by Kay Hooper
Now the only things Jessie took with her from the backpack she normally carried on her hikes were her small tool case of lockpicks, her weapon, and a flashlight. She unholstered her weapon and stuck it inside the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back to make it less obvious that she was armed; she slid the small tool case into the front pocket of her jeans, and carried the flashlight, then locked up her car and slid the key into another pocket.
She wanted to travel light, just in case she had to move fast. Even though she had taken great care to leave no sign behind, there was always the chance the killer had realized someone had been in the cabin.
A slim chance, Jessie believed.
She followed the footpath from the road only about thirty yards, then veered off toward the east, and the shortcut she had found. It wasn’t a path or a trail, just a very faint track she thought might have been made and maintained by deer and other wildlife passing through the woods.
Whatever had made it, she had yet to see any human footprints along the way, and she had followed the track several times by now. Before and after fairly heavy rainstorms. And still no sign anyone else had walked this way. Even though she moved quickly, she also moved cautiously, allowing her senses to flare out and probe her surroundings.
As she neared the cabin, she had to pull those senses in a bit, because what she always felt near and at the cabin was a sense of dread and darkness so absolute she had never been able to bring herself to just let it wash over her.
She wasn’t strong enough for that. She didn’t have to think about it; she just knew.
She had stopped beating herself up about it. It was something she just couldn’t do. Fine. Everybody had their limits. What she could do was help stop the monster, and that was what she intended to do.
To give Emma her safe little town back, so she wouldn’t…
Wouldn’t…
That was always as far as the thought went. No matter how hard Jessie concentrated, she couldn’t find the rest of that sentence. It was weird, and it bothered her on a level deeper than thought. She pushed it out of her mind, but this time for a very good reason.
She couldn’t afford to be distracted.
She reached the cabin just then, circling warily as she always did, just to be safe, then went straight to the front door and unlocked it. Inside, she set her tool case and the flashlight on the coffee table, then took the time to check the bedroom and bath quickly, just to make sure nothing was different. Finding everything as it had been on her last visit, she went to the bookshelf and removed the book that secreted the box of trophies.
Aware of time passing, she resisted the temptation to do more than unlock and open it quickly just to make sure the contents were there and the same. They were, and as far as she could tell, nothing new had been added.
Good. That was very good.
She had considered long and hard about where she might be able to hide the box here in this very bare cabin; she had to assume that if he discovered it missing, he would suspect it had been taken away, not merely moved to a new hiding place. So the hiding place had to be one he wasn’t likely to stumble upon, or even find easily if he did somehow suspect it was still here.
If all went according to plan, the next time he went for the box it would be in desperation, because the hunters were closing in on him.
Jessie returned the pretend book to its place on the shelf, and then went directly to the open fireplace. In the heat of summer it would never be used, or at least that was what she prayed would be true. She leaned into the opening and reached up inside the chimney, touching nothing with her fingers but allowing the box she held to slide along the rock until she felt the narrow ledge she had found.
The box fit perfectly.
She eased her arm from the chimney and looked at the logs piled on the iron grate, at the hearth, making sure there wasn’t even a little soot knocked loose to drift down and catch his attention.
She didn’t have to be a profiler to know that this monster was neat to the point of being obsessive-compulsive; the extreme neat order of this place was proof enough of that.
There was no sign of soot.
Jessie reached back to get her lockpick kit from the coffee table, and unzipped it, removing a sharp tool. Then, very, very carefully, she scratched a tiny, almost invisible lightning bolt in the center of the flagstone hearth, pointing toward the fireplace. Only someone looking for a sign would see it.
She hoped.
THE PROBLEM WITH trying to find Jessie in Baron Hollow—anywhere in Baron Hollow—during the festival was, as Navarro observed, that it appeared every man, woman, and child within two hundred miles had decided to attend.
The problem was compounded by the fact that they didn’t have a clue even where to start looking.
“Still can’t ping her cell phone,” Maggie reported briefly when Navarro pulled Emma into the recessed doorway of one of the few downtown stores that were closed and placed the call.
“GPS on her car?”
“Well, there we might have something. But you’re not going to like it. I know I don’t.”
“What is it?”
“Her car moved early this morning. From the inn, where it’s been since she arrived. It was parked downtown near several stores.”
“They’ve blocked off downtown for this damned festival,” Navarro said.
“I know. This was early. Around seven. The car was parked near the corner of Main and Oak streets. Then about ten minutes later, it vanished.”
“It what?”
“The GPS signal just stopped. Went dead.” Maggie’s voice was grim. “Jessie knows how to disable one, but it beats the hell out of me why she would. And if it wasn’t her…”
“Then whoever she’s after could be on to her.” Navarro saw Emma’s face whiten, and did his best to be positive. “Look, we all know those systems are prime targets for thieves. Maybe it was just stolen out of her car and she didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.”
“According to the police history, that sort of crime really doesn’t happen in Baron Hollow,” Maggie said.
