But her familiarity with the place didn’t translate into any overwhelming desire to be here. The Ridge Runner represented a time in her life Sharon would just as soon forget. Just driving past the place never failed to bring her back to her lost days before meeting Mike McMahon, when she was rudderless and adrift, alone and doing her best to drink herself into an early grave, exactly as her father had done.
Meeting Mike had changed all that, and while it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say she had never again thought about drinking, avoiding her old demons was a much easier proposition now that she found herself in a stable relationship with the older ex-cop.
Sharon crunched across the gravel lot past two pickup trucks parked nose-in to the closed bar, like horses outside an old-West tavern. One of them she recognized as Dan Melton’s vehicle, the other she assumed belonged to Bo Pellerin, owner of the Ridge Runner. The men stood waiting for her at the corner of the building, Pellerin currently involved in an animated, mostly one-sided conversation with Melton that included hand waving, angry gestures, and the occasional finger stabbed into Melton’s chest for emphasis.
She wondered how much more verbal abuse Melton would put up with before hauling off and slugging Pellerin. From the look on his face, she guessed the answer was not much. The last thing she wanted was to have to break up a fight between two men who each outweighed her by eighty or more pounds, and she picked up her pace.
“Gentlemen,” she said sharply, skidding to a stop in the wet scrub grass. Pellerin flinched in surprise; he had been so involved in haranguing Melton that he hadn’t even noticed her drive into the lot. “Someone reported the discovery of a body?”
“That’d be me,” Melton said, raising his hand in a little half-wave as if maybe Sharon might need help determining who had spoken. “And it’s not just one body, exactly. It’s more like…well…”
Sharon scratched her head. “Well, what? How many bodies did you find? Aren’t you sure?”
“Maybe you should just take a look and see for yourself,” Melton said.
Sharon looked at him quizzically. “Okay,” she said. “Lead the way.”
They began walking along the side of the building in the direction of the earthmover. “I still don’t know why you couldn’t have called me first,” Pellerin said, apparently resuming the conversation that Sharon’s arrival had interrupted. “Thanks to you, I’m going to be out of business even longer now.”
Melton stopped on a dime and turned. Sharon was surprised such a big guy could move so nimbly. Pellerin had been directly behind him and nearly ran into him. “There’s dead people lying in a hole in the ground right behind your bar,” Melton said, his voice rising in volume as he spoke. “What would you have wanted me to do, just cover them back up and pretend I never found them?”
Sharon had known Bo Pellerin a long time and knew without a shadow of a doubt that was exactly what he would have preferred Melton do. “Of course not,” Bo said after a long pause. “I just think that since this…incident…occurred on my property, I should have been notified first.”
Melton shook his head, exasperated, and said, “Just give it a rest, Bo, and let me show Officer Dupont the hole so we can all get the hell out of the rain.”
All except me, Sharon thought.
They rounded the corner and Melton waved a hand in the general direction of the portion of the hole closest the back wall of the Ridge Runner. “You can see it for yourself,” he said uneasily, refusing to look into the pit.
Before turning her attention to the hole, Sharon let her gaze linger on Dan Melton’s face, scrutinizing him. His skin was pale, his lips a grayish-white, and it occurred to her with stunning clarity that he was afraid. This is more than just being shaken up by the discovery of a dead body. Melton’s actually terrified. She knew the contractor would never open up with Bo Pellerin standing right next to him, though, and made a mental note to talk to him later, alone.
She turned her attention away from the heavy equipment operator and at last looked into the pit he had dug. It was nearly finished, measuring roughly ten feet long by eight feet wide, maybe four feet deep.
Except for the area in question. That portion of the hole was much deeper, extending perhaps another six feet below the four feet Melton had already excavated. It opened up into what at one time had clearly been a small room. Melton had dug right through the ceiling and exposed the hidden room by stripping away the layer of earth covering it.
She squatted down on her haunches in the wet grass and looked more closely and saw what Melton had called the station to report: the bones of two skeletons, sprawled on the hard-packed dirt floor of the room. The falling rain and drizzle had turned the floor into a gooey, muddy mess, but the off-white bones were still easily recognizable from above.
The flesh surrounding the bones had long-since disappeared, meaning either the bodies had been down there a very long time, or the victims had died somewhere else and been transported to their present location only after decomposition was complete. Sharon guessed it was the former, as small bits of muddy, mostly-decomposed fabric—presumably the clothing the victims had been wearing when they died—still clung to the bones and lay scattered in the immediate vicinity.
She furrowed her brow and looked up at Melton. He had turned his back on them and was staring resolutely in the direction of the parking lot. “Dan,” she said softly.
He turned and cast a questioning look in her direction. Sharon noticed he still did not look into the pit. “Two bodies,” she said. “Why didn’t you just tell me there were two?”
“Two?” he answered. “What about the other guy?”
“Other guy? What other guy?” Sharon dropped to her knees now and examined as much of the room as she could. The steel-grey light provided by the glowering skies made it nearly impossible to see much of anything besides the bones through the relatively small gash in the room’s ceiling.
