Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell
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“Two hours?” The woman looked at her watch. “Not that it’s any of your business but I was over by the creek.”
“Cut the crap,” Skye snapped. “Zoe isn’t lost. A serial killer by the name of Jason Berkenshaw abducted her. I think you know where she is because you put her there. So I’ll ask this one more time. Where is Zoe?”
This time the woman’s calm, pretend demeanor changed. She became agitated. When she tried to reach inside her pocket, Skye pushed her back a step. “You’re the one who hit me. Helluva swing you have there. What did you do with the bat? How long did you work with…let me guess…your boyfriend? Who are you exactly?”
In answer, the woman spat out, “Jason was my husband! And you killed him, you bitch! You were supposed to die back there. Why didn’t you?”
Josh grabbed her arm right before she could lunge at Skye. He tightened his grip, put pressure on the woman’s shoulder, making sure she calmed down. “Where’s Zoe?”
Skye took the opening, began to go through the woman’s pockets. When she found a Beretta that matched the one she’d knocked out of Berkenshaw’s hand during the fight, she knew this was the killer’s accomplice. The Washington State driver’s license confirmed it.
“What do we have here? Looks like her name’s Adela Berkenshaw. She’s five-six, auburn hair, with deep brown eyes and this says she was forty years old on her last birthday.” Skye sized Adela up. “Well, Mrs. Berkenshaw, I hope you don’t have kids running around anywhere because you’re going away for a long time. Now tell us where Zoe is.”
Adela threw her head back and laughed. “You’ll never find the little bitch. She’ll starve to death before you guys even stumble upon anything. Jason and I have been in this area for years. We know it like the back of our hand. We’ve been at this for a long time. And we’re good at what we do.”
Josh took out his cell phone, dialed Harry. He went into a lengthy spiel about their suspect before giving him the bad news. “Berkenshaw’s dead. But Jason had a wife who helped him.” Josh listed all the particulars from Adela’s driver’s license before, adding, “No, she won’t be going anywhere, at least not until you guys get here. We still haven’t found Zoe. So don’t drag your ass taking the long way around.”
With that, Josh gave him directions to their location while Skye kept needling and poking at Adela.
“You know, Jason had a girlfriend in the nineties who looked a lot like you.”
“He did not.”
“Oh yeah, he did. She ended up dead, murdered. Her name was Ellen Schreiber.” Skye picked up a strand of Adele’s hair. “Is this reddish color your natural shade or did you tint it—for Jason. Did he ask you to dye it this color?” By the look on Adela’s face, Skye determined she’d hit a nerve. “Ellen’s hair was gorgeous and natural. Yours isn’t. Good ol’ Jason probably talked you into dying yours to match Ellen’s. He had a hard time letting Ellen go—a really hard time. That is, until he put a knife through her heart—sorta like I did his.”
“Jason loved me. You don’t know who you’re messing with, little girl, I’ll rip your heart out.”
“I see that,” Skye drawled, her tone calm as glass. “Where were you headed when you saw us? You were coming from deep in the woods, right, Adela?”
“Go to hell.”
“You first.” Skye took out her cell phone, scrolled through her contact list until she found the one belonging to her dad. “I need to put out a call to arms,” Skye announced as she punched in the number. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste.”
As soon as Travis answered the phone back at the Foundation, Skye told him, “Round up the troops, anyone who can help, we need volunteers to search for Zoe.” She gave him the specifics as she heard the wop wop wop of a chopper overhead.
Looking up, she spotted a helicopter circling them with the Pierce County logo on the side. “Looks like your ride is here, Adela. You be sure to have a great day.”
Skye walked off to meet Harry at the Huey. After bringing him up to speed on Adela, she directed him to where they’d left Jason’s body.
Once a sheriff’s deputy slapped the cuffs on Adela, Josh and Skye decided to backtrack to where they’d first encountered the woman in the clearing. They didn’t wait around for Harry or the search team. With darkness approaching, every minute counted.
