Lullaby for the Nameless (Nolan, Hart & Tain Thrillers)

by Ruttan, Sandra

  The strike of a match.

  Followed by a whoosh, and as the tump-tump-tump against the floor faded, a wave of reddish-orange light danced before her, accompanied by the acrid smell of smoke.

  The heat surged through her as the wave grew and burned above her and behind her, the crackling encircling her as the fire zipped along the gasoline trail.

  When will you ever learn? Don’t you ever use your head?

  Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

  Jenny tried to wriggle toward the gap in the dancing light, but even as she inched her body forward, she could feel the wall of warmth drawing closer as it prepared to drag her from one hell to another.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  As he released his breath, a cloud of white rose slowly in front of him, followed by a sharp pang as the icy air rushed into his mouth and chilled his lungs.

  It was a good pain, the kind that told you what you needed to know to survive. Summer sun could lull you into complacency, make you drowsy and wrap you in a warm blanket that would help put you to sleep while it roasted your skin, but breathing in the sharp cold of the early morning air felt like how he imagined having a form of sadistic acupuncture performed on the back of your throat would feel.

  A hundred reminders that it was not yet spring, that the weather could turn in the blink of an eye.

  That the mountain winters could be cruel and unforgiving.

  No snow had fallen this April, which was both a blessing and a curse. In snow, they might find tracks, but the officers scouring the wilderness in search of Hank Jeffers risked leaving trails of their own, possibly alerting him to their positions.

  Hank Kurtis Jeffers: armed and considered extremely dangerous.

  And out there somewhere. While other officers formed roadblocks and followed up on alleged sightings in places as far away as Calgary and Seattle, Constable Craig Nolan found himself on foot, searching the bush in the outskirts of Kelowna, carrying a shotgun, only a few miles from the scene of the crime.

  Trying to forget what little he remembered about Jeffers. Thinking about the last manhunt he’d been on.

  The search for Lisa Harrington.

  That memory connected to others that he’d rather remained buried, so the reminder of the cold, of his current assignment, was welcome. Not just because it kept him alert, but because it helped keep his mind off other things.

  He let out a deep breath. It was going on four months now, but if he closed his eyes, he’d swear he traveled through time and space and was right back to that moment, when it wasn’t too late to undo the damage…

  The futility of a case wasn’t new to him. When he’d been shot and his partner killed, the senselessness hadn’t weighed on him as heavily as it usually did. Ash had gotten him through it.

  And when they finally called off the search for Lisa and the blame game began, it was Ash who compounded the hollowness growing within him.

  Lisa Harrington. Maybe it was to fill some gaping hole within her, maybe because she thought the pure love of a child would save her from her own destructive behavior, or maybe just for the welfare checks and baby bonuses and tax breaks she could manipulate from the system. For reasons he could only guess at and might never fully understand, Lisa had abducted a child, raised her, then murdered her. That much he was certain of, even if it hadn’t been proven in a court of law, even if Lisa had never confessed.

  He’d been guilty of letting his own prejudices cloud his judgment, of inferring emotions because of labels. A mother always loves her child…right?

  As though he hadn’t been in this job long enough to know that you couldn’t make those kinds of assumptions. As though his own mother didn’t prove otherwise.

  In the process of getting involved with that old case and reviewing the investigation, he’d allowed himself to doubt the kind of man his father was. Craig’s doubts created new wounds and ripped old ones open. He’d been left carrying demons of guilt he wasn’t sure he could ever exorcise.

  He couldn’t hope for the forgiveness of others when he couldn’t forgive himself.

  Now, for the second day in a row, he joined the search for Hank Jeffers. A man who’d allegedly murdered his estranged wife and three children.

  Something else Craig couldn’t forgive himself for.

  If he’d seen it coming, if he’d looked harder years ago, he might have found a way stop it…If only he’d known what the man was really capable of.

