So this was Anchor Falls. Mila stood on the main street and surveyed the town. A couple trucks passed her, pickups, coated in slush and road grime. They didn’t slow down for her. The drivers barely looked her way.
A wireless signal. She would need to find Wi-Fi, Internet access, try to zero in on the ghost rider. Charge her phone, too. She would do that right away, just as soon as she’d eaten breakfast.
52
Pamela Moody survived the night. Barely.
Stevens had called Windermere as soon as his phone showed service. It had been a long, maddeningly slow drive down the mountain, Finley balancing the need to get Moody to help with the risk of losing control and crashing the truck. They’d be no help to Pam Moody if they all ended up in a ravine, Stevens knew, but that didn’t make the crawl back to civilization pass any faster.
Windermere had a helicopter on the way when they rolled across the Flathead River and back into Hungry Horse—a medevac unit from the North Valley Hospital in Whitefish. Stevens watched the technicians unload Moody from the back of Finley’s SUV, then he hurried alongside her stretcher to where the helicopter was coming in to land. Moody was still unconscious, her pulse very weak and her breathing slow. The techs didn’t waste time with pleasantries. They strapped her into the back of the chopper and took to the sky, fast.
As the sound of the rotors disappeared into the night, Stevens walked back to Finley’s SUV, where Windermere and Mike Dillman had joined the Lincoln County deputy.
“Guess it won’t surprise you that we found nothing at either Winter’s or Greer’s houses,” Windermere told her partner. “And I’m betting you two found that poor girl near some train tracks.”
They’d crossed the Northwestern line on their way back into town, a couple miles from where they’d found Pam Moody—or rather, where Pam Moody had found them. Stevens relayed the story of the wolf, of Finley’s heroics. Windermere smirked. “Always letting your partner do the dirty work, Stevens, while you waltz away with the girl.”
Stevens managed a smile. He was beat, had started the day early in Butcher’s Creek, long before he even knew Pam Moody existed. Now all he wanted was to climb into a bed somewhere, somewhere warm, let his brain process all that had transpired.
But there wasn’t much chance of that happening. Not yet.
“What do you want to do now?” Kerry Finley asked them.
Stevens pushed the fatigue away. “Now?” he said. “Now we haul ass to Whitefish. Follow that helicopter, and cross our fingers that girl pulls through.”
—
By morning, Moody’s prognosis was optimistic—although it sure didn’t sound that way.
“Hypothermia, frostbite, dehydration, exhaustion.” The physician ticked off Moody’s ailments on her fingers. “And we haven’t even talked about her broken bones yet. Or the sexual trauma.” She’d broken both legs and a couple of ribs and fractured her pelvis, though her larynx and hyoid bone were intact; she was still drawing breath, which was probably a miracle in itself.
“I guess he didn’t care if he killed her,” Windermere said. “He knew if he didn’t strangle her all the way dead, the cold would finish the job.”
But the cold hadn’t. Somehow, Pam Moody had fought off the effects of hypothermia, the pain from her wounds—hell, even that monster wolf. The emergency room doctor told Stevens and Windermere that Moody had busted her hands good trying to escape that ravine.
“I’m talking she clawed her way up those rocks with her fingernails,” the doctor told the agents. “Her palms look like she shoved them in a meat grinder.”
Stevens saw Moody by the side of the road again, bloody and pale. “Whatever it takes, huh?”
“You said it. You don’t survive out there for as long as she did unless you really want it,” the doctor said. “And that girl wanted to live.”
“So when can we talk to her?” Windermere asked. “We need to debrief her, find out what she knows about the man who did this to her.”
“She’s going to need some time,” the doctor replied. “We’re still in the danger zone with her injuries. Recovery has to be the priority.”
“I get it. But we kind of have a window here, Doc.”
The doctor frowned. “I need the morning, at least,” she told Windermere. “Talk to me around lunchtime and I’ll let you know.”
