“Wherever the accounting files are stored.”
“Six first.” As the elevator rose, the tension made both of them step to the sides of the space; when the door opened, they had maximum field of view. But the elevator lobby was empty. “You go left, I go right.”
Down the hall Lacey went, wishing she still carried a service weapon. She didn’t call out, but glanced into each office as she passed, listening for footsteps or voices. The faint sound of violins floated from an office halfway along the hall. She paused beside the doorway and scanned the small room. It was empty, the desk bare except for a laptop whose speaker was providing the soundtrack. Wayne appeared at the far end of the corridor, spotted her, and shook his head.
“Somebody was here,” Lacey said when he reached her. “Where’s the cheque printer?”
Wayne guided her through the central core of interconnected spaces: open filing racks, long tables covered in maps, and small storage rooms. He pointed to a doorway. They approached one to each side like in the old days — but this room, too, was empty.
“Try phoning again,” said Wayne.
Lacey dialed, and seconds later a trill sounded, briefly drowning out the violins. She ran back to the office where the music played. As the call went to voice mail, she hit Redial. Two seconds later, the trill came again. She followed the sound … and there was Zoe’s phone under the desk, its electronic ringtone amplified by the metal footwell.
Zoe came awake slowly, soothed by the familiar jiggling of the van and the rumble of the road. She opened her eyes to darkness save for the dashboard lights, and watched groggily as a yard filled with Christmas lights drifted past the window. The forest closed in. In the beam of the headlights was a snowy road. Where were they going again? Oh yes, skiing with the boys and Lizi.
“Aren’t we there yet?” she asked, rolling her head to face Nik. It took her a few moments to realize that it wasn’t Nik behind the wheel, nor was it one of the boys. She fought her way clear of the drowsiness and rubbed her eyes. “Marcia?”
“Oh, you’re awake. Are you feeling a bit better?”
Zoe pushed herself upright. “Why are you driving me? Where?”
Marcia clenched her hands tighter on the wheel. “You don’t remember? I found you absolutely dopey in your office, and when I offered to take you home or call your husband, you said no. You wanted to take a drive in the country to clear your head. You handed me your car keys and asked me to drive. I barely got you into your van and you conked out completely. You seemed to be sleeping okay, just muttering once in a while, and you didn’t have a fever. I figured maybe you haven’t been sleeping well and need a hard-core nap.”
Zoe looked around at what little she could see outside. She didn’t remember feeling particularly exhausted, mostly frustrated and angry at Marcia for not catching the malware, then for lying about it after Eric found it. Did she expect to cover up her incompetence indefinitely?
“Where are we?”
“Most of the way to Black Rock Bowl. I figured I should come out and check on my cabin, anyway. During the holidays there are always rowdies around, ready to break a window and steal stuff. We can have supper there and head back into town after.”
Zoe leaned sideways against the window, then lifted her head. There was a sore spot above her ear. She’d obviously been bouncing her head off the door for quite a while. “I, um, didn’t say anything weird while I was asleep, did I?”
“Something about a spaceship was all I could make out. You been watching the sci-fi channel?”
“A bit.” Zoe folded a corner of her scarf up to protect the sore spot on her head and settled back, watching the road unfurl in the headlights. Black Rock Bowl. Wild lands and wilder animals. And Eric. She had been at the office, unwinding the malware trail, waiting for Lacey to call back. She’d gone down to bring up older file boxes from the archives, and when she came back, Marcia was there. Marcia brought her a soy caramel latte. She’d drunk it — the fuzz of sugar and milk still coated her teeth. Then, despite the flood of fresh caffeine, she had fallen deeply asleep.
Shifting her half-closed eyes, she watched Marcia. That massive key ring of hers lay on the dash, winking in the reflection of the console’s lights on the windshield. A small USB drive hung between two linked rings of keys. Why was that important? Lacey’s explanation of the malware: whoever installed it had to stick a USB or external drive right into the cheque printer. Marcia ran with Phyl and her friends, an expensive crowd. Was her salary adequate for that lifestyle?
