This was the best plan he had. He had to follow it through. And if it was a dead end...
He would face that when—if—he came to it.
Rudi hissed quietly, and Cooper realized he had pushed down on the gas and moved from reckless to suicidal speeds. He eased off, gritting his teeth.
“He’s going to be fine,” Rudi said. “But we’re not if you keep this up.”
He resisted the urge to snap at her. Instead he focused on loosening his grip on the wheel. He couldn’t tell if the tingling lightness in his arms was from adrenaline, anxiety or missing yet another meal. He took a deep breath. “You don’t know that. Something’s not right.”
Rudi sighed. “I know. But just because Ollie doesn’t like to fight doesn’t mean he can’t. Believe me, the Parks made sure of it,” she added darkly. That didn’t reassure Cooper at all.
This time they bounced all the way down Baker’s long driveway, plunging into pine shadow, and parked with a jolt on the front lawn between the untouched mowers. Baker wouldn’t care. Baker would never know. He felt a pang for the little awkward blond boy in the photographs. The self-enforced loneliness that had, if Cooper was correct, lasted the rest of his life. Pushing people away and falling ever further into a hole of solitude he could not pull himself out of.
It wasn’t such a leap to see himself in Baker’s place.
But Park. Park had pulled him out of the hole.
Cooper reached into the back seat and tried to hand Rudi a T-shirt he’d grabbed from Park’s room on the off chance this would work.
She stared at it, uncomprehending. “What do you want to do with that?”
He fidgeted. “I thought you could, uh, get the scent...”
If the circumstances were less serious, he was sure Rudi would have rolled her eyes. “I’ve known Ollie since he was a pup. I know his scent.” She paused. “And if by some chance I did forget, I could always remind myself with a couple whiffs of your choice areas.” She looked pointedly at him up and down.
Cooper blushed and Rudi smirked, though there was a grim edge to it. She turned and walked quickly toward the back of the house, staring at the ground.
“Are you getting anything?” Cooper said, following her.
“It’s faint. But Oliver was definitely here a few hours ago.” She paused and stared at the back door, her gaze unfocused. “There’s another trail here. Someone else.”
“Who?” Cooper practically choked on the word. His heart was pounding so hard his throat hurt.
“I don’t know. I don’t know everyone in town, you know. Besides, the scent is compromised by something chemical. Bug spray.”
Before Cooper could register that, she hurried to the edge of the woods, crouched and ran her hand over the ground. “They both got into a vehicle here.”
“An ATV,” Cooper said, crouching even as she stood and wandered away again. He could see the divot of tire tracks in the grass himself. They looked the same as the tracks in the woods at the dump site, but faded to nothing as they moved into the woods and leaf litter.
He stared at the lack of a trail and dug his fists into his own thighs. The scent was hours old, she’d said. Why had Park come here by himself?
Cooper turned, looking for Rudi. “Would you be—” He abruptly stopped and jerked his gaze away. She had taken her top off and was wiggling out of her jeans. “Um.” He cleared his throat.
“I’ll have a better shot at following the trail shifted.”
He continued to stare at the tracks in the dirt. “Er—” A pair of jeans hit him in the face.
“Make yourself useful and carry my clothes.”
Cooper opened his mouth to respond when an intense guttural ripping sound startled him so much he nearly fell over. He reached for his gun and spun in the grass on his knees.
A huge gray wolf with patches of russet along its flanks was shaking itself vigorously. It stopped and looked at him.
“Right,” he breathed.
He blinked rapidly and searched for some sign of Rudi left in its—her—fierce face or shining bronze eyes. But he saw nothing. The wolf growled at him, the sound making the hairs on his arms stand up, and twitched her eyebrow, looking impatiently annoyed. Ah. There she was.
He swept his hand out. It was only trembling a little. “Ladies first.”
Rudi took off with a huff, trotting into the shadows, and Cooper followed.
The forest was eerily silent besides their feet crunching through dead leaves and branches. No signs of a trail or habitation. Not even the wildlife dared to poke their heads out to chirp as the two predators darted between the trees.
