by Mary Stone
As expected, he didn’t respond.
The Excedrin had begun to kick in, so she went upstairs to take a shower. As she was climbing into the old clawfoot tub, she remembered something else. She hadn’t had a response from Dina, and she’d promised she’d address the matter this morning if she hadn’t heard from her.
She quickly showered and wrapped herself in a towel, then picked up her phone again. Sure enough, there was no message from Dina.
Kylie crawled onto the bed and flopped down on her stomach, trying to decide who she should call. She looked up the name Avery in California, but there were too many entries, so she wasn’t sure if any of them were relatives of Dina’s.
Finally, she just decided to call the police in Tallulah Falls, since she knew that was where Dina lived. When she did, an operator answered. “Tallulah Falls Police. How may I direct your call?”
“Yes. I’m out of town and looking to see if someone could do a well-check on one of your residents?” she said, studying her fingernails, frowning. If she was going to get married, she really had to stop chewing them like that. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with her for two days, and so far, no response.”
“Certainly, who is calling?”
“My name is Kylie Hatfield.”
“Okay, Miss Hatfield. And the resident you’ve been trying to contact?”
“Her name is Dina Avery. I’m not exactly sure where she lives.”
“One moment. I’ll connect you with an officer who should be able to help you.”
“Thank you,” Kylie said, looking around the room. As she did, Vader came in and leapt onto the bed. She patted his side.
“Miss Hatfield?” a voice suddenly said. It sounded like a very young male.
“Yes?”
“I hear you’re looking for a Dina Avery, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know her?”
Kylie frowned. “I don’t know her well.” How did she explain her spidey sense without sounding insane? “It’s a long story, but—”
The officer cleared his throat. “When was the last time you spoke with her?”
Kylie rolled over and looked at the ceiling. “Two days ago. She was driving to her family’s home in California. I know it’s strange, she’s probably fine and just busy with family, but I’ve been sending her messages via social media and haven’t heard anything, so I was getting worried.”
“Did you have any reason to believe she could be in trouble?”
She sat up. “Well…” She didn’t really want to have to go into the whole thing about how she was working with SAR, and all the mysterious deaths and disappearances that had been happening lately. “I just had a feeling that—”
“Dina Avery’s Jeep was found outside her house in the middle of the street. Parked but still running. Her dog was inside, but she’s been missing since then, and we have no leads. If you can give us some help…”
Kylie absently shoved her thumb in her mouth and ripped a nail off jaggedly. “When was this?”
But she already knew.
“That was two days ago. She’s been listed as a missing person since then, Miss Hatfield. Is there any information you can give to us regarding her disappearance?”
Disappearance. Dina had disappeared.
Dina. Had. Disappeared.
That was four out of five. The only one left, the last man standing, was…
Oh my god.
Kylie sat up so quickly that her head began to swim. Her hands were shaking, and there was a red, bloody gash right above her thumbnail. She sucked on it.
“I do…I mean, she was part of a SAR team that I was on…and…”
The words came out in an incoherent jumble. She couldn’t even be sure she was speaking English. Every pore on her body was now one raging goose bump.
She wanted Linc. Badly.
She needed him. Needed to warn him. Needed to get to him, somehow.
Call him. He needs to know this.
“Miss, are you still there?” the officer asked.
“I’m sorry. I have to go,” she said, hanging up and quickly punching in a call to Linc. She’d get in touch with them and give them details later.
The phone rang right to voicemail.
Right. The funeral.
Hi, it’s Linc, I’m busy at the moment. You know what to do.
She wasn’t used to leaving voicemail messages, but right then, she was desperate. The second she heard the beep, she exploded with, “It’s me! Please call me as soon as you can!” and hung up. Then she sent him a text saying the same thing, just for added insurance.
She looked around, feeling chilled to the bone, then her eyes fell on herself. Well, that made sense. She was naked, her hair was wet, and it was November. Linc always managed the heat in the house, keeping the place toasty warm, and she didn’t have a clue even where the thermostat was. No wonder it was freezing in the house. She ran to her dresser and grabbed some jeans and a t-shirt, slipping them on.
She had to get to Linc.
She had no doubt now that someone had to be targeting the SAR people. Someone who’d worked with them before, or perhaps a previous case? Yes, that made sense. A previous case that went badly.
She opened her phone and sent him another text as a thought hit her.
Running into the spare bedroom, she pulled open the filing cabinet that housed all his cases. She’d been going through the files, but she did so now with renewed vigor.
There were hundreds upon hundreds of files in the five-drawer cabinet, all with tabs neatly labeled at the top. Most of them were for locales in the Pisgah National Forest up near Asheville. Then she found a file that said, Georgia/Tennessee US. It had numerous files in it, all arranged by date, it seemed.
Kylie quickly pulled out the first stack and started to go through it. She found the case of a female hiker in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee that had taken the better part of a week to find. There was a resident from a nursing home who suffered from Alzheimer’s and had wandered into the forest in South Carolina. A couple of siblings who’d run away from home around the vicinity of Black Rock Mountain State Park in Georgia.