Stepping through bunchberry and patches of bog rosemary, they searched for any disruption in earth, any part of ground that looked as though it had been recently turned.
After trekking farther into lush backwoods, they fought the scrubland and the dense undergrowth, so thick it was like a jungle in some places. “We should’ve brought a machete to hack through this stuff,” Skye grumbled when her hair got caught on a spray of brambles.
“Two of them,” Josh added as he helped untangle the mass of strands from the bush. “No wonder we couldn’t find this place.”
While shafts of remaining daylight illuminated the way, they shuffled down into a gully filled with dead vines surrounding a surplus of old engine parts.
“Now we’re talking,” Josh stated. “This has a military feel to it. We’re close.”
They almost missed the rusted-out Quonset hut, complete with a corroded door, because it was overgrown with head-high weeds. Cordgrass and the shorter dagger-leaf rush guarded the area around it. Sitka spruce and noble fir grew in spotty patches because it looked as though someone had cut down a grove of trees to stake their claim.
Discarded metal ammo boxes had been used as a tiny porch and steps. But now, the containers were scattered about littering the area. They moved several of the crates out of the way so they could peep inside. Decades of neglect had left it in disrepair. There was nothing much left except the shell. The back of the place had been gutted. But what they found there was another solid row of vegetation growing in overrun hedges.
“I’ll hold it back for you to go through first,” Skye offered as she picked up several prickly climbing plants. “How’s that?”
“Look, there.” Josh pointed to a carved-out section of hillside. Near the bottom of the grade hidden almost out of view was the entrance to the Berkenshaw’s concrete bunker—an intimidating door built from steel.
“They spent a lot of time disguising the entryway,” Skye decided as she took in the stack of evergreen branches tied together with a camouflage tarp across the top. About that time she looked up, spotted the crow and the hawk circling overhead. “No one could pick this out from the air. See how it blends into the surrounding hillside?”
Josh nodded. “It blends in perfectly with the topography.”
He took one look at the heavy portal and uttered, “This door is from a shipping container. Looks like they used whatever supplies they could scavenge.”
Eyeing the multiple locks used to deter trespassers from breaching the security, Skye whistled through her teeth. “This is gonna take some muscle.”
She watched Josh try to force the door open with sheer strength and shook her head at his first effort. “You barely loosened that. How about we put our backs into it together?”
“Be careful you don’t hurt yourself. This thing is massive.”
Together they pulled on the metal until they were able to dislodge it from its hinges. Maneuvering it free, inch by inch they crawled through the opening.
There were steps leading down farther underground. Once inside, it was obvious the main room had once been used as an old ammunition bunker. But in converting the narrow, rectangular space, the Berkenshaws had put their own personal touches to it. For one, the four walls reeked with the smell of urine and feces and death.
“This is where it all happened. No wonder this place gave us the creeps,” Skye muttered as she scanned what was nothing more than a glorified cave. A crudely built bedframe held a dirty, ugly-looking mattress. But Zoe wasn’t in it.
“Zoe!” Skye yelled. “Where are you, Zoe?” She tilted her head to listen, but heard nothing but a vaulted echo. “Josh.”
“Not picking up anything yet.”
Her eyes landed on a wooden bench, an altar that held all kinds of trinkets and keepsakes, earrings and necklaces, a few small handbags. “Look at all the trophies he kept. We might be able to use this stuff to solve a few missing person cases. What kind of sadistic people would purposely create something like this?”
“Berkenshaws. Bundys. Ridgways. Dahmers.”
As they got deeper into the hollowed-out shell, Skye noted one section in the back had been cordoned off with steel reinforced rods to create a cage-like area. Several iron bolts and shackles had been hammered into the wall and floor. Heavy chains were attached. Filth covered the base. But there was no Zoe.
“It just keeps getting more disturbing with each step we take,” Skye noted.
