A Dark Lure

by Loreth Anne White

  She took the lure.

  She went in search of the berries.

  She never came home.

  Tori’s pulse raced as she quickly lifted the page and laid it upside down on the bench beside her. She started reading the next page.

  Olivia opened the gate to the chicken coop and stepped inside. The birds cluttered and clucked around her boots. Ace lay outside the fence, head between his paws, watching intently as she poured feed into the trays. The sun would be setting soon. The wind had shifted, and colors were warm in the low-angled light. But inside she felt cold. It was as if the inky poison of the past had seeped in through cracks that had opened in her mental armor, and now she was going to have a devil of a time ridding herself of it all again.

  As she emptied the last of the feed and exited the coop, her phone buzzed at her hip. She extracted it from its sheath, didn’t recognize the caller ID. “Olivia,” she said as she latched the gate closed.

  “The east field still functional as an airstrip?” It was a male voice against a noisy backdrop of an engine or something. She stalled, hand on gate.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Can you still land a plane on the east field?” he yelled over the noise.

  “Who is this?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who called me. It’s Cole McDonough.”

  Shock slashed through her. “You’re coming? When?”

  “ETA two minutes, if you can give me an all-clear on that field.”

  East field? She looked up as she suddenly heard a distant drone—the buzz of a small plane. “You’re coming by air?”

  “How’s that field?”

  Shit. “I don’t know. I mean . . . what do you need to land?”

  “There used to be a dirt track running east-west on the back field behind the stables, up by the old barn. I’ll circle in the air, take a look-see from above. But if you could take a run out there and clear out any cattle, then raise your arms and give me an all clear—”

  “No livestock. Not anymore.”

  But the call had cut out.

  The buzz grew louder. She shaded her eyes. A tiny sparkle appeared on the distant horizon, reflecting the setting sunlight. Her heart kicked.

  “Ace! Hop! Quick!” She helped him up into the front seat, jumped into the truck, fired the ignition. She barreled down the rutted road, dirt roiling out behind her, stones spitting out in her wake. She slowed, barely, to rumble over a cattle grid, after which she swung a sharp right up onto an old dirt track that climbed a rise to the east field. She popped out onto a plateau of land.

  Olivia hit the brakes, and stared out over the golden field, grasses bending softly in the breeze. She had no idea whether one could land a plane on this. Depended on the craft. And the only planes that did fly into this area tended to land with pontoons on a lake.

  She wound down her window, heard the increasing hum of an engine. She shielded her eyes again.

  A tiny yellow single-prop plane grew out of the horizon. Tension skittered through her. She exited her truck, went out into full view.

  Vancouver. Friday. Almost sunset.

  Gage’s retirement party was at the yacht club, the same club where he, Melody, and Tori used to keep their kayaks. Correction. The kayaks were still stored here, all three of them. A family unit. Waiting for a summer that was never going to come again. Hard to believe she’d been gone six months already. As he entered the club Gage felt the loss as raw as if it were yesterday.

  The place was packed with law enforcement and support personnel, most from homicide. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran the length of the room and looked out over the yachts in the marina and into the misty inlet beyond. Lights glowed in halos from the tankers that lurked in the Burrard. Behind those mists, on the other side of the inlet, rose the mountains where Melody had died. On a clear day he could see that mountain from their house. He saw those mountains from nearly everywhere he went on the mainland.

  Someone had hired a music duo with a fiddle and flute. Irish tunes. Again, he was reminded viscerally of Melody, their love, their honeymoon in Ireland.

  Drinks flowed liberally. There was much laughter and chatter and speeches and backslapping. But Gage felt weirdly detached. It was now just over forty-eight hours since he’d hooked a response with his adoption Internet lure, and he’d heard nothing more since. It was winding him wire tight, messing with his head. If the Watt Lake Killer was out there, if it was he who’d taken the bait, he now had information on how to find Olivia West.

  Would he act on it?

  How soon?

