by Henry, Sue
A cabin came into view at the top of a bank, with an old man standing in the doorway, waving something at her—motioning her in. As she came closer, she could see that it was a green gym bag, one handle flapping loose.
“Come in for popcorn,” he called, waving it wildly. “It’s got your name on it.”
Then, suddenly, it was snowing. But it wasn’t snow—wasn’t even cold. It was popcorn, coming down all around her. She lifted her face and caught a fluffy kernel in her mouth—and choked on it. Convulsed with coughing, unable to stop, she opened her eyes and the dream faded, but the coughing, choking continued. There was something in her mouth and throat—something uncomfortable and dry that tasted nastily chemical.
It was still dark, but the lines of light were stronger now and more familiar. She had seen them before from this position on the floor. Then Jessie knew where she was. It was the cabin in the Little Peters Hills, where she had once lived, where she had brought Anne only a few short days ago. What was she doing back here? The lines of light were filtering in from outside the window through the gaps between boards that had been nailed up to close the place. And what she had earlier thought were insects were dust motes floating in the bars of light.
She tried to spit out what she now recognized as fabric in her dry mouth, couldn’t, and knew that something was secured over it, holding it in place. Tape. She could feel its stiffness on her cheeks and lips. Duct tape, probably, from the width of it. Again she coughed, then worked with her tongue until she got the horrid-tasting cloth pushed up to the front of her mouth. It was enough to allow her to stop coughing and gagging.
She started to sit up, to see if she could find out what she was doing in this place, and found that she was immobilized. Both her wrists and ankles were fastened tightly together with something—more tape, she thought. When she tried to raise her head to see, sharp sickening pain flashed through it and dizziness made her almost retch. Afraid she would throw up behind the gag and choke to death, she lay back down and assessed what she could.
She was not only bound but was also inside what felt like a sleeping bag that was secured with tape that had been wrapped tightly and completely around it in three places—at waist, thigh, and shoulder. Some kind of string had been tightened and tied around her neck, enough to keep the bag closed but not enough to strangle her, thank God. Helpless, she could barely roll from side to side, could not even begin to turn over. The wood floor she lay on was hard. The whole cabin was cold. Jessie could see her breath in the air as she exhaled through her nose.
What the hell was going on? Who had brought her here and clearly meant to keep her from moving—let alone leaving?
Thinking hard, she remembered going to bed, resolved to begin a serious search for Anne the next morning and get some questions answered. Something had disturbed her dogs. Someone had been in the tent. She recalled a weight holding her down—something strong and bad smelling—struggling—not much else. She had heard nothing but the dogs, seen no one in the dark. Who could it have been?
There was enough light for her to make out the ceiling, its heavy log rafters festooned with spiderwebs that hung in dirty strings and clung stickily in the corners. By tilting her head back, she could see, upside down behind her head by the stove, a pale square that she knew was the Maxfield Parrish picture of two chefs. It was her old cabin all right. How and why had her abductor brought her here? And why had she been left here alone? When would—whoever—come back?
An unexpected and alarming idea slid into her mind, taking her breath with its appalling possibility. What if he or she wasn’t coming back? What if he wanted to get rid of her and her questions? What if she had been left here to die? Unable to free herself, she would eventually starve—or freeze, if the temperature fell far enough, as it sometimes did this time of year. Had whoever set the fire at her cabin decided to try again? Would they burn this place as well—with her in it?
Suddenly, without warning, she retched again and could taste and feel hot stomach acid rising in her throat. Terrified she would smother, she fought, rigid with effort until the spasm passed and she could swallow and breathe again without panic.
Would she have been left with the sleeping bag to keep her warm, if she was meant to die? Possibly, but probably not. Had they left anything else that could indicate that they intended to return? Jessie raised her head, more slowly and carefully this time, though the room almost immediately began to spin again. She looked quickly around the room, though little light filtered in through the cracks of the boarded-up window.
