White Out: A Thriller (Badlands Thriller)

by Danielle Girard

KYLIE

  Kylie was breathing hard and driving like a madwoman. Police lights flashing, she sped along the highway toward Hagen. The Molva police were searching for Lily Baker there, but Kylie’s gut told her that the key to all of this was in Hagen. She’d tried to reach Davis, but he hadn’t called her back. She tried Vogel, too, and then, desperate, she’d called Gary Ross.

  Where the hell was everyone? Gilbert had turned his phone off completely—or the battery had died. Calls to him went straight to voicemail. Only Steve Cannon was answering his phone, and he gave her the one piece of information she needed—the location of the man she now thought was behind all of this.

  She was only thirty minutes outside Glendive when she called Pete McIntosh and told him what had happened.

  “I could use your help.” She explained the call from Molva, Gilbert’s reaction to her questions about the autopsy, and her mad rush to get back to Hagen. Maybe Carl Gilbert was working some sort of power play, but she didn’t trust him. What she needed right now was a guarantee—someone whose motive she trusted 100 percent.

  “Not sure who you can trust?”

  The words were like a trigger. “Yes.”

  “I’m on my way,” McIntosh told her. “I’ll call when I’m close.”

  Ending the call, Kylie dropped the phone on the passenger seat and gripped the wheel with both hands. Her focus on the road, she replayed the first conversation she’d had with Glanzer. The drug in the glass found in Larson’s office had been a strong sedative. Glanzer had made it sound like Larson had been drugged. And wasn’t that what Dr. Prescott had implied as well? But if someone had wanted to set him up for murder, why sedate him? Why not give him a drug that would simply erase his memory? Or was that what they thought they’d done?

  The only other possibility was that Larson had been drugged for some reason other than to be framed for murder. But then why had he been drugged? She thought about the fingerprints. Kevin Clouse. Gilbert had interviewed the bartenders. Clouse was dating the pastor’s daughter. Would that give him reason to drug Larson? Could Larson’s blackout possibly have nothing to do with Jensen’s death?

  Who was responsible for her murder, then? All the evidence pointed to Larson.

  Evidence that could have been planted.

  Gilbert had found Jensen’s shoes in Iver Larson’s truck. Gilbert, who hadn’t gotten her the autopsy report, who had turned off his phone. Gilbert, who had volunteered to arrest Iver Larson. Carl Gilbert? Baker said her attacker had used a Taser. Like what police officers carried.

  She shook her head. Gilbert, with his lanky awkwardness and his fat wad of keys. The carabiner. She felt suddenly sick, picturing the green-and-yellow mug in Gilbert’s hand. Some sort of team. Green Bay Packers. The Packers’ colors were yellow and green. Suddenly, despite the stream of hot air blowing from the vents, she was freezing.

  Gilbert had startled her in those woods. Why hadn’t she heard the jangling of his keys then?

  And how had he found her? The woods had been dark, and she’d been in there long before he’d come. Unless he’d known exactly where the crime had happened. Because he’d been there before.

  The night he killed Abigail Jensen.

  CHAPTER 53

  LILY

  Lily came to in the darkness, a steady thrumming behind her eyes. She tried to shift, but the space was tight, her legs and hands immobile. Instantly, she recalled the car on the overpass, tipping toward the edge. She tried to curl her fingers, remembered the numbness.

  No. There was no chill now. Her fingers moved easily. There was no seat belt across her chest and no rustle of the airbag. She was not in a car. Where . . . then she remembered stopping outside Molva, the man in the government car. The Taser.

  Shifting in the darkness, she felt bindings on her wrists and twisted against the tape but was unable to break free. Her fingers skimmed across wool-like material on the hard surface below her. Fresh terror rolled across her shoulders. She was in the trunk of a car. She shut out the image of the car on a ledge, ready to tip. She couldn’t think that way.

  Get out.

  Blinking against the darkness, she willed her eyes to adjust. Her breathing was ragged, her pulse racing. She closed her eyes, forced a slow breath. With a rasp in her throat, it sounded like she was choking. “Stop,” she commanded, pulling herself together.

