by Diane Hester
‘I don’t think it’s broken,’ she said, slipping off a three-inch heel. ‘But I wanted to make sure nothing else was wrong.’ Toes pointed, she raised her leg and lowered it into his hands.
The sensuous nature of the gesture surprised him but he dismissed it. Surely just his imagination. ‘How did you fall?’
‘I didn’t so much fall as twist it coming down the stairs of my cabin.’
‘I see.’ Initial perusal of the site showed nothing. Chase began testing the joint with his fingers. ‘Your cabin. Would that be one of the rentals out by the lake?’
‘Why yes, it is.’
‘Nice spot for a vacation.’
‘Oh, I’m not on vacation. I’m on my way to a conference in Toronto and thought I’d break up the trip.’
‘Well, you picked a nice spot.’ Still at a loss to find the problem, he smiled. ‘Can you show me exactly where it hurts?’
Like a cat unfurling after a nap, she stretched forward slowly, running her hand down the length of her leg till her fingers skimmed the side of her foot. ‘Just in here.’
There was no mistaking her movements this time. Nor could he miss the view now displayed with her blouse hanging open inches from his face.
Keeping his gaze fixed on her foot, Chase began rotating the ankle gently. No swelling, no contusions. Warning bells had started to sound in his head.
‘When it happened I felt like such an idiot,’ she laughed. ‘It got me thinking – what if I’d really hurt myself? I mean, this area is so remote. What do you do if someone gets seriously injured or sick?’
‘Presque Isle hospital is only an hour’s drive from here. Any pain when I do this?’ Chase flexed the joint. Suddenly he didn’t feel like making small talk.
‘No, that’s fine. Well, it must be a comfort to the folks who live here, having a hospital so close by. Do you have to send people there very often?’
‘I sent a patient there only yesterday as a matter of fact. Aside from that I can’t really say – I haven’t been here all that long.’ He extended the rotation just a bit further. ‘How about this?’
The woman arched back her head and closed her eyes. ‘Oh yes, that’s the spot.’ Her voice was more breathy than edged with pain.
He lowered her foot. ‘Your ankle looks fine, Ms Roswell. It’s certainly not broken and there’s no sign of tendon or ligament damage. At worst I’d say you sprained it. Slightly.’ He got up and returned to his desk.
‘Oh, thank you, Doctor. That’s such a relief.’
Vanessa slipped on her shoe again. Feeling somewhat slighted by his lack of interest she slid off the table, returned to the chair and sat watching him write in her file. ‘So you haven’t been here all that long.’
‘I only took over the practice three weeks ago.’
‘You poor thing. I imagine it gets pretty lonely out here.’
Chase gave a tight smile. ‘Lucky for me I don’t live alone.’
When he left his office a few moments later he found Elaine leaning over her desk watching Ms Roswell walk down the hall. She turned to him worriedly. ‘Everything all right?’
‘As far as I know. Why, is there a problem out here?’
‘Oh no, no, everything’s fine. I just wondered . . .’
He arched a brow.
‘I thought you might have had trouble with that one.’ She jerked her head towards the hallway.
‘You mean with Ms Roswell? What sort of trouble did you think I might have?’
‘Come now, Doctor. Don’t tell me a city boy like you can’t spot . . .’
He maintained his expression of bewildered innocence.
Elaine leaned towards him and lowered her voice even though they were totally alone. ‘A woman of that sort.’
‘Ah.’
‘All that make-up. And those shoes!’ She shook her head. ‘No woman wears shoes like that unless she’s . . .’
‘That sort,’ Chase supplied.
‘Well, they aren’t built for comfort, I can tell you.’
‘The women or the shoes?’
She narrowed her eyes at his burgeoning smile. ‘Maybe you haven’t heard about female patients seducing doctors and then later suing them for sexual assault.’
‘Actually I have. But I thank you for your concern, Elaine. If she comes again I’ll be sure to have you in the room while I treat her.’
