Mask of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  “Meth stimulates the central nervous system. Fries the brain. It’s highly addictive. One taste, that’s all it takes for some people to get hooked. Especially teenagers.” He shook away the picture of Bianca willing to give herself away for a baggie of meth. If he hadn’t come home, if he hadn’t…

  Pressing forward, he let the undercurrent of his rage spill. “It’s easy to make. The profits are high. Labs are popping up faster than we can shut ’em down. It’s becoming our nation’s biggest threat. Prisons, child welfare agencies, drug rehab programs are overburdened with the effect of its poison. Most people don’t realize how fast the problem is spreading, how much it’s costing. It ruins the land. It destroys people, families, communities.”

  He caught Rory’s golden eyes and impassive face following his movements and stopped in his tracks. “It kills hope, because after a while all you live for is the next hit and you don’t care who you’re hurting to get to it—even if it’s yourself.”

  Concern shone in her eyes. “Bianca?”

  Wincing, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded. Professional and personal were getting harder to keep separate when they kept getting tangled up in each other’s families. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to care. He wasn’t supposed to care. “Bianca.”

  “She’s lucky to have you.”

  He jerked his gaze away from the golden eyes that were inviting him to share. “She’d have been luckier if I could have kept it out of her life in the first place.” He stared out the window. The moon was higher, less orange, still big and beacon-bright. A spotlight on his failures. “I moved her there, to that neighborhood. It was out of the city. A nice suburb with trees and good schools. I thought she’d be safe.”

  She reached up, touched his elbow. An army of fire ants trooped up his arm and invaded the one soft spot left in his hard heart. “Somebody told me recently that I wasn’t responsible for someone else’s decisions, even if that someone was my sister and my responsibility.”

  He laughed dryly. “That somebody doesn’t know squat.”

  “You still have a chance to save Bianca.” Rory turned away from him and back to her computer. “Let’s do it. Let’s catch this scum and blow their operation apart. What do they need to make the stuff?”

  Yeah, it was better that way. He knuckled away the knot of cold on his chest and followed a crawling Hannah into the kitchen. “All it takes is pseudoephedrine—the stuff you buy in drugstores for a cold—iodine and red phosphorous. That starts the initial reaction. Then there’s Coleman fuel, sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid. The mixture’s cooked. Once it cools, Freon, toluene, acetone, ether—those are some of the chemicals that can be used to separate the liquid meth from the chemical soup of the production process. Then the red phosphorous and iodine are filtered out with cotton sheet. Hydrogen chloride gas is used in the final stages of the process to convert liquid meth to a crystalline powder. Some of them use MSM, a veterinary product, to cut their product and increase their profits.”

  He laughed dryly as Hannah busied herself emptying the plastic storage tubs from a low cupboard. The lace heart on the rump of her pink terry pajamas and the white traction dimples on the bottoms of her feet were all he could see. He remembered Bianca at that age, remembered how he’d promised to keep her safe in the chaos of home their mother created. “For every pound of meth you produce, there’s five pounds of toxic sludge left behind.”

  “That’s gross.”

  “And profitable. Taz’s business retailed over four million last year.”

  Her mouth dropped open. Then she frowned. Her busy mind sorted and classified. “So if we could somehow track down where the supplies of the individual components came from, then we could see where they lead.”

  The task force was working on executing that very plan. He scooped Hannah away from the minefield of plastic containers she’d created. “For a mutt, Taz is surprisingly smart. He knows we’re watching him and he’s evaded the task force’s surveillance for a year.” Smart scum was the worst kind. Such a waste of brainpower and persistence.

  “But arrogance isn’t a match for guilt. And you and me, we have a mountain of guilt that has to find an outlet soon. Might as well be Taz.”

  She was right. He handed Hannah over. “Might as well. Connect away. I have to go.”

  Rory’s voice sounded just a bit strained as she hugged a squirming Hannah tight. “Where?”

  He turned his back to her and lied, “Sleep.”

