The Girl in the Moss

by Loreth Anne White

  “We leave the rental here. I’ll walk up to the front door,” she said. “Plain sight, hands visible, while you go into the trees behind us and come around the back of those sheds over there. Cover me.”

  He looked at her. “He’s high risk? You think he—”

  “I’m definitely thinking he could be a problem if he feels threatened. And I’m uncomfortable about where those vehicles that made those tracks could be. But I’ll try to demonstrate to Axel that he’s under no threat. Just me out here wanting to play nice and talk to him. Once I feel he’s relaxed, I’ll tell him you’re here, too, and I’ll ask if we can look in his sheds. I can get some pics, talk about the waders and sizing and the stuff on his shelf for feeding animals. See if I can get a read on him.”

  But Holgersen had gone quiet. He was staring at something.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “That container building,” he said. “What’s with the mound of earth over top? And all the vegetation shit growing on top? Like he’s trying to hide it from the air or something.”

  “But why would he try to hide just that one building? Not like he doesn’t have a bunch of outbuildings on the property.”

  “Let’s ask him. Come, let’s do this.”

  As they’d planned, Holgersen left the vehicle and sifted into the shadows among the trees behind the Crosstrek. Angie approached slowly from the front, hands visible at her sides, boots squelching in the slurp on the ground.

  Wind blew icy against her ears. Everything dripped. The woodsmoke from the chimney smelled acrid, and it mingled with the scent of pine and loamy detritus in the cold air. Angie knocked on the cabin door. As she waited, she turned to examine the clearing and outbuildings from this different vantage point. Her gaze settled once more on the corvid lying in the snow. Its neck was broken, head lying at an unnatural angle.

  A strange sensation feathered into her. She felt it again. A sense of being watched from the trees. She thought again of the tire tracks.

  She knocked once more. “Axel Tollet? Anyone home?”

  She smelled gas, sudden and strong as the breeze shifted. Adrenaline dumped into her blood. A crack sounded in the trees. She whirled around, heart galloping, her muscles tense.

  Holgersen stepped out from behind a shed. “Pallorino! Over here! Quick!”

  As she ran over to him, she thought she saw a shape move in the woods. She hesitated in her tracks. But it was just branches swaying in the mounting storm wind. She hurried over to Holgersen.

  He was behind the shed, crouched over a human form on the ground.

  Axel.

  Her heart kicked.

  The big man lay spread-eagled in the snow. Two arrows stuck straight up out of his chest. Yellow-and-white fletching. Holgersen was feeling for a pulse at his thick neck. Axel’s eyes, green as the river, stared unseeing into the falling snow. His rifle lay in the snow near his hand. Tension whipped through Angie.

  She snatched up the rifle and stepped sideways, her back to the shed. She scanned the shadows in the woods but saw nothing. She checked the rifle. It was loaded, a round chambered.

  “He’s gone. He’s dead,” Holgersen said, his gaze darting around, his body tight with coiled energy. “He’s still warm. Whoever did this—”

  The whirr, the thwocking sound, was so sudden neither saw it coming. Holgersen grunted. Angie turned to look at him. He was frozen in place. An arrow—the shaft—had gone clean through his neck. Holgersen’s eyes went wide, whites impossibly huge. His hands went to the arrow at his neck. His knees buckled slowly, and he crumpled onto the ground, falling sideways. Before Angie could even process what she’d just witnessed, a whoosh and a bang sounded behind her. The shed burst into a roar of flame.

  The force of the explosion threw Angie forward and into the ground, the rifle in her hand going flying. She lay in the slush, disoriented, ears ringing. Time seemed to slow. Slowly, carefully, she turned her head sideways to look at the shed. Black smoke boiled out of the building. Heat radiated from the fire. Flames crackled and hissed in the falling snow. She struggled to come to her hands and knees, head spinning, her vision blurred.

  Holgersen.

  She crawled to his shape through the slush, hidden from sight of the forest by the roils of black smoke. In the back of her mind she remembered the strong smell of gasoline near the cabin. Someone had rigged this place to blow. She recalled the shed she’d seen earlier with Claire. It was behind the cabin. It housed several natural gas canisters, a generator, containers of fuel. She had to move fast.

