Under a Black Sky (Part of the Daniel Trokics Series)

by Inger Wolf

  "Your bag?" he said.

  "My phone."

  She spat more blood; she was scared she might pass out from the pain. Her face must have been ripped open and a tooth crushed. She felt inside her mouth with her tongue; what if she was scarred for life? He would have killed her. Why? She pulled out her phone, but she was shaking too much to punch a number in. She shuddered, and with tears stinging her eyes, she held the phone out to Jason.

  "Call the number I last talked to; tell him to come to the hospital right now," she said in a voice she could barely recognize. "Tell him Providence, I don't think he knows where the hospital is."

  She barely managed to get to her feet, and Jason helped her over to his green car. He looked at her anxiously, tried to dry the blood off her throat with the sleeve of a dirty sweatshirt.

  "I have some painkillers in my trailer, do you want some?" Jason said. "They work fast."

  She shook her head, wanting no part of whatever Jason had. She collapsed into the back seat in a fog of pain as she heard him call her new partner from outside the car.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  IT WAS the middle of the night by the time Trokic helped Angie out of the dental clinic and into a taxi. She'd been sewed up at the hospital, five stitches in her cheek, then she'd been driven to a dentist on emergency call, who cleaned out the remains of her crushed molar and sewed her up inside. She was slightly woozy from the painkillers.

  She swallowed hard after seeing herself in the taxi's side mirror, and Trokic watched her fight to hold back her tears. "Just look at me. More scars."

  He couldn't deny it, she looked terrible. He squeezed her shoulder. "Is there anyone in your family I can take you to?"

  Carefully, she shook her head. "Home," she mumbled, and she gave the address to the taxi driver.

  Trokic rubbed his chin. "I'm going home with you," he insisted. "Whoever attacked you might come back. Someone has to be with you."

  Angie nodded and leaned her head against the back door window. She looked apathetic. Her braid was still intact, though a lot of hair had been loosened. A wounded raven.

  Fifteen minutes later, the taxi stopped outside her trailer park. A big red stop sign loomed at the entrance, also a sign proclaiming that dogs were forbidden. Trokic had never seen anything like it—did she really live here? There were piles of trash in front of the first mobile home, and several trailers looked rundown, seedy. Parked beside each trailer was a banged-up vehicle, most of them pickups. A tall fence around the park kept unwelcome visitors out. Apparently, not effectively enough, though, given what had happened that evening.

  The trailer park looked like a place the police would come to arrest someone. It was surrounded by tall trees he couldn't identify; lights shone from beside some of the small paths.

  "Is this it?" He tried to hide his surprise that she lived in what looked like the worst part of town. Immediately, he was on guard, and just knowing he was carrying a heavy weapon was reassuring.

  She pointed toward the back of the park. He helped her as they slowly walked in that direction. She looked white as a sheet, close to throwing up.

  "Did you see who attacked you?"

  She shook her head and moaned. "Hood," she said meekly.

  When they reached her trailer, she searched in her bag and handed him the keys. Her hands were still trembling. Trokic eyed the trailer; it was one of the better ones, but he still couldn't understand why she'd ended up living there. He'd heard that police salaries were high in this state. More than he earned, anyway. She shouldn't have to live in this sort of place, something had to be wrong. He helped her up the three steps and into the trailer.

  It was decent inside. Clean and neat. The kitchen and living room were one room, and there was a door from the living room into a bedroom. Besides the bathroom, that was it. The trailer had to be very cheap. It seemed a bit impersonal. No photos of family, only a row of books on a shelf above the kitchen table and a few postcards on the refrigerator. As if she hadn't really moved in, more like a hotel room.

  But it was livable. He eased her into the bedroom, turned on the light, pulled back the comforter, and laid her on the bed. There was a faint scent of perfume, and a small window with a rose-colored curtain was steamed up. He shivered. People could look right in! He walked over and angrily closed the curtain.

  "Do you want your clothes off?"

