Cold Case Secrets

by Maggie K. Black

  And she’d been talking to him?

  Fear mingled with courage in her eyes, just as they had back before. But now he didn’t know where the fear was coming from. Was she scared of the information she had? Of Hal Turner? Of me?

  “I got a letter that was purported to be from Hal Turner—”

  “When?”

  “Three days ago,” she said. “He gave me the location of the cabin and told me he’d left proof there that he was innocent of all the charges he’d been convicted of and somebody else had set him up.”

  Frustration filled his body like a wave until it felt like a physical, invisible wall pushing his heart away from hers.

  How could this possibly have anything to do with Faith’s locket?

  “And you didn’t report it to police?” Jacob asked.

  “What? That a criminal had written to me saying he was innocent? Criminals behind bars and the general public contact me every day with wild and crazy criminal theories. Ninety-nine point nine percent are ludicrous and from the kind of people who’ve probably reported to every law enforcement unit and media outlet. If we took every single one seriously, I’d spend all day calling in tips.”

  “Except you chased this one out to the woods a few hours before a prison break.”

  “The letter said nothing about a prison break!” Her voice rose. “If it had, I’d have reported it to police immediately. It said that he was innocent of the crimes he’d been accused of and had left evidence here. Look, I’m not saying I believe he’s innocent. I’m just telling you what happened. Then we get to the cabin and the only evidence we find is your sister’s locket.”

  And how exactly did the death of a twelve-year-old girl from a small town in Ontario, whose father was a farmer and mother was a nurse, have anything to do with a dirty cop’s crimes two years later and hundreds of miles away?

  It didn’t. It just didn’t. There wasn’t a theory far-fetched enough to make it so.

  “You’re saying Hal Turner lured you here to find my sister’s locket?”

  “He says he didn’t send the letter and doesn’t know anything about the locket!”

  “When?” Jacob demanded. “When did he tell you this?”

  Her eyes closed. Her lips moved in silent prayer. Then she opened her eyes again.

  “Right now,” she said, and it was like he could hear something strengthen in her voice. “He told me right now, not five minutes ago in the woods. That’s why I wasn’t calling you back. He got the jump on me and threatened me with a shiv. I took the shiv. He told me not to get in the helicopter or trust the cops because The Elders were out to kill me. Then he ran away. I tried to shoot him, but I froze.”

  Now the frustration that had crashed over his heart like a wave broke free of its floodgates and coursed through his veins.

  “He told me he got an anonymous letter from The Elders explaining everything about the prison break before it happened,” she said. “He said he destroyed the letter, but it told him the prison break was happening and everything to do!”

  “Grace—”

  “I’m not saying I believe him! I’m not saying I was right! I’m just telling you what happened!”

  The helicopter roared louder. It was an odd noise and a loud noise, screeching like he’d never heard before. His eyes looked up. The helicopter was spinning, looping like someone had reached up, grabbed it and spun it like a child’s toy.

  “Come on!” he said. His hand reached for her arm. “This isn’t over, but we’ve got to go.”

  But then he watched as the helicopter plummeted, sideways, falling and spinning toward the horizon to their east.

  Lord, I don’t know what—

  Someone tumbled from the helicopter, their body free-falling for a moment and then their parachute opened. The helicopter dropped from view and a loud and deafening bang seemed to the split the sky.

  Their rescue helicopter had crashed.

  NINE

  The parachute hovered briefly on the horizon with a figure suspended underneath from the harness before drifting behind the trees. Jacob’s heart pounded. The helicopter had crashed. It had somehow suddenly fallen from the sky. The thought pounded through Jacob’s mind like a deafening heartbeat. No! Please! God have mercy!

  Their rescue was gone, along with maybe the lives of anyone who hadn’t managed to leap to safety. A fellow officer was now stranded alone in the woods. Jacob’s eyes closed as panicked, desperate prayers for his colleague’s safety poured from his lips. The sound of the crash seemed to echo through the forest like a bomb had gone off, mingled with the painful high-pitched screech of metal rotors still fighting to spin against rock.

  Then suddenly he realized Grace was in his arms.

  Had he reached for her in that moment of fear? Or had she been the one to step up against his chest? He had no idea. All he knew was that his one good arm was tightening around her, pulling her in so close that as his lips moved in prayer he felt them brush over her head. Her arms were around him. Her hands clutched his back. The gentle murmur of prayers flowed from Grace’s lips. She prayed that everyone who’d been on board had managed to leap before the crash and were now safe. He closed his eyes and prayed with her for God’s mercy.

  Then silence fell.

  The bang faded, the screech of the rotors stopped, and for a moment, the vacuum of sound it left was so quiet that it was like they’d been plunged into total silence. Slowly, the normal sounds of running water, wind in the trees and their own ragged breaths began to return to their ears. They untangled slowly and pulled out of each other’s arms.

  The fear and panic that filled Grace’s eyes were a mirror of what he felt in his own. And he felt everything important they needed to talk about, even needed to argue about, recede for now to the back of his mind.

