by Jan Burke
“The universe is expanding, Donovan,” I whispered. “However small any of our lives are at any given point, we can draw bigger lines around them.”
I lay back on my side of the tent and thought about ways to get the attention of a helicopter that might not also draw the attention of a young serial killer.
FIFTY-FOUR
Travis settled the helicopter on the road, not far from the SUV. Frank had wondered if he’d really be able to do it and reminded himself that Travis did contract work for the Forest Service in these mountains on a regular basis, but after seeing how close they had come to the trees, he still needed a minute before he trusted himself to speak.
“I don’t see anyone in the vehicle,” Jack said.
“Let’s go then,” Frank said, and they opened the cargo bay doors. Jack and Travis were going to help Ben get the dogs, but Ben shook his head.
“They won’t work well with all this wind. We may need them later, but right now I’d rather not expose them to the possibility of getting debris in their eyes.”
As agreed—after debate—the others waited while Frank walked to the Subaru.
Concerned that Parrish had set a trap with the SUV, Frank walked around the vehicle, then got down on his hands and knees and looked beneath it. He stood and peered inside it. Nothing bomblike, but there were some objects in the back. He pulled out the lock picks and went to work. In a matter of seconds, he had the Forester unlocked. He took a deep breath and opened the driver’s door. A dome light went on, and nothing more. He exhaled.
He pressed the button that unlocked all the doors, then went to the back. He heard the others coming toward the vehicle.
He found a topo map, a cell phone, a GPS tracker, and a large envelope marked READ FIRST.
He opened the envelope. The sheaf of documents inside were laser-printed but included one handwritten page. He began with the top page:
If this has been found by anyone other than Detective Frank Harriman of the Las Piernas Police Department, please call 911 and ask that he be contacted immediately. This is a matter of life and death, and concerns the safety of his wife and many others.
Frank’s direct number and the general phone number of the Las Piernas Police Department were written on the next line.
If you are a thief who has broken into the car, by turning in the car and the cell phone you will be eligible to receive a reward greater than the value of either, for you will be aiding in the capture and conviction of Nicholas Parrish.
The next page was the one that began as a printout and ended with a handwritten note:
Dear Detective Harriman,
My ten-year-old daughter, Miranda, and her grandmother Marguerite Page have been taken hostage by Nick Parrish, who is my biological father. Parrish is holding them at a location unknown to me in exchange for my cooperation in helping him escape from prison and in bringing your wife to his mountain hideout. If you have not already been to the location I told you about on the Ford Escape’s GPS, I have listed it on a separate page of properties owned and used by Quinn Moore, another of Nick Parrish’s biological sons, who has closely cooperated with Nick Parrish in a number of ways. (See attached.)
It is important that someone check on the well-being of Violet Loudon, Kai Loudon’s mother, at that location. Kai is a third son of Nick Parrish’s.
I have, on other pages, described all I know about their crimes.
You must be worried about your wife, so I will tell you that the GPS tracker in this vehicle will lead you to me, and I have a tracker that will be able to lead you to her. I warn you now that I may have Kai Loudon and Nick Parrish with me but will help you in any way I can to take them captive, or kill them if necessary. I have been trying to keep Irene alive, but since I’m the one who brought her to them, I’m sure that seems unbelievable to you.
Also, the topo map is marked where a cave used by Parrish as a hideout is established. I don’t think he plans to be there long. Be warned that he has firearms and plenty of ammunition there. Approach with extreme caution.
And then, handwritten, in a strong, clear hand:
The cell phone was stolen from Nick Parrish after he received a call from the person who has my child. I beg of you—whatever I have done, Miranda is innocent. Please take steps to have this number tracked down. The person who called is a male. He has my daughter. Please hurry.
It was signed by Donovan Cotter.
Jack helped Frank gather the papers and other items in the back of the car and carry them to the helicopter.
Thunder cracked overhead.
They closed the cargo door just in time to escape being drenched by a driving rain.
Frank asked Travis to set up a phone call to Pete. While Travis was doing that, Frank turned on the GPS device. It returned a cannot-acquire-satellite message.
“It’s the storm,” Jack said.
Next Frank turned on the cell phone and wrote down the number of the last call received.
Travis contacted Pappy and had them patched through to Pete.
Frank gave him the information he had, told him where they were, and asked for reinforcements. “It’s raining like hell right now, and I’m not sure how much daylight we’ll have left by the time it stops,” he said. “Obviously, the child has to come first. Let me know what you find out.”
While it rained, they looked over the papers Donovan Cotter had left behind. Included in them was documentation that he had gone to the Las Piernas Police Department to file missing persons reports on Miranda and her grandmother. But since his ex-spouse had died without acknowledging him as the father, and since he had never met the child and had nothing more recent than a five-year-old photo of her, officers had been skeptical of his intentions. Still, they had made a cursory check and, after talking to neighbors, believed that the grandmother and child had left voluntarily. One neighbor even attested to seeing them move out on their own.
Frank called Pete back and asked him to run that case down, to see who the neighbor was. Pete let him know that the phone number belonged to none other than Roderick Beignet. “Cell phone company is cooperating with us,” he said, “so we should be able to locate him soon.”
