Tahoe Chase (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller)

by Todd Borg

  Simone was breathing hard, traumatized just talking about it.

  “I want to leave him,” she said. “I can’t say how much I want to just slip out in the middle of the night and disappear. But I know he would track me down and kill me.”

  She looked at me. “You’re probably thinking that I’m being melodramatic, but I know it to be true.”

  “Simone, I’m an ex-cop. I know how it works, and I know you are right. If you believe that he would find you and kill you, you are probably correct about it. However, if you make a plan to kick Ned out of your world, perhaps you can start to rebuild your life.”

  Simone made the smallest of nods.

  FORTY

  “The doctor says that you can leave the hospital tomorrow,” I said to Simone. “Would you like us to pick you up?”

  “Yes, but what about Ned? He’ll find me here tonight.”

  “There’s a cop outside your door. I’ll tell the nurses at the front counter to keep your room number a secret and to call the police if he shows up. Do you have a picture of Ned?”

  She nodded. “In my purse. There’s a little photo holder. I wanted to throw his picture away, but I thought he would be enraged if he ever noticed.”

  Street said, “Ned looks into your private places?”

  “I have no private places. Ned always looks everywhere.”

  We got the photo, said goodbye, and left.

  “Any chance you can stay the night?” I said to the cop.

  He shook his head. “But I can get Greg to stop by.”

  “Mallory won’t mind?”

  “No different than checking bank windows at night.”

  “Thanks.”

  We left Ned’s picture at the nursing counter and explained that if he showed up, they should call the police. I also requested that they not release Simone’s room number to anyone. They understood the importance.

  The next day, Street was buried with work, so I picked up Simone at the hospital.

  She looked nervous when she saw Spot in the back seat of my Jeep. He wagged vigorously at our approach.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, quoting my standard refrain. “He won’t hurt you, but he will want to sniff you. And he will do anything for pets.”

  “I’m scared of dogs.”

  “You don’t need to be. Here, let me show you something.” I opened the back door of the Jeep and took hold of Spot’s collar as he stepped out.

  “Spot, sit.”

  He sat, his tail stretched out behind him, sweeping the parking lot.

  I reached for Simone’s hand. She looked suspicious and pushed her hands into her jacket pockets. So I put my hand on her shoulder and gently walked her toward Spot.

  “He’d love to sniff your hand,” I said.

  Simone’s eyes got wide.

  “Don’t worry. The last time he ate someone for lunch was over a year ago. He hasn’t done it since.”

  Simone cracked a little grin. She took a baby step forward and held out her hand about eighteen inches from Spot’s nose. He looked eager, but didn’t move, apart from his continuous wagging. Slowly, Simone inched forward until Spot could sniff her hand.

  “You can pet him like this,” I said, giving him a delicate little pat between his ears. “Or like this.” I bent over, put Spot in a head lock and wrestled his head back and forth. When I was done, he still looked at Simone and kept sweeping the pavement with his tail.

  Simone gave him a pet so tentative, I didn’t think Spot could feel it. But I wasn’t getting her to do it for Spot’s sake. Once past that hurdle, we got into the Jeep.

  “Where are we going?” Simone asked.

  “If you have a preference, we can go there.”

  “I already missed work, so I’ve probably been fired.”

  I shook my head. “I called Marilyn and told her that you had another incident with your boyfriend and were in the hospital as a result. She said that you could take a leave for as long as it takes to press charges and get him out of your life.”

  “You did that on purpose, right?” Simone said. “You manipulated the situation to get Marilyn to join in pushing me toward filing charges, which will get me killed.”

  “No, I didn’t. I merely told her that Ned had assaulted you once again. Marilyn made the generous offer of giving you a leave from your job. Her suggestion that you kick him out of your life didn’t come from me.”

  “Everyone is against me.”

  “No, everyone is for you.”

  We rode in silence. I turned northeast on Lake Tahoe Blvd and pulled into the parking lot at El Dorado Beach in the middle of town.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked.

  “Just a place to park until we figure out your next move.”

  “You have your job to do,” she said. “Why don’t I get out here, and you can go help Joe Rorvik find out what happened to Rell.”

  “I think I should focus on you until we sort this out.”

  “Why? You have no investment in me. What happens to me has no bearing on you.”

  “I want to focus on you because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “So this is an effort to help the little wounded woman.”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “Nothing other than doing the right thing.”

  “Tell the truth.” Her words were both biting and pleading.

  “I am.”

  We didn’t talk for a minute. Spot got up in the back seat, struggled to turn a circle and lay back down. An old man walked by close to the Jeep. I saw his expression change to worry when he realized that Simone’s face was half covered in bandages. He sped up to get away.

  “You probably can tell that I don’t have a very good opinion of men,” Simone said.

  “With good reason,” I said.

  “At times I’ve hated all men.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “But you seem different than the kind of men I’ve been around.”