In one corner, to the left of the door, lay a bag of some kind that had not been here when she left with Anne. Lying back down, she waited for the dizziness to pass, then tried again and, taking another long look, knew what it was—Anne’s day pack, the one she had brought here as she rode in the sled, then carried back again, containing the small bones in their makeshift metal box-coffin.
Anne had not been willing to part with it, or anything in it. If it was here, she must be somewhere close. But was her presence voluntary, or had she been abducted, too?
Her panic lessened somewhat with the idea that it was likely that someone would return for the pack, especially if it still contained the bones of Anne’s child. She lay like a mummy in the bag, watching the dust motes float in the lines of light between the boards of the window, hoping someone would come to give her a clue to what was going on. Finally, she fell asleep again, wishing she could get rid of the evil-tasting gag, that her head would stop aching—hungry, thirsty, furious, and frightened to the point of tears at her confinement—unwarranted and unfathomable.
Just before noon, MacDonald pulled into Jessie’s driveway, stopped by the tent, and got out of his Jeep Cherokee. Noticing that the storage shed door was open, he walked across, laid his hands on either side of its frame and leaned in, expecting to find her there. Blinking, as his vision adjusted to the abrupt shift in illumination, he could just make out a figure moving in the shadows.
“Hi, Jessie, you wanted to see me?”
“She’s not here,” a young man informed him, turning from the harness he was sorting to walk out into the sunshine that glowed thinly through breaks in a high overcast.
“Oh. And who’re you?”
“Billy Steward. I help Jessie with the mutts. Who’re you?”
“MacDonald, arson investigator. She said she’d be here for a while around noon, after an early training run. Told Phil Becker she wanted to see me. Any idea where I can find her?”
“Nope. Don’t think she was even here this morning—or else she left really early, but she hasn’t been back. Her truck’s gone, but none of the dogs had been fed or watered, and she didn’t take any of them out today.”
“Kind of unusual not to feed them, isn’t it? I got the impression she was pretty consistent about taking care of her dogs.”
“She is, and she didn’t call me to do it either. I wasn’t supposed to be here today, just found some extra time and decided to see if she needed help—maybe make another run for her, since we missed a couple those two days she was gone.”
“So she didn’t expect you to show up and take over?”
“Huh-uh. She’d have left me a note saying what to do. Her door’s open, but she’s not here.”
MacDonald frowned. None of this sounded like the Jessie Arnold he had begun to know. The impression he had formed was of a careful, conscientious woman who wouldn’t leave her dogs unattended or her living space unlocked. Her unexplained absence seemed out of character and perplexing.
But how well did he really know her? Obviously not well enough, for he had no idea where or why she might have gone. This young man, Billy, did know her well, however, and seemed to agree that her actions were exceptional, curious at best.
“Let’s take a look inside,” he suggested to Billy. “Maybe she left a note and you missed it.”
Billy shook his head, but followed MacDonald across the yard and to the tent, the door of which was, as h
e had said, unlocked.
“This was open a little,” he commented, as Mac opened the door.
“How little?”
“Like this.” He closed it to a crack to demonstrate that it had been just short of latching, as if Jessie had gone out in a hurry, shoving it to close behind her but not quite hard enough.
“You closed it?”
“Yeah. Thought the wind might blow it open.”
“What time did you get here?”
“Just before nine.”
Jessie’s lead dog, tethered close to the tent, had been watching the two men closely. As their conversation paused and MacDonald’s attention shifted to him from Billy, the dog paced the length of his tether toward Knik Road, gazed down the driveway, then moved back the other way to the opposite end of his restraint, where he stopped for a moment before repeating the action.
“Does he always do that pacing?”
“Naw, Tank’s pretty laid-back. He usually watches from the top of his box—king of the yard, kind of. He’s been doing that all morning—like he’s waiting for Jessie.”
“But he doesn’t usually do that when she’s gone?”
“Not when I’m here—never seen him do it before.”
