Killman Creek

by Rachel Caine

  I wish this was an official FBI operation, with covering vehicles and drone support, but on this, we'd agreed to go without that sanction. Mike's already way out on a limb, the way he'd involved us in Wichita, not to mention the cabin in Georgia. If he gets results they'll forgive and forget, but meanwhile, drawing federal resources--or even local ones--is out of the picture.

  Another thing that rasps against my nerves: Mike's confidence. He's good at throwing up false faces.

  "Nothing yet," I tell him. The tablet isn't giving anything up. We watch the man in the Melvin Royal fright mask make his way carefully to a white panel van, and he nearly goes down as he shifts his weight to toss Gwen inside. I feel it like a punch in the guts, the way she falls like a sack of sand, no attempt to catch herself. Is she alive? God, what if he killed her in the room? The thought almost makes me lunge forward, but I get control with an effort. Absalom wanted her for something special. They won't kill her out of hand.

  That sounds desperate, even in my head. I could have misjudged this completely.

  I could have gotten Gwen killed.

  The man's slip on the ice means that Gwen's only halfway in the van, and I see her twitch, and her feet move slowly, as if searching for a floor.

  "She's okay," Mike's saying. "She's moving, man. She's fine."

  No, she's not fine. I know Gwen. She'd be up and fighting this maggot with everything she had, cuffed or not, if she could. As we watch, the man in the Melvin Royal mask climbs into the back of the van and disappears, and there's that gut punch again, only this time it rips deeper. What the fuck is he doing?

  Gwen's weakly moving feet are dragged into the dark, and for a long, suffocating moment, we can't see what's going on. I hear Mike say, "Hold on, wait," even before I know I've got my hand on the door release. His hand grabs a fistful of jacket and yanks me toward him. "Wait."

  "Wait for what? You know what kind of people we're dealing with!"

  If she couldn't move much, she probably couldn't scream, either, and that thought makes me strike his hand off me and pull my gun, and Mike slowly holds up a hand to signal his surrender.

  But when I turn my attention back to the van, I see the bastard climbing out again. I can just barely see the soft bottom of Gwen's socks, ghostly pale in the reflected light.

  I see her move. Thank God, I see her move.

  "Any word from--"

  "You check it," I tell him, shoving the tablet at him. I don't want to take my eyes off this man. He's concentrating on keeping his balance as he slams the doors closed, and as I watch, he uses a key to lock them. No windows in the cargo area. She's invisible now.

  But she's alive. She's still alive. And now we have to make sure she stays that way.

  "Nothing yet," Mike says. There's a thread of tension in him now, I can feel it. For a guy who keeps it completely locked down, that means he feels this is as wrong as I do. "Give it a minute."

  "It's been a goddamn minute," I tell him. "They're screwing me. They're not going to give him up."

  "We knew that was a possibility. We'll take him once he's out of the parking lot. They may have somebody else watching. We've got to try to get that intel."

  "Not if we risk losing her."

  "We're not going to lose her."

  The red light of the van's taillights comes on a second before his headlights do, and then he's moving backward, careful on the ice though he's got winter tires to combat the skids.

  I take the tablet from Mike. Come on, come on, you assholes . . .

  "Mike," I say. The van makes its way through the parking lot to the exit. Taillights flash again, red as a demon's eyes, and it makes a right turn. "Mike!"

  "Trust me," he says. "We're not going to lose him. But there isn't a lot of traffic out there to cover us. We need a lag."

  "We need to keep her in sight! Go! "

  He fires up the engine and puts the big vehicle in gear, and we glide out, too slowly. I want to jam the accelerator. The parking lot is bathed in chilly white light that reflects off the ice. He turns right and corrects a slight slide with ease.

  Mike nods at the shape of the white van ahead. It's taking a left turn under the freeway. In that lane he'll be making a U-turn and taking the access road the other direction.

  Mike takes his phone off the dashboard and hands it to me. "Watch the screen," he says. "Make sure we don't lose the signal."

