by J. S. Marlo
What secret is locked in your head, little man?
Down on his hands and knees, Avery scanned the interior. The first window looked onto Hannah’s house while the other showcased the magnificent forest. He inched closer to get a better view. With any luck he might even glimpse Hannah as she returned from her lone expedition. A layer of snow covered the ledge. He absent-mindedly brushed it off, revealing a yellow object wedged in the corner of the frame. This can’t be.
Avery pulled on it, but ice had trapped the fabric against the wood. Come on. He yanked again. The thumb ripped, and the yellow mitt broke free. His heart beating in dreadful anticipation, he flipped it over. On its palm was a black star, an identical match to the mitt found in Abbott’s pocket.
In an effort to make sense of the discovery, Avery looked at Rory. Tears had built in his eyes.
The boy recoiled farther in the corner. Snowflake curled into a ball on his lap. Her short tail pressed against her butt, as if she shared the youngster’s fears.
Rory walked to me, his bare hands colder than ice. Those had been Hannah’s words when she’d described the traumatizing afternoon.
The mitt never belonged to Abbott’s daughter. The medical examiner had been wrong. It was Rory’s.
Avery approached the frightened boy and sat beside him. “This is your mitt, isn’t it?”
The youngster didn’t answer, but he squeezed his dog tighter.
Where’s the key to your mind, little man? None of the interview techniques Avery had perfected over the years applied to a child. He felt like a rookie facing his first witness. If only the dog could talk…
A crazy idea popped into his mind. “If I ask Snowflake a question, you think she would answer me?”
Rory’s round face scrunched up into a quizzical frown.
“Let’s try.” By using Snowflake as an intermediate, Avery hoped to bypass the boy’s fears. “Snowflake, does Rory like peas? If she says yes, you pet her head. If she says no, you rub her back.”
The youngster moved his mitt onto his dog’s blue sweater, stroking it twice.
“She’s a smart dog.” Heartened by the small victory, Avery swept the yellow mitt in front of the canine’s eyes. “Is this Rory’s mitt, Snowflake?”
In the cold air, Rory’s ragged breath rose in misty bursts. For many long seconds, he remained motionless. Then he briefly touched his dog between the ears.
Pride swelled inside Avery’s chest. Good little man.
The only way the mitt could have ended up in Abbott’s pocket was if he came to visit the day he disappeared, but Hannah didn’t mention him. Hannah…
For reasons he couldn’t fathom, he trusted her. Maybe she didn’t see Abbott that day. There had been snowmobile tracks near the tree house. Maybe Abbott had seen Rory up the tree and stopped to talk to the youngster, but never made it to the cabin.
In his presence, Hannah had referred to his colleagues by their ranks or last names, but she’d called Abbott by his first name. It denoted a certain familiarity.
“Snowflake, the day Rory lost his mitt, did Corporal Brent Abbott come to the tree house to visit you and Rory?”
An engine roared in the distance. Go for another ride, Hannah. I need more time with your son.
The dog wore a pink collar with a silver tag. It chimed when Rory rubbed her nose. A myriad of emotions were reflected on the youngster’s face. Avery was at a loss to isolate one, but he believed the affirmative gesture. The corporal had been here that day, and somehow he’d picked up the boy’s mitt. Maybe Rory had seen Abbott through the window and dropped his mitts waving. One had fallen down in the snow while the other lodged in the frame.
If Abbott picked up the mitt, why did he take the time to put it in his pocket instead of climbing the trunk and returning it right away? Maybe Abbott didn’t see the boy, only the mitt, or maybe he was interrupted.
A door slammed.
Hannah was home. In a few minutes, she would come barging in, demanding to know what he was doing alone in the tree house with her son.
Avery was running out of time. “Rory, did you see other people with Brent Abbott? Did they argue?”
Tears fell down the youngster’s rosy cheeks as he cupped his dog’s head with both hands.
Children didn’t stop talking because they saw grown-ups yell or fight. Something more traumatizing must have happened.
