The woods enveloped her, shutting out the midday sun and chilling the air.
The high school kids had cleaned the roadside along here on Saturday morning, before they moved north to the ravine where they’d discovered Shelley’s body. The image of the beautiful young woman shrouded in plastic burst full-blown into her mind, and her throat closed up with anger and sorrow. Don’t think about it. Shut it out.
A flutter directly ahead caught Rachel’s eye. The hawk scrabbled from beneath a rhododendron, beating its good wing furiously, trying to get airborne. A blue jay screamed alarm from the treetops. The hawk collapsed onto its chest, pushed itself up again and took off, dragging the damaged wing through the leaf litter. It was definitely a Cooper’s hawk, larger than a crow with steely blue-gray feathers across its back, a cap of gray, thick dark bands on its tail, and fine reddish streaks across a pale throat and chest. It could tear an unprotected hand to shreds with its beak and talons. Rachel followed, using the net’s pole to slap aside low evergreen branches. The bird disappeared into a thicket of vines that hadn’t yet leafed out.
“Oh hell,” Rachel muttered. “You just had to go in there, didn’t you?”
A rustle alerted her that the bird had thought better of the hiding place and was emerging from the other side. She crept forward. Up ahead, beyond the thicket, she glimpsed a shallow pool, no more than a collection of rainwater in a depression. The hawk dragged itself toward the water.
The bird stopped beside the puddle, although it still seemed to be straining to move ahead. When Rachel drew closer, she saw a vine tangled around one of its feet. At her approach the hawk fanned its good wing frantically and yanked its trapped foot with no success.
Rachel crouched close by, the net raised. If the hawk broke free and tried to take off, she could easily get it, but she would rather wait until it quieted to avoid further injury when the net went down.
The bird stared up at her, panting through its open beak, a predator become prey and expecting death at any second.
“Just hang on,” Rachel whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She avoided eye contact that might seem like a threat, and gave her attention instead to the massive pine trees around her. Here and there, spindly wild dogwoods reached for the dappled sun in the shade of the evergreens. New leaves had begun emerging on deciduous trees two weeks ago in Virginia’s hill country, but a chill lingered in the air, and night temperatures dipped into the forties. She still missed the glorious warm weather of spring and fall in the Washington area where she and Michelle had grown up.
Gradually, while Rachel sat motionless, the birds that had fallen silent at her intrusion took up their songs and chatter again. A squirrel paused in its descent from a nearby tree to study her before leaping to the ground and scurrying off. She heard the engine of a vehicle on the road, but she couldn’t see it through the dense trees.
At last the hawk lay still, its eyes bright with fear and the knowledge that capture was inevitable. Slowly Rachel lowered the net over it. The hawk jerked just once and emitted a high-pitched cry before hunkering down, resigned.
Rachel snaked a gloved hand under the net and grasped the foot that was caught in the vine. She worked it loose slowly, gently. She peered at the injured wing through the netting. What a godawful mess. Dirt and bits of dry leaves clung to blood-soaked feathers. The humerus was shattered, its jagged ends piercing the skin, and the unnatural fold of the wing told her the radius and ulna were fractured too. She had seen bad injuries from collisions with utility lines and windows but only one thing could wreck a wing this way: a shotgun.
Rachel shook her head and swore in disgust. “Human beings,” she said to the bird, “are capable of anything. But I guess you’ve already come to that conclusion on your own.”
She caught both of the hawk’s legs in one hand and, holding the net down over him, got to her feet. He went limp and flopped over backward. “Oh, come on now. Don’t give up that easily.”
She righted him and he settled in her grip, glaring at her through the netting. If his talons and beak could get to her bare skin he’d show her what he thought of her intrusion into his life.
“Hang on to that fighting spirit, pal. You’re going to need it.” Rachel could take the hawk to the vet clinic, repair its wing to the best of her surgical ability, but thanks to some idiot with a gun this bird would never fly again.
As she turned back toward the road, a shot rang out.