  Angie reached Holgersen.

  He lay motionless, eyes closed, mouth parted. The arrow had gone right through his neck. She reached out to touch him. “Holger—”

  Another explosion whammed her into the ground. A second shed went up in flames. The fire roared and crackled. She coughed, eyes watering as she shot a glance in the direction their car was parked. She had to try to get Holgersen to that Crosstrek. A gunshot cracked, and she felt a hot buzzing past her face.

  Fuck.

  She dived flat again, heart pounding.

  Someone was shooting at them from the forest. Wind gusted, and smoke parted, giving her a glimpse of the container building. Angie’s heart stalled again as her brain struggled to understand what she was seeing.

  A face.

  In the small window. A white face.

  Surrounded by a wild tangle of hair.

  Hands, palms forward, bashing wildly at the glass. A woman. Her mouth open wide in a silent scream.

  There’s a woman trapped in the container!

  A line of flames sparked suddenly to life, racing from the cabin toward the container. Fire whooshed up along the front of the container, igniting the bramble tangles, flames leaping quickly to the dead scrub atop the container mound. Angie’s body exploded with adrenaline. Another bullet hit the ground near her hip. Her brain raced. She carefully turned her head in the slush to look at Holgersen. Her old partner lay motionless just beyond her reach, his pistol near her hand.

  Another whoosh of flames gushed out of the shed as something else inside exploded. A fresh cloud of black smoke boiled into the air, momentarily screening Angie from whoever was shooting at them from the trees.

  Triage. Fucking triage, she thought. She had a woman alive in that container threatened by fire. A fallen partner—arrow right through his neck. Motionless. Not breathing. She’d been trained for this. Your partner goes down, you take what you can to help yourself, and you save those you still can. She reached for his sidearm.

  While still covered by the screen of churning black smoke, Angie raced in a crouch toward the container, heart jackhammering. She reached the converted dwelling and pressed herself against the metal side that was not burning. Gun clutched in close near her sternum, she assessed the scene. She tried to stay focused with combat breathing. Four counts as she drew breath in, four counts as she exhaled.

  The glass panes of the cabin windows shattered outward in a burst of air and fire. The shed storing the natural gas would go soon, too. She needed to reach that woman and get out of here before that happened.

  Angie edged toward the container door. It was locked with a dead bolt from the outside. She struggled with the metal bolt as flames along the front of the container nipped closer, heat intense. Her hand slipped on the cold wet metal. She picked up a rock, bashed the bolt across. Angie yanked open the door.

  Smoke was accumulating inside the container. Angie went in, coughing, firearm ready. She had no idea what to expect—friend or foe.

  Shock slammed her as she caught sight of the woman. Terrified, she was backed up against the far wall. Angie couldn’t tell how old she was. Young. A teen, maybe, or in her twenties. Emaciated, barefoot, she wore a dirty shift dress, and her hair was a wild tangle around her head. Flames crackled outside. It was getting hot in the container.

  Angie took in her surroundings fast. The interior was furnished with a bed. Bedding. A tiny kitchenette. Some books on a shelf. A small
table with a chair. On the table lay a sheaf of crinkled pages crisscrossed with tiny cursive writing. A pen lay next to the papers. A second door to her right led to what Angie imagined was some kind of bathroom.

  She held up her left hand, palm out, gun still at the ready in her right. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, coughing, moving toward the woman. “Is there anyone else in here?”

  The woman shook her head, pressing herself tighter against the wall.

  “It’s okay,” Angie said, taking another step closer to the female. Like a trapped animal, the woman sank down the wall and cowered on the floor.

  “Sweetheart,” she said as she reached the woman. “It’s all right. We’re here to help. We need to get you out of here before the fire gets in, okay?”