Blood…
Hannah had seen blood in the snow near the tree house and the autopsy report showed Abbott had received a vicious beating.
The door slammed again. Once she saw the raw pain on her son’s face, Hannah was bound to shoot him with his own gun.
“The men with Brent Abbott, they hurt him, didn’t they?” Avery hadn’t expected an answer, let alone the solid nod given by the boy. “Did you see their faces, Rory?”
The youngster shook his head, crushing Avery’s hope he could identify them.
“Were you hiding with Snowflake in the tree house?”
Rory bobbed his head up and down.
The tears streaming down his face broke Avery’s heart. Unsure what to say, he scooped boy and dog into his arms and hugged them. “You didn’t do anything wrong, little man.”
An engine roared to life, startling Avery. Your son needs you, Hannah. What are you up to?
He rose to his knees, and stretching his neck toward the window, Avery glimpsed a snowmobile whizzing away. To his bewilderment, the lone rider wore a black jacket, not a purple coat. “What the—”
An explosion rocked the forest, throwing him to the floor.
Chapter Eighteen
The tracks in the snow stopped in the middle of a frozen pond.
Not familiar with the undercurrent of this particular body of water, Matt was reticent to venture on the ice. Some twenty feet ahead, the snowmobile had crashed into a beaver lodge. Only the tail of the backseat was visible from the shore.
He circled the pond on foot, looking for prints. Bears, coyotes, moose, foxes, and beavers had marked this area of the forest with their paws, excrements, or teeth, but no sign of human tracks.
Vic had shed some of her blood, and Matt wanted to make sure the rest was spilling inside the beaver den. Had they been home, the large rodents would have fled upon impact, but they would soon return. When they did, they wouldn’t take too kindly to the intrusion. With their razor-sharp teeth and their strong, powerful tails, the animals would put Parker out of her misery, unless the crash, the blow to the head, or hypothermia killed her first.
On the other side of the pond, Matt stumbled onto a barricade of logs and branches connecting the den to the shore. He took a tentative step, then another. Beavers were reputed for their craftsmanship. The makeshift bridge should carry his weight no problem.
Snow and ice had reinforced the barricade. Despite some slippery sections, the farther he advanced, the more confident Matt became that it wouldn’t crumble under his boots.
The snowmobile had slowly tipped farther down. By nightfall, the pond would have engulfed the vehicle. By tomorrow, the beavers would have rebuilt their home.
Pale sunlight filtered through the damaged wall and roof of the den. Leaning forward, Matt spotted a purple and gray coat slumped over the handlebars. “Don’t worry about your boy, he’ll join you soon enough.”
After circling the pond three times and seeing no other footprints than his own, Matt returned to his snowmobile.
History had repeated itself, but with any luck, the ghost had drowned with Parker.
***
Bloody blast! What happened?
The pounding inside Avery’s skull was compounded by the weight of the roof on his back and the dog’s barking. Safe against his chest, Rory gripped his jacket. “Quiet, Snowflake. We’re fine.”
He’d been thrown forward and the bloody roof had collapsed at the same time the detonation burst his eardrums, but he’d succeeded in protecting the boy with his body.
With his hand cupping the youngster’s head, Avery craw
led on his knees toward the hole in the center of the tree house. As far as he could tell, the floor had withstood the blast. He didn’t want to test its solidity any longer than necessary. His slow progress was marked with the sliding of timbers off his back. Through the debris, he peered down at a blackened crater in place of the cabin. The devastation sank his heart into the pit of his stomach. Hannah…
No one could have survived that explosion, and it couldn’t have been an accident. The snowmobiler he saw riding away had to be involved.
Avery cursed himself for not looking when he heard the engine. Maybe Hannah wasn’t inside. Maybe it was just another threat.
The positive thoughts didn’t offer Avery much comfort. “Grab your dog and hold her tight, little man. We’re going down.”
The wood above his head cracked while he climbed down the tree. Faster, Stone. As he cleared the vicinity of the tree house, Snowflake slipped from Rory’s grasp and ran toward the debris.
