“To find your sister.”
* * *
At the cabin, Scarpetti smoked a cigarette on the back porch.
Up in the loft, Jessica grabbed clothes and threw them into her suitcase. She couldn’t wait to leave this place. Between Wynona’s crazy warnings and nearly being killed by some strange animal, she was done with this vacation. Thankfully, Kyle had agreed to fly them back to Seattle tonight. All she could think of now was home.
She looked over the loft’s railing. “Eric, you need to come pack.”
“In a minute, babe.” He was downstairs making a vodka tonic.
Jessica sighed. “How can you drink?”
“After what happened today, I need something stiff to calm my nerves.”
“Fine. I’ll pack for you.” She grabbed his clothes, which had been flung everywhere. She folded his shorts and saw something red and lacy sticking out of a pocket. She pulled out a pair of French-cut panties. Her heart started beating fast followed by a rush of anger. “Eric, can you come upstairs please?”
When Eric climbed to the loft, she held up the red panties. “I found these in the shorts you wore yesterday.”
He froze a moment, clearly busted. “They’re yours.”
“Who is she?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“When I cleaned your cuts last night, you reeked of perfume. I told myself it was nothing, but then I find these. The truth, Eric. What’s the real reason those guys punched you?”
He tried to give her his innocent grin. “Babe, you’re blowing this all out—”
“Don’t lie to me!”
“Okay, okay, yeah, I kissed a woman at the bar, big deal.” He got into her face. “You’ve been flirting with my brother all weekend. Had you come into town with me, none of this would have happened.” He pointed at his cuts and bruises as if they were all her fault.
“So you got mad and made out with some stranger?”
“She was coming on to me really strong. What can I say, Jess? I had a moment of weakness. You’re going to get all bent over—”
“I kissed Kyle,” she heard herself say.
“What!” He blinked several times. “You what?”
“Last night, while you were asleep, Kyle and I kissed.”
“You slut. Did you fuck him too?”
“No, we just kissed.”
“Fuck!” Eric raised his fist, as if he was going to hit her, but then pulled it back. “Goddamn it, I saw this coming! You told me I had nothing to be jealous about!”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen but it did, just like you and red panties here.” She threw them at him.
“She wasn’t your fucking sister. Christ, Jessica. How could you do this?”
She started to tear up. “I don’t know.”
“How can I trust you after this?” He jabbed a finger at her, poking her chest hard. “Have there been other guys?”
“No, of course not.” Jessica pushed his hand away. “And don’t you fucking lay a hand on me.”
Eric backed off, surprised to hear her swearing. The confusion wore off quickly though and he glared like he was angry enough to hit her. Again, he pointed his finger. “I don’t want you ever around my brother again.”
“That’s impossible. He’s your family.”
“Not anymore.”
They stared at one another for a long moment. Even though Jessica was on the brink of tears, she wouldn’t allow herself to cry. She wasn’t about to show Eric any emotional weakness. Not after he had so blatantly cheated on her and then tried to accuse her of seeing other men.
After an unbearable silence, he finally sighed. “Let’s just put this all behind us. Forgive and forget.” He tried to put his hand on her shoulder but she backed away. “Come on, babe. Now that we’re getting married, we’ll focus on each other. I’ll make sure Kyle doesn’t try and come between us.”
Jessica shook her head. “Eric, I can’t do this.”
“Sure you can. We’ll get through this.”
She pulled his ring off her finger and gave it back to him. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck you!” Eric hurled the ring across the room. Then he grabbed his keys, thundered down the stairs and left out the front door. Seconds later, she heard the Hummer peel away.
“Man, what an asshole,” Scarpetti said from the first floor. He looked up at Jessica, grinning. “Miss, is there anything I can help you with?”
Jessica turned away and buried her face in her hands.
* * *
Please let Shawna be alive. Although Elkheart hadn’t seen or spoken to his daughter since she was two, he had always loved her. He had watched her grow up through the photos that Kyle had sent. Elkheart had even secretly gone to Seattle to see one of her concerts, hiding in the crowd, watching with pride as she sang onstage. Despite her rebel hair and clothes, Shawna looked as beautiful as her mother. Elkheart had always hoped that Shawna would one day accept him back into her life. Now, if what he feared were true, he would never forgive himself for trusting Ray Roamingbear.
With rifles aimed, Elkheart and Madu approached Ray’s cabin. The yard was littered with broken-down cars, a few trailers with busted windows, and a rusty old school bus. Multiple sheds surrounded the main house. All the lights were off. Elkheart flattened against the wall of a tool shed and listened. No dogs barking. Good, Ray wasn’t home.
Elkheart gave Madu hand signals, then together they crept to the back screen door and entered. They switched on their flashlights. The interior of the house was cluttered with more junk. Feathers covered everything. His cousin, who was the bastard son of an abusive alcoholic mother, always felt more at home living in squalor.