  Maybe he didn’t want to get to the point where he could understand these people. Maybe understanding them would humanize them, when it was easier to think of them as monsters.

  And maybe he didn’t want to understand them because if he could, it would mean he wasn’t so different from them, that he wasn’t better than them.

  Or maybe he didn’t want to understand because that would provide excuses for his mother. Maybe he would begin to understand her. He might find his grip on his hatred slipping as he started to see things through her eyes.

  Just a useless sack of shit, a waste of skin.

  He stopped cold and choked on his breath.

  “Y’okay?”

  Craig forced a cough. He didn’t trust himself to speak. It had been so long since he’d heard the voice that had cut through his thoughts that he’d almost convinced himself he’d forgotten it.

  Almost.

  Another part of his past he wished he could exorcise permanently.

  This job had taken him close to his childhood home, where his mother still lived—what had undoubtedly caused the resurrection of the voice he’d just heard—and that was bad enough. Worse still, this case had dredged up memories about the failed manhunt for Lisa Harrington. And it had taken him closer to the assignment he was on when he’d first met Tain and Ash, both geographically and emotionally. With men being pulled from detachments and reassigned to help with the manhunt, it was possible to cross paths with someone else he’d worked with during that investigation.

  It had been hard enough facing Tain and Ash again at first. What was it, eight or nine months ago now? He’d concealed it well, the same way he’d buried all the ghosts deep within himself.

  He’d almost believed he was bottomless until the day came when there were too many for him to hold at bay.

  Ever since he’d been given his orders and had climbed into his Rodeo to make the drive from the last temporary assignment he’d been on, farther north, he’d been trying to push thoughts of Lisa Harrington, Ashlyn and everything that had happened since he’d first worked with her and Tain from of his mind.

  Trying. Failing.

  “You don’t look so good.”

  Craig forced himself to focus on the man speaking to him. “I’m fine. Fighting off a bit of a spring cold.”

  Constable Stanley MacDougall—known as Mac—grinned. “Spring? Never pegged you as an optimist.”

  “Okay, chalk it up to too much fresh air.”

  “Yeah, man, I know what you’re sayin’.” Mac slapped Craig on the shoulder twice and then moved out in front, into the lead. “How this sonofabitch is surviving out here without freezin’ his balls off is beyond me.”

  “We don’t even know he’s out here.”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  Craig had heard and knew exactly what Mac was referring to. “Excrement doesn’t mean much, not that close to the road. If you had a nickel for every time someone pulled over and answered the call of nature, you’d be golfing in Hawaii right now.”

  The grin slipped from Mac’s face in a heartbeat, and he looked totally serious, as though he was Craig’s dad and had just caught him sneaking in after curfew. “I would not. Get it right. I’d be on a beach with a hot babe in Mexico.” The grin was back in place. “Maybe two hot babes.”

  How long had it been since he’d had a partner who would crack jokes with him, even on a serious case? Not since he’d been reunited with Tain and Ash.

  He knew some guys had to keep the laughs rolling. It
was how they coped. Grinning ear to ear, taking every opportunity for a cheap joke in public while they were crying their eyes out behind closed doors later or losing themselves in a bottle. That was Mac. Craig knew morbid humor was typical with medical examiners and anyone who worked homicide, but there was a line that Mac kept crossing, and it told Craig that Mac wasn’t handling it well.

  He was trying too hard to make it seem like he was in control.

  “…takes a shit in the woods without toilet paper when it’s still freezing out half the time, and it wasn’t that far from town. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

  “You have a point.” He’d missed part of what Mac had said, but he’d read the reports. There were possible explanations for finding feces in the woods this time of year, but a lot of reasons to be suspicious too.

  Especially that close to town.

  He fought to keep his shoulders from rising with the shiver of his body. An icy finger had just traced a path down his spine, and he stopped walking and stood still, trying to listen.

  It took Mac at least a minute to realize Craig wasn’t following him, and when he turned back to look at Craig, all hints of amusement were gone.

