Lincoln blew out a breath. “No. Marc said he needed some time to clear his head, connect back to the land, first. In order to do that, he quit his old job and worked on a ranch for a while.”
“Do you remember the ranch’s name?”
“Yeah. The Brown River Ranch. It’s up north, I think. Maybe in Weld County? It’s been a long time, so I’m a little fuzzy on details.”
“What about his first love? Did he ever tell you the girl’s name?”
“Just her first name. Hannah.”
“Did he give you any more details about her?”
“There was never any chance for him to do that. He packed up and left the next day. Said he had decided to return to the USA.”
“Do you know where he went, what he did after he left Mexico?”
“No. I left Mexico myself not long after. I was having my own problems, and I didn’t give much more thought to Marc.”
Dawn took a minute to process all that Leslie’s son had told her. She had a feeling that, unlike Lincoln, she would be devoting a lot of time to thinking about Damon “Marc” Foxe.
*****
Dawn wasn’t the only one who was thinking about Marc Foxe. Escaping from him was the main concern occupying Kit, Danny, and Sherri.
“How much farther?” Kit asked Danny.
The boy shrugged. The truth was he wasn’t sure. He knew the way, but he had never paid much attention to time. That was a job for grown-ups. Thinking back over past trips to the mountain cabin, however, he made a quick calculation.
“We should be there by dinner time,” he said. “And this time, we can light a fire. There’s plenty of food and a good water supply. And real beds to sleep in.”
Kit smiled. It occurred to Danny that it was the first time he had ever seen her do so.
“Can’t wait,” she said. “But are you sure it will be safe to light a fire?”
“Yeah, I’m positive,” Danny responded. And it would be safe, he reassured himself. Just let him get his hands on one of the rifles at the cabin. Once he’d loaded it, they’d be safe. There was only one approach to the cabin, and it had a clear field of fire. Let Marc come. Let him. Danny hoped he would make the attempt. Then it would be payback time.
A short while later, the trio stopped to rest in a copse of trees filled with fallen boulders. It provided good cover, so Danny announced that they would stop for a few minutes and eat something.
Kit commented to Danny, “You’re pretty good at this. Surviving in the wilderness, I mean. You must have gone camping a lot over the years.”
Danny slanted a glance at her. “Our father was a wilderness guide,” he said.
“You told me that he died. I’m sorry.”
Danny swallowed hard and nodded.
Feeling her way, Kit probed for more information. She had avoided the topic up until now, but she wanted to know more about the man who had kidnapped her and Zoe.
Because she sensed that Danny didn’t want to talk about it, she asked rather hesitantly, “The other man – the one who kidnapped me – who is he?”
At first she thought that Danny wasn’t going to answer. But after a moment or two he said slowly, “His name is Marc. He showed up a few months after my dad died. He was an old boyfriend of Mom’s. They met in college. But they had a falling out, and they broke up. Then Mom met my dad and married him instead. At least, that’s what Mom told me.
“When he first showed up, he seemed really nice. He told Mom that he had heard about my dad’s death and had come to convey his condolences. Mom was surprised, but he seemed really genuine, so she accepted it when he told her he was going to be in the area for a while and offered to lend us a helping hand.
“He was really kind and thoughtful in the beginning. He’d assist with the chores, work on the house, help with maintaining the place. After a while, we all got comfortable with him. I actually liked him at first. Our acquaintances in town did too. That’s where he was living – in town. Then one day he told us he had gotten a job in Pueblo. He came over to say goodbye. Then he left, and we thought we’d seen the last of him. We actually missed him, if you can believe it.
“But then one night we came back from a festival in town, and he was waiting for us. He was sitting outside at the wheel of a brand new car. Of course, we let him in. Mom fixed him something to eat and asked him about his new job. He said he never had a new job.
“Mom was puzzled. She asked him what had happened. He told her that the job he wanted was right on our ranch. He wanted to run the ranch and be a part of our family. It wasn’t right, how we were living. We needed a man, a head of the family. And he decided that he was it.
