by Jen Blood
“The bad news is that my son has already been shot, so he’s wounded,” I said. “Dean may not want to hurt them, but if Bear takes a turn for the worse, I’m guessing they don’t have the facilities to handle something like that.”
“Which is why we’ll work on convincing him to let them go now,” McDonough said. “I’ll do everything in my power to get them back safely—you have my word on that.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to keep doing what I can to make sure it doesn’t come down to that. You really think he’ll return Bear and Ren if we find Ariel?”
“I do,” McDonough said, without a moment’s hesitation. Despite myself, I believed him.
That was all I needed to refocus me on the matter at hand. Melanie Redfield was beyond our help, but Bear and Ren were still very much alive. And maybe Ariel was, too.
I just needed to find her.
#
“You all right?” Cheryl asked as I approached her and Wade, still trying to shake the joint horrors of Melanie’s physical condition and the look of terror on Bear’s face.
“Not really. Thanks for getting Casper, though,” I said to Wade, nodding toward the pit bull. Both Casper and Minion were seated now, looking nearly as shell shocked as I felt.
“Of course. I didn’t do much else good while the whole thing was going on, I figured the least I could do was make sure the damn dog didn’t get killed trying to get away.”
“There wasn’t anything you could have done,” Cheryl said. I nodded, but didn’t have it in me to voice my agreement. “Wasn’t your place, anyway,” she continued. “The goddamn Feds are the ones who brought this whole thing here.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, slick with sweat and rainwater. Tried to think up a coherent thought. Cheryl looked at me reluctantly.
“I know you need to pull the other teams from the field,” I told her before she had to break the bad news. “You can’t have them out there with a killer on the loose. I’ll keep working, and maybe you could work something from inside HQ, if you don’t mind.”
The thought was terrifying to me. It was already absurd when we had ten teams covering twenty thousand acres. How the hell was I supposed to do it alone?
“I’m not working inside HQ,” Cheryl said immediately. “To hell with that. Are you nuts? I’ll check in with my teams, but I’m willing to bet there’s not many that’ll be heading home now.”
“Melanie was murdered—“ I began.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Cheryl said. “Trust me, I saw the body. But whoever the sick son of a bitch was who did that, he’s not coming anywhere near a team of two handlers and two strong, healthy dogs with great big healthy dog teeth. He might be crazy, but the man probably isn’t dumb.”
“I don’t want you or your people putting yourselves in danger—”
“That’s our call,” Wade cut me off. “Cheryl’s right. Nobody’s gonna jump a SAR team, and I’m definitely not sitting this thing out.”
“I’m with him,” Cheryl said. “Like I said, I’ll give my handlers the option of getting out of here, but I’m not hanging up my hat till we find this girl.”
“Thank you,” I said. A wave of emotion ran through me, made that much more powerful by fatigue and fear. I let myself drown in it for a beat, then pulled back, took stock, and tried to figure out where to begin. I didn’t like where the thought led me:
I would need to call Ren’s father. God, I didn’t want to make that phone call. If I didn’t tell him, though, how long would it be before the press aired the whole story? I couldn’t let him find out that way.
“I need to make a couple of calls,” I said. “Then I’d like to get back out there.”
“I’ll meet up with my guys, let them know the score,” Cheryl said. Casper shifted on his haunches, his gaze fixed on the patch of woods where Bear had last been seen. “When do you want to head out again?”
“You’re sure about this?”
“Have you ever known me to do anything I wasn’t sure of?” she countered. A good point. Cheryl might be a lot of things, but pushover is definitely not one of them.
“In that case, as soon as possible,” I said. “With Melanie in the state she was and Ariel most likely tied to her before she escaped, we have to assume she wasn’t in the best shape when she got away. I’m not sure how far she would have gotten. We’ll use this as the starting point from here on out, and expand from here. I want a grid pattern with a radius of at least ten square miles.”
I was at the tail end of the spiel before I remembered this wasn’t my search. I glanced at Cheryl.
“Sounds good,” she agreed without hesitation. “Let me talk to my people, see what they say. I’ll let you know from there who we have to work with.”
I surveyed the land around us. The incline wasn’t bad here, but it steepened just a few yards north-northeast of us. What did I know about this girl?
Sixteen years old. No hiking clothing or gear with her. Dressed in… I thought back to what Claude had told us originally. Melanie had been in heels or some kind of ‘girly’ shoes, but, according to him, Ariel was wearing boots. Dean had said she worked out daily; that she loved CrossFit. She was used to challenging herself, then.
“What are you thinking?” Cheryl asked.
“I’m not sure, but I’ve got a feeling she’d go in the toughest direction she could find,” I said. “Even if she’s injured… She wants to survive. She’s fighting her ass off to do it—did you see how much blood was on those ropes? Once she was free, she would choose a direction she thought the killer would have the hardest time following.”
“Up the mountain?” Wade asked.
“Assuming the killer doesn’t have her already, I think so. That’s our best bet of finding her.”
Finding her alive, however, was something else. She might have been fighting for her life, but Melanie’s body had been here for at least a few hours—rigor had already set in. That was more than enough time for the killer to have caught up with Ariel, wherever she might be.