Josh came to a section where the concrete ran out. He stepped onto a hard-packed dirt floor. Beyond it, he spotted a three-foot open chasm. It became clear they might have to dig. “There’s a drop off here,” he cautioned. “Watch your step.”
At one time someone had chiseled out a steep set of stairs, either Berkenshaw or the military. Either one had aimed for keeping secrets here. “Let me go down first. It might be booby-trapped.”
“It’s like a crypt,” Skye decided as she tried to make out the black pit Josh had agreed to explore first.
Josh took the lead and descended into an area without a flicker of light anywhere. It could only be described as what hell must look like.
His wolf’s vision kicked in.
He spotted Zoe in a corner of the dungeon lying on a cot. She was fully clothed but her feet and wrists were manacled to a rusted restraint bolted into the cinder block wall, a filthy rag stuffed in her mouth. Dried tears had stained her cheeks. Her black hair was a mess of tangles.
“It’s okay, Zoe. Don’t be scared. It’s me, Josh. Skye is right behind me.”
At the sound of another voice in the blackness, Zoe tried to scream, but it came out muffled and weak.
Without hesitating any longer, he went over to her, gently removed the dirty cloth from between her teeth so she could talk.
“Is…it…really…you?” Zoe asked in between hitches in her breathing.
Knowing there was no way she could see him in the darkness, he waited a beat until Skye came up beside him, waited for Zoe to recognize Skye’s voice.
“Zoe, we’re getting those cuffs off your wrists,” Skye pledged as she lightly touched the girl’s jean-clad leg. She reached up and ripped the bolts out of the wall, pried the handcuffs off the girl’s flesh.
Zoe flung herself in Skye’s direction. “I was so scared. I was so sure I was going to die.”
As Skye caught the girl up in her arms, she didn’t want to admit she was afraid of that too. “I know you were. But it’s over now. We’re getting you out of this hellhole.”
Turning to Josh, Skye whispered, “The search party would never have found this place, not without a lot of luck.”
He took out his phone. “Then I’d better give them detailed directions.”
Together they marched Zoe out into the fresh air, took a seat on one of the old, metal ammo boxes. By that time, the sun had gone down. Nightfall rallied around them, unsettling and silent.
“What is this awful place,” Zoe wanted to know.
“A place where fourteen-year-olds should never have to see,” Skye murmured softly. Even though Berkenshaw was dead and his wife was in custody, Skye didn’t think she could ever forgive either one for exposing Zoe to this type of depravity at such a young age.
“Should we wait for the volunteers to catch up or use our night vision to get us out of here?” Josh asked.
“I vote we leave this place.”
But about that time they heard voices in the distance. Skye recognized Harry’s tone, followed by Travis’s speech.
“We’re over here,” Josh shouted.
“Got you pinpointed,” Travis yelled back. “The Foundation’s group of volunteers is in the process of setting up floodlights around the perimeter so Zoe won’t have to deal with the dark any longer than she has to.”
“I love these people,” Skye gushed in delight, her arms still wrapped around Zoe. The two sat where they were and watched in awe as the lights came on, one by dazzling one, washing the woods in a wave of brightness.
But even with the burst of illumination, this part of the woods still had a spooky feel to it in the dark. Tall trees, long shadows, twigs snapping made for an eerie backdrop.
In the dimness, Skye spotted Harry heading their way, noticed the slump of his shoulders, as if the cop dreaded what he had to do, what he had to ask the young teen, what he had to put Zoe through.
Knowing there were questions that needed answers, she leaned in, whispered in Zoe’s ear to prepare her. “See that line of volunteers over there? So many people care about you, they united to make sure you were okay because they were worried about you. Right now, I need for you to listen to me. This is all over. But I want you to go with Harry. He’ll take you to Lena first and then he’ll want to ask you some questions, probably down at the station. I want you to tell Harry everything that happened to you from the time Berkenshaw picked you up from school, got you into his car, to when he dragged you into the woods. Are you okay with doing that?”
