by Jeff Carson
“And?” Patterson asked.
“And I’m in his browsing history … looks like he googled Deputy David Wolf and did some clicking around to articles about Rocky Points, and your Sheriff’s Department. Jesus, you guys had the Van Gogh killer last year.” The deputies behind him looked interested now. “You two work the case?”
“Send the links over, please,” Charlotte said.
“Okay. Emailing you now.”
“Thank you, Deputy Gritzel. You’re a good man.”
“Forward me that list when you get it,” Patterson said to Charlotte.
Charlotte received the email a few seconds later and sent it on.
“What about video-editing software?” Patterson asked.
“What about it?” Gritzel asked.
Charlotte looked at her, clearly confused.
“Is there any on his work computer?”
Gritzel clicked around and leaned into the screen. “I’m not seeing any. Why?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” She sat down at the desk next to Charlotte’s and shook the mouse. It came to life slower than a teenager on Saturday morning so she got up and paced, listening to the conversation.
“Notice the top of the browsing history,” Deputy Gritzel said. “He searched for cheap hotels in Rocky Points, Colorado.”
“Hey, that’s my desk.” Yates appeared behind them again.
“Yeah, thanks. I’m using your computer.” Patterson raised her voice to talk to Gritzel. “Did he make a reservation?”
Gritzel leaned into the screen again. “Looks like the last tab he closed was somewhere called the Edelweiss Hotel … and, yes, there’s a reservation email in his inbox. I’m forwarding it on.”
“Edelweiss?” Yates hitched up his duty belt. “Let’s go.”
“Wait for me.” Charlotte pointed at Yates.
He froze at her tone. “Okay, then let’s go.”
“He’s not going to be there,” Patterson said.
“And how do you know that?” Yates asked.
Heat rose in her face. “I don’t know. I’m just saying … a hotel? He kidnaps Rachette and takes him to a hotel? I’d think it would be somewhere more remote. Like a shed, or a shack, or … something.”
“Yeah, well, if you get a thought of where that might be then let us know,” Yates said. “Otherwise, we’ll follow this bright flashing clue over here. Okay?”
“Listen,” Charlotte said to her screen, “thanks. We’ll be in touch.” She typed out a message. “Here’s my cellphone number. Please keep me informed if you guys come up with anything else.”
The call ended and Charlotte got up so fast that her chair spun three circles.
“Aren’t you coming?” She looked over her shoulder at Patterson.
“Yeah, you coming?” Yates eyed his desktop monitor.
Patterson checked her phone and saw the email from Charlotte had come through. She didn’t need Yates’s gerbil-powered computer to see the links, and besides, this was not her squad room anymore, and Yate’s question wasn’t really a question.
“Yeah.”
CHAPTER 30
7:45 p.m.
Wolf was outside the cover of forest now, walking along the swollen river. Rain and hail pelted him, made worse by the buffeting headwind. Lightning flashed everywhere, often hitting the mountains nearby, but the thunder was drowned out by the sound of the raging torrent of water sliding downhill.
In the deluge, he’d lost track of the trail, made invisible by the jumping hailstones and raindrops.
The hooded jacket kept the rain off his torso and head, but his sopped denim jeans pulled over his legs with each step.
In the current downpour, he dared not look at the GPS to get his position. Like his backpack, the device was advertised as waterproof, but he wasn’t going to push his luck with a field test.
With at least two and a half miles to go there was no sense worrying about it.
He marched on with his hands thrust in his pockets.
Right. Left. Right. Left …
“Promoted?” Womack looked at Wolf. “You? We’ll be taking orders from you now?”
Wolf stared at his friend, then out into the pale-brown Afghanistan landscape outside the forward operating base. He waited for a chuckle, any indication that Womack was kidding, but none came.
“So, you’re now our squad leader,” Womack said in a let-me-get-this-straight tone.
Wolf narrowed his eyes. “Henning’s in a coma in Germany. There was an opening. I didn’t ask for the promotion. They gave it to me.”
Wolf and Womack were both corporals, but Wolf had been chosen. Clearly Womack was bent out of shape about it. “You’re acting like I’m rubbing it in your face or something.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing, isn’t it?” Womack’s voice rose. “That’s why we’re talking right now, right?”
“We’re talking right now because we’re friends, Paul. HCC just told me I’m in charge of nine men’s lives now and I wanted to talk it over with my friend.”
Womack packed a Copenhagen in his lip and pocketed the can—another subtle jab. Copenhagen cans were passed back and forth between the two men, not put away without offering to the other.
Wolf chuckled to himself. “Ever since the Sergeant Henning incident, I can’t help but notice a marked difference in our relationship.”
“Relationship?” Womack spat between his boots. “What are we, chicks?”
Wolf smiled. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“What the fuck’s your problem?”
Womack stood shaking his head.
“What?” Wolf stood with him.
“Did you tell the commander about what I did to Henning?”
“What did you do to Henning?”
“Don’t give me that shit, Wolf.” He pointed a shaking finger an inch from Wolf’s nose. “Don’t give me that bullshit!”