She read through each of them, not finding anything to tie them to the location of Tallulah Gorge. As she paged through, she saw that in each of these cases, the missing person or persons were located without incident.
But something was wrong.
If this file included all of the cases that he’d performed in the Southern US, then it should’ve contained the case of the escaped prisoners from Arrendale.
Kylie went through it again. And again, thinking she might have missed it.
No. It was most definitely not there.
Was this really all of his cases? Or did he keep some of them someplace else? Maybe he didn’t keep files on all of the cases he did.
That didn’t seem like Linc. Linc was methodical, thorough, exacting. He did things one way and stuck to it. He was ex-military, after all.
So where was the damn case?
Her eyes went to her phone. He definitely must’ve had it turned off, the jerk. He was always so careful about being courteous.
Dammit. Damn his courtesy, she needed to get in touch with him now!
How long did a funeral usually take, anyway? And when was his flight back? She grabbed her phone and sent him a few more texts.
Feeling helpless, she slumped against the foot of the bed and paged through a few more, when suddenly, Vader poked his head around the corner of the bed and stuck his wet muzzle in her ear, as if to say, Hi, remember me? Your faithful companion WHO HAS NOT YET EATEN ALL DAY?
“Easy, boy, just give me five more minutes,” she said, nudging him away. But then, as usual, he captured her with his big, sad eyes. She gave him a pout in return. “Oh, I know what you want. I’m sorry I haven’t fed you guys, but this is kind of life or death.”
Vader gave her a look like, Well, so is feeding us, dude.
She cu
rsed her forgetfulness. It was well past midday. Linc probably would never forgive her for starving his baby, Storm, like that. She was a bad mama. Linc wanted to marry her, why, again?
She got to her knees and climbed to her feet, dusting off the back of her jeans.
As she started to turn toward the bedroom door, she saw it, out of the corner of her eye.
It was a folder in the very back of the drawer. The only thing written on the tab was a thick, black mark.
She lifted it up.
There were only a few cases inside.
When she opened it, she immediately saw the photographs of three very mean-looking women staring back at her. Mug shots.
She flipped a page and caught the word Arrendale.
Here it was. The prison inmate search file.
Sure enough, she caught the names of the other SAR rescuers: Lincoln Coulter, Dina Avery, Beatrice Crosby, Will Santos, and Kevin Friedman.
Scanning down the rest of the page, she read a brief bio on each of the inmates. The first two were listed as safe while the third woman was marked as deceased.
Vader had begun to nose her toward the bedroom door in earnest, but Kylie simply couldn’t tear herself away. She felt like she was so close, she couldn’t back away now. That spidey sense of hers was giving her all kinds of warnings.
“One second. I promise!” she said to him, fending him off.
She paged through the file folder, finding some more cases. And as she did, the taste of old wine in her mouth turned bitter, and she had the sinking feeling she knew exactly what she’d stumbled upon.
This was the file of Linc’s cases where at least some of the subjects had not come out of the search alive.
25
It was a myth that in order for a funeral to be really sad, it had to involve a torrential downpour.
The sky over Lake Secession was without a cloud when they laid Will Santos and Star to rest, and though Linc had been through his share of heartbreak, he didn’t think he’d ever witnessed a scene quite so morose.
There were photos of Will with Star during happier times. Star as a puppy. Will and Star standing at the top of Devil’s Pulpit. Will in his cap and gown from Clemson, with Star on a leash beside him, wearing his own little cap. Star’s leash and orange SAR vest hung from the memorial. A couple other rescue people had shown up with their dogs, and all the dogs laid down at the grave, seeming to know they were saying goodbye to one of their friends.
And then there was Will’s family. His mother cried loudly throughout the priest’s speech, and even his normally stoic father’s shoulders shook from the grief of his sobs. Linc wasn’t one to cry, but even he felt the ends of his heartstrings being tugged, almost past the breaking point.
Linc watched as the casket was lowered into the ground, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief as the warm autumn sun beat down upon the scene. He pulled on the collar of his shirt, fighting suffocation as he stood, shoulder to shoulder, with hundreds of other onlookers.
Then, it was time to pass the casket and say one final goodbye. He waited for at least an hour for his turn, then proceeded up to the casket, and nodded one last time at his friend.
After that was done, he paid his final respects to Santos’ parents, then started to walk to his car, which he’d parked on the street in the cemetery among those belonging to a long line of mourners. As he did, pulling on his tie to loosen it, dying to get out of this monkey suit, someone clapped him on the back.
It was Sam Santos, Will’s younger brother. The two men shook hands. “You heading to the house, Linc? We’re having some people over for food. Come join us.”
“Can’t. I already told your parents that I’ve got a five o’clock flight I’ll already be cutting close to make.” He reached into his pocket and turned on his phone, which he’d silenced. It took a moment to power up. He put a hand on this kid’s arm in a brotherly way. “You do good at Clemson. I’ll be watching. If you need anything from me, Sam, don’t hesitate to ask. Okay?”
