She was far away from the farmhouse now. The backyard light was very small behind her. There were no other lights but the glow on the horizon from Roosville, ten miles distant. There was nobody else for miles.
She had to go back.
She had to go back and do something to save her family. Her sister, her mom, and—please, God—her dad. She couldn’t just leave them, no matter how scared she was.
Sadie turned around. Walked back down the highway until she’d caught her breath. Then she ran again, her mind screaming at her that she was going to get killed. She kept going. Pressed forward.
She’d made it halfway back to the farmhouse when the headlights appeared in the distance.
102
The man and the little girl came into the Roosville customshouse around dawn, woke Stevens from the hard plastic chair he’d turned into his latest excuse for a bed. Across the waiting room, Lynn Cronquist intercepted the man and the girl, but not before the commotion had roused Carla Windermere, too.
Stevens rubbed the sleep from his eyes, his mouth tasting like a garbage fire. He checked the clock on the wall and wondered if he would ever sleep a full night again. He stood and hurried to join Cronquist.
“Found her by the side of the road,” the man was saying. “Ten miles from town, the middle of nowhere. Couldn’t make sense of what she was talking about, so I thought I should bring her to you folks.”
The girl might have been six or seven, maximum. She wore only thin SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas, and her whole body shook—from the cold, Stevens wondered, or from something worse?
“We have to go,” she told Cronquist. “We have to go back right now. You have to come with me and we have to go, now.”
“We’ll take you, sweetheart,” the Mountie replied. “We just have to get the story straight first. What’s going on to get you so upset?”
“The man,” the girl said, as if it should have been obvious. “There’s a bad man in my house. He woke me up.”
Stevens felt the chill as soon as the girl said it. Figured he’d known it was coming, but it hit him like a punch, regardless.
Hurley.
“What’s your name?” he asked the girl. “Where do you live? Where is the man?” He caught the eye of another Mountie, beckoned him over.
“Sadie,” the girl said. “My name’s Sadie Fontaine.” She started to cry again. “My mom and dad are still at my house,” she said through her tears. “My sister. There was blood everywhere.”
Windermere let out a sharp breath. “Goddamn it, partner.”
Hostages, Stevens thought. Victims. This whole situation is going to get uglier.
Cronquist was already reaching for her coat. “Come on if you’re coming,” she told Stevens and Windermere. “Doesn’t sound like we have time to spare.”
103
Where is she?”
On the bed below Hurley, Shae Fontaine’s mother pressed her body in between Hurley and her daughter, an ineffective human shield. Hurley had his pistol pulled again and aimed it down at the women, one after the other. He was frustrated, and these animals weren’t helping his mood.
Hurley had practically torn the house apart looking for the other girl. He’d found her bedroom easily; he’d stormed past it earlier as he’d chased Shae Fontaine. The younger girl—her name was Sadie, he’d discovered, and Mom was Mona—must have disappeared in a hurry. She’d pushed her covers to the floor and left the mattress warm where she’d lain on it.
But she was gone now, and that pissed Hurley off. He’d searched the house, every bedroom, bathroom, the living room and the kitchen. Even the garage—he’d poked his head inside, promised he would kill the girl’s sister slowly if she didn’t show herself. Heard nothing, not even a whimper.
He had found rope, however, and duct tape, which he’d used to bind Mona and Shae Fontaine more securely as the first light of day appeared through the eastward-facing windows. Then he’d threatened the women, hit them, cajoled them, anything to induce them into giving up the little girl.
But neither Mona Fontaine nor her daughter were talking.
It was dawn now. Soon the sun would appear over the horizon. Soon the day would begin in earnest. Hurley had intended to take his time with these women, but his appetite had changed. Instead of triumph, he felt anger.
“Fuck it.” He put the pistol away. Watched Mona Fontaine relax, just slightly. Watched her eyes get wide again when he picked up the knife. “Which of you wants to die first?”
