Books by Sue Henry

by Henry, Sue

  She had intended to question Patrick extensively about everything, but a glance in his direction told her he had drifted off to sleep and she decided to leave him alone for the time being. Once they reached their destination she would cook them both a hot meal and there would be time for all the things she needed to know. So she concentrated on driving through the night toward Teslin, Yukon Territory, and let her questions wait.

  21

  MAXIE MCNABB WAITED ANXIOUSLY IN HER MOTOR home for Inspector Webster to arrive with Detective Loomis, pacing back and forth and keeping an eye on the two dogs. When she had put down food for them, Stretch immediately gobbled his up as usual, but Tank refused. He drank some of the water that she placed next to him, where he still sat by the door, but ignored the dachshund’s attempts to play until Stretch finally gave up and lay down close by to keep the larger dog company.

  Very worried about Jessie and anticipating that she herself would want to drive north as soon as she had talked with Webster, Maxie made sure the Jayco was ready for travel, secured everything movable inside and packed up the lawn chair and table she had set out earlier. But she had been waiting for almost two hours before she heard a car approach on the loop road and pull up beside the Jayco. The two men stepped hurriedly out and came to the door. Inviting them in, she held Tank’s collar tightly until the door was closed again.

  “We understand somebody almost drowned up here,” the inspector said as she let the dog go back to his place beside it. Both men seemed reluctant to sit down, anxious to be somewhere else, but they finally sat when Maxie offered them iced tea.

  “Close. Jessie found the boy in the hot springs pool and hauled him out in time to help give him CPR,” she told Webster. “What you need to know is that, according to Patrick, it was one of those friends of his, that Kim Fredricksen, and he said his stepfather did it.”

  “So you have seen the boy? Where—”

  “There wasn’t a name reported,” Loomis broke in, surprised at this news.

  “Jessie didn’t know who it was until it was over and I told her I’d seen Patrick, so she didn’t tell the rescue people. We decided you should know first. It was too hard to explain it all, or even know who to tell it to, and what would it do but confuse things. He was getting the medical attention he needed, whether they knew who he was or not.”

  “We’ll take care of that,” Webster said, nodding impatiently. “But I want to talk to Patrick. Where is he? With Jessie?”

  “Jessie’s gone, and I think he went with her.” Maxie filled him in quickly about how Patrick had appeared, followed by a man she thought was his stepfather, how she had sent Jessie to take care of him while she made a phone call, the swift departure of the Winnebago from the campground, and her speculation that the stepfather might have taken Jessie and Patrick hostage. “She absolutely would not leave without her best lead dog,” she motioned at Tank, tirelessly waiting by the door. “Stringer caught him running after Jessie’s rig.”

  “Stringer?” Loomis asked, not recognizing the name.

  “A trucker we met at Summit Lake—nice man. He went after them, hoping to catch up and see where they were going.”

  “What kind of a truck?” he asked sharply.

  The question seemed odd to Maxie, who couldn’t see that it mattered. But the troubled expression that had narrowed his eyes and tightened his mouth changed her mind and an uneasiness crept in.

  “A Peterbilt—the cab-over kind. Why?”

  The look he gave Webster conveyed distress and resignation.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  Webster explained. “There was a bad wreck on the highway north of Watson Lake—a Peterbilt hit a pickup with a camper and a boat, and a passenger car. The pileup’s evidently playing hell with traffic, and there’s four dead and one about to be medevaced out.”

  Maxie could almost hear her heart pounding. She felt as if she were drowning. “Who?”

  “No idea. It just came over the radio. We’re headed up there now.”

  “So,” Maxie told them, getting hurriedly to her feet, “am I. It may be Stringer, and it might have something to do with Jessie. You’re sure the Winnebago she’s driving wasn’t involved? Reports aren’t always accurate.”

  “To my knowledge it was a camper, not a motor home.”

  “Well, I’m going anyway. I can’t just sit here. I’ve got to find Jessie if I can.”

