Enigma

by Catherine Coulter

  Jack said, “I hope it’s really hurting him.” He went down on his haunches and studied the boot prints on the rock-strewn ground. “Looks like he’s disabled. You can see they were in a big hurry to leave this spot. I’ll bet the big guy had a shoulder under Manta Ray’s arm, helping him. If so, that’s going to slow them down. Look at those tracks, they’re headed across the ridge down to where, Duke?”

  “To Clover Bottom Creek. It doesn’t make sense, why, all of a sudden, are they in a hurry? With Manta Ray’s bad heel, why wouldn’t they stay here? There are enough trees for protection, not many people hike this way.”

  “But they wouldn’t know that,” Chief said. “Maybe it was their plan all along, cut across the ridge and head down to the creek. There’s lots of cover there, a good place to stay put for a while.”

  Cam said, “They didn’t even take the time to make Manta Ray a crutch. Why not? Even with the big dude helping him, it’s going to be tough getting him across the ridge and flat-out dangerous climbing down to the creek.”

  Duke said, “If it were me, I’d have stayed here.”

  Jack scanned the area, said to himself more than anyone else, “Why wouldn’t they believe they’re safe here?”

  Duke said, “They’ve got to have a sat radio. Maybe someone called, told them that young hiker they murdered was found. They’d be worried the forest would be full of dogs and law enforcement soon.”

  Cam turned away from an incredible limestone cliff in the distance, her head cocked to one side, and said slowly, “No, that’s not it. There hasn’t been time for that to get out. Their not staying here couldn’t have anything to do with the hiker’s murder.”

  Jack said, “Look at the smaller boot prints.” He rose, followed them. “She’s walking quickly away from the other two, going behind this boulder, and she stops. Then she turns right around and walks back. She’s pacing. Why?”

  Cam studied the tracks. “As Duke said, they’ve got to have a sat phone. I’m thinking someone called them, told them to move out, to leave the ridge fast.”

  Jack was frowning. “How could this someone who called them know anyone is looking for them?”

  Chief said, “Duke and I both told our people, but who would they tell? Not some criminal mastermind who came around asking questions, that’s for sure.”

  Duke nodded. “Still, this site shows us they made some big decisions up here, and it was quick. Chief, how about calling your guys, having them focus their patrols on Clover Bottom Creek Road.”

  “Even if they do know we’re after them,” Jack said, hiking up his backpack, “I think we can catch them before they get to that road.”

  They set out along the ridge, with incredible views in all directions, Jack in the lead. He moved quickly, but always with an eye on the tracks. The sun was brutal overhead. Soon Cam was sweating from the pace Jack set. She focused on keeping her breathing smooth and steady.

  Suddenly Jack stopped, leaned down, and picked up a small piece of paper.

  They gathered around him. “Look at this, one of them tore open an aspirin packet and a piece fell off.”

  Cam said, “So, they stopped because Manta Ray is hurting, despite the help, hurting enough for more aspirin.”

  Chief said, “Good, the bugger’s miserable.”

  Duke sniffed the air, dropped his voice to a whisper. “They’ve got to be close. Let’s keep it as quiet as we can.”

  They started down the barren eastern side of the ridge strewn with rocks and gullies of all sizes, gouged out by rainwater running down into the creek drainage. Jack paused as they approached some thick scrubs halfway down the ridge. “Look, Manta Ray fell, took the big man with him. You can see the woman’s gone down on her knees to help them up.” He saw a mishmash of boot prints that cut away from the overgrown shrubs, toward less steep and dangerous terrain. Jack picked up their tracks quickly, saw they were moving slowly, cutting back and forth to stay on as level ground as possible, but steadily downhill.

  “They stopped here again,” Jack said. “Take a look.”

  As Chief leaned down to study the tracks, a shot rang out, clear and loud in the still air. Chief grabbed his side and dropped to his knees.

  25

  CAFETERIA

  WASHINGTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  EARLY TUESDAY AFTERNOON

  Savich and Sherlock found Kara Moody and Dr. Janice sitting in the crowded hospital cafeteria. When Kara saw them and waved, they saw hope leap into her eyes. Dr. Janice had a hold of Kara’s hand, squeezed it. “Hello, Dillon, Sherlock. Kara and I have been having some lunch. Please join us.” She paused. “Have you learned anything?”

