The Darkest Thread

by Jen Blood

  Chapter 16

  “WELL, JACK, no one ever said you weren’t a stubborn son of a bitch,” Gordon Redfield said as Jack entered the same dank room where he’d visited the man just a few hours before.

  Jack hadn’t slept well in the small Texas hotel, haunted by images of Jamie trekking through the wilderness in search of a girl Jack was almost certain was already dead. For what it was worth, Gordon didn’t look like he’d slept much better himself. There were shadows beneath his eyes and a tension in his shoulders that Jack hadn’t seen the last time they’d met.

  “Tell me about the women you killed,” Jack said without preamble.

  Uncertainty flickered in Gordon’s eyes as he tried to figure out Jack’s angle. “I’ve told everyone until I’m blue in the face. I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “You were in the same towns where eight women—two women each, every time—were raped and murdered. You’ve admitted that every one of those women were prostitutes you slept with. You have no alibi to cover yourself during any of the times of death.”

  “All of which is circumstantial. There’s not a trace of hard evidence to link me to those murders.”

  “Unlike your sisters,” Jack said. “We found plenty of DNA there. Their blood in your car. Your skin cells under June’s fingernails.”

  Gordon’s face tightened. He looked away, as though struggling to maintain control. “That evidence was planted. Even if any of this made sense and I was the one who killed the hookers you’re saying I did, you really think I would have killed them without leaving a trace of DNA, gone to the trouble of burying them out in the woods in cities thousands of miles from my own home, and then murdered my own sisters in cold blood, left behind forensic evidence, and then dug a shallow grave half a mile from my brother’s house? What kind of fucking idiot would do that?”

  Gordon’s voice had been rising progressively. Jack searched the guard for some sign of unease, but the man looked more concerned about Jack than he did the enraged inmate. Jack was reminded of the way Gordon had been treated the day before; the looks Jack had drawn from those on the inside.

  He wondered briefly what Gordon had done to engender such devotion, and then recalled what it had been like to work under the man. Everyone at the Bureau had felt the same way, Jack realized. Whatever came up, whatever Gordon Redfield had ever needed, he invariably had a crowd of people lined up ready to give him whatever he asked for.

  If they had all misjudged him, though, had all been so completely off-base about the strength of his character, then how much could he achieve here with the ability to get people so readily in his corner?

  “You used to believe me,” Gordon said. He’d regained control. “If Lucia were alive, she would remind you of that. Would remind you that I’m not this monster you imagine.”

  “Come to Glastenbury, then,” Jack said, never mentioning that Lucia wouldn’t do any such thing. He refused to react to Gordon’s use of her name, the invocation of her memory. “Prove it to me. Come help me solve this case. Find the person who killed Melanie—and the other girls you’ve been accused of killing.”

  Gordon shook his head before Jack had finished the sentence. “I’ve made my peace with being here. There’s no reason to fight it any longer. I’m where I am for a reason.”

  “You’re where you are because you had a rotten lawyer and when push came to shove you refused to stand up for yourself. Come to Glastenbury with me. Help me with this case. Talk to me about whatever the hell is going on, damn it.”

  There was the barest second of uncertainty before Gordon shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, but I’ve already told you before: I’m not going anywhere.”

  Truth be told, Jack had already anticipated this response. He paused for no more than a beat before he stood. “Pack your shit, Gordon.”

  “I’m not going—”

  “Yes, actually, you are. I was trying to do this the nice way, with you feeling like you had some choice in the decision… I see now that you have no intention of cooperating, so here’s the score: I’ve got an injunction. You are legally required to come with me to Vermont.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Don’t test me,” Jack said. He held the man’s eye. “Just get packed. We leave in an hour.”

  This time, Gordon didn’t argue.

  #

  At noon, I swapped Phantom out for Casper, and Cheryl and I kept searching. The weather was cooperating, which meant less slogging through mud and rain for the dogs and less fatigue for me—though there was no denying I was exhausted by this time. With insufficient sleep the night before and the worry to compound it, I had to push myself to maintain focus. Casper, already a dog with attention issues, was all over the place now that Bear wasn’t the one leading him and my energy was compromised. I fought to keep my temper more than once when the dog stopped to eat a pile of deer droppings or, once, gave up on the search altogether and chased a squirrel through the underbrush—something I was sure he would never try with Bear.

  By evening, with false alerts dotting the mountainside and still no sign of Ariel, I had officially lost patience. I was dragging, but forced myself to stay focused and on task to at least maintain some semblance of control for the dogs. That focus was disappearing fast, though.

  “All right,” Cheryl said finally, at five minutes till eight. “Time to head back. I’m starved, and the dogs need to go in.”

  “I want to check the trail one more time,” I said, motioning toward a path to the south where Casper had alerted earlier.

  Cheryl grimaced. “The dogs need rest. Hell, I need rest. And food.”

  I managed to keep my temper, but couldn’t stop the impatient glare I sent the older woman’s way. “Go on. I’ll look myself, it’s fine.”

  “You know that’s not the way it’s done. Just go in there and do whatever in hell you think needs doing, but I’m staying right here.”

