignored her, barking and scratching at the house’s shingles. She took one step toward the house, then another. For a second, she struggled with the urge to run up and retrieve him. Except there wouldn’t be any fast-and-out through the heavy snow and its icy cover. She would have to leave him behind. She opened her mouth to try one last time—

  “Oscar!” Even over the dog’s excited barking, Clare could hear the little-girl voice. There was another figure in the window, small, reaching out with one hand. “Oscar!”

  Mikayla Johnson. Clare was headed up the slope before she could think about it. She floundered through the ice and snow, threatening to pitch forward with every stride, boots sinking and catching, breath sawing, heart pounding. She lurched into the side of the house, slapping the window ledge. “Mikayla! Mikayla Johnson!”

  A small pinched face leaned out. The girl had a tangle of black hair and huge eyes. Even with her face in shadow from the lights inside, Clare could see the bright red of fever.

  “Did you bring Oscar?” As if Clare’s arrival was what he’d been clamoring for, the dog stopped barking. He sat in the snow, his tail wagging.

  “I did. Honey, we have to get you out of there. Quickly.”

  “Did Ted and Helen send you?”

  Oh, God. Clare wasn’t going to start by lying. “I’m helping the police. Climb through the window, Mikayla. You need your medicine.”

  The girl shook her head. “The police are bad.”

  “No, honey, I promise they’re not. Let me help you so you don’t feel sick. Climb through the window.”

  “I don’t have a coat.”

  Clare unzipped her parka and pulled it off. “I’ll give you mine. Hurry, honey, hurry.”

  The girl pressed her lips together. Then, decision made, she hoisted herself over the window ledge. Clare reached up. “I’ll catch you.” Mikayla let go. Clare’s knees nearly buckled—eight-year-olds were a lot heavier than she had assumed—but she wrapped her coat tightly around the girl and reeled backward. She could feel Mikayla’s feverish heat despite the thickness of her sweater. She turned and staggered downslope, Oscar bounding alongside her.

  For a moment, she thought the shot was another tree splitting. Then her mind registered the high-pitched echo of a gun, and she broke into a clumsy run. Get into the trees. Hide in the dark. Just a few more yards.

  “Stop right there!” Another shot cracked and whined. “Next one goes in your back!”

  She stopped. Mikayla clung to her like a lost hope, arms and legs cinched around Clare’s neck and waist. For a second, she thought, Drop her and run. They wanted Mikayla, not her. She could escape, get help—then she realized that if the girl was out of harm’s way, the kidnappers would have no reason not to shoot her. She had no illusions about her ability to dodge a bullet.

  She turned around. “I’m unarmed,” she said loudly. “Please don’t hurt us.”

  She couldn’t make out the features of the man wading through the snow toward them, but he was big and broad-shouldered and armed with a rifle. Just like—Russ. Oh, God, love, keep on going. Keep on going and get help. Don’t come closer.

  “I’m not going to hurt her.” The man’s voice sounded disgusted. “Mikayla, what do you—”

  Another man rounded the corner of the house, barely visible as a silhouette against the window light. “What the hell’s going on back here? Can’t you—”

  Beside Clare, Oscar let out a growl that sounded more wolf than dog. He sprang through the snow and broken ice, snarling. Mikayla screamed. The man who had just been speaking let out a choked cry.

  “Oscar, no! No, Oscar, no!” Clare reflexively reached toward the dog careening through the snow. If this other guy was armed—

  Clare couldn’t see him raise his gun, but she heard the loud report, the echo, another report. Oscar yelped, twisted, veered away toward the direction of the unseen road.

  “Run, Oscar! Run!” Clare had no idea if he knew what the command meant, but she couldn’t keep from shouting it over and over again. The man Oscar had attacked fired one more round into the shadowy trees, but even from a distance Clare could tell that he hadn’t brought the dog down. “Thank God,” she whispered. “Thank God.”

  Mikayla was crying, her face buried in Clare’s sweater. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Oscar’s okay.”

