by Nora Roberts
The gang’s all here, he decided. The chances of his escape, of going under long enough to write the article, finish the book, dropped dramatically.
He’d most likely die on Fiona’s island.
That didn’t matter either. If formerly pretty Kati wasn’t dead by now, she’d likely be before they found her, so he’d have had his own.
And while they were looking, he’d find Fiona and accomplish what his teacher never did, never could.
THEY WENT IN much as she’d imagined—fast, silent, covering every door and window. As one unit rushed through the first floor of the cabin, another rushed the second.
Tawney swept into the second bedroom steps behind the team.
He didn’t need the calls of Clear! to know Eckle had moved out, and taken Starr with him.
“He’s on his own script now. He’s tossed Perry’s and he’s on his own.”
“The trunk’s empty.” A little breathless, Mantz joined him. “He had her in there. It’s lined with plastic, and it’s bloodstained. Jesus,” she added with a murmur when she saw the plastic, and what stained it, covering the bed.
“He left us plenty of her scent.”
He wondered why.
Fiona wondered the same as her search unit reported to the cabin. She listened to the theory speculating he intended to come back, clean up, clear out—he’d left clothes behind as well—after he’d killed and buried Starr.
She didn’t argue. Her unit had a job to do, and the focus was to find the reporter.
“We’ll use the buddy system,” she said. “None of us goes in alone. Meg and Chuck, Team One; James and Lori, Team Two; Simon and me, Team Three. Two people, two dogs per team.”
She took a breath. “There are going to be armed police and federal agents swarming everywhere. You’ll keep in regular contact with Mai, and with Agent Tawney. They’re running the base. We’ve got about three hours before we lose the light. There’s a strong chance of a storm hitting before dusk. If we don’t find her before dark, we call it until morning. Everybody’s back to base at dusk. We don’t risk ourselves or our dogs.”
She glanced toward Tawney. “We all heard what Agent Tawney told us. Francis Eckle is a killer. He may be armed, he’s certainly dangerous. If any of you want to opt out of this search, it’s not a reflection on you or the unit. Just tell Mai, and she’ll recoordinate.”
She stepped aside as Mai signaled. “I don’t like you going in, Fee. You’re a target. He’s fixed on you already, and if he got any sort of a chance—”
“He won’t.”
“Can’t you convince her to take the com on this?” she said to Simon. “I’ll take Newman in, go with you and Peck.”
“I’d be wasting my breath, just like you, and Tawney, for that matter. But she’s right. He won’t get the chance.”
Mai swore, then caught Fiona in a hard hug. “If anything happens to you—anything—I’m going to kick your ass.”
“Fear of that alone will keep me safe. Let’s get started,” she called out. Signaling the dogs, she moved off toward her sector.
“Aren’t you supposed to give them the scent?” Simon asked her.
“Not yet,” she murmured. “I need you to cover me here. I’ll explain.”
When she judged the distance enough, she drew the scent bag out of her pack. “We’ve got four experienced search people and dogs looking for Starr—and cops and feds. They’ll find her, or they won’t.”
She looked up into Simon’s eyes. “We’re not going to look for her. We’re going to look for him.”
“That suits me fine.”
This time she blew out a breath. “Good. Okay, good.” She opened the bag. “This is his. He wore this sock and it hasn’t been washed. Even I can smell him on it.”
She gave both dogs the scent. “This is Eckle. It’s Eckle. Let’s find Eckle. Find him!”
As the dogs scented the air, noses twitching, heads lifted, she and Simon followed.
THIRTY-ONE
As they covered the first quarter mile, Simon swore the dogs consulted each other. Ear flicks, tail wags, a duet of sniffing. The temperature eased down under the cover of trees, along ground soft with its bed of needles, and rose again in the open, through wild grass and juts of rock.
“If he brought her this way,” Simon wondered, “why didn’t he use the road, keep her in the trunk until he found his spot? And if he did that, why is the car back at the cabin, and the cabin empty?”