  She stared suspiciously at him for a second, then she nodded. "Just don't stare at my ass, okay?"

  He felt like shaking his head, but instead, he pulled off her pants and her sweater. She was skinny, and her right arm was swollen and beginning to turn blue. They didn't speak, though she was obviously fighting the pain. When she was down to a white T-shirt and a pair of blue panties, he pulled the comforter over her and went out to the kitchen for a glass of water. He looked through several cabinets before finding the glasses, and after checking the refrigerator for water, he filled the glass from the faucet, returned to the bedroom, and set it on her night table.

  She mumbled something, and a moment later he thought she had fallen asleep. Then she slowly raised her hand and pulled the rubber band off her braid, which remained. She sighed and pointed at her hair. "Too tight, it hurts. Unbraid it, will you?"

  Trokic hesitated, but then he loosened her hair. Before long it was spread out around her like a fan. The situation felt awkward. But then she breathed heavily, and she was asleep.

  He went outside and sat down on the small steps, lit a cigarette, and looked around. It was quiet, but there were still lights on in several trailers. He was angry. Very angry. Who would dare do this? Was it the killer, had the news infuriated him, had he heard Angie's name? He crushed out his cigarette and went inside, making sure the door was locked. After checking her one last time, and without taking his clothes off, he walked around and laid down in bed beside her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  MARIE TURNED over in bed beside the sleeping man. For two hours, she had tried to fall asleep, had tossed and turned with a knot in her stomach. She was frightened, and her heart ached for her family. Being a prisoner had affected her deeply. Once she had asked if they couldn't just drive home, and he had simply said no and looked away. When her eyes had teared up, he looked as if he wanted to hit her. Hit her!

  He hadn't touched her. She'd been scared that he would start groping her, but he didn't seem to be interested in her that way. Which was a relief. But then he had kissed her on the forehead, given her a teddy bear, and called her, "Kiddo." She could smell beer; he drank all the time and it made her want to throw up.

  She pulled the stinking comforter up to her neck and rubbed her thighs. Despite all the blankets on top, she was still freezing cold. As if it were so cold in the cabin that she couldn't get warm. He hadn't found very much firewood, and what he had picked up was still too wet from the snow to burn. She decided to tiptoe out and look around the small room, to see if there was another blanket. Otherwise, she would put on her coat.

  What were her parents doing right now? Sitting and crying, probably. She wished they were all sitting in front of the TV, talking about what they wanted to watch. Her dad usually wanted to watch European soccer if he could find a match, and her mom liked old episodes of Melrose Place. Usually, her mom got her way, and her dad went out to read about volcanoes on his computer. As if he didn't already know all about them.

  Marie was about to cry again. She missed their big house and Zenna. Though her parents had argued a lot lately. She didn't know what they argued about, but it worried her. Were they going to get a divorce?

  The room was lit up by moonlight reflected off the snow and through the old, green woven curtains that couldn't be closed all the way. She shuddered at the thought of all the animals roaming around out there now. Night creatures. Predators.

  Charlie had told her more about the cabin. He'd bought it ten years ago. It was a very special place, he'd said. And he had built the basement himself. She had barely listened to him, had only wan
ted to go home.

  There weren't any blankets on the sofa. She opened a closet at the other end of the room, but it was too dark to see anything in there. A string hung from a small light bulb above. She glanced over her shoulder; would he be mad if he caught her poking around in his things? But she heard his light snoring from the bedroom. She pulled on the string, and the light came on, which gave her a start. The whole room lit up. Then she looked inside the closet.

  Blood. She froze as she tried to make sense of what she saw. The log wall behind was light, bare wood, and there were large splotches the color of dried blood. The cold seemed to seep further into her bones, and Marie gulped. Something was totally wrong; a small voice inside her was screaming. Had someone tossed a dead animal in the closet, from a hunt? That sounded crazy. Wouldn't they hang it out in the small shed? There were splotches and long spatters on the wall. As if the animal wasn't dead and had still been fighting. Or someone had still been fighting.

