by Dana Marton
That bent too, and he leaped again, the trees handing him down as if from hand to hand, like swinging from monkey bars. He jumped the last fifteen or so feet to the rocky ground and landed on his feet.
When he looked back up, he saw two small figures on top of the cliffs, staring. Jess had Eliot’s arm in a death grip.
“In an emergency, I guess I’d do something like that,” Derek called up and grinned at them. He filled his lungs and enjoyed the adrenaline rush. He hadn’t done anything this reckless and this physical in a good long while. He hadn’t realized he missed the feeling.
Up on top of the cliffs, Jess let Eliot go, anger clear in her jerky movements. A couple of minutes later, the two of them rapid-rappelled down the cliff face.
“That was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen.” Eliot’s tone held nothing but admiration. “I wish I’d recorded it. It was fantastic.” He glanced at Jess. “You think we could do it with wires in place? Without getting them tangled in the trees?”
Jess stared at them in murderous silence, as if she’d just as soon beat them over the head with her bag of climbing chalk than answer.
Which was fine. Suddenly Derek was angry at himself too. “It was stupid.”
The risk would have been worth it if someone’s life was at stake. But a leap like that just to show off . . . What the hell had gotten into him?
His hands were all scraped up. He was pretending that his left leg didn’t hurt like a sonofabitch from that hard landing.
Jess remained silent, but looked as if the restraint was killing her. Her cheeks flushed pink. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets, probably to stop herself from reaching out and shaking him.
“Anyway,” Derek said, “I’m off on my daily walk. I just thought I’d stop by to see how you two were doing. Have fun. Don’t get hurt.”
He strode over to the river to wash off the smattering of blood and the pine pitch from his hands, hating to limp in front of Eliot. He tried like hell for an even stride as he started on his walk, down the riverbank, without looking back.
After a dozen or so feet, he picked up a long branch. He always carried some kind of a stick to search through the leaf mold, to dig if he saw anything that might be a bone sticking out of the ground.
He toughed out the first mile, but had to slow down for the second. Then he slowed even more when he heard crows fighting in the woods to his right. Caw! Caw! Caw!
He limped that way to investigate.
He walked a hundred feet or so before he saw about two dozen black birds arguing over a chunk of food on the ground. Derek caught sight of something bloody and small among the flash of beaks. Looked like the birds were tearing apart a mouse, or maybe a baby squirrel.
They had it sorted out by the time he reached them, and flew off. Whatever the object of contention had been, the birds had carried it away. He searched the leaves with his stick, but found nothing beyond a few drops of blood.
He looked up. The birds were high in the trees now, looking down at him. For a second, the sight brought back memories of another day long ago, and he felt as if his skin was shrinking and squeezing his bones. Then he drew a deep breath from the crisp, fresh air of the woods, and the odd sensation went away.
He kept looking up. He spotted two crows’ nests almost directly above him, both on the same tree.
On a whim, he tossed his walking stick and decided to climb, scraped-up hands or no scraped-up hands. The nests were only forty feet up, definitely doable. He jumped for the lowest branch of the winter-bare oak, then pulled himself up. He’d been trained on SEAL obstacle courses. He’d climbed hillsides under machine gunfire. He could climb a friendly tree in his sleep.
His limp didn’t matter here. He had no problem with his arms. Hand over hand, he made it up pretty fast. But not unnoticed. A couple of crows flew by, probably the owners of the nest next to him.
They cawed at him, but didn’t dive-bomb. They didn’t have eggs in the nest yet, nothing to protect.
Yet Derek saw a glint of white.
Two slivers of bone, one about two inches long, the other an inch and a half.
Every cell of his body focused on those pieces as he collected them, bagged them right there on top of the tree, and stashed them in his pocket. Probably a mouse or a squirrel, yet he couldn’t help the sense of excitement that he might have something at long last.
He climbed back down and continued his walk, all the way to the river bend and back, but found nothing else even remotely interesting. By the time he reached the cliffs again, Jess and Eliot were gone.