Sam nodded. “You have a safe trip. It was good of you to come all this way.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it. Your brother was one of the best,” Linc said honestly as his phone finished powering up. He stared at the display. He had…what? An actual voicemail from Kylie? Since when did she leave him voicemails?
He waved goodbye to Sam and continued to his car, looking down at his phone.
He pressed on the voicemail icon and immediately heard her panicked voice: “It’s me! Please call me as soon as you can!”
A glimmer of worry struck him, but it didn’t capture him completely. Kylie was known to get completely carried away at times. She used a similar tone when she couldn’t get Vader to follow her commands. Maybe he was just being a bad boy without Linc there. He always seemed to misbehave when Linc wasn’t around, and he thought he could take over as the alpha of the house.
He started to put in a call to her when he realized he also had a number of texts from her. Twelve, to be exact.
That was bizarre. Yes, she was a textaholic for sure. But twelve? That was pushing it, even for her.
He opened the messages as he finally made it across the green to his rental car. Sliding behind the steering wheel, he read the last one:
PLEASE. I’M SO WORRIED.
Whoa. He needed to back up.
He scrolled up to the first message she’d sent, after the “I love you” she’d sent him before he’d gone into the funeral. He started from there.
Call me as soon as you get this.
Dina’s car has been found with Ghost inside. It was abandoned. She never went to California. She’s missing.
Now, do you believe me that someone is going after SAR people?
Please call me.
Linc. Call me.
I’m worried.
I think it may be one of the cases you all worked on together so I’m going through your files.
I don’t know. I can’t find anything yet. Just call me. Let me know you’re okay.
?
??
???
PLEASE. I’M SO WORRIED.
Jesus. It was almost too much for his eyes to take in. For a good ten seconds, he just stared at the screen. Holy shit. Dina, missing?
He looked up. Looked around, noticing things around him he hadn’t noticed before. Had that old van always been there? Who was that suspicious guy smoking near the mausoleum? For the first time, something thick and constricting wrapped around him. Try as he could to shake it off, it only wormed its way tighter, pressing against his chest.
He’d made fun of Kylie’s weird theories, but he had to admit, there was definitely some merit to them. Especially now that he was the last man standing.
Right now, he imagined Kylie sitting at the kitchen island, going through all his cases with a fine-tooth comb, trying to find something that connected the five of them. She’d been so wrapped up in the prison inmate case, but he’d thought that was a long shot.
He hadn’t wanted to tell her then, because he knew how her mind inflated things, but there were other cases she knew nothing about that could be more likely.
As he sat in the car, he mentally sifted through those other cases. Cases that had happened in the vicinity of Tallulah Gorge. Cases that hadn’t had happy endings. The team had never done any cases together in Tallulah Gorge before Beez, so his mind wandered to other locations nearby, in Georgia. He hadn’t done a whole lot of those, and most of them, the subject had been found safe.
Funny, he’d had many more successes than failures. About ninety-five percent of his endeavors had ended happily, with no loss to life nor limb. But it was those few failures that always managed to stick in his head.
The Smithgall Woods State Park case was pretty much cemented in the front of his mind and had been there for the past twenty-two months.
Smithgall Woods State Park was located in Helen, Georgia, about thirty miles away from Tallulah Gorge. Linc had gotten the call one ev
ening that a girl scout junior—only nine years old—had gotten separated from her troop during a camping trip. The troop leader reported that they’d gone on a hike, and the girl had somehow disappeared during the easy one mile walk from their campsite to the visitor’s center.
The sun had been setting when Linc got the call, but he and Storm hopped in the truck immediately and made the two-hour drive down to the park. When they’d gotten there, it was dark, and it had started to pour, so the search was difficult.
To all of their dismay, they’d eventually been forced to call it off when Beez’s dog and Kevin nearly killed themselves navigating some of the steeper trails in the slippery mud. The fact was, the park was small, and none of them, except Beez, had been very well-versed in the terrain. One SAR, who was supposed to be an expert on the trails, hadn’t been able to make it due to illness.
They’d waited in the ranger’s station, drinking coffee and twiddling their thumbs until daylight broke and the sky cleared. That kind of inaction, when he knew someone was suffering, was the worst. Especially a little kid, so helpless and scared. He hated being powerless like that. So the second the sun came up, they went out again, looking for the little girl.
Jill. That was her name.
Pretty little girl. Big thick glasses that amplified her big blue eyes. Freckles. He’d tried to avoid looking at the pictures of her that had been plastered all over the news afterward. It was too damn haunting.
Linc had found her little body, pale and motionless in a swollen, stagnant pond beneath a steep cliff. She was still wearing her little green vest with all its carefully sewn-on badges. Sometime during the dark of night, while wandering and trying to find her way back to the camp, she’d slipped on the path, fell from the cliff, and broken her neck when she landed in shallow water.
Linc swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth as he recalled it. It was one of those cases he’d worked hard to block out. She’d been such a little, helpless child. Every time he thought of it, his chest ached as he imagined just how frightened and alone she must’ve been during her last moments.