“Snowflake!” A deafening crash reverberated in the woods, drowning Avery’s call. The boy tensed in his arms. Avery didn’t need to glance behind him to know the tree house had met the same fate as the cabin.
“Close your eyes.” The safety of the only witness to Abbott’s beating was Avery’s priority, but he couldn’t walk away from the crime scene without looking for her. With the boy’s head tucked in the crook of his neck, Avery perused the debris. The explosion hadn’t ignited any fire, but it had obliterated the cabin and damaged the shed.
No matter where Avery looked, there was no sign of Hannah or of any human remains. Rory tightened his grip on his jacket. “It’ll be okay, little man.”
Perpetrators sometimes returned to the scene of their crime. If Avery stayed any longer, he risked a deadly confrontation, something he couldn’t afford in the boy’s presence.
“Snowflake!” The dog was the youngster’s best friend. Avery couldn’t abandon the poor pup in the woods. “Snowflake!” Paw prints ran in circles around the site of the explosion. “Snow—”
An engine roared in the distance. Avery grabbed a branch. As he hurried toward his hidden snowmobile, he dragged it behind him, erasing his footprints.
No one could know that he’d been here or that he’d taken Hannah’s son into protective custody.
***
Matt entered the library, their secret meeting place since they were teenagers. A group of preschoolers wiggled and giggled on the floor as they listened to a story about a blue polar bear named Coconut. He walked by them, then entered the labyrinth formed by the uneven rows of bookshelves.
Unmindful of the patrons browsing in the book aisles, he took a left turn through the G section, a right turn at the Y, another right turn passed the biographies.
There she was, seated alone by a window. The setting sun shone through the glass streaked with fingerprints, fashioning a golden halo around her head. As if she sensed his presence, she looked above the edge of her book and flashed one of her mystic smiles.
“Hello, babe.” He looked around. Once he ascertained they were alone, he leaned in for a kiss before sitting by her side. “Miss me?”
“Always.” A deceptively innocent smirk played on her lips. “Did you take care of the problem?”
“She put up a fight and hit Vic, but I caught up with her. She’s at the bottom of a pond.”
Upon meeting back in the woods, he and Vic had agreed on a version of the events that didn’t include the ghost. To remind the beautiful woman by his side of their failure five years ago would only upset her, thwarting his chance of spending the night in her bed.
“The bastard?”
Her qualms about the boy eluded him. “He wasn’t with her.”
“He wasn’t?” Fine lines creased her forehead as she closed the book on her lap. “She wouldn’t leave him with anyone but Fred, and I saw him an hour ago. The bastard wasn’t with him. Did you check the cabin? I wouldn’t pass it by the wretch to lock him alone inside.”
“Vic blew up the propane tank attached to the house.” His friend had brought the C4 from work in case they’d needed it to break the ice, and Matt applauded Vic’s shrewdness. “I rode by the clearing on my way home. The explosion flattened the landscape. If the kid was hiding inside the cabin, there’s nothing left of him, and if he was outside, he’ll die of exposure tonight.”
It might be days or weeks before anyone ventured near the cabin. If the cold doesn’t kill the boy, the coyotes will.
Children yelled and clapped. Unfortunately, the end of storytime also marked the end of their meeting.
“I guess I owe you.” The furtive caress she bestowed over the zipper of his jeans as they both stood up boded well for tonight. “Come around midnight. I’ll have a treat for you.”
***
It didn’t matter that the doctor doubling as medical examiner was Hannah’s only relative, Avery wasn’t ready to entrust the boy in his care, not when Fred hadn’t recognized his nephew’s mittens.
Who else? Searching for a solution, Avery wandered through the woods on his snowmobile. The youngster sat quietly in front of him. With his thighs and arms forming a barrier on each side of the child’s body, Avery kept him safe and steady.
Officially requesting protective custody when he didn’t know who he could trust within the detachment equaled playing Russian roulette with Rory’s life. Of all the scumbags Avery had encountered in his career, corrupted officers were the ones he despised the most. Duty wasn’t just a word, it was an oath…an oath he might be forced to break in order to protect an innocent boy.
