A Dark Lure

by Loreth Anne White

  “City,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Anything on the vic’s ID yet? Any leads?”

  A pause. “Burton, let it go. Take the time with your kid, enjoy the fishing. Leave this to us.”

  Irritation sparked. Wind gusted. A line of dirt rose above the trees across the lake—someone was driving through the forest to the campsite. His chest tightened.

  “I saw it on the news,” Gage said. “It’s the same signature as Watt Lake—the display of the body, the gouged-out eyes. Strung up by the neck. Also on Indian land.”

  Silence.

  “C’mon, Mac, you must have something.”

  “Remember that last time we all had dinner—you, me, Melody, and Karen. And Melody broke the news about your illness?”

  Gage closed his eyes. His hand tightened around his phone. The four of them had been close friends ever since he and Mac had been stationed together at Fort Tapley.

  “Remember how Melody mentioned that . . . symptoms might have been manifesting for a while. A long while. Small signs, changes in behavior not immediately apparent at the time, but in retrospect they could have been little markers, warnings.” Mac paused, as if struggling to find the right way to plead his case. “It made no sense at the time, your insistence that Sebastian George was the wrong guy. In retrospect, this—”

  “Jesus, Mac—is that what you think? That I was suffering mental delusions back up in Watt Lake?”

  “It could be.”

  A buzzing began in his ears. “Listen, this has fuck all to do with my illness.”

  “Sebastian George was the right guy,” Mac said with the kind of level tone he reserved for idiots. “And now he’s dead. This Birkenhead case is something else. Let it go. Please.”

  Gage ran his palm over his head.

  Fuck.

  Quietly, he said, “So, there are no leads on the Birkenhead homicide, no ID on the vic?”

  “Privileged information now. I’m sorry.”

  “Just tell me one thing—yes or no. Was there a bite out of each of her breasts?”

  Silence.

  Gage’s pulse quickened. This was holdback information from the Watt Lake killings that never made it to the media. This was something only he and the immediate investigators on the old case knew. Not even Mac knew this about this.

  “Was there a message?” he pressed, quietly. “Like a tightly folded note secreted into the right eye socket, a note that said something like ‘It’s not sport unless both sides know they’re playing.’ Or ‘A hunt is a marriage between hunter and prey.’ Or ‘There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.’”

  Dead silence.

  “So there was a note.”

  Still nothing.

  Blood thudded in his ears.

  When Mac spoke again, his voice was crisp. “Burton, if you know something about this Birkenhead case . . .” Then, as if something hit him suddenly, “Where are you? Where did you take Tori fishing?” he demanded.

  Gage glanced over his shoulder at the cabin.

  Keep her safe. You’re doing this for her . . .

  “Listen.” Mac’s voice was sharper. “Can you tell me where you were the night before the retirement party?”

  Jesus. Mac was thinking that he knew too much, that he had something to do with this?

  “Gage? Tell me. Where are you and Tori now! You need to come in. I need to speak—”

  He hung up quickly. His heart kicked against his ribs. So there had been a note. In the eye socket. Only the old task force members had known that. And him. He’d watched the interrogations, the interviews. He’d never told anyone about the holdback evidence. Not even Mac.

  He was here.

  Had to be here.

  The Watt Lake Killer was back. Anxiety, adrenaline, fear stampeded into him. What had he done? Could he control this now? Finish the job?

  His phone buzzed. Mac. Trying to call back.

  Sweat prickled over his lip. If Mac took him in now, they’d tie him up, cost precious time, and it would be too late. The killer would finish his job before Gage could convince them he wasn’t mad.

  Quickly he cracked the back off his phone and removed the battery. He didn’t want to be traced. No time. If the killer was going to act, it would be soon. Before the snow. Before Monday night.

  Hooves thundered behind him. He spun around, quickly pocketing his phone and battery.

  Olivia West rode up on a gray mare, her hair blowing in the wind, her face pinked with the cold.