  “That was scary!” Mikayla said tearfully.

  “Yes it was.”

  Then the big guy plucked the girl out of Clare’s arms and settled her on his hip. He pointed the rifle at Clare with his other hand. “Don’t get any ideas.” He was coatless and hatless, his head shaved, with full-sleeve tattoos visible beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his flannel shirt.

  The other man floundered downslope and joined them. He had taken the time to put on a parka and toque before leaving the house. Slighter than the man holding Mikayla, but still not anyone Clare would like to tackle in her ungainly state. The dark mustache and chin beard circling his mouth made him look like Evil Mr. Spock. “Missed the bastard.” He had sounded incongruously laid-back, like a surfer lost in the Adirondacks. “Shoulda shot him back at the foster home.”

  “Shut up.” The tattooed man nodded toward Clare. “What are we going to do about her?”

  The bearded man stepped closer. “She must be the one who brought Amber. Her and the cop.” He waved his semiautomatic at her. “Where is he?”

  “Cooper’s Corners,” she lied. “I was supposed to stay in the cottage next door and let him know which way you went if you left.”

  “Shit.” The bearded man half-turned away from her. “We’re in it now.”

  “We were in it the minute you decided to go off-script at the damn foster house.”

  “That’s not going to be a problem. There’s no evidence left. Having the po-po running around in our backyard, that’s a problem. You shoulda shot him when you had the chance.”

  Mikayla made a whimpering sound. “Shut up.” The tattooed man glared at the other guy and hoisted the girl higher against his chest. “You’re scaring Mikayla.”

  “She’s sick,” Clare said. “She needs her immunosuppressant drugs. Please, let me get her help.”

  The man turned on her. “I know she’s sick, lady. I’m going to get her medicine as soon as I can.”

  “How? Do you think a doctor’s going to hand over a bunch of prescriptions to her kidnapper?”

  The bearded man barked a laugh. “You’re ballsy.” He looked at the tattooed man, still smiling. “Want me to do her?”

  “No. Jesus, will you think first for once? What good would that do?”

  The bearded man shrugged. “She won’t be annoying you.”

  “Let’s just get her into the house, okay? Before I turn into a goddamn Popsicle out here?”

  “All right. All right.” The bearded man gestured with h
is gun. “Up you go.”

  The men flanked her, one on each side. It was bad strategically, because if they had to fire, they were more likely to cross each other’s line. It was fine in practice, though, because she knew she couldn’t get more than a couple of yards away in this snow. She was trying to figure out a way to avoid going into the cabin, and drawing a blank. She wished she knew what Russ would do when she didn’t show up at the rendezvous point on the road. They hadn’t discussed that possibility. Stupid. Every backup plan needs its own backup plan, her survival school instructor, “Hardball” Wright, drawled in her ear.

  As with their cabin, the door opened onto a roomy kitchen. Inside, the bearded man gestured with his gun. “Take off your boots. And your coat.”

  “I’m cold,” she lied. She could hear the furnace blowing, keeping the house toasty warm. The overhead light seemed almost too bright after the kerosene lanterns at her cabin.

  “Do I look like I care? You’re not getting the chance to split out the door first thing my back’s turned. Take ’em off.”

  “Wait.” The big guy kicked the door closed and set Mikayla down. “Go back to your room, baby. And shut that window.”

  “But I’m hot,” Mikayla said.

  “Shut the window. I’ll bring you an ice pack for your head.” He gave her a swat on the bottom that straddled the line between playful and threatening. Mikayla left the room. He turned toward the bearded man. “I been thinking. What if the cop hasn’t cleared out for the Corners?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, would you leave your pregnant wife behind all alone in a freezing lake house?”

  The bearded guy looked baffled. “I dunno. Maybe?”

  The big guy shook his head. “He’s onto us.” He jerked his thumb toward Clare. “She said she was supposed to keep an eye on us. That means she already knew something.”