Gone Missing: A gripping crime thriller that will have you hooked

by T. J. Brearton

  No response from the driver. Darby climbed up next to Cross. The vehicle groaned and wobbled beneath them, like it might roll over onto the roof.

  “Careful,” Cross said. “Let’s go. Let’s get down.”

  “We need to get him out.”

  “We need help.”

  The rest of the police found spots to pull over. Fire police – men from civilian vehicles in bright yellow jackets – put out cones and directed traffic. A few bystanders were out of their cars and stared as the ambulance arrived, siren wailing.

  Cross faded into the background as the responders debated what do with the precarious vehicle. The troopers, paramedics, and fire police swarmed it, then tipped it back onto its wheels.

  The Dakota slammed down on the ground, upright again but mangled and shattered, the doors crimped shut.

  A trooper knocked remaining glass from the passenger window and clambered into the cab. Another climbed up beside him. Cross watched as they hauled the man out.

  Darby had wandered close, now standing beside Cross.

  She asked, “Who is that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The guy was big, over six feet, and solidly built. It took five responders to lower him onto the stretcher and fit it into the back of the ambulance.

  Cross drew near and gave him a closer look. He was mid-forties with graying dark hair, unshaven, blood running from his scalp. Cross wanted to question the guy right now, but he was totally out cold.

  Cross nodded to the paramedic standing by. The paramedic hopped in the back of the ambulance and closed the doors, and the ambulance tore away, back toward Lake Haven.

  The hospital there was a relatively limited facility when it came to major trauma, Cross thought.

  “Probably airlift him to Burlington or Albany,” Darby said, picking up on his thoughts as she wandered closer.

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “That was something…” She frowned and looked Cross over. “You alright?”

  “Yeah. Nothing happened to me.”

  “Okay, good. Ah man.”

  Cross tried to focus. “Darby, if you could provide a statement, your contact info, to one of those officers over there, that would be great.”

  “Of course.”

  As soon as she was gone, Cross bent forward and grabbed his knees. The world swam for a moment so he closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered.

  * * *

  The Dakota was registered to Jeffrey A. Gebhart, a carpenter who owned and operated his own small business. Gebhart had a nearly clean record; the only things spotting it were a few minor traffic infractions. He’d been audited once by the IRS.

  “So why the hell did he run?” Cross asked the empty room.

  Cross was in an office at the state trooper headquarters in Cold Brook, less than a mile from where Gebhart had flipped the truck. Gebhart was now being flown to Albany, as Darby had predicted. He was in critical condition, hanging on to life by a thread.

  Gates arrived and Cross filled her in on the events leading up to the chase. “Montgomery might be into flipping properties,” Cross told her. “Gebhart works for him as a carpenter, that’s my guess.”

  “So what’s he afraid of?”

  “He knows something. He’s in on this in some way. Otherwise – born and raised in Lake Haven. He’s a carpenter, unmarried, just a typical Adirondack boy. Been in business for himself for years. But he was a backcountry caretaker for two summers in his twenties, so…”

  “For DEC?”

  “Yeah. Plus he’s got his guide’s license,” Cross said. “From his Facebook profile, he’s got a lot of family who are hunters.”

  Cross showed Gates pictures of Gebhart and other men posing with game they’d shot – deer, grouse, turkeys, pheasants. In one picture several men were gathered around a rustic cabin with a mountainous backdrop.

  Gates leaned over Cross, who could smell her shampoo. Cross was in awe of the senior investigator. She’d had that harrowing case years before involving murders at Plattsburgh College. Her injury was from a window shattering in her face while chasing down a suspect. As a result, she had the leaking eye. Rumors were that the case almost ended her marriage. Yet after a period spent convalescing, reconnecting with her husband and daughters, she’d carried on as an investigator.

  And people still talked behind her back, said she was a neglectful mother.

  “I’ll keep Internal Affairs back for as long as I can, but they’re going to need to talk to you, Justin.”

