by Linda Berry
“Let me call the Sheriff. See if we can get some backup.”
The call to the County Sheriff didn’t pan out. Sidney exhaled her frustration and looked up at Amanda. “The SWAT team is engaged on the other side of the Cascades. We’re on our own. We need to bring Sander in ASAP.”
“We’ll do what we have to do, Chief,” she said solemnly.
“Gear up. We leave in ten minutes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
BULKED UP in their body armor and winter gear, the two officers stood silently in the hallway outside Sidney’s office. Sidney sized them up. Though neither had ever been placed in a work situation where they had to fire a weapon, both officers practiced at the range routinely and were crack shots. Sidney knew how they operated in a crisis situation. She trusted their instincts. And she trusted they would react appropriately to whatever lay ahead. She sensed their adrenalin pumping, as was hers. “You good?”
They responded simultaneously, “Yes, ma’am.”
“When we get to Sander’s place, stay alert,” she said emphatically. “Stick to training. Copy?”
“Copy,” Darnell said.
Amanda nodded.
“Let’s roll.”
The three rode in Sidney’s vehicle, Amanda in the passenger seat and Darnell in the cage. The highway out of town tunneled through a towering forest stripped of color by ice and snow. Overhead, the clouds had congealed into a dark, brooding mass, forecasting another snowstorm. The clear skies Captain Harrison had predicted didn’t last long. The storm would force down the chopper and hamper search efforts on the ground. Through the pillars of trees to the east, the vapor rising off the lake gave the morning an ominous, morose quality, reflecting Sidney’s mood exactly.
Heavy white flakes started to fall. Inside the warm cab her two officers sat in silence, listening to the rhythmic path of the wipers crossing the windshield. Sidney caught Darnell’s expression in the mirror, gaze fixed out the window, jaw clenching and unclenching. She felt a surge of fierce protectiveness for her two officers, who followed her directives without question, trusting her judgment, ready to put their lives at risk. She would take a bullet for either of them before betraying their trust.
“This is it,” Amanda said. “Turn left.”
Sidney slowed, almost missing the turn. As she bore onto the poorly plowed road, the wheels spun, seeking traction. She slipped into a low gear and the vehicle proceeded to bump along the ice-rutted road.
“The quarry’s been closed for a decade,” Darnell muttered. “Nothing left but piles of rocks and mutilated land. Who the hell lives out here?”
“Trolls and toothless rednecks,” Amanda answered. “And Sander.”
Behind the veil of snow, a ramshackle two-story farmhouse jutted up from the frozen landscape, growing in size as they approached. Gray smoke rose from the chimney, curling into the cold morning air.
“Looks like the house in Psycho,” Darnell said. “Norman Bates is home, dressed as his dead mother.”
“Thanks for the uplifting image,” Amanda said.
Sidney rounded the drive to the front of the house and saw white exhaust billowing from the back of a truck parked in the driveway. Both doors were open, and Sander was midway between the vehicle and the porch, a bulky traveling bag gripped in each hand, his breath smoking. He stiffened as his gaze met hers. He dropped both satchels, rushed up the steps to the porch, and disappeared inside the house.
A prickling sensation dropped into Sidney’s gut like a stone. “He’s on the run. We just caught him. Shit. He’s going to make us go in after him.” The same unease overtook her that she used to feel in Oakland when entering a building where a suspect was holed up. She knew something bad was about to go down, but didn’t know what form it would take, or how bad it would be. She didn’t know what to be afraid of but knew enough to be afraid. Muscle memory kicked in. Sidney took command. “Amanda, we’re going in through the front door. Darnell, watch the back. Don’t be a target. Move fast.”
Out in the brisk cold, Darnell darted out of sight. Sidney and Amanda crossed the tattered ice, moved rapidly up the stairs, and positioned themselves on either side of the front door. Sidney quickly scanned the living room through the paned window. It appeared to be empty. She tried the door. Unlocked. She pushed it open with enough force to slam it against the interior wall.
“Sander, come out,” she yelled. “We just want to talk.”
Long moments passed. Nothing. The only sound came from logs crackling in the fireplace.