Hurley grabbed for Shae Fontaine. Then he stopped. Cocked his head and listened. He could hear something over the girl’s screams and the rush of blood through his ears. Something outside the house, in the distance, low and rhythmic. A helicopter.
Hurley left Shae Fontaine on the floor. Hurried to a window, searched for the chopper. The sky was empty. The helicopter was still far away, but the sound was getting louder.
As he turned away from the window, turned back to the women, he happened to glance up the Fontaines’ snowy driveway, and there he saw something just as bad as a helicopter, something that made him forget Shae and Mona Fontaine instantly.
A police car, an RCMP cruiser, had pulled in off the highway. It was idling, motionless, at the top of the driveway, no movement inside, the cops not going anywhere. Waiting, no doubt, for reinforcements to come.
Somewhere in the distance, a train whistle sounded. Hurley stared out the window at the cruiser in the driveway and wished he were anywhere but here.
104
The house must have been eighty years old. It was huge, shabby, peeling paint and missing shingles, stately and imposing and kind of creepy, to boot. It looked like it must have been haunted, like if ghosts did exist, they would surely lurk in places like this.
But right now, Stevens knew, the house didn’t need ghosts. If Leland Hurley was still in there, the property was cursed enough as it was.
Cronquist stopped the car at the head of the driveway, and she and Stevens and Windermere all studied the place. Stevens couldn’t see movement; most of the windows were dark, the shades drawn upstairs. The house might have been deserted.
Maybe he’s gone already. Stole the family car and hit the highway.
They would find out in due time, Stevens supposed, as Cronquist shifted the Crown Vic out of gear. “I know this is my turf, but this is your fugitive,” she told the agents. “You tell me what you need, and I’ll get it done.”
Stevens didn’t have to see Windermere’s face to know she’d been waiting for this. “We’re going to need all you can muster, Staff Sergeant, if Hurley’s really in there,” she replied. “If you can give me a perimeter and eyes in the air, we’ll call it a good start. Throw in a tactical team and I’ll love you forever.”
“Perimeter won’t be a problem,” Cronquist said. “You’ll have our chopper and your air support, too. Tactical team’s a ways out, though; I’m going to need an hour to get them on scene.”
“We can get ours here in forty-five minutes,” Windermere said. “Assuming you can grease some wheels at the border.”
“Anything.”
“Perfect. Then we’re set.” Windermere fixed her eyes on the house again. “Now we just have to find out if he’s in there or not.”
No sooner had she said the words than the Crown Vic took a bullet. The shot came out of nowhere, missed low, put a hole in the hood in front of Windermere. Rocked the car something scary, set them all ducking, the crack of the rifle echoing through the morning air. And then Cronquist had the cruiser slammed into reverse, her foot on the gas, careening the car out of the driveway and back onto the highway, didn’t let up until they’d reached the edge of the Fontaine property, a row of thick bushes a good ten feet high.
“Well, dang,” she said, shifting back into park. “I guess we know he’s in there.”
“I guess we do,” Windermere
said. “So how about we set up that perimeter?”
105
We’re going to do this how they trained us,” Windermere told Stevens and Cronquist. “Lock this place down until the tactical guys get here. Stay low, stay covered, keep eyes on the house. Wait until we have numbers and let the guys with the big guns do what they’re paid to do.”
Ten minutes had passed since Hurley had fired on them, and backup had arrived in the form of a handful of RCMP vehicles, a swarm of Mounties on snowmobiles, and the Flathead County chopper patrolling the air above, scanning the Fontaine property in case Leland Hurley decided to get cute.
More reinforcements were coming—Wasserman and Mundall and the Salt Lake City agents, Flathead and Lincoln County deputies, the whole gamut. In an hour or so, Stevens knew, the Fontaine place would make out like your textbook standoff situation, a ring of law enforcement around the outside, a madman with hostages in the house.
