by Lisa Jackson
“Need to go out?” she asked, with a glance outside.
Where the hell was MacGregor?
Gone. Not coming back. Maybe someone, whoever you thought was outside the other night, attacked him.
Now she was being ridiculous, letting her paranoia get the better of her.
Harley whined loudly.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Hold onto your horses.” She hitched to the gun cupboard and, feeling a little foolish, grabbed the loaded rifle with her free hand. She didn’t like the idea of having to use the weapon, but knew she could if threatened. Grandpa Jim had seen to that.
She whistled to the dog. “Come on, Harley, you know the drill. Out the back.” Using her crutch, she hobbled to the back door and opened it and the dog shot out before she had second thoughts and worried that letting Harley outside was a mistake. What if the damned dog took off after MacGregor?
Got lost.
He’s a dog, for God’s sake.
He’s home. He won’t stay out in the cold for long.
He just needs to get out, stretch his legs, urinate a few times.
“Stick around, please,” she muttered, and watched as he lifted his leg on the trunk of a small tree near the back of the garage. He ambled through the chest-high snow, seeming to find joy in breaking a trail through the icy powder.
Jillian, in the doorjamb, felt the cold air and shivered. She was about to go inside when she saw Harley, now out in the middle of a clearing near the back, stop suddenly, ears cocked forward.
She almost called out to him but held her tongue.
Something in the dog’s intense gaze gave her pause. Her fingers flexed over the handle of the crutch.
Nose in the air, hair bristling on the scruff of his neck, Harley stared intently into the woods.
Sweet Jesus.
Panic spurted through Jillian’s blood.
She hoisted the rifle to her shoulder.
Don’t be paranoid.
The dog growled low in his throat and lowered his head, his tail, too, moving downward.
This was no good.
She’d been around dogs enough to know when they sensed danger.
Harley started moving through the heavy snow, breaking a trail toward a thick copse of pines, where his gaze was centered.
Heart in her throat, rifle aimed at the spot where the dog seemed to be staring, a place on the other side of the pine trees, she stayed close to the building and whistled to the dog, just as she’d heard MacGregor do a dozen times.
The spaniel’s ears didn’t even flick as he advanced, moving awkwardly through the shoulder-deep snow.
“Harley!” she commanded, eyeing him through the sight of the rifle. “Come.”
Was the dog crazy? He was nearly buried.
Still the damned spaniel ignored her. He slipped beneath the first sagging, snow-laden branch of a Ponderosa.
“Damn!” she said under her breath as she clicked off the safety.
The day was clear and still. Sunlight reflecting on the ice, nearly blinding. Not a breath of wind. No birds calling. Just the sound of her own anxious breathing.
She squinted hard. Strained to hear the slightest noise. “Come back,” she mouthed, hoping the dog could hear her.
Don’t freak out. The dog could have seen a squirrel.
Or a deer.
Or a wolf. You read recently where the gray wolf has made a comeback in Montana.
And they travel in packs.
Could tear a domestic dog to bits.
All the spit dried in her mouth.
She’d never in her life been afraid of wild animals, had always thought humans were far more deadly, but now…“Harley, get back here!” she yelled, her one booted foot a little unsteady, the other toes bare in the cold air. “Harley! Come!” Heart thumping wildly she lowered her rifle and made her way to the edge of the porch, eyeing the broken snow where the dog had disappeared.
“Harley!” she called again, her voice echoing off the mountains.
Bam!
A rifle cracked loudly.
“Oh God!”
The dog yelped in pain.
“Harley!” Jillian yelled, her heart clutching. Oh God, now what? She had to go after the poor animal. “Harley!” He could still be alive!
She stepped off the porch before remembering two steps had been buried in the drifts. The rubber tip of her crutch slipped a little, but she steadied herself, then plowed forward along the half-broken path the dog had created.
Who would shoot him?
A hunter mistaking him for a wolf or coyote?
Or…someone who had been lying in wait?