Navarro didn’t ask how she knew that. “Okay. Then where she was parked…” He mentally went over the map of downtown, since he could see little of it due to the congestion of the festival. “The only thing open that early, around seven, would be the pharmacy. They have a breakfast counter, and open up early, even on holidays.” He lifted his brows at Emma, and received a nod in return.
“Casual enough place to visit,” Maggie said. “You and Emma both saw her later in the day, right?”
“Yeah, she was among the crowd right up until sometime around noon. It’s nearly two now. We’ve been looking for at least an hour, and haven’t seen a sign of her”
“So we can last place her car near a pharmacy, but that doesn’t help us much. Would she have gone—wherever—on foot?”
“Emma says she’s been leaving the inn every morning for days with a backpack, and you say her car was there up until this morning. I’m betting she’d definitely be on foot, if she’s investigating. It’s just too damned hard to maneuver a car anywhere around town with this festival going on.”
“A good opportunity to check something out, if you knew whoever you were interested in was attending the festival.”
“Yeah. Unless he’s on to her. Then the festival becomes really good cover for someone else to also…vanish into the crowd. And we don’t even know who else to look for.”
Maggie’s sigh was audible. “It could be innocent enough, or at least not dangerous, if it’s her past she’s probing. Depending on what’s there, of course.”
“Which I intend to find out ASAP,” he said, his gaze fixed on Emma.
As she so often did, Maggie seemed well aware of what he meant. “Secrets can be burdens; don’t make Emma’s heavier, Nathan.”
“No. No, I’ll try not to. But if we’re going to find Jessie, I need all the information possible.”
“To decide wheth
er she’s investigating her past or a killer.”
“Maybe both. I think we need to visit the pharmacy and find out if she talked to anyone there.”
“Report back,” Maggie said. “If you become unreachable for more than an hour, I’m calling in the troops. Understood?”
“Understood.” He ended the call and slipped the phone back into its case on his belt. To Emma, he said, “I’m assuming you know everyone at the pharmacy?”
She nodded. “I could hear what your boss was saying, or at least some of it.” She winced as the band currently playing finished their song with a rousing drum solo, then said, “Why would Jessie have moved her car? I mean, if she’s been on foot all this time? The pharmacy is only a few blocks from the inn.”
“I don’t know why,” Navarro said, taking her hand. “Let’s go ask.”
As always at such open events, there were numerous currents within the crowd, and it took them a while to find one moving in the general direction of the pharmacy. Emma said hello to several people, but they didn’t stop for introductions, and she was all too aware that more than one curious soul had noticed their linked hands.
But she had more important things to worry about than her reputation, and when they crossed paths with Dan Maitland, she didn’t hesitate to ask, “Hey, have you seen Jessie?”
He’d been working on a corn dog, and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin before replying, “Saw her this morning. Talked to her for a few minutes. Why?”
“We’re looking for her,” Emma answered without further explanation. She saw his gaze drop briefly to her hand, still linked with Navarro’s, and wondered if he’d comment. They had dated from time to time, casually, more as friends than anything else.
But all he said was, “In this crowd you could lose the Pope. But I’ll keep an eye out. If I see her, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”
“Thanks.”
As they went on, Navarro said, “I saw them talking. Neither one looked very happy.”
“I know. I saw them too. But I also saw her talking with at least three other men, and though I can’t be sure, all those conversations looked less than casual.”
“Who was it?”
Emma didn’t have to think about it; she’d been so focused on Jessie when she caught glimpses of her that those images were burned in her mind. “Our cousin Victor. Sam Conway, who owns and manages the Daily Ledger. Peter Troy, a local bad boy from our high school days and a fairly useless alcoholic now. I also saw her talking to Nellie Holt.”
“Who is?”
“A casual friend from school, though more mine than Jessie’s since we’re the same age. Nellie writes feature stories for the Ledger. And dates Victor.”
“Dates?”
“They’re lovers. Months, at least, which must be a record of sorts for Victor.”
Quick to pick up on a note in her voice even with all the noise around them, Navarro said, “From what I’ve overheard and…sensed…local gossip says there’s a new tension between you and Victor. I’m guessing it has nothing to do with your friend being his lover.”
“Of course not. Nellie’s a big girl, no fool, and she knows what she’s doing.”
“Local gossip also says Victor wants to buy land you don’t want to sell, and that’s causing the tension.”
Emma frowned at him as they paused to allow a cluster of people blocking their path to go on their way. “Well, you’ve really had your ear to the ground, haven’t you? I know our gossip mill is second to none, but I wasn’t aware there were so many people interested in whether Victor wins what he wants or I keep it. But it isn’t just local gossip you’ve…picked up, is it?”
“No,” he admitted. “I’ve been sensing bits and pieces. But either way, I don’t believe the tension between you and Victor is about land. Or, at least, that’s not the major cause. It’s about what happened to Jessie, isn’t it?”
“We can’t talk about that out in the open,” Emma said, continuing on toward the pharmacy.
Navarro bit back a sigh, then said, “So, basically, Jessie is touching base with people from the old days. Specific people.”
