His Garden of Bones

by Vickie McKeehan

  His other persona, the equally tall female, but always grumbling Tiffany, chided him in unison, “Dillard’s incompetent. Surely you know that by now, Justine. He’s going to get us all caught.”

  “Did you forget to fill the tank?” Justine needled. “How could you have forgotten to get gas?”

  “We’re out of gas? You idiot!” Tiffany grumbled. “Why is it Justine and I always have to do the thinking for you? Why?”

  “We’re not out of gas,” Dillard claimed. “There must be something wrong with the engine.”

  “It’s a brand-new car,” Justine insisted. “Brand-new cars don’t just quit.”

  He did his best to argue back, but as usual the voices inside his head didn’t listen. The two women did what they always did. They exploded in condemnation.

  Dillard blamed them because things were coming undone, and fast. If the women would just shut up for one damn minute and give him time to think clearly maybe he’d be able to fix the problem and get out of this mess.

  He put his hands up over his ears trying to shut out the racket. But it did little good. “Don’t you two start in on me, just don’t! Both of you need to stop yelling at me. Now!”

  The December afternoon began to darken and turn into a gloomy, drizzly evening.

  “Well, we can’t just sit here and wait for the cops to show up,” Tiffany offered. “We’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”

  “And do what? Drag Chenoa along behind us?” Justine pointed out. “No way. We’ll leave her here. Another kidnapping Dillard’s botched. At this point we have to save ourselves.”

  Dillard took the suggestion to heart and took out a flashlight from the glove box. He popped the latch for the hood release, got out of the SUV to see if he could locate what was wrong.

  “What are you doing?” Tiffany wanted to know. “You don’t know anything about fixing cars. You’re useless when it comes to fixing anything.”

  Unfazed, Dillard stuck his head under the cover, jiggled a few wires. That was really all he could do before giving up. Tiffany was right. He didn’t know squat about how to get the SUV going again. That left only one thing to do.

  “A change in plans,” he decided. “We’ll attract too much attention on foot. We’ll have to get to an alternate site.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Justine warned. “You leave that woman in the car. She’ll slow us down if you don’t.”

  Dillard refused to leave his prize behind so he ignored the voice. After opening the back of the SUV, he slapped the unconscious Chenoa awake so she could stand on her own.

  The woman was still groggy and disoriented, but despite her condition, he shoved her to her feet then dragged her across the road muttering to himself the entire way. With Chenoa in tow, he took off through soaring conifers and low scrubs, fighting his way past bright-red Fraser Photinia, deep green holly and stubborn Irish yew. His goal was to reach the summit, and beyond that, to his cabin on the north side of the peak.

  Dillard knew Tiffany and Justine believed he was stupid. They always had, just as his parents had. But he’d show them all just how smart he could be. He wasn’t lost. He knew exactly where he needed to go and he had a great sense of direction.

  When his produce business had taken off, he’d bought a little A-frame cabin on five acres tucked away less than three miles north of Seattle’s busiest regions with a perfect view of Puget Sound.

  Isolated, the property sat on an inaccessible slope. Tonight, the side of the mountain would act as the perfect cover. He doubted anyone would try to make the climb in rainy weather to come after him.

  Drenched, Dillard dragged Chenoa up one more hillside and down through a muddy bog. They were surrounded by timberland. The rain came down so hard, he could barely see ten feet in front of him. When Chenoa lost her footing, he pulled her up and shoved her to get going again.

  “Where are you taking me? Don’t hurt me. Please,” Chenoa pleaded. “I have money.”

  “Shut up!” Dillard shouted and slapped her in the face. “I’m tired of your criticism. All the fucking time, that’s all you do is tell me what I’ve done wrong. So, shut up and do what I tell you. Now move!”

  Fearing this deranged man, Chenoa did as she was told. They slogged toward a clearing in the distance, every step an effort as the mud clung to their boots like paste.

  “We’re almost there,” Dillard uttered under his breath shoving Chenoa forward.