Someone with a dark, deadly purpose.
Someone who had shot out the tire of her car….
Oh God. She forced the gun to her shoulder, licked her lips nervously and, ignoring the cold, pushed onward. She didn’t say a word, listened hard to hear the sound of the dog whining, footsteps or whispered voices—but nothing disturbed the quietude.
At the edge of the copse, she leaned forward, ducking under a branch, a sharp, shooting pain cutting through her abdomen and ribs. This is nuts, Jillian. Go back. What can you do for the poor animal if you do find him? Carry him back to the house? How?
Gritting her teeth, she kept moving forward, trying to be as silent as possible, her heart drumming wildly as she followed the path where, beneath the trees, the snow wasn’t as deep. She heard the tiniest gurgle of a creek, probably nearly frozen, and over that, the distant reverberations of an engine.
MacGregor’s snowmobile?
Oh please.
Using the barrel of her rifle to push aside low-hanging branches, she heard the dog’s whine…he was still alive! And MacGregor was coming. The roar of the snowmobile’s engine was getting closer…or was it?
Come on, MacGregor, get the hell back here.
She stepped around an outcropping of rock and saw the dog, a patch of black and white on the snowy ground. And more. Stains of bright red where blood was matting his coat and seeping from his body into the pristine whiteness of the forest floor.
“Oh, Harley,” she said as he lifted his head. “Oh no, I’m so…”
He wasn’t looking at her.
But at a spot just over her shoulder.
She took one step forward.
His lips pulled back into a hard growl, exposing sharp teeth. From the corner of her eye, Jillian caught a glimpse of movement, a flash.
Fingers tight over the gunstock, she swung.
But it was too late. Her attacker was upon her back, forcing her onto the frozen ground. Jillian squirmed as the sickening sweet smell of a chemical stung her nostrils. There was a flash of a dark, gloved hand mashing into her face, a bare span of scarred wrist catching her eye as the damp rag was forced over her nose and mouth.
Turning her panic to sweet oblivion.
Chapter Eighteen
Crack!
The sound of a rifle’s report ricocheted through the canyons. MacGregor slowed his snowmobile and let the engine idle as he listened.
Had the sound come from the direction of his cabin?
Jillian?
Had she shot the rifle he’d left her?
Or was it someone else?
Hunters?
He felt dread as he hit the gas and headed out toward his home in the mountains. He could be mistaken. The cabin was miles away and it would take him nearly half an hour to reach it.
Don’t let your imagination run wild, he told himself, but couldn’t shake the sensation that something was wrong. The roads near his place were still impassable for even the toughest SUV, snow having drifted deep into crevices and ravines, but once down the mountain a mile and a half, the roads were clearer, with packed snow and sand giving tires some purchase. If he found a way to haul Jillian on a sled pulled by the snowmobile, he could get her out. Or, better yet, he could take the Arctic Cat into town and get help.
The thought wasn’t pleasant. He’d spent the past ten years of his life
avoiding the police, but he might not have a choice. Time was running out; another storm was projected.
He pushed on the throttle and with a roar the Cat took off, skis sliding easily over the snow. Mentally beating himself up, he second-guessed himself about leaving her.
What had been the choice?
He’d wondered what to do with her, hadn’t liked the fact that he was getting used to having her around, that he felt an attraction to her that was just plain stupid. He’d sworn off women long ago; didn’t need one. Didn’t want one.
Then he’d found her trapped in the car, passing out, nearly frozen, and he’d had no choice but to put her in a makeshift sling on poles that he then tied to his rig to drag her to the cabin. He’d gone back for her things, tried to contact the authorities, but then, because the storm had raged so wildly, locked himself in his house with her.
That had been a mistake.
Taking care of her while she slept. Washing and dressing her wounds, warming her body and giving her dry clothes, seeing her naked, all had been his undoing. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t professionally tended women before, but this one…
He guided the snowmobile through the trees and down a hill to the frozen creek bed, now covered in two feet of powder. This was the shortest way back to the cabin, though not the safest, as the terrain was steep and rocky. A few of the boulders peeked through the wide expanse of white.