The hawk panicked and flapped wildly inside the net, straining to break free. Rachel held onto his feet and keep the net over him at the same time she looked around for the shooter. She didn’t spot anybody among the trees. Her heart pounding, her mouth suddenly dry, she stood still and waited. Every bird and squirrel had frozen in silence.
No more shots came. She heard no movement through the brush.
The gunfire had sounded like a shotgun blast. Maybe the hunter who had wounded the hawk was still around. She couldn’t linger. She had to get out of his way before she ended up full of buckshot too.
Holding the bird against her chest to prevent another attempt at escape, Rachel headed for the road. She swept the woods with her gaze as she went. If a hunter glimpsed her movement through the trees, he might mistake her for a deer and shoot. This wasn’t deer hunting season, but around here such fine distinctions hardly mattered to hunters.
Emerging from the woods, she raced toward her parked vehicle. She swung the rear door up and spent a few agonizingly long minutes maneuvering the hawk out from under the net and into a cage. The bird appeared weak and dehydrated, and the stress of being captured was bad enough without the added exposure to her palpable fear. She blew out a breath in relief when she snapped the cage door in place.
She trotted around to the driver’s side, yanked open the door, climbed in, and stared at the windshield.
What on earth?
Words. Written on the glass. Rachel gripped the steering wheel. While she’d been in the woods a hundred yards away, someone stood here painting this message on her windshield.
Viewing the words backwards, she needed a moment to make sense of them.
With red paint—she hoped to god it was paint—someone had written: YOU’RE NEXT
Chapter Twenty-six
Furious and frightened at the same time, Rachel stared through the message on her windshield all the way back to Mountainview, forcing herself to focus outward, on the road, instead of the letters in front of her. She flicked her eyes to the rearview mirror over and over, making sure no one was following her. Each time she passed another vehicle, she saw the driver’s head snap to the side as he or she caught sight of the Range Rover’s windshield.
Was Michelle’s stalker after her now? Had she brought this on by telling him off on the telephone? Be careful, Rachel, he had said. Don’t get in my way. A clear threat, but she hadn’t taken it seriously because she was so focused on protecting her sister. She was crazy for driving out to the middle of nowhere by herself.
Where had he been when she’d returned to her vehicle? She hadn’t seen another car, but she’d heard one while she was in the woods. Had he driven away, or did he hide nearby to watch her reaction? The thought nauseated her. He must have followed her out there. Or maybe he’d known exactly where she was going because he’d shot the hawk himself and called it in. How could he be sure, though, that the Sheriff’s Department dispatcher would summon Rachel when he asked for a rehabber? That wasn’t hard to answer. He was obsessed with Michelle, and he’d probably collected as much information as he could about her life and the people in it, including Rachel.
She wished she could find Tom right away, but she had to think first of the wounded bird in the back of her vehicle. She drove into Mountainview and parked in the vet clinic’s lot. Before hauling the cage out she draped a large towel over it to help keep the hawk calm. The bird remained still and quiet until Rachel encountered a client who was leaving the building with his little beagle-terrier mix. Whi
le the man held the front door open, the dog sniffed the cage, smelled the bird, and went crazy, barking and dancing on his hind legs, trying to get at it. The hawk let out a high-pitched screech and scrabbled around in the cage. Rachel held it aloft and hurried into the clinic as the dog’s owner dragged him away by his leash.
Inside, Rachel raced down the rear hall to the hospital room, with Holly on her heels.
When Rachel placed the cage on a steel operating table and pulled off the towel, Holly exclaimed, “Oh, my goodness, the poor thing.”
“Somebody shot it,” Rachel said. “I have to get that wing fixed right now. Go tell Shannon to rearrange my schedule.”
For the next hour, she gave all her attention to the bird. She repaired the wing as best she could, but the buckshot had done ruinous damage to the bones. After he recovered she would find somebody in the Raptor Society to take him permanently.