Frank flattened the topo map. Travis and Jack came down into the cargo section and looked it over with Frank and Ben. Frank read Donovan’s detailed description of the cave and its contents to the others.
As the others talked over possible approaches to the cave, Ben read through Donovan’s notes.
“According to Donovan, Kai is inexperienced in the wilderness,” he said. “Parrish is an expert, as we know, but it has been years since he’s been outdoors. Quinn—who may not be up here at all—is not the expert Parrish is, but he’s not a beginner.”
“And Donovan’s an expert, with skills none of the others will have,” Travis said. “So we have a sense of who we’re dealing with in terms of their comfort out here.”
“Right,” Ben said. “We’ve got supplies for going in even after dark, and if the rangers call in other SAR groups, they’ll be able to do the same. Given the dangerousness of the people out here with Irene and Donovan, they may be reluctant to send volunteers in until Loudon and Parrish are captured.”
“Understandable,” Frank said. “We don’t want to be giving them more hostages or victims.”
“That said, the terrain shouldn’t be too difficult to work with. It’s always possible to stumble over tree roots or trip over rocks, but we won’t have to tackle any steep trails, and probably won’t need climbing gear. No cliffs to fall from in the dark.”
An hour after it broke, the storm subsided. The rangers at the nearest helitack station had been in contact, as had several law enforcement agencies and emergency response units. The helitack unit could aid in the search within the hour. Others had units on the way.
Frank tried the GPS again. He got a signal this time. He watched as it acquired the other unit and displayed a split screen: half showing his current location with a numeral 1 in a ci
rcle, half showing the other unit’s location as 2 in a circle. The controls included two buttons that were marked, simply enough, 1 and 2. When he pressed 1, the whole screen was dedicated to his location. The other button produced a whole screen of the other unit’s location. He left that up and tried a minus button until both circles appeared on the screen. Travis, looking over his shoulder, said, “Cool. Not too far.” They all noted the locations on the topo map. Although Travis was unhappy about it, he agreed that he should stay with the helicopter, armed to protect it against Parrish—a former aircraft mechanic who knew how to fly planes and helicopters. This plan would also leave Travis in position to bring the helicopter to a rescue point if necessary.
The others started donning the gear they would carry into the forest. Although they all knew the dogs would be unlikely to perform well just after a storm had washed away scent, Ben got them ready, willing to do anything he could to help find Irene.
Frank kept watching the unit, then said, “One thing concerns me.”
Silence fell, and they all turned to look at him.
“The other unit hasn’t moved. At all.”
FIFTY-FIVE
The rain let up. Donovan slept. I felt too claustrophobic to stay inside the tent. I also didn’t like being unable to see who might be approaching. So I rolled up the long legs of the pants I had borrowed from Donovan, tucked the .22 back in my jacket pocket, then quietly opened the tent and stepped out.
The ground was muddy and footing treacherous, but I had my hands free to help keep my balance.
Although the air was cold and damp, it wasn’t so cold that it had snowed or hailed or given us sleet. In the aftermath of the storm, the forest was beautiful. The clouds had cleared almost as quickly as they had arrived. The wind was dying down now. I could hear a thousand droplets falling off leaves and branches onto other leaves and branches, onto stones, onto the rain fly. The pants I had put outside the tent were soaked but somewhat cleaner.
There was still light left. I didn’t have a watch, but it looked as if it was late afternoon. With the helicopter nearby—Frank nearby—it wasn’t hard to imagine that we might survive. I felt my mood lighten, until I caught sight of Parrish’s corpse.
He had been the monster in my life for so long, I wondered if even his death would be enough to allow me to be free from him. I kept telling myself I should feel something. Triumph. Revulsion. Something.
I moved closer, forcing myself to look at what I had done. Even with his swollen face and bruises and ligature marks and gaping chest wounds, I could not pity him.
Someone else would. I’ve worked in the news business long enough to know that, no matter how despicable and depraved an individual may be, there will always be someone out there who is able to feel genuine pity for him. And probably someone who wants to start an online fan club and propose marriage to him, too.
He’s all yours, ladies.
I felt a kind of hysterical giggle bubbling up in me, put my hand over my mouth, and tried to settle down. I recognized it for the need to have some relief from stress and fear and anger that it was, and clamped down hard on it. Plenty of time for inappropriate laughter when all this was over.
I took some calming breaths and realized that I should search his pockets. There might be useful items besides the ammo I had found before the storm. I had seen him use a cell phone back at the desert warehouse. Cell phone signals were often nonexistent in the mountains, but there were towers in unexpected places.
I bent over him and forced myself to think only of his parka, not the corpse inside it. I found the key to the Forester in one pocket. I found the strange knife and took that. He had a canteen, but I couldn’t bear the thought of drinking out of it. Maybe Donovan would want it. I shuddered.
Okay, maybe the cell was in an inside pocket. I tried not to be squeamish, but I know I was making a face when I took hold of the parka’s zipper.
My own hood blocked my view of my surroundings, and I was intent on the unpleasant task before me, so I did not know that Kai Loudon had approached from behind me until, at the very last moment, I saw his shadow.
