Trace Evidence (The Heir Hunter Book 2)

by Diane Capri

  The tallest of the mountains was on the lake’s north side, but the terrain was elevated all around the alpine lake basin. The way he remembered it, the rocky coastline ran up from the water and disappeared quickly into the tree line.

  He frowned and thought hard. His brain seemed muddled and foggy, but as he concentrated and visualized he thought, maybe, when he was circling above the landing area, he’d seen the rooftops of Red Maple Lake Resort across the lake from the highest peak and to the east.

  He opened his eyes. The sun had already dipped behind the mountains to his right, which should mean the resort was to his left. East of where they’d come ashore.

  The more he thought about it, the more he believed he was right. East. He’d seen those rooftops to the east. Definitely. No question.

  But how far? Could he walk there? Maybe not. His legs wobbled with tension when he tried to stand. But really, what choice did he have? If he didn’t go for help, they’d all die of exposure or dehydration. Or something worse. Bears and cougars and who knew what other carnivores prowled in these mountains. Predators that would see Skip as an easy meal.

  He shook his head. Staying here and waiting for rescue was not an option.

  He approached Dan, still lying on the rocks, eyes closed, shivering with cold. Josh knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. Dan’s eyes popped open but he didn’t move. Josh felt his carotid pulse, which was erratic but present. His skin was cold.

  “Dan, you can hear me, right?” Josh lowered his voice. He didn’t want to alarm Skip, assuming his friend could hear anything at all.

  Dan’s voice was dry and weak. “Yeah.”

  “Skip is in a bad way, man. We’ve got to get him out of here and find a doctor. Can you stay with him while I go look for help?”

  “Yeah.” Dan’s eyes widened and darted wildly, as if the idea of staying with Skip frightened him beyond anything they’d endured so far. Josh understood. Skip might very well die before Josh got back.

  “Look, Dan, we both love Skip like a brother. We’ve got to do everything we can.” Dan’s wild-eyed terror seemed to grow with every word Josh said. “We can’t leave him alone. And you’re in no shape to go for help.”

  Josh didn’t say that if they all stayed here, Skip would probably die and they might die, too. Dan shook his head rapidly. His nostrils flared. The more Josh thought about it, the more frightening his imaginings seemed to become. But Dan would have to get himself together. He couldn’t see any other way. He had to go for help. It was their best chance.

  Josh patted Dan on the shoulder and pushed himself upright. He staggered a few steps and steadied his weight evenly. Cold gooseflesh covered his skin. His body began to shake. He needed to move. To warm up.

  He had to go now. While he still had some daylight. He dug through and found four flashlights in the life raft. He checked them to be sure they were working and handed two to Dan. He searched for matches and found a lighter. They had nothing to burn for a fire. Dan would have to take care of that much.

  “When it gets dark, turn on one of these flashlights. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll bring help. Look around in the raft for something you can use to start a fire. Maybe some blankets that didn’t get wet and some kind of dried food or something, too.” He’d been scanning the tree line for a path into the woods and he didn’t see one. The trek through the thick forest wouldn’t be easy in daylight. It might be impossible after full dark. “Stay here so I can find you again. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Dan nodded and said nothing more. Maybe he was still dazed from his head trauma. Or maybe his reaction right now was caused by pure fright. Either way, there was nothing more Josh could do to assuage Dan’s fears. He felt the same things himself.

  Josh started off toward the east looking for some sign of civilization. Or even a cell phone signal.

  He began a slow jog to cover ground more quickly and to warm up a bit. He stayed on the rocky shore, traveling east, until he found a reasonable break in the trees. Not a trail, but an opening.

  Now he was headed southeast. The going was slower here. His feet landed awkwardly on rocky and uneven ground, even as the dense forest protected him from the sharp wind and the stinging sleet. He was forced to slow down, to dodge the undergrowth and maneuver around the big pines and aspens and other trees and bushes he couldn’t identify.