  “I know.”

  “They’re going to want to know everything… how this thing got so—”

  “Gebhart ran,” Cross said. “Saw cops outside Montgomery’s home, and he bolted. He’s got no warrants, nothing.” He pointed to the picture of the cabin on the screen. “I think the kidnappers brought Katie into the woods.”

  Gates stepped away and sat down beside Cross. She looked like she was letting the full weight of it settle. “Well, we need to talk to Gebhart’s family. And post someone at the hospital.”

  “What about getting another warrant from Judge King, this time to search any of Gebhart’s hunting cabins, or his family’s?”

  “I want to bring Cobleskill into this.”

  “Absolutely, let’s bring in the DA. Vickers clearly knows Montgomery – Janice Montgomery visited Vickers in jail. My theory is Montgomery knows Gebhart. And Gebhart has backcountry experience, plus a family full of hunters…”

  “What’s Gebhart’s status now?” Gates asked.

  “Critical condition. Flying into Albany Medical.”

  Both of them sat back, thinking.

  “Someone hires Montgomery to kidnap Katie,” Cross said. “Montgomery taps Vickers as his number two. Montgomery has the plan – he gets information from his buddy, Gebhart. Someplace remote to take Katie while they await payment. The hirer – he sets up the accounts. He’s the mastermind. Montgomery and Vickers do the heavy lifting. That’s what I got, Dana. That’s what feels right. I think Katie is out there somewhere, in the park. And I think it’s Johnny Montgomery who’s been calling from the Tracfone. Just need to confirm it.”

  Gates stood up, gathered her things, including a photograph of Montgomery from his driver’s license.

  Cross, still sitting, watched her. “Where you going?”

  “We gotta take this to the feds. Plug Montgomery into their cell phone trace, Gebhart too. See if either of them bought a prepaid phone recently and got caught on camera.”

  “Yeah. Supposed to be they’re already doing that with their vast list of accomplices for Vickers.” Cross rolled his eyes. “There were none.”

  “I know. I think Sair was just trying to placate the family.”

  “Well, we got the real deal now. So what do you want me doing?”

  “You’ve got a friend at DEC, right?”

  “Yeah. Laura Broderick. Just bumped into her yesterday morning.”

  “Pick her brain. Find out what you can about decommissioned ranger stations and privately owned hunting cabins. Let’s see what we can learn while we confer with Cobleskill about how tight we can squeeze around Gebhart’s family and friends.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Stay put.

  That was the conventional directive for someone who became lost in the woods, and she kept coming back to it. Unless you knew what you were doing, were able to gain higher elevation for perspective, knew your windward from your leeward, it was best to remain stationary and wait for rescue.

  But I’m not lost, Katie thought, lying on the mattress. Troy had said something about ‘black,’ which jogged a memory of looking at a map not long ago – was there a Black Mountain? She closed her eyes, tried to bring up the image.

  Not Black Mountain…

  Black River Wild Forest.

  She opened her eyes. Was that it? Was that a place? Or was she inventing it based on the dribbling thoughts of a dying m
an? He’d said Jones, too, and mentioned Canada. Just his synapses firing off at random, pieces of his past, who knew.

  Maybe it didn’t matter. She was somewhere. And if she stayed here, either the stranger might return, or the coyotes might invade.

  It was dark now; no way was she getting out of the woods. But come morning, it was time.

  She never could keep still, anyway.

  The flashlight was sitting on the range, throwing an oval of light on the wall. She crossed the room and shut it off. The wood stove flickered around the edges of its door, but the cabin was mostly dark.

  She needed the toilet. For the past hour she’d tried to pretend otherwise, but it was either do it in the cabin or go to the outhouse. She hadn’t seen or heard anyone – man or animal – since shutting herself in here.

  Katie took a breath. Flicked the flashlight back on.