Elaine humphed and returned to her filing.
At the sound of his mobile, Nolan pulled the car to the side of the road. It wasn’t out of concern for safety. It was simply that without a current destination he could accomplish just as much standing still.
He eyed the phone on the seat beside him. Then again if it was Tragg on the other end the conversation might well have an adverse effect on his driving. He picked it up and put it to his ear.
‘I just left the doctor,’ Vanessa said without preliminaries.
Nolan slumped against the seat in relief. ‘And?’
‘They sent the kid to Presque Isle hospital. I’m heading there now. You stay and keep an eye out for Ballinger. I’ll see you at the cabin when I get back.’
‘I got a better idea. How about I go to the hospital and you stay and look for Ballinger?’
‘That’s your baby, Nolan. Just find the woman and you find the kid.’
‘And how do you propose I do that exactly?’
‘For Christ’s sake, it’s a fly-speck burg with one main road. Drive around long enough and you’ll run into everyone who lives here.’
‘Well, if it’s so damn easy –’
‘Hospital’s only an hour’s drive. I’ll call you when I get there.’ The line disconnected.
Nolan threw the mobile onto the seat.
Vanessa drove to the parking lot exit, sat looking up the road towards Presque Isle, then pulled out and headed in the opposite direction. She was making an unscheduled stop before leaving. Back to the cabin. Just for insurance.
When she’d heard Nolan lying to Tragg last night, the writing on the wall had lit up like a neon sign. The man had not just outlived his usefulness, he’d become an outright liability.
Listening to his voice on the phone just now had confirmed those fears. Nolan was done. He was too freaked out to do the job. He wasn’t going to find this mystery woman and he wasn’t going to get Ballinger back.
Well, she would not go down with his sinking ship! Yes, she’d slipped up. Yes, she’d let Ballinger get information about Lazaro. But she hadn’t let the boys escape. That was totally Nolan’s doing and she wasn’t going to share the rap for it. Or for his lies.
She had to distance herself while she could. Tragg would be wild when he learned the truth. But if she could convince him she’d done her bit – more than her bit – if she could return to him with two of the boys Nolan had lost, he might overlook her part in the rest. Especially if she did it right.
Vanessa drove on with renewed conviction. She’d always known Nolan was totally spineless. Now that he had lost it completely it was time to cut the dead weight loose.
Chapter 28
The plank pulled free with a tortured groan and hung by a single supporting post. Shyler stepped across to the anchored end and drove the crowbar beneath its last nail. A moment later, it lay with the others at her feet. She bent and examined a piece more closely.
The timber was in a perfect state of deterioration – beautifully weathered but with no sign of rot. Like the other old shelters she’d dismantled that summer it would provide the raw materials for a dozen projects. Indeed, with what she’d already scavenged she hardly needed to collect any more.
So why was she here?
She gathered up the planks, carried them to the pick-up and laid them in the back. The track she’d parked on was little more than a driveway’s width, trees crowding in on either side. For perhaps the tenth time since she’d arrived there she paused to take a look around.
The morning’s mist had left the forest fragrant and sparkling. In places where sunligh
t pierced the canopy, maple leaves gleamed on the ground like rubies. Morels and puff balls poked shy faces through the mulch and the ghostly swan necks of Indian Pipes arched gracefully beneath the hemlocks. In every direction all she could see was virgin forest, all she could hear was bird song and the wind gently stirring the leaves.
Yet something was wrong. She’d been here a couple of hours now and still felt no better than when she’d arrived. Work of this sort, performed in solitude and surrounded by nature, normally soothed her. But today the diversion just wasn’t working. Today she just couldn’t get her mind off the dream.
In the newest version she’d had last night Jesse had actually spoken to her. He’d prattled for what had felt like hours, telling her about his friend’s new rabbit, the bike he wanted, the hit he’d gotten at Little League training. He’d held her hand and asked her to sing him his favourite song, then laughed when she couldn’t remember the words.