“Well—by itself it doesn’t tell us much.”
They went on into the tent. MacDonald flipped on the overhead light and stood just inside the door, examining the space.
“You move anything?”
“Nope, I only came in this far. I saw she wasn’t here and there wasn’t a note on the table. Didn’t really expect one. She usually leaves them in the shed. I’ve got a key for that.”
Slowly MacDonald circled the interior, carefully inspecting everything visible. The bed wasn’t made and a blanket hung half off it, partly on the floor. He lifted it, looked under it, and put it back, stopped, and squatted beside the rollaway and reached under the bed to feel around. The Smith & Wesson .44 Jessie had showed him after the fire, when he questioned the possibility of the arsonist returning, was not there. She must have taken it with her.
“You’re looking for her moose gun,” Billy told him from across the room, where he had waited by the door.
“Yes. She told me she’s had it close since the fire. Do you know where she keeps it when she’s not out with a team?”
“Locked in the shed or in—ah—her truck. Jeez—she must have been spooked to bring it in here.”
MacDonald caught the slight hesitation in Billy’s voice. There was something he wasn’t saying. He let it go for a moment, considering.
“She any good with it?”
Billy looked relieved at not being questioned about his slip.
“Sure—well, I don’t really know, I guess. Never seen her use it. But I know she practices at the range once in a while.”
“What did you mean by ‘in her truck’?”
The youngster’s face fell.
“Ah, you know—in her truck.”
“Where?”
“Oh, shit. She made me promise not to tell. Okay?”
“Nope. Not okay. It’s important, Billy, and won’t go any farther. I’ll tell her that I made you tell. Now, where in the truck?”
Billy looked down and kicked at the wooden floor with one boot, clearly unhappy with the situation.
“Aw-w—she’s got a secret compartment in the back of the dog box. She keeps it there, so no one will steal it—her camera, too, and other stuff she doesn’t want people to find.”
“She never leaves it lying around?”
“No—never. She’s really careful with stuff like that.”
“Well, the truck’s gone, so I can’t check to be sure it’s safe. She probably has it with her. When she comes back, you tell her I was here, okay? And to call me right away.”
“Yeah—okay.”
There was nothing else that amounted to anything that could tell MacDonald when Jessie had left or where she had gone. There was no sign that she had made coffee or eaten breakfast, but she might have cleaned up afterward. He didn’t see the cut in the tent wall that was covered by the easy chair. Nothing seemed out of place or suspicious. She just wasn’t where she had said she would be. He left Billy frowning and unhappy at breaking his promise to Jessie about the compartment in her missing truck.
Phil Becker was next on his list of people to contact. Maybe Phil had made a mistake about the time and place. It wouldn’t hurt to ask. Aside from that, Mac knew he had a full day ahead of him and could afford to wait until Jessie Arnold found her way home, as he assumed she eventually would.
20
THERE WERE NO LINES OF LIGHT WHEN JESSIE WOKE again—nothing but dark—but there were voices. At first she thought it was her imagination playing tricks with the wind she could hear murmuring to the trees outside the cabin. But slowly, the sound of people talking grew louder, came closer, until she knew it was no fantasy. Someone—and more than one someone—was returning to the cabin.
Before she could hear the voices well enough to identify them or hear what they were saying, they stopped talking, and there was only the sound of approaching feet crunching on crusted snow. Someone stomped on the step outside to clear the ice from their boots, the door opened, and two figures stepped in, one aiming a flashlight beam directly into her eyes, resulting in a swift stab of pain that made her wince and close them tightly. For a long minute, she could see red behind her lids, as the light shone on her face. When it finally slid away to one side, she carefully opened her eyes just a little, but the bright beam came immediately back, blinding her. This time it remained.