The next time Zoe opened her eyes, they were rumbling over the little log bridge toward the lively, crowded shopping square at the base of Black Rock ski hill. Every one of the storefront candle lanterns was lit. The huge Christmas tree glittered in their midst, flickering lights dancing on the surface of every giant hanging ball. She watched it pass in a dreamy state that felt oddly familiar. Had the stress of juggling the ghost and the mess at TFB finally snapped her mental control? Her eyes fell on Marcia’s keys again as they skidded across the dash toward her. She grabbed them as they slid off. Uphill now. Marcia was going to check on her cabin. Nothing odd about that.
Sure enough, the van pulled into the third clearing and stopped by the sagging porch. Marcia helped Zoe out as if she were an invalid, guided her indoors, and parked her in an old rocking chair.
“I’ll get a fire started, and soon we’ll be warm as toast. Don’t take your coat off yet.”
Zoe leaned back and shut her eyes, listening to the rustle of paper and the dull thud of logs, the scratch of a match, and finally the welcome crackling of flames. She heard dishes clattering in the next room, but moving seemed like too much work, so she stayed where she was. Next thing she knew, Marcia was tapping her shoulder.
“Here, have some hot chocolate, dear. I’d put brandy in, but I’m not sure you need any more sedating.” She moved away again once Zoe had securely grasped the mug.
Zoe’s fuzzy mouth recoiled from the very idea of hot, sweet milk. What she wouldn’t give for a nice glass of cold water and a toothbrush. Mouthwash, too. There might be some in the bathroom, if this place had a bathroom. She looked around, noting the open bankers, boxes, and stacks of paper everywhere. She got to her feet cautiously and fixed her eyes on the mug as the liquid sloshed perilously close to the rim. Best to drink a bit so it didn’t spill. She lifted the mug to her lips.
NO NO NO don’t drink it!
Her head rang. Staggering, she grabbed at the table to stay upright. The mug slid through her fingers. It tilted in mid-air, spraying a brown stream across a nearby printer as it fell. She lurched over, snatching the stack of pages off the out-tray, watching in dismay as the liquid rolled down the plastic slope into the machine. Oh, God. She’d owe Marcia a new printer.
The last page in the stack was splattered with brown dots. She shook off the liquid before it could soak through more pages. Then she held it up, checking for bleed-through. It was an invoice for Cylon Six Inc., dated December twenty-ninth.
She stared at the company name, and the date, and back again. This invoice was payable as part of the year-end print run. The cheque would even now be sitting in the mail room, waiting to go out when the office reopened. What was Marcia doing with a current fraudulent invoice when she hadn’t noticed any of the previous two years’ worth? Flipping back through the stack of papers, she found that all eleven of them were Cylon Six invoices, dated over the last two weeks. Was this a belated investigation?
She struggled to focus her fuzzy thinking. With the office closed for New Year’s, the only person who would have seen the year-end payment printout was the accountant who authorized the printing of the cheques. Marcia. The person who’d planted the malware script had to get their hands on the printout and create fake invoices from their fake company quickly, to match the faked cheque amounts before the mailing went out. The person printing out fake invoices was, therefore, the person who planted the script.
She looked up to see Marcia staring at
her from the doorway, and she set the splattered page back down on its pile.
“It was you.”
Marcia stepped into the room, filling it with a tsunami of conflicting emotions. “I’m sorry you saw that. But it won’t make any difference now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Lacey scooped the phone from the floor. “She wouldn’t leave this behind.”
Wayne hit his own phone. “Hey, Jim. Can you check video of the parking garage and tell us if there’s a —” He paused, looking at Lacey. She supplied the vehicle makes: Marcia’s brown Suburban and Zoe’s dark-blue Dodge minivan. He passed the info along and waited. “Hi. Yeah, thanks.” He looked up at her. “The van’s gone. The SUV is still here.”
“Working theory,” said Lacey over the pounding of her heart. “Marcia discovered what Zoe was looking into and took her away to dispose of her. Taking Zoe’s vehicle is part of her standard misdirection.” Saying those words out loud crystallized all her fear. She must not let it freeze her. Zoe must be found alive.
After a bone-deep shiver, Lacey crushed the fear into the familiar hard sphere she’d developed while on the Force. Marcia lived in Arbour Lake, almost on the direct route to Cochrane.