She produced a Maglite flashlight and shined it down through the hole, examining as much as she could of the room’s interior. It looked exactly like some kind of ancient underground bunker. As far as she could see, no other bodies were present. “There are two sets of bones here,” she said. “Probably human, although we’ll have to wait for lab analysis to be sure. But that’s it. There’s no other guy.”
“What are you talking about?” Melton said. He trudged forward reluctantly, the saturated ground sucking at his work boots, producing an audible slurp with each step. “How can you not see it? Lying right next to the bones is another guy, and this one looks alive, his skin color is—”
He stopped short and stared in horror down at the secret room under the hole he had dug less than an hour ago. “Oh, my God,” he whispered, his already pale face turning chalk-white. His eyes widened in panic and he stumbled backward and almost fell, wind-milling his arms in a desperate attempt to maintain his balance. For a moment Sharon though he might drop right into the pit, but then Bo grabbed him by one arm and steadied him.
“What is it?” Sharon said, and for once, Bo had nothing to add, he simply stared mutely at Dan Melton like a moviegoer waiting for the killer to be revealed in the final scene.
Melton swallowed hard and made an obvious effort to get his emotions under control. “The guy…the guy is gone.”
***
“I’m telling you,” Melton said, “there was another body at the bottom of that hole, and it wasn’t just a loose collection of bones, either. The skin color was normal and the dude appeared as alive as you or me. He looked exactly like some guy sleeping one off, except he had no clothes on.”
Sharon had prevailed upon Bo to fire up the Ridge Runner’s coffeemaker, and the three of them sipped coffee and stood at the bar, trying to pretend they weren’t all soaking wet and freezing cold. And in Melton’s case, terrified beyond all reason.
“Well,” she said. “Not to dwell on the obvious, but if there was another body down there, where would he have gone?”
“Beats the he
ll out of me. But I know what I saw.”
Sharon turned to Pellerin. “Did you see another body down there, Bo?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t see anything until just now. I got here no more than two minutes before you drove up. I never even went behind the building until we all went together.” Sharon glanced at Melton for confirmation and he nodded.
“Maybe you saw something else and only thought it was another body,” she suggested. “Uncovering those bones would startle anyone, and—”
Melton shook his head resolutely and raised his hand, cutting her off. “There was another body in there. It was a man, maybe mid-to-late thirties, and although his eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving, I would bet a hundred bucks he was alive. I know what I saw,” he repeated.
Sharon looked between the two men and then drained her coffee. “I have to get back outside. I’ve got work to do.”
3
Bronson Choate urged his seven year old Jeep Cherokee up the rutted dirt trail leading to his cabin. Twenty miles per was about the best speed he was ever able to achieve on the mile-long weed-strewn cow path serving as his “driveway,” and even then he was grateful for his safety harness. It was about the only thing preventing him from being bounced right out the driver’s side window.
A merchant marine engineer based out of Portland, Bronson typically spent six weeks at sea, followed by four weeks at home. He considered the relatively long drive from Portland to his cabin in Paskagankee well worth the time, given his love of solitude. Hunting, fishing and hiking were the perfect methods of relaxing after the grueling work schedule he was forced to endure—four hours on, eight hours off, over and over, for weeks at a time—while at sea.
Plus, with the low cost of living up here at the far end of the known universe, Bronson was able to bank most of his salary, and had been doing so since signing on right out of high school fifteen years ago. His plan was to work his ass off for another ten years and then retire. He figured by the age of forty-three he would have enough cash salted away to live quite comfortably off the beaten path for the rest of his life.
And that was good enough for Bronson Choate.
The Cherokee ground on through the dense forest. The drizzle had been falling steadily during the drive north, and although it was still only early afternoon, between the low clouds and the thick canopy of centuries-old fir trees it felt to Bronson more like dusk. He had flipped his headlights on over an hour ago, but here in the dense forest the beams seemed to wither and die a few feet from the car, gobbled up by the looming darkness.
At last the little cabin materialized in the mist, the unrelenting mass of Paskagankee forest encroaching on it from all sides. Hauling construction materials way out here ten years ago while building his home had been no picnic, but Bronson had never doubted his struggles would be worthwhile in the end, and he had been right.
He pulled to the side of the narrow pathway and shut down the Jeep. Parking was tricky, but if done properly, left him just enough room to turn the vehicle around between two trees when it was time to drive away, rather than being forced to back out through a mile of wilderness.
Bronson yanked on a watch cap and slid into his jacket. He hefted his canvas duffle off the passenger seat and worked the nylon strap over his head, allowing him to carry the bag while keeping both hands free. Then he opened the Jeep’s door and stepped into the falling rain.
Standing water filled the potholes in his forest driveway, some of them upwards of eight inches deep, and Bronson reminded himself to tread carefully. Breaking an ankle this far from help would be a problem, especially given the historically spotty cell coverage in the Paskagankee area. Even after the recent construction of their very own cell tower, residents of the remote town could never count on receiving a steady signal from one location to the next, or even from one moment to the next.
The steady, days-long precipitation had saturated the ground, even here under the thick forest canopy, and Bronson slipped and slid to his front door. He was fumbling around in his pocket for the house key—he hadn’t used the damned thing in nearly two months, where the hell was it?—when furtive movement, sensed rather than seen out of the corner of his eye, caught his attention.