  “Gage, hi.” She was breathless. And she was beautiful, especially up on that gorgeous creature. The horse stomped as she reined it in. Her dog approached over the rise behind them, tongue lolling out.

  She hesitated then dropped down off her horse. From a bag at her saddle she removed a crumpled newspaper and plastic bag.

  “Did you perhaps leave these in the office?” She held out the newspaper. The headline was the Birkenhead murder. Her name and the ranch address were printed above the headline. Slowly, he turned his attention to the small plastic ziplock bag. His mouth went dry. He felt hot. Dizzy.

  He’s here. The Watt Lake Killer is here. This is his first calling card . . . The game is on . . .

  His eyes flared to hers. She was watching him intently. Clearly edgy. He knew why.

  He reached out for the newspaper and bag, taking both from her hand.

  “Thank you. I wondered where I might have left these.”

  Olivia’s brow lowered. She regarded him intently, as if waiting for further explanation. Sweat prickled under his shirt. He glanced at the cabin. Tori’s head peeked up into the window, watching them both.

  “I . . . jotted your name and the ranch address on top of the paper I bought on the way up,” he offered, “when we refueled at the Petro-Can in Clinton. The attendant at the gas station gave me directions to the ranch, said you were the manager.”

  Her frown deepened, as if she was unsure whether to believe him.

  But he met her eyes directly, smiled. He did not want to spook Olivia. Instilling fear was the Watt Lake Killer’s MO—the man fed off it. Letting his prey know that he was out there, hunting, was his game. Gage would not let him win the first steps in the hunt.

  “Where did you get the lure?” she said. “Because it’s not going to work here on Broken Bar trout. That’s a steelhead fly.”

  He nodded. “A friend gave it to me. It was one of my retirement gifts, along with a spey rod. My buddy said this design was doing the rounds on the steelhead runs up north last fall. Apparently it works like a bomb.”

  “It’s an interesting design,” she said, her eyes still probing his, looking for a lie.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  She hesitated, then put her foot into the stirrup and swung back up onto her mare. She stroked the animal’s neck, a smile easing tentatively over her mouth. Gage read relief in her eyes.

  “Thanks,” she said as she nudged her horse forward.

  “Wait—”

  She reined her horse back in. It shuffled sideways.

  “Could we perhaps book a guided session with you on the lake, maybe for later this afternoon?”

  “We’re actually done with the guided outings for the summer.”

  “Just an hour, max.” He shot another look at the cabin. “Tori could do with the female company.”

  Olivia wavered, then smiled. “Of course. I have a few errands to run first. How about four o’clock. I’ll meet you down on that dock.” She pointed to a dock that lay beyond a gazebo. “We’ll be back in plenty of time for drinks and a hot lodge dinner.”

  “Sounds good.” Gage smiled, patted her mare’s neck. “More than good.”

  “Tell Tori to bundle up. Gets really cold out
on the water when the sun starts going at this time of year.” There was warmth in her eyes. She spun her horse around and trotted off. Gage felt a clutch in his chest as he watched her go, her dog running behind.

  She had been so much a part of his life, albeit from a distance, he felt he knew her. Intimately. She was like family.

  You’re doing the right thing. You’re going to fix all this. For her. For Tori. You just have to stay sharp, because if he’s here, he’s watching . . . and he’ll make another move soon . . .

  Dry grasses grew tall along the approach track to the old barn and rustled softly in the wind. Vines clambered up the outside walls. The door creaked as Cole drew it open wide. He hesitated a moment before entering.

  This was where he’d spent a good part of his youth, tinkering with machines, taking them apart to see if he could put them back together. Where he’d sneaked beer, and then vodka.

  This was where he’d kissed his first girlfriend. Amelia from school. Where Clayton Forbes and Tucker Carrick had hunted them both down one hot afternoon and delivered a right jab that broke Cole’s nose for “stealing Forbes’s girl.”

