by Jen Blood
Once we were as close to the crime scene as possible, I crouched and let Casper get a good whiff of the T-shirt I’d gotten from Dean before I put it back in the plastic bag. “Find her, Caz,” I said, infusing the words with as much enthusiasm as possible. I gave the dog enough slack that he could choose his direction at will, and nodded forward. “Go on, buddy. Find her!”
For a second, the pit bull simply stood there with his nose in the air, rain pouring down on his head and into his eyes. I had a moment of panic: conditions were too bad for us to look. There was no way he could pick up a scent in weather like this. No way he would even want to. That thought lasted only seconds before Casper’s gaze focused on the incline behind us—the one I’d told Cheryl was my best bet as to where Ariel may have headed after she’d escaped.
I remained still, trying not to inadvertently lead Casper rather than letting his nose do the work. He hesitated one more second, no more, before he bounded forward. His lead rope was almost jerked from my hand, but I held on tight. I gave chase, Jack close on my heels.
Casper had the scent.
#
For more than two hours, we followed Casper on a blind tear up the mountainside in the rain. It was almost nine o’clock when we crested yet another peak, Casper half-dragging me this time. I struggled to keep up, my body numb from the cold and the damp. Jack had fallen silent beside me, never complaining despite the conditions. Now, though, he came to life, sensing Casper’s excitement.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I called back over my shoulder. Casper’s nose was everywhere now, his body wriggling, head weaving as he moved. The woods had thinned up here, not enough that we had a view of any kind, particularly in the near-dark and driving rain, but I at least didn’t feel like the trees were closing in on me.
Casper charged on, practically dragging me into an old maple tree, its trunk mangled on one side. Then, he stopped short. Sniffed at the tree. Paused. His gaze shifted, so he was looking straight up. My heart stopped when he sounded his alert: two clear, sharp barks.
“Ariel?” I called.
No answer. Jack stepped up beside me with his flashlight and trained the beam into the foliage above us.
“You think she’s here?” he asked.
I looked at Casper, the dog completely focused above. “Something’s up there. I don’t know if it’s her or not, but he thinks it is.”
I handed the leash off to Jack, got out my headlamp, shed my raincoat for better mobility, and reached for the lowest branch.
“Hang on—what are you doing?” Jack asked. “We should radio, get someone up here.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “But if Ariel is up there, I’m not waiting.”
“What if it’s someone else?”
I shook my head without hesitation. “Casper wouldn’t have alerted if it were someone else. Just make the call,” I said. “I’ll be careful.”
Without another word, I pulled myself up to the first branch. It was actually a good climbing tree, the branches strong and well-spaced, the trunk itself solid.
“Ariel, if you’re up here,” I called, “my name is Jamie Flint. I’m with search and rescue. I’m here to help you.”
No response. I tipped my head and the light from my headlamp cast eerie patterns on the leaves around me. I fought to breathe through a sudden bout with claustrophobia.
“Cheryl and Wade said to mark this spot, they’ll come back at first light,” Jack called up to me. “What’s going on—what do you see?”
“Leaves,” I said dryly. I pushed another branch aside, hanging on tight as I stood on the wet branch beneath. The smell of rain and damp wood was strong, and through the foliage I could just make out the path Casper had just blazed through the woods. A gust of wind rocked the tree, and my boot slid on the branch beneath. I clutched at the trunk, my breath knocked loose.
What the hell was I doing?
Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of red on the ground below. I turned my head, still holding tight to the tree.
Fifteen feet below stood a girl in a red sweater—her hair in a neat pageboy, her clothing immaculate. Perfectly dry.
“Jack,” I called. It was useless, though—I knew even as I asked the question. “Do you see anyone on the path behind you? About ten feet back?”
The question was met with silence, for a second or more. Then: “I don’t see anything. Seriously, Jamie—come down.”
I didn’t move, my gaze locked on the girl in the sweater. I was exhausted, I knew. Half delirious with worry and cold and fatigue.
