The Last Victim (A Ryker Townsend Story)

by Jordan Dane

  “While you were sleeping last night, I got up and searched the place for a laptop and didn’t find one. Didn’t expect to. He was familiar with computers and being online. More than me, but if I had to guess, I’d say he used a computer at the lodges he worked out of.”

  She told me once tourist season started and the lodges got busy, Nate would come down from the mountain and stay put with the hunting or fishing parties he would serve as guide. He’d work long stretches of time with booked parties, but get time off where he could score downtime at his cabin between work shifts.

  “Seeing how remote his cabin is, that makes sense. He had the best of both worlds. He worked hard when he was on, but his downtime was his own.” I nudged my chin at her. “I see you’ve been busy. You found his stash of weapons.”

  Justine had a few knives in leather sheaths on the table, as well as a twelve-gauge shotgun, and she prepared to clean a couple of hunting rifles.

  “Yeah, he used a .300 Remington Ultra Mag for bears and a .243 Winchester for black tail deer season,” she said. “I’ll load the shotgun and one of the rifles and put them by you when I’m done cleaning them.”

  I blinked to clear my vision as I sat in bed. My condition hadn’t changed much. A rifle with a scope seemed like a waste for me—given the shape I was in—but I might need the long range weapon to keep Matson at a distance.

  “I’ll be out for a while,” she said. “I’m taking the Remington and my handgun.”

  I didn’t like what I heard and it must’ve shown on my face. Justine stopped what she was doing and came to my bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress and ran a hand across my brow and down my cheek. She had a reason to touch me to check my temperature, but the sympathy on her face made it more personal.

  “Your ankle has stopped bleeding, but you haven’t shaken the fever. I won’t be gone long. Stay alert if you can. I don’t want Matson getting close to you, not in the shape you’re in. You think you can stay awake?”

  “Yeah, I’ll try,” I said. “Don’t make any risky moves. I don’t like you being out there without back up.”

  “Welcome to my world, Ryker. Troopers in Alaska cover a lot of ground alone. I work in isolation all the time. Back up isn’t always possible. Solo comes with the job.”

  I didn’t like Justine hunting Matson alone, but in my condition I wouldn’t do her any good. She didn’t need an albatross like me hanging around her neck.

  “To be clear, by hunting him, you mean take him alive, right?” I asked her. “If he doesn’t give you a choice, you have to defend yourself, but we need to question him.”

  “So you do believe he killed Nate and the others.” She touched my arm. “I got a feeling about him, too.”

  “I’m not rushing to judgment. There’s too much we don’t know yet. We have to question him. If he’s our guy, we have too many families without closure. We need to ID every one of those bodies. We need him alive, no matter which way this goes.”

  “Yes, of course. I understand.” She nodded. “I’m leaving you with a canteen of water. Stay hydrated. I also made you a crutch if you have to get up, but I wouldn’t advise it unless it’s necessary.”

  “Yeah…thanks.”

  She fixed her gaze on me and said, “This is important. When I come back, I’ll call out to you before I hit the porch. Don’t shoot me.”

  “You’d have to be pretty close for me to hit you. My eyesight…it’s not good.”

  “Maybe I should stay.” She touched my cheek with an affection that surprised me.

  The shadow of her hand crossed over my eyes and I flinched. The sudden move. My disconnected brain. I don’t know what triggered my reaction, but it happened. The minute I shied away, I regretted it. She looked hurt, but the damage was already done.

  I felt like an ass.

  “Sorry. I just didn’t expect it. That’s all.”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say you don’t have anyone special in your life. You’re not used to the intimacy of a woman’s touch. Nate was like that too, at first. When you live alone too long, it’s easy to forget what it feels like to be touched.”

  “He must’ve gotten over that pretty quick…if you were lovers.” After her expression changed and she avoided looking me in the eye, I said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “I opened the door. You had a right to walk through it.”

  “No, you’re right. I’ve lived alone for years and I’m afraid it shows.”