How far from Baker’s would they go? Would they be able to make it on foot? Rudi would if Cooper didn’t hold her back.
He quickened his pace. His side ached and his throat was dry from panting. Every tree and jutting cliff and pile of boulders looked exactly the same. Cooper had long since stopped seeing any sign of tracks. They could be traveling in circles and he wouldn’t know. All his trust was in Rudi.
And then he saw it.
The opening to a mine. It appeared suddenly, almost like an optical illusion. Looking at it from one angle it was just another shadowed rocky crag. From another the shadow widened and deepened and became the mine entrance. Sloping piles of rubble surrounded the entrance, and Cooper could see glinting chunks of yellow quartz amidst the gray. A chill, damp air wafted at the entrance, hinting at colder and wetter spaces inside. He shivered. What was it Bornestein told his neighbor?
Sitting on a mine, he always said.
Rudi passed him, her warm solidity brushing past his hip oddly comforting as she trotted into the mouth of the mine, disappearing mere steps in.
“Wait,” Cooper hissed. “Come back.” He could just barely sense a shifting in the shadows and then he saw the gleam of her flat, reflective eyes staring back at him. “You need to stay here.”
She snarled furiously and the sound echoed down the mine. Christ, how big was it? He imagined walking through the darkness in the cold and the dark. How stable could an abandoned mine possibly be? In the darkness, would he even notice the passage getting narrower? The walls closing in?
For a moment he considered letting Rudi go on ahead. She’d be able to see in the dark fine. Could slip through narrower spaces better than he could, too.
“I can’t let you go down there,” he said firmly. “Stay here.”
Another ripping snarl and some loud clacks and snapping sounds echoed out of the cave, and Cooper thought for a moment the mine was collapsing. He had the strangest urge to run in. Park’s trapped in there. But the stones weren’t moving, the reflective orbs of her eyes were. Rising up until they were almost even with his. Was she standing on her hind le—
“The hell I can’t!”
Cooper’s heart slammed into his chest at the sound of her voice. Blinking, he tossed the clothes he held into the darkness.
“We don’t know the situation down there. It is totally against protocol for me to have involved you at all. You are a civilian. You are unarmed—”
“I thought the BSI’s opinion was that a wolf is always armed.”
“Well, it’s bullshit,” Cooper snapped back as Rudi stepped out of the shadow of the mine, buttoning her top. “How’d that work for Baker and Whittaker and—and Park?”
If she noticed the stutter in his voice, she didn’t comment on it. “I can help. I need to help.”
“Damn right you’re going to help. I need you to go back to Baker’s and wait for my partner, Jefferson. I need you to lead him here. If you see anyone else, stay out of sight.” She frowned at him, unconvinced. “I’m trained for this. Jefferson is trained for this. Please. This is the best chance Sam has.” He hoped that was true. Cooper wasn’t sure. He had no idea what he was going to find in the mine. But he could not and would not risk her life.
“You have no idea what it feels like, being part of a pack. Knowing your pack mate’s in danger. In pain.”
It was true, so it shouldn’t have hurt. Cooper was a loner. He knew it. He chose it. After his mom died he hadn’t wanted to risk the pain and fear he saw in Rudi’s face now.
But he couldn’t help thinking of Park. His unwavering, soothing energy that had made Cooper feel so safe now needed saving.
“I will protect him,” he said, and it didn’t matter who he was talking about anymore. All of them. Any goddamn wolf he found in there. “But I need you to trust me.”
She stared into his eyes, irises expanding to block out the whites of her eyes, and he felt suddenly vulnerable. Not physically, but mentally naked, the way only an animal could see past your façade.
Finally she nodded and walked past him. Her arm brushed him, and just for a moment, as she pressed her shoulder into his, Cooper felt stronger. He didn’t need to prove it. She believed him. They depended on him. He could do this.
Then Rudi trotted back through the woods towards Baker’s and Cooper took his last breath of warm, dry air. He walked into the mine.