  Where was he now? How far away? He glanced at his watch, worried also about Tori. That incident at school, the dark violence he’d glimpsed in his kid, had rocked him hard. Perhaps it had been a mistake to leave her home alone tonight. There was no goddamn manual for this shit.

  Where are you, Melody? Are you looking down, watching me going through this charade? Help me with Tori . . .

  The afternoon leaned into evening. Beer. Food. Music and voices growing louder. Garish smiling faces that seemed to leer in and out of his consciousness. People congratulating him. On fucking what? Being forced out early? Losing his mental faculties to a point he’d become a problem on the job? How much did any one of these people here really know about his reasons for retiring?

  They presented him with a handcrafted spey rod. He’d always wanted to work on his spey casting. It was part of what he and Melody had been planning to do—load up the camper, tour the continent when Tori went to university. Fucking bucket list. He plastered a smile onto his face. Cracked jokes.

  Deputy Commissioner Hank Gonzales got up and clinked his glass with a spoon. Silence fell in the room. Outside the foghorns continued their plaintive moans into the mists. Rain beat against the windows, wind rattling halyards against masts outside and straining the yachts against their moorings.

  “I have had the pleasure, the honor, of knowing Gage Burton since our first days of training at Depot Division.”

  Gage’s neck muscles tightened. Bastard was going to use this occasion to parallel their careers, and who wouldn’t fail to notice that while they’d trained together as rookies, Gonzales had become head honcho boss of E Division while he was still working as a homicide detective.

  “Burton and I crossed career paths again when he was serving as staff sergeant at Watt Lake and I was on a task force to hunt down the Watt Lake Killer, as the media dubbed him back then.”

  Laughs. People actually laughed.

  Blood pounded in Gage’s head. His hand tightened around his beer mug. Mac Yakima placed his hand on his forearm. Gage shot him a glance.

  “Cheers,” Mac whispered, holding up his glass. “Drink up. It will drown him out.”

  “Fuck him,” Gage muttered under his breath.

  “Water under the bridge, okay? Let it be.”

  Gage nodded, but everything inside him resisted.

  Mac was one of the few cops who knew just how much Gage’s head-butting with Gonzales over the Watt Lake investigation had cost him in career terms.

  “And now—” Gonzales raised his glass. “Here we are, back full circle, Burton and I in the same detachment.” He smiled. “It’s been a good run. And here’s to some big-ass steelhead on that new rod, Burton.”

  Someone banged an empty mug on a table. “Speech, speech!”

  Fists joined in the banging.

  But as Gage pushed himself to his feet, several cell phones in the room began to ring simultaneously. His gaze darted around the crowd as members began answering their phones. All IHit guys.

  And there was only one reason the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team was called into action. Suspicious death.

  Someone leaned over and tapped Commissioner Gonzales on the shoulder. He bent his head, listening. Commish Gonzales then glanced up at Gage.

  “Hey,�
�� Gage said, raising both his hands. “No worries. I’ve never been big on speeches.” He forced a smile.

  Several members started leaving. Others came up to Gage to bid him farewell before they left. Good luck, good to see you. Have a good life. They shook his hands, slapped his shoulder. But while they smiled he read something different in their eyes. They felt sorry for him. They were glad it wasn’t them. They were excited about this new call.

  Mac came up to his side. “Gage, buddy, I’m sorry. Got to go. We’ll catch up later?”

  “What was the call, Mac?”

  Mac hesitated.

  “Oh, for Chrissakes, I’m not even out the goddamn door yet.”

  A strange look crossed Mac’s features, and a chill sense of foreboding sank into Gage’s bones. He clamped his hand firmly on his mate’s arm.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  Mac swallowed, his gaze flicking around the crowd as if to see who might be watching him spill. “A body, female. Middle-aged. Found in Mount Currie, along the Birkenhead River.”

  Mount Currie was native land—a route that led into the interior. To where Broken Bar Ranch was located. The Watt Lake Killer had aboriginal ties—his hunts, his kills, had all been on native land.

