Portrait of Vengeance

by Carrie Stuart Parks

  Beth said . . . I rubbed my head to remember. Beth said the rescuers didn’t get to the crash right away. Everyone was dead when they arrived.

  Had my mom survived the crash, albeit briefly? If she had . . . did she write something with the lipstick? I examined the compartment. If she’d written on the seats, the leather had rotted away. The inside of the cabin was probably covered with fabric, also gone.

  A shape in the corner of the floor looked odd. I knew that shape. I nudged it with my shoe. Metal. Plastic. I kicked it. The barrel rotated from under the seat. A pistol. I even knew what kind. A . . . a . . . Why can’t I remember?

  Why was my mom or dad carrying a gun? Or did it belong to the pilot? Or me? I shook my head.

  Whap-whap-whap.

  The air is vibrating.

  Whap-whap-whap.

  I know that sound.

  Whap-whap-whap-whap-whap.

  A helicopter.

  Thankyouthankyouthankyou! I shoved against the seat. It didn’t move.

  I shoved harder. The wires had tangled from . . . the cougar. That’s right, I’d fought a cougar.

  Whap-whap-whap. The copter grew louder, though I still couldn’t see it.

  Grunting with effort, I rocked the seat to loosen it. What if they decided I wasn’t here? What if they just flew off? Leaning away, I kicked at the seat. It jammed against the side. Grabbing the wire seat with both hands, I rocked it as hard as I could. It barely moved an inch.

  My hands and feet burned. Blood pounded in my head.

  The copter came into view, hovered above the clearing, then landed. Dirt, leaves, grass, and other debris flew in all directions. I ducked and covered my ears.

  Something touched my arm.

  I screamed and slapped at it.

  Other sounds replaced the helicopter’s steady drone. Words, but they didn’t make sense. I blinked and stared at the face peering at me. Seth Kus. His mouth moved again. This time I understood him. “Gwen? Gwen, you’re okay now. We’re here—”

  I burst into tears.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  HEAT RUSHED UP MY NECK TO MY CHEEKS, BUT THE tears didn’t stop. I covered my face with my hands. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Get it together. Be cool. Swallowing a few times, I wiped my runny nose on my arm. Oh, that was cool.

  “Are you hurt, Gwen?”

  The concern in his voice almost set me off again. I shook my head, clamped my jaw, and looked up. “It was a long night.” My words still sounded slurred.

  Seth touched the metal cabin. “I imagine you didn’t get much sleep. Let’s get you out of here.” He looked behind him and jerked his head. A man appeared and yanked the door open.

  My bra, holding the door shut, ripped in two.

  The two men froze and stared at the tattered remains for a moment. The man turned bright crimson and didn’t seem to know where to look. Seth grinned at me.

  I shrugged.

  The men recovered from the bra encounter and made short work of removing the rotted seat. Seth held out his hand to help me out.

  I stared at it. When he pulls you out, there will be no hiding your flat chest.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I took his hand. So be it.

  My legs gave way as soon as they touched the ground. Seth wrapped his arm around my waist and held me up while the other man draped a blanket around my shoulders. The warmth was a slice of heaven.

  A young, wiry man in a baseball cap with some kind of medical patch on it placed a bag on the ground next to a coffin-shaped wire stretcher. He wore a navy zip-up jacket, a blue uniform shirt, and black pants with pockets everywhere. “Can you tell me your name?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  He tried again. “What is your name?”

  “My first name is Gwen. Right now that’s all I’m sure of.”

  He exchanged glances with Seth. “What’s the date?”

  “I don’t know. Is it important?”

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Like I spent the night in a crashed plane fighting off a cougar.”

  He picked up my wrist and took my pulse. “You say you saw a cougar?”

  “No. I fought a cougar with a fishing rod.”

  “I see.” He lifted the blanket and peered at my shredded T-shirt. “Are you cut anywhere? You seem to have a lot of blood on you.”

  “Phil’s blood.”

  “Did you say you had your fill of blood?” He paused in his probing of the scratch on my arm.

  “That too. But Phil is dead.”

  “I see.” He tucked the blanket back around me and studied my hand. “Can you feel your fingers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your toes?”