  “Tell me they survived the crash, Jacob. Please, tell me whoever was in that helicopter survived the crash.” Her words came out are barely more than a whisper.

  “I saw someone leap with a parachute,” he said, and although they were stepping back, he felt his hand reach for hers and squeeze it tightly. “I don’t know if there was anyone else on board. But my brother Max and sister-in-law Daisy survived a pretty hairy helicopter crash once, in the same type of Search and Rescue helicopter.”

  “How did this even happen?” Her voice shook. “How does a helicopter just plummet like that?”

  How did it, Lord? I don’t know. And I wish I did.

  “Maybe there was a mechanical malfunction,” he said. “That’s the most obvious explanation.”

  The skies had been clear, without so much as a cloud. The idea that somebody was hiding out in the woods with the kind of weapon that would take down a helicopter was ludicrous and besides, he’d have seen the attack. No, this was more like the helicopter had just stopped flying and fallen from the sky.

  “It could also have been a medical emergency,” he admitted. “Trent, my brother, said that a random illness swept over the Search and Rescue team last night,” he said slowly and almost as if to himself. “Something like severe food poisoning, only worse. They were shipping RCMP in from other provinces to help with rescue efforts. But with the storm shutting the major airports, everything is taking so much longer. I... I don’t know how long it will be until another helicopter will be sent. But they will be sending rescue. Both to the helicopter crash site and for us.”

  A sudden unsettling suspicion tickled at the back of his mind, as the thoughts he’d pushed away about Hal Turner, The Elders and the fight they’d been having right before the crash began to clamor to be heard. His brain felt whiplashed, pushing away from Grace whenever he realized he couldn’t trust her, and then finding himself inexplicably pulled back to her again. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that Turner had told Grace that corrupt cops were out to kill her. And even though not a single iota of evidence had ever been f
ound to prove that The Elders were anything more than one criminal’s desperate lie and fantasy story, he didn’t much like the fact that a convicted criminal had warned Grace not to get on the helicopter minutes before it crashed.

  “We have to get there,” Grace said, her words coming out short and fast. “We have to get to the crash site, find whoever leaped out and see if there’s anything we can do.”

  “It’s miles away,” he said. “It will take hours, and if we leave here it might take longer for rescue to find us.”

  But even as he felt his head shake, he knew she was right. He owed it to those he served with to try and make it there.

  “There will be medical supplies on the helicopter, right?” Grace added. “And a radio, a phone and other supplies?”

  “You’re right,” he said.

  “We can get there faster if we take my canoe. Hopefully it survived the storm. The river will be swollen from the rain but—”

  He squeezed her hand tightly. “I said you’re right. We’re going to go to the helicopter crash site and see if we can find whoever leaped. Right now.” Relief visibly flooded her form. He pulled his hand from hers. Then he turned away and reached for her borrowed cell phone. “I just need to make a quick call as we walk.”

  “Wait.” Her hand grabbed his arm before he could dial. “What about The Elders?”

  “The Elders don’t exist,” he said sharply. “They’re a myth and a ludicrous conspiracy theory invented by a selfish and narcissistic crook to try to cover for the fact that he extorted criminals, turned a blind eye to the dealers who paid him and killed two people. He ruined the reputation of cops across the country, which led to dozens of criminals he’d put away appealing their convictions. Some even got out! I’ve served with cops who saw the investigations they worked on get shredded in the courts and the criminals they helped put away set free only to reoffend. Hal Turner spat on the badge and sold out everything we believe in. To serve and protect. That’s the Toronto police motto he signed on for. He did neither and betrayed both.”

  A breeze moved through the morning air. Grace pulled her hand away from his arm.

  “You hate him, don’t you?” Grace asked. “Turner. You really hate him.”

  “I don’t hate him,” Jacob said automatically. “I don’t hate anybody.”

  “You hate the man who killed your sister,” Grace said softly. “Nobody can blame you for that. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t angry.”

  Okay, fair enough. But still.

  “Grace,” he said. “I’m a guy who believes in God and that means believing in God’s forgiveness. I don’t get to pick and choose who’s worthy of it.”

  “‘Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you...’” Grace said slowly, as if pulling the words from somewhere in her distant memory. “That’s New Testament, right? My mom used to have that verse up in her bathroom, right over the mirror.”

  “Yup, Ephesians,” he said.

  “Mom always told me that forgiveness had a lot of layers,” she said. “That it was a process and not something that happened all at once. She says sometimes you’ve got to forgive the same person for the same sin over, and over, and over again in new and deeper ways.”

  He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, or if she was talking about him or herself. So instead, he turned to the phone.

  “We only have enough juice for a super quick phone call,” he said, “and I’m calling the one cop I trust more than anyone else on the planet: my brother Trent.”

  Her head shook. “But what if it’s possible, even just a little tiny bit possible, that Turner is right, and The Elders are real and there is a group of cops out there trying to kill me and frame someone for your sister’s murder?”