  Angie reached for her arm, took hold. The woman didn’t have an ounce of fat on her. She was trembling like a leaf. Tears smeared dirt tracks down her face. Angie gripped her arm firmly. “Come, stand up. My name is Angie. I’m here to help you, okay? We’re going to leave. But fast. When we get outside, we run. You let me guide you to my car.”

  The female started to cry. Another whoosh sent a cloud of black smoke filtering into the interior. It was seeping in through the air vents and a pipe that led up into the roof.

  “What’s your name, hon?”

  She shook her head wildly.

  “No name?”

  Again, a wild shake of the head.

  “Okay, come.” Angie gripped her skinny arm and led her to the door, but the woman lunged suddenly at the table as they went past. She snatched up the papers from the table, stuffed them down the front of her dress. Angie firmed her grip on the woman’s arm and yanked her closer. “No time. Move.”

  Angie ushered the female to the door and peered out. Smoke roiled, and flames crackled everywhere. The only consolation was that the smoke curtained them from the forest along the property boundary from where the shots had come. She stepped out, dragging the woman with her. The woman’s bare feet sank into the slush. Angie held her arm tightly and began to run, tugging the female behind her. Coughing, they reached the Crosstrek.

  Thank God, Holgersen had left the keys inside. Angie bundled the woman into the passenger seat while scanning the surroundings, worried the attackers might have come round to this side or that there might be someone else on this end. They’d seen tracks from at least two vehicles.

  A crack sounded behind her. A bullet pinged into the car. Angie swore and dived into the driver’s seat. Slamming the door, she fired the ignition and swung the car around in a hard reverse turn. She gunned the gas, fishtailing in snow and mud as she aimed for the narrow dirt track that led back to the logging road. The road—if one could call it that—would lead them on a long and treacherous route back down the valley to the highway. Angie doubted they’d make it that far before whoever was shooting at them caught up.

  As she swerved around a bend and hit the logging road, a bullet shattered the back window. The woman screamed.

  CHAPTER 45

  Shitshitshitshit. Angie glanced into the rearview mirror, trying to see through the shattered back window. No lights followed. For now.

  “Buckle up,” she barked at her passenger as she spun the wheel, skidding the Crosstrek through another bend, wipers flipping madly across the slushy windshield.

  The girl or woman—Angie still couldn’t tell from her appearance—was shaking so hard she appeared devoid of any fine motor coordination as she struggled to pull the sheaf of papers out from where she’d stuffed them down her dress.

  “Stick the papers in the glove compartment,” Angie snapped, hands tightening on the wheel as she took the Crosstrek around another curve, trying to remember exactly where along the logging road they’d lost cell reception. It was miles and miles away. She needed help, backup now. “Just put the papers in the damn glove compartment and get that seat belt on.” Whatever those papers contained could prove pertinent to this case.

  The woman managed to fumble the pages into the compartment and buckle up.

  “What’s your name?”

  She began to cry. “No . . . name.”

  “You have no name?”

  “Nameless. He said I’m nameless. Just called me . . .” Her voice came out in dry rasps, as if unused to speaking. “December.”

  “December?”

  “He . . . he took me in December. Other was . . . was September. I . . . I think there were more before. Signs of them in the cabin.”

  “He took other women? He gave them names of the months in which he abducted them?”

  She nodded and began to sob.

  “Where did he find you?” The car skidded. Shit. She took her foot off the accelerator, tried to steer into the skid. The action took them almost over the edge. She corrected, getting them back onto the road. The river lay below. They’d negotiated the loop in the road and were now on the section that ran parallel with the Nahamish. It gave Angie a rough idea where they were—somewhere upriver from the falls. She peered into the rearview mirror again. Her stomach bottomed out.

  Lights approached. Soft halos were coming through the mist. Two front lights and hunting spotlights across the top of a truck cab. The Dodge RAM.

  It was coming fast, chewing up the distance between them.

  Heart in her throat, Angie put her foot down on the gas. But the truck was faster, looming closer as she sped wildly along the slippery, rutted track. She had no doubt that this time the people in that truck would kill both her and this female. Desperation burned into her. Help was miles away. They’d never make it like this.