“Call the city police,” she told Wayne. “Tell them we have a hostage situation. Zoe is likely either injured or drugged and is being driven in her own vehicle. Tell them she’s in immediate danger. Focus on northwest Calgary, around Arbour Lake.” With luck they already had a chopper in the air and could quickly cover Crowchild Trail from above. “Next, Cochrane RCMP. They have to stop all blue minivans on Highway 1A from the city outskirts to the junction of Highway 40, and separately at Black Rock Bowl. I’ll check Marcia’s Calgary place first and head for the Bowl if I don’t catch up to them there.”
She was running as she left the building. She dropped her phone into the dashboard slot, started driving, and said loudly, “Call Arliss Thompson cellphone.” She was crossing the 10th Street bridge when Arliss answered. “Bad news. It looks like Marcia took Zoe from the office. Can you text me her home address in Arbour Lake? I’m heading that way now.”
“Yes,” said Arliss, and issued crisp instructions away from the mouthpiece. “I’d bet on Black Rock Bowl, though. More isolated.”
“RCMP is heading there now.” That had better be true. If Wayne thought to call Bull directly instead of going through Dispatch, he’d bypass a lot of explanation. Lacey steered around a line of slower vehicles and put her foot down, wishing she had a bubble light and a siren. “I’m relying on you to keep everybody up there calm. I’ll report in as soon as I know anything for sure.” The address text came in — she sent it to Wayne for the city police and toggled the address to Google Maps. Not far now.
The backs of houses flashed past on Crowchild Trail, mocking her haste with their holiday lights. She peeled off into Arbour Lake, passing row houses hung with wreaths and other decor. Santas and reindeer glowed from pocket-sized lawns. Marcia’s, though, was dark. No decorations, no lights. No vehicle in the drive.
No answer to her knock.
Between the blind slats she saw a barren living room faintly lit from the kitchen beyond. Abandoning the front door, she ran around the building and up the back steps. The dim light from the stove revealed another empty room, its counters bare save for a coffee maker, a water glass, and a couple of pill bottles. She texted that information to Wayne while she hurried to the Lexus. If Marcia doubled back here, the city police could grab her.
Back on Crowchild, Lacey headed northwest again. Almost an hour to Black Rock and no way to know how far ahead Marcia and Zoe were. As she cleared the last set of traffic lights, she sped up, peering at each minivan she overtook, looking closely at the driver of any dark-blue one. Why hadn’t she noted Zoe’s licence plate? Surely the police had it by now, but it didn’t help her any.
Twenty minutes later, she was freewheeling down the hill into Cochrane when she saw a cruiser by the roadside ahead, lights flashing. As she slowed, she saw the officer standing by the driver’s window of a dust-brown Acura. Nothing but a routine traffic stop. She sped up. At the stoplight she realized this was the same intersection where Sandy, coming down from the north, had turned right instead of going home to Bragg Creek. Crushing that sick recognition into the ball of “later” emotions, she called Bull.
“Alert went out twenty-seven minutes ago,” he said. “I’ve got a patrol at the Black Rock turnoff and one heading in to check Marcia’s cabin. If she’s passed the one, the other will find her.” With a clear mental map of the clogged loop of road around the mountain’s shoulders, the hordes of holiday-makers crowding the square and the chalets, Lacey couldn’t be so sanguine. Marcia knew that territory better than any of the RCMP. She’d evade them.
She swung the Lexus off the main highway onto the forestry road, out into the dark winter wilderness. After a twisting, skidding drive at unsafe speeds, punctuated by the near miss of a leaping deer, she passed the turnoff to the trestle bridge. GPS worked on this stretch, and as she slowed behind a horse-drawn hay wagon pulling a load of merrymakers, her phone map showed how Marcia must have gotten away with killing Sandy near the bridge. After dumping the Civic on Stoney lands, probably expecting it to be stripped or torched within twenty-four hours, she had only to ski straight up the abandoned stretch of road and cross the river to wherever she’d left her vehicle. Bull had said a house above the bridge reported someone passing by in the wee hours. Twelve kilometres was a mild ski trek for Marcia. She’d had full moonlight and fresh powder. Had she been troubled at all by passing the place where she’d left Sandy’s body?
