Last Girl Gone

by J. G. Hetherton

  Jasmine nodded, went into the kitchen, came back with a glass of water. “What will you do?”

  “Maybe go around town, telling everyone ‘I told you so.’”

  “Don’t joke. Not now.”

  Laura blinked, an idea forming in her mind. “I meant what I said. Fuller is going to insist Hobbes committed those other two murders alone, and Hobbes is already dead. That means the Samantha Powell investigation starts whenever she went missing. No one is going to be looking for the connections. No one is going to be working backwards.”

  “No one but you,” Jasmine said. She sighed. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  * * *

  “Timinski,” a voice said.

  It startled her. She’d expected to leave a message. “Tim, it’s me.”

  “Laura.” He paused, and she could feel that penetrating stare even over the phone. “You okay?”

  She laughed, but it came out strange sounding, almost strangled. “He’s taken another one.”

  “Not every missing girl is connected to Teresa Mitchem.”

  “When I get their ear in the mail, I’d say it’s connected.”

  He let out a breath.

  “Have you been getting my messages?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “But you’ve been avoiding them.”

  “Not at all. You have to understand, I’m busy out here in the district.”

  “Right, you’re in the capital now.”

  “In the Hoover building,” he said, and she could hear the trace of pride in his voice. “It’s a big promotion, but they’re working me like a dog. I don’t have much free time.”

  “You make it sound like a hobby. Like we’re playing Chinese checkers instead of trying to catch a killer.”

  There was a long pause. “Is it safe to be talking like this?”

  “I’m not recording our conversation, if that’s what you’re asking. I wouldn’t do that to you. Besides, I’m the one with the information this time.”

  “Hold on.” She could hear the scrape of a chair, other voices getting louder and then fading away. A door slamming shut. “What do you have?”

  She ran down her special delivery with as much detail as possible. “I can’t let sleeping dogs lie, Tim. I’m sorry, but I need your help again. Plus, you owe me.”

  He let out a breath. “I did, Laura. I did owe you. But I gave you what you asked for, the entire damn case file. Even though it could have cost me my job.”

  “And did I write up a story and auction it off to the highest bidder? Did I?” Her voice had risen to a yell.

  “No,” Timinski said, “you didn’t. But the Bureau doesn’t plan to make any of that stuff public. The case is closed, and they’d prefer it stay that way.”

  “Everyone seems to agree on that. Just help me, Tim. Alive or dead, I’m going to find this one. We owe the girl that much.”

  She waited, listening to the hiss of the open phone line and the pounding of her heart in equal measure.

  “All right,” he said finally. “I can make you an offer.”

  “What kind?”

  “The crime scene at the cabin is finally being released tomorrow. Everything of forensic value was bagged and tagged a long time ago. I was the lead investigator, so I’m going up there tomorrow morning with a few evidence techs to claim the last few things worth saving. Once everyone else leaves, we could walk through the place.”

  “Together?”

  “Together,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  26

  LAURA WOKE WELL before dawn. It wasn’t much trouble. She rarely managed to sleep more than a few hours these days.

  She dressed warmly, threading on long johns under wool pants, a thick navy turtleneck, and her sheepskin coat. Into a backpack she stuffed a black watch cap, fleece-lined leather work gloves, a blanket, a large bottle of water, trail mix, a compass, a map, a camera with extra rolls of film, a pair of binoculars, a walkie-talkie, and a thermos of hot coffee. She slung it over her shoulder, tiptoed out of the house, and started driving.

  * * *

  Three and a half hours later, with the Dart parked well off the road, she maneuvered herself into the exact spot where she and Leon Botton had hidden six months earlier. Hunkered down, she made a place to sit with her back against the tree. Then she waited.

  Dawn was a long time coming. According to the tables, sunrise came a little after seven this time of year. In her calculations, however, she had forgotten about the mountains themselves. It was difficult to say exactly when the sun would claw its way above the far ridgeline. So she waited, teeth chattering, occasionally poking her head up and then staring down into the darkness.

