by Steven James
A thunderous crash, a sweep of sound.
Then, air choking me. Dust. Dirt. Rocks falling around me.
A crack against my head.
And everything went black.
114
53 minutes later
Eyes closed.
Movement beneath me. A thousand buzz saws whirring in my head.
A slight sway, the ground bouncing. Or maybe it wasn’t the ground. Maybe it was all a dream, another dream. I groaned and heard a voice, sweet and close, a woman’s voice. “Pat.”
My head was throbbing, pounding. “Lien-hua,” I mumbled.
“It’s me. I’m here.”
“I knew you’d come.” I opened my eyes to a blurry world, and saw her leaning over me. “We can still . . .” I whispered. “We’ll try again . . . I need you.”
But as I blinked away the dream, Lien-hua’s face became vapor, and Cheyenne’s appeared in its place. Behind her I saw metal walls. A ceiling. Shelves of first aid supplies. We were inside an ambulance. “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I thought—”
“Shh.” She brushed her hand across my forehead. “It’s OK. Are you . . . do you know where you are?”
I nodded slightly. “It was Kurt.” My voice sounded raw and dry.
“We know,” Cheyenne said. “Cliff woke up before you did. He told us everything.” She shook her head in disbelief. “It’s unfathomable.”
“Yes.” Even though I’d had more time than she had to process everything, I was still reeling from the fact that Kurt was the killer.
I tested my limbs. Tried to move. Other than my aching head, I seemed to be all right. A paramedic sat beside Cheyenne.
I gave her a faint smile. “So you found my trail?”
“It would have been hard to miss with those strips of first-aid tape at every intersection.”
“And Cliff, he’s OK?”
“He will be. Flight for Life took him.” She gestured around the vehicle. “You get the meat wagon instead.”
“Fair enough.” My thoughts were still muddy. “Cody?”
“I actually managed to make it to the Evergreen hospital without crashing. He’s doing all right—even thanked me for saving his life, so I guess we’re on talking terms again. Small miracles.”
The paramedic, a Latino man in his early thirties, laid two fingers against my wrist, checked my pulse. I had no idea how long I’d been out.
I tried to sort through the jumble of memories that were all fighting for my attention: entering the mine . . . following the trail of blood . . . talking with Kurt before the explosion . . .
“Dover’s Ridge,” I mumbled to Cheyenne, “look for Father Hughes on Dover’s Ridge, he’s chained to a pole . . . maybe a telephone pole from a power line, I don’t know . . . and Cheryl and Ari are in a storage . . . a self-storage . . . check under Ari’s name.” I could feel myself fading, but I saw Cheyenne pull out her cell. “I don’t know which . . . you have to check . . .”
“I will. Relax.”
I tried to think, but everything was becoming a blur. Faintly, I saw the paramedic lean over me while Cheyenne tapped at her phone. The fringes of the moment grew fuzzy.
And I sank into sleep again.
Dreams. Voices. Whispers. Promises made and broken.
Then, soft pressure on my right hand and I was opening my eyes again.
Still in the ambulance. Cheyenne beside me, her hand on mine. She was speaking with someone on the phone.
I eased my hand out from under hers and asked the paramedic how long I’d been out.
“Just a few minutes. We found you about an hour ago. Your climbing buddies on the high angle rescue team are good.”
I nodded.“What happened to me?” My voice still didn’t sound natural.
“A rock fell on your head. Looks like a concussion, other than that—”
“Prop me up.”
It took a little convincing, but finally he tilted the head end of the gurney upright. Cheyenne was still on the phone, so I asked to borrow his. Somewhat reluctantly, he handed it to me.
I tapped in cybercrime’s number. I was afraid I might go unconscious again, so as soon as Angela picked up I explained that I didn’t have much time to talk. “Tell me about Paul Lansing. I think he might be my stepdaughter’s biological father.”
She didn’t answer right away.
“Angela, what is it?”
“Here’s what you need to know for now: he lives in the mountains of Wyoming. No driver’s license. No bank accounts. He doesn’t own a phone or a computer; doesn’t use credit cards or pay utility bills.”
“He’s living off the grid,” I mumbled.
The ambulance slowed down.
“His record is squeaky clean,” she said.
“Too clean?”
“Maybe.”
“Listen, pull together whatever you have on him. I’ll call you when I get to my computer. Just wait for my call, OK?”
“All right.”
“Keep digging. See what you can find.”
“I will.”
Through the windows in the back of the ambulance I could see that we’d reached the hospital. Angela’s words troubled me. A man doesn’t usually disappear into the mountains and drop off the map unless he’s running from something.
The paramedic accepted his phone back and Cheyenne finished her call, then asked, “Pat, do you know if Kurt survived the explosion?”
“I think he had enough time to get into the tunnel before the shaft blew. But I’m not sure.”
“Are there any other ways out of that passageway?”
“I don’t think so. He chose that tunnel for one reason: there was no possible escape.” I wondered how long it would take a rescue team to dig him out. Maybe weeks. Maybe they wouldn’t even bother. That was a satisfying thought.