  She reached out and ran her fingers over it. It didn't feel any different than the bare wood, yet her fingers tingled, and she began to gasp. What was this? What if it wasn't an animal? What if someone had died here? Someone who had been taken prisoner? Someone, maybe, who hadn't paid a ransom? Should she ask him? Somehow, she knew it would only make him mad, bring out the anger she sensed within him. Then she smelled her fingers. It wasn't blood, it was just paint, but for some reason that didn't calm her down. Because why would anyone do this inside a closet, why had he thrown paint inside there?

  Then she spotted something else. On the floor, in a corner, was a bag with small dolls. They looked old and moth-eaten. There was something creepy about them, as if they didn't belong there at all. He'd told her he didn't have any sisters or brothers, and that his parents were dead. But who had put the dolls there? Who had been there?

  "What are you doing?"

  His voice shot right through her. She turned, aware that she looked guilty, and she ducked slightly. For a moment, there was a dark silence, then she turned off the light and closed the closet door, frightened of what he would do. She spoke with a voice as calm as she could make it. "Nothing."

  "You're doing nothing? In the middle of the night?" He squinted. "You're looking in the closet?"

  "I was cold," she said, her voice shaking, "and I was looking for another blanket. It's so cold in here."

  He stared at her in a way she didn't at all like. Sizing her up. Weighing her. "Come back to bed. You can have some of my blanket."

  BUT AS SHE lay in bed, as far from him and his snoring as possible, she kept thinking of the painted blood. Especially the stringy splatters. It wasn't even as if someone had crammed a dead animal in there because the blood would have pooled up on the floor. It was more like some sort of simulation that someone hadn't been dead; blood only streamed out like that when it was pumped out. When the heart was still beating. Wasn't that right? She wasn't sure. Then she also began to have doubts; what if it actually was blood? What if something gruesome had happened in this cabin? Maybe it was long ago. Or maybe not, maybe not long ago at all? She thought back to her dad's hunter friend, David Griffin. How did they get to know each other? She'd never liked the man, and the thought that Charlie had some connection to him made her feel sick. Why was there a bloody slip of paper with his name on it? Her thoughts began to tumble over each other. Blood or not blood? Was this how it felt to go crazy? Not being able to tell the difference?

  Tomorrow, she would try to escape. When it was light. But then all the animals were awake. She shuddered with fright at the thought of which animals might be outside there. But she would be brave. For her mother's sake. She had her warm coat and new boots. Hopefully, he would go out for firewood again and have a hard time finding any, so it would take him forever. Then she would find a way. The only thing worrying her was that he didn't always keep a sharp eye on her. Was he so certain that she wouldn't run away because of the mother bear, or the cold? Or was it because they were so far from anywhere that she would never get back to civilization? That she would walk right into death?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  AN IRATE HOWIE pulled a toolbox out of a locker. Lately, Griffin had been screwing up at work, the idiot. Like the several errors he made in readings on computer data and in their reports. And yesterday, the shit had hit the fan; a pilot had complained about troubles with the ailerons on an Airbus, and Griffin hadn't fixed the damn things right. When the aircraft prepared for landing in Montréal, the ailerons on the right wing hadn't functioned well enough, and they had to circle the airport a long time to recalculate the braking. The upshot of it was, it had been an emergency landing, with firefighting equipment standing by. Foam on the runway, for Christ's sake.

  You could get fired for that shit, and now Howie was going to have to check Griffin's work until he got his head back on straight. But that was yesterday. Today, the jerk had called in sick. Howie fumbled frantically with the little stereo on his workbench, and finally, a Johnny Cash CD blared out in the hangar.

  They weren't tinkering around with old classic car engines here; they were mechanics for one of the world's largest airlines, and one single faulty screw could be fatal. Not that Howie really cared if a plane crashed—in fact, it might be interesting to find out how little it took. But he and the little wife had five kids, and he had to bring home the bacon; he couldn't afford to lose his job, and he wasn't about to lose it because of David Griffin.