  She stepped outside, where a crescent moon spread a cool pale light over the forest. Low, dark clouds surrounded the nearest peak like a cowl. She hurried to the outhouse and closed herself inside, heart pounding.

  Listening intently to her surroundings, she waited, breathing shallow.

  Finally she relaxed enough, did her business, and was about to get off the crooked toilet when she stopped.

  She’d set the flashlight down beside her, enough to illuminate the small space, and her underwear.

  She picked the light up, shone it more directly.

  There was blood on her underwear. Not much, just a few small spots.

  “Ah God…”

  For years, her cycle more or less followed the moon and she tended to ovulate at or just before the full moon; menses came with the new moon. But she tended to clock things by the calendar rather than lunar phases. And she was very regular.

  She counted up the days; her period wasn’t due for at least two more.

  Maybe it had come early.

  But it didn’t feel that way.

  It felt like something else.

  They’d been trying to get pregnant for a little while – at least, they’d stopped trying not to get pregnant. Glo called it “pulling the goalie.”

  And now there was blood. Not much, just this little bit.

  And your breasts are sore.

  -Hardly. Everything is sore, so what.

  First trimester spotting is common.

  -Oh stop – it’s not “spotting”…

  But it was. Katie was pretty sure most spotting happened about a week after fertilization, during implantation. She’d be right about there – the timing was right.

  She’d wandered into David’s music studio just a couple weeks ago and started pestering him. Flirting with him. Kissing him. He’d been powerless against her.

  They’d had sex on the ground beside the electronic keyboard.

  She knew.

  No…

  Katie pulled up her underpants and running skirt and left the outhouse, ran back to the cabin. She paced the room, feeling helpless, thinking she ought to lie back down but wanting to cry.

  Or scream.

  The wind gusted through the ragged windows in an oscillating whistle.

  Pregnant.

  In truth, she’d had intuition about it already. Even before everything had happened. Before the minivan. It had been on her mind to use the early pregnancy test she’d bought at Kinney Drugs. Just a feeling, pushed to the back of her mind once abduction and scavenging animals and potentially hallucinated mountain men had hijacked her thoughts.

  A baby.

  It was what she wanted. It was what David wanted, too, even though he had his concerns. He tried to hide them but she knew he worried about being a father. His own father had been a great musician but a lousy parent. He didn’t have much family, and was a bit of a loner.

  But they wanted a child. The time had come and…

  And now here she was.

  In the middle of nowhere, lost, barely holding on.

  No, not lost – Black River Wild Forest.

  You’re somewhere. And you can get out.

  She had to now – she had to hold on, she had to get out. She had to do whatever it took.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Cross met with Laura Broderick at The Knotty Pine, a bar on the outskirts of Hazleton. The sun was down, the place lively inside. Cross wanted a beer, but not while on duty, and not in public – even if this felt like the longest, wildest day in cop history.

  “They’re now called interior outposts,” Laura said, sipping a Genesee Cream Ale. “You know, in the state master plan, they’re still referred to as ranger cabins because back in the 1950s, that’s what you called them.”

  “Is there a map of them all? In the master plan?”

  “Not in the master plan, that’s just a shit ton of words. I mean, you’re going to find this map and that map, but not one single map, I don’t think. There’s only four active cabins right now.”

  “How many not in use?”

  “Well, tough to say. In the 1970s, to bring certain regions up to par with what the Land Use Master Plan had defined as ‘wilderness areas,’ most outposts were burned down. Cedar Lakes, Shattuck Clearing, Duck Hole. But there’s plenty out there that were just left to rot. You want to tell me what this is all about?”

  “You know a guy named Jeff Gebhart?”

  Laura studied the ceiling a moment. “Yeah, maybe. A while ago. Not a ranger, not a sworn officer; a caretaker. He had Mount Colden, I think, couple summers.”

  “That’s him. Listen, I’m going to need you to consult with us, work with us. But keep it quiet. Can you do that?”

  She set her beer aside and wiped her mouth with a cocktail napkin. “Course I can. You mean now?”

