Seconds ticked by. Then minutes.
Nothing more came through.
But he’d felt it. A nibble on his line, and then it was gone. No further response to his e-mail.
He typed again, hands trembling.
If you’re interested in talking further, please do e-mail me back, no obligations. All I need to know is that my child has found a warm and loving home.
He hit “Send.” Waited. More minutes ticked by.
Nothing.
Perspiration beaded along his lip, and Gage dragged his palm over his balding head. He glanced at the papers scattered across his desk—newspaper clippings from the Watt Lake Gazette, articles run twelve years ago. Old crime scene photos showing clinical images of exhumed skeletal remains, desecrated bodies. Rotting skulls. Missing tongues. Gaping eye sockets. There were photos of steel grappling hooks in the meat shed where the Watt Lake Killer had hung, gutted, flayed, and bled out his victims like slaughtered deer. Photos of the shed where he’d done his butchering, images of a generator-powered freezer that had revealed unspeakable horrors. Pictures of the shack beside the shed where he’d shackled and roped his victims alive, where he sexually abused and fed and kept them over the winter before setting them out for a spring hunt.
Gage drew closer a photograph of the Watt Lake Killer’s last victim.
Sarah Jane Baker.
Twenty-five at the time. The young wife of Ethan Baker, daughter of prominent Watt Lake pastor Jim Vanlorne. Sarah Baker had been taken, as the others had, in the hours preceding the first big storm of the season. She, like the others, had been chained and overwintered in that shack. And then, at the sound of returning geese, he’d armed her and released her into the wild.
For there is no hunting like the hunting of an armed man . . .
These words, Sarah had revealed in interviews with police later, the killer had whispered into her ear. He’d quoted to her from the works of Thoreau, Hemingway, Blackwood.
A well-read man.
Unlike Sebastian George, the man who’d been caught, charged, tried, and convicted for the murders.
Despite all the evidence, Gage could not believe they’d put away the right guy. He’d been hunting him ever since, in his spare time, nights. A secret obsession. Because he’d made a pledge all those years ago. A pledge for justice.
He’d been keeping tabs on Sarah Baker ever since. It was his belief that the real Watt Lake Killer might one day return for her.
Gage blew out a chestful of air. Still no response to his e-mail. He opened up several of the other accounts he’d created and checked to see if there were any fresh hits on his posts there.
Zip.
He dragged his hand down over his mouth, doubt and fear braiding with dark excitement. He could sense him out there, on the other end of a computer. The killer. Listening, waiting.
The door opened suddenly. “Dad?”
He jumped. Adrenaline slammed. He swore, getting up fast, scrabbling to gather up the newspaper clippings, crime scene photos, notes.
“Tori, dammit. Knock. How many times have I told you!”
His daughter’s gaze shot to the papers clutched in his hands, then to the computer, then settled on his face. “What are you doing?”
“What do you want, Tori?”
She glowered at him in silence for a beat.
“It’s Aunt Louise,” she snapped. “On the phone. Didn’t you hear it ring?”
Accusation. Anger. So much negativity since Melody died. Since Tori lost her mother and he’d lost his wife, his best friend, his crutch. His reason for life itself.
“Thank you,” he said, holding her gaze, waiting for her to leave.
She exited and slammed the door. Footfalls stomped off down the passage.
Jesus, he hadn’t even heard the phone . . . Sharpen up. Focus. He picked up the phone, cleared his throat.
“Lou, hey. How’re you doing?”
“More important, how are you?” His older sister’s voice was all businesslike, par for the course. “I thought I’d hear from you this week, Gage, after your last appointment. How did it go? Can they operate?”
They couldn’t. Both Melody and he had already known this before her accident.
He glanced out the window. Darkness was full. So early at this time of year. Rain squiggled in watery worms against the black reflection of the windows.
“I blew the appointment off,” he said.
Silence hung for a few beats.
“I was busy, Lou.”
“Shit,” she said softly. Then came a muffled sound, as though she’d covered the receiver with her hand in order to quietly blow her nose. “You have an obligation to Tori, you know, to stay on top of this.”
“I have plenty of time—”
“How much, exactly? Something could go wrong any day. You don’t know how it’s going to manifest. You’ve already been forced into early retirement because of . . .” Her voice faded, falling just short of mentioning his blackouts at work.
The few mistakes he’d made during a key homicide investigation had raised red flags with brass. He’d lost periods of time, found himself in places without knowing how he’d gotten there. He’d physically laid into a punk-ass drug dealer in the interrogation room last week and hadn’t even known what triggered him, or what he’d been doing. One minute he’d been present, the next he was being yanked off the scumbag. Questions about his health had been formally raised. Next came the issue of early retirement versus long-term disability leave. This goddamn illness was robbing him of his life even as he walked.
“Look, all I’m saying is that you need to manage this, because if Tori—”
“I will. I just have some things I need to take care of first.”
“Like what?”
“Loose ends.”
His sister sighed heavily. “And how is Tori doing? You’ve told her, right?”
“Not yet.”
“Gage—”
“Enough. I’m her father, and I know that she’s not ready. Especially since the incident at school—”
“What incident?”