He froze, hand in his pocket, and glanced to the right. The movement had seemed to come from somewhere beyond the corner of the cabin, back among the trees. Bronson Choate was not what anyone would consider to be a jumpy person, not given to flights of fancy or unfounded fears, but now he was reminded exactly how isolated he was out here.
He pictured his Ruger 9mm semiauto pistol, currently less than ten feet away but stashed securely in a gun safe and out of reach behind his closed and locked front door. Carrying the gun aboard ship was strictly prohibited, so Bronson’s policy was to unload it and lock it up before leaving for a stint at sea.
He wished he had it now.
Squinting, Bronson willed the heavy rain to ease up for a moment so he could just freaking see. The rain paid no attention.
He stared for a few more seconds in the direction he thought/felt he had seen movement.
Nothing.
A light breeze ruffled the evergreens and Bronson heard the soothing sigh that accompanied the wind in the middle of the forest, but there was no sign of anything unusual.
False alarm.
Maybe you’re becoming just another pussy in your old age. He smiled at the thought. Rough, tough Bronson Choate, veteran seaman, globe-trotting merchant marine, survivor of bar fights the world over, from the Philippines to the Hawaiian Islands to Portland’s roughest Old Port taverns, quaking like a little girl on the front steps of his own house, frightened by nothing scarier than the wind in the trees.
He shook his head at his foolishness and pulled the house-key from his pocket. He slid it into the door lock and turned it.
And again sensed movement, this time from his other side. A figure rushed at him from out of the gloom on his left, and Bronson knew immediately he had been suckered. Whoever—whatever—had raised his hackles a moment ago on the right side of the cabin had crossed behind it while he was staring like a dumbass into the forest.
He spun to the left and raised his hands to defend himself against the unknown attacker, but the bulky duffel bag slung over his shoulder had thrown his balance off. He slipped and lurched sideways.
Nearly fell.
Recovered.
But by now it was too late. The attacker raised one arm and slashed at his face. Bronson reacted instinctively, ducking and turning his head, but he was too slow and whatever the attacker was holding slammed into the side of Bronson’s skull.
A white-hot explosion of pain bounced around inside his skull and he tried to counter with a roundhouse right as he was falling, but his motor skills had vanished, he felt numb and tingly, and the punch missed its target badly. He crumpled to the ground, dropping onto his duffel bag like he was falling onto a mattress. Small favors, he thought.
He felt consciousness slipping away and forced himself to focus on his attacker, determined to identify the son of a bitch so that on the off chance the guy didn’t kill him right here and now, he could hunt the fucker down later. Even as the circuits in his brain were shutting down, shock flooded his system at what he saw.
His attacker was a man; no surprise there.
But the man was buck naked.
4
The man went down in a jumble of rubbery arms and legs and Jackson Healy wondered for just a second whether he had killed him. He didn’t care, but he did wonder.
He would have preferred to shoot the guy, rather than rushing him without a stitch of clothing covering his bare ass, but his Colt .38 was somehow rusted and corroded all to hell and when he had pulled the trigger experimentally a few minutes ago, not a goddamned thing had happened.
So he had improvised. It was a talent Jackson had always been blessed with.
He stepped over the unconscious man and tried the cabin door. A key hung from a strange-looking lock buil
t into the knob, and it had apparently already been turned, because the door swung open noiselessly.
Jackson stepped inside, then turned around and dragged his victim in behind him. It seemed unlikely anyone would come along and see the man way out here in the middle of nowhere, but there was no point in taking unnecessary chances, especially considering he had no idea what in the hell was going on.
He needed to find clothing. That was the first order of business and the only thing Jackson was really sure of at this point. Things had been moving so fast since he had opened his eyes, awakening out of a deep sleep and finding himself at the bottom of a muddy hole, naked and being pelted with freezing-cold rain, that he hadn’t had much of an opportunity to think about anything else.
The cabin owner coughed weakly and moaned on the floor, and Jackson decided he’d probably live. He guessed the guy would regain enough of his faculties to become a problem again fairly quickly, and decided he had better hurry up and neutralize the man.
He padded down a short hallway into the tiny home’s only bedroom and began pulling open dresser drawers at random. Before long he had found underclothes and stockings, as well as a pair of denim trousers. He found a button-down flannel shirt hanging in a small closet.
The owner of the clothes looked to be relatively close to Jackson’s own height and weight, and in any event he didn’t have any other options, so he stepped quickly into them. They fit well enough and were certainly better than running around naked as the day he was born.
Jackson spied a pair of work boots tossed haphazardly under the dresser and fished them out. He laced them up and returned to the cabin’s sitting room and found the man he had attacked still lying on the floor. His eyes were fluttering, though, and it seemed clear he would be recovering soon.
Jackson knew he should leave now, cut his losses, get out while the cabin’s owner was still incapacitated. Thanks to the man’s unwitting generosity, Jackson now at least had clothing and boots to wear, and undoubtedly there was a nice, warm coat hanging in the closet next to the front door. He should grab that coat and go.
Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) Page 7