  There was nothing to see, which only fired her imagination. Again and again she played the scene out in her head. Frank drives up, she watches him click off his dome light and climb out, closing the door quietly. Should she shout? Should she warn him?

  About what?

  She’d seen nothing so far, just a creepy, abandoned cabin. No other cars. No other people. And if anything, Frank’s greatest tactical advantage had been the element of surprise. Shouting would ruin that. No, she couldn’t have told Frank anything he didn’t know already.

  She nodded to herself. In her mind’s eye, the scene faded away. She’d played it out like that a thousand times, and each time she reached the same conclusions: there was nothing she could have done.

  But it was no comfort, none at all. Worse, it made her feel helpless, an emotion she detested.

  A new picture snapped into focus. Her first instinct was to squeeze her eyes shut. It would do no good. In front of her, in the darkness, she watched the ground open up like a gate to hell and then he rose out of it like a demon. Floating across the ground. Death in the shape of a man.

  Laura drank some coffee and tried to relax. Her teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.

  Snap.

  Off to the left, something moved. It sounded like it was ambling along the ridgeline, coming right at her.

  She fumbled for the Browning in her pocket, realized it wasn’t there. It was evidence; the police had never returned it.

  The popping and cracking of leaves and branches got steadily louder as the thing approached through the dark.

  She shrunk down against the tree, making herself as small as possible. Her teeth were still chattering. She reached up and clamped her own jaw shut, then held it in place.

  The snaps picked up pace. Whatever it was, it was running now. It was running right toward the tree.

  Her eyes rolled wildly in their sockets, trying to catch even the smallest glimpse of the coming danger, desperate for an ounce of light.

  There was nothing but blackness.

  Her hands tore through the surrounding dirt, looking for a stick, a rock, anything to defend herself, but she came up empty-handed.

  It crashed through the underbrush and stood before her. She could see it now. It was him, dressed all in black. More than that: he was made of darkness. His hands were shadows, his face a black hole. He reached for her.

  She screamed and—

  —snapped upright, the scream dying into a strangled cough. Sunlight streamed through the branches overhead. Birds chirped.

  A dream.

  She cursed her own weakness. What if he had been up here, waiting for her? The police really had taken the Browning, and so far they’d refused to give it back. And here she was, asleep. Vulnerable. Another part of her was almost impressed. The nature of the dream hinted at her secret fear, but on the other hand, she’d come up to the cabin, at night and alone, and despite everything had somehow drifted off.

  What would Dr. DeVane—that’s how she thought of her in circumstances like this, not as her friend Jasmine but as Dr. DeVane—think of this? Past all the usual therapeutic bullshit, she was one of the most practical people Laura had ever met.

  Laura would say, “What does it mean?”

  And Dr. DeVane would f
ix her with that look of hers and say, “It means you’re not getting nearly enough rest.”

  Laura shook her head and almost smiled. She moved onto her knees and then into a crouch. Slowly, she rose up to the lip of the bowl and peered down through the binoculars.

  Everything looked different in the morning.

  The position faced east; the sun was directly in her eyes. She blinked furiously and looked again. The scene below was about as nonthreatening as she could ever have imagined. The cabin could have been part of a photo shoot for Life Magazine. It sat under the clear blue sky like a sun worshiper on a beach, quiet and relaxed. The pines shone green, and a small stream she hadn’t noticed the first time trickled down the bowl to her left and meandered behind the cabin. Even the goddamn birds were chirping.

  The other main difference was the two large black vans with FBI painted on the side in that characteristic yellow. People wearing windbreakers with the same logo on the back milled about. Two of them leaned against one van, sipping coffees and laughing. Another two moved in and out of the cabin, loading small plastic boxes into the back.

  It felt almost domestic. They could have been surveyors or utility contractors. Nothing hinted at the nature of their work. They were packaging evidence from acts so inhuman they had captivated a national audience for months, but based on body language they could have been chatting at the water cooler.