  “Yes.”

  He pulled out a thermometer and popped it in my mouth, then looked at Seth. “She seems to have a lot of confusion, probably dehydrated—”

  “Excuse me, but I’m standing right here.” It came out, “Loose me, ba I’n nandy lite he,” around the thermometer.

  The EMT—his name tag said Redwood—removed the thermometer and studied the results. “Let’s help you get onto the stretcher—”

  “I can walk.” I straightened.

  “No, you can’t.” Redwood picked up his bag. A pile of flesh-colored goo was on the bottom. “What’s this?” He nudged the remains of my breast prosthesis with his boot.

  Poor Mary Ann. Ginger, still somewhat intact, lay nearby. The cougar had taken out a lot of frustration on those pieces of silicone. I tried to smile. “I’d say it’s the definitive answer to ‘Which one did you like better, Ginger or Mary Ann?’”

  Redwood glanced at Seth. “She needs medical help right away.”

  “Wait.” I turned to the fuselage. “I need to get something.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” Redwood said.

  “There’s a small pile of items on the seat. And a pistol.”

  The man raised his eyebrows but retrieved the pitiful reminders of my parents—the lipstick tube, compact, purse frame, chain, and pistol. He held them out for me to check.

  “Okay.” I reached for them, but Seth shook his head. “I’ll take them for now.” He grabbed the pistol and checked to see if it was loaded, then placed all the items in his pockets.

  A blast of cold wind had the men eyeing the sky. Redwood took my arm. “Let’s get going.” Another gust of wind shook the trees. The sun dropped behind slate-gray clouds.

  I wanted to protest, but before I could get the words out, I was placed unceremoniously on the wire stretcher and surrounded with blankets. The stretcher was hard, but this was the warmest I’d been in over sixteen hours.

  Redwood and Seth strapped me in and lifted. At least they didn’t grunt at the weight. As we crossed to the helicopter, Seth asked about Phil. I gave him the Reader’s Digest condensed version. He raised his eyebrows when I told him it was murder, but only asked, “Can you direct us to the outfitter’s body?”

  “I think so.” The rotors were still turning on the helicopter, so I raised my voice to be heard over the din. “Head straight east. You should pass over a ravine, then a ridge, then a second gulch with a small stream. He’s beside the stream.”

  Seth nodded understanding. We reached the helicopter and my stretcher was strapped into place.

  “I am capable of sitting in a seat,” I tried pointing out.

  “This is your seat.” Redwood tugged a final strap in place. Seth sat in the copilot’s seat while the technician sat next to me. I hoped they’d reverse their seating.

  The pilot gave a thumbs-up to Seth, then spoke into the radio. “Dispatch, this is fifty Romeo, we are airborne, en route to St. Joseph’s ER in Lewiston with the patient plus two onboard, ETA thirty-five minutes. Please advise St. Joseph’s of our ETA status.” We took off with a stomach-plummeting swoop.

  The noise made conversation impossible. We rose, dropped, and swerved across the sky. I closed my eyes after one particularly big bump. When I opened them again, we weren’t moving. The door open
ed next to me and several orderlies unstrapped my stretcher from the helicopter and placed me, still in the stretcher, on a gurney. When we arrived at the hospital, the nurses moved me off the stretcher to an ER room containing a slightly less uncomfortable bed.

  Immediately I was questioned, stripped of my bloody T-shirt, and given an ugly blue paper gown. Then for the next few hours I was prodded, scrubbed, stitched, bandaged, drained of my blood, started on an IV, given chicken soup, and left alone in a cubicle for extended time periods. I dozed at first, waking up every time a nurse or doctor remembered I was there. After the last temperature check, sleep no longer seemed so attractive. I thought of my mom’s tube of lipstick. While Mom was severely injured, waiting for help, what had she written? What desperate message had she left? But the rescue had come too late, the message never received.

  “Mom,” I said out loud, my voice a shaking croak, “why can’t I remember your face? Why couldn’t I have looked for you before now? Maybe what you wrote would have still been in the plane.”

  Maybe not, Beth whispered. You can’t change the past, merely learn from it. Finish your season of searching and move on to mending.

