Glancing over the edge, he clamped onto the straps with the other hand. She’d found a piece of rock with her toes and faced the wall of jagged rock. Her arms reached out to grasp what might have been a grab hole that climbers use.
“Can you move at all when I pull you up?”
When she nodded, he doubled down on his grip and pulled. He caught a glimpse of her using her feet to walk up the jagged wall of rock. The path was slightly wider here. As she came up clawing her way over the edge, Jacque had to let go of the straps or lose his footing. He put a gentle boot on her shoulders to steady her.
With feet still dangling over the edge, Perez took in a deep breath and spread out her arms as if to balance her body.
“I’m going to remove my foot then try and pull you forward. Most of your body will fit on the path. When you get against the rock wall, there are handholds. I’ll help you as you start moving up them. They’re embedded. Don’t worry they’ll fall apart. Ready?”
“Let’s do it.” Her voice was shaky but strong.
Removing his boot was easier than bending over and grabbing her straps again. His peripheral vision kept taking in the drop-off and the roar of rushing water cascading over boulders the size of his SUV, that messed with his equilibrium, not to mention his confidence.
In slow motion, he wiggled his fingers as they clamped around the straps.
“Pull,” he ordered.
She obeyed a lot faster than he expected and with a great deal more agility. Not only did she find the handholds he warned her about, but she managed to get to her knees unassisted. In seconds, she was standing but still facing the rock wall. Jacque placed his hand on her waist in case she wobbled and stepped to close to the edge.
For an instant, she rested her forehead against the rock and sighed, followed by a nod. “Okay. I’m good to go.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “Sure you don’t need a minute?”
“I said I’m good. Look at those clouds. We need to get in and get out. That cozy river down there will turn into a roaring monster if it rains up in those mountains ahead of us. It might even wash part of this trail out.” She felt along her waist. “Great. My radio must have fallen off when I slipped over the ledge.”
Jacque took a peek over the edge then cocked his head at her ice-cold lack of fear at what just happened. “Cozy river?” His first thought was it reminded him of a scene out the movie Deliverance. “We aren’t that far from where we started. If we stay on the trail and don’t return, someone will find us.”
“Not necessarily.” She turned away from him and started down the path.
Relief washed over him as the trail opened up enough for them to walk side by side. She was keeping a good pace. He followed, wanting to make sure he had eyes on the area behind them. The feeling they were being followed nagged at him.
They walked for another thirty minutes, covering a lot of ground since the trail had flattened and was void of loose rocks and debris. For the first time in a year, he was grateful Cleo had put him on a diet and made him join a gym. Although he didn’t exercise as much as he told Cleo he did, he had taken to hiking with Wind Dancer around Lake Michigan and trails near the city. He’d also enjoyed those rock-climbing walls at the gym.
“Sorry. I need to sit down a minute.” Perez used a downed tree along the path as a bench. She pulled out a bottle of water and drank deep. “Thanks, by the way, for the rescue.”
Jacque shrugged and joined her on the log. He would never have asked for a break, but he sure was glad she wanted one.
“I was recently put in charge of the Damsels in Distress Department. Wasn’t what I signed up for, but somebody has to do it,” he said offhandedly. A smile spread across her lips that drew his attention a little too long. “What did you mean when I said we would be found and you said ‘not necessarily?’”
After taking another swig of her water then replacing it in her bag, she fanned her hand out toward the rock formations then the water that now ran along the path where they rested.
“In the past disappearances, there have been common details.”
“There have been more than the three disappearances you told me about, haven’t there?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as her eyes scanned the thickening forests on the other side of the stream. “Yes. Not right here but within a hundred-mile radius. Even a few outside Santa Fe.”
“How many?”
“In the last twenty years there have been fourteen that we know of.”
A whistle escaped his lips. “Serial killer? What evidence has been left behind?”
“None.”
“Impossible. You said there were commonalities.”
“Yes. But no evidence.”
“You lost me.”
“Okay. Here is what we know. Clustered near bodies of water in national parks and if they are found alive, they often have memory loss. If the person has a mental disability to begin with, we get nothing. I bet the little boy won’t be able to tell us a thing because of his Down syndrome. And even if he could, no one would believe him.”
“And if they are found dead?”
Perez squinted at the area behind her, as if she expected someone to be there. “The cause of death is hard to determine. The body is often found in a location that has already been thoroughly searched, which was the case of our last victim, Karla. Sometimes there are missing clothes, especially shoes. They’ll be found miles from where they should have been and barefoot with no visible marks on their feet.”
“Any sexual assault?”
“No. Karla had a lot of scratches, but the coroner determined she’d fallen in gravel. We found where she fell and the gravel matched.”
“What items of clothing were missing on her? Serial killers often take souvenirs.”
“Nothing that we could tell. There are other similarities in these missing persons. The locations will be near rock walls or rock outcroppings near water. Bad weather moves in within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of the disappearance. And that is every time,” she insisted, jabbing a finger into the palm of her hand. “Most of the adults that go missing are experienced hikers and are with friends.”
“Like Karla.”
She nodded. “They might be camping, like you guys. The children go around a bend or curve in the trail with their parents ten feet behind. The parents round the bend and the child is gone.”