Feeling her adrenaline humming, Sidney nodded. Pistols held in a two-hand grip, they made a slow orbit through the room, scanning it in slices, missing nothing. “Clear,” Sidney said.
They did the same in the dining room and kitchen. “Clear.”
Through the window, she saw Darnell stationed on the porch, his head doing a left to right swivel and lifting to the second story, duty weapon held in shooting position. Sidney inched to the hallway and panned the opening without exposing her body. A stairway led upstairs. Two narrow flights. No cover. Basically, a close-range shooting gallery. They would be sitting ducks if Sander was waiting at the top, armed. Her heart picked up speed.
Amanda’s mouth tightened. She nodded.
Crouched, crablike, backs close to the wall, they climbed steadily, guns aimed at the upper level. They slipped fast around the newel post and made it to the top landing without incident. The hallway was just as dangerous. A funnel. Sander could come out with an automatic weapon and mow them down in a heartbeat. Four doorways needed to be cleared one at a time. Crossing a threshold, they could be hosed from the inside.
Slowly and methodically they advanced down the hall as one unit, Sidney’s muzzle pointed to the right, Amanda behind her left shoulder covering the length of the hall. Heart knocking like a parade drum, she threw open the first door and entered the room. Stripped bare. No furniture. Closet empty. “Clear.”
Amanda entered the bathroom on the left while Sidney covered the hall. “Clear.” She stepped back into the hallway, beads of sweat on her upper lip, and fell behind Sidney. There were two doors remaining, opposite each other. Sander was behind one of them. Sidney stopped and listened, then advanced, staying close to the wall. Arms extended. Both hands on the pistol.
She opened the door on the right, entered briskly, gun arm going from left to right. No movement. This was Sander’s bedroom. Unmade bed, clothes draped over an armchair, a dresser with open drawers, garments hanging out. The closet was half empty, hangers scattered on the floor. He had packed hastily. “Clear.”
Turning to the last door on the left, they stood on either side.
“Sander, come out peacefully. Let’s talk. We don’t want to hurt you.”
Nothing.
Sweat dampened Sidney’s back. She reached for the handle, pushed open the door, entered quickly with Amanda at her side. Empty. The closet door was closed. Standing to one side, she threw it open with her left hand, gun in her right to take him down if he lunged. But he wasn’t in the closet.
She met her officer’s astonished eyes.
“How’d we miss him?” Amanda asked, voice low, cautious.
“Let’s go back,” Sidney said, anxious about Darnell alone on the porch.
They were midway down the hallway with Sidney in the lead when she heard a faint rustling from above. She turned as Sander dropped from a ceiling opening and grabbed Amanda from behind with violent force. Her gun flew five feet and fired when it hit the floor. The round smashed into a wall and the ear-piercing explosion reverberated through the small space as though in an echo chamber.
Ears ringing, Sidney assessed the situation in the blink of an eye. Sander held Amanda tightly against his chest with his left arm while his right hand pressed a hunting knife to her throat. A thin line of blood trickled down her neck into her jacket collar. Sidney’s gaze swept to Sander’s face.
Gone was the boy-next-door countenance. His features were hard and pronounced, as thoug
h the skin had been stretched tightly over the bones. A hideous grin was fixed to his face as he stared into the muzzle of her semi-automatic pistol. Then Sander hid his face behind Amanda’s head, so only one eye peered out. Sidney glanced at her partner, noting the sudden paleness of her skin, eyes opened wide. Amanda mouthed, “Shoot him.”
Impossible. Too small a target.
“Lower your gun,” Sander said in a low, measured voice that chilled her blood. “I’ll slice her neck clean through.”
“Put down the knife, Sander,” Sidney said quietly, determined to keep her face straight while the nerves fired underneath. “This will not end well for you. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will. You’re a second away from a bullet to the brain.”
She caught a quick blaze from his eye like that of an animal in a trap. A desperate man was a dangerous man.
“Drop the knife,” she said in a firm, soothing tone, like a mother speaking to a naughty child. “Think about your future. You’ve only racked up a few misdemeanors,” she lied, not letting on that she knew about the antiquities theft, the poaching, the break-ins. “No big deal. You have a good record as a game warden. That’ll help you in court. But kill a cop and you don’t stand a chance. It’s a lethal injection any way you look at it. Make the right choice, Sander. Lower the knife.”