Wolf swatted his hand away. “You want to know what I told the commander? I told the commander we were taking fire and I pulled Henning from your grip. I told him his head hit the ground and drove a piece of shrapnel further into his brain and it was my fault that he’s sitting in a coma and his wife and kids can’t wake him up. I told him that to promote me was ill-advised, and that you were the better man for the job. There. Is that what you want to hear? Because it’s the truth.”
For an instant, Womack softened his expression and looked into Wolf’s eyes, and then, like he’d done for two days, the man shut down and turned to walk away.
“Nope.” Wolf slapped a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. “You’re not walking away until you—”
Womack pushed him with both hands and Wolf landed on his ass.
He methodically got up and into Womack’s face. “Try that again.”
Womack did, and Wolf deflected both arms, pulling and twisting at the same time, bringing Womack down on his back with Wolf on top of him.
“Hey!”
“Hey!”
Their scuffle had been noticed by a group of Rangers coming out of the exercise tent.
As the sound of boots approached, Wolf glared hard into Womack’s eyes. “What the hell’s wrong?” he asked.
They were pulled apart by strong arms of other men from other squads, then sent on their merry ways in separate directions.
Walking backwards, Wolf waited to catch an over-the-shoulder glimpse from Womack. But none came.
The latest tendrils of lightning spreading across the sky made Wolf skid to a stop and consider a question that twisted his gut: where was the bridge?
There was another flash and he saw it again: a jagged line of rocks and steep cliffs straight ahead.
The cliffs on the map had been well beyond the crossing, he remembered clearly now. The reason a walking bridge spanned the river in the first place was because of this impassible terrain, no more than a hundred yards into the rain ahead.
He pointed his headlamp at the raging white water. Foliage on
both banks was submerged and being pulled downstream.
Shit.
He pulled off his pack and took out the GPS. Powering it on, he crouched and blocked the rain. After a minute of powering on and satellite acquisition, it showed his position at three tenths of a mile past the bridge.
There was no way he would’ve walked past it.
His confidence wavered as he remembered the violence of the rain that had been falling only minutes ago. Three tenths of a mile ago he’d been more swimming than walking.
Using satellite-photo view, he zoomed in on the bridge again. He was no engineer and looked at it from space, but he’d have bet money that the bridge was now drowning in at least five feet of water.
He shut off the GPS and returned it to the backpack. Then he shouldered the bag and looked back downriver.
He decided that daydreaming or not, there was no way he’d have passed up the bridge.
Whatever had happened, he was faced with two choices: to spend time he didn’t have hiking back downriver to find the overlooked bridge or to stay here and get across by other means.
He flicked his headlight to the stream again.
A chunk of a dead pine tree floated past him into the darkness. Another piece of wood slid by, and then what looked like a whole sapling. He estimated the river’s width at twenty feet, and even if he’d had a jet boat he’d have given only fifty–fifty odds of making it across.
With a growing sense of urgency, he stared back toward the rocks. Upstream was a dead end.
Another bolt of lightning reached across the sky, lighting the valley like a flash bulb. The river was a white, writhing snake that disappeared into the trees far down the way he’d come.
He checked his watch: 7:59.
He pointed his headlamp down at the slick, rocky ground and ran back downstream.
CHAPTER 31
The Edelweiss Hotel, located on Wildflower Road just off Main Street, was normally a quiet and quaint white-painted Swiss-style chalet. Tonight, SBCSD vehicles swarmed the place and the façade flickered red and blue.
Patterson watched deputies talking with one another out of her rain-streaked windshield. She knew from experience that they’d be relaying rumor mixed with legitimate information to one another, like a childhood game of Telephone.
From behind her steering wheel she’d seen the events as they’d unfolded earlier. Yates, forcing Charlotte to stay back at a safe distance, had taken two other deputies inside. They’d not found Ethan Womack. She suspected he’d either never showed up for his reservation, or had for a night or two and hadn’t returned since.
Ethan Womack had moved on to worse accommodations. More straw and dirt, less flowers and yodeling soundtrack.
As a steady rain pattered the car, she looked down at the glowing cellphone in her lap.
She rolled through the internet links Gritzel had gotten from Ethan Womack’s browsing history.
Tapping the next link in line, a Denver Post article flashed up talking about the Cold Lake murders. She read quickly, pausing at the mention of her and Rachette’s names. This article was the first in the line of links that mentioned Patterson and Rachette. This had to be what had given Ethan Womack the idea to involve them.
Three knocks hit her window next to her head. “Jesus.”
Pressing the start button on her Acura, she lowered the window and Yates’s glistening face came into full view.
“He’s not in there.”
“I gathered. Any clues?”
“None. Busted down the door. You think MacLean’s gonna be pissed at the bill?”
“I think under the circumstances he’ll let it slide.”
Yates nodded. “He was booked here for four days. According to the manager, left after two. She hasn’t seen him since. Left his toiletries in the bathroom.” Yates nodded at the phone in her lap. “You talking to Wolf?”
“No. He hasn’t gotten in touch with me. How about you?”
“No. Jesus. What’s he doing? I’ve called him a dozen times. MacLean’s on my ass to get hold of him, too.”