“That’s what it looks like. She could be pretty sure of seeing everyone today and being able to speak to whoever she wanted or needed to and make it look casual. More or less.”
“She ambushed them,” Navarro said. “If she had tough questions to ask, it would be the best way to catch someone off guard and possibly get a truthful—or at least honest—response.”
“I’m just afraid—”
“Afraid of what? That she asked the wrong person the wrong question?”
“Some secrets are dangerous,” Emma said finally. “And some people would do…a lot…to protect them.”
EIGHTEEN
Aware of time ticking past, Jessie hesitated for just a moment, asking herself whether she really needed to do this.
Yes. She did.
She picked up her flashlight and left the cabin the way she had entered it, locking the door carefully behind her and then sliding the tool kit into her pocket.
She went around to the end of the cabin farthest from the almost-road that stopped on the other side of the stream. It wasn’t the logical place to find the entrance to a cellar, and he had camouflaged it very effectively with raised flower beds on either side of it, but once she had started looking, it had been easy to find.
It looked like a typical cellar entrance from this perspective; she didn’t even need a lockpick. She had opened the hatch-like door the day she’d found it, her last day exploring the exterior of the cabin, but had been running out of time and had been forced to stop there.
Even so, the sense of dread she felt from this place was all here, all down in the earth beneath the cabin, and she had to see what was down there. Even though she knew.
The lack of a lock on the exterior door troubled her, but she assumed there would be another door once she made her way down the steps that appeared to have been cut out of the hard earth. These old-fashioned cellars had been cut so there was a cool place to store vegetables and other perishables in the days before electric refrigeration came along.
Jessie turned her flashlight on and aimed it down the steps, hesitated only a moment, and cautiously began to go down. At the bottom of the stairs, she found—a root cellar.
At least to the casual glance.
The area smelled of the earth, and it was cooler than outside. But to Jessie it felt cold. Very cold. She had to force herself to ignore that chill, to stand her ground and shine her flashlight around the small space. Rough shelves with what looked like canning jars of various vegetables and soups; a neat rack of gardening tools; a couple of stacks of clay pots for plants or flowers. And—a door.
It looked newer than she had expected it to, but that was probably because it was a steel door, its surface smooth and reflective. Jessie had to move toward it several steps before she could really make out any details in the glare of her flashlight’s reflected beam.
It was solid except for a two-foot-by-two-foot piece of heavy steel mesh, closely woven but not so closely as to prevent air from, presumably, reaching the space beyond it. And it had what looked like a simple door handle, with a simple keyhole beneath it. That was all.
She wasn’t surprised to find the door locked. Nor was she surprised that the lock was more difficult to pick than might have been expected from its appearance. So much so that after a good ten minutes of careful effort she felt a decided sense of triumph when she finally heard the click, and got to her feet to open the door.
Pain. Terror. Pain. Terror. Pain.
Jessie drew in a breath, realizing only then that the force of the emotions battering her had literally stopped her breathing, and for long enough that the first breath she drew was actually painful.
In more ways than one. Because when she did breathe, all she smelled was death.
Somehow, she managed not to drop everything and run as she wanted to do, as all her instincts and s
enses insisted she do. Instead, she shored up her walls even more, with desperate strength, and stepped through the door.
It felt like she was entering hell itself.
Her flashlight showed her that this part of the cellar was intended to store something other than vegetables or tools. This space was lined with lumber walls and ceiling, and the metal racks fastened to those walls held…implements…that were tools of horror. Knives and other bladed instruments like saws; whips of every kind; straps ending in buckles and spikes; heavy cudgels, their ends horribly stained.
Everything was stained. With blood.
If he was neat to a fault upstairs, down here he allowed his inner demons their absolute freedom. Because nothing had been cleaned, not even of bits of human tissue and hair caught in sticky blood.
Sickened, she turned her flashlight’s beam away from that tool wall, and wished she hadn’t. Directly in front of her was a chair contraption that was also stained with blood, and beyond it was a cot—with a heavy chain with a cuff at one end and the other end bolted to the wall.
The mattress on the cot was stained.
Again, Jessie wanted to run, but there was a closed door on the left-hand wall, and she took a step farther in, turning her flashlight so she could see—
She felt something against her ankle, and in the instant before it happened, she realized that she had fallen into his trap.
The trip wire was rigged to what was probably a simple pulley and weight system that slammed the steel door shut behind Jessie, and when she whirled to shine her light on the door, she went cold to her marrow.
This side of the door was smooth, featureless except for the heavy steel mesh ventilation panel.
There was no handle.
There was no lock.
There was no way out.
“WHAT DO YOU mean she left town?” Emma was staring at Patty, a clerk at the pharmacy who insisted she had talked to Jessie that morning before the festival.
“It was early and I’d agreed to pull a split shift,” she explained, more to Navarro than to Emma. She tucked a strand of coppery hair behind one ear and smiled at him winningly. “So I could spend at least part of the day at the festival. I was here early. And so was Jessie.”