Smiling, she recalled the excited gleam in his almond-shaped eyes as he spoke of the pretty new girl in his class. Her little boy was getting so big, so grown up. And still, his face had been smudged with dirt, his tousled hair in need of a trim, his . . .
She leaned against the truck and closed her eyes. No, her Jesse wasn’t getting big, he wasn’t growing up. He would never grow up. Fish Hook and the others had seen to that.
She groped for the driver’s door, yanked it open, and threw herself in. Gripping the wheel she sat, head bowed, fighting to make sense of her whirling thoughts.
It seemed to be getting harder and harder to pull her mind from what she so desperately wanted to believe. And it wasn’t just in sleep any more. She’d seen Jesse in the cabin last night. She’d stepped from the pantry and there he’d been, standing in the doorway, plain as day. He’d looked older. Not as she had seen him last on the bridge but as he would if he had lived.
She’d dropped the jar of peaches she was holding, she’d been that shaken. Yet when she’d looked up from the mess at her feet, her boy had gone. Only to reappear this morning in her rear-view mirror as she’d driven off to collect her wood.
With trembling hands she started the engine and guided the truck back through the forest. At the road she waited for a car to pass. The driver slowed and for a moment she thought he was going to stop – a lost vacationer? – but in the end he drove on. She pulled out and turned in the opposite direction.
Even as she sped up the track towards home, she knew she couldn’t outrun her fears.
Nolan drove at a reasonable speed till the pick-up vanished from his rear-view mirror. The minute it was out of sight he swung a U-turn and started back after it.
Clearing a bend he spotted the vehicle up ahead and slowed again. It was her, he was sure of it! He’d seen her face clearly, if for but an instant, when he’d passed her at the edge of the road. Just as well she’d been stopped there or he might have missed her. All this time he’d been looking for the sedan she’d had at the general store yesterday.
With a growing sense of anticipation, he forced himself to hang back far enough to avoid drawing the woman’s attention. He’d follow her till she led him home then, one way or the other, he’d solve the problem of Zackary Ballinger.
He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the kid. All the trouble the little shit had caused him – threats from Tragg, abuse from Vanessa, traipsing around this godforsaken wilderness . . .
He didn’t have long to wait. Ten minutes after commencing his pursuit the pick-up turned down a lonely dirt track. He briefly lost sight of it around a bend then saw it pulling up to a garage adjacent to a small log cabin.
He stopped at once and reversed well away. Through the binoculars Vanessa had brought he watched the woman get out of the truck and begin unloading some timber planks from the back.
Now was his chance. If Zack was inside the cabin he could sneak in the back, grab him while he was alone and not have to deal with the woman at all. Even if Zack had told her something, she wouldn’t have any idea where he’d gone so she couldn’t tell the cops.
Nolan reversed his car beyond the blind bend and turned it around for a speedy getaway. He checked his watch. One forty-five. He might just make his meeting with Tragg in time after all.
Leaving the keys in the ignition, he got out and started towards the cabin.
The light above the couch was weird. A wide band of metal, like the rim of a wagon wheel, with animals and trees cut around its upper edge. When sunlight came through the window just right, shadows of bears, bobcats and moose stalked across the cabin walls. Zack lay disoriented, staring up at them, as slowly his situation returned to him. With effort he pushed himself onto one elbow. The cabin interior spun around him and he clenched his jaw against a rush of nausea. Sounds had awakened him. Something outside. But he couldn’t quite think . . .
A car pulling up. Yes, that was it. God, he must’ve fallen asleep. If the woman was back he had to get out of here.
He managed to push himself halfway up, then something hit his chest and slammed him down again. A hand clamped tightly on his mouth. All remnants of sleep dissolved in an instant as he stared at the man’s face hovering over him.
‘You so much as squeak and I’ll break your neck.’ Nolan hauled him to his feet by his shirt. Maintaining a grip on his mouth the whole time, he dragged him through the kitchen and out the back door.