  Sherlock leaned down, hugged Kara, whispered against her cheek, “We’ve got some good leads, and there are things I need to tell you. Things are coming together, Kara.” It wasn’t too much of a stretch.

  Savich took Dr. Janice’s hand. “Is that bagel smeared with cream cheese?”

  “Almost,” Dr. Janice said. “It’s nonfat, but I can almost convince myself it’s the real thing. Better for old stomachs, I guess.”

  Dr. Janice had been a fixture in Savich’s life for as long as he could remember, and she was getting up there in years, no way around that, but he didn’t like being faced with that reality.

  Kara scoffed. “Listen to you, Dr. Janice. I’m counting on you to be around with me to celebrate Alex’s twenty-first birthday.”

  Dr. Janice laughed. “My dear, you can count on it. I might need Alex to carry me to the cake, but I’ll be there.”

  Savich left Sherlock with Kara and joined the cafeteria line to fetch both of them tuna salad sandwiches. Sherlock settled back in her chair and studied Kara’s face, taking stock. She was pale, her eyes red-rimmed, but with Dr. Janice’s help, she was holding it together. She was wearing jeans and sneakers and a large white shirt with orange and yellow paint smears on the cuffs that Dr. Janice had brought her from home. “We went to your room on the maternity floor, and the nurse told us you’d come to the cafeteria with Dr. Janice. Kara, I hope you got some sleep after we left last night.”

  “One of the FBI agents escorted me back to my room, and a nurse forced a sleeping pill down my throat, so yes, I slept okay.” She didn’t tell Sherlock about the nightmare at dawn that jerked her out of sleep, sweating and terrified. She dredged up a grin. “I know they would have discharged me already. I heard one of the nursing supervisors talking about it. But after all that’s happened I guess they want to make a show of support rather than push me out, afraid I might sue them. And the thing is, I really don’t want to go home—I can’t. Not yet. Not until I have Alex back.” She shook her head at herself. “And there’s John Doe. If he wakes up, I want to know.” She picked up the half of her ham sandwich she hadn’t touched, looked at it like she’d never seen it before, took a small bite.

  “Sherlock, Dr. Janice and I were discussing the man who tried to kill John Doe last night. As I told Agent Haller, I can’t say he’s the same man in the video who helped kidnap Alex. He was wearing a surgical mask last night.

  “Who are these people? Why did they try to kill John Doe? I saw his arms, Sherlock, all those needle marks. What did they do to him?”

  “I told you we’re going to find out, Kara. Let me tell you about our interview with Sylvie Vaughn.”

  Dr. Janice said, “Would you like me to leave now? This is all confidential, isn’t it?”

  “Please don’t go,” Kara said, her hand on Dr. Janice’s arm. “I want you to hear everything. Please.”

  “You’re free to stay, Dr. Janice,” Sherlock said. “And free to jump in with any questions you have.”

  “All right, but I don’t know how much good I’ll be to you.”

  “Let’s get started then. Kara, are you absolutely sure you never saw John Doe before he burst into your house on Sunday?”

  “No, I already told you that. Why are you asking me again?”

  “Bear with me. Think ba
ck, Kara. Is it at all possible he was at Sylvie Vaughn’s birthday party for her husband nine months ago?”

  “It’s possible I didn’t notice him with everyone moving around from group to group. What about Sylvie? Did she recognize him?”

  “When Agent Butler and I visited her this morning, she claimed she’d never seen him before.”

  Kara studied Sherlock’s face. “But you didn’t believe her?”

  “Let me say she’s a person of interest until proven otherwise. I’ll know a lot more about Sylvie Vaughn very soon now.”

  “You told me not to contact her, not to tell her about Alex or his kidnapping.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t. I wanted to be the one to tell her.”

  Dr. Janice said slowly, “You wanted to catch her by surprise, see her face, her body language when you told her?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And something alerted you?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  Kara dropped the half sandwich to her paper plate and leaned toward Sherlock. “I can’t believe that, really. We were so close. She was shocked, wasn’t she? Really worried about me?”