  “Look, I know you’ve never had a sibling,” he said, turning back. “And I know that not everyone has a family as close-knit and supportive as mine. But my brother Trent and soon-to-be sister-in-law, Chloe, kept our sister-in-law Daisy safe and her identity secret when she was on the run from police. Trent coordinated with another detective under deep cover to help rescue our brother Nick and my other sister-in-law Erica from a train heist...”

  His voice trailed off as suddenly another thought jolted his heart, something he’d forgotten in the chaos that had unfolded. Liam Bearsmith, the undercover detective who’d helped Nick and Erica and their son make it home alive was now lying in a coma because of whatever he knew about Faith’s death.

  “You okay?” Grace asked.

  He blinked. “I’m as all right as I’m going to be under the circumstances. Trent told me the person who’d promised me evidence about my sister’s death had his cover blown and is now lying in a coma.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Grace’s hand rose to her lips. “God have mercy on him.”

  “Amen,” he completed her prayer. “Anyway, my point is, if there’s anyone on this planet I trust right now to help get us out of this, it’s him. Besides, now I’ve got to explain why I might be a little bit late for his wedding rehearsal tonight.”

  * * *

  Her canoe paddle dipped crisply and smoothly into the water, as they followed the quickly moving river through the woods. The sun sent golden flashes of light dancing over the surface as the swollen river wound its way around fallen trees, rockslides and debris. Broken branches and split trunks punctuated the woods on either side. The storm had been devastating. She’d felt a closeness with Jacob, a connection, a trust that she’d never felt with anyone before. But when the storm had ended, her father had gotten the jump on her and the helicopter had crashed...

  Her head shook as a dozen conflicting emotions flooded through her core.

  And now they were canoeing, together, with her in the bow and Jacob in the stern. He’d barely spoken a word since his short phone conversation with his brother. From the snippets she’d been able to catch, Jacob had been really blunt and direct with him about everything that had happened and what she’d told him. Trent had promised to look into it and do whatever he could. Then the phone had died. For now, all they could do was wait, paddle and hope they could find a phone in the helicopter crash site.

  Could they really trust Trent? Could she trust Jacob? And yet whenever she looked into Jacob’s eyes, she could see something there, something deep and real, that pulled her in and made her long for the type of emotional closeness and partnership she’d never felt before.

  She didn’t know how to begin to define what she felt for him, only that she’d never felt that way about anyone else. And what difference did it make, anyway? Even if she weren’t a journalist, Jacob would never let himself get close to the daughter of a criminal he clearly despised. He’d probably forgive her for not telling him that Hal Turner was her father. Because that was the kind of good man Jacob was. But he’d never look at her the same way again.

  Then suddenly another thought hit her like a well-aimed right hook: she felt safe with Jacob. Despite everything that had happened between them, she felt completely and utterly safe. Even when they were arguing, even when she was outright defying him, even when he was frustrated with her and their voices rose, she’d never once for a moment wondered if he was going to insult her or threaten her, let alone hurt her.

  Somehow even while fighting with Jacob, she felt closer to him than she’d ever been to anyone she wasn’t fighting with.

  “I’m sorry!” she called suddenly. She glanced back over her shoulder briefly. Jacob had his paddle wedged under his injured arm and was doing the J-stroke with his left. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Turner. I didn’t know if I could trust you. And I should have.”

  His green eyes were wide, but she had to turn back and face the river again before he spoke.

  “I get it, I guess,” he said. “You’re a journalist, you had a source to protect and it’s not like I’d give
n you a reason to think I was friendly before yesterday.”

  Maybe the words should’ve been comforting, but they weren’t. It sounded like he was trying to be understanding, which wasn’t the same as actually getting it.

  “Let me be clear,” he added, while she was still trying to figure out what to say next. “I believe that Turner sold you a big old bag of baloney. I don’t believe in The Elders. I don’t believe The Elders had anything to do with the prison break, or the helicopter crash, or my sister’s locket showing up in the cabin. I also think you made the completely wrong call and should’ve told me everything sooner. I don’t think you should’ve ever come out here into these woods. But I’m not going to hold a grudge over the fact that you made the choices you did.”

  Yes, but not holding a grudge wasn’t the same as wanting to still grab a coffee or having anything to do with her once they left these woods. She took a deep breath.

  “Do you think Turner killed your sister?” she asked.

  “I think someone planted the locket shortly before we found it,” he said. “And besides the two of us, Cutter, Turner and Driver are the only people we know for certain are out in these woods. And again, Driver is younger than us and was only about ten when my sister was killed, which rules him out. He doesn’t fit the profile.”

  She sat up straighter and only realized she’d stopped paddling when she felt the tug of water threatening to pull the paddle from her hands. “You profiled the guy?”

  “Not officially,” he said. “But I have this idea in my head of who he is. Violent, aggressive, a repeat criminal who’s probably somewhere between the ages of fifty and seventy now, I’m guessing.”

  Her eyes rose to the horizon. The fact that she still hadn’t told him Turner was her father gnawed at her. But what would it change, really? Jacob would be leaving her life as soon as all this was over. Her father would be on the run until he was caught, and if he tried to contact her again, she’d report it to the police. There was no good reason for her to tell him.