Ominous

by Lisa Jackson

  Kat wheeled into the long drive of the Tate property, twin ruts of sparse gravel interspersed with potholes and dry weeds. The house, located on a small rise, wasn’t in great shape, though it seemed there had been some work done recently, as evidenced by the fresh rails on the porch and visible patches of new shingles on the roof.

  She parked and made her way up the path to knock on an already open door, only a screen blocking her entrance. “Shiloh?” she called, and a girl of about twelve, carrying a cell phone, appeared.

  “Who’re you?” she said through the screen.

  “I’m Katrina Starr. I work for the Sheriff’s Department, and I’m a friend of Shiloh’s,” Kat said showing her badge. “You must be Morgan.”

  The girl stared through the mesh at Kat’s ID. “Are you here to arrest her?”

  “No, just talk to her.”

  “Oh.” She almost looked disappointed. “She’s in the barn, around back.” She lifted the hook latch on the screen and motioned Kat toward a small living room and through a dining area to the kitchen, each room following after the other, shotgun style, or maybe like an older-model mobile home. At the rear of the house, Morgan pointed out another open door. “Out there,” she said.

  “Thanks.” Kat paused. “Nice to meet you, Morgan. I’m sorry about your mom.”

  The girl lifted a slim shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  No. No, it isn’t. It never is.

  Kat simply nodded and kept her thoughts to herself. There were no words of sympathy that would strike a chord.

  “You need me to show you the way?” Morgan asked.

  “If you want, but I see the barn.” She smiled at the tween. “I think I can find it.”

  Morgan’s phone jingled musically as a new text came in, and she turned her attention away from Kat and onto the small screen. Kat made her way past some outdoor furniture as she crossed the wide porch, then hurried down a few steps to the path, which led through an open gate. The yard was patchy, but sparse, mostly dry. The surrounding fields were much the same, the landscape dotted with a herd of horses trying to graze on dry grass near the barn.

  Kat noticed Shiloh standing next to Beau Tate. A dog lying in the sun next to him, Tate was working on a latch on one of the gates. The dog stood up as it heard Kat approach, and Shiloh looked around. She said something to Beau, who lifted his head from his task.

  “Hey. What’s up?” Shiloh asked.

  “Working a case. One of your neighbor girls is missing as of yesterday,” she said and saw Shiloh’s expression turn wary.

  “Missing?”

  “Addison Donovan. She’s eighteen, just graduated from high school and went out riding last evening.” Kat explained what she knew about the case, including how Addie’s horse had returned without her.

  “I remember the Donovans,” Shiloh said, hitching her thumb to the north.

  “Good people,” Beau said.

  Kat nodded. “We’ve checked the Croft property and every piece of land surrounding the Donovan ranch.”

  “You think she might have ridden over here? On my—er, our land?” She glanced at Beau.

  “Part of the western end of your property butts up to US Forest Service land, which is practically inaccessible due to the ravine. Lots of scrub brush and downed trees. There are a few tracks back there that a truck could probably make, but it’s always easiest to explore on foot or horseback. I thought we might check there.” She saw the skepticism in her friend’s eyes. “I know. It’s a long shot, but …”

  Shiloh inclined her head. “Whatever it takes. I’ll round up the horses.”

  “What about Morgan?” Beau asked and glanced at the back porch.

  “I don’t think she should come.” Shiloh glanced up at him, and something, some kind of understanding, passed between them, almost as if they were parents… or at least a couple.

  “I’ll see what she wants to do,” he said, squinting toward the porch and waving. “If she wants to ride, I’ll stick with her and pull up if we locate anything … disturbing. If she doesn’t want to come, she’ll have her phone, and Rambo will be here.”

  Kat eyed the shepherd, who wagged his tail at her. “Yeah, great guard dog.”

  Beau snorted. “Well, I was thinking more like he would keep her company. We’ll figure it out.”