  “She did say that,” Sherlock said. She took Kara’s hand. “But Dr. Janice is right. I felt something was off; something didn’t sound quite right. I’m sorry, Kara.

  “Within three minutes of our leaving, she made a call to another number in Baltimore. We’ll know soon who that number belongs to. I asked her to send us a list of the guests at the birthday party nine months ago. She emailed a partial list to Agent Butler, and Agent Butler and Agent Haller are calling them.

  “Agent Butler and I left a GPS tracker on the underside of her car. Wherever she goes, whoever she sees, we’ll know about it. Until then, we all have a lot to do.” She saw Kara looked bewildered and scared, wondering if one of her best friends had betrayed her. “Kara, could you help with that guest list? We could give you and Dr. Janice their names and photos and let you see the transcripts of their interviews. That might help us.”

  “Yes, of course I can do that,” Kara said. Sherlock heard the new energy in her voice. “Dr. Janice, are you in?”

  “I think it’s a fine idea. Bring on the list.” Dr. Janice raised her bottle of water in a small salute to Sherlock, knew she was helping keep Kara busy and focused outside herself.

  Savich set down her tuna fish salad sandwich in front of Sherlock and handed her a bottle of water. “I heard you adding to the group looking at the partygoers.”

  Sherlock smiled at him, lightly nudged his shin with her booted foot. “You heard right. They’re both on board.”

  Kara said slowly, searching Sherlock’s face, “But if Sylvie did know about it, if she did set me up, then our entire friendship was a lie. It would mean she knew I was going to be drugged, maybe she knows who John Doe is.” She was shaking her head back and forth. “It’s still so hard to believe. I mean, Sylvie was one of my best friends in Baltimore. Why would she do something like that?”

  “All good questions. We’ll have the answers soon, I promise you, Kara,” Sherlock continued, matter-of-fact. “One of the theories of the case has been that the kidnapper might be Alex’s father, the man who roofied you at that party. It’s common enough, child abduction by a parent, especially by a parent who has no hope of custody. We know now that isn’t the case.”

  She drew a deep breath. “I have something to tell you Kara, something that might be difficult for you, something Agent Butler found out this morning while we were interviewing Sylvie Vaughn.”

  Kara was staring at her, clearly puzzled. Sherlock saw her reach for Dr. Janice’s hand.

  “Agent Butler got a phone call from Dr. Franz Benedict, one of our DNA specialists at the FBI. You remember we’d asked him for a DNA profile of you and Alex so we would have a DNA fingerprint to verify Alex’s identity when we find him. Dillon had also sent over John Doe’s DNA yesterday, asked him to do a rush profile so we’d have his as well, see if we could find him in a DNA database. He happened to notice that some of the DNA markers were strangely similar, something that’s highly unlikely, so he ran a paternity index. Kara, it was positive for John Doe.

  “Kara, John Doe is Alex’s father.”

  26

  DANIEL BOONE NATIONAL FOREST

  EARLY TUESDAY AFTERNOON

  “Get down!” Jack yelled, and threw himself on Chief, rolled both of them behind a low outcropping of rock. More shots, bullets ricocheting around them. Cam heard a bullet smash a rock not two inches from her head. Her heart kicked into her throat as she dove behind a boulder to the ground.

  Duke was soon on his belly beside her, his Beretta in his hand. He called out, “Is Chief all right?”

  “Hit in the side,” Jack called back. “I don’t know yet how bad it is. Both of you, stay down!”

  Duke said, “Sounded like a handgun, from some distance. Did you see a flash, anything to give us their direction, Jack?”

  “No. There’s open ground ahead, and they’ve got the advantage of camouflage in those trees and a good line of sight. We’re too exposed to move. Stay down, I’ve got to get the bleeding stopped.”

  Cam came up on her knees and looked around the edge of the boulder, scanning. Another shot blew apart a small rock a foot from her knee. But not before she saw a flash.

  She called out, “Shooter about thirty yards, one o’clock from my position. Not from the ground—maybe from that oak tree.” She didn’t wait. “Lay down cover for me, Duke.”

