Sam threw Harvey a perturbed look. "How long were you and Sandy married?"
"Thirty-seven years." Harvey’s voice quieted to a whisper. "I still can’t believe she’s gone." He pulled out a tissue and blew his nose.
Matt got to his feet and set the photo mug down on the counter. "It’s been a long day. We should get some rest. I’m sure SAR will be back first thing in the morning,"
Sam nodded. "Even if the weather doesn’t improve overnight, they can at least attempt to drop us another survival kit. And, hopefully, this time they’ll hit their target."
After a makeshift meal of meatless tacos and beans, Blair made up the sofa bed for Whitney and then retired to join Matt in the bedroom. She threw herself down on the bed and pinned a questioning gaze on her husband. "Do you believe Harvey when he said he couldn't locate the drop?"
Matt drew his brows together in concentration. "You don't?"
"Too many anomalies mounting up in Harvey’s corner." Blair leaned back against the headboard and drew her knees to her chest.
Matt nodded. "Yeah, what are the odds of Sandy marrying a man with the same name as her first husband?"
"Incredibly slim," Blair agreed. "If we had any Wi-Fi, I’d Google it, but I'm willing to bet it rarely happens. "I think you and I should go out tomorrow morning and look for the drop. Harvey might have stashed it somewhere."
Matt frowned. "Why would he do that?"
Blair pressed her lips together. "There might have been something in it he didn't want us to find."
"A sat-phone, maybe," Matt mused. "That would make sense if he didn't want us communicating with the sheriffs for some reason."
Blair wrinkled her brow. "Possibly. But I think there was something else in the drop he didn't want us to see. My guess is that's what he was burning in the sink before we arrived. I mean, who burns their trash in their RV? Only a desperate man trying to hide something."
Matt blew out a heavy breath. "I have to admit that was weird."
"It could have been rescue instructions from SAR telling us where to convene, and what time—directions to a pickup point or something," Blair went on. "Maybe he’s planning on being the only one to show up. He never did like you being in charge. Perhaps this is his way of taking control."
"Or worse … he could be planning on killing us."
The knot in Blair’s stomach tightened. "Either way, we can’t trust him."
Matt scratched his forehead, looking worried. "If he's lying, he's good at it. I’ll give him that. The lies just kind of flow effortlessly out of him. He doesn't lay it on too thick, doesn't try too hard to convince you. That's the part that throws me off and makes me think he's telling the truth."
"Which is exactly why he’s been able to get away with it all this time."
Matt sighed. "All right, you and I will head out early tomorrow morning and wait for SAR to return. I'll have Sam tell the others to stay put until we come back."
Blair reached for his hand and squeezed it. "It’s the right thing to do. We can’t rely on anyone else to make contact with SAR."
Matt scrubbed a hand over his jaw. "Like I said all along, we can only trust each other."
Blair fell silent as she considered the latest developments. Even though help was now on the horizon, she had a nagging feeling they might not make it out of here alive if they didn’t act with extreme caution going forward. Danger was all around them in the form of their fellow campers.
"I doubt I’ll sleep much tonight and I know you won't either," she said. "I keep wondering about those tennis shoes. I think we should check what size Sandy’s feet are."
Matt threw her a horrified look. "You're kidding, right? Do you have any idea what her body’s going to smell like after two days?"
Blair repressed a shudder. "I’m sure you’ve dealt with worse. Besides, it’s freezing cold out, that should lessen the odor." She reached into the drawer on her side of the bed and lifted out a packet of foam ear plugs. "We can plug our nostrils with these."
"Like that's gonna help." Matt covered his face with his hands and groaned. "I can’t believe I’m even considering this."
"You know we have to," Blair urged. "It's the only way to find out if Harvey’s lying to us about the shoes or not."
"I don't like it." Matt punched his pillow softly. "I think we should stay put until it's light out. Wait for SAR to put a plan into action."