  As it turned out, Morgan wouldn’t be left behind, and they all rode through the series of paddocks and fields while grasshoppers flew out of their path and the sun rode low in the western sky. At the edge of the government land, Beau opened the final gate, and all four horses filed through before he latched the fastener behind them and climbed astride his gelding once more. Single file, they guided their horses through the brush and around pines with low-hanging branches, along a deer trail that led to the bottom of the ravine. Far overhead, sunlight filtered through the canopy of trees, dappling the ground, where pinecones, sticks, and rocks littered the dry soil.

  They didn’t speak, just searched the gloom, looking for anything that might lead them to the missing girl, as they worked their way in the direction of the Croft property. This was a long shot at best, Kat knew, and more likely a wild goose chase. She followed Shiloh, who rode a dappled mare. Kat was on Toby, a bay quarter horse, followed by Morgan on a mare and Beau on his gelding. The horses snorted, their hoof beats softened by the soft dirt on the trail. All the while Kat scanned the area, her eyes narrowing against the umbra.

  She felt uneasy on the horse, not that she hadn’t ridden often as a younger woman, but today’s mission, coupled with her own worries about Addie Donovan, made the forest seem ominous. At the bottom of the ravine, the trail followed the edge of a stream winding its way down from higher elevations. Her eyes were on the ground, ever searching, when she heard Beau say, “Buzzards.”

  She glanced up to the sky, and, sure enough, there were two large birds high above.

  “Let’s go,” Beau said, and Shiloh picked up the pace, urging her mount to move quickly through the underbrush.

  Behind her, Beau told Morgan: “This might not be good. You should probably hang back. It’s probably a calf, dead or dying.”

  “I can handle it,” Morgan replied.

  “You’re sure?” He didn’t sound convinced.

  “I’m not a baby!”

  Kat let them argue about it and kept riding, Toby keeping pace with the horse in front of him. They splashed across the stream, crossing to the other side onto the path that started up the opposite bank. They rode upward through the Ponderosa pines and firs, the horses straining, Kat’s heart hammering.

  Beau was probably right. Some poor dying or recently dead animal had probably lured the birds of prey that were hovering aloft. Certainly whatever they’d discovered wasn’t an eighteen-year-old girl. No way. And yet the uneasy feeling that had been with her all day increased, and dread along with curiosity propelled her forward. A fly buzzed past her head. As she swatted at it, she caught the first whiff of a distinctive odor. Whatever the buzzards had found was already dead.

  Not necessarily human.

  She set her jaw.

  Ever upward the trail wound until the trees gave way to the top of the ridge, a stony outcropping high above the valley. The sky was blue, the sun still visible over the treetops, the heat of the day still simmering.

  Another powerful whiff of death and something else. Kat was about to turn in the saddle and warn Morgan when she heard Shiloh’s voice ahead of her.

  “Oh, dear God!”

  Kat’s stomach dropped.

  Shiloh’s mount snorted and shied. “Morgan!” Shiloh cried. “Go back!” And she was off her horse.

  Kat squinted ahead to see if they had found Addie, but her gaze landed on the body of a woman about Kat’s own age. Stark naked, she lay spread-eagle upon the rough stones. Her face was turned to the heavens. Her skin was rotting away, and the stench of death was heavy in the air.

  Based on the level of decay, this corpse had been here for more than twenty-four hours. It
was not Addie, though that was small relief.

  “Go back!” Kat yelled to the horse behind her, but it was too late. As she climbed off her bay, she whipped her cell phone from her pocket and heard Morgan’s horrified gasp.

  Geez, the poor kid.

  Shiloh was standing over the corpse, trying to shield it from Morgan’s view.

  Kat’s stomach tightened, and she had to fight a wave of nausea roiling up her esophagus as she stared at the body. The woman’s wrists were wrapped in rusted barbed wire, and she looked as if she’d been lying here for days, if not weeks. Her eyes were gone, and bits of flesh had been torn away, showing bone.