  Inside the woods, it was darker. He pulled out one of the flashlights and turned it on and held the beam directed to the ground in front of him. His stomach growled with hunger a few times and he considered that a good sign. It felt normal. He hadn’t eaten anything for several hours. Of course, he was hungry. Made sense. Josh liked things that made sense.

  He’d traveled maybe two miles, give or take, when he heard voices ahead. He paused to listen. Three voices, he thought. All males. Campers, maybe. Or guests at Red Maple Lake Resort, if he was lucky. He hadn’t been lucky in a long time. Maybe his luck was about to change.

  “Hello!” he called out before he could see them clearly.

  “Hello!” one of the men called back.

  Relief washed over him like a long, hot shower. He’d found help. Maybe Dan and Skip would be okay. Maybe they all would. He judged the distance and direction of the voices and jogged closer.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Houston, Texas

  Tuesday

  Flint met Drake at the private airfield in Houston. Drake had the Pilatus out of the hangar and ready to go. Flint parked his car and grabbed his bag. He hustled over to the jet and climbed aboard. As he settled into the copilot seat, Drake’s attention was focused on his preflight checklist.

  After takeoff, Flint brought Drake up to speed on his visit to Beaumont, filling him in on the rest of the conversation and the research he had done to date. Drake was one of the best wingmen on the planet, and Flint wouldn’t send him into the situation uninformed.

  “So I guess that’s progress. At least we know we’re not chasing a dead man to the bottom of that lake,” Drake said.

  “What we know is that Hallman probably didn’t die in the crash. At this point, we don’t know what happened to him afterward. If those guys found him, he could be dead now.”

  Flint had loaded his laptop with satellite imagery of Red Maple Lake and the surrounding area. The lake was south and east of Lake Tahoe. Flight time to Reno on a commercial airliner was just under six hours with at least an hour layover. In the Pilatus, they should be able to shave off the travel time. Drake would land at the private airfield outside of Reno where he had reserved the floatplane.

  “What kind of plane did you get?”

  “Same one Hallman used. Cessna T206. It was the best choice and I’m familiar with it. The weather is forecast as calm and clear. With luck, we won’t run into any crosswinds or downdrafts as we try to land on that lake, like Hallman did.”

  “You researched the FAA files on the crash.” Flint glanced over to see Drake nod. “Was there a definitive cause determined?”

  “The official conclusion was pilot error. It looked like he came in too fast and off course, particularly for the weather conditions. There’s only one good way to land on that lake and he missed the coordinates. The crosswind tilted the plane so that it didn’t land flat on both floats. After that, the bird was unstable.” Drake shrugged. “He couldn’t manage the plane.”

  “Any estimate on how long it took for the Cessna to go down in the lake?”

  “They had plenty of time to conduct a water evacuation, if that’s what you’re asking. The plane had an inflatable life raft in it. Assuming they were conscious when they landed, there would have been time to get ashore.”

  Flint found his laptop and opened it. He looked at the videos that he’d seen in Veronica Beaumont’s office again. He slowed the video to take a closer look at each frame.

  As they had pulled Hallman’s plane out of the water, it only had one damaged float still attached on the right side. According to the FAA report, the lef
t float had been sheared off on landing.

  The left wing was also severely damaged, probably by contact with the water. That would have made the left side of the plane sink first.

  But the exit doors were on the right side of the cabin, as was the pilot seat. Josh was the pilot. He’d have had the best chance. If the two passengers were in the copilot seat and the back left seat, they’d have taken the brunt of the force.

  The engine pulled the plane’s nose underwater and the plane flipped over, but if the passengers had their harnesses on properly, they should have survived the crash.

  And then, as Drake said, they’d have had enough time to deploy the inflatable life raft before the plane sank into the lake. They should have been able to get to shore.

  “Was there something wrong with the raft?”

  Drake shook his head. “Hard to say, since no one ever found it. Under the conditions out there, they won’t keep looking for pieces of a life raft. Even if they were still around. We’ll never know what happened to that raft.”