  He fully intended to head back to 35B Lilac Lane and see if Taz was still there. And if the rat headed out, he’d follow his trail and see where it led.

  Hannah in hand, Rory got up and headed toward the bathroom. “Take a jacket. It’s going to be cold out tonight.”

  RORY COULDN’T seem to stop playing this game of six-degrees-of-real-estate-and-people-separation. Long after Ace left, she kept creating webs of connection between all these seemingly unrelated people and the places they belonged. Many members of the Sons owned acreage in out-of-the-way places. Did the cook site rotate to keep the cops off their tail? She would have to suggest to Ace that someone test the land owned by Sons for the toxic residue left behind after a batch of meth was cooked.

  By the time Hannah woke up soon after dawn, Rory’s shoulders were cramped, her fingers were stiff and her eyes were so dry they burned. Ace had not checked in. She’d heard his motorcycle roar away, but not back. Was he all right? She shook her head. It didn’t matter. Ace’s strong support yesterday had felt good, but she could not allow herself to depend on it. The only thing that united them was their guilt.

  She let Hannah babble, safe in her crib, while she took a shower.

  After breakfast, she took Hannah out for a stroll around the town common—fresh air would do them both some good—and then to a prearranged play date with Jordan. By the time she returned to the apartment, more than two hours had gone by and she was itching to get back to the spider web of connections. The answer was there. She knew it. All she had to do was find it.

  As she put Hannah down in her crib, she sniffed at the air and wrinkled her nose. Something smelled like backed-up sewer or a ripe barn. “Hannah, darling, you’re sweet, but your diapers are vile.”

  Hannah laughed, patting her thighs. And in the crinkling of Hannah’s bright face, Rory saw the ghost of her sister. Closing her eyes, she lifted her niece into her arms and hugged her tight. “We’ll find your mother. I promise.”

  If Felicia was dead, then her body had to be somewhere. She would find Felicia and offer herself and Hannah closure.

  Seven years ago, she’d run. For answers, she’d told herself. But that was as big a lie as the one she’d left behind in New Hampshire. She’d run because she was a coward. Incompetent. Useless. Afraid.

  She would stay, had to stay, until she found Felicia, buried her bones and collected enough evidence to send her murderer to rot in jail for the rest of his life. It was the only way to make peace with the past and move on. And for Hannah, she had to find a way to move on.

  While Hannah napped, Rory put a call in to the director at the Maplewood Library. “I need to extend my leave.”

  “How long?”

  “Indefinitely.”

  The pause was too long to bode any good. “I’m sorry, Aurora. As much as we value you, we can’t afford to hold your position with no progress on the 24/7 Reference System. It has to be operative by the end of the month if we’re to meet our objectives. You know how it is.”

  Yes, she knew. The board had set specific objectives that were rewarded with financial incentives for the library. And in a time of budget cutbacks, the library’s was the first to suffer trimming.

  “We can give you until the end of the week. Then I’m afraid we’ll have to let you go.”

  In an instant, the comfortable world she’d created for herself in D.C. vaporized. The pain cut to the bone.

  “I’m sorry.” Her insides unraveled. Pull yourself together. You can
’t fall apart. Hannah needs you. “I won’t make it back by the end of the week. Please accept my resignation.”

  The director accepted, and that was that. An ache climbed up her windpipe and threatened to burst. She turned to the computer and the flashing cursor waiting for instructions.

  If she could find the right information, if she could make things right for Felicia, then it would be worth it. And maybe, just maybe, she could also outrun this ragged, raw emptiness where her heart had once resided.

  She forced herself to concentrate. She studied maps and real-estate transactions. She played connect-the-dot and six-degrees-of-real-estate-separation. And when she least expected it, the dots finally connected, making her gasp.

  Wrap it in a rug. Nobody can tell what’s in there.

  And if he’s driving something, I’d get rid of that, too.

  Sink it.

  Pond, river. Plenty of places around these parts.

  Jam a stick in there. Holds the pedal down. Put it in gear. Then aim and let go. Gravity does the rest.