“When you find them, is there a particular time of day?”
“I’d have to check. As I said, it has happened over years. But I’ve been trying to figure this out since Karla died. When Wind Dancer spooked liked he did, I had to wonder if there wasn’t something supernatural, we hadn’t thought of.”
Jacque rubbed both his hands over his face to erase the image of a skinwalker that tried to take his body and had followed him around Chicago for days. He disliked things he couldn’t explain. Black and white were his favorite colors when it came to solving crime. The pieces of a puzzle always fit together if you knew where to find them. Supernatural, mumbo-jumbo, voodoo nonsense didn’t know how to behave.
Several years ago, he wouldn’t have considered it possible there might be things such as skinwalkers or booger animals like owls who carried curses to your enemies. Now, he found he was second guessing himself on all the superstitious crap he’d heard over the years and wondered if parts of it wasn’t true—and dangerous.
“What were you thinking? About the time of day, I mean?” Perez stood and stretched which caused Jacque to admire more than he should at a fellow officer, especially one he had considered striking up a friendly relationship.
He blinked away the compromising image he had of them together and forced a squint at nothing in the sky. Those clouds were getting darker. Deciding to observe them innocently offered a chance to hide his discomfort.
“Hmm. Yeah, the time. Maybe a connection between the missing. I mean victims. They were all found right?”
She grabbed up her bag an
d slipped her arms through the straps then tossed him his backpack. “Most of them.”
~ ~ ~ ~
“Could this trip get any more bizarre?” she grumbled and removed the car key and dropped it in the cupholder.
A lopsided sign, with several boards missing off the bottom, appeared to have been involved in an accident. The side with the words had been twisted to face away from the road. Cleo felt she should stretch her legs anyway and exited the car, phone in hand. Since the sign was facing a weedy area, she peeked around the edge to read the words, visitor center ahead, written in white paint that could have been the artwork of a toddler.
No accounting for artistic expression, she thought. Maybe it was meant to resemble lettering from the Old West days. If that were the case, mission accomplished.
The afternoon breeze swept up a few pine needles and moved them across the road as a hawk took flight. A sudden crack drew her attention to a stand of trees across the road where a branch hung precariously, swaying until the next breeze jarred it loose and crashed to the ground. An elk strutted out the entrance to the park, causing Cleo to slowly move to the car. The size of the animal frightened her, while at the same time, it took her breath away. He stopped to inspect her, about as far away as the length of a school bus. He continued across the road and disappeared into the woods.
This was one of the moments she wished Wind Dancer was at her side to admire the beauty of such a magnificent animal. He’d probably want to eat it, but still, it would have been nice to know what the elk might be thinking, since the Pawnee had the gift to figure those kinds of things out.
She activated the speed-dial option for Jacque.
“Hello?” The whiskey voice comforted her. “Cleo? I’m a little busy.”
“Jacque, I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“What? I can hardly hear you.”
“I’m stuck at the entrance to Carson National Forest. My car broke down.”
“Cleo, speak up. There is static. Damn rocks and trees everywhere.”
She had to smile as she leaned against the car door. He certainly was out of his element.
“My car broke down. Come get me.” The static became too much, and the line went dead. The bars on the phone indicated they were at capacity. She tried dialing again, but got the voice mail is full, message again.
Then she remembered the car came equipped with a roadside assistance device. She paid extra to have it, since she’d be traveling alone. When she pivoted to open the car door, she dropped the phone and accidently toed it under the car.
Kneeling, she reached for it, to no avail. The only thing to do was get down on her stomach and fish it out. As she grabbed the phone, a pair of cowboy boots appeared and remained perfectly still, on the other side of the car.
She tried to scamper up and slipped on a rock, but the second time, she grabbed the door handle of the car.
It was locked.
Chapter 12
Jacque frowned at his phone, shook it, as if the action would fix the static, and yelled into the speaker. “Cleo, are you there?” It clicked off. He shoved it in his hunter vest pocket. “That woman will be the death of me.”
“Girlfriend?” Perez asked as she started down the trail. He wondered if she was fishing because of a personal interest or just nosey.
“No. Friend. Suppose to meet us here.” He explained about the medical conference. “She and Wind Dancer are together.”
“Wow. A doctor and Wind Dancer. I thought maybe he was—you know—special.”
He chuckled. “He’s special all right. There’s a lot of unusual things about him that would surprise you. I don’t really know you well enough to explain. Besides, I’m not cleared to give out that information. If you want to know more, you’ll have to contact that FBI jerk you said you talked to.”
“So, you and the FBI jerk, as you called him, are friends after all?”
“Friends would be a stretch.” He didn’t offer more than that, but she turned around and grinned at him. “When the FBI jerk wants me to help him out, he brings me a five-dollar cup of coffee from one of those ridiculous foo-foo shops on the Million Dollar Mile.” The trail widened enough he could walk beside her. “Beats the hell out of coffee that’s been in the pot for hours and most likely made-over coffee grounds from the day before.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Sounds disgusting.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” he said, adjusting his shoulders in a show of strength. She continued to smile then laughed lightly. He decided it was a nice laugh, soft and almost shy.