  A buzz began in his ears.

  His desperation must have showed because compassion softened Mac’s black eyes. “Come, I’ll walk you out. I’ll get Martinello to drive you home.”

  They exited the door. Rain was coming down like a bead curtain. “How was the body displayed?” Gage asked.

  Mac’s features tightened. He hesitated again.

  “Jesus, Mac,” Gage said. “A morsel on my retirement, please?”

  Mac rubbed his brow. “Vic was found hanging from a tree by her neck. Been disemboweled, partially flayed.”

  Gage’s heart went whump whump whump.

  “Come, let’s get out of the rain—there’s Martinello pulling up.” Mac raised his hand to summon Martinello closer.

  “Hung by the neck? How? A hook?”

  Mac leaned down as constable Jan Martinello lowered her cruiser window.

  “Can you give Burton a ride home?”

  “Who found her?” Gage demanded.

  Mac opened the passenger door for Gage. “Two kids.”

  Perspiration prickled over Gage’s skin, mixing with rain. “Any ID on the vic?”

  “That’s all I’ve got at this point.” Mac waited for Gage to get into the car.

  “It’s him,” he said. “It’s his signature. The hook. The flayed skin. The gutting.”

  “Sebastian George is dead, Gage.”

  Silence shimmered, thick, hot. Rain came down harder.

  “What if we had the wrong guy—or what if he had a partner?”

  “This could be anything. A copycat. Another hunter.” Mac gave him a patronizing and pitying look, the kind of look people gave an Alzheimer’s patient, or a kid not old enough to understand. “Go home, Gage. Get some sleep. Go on your fishing trip with Tori. She needs you now. You have a kid to think about.”

  Yeah. I do. I have Tori to think about. I’m thinking about her right now. I want to get this bastard so I can leave a safer world for her . . .

  “Sergeant Burton?” It was Martinello calling out from the driver’s seat. “You getting in?”

  Gage gritted his jaw, climbed into the passenger seat, slammed the door shut.

  “I’ve been tasked with the pleasure of driving you home,” Martinello said as she pulled out of the parking lot.

  She was young. Typical cop. Hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Clean complexion. Very little makeup. He felt resentful of her age, her potential, the smugness that came with youth.

  “You okay, sir?”

  “Yeah. Can you go any faster? Take a left here, quicker route.” He tapped his knee with his hand.

  “You sure you’re okay, sir?”

  “I need to get home.”

  Martinello shot him a hot glance.

  It was him. He was back—Gage knew it. That murder—it had to be him. He’d been lying low somewhere for years, maybe even incarcerated for another crime, but he was back. The game was on. Gage could feel it. He had to finish this. The clock was ticking.

  Friday evening. Sunset. Broken Bar Ranch.

  Cole banked his small two-seater Piper PA-18 Super Cub over endless, rolling forest, much of it red-brown and dead from the pine beetle blight. In clear-cuts the skeletons of decimated pines had been stacked in pyres, waiting to be burned as soon as the weather turned wet. Through the valleys silvery streams and rivers meandered. A bear startled and galloped for cover as the plane buzzed overhead.

  Cole crested a high esker ridge formed by ancient glaciers, and the ranch came suddenly into view. He caught his breath at the sight of the startling aqua-blue, crystal-clear waters and white marl shoals of Broken Bar Lake. Mist rose from the churning river at the outflow, water tumbling down into a narrow rocky canyon. Cole tensed—a muscle memory. That river held dark memories. It had changed everything.

  He banked again, following the smooth, curved mounds of glacial ridges that were gold with grass. Wisps of smoke rose from campfires among the trees at the west end of the lake. A few boats and float tubes dotted the waters. Fresh skiffs of snow covered the Marble range. He was overcome with a sense of timelessness. He’d forgotten just how clean, beautiful, unspoiled this wilderness around the ranch was.

  He saw the old lodge house with its big chimney, the small cabins nested among alders and aspen, the barn where he used to tinker with engines, where he’d rebuilt his vintage truck. The old wrangler quarters were covered in vines, the roofs caving in, the grass around them grown tall. Something caught in his chest.

