“Neither of us has bothered touching base with Dawson Hennings the last few days. I think it’s time we rattled his cage.”
Inside the Artemis Foundation, for the first time, Skye had volunteers. Zoe, Lena, and Velma were joined by Karen Houston and her daughter, Shawna Langley. Today, they were all hard at work stuffing flyers into envelopes. To accommodate them she’d had to borrow chairs from Ander All Games to make sure everyone had a place to sit.
When the door opened Skye looked up and was surprised to see Dawson Hennings standing in the doorframe with another man she didn’t recognize. Dawson was his usual awkward self, but Skye got the sense that the man he’d brought with him was anything but.
“After getting your message last night, I thought about returning your call this morning to let you know what we found over the phone.” Dawson looked around the room. “But I wanted to see this place for myself. As it turns out, so did Kevin Holt, the forensic geologist I mentioned. So here we are. Kevin, meet Skye Cree.”
Skye stood up, shook the sandy-haired man’s hand, made the introductions all around to the others. “As you can see, we’re mailing flyers complete with pictures of the missing along with information packets about the Foundation. Businesses from Vancouver to San Francisco will receive them in an attempt to get them more active within their own neighborhoods. We hope to get owners to agree to put up flyers in their front windows or near the cash register on a regular basis, get them more involved. That way, we keep a higher profile across the western states, maybe increase visibility and awareness.”
She spread her arms out wide. “So what do you think?”
“That it’s an incredibly good idea,” Kevin concluded. “But you know there’s bound to be some who get the letter and just toss it out with the trash.”
“I’m sure they will,” Skye agreed. “But if we get even fifty percent participation, it’s more than we had before.”
“I didn’t expect so many people here,” Dawson confessed.
As the phone jingled on the desk, Skye looked on proudly as Lena stopped what she was doing to pick it up. “We’re growing,” Skye proclaimed. “Lately it seems like all at once. We’re still taking baby steps though. I’m sure we’ll stumble along the way somewhere.”
Dawson adjusted his glasses. “Is there someplace we could talk? We have some news. And I think you’ll be interested in what we have to say.”
“Sure, let’s go in the kitchen.” The small coffee bar area was a little crowded with three people but Skye felt determined to make them feel at home. “How about coffee?”
“I never say no to caffeine,” Kevin proclaimed.
After she’d filled up three mismatched cups she’d brought from her apartment and passed them around, she motioned for the two men to sit down at the little round ice cream table she’d used on her balcony.
“Kevin here identified the dirt particles on the bones you were sent.”
“And?”
Kevin took a taste of the hot liquid before putting down his mug. “The soil contained microscopic traces of Camassia quamash, a perennial herb that predominantly grows in marshy areas. Quamash is actually a Nez Perce term for the bulb at the end of the stem that’s edible. It tastes similar to a sweet potato. But I guess you probably knew that.”
Skye sent him a grin before she sipped from her own mug. “I did but it’s good to know you’ve done your homework. If you’re about to disappoint me, Kevin, I need a disclaimer. I’m not sure I can handle any bad news today.”
“Understandable. But there’s much more to what I have to say than about the quamash. Most people don’t realize you can log a lot of interesting stuff, minerals and chemicals and particles, out of the smallest dirt sample. Dirt can tell us a helluva lot more than just the organic nitrogen and carbon makeup.”
“Okay.” Maybe she’d misjudged Kevin. He seemed as nerdy as Dawson. But what he said next proved her wrong.
“The government has even started making the most of the data. Geologists launched the U.S. Geological Survey Project in 2001. Ever since then, there’s a lab in Denver that maintains a database with a collection of soil samples taken from one end of the country to the other. Like your Foundation, the database is small, but growing.”
“You’re a fascinating guy, Kevin.”
“I try to be. Forensic science is just now beginning to recognize the importance of dirt. Like the bones you were sent, if a victim has dirt under the nails, it can tell us a lot. Was the person killed there or were they dumped?”
“You’ve got my attention.”
“Good, because I’m not trying to confuse you. No, I’m trying to lead up to what I think is very good news. As for the Camassia quamash, or camas as they are commonly known, the only problem with the plant is that it’s found growing from British Columbia down the coast of Washington, in abundance. On that alone, it would be almost impossible to pinpoint a precise location of where exactly those bones rested for all this time.”
“But you found something else?” Skye asked with hope rising in her chest.
Kevin grinned. “Oh yeah, something significantly identifiable. The soil tested positive for traces of BTEX, an acronym we use for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene—all four make the components in aviation fuel. Wherever those bones were buried, the ground was contaminated with the stuff. If you take into account the traces of quamash, I’d look for an airport or military installation near marshland. BTEX will take the path of least resistance until it finds a water table. A marsh or wetland area has a very low water table. That’s why I sent what I found off to Denver. I’m encouraged that my results may help you solve this case or at the very least, lead you to a location.”
Hope went from resting on the bottom of the floor to a blast of optimism. She felt like hugging Kevin. Instead, she said, “Encouragement is putting it mildly. For the first time in weeks, we have something solid to follow up on.”