At the Black Rock turnoff, RCMP constables were checking vehicles going in and out. Lacey pulled up and showed her driver’s licence to a woman she vaguely recognized from Cochrane detachment. “I’m the one who called this in. You haven’t seen a blue minivan go through?”
“Not yet. We’re telling the civilians it’s a holiday checkstop. Constable Markov is at the Bowl.”
Lacey thanked the constable and drove through, her fingers twitching on the wheel. Traffic was clumped up after the checkstop and it was too dangerous to speed. The forest crowded in. Through the trees came the roar of snowmobiles; their headlights bobbed and danced along unseen trails. The yard full of Christmas lights was a beacon of either good hope or false optimism; she welcomed it because it meant she was nearly there.
The square was as crowded as she’d expected, the road around it choked with vehicles. The ski hill glowed under spotlights on the lift pylons. The skiers coming down were hung with Glow Sticks, yellow and pink stars in an ever-changing constellation.
No sign of Markov’s truck. She threaded through and up the north shoulder. One clearing, two clearings, three. Marcia’s cabin: dark, sagging, seemingly deserted. No minivan. She slowed, scanning for signs of occupancy. Behind her someone honked. She pulled over and got out. When she’d been here before, this had all been deep snow. The chinook had melted it down to an icy crust. Tire tracks led around the cabin. The snow crunched underfoot as she followed them.
Away from the lighted Bowl, the darkness thickened. She stopped, waiting for her eyes to adjust. A few steps farther and the minivan’s outline appeared deep in the cabin’s shadow. The glade swept out in a white semicircle rimmed by dark firs. A ski track led up a narrow gap to the Loop Trail. Marcia wouldn’t take Zoe skiing. Was she holed up indoors in the dark, waiting for Lacey to leave? Or had she left her hostage helpless in the van? With a wary eye on the black windows of the cabin, Lacey eased toward the vehicle. She didn’t dare call out.
The acrid tang of incinerator smoke caught in her lungs. What a time to be burning trash. Or was that all Marcia had burned? Lacey sniffed cautiously, fearing the worst. No reek of human flesh, that sickening barbeque she’d twice inhaled while directing traffic around vehicle fires. She made a note to have someone search the incinerator for evidence. Maybe Eric’s backpack or car keys were in it.
She heard a thud overh
ead and flattened her back against the van.
A painted dowel landed at her feet. One end was jagged, like it was broken off the leg of a chair or table. She looked up again. From a tiny window in the two-storey addition, a pale hand waved at her. She whispered, as loud as she could, “Hello? Zoe?”
“Lacey?” The voice caught on a sob.
Another waft of smoke took Lacey by surprise. She waved it away and looked over her shoulder. No sparks rose from the incinerator. She scanned the cabin’s ground-floor windows, hoping her new fear was baseless. But it wasn’t. Smoke was seeping out around the kitchen window. The pane was blackened not by darkness, but by soot. Sullen red and yellow moved within the house. If she opened the door or broke a window, the fresh air would fuel an immediate conflagration. And Zoe was trapped on the second floor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
More smoke curled out around the kitchen window. Lacey tipped her head back. “Can you get out that window and drop down? I’ll catch you.”
Zoe sobbed again. “It’s too small. The door’s locked. There’s smoke coming under it. I stuffed a blanket against it, but it won’t stop flames.”
“Is there anything in the van we can use to pry out the window frame?”
“A jack handle, in the very back under the floor.”
“Keys?”
“Marcia has them.”
Lacey pulled her phone out and flicked the flashlight on. She tried the van’s door handle. Locked. The light showed her the piece of table leg on the snow. She grabbed it and swung hard at the driver-side window. The glass spiderwebbed. She punched the dowel through and peeled away the crackle with her gloved hands until she could reach in and unlock the door. Scrambling over the driver’s seat, she aimed her flashlight again and awkwardly lifted the tire-storage lid to retrieve the tire iron. A coil of lightweight nylon rope lay beside it. That wouldn’t support Zoe’s weight, but it might have another use.
Where the Ice Falls Page 29