“She had a bit of a dustup with another student, set fire to the kid’s books in the school cafeteria.”
“I’m packing a bag right now. I’m heading to the airport for a standby flight. Ben and the kids can manage without me for a while. At least I can be there for Tori, when you do tell her.”
“No.”
“She’ll also need time to assimilate the fact that she’s going to have to come and live with us. I don’t think—”
“Louise, stop. I know you mean well. I know you’ll be there for Tori when it happens. But right now I’m as strong as a bloody ox. I’m clearheaded. I’m fine. I’ve got my big retirement bash to attend night after tomorrow, and I’ve taken her out of school. We’re going to—”
“You’ve what?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was either that or risk some other mishap and an expulsion. Besides, I want to spend some time with her. I want to go away for the Thanksgiving weekend, make some good, final memories with her, different memories,” he said softly. “She’s suffering from her own guilt over Melody’s accident. We need to work through that before I tell her what’s going on with me. Just give us a little while, okay?”
This time he heard his sister clearly sniffling and blowing her nose. It sliced him. Lou, his capable, businesslike older sister, was crying.
“I don’t understand life, either, Lou,” he said quietly. “I don’t know why we get dealt the cards we do. Tori got a bad hand. The bloody joker in the pack. But that’s the one she’s got, and I need to fix some things, tie up those loose ends for her before I go.”
Silence—a long, long beat of silence.
Gage stared at his sorry-ass reflection i
n the black, rain-streaked window. Outwardly he still looked strong, muscles bulked from hours in the gym, fit from running long distance. This beautiful house in Kits, the view of the ocean, they’d thought they had it all. Great kid. Decent careers. Love. Respect. A perfect and delicate glass ball.
And then it shattered.
He’d gotten the diagnosis. Melody had made it seem manageable. She was going to be there with him every step of the way. And once it was over, Tori would still have had a mother. Their daughter would not have to be alone.
Then Melody went and skied into a tree well on Cypress Mountain after the last big spring snowstorm. She’d suffocated, trapped upside down under mounds of pristine white powder while Tori had struggled to yank her mother out by her skis and boots. When Melody died she’d taken with her all the light and heart and energy in their lives. Without Melody . . . it was like removing the battery from an appliance. Just didn’t work. Both he and Tori had started to crumble under the confusion. The rage. The unjustness. The utter gaping maw of loss.
“Give us until after Thanksgiving,” he said quietly.
His sister inhaled shakily. “So where are you going for this trip?”
“Not far. A few hours’ drive into the interior.”
“Call me when you get back, okay?”
“You got it.” He said good-bye. But as he was about to hang up, he heard a soft click. As if a phone receiver in another part of the house had been set gently into its cradle.
Gage flung open his office door and marched down the passage.
“Tori!” He opened her bedroom door. No sign of her. “Tori? Where are you?”
He heard the water in the shower. He saw the phone receiver in its cradle. Relief punched through him. For a gut-sickening moment he’d thought she’d heard them on the phone.
Eugene climbed into his truck cab. A set of Washington State plates lay upside down on the floor of the passenger side. It was safer to keep the plates than trash them where someone might find them.
He fired the ignition and flicked on the windshield wipers. Pulling out into the stream of traffic, wipers clacking, he headed over the congested Lions Gate Bridge, bumper-to-bumper traffic. Once clear of the bridge he aimed for the ramp onto the highway that would take him north into the mountains.
A thump thump thump sounded in the camper on the back of the truck. His blood pressure spiked. Irritability crawled over his skin. The drugs he’d given her were wearing off earlier and earlier now as she built tolerance.
He glanced up into his rearview mirror, which ordinarily afforded him a glimpse through the cab’s rear window into the camper via another small window. But it was dark, rain squiggling down the pane, refracting light from traffic. She was securely bound but must have found a way to kick at the boards with her heels.
Thump thump . . . thumpy-thump came the noise again. This was one fucking determined piece of baggage he’d been carting around.
There always came a time when the fresh meat grew stale. She hadn’t even been fresh to begin with. Mustn’t rush with the disposal, though. He needed to do this right. He needed to send a very special message.
. . . It’s not a game until both sides know they’re playing . . .
A smile curved his lips as it suddenly occurred to him exactly what he would do, how he’d gradually make Sarah Baker aware that she was once again prey, being hunted. He moistened his lips, recalling the bittersweet, salty taste of raw fear on Sarah Baker’s skin.
CHAPTER 2
Thursday. Four days to Thanksgiving.
Olivia spurred her horse into a gallop up the ridge, hair streaming behind her, wind drawing tears from her eyes. She should have brought gloves—her fingers were frozen. But she adored the sensation of the chill autumn air against bare skin. Ace, her German shepherd, lagged far behind, guided by the sound of Spirit’s thudding hooves. Cresting the ridge, she reined in her mare just in time.
The sky to the west was streaked with violent shades of fuchsia and saffron, and the army of black spruce marching across the spine of the west esker was backlit by the setting sun. It looked as though the trees themselves were afire. As she watched the shimmering ball of fire sink slowly into the horizon, the wind shifted suddenly and temperatures dropped. Coyotes began yipping, their chorus of cries echoing into the distant Marble mountains. The sun disappeared, and the world turned tones of pearlescent gray. The coyotes fell suddenly silent. A chill rippled over her skin, and the fine hairs on her arms rose.