  Finally a nurse unhooked me from the IV saline, removed the needle, and went over my treatment plan before leaving a small pile of discharge paperwork. Shortly, Dan Kus appeared, followed by Seth. Seth’s black hair tumbled across his forehead, his face looked drawn, and his eyes were red. “The doctor said they were about to release you. LoneBear’s funeral is today, so I brought Dad to be sure you got back to your place safely.”

  “Thank you.” Aware that I still wore the ugly paper shirt with no bra or breast forms, I kept the blanket wrapped around me.

  “We’ve been unable to locate Phil Cicero’s body.” Seth finger-combed his hair back, but a chunk flopped forward again.

  I wanted to brush it from his forehead. Instead I asked, “What about Phil’s horses?”

  “They know the area better than most outfitters,” Dan said. “And Phil had tough horses.”

  “They’re safe,” Seth said. “They headed for the trailer. Officer Attao found them early this morning when we were searching for both of you. Your wallet and cell were in one of the saddlebags. I’ll get them to you as soon as I see Attao. We didn’t have the keys to Phil’s pickup, so we sent a couple of rigs to tow his truck and haul the horse trailer.”

  “Good.” My voice caught. I’d neatly place Phil’s death in a box and tie a ribbon around it. But Phil was dead because someone wanted to kill me. I looked around for a tissue.

  Dan pulled one out of the tissue box on the counter and handed it to me. Both men tactfully ignored my loud honking as I blew my nose. When I finished, Seth held up an unmarked evidence bag. “I brought you these.” Inside were the few items I’d found at the crash—the compact, lipstick, purse frame, chain, and rusty revolver.

  I took the bag. “Thank you.”

  “Someone really wanted to keep you from getting there. Any ideas?” Seth asked.

  “I’m leaning toward Jacob. Counting the sniper event outside of the department and the death of LoneBear, who was mistaken for me, that makes three attempts on my life.”

  “I had my deputy do a follow-up on that pistol,” Seth said. “Smith and Wesson model 36. Serial number places it from the early 1970s. You’ll need to clean it up before it will fire. Any reason someone would be carrying it? Especially on a plane?”

  “A Chief’s Special.” I turned the clear bag over, examining the weapon. “I thought I recognized the revolver back at the crash, but my brain was pretty scrambled.” I looked at Seth. “Wasn’t this the gun of choice for law enforcement at that time?”

  “Some.” He leaned against the wall. “Or a backup weapon because of its small size.”

  Reaching into the bag, I removed the chain. “Seth, this is a beaded chain. It’s what I had my leather badge holder attached to. Maybe more proof that Dad was with law enforcement?”

  “That would be a reasonable conclusion.”

  I dropped the chain into the bag, then hugged it. “I thought my parents could be . . . well, maybe terrorists or something. They gave fake names, or at least I think they did, and were checking out the dam.”

  “I’d say they were more likely looking for terrorists.”

  I gaped at him.

  Seth’s mouth twitched. “Maybe working undercover.”

  My dad was a cop? Or with the FBI? I wanted to pump my arms in the air. “So why would anyone think there was a terrorist ready to blow up a dam in North Central Idaho in 1984?”

  “That’s a question for Dad here.”

  We both turned to the man. He looked down and pursed his lips. “Eighty-four? I can do some research . . .”

  “Wouldn’t it help,” Seth said, “if we had an idea of which agency your dad might have been with? I mean, FBI looks into terrorist activity. Federal marshals might have a fugitive. Other agencies could be after drug traffickers.”

  “So if I put it all together, I’d want to see if some law-enforcement agency was doing an undercover operation, possibly on a terrorist attack on the dam thirty-plus years ago. And that officer was killed in an accident.”

  “A lot of speculation,” Dan said.

  “Yes, but specific. Beth and I have a lot of research ahead of us.”

  “Well then, let’s get you back to the B and B.” Seth helped me to my feet.

  “I’ll get the car warmed up and meet you by the front door.” Dan winked at Seth before leaving.

  Seth wrapped his arm around me. He smelled of cedar, rain, and a hint of Old Spice.