“Then I hope it helps. I realize you might consider it like looking for a needle in a haystack at first, but if you stick to the parameters I’ve outlined, I think you’ll be surprised. Besides, I’ll send you more data as it comes in to help you narrow the area down more.”
As soon as the men said their goodbyes, Skye snatched up her case binder and took the elevator upstairs to Ander All Games.
As usual, when she strolled inside the busy office, she saw programmers with their heads down. Each seemed chained to their laptops until they polished up the beta application of the new game. She spotted Leo hanging out with Winston and Reggie, their heads buried together comparing lines of code.
With that dedicated attitude, Skye had no doubt they’d stay on schedule for a Christmas release.
Once inside Josh’s office, she slapped down the binder on his desk. Everything Kevin Holt told her came tumbling out. “You know what this means, right?”
“Joint Base Lewis-McChord has an airstrip.”
“You bet it does. But we shouldn’t rule out the area around Sea-Tac Airport either.”
Josh scowled into his coffee mug. “That’s a lot of ground to cover, Skye.”
“I know. So we narrow it down. I wonder…”
“Might as well lay it all on the table.”
“In the not so distant past, I read that sections of the base had an overabundance of abandoned buildings. They’ve demolished a lot of them but not all. Maybe this nutcase has specific knowledge of the region and has found one he utilizes for his sick torture chamber.”
“On base? I don’t think so. But he is familiar with the lay of the land. Maybe he snapped up a tract of it when the government sold off part of the base to individuals.”
“We have to figure out a way to check out the area without raising suspicions. How do we get near a military base without anyone charging us with trespassing?”
“We don’t necessarily have to get on the base.” Josh went to his laptop, brought up a map of the area. “And neither does our killer. He could take advantag
e of almost a hundred thousand acres of vast space including the lowlands near the hiking trails that wind back all the way into the canyons here.”
He pointed to the topography. “This is what I was talking about earlier. There’s a creek that runs through all kinds of wetlands, a perfect growing place for quamash. It drains into Puget Sound. A trading post used to be here, as well as several missions. There was even an old fish farm located here once.”
“Are you up for a little exploration?”
“Why not? The only question is when is the best time, day or night? We go out there at night, it’s a fact one of us has trouble seeing.”
“I might not be able to see as well as you do but I’m game. Although I’m not even sure Lewis and Clark would brave the area at night, so I guess the sooner the better. We still have five hours of daylight left.”
“Then let’s make the most of it.”
Chapter 21 Book 3
It took them an hour to grab what they needed. They stuffed a backpack with essentials—a map of the area, water bottles, power bars, flashlights, matches—anything they might need on the trail.
After crossing over into Pierce County, they picked an isolated spot where they could leave the car. Sunshine broke through the gray floating clouds overhead as they started up the narrow trail.
Sniffing the air, Kiya went first through the dense brush.
For now, they stuck to the lush creek corridor where mossy red alder and big leaf maple mingled with tall Sitka spruce. Bog birch and red-stemmed dogwood hugged the ground, home to families of squirrels and cottontails. Pacific wax myrtle crowded the creeping spikerush.
Josh pointed to a jungle of maidenhair fern. Nestled among its fan-tailed branches was the flowering quamash. Its blue buds reminded them spring wasn’t that far off.
“We must be in the right area. Should we take soil samples for Kevin?”
He chuckled. “Don’t tell me you actually packed baggies?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t I? Kevin said he’d continue inputting the data to narrow down the area as much as possible.”
“The dirt may very well be contaminated, even though corporations have done their best to clean up the land as far back as the 1970s.”
“Progress. It ran off the Native American population.” She glanced around at the lush greenbelt, home to a variety of deer and rabbit. “It’s still a beautiful spot though. How far are we from the base?”
He took out a pocket GPS. “By my calculation the nearest gate is south southeast about two miles from where we’re standing.”
“The good news is we’re here in broad daylight. We blend in with all the other hikers and runners.”
“The bad news is in order to find a lair of a serial killer we need remote and secluded, away from the public eye, somewhere he could do his business, undetected.”
With that in mind they hiked down another ravine, climbed up an embankment full of bitter cherry. When the trailhead ended they veered off into a creek bed covered in what looked like poison oak.
She tugged on Josh’s sleeve. “Don’t go near that stuff or you’ll be itching all night.”
“There’s the tunnel and the railroad tracks. The rails are supposed to lead to a dock.”
In different time she would have liked to explore the tunnel with its colorful graffiti and rusted railway from a forgotten era. “Out here? Don’t we need water and a shore for that?”
“Due west.”
“Too bad we’re headed east.”
A salamander chose that moment to run across her boot. To her credit, she didn’t shriek out an expletive. Instead, she charged ahead through the yellowcress that dotted the slope surrounding them. Even though they’d left the paved path some time back, they surveyed the jagged landscape looking for anything out of the ordinary.
“Kiya hasn’t picked up anything since we got here. What about you?”
“Only that the land has seen its fair share of bloodshed.”