  “It’s going to be dark before long,” Webster called back to her as they went back to their car. “Don’t try to get there too fast. Drive carefully. We’ll watch for you and keep a lookout for her and her rig.”

  She heard the siren on his car begin to wail as he turned onto the highway from the campground. As it faded away in the distance, she started the Jayco and pulled out of the space where she had meant to spend the night. So much for soaking in the hot springs.

  But I might not have wanted to anyway, she thought, remembering the boy floating in the pool.

  The sun was soon sliding down the western sky as Maxie drove, a little faster than the speed limit, toward Watson Lake. Its concentrated brightness shone directly through the windshield, half blinding her till she put on a pair of sunglasses and lowered the visor above the window to cut off the glare. It was better, but still difficult to see clearly.

  Tank had abandoned his vigil at the coach door when she put the motor home in motion, evidently feeling that wherever they were going, Jessie might be there. Stretch rode in his basket hung over the back of the passenger seat, and Tank jumped up to sit below him on the seat itself, where he could see out the windows. Both dogs soon curled up and went to sleep, leaving Maxie alone behind the wheel to worry and wonder what she would find farther north.

  She had almost reached Watson Lake when she heard the wail of a siren behind her and then the burp of it quickly silenced. In the sideview mirror she saw flashing lights behind her from an RCMP patrol car. Her heart in her throat, she pulled over, stopped the Jayco on the wide shoulder of the road, and waited as the constable walked forward to stand beside the window she had rolled down, hoping he was not a bearer of bad news, expecting a message of some kind from Inspector Webster.

  She almost laughed in relief as the young officer, resplendent in pressed uniform and reflective sunglasses, looked up at her and said sternly, “Do you know how fast you were going, ma’am?”

  “A little over the limit, perhaps?” she said, with a smile she could not keep from her mouth.

  “Seven miles over, ma’am. May I have your license and registration, please? I’ll have to give you a ticket, I’m afraid.”

  The whole thing struck Maxie as supremely ridiculous and humorous, considering present circumstances. Also, she suddenly remembered, it was Sunday, Mother’s Day. Was it Mother’s Day in Canada?

  “Young man,” she said, handing him the documents he had requested, “does your mother know where you are and what you’re doing?”

  “Yes, ma’am, she does,” he told her, busily writing on his pad of tickets, seeing nothing at all humorous in the situation. She didn’t even try to explain, just took the ticket and drove on.

  By the time she stopped for gas in Watson Lake, the sun had disappeared over the horizon and Maxie had stopped laughing and was once again worried. Trying to think what she should do, she decided to go on as far as she could and park overnight in some turnoff if necessary. She considered getting something to eat, but hunger had mostly vanished in her anxiety, so she drank a glass of milk and put a package of cookies where she could reach them as she drove.

  Fifteen miles later she arrived at the site of the wreck and its terrible remains—the skid marks on the pavement left by the Peterbilt, the blackened pickup in the ditch to her right, and the litter left by its exploding camper. She recognized the trailer from the Peterbilt, which had been dragged off the road and into the parking lot of the Petro-Canada service station at the Cassiar intersection, next to a car with its roof missing. She pulled in beside the trailer
, and though she had hoped it would not be Stringer’s, there was no doubt in her mind that it was, but there was no sign that Jessie’s motor home had been part of the tragic accident.

  As she sat with the motor still running and her heart pounding, wondering what could have caused such a disaster, Loomis suddenly appeared at her window, startling her. She rolled down the window to hear what he had to say.

  “Hey, I’ve been watching for you—figured you wouldn’t stop for the night in Watson Lake,” he told her. “Webster went on to Teslin, because Jessie had to go that way—the Cassiar was blocked. Can I catch a ride with you?”

  “Yes, of course. But please—do you know anything about the man who was driving the truck? Is he alive—hurt—what?”

  “He was lucky—the only one who survived. They took him out by helicopter.”

  “Thank God,” Maxie whispered to herself and began to breathe again.