“Mom stood up and stared him down. ‘You haven’t changed at all,’ she told him. ‘I thought you had, but you’re still the same pig-headed nutcase you always were. Get out of my house and don’t come back’.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t listen to her?” Kit interposed.
Danny looked away and then back at Kit.
“He just smiled at her. Then he reached out and backhanded her. When he did, I jumped him and managed to tackle him. Sherri piled on top of both of us. But he shook us both off. He’s a lot stronger than he looks. Then he pulled out a knife, grabbed Sherri by the hair, yanked her up, and held the knife to her throat. He told us – with a smile on his face – that he’d cut her throat unless we did exactly as he told us to do.”
Chapter 27
At the same time Danny was telling Kit his story, Dawn, Lincoln, and Leslie were descending the path that led back to the cars on the road at the bottom, where Rick was waiting for them.
When they reached the foot of the path, Lincoln drew his mother aside for a private chat, while Dawn walked over to Rick and gave him a quick rundown of what Lincoln had said. Rick’s eyes gleamed and a smile creased his face when he realized that they now had a name to attach to the perp, but the smile quickly turned to a frown as he assimilated all the details Dawn had relayed to him.
“Son of a…” he began. “Thompson should have caught this when he followed up on Jed Foxe’s son.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Give me a minute here,” he said to Dawn.
Dawn heard him swearing under his breath as he placed a quick call to his office. After a few short, terse sentences, he disconnected the call and turned back to Dawn.
“I had our people double-check. They verified that the only information Thompson submitted on Foxe was that he was married and working as a Farm and Home Management Adviser in Oklahoma. Nothing about the divorce, or quitting his job, or disappearing for a while and going to Mexico. He didn’t even check the prison register to see if Marc Foxe had been in touch with his father before he died. That was some piss-poor police work.”
Privately, Dawn agreed, but decided it would be imprudent to say so. Instead, she occupied herself with bringing up an image of Marc Foxe’s driver’s license on her tablet. Handing it over to Rick, she commented, “He’s still using his Oklahoma driver’s license. It’s good for another year. Take a look at the picture.”
Rick accepted the tablet and studied the picture for a minute or two. Raising his eyes to hers, he said, “The resemblance to the sketch is remarkable. Your artist must be some sort of genius.”
“We like to think so,” Dawn responded as he handed the tablet back to her.
Rick opened his mouth to respond, but his police radio squawked just then. He got back into the car to answer it, while Dawn walked over to where Lincoln was standing with his mother beside Leslie’s car.
As Dawn approached, Lincoln nodded to her and, without a backward glance, returned to the truck he had arrived in and drove off.
Leslie, meanwhile, got back into her own car. Dawn took the time to bid Leslie goodbye and thank her for her help. After Leslie drove off, Dawn walked back to Rick’s car and seated herself once again on the passenger’s side. Rick was just getting off his radio as she did so.
“That was the State Police. They found Kit Blakewood’s car,” Rick announced.
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“Where?”
“On a dirt road off I-25, just south of Colorado City.”
“That’s our next stop, then.”
“Look, you don’t have to come along, Cimarron. It’s obvious now that the crime originated hundreds of miles south of here, way outside of your jurisdiction. Let us concentrate on it from now on. We’ll find the crime scene and work on it with the State Patrol and the locals.”
“No,” Dawn replied firmly. “I talked with my lieutenant before we left Mountpelier. Ordinarily, since the crime apparently originated in another jurisdiction, we’d just turn it over to the CBI. But this one is different, because Officer Jordan is one of ours. Marc Foxe shot one of ours, Rick, in our jurisdiction. On top of that, he beat up and transported an unknown woman into our jurisdiction. Said unknown woman is now hospitalized in Mountpelier General Hospital. So I’m sticking with you on this case. Period.”