  Her brain raced. Holgersen’s case. Possible ties to Sea-Tech. Freight. Delivery vans. Coveralls. The converted freight container on Axel’s property. December—this woman said she was taken in December.

  “Are . . . you Annelise Janssen? Is that your name?”

  Behind them the lights grew big in the fog. Angie’s tires skidded again, and she felt the all-wheel drive engage. But she kept on the gas as they careened along the twisting mountain track with the sheer drop down to the churning river at their side.

  The woman nodded.

  Her pulse spiked. Fresh energy dumped into her system.

  “He’s had you for almost a whole year? In that container? He took you from the bus shelter near the campus after you had a fight with your boyfriend?”

  She nodded, whimpering, tears streaming down her face, her body shuddering. God, this woman was going to die if Angie couldn’t get her warmed up and into medical care quickly. She turned the heater and fan on full blast. “There’s a coat in the back.” Holgersen’s rain jacket. Angie’s heart crunched at the thought of him, the arrow through his neck. “Reach into the back, put it over yourself. Should be a hat there, too.”

  The woman struggled to reach for the clothing on the rear seat while the car lurched. She managed to grab the gear, and she pulled on the hat, then covered herself with Holgersen’s black raincoat. Angie got a whiff of cigarette smoke off the coat, and tears seared into her eyes.

  “Who took you? Did you hear his name? Was it Axel? Or . . . Wallace? Or Beau or Joey?”

  Another bullet pinged into the back of the car. Shit. The Dodge came closer, closer. They fired again. The bullet hit the shattered back window, and it collapsed inward. The cold and wind inside the car was instant. Angie swerved around a bend. The truck came right up behind her. She saw the silver RAM letters. She saw a hand coming out of the passenger window, followed by a head in a red balaclava, then part of a torso. She saw the gun. The man fired.

  The rear tire of the Crosstrek exploded with a loud bam. Angie gasped. The woman screamed. The car lurched into a hectic spin, crashing through brambles, hitting a tree, more trees, a rock, then tipping over the embankment.

  Angie squeezed her eyes shut, arms covering her head as the car rolled down, down toward the river in a blur of crashing metal, whirling green and brown, the sound of crunching and screams from Annelise.

  They came to a judderin
g halt against a massive rock and tree trunk. A branch fell. All went silent. Angie was breathing hard. She could smell pine and dirt and gas and metal and grease. She tasted blood in her mouth and at the back of her nasal passages. She could hear the water from the river.

  Disoriented, she tried to marshal her brain. A cut on her head leaked warm blood into her eye. Pain seared down her left leg. She forced her head to turn slowly. The woman strapped into the passenger seat stared wide-eyed ahead, unmoving. Blood trickled from her ear.

  “Annelise?” Angie whispered. Sound began booming in her ears. It was the sound of her own pulsing blood. Fear rose in her chest. “Annelise?”

  No response.

  Angie’s heart sank.

  Then the woman’s head turned. She stared at Angie. Angie’s heart shocked back into a rapid-fire beat, like a wild animal trying to get out of her chest. “Are . . . you hurt?” she said. “Are you badly hurt? Can you unbuckle?”

  Annelise moved her hands in zombielike silence, unbuckling her seat belt. Angie did the same. She managed to crawl out of the broken side window. She went around to the passenger side. The Subaru rested against a rock and a stump of old growth. Below them was a rock ledge, then a sheer drop to the river, which swirled white and green with current. Snowflakes came down through the trees. Angie heard voices up the bank. She saw the beam of a flashlight bouncing against mist. They were coming.

  “Shh,” she whispered as she helped Annelise Janssen out through the shattered windshield. “Don’t say a word,” she said as she handed Holgersen’s coat to Annelise. “Put this on.” Angie didn’t want the men to know they were alive down here.

  Shivering like a baby bird, Annelise winced as her bare feet sank into snow and pine needles. The small rocks sticking out of the snow dusting the ground looked sharp. Angie managed to reach into the back of the Crosstrek for her overnight bag while Annelise shrugged into the coat. Angie struggled to pull the bag out through the mangled window frame.