“It’s a lot of area to cover,” Cheryl noted.
“We don’t have any choice,” I said. “We each take a partner and we use the dogs to the best of our ability. Phantom’s had a rough day—she’ll need to sit things out initially. I’ll rotate her, Casper, and Minion as needed, though.”
“What about you?” Cheryl asked. “I know this is dire, but you’ll need to do a little rotating yourself.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I just want to get out there.”
Cheryl nodded, her jaw set and her eyes stormy. “Then let’s do it.”
* * *
Chapter 10
I GOT PHANTOM and Minion settled at the little motel where Rita Paulsen had booked our rooms, made the dreaded call to Ren’s father, then grabbed a protein bar in lieu of dinner and was headed back out to hit the trail by six o’clock that evening. I’d already lost an hour since Bear had been shot and he and Ren carted away; I couldn’t spare another minute of daylight. Casper was squirrelly beside me, still understandably shaken by everything that had happened. I just hoped he could pull it together enough to do his job tonight.
As I approached headquarters that evening, the place was a swarm of SUVs with government plates, cop cars, and pickups and still more SUVs with the Vermont Forest Service logo. I noticed Jack standing by the white van with the blond reporter—Angie—and felt an unexpected surge of resentment when I saw her laugh at something he’d said. At sight of me, he said something to her and a moment later jogged across the parking lot toward me.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked, stopping me at the bottom of the steps to the church.
“I don’t have time,” I said. “I need to get out there. I’ve lost too much time already. I’m just here to check in with Cheryl, then I’m headed out to start looking again.” I started up the steps, but Jack stuck close to my heels.
“Without a partner? I thought you and Ch
eryl were working together.”
“She has to manage the other searchers right now, make sure everyone knows what’s going on.”
“Then I’ll go with you,” he said immediately.
I paused at the door of the church. “Don’t you have other things you need to do?”
His jaw tensed, and I got the sense I’d struck a nerve. “No. Right now, my job is helping find Ariel, and keeping you safe.”
“I can take care of myself—” I started, but then caught myself. Much as I hated to admit it, I knew he was right: the buddy system has lasted as long as it has for a reason. I was putting my dog and myself at risk by being stubborn—not to mention the fact that I was losing valuable daylight by arguing.
“Fine,” I said. “Get your gear, and I’ll check in with Cheryl, see where she wants me.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “Meet you back here in ten?” I nodded. He hesitated. “Don’t leave without me, okay?” I caught the anxiety in his voice, and paused despite myself.
“Why would I leave without you?” I asked. “I just said we’re going out together.”
“Past experience says some people”—based on the way he said it, I knew by ‘people’ he meant ‘women’—“can be impulsive.”
“I do what makes sense, Jack,” I said. “And I know this job. Going out in the woods alone makes no sense. Now, will you please go already?”
This time, he went.
Eight minutes later, I had my marching orders and headed out with Jack by my side, Casper tugging eagerly at his leash. We loaded into an SUV provided by the FBI, Jack behind the wheel, and I instructed him to head back as close as we could get to the site where Melanie had been found. We’d hike in the rest of the way.
“How are you holding up?” Jack asked as soon as we were under way.
“I’m all right,” I said. The words came out stiff, stilted. He glanced at me.
“I really am sorry about this—” he began. “I had no idea…”
That resentment I’d felt before swelled again. I kept my eyes on the road ahead of us, my hands clenched into fists. “What the hell is going on, Jack?” The words came out harsher than I’d intended, and I realized I’d been holding them in too long. “Who were all those people out there today? If you thought this was dangerous—”
“I didn’t,” he said immediately. Rain came down in sheets against the windshield, and his hands were tight on the wheel to keep us on the road. The anguish in his voice was too real for me not to believe him. “I don’t know who those people were. As far as I knew, Barrett brought up some tradesmen to work on a project he had in mind to make some money up on the mountain. Dean has always been a peaceful man. There were some domestic issues, and the ongoing trouble he had with the IRS. I swear, there’s never been any reason to think he would resort to this.”
It was agonizingly slow going on the road thanks to the mud and the torrential rains, the horizon getting darker with each passing minute. In the back of the SUV, Casper whined from his crate. Between the two of us, I didn’t know who was more eager to get on the trail.
“You’ve implied a couple of times that there’s something you can’t tell me about this situation,” I said. If we had to be here, I might as well take advantage of the situation to get whatever information I could gather. “You’re sure what’s going on with Dean now has nothing to do with that?”
“I’m positive,” he said quickly. After a second’s hesitation, though, he continued. “I told you that Gordon was my mentor in the FBI.”
“Yes,” I said, and waited for him to continue. We were approaching the point where we would have to pull over and begin hiking in. I took a mental inventory of what we’d need, wishing to God the damned rain would slow.
“He was a good agent,” Jack continued. “Well liked, and held in high regard throughout the Bureau. Great with the political side of things that I’m not so good at. I liked him. More than that, I respected him.”
“And what happened?” I asked.
