White Out: A Thriller (Badlands Thriller)

by Danielle Girard

  “Hagen Police Department. How can I help you, Lily Baker?”

  Lily froze at the sound of the voice. That voice. His voice. She felt the dark, the fear. The warnings about hurrying back and not talking to anyone.

  Derek Hudson was on the phone.

  “You still there, Lily?”

  Hands shaking, she whispered into the phone, “Who are you?”

  “What? You don’t recognize me?” he asked, lowering his voice into a hiss. “It’s your old friend Derek.”

  No. It was impossible. Fingers trembling, she ended the call. Her heart pulsed in her ears, her legs weak beneath her as she doubled over. But that voice belonged to Derek Hudson. It was the voice of her nightmares. But that meant he wasn’t dead. Worse, he worked with the police. He’d been there in Hagen all along. How had she never seen Hudson in Hagen? Or maybe she had. His face was unfamiliar to her. It was his voice that she knew.

  But if he was alive, then who was the man she’d shot at the cabin?

  She stood up and stared at the phone, wondering if she should call back. She needed to speak to Detective Milliard and only Milliard. Or else go back to Molva, explain it all to the deputy there. Andy. He’d felt safe. But if a Hagen police officer was involved, then couldn’t one in Molva be as well?

  No. She had to find Milliard, which meant getting back to Hagen. Suddenly, she wished she hadn’t stopped for Cal. But then she wouldn’t have known Hudson was alive and in Hagen.

  Cal.

  Where was Cal? She turned to look for the dog and sensed something behind her. She spun around to face the man from the car. “Oh, you scared me,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest.

  “I’m going to have to take that picture,” he said, pointing at the image on the passenger seat, the one she’d taken from Danson’s house.

  “What?”

  But even as she said the word, his hand connected to her neck with a buzzing sound. White-hot pain shot through her, the piercing shriek of electricity. She tried to take a step, to run, but she dropped to the icy gravel.

  He was there, on top of her, the Taser to her back. Electricity shot through her again. “You don’t remember?” he asked with a shake of his head. “I wish I could believe you.”

  Remember. She ought to remember. She held that thought as she tried to study his face, but every muscle was firing, then failing. And suddenly, the word was there. Abby had said it, that night in the woods. Lily opened her lips and let out the monster’s name.

  “You do remember.” He clenched his teeth as he pressed the Taser to her, the smell of burning flesh in her nose. “This whole thing’s your damn fault,” he said, the buzz finally dying.

  Her fault. It was her fault. What was? Abby?

  If Derek Hudson had been on the phone in Hagen, then who was this man?

  His beady eyes were so familiar. He looked like someone else, but who?

  As the black descended, she knew. He looked like the man in the photo, the police officer who’d been interviewing people in Danson’s photographs.

  Oh God. He was that man.

  CHAPTER 50

  KYLIE

  Twenty minutes outside of Glendive, Kylie pulled over in a spot with decent cell service and launched the email app on her phone. Then she tried to download the state lab report on Abigail Jensen. She waited five, then ten minutes while the little wheel spun on her screen.

  This was Carl Gilbert’s fault. She could have reviewed this report last night. Giving up on her email, she dialed Gilbert directly.

  “Detective,” he said. “You still in Glendive?”

  “On my way back,” she said.

  “You learn anything?”

  “Actually, I’m calling about Jensen’s autopsy report.”

  “Oh?”

  Something haughty in Gilbert’s tone made her want to slap him. If only she were a little closer. “The report came in yesterday?”

  “Did it?”

  “Gilbert,” she snapped. “It went to your email. Why the hell didn’t you forward it?”

  “I haven’t seen it,” he said. “I’ve been a little busy up here.”

  Kylie gripped the wheel. “I need to know what the report says, Carl. Can you walk me through the findings?”

  “I don’t need to see the findings to know what they’ll say. They’ll say that Iver Larson killed her, then left the hospital and killed Alvin Tanner.”

  “You find a witness who saw him leave?”