“Historic or more recent?”
“Both.”
“Are we in the wrong area?”
Josh shook his head. “Just because we haven’t found anything yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t here.”
When they came upon one of the empty buildings Josh had mentioned earlier, they went on alert, standing outside the copse of sturdy western larch and Douglas fir that guarded what used to be a train station.
“We have to check this place out,” Skye whispered.
“We’ll circle around back.”
The wood frame still had a faint trace of paint on it that had to go back decades. Since no one had bothered to board up windows or doors, they were able to get a look inside. Nothing remained, except a lopsided floor, rotting and unsteady. The last owner, whoever it had been, had left the place to the elements and the wildlife. Once they deemed it was only a shell and that it hadn’t been used for anything other than a marker for hikers, they moved on.
A mile later they decided to rest near a shallow basin. Skye sat down on a rock and dug into her backpack for a bottle of water. She chugged down half before handing it off to Josh who drained what was left.
“Kevin Holt was right. This is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Why do you let me do these crazy things?”
“Because hunting is what you do. It’s in your blood.”
“God, I love you. Who else would put up with this insane life we lead, or more to the point, put up with me?”
“Right back at ya.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We head back home and go through the case binders, again. Look for a better place where this guy could set up shop,” Josh decided, drawing in a tight breath. “What else can we do?”
“Then I guess we’d better start back. We’re losing the light.”
He took her hand, brought her closer. “The realtor called today to tell me we close on the house tomorrow. Are you ready for this?”
“I’m more than ready. I want this new start, mainly because my brain feels like mush. If we don’t solve this thing soon, I think I’m looking at burnout, Josh, full-scale burnout. For the first time in eight years, I feel exhausted, both mentally and physically.”
“Me too. Maybe it’s because we aren’t getting enough sleep.”
“We might need to cut back on the nights of the week we hit the streets, consider taking a break from all this. Maybe it’s just too much. Sometimes I think what we need is an army instead of just two people.”
“We have troops,” Josh declared. He thought of the stellar team he had back at work and Skye’s eager new recruits. “We just need to utilize them better.”
Through binoculars, he watched the pair’s movements. He wasn’t afraid or worried. He’d never been that. The fact that Skye Cree and her bumbling partner had gotten so close might have rattled a lesser person. But it didn’t bother him. After all, getting close wasn’t the same as finding. He had to remind himself that the inept couple hadn’t been successful on much of anything. Let alone their jaunt from their swanky penthouse in the city to where the common man lived and worked.
He wasn’t ashamed of who he was, even though he’d slid out of a meth addict. He’d never known the bastard who’d fathered him. His mother had become a painted whore who sold herself for pittance. She’d overdosed a week before his fourteenth birthday. If he’d followed in mommy’s drug-addled footsteps, he’d more than likely be dead by now, too. So he’d carved out a better life for himself by recognizing opportunity and seizing his chances.
That’s why he didn’t intend to spend two minutes of his time worrying about the Cree woman and her sidekick or how they had ended up so near his turf.
He told himself he wasn’t getting sloppy. He knew where sloppy got you.
Letting his hands drape from his sitting position, he took in the view of the pretty valley below. Remembering another time, another place, a bad place, he’d sworn to never go back there again or anyplace like it. Nothing they could do to him co
uld make him go back there again. Ever. If he had to, he’d fight to the death if that’s what it took to stay out of jail. Recalling his time spent in that depressing, closed-in space was his salvation. A person had to want to crawl up through shit to get out of the sewer.
He’d climbed kicking and screaming through the waste of his life.
He’d been young and foolish the first time. He wasn’t either of those things now. Youth and foolishness rarely garnered accolades unless there was a special talent involved. He had a special talent. It was that reassurance that had him getting his priorities straight.
Glancing to his right, he brought the dark-haired woman into the curve of his arm. Ignoring the fact that Selma was naked, cold and battered, he stroked the top of her head, patting her like a dog.
Without preliminary, he unzipped his pants, picked up her stiff hand and stuffed it down into his crotch and began working her fingers around his shaft.
And remembered back to the time he’d been seventeen.
He’d been horny as hell then, too. He also remembered being head over heels in love with Margo Jamison. At the memory of how his youthful heart used to race each time he saw Margo in the hallway between classes, he smiled.
He recalled how he’d stood like the weak dumbass he’d been at the time, waiting for Margo to show up at her locker.
If he was honest with himself it was that time with Margo that had made him what he was today. If the bitch had just given into him sooner, given him what he’d wanted then, he’d never have had to travel down this road in the first place.
Probably.
He smiled at himself and his soppy mood. What was it about getting older that made a man reminisce about his misspent youth? After all, he couldn’t keep his mind wandering so much in the past, revisiting his every flaw or the times he’d messed up. That was for fools.
“I can’t keep you, baby,” he proclaimed, placing a kiss on Selma’s cold, blue lips. “For some reason, I can never keep the ones I truly care about. But I promise to put you some place real nice. You deserve real nice.”
Skye Cree Boxed Set Books 1 - 3 Page 72