She didn’t think about the message on her windshield until she was latching the cage where the sedated hawk would rest and recover. When the memory hit her, it brought back all the sick fear she’d felt out in that remote area, with no help nearby, knowing the person who had threatened her had been so close.
This time she couldn’t hide anything from Michelle. She couldn’t protect her sister from bad news anymore, not if she wanted to keep both of them safe. She flung her latex gloves into the hazmat can and dropped her surgical gown in the laundry hamper, then walked back to her office to tell Michelle what had happened.
Michelle was gone. Her laptop wasn’t on Rachel’s desk.
Rachel walked out to the front desk and asked Shannon, “Where’s my sister? Did she say where she was going?”
“Mr. Hern came and got her and took her to lunch.”
“Oh, right.” Rachel glanced at her watch. “I completely lost track of time.”
“No, wait a minute.” Shannon tapped her chin with a fingertip. “I remember seeing them come back from lunch, but I got busy on the phone and I didn’t notice…” Shannon frowned, thinking. Her face cleared and she smiled. “Oh, she’s probably just in the restroom.”
With her laptop? “I’ll check,” Rachel said.
When Rachel rapped on the restroom door, she got no response. She swung the door open. The tiny room with its single commode and sink was empty, the light off. The staff lounge made more sense. Michelle might be getting a cup of coffee or hot tea.
She wasn’t there either.
This is ridiculous, Rachel told herself. Michelle had to be here—unless she’d gone somewhere with Ben. In that case, she would have left a note or a message for Rachel. She and Ben both knew what a worrier Rachel was. No note, no message—Michelle must be in the building.
But she wasn’t. No one Rachel asked had seen her.
Rachel paused in the hallway, wondering where to look next. Oh, come on, I don’t need this aggravation. Where the hell are you? Then she had a duh moment: call Michelle’s cell phone. What was wrong with her? Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier? She pulled her own phone from her shirt pocket and selected Michelle’s number.
The call went to voice mail.
The dread Rachel had tried to fight off with impatience seized her in a grip that took away her breath. Michelle. Mish. What’s happened to you?
She called Ben’s phone and got voice mail.
She rushed to the front desk and told Shannon, “I’m going over to the Sheriff’s Department. If my sister comes back, tell her to call me on my cell phone right away, and I mean immediately.”
Out in the parking lot, she found an elderly woman holding a cat carrier and frowning at the Range Rover’s windshield. “What is the meaning of this?” the woman asked Rachel.
“Hi, Mrs. Webster.” Rachel pressed her electronic key and the door lock popped. “Just vandalism. No real harm done.”
“But it’s terrible. Teenage boys, most likely. I wouldn’t put up with it for one minute.”
“I’m trying to find out who did it.” Rachel opened the door. “Dr. Davis will see Cleo, if you want to take her on in. I have to make a quick stop somewhere.”
“Well, you be careful, dear. These teenagers…” The woman shook her head as she walked to the door with her cat.
“How I wish,” Rachel muttered. At the moment, adolescent vandals sounded like an easy problem to deal with.
She drove down the narrow street, her windshield attracting curious glances from pedestrians and other drivers. Was he one of them, watching her every move?
She turned into the lot beside the ornate old courthouse and drove around back to the low cinderblock building that housed the Sheriff’s Department. As soon as she pushed open the door, the middle-aged woman at the front desk said, “Captain Bridger’s not here.”
“Then I’ll talk to somebody else. Is Sergeant Murray—” Rachel broke off when Michelle appeared, walking up the hallway from the squad room, flanked by Dennis Murray and Ben Hern. The tight panic in Rachel’s chest dissolved. As Michelle reached her, she said, “Mish. Where have you been—Well, obviously you’ve been here, but why? Are you okay? Why didn’t you leave me a message?”
“I’m fine.” Michelle held her laptop computer under one arm.
“I should have left a message for you,” Ben said. “I’m sorry. Michelle was upset and I didn’t think of it.”
“Upset about what?” Rachel looked from Ben to Michelle. “Did something happen?”