  Why had no one seen the obvious?

  Chapter Eleven

  The printer finished its whirring incantation and spat out a sheet of paper. There it was, sharp black against stark white. Shocked into hyperawareness, she saw each letter pop out with 3-D clarity. Then the letters formed a picture that froze her breath. This was where Mike had killed Felicia. This was where she’d died. And no one had checked it out. No one had even thought to look.

  A house. A rental. Owned by the oft-married Letitia Yant, Mike’s mother. All those webs, all those links had ended in a single degree of separation. The rental had stood empty since November. The timing was right. The location matched the story Curtis had told Millhauser at the café. Out of the way. A house right by the river where it would be easy to sink a car.

  Jam a stick in there. Holds the pedal down. Put it in gear. Then aim and let go. Gravity does the rest.

  Felicia. Rory’s throat worked to hold back the torrent of tears welling up in her chest. Take-no-prisoners, wild-child, angry Felicia. What Rory would give to hear her sister screaming at the other end of the phone telling her she was square and stuffy and just didn’t get it.

  I don’t. I still don’t. I don’t understand why you had to die.

  Memories swam laps in her mind. Laughter and fun. Picking daisies in July in the meadow behind the house, making crowns, playing he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not with the white petals, creaming their chins for the love of butter with the flowers’ yellow hearts. Baking cookies, separating the M&M’s by colors—the green ones saved for special friends that were boys. Building snow forts and piles of frosty ammunition for a mock battle. Tears and frustration. Fighting, always fighting, over rules, over rights, over skirts that were too short and dates that were too long. Running, always running from what hurt. Doors slamming. Phones clicking off mid-sentence.

  Come with me, Felicia. No, I can’t.

  Stay, Rory. No, I can’t.

  Come visit, Rory. I need you.

  No, I won’t.

  The piece of paper trembled in her hands. Her nerves rattled. Her heart raced to near bursting as if she’d just sprinted a mile uphill in the middle of July. Then anger took root and transmuted into an acute need to do something, anything, to make someone hurt the way she was hurting.

  He would not get away with murder. He would pay for what he’d done. He would suffer.

  From her cross-legged position, Rory sprang up, dragging her right foot, numb with pins and needles from sitting on it too long. She was almost to the door when she remembered Hannah in her crib. You’re rushing. You’re letting your feelings run away with you. Wasn’t that what had gotten her in this mess in the first place? If she hadn’t let her feelings take over, she would have come when Felicia told her she needed her. And all of this could have been prevented.

  Taking in a long cleansing breath, she veered to the living room and made each of her steps deliberate. Draw up a plan.

  She needed proof. Proof Ace, the police, the lawyers could take to court and make stick. Proof that would throw Mike in jail with no chance to ever again see the sky, to ride his bike—to torment another woman the way he’d plagued her sister. Because if these psychopaths were as smart as Ace seemed to think they were, then they’d washed away Felicia’s blood from the floors and the walls. What Rory needed was a way to show up the trace evidence that was left behind even after blood was washed away.

  The hard beating of her heart slowed. Make a list. Take it step by step. First thing, see if Penny can sit for Hannah.

  Information would get her justice. There was no point sitting here beating herself up wondering what she should or could have done differently. All that would do was make her want to scream. And if she started, she wasn’t sure she could stop.

  WHERE WAS SHE going now? Ace wondered as he rounded the corner to the town common and saw Rory pull out of the parking lot behind the apartment building. The recognition was a little too instant, a little too sharp for comfort. The way he could zero in on her face and judge her emotional temperature just like that didn’t ease his discomfort. He didn’t like the determination creased on her forehead or the way she’d pulled out without noticing the rush-hour traffic around her. Careful, controlled Rory didn’t take risks unless she had to, and traffic was one place she could easily avoid risk.

  Sitting on his Indian, a slap of frustration stung him. He’d watched his mother leave and not been able to do a thing about it. He’d watched his sister flee and had not caught up to her in time. And here was Rory with the same hellbent determination to get herself in trouble. What kind? Where? Why?