  “Yeah. You can finish your beer. First just a few more of my own questions. How plausible do you think it would be for someone to hide out in one of these decommissioned outposts?”

  “No, like I said, not so many left standing. And the ones that are sit right near the trails. So if someone wants to hide, that’s not the way. Maybe in the dead of winter, but not now. But your hunting camps aren’t gonna have well-defined trails. Owners generally want them to stay hidden. Only family or close buddies know. So, yeah, perfectly plausible hideouts. We’ve even got some we call ‘outlaw cabins.’”

  “How many?”

  “Outlaw cabins?”

  “Yeah, or hunting cabins.”

  “No telling. Hundreds. Way more abandoned hunting camps on state land than outposts, that’s for sure. Way more. When the state acquires land, they keep the cabins. They might burn some of those, too, if they can be found, but a lot are just lost.”

  “How far back do you think some of these places are? I mean, how deep in the Park?”

  Laura looked into the corner a moment. Her hand seemed to find its way back to the beer. “Well, Colden is an interior outpost, and that’s seven miles out.” She met his gaze. “You’re going to have hunting cabins that are ten, fifteen miles into the middle of nowhere. Which is a hell of a long way from anywhere if you’re not an expert. And even then…”

  Laura took a swig of her beer.

  Cross didn’t move for a moment, letting it all sink in. Then he patted Laura on the arm and said, “Let’s go talk to the FBI.”

  * * *

  Agent Sair had been joined by more federal agents. Agent Paulson was gone, working from an undisclosed location as he searched hours of footage from local retailers, using facial recognition software in the hopes of identifying Montgomery or Vickers – and now Jeff Gebhart, too – buying a prepaid phone. Supposedly Paulson was also going through the stingray data with another agent.

  Two agents brought Laura into the dining room for a briefing while Sair took Cross out the front door.

  Even at night, reporters were camped down the slope of the property, getting their sound bites. Some websites were streaming live coverage, mostly just showing the house.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Sair said. “The Calumets aren’t able to pay the
20 million.”

  Cross had figured. “Where’s David? I haven’t seen him.”

  “He left with Jean Calumet an hour ago. We have an agent following them. They went to the room at the inn.” Sair lit a cigarillo. “We’ve looked into the Calumets. Their cash on hand, their assets. Unless they liquidate, yeah, they don’t have it. We also looked at Henry Fellows. Fellows is being investigated for tax fraud.”

  “Yes, Gates was looking into that.”

  “I know. Gates is being debriefed now, at a safe location. We’ve got our own people with eyes on Fellows in White Plains. The others are dead ends.”

  “You mean Eric Dubois, the chef, and Lee Beck, the lawyer.”

  “Yeah, dead ends.” Sair flicked ash and seemed to want to leave it at that.

  “What about proof of life? It’s been a long time since that photo.”

  “We assume it.”

  Cross let that sink in and looked down at the lights of the news crews. “Our techs lifted Katie’s prints from the house here and matched them to prints found on the sliding door of the minivan. It puts her in the minivan, but that’s it.”

  “You don’t think she’s alive?”

  “I think if she’s with this Vickers guy, it’s a question. He’s not a good guy. Don’t we have to force the issue? Get them to send a picture or video before any payment disbursal?”

  Sair squinted against the smoke from his cigarillo as he looked at Cross. “You think it matters? Jean Calumet right now is pulling out of his holdings and investments, freeing up whatever cash he can.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Sair raised an eyebrow. “The same way we had Katie’s prints before your forensics pulled them from the house. We’re the FBI.”

  Cross was a bit shocked at the arrogance, but he’d already suspected the feds would look deep into Jean Calumet, and it wasn’t unheard of that the FBI could have fingerprints of someone without a rap sheet.

  “I still think we ought to push harder for proof,” Cross said. “We can use a photograph as a lead, help us determine the location, see what shape Katie’s in, learn things from that, too.”