  She’d retired Festus not long after I’d put Phantom in, so our team for most of the afternoon hours had been Casper and Minion. Despite Cheryl’s warning, both dogs were bright-eyed and alert, clearly eager to keep going. We’d stopped for the obligatory breaks over the course of the day, and taken an hour for lunch. They were both young, energetic dogs who, I knew, could safely keep searching for at least another couple of hours. Which meant Cheryl wasn’t nearly as worried about their welfare as she was mine.

  “I’m all right,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “The hell you are. Just go on. I’ll wait here and watch the dogs for a few minutes, if you really want to go in and check it out one more time.”

  I nodded without acknowledging her kindness and ordered Casper to stay. The pit bull didn’t look happy, but he didn’t break his stay as I left him behind.

  Alone, I went back down the path and into the woods.

  The trees closed in immediately. I’ve been on searches around the world but this was one of the thickest forests I’d seen in the U.S., short of the Cascades in the Pacific Northwest. That combined with the steep upward climb and everything that was at stake were making this a challenge I wasn’t sure I was up to.

  I followed the half-assed trail we’d broken with the dogs until I found the marker I’d left to denote an area where Casper, Phantom, and Festus had all alerted before.

  Unlike what you see on TV or read in books, dogs don’t actually have superpowers when it comes to scent. If there’s not some physical remnant to find, most can’t simply detect a lingering scent from decades past. And even when there is physical evidence, conditions may hinder the search: other scents masking the target, or things obfuscated by wind, weather, or the dog (or handler)’s own mood. But all three dogs had seemed so clear on this exact area that I couldn’t help but pause. Cheryl and I had run the dogs through twice, and then searched exhaustively to try and find…something. Anything.

  We’d bushwhacked our way through the area, mindful of where we were laying waste to brush to make sure we didn’t inadvertently hack
Ariel to pieces in our zeal. We’d checked the ground, which showed no signs of being dug up recently. We’d checked the trees, but no one that we could see was hiding up there. Still, every dog brought through here stopped in the same spot and gave their alert, whether it was Phantom’s down followed by two sharp barks; Casper’s zealous return to me to punch my pocket with his nose, eager for the treat he knew was waiting after a successful find; or Festus’s sit-stay, bark, and calculated glare at Cheryl.

  There was something here.

  If Bear were here, he’d be able to see it. Find it.

  I don’t know what I expected to happen. Bear has this inexplicable…gift, curse, whatever you want to call it. I do not.

  I sat cross-legged in the dirt and leaves, eyes closed, other senses straining. What were the dogs trying to tell us? Not for the first time, I wished they had the power of speech. Or I had the ability to read minds.

  If there was something else here—something that was not Ariel Redfield—then it was unlikely all the dogs would have alerted in this spot. They weren’t trained to find just any old thing; they were highly trained dogs searching for one specific person. While Phantom had trained as a cadaver dog early on and occasionally alerted when she came across older remains, the other dogs hadn’t had any such training.

  Somewhere in the distance, I heard the cry of a peregrine falcon—higher, clearer, than that of other raptors. Was Ariel out there? Was she still alive, hiding somewhere in terror after what she’d witnessed? Or did the killer already have her? Was he watching the whole proceeding from somewhere close by, reveling in our continued failure?

  “Aaaaaariiiiellll!” I shouted. It wasn’t like we hadn’t tried that before; we’d all been screaming the girl’s name for hours. Days.

  I shouted her name twice more, then fell silent. That scant amount of activity felt like it had been too much. Then I thought of my son, and chastised myself. What kind of mother gave in to her own fatigue when her child was bleeding to death, held captive by someone, and Mom alone may have the power to save him?

  I sank back on my haunches and looked around the darkening forest. No one appeared to me, either living or dead.

  Just then, I heard rustling in the brush behind me.

  I whirled, fully expecting to find Ariel Redfield emerging from the forest.

  Instead, Phantom stood there, her ears pricked forward and her eyes alert. She trotted to a spot a foot away from me, lay down, and barked twice. Her lead dragged behind her, no human to be found on the other end.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked her. She barked again, her gaze unwavering. “Yeah, I know. I’ve heard the story. There’s something here.”

  Her tail swished on the dusty ground, her mouth open in a relaxed, smiling pant at sight of me. I heard the more pronounced crash of a human moving through the undergrowth, and a moment later Jack appeared.

  “She got ahead of me,” he said, nodding toward Phantom.

  “I can see that. “ I frowned. “What are you doing with my dog?”

  “I heard you were still out here, and Phantom was antsy being left behind. I thought if we weren’t actually searching but just out for a light hike, maybe it would be all right to bring her along.”

  I struggled to my feet. “She was supposed to be resting—I don’t even let Monty take Phantom out most times.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just thought maybe you could use a friendly face, and I wasn’t sure mine would fit the bill.”

  I turned away, trying to quell my frustration. “You should go back,” I said. “Thank you for trying. I just want to keep searching a while longer.” I turned to look at him again. He looked tired himself, but right now the fatigue was nothing compared with the concern I read on his face.

  “I’m not leaving you out here alone. If you’re going to keep searching despite what anyone with any common sense tells you, we’ll just stay and search alongside you.”