  “That’s not the only odd thing about the situation, though.” Flint clicked a few keys on his laptop. “The videos Veronica gave me from the body retrieval were pretty damned odd, too.”

  “In what way?”

  “Took a while, but I got the autopsies on the two passengers early this morning. Beaumont didn’t have them. Autopsies say cause of death was not drowning. One of the men, Skip Evans, had a serious compound fracture of his right femur, which must’ve hurt like hell. He might have died from blood loss or a host of other things related to the crash. But his cause of death was listed as morphine overdose.” Flint pulled up the two headshots he’d found for the deceased men and showed them to Drake. “The other guy, Dan Shafer, would have survived his crash injuries, the autopsy says.”

  “Why didn’t he live then?”

  “Cause of death is stated as gunshot wound. Two gunshot holes from a handgun. One in the back of his head.”

  Drake’s eyes widened and he shook his head slowly, probably running the same set of variables through his mind that Flint had covered. “Not looking good for Hallman, is it?”

  “Question is whether Hallman delivered those gunshots and somehow got away afterward.”

  Drake cocked his head. “Which leads to the question of why he’d want to do that.”

  Flint nodded. “Or were the guys who threatened Beaumont the ones who killed Shafer and Evans?”

  “If so, Hallman’s probably dead now, too,” Drake said.

  “We haven’t found any paper trail to suggest otherwise.”

  “Nothing? For six years?” Drake shrugged. “Not good.”

  When they landed in Reno, Drake refueled and tied down the Pilatus before they moved their gear into the Cessna.

  They were expected at Red Maple Lake Resort before nightfall. Flint had made reservations and confirmed they would be picked up at the landing site. He’d been reminded that the resort had no cell service. This could be his last chance to check with his contacts and download any updates. He left Drake to inspect the Cessna and headed into the terminal.

  He logged on to his private server and checked his deposits. He found and downloaded three new files from his contact. He bought two black coffees and returned to the Cessna and climbed into the copilot’s seat.

  The flight over the mountains toward Red Maple Lake was nothing short of breathtaking. Snowy peaks capped greenery below the tree line. As they approached the basin, Red Maple Lake glittered in the sunlight like a thousand fairy lights winking on and off.

  When Drake approached the lake for landing, Flint said, “Take a couple of circles. I want to see what’s down there.”

  “You won’t see much from up here,” Drake replied. “The satellite photos were mostly dense forest. No way to get in there except maybe on horseback.”

  On the first pass, Flint identified the rooftops of the resort to the east. The resort was all but engulfed by the greenery that separated it from rocky beach closer to the lake. But even from the air, the resort looked luxurious.

  Drake pointed westward. “There’s another set of rooftops down there. Smoke coming from the chimney. See it?”

  Flint pulled out the binoculars for a better look. “It’s a smaller cluster of buildings. More secluded.”

  “Closer to the crash site, too. Probably a private residence.”

  “Someone at the resort will know who owns it.” Flint continued to scan the area through the binoculars but saw no other buildings.

  Drake circled the lake again, positioning for the best approach and landing. He began his descent and landed the Cessna smoothly on the surface of the lake, without mishap. He taxied the plane to the shore and shut down the engine. By the time they tied up at the dock, anchored, and collected their bags, the resort’s off-road utility vehicle was waiting for them.

  The driver had parked the red Polaris Ranger Crew XP 1000 on the rocks. Before they’d finished with the Cessna, he approached and extended his hand. “Glad to see you made it. I’m Neville. Red Maple Lake Resort.”

  “Flint, and Drake.”

  “How was your flight?” Neville stowed their bags and they climbed into the Ranger.

  “Perfect. Beautiful spot you’ve got here,” Drake said from the back seat.

  “I’ve been coming here since I was a boy.” Neville grinned as he started the engine. “The views never get old.”

  “How many homes are there on this lake?” Flint asked.

  “Not very many. Four or five. Too tough to get in here for most people.” He patted the dashboard on the Polaris. “This ORV is essential for us. Not the most comfortable ride, but it gets the job done.”