  “The thing is about living alone, there’s no one there to…stop you.”

  I wanted to ask, stop you from doing what…exactly? But the pathetic part was that I didn’t need to. I had no one to answer to, no one to debate the countless ways I sabotaged my personal life—and did so with impunity.

  “The truth is that I miss him in my life. I miss what we had. He made me want…more. I guess since you remind me of Nate, my touching you could be part of that. If it bothers you, I’ll stop…except for when I have to change your dressing.”

  I forced a smile.

  “No, it’s okay, really. I’m not thinking straight. It’s not you. It’s me.” I took a deep breath before I fixed my gaze on her. “You should go. I don’t like you out there solo, but I see your point. If you find Matson and take him into custody, getting my phone back could make all the difference. Do what you have to. Find him.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Before Justine left the cabin, she set me up with everything I would need by my bed. She had my canteen of water, aspirins, and the twelve-gauge loaded. I sat up, with pillows behind my back and the shotgun across my lap.

  I popped pills in my mouth and washed them down with a long pull on the canteen. By the time Justine headed out, my fever had come back with a vengeance—something I hadn’t told her.

  ***

  BAU headquarters

  Quantico, Virginia

  Noon

  ERTs Devin Hutchison and Camilla Devore came into the conference room where Lucinda Crowley had asked them to meet her at noon. She wanted a briefing of their progress in identifying the latest bodies. Cam set up the visuals they’d need and Hutch handed Lucinda hard copy file folders.

  “Don’t forget that…” Hutch said to Camilla.

  Before he finished, she answered him.

  “Yeah, got it.”

  Her ERTs had their game faces on, but as they worked side by side preparing for their meeting, Lucinda fought a smile. Outwardly, her evidence recovery techs were polar opposites in nearly every way.

  Hutch dressed with all the subtlety of a rock star. Today he wore a plaid scarf draped around his neck, a cotton shirt with pulled up sleeves, an unbuttoned vest, jeans, and ankle boots. When he’d come in earlier, Lucinda noticed he had on a black porkpie hat. The guy had eclectic taste and always looked like he’d taken a dive in a theatre trunk. He reminded her of a quirky Johnny Depp in the movie, Benny & Joon.

  Camilla was petite and had the body and the graceful movements of a ballet dancer. All business, she wore a tan pencil skirt with a subtle animal print blouse and nosebleed heels. Her jewelry, suit jacket and accessories were always tasteful and sharp. She dressed as if she’d come off a runway.

  Hutch and Cam were definitely different in appearance, but their personalities worked and made them a good team. They were intuitive with each other. They’d even taken to short talk with one another, almost in a code only the two of them understood.

  “Cam and I were able to ID two victims. Here’s what we have,” Hutch began.

  Hutch and Cam had identified two of the severed arms from the Cascade Mountains crime scene using fingerprints they’d run through a series of databases and had compiled solid background information on both victims. Brian Dunkirk and Michael Wesson had corresponding missing person reports and lived in the Seattle area. Dunkirk had been twenty-five when he died and Wesson, twenty-six.

  “You two must’ve worked late last night.” Lucinda sipped on her fourth cup of coffee and looked over
the files they’d created on the two young men. “The others will be harder. We may never know their names.”

  It would be tougher to ID the other body parts. Unless the victims had distinguishing tattoos, scars, or joint damage that could be backed up with a medical file, they’d have a harder time with associating a name. The severed butt cheeks and penises would likely not be positively identified unless they got a hit on DNA, which would be long odds if the victims didn’t have a criminal history or didn’t have another reason to be in a DNA database.

  “I’ll keep looking,” Hutch said. “I can cross reference missing persons to likely victims, based on their DMV photos. I believe that TK has evolved what he’s looking for in a target. Searching for his new ‘type’ would be another way to come at this.”

  “A change in victimology?” Lucinda cocked her head. “Explain.”

  “Show her, Cam.”