  To reach the gate they had to walk another hundred yards or so. It wasn’t easy tugging the woman over the rutted terrain, but soon he managed to reach a cedar fence with stone pillars.

  Once they stopped moving, he let go of Chenoa long enough to remove the key from the pocket of his jodhpurs. He unlocked the padlock and let the chain clank against the fence in an annoying clatter.

  The fierce wind caused it to dangle there while he pulled Chenoa into his arena, a muddy front yard. Once inside the compound he didn’t bother to secure the gate. There was no need. With darkness and the rural seclusion, he felt safe here. No one had ever bothered him here before and he doubted they would tonight.

  Before the two could reach the front door, though, Chenoa broke free from his grasp and bolted. She ran into the rain and the darkness, stumbling but doing her best to get away.

  It didn’t take long for Chenoa’s breeches to get soaked from running over wet ground. She fell down three times but managed to get back up each time. She had trouble seeing her way over the rough terrain. Navigating became impossible and she ended up spending too much time bumping into cedar stumps and crawling up and down the rocky slopes.

  Her riding boots were muddied up to the calf as she tried to make her way through the minefield of rock and mud only to get stuck. Without a coat or jacket, the freezing rain made her shiver in the lightweight clothes she had on. She had to keep moving. But keeping on the move didn’t do anything to help her footing.

  With her next step, she fell into a hole and went down.

  Out of nowhere a big hand reached to pull her up out of the ditch. But when she glanced up she saw it was the crazy guy who’d taken her. He had makeup streaming down his face.

  That’s when Chenoa let out a scream as loud as her lungs would let her.

  Ten minutes after Winston sent the malware to the Yukon, Skye and Josh led the group—Harry, Travis, and Emmett—to where the stalled vehicle had been left in the middle of a two-lane road off Alaskan Way. The SUV blocked what little traffic Essex Place offered up. The side street was generally used as a cut-through to reach the sights along Magnolia Boulevard like Smith Cove or Fourmile Rock—that scenic stretch before the landscape opened up to acres and acres of wooded rocky slopes.

  “King’s headed north. We need the GPS coordinates for his other properties in that area,” Skye voiced. “I’ll text Winston for a list.”

  “I know where he’s going,” Josh stated without hesitation.

  Skye looked past Josh’s shoulder and spotted Kiya in the distance, the wolf’s nose to the ground. “Who needs coordinates when we have our own tracking device.”

  Josh leaned in, gave her a quick smack on the lips before spinning around to Harry and an anxious Travis. “Get helicopters in the air with heat-seeking equipment. There’s a local search company that uses drones. Call them. Rally everyone at the foundation to meet us at the summit on Magnolia Bluff. Tell them to wear something suitable for hiking because they may need to fan out to cover the area. In the meantime, we follow the sloppy trail he’s left for us.”

  After texting Winston, Skye took out her phone to use the map app. “You’re right, this guy must be losing it to try and make it up to the peak with the light fading and the weather like it is.”

  Her cell phone dinged with a text back from Winston. She read it out loud. “One of King’s string of real estate purchases includes a cabin near the old lighthouse, on the north side of Magnolia Bluff.”

  “So he’s making a beeline for one of his other homes. It makes me w
onder if King didn’t want us to follow him.”

  “Maybe. He should be easy enough to track now. The ground there is soft, nothing but silt and sand. Back in 1996 there was a landslide in that same area.”

  Travis glanced up at the sky, noted a line of dark rain clouds hovering on the horizon and drifting slowly inland from the northwest. “If it keeps raining like this, chances are, there’ll be another.”

  “How soon before we get the choppers and drones?” Josh asked Harry.

  Harry finished the call he’d been on and said, “Bad news, guys. The weather has worsened. Heavy thunderstorms are moving in, headed straight for us. The choppers and drones have to wait until the weather clears. I think we should, too.”