  Phantom sat watching this exchange, ears up, head going back and forth between Jack and me as though watching a cartoon tennis match. To my surprise, Jack sank down beside her and settled himself on the damp ground. He wore jeans, loose fitting enough to reinforce the fact that he had lost weight recently.

  With no more strength to keep going and nowhere else to go besides, I sank down beside him.

  “When did you get back?” I asked.

  He glanced at his watch. “About an hour ago. I brought Gordon with me—short of the final DNA analysis, we’re about seventy-five percent sure whoever killed Melanie was the same one who killed June and Katie.”

  I looked up at that. “And the prostitutes?”

  “We don’t know.” He shook his head. “All we had was circumstantial evidence linking him to those crimes before… And we were never able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the same man who killed the Redfield sisters was the one who’d killed the hookers. Same M.O., but no physical evidence linking back.”

  “So if he’s exonerated of killing June and Katie, Gordon could be a free man?”

  Jack nodded. He didn’t look happy about that—or, at the very least, he looked conflicted. He shook it off, though, and refocused on me.

  “What do you think you’ll find here, anyway?” he said. “You’ve already looked, haven’t you? Cheryl told me you’ve had the dogs through here three times. They’ve all alerted. An excavation crew is on the way. There’s nothing more you can do.”

  The words were not ones I wanted to hear. I looked away, still searching the clearing. I was desperate. Tears pricked my eyes, and I fought for control. Losing it now would accomplish nothing.

  And that’s when I saw it.

  It was so slight it was no wonder we’d missed it before: a barely discernible depression in the earth to my left, at the very edge of the clearing.

  I swallowed my excitement and shifted so that I was lying on my belly in the dirt. Jack no doubt figured he was watching my final unraveling, but I ignored him. Sure enough, from this vantage I could see the change in topography. I got to my feet and strode to an area two yards from where I’d been lying and studied the ground.

  “What is it?” Jack asked. He got up and came to my side.

  I pointed to the earth at our feet. He looked at me blankly. “There’s something there,” I said. I moved forward, bent, and touched the ground in that spot. It felt exactly the same as everything else here did: cool and damp.

  I didn’t care, though. Something was here. Excitement built in my chest.

  “We need to get the excavation team up here now,” I said. “This is it. Something is here.”

  It was all I could do not to start digging with my bare hands. Jack got on the radio and I heard him apprising McDonough of our coordinates. He argued, telling Jack that they already had crews out investigating three other sites where the dogs had alerted. He took one look at me, and the request became a demand.

  “Just send them here. Do it now.”

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  IN THE DAYS when Glastenbury was first settled, the township faced the same problem any mountain region faces: finding a reliable water supply. In order to do this, wells were hand dug and reinforced with limestone to keep them from collapsing. Once they’d dried up, however—or in Glastenbury’s case, the town simply disappeared—those wells needed to be dealt with. Some were simply abandoned; others were covered with slabs of limestone and buried. They were forgotten.

  Until now.

  Ultimately, Jack and I didn’t wait for the excavation crew before we started digging with whatever was available—in Jack’s case, a stick and his steel-toed boots; in mine, the survival knife I always carry and my own hands. McDonough and the others arrived before we’d gotten far, armed with shovels and spades.

  Sure enough, we found a limestone well cover buried a foot beneath the earth. It took Jack, Wade, and me to pry the thing off. Once we had, I gazed down into a hole that must have extended at least thirty feet into the earth, approxi
mately five feet in diameter.

  “You said all three of the dogs alerted here,” McDonough said to me. I nodded. “But this thing has been sealed up tight for a good long time. Ariel can’t be down there.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said, “except it’s worth taking a closer look. If my dogs told us there’s something down there, there’s something down there.”

  He frowned, but he didn’t argue with me.

  To get started, we lowered a camera into the darkness, a flashlight attached to illuminate the space. It was hardly high tech—the flashlight was one I always carry with me, tied with twine to Jack’s iPhone. The results were predictable: we couldn’t see a damned thing. McDonough got on the phone to order the necessary equipment to do this the right way, but I wasn’t interested in waiting around.

  “Ariel!” I called down into the darkness. “Ariel Redfield. We’re with the police—we’re here to help you.”

  I fell silent. A dozen others from law enforcement were gathered around me. Every one of them seemed to be holding their breath.

  There was no response.

  “I’ll go down,” Jack volunteered. McDonough looked at him skeptically, but I shook my head.

  “Forget it. I’m smaller, you’ll barely fit in there. Besides which, I’ve been through all the rescue trainings. I’ve probably done a hell of a lot more work in conditions like these than you have.”

  Jack had no argument for that. I realized that I should probably say something more about my experience—most notably that I had only done two subterranean rescues in the past, and on the last one I’d hyperventilated halfway down and nearly passed out. I remained silent.

  They fit me with a harness, hardhat, and headlamp. I let the rope go slack and eased my way to the edge of the crevice, my back to the opening. There was no graceful way to get down there—no ladder, no gradual incline. There was ground, and then there was empty space. Lacking a better idea, I inched down with my hands tight around the rope and my butt hanging over empty space, boot-clad feet on the limestone.