  He stepped inside, air currents disturbing spiderwebs that wafted softly in his wake. A whoosh of barn swallows made him duck as they swooped down from the rafters and scattered through the door. His heart hammered. Dust motes danced in the shafts of light spooling from gaps in the beams and siding. The loft was full of old straw. He could smell it. Mold.

  A cat meowed and skittered behind an old tin drum. Cole opened the other door wide so he’d have enough room to maneuver his Piper Cub through.

  The additional light illuminated the rusting old wreck that still hunkered at the back of the barn. Surprise punched through Cole. It was still here—the old truck that had been pulled from the river with his mother and Jimmie inside. Drowned. He walked slowly up to it, a dark cold leaching into his gut.

  The fact that it had not been towed away and dumped bore stark testimony to his father’s grip on the old bitterness and pain. As if getting rid of this wreck might somehow diminish Grace and Jimmie’s memories. Or absolve Cole of what he’d done to cause it.

  Cold tendrils of the past feathered into his mind like fingers of hoarfrost. He could almost smell that day. The air had been crystal, sharp, the snowbanks thick. He’d driven along the frozen river, showing off his work on the 1950s truck he’d restored so lovingly. Suddenly he heard Jimmie’s laughter in the barn rafters, and he saw his mother’s smile in the lodge kitchen. He swallowed. There were ghosts in here. He’d disturbed them.

  And they reminded him that his life as he’d known it had ended that day. There was before the accident. Then there was everything that came after.

  Almost against his will, he reached out and placed his palm against the rusted old body. The metal was rough and blistered, the paintwork peeling. He was thrust even further back into time. To his little brother sitting on a hay bale in this barn. Swinging his skinny legs with skinned knees as he watched his big brother play wrench monkey. There’d been the sound of crickets outside, the day hot, muggy.

  Cole’s heart clutched so hard that for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

  A glimmer in the straw caught his attention. He reached down and picked up a button.

  His mind wheeled to another day past—that afternoon he’d brought Amelia to the barn. Nothing had tasted so sweet as her mouth, or felt so deliriously good as the firm swell of her breast under his palms. The bliss of sexual discovery had consumed him. He’d not heard Clayton Forbes, backed up by Tucker Carrick, coming into the barn to fight him over “stealing” Amelia.

  That day had marked the beginning of a deep rift between himself, Forbes, and Tucker, an animosity none of them had given a chance to heal. Clearly Jane still got on with Forbes. Cole pocketed the button and shoved the memories aside. He preferred not to dwell. He had no place for the past, or his roots in this place. He reminded himself that he had no intention of staying long.

  But as he rolled up his sleeves and got to work moving bales out of the way and clearing out a small place for his plane, he wasn’t so certain. Something subtle inside him was shifting.

  As he worked, even though the wind was increasing outside, it got hotter in the barn. He shucked off his shirt, tossed it onto a bale, and bent down to muscle a tin drum out of the way.

  Olivia let Spirit have full throttle as they bolted across the meadow, Ace falling way behind. Exhilaration raced through her chest. The riddle of the newspaper and fishing lure had been sorted, and it filled her with indescribable relief. The thrill of suddenly feeling free again pumped through her veins as she allowed the wind to tear through her hair and draw tears from her eyes.

  Sure it was an odd coincidence for Gage Burton to be in possession of a fly she’d designed and given to her abductor, and for that fly to be tucked in between the pages of a news story that referenced Sebastian. But coincidences happened.

  It was only in her paranoiac world that her subconscious continuously sought negative patterns, saw shadows where there were none. It was just survival mode, she told herself. When you’d been hunted before, you were bound to be a little more cautious than most.

  As she passed the field where Cole had landed his bush plane, she reined Spirit in and slowed. The plane was gone. Myron’s Dodge was parked there by the trees instead. Wind buffeted her hair across her face, and she noticed a dark band of cloud building on the south horizon. She nudged Spirit forward and rounded the grove of cottonwoods that had served as protection for the tiny yellow plane. The old barn doors had been opened.