"The way things are going, we could be dead by then." Blair slid her feet to the ground. "We owe it to the others to warn them. Everyone’s dismissed Harvey as a grieving widower. If he’s lying about the shoes being Sandy’s, then he’s lying about everything. I'll go by myself if you don't want to come with me."
Matt tossed the pillow aside and got to his feet. "You know I can’t let you do that."
They slipped out of the bedroom and padded softly past the sofa bed where Whitney was sleeping. After pulling on their coats, Matt unlocked the door, grimacing at the loud click it made. Whitney lifted her head and peered groggily over at them. "Where are you guys going?"
"Just to the outhouse," Blair said with an apologetic smile. "Go back to sleep."
Yawning, Whitney wriggled further down in her sleeping bag before turning over on her side.
Once outside, Blair made her way over to their truck and opened the back door to retrieve the tennis shoes.
"Do you have to bring those?" Matt asked.
"One, at least. How else am I supposed to know what size her feet are?"
Matt shrugged. "I doubt you'll be able to get them on—you know, rigor mortis and all."
"I don't need to put them on her. I can just measure them against her feet,” Blair said, quietly closing the truck door.
"Don't turn on your flashlight until we get around the bend in the road," Matt cautioned, one hand on the gun concealed beneath his jacket.
They walked along the damp, dirt road in silence, finding their way in the pitch darkness by the sparse light of Blair’s iPhone, which she tried to protect as best she could from the soft rain that was falling. As soon as they rounded the corner, they turned on their flashlights and made a beeline for Logan's and Whitney's campsite. Blair sucked in a breath at the catastrophic sight of the pine tree lying across the trailer with its twisted branches reaching out like claws—a sight that was twice as ominous at night.
"Whitney’s lucky to be alive," Blair remarked. "It’s a miracle the tree didn’t crush her."
"She’s dodged a bullet twice in the last few days if you ask me," Matt replied. "Logan’s got all the hallmarks of a killer."
Blair fished out the packet of foam ear plugs and stuffed one in each nostril before handing the pack to Matt.
He followed suit and then nodded. "Ready?"
"Ready as I’ll ever be."
Matt took a steadying breath and stepped toward Logan’s truck parked a few feet from the mangled trailer. "Keep an eye out over your shoulder to make sure no one’s on the road. I don’t want to give anyone the opportunity to sneak up on us."
Blair glanced tentatively around in the shadowy darkness while Matt unlocked the tailgate. He shone his flashlight inside the bed and gasped, before stumbling backward, almost knocking Blair to the ground.
"Does it smell that bad?" she asked incredulously as she picked up the flashlight she’d dropped.
Matt rubbed a shaking hand over his jaw. "You’d better take a look and see for yourself."
Something in his voice disturbed her. She hesitated, tempted to abandon her plan to measure Sandy’s feet, before mustering her courage. After making sure the foam plugs were firmly packed up each nostril, she gingerly approached the back of the truck and focused the beam of her flashlight inside the bed. The breath left her lungs as she tried to come to terms with what she was looking at.
Next to Sandy’s tarp-draped body, lay a second corpse.
28
Blair staggered backward, covering her mouth with one hand to trap the scream threatening to erupt from her lungs.
No! It couldn’t be. The killer had struck again! Her knees felt like they were about to buckle beneath her, dooming her to the dark fear that held her in its grip. Matt grabbed her from behind and escorted her away from the back of the truck. Trembling uncontrollably, Blair sank down on a log next to the fire pit. "Who … who is it?"
"I don't know," Matt said, rain dripping off the end of his nose as he scanned the campsite warily. "I need to pull the blanket off and take a closer look. It’s a man—I can tell that much from his boots."
Blair let out a soft moan. "What if it's Rob?" She looked up at her husband despairingly. "Who else could it be?"
Matt’s expression darkened. "Wait here. I’ll find out. And stay alert."