  She shivered and pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders.

  Timinski emerged from the cabin in a white dress shirt with the collar unbuttoned, a heavy-looking plastic container held in front of him. She’d never seen him without a jacket and tie, let alone with his sleeves rolled up over his forearms. Over the next three hours, he and the other agents filled both vans with plastic evidence containers. Finished, they pulled the doors shut and drove down the road to the entrance of the bowl. A temporary metal gate had been erected soon after the cabin’s discovery. Using simple hand tools, they disassembled it and loaded the pieces into a small trailer, then backed one van up and attached the trailer to its hitch.

  Timinski walked over and said something to the driver of the leading van. The driver produced a clipboard. Timinski signed, and then the vans bumped down the road and disappeared from sight.

  Timinski went back to his car and pulled something out from the passenger seat. He spoke into it.

  “Shit,” Laura said, and scrambled to get her bag open. She dug to the bottom and pulled out the walkie-talkie. It was the exact brand he’d told her to buy. She twisted the volume knob, turning it on, and clicked over to the agreed-upon channel.

  “—ome in, over.”

  She worked the button. “Tim, can you hear me? I’m here.”

  “Where’s here?”

  Below, he shielded his eyes and scanned the western edge of the bowl.

  “Here.” She stood and raised both arms above her head.

  The walkie crackled to life. “I see you now. Is that where you were six months ago?”

  She nodded, even though he probably couldn’t see that. “Yes, exactly here.”

  “Okay. I’m coming up.”

  He put his walkie into a pocket and started across the floor of the bowl. By the time he reached the edge of the lip, a slight sheen of sweat clung to stubble on his chin and upper lip. He extended his arm, flashed her a smile. She reached down and took his hand, then pulled him up to the top.

  “Good to see you, Laura.”

  “Good to see you too,” she said, and it wasn’t just a pleasantry. Timinski had kept her in the loop, and he’d never blamed her for what had happened to Frank Stuart. It was nice to look someone in the eye and see them staring back without that familiar expression, half accusations and half pity.

  “You look good,” she said, and grinned.

  “Bullshit,” he said, but he grinned back, his thick eyebrows making it funnier somehow. His eyes sported large dark circles, and he was thinner than she remembered.

  “You doing okay?” she asked.

  He seemed to know what she meant. “DC isn’t exactly the cherry I thought it would be.”

  “Thought they’d just put you out to pasture.”

  “You and me both.”

  A thought occurred to her. “Is it because of me? Of what happened with Hobbes?”

  He shrugged. “Even if it was, they’d never say it out loud. I don’t know—he’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “And that’s enough?”

  Timinski shrugged again.

  Together, they walked through the entire incident again, recreating Laura’s statement in the flesh. From their perch, she pointed out the shed’s roof and the spot where the man in black had risen from the ground and moved toward the cabin. They climbed down together. Laura marveled at the terrain she had covered. The pitch was over thirty degrees in places, strewn with rocks and rotten logs. How had she managed to avoid breaking an ankle?

  The cabin had a shiny new hasp and padlock. Timinski unlocked it and they walked through the hall, into the first bedroom, then out through the back. Here Laura paused. A slice of air, razor sharp, caught in her throat and for a second she couldn’t breathe.

  Timinski hung back. He didn’t bother telling her to calm down, or that it would all be all right, and for that she liked him even more. He gave her a moment to recover, then walked past her without mentioning the moment of panic.

  He pointed to the tree nearest the back door. “It happened here?”

  “Yes, he was already leaned up against it by the time I made it out here. He was already—”

  “We don’t have to get into the gory details.” He grimaced. “Sorry, poor choice of words.” He walked away without waiting for a response and poked his head into the shed.

  “There was a lock on it,” Laura called over. “New hasp, new padlock. But they found the padlock sitting inside the door.”