  “You hear something?”

  His heart, thudding in his chest.

  The sound of the last words his father had said to him before he’d left.

  The sound of Ash’s voice, her smile never more than a heartbeat away if he allowed himself to close his eyes…

  The reason he wasn’t sleeping.

  Had he heard something else? All there was now was the softest trickle of wind through the branches. Without leaves to rustle it was barely noticeable. The woods were still.

  Too still.

  “Just…a feeling.”

  Mac stared at him for a moment, then cracked a grin. “Ah, you’re one of those. A modern man, in touch with his feelings.”

  “This is serious. You shouldn’t be shooting your mouth off. If he’s out there, he’ll hear you and know exactly where you are.”

  Mac held up his hands in mock surrender, but he was still grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Geez, I heard you had a bit of a short fuse, Nol—”

  Thhhwap. The crack cut through the calm, and the bullet tore into the bark on a nearby tree, sending bits of wood flying into Craig’s face. He spun around and dropped to the ground as he swore under his breath, which was coming hard and fast. He wiped his eyes with his left hand, then tightened his grip on his gun. He was ready; he just had to find the target. He scanned the trees. Nothing. No movement between the branches, no sign of color to hint at the location of the shooter.

  “Y’okay?” Mac’s voice, just a whisper.

  Craig glanced to his left. Mac had taken cover behind a large stump. The woods were so still the soft whisper could be heard effortlessly.

  “See anything?” Craig asked.

  Mac was scanning the woods behind them, where they’d come from, but after a moment he turned toward Craig. He wasn’t smiling as he shook his head. “Nah, man. I—”

  Thhhhhwap. Craig jumped at the crack of the bullet as it lodged into the stump in front of Mac. He barely registered that Mac was okay as he turned and looked over the area.

  Still nothing.

  Sssssthhhhwap. Bark flew off the side of a tree about ten feet in front of Craig. It sounded like it had been shot from farther away, and from what he could tell had come from a different angle.

  Two shooters? Or one shooter who was on the move?

  “This sonofabitch’s really startin’ to piss me off,” Mac muttered. In the distance they heard the flap of wings followed by another cry of protest from the branches above them.

  Whoever it was, they were running.

  As Craig’s breaths slowed, he pulled out his cell phone. Mac got up and moved to take cover behind a large pine close to the tree the last bullet had struck.

  Mac turned back just as Craig closed his phone, scanned the woods and made a quick move to a tree near Mac’s position. He stayed low just in case the shooter was circling around. Once he was at the tree, he turned and scanned the area to his left and behind him.

  Nothing.

  “They’re pulling in other teams from the east and west, hoping to cut him off.” Craig nodded in the direction the shots had been fired from. “We’re to go north.”

  Crouched low, taking slow, controlled breaths, Craig and Mac moved through the woods with shotguns in hand. In the seconds when Craig stopped and stood still, his visual surveys revealed no sign of the shooter.

  Craig pulled out his cell phone. One of the other things he hated about working in the woods in the mountains. Walk a few feet and you were suddenly cut off from the world.

  No signal.

  No sign of anything but trees and some rock.

  Nothing but stillness. The more ground they covered, the more uneasy Craig felt. Other officers should be out there, patrolling their assigned areas, but there was no evidence of anyone responding. He didn’t even hear another team approaching. Half of him cursed the decision to operate with radios on silent mode, despite the fact that he knew that decision had been made to ensure Jeffers couldn’t track their positions.

  All it would take was a half second for someone to call in on a radio and he’d know where you were if he was close by.

  You’d be distracted, and he’d have the advantage.

  It made sense to work without radios, but the unpredictability of cell-phone use in the area meant they were flying blind, and the risk of friendly fire was foremost in Craig’s mind. Moving forward on preset routes when they were given assignments was one thing; they shouldn’t be intersecting other teams.