Blair interlaced her fingers and pressed them to her lips watching with a mounting sense of dread as Matt approached the truck bed once more. He reached inside and yanked off the blanket that covered the man's upper torso and head. After a long moment, he rolled it up and tossed it back inside. His expression was strained when he returned to the fire pit and stood over Blair. "It's Rob," he said quietly, squeezing her shoulder. "Poor dude. I know I called him an idiot for heading out to look for his brother and all, but he didn't deserve this."
Blair's teeth chattered as she weighed Matt’s words, trying to make sense of what could have happened. Nothing was ever as it seemed at first glance. Rob hadn’t struck her as the reckless sort—more of a good old boy. Had he really gone off looking for his brother at all? Or had the killer outsmarted them once again? She got to her feet and darted another fearful look around. "Maybe Rob didn’t write that note we found in the camper van. We don't know what his handwriting looks like. It’s possible the killer left it to throw us off. Or forced Rob to write it. We can’t be sure of anything."
Matt blew out a heavy breath. "So why leave the body in the truck now?"
"He’s toying with us—letting us know he’s in control. This is all a sick game to him." Blair smothered a sob, only too aware that any sound she made could alert a killer in the vicinity. "We’re never going to get out of Bird Creek alive."
"We’re not going down without a fight, I can tell you that much," Matt growled.
A glint of steel in her husband’s hand caught Blair’s eye. ‘’Even a gun won’t save us if he's ambushing people," she whispered.
"Harvey doesn’t have a gun," Matt said.
Blair gave a despairing shake of her head. "Harvey couldn’t have done this. Rob’s been gone since yesterday. It must have been Reed. He only showed up here this morning. He's probably been stalking us for the past few days. And he basically accused us of invading his campground."
"So now you think Harvey's telling the truth?"
"No, of course not," Blair replied. "He’s lying to us—about other things. I don’t know what his reasons are. But Reed said something strange to me earlier. He said everyone's hiding secrets, but they were only dangerous if they impacted others." She chewed on her lip. "Now that I think about it, he could have been trying to warn me about himself. Maybe that’s why he’s a loner—he can't stop himself from killing."
Matt rubbed the back of his neck, surveying the campsite perimeter. "So bringing Rob's body back here was a trophy of sorts, to rub our noses in it."
"He wanted us to know Rob was dead, that’s for sure," Blair said, throwing a nervous glance down to the road. She got to her feet and pulled out the tennis shoe she’d stuffed beneath her jacket. "I’m going to do what I came here to do. And then we need to get out of here."
She padded over to the truck and peered inside the bed, holding her breath. After pushing back the edge of the tarp, she pressed the shoe up against Sandy's frozen foot. Her heart knocked against her ribs. It was just as she’d feared. At least two sizes too big.
Swallowing hard, she threw a quick glance at Rob’s body. A wave of pity crashed over her. With his broken arm, he hadn't stood a chance against the killer. Had he simply been selected as the weakest prey among them, or was there a more specific reason the killer had wanted him dead? Rob had suspected that Reed was stalking the camp. After all, he’d mentioned meeting the duck hunter and even commented on how aloof and unfriendly he’d been. They might have crossed paths again when Rob left to search for his brother.
Matt walked up next to her and stared solemnly at Rob’s body. "I wonder how he died."
Blair let out a defeated sigh. "What difference does it make? It’s not going to help us identify the killer."
Wordlessly, Matt shone the flashlight over Rob’s face and upper torso.
‘’Wait! What's that around his neck?" Blair asked. "I think … isn’t that—"
Matt sucked in a sharp breath. "It’s his sling. He was strangled." Silently, he closed the tailgate. "Let's get out of here while we still can."
The three-minute walk back to the trailer felt like an eternity punctuated only by the eerie shrieks of owls and the occasional scuttling of rodents going about their nocturnal business. Blair breathed out a sigh of relief when they finally made it safely back inside and locked the door behind them. Whitney was snoring gently on the couch, her chest rising and falling, oblivious to the horrors that lay beyond the trailer walls.
After grabbing some water, they made their way back to the bedroom. They sat down, side-by-side on the bed, a sober silence descending between them as they took a moment to decompress.