  I wanted to fold the blanket around both of us, but only if I could turn Seth into Blake. And take a shower. And wash my hair. And put on makeup. A little perfume. Maybe change into . . .

  I clutched the blanket over my paper clothing and enjoyed the feeling of a warm arm around my waist. We slowly made our way to the lobby.

  Why am I snuggling up with Seth? The words rose unbidden to my brain. He betrayed me to my boss. I stiffened. “I can walk from here.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Let’s just say I miss my badge. And my job. Thanks to you.”

  Seth’s arm stiffened but he didn’t let go. “I told you I argued with him. He wouldn’t listen. I had no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.” A brick formed in my stomach.

  Seth turned so I was facing him, holding on to my arms. “Your boss, Commander James, asked about your performance. He wanted to know only about the tasks I’d assigned you. I was honest. He didn’t ask about your working a different angle, or your skills as an investigator, or your devotion to your craft.” His brows were drawn together, his eyes searching my face.

  My chest tightened and stomach churned.

  “Come on, Gwen, give me a chance. You were going to connect the death of your parents to the present case. You haven’t finished that yet. I didn’t mean to get you fired.”

  I wanted to believe him. Everyone lies to me.

  Not everyone, Beth murmured. I’ve never lied to you. Or Dave. Nor has Aynslee.

  Not now, Beth! Dropping my head, I studied my tightly clenched fists. Time. I needed time to process all this.

  Seth let go of my arms.

  All I had to do was turn and walk away, head high, in solitary pride, but my legs had a mind of their own. I stumbled, tripped, and fell against the wall.

  Pride went before that fall, Beth muttered.

  Without saying a word, Seth found a wheelchair and placed me in the seat, then propelled me outside to where Dan had a large, silver Sequoia SUV waiting. After helping me in, he paused, his face inches from mine. “Connect the dots, Gwen.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “GWEN!” BETH’S HAIR WAS MUSSED AND HER FACE flushed as she rushed from her bedroom and hugged me. Winston flew from my room and crashed into me. If Dan hadn’t been beside me, I would have gone flying. He caught my arm and kept me on my feet.

  “Stea
dy, Winston. Good boy.” The dog continued to dance around me, mouth wide open in a massive doggy grin. The game room had been returned to a respectable level of tidiness, all traces of fingerprint powder and tossed papers gone. Beth had moved the foam board with the map and trail of Jacob’s destruction from my room to the easel.

  “I was so worried when you didn’t return!” Beth took a chair next to me. “Last night Eric, Lila, and I waited for you at dinner, then when you didn’t show up or phone, I had Eric call Chief Kus. I think, if anything, he was more worried than I was.”

  Dan helped me to a seat, then took one himself. “Because of LoneBear’s funeral today, the department will be pretty shorthanded. Here’s my number.” He took out a card and wrote on it. “Call me if you need anything.” He slid the card over, then patted me on the shoulder. “Try to stay out of trouble. I’ll check in on you later.” He left.

  I could see Beth was gearing up for another barrage of questions. I held up my hand. “Let me get a shower and into clean clothes. Then I’ll answer all your questions.”

  Forty-five minutes and two aspirins later, I felt human. I’d put on my remaining prosthetics—Laverne and Shirley—beige sweats, and a cotton paprika-red sweater. Beth was sipping tea when I entered the game room.

  “Lila brought us tea and Eric’s baklava.” She indicated a tray loaded with sweets and a teapot.

  Both sounded outstanding and I wasted no time in helping myself. “I can’t believe he felt well enough to cook after the bang on the head.”

  “I heard him going downstairs to cook at the crack of dawn.” I grunted.

  “I meant to mention it before,” Beth said, “but Chief Kus forwarded me the crime-scene photos while you were still working on the Sinopa case. I printed them out again.” She tapped a file. “I also did some work on trying to find your parents. About all I managed to do was collect some wanted flyers from that year, but the printouts are in this file.”

  “Thanks, Beth.” I told her about Phil, the cougar, and my rescue. Placing the clear bag with all that remained of my parents’ possessions on the table, I pulled out the pistol. The lipstick followed. “I think my mom survived the crash. At least for a little bit of time. The lipstick is broken off and dirty, as if she wrote with it. I believe she left a message.”