  She dismounted, tethered Spirit, and waited for Ace to catch up. Leaving her dog to sniff about in the cottonwood grove with her horse, she walked up the overgrown track toward the barn. Dry grasses rustled in the wind around her.

  Freshly flattened vegetation—wheel tracks—led up to the barn. She came round the side of the door.

  Cole was inside, tinkering with his plane. Shirt off. It was warm; the scent of old straw was strong. His skin gleamed with perspiration.

  Olivia stilled, snared by something atavistic. She watched as his muscles rolled smoothly under deeply sun-browned skin. His dark hair was damp and sticking up in odd places where it looked like he’d run his fingers through it. His jeans were slung low at the base of his spine.

  Heat pooled in her stomach. It shocked her. She’d not had this kind of reaction to a man in twelve years. And it rooted her to the spot, made her mouth dry. She seemed unable to command her brain to make her body move, to say something, let him know she was here.

  He’d unpacked his tools and other gear from the plane. At his side lay a spanner and some other things she didn’t immediately recognize, along with a set of small snow skis that could be attached to the wheels of his Cub. Wind gusted through the eaves, and dry branches scratched against the barn roof. The shafts of light spilling down from the cracks painted his skin gold.

  She couldn’t help but stare. Time stretched, became elastic. She felt dizzy.

  Cole closed the hatch and got to his feet. He stood a moment, then turned and stared toward the back of the barn as if contemplating something.

  He walked slowly to the old wreck at the rear. Tension snapped across her chest. She edged forward. He reached into his back pocket and removed his wallet. From it he took what appeared to be a creased photograph.

  His shoulders rolled forward as he studied the image, as if he’d taken a punch in the gut. He brought the photo close to his face, softly kissed the image.

  Olivia’s pulse quickened. Panic licked. She’d intruded on an intensely private moment, but she was fixated by the emotion in his body, the shape of the pain in this big, bold man who conquered mountains and flew skies. He was physically bent by it. She needed to leave, now. Carefully, she tried to back slowly away. But she stumbled, crashing against the old door. Swallows swooped out around her.
<
br />   He spun around. Stared.

  His eyes met hers, simmering. Raw.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Sergeant Mac Yakima said as he seated himself across from Dr. Julia Bellman. He’d assumed, when Melody had mentioned the name of Burton’s neuro doc, that Dr. Bellman would be male. She was clearly not, but a rather disconcertingly attractive older woman.

  “You of all people should know that I cannot discuss a patient, Sergeant.” Dr. Bellman glanced at her watch. It was Saturday, but she had a patient waiting in her home office.

  “I’m not here solely in a professional capacity,” he said. “I’m also a good friend of Gage Burton. Both my wife and I knew him and Melody as a couple. Melody’s death—it’s had a devastating impact on him. I’m worried it could have precipitated some sort of . . . psychosis, or even dissociative identity disorder.”

  Her perfectly arched brows hooked up. But she said nothing.

  Mac leaned forward. “All I’m asking is whether this is possible in a patient with a brain tumor like his. Hypothetically speaking.”

  She met his gaze, her features inscrutable. “People grieve in varying ways. Sometimes they do things that don’t make sense to others at the time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really do have a patient waiting.” She got up, made for her door.

  “I fear for his daughter’s well-being.” Mac remained seated. “He’s packed up his camper, taken her somewhere, and no one knows where they’ve gone.”

  She regarded him, her hand on the doorknob.

  “Please,” he said. “Time could be critical. All I want to know is, hypothetically, can someone with a tumor like Burton’s develop a severe psychosis? Lose touch with reality? Could extreme stress caused by grief, perhaps, make a cancer grow suddenly faster and manifest in this way?”

  Something shifted momentarily through her eyes, and Mac thought he’d gotten through to her. But she said, “I’m sorry. You’ll need to find another medical professional to help you.”

  He came to his feet. “Dr. Bellman, I have reason to believe that in addition to endangering his daughter, Gage Burton might be responsible for a serious crime.”