  “I’m working on it.” A faint shout leaked through the phone, somewhere on Gilbert’s end. “I’ve got to go, Detective. We’ll see you when you’re back.”

  Kylie started to say something, but Gilbert had hung up. Fury burned through her. That asshole . . . she drew a slow breath. Gilbert was right to try to locate a witness who’d seen Larson leave the hospital. Without prints at Tanner’s, there was no way they could prove Larson had killed him.

  She thought about Iver Larson, the strange way he’d been with Lily Baker that first night—so protective and yet so distant, like she was a piece of china that might break if he held on. Then she remembered the sight of Alvin Tanner’s butchered hand. Iver was guilty. The pieces fit, didn’t they?

  Kylie found Dr. Glanzer’s phone number in her email and dialed it.

  Inside two rings, her voice came on the line. “Glanzer.”

  “This is Kylie Milliard. We spoke earlier.”

  “Sure. What can I do for you?”

  Kylie explained her trouble opening the autopsy report and asked if Glanzer would be willing to give her a five-minute summary. “I wouldn’t ask, but we’ve got another victim this morning, and . . .”

  “Alvin Tanner. Heard about that one.”

  “I’m just trying to get a handle on the evidence on the off chance that something clicks,” Kylie explained. “Was the ME able to determine time of death on Jensen?”

  “Actually, that was kind of my doing,” Glanzer said. “Well, mine and the victim’s watch.”

  Kylie shook her head. “I don’t think Jensen was wearing a watch, only a wide red leather bracelet with a silver disk. It had snaps,” Kylie added, then realized how dumb that sounded.

  “Right,” Glanzer agreed. “That disk was actually a watch. Not sure why it was turned inward—if it was a style or she just wore it that way—but that disk was a thin children’s watch, mounted with the glass face against the leather. The snaps allowed her to flip the watch and see the time. Like I said, I’m not sure why it was like that. The watch was Mickey Mouse. My lab identified it as something made in the mid- to late nineties, mass produced and sold on a black plastic band for about ten dollars. I can text pictures, if that helps.”

  “It might,” Kylie said. “But tell me how the watch determined time of death.”

  “Our state ME, Dr. Nelson, reached out to the Hagen coroner to talk about time of death. Your coroner suggested the victim had likely died between ten p.m. and one a.m., but Dr. Nelson thought the watch told a different story, so he sent it to our lab. The watch has a single dent in the back casing—the part that would have been facing outward, considering how she wore it. The dent looks to have separated the gears, which stopped the watch,” Glanzer continued. “Dr. Nelson asked me to determine if the watch had stopped earlier or if the dent had happened that night.”

  Kylie sat up straight in her seat. “And could you figure that out?”

  “Yes. As it turns out, whatever blow caused the dent in the watch also cracked the face. We found trace glass in the leather. Had the victim removed the bracelet after the blow—or even opened it to check the time—the glass would have fallen free. Instead, it was trapped between the glass face and the leather, which was tight against her arm. Means she hadn’t removed the bracelet since the blow that caused the dent and separated the gears. And the leather wasn’t wet and showed no signs of being submerged in water.”

  “So she didn’t shower or bathe in it,” Kylie said.

  “Exactly.”

  “W
hich means the watch probably broke during the struggle that night.”

  “Almost certainly. Dr. Nelson had called your coroner to check if he had considered the bracelet in his initial autopsy findings, but he hadn’t. Dr. Nelson had the impression that the local coroner didn’t realize that the silver disk was actually the backside of a watch. He was probably more focused on the body.”

  Kylie took a moment to process what Glanzer was saying. “But isn’t it possible that the blow happened some hours before her actual death?”

  “Dr. Nelson doesn’t think so. There were only minimal signs of hemorrhaging on her arm—bruising—so she likely died within an hour or so of the blow.”

  “But this assumes that the watch was working, right?”

  “Yes,” Glanzer confirmed. “It appeared to be. Battery power was good, and the gears were clean.”

  Kylie felt like she was holding her breath. Letting it out, she asked, “So we know exact time of death?”