* * *
The way through the mine was wider than Cooper had thought. His phone flashlight picked up on the ATV tire tracks in the dirt and rubble under his feet, deep from frequent trips back and forth.
He swept his phone light over the path, looking uselessly for any other hint of what had happened. For some sign of a struggle. But if Park had been taken down here, he hadn’t been in any position to fight.
A flash of orange caught the light on the path up ahead. A bit of warning tape left over from the mining days? Cooper approached and, after warily glancing into the pitch-black shadows in front of and behind him, crouched down.
His first thought was it was some sort of event bracelet.
From all the big rock concerts and clubs they have in Florence, Maine? Right.
Using a pen from his pocket, he tugged it loose from the dirt.
UltraPlay Arcade was printed in faded letters.
The hairs on the back of Cooper’s neck stiffened and a flush of goose bumps raced up his arms. The darkness outside the edges of his phone light suddenly felt watchful. He scanned the shadows, willing them to move, to shift and take shape. But he saw nothing.
He carefully pocketed the bracelet without touching it, stood and turned off his phone light. It didn’t illuminate more than three feet, and if he couldn’t see ahead he certainly didn’t want ahead to see him.
Cooper listened. He heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing and that silence. A silence that seemed almost...alive.
He moved forward again, one hand guiding him against the wall, the other tightly gripping his gun. A pressure was building in his ears, and he wondered how far below ground he was going. He wiped the moisture off his upper brow. Despite the icy air, he was dripping. The hand he held against the stone-and-dirt wall to guide him was so cold it ached. He flexed his fingers and embraced the rush of agony. He needed to keep the circulation in his hand or lose the advantage of his shooting skills to some stiff fingers. Or missing fingers, depending on how much longer this mine went.
Hypothermia.
Was this where Jenny Eagler had been held?
His eyes were adjusting at least. Or was it getting lighter? There was a gray tinge to the darkness now. It was just a little easier to see in front of him than behind him. The pressure in his ears increased until it was almost a buzzing sound. In fact, Cooper rubbed his ear, trying to pop the pressure, and listened—there was a buzzing coming from up ahead, right around the curve of the tunnel.
He raised his gun and peered around the wall, cheek brushing the cold, rough stone.
A bright yellow-white light blinded him. Multicolored spots raced across his vision. He squinted into it, his senses on high alert. The mine had widened into what seemed to be a large natural cavern. How large, he couldn’t tell, because the walls were thrown into deep shadow while the middle was lit up like a Broadway spotlight.
Well, off-off-off Broadway.
Huge stadium-style lights were set up around what looked like a large metal cage carpeted with Astroturf. At the adjacent corners, video cameras were mounted atop steel ladders and positioned to point down at the center of the cage.
There, lying curled on his side, was Sam Whittaker, and crouched over him was Park. They were both naked. The turf around them was stained in blood.
“Oliver?”
Park looked up, though Cooper couldn’t have spoken louder than a whisper if he’d spoken at all. He stared at Cooper in horror.
“What did you do?” Cooper said.
“Nothing yet,” said a voice behind him.
Chapter Fifteen
Officer Harris smiled, stepping out from the shadows of the mine wall, his face off-color and his expression terrifying under the harsh lights. The gun he pointed at Cooper didn’t help either. At his feet a battered-looking Robbie Gould lay unmoving, his hands twisted and cuffed behind his back.
Dead? Or unconscious? He didn’t look good, that was for sure. Limp, pale and crusted with blood and dirt. Only the suspicion that Harris wouldn’t keep a dead man tied up gave Cooper any hope that Gould was alive. Not that Harris was looking all too rational at the moment.
“You don’t look surprised to see me, Agent Dayton,” Harris said with the same pleasant tone as always. His dark eyes, however, were flat and cold like a snake with nothing more on its mind than its next strike.
“Well, there were a couple clues,” Cooper said, trying to copy Harris’s tone. His gun, still clutched in his hand, inched up. “Bornestein’s missing computer seized by cops. Gould’s call to the police.” He decided not to mention the bug spray Rudi had smelled. If he didn’t make it out of here, he didn’t want to put her in danger.