  Now, they were doubling back and heading toward areas at least two other teams had been ordered to search.

  They would hesitate before firing, just to make sure it wasn’t one of their own. Jeffers wouldn’t.

  As Craig ran forward, he bent down low, swung the shotgun over his shoulder and pulled himself up over a rock ledge that was about ten feet tall. When he reached the top, he advanced slowly, ready to pull back in case someone took a shot at him right away, but the woods on the other side of the rock were as empty as the ones behind him. He turned back and signaled for Mac to follow.

  “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Mac asked as he cleared the ledge and leaned up against the tree closest to Craig’s position, trying to control his quick and heavy breaths.

  In the distance to his right, he heard the rustle of branches and something thumping against the ground, moving fast.

  Followed by heavy footfalls. Two distinct sounds.

  Mac’s brow wrinkled. “Person or animal?”

  It took Craig a moment to place it. The sound was like a distant memory his mind was trying to bring into focus, from his training. “Both. Canine unit.”

  Said just as the dog came into sight, heading due north. Craig barely managed to signal the RCMP officer who jumped out of the bush onto the path in front of them. The man paused long enough to hold up his hand before turning and running again.

  Indicating they should hold back

  “What the hell? They don’t really expect us to let them take charge, do they?”

  Craig nodded. It had been a while since he’d worked with a canine team—a year and a half or so—but he still remembered the speed at which they covered ground. There was no way Craig and Mac could beat a trained police dog to the suspect, and if they got too close, they risked interfering with the dog and his handler.

  Craig scanned the area before he moved closer to Mac’s position. “While we do what, exactly?” Mac sputtered the words, flecks of saliva flying from his lips as he stared at Craig. “Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t say ‘to hell with it’ and go after this useless sack of shit?”

  “You mean, one good reason other than getting written up for insubordination and having that stuck in your record?”

  “Wouldn’t’a thought that would stop you,” Mac muttered.

  Craig
didn’t even try to suppress the wry smile he felt tugging at his mouth. “Maybe not, but all we’d do is get in their way. He can’t be more than a mile from our position. If anyone’s going to catch him when he’s on the move and we’re closing in on him, it’s the dogs.”

  Mac breathed in and out rapidly, then drew a longer breath and slumped back against the tree, the breaths coming sharp and fast again. “Somethin’ ’bout this isn’t right.”

  Something? Nothing about this was right. A man who’d allegedly murdered his estranged wife and three children and was on the run had apparently shot at them. Assuming it was him, was he desperate or suicidal? He’d fired from behind them, which meant they’d either moved past his position without spotting him, or he was following them.

  Neither was a particularly comforting thought.

  If they’d missed him, why draw unnecessary attention to himself? Even if he’d killed both of them, Jeffers had to know there’d be more cops in the area. Why not just slip off silently while he had the chance?

  And if it wasn’t Jeffers, then who was it?

  What really bugged Craig was the quiet. Other than the moment the canine team had been in view and the sound from Mac’s ragged breaths, the air was unnaturally calm. It was like the hush over the earth in the middle of the night in winter, when the blanket of darkness brought with it a stillness that nothing dared to break. Not even the forest animals went about their business, Craig realized. Other than the sound of that one bird flapping its wings and crying out, there was no sign of life in the woods around them, and that wasn’t normal.

  He glanced at Mac as he felt his cell phone vibrate and reached for it. Out of the dead zone. The voice on the other end was talking before he’d had a chance to finish answering the phone.

  Craig closed it again without saying a word.

  “Well?” Mac’s breaths had leveled out finally.

  He offered nothing more than a jerk of his head and started to run through the woods, not bothering to stop and take cover. It wasn’t long before there was a hum in the air, voices in the distance. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he knew it was the canine team. After another few minutes, his own quick breaths prickled his throat with a burning cold, and then a handful of men gathered in a small clearing came into view, two holding dogs back from whatever the others had gathered around.