No one moved. They stood frozen in time as though in a photograph. Sidney held her breath, her spine so rigid it felt hewn in oak. Something inside her chest compressed tighter. She didn’t want to blow this man’s brains out, but she would in an instant if the chance arose. The ceiling seemed to slip lower, the walls constricted, her hand grew clammy on the gun.
Sander’s face appeared for a second then dodged back behind Amanda. Something minute had shifted in his expression—a slackness around his mouth, a dullness to the eyes. She felt fear pumping off of him.
“Okay, okay.” Sander dropped the knife to the ground and slowly extended his arms above his head.
Amanda’s face seemed to crumple a little and then it hardened. Fury ignited in her eyes. She twisted away from Sander and kicked the knife away from him. She stepped behind him and said with steel in her voice, “On your knees. Hands on top of your head.”
Sander obeyed.
Trying to control her heaving stomach, Sidney kept the pistol trained on him while Amanda yanked one of his hands back, cocked his wrist and cuffed it, then brought the other hand down and cuffed it. Sidney admired her junior officer’s self-discipline. The urge to pummel Sander must have been overwhelming.
Clenching her jaw, Amanda picked up her weapon from the floor and carefully holstered it. “Look at his knife, Chief.”
It was the custom-made knife from the photos on Grisly’s laptop—a strong piece of evidence linking Sander to poaching. Sidney bagged the knife, then radioed Darnell.
“Yeah, Chief.”
“We have him.”
Amanda shoved Sander in the small of his back. “Move, asshole.”
They ushered him downstairs and Sidney took a good look at him in the filtered light coming through the windows. Morning beard, hair a tangle of red curls falling over his forehead. Jeans and sweatshirt wrinkled. Looked as though he wasted no time on grooming in his hurry to escape.
While Darnell kept Sander under guard, Sidney pulled out her first aid kit and attended to Amanda’s throat. “Just a flesh wound,” she said with a sigh of relief. She cleaned the wound with a cotton swab and applied a bandage. “You did great up there. Certified badass. Steel nerves.”
“I can say the same for you, Chief.” Amanda cast Sander an icy glare. “If I’d been the one holding the gun, the fucker would be dead.”
“Fuck you!” Sander said, spit flying. “I wish I’d sliced you deeper.”
“The sooner you’re locked in a cage, the better,” Amanda snapped.
Sander cast Sidney a furtive glance to measure her reaction.
Wanting nothing more than to give Sander a verbal lashing, she buried her animosity beneath a neutral expression. Sander’s full cooperation was needed when she questioned him. To achieve that, she had to come across as fair, and sympathetic.
Sander’s lip curled up in a sneer. “What am I being charged with? You had no right to arrest me.”
“Let’s lower the temperature, Sander,” Sidney said calmly. “If you aren’t guilty of anything, why were you packed up and leaving town in such a hurry? Why did you attack my officer?”
“You broke into my house without a warrant. I was defending myself.”
“That’s how you want to play this?” Darnell said. “We’re the bad guys?
Sander struggled to restrain himself, but anger vibrated off him. “Anything you confiscated is not admissible in court.”
Of course, he was referring to the stolen jewelry and money. Nice try. “Actually, Sander, I have a search warrant and an arrest warrant. You never gave us the chance to give them to you.” She produced the two warrants and held them up to him. “You can read these at the station.”
Sander licked his lips, suddenly nervous.
“Take him out to the truck,” Sidney said. “Keep the heater running.”
Amanda and Darnell patted Sander down and escorted him out into the snowstorm to the Yukon. When they rejoined Sidney, Darnell was carrying Sander’s bags, coated in snow, and Amanda handed her the keys from his truck.
The two officers set to work searching the house. It wouldn’t take long. Sander lived like a transient—minimal furnishings and the barest stockpile of household supplies. Sidney turned her attention to his bags. The first held nothing of interest: a shaving kit, a pair of running shoes, rumpled clothing. The second bag produced his laptop computer and two faux leather briefcases. Inside the first case Sidney hit pay dirt: rows of neatly stacked packets of hundred dollar bills. The other case was locked. Sidney looked through Sander’s key ring. One key looked like a match. She inserted it, heard the lock click, and lifted the lid. “Wow. Come look at this.”