There was no one there.
The girl seemed to fade into the darkness for a moment, as though some inner light had faded. Then, I watched her turn and walk away—back down the path. When she was out of sight, I came to, realizing I was still in the tree—frozen there, with no idea why I was here.
Casper had alerted at this tree, though.
Why?
I looked around, my body shaking now from the strain of my muscles being tensed this long. And then, farther out on the branch I was standing on, I saw it:
A piece of black fabric, drenched from the rain but clinging there like it had a mind, a will, of its own.
I lowered myself so that I was seated on the branch, then straddled it. Then, I leaned forward with my body wrapped around, and pulled myself forward.
“What’s happening, Jamie?” Jack called up to me. The beam from his flashlight hit me in the face. “What the hell are you doing?”
“There’s something on the branch,” I called down.
He told me to wait for someone else, but I ignored him. Someone would have to do this—it might as well be me. And I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to find out what this was. I pulled myself another inch. And another. The fabric was almost within reach now, but not quite. It looked like a T-shirt. I reached forward one more inch.
The branch cracked beneath me.
“Jamie!” Jack shouted. Casper’s high-pitched bark split the air. I froze. Thought of Bear and Ren; the look on Bear’s face when he realized he’d been hit. The cry of pain. This wasn’t me; I’m reasonable. I do things the way they’re supposed to be done.
So why the hell was I fifteen feet in the air, clinging to a maple branch just so I could get hold of a T-shirt that most likely wouldn’t get us any closer to finding the girl I needed to find?
I took a breath. Closed my eyes. Felt the world still around me, as the thought of Bear’s face came to me once more. At ten months old, clinging to our old Newfoundland as he took his first steps. Babbling to field mice. Communicating with a world I couldn’t reach—a world few even believe exists.
I moved forward one more inch, until my fingers touched the fabric wrapped around the branch. I held on tight through another gust of wind, then worked the fabric loose until it was in my hand.
Slowly, painfully, I made my way back to the ground.
Jack took my hand when I reached the last branch and held on as I jumped to the ground. Casper leaped up to greet me; I held tight to the dog, still shaking, and handed the T-shirt to Jack.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I shook my head, stomach rolling, and turned away to gulp a little fresh air and revel in the beauty of the solid ground beneath my feet.
“What is it?” I asked him, waving toward the fabric.
He unwadded it carefully, and came out with a torn black T-shirt with the words BE THE BEAST WITHIN across the front. It was drenched, but still stiff with blood.
As Jack examined it, something fell from the sleeve to the ground below. Casper was on it immediately, but took a step back at my sharp, “Leave it!”
I knelt, and examined the items sparkling in the mud.
Two gold chains, and a single silver band.
“A purity ring?” I asked Jack.
He crouched beside me, studied it briefly, and nodded.
“So she did get away,” I said. Relief warred with the di
sappointment still rocking me at the realization that we hadn’t found her.
“It looks that way,” Jack agreed. The question was, where was she now?
I looked at Casper. His eyes were still bright, tail wagging, but he’d been going too long today as it was. Bear would do me in himself if I ruined his dog by working him too hard. I noted our location on the GPS, and Jack looked at me in surprise.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“We need to go back,” I said. Just saying the words broke something inside me. “Just for a few hours. It will take some time to get back to base, and we both need food. Rest. Casper needs to get dried off, rubbed down, and put to bed.”
“That sounds good,” Jack murmured. As soon as the words were out, he looked at me in alarm. If he hadn’t been filthy and half hidden under his hood, I’m sure I would have seen him blush. “Sorry—that wasn’t supposed to be out loud.”
I fought a smile, and shrugged. “It does sound pretty good, actually.” Our eyes met. Now I was the one blushing. I ran my hand across my dripping forehead and looked away before the tension got any thicker.
“Uh—here,” Jack said, handing me my jacket. “I think the rain’s slowed, but you’ll still need this.”