I was in the worst possible position to defend myself, bent over, hands down, feet on a slippery surface. I half turned and saw that he had a short, thick piece of branch in his hand, and he swung it hard toward my head. I raised my arms in a reflexive protective movement and heard my right forearm break even as he continued to follow through. The arm and the parka provided a small amount of protection or he might have killed me with that one blow.
I fell on top of Parrish and rolled, head aching, stunned from the wallop to my skull, arm on fire. There was no coordination to my movements—the world was spinning. He dropped the club, knelt down on my back, and quickly searched my pockets until he found the gun, the knife, and the garrote, and threw them into the woods. I heard him grunt with pain as he took hold of my parka with both hands and pulled it down over my shoulders, trapping my arms.
I screamed.
He cuffed me hard on the side of the head, yelled, “Shut up!” then stood. He pulled his gun from his own parka and ordered me to stand up. He pushed me forward, almost at a run, into the trees.
I heard Donovan frantically call my name, stumbled, fell, and felt Kai land hard on top of me. Hitting tree roots with my face probably hurt, but the pain of his landing on my arm hurt so much it blinded me to any other source of agony. He cried out as well but brought me to my feet again, holding hard to the parka, which still pinned my arms. He held the gun in his injured hand—however much his arm hurt, he still had a grip—and pressed it into the small of my back. We slipped and slid but made progress.
We came to a small clearing and stumbled again. This time he let go, letting me fall hard to the ground, and yelled something I couldn’t begin to understand through the haze of pain in my head and arm. He winced and switched the gun to his good arm.
He told me to strip, and when I didn’t obey, he moved closer. I fought with kicks and my good hand. I hurt his left knee and even managed to scratch one of his eyes and bloody his nose, but every time he wanted to subdue me, he just pushed on the broken arm. He was strong and filled with rage. He hit me with the gun, nearly causing me to pass out, then pocketed it and started pulling off my clothes.
Think!
But it was damned hard. He had my parka off—the removal was excruciating—and in seconds had torn off my shirt, pausing now and again to strike me with his fist, as my muzzy-headed efforts at defense did little to slow him. My strikes became fewer and even less accurate. I grabbed at anything I could—his hair, his bootlaces—and did little more than untie his shoes. He hit me on the face again and again, slaps and punches, and pulled at my arm if I put up too much of a fight. He yanked off my pants—Donovan’s too-loose-on me pants—and pressed me into the ground as he reached down between us—unzipping his own pants.
Think!
“I killed Nick because he killed your mother,” I said.
He froze. His eyes narrowed.
In that one instant of letting up his assault, he heard exactly what I heard—the baying of a bloodhound.
Not Bool, I thought. Bool was trained not to bay. But a dog. Other people. Voices. More than one. At a distance, but if I could hear them—
“Help!” I shouted, earning myself another fist in the face before Kai stood and then grabbed my parka and my pants—Donovan’s pants—and pulled up his fly.
He sat on a log, hurrying to retie his boots—a task he grimaced through as he used his injured arm. The sadistic asshole I should have drowned yesterday, while I had the chance, was getting away.
I felt a surge of rage so pure it masked the pain. I staggered to my feet.
He was bent over his bootlaces, but he noticed me. I kept staggering as I moved closer to him—it wasn’t all pretense.
He smiled at me. “Don’t worry, I’ll find you and give you everything I wanted to give you today, you cunt.”
I really hate the c word.
I leaned forward, as if I was about to fall. Instead, I grabbed his hair in a death grip with my left hand and yanked like hell on it, swinging his head down as I brought my right knee up fast and hard into his face, then extended my right leg and kicked full force into his balls. When he doubled over screaming, I gave it to him again in the teeth with that same knee, let go of his hair, and let him fall to the ground. When he curled up there, I started kicking his kidneys. I circled him, kicking his head and his face and his arms and his ass. Hard. He curled tighter, I kicked harder.
In my mind, I was screaming at him, calling him every filthy name I had ever heard, which was an extensive catalog, but I must not have been doing anything except breathing hard, because I heard—eventually—someone trying to get my attention.
“Irene … Irene. Irene … it’s okay. You can stop.”
It was that best loved voice. I stopped. I looked up. Saw Frank putting his gun back in its shoulder holster, slowly walking toward us.
“I knew you would make it,” I said. I have no idea if any of that was intelligible, because my mouth was swollen. Frank later told me that he understood every word, and maybe he did.
He came closer. I warned him about the arm, which caused him to look down at Kai in a way that made me say, “Not worth it.” He nodded and very gently pulled me into an embrace. I leaned against him. “I’m a mess.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Doesn’t matter at all. I can’t tell you …” And he couldn’t, but he didn’t need to.
“Frank, I would not be standing here with you if Donovan hadn’t helped me. I don’t know what you know about him, and you probably want to kill him, but seriously, I’m alive because of him.”
“I know. We’ll help him.”
He stepped away only long enough to disarm and cuff Kai, and to retrieve my parka for me. The front of the parka had some bloodstains on it, a mixture of them at this point, but the jacket was warm and I wanted it back. I got the pants, too.