“Suit yourself,” Rick said with a shrug. “Meanwhile, here’s something else you might find interesting.” He indicated an old-fashioned road map that he had sitting on the seat beside him. Spreading it out between them, Rick said, “Look. That ranch Lincoln mentioned – The Brown River Ranch? I had one of my guys look it up. It’s only about twenty-five miles from the spot where the S.O.B. shot at your Officer Jordan.” He stabbed his finger at the map for emphasis.
Most detectives wouldn’t have bothered with a paper map, Dawn reflected. They would have just pulled the map up on their cell phones or tablets. But Rick was funny that way. He insisted that spreading out and looking at an actual paper map was the best way to get a true grasp on a location.
“That is interesting,” Dawn responded. “You think he was heading back up that way to dispose of the bodies when Officer Jordan stopped him.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah. Unfortunately, it’s in the exact opposite direction from Colorado City.”
“Let my people make the initial contact there,” Dawn suggested. “As you pointed out, Mountpelier isn’t that far away. Look, we can kill two birds with one stone. A couple of our detectives can check out the Brown River Ranch. After that, I can have them continue on to the Sterling Correctional Facility, where Jed Foxe was incarcerated. They can find out what happened to Jed’s possessions after he died. If we can establish that Jed gave the medallion to his son, that would be another piece of evidence placing Marc near the scene of the shooting. The DA’s office loves that type of forensic evidence. So do juries.”
“All right,” Rick conceded. “Get your team to take that project on. Meanwhile, you and I have a date with a car in Colorado City.”
Dawn raised an inner eyebrow at his choice of the word “date”, but made no comment as Rick backed up, turned the car around, and headed south. Hopefully, they would pick up another clue or two after they examined Kit Blakewood’s abandoned car.
Chapter 28
As the miles flew by, Marc was pleased with the progress he was making. Soon he would be home again, back with Danny.
Unfortunately for him, however, he had made a big mistake when he had decided that Kayla Nyequist was a compliant sort of female. In reality, she was anything but. Driving along with a gun stuck in her side, she was outwardly cooperative, but seething with anger and determination underneath.
After he had asked her her name and checked her marriage certificate, he had been silent for a while. She had cautiously asked him why it mattered to him so much that she was married. He’d started to talk then. On and on and on. About marriage, parenting, motherhood. His father, his stepmother. The ideal family life. Then he’d stopped talking as abruptly as if an old-fashioned grandfather clock had run down. He had withdrawn into himself, confining his conversation to orders like “Slow down,” “Speed up,” or “Turn here”.
That frightened her. She had been trying to make a connection with him, but he was no longer responding. Glancing sideways for a second, she studied his profile. It was hard and uncompromising. Added to that, when he looked at her full-face, there was a weird, almost fanatical glitter in his eyes.
She had been considering everything while she’d been driving along, and had reached a conclusion: he couldn’t afford to let them live. He would eliminate them both, starting with Mitch. And even if he let her live, she couldn’t face life without Mitch.
Starting down a steep incline, she had to negotiate a series of S curves. However, instead of slowing down as the road signs directed, she floored the pedal and accelerated.
“Slow down!” her captor screamed.
But she shook her head resolutely.
“No,” she said briefly.
“I’ll shoot you!”
“Go ahead. I’ll lose control, we’ll go over the cliff, and that will be that. If I’m going to die, I’m taking you with me.”
She barely made the next turn.
“Stop! Stop!” he screeched.
“You want me to stop? Throw the gun out the window.”
“No way!”
“Fine. Prepare to die.”
She couldn’t make the next turn at this speed. They both knew it. With a curse, he threw the gun out the window.
“Okay – the gun’s gone. Slow down!”
She complied, and they made it through the next turn. To her dismay, she saw that they were now on a straight-away and were nearing the bottom of the grade. Even as she realized it, her captor grasped the same fact. He slammed his fist into her face, making a grab for the wheel at the same time. In response, she jammed on the brakes, and her assailant was flung back into his own seat. Kayla then tried to regain control of the car, but hitting the brakes so suddenly had sent it into a wild and ungovernable skid.