Cheyenne considered my words for a moment. “Thomas Bennett and his wife owned the mine. She should know if there are any other passages.”
“Good thought,” I said.
The ambulance stopped, and the paramedic opened the back doors as Cheyenne phoned headquarters for Marianne Bennett’s number.
Two EMTs rushed toward us from the hospital, and with the help of the man who’d been riding with me, they wheeled me out of the ambulance.
“I’ll see you inside,” I called to Cheyenne, and then the emergency room doors slid open and the three men pushed me into the building.
6 minutes later
My nurse set down the blood pressure cuff. “The doctor will be with you in a minute.”
“Thank you.”
I’d been so groggy in the ambulance that I hadn’t thought to ask Cheyenne how Calvin was doing. So, as soon as the nurse stepped out of the exam room, I stood to go find him.
I felt a little wobbly, but managed to make it two steps before the door opened again.
Cheyenne.
A small smile. “Going somewhere?”
I leaned a hand against the wall. “Just to see how Calvin is doing.”
“I was just with him. No change.” She looked at me with concern. “You shouldn’t be walking around.”
“I’m OK.”
I took my hand off the wall and showed her I could stand on my own, but she took my arm to support me. “Pat, since Friday you were nearly burned alive, bitten by a rattlesnake, sealed in a mine, blown up, and crushed by a boulder.”
“Imagine if it’d been an eventful couple days,” I said.
She offered me a half smile.
She’d left the door slightly ajar. Behind her I could see the front doors of the hospital.
“Thanks for getting me out of that mine,” I said. She was still holding my arm.
“I told you I’d come back for you.”
Her words brought to mind the comments I’d made as I was awakening in the ambulance. I’d been mumbling Lien-hua’s name, that I was glad she’d come back. That I needed her.
Gently, I removed Cheyenne hand from my arm. “Cheyenne, when I woke up in the
ambulance, I thought that you were someone else.”
“Lien-hua.”
“Yes.”
“It’s all right. I know. You were groggy.”
I searched for the best way to balance honesty with sensitivity. Obviously, I liked both her and Lien-hua, but I felt like I needed to be straight with her. To tell her everything.
Cheyenne must have sensed that I was struggling with what to say. “Really, Pat. It’s all right. I understand. You don’t have to explain.”
Here’s where things got tricky. “Well . . . you see . . . maybe I do.”
Silence.
“Oh,” she said softly. Her tone mirrored the distance that was already stretching between us. “I see.”
“Listen, maybe I just need some time to sort out my feelings.”
“Right, sure, that makes sense.”
Her voice was breaking, a thin crack ran through every word.
She’s as lonely as you are, and you hurt her.
You hurt her.
I wanted to take her in my arms, to hold her, to tell her I was sorry, but I knew that if I did, it would be a way of making a promise that my heart wasn’t ready to keep.
“Cheyenne, this is really—”
“Can you tell me one thing, Pat. Please?”
“Of course.”
“Over the last year I’ve asked you out more than once and the timing was never right—and I understood all that, but . . .” She took a gentle breath. “Is there a chance it ever will be?”
Oh man.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. “Cheyenne, you’re an amazing woman and I . . . I mean, if I wasn’t—”
But she cut me off by holding up her hand. “No, that’s good. That’s enough.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please. Don’t be. The truth,” she said softly, “it suits you.”
In the moment that followed, our eyes said good-bye and I felt helpless, trapped by my feelings toward these two women who both seemed, in different ways, to be out of reach: Lien-hua, because of my past. Cheyenne, because of Lien-hua.
Then through the doorway, I saw Tessa and my mother entering the emergency room.
“Maybe we can talk more about this later,” I said.
Cheyenne turned to see who I was looking at. “That’s OK. I think we’ve talked about it enough.” Her voice carried no animosity, and for some reason that only made me feel worse.
Before I could respond, she stepped away and flagged down Tessa, then she disappeared around the corner and my mother and stepdaughter hurried to meet me in the exam room.
And I realized it was time to talk to Tessa about her father.
115
My head still ached, but other than that I felt passable, so after assuring my mother that I was all right, I asked her to wait in the lobby for a few moments to give me and Tessa a chance to talk.
She didn’t look convinced that I was OK. “They told us a boulder fell on your head.”
“A small boulder,” I said.
She smiled in a careful, concerned way. “All right, but we’re not leaving this hospital until a doctor looks you over.”
“Deal.”
That satisfied her and she left for the lobby as I guided Tessa toward a nurse’s station, where we found out that Calvin was in room 131.
“Patrick,” Tessa said. “I’m really glad it wasn’t a bigger boulder.”
“Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”
We headed down the hall and I was about to bring up the cy-bercrime email when she mentioned she’d seen Detective Warren leaving my room. “I recognized that look on her face.”
“What look?”
“Please.”
I didn’t like where this was going. “Tessa, I wanted to talk with you about—”
“So, pretty much: boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl. Boy loses girl. The end.”
I held back a small sigh. “Pretty much.”
“What kind of a story is that, anyway?”
The story of my life.
