by Tim Downs
But the dog could find Alena. She could at least track the scent she had detected on Riddick’s shoes or hands or clothing. She could find the source of that scent, and Nick would just have to hope for the best when they found it—and hope they got there before it was too late.
Trygg had picked up the scent of Alena’s blood or decomposing body, but there was no scent at Alena’s trailer—that meant Alena was alive and probably unharmed when she was taken. Riddick could have killed her and dumped her body anywhere along the way—or he could have brought her here to Bradenton. It was a definite possibility. A human body is a difficult thing to dispose of, and hastily dumping a body in an unfamiliar area is a sure way to have it discovered quickly; bringing it here would give him time to think. There were hundreds of acres of land at Bradenton—plenty of places to bury a body, and all on private land where no one would ever look.
It’s worth a try, he assured himself—but he knew that anything is worth a try when you have no other options.
He pulled the truck into a grove of river birches until it was out of sight of the road and then killed the engine. He took a handful of knotted bandannas from the seat beside him and switched on the cab light to examine them. He remembered what Alena had told him: The dog was trained to distinguish four different kinds of remains. The first bandanna was red with a polka-dot pattern—the one Trygg wore at the Patriot Center when she searched for skeletonized remains. Nick set it aside—it wasn’t the one they would need here. The second bandanna was green with a checkerboard print—the one Trygg wore when she searched the lake for submerged remains. Nick set that one aside too.
That left only two: an elaborate blue plaid and a bright orange print with a series of wavy black lines. He looked at each of them: putrefying remains and distressed body. One of them told the dog to search for Alena alive and the other to search for her dead—but he had no idea which was which. And how “distressed” did Alena need to be before the dog could find her? The dog would never find her alive and unharmed; she had to be just less than dead.
He made a random guess—the blue plaid—and stuffed the other bandanna in his pocket.
He climbed from the cab and opened up the back of the truck; Trygg stepped onto the tailgate and silently leaped to the ground. Nick squatted down in front of the dog and held the blue bandanna in front of her face.
“I hope I’ve got this right,” Nick said. “See this? This means we’re going to work now. I want you to search for the same scent you just found inside—got it?” He looped the bandanna around the dog’s neck and stood up. “We’ll circle around behind the house and check the stables and outbuildings first—that’s our best bet. He wouldn’t have dumped her out in the open and he wouldn’t have taken her in the house; he would have hidden her until he figured out what to do next. Come on, let’s go.”
Nick walked a few yards away but the dog didn’t follow. He turned back and said to her, “Look—I know how smart you are, so there’s no use playing dumb. If you can detect the scent of table salt in a dilution of one part in ten million, then you can figure out a simple spoken command. Now we don’t have time to mess around, so—”
He snapped his fingers once and said, “Come!”
Trygg immediately rose and followed.
Nick nodded with satisfaction. “Your first word. Momma will be so proud.”
They stayed in the shadow of the trees as they made a wide arc around the house; Nick could see the lights still burning in Braden’s office. He wasn’t surprised; by introducing that scrapbook he had undoubtedly kicked off a discussion that would last well into the night. He wondered how Braden was taking the news that his made-in-heaven wife was a little more down-to-earth than he thought; he wondered how the senator’s spinmeisters would reveal to the public that the future First Lady’s mom was a serial killer responsible for multiple murders, including the murder of a federal agent. And these weren’t genteel and ladylike murders either—not just a sprinkle of arsenic on the pot roast or a few sleeping pills dissolved in the tea. No—these were bat-bashing, skull-cracking, corpse-dragging murders—the kind that stick in people’s minds for a long, long time.
The Braden campaign seemed doomed—it seemed impossible to Nick that anyone could recover from that kind of negative publicity— but if anyone could manage it, the beautiful Bradens could. There was a lot of money on the line in a presidential race and a lot of powerful people were involved. The Bradens had probably already made a few calls, and somewhere in Washington right now an army of strategists was already calculating the best way to distance the Bradens from these unfortunate events. Politicians are survivors, Nick thought. In his experience they were harder to kill than a cockroach, probably because they share a common characteristic: When the lights go on, they disappear.
It took fifteen minutes to circle around behind the house and come up behind the first of the outbuildings—a rustic old grain silo that had apparently been preserved to keep Bradenton looking like the working farm it hadn’t been in years. If the silo was empty it would be an excellent place to hide a body—but Trygg circled it once and simply looked up at Nick.
Next they came to a large tack shed. Nick pulled up a handful of grass and tossed it into the air to test the direction of the wind; they approached from downwind to allow Trygg to pick up any scent that might be drifting in the breeze, but the dog made no alert. Nick found the door unlocked and they entered; they searched the interior carefully but found nothing there.