  It was actually strange because Griffin was usually reliable. Maybe it had something to do with his friend Asger Vad getting killed, but he hadn't seemed broken up about it when he came in the morning after the murder. It was more like he was riled up. Or nervous. Of course, it was bad that a hunting buddy had been killed, but they didn't seem to be all that close. Griffin hadn't been totally sober that morning. It wasn't the first time, but he was good at what he did and had been working at the airport almost twenty years.

  Griffin could be a lot of laughs, too, even though you couldn't always tell if his stories were true. Mostly, he bragged about hunting. He wasn't the most principled guy on the planet, and he laughed long and hard about bagging an animal illegally under the nose of a wildlife trooper. Not that Howie cared. Like, if a trooper didn't have enough on the ball to catch a guy like Griffin, no big deal. There were enough animals around to hunt.

  Other times, though, the stories were a little over the top. Like the time he said he screwed a fifteen-year-old out in the mountains somewhere. He claimed the girl had wanted it, but Howie had trouble believing that. It wasn't like Griffin was this stud who could get any woman he wanted. That story had gnawed at Howie for quite a while. Several other times, Griffin had bragged about picking up very young prostitutes. Apparently, having a wife and children didn't bother him. And, in a way, it was gross, that they actually had to be so young. Griffin must have thought it was normal, like, if other guys were happy with older bitches, well, that was their business.

  Howie looked at the big Boeing in the hangar. It wasn't new by any means, but he had taken that particular model apart and reassembled it so many times that he could do it in his sleep. It was in for an A-check; it would take a few days. There might be a problem with one of the turbines, too. He almost thought he could smell it, but maybe he was just imagining it. He sighed and sipped at his cold coffee. Griffin must not be coming in at all. The boss said it was the flu. Someone else was on the way. But the whole business was sleazy.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ANGIE WAS ALREADY UP when Trokic awoke. They'd slept about six hours. He had tossed and turned all night, but he felt okay. She stood beside the refrigerator, braiding her wet hair with a few hairpins between her teeth and U2's "Mysterious Ways" playing softly on the radio. Her yellow-green cheek was severely swollen, her eye bloodshot and also swollen, her lip cut.

  "Sorry you had to sleep here in the slums."

  He rubbed his eyes and yawned. "It was an experience."

  "Not much of one," she mumbled, with a bri
ef smile.

  "I'm glad to see he didn't knock out more of your teeth so you couldn't smile."

  She sighed heavily. "Believe me, it hurts like hell. You'd better drive today, I'm still a little groggy after all that medicine, and I still can't eat anything. Just don't crash my black junker with your European driving, I can't afford another car."

  "You're not going to work, are you?" He was surprised. "The shape you're in? I think you should stay here. I'll go into the station for the briefing and get updated. Then I'll come back and tell you about it." He paused. "So you don't feel cheated."

  She shook her head and stared out the small windows. People were hanging around on the path outside, as if they wanted to see where the attack took place. They shivered from the cold, and soon they began returning to their homes in the small neighborhood. "I can't stay home, that's impossible. We're undermanned for the moment, and as long as a child is missing and I can stand up, I'm working."

  He lifted an eyebrow. "I understand, I've felt like that. But you're not able to defend yourself, the shape you're in. And you actually look like someone who can't stand up."

  "Well then, I'll just have to sit beside you. I won't have to defend myself. First, we'll attend the briefing, then we'll talk to some of the students and his coworkers at the university and the Volcano Observatory. I've already called Smith and told him we're good to go. Also, we need to know what's going on with David Griffin and his DNA test. It's not going to be a big problem. If some really bad guys show up, I'll let someone else handle them. You, for instance."

  Trokic sighed and stared at her determined expression. There was no use arguing with her. "Is there any coffee? If I'm going to drive that wreck of yours and fight bad guys all day with a partly handicapped officer beside me, I'll need something to get my head working."