Kayla held the wheel in a death grip as the car crashed through the guard rail and plunged over the side of the hill. Fortunately, all four wheels stayed on the ground as the vehicle tore through a series of small juniper and sage bushes on its way down the sloping hillside. When the car finally slid to a stop at the bottom, however, Kayla was ready. She pulled the keys out of the ignition, popped the trunk release, and dove out of the car all in the same instant.
Fast as lightning, Marc exited the passenger side. Bounding over the hood to the other side of the car, he confronted Kayla.
“Give me the keys!” he bellowed.
Backing away from him, Kayla held the car keys up and jiggled them.
“Come and get them,” she taunted.
With a howl of rage, he charged toward her. But she was ready. She dropped into her stance and connected with a solid front kick to his gut as soon as he was in range.
Kayla had the satisfaction of seeing him double over with pain. However, sooner than she had thought possible, he straightened up again.
Roaring “You bitch!” he charged toward her, head lowered to butt her in the abdomen.
Responding as she’d been trained, Kayla countered with a side kick, and had the satisfaction of seeing him knocked on his ass.
He didn’t remain down for long, however. He was on his feet again in less than a microsecond. Catching Kayla’s leg as she lashed out with another kick, he hurled her off balance and to the ground.
The wind was knocked out of her, and pain washed over her as she felt something crack in her shoulder blade.
“I’m going to kill you!” he snarled. Then he was upon her, his hands closing around her throat. Frantically, she tried to pull his fingers loose, but to no avail. The fingers around her throat were like bands of steel, crushing the life out of her.
Her hands fell away to her sides, and all the world went black.
*****
As she and Rick headed south on I-25, Dawn called her office and talked to Ralph Sokoto. She filled him in on the progress of the case, then asked him about Rafe.
“According to what I’ve heard, Rafe’s got the most amazing tolerance for pain of any patient that the doctors and nurses at the hospital have ever had,” Sokoto informed her. “He’s insisted that they take him off all narcotic pain
killers and give him the over-the-counter stuff instead. The doctors and nurses couldn’t believe it. Most people are begging for the strongest stuff they can get after surgery, but not Rafe. He’s doing the Mountpelier police proud, D.C. Showing them that we’re all as tough as nails. But enough of that. How’s everything going with the CBI agent?”
“Fine,” she answered briefly. “Listen, there are some things I’d like you and the rest of the team to follow up on.”
“Shoot.”
“First, we’ve traced the ‘Serenity’ medallion back to Rhonda Hartingen Foxe. I’d like someone from the team to go up to Sterling and find out if the medal can be traced back to her husband, and then establish what happened to it after his death.”
“No problem. We’ll get right on it. What else?”
“Start working on identifying ‘Hannah’. I’ve a suspicion that she and the surviving victim might be one and the same. Try contacting the university where Marc attended and see if they’ll give you a list of students with the first name of ‘Hannah’ who were there during the same years as Damon Marcus Foxe.”
“We’ll probably need a warrant. Privacy laws and all of that.”
“The lieutenant can probably expedite that. One more thing: someone needs to check out the Brown River Ranch before proceeding on to the Sterling Correctional Facility.”
“Prentiss, Noritaki, and I can work on that. I’ll put Vettakor on trying to trace ‘Hannah’.”
“Call me back when you have any news, Sok.”
“Will do. Catch you later, D.C.”
Dawn’s next call was to Jason Gamarel, Samantha’s boyfriend. When he answered the phone, Dawn got right down to business.
“Jason. Did Samantha ever talk to you about her step-brother?
“Her step-brother? Yeah. She said he was a couple of years younger than she was, and she hadn’t seen him since she ran away. She’d always gotten along with him, but he was really angry at her for testifying against his father. Anyway, a few months before she disappeared, he called and apologized. Said he realized that she’d done the right thing, and asked her if they could get together some time. She told him she had mixed feelings about it, but she’d think it over and call him back.”
When the Wolf Prowls Page 18