  “Well, we know the exact time when she was attacked.”

  “And what time was that?”

  “If we believe the watch, it was eight forty-three p.m.”

  “Eight forty-three p.m.,” Kylie repeated, needing to hear the words out loud, let them echo in her mind. Not even nine o’clock. “Which meant she died some time before ten.”

  “Yes. Those were Dr. Nelson’s findings.”

  Iver Larson had been in the bar until ten thirty. No one had seen him go outside except for a few minutes in the parking lot.

  Iver Larson wasn’t the killer.

  He couldn’t be.

  Had they missed something? Could he have sneaked out a different way? But his guilt had been based on the fact that he’d been seen driving in the middle of the night, that maybe he’d met the victim later in the evening. But she’d been dead by ten thirty. Unless the watch was wrong. The lab thought it had probably been working, but maybe the time hadn’t been set correctly?

  “Detective?”

  “Thank you,” Kylie said.

  “Not what you were expecting,” Glanzer guessed.

  Kylie’s phone buzzed with an unfamiliar number. “No,” she admitted to Glanzer. “But it was very helpful. I’ve got another call coming in. Thanks for the help.”

  Head spinning, Kylie ended the call with Glanzer and accepted the incoming call. “Detective Milliard.”

  A man’s voice. Deputy . . . Molva . . . Lily Baker. He was talking too fast.

  “Whoa,” she said. “Slow down. I can’t understand you.”

  The man on the line seemed to be hyperventilating. “I’m a deputy in Molva. Lily Baker was here this morning. She wanted to see the cabin—”

  The line went silent. “Deputy?”

  “Yes,” he said as though he’d been holding his breath. “She wanted to see the cabin where she was . . .”

  “Held,” Kylie finished.

  “Yes.”

  Her pulse was like a hiccup in her temple, and she pressed her fingers against it. “And? Did she remember something?”

  The man on the other end of the phone went quiet.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m here, Detective. I don’t know yet,” he admitted, sounding distraught. “See, I took her to see my aunt, Melinda. Mindy’s been in Molva for her whole life—almost eight decades. She knew the Hudsons and all of them, so I thought she might be able to help.”

  “Where is Lily Baker now? Has she left town?”

  “Well, that’s why I’m calling.”

  Every part of Kylie tensed. She imagined Alvin Tanner, his missing fingers, lying in a pool of blood. “Has something happened?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Tell me what the hell is going on!” Kylie said, shouting now.

  “The other deputy—there are two of us here in Molva—was driving out 171; that’s the road out of town. And he found Ms. Baker’s car.”

  “Her car.” Kylie pressed her eyes closed. “But not her?”

  “No.”

  “You sure it was her car? Maybe he’s mistaken.”

  “No, ma’am. I saw that car this morning, Ms. Baker in it, along with her dog. She followed me to Mindy’s house. I know it’s her car.”

  “Maybe she had car trouble?” Kylie said. “If her car had broken down, would she have come back to Molva, or was there somewhere else she might have gone?”

  “I thought of that, but her keys were right there in the car, and the engine turned over, no problem.”

  The air was swept from her lungs.

  “Plus,” the deputy added, “I don’t think she would’ve left her dog.”

  The dog. Iver Larson’s dog, it had to be. “The dog was still in the car?”

  “Outside the car, curled up under one of the wheels, trying to stay warm, I think.”

  Larson was in jail. But according to the watch, Larson hadn’t killed Jensen. And there was no way he’d kidnapped Lily Baker from Molva.

  So who the hell had her? And where had they gone?

  CHAPTER 51

  LILY

  Lily followed Abby into the woods, scanning for whatever her friend saw there. But it was all shadows and cold to Lily.

  “Abby?”

  “Almost,” she said. “Just a little farther.”

  “I thought we were going to the bar,” Lily said, trying to sound carefree. Abby had only been in town a few hours, but already her presence unnerved Lily. It had been Lily’s idea for Abby to come. The transition back to life in Elgin after the years at the school up in Washington had been hard for Abby. After Hudson, the school was all she had known, and Elgin no longer felt like home.

