by Blake Pierce
Timbrook’s eyes grew wide and she nearly spit out the beer that she had just poured into her mouth. When she finally swallowed it down, she said: “My God, how the hell did you know?”
“The tension between the two of you…and the little sly smile he gave you as we left. Plus the way everything was super casual between the two of you.”
“Oh God…”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I doubt anyone else picks up on it. You might want to tell him to be a little more careful, though.”
“It’s not what you think,” Timbrook said. “Or maybe it is, I don’t know. We just sort of…have fun together. Once a week or so for a few months. But it’s been a while.”
“Any reason?”
“Well, he’s twenty-two and I’m pushing thirty. He also has a bit of a record for all of his hacking stuff. He and I aren’t exactly the best fit. And I think he was starting to get attached…wanted more than just the physical stuff.”
It was clear that she did not want to talk about it, so Mackenzie followed her lead and changed the subject. “We talked earlier about whether this guy might try to kill again,” she said. “I think we have to seriously consider that. I think we need to forge ahead on these cases as if we are expecting it to happen.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that instead of solely focusing on finding a killer, we should start trying to find anything that will get Sheriff Duncan to fully jump onto our side, realizing these are likely murders. Once we have full support behind you, we can start getting extra security in place around high-profile climbing sites within the park. Sometimes that’s all it takes to make a killer slip up…anything to throw them off what they are expecting to be the same.”
“Okay, so let’s say there is going to be a third victim,” Timbrook said. “Who would it be?”
“It’s a good question…but because we don’t have much of a profile, it’s hard to say. All we can tell about his choice in victims is that so far, he’s only going after average or less-than-average climbers. So that could mean that he’s either going for easy targets…”
“Or that the killer isn’t much of a climber, either.”
“That’s a good thought, too.”
“I just…I don’t even know where to go from here.”
Honestly, Mackenzie wasn’t either. But she didn’t want to say such a thing out loud and feed into Timbrook’s already wounded confidence.
They finished their beers up and called it a night. When they parted ways back in the station parking lot, Mackenzie thought she saw some sort of flicker of hope in Timbrook. Mackenzie knew better than just about anyone how a good venting session could often help relieve anxiety and, in some cases, even open some undiscovered doors on a case.
She just hoped there were still some unopened doors left on this case. If not, she wasn’t sure they’d ever find an end to it.
***
Mackenzie used the borrowed car Timbrook had lent her from the station and headed to her hotel. It was far from the luxurious one she’d stayed in the night after meeting with her mother. But that was okay. Right now, all she wanted to do was to see her boys and get some sleep.
She didn’t even bother changing into her sleeping attire before taking out her computer to FaceTime Ellington. In fact, she was barely even seated on the edge of the bed before she was sending the call.
When Ellington answered, her breath actually caught in her throat. She almost wished it was two or three months ago—that way, she could easily explain the surge of emotion that swept through her. The fact that Ellington was holding Kevin to his chest and feeding him his nighttime bottle only made it stronger.
“Hey, Momma,” Ellington said. “How’s it going?”
She did her best to hide the emotion in her voice. And she had to just hope Ellington could not see the tears forming in the corners of her eyes through the screen.
“Hey, guys,” she said. “You holding the place together while I’m gone?”
“It’s tough, but I think I’ve managed. Having some really good father-son bonding time.”
“Keg stands, strippers, that sort of thing?”
“No. I started him off easy…just watching the Celtics lose. How’s it going out there in Wyoming? Is it much of a case?”
“Yes, actually. More than the local PD is willing to admit. Except for one lone woman officer.”
“Ah, I bet the two of you hit it off then, huh?”
She took the time to explain the case to Ellington, wanting to share the last few days with him but also hoping for some of his insight. It was the first case she had worked in a very long time without him by her side and it wasn’t until seeing his face on the computer screen that she realized just how much it was affecting her.
And there was something else she knew was bothering her—some other reason for the surge of emotion. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself suspended by the side of a rock wall, dangling by a guide rope. About eighteen feet below her, a man was on the ground, urging her to come down by herself as fear paralyzed her fourteen-year-old body.
“I think I need to tell you something,” she said. “Nothing bad…just something I think I had buried so far down that I legitimately blacked it out. But this case brought it out…I think maybe it tried to come out a year or so ago on another case…with the water towers and heights…”
“Yeah? What is it? You okay?”
Mackenzie looked at Kevin, eating rather greedily and oblivious to his mother on the screen. She smiled, desperately wanting to be there with them. Seeing them right there in front of her was more than enough to push her on, to bring the events from back then to the surface of her memory in order to exorcise them.
“Right around the time Mom sort of gave up on us, I turned my attention to other things. My sister turned hers to boys…I turned mine to sports. But I was bad at sports, as you know. But I somehow got turned on to climbing. I don’t really even remember how it started. I was at some park or something, and they had one of those big fake rock-climbing walls. I remember doing that and just smashing it, flying right to the top. My grandfather sort of pushed me toward it. I think he was relieved I wasn’t going into something expensive like dance or varsity sports. And so I took a few lessons. I got pretty good, too. Nothing big…just these little rock faces out along nature trails.”