“Right,” I agreed. “Thanks.”
Casper knocked his blocky head against my hand and whined impatiently—a reminder that he was still here and, as yet, hadn’t been rewarded for his find.
We played a quick, half-hearted game of tug as we descended the mountain, but my mind was back on the conversation I’d had with Jack earlier. I thought of the sex scandal he’d mentioned before; of the secrets Dean swore he was done keeping.
“You said you worked with Dean’s brother for two years,” I said to Jack, calling back over my shoulder.
“That’s right,” Jack said.
“It seems like the one person who should know anything about this would be Gordon Redfield,” I said. “Am I wrong about that? I mean, he was the one who supposedly committed the original crimes in the first place.”
“I already thought of that,” Jack said. I heard tension in his voice, and thought of the anger I’d seen earlier when I’d asked if he had anything to do.
“So?” I said. “Where is he? Are you going?”
“He’s in a prison in Texas,” he said. “Because he was a federal agent, he was too well-known to be held anywhere around here. They found a facility that’s been all right, apparently.”
“Why aren’t you going there?” I pressed. “Either the original killer is back at it again, or someone is copying his crimes. Either way, it seems like we could learn something from Gordon Redfield.”
“McDonough doesn’t think it’s a good way to use our resources.”
I stopped on the path and Jack pulled up short beside me. “Seriously?”
He nodded, grim. “It’s bullshit, I know. But I’m on thin ice right now. One more misstep…”
“Could mean your career,” I said. “I understand that—”
“I don’t care about my career,” he said quickly. His intensity made me pause. “I care about what’s happening with this case. I care about making sure Bear and Ren get out of this all right. I just don’t want to make things worse.”
I laughed, a strangled sound pulled from somewhere deep, and hit the trail again. I waved one hand around wildly, the other still clutching Casper’s leash. “We’re stuck in one of the thickest, most desolate stretches of wilderness on the eastern seaboard. One girl is already dead; the other may or may not be alive, and my son has been shot and is being held hostage with his best friend. And if we get any more rain, Glastenbury Mountain will fall into the damned sea before this is all said and done.”
I stopped again, fighting hysteria, and turned to look at him. “How exactly could this get worse?”
“Right,” he said after a moment. He took another step toward me, his focus on me rather than the ground beneath our feet. “Okay… So, I’ll tap some of my contacts and make it happen. Screw McDonough. Like you said, how could this get any worse—”
The words were barely out before his foot hit a patch of loose rocks and soil. He fell backward and landed hard. I gasped and reached for him—but the mountain wasn’t done with him yet.
The ground beneath our feet consisted of loose shale held in place by a layer of mud that was anything but stable. In an instant, I felt myself slipping. I managed to grab hold of a tree before the ground came loose completely and I picked up speed, then clung there, breathless, with Casper’s leash tight in my hand.
Jack wasn’t so lucky.
I watched in horror as he tumbled back down the path, half-buried in rocks and mud, desperately grappling to find a hand hold to stop his free fall.
I followed as fast as I could, making my way from tree to tree, Jack still in sight—just completely out of reach.
He had managed to slow himself as I got closer, but he was still moving when something shining and silver caught the beam of my flashlight. I went still, realizing with horror exactly what it was.
A bear trap.
And Jack was on a crash course straight for it.
“Jack!” I shouted. “You have to get off the path! Grab something!”
Like he hadn’t already been trying that for the past fifty feet.
I watched, breathless, as he barreled down, the trap fully visible now: spring loaded, and capable of snapping a human leg straight through the bone. Casper stood beside me, breathing hard, both of us powerless to do a thing.
Not even daring to look, I focused instead on getting down as quickly as possible. Already thinking of the medical supplies we would need. How quickly we could get help out here. Casper stuck close to me for once rather than dragging me down, as though he sensed the danger.