“He didn’t bring her this way. At least I don’t see any sign of it.” Fiona trailed her flashlight over the ground, over brush and branch. “He left tracks, he wasn’t being careful. But I don’t see any that could be hers. It doesn’t make any sense, but I know damn well we’re following his route. His solo route.”
“Maybe he spotted the cops, or got wind of them somehow and got out. It could explain why he left everything.”
“Panicked, ran.” She nodded. “We’ve only been on a couple of searches where the person didn’t want to be found. A pair of teenage lovers, and a guy who stabbed his wife during an argument when they were here on a camping trip. The teenagers had a plan, such as it was, and covered their trail, hid out. The man just ran, and that made him easier to find. I wish I knew which category Eckle falls into. If either.
“I have to check in with Mai.”
Simon watched her take out the radio. “Decide yet what you’re going to tell her?”
“We’re still in our sector, so I’ll tell her the truth. Just not all of it yet.” She stared at the radio in her hand. “I should tell her all of it. I know that in one logical part of my head. Tell Agent Tawney or at least the sheriff. I could tell Meg to tell Sheriff Tyson. We could pull a couple of the deputies in on this trail.”
“You could,” he agreed. “And spend time arguing with them when you’re told to go back to base.”
Which wasn’t an entirely bad idea, Simon considered. “Can any of them—Davey, McMahon, Tyson—handle the dogs on a search?”
“Davey might. That’s a maybe. The reality is he hasn’t had much more training or experience than you have. Which isn’t enough, not without an experienced handler on the team. I know how to read my dogs. I can’t guarantee any of them can.”
“I guess that’s the answer.”
She called in, gave their location. “I’ve made some tracks,” she told Mai, “and the dogs have a good scent.”
“Tawney wants to know if you’ve spotted any blood trail, or any signs of struggle.”
“No, none of that.”
“James and Lori found blood, and strong signs of someone falling, possibly being dragged. Their dogs have multiple alerts. I’m working on narrowing the sectors.”
Fiona looked at Simon. “I’d like to follow this for now. I don’t want to confuse the dogs when they’re alerting.”
“Understood, but . . . hold on. Stand by.”
“I gave the dogs Eckle, and they took his route. It must be fresher than the trail James and Lori picked up. I can’t lie to Mai, to any of them,” Fiona told Simon. “The unit’s built on trust.”
“So give it to her straight. Argue it out. You’re still going to do what you have to do.”
Even as she nodded, the radio crackled. “All teams, Agent Tawney’s just relayed that Eckle sent a timed e-mail from Starr’s computer. They’re speculating that he wanted it traced, wanted the authorities to find the cabin. Fee, he wants you to head back, now. They think this might be a lure to get you out there.”
“I am out here,” Fiona responded. “And we’re tracking him. Eckle, not Starr.”
“Fee—”
“The dogs are alerting, Mai, and I’m not coming back in while the rest of my unit is out here. I’ll stay in contact, but I need a minute to think this out.”
She shoved the radio back onto her belt, turned down the volume. “I have to see this through.”
“I’m standing right here,” Simon pointed out. “That makes it we. Where are we in connect
ion to James and Lori’s area?”
“Give me a minute.” She pulled out her copy of the map. Okay, okay,” she murmured as she studied. “They’re east of us, here. Plenty of places off the trails or on private property. But if they’ve got the scent, and found blood, he had to cross this road.”
“So he had to do it at night. He’d need the dark, and the relative assurance he wouldn’t be seen.”
“Yeah, but we’re here. Well west. In fact, he veered west all along, which is more like panic, more like trying to distance himself from wherever he took her. But . . .”
“New element,” Simon put in. “If he sent the e-mail to bring the cops in, and to bring you out, where’s he going? He thinks you’ll be following Starr’s scent, not his. If he’s set a trap for you, it’s not here.”