Windermere started to complain. Behind her, Stevens watched Kerry Finley walk in through the hospital doors, holding a tray full of coffee and a couple of printouts.
“Deputy Dillman said this came for you,” she told Stevens, handing him the papers and a cup of coffee. “While we were out on our little misadventure.”
Stevens drank the coffee, desperate for the caffeine fix. Set the cup down and scanned through the printouts. Reports from the Northwestern Railroad, train movements.
“Never mind, Carla,” he said, touching Windermere’s arm. “Let’s give Pam her space for a while. I have an idea what we can do in the meantime.”
53
The Northwestern Railroad sent a coal train through Hungry Horse at four in the morning on the night Pam Moody was kidnapped,” Stevens told Windermere.
He had the printouts open on his lap and Windermere beside him, both of them crammed into the orange plastic seats in a corner of the North Valley Hospital’s waiting room.
Windermere peered over his shoulder. “Yeah, so what’s the payoff?” she said. “This is your theory, partner. Walk me through it.”
“That train was a westbound,” Stevens said. “Headed to the coast. It passed through Whitefish and then north up the Stillwater River Valley toward Butcher’s Creek and down to Libby. We called the dispatcher at roughly three o’clock the next afternoon. At that point, the coal train was in Davenport, Washington. The crew checked the engines and found no riders.”
“Okaaay,” Windermere said. “I can see what you’re getting at, but what does this tell us? Assuming the rider was even on that train, we know he got off somewhere between here and eastern Washington. How does that help us?”
Stevens held up a printout. “We know more than that. This is a list of where the train stopped and for how long.”
He gave it to her. Windermere took it, scanned it. Someplace called Anchor Falls, then Butcher’s Creek, then Libby, then Bonners Ferry, Sandpoint, Idaho, and Spokane.
“Six stops,” Windermere said. “Spread across hundreds of miles. You want to search every one?”
“Not necessarily,” Stevens said, taking the papers back. “But we get people looking in each of those areas. Train crews, especially. We’ve already seen kills in Bonners Ferry and Butcher’s Creek. Chances are he won’t kill where he sleeps.”
“Fine, so four stops.”
But Stevens had more printouts for show-and-tell. “This is a table of every one of the kills we suspect might be his. Spread across the entire High Line, right?”
“Right. Cascades to the Rockies. No rhyme or reason.”
“Except this.” Now he had a map out. “I had Kerry make this when we were in Hungry Horse. It’s a location map of every kill we pin on this guy. Check it out.”
Windermere looked. Saw a cluster around the Idaho panhandle, northwestern Montana. Another cluster around Glacier National Park, Whitefish to the eastern slope. Then outliers, all the way west to Skykomish, Washington, east to Havre, Montana.
“We have kills in Libby,” Stevens said. “We have one near Sandpoint, and a couple just outside Spokane. But check out Anchor Falls.”
Anchor Falls had nothing. No kills on the Northwestern line until Butcher’s Creek to the north, and Whitefish to the south, a span of fifty miles.
“That’s right in the middle of his prime hunting area,” Stevens said. “But there’s nothing there, Carla.”
“Maybe because there’s nothing there,” Windermere replied. “As in, nobody to hunt. Anchor
Falls doesn’t exactly look like a booming metropolis, Stevens. And as much as I respect what you’re saying here, I’m not ready to point the cavalry at some Podunk little town just based on some dots on a map and a train schedule.”
Stevens took the papers back. “I’m not asking for cavalry. I’m just suggesting we keep this place in the back of our minds.”
Windermere glanced at the clock on the wall opposite. Quarter to ten. Two more hours to wait for access to Pam Moody. Minimum.
“Damn it,” she said, standing. “I’m really not digging this whole waiting thing, the doctor be damned.” She started across the waiting area to the emergency room doors. “If that girl can break our case open, I’m not waiting till lunch.”
54
Scrambled eggs. Bacon. Orange juice. Toast. All of it gone within minutes.
