by Diane Capri
Boyd Wilcox. Out here in the middle of nowhere. How crazy was that? Josh shook his head.
Kevin had stopped walking. “Can you open that door? We’ll put you both in here.”
Josh reached around and turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. Kevin walked and Dan hopped into the room and Josh followed. This bedroom was a copy of the one where they’d put Skip. Kevin helped Dan to sit on one of the twin beds.
Kevin pointed to the bathroom. “You can get a shower in there. I’ll find you both some clothes and bring them back here. You look to be about my size, Josh. Dan, maybe something I have will fit you, too. And we’ll have dinner in about an hour. Meet back in the dining room when you’re ready.”
When he turned to leave, Josh said, “Kevin?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. I don’t know what we’d have done out there if you guys hadn’t come along.” Josh felt tears in his eyes and he blinked hard.
“No problem. Doctors are supposed to help people. It’s what we do, right?” Kevin left the room, closing the door behind him, without another word.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Red Maple Lake, California
Tuesday
Flint read the file through very quickly. Marilyn Baker died on June 18. Which meant she’d died not too long after she’d left him with Bette Maxwell. He’d have been about two years old.
Baker was a second-grade teacher. She taught indigent students at a Catholic elementary school on the south side of Mount Warren. According to the newspaper accounts, Baker’s friends described her as extremely shy. She took her faith very seriously. She’d attended mass and communion every day, her friends said.
“Were you always so devout? Or did you develop that habit after you gave up your child?” He barely heard the water running in the shower now as he scanned the rest of the file.
Baker lived with her parents, who were described as loving but protective. “Meaning they were smothering,” he mumbled.
On the day she died, Baker told her parents she was going to confession at St. Michael’s Church, where she was also a Sunday school teacher.
“Is that why you named your son Michael? Because of the church?” He continued to ask questions aimed at the pretty young woman’s photo, but she didn’t answer.
Another friend interviewed for the newspaper article said that Baker was strikingly pretty. Her photos suggested her friend had a gift for understatement. Baker wasn’t simply pretty. Her beauty was overwhelming. She looked angelic. She had been the homecoming queen at Mount Warren High School. Even the old grainy photo showed off her spectacular appeal.
When Baker’s parents did not hear from her, that long-ago evening, they thought she had stayed at church for midnight mass, which she often did. But she never came home that night. The next morning, they reported her missing to the local police department.
Later that day, kids riding bicycles outside of town found an odd trail of evidence stretching several hundred yards down the road. They found her purse, one of her shoes, and one of her gloves. Police and volunteers searched for her, and two days later, her body was found face down in a canal several miles away.
According to the autopsy report, Baker died of suffocation. She had not been raped or beaten. Any physical evidence that might have identified her attacker, such as blood or semen or hair samples, was presumed washed away during the time the body was in the canal.
Flint shook his head. These days, forensics might have found trace evidence on the body. But thirty-three years ago, evidence collection and evaluation techniques were not what they were now.
Law enforcement questioned known sex offenders, family members, coworkers, friends, and ex-boyfriends, the newspaper said. No one was able to supply helpful evidence.
The next line popped out as if it had a life of its own. His eyes widened as he read the sentence aloud. “Felix Crane and Sebastian Shaw, and several other local businessmen who knew Marilyn Baker, offered a $10,000 reward for information about Baker’s death.”
Flint swiped his palm down his face and groaned. Crane. He was on the right track.
Shaw. He shook his head. He’d come back to Shaw. He continued to skim the materials.
Another article in the local paper three days later reported that the priest who heard Baker’s last confession, Father James Preston, was under suspicion in the Marilyn Baker case.
Flint’s gut tensed. The priest had been serving at the church since completing seminary training. Church members said Father Preston’s confession line moved slowly that night, and he was away from the sanctuary for long periods of time.
Fellow priests had noticed scratch marks on his hands the next day, and they’d said it was irregular for him to have taken Baker to the rectory to hear her confession. The police administered a polygraph test, which was inconclusive.
Father Preston was not charged in the case, which remained unsolved.
Flint nodded. This was the logical end to the Baker report. But his source had included more. He flipped to the next screen.
Four years later, another young woman was similarly kidnapped and murdered in another Catholic church in another town where Father Preston was serving as a visiting priest. The second young woman, unlike Marilyn Baker, had been raped.
Eventually, Father Preston was arrested, tried, and convicted for the crime. The jury unanimously sentenced him to death and the long appellate process began.
Flint’s source said she could find nothing else about the Marilyn Baker murder. The case was stone cold. It seemed the world had forgotten Marilyn Baker entirely.
But she had included what she’d learned about James Preston. Last year, Father Preston was once again in the news. He had exhausted his appeals and his execution had been scheduled. When he received the news, he had requested his priest for confession.
After the priest left Preston, a television reporter asked him whether Preston had admitted to the murder of Marilyn Baker.
The video of that interview was attached. Flint watched it quickly. The priest refused to violate the sanctity of the confessional, but his hands were shaking as he fingered the beads of his rosary. He didn’t deny that Preston had confessed to killing Marilyn Baker.