“And you forgot about all of this?” Ellington asked, clearly shocked.
“It doesn’t feel like I forgot. I’m telling you right now and it’s all pretty clear. But I didn’t even give any of it a second thought until I get here and looked down from one of the climbs. It was like a whale coming to the surface of the ocean, showing its belly. It had always been there, always big and waiting, but it had stayed in the dark. I don’t know…”
“Well, to be honest, you’ve had a pretty traumatic past. Memories do some weird things when there’s trauma involved.”
Kevin stirred in his arms, done with the bottle. Kevin turned him toward the screen and his little eyes wandered, lighting up slightly when he saw Mackenzie.
“I know. But this memory…it seems fresh. And it’s a hard one. The fact that I just forgot about it until recently…it sort of scares me.”
“You think you need to start seeing a therapist again? I know you had a pretty good relationship with one of the doctors at the bureau for a while.”
“Yeah…maybe…”
“So what was the memory?”
“Well, like I said…the stuff about my grandfather urging me to do sports or some other sort of activity has always been there. But I remember now…a day where I was climbing. It was a rock wall, somewhere out on a nature trail, probably out near Frederick or Able Springs, I think. There was this instructor that was showing me how to work as a lead climber, using bolts that were already in the wall. I remember he was teaching me something about crimping when something happened to his rope—or maybe it was his harness. I remember a snapping noise, something just breaking. And then he fel
l. We were more than twenty feet up and he was screaming in pain while I just sort of hung there. He screamed and there was blood—not a lot but enough to freeze me about twenty or twenty-five feet off the ground.”
“My God, Mac…that’s terrible.”
Kevin shifted in his arms as if he, too, agreed that it was indeed terrible.
“I know. I don’t know how I could have forgotten it.”
“Are you okay?” Ellington asked. “Do you need to come home?”
“No, I’m good. It’s not affecting my work or anything. I’m just telling you because it seems like something pretty big. Something I’m going to have to deal with when I get back home.”
“Want me to set the appointment up for you?”
“No. I’ll do it when I get back.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
She nodded and then quickly shifted the conversation to Kevin. She spent the next five minutes or so cooing at him and assuring him how much she loved him. She hated the sound of the baby voice she used and could only imagine what it sounded like coming through Ellington’s iPad.
If nothing else, it was great motivation. Seeing Kevin’s little sleepy face reminded her of what was waiting back home. And now, more than ever, she was determined to wrap this case as quickly as she could—not only to catch a killer, but to get back to her family.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It felt good to sweat before the sun was even all the way up in the sky. There was something pure about it, something that made him feel like he had just completed some very hard work. And the gift of the sunrise in front of him made it more than worth it.
He reached the top of the trail and slowly made it out to the outcropping of rock the locals had long ago dubbed Devil’s Claw. From the edge of Devil’s Claw, he could see just about all of the Grand Teton ridges and rises. But the view was better than any that the park had to offer as far as he was concerned.
He stepped off of the trail and onto the large rock outcropping. He saw where dozens of people had scrawled their names and the dates of their climbs. He figured some were like him and had simply hiked the two miles or so to the top of Heinz Trail to come to Devil’s Claw. After all…not everyone could be climbers. Not everyone could handle the adrenaline and the physical toll of such a climb.
The sun rose slowly, casting pinks and golds and oranges everywhere. There were early morning colors in the sky that he didn’t think even had a name. Some of those colors looked like bruises, some like little slivers of exotic jewels in the sky.
The edge of Devil’s Claw was only ten feet ahead of him, a granite slope that stopped and gave way to nothing more than open air and a twelve-hundred-foot drop below. He took a moment to take in the sweeping panorama but it was a fleeting moment.
He heard the grunting from below, followed by the sound of something shifting against granite.
His target would crest the edge of Devil’s Claw within the next few minutes. His name was Charles Rudeke and he had been practicing for this very climb for a month or so.
He knew this because he had been watching Charles. He had been watching Charles the same way he had been watching all of the others. He knew Charles had made the rather ridiculous decision to attempt to climb the rock face to Devil’s Claw, going lead solo. The fool had planned to climb the twelve hundred feet in the pre-morning darkness, with nothing but a small light attached to a sweatband on his forehead.
He knew this because he had followed Charles. He had heard fragments of conversations he’d had on the phone. He had listened in as Charles recorded notes on his voice recorder app, planning for the climb.
He wasn’t quite sure why Charles was doing this. From the little bit he had gathered, Charles was in the middle of a bad break-up. Maybe a divorce. It really didn’t matter, because he would be dead within ten minutes or so.