  Before she could make a plan, the trunk opened.

  Light blinded her. The man. She tried to shift away from him, but there was nowhere to go. A large hand gripped her thigh, pressing her down even as she tried to pull her knees to her chest and kick. He moved quickly, his left arm blocking her feet and his right swinging toward her. Too late, she spotted the needle in his fist as it stabbed her leg. The sharp bite of the injection was followed by a sting at the site, then heat as the drug traveled through her leg.

  She clenched her muscles in a futile effort to drive the drug out. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

  He stared at her without answering. With the light behind him, his face was shadowed, his eyes empty sockets. He blinked, and she started as the flash of skin covered the black holes.

  “Why would you help him?” she asked.

  “’Cause he’s family, and you take care of family,” the man said, resigned.

  As her eyes adjusted to the light, she studied his face. There was something familiar about it. Within moments, his face grew fuzzy. Her skin flushed with warmth, and her eyelids grew heavy.

  Focused on breathing, she fought the cloud of drug settling over her.

  “A few more hours, and this will all be over, God willing.”

  Her throat closed, and tears welled in her eyes. She pressed her eyes closed and fought back the fear. Be angry. Be smart. She couldn’t give in. It wasn’t over yet. She was still here. Alive.

  She could still get away. God willing.

  But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

  The warm wave of drowsiness yanked her under. She fought against it, but the drug was stronger than her fight, and she was dragged back into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 54

  IVER

  Drops of sweat hit the concrete floor as Iver took a break from his exercise routine. His thoughts circled between the woman in Afghanistan and what had happened at the bar on Wednesday. He hadn’t been angry at the Afghan woman. He hadn’t feared her. What he had feared was that Garabrant would shoot, that the noise would kill them all. He hadn’t been violent in anger. He had been violent in fear.

  And he hadn’t been afraid on Wednesday, had he? His reaction to his best friend and his ex-wife dating was not fear. At first pass, their relationship had seemed like a violation, of course. He and Mike had been best friends forever. But Iver and Debbie weren’t going to be together again—that had been crystal clear from the time she’d moved out. They were done. She was done.

  And Iver had been done, too. Their marriage had become a routine that no longer served either of them. He needed to recreate himself with new limitations—headaches and pain, but also a new understanding of what there was to lose. He’d wasted a year living in that old rut, working at a job he hated, drinking himself in and out of pain, and ignoring the blatant signs that he was screwing up his life.

  He pictured the photograph of him gripping Debbie’s arm, and a wave of shame washed over him. Yes. He had been rough with her—or it looked that way from the picture. But he wasn’t a violent person.

  Debbie had left. She was moving on. He wanted to be happy for her. And for Mike. He would be, eventually. That burst of anger at her—at them—had been wounded pride, humiliation at what others would think when they found out Debbie had left him and was now with his oldest friend.

  Closing his eyes, he rolled onto his back and started sit-ups, telling himself that this time he would change. He’d said
it before, but it felt real now. He lowered himself again and crunched back up. The only chance he had at a future was to prove that he hadn’t killed Abigail Jensen.

  How did he do that when he didn’t even remember seeing her that night?

  Halfway through the next sit-up, he halted. Put his hands on the cold floor. Behind his ugly, angry face in that picture was the parking lot. He closed his eyes and pictured the regular assortment of cars—mostly pickup trucks—that filled the lot each night. Beyond the lot was the street that ran along the bar. No one ever parked there. Why would they? The bar’s lot was plenty big.

  But in the picture Henry Cooper had shown him, there’d been a car on the road. Not a pickup but a small white car, and someone sitting inside. Two people? He stood, realizing he’d seen the car before. He wiped the sweat from his face with his forearm. That was Lily Baker’s car. Had there been someone else in the car with her? Had the faces been caught in that photograph?

  He needed to talk to Cooper again, have the police blow up that image. Iver gripped the iron bars of his cell. He hadn’t used his phone call yet.