She stopped and cocked an ear.
Jacque mimicked the gesture, more out of anticipation than having heard anything.
“I thought a voice called out.” Perez nodded toward the opposite bank of the stream. “Over there.” She pulled out a small pair of binoculars and adjusted the focus. “We can cross a little farther up the trail.” Handing them to Jacque, she continued. “Thought I saw movement.”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance as they picked up the pace to reach the crossing. Once there, Jacque couldn’t believe how calm and shallow the stream was here. Although they were at a higher elevation, he guessed it picked up momentum as it moved downstream. He could see other feeders for the stream trickling in along the way and wondered if maybe there might be a few springs, too.
“Wind Dancer,” he called out, feeling it might be a good time to make his presence known. “Where are you?”
“Did you hear him?” she asked as they waded out ankle deep.
“No. Just a feeling.” He pulled his gun and shot three times in the air. At least he knew this much about using the distress signal when out in the wild.
The stream narrowed here, maybe twenty feet wide, and came up to Perez’s knees as they moved to the middle. The bottom was covered in gravel which made walking across a little easier. Since he was right at six feet tall, he managed to stretch out his steps quicker than the chief and waded onto shore first. There had been a long enough pause for him to try the three shots in the air again.
He noticed a pile of rocks in a triangle. “Isn’t that also a cry for help?”
“Yes. Would Wind Dancer know that?”
“No. Where he’s from, you didn’t want people being able to follow you. If he doesn’t want you to know where he is, then you won’t find him.”
Perez gave him a bewildered glance until movement in the woods caused several birds to escape the tops of trees. The sound of a dog’s bark followed.
“Maybe that’s your bloodhound?”
Before she could answer, it came loping toward them then turned and ran into the woods. Both followed easily since the area was wide open. It served as a trail between the trees. Large rocks and downed trees slowed their progress until a bend in the trail narrowed. They had gone only about fifty yards when the dog appeared again and wagged his tail.
Jacque thought of his own dog and how he had filled something missing in his life. Even though he complained about the mutt being a nuisance and taking too much time, he enjoyed watching Sunday afternoon football with his furry buddy. Knowing the handler would be relieved to see the bloodhound, if they could catch him, it would be a job well done.
“Come,” Jacque demanded. He’d noticed how the handler interacted with the dog the night before and had even taken note of the canine officers in Chicago, in hopes he could train his mildly trainable pooch a few tricks. Nothing worked.
The dog ran to him and sat immediately. Jacque rubbed his head and pulled out a piece of biscuit he’d been saving for a snack later and fed the dog. He gobbled it out of his hand then stood, looking toward a large outcropping of rocks and started barking. A gust of wind swept through the top of the trees, causing their branches to moan and pop with resistance.
“Storm is moving in.” Perez took notice of the sky for a few seconds.
The dog continued to focus on the trail ahead where he’d emerged and whined
. A tree had fallen over from above and created a bridge to another large boulder. The branches were still green, so it had happened recently.
When the dog howled and backed up, Jacque tried to see and hear whatever had gotten him spooked. He ran toward, what Jacque felt like, danger and disappeared. He pulled his weapon, as did Perez, before they moved forward. The barking started once more, and just as they stooped to go under the tree bridge, a small figure appeared on the trail.
“Liam!” Jacque called, replacing his weapon. “Liam, it’s me, Wind Dancer’s friend. We came to take you to your mom and dad.”
The little boy cocked his head then turned and ran toward where the trail ascended. Both Perez and Jacque ran after him. They halted when a man stepped out from behind a stand of trees with something in his arms.
Perez pulled up her weapon and aimed only to have it pushed down by the detective.
“Wind Dancer,” he called, running to meet him. The little boy stood next to him, one arm around the Pawnee’s legs and leaning his little head into the man’s body. The Pawnee smiled at him, and Jacque felt relief wash over him like a flash flood. He carried the search and rescue woman in his arms.
“Jacque,” he said. “She is hurt. Need doctor. I wish Cleopatra was here to heal her.”
“I do, too, buddy.” Jacque motioned for the Pawnee to lay her down on the ground so they could check things out. Perez had slipped her weapon in her holster and kneeled down next to Tonya before glancing up at Wind Dancer then the boy. “Check him out, will you?”
Jacque nodded and stepped toward Liam who shied away behind Wind Dancer. The Pawnee put his hand on the child’s head and rubbed gently. “He is a friend, Liam. Remember him from last night?” The little boy nodded and peeked out from around the Pawnee. “You must talk to him. Tell him what you told me.” This time, he nodded and stepped in front of Wind Dancer who picked him up in his arms.
Perez accepted Jacque’s radio sand tried to reach camp. At first, it filled with static but cleared when the wind became still. “We’re going to need help.” She told them her location and that Tonya was unconscious. Even though the transmission was garbled, it sounded like help would arrive. She slowly stood and eyed Wind Dancer, who didn’t appear to be tired, dirty, or frazzled in any way. “Can you carry Tonya a little farther? Others are coming to help.”
Dark Side of Noon (Wind Dancer Book 2) Page 8