Sunlight sparkled on the snow, glinting through his tinted goggles. The whole world was shaded in tones of sepia, and so pristine, so isolated, it seemed he was on an uninhabited landscape, like something out of a science-fiction movie.
Trees rushed by as the Arctic Cat strained around a final bend, its engine growling, the drive belt pulling the snowmobile over a final ridge, skis sliding over the icy terrain. He saw the cabin far below this crest. Black smoke curled lazily from the chimney and he felt a little better.
Everything was fine.
It had to be.
He was just rattled because he’d driven to September Creek, to the spot where her mangled Subaru had ended up. The car was long gone, all evidence of it lost in two feet of new snow, but bits of yellow-and-black crime scene tape still caught on a few trees. The police had found her vehicle and were, no doubt, looking for her.
It was time to take her into town.
One way or another.
If he had to rig up the damned sling again.
People would be worried, search parties assembled, the police on alert.
Somehow he would find a way of hauling her into town.
As long as she was all right.
He hit the throttle and tore down the hill, dread chasing after him, a sixth sense telling him that things weren’t as he’d left them.
“The pilot of the chopper thinks he might have found the car,” Grayson said as he clicked off his phone.
Glad for the lead, Pescoli trudged back to her rig, leaving the crime scene investigators to go over every inch of the clearing. Pescoli knew they wouldn’t find anything, but protocol had to be followed.
The dogs had already come up with zero, the broken trail in the snow leading again to an old mining road, one that hadn’t been in use in thirty or forty years. But this guy, the killer, knew all the local roads, every nook and cranny.
A local guy.
Maybe someone she knew? Someone she saw down at Wild Wills having a drink or two, or maybe one of those rabid fathers who coached soccer? She’d met more than her share when Bianca was playing and had watched several of the dads and moms, for that matter, look as if they were going to have an aneurism after what they considered an unfair call against their kid’s team. Then there were always the elders in the local church, the scions of virtue who had a dark undercurrent of evil running beneath their benevolent exterior. Or could the killer be someone she’d booked for a misdemeanor or lesser crime? Perhaps someone with a history of violence?
Deep in thought, Regan climbed behind the wheel of her Jeep. They had already gone through the lists of local men who had been arrested for violent acts, assault, armed robbery and the like over the past five years. They’d pulled in a few men accused of wife battery as well as military marksmen and local hunting experts, but everyone they’d interviewed had come out clean.
Unless they missed something.
Alvarez closed the door to the passenger side and Pescoli wheeled her rig around, following the sheriff’s four-wheel-drive Suburban and thinking.
“Why can’t we find this guy?” Alvarez asked, staring out the windshield as Pescoli adjusted the defroster.
“We will.”
“Yeah, but when? How many other women have to freeze to death?” She was angry as she pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Yeah, this is Alvarez. Any luck?” A pause. “I know it’s the weekend, Marcia, but we’ve got an unidentified dead woman.” Another long pause. “That’s right, A and R.” She rattled off a description of the dead woman and Pescoli’s stomach tightened. “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts someone’s missing her. Check statewide, and if that doesn’t work, northwest. What? Canada? No, not yet. I know we’re close to the border, but so far all the victims are U.S. citizens. Mmm…yeah, okay. Call me if you find out anything.” She hung up as they reached a mountain road that wound down toward the town.
“All the victims and cars were found within a ten-mile radius,” Pescoli said.
“Square that. What do you get? A hundred square miles of mountains, canyons, cliffs and rivers. Rough territory.”
“And someone who knows it well.” Pescoli reached for her cigarettes and ignored the sharp look she got from her partner. “My rig,” she said.
“My lungs.”
“You know, you should loosen up a bit.”
“I don’t work out, eat right and do yoga so that you can pollute my respiratory system.”