Flint squeezed his scratchy eyes together. His neck was tight. He felt the tension in his shoulders. He’d been staring at the screen too long. He closed the laptop.
He stripped and stepped into the steaming shower. The water didn’t wash the details of Marilyn Baker’s murder from his mind.
He had seen many witnesses confronted with horrible truths. While a priest might be expected to react differently from a lay witness, priests were human, too. This one seemed like a good man, and whatever Preston had told him had been upsetting, to say the very least.
Had Preston confessed what he’d done to Marilyn Baker? Possibly. But the priest had neither confirmed nor denied Preston’s guilt.
Flint finished his shower and toweled off. He slid into jeans and a sweater and slipped comfortable loafers onto his feet. Drake knocked on the door. “You ready?”
Flint had opened the laptop again to scan the time-sensitive file, marked “Urgent.” It still contained only one sentence.
James Preston. Scheduled to die by lethal injection at Huntsville, Texas. Thursday. The day after tomorrow.
Flint closed the laptop, ran a hand through his hair, and joined Drake in the hall.
As they walked toward the dining room, Flint said, “We’ll leave early tomorrow. Right after sunrise. We need to take a detour on the way back to Houston.”
“Works for me. Where to?”
“Huntsville.”
Drake raised his eyebrows and remained silent. They’d been friends a long time. Worked together on some tough cases. He knew when not to ask questions.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Red Maple Lake, California
Six Years Ago
After his shower, Josh donned Kevin’s jeans and sweater and felt almost human ag
ain. He paced the bedroom while he waited.
Dan had hobbled into the shower a while ago. The water was still running. His ankle was swollen to twice its normal size and he was moving more slowly than usual. Kevin had brought him an office chair on wheels along with clean clothes.
He wanted to make a plan. But Skip was unconscious and Dan’s behavior erratic. Probably due to his head injury, along with everything else that had happened. Whatever the reasons, both Skip and Dan were unreliable. It was up to him to get them all out.
Safely.
Soon.
His twisting gut told him he wasn’t being overly fanciful, either. He looked outside. Mixed rain and sleet had turned to snow as the temperatures dropped with the arrival of darkness. The compound was beyond remote. No other people for miles. No cell signals. No way to communicate with anyone.
Yet the three of them just happened to be wandering in the woods close to where the Cessna went down? How likely was that? Not very.
They said they were hiking. But they’d been carrying no fishing or hunting gear. No hiking gear, either, for that matter.
There were acres and acres of empty land here. He shook his head. No. Not believable. Not even remotely.
Still, trauma, exhaustion, and imagination had fueled his misgivings. No doubt. He stretched his sore muscles. The shower had warmed him and he was in reasonably good shape, but the day’s events had worn down his reserves.
He didn’t know what these men were involved with and he didn’t want to know. But that Ruben guy looked downright menacing.
And Josh wasn’t sure how to describe Mark. He resembled his wealthy brother in appearance, but he was familiar for another reason. Josh simply couldn’t put his finger on it. Was it possible that he’d met Mark Wilcox before? He shook his head. Not likely. He didn’t travel in those circles. Not even close.
Kevin was okay. Probably. At least, he had done nothing to arouse Josh’s suspicions. Yet.
He heard the shower stop. Dan would be ready soon. They were expected in the dining room for dinner. His stomach growled. He was famished all of a sudden, and Dan must be, too.
Still, he’d have stolen the off-road vehicle Boyd Wilcox mentioned and driven to Red Maple Resort, even if it took him six hours to get there. He was that concerned.
But Skip couldn’t take the rough ride and Josh couldn’t take the chance that he’d make Skip’s condition worse.
He didn’t like it, but the only thing to do was get through the night and leave early in the morning on the helicopter, as planned.
Dan hobbled out of the steamy bathroom with a towel around his waist. He sat on the edge of the bed and awkwardly dressed in Kevin’s clothes. “This guy has some nice stuff, doesn’t he?”
Josh shrugged. “Cashmere and silk seem a little too much for this wilderness to me.”
“Yeah, but his clean sweater and jeans are great.” Dan slid his normal-sized foot into a sock and rewrapped the elastic bandage around his sprained one. “We should probably burn those clothes I took off. I’ll never wear them again.”
“I hear ya. Ready to go?” Josh pushed Dan into the dining room, the plastic wheels on the office chair traveling easily along the hardwood floors.
The others were already gathered at the dining table. The food smelled like something from a five-star restaurant. His stomach growled again and Dan joked, “Your stomach sounds like your throat’s been cut.”
The words were too close to Josh’s misgivings. He shrugged and said nothing. With every passing hour, his desire to leave here grew. His gut said staying in this place was a mistake. As the shock of the crash and rescue receded and his head cleared, these people seemed more suspicious.
Ruben sat at one end of the table and Boyd at the other. Kevin and Mark sat diagonally across from each other. Places were laid next to each of them, one for Josh and one for Dan, effectively between two of the others. Which made Josh wonder whether they thought he and his friends needed watching.
After they were settled, Kevin said, “I just checked on Skip. He’s still under. He won’t be able to eat anything tonight.”