  “That could take hours.” Skye walked around to the trunk of the Subaru, started pulling out essentials—bottles of water, power bars, flashlights—and stuffing them down into a backpack. She turned to Travis. “Chenoa’s out there somewhere. Her safety won’t wait for the storm to pass. Don’t worry, we’ll find her and bring her back.”

  Josh pulled out his cell phone to bring up a satellite image of the targeted area. “We’d better get moving. We have rugged terrain ahead. If it’s at all possible, send the chopper and the drones out at the first break in the clouds.”

  Travis wrapped up Skye. “Maybe you should listen to Harry. Wait until the storm moves through the area. I mean, I want to find Chenoa as much as you guys do, but sending you two out in this downpour doesn’t make any sense.”

  “We’ll be okay,” Josh assured his father-in-law. “There’s two of us and one of him.”

  But Travis wasn’t appeased that easily. “Yeah, and this particular him is a crazed serial killer who probably has the strength of six people. You know, like they say meth heads have.”

  Skye cracked a smile at the concern, tossed an arm around her dad’s shoulder. “Stop being such a worrywart. You stay here and hold down the fort. Get ready to board that chopper as soon as the word comes in that it’s safe to fly. By that time, I’m sure we’ll probably need a ride out of King’s hellhole.”

  Travis grabbed Josh’s arm and whispered, “I have a bad feeling about this. Don’t leave her alone for any reason, no matter what.”

  “Don’t worry. There’ll be no more splitting our forces like the last time.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Skye and Josh found the trailhead muddy, slick, and rough going. On the hike to the top of the bluff, their path took them past scenic drop-offs and a forest chock full of lush greenery. They passed through hedgerows tangled with winter-blooming camellias. The dark red petals tipped with raindrops. Josh bent to snap off a bud, handed it to Skye.

  She breathed in the fragrant scarlet blossom, looked up at him, saw the big smile on his face. It occurred to her that even as they climbed toward unknown danger to confront a serial killer, Josh took the time to make this kind of romantic gesture. Unable to toss it away, she tucked the flower into her vest, keeping it close to her heart.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m saving it for later.”

  Their first look at the region as a whole wasn’t nearly as isolated as the satellite image had led them to believe. Dotted among the surrounding hillsides were houses that sprang up in random fashion without warning, hidden behind a vast woodland full of gigantic evergreens. Sprinkled among rustic cabins were million-dollar homes.

  “Maybe we should’ve waited for a ride with one of the choppers,” Josh grunted as he scaled up another rocky slope behind Kiya.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” Skye joked as she slipped on a rock. “The easy way up is for Harry and Travis to board that helicopter.”

  They did their best to cross over the wooded topography as quickly as possible, covering as much ground as they could even though their boots were laden down with heavy blocks of mud.

  From somewhere in the vast thickness of forest, they heard a woman’s bloodcurdling scream. The sound echoed around them making it difficult to pinpoint the exact location.

  “It’s coming from that way,” Josh finally said, pointing to where Kiya took off toward the crags and bluffs directly ahead of them.

  They followed the tracks through a thicket of tall Ponderosa pines mixed with Bhutan firs. When the forest thinned out, they spotted the gate that led to a small clearing. Beyond that stood an A-frame cabin on a parcel of land that looked as if hikers or campers had been there recently. Someone had formed a circle of stones in what passed as the front yard and used it as a makeshift fire pit.

  Skye glanced down and studied the charred timber then realized the leftover kindling looked more like bones than firewood. She hit Josh’s arm and motioned for him to check it out.

  Without a word passing between them, they understood the full impact of what was in the campfire.

  About that time a brutal wind whipped across the yard. It was so strong it knocked Skye back a step. But she stood her ground and stared at the cabin. As the gust swirled again she had trouble moving her feet. That hesitation caused her to get her first real look at the man born Dillard Barstow, now calling himself Theron King.

  She elbowed Josh in the ribs, fought the urge not to stumble backward. Dillard appeared at the corner of the house carrying an unconscious Chenoa over his left shoulder like a sack of potatoes. All the while he held a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic in his right hand.