  One thing Kat knew for sure: this was not Addison Donovan.

  And that other scent … gasoline? It looked like the body had been doused in it.

  With unsteady fingers, Kat snapped several pictures of the body with her cell, then put in a call to the Sheriff’s Department. The woman seemed familiar, like someone Kat had known, though age and death had altered her features.

  Then she saw it. Something about the hair, the line of her jaw, what remained of her lips …

  “I know her,” Kat said in shock, staring down at the decomposing body of the most notorious of the three missing girls from fifteen years earlier, her ex-earth science lab partner who’d been suspended from Prairie High more than once: Courtney Pearson.

  Part Three

  Ruth

  Chapter 12

  I see you everywhere.

  Your thick, strong hands with stubby fingers.

  Your wooly body, furred with man hair.

  And your huge stature … giant and grotesque.

  Just like the bear of a man packing bags into the back of her car. A solid young man with broad shoulders and thick biceps. Great guns. Built like a truck, just like him, her rapist.

  Standing back as he loaded the bags, Ruth Baker couldn’t help but stare.

  The clerk—PETE, his name tag read—was aware that she was watching intently. “Don’t worry, ma’am,” he said. “I’m being real careful. I know you got eggs and bananas in there.”

  “Right.” She noticed the hands lifting her bags—hands that could palm a football. But they were not the hands of her attacker. Too thin, fingers too long. And his legs, visible below his khaki shorts and long apron, were hairless and tanned.

  Pete was probably an athlete, maybe even in high school. Fifteen years ago, this young man was probably still potty training. She could let him off the hook.

  Although it had been fifteen years, she still had a vivid memory of the details she had observed of her attacker. Certain images had broken through to her in the first year, sharp and distinct as the jangle of a wind chime, and she’d held them tight, clutched them as ammunition against a future attack.

  Wide girth, furry skin, thick hands.

  His face had been covered, but that had only made her cling to the scant features she could see. Wide girth, furry skin, thick hands … her mantra for years.

  In those first terrifying years after the attack, there had been nowhere to turn, no one to share the heavy burden with here in Prairie Creek. She had avoided curious eyes in church and lived in fear of having her shame made public. Eventually she learned that she could hide her sins from her father and the congregation, but she could not stem the panic that flowed whenever she saw a man who fit her attacker’s profile.

  All that changed when she went off to community college in Santa Barbara and discovered a rape crisis center just off the main drag of State Street. There she had found people who would listen without judgment, therapists who focused on healing instead of shame. Through her involvement with the center, Ruth had become inspired to study the field of social work and counseling.

  She had learned not to condemn men like Pete, though her vigilance remained. As she told her clients, recovery was a process. Of course, she didn’t tell them that hers was still in progress. Every now and then, she had to remind herself that she had studied self-defense techniques and learned to avoid dangerous situations. She had moved on with the knowledge that it was a little silly to keep looking for a man who had sprung on her fifteen years ago. But sometimes threads of memory still snagged in her mind, and she let herself go through the list.

  Wide girth, furry skin, thick hands.

  She thanked Pete and handed him a few singles, which evoked a huge smile and thanks. As he pushed the cart back toward Menlo’s Grocery, she opened the car door and paused with one hand on the warm roof of the car. The cerulean sky vaulting over the mountains that framed the horizon reminded Ruth of how the weather used to energize her this time of year. Wyoming summers were full of activity from sunrise to long after dark, when starlight splattered the sky and fireflies filled the air. As a kid, she had savored the endless hours of freedom, swimming in lakes, catching fish and flying kites, caring for a friend’s horses, riding bikes into town with a pack of girls to buy ice cream or penny candy from the general store. Those were sweet days, a childhood spent in a bubble of faith and hope.

  Until a masked man ripped away her innocence and changed the path of her life.