  He revved the engine. He didn’t have time for this. Taz had a job for him tonight and he had to show. But stupidly, he was going to follow Rory because Falconer had made her his responsibility. And if he wasn’t responsible… Don’t go there. Turning off his thoughts, he concentrated on the road.

  Catch up to her, turn her around, get back to his job.

  He lost her on the curvy highway outside of Walpole, then caught sight of her taillights as she turned off Route 63 onto River Road. She turned onto a dirt road between two cornfields. Three downhill forks later, the road dead-ended at a cabin by the river. Woods surrounded the brown building like camouflage. Wind bent the river grasses along the shore. Water from a brook behind the cabin roiled and foamed, masking the sound of his engine. His boots sank in the soft mud as he let the bike roll to a stop.

  Rory got out of her car and strode to the cabin. When no one answered her knock, she tried the door. When she found it locked, she peered through a window. Then she lifted the terracotta pot with a dead stump that was once a flower, the plaster frog that was more gray than green, the rubber doormat with the nubs rubbed off so that it read WE—ME. There she found a key and used it on the front door.

  That’s when he caught up with her and stopped her with a hand on the shoulder before she stepped into the house. “What are you doing here?”

  Without even a flinch of surprise, she shrugged, but he didn’t let her shake off his hand. “Connecting the dots.”

  “You’re about to break and enter.”

  Focused on her task—whatever the hell it was—she pushed the door open. The smell of fresh paint and new carpet overwhelmed. Her gaze swept the room.

  “So?” She stepped forward into the house, dragging him with her.

  “It’s against the law.”

  Scanning the living area, Rory scoffed. “So’s running drugs and that doesn’t seem to bother you.”

  “Not the same.” He stuffed his hands in his jeans pocket. “It’s part of the job.”

  She dug into her tapestry tote bag and brought out a plastic spray bottle wrapped in a plastic grocery bag. “Well, finding Felicia is mine. Besides I used a key. I didn’t break anything.”

  What was she up to? “But no invitation. What if you hadn’t found a key?”

  “Felicia was here,” she said, as if that answered eve
rything. She held the spray bottle out in front of her like a cop in a bad movie and advanced into the guts of the cabin.

  “How do you know?”

  “Millhauser’s story. It fits. This house belongs to Mike’s mother. The name on the deed is Yant, even though she now lists herself as Murkowski. She rents this cabin. It’s been empty all winter. It’s by water.”

  “Rory—”

  “Instinct, then. Call it instinct.” She knelt down and stroked the nap of the clean sand-colored carpet. “It’s new.”

  “Fresh paint, too.”

  “Shoot, shoot, shoot!” She grabbed at the carpet as if she could rip it up. “The bastard.”

  Her shoulders hiked up to her ears again. He crouched beside her and kneaded the tension knotting her back. “What did you think you’d find?”

  “Blood,” she croaked. He couldn’t tell if it was anger or tears she was suppressing. “But everything’s new. Paint, floorboards, carpets.”

  She shot up, clipping his chin with the back of her head. Rubbing his chin, he followed her. She sprayed whatever concoction was in the bottle over the walls. It dripped down in streams, colorless, and still she attacked. “He can’t be that smart. He can’t be.”

  Over the rush of the brook, Ace heard the rumbling of an engine. A glance out the open front door showed a beat-up pickup truck with more gray primer than red paint rounding the steep curve. “Someone’s coming.”

  A man with work boots, dirty jeans and a sweaty denim shirt and a pale woman wearing an oversized blue jumper and carrying an infant slipped out of the truck. “We have to go. Now.”

  Rory kept staring at the walls, at the colorless drips like tears on the white walls. “He can’t be that smart. He had to make a mistake.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Rory—”

  A bearded man walked through the door and spotted them. His stance turned confrontational. “What are you doing here?”

  Without missing a beat, Rory lifted the bottle of her homemade concoction and beamed a plastic smile. “Last-minute touch-ups. We hope you and your family are happy here.”