They worked their way from building to building, allowing the dog to sniff every crack and crevice for any indication of scent. Nick began to wonder if he was doing something wrong; maybe the dog needed some further instruction—maybe she thought they were just out for a walk. But then he remembered the scene in Braden’s office, where Trygg simply picked up the scent, walked over to Riddick, and lay down with no instruction from Nick at all. She knows what she’s doing, Nick told himself. This is what she was trained to do. All I need to do is stay out of her way and watch.
Or so he hoped.
Next they came to the long stables and Nick hesitated at the open door. He could hear the sounds of the horses breathing and stamping in their stalls. He knew the horses would quickly pick up Trygg’s scent, and he knew they would find the scent unfamiliar—but he didn’t know how they would respond. The last thing he wanted was an entire stable of horses panicking and bolting from their stalls; that would bring everyone in the house running, and he would have a difficult time explaining his presence there—especially to Riddick. He took Trygg around the outside of the building instead and let her sniff at the walls and foundation; he hoped that the generous cracks in the board-and-batten siding would allow any scent to pass through. Trygg took her time, searching the entire building carefully, but once again found nothing.
Not far from the house was an old hay barn, clad in siding weathered gray from age and the bleaching effects of the sun. The barn had twin doors that were framed in flat wooden trim and crisscrossed with a decorative X; each door was supported by a pair of metal wheels at the top that allowed it to be rolled aside. Nick shoved hard against one of the doors and it slowly began to give way—but the rusted wheels made a loud groaning squeak and he stopped. He looked back at the house and held his breath—Riddick could easily have heard the sound from this distance— but he saw no porch light switch on or door swing open, so he tried the barn door again, pushing it a little at a time, easing it open until there was a space just wide enough for the two of them to slip through.
He heard a skittering sound at his feet; he looked down and saw half a dozen startled barn rats scatter in every direction. He quickly reached out to silence the dog, but Trygg just stared at the rats disinterestedly, as if they were nothing but dust balls blowing across the floor. To Nick’s surprise he was able to see reasonably well; the old plank roof was so thoroughly split and cracked that it allowed long shafts of moonlight to illuminate the floor, and the dust that lingered in the air mad
e the beams of light appear almost solid—like the columns of a great stone building.
He looked around the barn; it appeared to have been abandoned long ago—just another decorative element on the Bradens’ faux farm. The stalls that lined the walls were empty except for a crumbling hay rake and a few other relics rusting from decades of disuse. The floor was compacted dirt covered by a thin layer of scattered straw. The walls were bare except for the occasional coil of rope or dust-encrusted oil lantern; there seemed to be no bins or closets of any kind—no place where a body might be concealed—but Nick still allowed the dog time to wander the barn and sniff each corner thoroughly.
Nothing.
They squeezed out the door and Nick carefully eased it shut again. He looked around the grounds; there were only a couple of outbuildings left and he was beginning to lose hope. Maybe he was wrong; maybe Riddick wouldn’t have taken a chance on bringing Alena here. Maybe he did dump her body somewhere along the way, knowing that it would eventually be discovered but counting on the fact that no one would connect the murder to him. Riddick was probably right—there was no physical evidence that would implicate him. Nick’s rental car, wherever it turned up, would probably be found wiped clean of prints—and there would be no evidence at Alena’s trailer except for the tire tracks from Nick’s own vehicle. There were bullets that could be recovered from the two dead dogs, but Riddick wasn’t stupid enough to hang on to the gun—they’d never get a ballistics match. What was Nick supposed to tell the authorities—“I know he did it because a dog told me”? He could level the accusation, he could try to raise suspicion, but he knew none of it would stick.
He walked slowly toward the next of the outbuildings with Trygg by his side. There was nothing else to do but finish what he had started— but he had the sinking feeling that he was finished already.
Suddenly his shadow appeared on the ground before him in a field of brilliant blue—someone had switched on a security light back at the house. Nick snapped his fingers and took off running, hoping that the dog would follow and that he could reach the outbuilding before they were spotted. Just as he ducked into the shadow of a small shedrow barn, he heard a door swing open behind him. He pressed back against the side of the barn and peeked around the corner; in the distance he saw Riddick exit the Braden house and walk across the grass toward the old abandoned hay barn. Nick adjusted his glasses and looked carefully—he had nothing in his hands.
As Riddick approached the front of the barn, Nick lost sight of him; the barn itself was blocking his view, but he could hear the squeaking of the metal wheels atop the doors—Riddick was opening them. He was apparently entering the barn—but why? Of all the outbuildings Riddick might be expected to visit, the hay barn would be last on Nick’s list—there was nothing inside. Nick did a quick mental review of the interior of the barn and the objects he had seen there—he could think of nothing that might interest the man. Then why was he there?
He surely went to the barn for some reason: either to drop something off, or to bring something back, or to pay a visit to something inside—or possibly someone. The thought gave Nick a glimmer of hope. He’d know soon enough; he sat down and waited, making sure Trygg stayed deep in the shadows behind him.
Minutes passed.