Since the plastic box in Derek’s glove compartment was full, he decided to swing by the vet’s house and ask for an evaluation.
Jared Sabin, an old friend of Derek’s, was with a patient, so Derek left the box with his wife, Selena, who was also the receptionist. Jared would know what to do with the bones. He was used to Derek stopping by with similar packages now and then.
Derek swung by the newspaper office next.
“Maxwell in?” he asked the twenty-year-old receptionist, a gangly college boy.
“Out covering the sugaring. This time of the year, he’s out in the sugar bush every single day,” the kid said, picking up two cardboard boxes of what looked like outgoing mail from the counter. “People like regular updates.”
Since the kid was headed out, probably going to the post office, Derek held the door open for him.
“Thanks, man.”
“Sure thing.” Derek watched him go, then turned back inside.
The Taylorville Times headquarters consisted of two offices in the back, one probably for the senior editor and one for the accountant. A general bull pen took up the rest of the space, a dozen or so gray-walled cubicles. Only two were occupied, a woman in each, both on the phone and working the computer at the same time.
Derek walked past the reception counter. He stuck his head into the first empty cubicle, looked around, then checked out the next and the next. He found Maxwell’s on the fourth try. His picture was tacked to the wall. The guy was holding some kind of a journalism award. Difficult to believe. Although, not more difficult than the hunting photo next to it, Maxwell kneeling proudly behind a twelve-point buck, holding the rack up for the camera. Derek had always thought of Maxwell as a desk jockey, not as an outdoorsman.
He had a laptop docking station, but no laptop. He’d probably taken it with him. His drawers were locked. Derek checked the plastic bin under his desk and pulled out the wad of papers on top.
He could see why they’d been tossed. The print was nearly too faint to be legible. The laser printer must have been running out of ink.
He leafed through them, growing more and more interested the further he got. He was holding police reports on all the missing girls, going years back.
Maxwell had rejected Jess’s worries about the cases, publicly and humiliatingly. So why print them? Why now?
Derek shoved the two dozen sheets into his waistband and pulled his shirt over them, then walked out without anyone ever looking at him or asking what he was doing in the cubicle.
As he headed home, he called the shop to see when his new furnace would be in. Two more days.
Could be worse. The house would be all right, inside temps still in the low fifties. At least his pipes weren’t freezing. In truth, he could have had the old furnace serviced and fixed. But getting a new one came with a delay, so he chose to go that route because he wanted an excuse to keep an eye on Jess.
He tacked the police reports to his collage wall in his office, ate leftovers from his fridge for lunch, then headed over to the Taylors’ where he brought Zelda’s bed down from her bedroom. Zelda had vacuumed and mopped the old dining room while everyone had been out. Her new nest was ready for refurnishing.
Jess and Eliot had also returned, so they helped to set up the room. Once they finished, Jess drove into Burlington to see her mother. Derek went into the city too, in his own truck, to see his own parents. He didn’t get
back to the Taylor farm until dinner.
“Plans for tomorrow?” Derek asked Eliot over Zelda’s lasagna.
“I’d like to walk the river for a couple of miles in both directions. I’m looking for a good spot where I could train my crew for water stunts. I’m thinking about bringing everyone up here for a two-week training camp this summer. Then, if it works out, maybe start something permanent.”
“I might know a place,” Jess offered, but sounded less than excited. Maybe she didn’t care for water stunts.
Eliot smiled at her as if she was the answer to all his problems. “I want to see as much as I can before we have to run off to catch the red-eye.”
We. So Jess was definitely going with him, hadn’t changed her mind.
Derek shouldn’t have hated the thought as much as he did. Her safety was his first priority, and leaving Taylorville would keep her safe. He needed to stop resenting the idea of her going back to California.
But later that night, on the couch, unable to fall asleep, he was still thinking about her boarding a plane with Eliot, and what they would be doing when they were back in LA.
Sleep avoided Derek until dawn. Morning came way too fast. He woke to his cell phone ringing on the coffee table. Jared.