Dozens of mounted deer heads covered the walls, their broad antlers jutting outward. The flashlight beams caused spiked shadows to stretch across the walls. Marble eyes watched as the two gunmen searched the den and kitchen, which smelled of rot and mildew. Madu found a basement door. Elkheart clicked on a single bulb. He drew a semi-automatic pistol and went down the stairs first, ready to shoot anything that moved.
The basement was a multi-room maze of gray cinderblock walls. Human skins hung on hooks, the dry, hollow faces still attached like Halloween masks.
“Jesus Christ,” Elkheart whispered.
The smell of rot got worse the farther they explored. A back room was full of large cages, the kind used for catching hogs. Elkheart panned his light across the metal frames, searching for Shawna, dreading what he might find. All the cages were empty, except one. The naked woman curled up inside it looked as if she had been dead for weeks. Elkheart had once worked an expedition in Cambodia where they dug up a mummified man from the mud. He had shriveled up, hugging himself in a fetal position. This woman looked like that, as if during her last breath, she had embraced death.
When Ray was a boy his mother had kept him down here in a cage whenever he disobeyed her. Then one day she drank herself to death while watching TV upstairs. Grandfather Two Hawks had found Ray locked in his cage, nearly starved to death.
Looking down at the dead girl, Elkheart felt horrified and relieved all at once. He sighed and looked at his comrade. “Shawna’s not here.”
Madu gave him a knowing look.
There was another place Elkheart’s daughter could be, and if that were the case, getting her back in time was going to be damned near impossible.
* * *
Eric raced the Hummer down the reservation road, stirring up dust. “How dare that bitch!” He would have given her everything. “Fucking Kyle!” The thought of Jessica kissing his brother only fueled Eric’s rage. “I’ll show them.”
He had to get far away from here or he was afraid of what he might do. He had almost hit Jessica. Eric had never struck a woman. Had never cared enough to get worked up over a chick. If a woman got out of line, he dumped her and moved on.
But Eric had invested a year with Jessica. Now, he had to start all over and his dream of making partner would h
ave to wait. “Fucking bitch!” He pounded the steering wheel.
He stopped at the T-section where the dirt road met the paved road. He hopped out and walked along the fence line until he found a signal. He got two bars. Good enough.
He scrolled through his saved numbers and found the one he was looking for. “There you are.”
The phone rang and then a young, sexy voice answered, “Hello?”
“Hello, hot stuff.”
* * *
Alone with Scarpetti at the cabin, Jessica stood on the porch, hugging herself. Her face was still damp from crying. How could she have been so blind not to see Eric for who he was? She had sensed for a while that he might be cheating on her, especially when he returned from his business trips, but she had ignored her instincts. What a fool I’ve been.
She felt hands rubbing her shoulders.
“There, there,” spoke a man’s voice.
She turned around to see Scarpetti grinning. His fingers kept massaging her. “You look tense.”
Jessica backed away from him. The Italian soldier had a thick shaggy beard after living six weeks in the jungle. He smelled ripe, like an ape. And he had the look in his eyes of man who hadn’t seen a woman in a very long time. A rapist’s gaze. His dark eyes kept scanning her body, and she had the feeling he was mentally undressing her.
“Do you mind?” Jessica said, crossing her arms.
Scarpetti leaned against a post. “You know...you can do so much better than that jerk. A man who runs away from a woman as hot as you...he’s an idiot.”
“Please, just leave me alone.” Jessica crossed the backyard to the edge of the tree line. She wished Kyle were here. She needed to talk to him. She called out to the woods, “Kyle?!”
The men had headed through the trees directly behind the cabin. She prayed they were still in earshot. She called for them again.
“They won’t be back for a while,” Scarpetti said. “Come back to the cabin.”
“I prefer to stay right here,” she said defiantly. She called again, “Kyle?!”
“Miss, you can yell till your throat hurts, but they’re probably a mile away by now. Let’s go inside. I need to drain the lizard.”
“Go ahead. No one’s stopping you.”
“You and I need to stick together. If you won’t go inside with me, then you leave me no choice.” He walked to the end of the porch and unzipped his pants and started to pee on the ground. He did it an angle that left nothing to the imagination. “Ah, I’ve been holding that in too damn long.”
Jessica was suddenly reminded of a time when she was young girl at elementary school and a janitor lured her into a bathroom. He had pulled out his member to pee and asked her to hold it for him. She had run out of the bathroom in terror. Now, watching Scarpetti with revulsion, panic took over her once again and she ran into the forest, pushing back branches.
“Hey, come back here!” Scarpetti yelled.