  Camilla grabbed the remote control in front of her and clicked a button. She pulled up the DMV photos of Brian Dunkirk and Nathan Applewhite.

  “Hutch recognized a similarity between Dunkirk and Nathan Applewhite. The resemblance is uncanny and his theory fits Wesson, too. Look.” Cam brought up another slide that had an array of three DMV photos. “Here are all three men. I think Hutch is on to something.”

  “I see what you mean,” Lucinda said. “Good eye, Hutch. It’ll take longer to sort through missing persons to search for the specific victimology, but you could narrow the field. That would definitely help.”

  She stared at the DMV photos and focused on every feature of these men. Something bothered her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Hutch looked troubled, too.

  “One thing concerns me about this new victimology theory,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Applewhite was special enough that we got a whole body and our UNSUB took great pains to give him a place of honor on his Totem. If our killer is targeting guys who look like Applewhite, now that he’s dead, what’s next? Who’s next?”

  Lucinda nodded, not taking her eyes off the photos.

  “I see your point. We have to figure out what these victims have in common. How does he pick them? And if our UNSUB’s targets evolved into Applewhite lookalikes, when did that happen? What triggered the change in his victimology? If we can figure that out, we might stand a chance at getting ahead of him.”

  After a plan took shape in Lucinda’s mind, she pointed at Devin Hutchison.

  “I agree with how you’re thinking about this. Run with it. Cross check missing persons with DMV. Pull any that fit the profile of TK’s victim, Applewhite. This new approach could help us ID the bodies we have no names for.”

  “I’m on it,” Hutch said.

  “And Cam, you look at what we know of previous victims. Let’s see if we can isolate when and why our UNSUB changed his victim profile. You’ll be looking for anything that links our victims, from places they work, where they live, service providers they share, anything where our UNSUB might’ve crossed their paths.”

  “Yeah, got it,” Cam said.

  “We’ll regroup in three hours.”

  Camilla took down the slide images off the screen, but she left the hard copy files. After Lucinda hit the break room refrigerator and grabbed her sack lunch, she returned to her office and laid out the file folders across her desk. She stared at the faces of the dead men as she ate yogurt and slices of apple.

  What did the Totem Killer see in these men? Why had they been targeted…and why had Applewhite been special? Something in the eyes of these men gripped her once again. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but when she felt a strong urge to talk to Ryker, she tried his cell.

  No answer. No voice mail. She got a signal that meant his SAT phone wasn’t in service.

  “That’s strange.”

  She tried several more times, but when she couldn’t reach him, she called Sinead. After two rings, Lucinda looked at her watch and realized it was still the lunch hour. She almost hung up, but before her call rolled into voice mail, Sinead answered.

  “Royce.”

  “Hey Sinead. It’s Crowley. Sorry if I disturbed your lunch.”

  “No worries. I’m here. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve been trying to reach Ryker, but he’s not answering. Can you help me figure out if there’s a service problem or if the trouble is with his phone?”

  “Yeah. Definitely. I’ll hit you back in a few.”

  A ‘few’ turned out to be twenty minutes later.

  “The problem isn’t the service. I confirmed that. The service provider says his phone is off, but it gets worse.” Sinead sounded worried.

  “Worse?”

  “Yeah, they lost him on their network grid. His phone is offline. He’d have no reason to do that, Lucinda. Not unless his phone is damaged. We can’t track his coordinates. It’s like he’s fallen off the planet.”

  Ryker’s SAT phone should have worked in the mountains. The higher elevations would’ve given him a clearer shot at a satellite to ping his signal off, but Sinead was right. There’d be no reason Ryker would have turned off his phone. His phone would be crippled and they’d have no way to track him.

  “Give me the last coordinates you had on him ASAP. I want to see it on a map and get a satellite view, too.” She swallowed, hard. “Keep trying to reach him. If his service resumes, I want to be the first to know. Leave him a message to call me if his cell rolls to voice mail.”

  “Yeah, got it.”