“Why? Did MacLean find anything out down there?”
“No. He just wants to talk to Wolf.” Yates took off his hat and slapped it against his leg. “All right. We’re gonna head back and have a sit-room. Figure out where everyone’s searched for this truck of his, and where we need to go next.”
Patterson nodded. “All right.”
“You coming?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there.”
Yates looked at her cellphone again, slapped her roof, and walked into the rain toward the huddle of flashing department vehicles.
After rolling up the window she stared out the windshield, wondering if she should take the initiative, too, and call Ethan Womack’s head-doctor, whom the away crew were interviewing down in New Mexico. Maybe looking into the man’s mind could yield a clue. But MacLean and Lorber were reportedly on top of that and she’d have to wait.
She raised her phone and continued skimming the current article.
When she was done, she closed it out and tapped the next—another article on the deception and corruption involving the Sluice–Byron County Sheriff’s election two years ago.
The article was a spin-off of Lucretia Smith’s original exposé, detailing the information that Wolf, Rachette, and Patterson herself had compiled—how a town councilwoman, Judy Flemming, had worked in tandem with the sheriff-elect hopeful, Adam Jackson, to try to make the current department look bad and increase Jackson’s odds of becoming the next sheriff.
Just like Lucretia Smith’s article before it, the knock-off mentioned Deputy Greg Barker by name and how he’d been fired for his involvement, and detailed other deputies being injured in an unrelated incident—one being Chief Detective David Wolf, the other his deputy detective, Juan Hernandez, who’d since been let go by the department because of said injury.
She skimmed fast and went to the next. Each article was a cannibalized version of the prior, with the same information reported in mostly the same words.
“No map links.”
She realized then that she’d been doing a lot of talking to herself lately.
Her phone rang and displayed Sheriff MacLean’s name.
“Hello?”
“Where’s Wolf? You talked to him?”
“No, sir.”
“No?”
“I haven’t seen him or talked to him since this afternoon,” she said.
There was a long silence.
“You there?”
“Yeah. All right.”
“Have you and Lorber talked to Ethan Womack’s doctor yet?” she asked.
“Yes, and he’s offering nothing we don’t already know. Ethan Womack suffered a head injury when he was younger, which makes him a socially awkward individual. We’re trying to press him more but he’s not talking. Doctor–patient confidentiality.” MacLean exhaled long into her ear. “Have Wolf call me if you talk to him.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a click and the call was dead.
Okay, fine. Scratch the doctor.
Damn it. The clock was ticking.
That made her think about Scott. He was at home, alone with Tommy, being understanding and not calling, assuming she was busy and had work to do … but he was probably worried by now. She dialed his number.
“Hey,” he said.
“I’m totally late, I know.”
“What’s going on?” Tommy cried in the background.
“With me? Nothing. What’s happening over there?”
“Oh … he’s mad that I’m not giving him another cookie.”
“He’s probably just tired, huh?” she said.
“Yeah.” The crying quieted. “Okay, I’m in the other room now. Ah, bliss. What’s happening?”
“Nothing. I was just calling to let you know I’m going to be late.”
“The Metrosexual running you ragged tonight?”
She smiled. “Yeah.”
Th
ey sat in silence for a beat.
“I love you,” she said, hating the finality in her tone.
“I love you, too. Come home.”
“Will do. Don’t wait up.”
The call ended.
Where was she?
“Map links,” she said, pulling up the Ethan Womack’s work-computer browsing-history email again. She was right. There were no map links.
The man had somehow gotten the jump on Rachette on the way to his house, which was up a rather desolate road. He would’ve had to study a map to see where Rachette lived.
And then there were the coordinates up near Dark Mountain. How had he chosen the desolate spot for a meeting place?
He could’ve come to Rocky Points and gone to the library to use a computer, she decided. He could’ve asked a waitress at the Sunnyside for a hiking spot for loners. A million other things could’ve explained how he’d learned his way around.
She closed the phone internet browser and went back to the last message received. She tapped the coordinates marking the meeting point, and the map application opened.
A blue dot appeared in the middle of the screen surrounded by digital gridlines.
She wondered how far Wolf had hiked. How hard was he getting hit by rain?
The map load took forever. “Let’s go!”
Rocky Points was known for skiing and craft beers, not cutting-edge cell network speed, so she breathed through the new wave of anxiety and waited.
Deputy vehicles began streaming out of the parking lot. She saw Charlotte still standing outside under the porte cochère, talking to Yates.
The phone flickered as the map finally emerged. She ticked the aerial-view button, which made the load process start all over again.
“Damn it.”
Mercifully, the map loaded faster, showing a snow-covered peak on the left side of the screen, earth-toned terrain and endless pine trees on the right.
Pinching her fingers on the screen to zoom outward, she waited for the map to populate again. Most of the road details disappeared, so she zoomed back in and swiped to study the area.
The meeting spot lay at the top of a narrow valley lined with steep-looking mountains. The thumbtack was in a bowl formed by the surrounding peaks. Next to the marker was a small, shining lake.