“More e-mail,” Michelle said. “A really nasty one. I called Sergeant Murray and he asked me to bring my laptop over so he could see it.”
“I haven’t been able to trace the sender,” Dennis said, “but I’m doing my best.”
Rachel wished she could sit down. Emotional extremes exhausted her. “I’m afraid I’m bringing you a new problem,” she told Dennis. “Come out in the parking lot and I’ll show you.”
The three of them trailed Rachel outside. When Michelle saw the writing on the Range Rover’s windshield she gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth. Dennis and Ben both scowled as if a piece of filth had been flung in their faces. Rachel was explaining what happened when Tom drove into the lot. He pulled up next to them and got out.
“What’s going on?” Tom slammed his car door. “Why are you all here? What’s happened?”
Dennis gestured at the windshield.
Tom stepped closer to look at it. “Good god, Rachel. Who did this? When?”
She launched into her story again from the beginning. As she talked, she watched Tom’s expression harden into fury.
“I’m going to find this creep, and when I do—” Tom broke off and seemed to be trying to rein in his temper. “All right, that’s it, you’re not going anywhere alone again, and I don’t want to hear an argument about it.”
For once, his bossiness didn’t rankle. “You’re not getting one,” Rachel said. “Believe me, I’m not interested in being alone right now.”
“I’ll go with you, both of you,” Ben said, “anywhere you need to go.”
Michelle shook her head. “No, I was right, I should leave. I brought this problem out here with me, and I’ll take it away if I leave.”
“Don’t talk that way.” Ben wrapped an arm around Michelle’s shoulders. “This isn’t your fault.”
“But now he’s harassing Rachel too. I can’t let this go on.”
“Why do we have to keep discussing this?” Rachel said. “We all want you to be safe, and you know you wouldn’t be any safer in Bethesda than you are here.”
Tom was looking around the parking lot, the hills beyond, as if he might find the culprit in plain sight. “Who the hell is this guy, and what does he want? How long is he going to keep playing these juvenile pranks?”
Tom met Rachel’s eyes, and in her mind she heard the rest of his question, the part he didn’t speak aloud. When will he move on to something a lot worse?
Chapter Twenty-seven
After Tom took a statement from Rachel about the shot she heard in the woods and the writing on
her windshield, he read a printout of the latest e-mail to Michelle from the stalker—I’m coming for you, blondie. I’m going to fuck you blind. It had been sent during the time Rachel was out looking for the hawk, he noticed. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. An outsider sending e-mail from within Mason County probably had a 4G connection that could be accessed anywhere and wasn’t dependent on local cell service. Maybe the stalker sent the e-mail while waiting for Rachel to emerge from the woods. But Tom believed it was also possible that two different people were behind the e-mail and the warning to Rachel. The incidents could be unrelated.
He escorted Rachel and Michelle down the street to the vet clinic, then returned to headquarters and called Dennis and Brandon into his office.
Pacing back and forth in front of his desk, he told the deputies what he hadn’t said to the two women. “The threat to Rachel might be connected to the Shelley Beecher case. Somebody warning me that Rachel will get hurt if I look into Shelley’s work for the innocence project. I get the same feeling about the blood on our porch.”
“This is the way a coward operates,” Dennis said. “He won’t tackle you directly. He threatens somebody you care about.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Skeet Hadley did something like this,” Brandon said.
“Neither would I,” Tom said. “Find out where he was the past few hours. If nobody outside his family can vouch for him, let’s get him in here for questioning.”
Dennis and Brandon were leaving his office when Tom’s desk phone rang. Ben Hern was on the line, sounding angry. “Somebody broke into my house while I was out,” he told Tom.
Tom sat in his desk chair and picked up a pen to take notes. “A robbery? What’s missing?”
“No, it wasn’t a robbery. I think they were looking for something Shelley might have left here when she used my computer. There wasn’t anything to find, but I think that’s what they were looking for.”
Bleeding Through: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Page 19