“Wow.” The waitress smiled at Mila as she picked up the empty plate. “Guess you were hungry, huh?”
Mila wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
“So they say. You need anything else?”
She was still hungry, could have eaten another meal. According to Ash, your appetite was supposed to increase as you came down from crystal, and Mila could testify to it. But she wasn’t exactly flush with cash, and who knew how long she would have to stake out this town?
“Maybe just some more orange juice,” Mila said. “And also, like, a map?”
The waitress shook her head. “Orange juice I can do. For a map, you’ll have to go over to Big Al’s across the highway. He’ll sort you out.”
“Okay,” Mila told her. “Thanks.”
“You looking for anything in particular?”
Anyone, Mila thought. Yes, I am. I just don’t know a damn thing about him. “Not really,” she told the waitress. “Just trying to get a feel for the area.”
The diner didn’t have Wi-Fi, not officially. But it did have an unprotected router. Mila found the signal on her phone, connected to it. It was weak, but it would do. But her battery was at six percent.
Crap.
She looked around the restaurant, the walls beneath the booths. Couldn’t find an outlet anywhere.
“Do you have anywhere I could charge this?” she asked the waitress, who’d just returned with her orange juice.
“I can charge it in the office in back,” the waitress replied. “Tell you what: you leave your phone with me, go over to Big Al’s and buy your map. You can spread that map out here when you get back, get a feel for the area while you wait on your phone. I’ll even keep you in orange juice.”
Mila dug into her packsack. Came out with her charger. “Thank you so much,” she said, handing the phone to the waitress. “I’ll be right back.”
—
Big Al’s Gas Stop was a little two-pump operation with a single mechanic’s stall. A little bell chimed as Mila walked in through the doors. There was a man at the cash register, a large guy with a mustache whom Mila assumed was Big Al. She smiled quickly at him, then took in the store: magazines, beef jerky, a cooler of beer and soda in the back. Cigarettes behind the counter and a rack of map books in the corner. A couple of aisles of overripe fruit, stale bread, candy bars, and toilet paper. Judging from the look of the place, it functioned as the sole source of groceries within a fifteen-mile radius, though it wasn’t exactly a booming business.
The rack of map books, Mila discovered, had everything from the continent down to the county—Glacier National Park, the Pacific Northwest, even a map of Canada. As Mila turned the rack, the little doorbell chimed again and someone walked into the store.
It was a man, middle-aged, in an army parka and snow boots. He’d come out of a truck parked at the curb, an old Chevy Suburban, white and blue. Mila watched him stamp the snow off his boots, watched him nod to Big Al. Watched as he started through the aisles, as he studied a bunch of black bananas nearby.
Desperate times, Mila thought. Man, it would suck to live here.
She picked up the map of Flathead County and brought it up to Big Al’s cash counter. “Do you have anything with more detail than this?” she asked.
Big Al shifted in his chair slowly, like the effort required was nearly more than he could handle. He picked up the map as if testing its weight. “What are you looking for?”
“A map of the region,” Mila told him. “Anchor Falls and the surrounding area, I guess. Just something with a lot of detail.”
“Like a topographical map.”
“Yes. Exactly. Do you have any of those?”
Big Al slid the map back across the counter. Rearranged himself in his chair. “We don’t stock topographical maps,” he told her. “Only maps I have are on that rack over there.”
Mila spread the map open on the counter. Found Anchor Falls, a little dot on the railroad tracks, the highway a thin line. You couldn’t even see the intersecting roads in town. Shit.
Someone coughed, and Mila turned to find the guy in the army parka standing behind her. He had an armload of groceries—including those black bananas—and he looked like he was waiting to pay.
“Sorry,” Mila told him, folding the map up again. “I guess I’ll take this. How much?”
Big Al shifted again. Peered down at the map. “Says six ninety-five.”