“There were a group of agents who used to run together. Gordon and a few other guys.”
“The good-old-boys network,” I said.
He pulled off the road and looked grimly at the darkened sky and pounding rain around us. “You could say that.”
“Dean said he was done keeping your secrets. What was he talking about?”
He sighed. While he was fighting with his damned conscience, I pulled my hood up, put on my gloves, and opened the door. For a second, the wind and the rain knocked my breath away. I went to the back of the SUV, opened the hatchback, and studied Casper.
“You sure you want to do this, boy?” I asked him.
His tail whipped against the bars of his wire crate as he whined at me. I didn’t know whether he had any idea what we were out here for, but his answer was clear. Hell, yeah. Let’s get out there.
Jack joined me at the back while I was securing Casper’s harness and raingear. “The higher-ups at the FBI have made it very clear,” he said. “I could lose my job if I say anything.”
“Yeah, well, I could lose my kid if you don’t,” I said, the words dripping with bitterness. Casper hopped down from the back of the SUV. “You make the call.”
I stalked off without another word, my head bowed against the rain. Jack had to run to catch up with me.
“Would you hang on?” he called after me. He struggled to tighten his hood against the water in what I knew was a losing battle: we could be wrapped in a waterproof tarp cinched with duct tape, and there was still no way we were staying dry out here. “We’re supposed to be doing this together.”
Right. I gave Casper a little slack on the leash and headed off road and down the trail back to the crime scene. Jack stepped up his pace and caught up quickly. When I glanced at him, I caught a flash of frustration in his eyes as he continued alongside me.
“There were complaints filed against Gordon and the other guys he ran with,” he said, his voice raised to be heard over the weather.
“What kind of complaints?”
“Sexual misconduct.” We reached a particularly steep grade, topsoil gone and the rocks loose around us. I slipped and lost my footing for just a second, and felt Jack’s hand at my elbow. He pulled me up before I hit the ground. “I’ve got you,” he said. The look in his eye made me pause. I pulled away once I was on even ground again.
“Thanks,” I said. “You were saying?”
He nodded. “I was married at the time—happy with Lucia, happy with my life. I had no idea what was going on with them… There were rumors circulating, though, that some of the guys would go out in the field and find hookers, have these parties.”
“And Gordon was one of the guys who did this?”
“Gordon, and maybe six or seven other guys. I don’t know all the names, just a few of them. Some of the agents were demoted. Others fired. But the Bureau kept everything quiet, swept it under the rug as best they could.”
“Until Gordon’s sisters turned up sexually brutalized and murdered,” I said.
“A couple of months before that,” Jack said, his focus on the trail ahead of us now, “Rita—Agent Paulsen—had brought to light another series of murders we hadn’t been aware of. Four cases where women had been murdered over the past ten years. Prostitutes from around the country. Raped, mutilated, and killed. Each time, the bodies were found in pairs—tied together with box string, made to watch while the killer worked on the first victim, then moved on to them.”
I thought of the rope around Melanie Redfield’s wrists; the empty loops where Ariel had been bound to her.
“And she told you she thought Gordon had done this?” I asked.
“I didn’t believe it at first,” Jack said. “There was no denying Gordon was connected to the women, though—some, long before the other guys were involved in the sex ring. Finally, when I’d worked every angle I could think of, I went to Gordon and asked him about it.”
“And what did he say?” I asked, drawn in d
espite myself.
“He didn’t deny the connection—by then the investigation into the whole unit’s activities was in full swing. Gordon told me this was better left in the past, though. That the women’s deaths were a tragedy, but it wasn’t like they had anyone looking for them. We had better things to do with our time.”
“And that didn’t strike you as a little cold?”
“Of course it did,” he said, a sharpness to his tone I hadn’t heard before. “But Gordon could be that way sometimes. I kept digging, and ultimately couldn’t find a single credible alibi to get him off the hook. Not only that, but Gordon had been staying within an hour of each of the crime scenes at the times of death. Logistically, he could have gotten there; he could have done it.”
“And then this thing with his sisters happened,” I said.
“Right,” he agreed.
“Do you think he could be innocent?” I asked.
“I didn’t then,” he said. “But Rita’s been working on this for a while…” He trailed off. I looked at him in surprise.
“Agent Paulsen? You just said she was the one who turned him in, though.”
Jack nodded. “All the more reason for her to want to make things right if he didn’t do it. The two have a history, so I’m not sure how much that plays into how intent she is on this now.”
“A history?”
“They were married,” he said, much to my surprise.
Before I could press for more details, I saw the staging lights, tarp, and evidence markers that indicated we were approaching the crime scene. Techs in bright orange raingear were hard at work, but Melanie’s body had already been taken.
“How do you want to handle this?” Jack asked me. “Where do you want me?”
“Just keep up,” I said. Cheryl had called the other search teams in to headquarters, where they were being briefed on what was happening. From there, they would decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to keep searching. Given the weather and the fact that a homicidal maniac was on the loose, I wasn’t optimistic that they’d be joining me. That meant Casper and I got first dibs on the route we wanted to take, though.