“About those bones you dropped off yesterday . . .” Jared sounded shaken for the first time since Derek had known him. He wasn’t rugby tough, but he was pretty tough. Jared had been on the high school football team back in the day. “I’m not sure how to say this, but two of them . . . the ones in the bag labeled ‘Crow’s Nest’ . . .”
Derek bolted straight up on the couch, gripping the phone tightly at his ear.
“I had to notify the police,” Jared went on. “They’re coming to pick up the bones. You might want to come over. They’ll want to talk to you, I’m sure. The bones from the crow’s nest were human.”
Chapter Twelve
Tuesday
BY THE TIME Jess plodded downstairs behind Eliot at eight thirty in the morning, Derek was gone, thank God. The three of them in the same place at the same time made for some seriously awkward moments.
Zelda made omelets, a thoughtful expression on her face as they ate. As Jess and Eliot talked about the day ahead, Zelda kept moving her gaze between them.
Chuck popped his head in after breakfast, saying hi to everyone but saving his best smile for Zelda. A whoosh of cold air pushed in by him, but the warmth of his smile made up for it. “Ready?”
“Almost.” Zelda whipped off her apron. “Just a minute.”
Chuck came in all the way so he could close the front door behind him instead of letting out all the heat.
Zelda patted her hair down as she passed by Jess and Eliot, who were still nursing their coffees at the kitchen table. “I’m goin’ to Carol Fischer’s place to help out with a wedding quilt. Her youngest girl is gettin’ married at the end of spring.”
Chuck stayed on the doormat to avoid dragging in the mud. He could reach Zelda’s coat from there, so he lifted it off the peg and held it out so she could easily slip it on. His gaze cut to Jess. “I’ll drop her off and then go and pick her up when she calls.”
Since Chuck had parked by the side of the house instead of the front, Jess could see through the kitchen window as Chuck opened his pickup’s door for Zelda and the smile she gave him in return. They really were like an old married couple.
The truck drove away, but Jess kept watching the spot where it’d been. An odd sense of melancholy filled her.
Eliot put down his mug. “What is it?”
“Last time I saw that truck, my father was driving it.” The thought left an ache deep in Jess’s chest, as if someone had put a hand on her heart and squeezed.
Eliot took her hand on the table.
As the sudden flash of grief faded, she smiled at Eliot, then went to rinse her mug before padding to the mudroom by the front door for her boots. “Let’s see about that river.”
Eliot followed her. “Would you rather do something else?”
Oh. She stopped. He didn’t sound suggestive but . . . It was the first time they’d been alone in the house.
Maybe they shouldn’t rush to their morning plans. Maybe they could stay and talk about why Eliot had really come after her. Maybe they could do more than talk. She liked being strong and self-sufficient, but she wouldn’t mind the comfort and reassurance of a pair of strong arms around her just now.
Eliot’s gaze dropped to her lips. He stepped closer. “Jess, I—”
Gravel crunched as a car pulled up outside.
“Zelda probably forgot her glasses.”
Jess turned to the window, but instead of her father’s old truck, a white van stood outside, from Crowley Sugaring Equipment & Co., according to the calligraphy lettering on the side. The logo was a black bird with a bottle of amber syrup in its beak, the background a red maple leaf.
“Who’s that?” Eliot moved closer to check them out.
If Jess turned, she’d be in his arms. He waited, letting her decide.
She crouched to tie her boots, and Eliot stepped away to give her room.
“My guess would be a salesman,” she said. “They come around this time of the year. If people have old equipment, now is the time when they’re most frustrated with breakdowns. They might order the latest and the greatest in the heat of the moment. In a couple of months, they forget how bad it was and start thinking maybe the equipment will work for another year.”
Jess straightened and watched through the window as a middle-aged man in work overalls came to the door—spiffy haircut, toned body, a noticeable veneer of general polish. He wore work boots, brand-new, not a scuff on them. Jess doubted he’d ever worked a day in a sugar shack, but his outfit was part of his sales pitch. He wanted to look like the people he was visiting. I’m one of you, the overalls said.