  “There’s no road in and out of here at all?”

  “Yeah, about three miles west of here and up the mountain, there’s a two-lane highway that runs up to Tahoe. But that’s a long, hard way to lug groceries and stuff. We think of our remoteness as a selling point here. Unspoiled nature is a big draw for our guests. Particularly for fishermen and hunters.”

  “I thought I saw another rooftop west of here as we were flying in,” Flint said.

  “That would’ve been Boyd Wilcox’s place. You know, the billionaire? His family’s owned that property longer than I’ve been alive.” He kept up a running travelogue as he turned the Polaris and drove over the rough terrain into the trees and they bounced along the hard ground.

  A knot formed in Flint’s gut. He had nothing against billionaires. They were likely to be his best clients, given the fees he charged. But Wilcox was another story.

  “How far to the resort?” Flint almost bit his tongue when one of the heavy-duty tractor tires hit a hole and rebounded midsentence.

  “Couple of miles, give or take. Feels farther because the trail washes out and switches back so much. Takes a while to go anywhere.”

  “Seems like a strange place for a luxury resort, doesn’t it?” Drake asked. “You’d get a lot more customers if the place was accessible, wouldn’t you?”

  “Possibly. Believe it or not, we’re more accessible now than when Great Lodges of America bought the place. Added this trail and the pick-up service and the parking lot between the resort and the highway. But yeah, only a certain kind of guy comes out here.”

  “What kind of guy is that?”

  “Outdoorsy types. Hunters, fishermen, hikers, and nature lovers who don’t want to tent camp.” He turned the oversize steering wheel to follow an almost invisible route east. “We’re not that far from Tahoe. People who love Tahoe but don’t love the crowds sometimes venture down this way.”

  “How long have you been working here?”

  Neville grinned and glanced toward Drake. “Seems like all my life. My dad owned the place when I was a kid. We came here on vacations. He sold out when I was a teenager. I took this job during college and it just seemed to stick for me. Been here five years, I guess.”

  “There’s the resort.” He pointed straight ahead, through to a clearing in th
e trees. “Let’s get you guys checked in. You’ll want to wash up before dinner.”

  The main building was rustic but huge. It looked like a newer version of Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Lodge, in much better condition. Flint wondered how they managed to get the materials in to do the construction in the first place and, now, supplies for guests. There was a lawn out front big enough for a helicopter. Maybe that’s how they did it.

  Neville pulled up to the front door along the big circular driveway, and a young man came out to greet them. He wore a uniform and his name tag said “Jeffrey.” He picked up the bags. “Welcome to Red Maple Lake Resort. Follow me.”

  Jeffrey led the way. Flint and Drake followed. Neville pulled the Polaris around the building and Flint wondered where he was going.

  They trudged up the exterior stairs to the wide wood porch and into the main lobby. A huge fireplace in the corner heated the room well enough for the season, but Flint figured they needed a lot more heat during the cold winters. The lobby was decorated with Mission-style furniture, and a few guests were relaxing here and there. Like Neville had said, mostly men dressed in outerwear.

  At the reception desk, another young man completed their registrations and gave them keys to adjoining rooms.

  Before darkness settled in, Flint wanted a good look around. “Can we rent one of your ORVs for a couple of hours?”

  “Oh, sure. We’ll pull it up out front for you. Be careful to stay close to the lake, though. You’re equipped with GPS, but if you get too deep inside the forest, you might not find your way back by nightfall.” He glanced at the big clock on the wall behind him. “It’ll be dark here in about three hours. Once the sun goes behind the mountains, it gets cold quickly. You’ll want to return before then.”

  Flint authorized the charges to his credit card and, after rummaging through to find his satellite phone, left their bags with Jeffrey for delivery to the rooms. He and Drake walked back to the porch and down the wide steps.

  Neville arrived with a smaller, two-seater black Polaris Ranger.

  “How far is it over to the Wilcox place?” Flint asked.