A whisper—a thump—and someone she could not see because of the light walked across the room and knelt beside her. With a quick, rough gesture, the tape was ripped away from her face, pulling the fabric gag in her mouth with it. All she saw were anonymous hands, mostly in silhouette, bare of mittens or gloves, with no identifying marks. But there was a scent that caught her attention, something familiar and pleasant. Before she could remember what it was or speak, there was a soft gurgle of liquid being poured from a bottle, and the flowery scent was overpowered as a cloth with the sharp smell she remembered from the night before came down over her face. Again Jessie struggled, unable to move her arms but shaking her head back and forth, trying to avoid what she knew was happening, but everything—her captors, the cabin, even the flashlight beam—swam dizzily and faded into black again.
When she came slowly back to consciousness it was still dark. She lay very still on her back as her awareness slowly sharpened; she licked her lips and found the gag had not been replaced and she could breathe without fear of choking. Her head ached with a sickening intensity. She felt nauseous and cold—so cold. Had they taken away the sleeping bag that had kept her warm and left her to freeze after all?
Abruptly she realized that the tape that had constricted her shoulders, waist, and thighs was gone, and her arms and legs were free of restraints. She could move.
Weak, head pulsing pain, she sat up, knowing she was about to be sick. Assuming she was still on the floor, she rolled over to get up and fell off the edge of whatever she had been lying on to a wood surface below, bumping her head, bruising a shoulder, and hitting a knee in the process. For a stunned moment, she lay still and groaned. Where was she?
At the crash and thump of her fall something moved outside and unexpectedly, abruptly there was light through canvas walls that allowed her to see her surroundings. Shocked and confused, despite her aching head, she sat up, astounded. She was back in the tent—had fallen from her own bed onto the floor and felt her warm quilt which must have slid off sometime earlier—the reason she’d been cold.
A dog barked. Tank, who almost never barked. Something was wrong.
A quick glance around the dimly lit canvas room told her she was alone. She scrambled to her feet and staggered across to a dishpan, into which she retched. Gasping and clinging to a shelf, it seemed that her whole being was one huge ache. She was still dressed in the socks, overlarge T-shirt, and leggi
ngs that she had worn to bed. Everything looked the same around her, as it had when she had gone to sleep.
Knocking several things off the shelf onto the floor, she located a bottle of aspirin, gulped down three, and rinsed her mouth with water from a bottle found in one of the ice chests Hank had left her, then splashed some on her face and rubbed her eyes.
Trying to concentrate was hard with the pain in her head, but she knew she had to check on her dogs, so she returned to the bed and took her .44 from under it before walking carefully to the door. It was locked, as she had left it. Stepping into her boots that stood there ready, she released the lock, opened it, and went out onto the welcome mat, into the familiar glow of the yard light.
Most of the dogs were where they should be, curled up and sleeping in their boxes. A few were awake and outside, but they looked normal and okay. Pete woofed softly to her from where he lay, looking out the door of his box. Tank was standing at the end of his tether, as close to the tent as he could get. At the sight of her, his tail began to wag and he strained against the tether.
“Hey, you okay, buddy?”
Jessie knelt beside him, her knees in a patch of cold snow, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Did I dream all that? Am I sick with something?”
Laying the handgun on the ground, she clung for a moment to his warmth and felt him lick her ear.
“I don’t understand. Did you see anyone? It doesn’t make sense.”
It didn’t. Could she have had a fever in her sleep—nightmare hallucinations? No, dammit. Everything told her it had been real—that someone had taken her from her own bed and out to the cabin in the Little Peters Hills. Who? Why? And, most confusing and unnerving, why had they put her back in her tent, as if she had never been away? Maybe she was mistaken and had dreamed it all.
The ache in her head had lessened slightly, but still she felt wobbly and befuddled, unable to remember much but shadows and darkness, or sort it out.
Getting back to her feet, she released Tank and took him with her back into the tent, locking the door behind them and turning on the lights. Carefully, she looked around again. It all looked familiar and untouched. She gave up and sank into a chair, elbows on knees, holding her head in her hands. Tank sat down next to her, as if on guard.