  Duke set down the Remington, raised his Beretta, and fired six fast rounds toward the oak tree as Cam reared up and fired toward where she’d seen the flash of light. Another barrage of bullets came from her left and sent shards of rock blasting like missiles into the air, one striking her arm. She felt a slap of icy cold, then nothing. She pulled back, called out, “Two shooters firing now. From one o’clock and three o’clock. The three o’clock’s on the ground, in that knot of maples. Jack? Is Chief all right?”

  Chief himself called out, “I’ll be okay, Cam, you guys stay down.”

  Was this a standoff? They couldn’t move out, they’d make easy targets. Cam felt a jab of hot pain, stared at the blood streaking down the back of her hand. A spike of rock was sticking out of her arm. She looked over at Duke still hugging the ground, taking quick looks around the big rock in front of him. “Sorry, Duke, do you think you could help me a minute?”

  Duke looked back at her, saw the rock arrowed into her upper arm and rolled over to her. “Damn. Sorry, Cam, I didn’t even notice, I’ve been looking out there—”

  “I just noticed myself. Pull it out, okay? I’ve got another shirt in my backpack to tie around it. Duke, do it really fast.”

  He helped her shrug out of her backpack, pull out a shirt, and rip off a sleeve. His eyes widened. “Cam, what’s that over there?”

  She jerked her head to look and Duke pulled the shard of rock out of her arm. She felt a brutal shock of pain but kept in the scream. When she could breathe again, she said, “That was good, Duke, thank you.” She swallowed bile, steadied herself as he pressed down hard on her arm. One of the shooters must have seen movement, because more bullets struck the rocks in front of them.

  Then there was silence.

  Cam whispered between gritted teeth, “Do they think they’ve put us out of commission? Killed one of us?”

  Duke said. “They had to have heard Jack tell us Chief’s wounded in the side. I don’t know what they think about us, the rock shard was an accident.”

  He tore off the other shirtsleeve, wrapped it tightly around her arm. Despite the pain, she grinned at Duke wadding up the first bloody shirtsleeve and stuffing it along with the bloody rock shard into his bio bag. He said, “Chief’s got the first-aid kit in his backpack. Your arm should be okay for a while until we can get some antibiotic for the wound.” He knotted her shirtsleeve a bit tighter. “How does it feel, Cam?”

  It hurts like crazy, but she said, “I’m good to go. It’s been ma
ybe three minutes since they’ve fired. Manta Ray’s safety has got to be their first concern. Do you think they’ve hauled him out of here? Or do you think they’re waiting for one of us to stick his head up?”

  “Let’s see.” Duke hooked Cam’s backpack over the barrel of his Remington and raised it in the air.

  No bullets. Duke waited a moment, then tossed a rock off into the bushes. Still nothing.

  Jack and Chief were listening, too. “You think they’re gone?”

  “Let me finish here and we’ll find out,” Jack said. “This might hurt a bit, so feel free to curse a blue streak.” Chief let loose while Jack treated the wound. Jack was grinning when he said, “I never heard that said about a mule before, Chief. Your wound isn’t bad, through and through, a ridge plowed through the flesh on your side. The bleeding’s about stopped. I’ve had medic training, so I know what I’m doing.” Jack wrapped one of Chief’s shirts over the gauze bandage and knotted it off, tightened his belt over the padding.

  “How does that feel?”

  “I’ll live. You’re a sadist, but you’re fast. Thanks, Jack. I owe you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Jack knew they were lucky only one of them had been wounded in the ambush. He said what both of them were thinking. “If you hadn’t leaned down to look at those tracks, it would have been worse.”

  “Yeah, call me Mr. Lucky,” Chief said. “My wife’s going to blow a fit.”

  Duke and Cam crawled over to Jack and Chief. Duke said, “I’ve been showing them a target for a couple of minutes, no takers. And they didn’t fire at me and Cam just now.”

  “No reason to take any chances,” Jack said, never looking up. “Let’s stay down until I finish bandaging up Chief and we’re ready to go. When we move out, I think it’s safer to flank them to the south if we’re going to move toward that tree line—” He looked up, spotted the bandage on Cam’s arm. He felt a leap of alarm, swallowed. “Tell me what happened.”