  “Hey, I want to make my phone call,” he shouted. “I have the right to a phone call. Hello!”

  Several moments later, footsteps came down the hall.

  “I get a phone call!” Iver called out.

  Carl Gilbert appeared in the doorway, a smirk on his face. “You’re making quite a racket in here, Larson. You best sit down and shut up.”

  “I get a phone call, Gilbert. The law requires that you let me make a phone call.”

  “Of course,” Gilbert said, the smile widening into a grin. “I’ll get right on that.” He drew a gun from his hip, and Iver moved away from the bars.

  “What the hell are you doing, Gilbert?”

  “Taser,” Gilbert said. “For my own protection if you try to escape.”

  But the expression on Gilbert’s face read entirely different. No fear. Only a perverse sort of anticipation. “You sure you want to make that call now?”

  And suddenly, Iver wasn’t sure he’d have a future after all.

  CHAPTER 55

  KYLIE

  Kylie tried to reach Sheriff Davis a half dozen more times, then spoke to the weekend Dispatch officer, who tried Sullivan and Smith and a couple of other officers. No one knew where Davis was. Vogel wasn’t reachable either—he never was on the weekends—and Gilbert’s phone was shut off. The drive from Glendive felt interminable, and as she sped past the turnoff for Alvin Tanner’s house, it seemed impossible that only seven hours had passed since she’d found him dead.

  As she drove into Hagen, the wind was blowing hard, a constant pressure nudging the car toward the centerline. The sky was quickly growing dark, turning the afternoon as black as nighttime. It was going to storm, and from the look of the sky, it was going to be a nasty one.

  Kylie sped through downtown, scanning the streets, nagged by the unrelenting sense that something would jump out, that the chaos in her head would be mirrored in town. But the streets looked like they always did—quiet and peaceful.

  She drove into the station parking lot and didn’t bother to pull into a spot, instead leaving the department car in front of the building. As she ran for the front entrance, a strong gust whipped her hair against her face, and she had to fight to open the door against the pressure of the wind. She stepped into the quiet vacuum of the lobby in time to notice the first snowflakes fall.

  The receptionist’s desk was empty on a Saturday, so Kylie blew past, using her key card to get into the main office. She scanned the bullpen, but it was quiet, so she ran straight to the jail.

  The low voices of men talking drifted down the hall, and she slowed down to listen.

  “I get to make a phone call, Carl.”

  “I think we’ll just have to wait.” Gilbert’s voice.

  Kylie drew her weapon and opened the door slowly, moving heel to toe until she was in the doorway. Carl Gilbert stood with his back to her.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” Kylie said.

  Larson’s hands shot into the air. “Don’t shoot.”

  Gilbert spun around. “What the—” He saw the gun, and his mouth snapped shut.

  Larson finally noticed the gun wasn’t aimed at him and moved to the far side of the cell.

  Gilbert slowly lifted his hands. “What are you doing?”

  “Take the gun from your holster and lower it to the floor. Slowly.”

  Gilbert looked behind him as though she might have been speaking to someone else.

  “You, Gilbert,” she said.

  “What the hell?”

  “I’m not screwing around. Do it now.”

  “I’ll let him make the damn phone call. You don’t need the gun.”

  “Nice try.”

  Carl Gilbert looked nervous now. Something clinked between his teeth. A hard candy.

  “Gun,” she repeated. “Now.”

  Gilbert kept his right hand in the air and removed the gun with his left. The movement sparked a memory. Pete McIntosh had said that some people walked the Glendive park loop from the right and others from the left. It had looked like Jenna Hitchcock’s killer came from the left. She watched Gilbert’s left hand, his dominant hand. Were left-handed people more likely to walk left to right? Gilbert set the gun on the floor, and she moved toward him. “Where is Lily Baker? What did you do with her?”

  “What are you talking about?” Larson asked from the cell, his voice pitched high. “What’s happened to her?”

  Gilbert shook his head. “You’re confused, Kylie. I haven’t seen Lily Baker since . . . not since the hospital room yesterday.”