Her feet wouldn’t stop running and she didn’t look back until she was deep in the woods. She had either lost the soldier or he hadn’t followed. She released a breath of relief. Kyle, his father, and Madu had to be somewhere around here.
“Kyle?!”
The path was overgrown, and she had to weave between trees and underbrush. No matter how much she concentrated on the maze of pines, aspen and spruce, her mind wandered back to Kyle. She envisioned his light blue eyes; the way they beamed when he smiled, his expression polite, easy going. She liked his strong, quiet confidence. She always felt safe with Kyle. And then she remembered how angry he’d seemed seeing Eric’s engagement ring on her finger. How would Kyle respond after he found out that she and Eric were over?
Jessica began to worry. She had trekked a good distance and still hadn’t found any of the men. How far did they go anyway?
Stopping to get her bearings, she scanned the forest. The vastness of the reservation overwhelmed her. She could search all day and never find Kyle or her way back to the cabin. It was getting dark anyway. And then she remembered the strange creature they had faced on the other side of the swamp. Elkheart had said there are more of them and sometimes at night they roam the forest. The thought of that stirred up childhood fears far more frightening than confronting a rapist. The shadows between the trees seemed to grow by the second, as the sunlight was quickly fading.
She suddenly felt stupid for leaving the safety of the cabin. Scarpetti may have been a horny soldier, but he wouldn’t have really raped her, would he? She had probably overreacted, letting her fear get the best of her. She decided to head back. If Scarpetti continued to come onto her, she would lock herself in the bathroom until Kyle and the others returned.
Frustrated, she hiked back toward the cabin. To her right, there was a rustling sound as something moved from one clump of trees to another. Jessica froze. She slowly gazed back to the right again, building courage to face what animal might be roaming the trees. Nothing moved. The only sounds now were from the birds settling in the trees for the evening.
Relax, Jess, it’s gone.
She continued walking. The pine-bristled floor inclined sharply. She had to work her legs with greater effort as the terrain grew rocky.
Again, something moved off to her right. A bushy tail vanished behind the pines.
Jessica’s heart quickened.
From somewhere she heard clicking, and a black wolf dog stepped from the underbrush. Seeing its humped back, she remembered its name. Arok.
Her throat knotted and she struggled to breathe.
“Hey, boy.” She eased down the path, hoping the dog wouldn’t follow.
Up the hill a dark gray dog appeared from the thicket, licking its chops. Kiche or Maskwa?
Snapping echoed and both dogs rushed her.
Whirling, Jessica sprinted back down the hill. Paws trampled the ground behind her, gaining.
Click. Click. Click.
To her right a third wolf dog moved in to head her off.
Crying, Jessica veered left. The barking beast advanced.
Her lungs strained as she held her breath.
Two dogs snarled behind her.
She swung her staff, hitting trees.
A gray wolf leaped a log in front of her, moving in for the kill.
Jessica screamed as the beast opened its jaws at her knees. Then, loud click-clicking by her ears saved her legs, as Jessica crashed into the arms of Ray Roamingbear.
* * *
After his father and Madu disappeared into the forest, Kyle headed back up the path toward the cabin.
You just going to give up the search? Detective Winterbone spoke in his head.
I’ve got my orders.
Christ, Kyle, Shawna needs you!
This reservation was too vast for his father and Madu to search by themselves. Besides, Kyle had a special gift. If it meant combing these woods all night, he would do whatever it took to find her. He checked his rifle and made sure he had a round in the chamber.
He returned to the woodshed, once again sensing vibrations along the ground. The pines hummed like organ pipes. Nina was still hiding behind a tree, her spirit forever haunting this campground, being dragged into the shed by some unseen entity, replaying her death, over and over.
It’s just a twenty-year imprint, Kyle thought to boost his courage. Her killer is long gone.
He entered the dark shed. Flies swarmed inside, landing on his face and neck. He swatted them away. The stained mattress was still against the back wall, the chains lying across it. You can do this, Kyle. He touched a wall and glimpsed a girl fighting for her life on the mattress, but this time it wasn’t Nina. This was a heavyset girl with auburn hair. She was maybe twenty. Her mutilation was even more severe than Nina’s. When Kyle released his hand from the wall, the redheaded girl vanished.
Two murders?
He heard a drumbeat and native chanting, the way the elders used to sing around the fire. He turned around and saw the red wraith again, sitting between him and the way out.
<
br /> Kyle felt trapped, afraid the thing might suddenly close the doors.
It’s just an imprint.
The red wraith raised its arms, as if performing some kind of ceremony. Then it got up and left.
Kyle walked back outside, but the wraith was gone.
Now, the recent kill. Taking a deep breath, Kyle touched the tree with the bloody rope. He saw flashes of a man’s naked body hanging from the branch. A knife carving off tattooed skin from Zack’s back and arms. And then a frenzy of black shadows tore him apart.
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