I heard the trap snap shut, an explosion of iron against iron that sounded like a gunshot somewhere beneath the riot of the mountain coming down around us.
Headlamp trained on the scene below, I struggled to make the rest of the trek down to Jack. I waited to hear a scream of pain, but there was nothing. The mudslide had worked itself out, the world eerily still now.
“Jack?” I called.
Nothing, for twenty seconds. Thirty. I called him again, dread climbing higher in my chest.
“I’m here,” he finally answered.
His voice was closer than I’d expected, exhausted, but I didn’t hear the pain I expected to. I shone my flashlight down.
Ten feet below me, Jack sat caked in mud, staring up at me. No more than a foot away, the bear trap had been sprung—a boulder lodged between its jaws.
“Do me a favor?” he said weakly. I eased down the rest of the way, searching for more traps. Casper reached Jack first, and licked the mud from his face with slow, thorough laps of his pink tongue.
“What?” I said.
“Don’t ever ask me how things could get worse again.”
I grinned. Hopped over a couple of boulders and another patch of mud, relief making me nearly giddy, and extended my hand to help him up. He took it.
“Deal,” I said.
* * *
Chapter 11
THAT NIGHT, it was one a.m. by the time Jack reached the Texas prison where Gordon Redfield was being held. He wasn’t at all sure what he would find when he actually met with Gordon—and even less sure how things would play out when he returned to Vermont having disobeyed McDonough’s direct order. Despite the less-than-stellar course his career had taken over the past two years, Jack still had friends in high places at the Bureau. He’d called in every favor he had with those friends in order to get a private charter to bring him to Texas tonight.
He just hoped to God all of this was worth the effort.
It was a hot night when he touched down at the Livingston Municipal Airport, the air inside the prison only slightly cooler despite air conditioning. Having spent the better part of the day trekking through the wilderness in the rain, and then falling halfway down a mountain, he
was not feeling his best. He was battered and bruised and felt like…well, like he’d spent the better part of the day trekking through the wilderness in the rain and then had nearly been taken out by a mountain. Still, he told himself he was here for a reason. The memory of Jamie’s blue eyes, the firm set of her jaw, and he knew that reason was worth it.
For the past nine months, he’d been running from the memory of those blue eyes. There were plenty of other things to run from, of course, but sometimes he thought Jamie was the most terrifying of all. With her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, the nose ring and the competence and the way she seemed to look straight through him, sometimes… The women he’d dated since his wife’s death had been haughty and headstrong, intent on their own goals, but Jamie’s level headedness was something he didn’t always know how to handle. He flashed back to the sight of her in that damned tree earlier that night, though, and grimaced. Obviously, she wasn’t always so level headed.
Inside the prison, Jack surrendered his gun, wallet, and keys while he went through the metal detector, dingy concrete walls closing in on him. The sole guard manning the front desk was a short man with a beer gut and a hard face. He studied Jack from the other side of the desk.
“Gordon in trouble for somethin’?” he asked in a thick Texan drawl.
“It’s federal business—I just have some questions.”
The guard picked up Jack’s ID. “Juarez. You used to work with him, didn’t you? You’re one of the feds sent him upriver for this thing you say he did?”
Jack looked at him evenly. “The judge and jury sent him upriver, not me.”
“Right. Sure. Well, you gotta keep your stuff here. You’ll get it when you come back through.”
“Thanks,” Jack said.
The first guard handed Jack off to a second, this one built like a linebacker. They walked wordlessly down the long, echoing corridors while Jack’s thoughts returned to Gordon Redfield—his mentor. A man who had taken Jack under his wing, shown him the ropes, and explained what it meant to be a federal agent. Gordon had appeared to be everything Jack emulated: principled, thoughtful, articulate. It was only later that Jack realized Gordon was just a master at telling people what they wanted to hear. He could be kind and reflective with Jack one minute, then turn around and make the dirtiest joke in the room if that was what his audience was looking for. The man was a born politician.