  “There are many others like me,” I said.

  “I’ve told myself that, too. Like when I met Rell. I thought, if she is so nice, maybe her husband is nice. But when I met him one day, Rell told him that I was interested in the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme challenge, and he was dismissive. Like he didn’t believe someone like me could ever do such a thing. He actually made a scoffing sound. It’s really rude when someone dismisses you.”

  “I agree.”

  “Even if I could never become a good skier, it is still okay for me to want to try.”

  “Absolutely. Tell me more about the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme challenge. Is it a competition?”

  “Not against others in any specific way. It’s more a challenge to yourself. The challenge is, can you do it? Can you bag every peak on the course? Then there is the solstice version, which is like the worst of the worst.”

  I waited for her to explain.

  “The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. That means that the solstice is also the longest night of the year. So, the Solstice Randonnée is done with the least amount of daylight.”

  “They don’t ski at night, do they?”

  “Most do, yes. But even if you don’t, you have to know how to survive the cold weather at night. You’re up at eight or nine thousand feet camping in a tent. It gets really cold. I heard about one guy who decided to camp near the top of Steven’s Peak. That’s ten thousand feet. Just to stay warm enough means you’re packing a really big sleeping bag plus your tent and a lot of high-calorie food. Carrying enough food for a forty-plus mile journey and then doing it at night makes the challenge that much harder.”

  “Randonnée is a French word?” I said.

  “Yeah. It means trekking and walking. But it’s been used for ski trekking, too. The Tahoe Randonnée Extreme event combines back-country skiing with ski orienteering.”

  “Ski orienteering is where you find your way with a topographic map and compass?”

>   “Yeah. No GPS allowed. The difficulty with the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme is that it goes through the back-country where the snow is deep and largely untracked. Each person gets a different route through the check points so that no one can follow anyone else. Some routes are a little easier than others, but there is a handicapping system to adjust for that. Compared to normal ski orienteering races, the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme is less about how fast you ski and more about the challenges of extreme terrain. Much steeper slopes than most, some rock and ice climbing where you take off your skis and carry them on your back, and exposed mountains where any weather is more extreme as well. Just finishing the Randonnée Extreme is considered to be a huge accomplishment. If you can document every peak with your phone camera, then you get featured on the website.”

  “It sounds like there is a risk of getting lost and stranded.”

  “Yes. That’s part of the challenge.”

  “You said it goes from Donner Pass to Carson Pass?”

  “Yeah, roughly. It starts at Sugar Bowl, and it ends at Kirkwood. But hitting all the peaks means that you go a good way off the main route. Like that guy at Steven’s Peak. That’s a major side trip, but the whole point of the trek is to get our photos from every peak.”

  I tried to visualize the course. “The course must go through the Desolation Wilderness? Pyramid Peak and those mountains?”

  “Right. You have to be in really good shape. If you have a problem in Desolation, there’s no easy rescue.”

  “Have you done anything like this before?”

  “Other than the high-altitude ski camp in Colorado, no. That was higher up, but there was a bunch of us, and we lived in heated yurts, and we only went out during the day. This is about going solo, with long nights. So it’s kind of crazy for me to be thinking about it. But I’ve been training for it. Not training like professional racers. But I go out with my gear and try to ski up the mountainside. It’s incredibly difficult. Just to participate in something so difficult would be a brand new experience. I’ve never done anything like it. If I could actually pull off the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme, it would be the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. I would go from thinking that I’m a loser to thinking that maybe I could do anything.”

  I sensed Simone turning and looking at me, the big white bandage moving in my peripheral vision.

  “It might be true,” I said, turning to look at her. “Maybe you could do anything.”

  Simone’s eyes were wet. “Yeah,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Simone and I were quiet for several minutes. We looked out at the lake.

  “I have a question about Ned.”

  “What?”

  “Ned is capable of nearly any kind of violence, right?”

  Simone nodded.

  “He could even kill someone, if the impulse struck him, right?”

  “I’ve always known that,” she said.

  “But could he plan to kill someone? Not an impulsive murder in a fit of anger, but something where he thought about it, took his time, and then carried out his plan?”

  Simone didn’t hesitate. “Yes. He is impulsive, that is true. And his impulsiveness leads to violence. But he is also evil. If he thought there was something significant in it for him, he could kill someone.”

  “What if he were paid a fee of ten thousand?”

  “Ten thousand dollars?! Ned would do anything for ten thousand dollars. Is this about the man who pays Ned to spy on Joe?”

  I nodded. “There were three different people this man wanted out of the way.”

  “You’re wondering if Ned would kill three people for ten thousand dollars.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yes, he would,” Simone said with no hesitation.

  “You knew Rell,” I said. “I’m wondering if you knew the others. One was Manuel Romero, and the other was Jillian Oleska.”

  Simone shook her head. “I never heard of them.”