Amanda went down on her haunches, brows raised, and Darnell squinted at the assortment of jewelry sealed in plastic bags: rings, lockets, watches, bracelets. Even to Sidney’s untrained eye, the pieces appeared to be very valuable. “Recognize anything?”
Amanda’s eyes widened. “Holy hell.”
“Some of this stuff was stolen from the village!” Darnell said.
A smile formed on Sidney’s lips.
“Sander is the fucking Stalker!” Amanda said. “We got him!”
“Jesus. Sander? Who would’ve thought?” Darnel said. “The villagers were right. The Stalker is a white guy.”
“They’ll be ecstatic,” Amanda said.
Sidney sobered. “We worked hard. We put in the hours. Here’s the payoff. A violent perv is off the street.”
“He robbed people,” Darnell said. “Attacked women. Poached animals. Killed Lancer. Is there anything this guy didn’t do? He must’ve killed Nikah, too.”
“Possible. We can’t prove it yet. He can claim self-defense for Lancer, and Nikah was already dead when we caught him ransacking her house. We need hard evidence to get him for murder.” Sidney glanced at her watch. “Nikah’s autopsy should be wrapping up right about now. Hopefully, the doc will have something we can use. I’ll head over there when we get back to town.” She jerked her chin toward the door. “Let’s roll. Book Sander and get him in the grill room. Let him stew until I return. Maybe it’ll soften his attitude.”
Outside, the wind was moaning under the eaves and the snow was blowing sideways. Icy pellets whipped Sidney’s jacket and stung her face. They stored Sander’s baggage in the back of the Yukon and climbed into the cab, brushing off snow and ignoring their prisoner, who sat hunched in the cage next to Darnell, gaze fixed out the window.
Sidney revved up the engine. The wipers squeaked against the windshield. The vehicle rattled over the road. The air was warm, but it failed to alleviate Sidney’s deeper chill. Her thoughts drifted to the drama unfolding in the wilderness. An old w
oman, a boy, and a white wolf were out in this shit storm with a sociopath tailing them. No word of progress from Granger.
Not wanting to dampen the victory of apprehending the Stalker, she kept her troubling thoughts to herself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
LYING ON A RIDGE halfway up Beartooth Peak, peering through high-powered binoculars, Moolock could see the land spread out below him for a hundred miles. Forest dominated the valleys, swelled into the hills, and was carved into parcels by arteries of rivers and creeks. Far off in the distance, in miniature, Lake Kalapuya glittered like a sapphire, surrounded by the snow-laden rooftops of Garnerville. Beartooth Creek slithered through the frozen landscape like a turquoise snake in its relentless journey to the Cascades.
He located the clearing where he exited from the creek with the two horses. From there he rode along the water for several miles, then detoured through the woods to a dilapidated cabin that had once been a refuge for cross-country skiers. Below and just to the east, Moolock could see the cabin and the surrounding meadow clearly. He saw the tracks of the two horses and the wolf that he led into the barn, and the two sets of boot prints and paw prints that led from the barn to the cabin. It had been easy to fake another set of footprints with an extra pair of boots he brought, pressing them into the snow as he marched to the house. Two previously shuttered windows were now open to the daylight and smoke curled from the chimney of the wood stove, giving the cabin an inhabited look.
He left the cabin from the rear door wearing snowshoes, brushing away prints with a few sweeps of cedar branches. Moolock removed the snowshoes and climbed several hundred feet of steep terrain to crawl out on this granite shelf that jutted into open air. Up here, the wind was shrill and icy, but he welcomed the discomfort. It kept him alert. Next to him, the wolf lay as still as the Sphinx, his fur blowing in the current, his ears at full attention as though sensing the danger ahead.
The stillness of the morning was disturbed by the distant sound of a helicopter, angling across the sky above Two Creeks Village, slowly spiraling outwards. Search and Rescue, he presumed. He prayed the chopper wouldn’t travel this far west. The rider would be spooked, and would retreat, and all of Moolock’s well-laid plans would be wasted.