“You think she’s bait,” Fiona murmured. “He brought her here, to my place, even used the cabin of a friend, a partner. God, of course she’s bait.” How, she wondered, did that make it worse? “He walked her, dragged her, left a blood trail because he wanted to lead us—or me—to wherever she is. But he can’t be sure I’d be the one to find her.”
“He’d need a place where he could watch. If you’re the one who finds her, he takes or kills you there. If you’re not, he moves over to your location, does the same.”
“But . . . No, I see. He doesn’t need to abduct me, to string it out. He just needs to kill me. I’m Perry’s. I’m payment.” She stared straight ahead, spoke calmly. “We need to water the dogs.”
He crouched down with her to fill the bowl. “Fiona, you don’t have to be a cop or a shrink to figure out this guy’s gone over an edge. Once he slipped over, changed Perry’s agenda, method, criteria—whatever the hell—for his own, he went over.”
“Yes.”
“Starr had information, some she’d printed, some she probably was still trying to confirm. He probably knows they’ve got his name, his face, everything there is about him. He probably knows Perry turned on him.”
“Yes,” she said again. “And she’d have told him anything, I imagine, anything he wanted to know if he told her he’d let her live. Maybe he didn’t need to ask. He had her laptop, her phone. He knew the FBI was closing in.”
“Where does he go, Fiona? When he’s paid his debt to Perry, where does he go? How does he get off the island? Steal a boat? A car? How does he get through all the search teams to manage that? Long odds. Even if he did it, how does he get through more cops to get on the ferry or get a boat off the island?”
“He doesn’t.” She picked up the empty bowl, stowed it. “It’s not panic, it was never panic. Maybe, back in April when he rented the cabin he thought he could get to me, take care of it and move on, but all that changed when he took Starr. When he brought her here knowing I’d gone to see Perry, when he read her article. It ends with me, one way or the other. Maybe he tries to kill the dogs, and you. Maybe as many as he can manage. But he knows it ends with me.”
“Blaze of glory.”
“He’s never had it.” She took out the scent bag. “But he’s tasted it now. Starr gave it to him, so he made her part of it. This is Eckle,” she said, forcing enthusiasm into her voice as she freshened the scent. “Let’s find Eckle! Find him!”
As they started again, she turned up her radio, winced at the chatter and the demands that she respond.
“Let me do it.” Simon held out his hand. “You need to focus on the dogs.”
He was right. There wasn’t just one life on the line but many. Starr was either alive or she was dead—that depended on Eckle’s whim.
Her unit, her friends, they were subject to that whim, too. As Greg had been to Perry’s.
But for Eckle it had never been about her, she realized. Despite the taunts, the terrorizing. She was no more than an IOU, and his twisted sense of honor demanded he pay that debt before the ugly new life Perry had given him was finished.
“He’s cutting back east now.” She flagged the next alert. “If he keeps the direction, he’s going to cross into James’s sector. I need to—”
“I’ll do it. You missed that.” He took another flag, marked a discarded candy wrapper. “You’re letting yourself get distracted. Stop it.”
Right again, she thought, and paused for a moment. She shut her eyes, let herself hear, scent, feel.
Orcas was a small island, a lot of ground to cover, yes, but limited. If his goal was to lure her into a trap, he’d have to have cover, and a vantage point.
“His route had to cross with the route he took with Starr. Somewhere he has to cross it, or parallel, but crossing from this direction . . .”
She had the map in her head, but took the one from her backpack to study again. No chances.
“Perry took high ground when he killed Greg. That was another kind of payment.”
“Perry got caught, put in prison. I don’t think Eckle is looking at prison as an option.” Over Fiona’s shoulder, Simon scanned the map, the trails, the routes. “Neither does Tawney.”
“He’s got work to do first,” she murmured. “He’s traveled in an arc—a wide curve, rounding west, now rounding east. Taking himself away from Starr, moving back toward her. Not to her. That doesn’t make sense. But near enough to watch. Maybe even hear the dogs, the radios when they get close enough. And in this direction, he’s going to start running into houses, Gary and Sue’s farm.”