"We need to figure out who the killer is," Blair said. "We can’t go on like this."
"Or killers," Matt responded.
Blair threw him a disconcerted look. "What do you mean?"
"There could be more than one. We don't know for sure that any of the killings or Hazel’s disappearance are connected."
Blair picked distractedly at a ragged fingernail. "So Reed might have taken out the elderly man on the hiking trail and then killed Rob so he couldn’t identify him as a suspect. Meanwhile, Harvey bumps Sandy off in some kind of mercy killing, and Logan murders Hazel in revenge for surveilling him."
Matt closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "I know, I know. It’s too far-fetched. The odds of multiple murderers camping at the same spot are worse than both your husbands being called Harvey. It’s just that I can’t make any connection between the killings."
For a few minutes, neither of them spoke and then Blair asked, "What’s the significance of an Ace of Spades tattoo?"
Matt frowned at her. "Why do you ask?"
"Harvey has one on his wrist. I noticed it the first time we got together after we found the body."
Matt shrugged. "Could mean a bunch of different things—gamblers use it for good luck, gangsters too—even soldiers."
"I wonder if he has any other tattoos," Blair mused. "Tattoos tell stories. You know what they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words."
"Yeah, sometimes it is." Matt furrowed his brow, a faraway look in his eyes. "Do you have your phone on you?"
"Yeah." Blair said hesitantly as she slipped it out of her back pocket. "What do you need it for?"
"Pull up the pictures of the body we found by the hiking trail."
Blair threw him a befuddled look. "Why? He didn’t have any tattoos, did he?"
Matt shook his head impatiently. "That’s not what I’m getting at. From what I remember he wasn't a big guy. Stands to reason he had small feet."
Blair’s jaw dropped. "You're thinking the tennis shoes might have belonged to him?"
Matt drew his brows together. "I don’t know, yet. Just trying to connect some dots. It all began with him."
Pulse racing, Blair quickly scrolled through to the pictures of the body. She could feel the thud of Matt’s heart as he huddled up next to her for a better view.
"It's impossible to tell the size of his feet from a photo, but he’s definitely on the short side," Blair said.
"Yes, he is," Matt agreed in a grim tone. He tugged a jittery hand through his hair. "In fact, I think I recognize him. It’s the man in the wedding photo with Sandy."
29
Blair let out a gasp and dropped the phone in her lap. She stared at Matt for a long moment, jaw askew, as his words slowly sank in. "If you’re right, then Sandy’s first husband was here at the campground. That means … that means Harvey must have killed him."
Matt let out a troubled sigh. "That’s what it looks like."
Blair dug her fingers into Matt’s arm as another thought struck. "If the shoes belonged to Sandy’s husband, then Harvey was behind Hazel's disappearance as well."
Matt frowned. "I don’t follow. How do you figure?"
"She was on to him," Blair insisted. "She saw the shoes and the mug in his RV. She knew something was amiss. Harvey had to get rid of her."
Matt’s expression hardened. "If he got rid of Hazel, it's possible he knocked Sandy off too."
"He might have, or the cancer could actually have killed her," Blair said. "The missing part of the puzzle is whether or not Sandy was in on the murder with him. Maybe they were lovers and planned to bump her husband off in a remote spot."
"There's no way for us to untangle all this," Matt said, stifling a yawn as he sank back on his pillow. "The important thing is that SAR launches a rescue attempt as soon as possible before anyone else dies. We need to get a hold of a radio." He fastened an earnest look on Blair. "Until then, don’t breathe a word of our suspicions to anyone else at the campground. If Harvey really is behind the killings, he's extremely dangerous and he won't stop now in an effort to cover his tracks."
"Maybe we should enlist Reed’s help after all," Blair suggested. "He's the only other person here with a gun."
"Too risky. We don’t know that Harvey had anything to do with Rob’s body turning up. It still leaves the possibility that Reed killed Rob."
You Will Never Leave: A psychological suspense thriller Page 19