They’d moved Cronquist’s Crown Vic back to the head of the driveway, slow and cautious, parked it just beyond, and taken cover behind it. Crouched down below the sheet metal, asses on the snowy pavement, guns drawn, sneaking looks down the Fontaines’ front lawn as the rest of the Mounties spread out around the edge of the property line.
The way the bullet had hit the car, Stevens figured the shooter was upstairs somewhere, and he scanned the dark upstairs windows again, looking for a sign. Couldn’t see much from this distance, had to squint, but he thought he could make out a thin strip of light peeking out from under a curtain, the far side of the house. The way the curtain was moving looked like it was wind, like whoever was up there had the window open in mid-January.
“Upper left,” he told Windermere and Cronquist. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be, but is that window open or am I crazy?”
Cronquist had binoculars in the cruiser. She pulled them out, handed them to Windermere. “Not just open,” Windermere said after a moment. “Someone smashed that sucker out.” Then she stiffened. “And—whoa—there’s our boy now.”
Stevens followed her eyes. Couldn’t see anything. Felt Windermere nudge him with the binoculars, took them. Found the window again, felt something like icy fingers on his neck. There was Leland Hurley, all right, peering out from behind the curtain, the barrel of his rifle propped against the windowsill. He stared out at the front yard, at the Crown Vic, at Stevens, for a couple long seconds, seemed to stare right into Stevens’s eyes, and then the curtain fell back and Hurley was gone again, though he’d managed to burn his image deep into Stevens’s mind.
This guy’s a maniac. And he has hostages in there.
“We have to go to work on this guy,” Stevens said, handing the binoculars back. “We can’t afford to sit around. Soon as he realizes he’s cornered, he’s going to get desperate. We need to calm him down before he does something bad.”
Windermere craned her neck over the hood of the cruiser, snuck another look at the house. Chewed her lip for a second, and Stevens wondered if she was feeling the pressure, too, if she was fighting the urge to go running in there, guns blazing, force Hurley to give himself up.
“We’ve done a lot of reading on this Hurley guy,” she said. “Chased him over hell’s acre, too, but shit, there’s no better way to really know someone than to listen to what they have to say for themselves, right?”
She gave Stevens the ghost of a smile. “What do you say we give old Leland a phone call?”
106
The law was everywhere. Hurley had watched from the bedroom window as they surrounded the house—Mounties on Ski-Doos, in cruisers, SUVs, pickup trucks. There had to be twenty of them, maybe more, and that wasn’t counting whoever was up there in the helicopter, droning around above the farmhouse, the noise constant, incessant, grating on Hurley’s nerves.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he could hear a second helicopter in the distance. The Mounties were bringing the whole damn hockey team.
Let them come. Let them bring as many cops as they wanted; Hurley still held the trump cards, two of them bound hand and foot, one on the bed and the other on the floor.
“Doesn’t look good for you girls,” he told the Fontaine women as he watched the law assemble. “This thing’s turning into a showdown, and you’re about the only leverage I’ve got.”
On the floor, Shae Fontaine looked like she’d cried all her tears. “Let us go,” she said. “Please. They’ll kill you if you don’t, and you know it.”
“They’re not going to kill me,” Hurley told her. “They aren’t even going to try. Because the second they do, I’m gutting one of you like the pigs that you are. And they’re dumb enough not to want that.”
He was wrong about the girl. She found a fresh supply of tears pretty quick.
Now the phone was ringing. Hurley could hear it out in the hall. Had a vague recollection of a table out there, barely a foot wide, a phone sitting on it. He showed the women his pistol.
“Try anything stupid and this is over before it even gets started,” he told them. Then he walked out of the bedroom.
The table sat halfway down the hall. The phone was where he remembered it. It was still ringing. Hurley looked back at the master bedroom before he lifted the receiver.
Here goes nothing.
“Sure took you long enough,” he told the caller. “I was thinking I’d have to start killing people to make you all pay attention.”