  Home.

  It had been a long time. In more ways than one. Cole wondered if sometimes you traveled so far away from home that it wasn’t possible to find your way back. If he had to pinpoint it, this place had ceased being a real home since the day of the accident. Since his father rejected him.

  A dark tightness filled his chest.

  He’d returned to BC often enough during the past decade. He and Holly had bought a house in Pemberton. They’d rented the house while traveling the world in search of his stories, staying in the suite whenever they were back. But they hadn’t come up to Broken Bar. He’d never brought Ty and Holly here. Cole had felt no need to see his father, not since their truly epic bust-up thirteen years ago.

  He started the descent. He didn’t have to stay long. He’d check on his father, help organize the palliative care, if that’s what was needed, make any decisions required for the continued functioning of the ranch until Jane organized the sale. Then he was out of here. Duty done.

  Coming in for the landing, it struck him—the fields were devoid of livestock. Not a cow to be seen anywhere on the ranch. He saw a rust-red truck parked on the east field. A woman stood beside it, hair blowing in the wind. Olivia. She raised a hand up high, giving him the all clear.

  He brought his craft in.

  CHAPTER 6

  Olivia tensed as she held her hair back off her face—the wings of the little yellow single-prop plane were seesawing in high crosswinds, and it was coming toward the ground at a startling angle.

  Fat tires smacked the dirt road with an explosion of soft glacial dirt. The bush plane bumbled along the track, a cone of silt roiling out behind it. She blinked into the blowing grit as the craft came to an abrupt halt. The cloud of dust overtook and enveloped the plane. The prop slowed then stopped.

  Anxiety twisted through her.

  The cockpit side flap dropped open.

  A man, tall, climbed out. He raised his hand in greeting, then reached behind the pilot seat. He hefted out a military-style duffel bag. Closing the door flap, he ducked out from under the wings and slung his gear up onto a broad shoulder.

&nbs
p; With a long easy stride, a smooth roll of the shoulders, he closed the distance to where Olivia waited alongside her truck. He was dressed in a dark-brown leather jacket that looked worn. Vintage. WWII bomber style with a sheepskin ruff and lining. His jeans were faded in places that screamed masculinity. His boots were scuffed.

  He brought to mind paramilitary figures. A guy with authority, one who exuded a command presence.

  Not surprising. This was a man who wrote about alpha men. Extreme risk takers. Conquerors of the world’s tallest peaks and remotest poles. He walked the walk, climbed the mountains, flew the skies. Yet in spite of his apparent machismo, his written words bespoke a sensitive view of the world. A beautiful mind.

  Ace barked from inside the truck as he neared.

  Her pulse quickened, little moth wings of nerves fluttering in her stomach. She wiped her hands on her jeans, thinking of all the negative emotions she’d directed toward him, his rudeness on the phone. Up close, in the flesh, he was even more formidable, more vital than anything in those photographs. A chiseled, tanned echo of his dying father. A mountain of a man.

  “You must be Olivia.” He reached forward to shake her hand. “Cole McDonough.”

  Her spine stiffened instinctively as she held out her hand. His grip was unapologetically firm. Calloused palms. Warm hands. As his gaze met hers, a sharp crackle of electricity shot through her body. His eyes were deep-set under a prominent brow and fringed by heavy lashes. And they were intense. Moody like a thundercloud. His chin was strong, darkly shadowed with stubble, his brown hair tousled. Everything about this man radiated a kind of feral aggression and power, yet there was fatigue in the craggy lines that fanned out from his eyes and bracketed his mouth. His deeply sun-browned skin seemed to belie a paleness, a quiet exhaustion beneath.

  She cleared her throat. “Pleased to meet you,” she lied, firming her own grip, asserting her space, her place on this ranch. “And this is Ace,” she said of her dog, who was now sticking his head out the window and lolling his tongue out in anticipation of a greeting.