Charles was planning to make it up onto Devil’s Claw in time to catch a wide shot of the scene below, highlighted in what truly was a stunning sunrise. This was another tidbit he had overheard through Charles’s voice-over recordings. And if he didn’t make it up within the next ten to twelve minutes, he was going to miss it.
He sat down on top of the boulder and waited.
Three minutes later, with one final gasp of breath, a hand appeared on the far left side of the boulder. He’d figured that’s where Charles would come up, as the rock outcropping was heavily slanted there; it would allow Charles to basically crab-walk up onto the top rather than pulling his entire weight up and over onto the rock.
He watched as more of Charles came into view—a whole arm and then most of his upper body as he did indeed come onto the top of the rock in a crab-walking motion.
Charles looks absolutely shocked when he saw that someone else was already sitting on top of Devil’s Claw. Charles grinned, surely feeling quite proud of the accomplishment he had just pulled off.
Really, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Others had free soloed this climb in the last few years. It was doubtful they’d done it in the pre-dawn darkness, though.
“Good morning,” he said to Charles. “That must have been one hell of a climb!”
Charles nodded. “Yeah. But man, it’s worth it, huh?” he said, taking a look at the sight in front of him. As he took it all in, he started to spool up the rope he’d been using for the climb. Several of the anchors, holds, and carabiners he’d used for the lead solo climb dangled from his harness.
He let Charles take it in for a moment.
And then he sprang to his feet so fast that Charles didn’t even have time to turn around.
He extended his arms and threw out a hard shove—the kind utilized on just about any elementary school playground.
Charles made a deep gasping sound, like someone trying to suck in as much air as they could before being submerged in water. He flailed his arms out as his feet desperately tried to keep their balance.
But it was useless. There simply wasn’t enough of the rock left behind Charles, not enough surface to properly right himself from the shove. His eyes went wide as he stared at his attacker, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
As the open air took him, there was a moment where there was a certain knowledge that filled Charles’s expression. He knew he was going to die, that the last sight he would take in was the morning sky above him.
He stood there until Charles disappeared from sight. He did not look over the edge to watch him fall. In fact, he started walking away at once, hopping down off of the rock and back onto the trail as the morning was torn apart by Charles’s shrieks of terror behind him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She can’t remember her instructor’s name, but she knows that he is screaming. She looks down beyond her dangling feet and can see him clearly. There is blood coming from the side of his head and his leg is bent at an impossible angle. This is all terrible enough but even worse is the sensation of frigid fear that is quickly taking over her body.
“Mackenzie, I need you to come down.”
He says this through a grunt of pain. She can tell he is trying to downplay how badly he is hurt. He does not want to alarm her. But even at fourteen, she knows that he’s in some pretty serious trouble. The blood pooling around the side of his head cannot be good.
As terrified as she is, she knows she has to move. She has to scale down the wall. That part should be easy. Her line is secure and she is properly hooked to the belay device the instructor had showed her. Rappelling down twenty-five feet is a cinch, even for a beginner who knows just the basics. And her instructor had been telling her that she had a knack for it, that when she was sixteen, he might even introduce her to some of the climbers he knows that go into competitions.
She knows that his life is in her hands. She has to rappel down, has to help him in any way she can.
She begins her descent, gently swinging back to the wall to kick away and rappel down as cautiously as she can.
But then she hears something else overh
ead. A whining, a high-pitched kind of wail…
It’s a baby.
She looks up and sees the shape of a baby overhead—not too far, perhaps a dozen feet or so. And it’s not just any baby…it’s her baby.
It’s Kevin.
The instructor still screams from down below, no longer encouraging her to come down nice and slow to help, but demanding that she hurry, that he’s going to die if she doesn’t help him.
But overhead, someone is holding Kevin off the side of the cliff. He is wailing as his little feet dangle in the air. She lets out a moan, knowing she’ll have to leave the instructor behind, knowing that she’ll essentially be killing him.
Crying now, she looks up again. The climb is not very far at all. She could get up there on her own, without the aid of the instructor. It would take some time, but she could do it. She readjusts her harness, takes the rope in her hands, and—
And then Kevin’s screams suddenly stop.
She looks up and there he is, plummeting down toward her.
She screams and reaches out, acting on pure instinct and emotion.
Her hand misses him by less than an inch.
She closes her eyes and then feels herself falling as well. She doesn’t not even have time to scream before she hits the—
Mackenzie’s own scream woke her up. She sat up in bed, nearly falling out of it, clutching blindly into the empty space of the motel room. Her heart felt broken for a moment as her mind was jerked awake, trying to come to terms with the fact that it had only been a dream. Mackenzie sobbed as terror and relief flooded her body in equal measure.
The bedside clock told her that it was four fifty-six. Still sobbing, she got out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom, and leaned against the sink. She took a series of deep breaths before splashing some cold water from the faucet into her face. She knew that it would probably keep her from going back to sleep, but that was fine. She didn’t care. She needed to be fully awake to be able to ensure that the haze of sleep was gone, that any vestiges of that nightmare were obliterated.