  Skye watched Dillard’s face when he spotted them. She wasn’t surprised to see him raise the gun, aiming the barrel at his visitors.

  Overhead the heavens rumbled with thunder as if a higher power had taken note of their discovery and realized they’d unearthed an evil entity.

  The trio stared each other down.

  Skye’s eyes squinted from the rain and the force of the wind. As the gust eased off and she could make him out better, she recognized right away that sadistic look in Dillard’s eyes—eyes as dark as the pit of hell, eyes that held so much malice it seemed to radiate out from the man’s pupils.

  She’d seen the look of cruelty before in other serial murderers, the look that signaled a non-connection to emotion of any kind, on any level. But if she wasn’t mistaken, this time their suspect wore a heavy coat of makeup. He’d attempted to wipe off the pancake greasepaint but he’d left a swath of residue over the peach fuzz beginning to sprout on his chin. In the downpour the dark blue eye shadow and black eyeliner were dissolving, running down his face, making it a gooey mess. It gave Dillard a Goth look, or maybe more like Vampira in drag. Either way, the man made an imposing, frightening figure.

  “I put a curse on you,” Dillard claimed, turning the gun toward Josh.

  “You tried,” Josh returned with confidence. “But as you can plainly see it didn’t work.”

  “It will now. You’re on my land. My power is greater here than in the city. You can’t come on my property like this without consequences.” Dillard’s voice quivered like a girl’s, his tone rising almost to a soprano in growing irritation.

  Trying to mask her surprise at the man’s appearance as well as his bizarre demeanor, Skye blanked her face. She took a step closer to what she considered a dangerous creature in human form. “And you can’t go around kidnapping innocent women.”

  That accusation caused Dillard to drop Chenoa like a bag of cement where he stood. Skye winced as Travis’s former girlfriend hit the ground with a plop in the mud.

  That’s when she saw what Barstow held in his other hand, another weapon, this time a professional-looking stun gun. He held both so tightly in his fists that his knuckles were turning white.

  Her eyes drifted briefly past him to get a glance at Chenoa’s still form lying in a puddle of mud. Skye tried to ignore the bloody mass on the woman’s head.

  “If you think I’ll let you get close enough to me to discharge that stun gun, think again. But you’re probably gonna need the nine millimeter,” Skye told him in challenge as she took out her nightstick. While she distracted Dillard with her insults, she watc
hed Josh circle around behind their suspect.

  “In case you haven’t noticed I zapped your fucking wolf off the map. I have my own spirit guide, a fierce panther that’s ready to go head to head with your stupid Kiya.”

  Skye hooted with laughter as she decided he sounded like a petulant first grader. “Haven’t you heard? Hallucinations from a psycho don’t count.”

  Dillard’s eyes shot daggers at Skye. “My guide through life was never that. My panther is real just like your wolf. For most of my life he was my only friend.”

  Skye shook her head as she maneuvered into position. She needed to keep him talking until Josh was ready to make his move. “Oh, please, cry me a river. I don’t believe how you’re willing to stand there and give me your sob story right about now when there’s a woman lying on the ground at your feet, injured, hurting, probably dying because of what you did to her.”

  Skye spread her arms out wide. “Besides, if your panther is such a friend to you, where is he now when you really need him? In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve reached the end of the line.”

  Dillard’s eyes darted wildly around the plot of land, looking toward the woods then back at the house as if expecting to see help coming from behind one of the evergreen trees. When Dillard realized he’d been abandoned, Skye saw the fire flaring inside him, the anger building up.

  “Big talk for a fucking female.”

  “Yeah? This female plans to kick your ass. What’s the matter, Dillard? Are you beginning to realize it’s time to give up? Drop the weapon and get out of the rain. Look at yourself. You’re a mess. There’s nowhere to go.”

  Their eyes locked. Foe-to-foe, they sized each other up. Skye saw the rage, the determination to win this round despite his skittish, erratic behavior. Since he seemed to be focusing on her and not Josh, she needed to take advantage of that.