Harris laughed, sounding genuinely amused. “Well, aren’t you just Sherlock Holmes. Though I’m afraid your endgame could use some work—and you can put your gun back down. All the way on the ground. Kick it over to me, that’s right. Now put your hands up.”
Cooper didn’t argue. His Taser was still holstered beneath his jacket, but it was a hollow comfort against Harris’s gun. He just needed to keep Harris talking and hope Rudi brought Jefferson to the mine ASAP. He could sense Whittaker and Park watching from inside the cage but didn’t dare take his eyes off Harris.
“It’s been you all along, using your uniform to manipulate the searches and move unnoticed. Is this where you brought them to be killed before dumping them around the forest?”
“I did what needed to be done to protect this town.”
“From who?” Cooper didn’t outright say Because you’re the only lunatic carting around bodies, but it was implied.
Harris didn’t look offended. If anything he seemed thoughtful. “Monsters, of course. Wolves.”
Cooper inhaled sharply. He’d had a growing suspicion, but it was still startling to hear Harris say the word. To admit he was aware. “There was no werewolf kidnapping and killing people. It was you killing werewolves. And, I guess, whoever got in your way.”
“Justice. You of all people should understand, Agent Dayton.” Harris tilted his head to contemplate Cooper. The gesture was so reminiscent of Park, Park who was gentle and kind and currently caged up like a rabid animal behind him, that Cooper felt a surge of rage flood his veins. As if it wasn’t enough Harris was repugnant, he expected empathy? Felt righteous?
“Understand?” Cooper said, voice barely under control. “What is there to understand? How you tortured and murdered innocent men?”
“Innocent men,” Harris scoffed. “Was Jacob Symer an innocent man? I know he ripped you apart like a rag doll and left you to die. Just like he ripped apart women in Philly after he—” Harris’s voice caught. It had turned as graveled as the earth below their f
eet. The first sign of genuine emotion he had shown, perhaps, since Cooper had met him, and something clicked in Cooper’s head.
“He killed your daughter, didn’t he?”
Harris blinked rapidly. His eyes unfocused, obviously replaying some memory. Cooper’s hand inched towards his Taser. “When I found out he was living here, I transferred to Florence. I was going to do it right. Find the evidence your goddamn BSI couldn’t. I wanted to put him behind bars myself. He wasn’t here two weeks before that poor girl came to us for help. Said he was harassing her at work. Same thing that happened in Philly. And what did we do? Nothing. It’s a public place, Chief said. No overt threats were being made. He’s a fucking monster, his existence was an overt threat.”
“She didn’t know that. But you did. Why didn’t you tell the BSI?”
“And watch him slip through their fingers again? BSI never could tie him to the murders, only to your attack. It wasn’t good enough. He was going to get away with it while those idiots in D.C. were busy tripping over bureaucracy. So focused on keeping their fucking secrets that they don’t even do their jobs!” Harris’s eyes tightened with rage. “No. There was no guarantee I’d find him again.”
Cooper was surprised by how informed Harris was. But if someone he’d loved had been brutally murdered, he’d have done everything he could to get answers, too. Maybe he’d even be tempted to seek revenge. But this? All the others? Whatever Harris’s original plan had been, this went beyond vengeance. And Cooper didn’t think he could have done it alone.
“So you killed him? Judge, jury and executioner?”
“Me? No. Execution was too good for him. He ripped my daughter apart. I wanted him to feel the same way.”
“How?” Cooper asked. “What...is this?”
He risked looking away from the gun and around at the cage. The cameras, the blood in the center of floor covered in Astroturf. Oliver and Whittaker were both standing now. Whittaker was leaning forward, his glowing eyes intent on Gould.
Oliver stood behind him, a restraining arm around his shoulders. He met Cooper’s gaze and gave him a look that said...what? You’re in danger? No shit, Sherlock. Help me? Ditto. It’s going to be okay? Outlook not good. Not unless he kept Harris talking until backup got here.
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