  I'd been the one to put the tracking device under the van, once the man in the mask had disappeared inside Gwen's motel room; I'd barely made it back to the Jeep when her attacker came out again, carrying her. But having her go untracked wasn't an option, no way in hell. And, thank God, the marker on the screen shows a steady green. The van's emerging from the other side of the freeway underpass, turning left again. Heading north on the map.

  I give directions to Mike in a low voice, all my concentration on that light. The light represents safety. As long as we can see it, she's okay, and I can hold on to that.

  We take the first left turn. The sudden grit and bite of clean asphalt under the freeway is a shock after the smooth glide of ice, but it only lasts a few seconds, and then we're turning left again, and Mike has to control another skid.

  The green signal flickers.

  I look up from the screen. I can't see the van, but there's a slight rise ahead. It must be on the downhill curve. We have to slow down, because there's a spun-out sedan blocking the right lane of the access road, with a frustrated-looking woman in the front seat trying to get traction with tires that are too bald to grip. In other circumstances I'd feel sorry for her, but right now all I feel is fury that she's in the way. I see her stark, terrified face as we glide past her. Mike's an expertly trained driver, but I'm praying we don't end up blocked by something bigger.

  The signal blinks again. It's still ahead, though. "What the range of this thing?" I ask Mike.

  "Couple of miles," he says. "Why?"

  "It's flickering," I tell him.

  Mike doesn't say anything. No reassurance. When I look over at him, his face reminds me of those times back in the service, when he pretended everything was all right so convincingly that even I believed it.

  We crest the slick hill, and I look for the van ahead.

  It's not there. But there's another hill. It seems to be staying just ahead of us, just out of sight. Still on the map.

  "Goddamn it, speed up," I tell him. My heart is pounding, my palms sweating. Lot of adrenaline, and no good way to burn it off. All I can think about is her in that van, mixed with flashes of the pictures from Melvin Royal's crime scenes.

  "We're okay," he says. "Calm down. You're not going to help her by freaking out."

  I want to see that van. I want to know where she is. I need to see it.

  The glide downhill feels like a controlled skid; I can feel the back tires trying to pull free. The sleet's stopped. Thick clouds capture the city's orange-tinted lights and reflect them back to form an unreal, science-fiction sky.

  Everything feels wrong, and dangerous, and . . . Where the hell is that van?

  The signal flickers again, and as we make our way up the next hill, a steeper one, it looks on the map as if the van's stopped about half a mile ahead, because we're gaining on it. I don't tell Mike. He won't go any faster in these conditions anyway.

  I see the truck coming off the freeway just before it loses its shit. The driver's going too fast, and when he skids, he panics and wrenches the wheel; the pickup--too light, too unbalanced for these conditions--spins violently, hits a guardrail, tips, and spins midair over the barrier. It lands with a violent crash on its roof and slides right at us. Mike shouts a curse and tries to get us past. He nearly does.

  The truck clips the rear bumper of the Jeep, and we lose traction, and I grab for handholds as our vehicle spins out of control, picking up speed as it slides. Mike manages to ease it sideways, then straight again, and we both look back at the pickup behind us. The roof's half-crushed, and there's no movement inside. The dr
iver's hurt in there. Maybe dead.

  "Don't stop," I tell him. I hate saying it, but there's no choice. "Can't help him, Mike."

  "Fuck," Mike says. "Where's the van?"

  I look at the phone. "Stopped," I say. "Half a mile ahead." We've lost a minute already, but at least the van's not moving. They must have pulled off the road.

  "Fuck!" He grabs the phone from me and makes a call, reporting the accident and adding his badge number and contact information in clipped, crisp words that are fired like bullets. It takes a full minute we don't have, and I'm fighting a desperate need to pull that phone out of his hand. He disconnects and tosses me the phone as he eases forward again. Our Jeep took no damage, it seems. Or not enough to stop us.

  I flip the display back on again to the map.

  There's no blip.

  It's just intermittent, I tell myself. Wait. I do. I stare at the screen for a second. Five seconds. Ten. I feel the sick, hot weight condensing in the pit of my stomach. Sweat on my forehead. No. God, no.