She opened the door before he could knock.
“Mornin’, miss,” the visitor said. “I’m from Crowley’s. Don Crowley.” He introduced himself with a wide salesman smile. “I was hopin’ your father might have a moment.” He glanced past her as Eliot stepped up behind her. “Or your husband.”
“My mother runs the business.” The words gave Jess great pleasure to say. “She’s not available right now, but the foreman will be back in a little while.”
“No problem.” Don’s smile bloomed with relief that he’d be dealing with a man. “I’ll wait. Mind if I walk down to see your sugar shack? Looks like a fine place you have set up here.”
“I’ll come and show you around. Let me put on my coat.”
“I’ll be waitin’ out here.” Don backed down the porch.
As Jess closed the door, she turned to Eliot. “You should go ahead. You know the way, right? You wanted to take more pictures and check out yesterday’s cliffs again, anyway. I’ll come as soon as Chuck gets back.”
Their moment of intimacy had passed. Yet she wasn’t truly frustrated with the interruption. And Eliot didn’t seem to be either. Or, maybe he was, because he said, “You sure you don’t want me to stay with you?”
“I won’t be alone with him. Workers are coming and going, and Chuck must have left someone watching the stoves too. He wouldn’t leave the fires unattended. My father burned down the previous barn. Chuck’s pretty big on fire safety.”
Eliot smiled. “I didn’t realize making maple syrup was such a hazardous business. Looks so innocent when it sits in a bottle on the kitchen table.”
“That’s what it wants you to think.” Jess smiled back. “I won’t be more than half an hour. Chuck is probably having a cup of coffee at Carol’s with something sweet. Nobody steps foot in Mrs. Fischer’s kitchen and leaves without eating a couple of her strudels.”
Mrs. Fischer was the quintessential German grandmother. She had four girls, three already married with children, the fourth, the youngest, getting married in early June. Zelda was catching Jess up on town gossip little by little.
Eliot left, and Jess showed the salesm
an around inside the sugar shack. A new guy Jess hadn’t met yet was running the vat. He introduced himself as Zak Summer. He was in his thirties, wide mouth, close eyes, and a permanently friendly expression. A hairnet held back his brown hair. Whatever questions the salesman had about the equipment, Zak answered. He appeared to be a competent worker. Then again, Chuck wouldn’t let any other kind near his vats.
By the time Chuck showed up, took over with the salesman, and Jess went back into the house, Derek had returned. With a surprise guest. The deputy sheriff came with him.
Jess had a flashback to another time, after her ordeal, when the deputy had been a frequent visitor for a while. She hated those memories with a passion. In an instant, she was wound so tightly, her knuckles were turning white on the doorknob.
“I’d like to talk to you, Miss Taylor, if you have a couple of minutes,” Gordon Muller said, just as spiffy in his tan uniform as Jess remembered.
Jess shot a look at Derek behind the deputy, but Derek’s expression was closed, his gaze unfathomable. The tight set of his jaw, however, hinted at trouble.
She opened the door wider and stepped back. “Come on in.”
Muller was around forty-five years old. He’d come to town the year Jess had been kidnapped, an outsider from Maine. Exactly because he’d been an outsider, he’d been put on her case. Fresh eyes, without bias, had been the idea. But Muller had been plenty biased—against the victims.
He’d actually suggested that Jess and Derek had faked their disappearance. Muller’s theory had been that the two college kids had run away, gotten into some kinky BDSM play, then made up the abduction and torture to avoid embarrassment.
He’d mercilessly pushed Jess at the hospital for answers, tried to get her to admit that she and Derek were playing a game. Jess knew from her father that Derek had tried to take the police back to the camper while Jess was still under observation, but they couldn’t find the right spot.
The masked man had taken Jess and Derek to the camper in the dark, at gunpoint. Not only hadn’t they been able to see much, but their panicked attention had been centered on the deadly weapon. And while they were trapped inside the camper, they couldn’t see out. The windows had been blackened.