  During those first months away from the cabin, Lily had longed for Abby. So many days spent feeling the older girl at her side, feeding off her strength to go on. But Abby had been distant after their escape. She’d settled in a new place, while Lily had returned to a home that no longer felt like home. And then her father had decided she should go to Arizona and live with his sister, who had never married. She was married to Jesus, she’d said. Although she wasn’t technically part of the church, she was one of its most dedicated attendants. Soon Lily had been, too.

  When her father had died and Lily had returned to Hagen, she’d gotten a note from Abby. At first, she hadn’t replied, but several months later, there’d been another. Abby had been back in Elgin and struggling. A month later, another letter came. Letters arrived every month or two for almost two years, as though they were her own private journal entries. The words in the letters had felt like the closest thing to a home that Lily could remember.

  And then Abby had written her longest letter. She was happy. At her job in a nursing home, she’d met a man, the son of a woman Abby was caring for. “Meeting him was like coming home,” Abby wrote. “I want to come visit. I need to see you, Lily.”

  And two days later, she called.

  A week passed, and now Abby was here, leading her into the dark. Why did she follow?

  Abby turned back as though sensing Lily’s hesitation and stepped back to her friend. She wrapped her arms around Lily and whispered, “I’m so glad we’re together again.”

  And then she pulled Lily into the woods.

  Lily felt the darkness drag across her like a thick fabric screen.

  “I want us to be together,” Abby said. “Like before.”

  Abby was still walking, Lily following. The words danced around like fireflies, and she tried to track them. They lined up momentarily, and she halted. “What?”

  Abby looked around carefully, then turned to Lily, dropping her hand and taking hold of her shoulders. “I want you to come live with me. We will be together, like before.” Her hand touched Lily’s cheek, then trailed over her shoulder to her back, where Abby’s fingers pressed into the soft skin below her shoulder blade. Abby stared at her, rubbing a small circle on the place where she’d been cut, the place where he had focused his knife in her soft skin.

  Abby’s expression shifted, becoming full of ownership
and pride. Those moments being cut in that cabin. Silence, the gentle pressure of the slice. The words in her ear, Abby’s words. “Don’t move, or the knife will slip and you’ll die. Please don’t move, Lily.”

  Then came the brief sensation of something thick and warm against her skin. A lapping sensation, like a tongue. The memory brought a wave of shudders. That had been Hudson. Abby had been there to keep her safe, to protect her.

  Abby’s hand continued its circles.

  Lily stepped back. “Abby?”

  Abby tilted her head, offered a sideways smile as she tugged at the sleeve of her jacket, raising it to her elbow. Dozens of tiny cuts marred the skin. Abby focused on one, using her fingers to spread the skin, tear the wound.

  Lily gasped as a drop of blood oozed up from the angry red line on Abby’s arm.

  Ducking her head, Abby flicked out her tongue and lapped up the bead of blood.

  Lily froze in place, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. They’d been captives together. They’d helped each other, protected each other.

  “Abby, that’s over. We’re free.”

  Abby’s head rolled up, a small dot of blood at the corner of her mouth. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a thin scrap of newspaper, held it up in the darkness.

  Lily shook her head. “I can’t read it. What does it say?”

  “It says it’s not over,” Abby said, reaching out to hand her the clipping.

  Lily stepped backward. “I don’t want it.”

  Abby took hold of her arm and shoved the newspaper clipping into Lily’s front pocket. “Read it,” she said, a growl in her voice. “It means we can go back, go home.”

  Lily pulled her arm free. “We were prisoners, Abby.”

  “No.” Abby’s voice was sharp as she waved her hands through the cold night air, the wound on her arm still leaking blood as she yanked her jacket sleeve down. “This is the prison, this life. That life was perfect . . . and now we can go back, the three of us.”

  Only then did Lily hear the footsteps approaching, the crunch of snow. He was coming for her.

  CHAPTER 52