“Six ninety-five.” Mila dug into her pockets for her wallet. Remembered she wanted a pack of cigarettes, too, but caught a sudden funny feeling before she could get the words out, a feeling like she should be scared of something, but she had no idea what.
She found a ten, stuffed the rest of her money away. Slid the ten across to Big Al, who took forever to ring up the sale. Mila tucked the map under her arm, stuffed her change into her pocket. Turned to go, and as she turned, she caught sight of the man behind her again, and then she knew why she was scared.
The man had his parka unbuttoned to reach his wallet. He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt underneath, tucked into a pair of blue jeans. But it wasn’t his clothes that stopped Mila short. It was the knife on his belt.
It was a bowie knife, a long one, hanging at his side. A beautiful, custom-tooled handle, an Indian woman on horseback. Mila stared at the knife, felt her stomach turn over. She knew that knife. She’d seen it before.
That was Ash’s knife on that man’s belt.
55
Mila stood frozen, halfway to the door. Behind her, the man with Ash’s knife was paying for his groceries. He and Big Al were saying something about the weather. He hadn’t noticed Mila yet.
Her thoughts careened through her head like a pinball. She wasn’t ready for this yet. She’d expected to have time, to sort out a strategy. She wanted to ambush Ash’s killer, not the other way around.
Heck, you don’t even know if this is the right guy. Maybe he, like, found her knife.
But Mila knew he was the killer. Couldn’t explain it, but she knew. She unzipped her coat. Slipped her hand to her belt line, found her own knife where it sat in its sheath. She gripped the hilt, let out her breath, closed her eyes, and pulled it out.
This is for you, Ash.
But before she could act, the man was beside her. “Sorry,” he said, meeting her eyes, then quickly looking away. “I need to get past you.”
She was blocking the door. Big Al was watching. Big Al’s country music was playing, and there was somebody else outside the door, a woman, waiting to get in, and Mila was holding everything up and being weird, and all of a sudden she knew she wasn’t going to kill this man, not here and not now. Her blade was too small, for one thing.
For another, she didn’t have the guts.
Mila stepped aside, let the man pass. Watched him walk to his truck and put his groceries in the back. Watched him climb inside and start the engine. Figured that was it, she’d missed her chance.
Useless. You’re completely useless.
&nb
sp; But the man was just driving over to the gas pumps. Mila watched him step out of the Suburban and lift the hose and start to pump gas. She hadn’t missed her chance after all. She could go out there and stab him right now.
But that wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t a killer. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t going to stab anyone. What she needed to do was get evidence on this guy, something to show the police so they would believe her. They would have to listen, if she could prove he was the killer.
Mila pushed open the door. Hurried across the street to the diner, ignoring the man as he continued pumping his gas. She burst into the restaurant and scanned the room until she found the waitress, setting down plates of breakfast in front of an elderly couple.
“I need my phone back,” Mila told her. “Can I have my phone, please?”
The waitress frowned at her. “Sure, hon. Just one second.”
Across the street, the man was still putting gas in his Suburban. But he would be finished soon. And then he would be gone.
The waitress was asking the old couple if they needed anything else. Mila interrupted. “I need it now, please,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s just really important.”
The waitress shot Mila a look. “I’m so sorry,” she told the old couple. “This will just take a second.”
Then she turned and, wordlessly, led Mila across the restaurant to the kitchen. “Wait here,” she said, her expression stone. Mila waited. Watched the man out the window. He was finished pumping gas now. He was replacing the nozzle. The waitress was taking forever.
“Here’s your phone.” The waitress was back. “What’s the big rush?”
“No time.” Mila snatched the phone out of the waitress’s hand. Hurried across the diner to the front windows, aiming the phone through the glass at the man. He was cleaning his windows with a squeegee. Mila snapped a picture of him as he replaced the squeegee. As he climbed into the Suburban. She tried to zoom in on his plate, but she couldn’t get a good angle.
The Forgotten Girls Page 16