That was the thing with rural counties. Not surprised, Daniel thanked him. “I’ll see what I can do in the meantime.”
A loan officer inside the bank answered his call. She sounded very, very frightened.
Daniel kept the ensuing negotiations low-key. He determined that there were no customers inside, thank God. Two tellers, the manager and the loan officer were all being forced to sit on the floor while the robber paced in agitation. A teller had been putting cash in a bag for the robber when Kennedy started to enter the bank, at which point the guy had freaked. Now all he wanted was a way out, which Daniel wasn’t going to give him.
Eventually the robber consented to take the phone himself.
“Nothing that bad has happened yet,” Daniel told him. “Put your gun down and come on out. This wasn’t your day.”
He heard a stream of panicked invectives.
The negotiator turned out to be young, a tall woman with the look of a runner. “Rebecca Walker,” she said, shaking his hand firmly.
He liked her right away. She listened to what had happened and what he thought, then set about soothing the idiot with an expertise that suggested more experience than she could possibly have. Probably she was a natural, one of those people who drew everyone else like a warm beach fire on a cold night.
Even so, it was mid-afternoon before she persuaded what turned out to be a very young guy to set down his weapon and come out with his hands up.
Daniel reserved the pleasure for himself of cuffing the idiot. Pushing him to the squad car, Daniel looked around at the circus surrounding them and shook his head in disbelief.
Way to kill a day.
*****
Sophie rolled her window up as soon as she’d punched in the gate code. She had to wait for a moment before the gate jerked then rumbled open. Ugh. It would be good to get warm. An hour and a half ago, the fog, a thick, gray blanket, had arrived to envelop the storage facility. From where she’d sat behind her card table, she’d barely been able to see as far as the chain-link fence surrounding the place. Once a pickup truck had driven by, appearing seemingly from nowhere and disappearing as completely. It made her skin crawl, knowing how close someone could come without her knowing he was there. She kept having mini flashbacks, remembering stumbling through the fog, her feet slithering on the sand, and then the shocking suddenness of coming on her mother. She had almost tripped over her. She’d never told anyone that.
This isn’t like that morning, she’d told herself. She had protection. Slawinski stood stolidly in the doorway, one shoulder propped on the frame, and gazed into the fog.
Sophie wanted Daniel instead. Which was ridiculous; the radio Officer Slawinski carried had crackled with voices when the bank downtown was held up. His tension had been such she knew he wanted to be in on the action, not stuck here with her, but he was too intimidated by Daniel to ditch her. A couple of phone calls had kept them updated as negotiations dragged on. Even Marge had rushed to tell them what she’d heard and lingered to wring every possible drop from the meager details the three of them collectively had gleaned.
When they heard it was all over and no one had been hurt, Sophie’s relief had been profound. Daniel had shared enough of his concern about his inexperienced officers, she’d known darn well that if the decision was made to go in, he would have taken the lead.
Now, as she drove forward, glancing in the rearview mirror to see that the police car was following close behind, she assumed Daniel must have wrapped everything up. If he hadn’t, he’d have called to issue instructions. She knew he wouldn’t let her arrive at his house if he wasn’t there.
After that, she forget everything but her driving. Visibility was so bad, she kept her speed under twenty miles an hour. Her eyes burned from the strain of trying to see the road ahead.
A huge black shape reared up ahead out of the fog so suddenly, her heart lurched. Slamming on her brakes, Sophie had the sickening awareness of her tires skidding on the damp pavement. Somewhere in there, she saw that it was an SUV in front of her, stopped right in the middle of the road. When she came to a complete stop without feeling an impact or hearing a scream of crumpling metal, she sagged in relief.
Until the driver side door was wrenched open.
*****
Daniel had just walked in at home when his cell phone rang. Slawinski. Making sure he’d been able to get away? “Yeah?” he said.
“Boss, Ms. Hedgecoth just stopped me on the way out. She got a call from someone who said his unit has been broken into. She wants me to go take a look with her.”
“Sophie with you?”
“No.” The young officer sounded deeply uneasy. “See, that’s the thing. She was ahead, and I don’t think she saw me stop. She kept going.”
Driving with the fog so heavy, she wouldn’t be able to see a car overtaking her. She might even miss a turn.
“To hell with Marge,” Daniel said sharply. “You catch up to Sophie. You hear me?”
“Yeah, okay.” There was a mumbled conversation in the background.
He paced his living room, his tension growing.
“I’m on my way,” Slawinski told him.
“So am I,” Daniel said, making a quick decision. “Call me if you catch up to her.”
Three minutes later, he’d backed his Pilot out of the garage and onto the street. He was starting forward when his phone rang again. Slawinski.
“Tell me you’re behind her,” he said without preamble.
“Chief.” Slawinski’s voice shook. “Her car is sitting in the middle of the road with the driver door standing open.” He paused. “She’s gone, boss.”
Fear felt like a cold blade in his chest.