“Give it a rest,” Pescoli said, but didn’t light up. She could wait until they were back at the station in the parking lot. Besides, she didn’t have the habit that bad. It was just to help her think….
Her phone rang about the same time the sheriff’s lights and sirens flipped on. She answered. “Pescoli.”
“We’ve got another one.”
“What?”
Alvarez’s head spun toward her, the unspoken question in her eyes.
Grayson said, “Looks like another woman tied to a tree, up near Broken Pine Lodge. The KBIT helicopter found her. I’ve already sent Van Droz up there; she’s the closest road deputy on the road. She should beat us there and secure the scene.”
“Great,” Pescoli said, more worried than ever.
“Another victim?” Alvarez asked.
“Yeah.” Pescoli was nodding, keeping up both conversations, the one with her partner and the one over the phone.
“Is this guy escalating or what?” Alvarez asked, loud enough that Grayson heard her.
“Looks like,” he responded.
“Found by the news copter,” Pescoli clarified, shifting down.
“That’s what I said,” the sheriff said impatiently. “Film at eleven.”
MacGregor stepped into the cabin.
The interior was as still as death, the fire low, a feeling of abandonment in the air. “Jillian?” he called, looking through the few empty rooms, panic slowly inching up his spine.
She was gone.
Plain and simple.
The rifle he’d left with her was gone, and her crutch was missing.
Along with the dog.
“Harley?” His boots rang hollowly against the old floorboards as he walked through the kitchen to the back porch. The uneasy feeling that had been with him ever since hearing the rifle’s report less than an hour earlier increased. He walked to the front porch and whistled long and low, half expecting the black-and-white spaniel to come bounding through the drifts.
Nothing.
“Hell.”
Quickly, he walked through the house to the back porch and cupping his hands around his mouth, yelled, �
�Jillian? Harley?” His own voice echoed through the canyons and he grabbed his rifle and walked the length of the porch. A path was broken in the snow and it led toward the woods.
“Son of a bitch.” What was she thinking? Escaping on foot while she was still laid up?
Maybe she’d been forced.
That thought chilled him to the bone and he replayed the gunshot in his mind.
But the prints in the snow were only of the dog and the crutch and her good boot. No others. There was a chance the dog had taken off after MacGregor, or after a marauding racoon or deer. Jillian might have followed.
Damn, fool woman, he thought, but broke into a trot, following the trail of footsteps, leaning down beneath the overhang of branches as he flushed a rabbit through the undergrowth.
“Harley!” he yelled, whistling. Why would the dog take off?
A pitiful whine whistled through the pines and MacGregor’s blood turned to ice.
Heart thudding, he threw the bolt on his rifle, ready to shoot as he rounded a large boulder and saw his dog, lying on his side in the snow, black-and-white fur matted and stained red. Too much blood had pooled beneath him. Even so, the spaniel gazed up at him, whined and gave one feeble thump of his tail. “Hang on, buddy,” he said, stripping off his jacket and tearing out the lining. He moved the dog onto his jacket and tied the sleeve over his back leg, where a bullet hole gaped. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Son of a goddamned bitch.”
Kneeling beside Harley, he noticed the tracks. Not just Jillian’s but a second set, decidedly larger, heading east, in the direction of an old abandoned sawmill that was over two miles away.
There was no way Jillian could hobble that far.
He hated to abandon the dog but he had no choice.
Jillian Rivers’s life was at stake.
Rifle held in a death grip, defying the cold, following the tracks, Zane MacGregor took off at a dead run.
He only hoped he wasn’t too late.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Brewster stared at the woman who’d been lashed to the tree and looked as if he were about to throw up. Pescoli and Alvarez hurried forward. The scene was nearly identical to the last one, except the naked woman had been cut down from a solitary white pine tree in a small alpine meadow. She was lying on a jacket, her eyes glassy and vacant as they stared upward. Bruises covered her body and her lips were chapped. Deputy Trilby Van Droz worked over her, squatting in the mashed snow around the tree.