“I guess sometimes things don’t work out like you hope.” It was all I could think to say.
“Is Detective Warren what you were hoping for?”
Definitely time to change the subject. “So you’re looking for your father?”
She took a few steps before answering. “My last name should have been Lansing.”
“Did you read the email from the cybercrime division?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to meet him?”
“Yes, I do.”
A terrible whirlwind of emotions blew through me. Even though Tessa wasn’t my daughter, it felt like she was, and it stung to hear her words. But even though I had serious reservations about this man, I said, “OK.”
“OK?”
“If Paul Lansing is your father, your real father, you have every right to meet him.” How to put this. There really was no delicate way. “But . . .”
We passed room 123.
“But?”
“Do you remember how you felt yesterday when you found out your mother struggled with the decision about whether or not to have an—”
“Abortion. Yeah. I remember.”
I took a small breath. “Have you thought about the possibility that Mr. Lansing doesn’t . . .”
“What? That he doesn’t love me? Doesn’t want anything to do with me?”
“It’s possible,” I said.
Room 127. Calvin’s room lay just ahead.
She worked her jaw back and forth for a moment, then said, “I just want to know the truth. I mean, he is my father.” Then she looked my way. “You understand, right?”
A moment of awkward silence. “Yes. I do.”
We arrived at Calvin’s room, I pressed open the door and saw him lying on the bed. A doctor I didn’t recognize was reading his charts. Jake Vanderveld stood beside the bed.
Calvin wasn’t moving, and I feared the worst. “What do we know?”
The doctor looked my direction. “He’s stable, but he still hasn’t regained consciousness.”
Tessa had met Calvin a few times, and I noticed a cloud of worry on her face. “Is he all right?”
“Can you wait with my mother?” I said. “We’ll talk more in a minute, OK?”
She was still eyeing Calvin.
“Tessa, go sit with Martha. I’ll be there in a little bit.”
She finally backed into the hall but then looked at me. “You meant it, though, right? That I could meet my dad? It wasn’t just—”
“I meant it. We’ll set it up, I promise. Now, please.” I gestured toward the waiting room.
After one more lingering glance at Calvin, Tessa left.
And I pulled the doctor aside to tell him that his patient was dying.
116
I explained to the doctor that I didn’t know what Calvin’s condition was, but that Special Agent Ralph Hawkins did. I gave him Ralph’s number and he immediately left the room to make the call.
I went to Calvin’s side. My mentor. My friend. He looked so old and frail.
“So it was Kurt?” Jake said.
“Yes,” I said simply.
“Amazing. You knew him all this time and yet never suspected a thing.”
“It’s hard to know people.” I felt a knot of tension in my chest.
“To really know them. What they’re capable of.”
“That is true, Pat. That’s a good observation.”
Jake took a slow breath, then went on. “They found the priest. That man and the woman, too, in the storage unit. They’re all OK. Looks like we got to them all in time.”
It was nice to hear some good news.
My attention shifted back to Calvin. I had so many questions: How did he know to go to the Greers’ house? Why did he call me from police headquarters? What evidence led him to suspect that Richard Basque was innocent?
I’d seen Calvin taking notes at the trial. Maybe his notebook would give me some answers
.
His clothes and personal items were in the chair beside the nightstand. I walked to them.
“Her laptop is missing,” Jake said abruptly.
“Excuse me?”
I didn’t see Calvin’s notebook, but I found a slip of paper in his pants pocket.
“Amy Lynn Greer’s,” Jake said. “It looks like she was the one who posted the article online. But it’s hard to tell for sure because her laptop computer is missing.”
Calvin had written Dr. Renée Lebreau’s name and phone number on the piece of paper—she was the law professor at Michigan State University who’d found the DNA discrepancies that had led to Basque’s trial. The sheet also contained a cryptic message: H814b Patricia E.
I had no idea what it meant.
Another mystery.
I memorized the information and returned the paper to its place.
“You ask me,” Jake said, “Kurt took it. Destroyed it.”
I couldn’t understand why we were even having this conversation about the computer. “Well, maybe we’ll find something on her digital voice recorder.” I didn’t find any other answers to my questions in Calvin’s things, so I returned to his side.
Jake’s demeanor shifted. Cooled. “Her what?”
“I saw a voice recorder in her purse when I was at the house.”
Jake seemed to be internally debating something.
“What is it?” I asked.
He checked his watch and stood. “I have to go. Captain Terrell and I have a press conference coming up.” He patted my shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Pat. I’ll make sure everyone knows how much you helped us with the case.”
The more I spoke with Jake, the more my headache returned.
“Please,” I said, “don’t bother. Just tell them the truth—that we never would have solved it without your profile.”
“Thanks, Pat. That means a lot.”
“You’re welcome.”
After Jake left, I sat in silence for a few minutes beside Calvin. Then, I said softly, “We got him. We got Kurt.”
In his current state I didn’t know if Calvin could hear me, but I added, “And I told the truth today. On the stand. I don’t know if it was the best thing to do, but I’m glad I did it. We’ll see what happens next.”
Calvin lay still. Silent.