  The dogs were evicted from the passenger seat and Loomis climbed in with a paper bag in one hand. An unmistakable aroma of hamburger and french fries immediately filled the cab, and Maxie at once realized that she was starving—learning that Stringer had survived the crash and Webster was searching for Jessie had lifted a little of the tension and allowed her appetite to return.

  “May I assume there’s tucker in that bag?” she asked. “My stomach thinks my throat’s cut.”

  He grinned and handed it over. “I’ve already eaten,” he confessed. “Thought you might not have. Want me to drive?”

  “Not now—maybe later. Just give me a minute to appreciate this.”

  It was very late and Jessie was very tired when a sign for the Dawson Peaks Resort appeared on the left, then a driveway with poles on barrels blocking it, indicating that the resort was not yet open for the season. A few yards farther on there was another driveway to the same resort, with the same kind of barrier of poles and barrels, but she had had time to take another look down the dark hill, notice how little she could see, and think about it. Without lights in the yard below, no one following would be able to see the motor home if she parked there. Assuming that she couldn’t have turned in at a closed RV park, they would probably go on down the road toward Teslin.

  Patrick woke as she slowed the Winnebago to a stop at the second set of barrels, so she had him get out, move the barrier, and put it back when she had driven through.

  “There’s nobody here,” he said as he climbed back in.

  “The place isn’t open for the summer yet,” she told him. “We’ll drive on down there and take a look.”

  The road curved down and the lights of the motor home swept first across an area that was divided into spaces for RV parking, then around the front of the main lodge, which was covered with yellow signs with red lettering: YOU BET WE’RE OPEN, COME ON IN FOLKS, RVS 15/30 AMP, TENT SITES, CABINS, CANOES, FISHING, RESTAURANT, BAKED GOODS. A large sign over the door read DAWSON PEAKS NORTHERN RESORT WELCOMES YOU. REGISTER HERE. There was no evidence of caretakers and no lights of any kind.

  Jessie turned the Winnebago around and headed back toward the RV parking area, looking for a place that would not be visible from the highway that ran above them on the hillside. As she drove into it, the headlights revealed a single-lane dirt road that ran between the parking spaces, then curved to the left. She followed the curve, and the narrow road dropped farther down the hill, which put the lodge between it and the highway. It ended in a turnaround, where the headlights lit up three small, new-looking cabins nestled in the trees. Beyond them Jessie could just make out a beach and the edge of Teslin Lake.

  As she guided the motor home around the loop, its headlights revealed two canvas tents on platforms and another cabin, under construction judging by the absence of a door and the chain saw and toolbox someone had left on the small deck that extended in front of it. These told Jessie that the place was not as empty of people as it had first appeared, for someone had to have been working on that cabin to have left the tools. Nobody would leave tools out to rust through a northern winter. Someone would be coming back soon, probably in the morning, to use them. A crumb of optimism crept into her thinking and remained. Having someone else around wouldn’t hurt a bit.

  She pulled over and stopped next to one of the tents, where they couldn’t be seen from the highway, even in the morning, and the interior lights would be blocked by the lodge. She couldn’t put the tent completely between them and the lodge because the motor home was slightly longer, though they were the same cream color. Part of it would extend beyond and probably be visible from the lodge tomorrow if someone came down to it and looked closely, but it wasn’t likely their pursuer would do that.

  Feeling relieved and much safer, she had Patrick switch on one galley light, then turned off the engine and the headlights. Slipping outside, she turned on the propane so she would be able to use the stove. It was definitely time for hot food of some kind. There was a package of frozen lasagna in the freezer compartment of the refigerator and vegetables for a salad. Though it would take the better part of an hour to bake, she intended to have it for dinner before they went to bed.

  When it was heating nicely in the oven and she had made a salad, she poured herself a shot of Jameson’s and sat down at the table with Patrick, who had opted for hot chocolate.