  “Give me the Taser, too,” Kylie said. Lily Baker had been tased at Larson’s house. Maybe they could get DNA off Gilbert’s Taser. Get him locked up first. Then she’d get him to talk. “The Taser,” she repeated.

  Gilbert passed it to her.

  She set it on the desk behind her without looking away. “Now, where are the keys to the jail?”

  “What? You’re going to bust him out?”

  “Where are the keys, Carl?” She edged her finger toward the trigger. “I swear to God I’ll shoot.”

  “They’re on my belt. Left side.”

  “Take them off and hand them to Larson. Slowly.”

  Larson stood frozen in the corner of the cell.

  Gilbert pulled a ring of keys off his belt and dangled them from one finger. The keys hung on several individual key rings, but the bundle was looped on a silver carabiner. Shiny and new.

  “Nice carabiner, Carl. You break your other one?”

  “What are you talking about?” His eyes went wide, and he looked genuinely terrified.

  She shook her head. She wasn’t buying it. “Come on, Iver. Take the keys and unlock that cell.”

  “Wh—what’s happening?” Larson asked, his gaze moving between the two of them.

  “You’re innocent, aren’t you?” she asked without taking her eyes off Gilbert.

  “Yes, but—” Larson stuttered.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Larson grabbed the keys from Gilbert and fumbled with them.

  “Kylie, what is going on? Explain to me what you’re doing.” Gilbert stared at the gun as he spoke.

  She moved closer, keeping the gun close to her body. If he reached for it, she’d shoot. Center mass. He’d be dead. She halted two feet away. That smell. “What are you eating?”

  “It’s just a candy.”

  “What kind?”

  “Uh.” Gilbert closed his mouth as though he didn’t know what the candy was. But she did.

  The jail door swung open, and Larson stepped out. “Inside,” she said to Gilbert.

  He shook his head. “What? Me? No way.”

  But Larson took hold of Gilbert and shoved him into the cell. “Where the hell is Lily?”

  Gilbert stumbled into the concrete box, and Larson slammed the door and locked it.

  “Give me the keys,”
she said, and Larson handed them to her. Without looking, she hooked the carabiner onto her belt and squatted down to retrieve Gilbert’s gun.

  She shoved the gun beneath her waistband at the back of her pants and holstered her own weapon.

  Gilbert clung to the bars. “You can’t lock me in here. You’re going to lose your job, you crazy bitch.”

  “Where is Lily Baker?” she repeated.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Kylie shook her head. “If something happens to her, I swear—”

  “I don’t have Lily Baker. I didn’t do anything.”

  Kylie halted, the department parking lot coming back into her mind. Gilbert’s cruiser hadn’t been there. “Where’s your patrol car?”

  “I’m not telling you a goddamn thing until you let me out of here!”

  Just then, the jail door opened again. Steve Cannon peered into the room. “What’s going on?”

  Kylie turned to Cannon. “There’s a way to track the patrol cars, right?”

  He glanced at her gun and took a step backward. “What’s he doing in the cell? And why—” He pointed toward Larson.

  “Not now, Cannon,” Kylie snapped. “I need to find Gilbert’s cruiser. You have a way to track them?”

  “She’s crazy!” Gilbert screamed. “Cannon, get me out of here.”

  “Don’t you dare,” she said to Cannon, who looked momentarily afraid. “Tell me how to track the cars.”

  “It’s an online system,” he said with a furtive glance at Gilbert. “Standard for police vehicles.”

  “I need you to track Gilbert’s cruiser and call me with its whereabouts.”

  “My car’s there!” Gilbert shouted. “Parked in the lot.”

  Kylie ignored him. She had to find Lily Baker. “Can you do it?” she asked Cannon.

  “Sure,” Cannon said, nodding toward the jail cell. “But Gilbert? Don’t you think—”

  “If you let him out of there, I will personally kick your ass. Are we clear?”

  Cannon looked between her and Gilbert and nodded slowly.

  “Now, how soon can you get me the location?” she asked.