“I don’t have your sense of direction, but your place is before the farm. How far are we out?”
“From my . . .” Her breath caught. “My place. You said it before. My own backyard. He’s taken everyone, even Starr, from their own place—school, routine area, work. He’s never deviated from that.”
She gripped Simon’s hand as certainty, and urgency, coursed through her in fast streams.
“Not just the island, my home. It’s empty, my house, because I’m out here looking for him. Or maybe he knows I’m at your place. Either way, he’d have the woods for cover.”
“And if he could get you inside, a place to take that last stand. How far, Fiona?”
“Maybe a half mile. Less. It depends on how far he circles, which point he’s picked for his hide.” She scanned the shadows, pools of gray and green. “The wind’s picking up, and that’ll affect the scent cone. We’re going to be crossing into James and Lori’s sector if we keep going east. We have to make the dogs stay in the trees, even if the trail goes into the open. We have to keep them quiet. And once we contact base, we have to turn the radio off.”
He considered telling her to stay there, but she wouldn’t. Considered telling her they’d both stay where they were and give Tawney her best guess of Eckle’s location. He knew the answer to that, too, but gave it a shot.
“We stay here, call it in, give Tawney the information.”
“And if Eckle changes direction? We can’t tell them where he’s going until we’re sure. We can only theorize.”
“That’s what I figured. Take out your gun. It’s in your hand from this point on.” He took out the radio. “Mai, put Tawney on.”
“They’re alerting again.” Fiona moved forward to flag the location.
“He wants to talk to you.” Simon passed her the radio.
“This is Fee. Over.”
“Fiona, I want you to listen to me. Stay where you are. We’ve triangulated your route with the other two search teams. We believe he’s on your property, or close. We’re dispatching a unit to your house, and pulling officers off search to join you and your unit. Do you copy?”
“Yes, I copy, Agent Tawney. Do any of your men know this area, have dogs who are giving stronger and stronger alerts? We’re just crossing into Team One’s sector. I see one of their flags.”
Getting closer, she thought and her blood pumped hard.
“He crossed here, too, crossed the area where he took her. James and Lori could . . . He could kill them. Simon and I are approaching from what should be his blind side. Send the cavalry, please God, but we’re following th
e dogs. I have to turn off the radio. We can’t risk him hearing us.”
She turned it off, handed it to Simon. “James won’t hold back. He might argue with Lori and convince her to wait, but he won’t. Not when there’s a chance he could find Starr alive. And I can’t wait, Simon, and take the chance someone else I love gets killed because of a vendetta against me.”
“Who’s arguing?”
It settled her, she realized, that faint edge of irritation in his tone. “We need to leash the dogs. Keep them close. And quiet.”
She glanced up when thunder rumbled. “We’re going to lose the light. It’s nearly dusk anyway. The wind’s good cover. Rain would be better. But both are affecting the scent. We’re all going to be going on instinct soon.”
“I want you behind me. That’s my instinct,” he said before she could object. “I need you to respect it.”
“I’m the one with the gun,” she pointed out.
“That’s right.” He kissed her lightly. “And I’m the one who’s counting on you using it if you need to.”
They continued in silence through air that cooled with the wind. The rising surf of wind through the trees made good cover, and would—she hoped—mask their approach. But she couldn’t hear over it either. And every sigh and shake of the trees caused her heart to jump.
They used hand signals, for each other and the dogs.
They came to the edge of the clearing where Simon found the stump. She saw the young sapling he’d planted without telling her. It made her galloping heart calm.
She touched her fingertips to him, just a brush of thanks.
She spotted another flag, and when the dogs wanted to cross into the open, she ordered them back.
Her blood froze when she heard the crackle of the radio, but even as her gaze flew to Simon’s belt she realized it wasn’t theirs.
James, she thought. Closer than she’d realized. She couldn’t make out the words, not all of them, but the excited tone translated. As did the happy bark.
“They’ve found her,” she whispered.
And a shadow moved in the shadows.