Sophie.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rough hands yanked her backwards, shocking Sophie into consciousness. She opened her eyes to see that that her cheek was scraping over a ribbed black rubber mat, and the next instant she was tumbling over a black bumper that was high off the ground. Her body wasn’t responding to emergency commands from her brain, and she couldn’t prevent herself from falling and landing hard on her side on damp earth. She turned her head to protect her face from a thick mass of fern fronds dotted with moisture.
She didn’t understand anything. Last thing she remembered was driving…
“You’re awake,” said a man standing above her. “Good.”
Terror flooded her and she rolled and scrabbled backwards, coming up against the broad bole of a tree, her fingers digging into the loamy earth.
Benjamin Billington. She’d seen him framed in the open door of her car just before his fist struck her cheekbone. Oh, God.
“You,” she said with loathing.
He laughed, his face with that widow’s peak appearing demonic. “Did you think I wouldn’t get my hands on you?”
He and his enormous black SUV were all she could see in the thick fog. And trees, blurred enough to seem spectral. He’d driven her into the woods. They could be anywhere.
She inched to one side. “You killed my mother.”
“Yeah, and I can’t tell you how much it pissed me off to have to do it that way. She teased me all that damn summer. That’s all she was. A cock tease. Just like most women.”
Sophie kept moving, even as low-growing vegetation slapped at her and snagged her clothes. She didn’t take her eyes off him.
He paced her, circling the tree, maintaining the same distance from her. “You’re going to make up for what I missed. You look enough like her to do.”
“We found the jewelry,” she blurted. “Daniel knows.”
His face darkened. “I don’t believe you.”
“Your fingerprints will be all over my mother’s necklace.”
“Bitch,” he snarled, and lunged forward.
*****
Every patrol officer and county deputy Daniel could summon was out scouring the roads.
They wouldn’t have had anyplace to start at all if Daniel hadn’t already been on his way.
As it was, he was able to stop the couple of cars that might have passed the spot where Sophie’s Prius had been abandoned, and it turned out one of the two drivers had seen a near-accident, with a car skidding to a stop just short of a huge black SUV that, as far as she could tell, had already been at a stop.
“I’m pretty sure it was black,” she’d added hesitantly. No, she didn’t pay attention to car models, but it was definitely one of those monster SUVs. She admitted it could have been a black pickup truck with a canopy.
But Daniel heard the doubt in her voice. First instincts were usually right, in his experience. And someone already on his radar drove a black Dodge Durango.
Not Elias Burton, who was the registered owner of a boxy older Land Rover, a silver gray that nobody could have mistaken for black. No, that Durango belonged to the Billingtons.
Daniel drove straight to the Misty River Resort. All he could think about was Sophie – when he wasn’t thinking that the resort would have been an ideal place to bury God knows how many women. If Benjamin Billington was the killer, he’d had one hell of a good reason to give Doreen Stedmann and company all the time in the world to raise the money to buy his uncle’s resort. He wouldn’t dare allow bulldozers out here disturbing the ground.
Not until Daniel was almost on top of the old lodge did he see that there were lights on inside. Fear was like teetering on the edge of a thousand foot drop-off. If Benjamin was here, then he had no idea who’d snatched Sophie. No idea where to look. He imagined himself plummeting over that edge in despair.
He slammed to a stop and vaulted out, then ran up the steps and pounded on the heavy door. The wait was next thing to unendurable.
Finally it opened a crack, showing a sliver of a woman’s face. “Who…?” As if he couldn’t have slammed a shoulder against the door and driven her back. He had to grit his teeth against a desire to do just that.
“Mrs. Billington? I’m Police Chief Colburn.” He sounded almost civilized. “Is your husband here?”
“Why, no.” Relaxing once she knew who he was, she opened the door, framed by the golden light spilling out behind her. He realized he had seen her around town a couple of times, a plump, pleasant looking woman whose brown hair was cut expertly. “He had to drive over to Portland on business. He left not long after lunch. I don’t know if he’ll make it back this evening or not. He said he’d call.”
“Mrs. Billington, this is very important.” He heard how ragged his voice was and saw her eyes widen. “Did you donate some jewelry to the auction?”
“Why…yes.” She pressed a hand to her breast. “Is there a problem?”
“Can you describe it to me?”
“Oh, it was just a miscellany. I found it up in the attic, you see.” She was almost chatty, except her gaze stayed, apprehensive, on his face. “I assumed it had belonged to my husband’s aunt, although I was a little surprised because some of it seemed a little too modern. She’s been gone a long time, you know.” She hesitated. “Would you like to come in?”
“No. This is urgent. I really need to know.”
“I don’t know what I can tell you. I worried later that I should have bought some jewelry boxes instead of handing it over with a bunch of necklaces and what-have-you dumped together in a shoebox, but really most of it wasn’t worth much…” She stopped before continuing slowly, “The shoebox was in sort of a strange place. I was packing up some other things – a really lovely quilt, but nothing Benjamin or I would keep, and we don’t have children, you know.” She must have seen the savagery or desperation gathering on his face, because she started talking faster. “It – I mean, the shoebox – was wedged between studs in the attic. Almost hidden by a rafter.”