Josh’s appetite dulled as the guilt slammed his gut again, but the normally finicky Dan tucked into the beef stew in front of him as if he’d never eaten before. Which was odd. His behavior had been more than a little, well, off since the crash. One more thing for Josh to worry about.
Dinner conversation consisted mostly of small talk. Boyd was clearly the leader of the group. The others deferred to him. He started the conversations and kept them on track.
Josh noticed that the topics Boyd chose were all about Josh, Dan, and Skip. Where they lived. Why they were here. How long they planned to stay. The questions raised his internal radar, but Dan seemed oblivious to anything amiss.
Dan had been too chatty his whole life, but tonight he seemed to have no off switch. Maybe he was just nervous. Or maybe it was his head injury.
He blathered about his fiancée, Skip’s wife, their kids, and how Josh was all alone in the world but looking for a good woman, if they knew of any, which got a laugh. He told where they lived, what kind of work they all did, how Josh was their pilot and they’d planned to stay at Red Maple Resort for a week to fish, and on and on.
Every time Josh tried to redirect the conversation, Dan took over again.
Josh noticed a few pointed looks between Ruben and Mark, and at least twice Boyd and Ruben locked gazes and nodded. But no one interrupted, and Dan kept talking all the way through the meal.
Mark left and came back with a tray of desserts and coffee. Dan had moved on to stories about Josh and Skip’s more disastrous college exploits. The others seemed to be entertained while Josh became more and more uneasy.
“Now you know everything about us, down to our underwear preferences.” Josh looked up when Dan finally paused a moment. “What are you guys doing out here?”
The question seemed harmless. But no one answered right away. Kevin looked down at his plate. Mark looked at Boyd.
“Same as you.” Ruben was the one who replied. “We came for the fishing. Arrived yesterday.”
“This is a beautiful home you have here, Boyd. Build it yourself?” Josh said, more to keep the conversational ball away from Dan than any desire to know.
“The property has been in our family for years. Our dad bought it when we were kids,” Mark replied. “Boyd rebuilt the house when StellarSoft became successful.”
Josh grabbed the opening and steered the talk to business topics. Superficial conversation of the kind men engage in when they don’t really want to share anything personal.
After dinner, Mark said, “You guys have got to be exhausted. Weather report is looking good over to Tahoe early in the morning. We’ll take turns with Skip and I’ll wake you about five.”
His words felt like orders more than suggestions.
“Sounds good.” Josh pushed his chair away from the table and moved around to Dan’s makeshift wheelchair.
Kevin handed Dan a couple of white caplets. “These will relieve the pain in your ankle and let you sleep.”
Dan hated taking meds, but he swallowed both caplets without a murmur, which told Josh how much pain he was really feeling.
Kevin handed Josh a snifter of brandy. “This is Boyd’s best. Take it to your room and you can sip it before you go to bed. It’ll help you relax and get some sleep.”
Josh nodded and took the snifter. “Smells amazing. Thank you.”
He wheeled Dan back to the bedroom in the office chair and set the snifter on the bedside table while he washed up. When he came back to the bedroom, Dan was already in bed, deep into slumber. Within ten minutes, Dan’s snoring rocked the rafters.
Josh intended to sit up for a while, but he only took one sip of the brandy before he crawled into bed and turned off the light, overwhelmed by exhaustion.
Just before he drifted off to sleep, in that twilight between consciousness and oblivion, Josh remembered where he’d seen Mark Wilcox b
efore. On television. When his wife was kidnapped a few weeks ago from a casino in Las Vegas. The story had been on the TV news and all over the internet because she was Boyd Wilcox’s sister-in-law. A ransom demand had been paid, but his wife wasn’t returned.
Maybe that’s why these guys acted so suspiciously interested in all of Dan’s revealing conversation. Maybe they’d been worried that Josh and his friends were involved in the kidnapping somehow. Or maybe they were simply distraught over the missing woman.
That made sense. And was oddly reassuring. There was a good reason for their strange behavior. Josh was a practical man. He’d have been suspicious, too, under the circumstances.
Everything made sense. Finally. He relaxed and fell into a deep, exhausted oblivion.
Until a noise he couldn’t quite place invaded his sleep. It sounded like a woman screaming. He opened his eyes briefly. He didn’t know what time it was, but it was full dark. No ambient light of any kind entered the room. He closed his eyes and lay quietly, listening to Dan’s heavy breathing caused by the chemically induced oblivion of the pain pills.
Josh waited a few seconds, listening for the woman’s screams again, but he heard nothing. His eyes were still closed. His breathing even. Vaguely, his brain searched for reasonable causes. The screams had been an animal foraging in the woods. Or he’d been dreaming something his subconscious dredged up. Frightening images of the Cessna crash flashed through his mind.
He listened hard. He heard the wind outside. Rain or sleet tapped the bedroom window.
When he heard nothing in the quiet house beyond Dan’s snoring, he drifted back to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Red Maple Lake, California
Six Years Ago
Later, Josh awakened again, still uneasy, for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint. It was dark outside. He fumbled for his watch: 4:23 a.m. Mark would be coming for them at five, he’d said. Might as well get up now.