  Snow began to fall, big wet flakes covering the windshield. I turned the heater to defrost and put the fan on high. After a moment, I turned the wipers on intermittent.

  “I have an idea,” I said. “You said that if you could do the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme challenge, you could do anything. You’re interested in it because it represents that, right? It would prove to you that you have the power to take control of your life.”

  Simone nodded.

  “Why not have it represent the ability to leave Ned, too? You could do both at once. Start a new life by pursuing two momentous accomplishments at once.”

  Simone went still and silent.

  I looked back out at the lake so she could think without the pressure of my stare.

  I counted up to ten, then twenty, then one hundred.

  Simone said nothing.

  I was about to speak when I realized that giving her some space to think might be the best thing.

  I visualized a map of the U.S. and tried to picture and name every state, starting with Alaska and moving toward Florida. I made a mental list of my favorite painters and then organized them by subject so that I could determine what proportion were landscape artists versus portrait artists versus still life painters versus abstract painters. I did the same for my favorite musicians, ranking the numbers of jazz, classical, rock, and folk artists. I even remembered some country musicians that I liked.

  Through it all I was aware of Simone making little movements in the passenger seat. She slouched down low, squeezing herself into the corner where the seat met the door. She put her feet up on the dash, then pulled her knees to her chest in a fetal position. I sensed her chewing on a hangnail, then winding her hair around her finger. She turned away from me and put her bandaged forehead against the cold window glass. She tapped a nail on her front tooth and clenched her hands into fists so hard that her knuckles went white. For a time she breathed slower, then faster, then sighed.

  Eventually, she turned to face me. I kept looking out at the lake. No pressure. Let her speak when ready.

  She took a breath as if to start speaking, stopped, started again.

  “Tell me again what you’re proposing I do.” Her voice betrayed a little shakiness. To even go near the thought was frightening.

  “I’m proposing that you leave Ned by strapping on your skis and pack and making your way into the frozen wilderness. I think you’ve now learned what you want and how to get it.”

  I waited. She said nothing.

  “Does he know you’ve been thinking about the Randonnée challenge?” I said.

  “I’m not sure. I mentioned it because I was curious about it, but that’s all. Mostly, he knows that I’ve been thinking about the cross-country ski race from Lake Tahoe to Truckee during the solstice. I talked about doing that a long time ago. I wanted to do the race to Truckee to prove to myself that I could finish it. But when I learned about the Tahoe Randonnée Extreme and how it included multiple days of mountain climbing and camping in the wilderness, I thought that it would be a much greater challenge.” She paused. “It would be a way bigger accomplishment.”

  “I think it’s a great idea,” I said. “Ned thinks you’re meek and afraid of the world. He knows that you’re afraid of him. Afraid to make a bold change. He would never expect you to head into the back-country. It could be the perfect escape from his tyranny. He wouldn’t know where to find you. In fact, the cross-country ski race could work as a decoy. He would think that’s where you went. Without the threat of Ned finding you, you would be able to prove to yourself that you could do it. You could show yourself and the world that you’re capable of anything.”

  “But just because I’ve dreamed of it doesn’t mean I could do it.”

  “Yes, you could. I believe you could. Street believes you could. Only Ned doubts your ability, your strength. This is your chance to prove him wrong.”

  “Do you think I could do it even during the solstice? Skiing at night?”

  “Yes.”

&n
bsp; “If I could be strong enough to leave Ned, then I could tell the truth about how he beats me.”

  “Right.”

  “He would come after me.” Simone’s voice wavered.

  “If you press charges, they will arrest Ned. I could go to your house and leave a hint or two that would reinforce the idea that you are doing the race, while you are actually out on the Randonnée Extreme. Eventually, Ned would likely get out of jail on bail. He would come home and find you gone. He’d look around, see your skis gone, and he’d think he was smart to figure out that you were doing the race to Truckee. If he tried to chase you, he’d look in the wrong place. He’d never believe that you were up in the mountain wilderness at night, skiing alone under the cold moon. It would be the best hiding place of all.”

  “If I could do the Randonnée, I would know that I could take on other challenges. I could live where I want, alone if I want.”

  She paused.

  I waited.

  “If I left Ned, I’d never look back. He couldn’t touch me. He wouldn’t matter. He would be a... a nothing.”

  FORTY-TWO

  We again sat in silence, Simone thinking, me waiting.

  “I would need help,” she said.

  “I can help. Street, too.”

  “No, I mean that I would have to learn a lot.”

  “Like what?” I said.

  “Remember how I said that you have to navigate by yourself? They give you a list of check points, mountain peaks and such?”

  “You find them with a topo map and a compass.”

  “But I don’t know how to read a topo map. I don’t even have any maps of the area. I don’t know how to use a compass with a map, either. And even though I’ve trained some, I don’t really know anything about back-country skiing.”

  “Like avoiding avalanche territory,” I said.