  “Soon,” she told him, “I want you to tell me the whole story—how this thing started and everything you know, right up to now. But we’ll wait until after we’ve eaten because I need to just sit here for a while and rest. Okay?”

  He gave her a small grin and nodded, a little of the self-confidence that she recognized returning. “Okay.” Then he frowned. “Will Maxie know where to find us?”

  “She knows, but I don’t expect her to show up until morning. We’ll stay right here, though, until she does.”

  He sat up straighter and sighed, relaxing.

  “Thank you, Jessie,” he said. “You saved my life. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  In the end, however, when Patrick was yawning and she found that she too was almost asleep over her food, she deferred hearing his tale until morning, when she would be rested enough to concentrate.

  But she couldn’t help thinking about the man they had escaped in Watson Lake. Was he gone for good? Teslin was only a dozen miles up the road beyond this place. Would he find transportation and return to hunt them—or just keep going? Would he be able to find them if he did? There were only so many places to hide along this highway, and he would have the rest of the night.

  She decided not to worry about it now, having done the best she could at evading him and hiding. She refused to allow her fatigue to let fear, anger, and frustration creep back into her outlook. It was unlikely they could be found by anyone but Maxie—or perhaps by Webster and Loomis if they had been told where she was headed. Nevertheless, she had already made sure the motor home was securely locked.

  22

  IT WAS 163 MILES FROM WATSON LAKE TO TESLIN, and all of it would be night driving. Her eyesight not as good as it used to be, Maxie hated driving in the dark and avoided it when she could. In a short time she switched places with Loomis and let him pilot the Jayco up the highway toward the village with a population of less than four hundred that had originated as a trading post in 1903 and was located at the confluence of the Nisutlin River and Teslin Lake.

  She knew that Teslin had a large native population and that many of its residents supported themselves with hunting and fishing, others with traditional crafts and woodworking—the building of sleds and canoes. There was a resort and RV park next to the bridge, which crossed the river in the longest span of any on the highway, almost 2,000 feet. She had never spent a night there because for some reason it always seemed to be raining at the times she traveled through, and the wind that often howled down the river was cold and unpleasant in the only treeless campground.

  After trading places with Loomis she belted herself into the passenger seat, but it felt very strange, for almost never did someone
else drive her house on wheels. Trying not to be obvious about it, she watched him carefully for a few miles until she was comfortable with his ability to handle the Jayco. Then she settled back and, closing her eyes, found she was more tired than she had imagined. The stress of the last couple of days has taken the starch right out of me, she thought.

  “Do I pass?” Loomis asked with a grin, keeping his attention on the road ahead.

  Caught out when she thought she was being subtle, Maxie tossed her head back and let out her usual hearty whoop of unrestrained laughter.

  “And I thought I was being so cleverly indirect—so tolerant. Yes, you pass.”

  He waited while the headlights of an oncoming vehicle grew brighter and sped by them.

  “How long have you had this thing?”

  “Well—it’ll be three years in August,” she mused, remembering that first fall trip down the highway alone. “When my husband died, I decided to see some of the country. So I bought it and took off.”

  “But you still live in Alaska part of the year?”

  “A month to three months in the summer. I’m a snowbird, like so many—head south before winter sets in, usually. Twice I’ve flown back for the holidays. Doesn’t seem quite like Christmas without snow.”

  “So where have you been in your travels?”

  “This last winter I spent in Arizona. Not in Phoenix—it’s too hot for me. My blood has thickened living in the north. I like Flagstaff, though, so I spent some time there—and roaming around in the northern desert and canyon country when the weather was good.

  “The winter before that I drove all the way across the country, from California to the Carolinas, stopping wherever I felt like it. Spent a month in southern Virginia, digging up old bones.”

  “Archaeology?”

  “No, genealogy—one branch of my family settled near Abingdon back before the Revolutionary War. One was a drummer boy, and several others fought at Kings Mountain.”

  “Interesting stuff to a guy who hasn’t a clue where his family came from.”