It never ceased to hold her wonder, this nightly show, this clockwork ritual of light shifting into dark and the response of the wild. This big, open sky. The miles upon miles of endless forests and the smooth, glacier-formed hills of this high interior plateau. This place, this ranch was where she had finally found a sense of peace. Of home.
To her mind this ridge afforded the best vantage point of Broken Bar Ranch at sunset. From here, golden fields rolled all the way down to the turquoise lake. Cattle usually grazed these lands, but the last of the herd had been recently sold, as had most of the horses—a stark reminder of the change that was upon this place.
She could count three small fishing boats still on the water. They were heading slowly back toward the campsite on the west shore as the water turned pewter. The Marble range to the south was dusted with the first skiffs of snow, and the aspen leaves had turned gold. Thanksgiving weekend was upon them. This would be the last weekend that fly fishers—the diehards who didn’t mind the freezing temperatures at night—would try to eke a few more hours of angling from the year. Winter was creeping down from those mountains fast, quietly closing an icy fist around the wilderness. Within weeks, days even, the forests would be white and frozen, and Broken Bar would be closed to guests, cut off from the world.
If it were her place, she would open the ranch for winter stays, offering sleigh rides, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling along the miles upon miles of wilderness trails. There would be ice skating and hockey games on the lake. Big bonfires at night. She’d provide a cowboy country-style Christmas dinner complete with a ranch-raised turkey dinner, vegetables harvested from the kitchen gardens, and a nightly roaring fire in the giant hearth. She’d lace sparkling white lights around the big blue spruce that stood sentinel in front of the old lodge house. Broken Bar was picture-perfect for it. Olivia felt a small pang in her chest, a poignant longing for Christmases and Thanksgivings past, the warmth of large family gatherings. A life she once had. But she was no longer that person, could never be. And there was no way she was going to be a victim about it.
Not anymore.
The victim role had near killed her. She was a different person now.
Yet this time of year, this tremulous window between fall and winter, was always a bit of a struggle. The scents of autumn, the sounds of geese migrating, the first shots of the fall hunt cracking through the hills still got to her, filled her with unspecified dread, whisperings of unforgotten fear. She also felt, at this time of year, the sharp chasm of loss. A mother’s loss of her child. And questions would fill her.
Where are you now, my baby girl? Are you happy? Safe?
Her mood shifted, and her attention turned toward the smoke curling up from the rock chimney of the big old lodge house in the distance. Dr. Halliday’s black SUV was still parked outside.
The ranch belonged to Old Man Myron McDonough. It had been in his family since the mid-1800s, since his ancestors had homesteaded this Cariboo land. The way Adele Carrick, his longtime housekeeper, told it, Broken Bar had been a thriving cattle and guest ranch business up until the accident twenty-three years ago that had taken Myron’s wife, Grace, and their youngest son, Jimmie. From that point Myron had begun to draw into himself, growing harder, gruffer, coarser, wilder, and the ranch business had started a long slide into disrepair. His two older kids had left, and no longer returned to visit.
And now
that Myron had taken ill, he was further scaling back what was left of the ranch and fishing business. Since his diagnosis last winter, the last of the cattle and almost all the horses had been sold. Guests no longer stayed inside the lodge. Only the cabins and campsites were rented, spring through fall. Horseback trail rides had stopped last season, the wranglers and grooms laid off, all but one who cared for the handful of remaining horses. The remainder of the staff had been trimmed down to a housekeeper, a chef and kitchen assistant, seasonal wait staff and bartender, part-time cleaners, a seasonal farmhand, the groom, and her. The office and fly shop manager had been let go last week with a promise that her job would open again next summer. But there was a question whether Myron would even be around next summer.
Wind gusted hair across Olivia’s face. She could almost taste the coming snow in the air this evening—a faint metallic tinge, and she felt a sense of things closing in.
She wanted to catch the doc before he left. She was about to whistle for Ace, who’d gone snuffling after some critter, when the rumbling noise of a large rig coming along the logging road carried across the lake. She squinted into the distance. A fine line of dirt was rising like spindrift above the trees on the opposite side of the water. It sounded like a diesel engine hauling a trailer. It was probably heading to the campsite.
She’d let whoever it was settle into the campsite, and if they didn’t come around to the office to check themselves in later tonight, she’d swing by first thing in the morning. She didn’t want to miss Halliday, and his SUV was pulling out from the lodge parking lot now.
Giving a sharp whistle for Ace, Olivia nudged Spirit into a trot down the ridge. By the time she reached the dirt road, Halliday’s vehicle was already nearing the cattle grid, a cloud of dirt boiling behind him. She spurred Spirit into a gallop to head him off at the arched entranceway, hooves thudding on the dry ground. Halliday’s vehicle slowed as he saw her. He came to stop under the arch with the big bleached bull moose antlers. Olivia reined her mare in. Spirit sidestepped, snorting into cool evening air.
The doc opened his door, got out.
A Dark Lure Page 2