Zoe nodded. “I’ll tell him how this woman prevented me from getting to the car when I tried to run like you told me to do.”
“Good girl. Because I want you to tell Harry everything the guy said to you, everything his wife said to you when she took you down into that crypt and tied you up. Do you think you can remember everything?”
“I’ll try. They were both crazy and mean, Skye,” Zoe wanted her to know still curled into Skye’s side.
“Yes, they were crazy and mean, Zoe, a deadly combination. You saw me take the guy down though, right?”
“You were awesome. You kicked his ass.”
From a few feet away, Skye noticed Josh’s eyes twinkle with amusement.
“Skye Cree, an amazing warrior,” he added for emphasis.
Grinning at them both, Skye went on, “I did what I had to do. Anyway, you know Berkenshaw’s dead and will never hurt you. But the other one, the woman, is still alive.” When she saw Zoe’s alarmed reaction, she patted the girl’s shoulder and quickly added, “She won’t be able to touch you either. If you tell Harry everything, it will ensure that she stays locked up for a very long time. Do you understand?”
Skye wrapped her arms around the girl’s shoulders, hugged her tight to get an answer. “It’ll be okay, Zoe. You’ll see.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. Will you come see us at our new house? We’re all settled in now. I want you to meet our new dog, Atka.”
“I’d like that. I was hoping you’d ask me.”
“You’re welcome there any time. Now go, do what you have to do. The sooner it’s done with, the sooner you can get on with your life.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Over the next twenty-four hours, authorities discovered the Berkenshaws’ dumping ground, a mere fifteen yards from the front door of the bunker. The final resting place for a multitude of bodies turned out to be a plot of earth that measured twenty by twenty feet.
County officials verified it was on federal land—which meant some of the murders could have occurred there. It also meant that, Adela, if found guilty, could end up in a federal facility in Texas for death row inmates.
That ought to wipe that dumbass grin off her face from yesterday, thought Skye as she studied Harry and Dawson, deep in conversation overseeing the first attempt at excavating the vast number of remains.
When her phone chimed, she visibly jumped. It was just that kind of simple noise that could spook a person out in a place like this, even in broad daylight, even with a dozen people standing around. For the past couple of hours, if she didn’t know better, she was almost certain it felt as if someone watched them. Old ghosts with a powerful history, Skye decided.
“Yes, it’s me. Is it true what they’re saying on the news? Is he dead? They said on the news you caught him. Is it true or did they just make it up?”
“It’s true, Judy. You don’t have to fear him showing up at your doorstep, not anymore. He’s gone. He’ll never be able to hurt another person.”
“I want to work. I want to work for the Artemis Foundation. You haven’t given away the job you promised me, have you?”
Skye laughed. “Nope. There are still phones to answer and envelopes to stuff. But you’ll have to leave your apartment, Judy. Do you think you can handle that?”
“I’d like to try.”
“Good. Then show up bright and early Monday morning. If you need help, call me.”
By the time Skye ended the call, both Harry and Dawson had made their way over to where she and Josh were standing to the side, away from the digging.
“How’s it going?” Josh asked.
“Can’t complain,” Harry replied. He stood there another minute before he could find the words he wanted to say. “A couple of things you might be interested in though. First, we found out Adela is a nurse, was working on a fifteen-year career at the same hospital. We think she used her position there as easy access to drugs, drugs the two of them used on their prey. That’s why the drugs varied so much from victim to victim. Whatever Adela could get her hands on, that’s what they used. One day it was rocuronium, the next, rohypnol or GHB.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Second, we may never know how the DNA that turned out to belong to Travis got on that scarf. Travis tells me he knew Ellen, so I’m thinking it might be one of those quirky things that often pop up during investigations now and then. Third, we don’t know what happened to the real Jason Berkenshaw.”
“What? Excuse me?” Skye expressed in disbelief. “I know exactly what happened to him. I stabbed the bastard in the heart.”