  Changed but not destroyed, she reminded herself, as she pressed the starter and began to back her Chevy Cruze out of the parking lot. She’d come back to Prairie Creek to give her daughter the kind of childhood she’d enjoyed—lakes and horses and family and a sense of community at the foot of the Wind River Mountains. She had also returned to prod the sleepy town forward in terms of mental health services. The next time a woman in this town was raped, Ruth wanted to be there to help her through recovery. Someone had to let these women know that they were not alone.

  She thought of the teenager who was missing, Addie Donovan. The girl had gone riding, and her horse had returned without her, though there was some talk that she might have run off to join a boyfriend.

  I hope so. Because disciplining a recalcitrant runaway daughter was far better than trying to mend the tattered shreds of a girl’s soul, her essence and identity.

  As she pulled up to the exit of the parking lot, the shriek of a siren made her hit the brakes. Two vehicles from the Sheriff’s Department zipped through the streets, lights flashing, sirens popping. Two shrieking police cars were a rare sight in Prairie Creek. Ruth tried to see if Kat Starr was behind the wheel of one of the Jeeps, but the vehicles flew past so quickly it was hard to tell. Like her father, Kat had joined the Sheriff’s Department. Ruth owed her a phone call—Kat had left a series of messages, but Ruth hadn’t summoned the nerve to call back yet. Besides, she’d been busy settling her daughter in, laying the groundwork for her practice and now setting up the hotline. She would have just enough time to put the groceries away before her meeting with Chrissy Nesbitt, the mayor’s wife, who was funding her hotline, and Doc Farley, who had been giving her client referrals. So far he’d sent her a teenaged girl named Brooklyn, who was working through anger management, a housewife named Lorelei, who’d suffered domestic violence, and Hank Eames, a fiftyish cowboy who was recovering from a traumatic brain injury caused by a tractor accident. Yes, her plate had been full since she’d moved back to Wyoming, but wasn’t that the point? She’d come with a mission to help the women in her hometown, women who had nowhere else to go, and she wasn’t going to rest until she’d made some inroads.

  *

  Addie lay on the dirty cot in the shack, staring blankly at the way the tall windows caught the orange sunset for the first time that day. Sunlight was supposed to be a sign of hope, but for her it marked the end of day two—at least twenty-four hours during which no one had come for her.

  No one.

  Where were her parents—her mom and dad, who would both cry when they learned what he had done to her? Where was the Sheriff’s Department and the neighbors and all the people from church who rallied together when bad things happened to someone in Prairie Creek?

  And Dean? Oh please, Dean. Come rescue me and tell me you still love me.

  In the alone hours, between the times w
hen he was poking and prodding at her, violating her body and expecting her to do disgusting things to him, Addie listened hard. She listened for sounds of the searchers, the distant call of her name, the whir of helicopter blades, the squawk of a police radio.

  But the only sounds came from him and the wilderness. She was used to birdsong and the cry of a hawk. The odd whine of mule deer. The scurry of raccoons, hares, or squirrels. The scuffle of coyotes, wild goats, or bobcats. The wilderness was her backyard.

  But she would never get used to him. His smell. His calloused touch. His greed.

  “Do you understand about sacrifice?” he’d asked her that first day in the gloomy shack, counseling her like a minister. “The sacrifice of one can save the lives of many. That’s what we got here. You’re helping me, and you’re saving others because of it.”

  She didn’t understand what he was talking about, but that was no surprise. The man was a psycho with a capital P. “Leave me alone,” she’d cried, jerking away as he grabbed her by the shoulder. “Keep your hands off me.”

  “I can’t keep my hands off you, darlin’,” he’d growled in a low voice. “From now on, you’re here for me.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Call me Lover …”

  She bit back a cry when he took her by the shoulders and pinned her down on the dirt floor. When he climbed onto her, she closed her eyes. That way, she could keep him out of her soul. All the force and pain and savagery hurt her body, but she refused to let him inside.