Zack stumbled along unresisting, too stunned to put up a fight at first. If he’d cried out at all it would have been in pain, not fear. The sleeping horror had awakened in his leg the instant he’d put his foot to the floor.
But once outside his courage returned. If Nolan was so desperate to keep him quiet it had to mean someone else was nearby to hear. He bit down on the smothering hand. Nolan squawked and released his grip.
The instant the hand pulled away from his mouth, Zack drew breath and screamed his loudest.
Shyler dropped the armload of planks and spun back to face the open door. For an instant she stood, muscles locked, intent on the sound she thought she could hear, a sound that seemed to be coming from the woods on the far side of the cabin. She lurched forward, hesitated, then launched herself out into the sunlit clearing.
The sound stopped the instant she stepped from the garage. If it had ever been there at all. In the silence, there was only the thump of her heart, the rasp of air scraping her throat.
With a hand to her mouth she bowed her head. The sound had gone through her like rusty barbed wire, ripping and tearing. All at once she’d been back on the bridge, watching him fall, watching that beautiful head of brown hair vanish beneath the swirling waters.
Jesse.
Sinking her teeth into one of her knuckles, she used the pain to pull herself together. Wind. A bird. The echo of something farther away. That’s all it had been.
She was just turning to go back to her task when the sound came again. She closed her eyes, threw up her hands to cover her ears. Please, no more.
The sound wouldn’t stop. It seemed so real. She ran for the cabin.
The blow knocked him flat. Stars exploded before Zack’s gaze, a roar filled his head. He crawled a few inches, struggled to rise, but couldn’t get his feet beneath him.
Hands pulled him up. His legs felt rubbery but with Nolan keeping a grip on his arm they carried him forward. He walked in silence, resistance gone. No one had heard him. No one would help.
A parked car appeared through a break in the trees. Nolan marched him steadily towards it.
But with every step Zack’s fear was reborn. Suddenly it wasn’t the forest he walked but the long dark corridor of his nightmare. And now before him, not a car door opening but the gate to the chamber of the idling truck.
He turned and kicked out.
Nolan managed to block the worst of it. The kick just grazed its intended target, enough to enrage but not incapacitate. He swore and threw Zack to the ground.
As the man stood hunched, Zack scrambled backwards away from him. ‘Help me! Somebody! Ple
ase! Help!’
‘I told you to shut up.’ Nolan straightened and started towards him.
‘He’s killing me! Please! Don’t let him hur –’ His voice choked off as the man’s hands closed around his throat.
He tried to buck but couldn’t move. He flailed his arms but the pathetic blows had no effect.
‘You just don’t get it, do you, kid?’ Nolan bent over him. ‘She doesn’t care. Nobody cares. No one in this whole world gives a rat’s ass about a worthless piece of shit like –’
A sickening thud. A guttural grunt. The man pitched forward.
Zack lay gasping. The pressure on his throat had eased but Nolan’s full weight now lay crushing him. With the last of his strength he heaved the man sideways.
The crazy lady stood above them holding a rifle, its butt end angled forward and down. Was that the horrible sound he’d heard? She’d bashed in Nolan’s head with the rifle? No blood or brains were leaking out, but the man wasn’t moving. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.
Slowly he turned his gaze back to her, fighting to focus. She seemed to be fading. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
It didn’t matter.
The world had gone.
Chapter 29
Vanessa stood near the group of visitors, hoping she’d be mistaken for one of them. So far no one on the children’s ward had given her a second glance and she’d been able to eavesdrop on a conversation between a female police officer and one of the doctors.
It appeared that when Corey Ingles had arrived last night he’d been suffering hypothermia and damage to his spleen. Since commencing treatment he’d improved steadily and was expected to make a full recovery. Best of all, though the kid was awake, he was refusing to speak so the authorities still didn’t know who he was.