There was a pause. Then: “You don’t need to kill anyone, Leland.” A woman’s voice, low, the hint of an accent. The South somewhere. “We’re paying attention, I promise.”
Now it was Hurley’s turn to go quiet. He’d been anticipating a man’s voice, expected the Mounties would know better than to trust a woman to this work. But then he remembered how easily women manipulated, how they charmed, and he realized the Mounties knew exactly what they were doing.
“Yeah, well,” he said, feeling his collar grow hot despite himself. “You’d better not try anything crazy. I’m loaded for bear and it’s a good day to die, if you know what I’m saying.”
“Nobody has to die, Leland.” Jesus, but she was smooth. Like she did this every day. “And nobody’s going to do anything crazy. All these people outside, they’re not here to harm you. They’re here to make sure nobody else gets hurt.”
Yeah fucking right. Any one of those Mounties would shoot me dead given half the chance.
“We’re thinking about the family, Leland,” the woman continued. “The Fontaines. Can you tell me their status?”
“Their status?” Hurley laughed, his throat gravel. “Dad’s dead. Mom and big sister are just hanging out.”
“Okay,” the cop said slowly. “But they’re alive, the two women? Can you put them on the phone so I know for sure?”
“No, I can’t,” Hurley told her. “The cord don’t stretch that far.”
“Will you take them to a window when we’re done talking, Leland?” the woman asked. “If we know they’re okay, it puts us all in a better state of mind, you know?”
“They’re okay,” Hurley told her. “And they’ll stay okay, so long as you and your collection of assholes out there slow your roll and respect my position.”
“Your position. Okay, Leland. And what is your position?”
“I’m trying to get out of here. Isn’t that obvious? I’m trying to disappear, like I’ve been trying to do, but you all won’t leave me alone.”
The woman tsked. “You know we can’t let you do that. There’s a couple different endings to this scenario, and neither of them involve you getting out of here scot-free.”
“It ends with me walking out of here, or it ends with three body bags,” Hurley said. “Take your pick.”
Hurley could hear the woman muttering to her partners. Picked up on that accent again and had an epiphany.
“You’re the FBI agent,” he said. “The black one, aren�
��t you? You’re a beautiful woman, but I guess you already knew that.”
“Uh, thank you,” the woman said, and he could tell he’d thrown her off guard. “Are you looking at me, Leland? Can you see me right now?”
“Not even,” Hurley said. “But I saw you before.”
“In the car?”
“In the forest, by my camp. You were looking for the girl, and you walked right past me, you and your partners.”
Silence.
“I could have killed the three of you,” Hurley continued. “Bang, bang, bang, easy. I should have done it, too; would have saved me a whole lot of hassle.”
“But you didn’t.”
“There’s still time. I killed that little deputy, didn’t I?”
Silence again.
Hurley checked his watch. “Thirty minutes,” he said. “I walk out a free man within the half hour or I kill one of these bitches for fun.”
The woman hesitated. Hurley knew he’d beaten her. “You show us they’re alive,” she said finally. “I’ll see what I can do.”
107
So?”
Stevens watched Windermere’s face as she ended the call. Tried to gauge how she’d fared with the fugitive. From the look on her face, Stevens figured she hadn’t won the guy over.
Windermere didn’t make eye contact. Stared up at the house with Cronquist’s binoculars until Hurley brought the Fontaine women, first Shae, then her mother, to the bedroom window. She nodded to herself, replaced the binoculars.
“So what did he tell you?” Stevens tried again.
“What did he say?” Windermere let out a sigh. “He said he should have shot us in the forest, partner, by his cabin. Said he should have killed you and me both when he had the chance.”
108
Hurley paced the master bedroom. On the bed, Shae and Mona Fontaine huddled together, watched him, said nothing. But Hurley barely noticed them. He wasn’t thinking about the Fontaine women right now.
The Forgotten Girls Page 27