The sun caressed the treetops, creating monstrous shadows on Avery’s path. In the forest, the temperature dropped sharply with the last rays of light. Wandering alone after nightfall was dangerous.
On a night like this one, Avery missed the sunsets over the ocean, the sound of the waves breaking against the cliff, the…
Buccaneer.
***
The racket resounding in her head filtered through the haze cloaking her mind, rousing her senses.
A warm cloth patted her forehead and liquid trickled down her heavy eyelids. She struggled to open her eyes. The withered face of a woman…of two women…two identical women…loomed over her. Their lips moved in perfect synchronization, forming words she didn’t hear…couldn’t hear. She tried to focus on one of the aboriginal women…they traded places, swirling up, down, and around.
Frustrated by her failed attempts to make sense of the images and the lack of sound, she shook her head.
A flash of light blurred her vision as a blaze of pain radiated through her entire body.
She welcomed the darkness embracing her.
Chapter Nineteen
Avery paused at the edge of the woods. Across the snowy field was his mobile home with his Chevy Blazer parked on the other side. He’d hardly driven his old vehicle since he’d arrived, favoring the RCMP truck instead, but he’d taken it for an oil change a week earlier and filled it up. All Avery had to do was sneak the boy into the backseat without anyone noticing and drive away.
A lantern near the front door of the detachment illuminated the entryway, but no light shone from inside the building. The windows were dark and the parking lot was deserted. Cooper and Reed had chosen a good night to not be around.
Avery raced across the field and parked his snowmobile by the side door, near the Blazer.
The car keys were on the counter by the microwave. He scooped up the boy. As he unlocked the door of the house, an engine sputtered down the road. The high beams pointed in his direction. Cooper.
The constable had been instructed to take the cruiser for a tune-up, but Cooper had yet to conform to the sergeant’s directive.
Avery kicked off his boots before hurrying down the hallway in the dark. While Cooper was more than likely heading for the detachment, Avery couldn’t rule out the possibility that his colleague might stop by for a visit—an untimely visit.
“You need to be very quiet,” he whispered in Rory’
s ear. “Can you do that for me?” The youngster knocked on Avery’s shoulder with his head. “Good boy.”
As soon as Avery lowered him into the closet, the child recoiled against the back of the wall, his heartbreaking resilience playing in their favor.
“You wait here until I come back. I won’t be long.”
Avery didn’t close the closet, but he shut the bedroom door. As he crossed the living room, he turned the television on to drown out any sound coming from the bedroom.
From the kitchen window, he followed the progression of the RCMP cruiser. Cooper didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Avery suspected no one had been made aware of the explosion yet. He wanted to report it, but he couldn’t risk anyone knowing he’d been in the vicinity.
Hannah…
Leaving the scene had been a derelict of duty. He should have kept looking for her, not run away with her son. I needed to keep Rory safe. Unfortunately for him, repeating the excuse didn’t lessen the guilt knotting in his stomach.
The cruiser pulled in front of the garage. A tall silhouette exited. Once inside the detachment, Cooper wouldn’t be able to see Avery’s side door. As soon as his colleague disappeared from sight, Avery collected the keys from the counter, turned the television off, and grabbed some civilian clothes along with the youngster. “We’re going for a ride, little man.”
To hide Rory on the backseat under a fleece blanket violated every safety rule he believed in, but he had no choice. “I need you to stay still, okay?”
The ripples in the fabric stopped undulating. Avery slipped behind the wheel and drove away.
Once he cleared the town, he buckled up the youngster.
***
The soothing scent of burning wood teased her nostrils and heat warmed her face. She made a fist. Downy fur tangled between her fingers, awakening her senses. A boy…
The image slipped out of reach. Unable to recapture it, she opened her eyes. Flames undulated on a ceiling, highlighting strange protuberances. Unfamiliar with the sight, she moved her head, stirring a dull pain inside her skull. Memories of another occurrence surfaced in her mind. Two women…two elderly women…