  “I know. They also didn’t find any evidence that there was a person being kept in there.”

  Laura clasped her hands together. “Define kept. I’m not suggesting Hobbes was confined here for any extended period of time, just that the real killer put him in here before Frank or I showed up.”

  “The real killer.” Timinski spoke the words like he had a mouth full of pudding. “Fuller isn’t going to like that.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “Not personally, but I made some calls yesterday on my way to the airport. He’s boxing us out.”

  “He doesn’t want the FBI’s help?”

  “He’s claiming there’s only a thin circumstantial connection between Hobbes and Samantha Powell. The modus operandi is similar, but the story about the ear was in all the papers. Anyone could have joined the party.”

  “People won’t believe it.”

  He shook his head. “The official position is that Hobbes killed those girls in 1988, and they’re not questioning the fact that he killed Olive Hanson and Teresa Mitchem. And Hobbes is dead; that’s the one thing everyone knows for sure. How could he have taken Samantha Powell?”

  “That’s exactly my point!” Laura slapped one hand into her open palm. “He didn’t take her, ergo there’s someone else. One man, that’s all it would take. One man to take Hobbes, to hide him, to kill Frank, to yank Hobbes out and pull the trigger on the shotgun.”

  “Fuller’s circling the wagons. There’s no evidence the Powell girl’s been taken across state lines, so the FBI can’t get involved unless he requests it. Privately in the law enforcement community, he’s saying it’s not related and stressing the need for discretion. I think he’s afraid it might start a panic.”

  “It damn well should.”

  “And there’s something else. He got your boss to go along with it, and he says Bass agreed not to print anything for the time being.”

  Laura clenched her hands into fists. “He didn’t even need to get a gag order.”

  “You should cut Bass some slack. He must have been pretty shook up.”

  She ground her teeth together,
nodded once. “It scared him.”

  “Fuller used that. He’s using it on the Powell family, too, telling them that keeping things quiet is the best way to get Samantha back.”

  She put a hand on his chest and stopped him in his tracks. His flat blue eyes were as unreadable as ever, but he raised one thick eyebrow at her. “Forget the official position,” she said. “What do you think?”

  He took a step back from her. “I think Sheriff Fuller cares a lot more about appearances than he does clearing cases.”

  “I take it he doesn’t have your vote.”

  A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “No ma’am, he does not.”

  Laura looked down at the carpet of dead leaves. “I was on the ground right here, blind and deaf from taking a near shotgun blast, and I was right inside that hallway when I heard the shotgun discharge once, which must have been Hobbes getting his head blown off. I open the door and immediately get peppered with buckshot. Luckily someone shortened the barrel of the shotgun, otherwise it would have killed me. So if Hobbes was already dead, who shot at me?”

  Timinski shrugged. “You’re the only witness. If you want to convince anyone, you’re going to need evidence beyond your statement. Accept it.”

  “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” He chewed his lip. “Techs have been all over this place for months.”

  “But they weren’t looking for a third man.”

  Timinski kicked at the dead leaves with the tip of his loafer. “No, they weren’t,” he conceded.

  “Do you really think Hobbes climbed that ridgeline above Olive Hanson’s body?”

  “We never found any proof those cigarette butts belonged to the same person who killed her.”

  “Except the phone call I got.”

  “That you got,” he said, emphasis on the you.

  “So what do you think? Come on, be blunt.”

  He took a deep breath and blew it out, looked up at the tops of the pine trees swaying in a breeze too high to reach them. “No, it doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “Damn straight.”

  He held up a hand, cutting her off. “Let me finish. What you have to understand is, it never sits right. I’ve worked at least a hundred cases in my time, and here’s what I’ve learned: there are always loose ends. Always. That’s just life. Life is messy and imperfect. I used to have a reputation among investigators as a bloodhound. I could sniff out a lie. We’d get called in on a woman killed in a supposed break-in. That kind of thing, you always look to the husband. But how do you separate the killers from the grieving widowers?”