“Did you discuss the donation with your husband before you gave it?”
“Well…no.” Anxiety had begun transforming her face. “I did mention it later. He wasn’t very happy with me. I assumed, I don’t know, that there had been some memento in there he’d wanted to keep. I offered to ask for it back, but he—” She’d begun breathing hard. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” he said harshly. “There is.”
*****
Benjamin was allowing her the illusion that she might escape, Sophie realized, and enjoying her fear. Did he intend to rape her out here in the woods, wet and chilly as it was? Where else? she thought in the part of her brain that was still capable of being rational. After all, he could hardly take her to the lodge.
If only she knew where they were…
But she did. Or at least she could tell he hadn’t driven her inland, because the roar of the surf was there, so familiar she’d been unconscious of it until just now. The ocean was close by. She didn’t know how that helped, except she was obscurely comforted to feel somewhat oriented. In the grey mist, the pounding of the surf was like a compass needle.
She groped for anything at all she could use as a weapon. With even the smallest bit of a head start, she had a chance. The fog could be her friend instead of an enemy this time. It would be all right to get lost in it, so long as he didn’t find her.
She could see the gleam of his teeth. He was smiling in anticipation. No, she thought again – pleasure at the fear she must be giving off like a rancid odor.
Still backing up, crablike, she pushed through a prickly clump of salmonberry. Her fingers scraped against something. A fallen branch, three or four inches thick, large enough to be a weapon. Please God not too long for her to swing. Exploring, she found one end jagged where it had broken off from the tree.
It came to her that she should use it as a ram. If she could get her feet under her…
“Run,” he told her. “Run, Sophie. There’s nothing better than a good chase.”
She fumbled her way backward on the branch, gathering her feet beneath her at the same time. He watched in what seemed to be pleased anticipation.
Then, in a rush, she snatched it up and drove it forward.
“What the…?” He tried to step back and stumbled.
She hit him higher than she’d intended, on his shoulder rather than hard in the belly. Even so, he fell, his roar of rage only slightly muffled by the fog.
Sophie ran.
*****
Daniel leaped into his Pilot and gunned it in a backwards sweep that left him pointing toward the paved lane leading past the ramshackle cabins and out to the highway. Where would Billington take Sophie? If he buried his victims here, was this his killing field, too? If so— God damn it, where was his SUV?
Use your head, Daniel told himself sharply. Think.
All right. Billington would have no way of knowing anyone suspected him. No reason to think he had to do anything different than he had in his young twenties, when he must have considered the undeveloped acreage here as his macabre playground. Why would he take Sophie anywhere else? Unless he was intent on killing her only to keep her from recognizing her mother’s necklace, he’d want to bring her here, where everything had gone so wrong with her mother.
What if he’d already dragged her into the dunes?
Then where was his vehicle? He’d had to get her here somehow.
When the steering wheel creaked, Daniel deliberately loosened his hands. He couldn’t let the panic take over. He made himself drive slowly, his head turning as he searched to each side. There was no dark bulk in any of the surviving carports attached to cabins. There was no boat launch on this side of the river, no way to drive down to the river bank. He couldn’t make out any tracks leading into the scrub and then woods to the other side of the lane, either.
Where?
A detached part of his mind listened to the terse voices coming from his radio. A deputy had pulled over a dark green SUV on Highway 101. The driver was a woman, a resident of Jasper Beach, the next town north on the Pacific. Other officers and deputies were prowling the parking lot at the state park, traversing alleys and private drives.
When he reached the highway, some instinct sent Daniel south, away fr
om town and the river. He drove slowly, paralleling the resort boundary. He’d heard this stretch of forest was old growth, not as impressive as it would have been on the sheltered side of the coastal mountain range, but still thick, the trees larger than anywhere else hereabouts.
He hadn’t gone fifty yards when he saw it – an opening in the vegetation that might have allowed passage of a vehicle. He pulled to the shoulder of the highway, got out, walked forward and saw parallel tracks left by tires in the damp ground.
The turmoil in his chest didn’t leave room for satisfaction. He returned to his Pilot long enough to call for backup, then pulled his Glock and started forward, stepping quietly, pausing every few steps to listen.
Nothing. But, even in the fog, he had no trouble following the fresh tire tracks.
Twenty yards into the woods, he saw the gleam of black metal.
*****
Sophie crashed into a tree trunk, bounced off it and kept going. She heard her pursuer, not doing any better than she was at moving quietly. The harsh sound of her breathing alone would allow him to follow her. Occasionally, he called out her name. It floated eerily through the fog.
“Sophie-ee.”
Once her foot slid into a hole and she fell hard. Somehow she scrambled back up and kept going, searching desperately for someplace to go to ground. Maybe foolishly, she was heading for the ocean, even as she knew she didn’t dare venture into the open.
Oh, God. Maybe he was driving her toward the dunes.
There were depressions where she could hide.
He knew the dunes as well as she did. Better. Until the one day here with Daniel, she hadn’t been back in twenty years.
Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel) Page 21