  Sinead ended the call and left Lucinda alone with her dark ‘what if’ scenarios. Ryker’s phone could have been damaged like Sinead had said. He could have dropped it off a cliff or in a rushing river. He was in a remote location and on a hike up a mountain, but Lucinda had a bad feeling the explanation wouldn’t be that simple.

  She should never have let him go to Alaska alone. Yeah, right—as if he’d given her a choice.

  ***

  Prince of Wales Island, Alaska

  Hours later

  Ryker Townsend

  In my condition, time wasn’t merciful. Each second piled on to minutes that turned into hours and moved like a thick sludge of oil. I was mired in it. It crawled through my body and threatened to suffocate me with fever and doubts and guilt. My skin was on fire, my head ached, and seeing daylight actually hurt. I had to quit wiping my watery eyes. The skin around them had turned raw. The aspirins quit working and nothing made me feel better.

  The canteen had become my new best friend. I slugged down more water and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Hydration was important, but I did it to keep moving. To stay awake. My tunnel vision had gotten worse and I had a hard time keeping my head up. I sat on the bed with the shotgun on my lap, groggy and sick.

  I’m not a guy who likes staying still. Being stuck in one spot makes it too easy for my mind to tear down the walls I’d built with care and good reason. The shape I was in made it hard to stay in the moment. For Justine’s sake, I had to try.

  The more I thought about what she had said, about me having a concussion, it made sense. Head trauma. When I played football in high school, I’d been hospitalized and put under observation overnight with close medical attention. I remembered enough to realize I had many of the same symptoms. Headache. Pressure in the head. Confusion. Dizziness. Nausea. Fatigue. Sensitivity to light, to noise. Memory loss.

  I couldn’t remember the warning signs of a concussion when the condition shifted from bad to worse and I would need a hospital. Probably a good thing. I had to find a way to ride it out. Nothing else I could do. My thought process, my reasoning, I’d been injured there, too. I had to rely on Justine now. I didn’t have a choice.

  After I took a deep breath, I drank more water, desperate to stay alert. Whenever I nodded off, noises jerked me awake and I’d grab my twelve-gauge. In my tormented naps, I pictured Matson beside me as if the man could walk through walls, but not even the adrenaline rush from the scare kept me awake. I imagined strange thing
s with every sound as my mind conspired against me.

  To sidestep the mind clutter, I got up and stretched my back. When my gaze landed on the photos of Nate’s family and the water color drawings his son had made, I hobbled over to the stack Justine had left on a wooden bookshelf near my bed.

  Nate’s boy looked the spitting image of him. With every photograph I saw the love and pride of a father for his young son. I recognized the background in some of the shots. Many of the photos had been taken at the cabin or in Point Baker.

  Piecing together the life of a victim, after seeing their marred bodies in death, always stayed with me long after the case closed. The sadness and sense of loss lingered, at least it had for me after I lost both my parents in that sudden unexpected way. A ‘not so harmless’ drive to church had changed everything.

  Nate’s boy would have to grow up without his father, because Applewhite had crossed paths with the wrong guy. Violent death was like a ripple across still water. It spread to touch anyone in its wake, even the investigators who worked the case.

  As I flipped through the pages of water color, one caught my eye. The kid had drawn a small craft airplane, similar to the one I’d flown to Point Baker. Maybe the boy had watched float planes land near the lodge where his father worked, but it could also mean Nate might have been the pilot or had been working toward getting his license.

  I was grasping at straws. A kid in Alaska probably saw plenty of float planes, but given Applewhite was a sports guide, he had to know pilots. Maybe one of his co-workers at the lodge would know if he had a connection to Seattle. When I got back to Point Baker, I’d have to talk to the lodge owner.

  Being hurt, I felt useless and stuck where I was.

  Lucinda, don’t let me down. I knew it would be only a matter of time for my team to notice they couldn’t reach me, but waiting for that to happen—and for Justine to get back—was driving me stir crazy. I tossed the stack of drawings on the mattress and slumped back on the bed.