Nick waited—but as he waited he found his hope slipping away. He had already been inside the barn, and there was no place to hide a body there. Even worse, Trygg had already searched it too—and one of the finest cadaver dogs on the face of the earth had found no trace of Alena Savard.
39
Alena opened her eyes but saw nothing—everything around her was black. She couldn’t be certain that her eyes were even open; she blinked hard twice to make sure. Maybe she was dreaming; maybe she was still asleep and only imagining herself waking up—but when she felt the throbbing pain in her skull she knew this was no dream.
She was lying on her right side with her arms pulled tight behind her back. Her right shoulder ached terribly and she tried to twist her arm out from under her body—but when she did she found that her wrists were bound together with some kind of sticky tape. She lifted her head and felt bits of grass and debris clinging to her cheek; she seemed to be lying on a hard dirt floor. When she moved her head, the pain in her skull became excruciating, radiating from the crown downward in agonizing waves. She felt her stomach begin to heave, but when she tried to open her mouth to gag she realized that another strip of tape prevented her lips from parting. The thought of choking to death on her own vomit horrified her, and she put her head down again and lay perfectly still, breathing slowly through her nose.
She tested her legs—they were taped together at the ankles. Her right side was almost numb and she wanted to try to sit up, but not until she was sure that her nausea was under control. She lay still for a few more seconds, steeling her nerve and steadying her stomach—then all at once swung her legs around and brought herself up to a sitting position. She almost fell back again; it felt as if someone had driven a railroad spike through the center of her brain. She sat quietly sobbing with her head hunched over her knees, praying for the pain to stop and for someone to help.
Where am I?
She tried to think back, but her mind was still thick and muddled by the pain. She could remember sitting in her trailer; she remembered hearing the sound of a car outside—Nick’s car. But it wasn’t Nick inside the car, it was a stranger—a man she had never seen before. Acheron attacked—the man pulled out a gun—he fired! She remembered now: Acheron was dead—no, two of her dogs were dead. The memories came flooding back all at once and she shut her eyes hard to fight back the grief.
She remembered running toward the kennels, the sound of heavy footsteps behind her, then a flash of light and a searing pain in her head—a pain that was even worse now. The man must have hit her with something—maybe his gun—then tied her up and brought her here. But where was here? Where was the man now? And what was he planning to do to her next?
Nick—where are you?
She stared into the blackness around her; she could see now that the room was not completely dark—faint, pencil-thin shafts of light radiated down from above. She looked up; the flat ceiling looked to be about eight feet over her head, and it didn’t appear to be one solid surface. Dots and dashes of light penetrated the ceiling everywhere, suggesting that the ceiling was constructed of strips of wood with thin gaps in between.
She tucked her taped ankles under her thighs and rocked forward onto her knees, then with great difficulty struggled to her feet, tottering precariously as she fought to keep her balance. Now she knew how Trygg must feel. Standing was difficult one limb short, and it was even more difficult to move—she had to travel in short broken hops, and each time her feet hit the floor a blast of pain echoed through her skull.
With just a few short hops she bumped into a wall. She turned her face to the side and felt the surface with her cheek; it was made of smooth wooden planks. She turned her shoulder to the wall and shoved against it, but the wall was solid—it didn’t budge an inch. She began to hop forward, rubbing her shoulder and arm along the wall as she went, hoping to find a window or a door—some way she might get out. In just a few steps she came to a corner; she turned and followed the next wall, then the next, until she was back where she started again. She leaned her back against the wall to rest, drenched in sweat and breathing hard through her nose. She had hoped to find a nail or a splinter projecting from the wall somewhere, something sharp enough to allow her to cut through the tape that bound her wrists and ankles, but she found none. It was a small, square room, no more than ten feet on a side, and there were no doors or windows anywhere. No way in, and no way out.
How did I get in here?
She looked up again, and this time she noticed bits of dust and dirt drifting down in the blue-white shafts of light like tiny angels descending from heaven. Suddenly she understood: She was looking up at the floor. This wasn’t a room at all—it was some kind of pit.
Then she heard a loud rolling squeak from somewhere above her— like the sound of a closet door that had slipped off its track. She pulled her feet under her and struggled upright again; she looked up and waited. A moment later she heard heavy footsteps on the wooden planks over her head; the steady shafts of light were suddenly shattered into a thousand bits of confetti, and pieces of dirt and straw drifted down on her head. Someone was standing directly over her now. She rammed her shoulder against the wall but it made no sound at all; she jumped up and down and stamped her bound feet, but the dirt and straw absorbed the impact. On the third jump she came down askew and lost her balance, falling silently onto the floor. She looked up and saw the figure’s shadow moving away—he was leaving! In panic she filled her lungs with air and emitted the loudest muffled scream her sealed lips would allow—a kind of piercing groan that savaged her vocal cords but made dismally little sound. She did it again and again until her voice began to fail—and then she saw the ceiling begin to move.