  There's no signal.

  She's gone. She's gone.

  "Mike," I say. I think he can hear the desperation in it.

  "I'm going as fast as I can," he says. He is. The hill is steep, and slick as glass, and if he gooses it at all, we'll break traction and slide back.

  "The signal's failed," I say. I feel sick. Empty. "Get us there. Now."

  "They're right up ahead," he tells me. "Hang on. We're going to see them as soon as we come up to the top. Just hang on."

  I keep watching the screen, praying for a blip, a flicker, anything. This can't happen. It can't. They can't just make a whole van disappear.

  They can if they found the tracker and crushed it.

  We crest the hill. We can see for miles ahead. There are four vehicles in view, inching their way along. A red sedan. A police SUV, lights flaring as it makes a slow-motion progress. A black Jeep older than the one we're in, cruising at an unsafe speed. An eighteen-wheeler, sticking to access roads and slow, steady miles.

  I can't see a van. Any van. In these conditions, they couldn't get that far ahead of us. They can't disappear.

  I feel sick now, and I'm sweating. The flashing lights of the police car paint everything in lurid splashes.

  "Could be just ahead of the truck," Mike says. His control isn't as perfect now, and I can hear the worry. "Son of a bitch, where is he?"

  "Just go," I tell him. "Push it." I sound desperate. I am.

  We take off, moving faster now. We match the black Jeep's progress, which takes us past both the sedan and the cops; the latter give us cold looks, but I don't give a shit if we get stopped now. I put Gwen at risk. I stood by and watched her get abducted. I will fight anybody, badge or no badge, who gets in my way right now because we have to find her.

  There's no van in front of the tractor trailer.

  There's no van anywhere.

  There's no signal.

  There's no Gwen.

  We've lost her, and I can feel panic closing in, cold as sleet.

  "Go back," I tell him. I hear the edge in my voice. "They must have pulled off. Maybe they took a side road. Changed vehicles."

  "Sam--"

  "Just do it!" I feel like cut meat inside. I remember the rubber Melvin mask and taste bile. I manage to swallow it back. "We have to find her!"

  We do. We turn back on the slick road, find a way back. We check every side road, every lay-by, every building.

  The van is gone. I feel his hand roughly pat my shoulder, but I don't want comfort. I want this not to happen because if I'd done this, if I've killed her . . .

  The tablet I've almost forgotten lights up. A message has come in. I grab for it, and Mike puts the Jeep in park in the empty lot of a closed restaurant as I thumb the device on.

  The text is from Absalom. It says, You cheated. You think we wouldn't know? But we keep our word.

  A link comes in the next message. I click it.

  A map opens. It zooms in, and with shaking fingers, I pinch in to get an overview. What am I looking at?

  It's a map of Kansas. There's a pin in the map, in a rural area outside of Wichita.

  I look up at Mike. His face is blank. I wonder if he feels the same deep, scorching guilt, or if this is just a goddamn maneuver to him. A gambit that didn't pay off.

  I switch back to the message window. Where is she? I can't scream it at them in a text, and the letters look stark and desperate. Fuck you, you assholes, what's in Wichita? It makes an awful kind of sense that Melvin would go back to his old hunting ground. And that he'd take Gwen there.

  There's no response for a long moment, and I want to break this thing, destroy it into pieces too small to find, because there's no one else to punish. No one but myself.

  The reply suddenly pops back. Forget the bitch. She's not your problem anymore.

  I let out a shout and punch the dashboard so hard that I feel something pop in my hand with a firecracker burn, but I don't give a shit. No, goddamn it, no, not like this, not like this . . .

  I type back, Wrong, assholes, she is my problem, and I'm going to find her. You hurt her, I'll make it my mission to put bullets in every one of you.

  That's my rage talking. I don't have a clue how to find any of them. It's an empty threat, but I can't help making it.

  There's another long pause, and then a message comes back. You want to play? We told you where to find Melvin Royal. Get him fast enough, maybe she lives.

  The breath goes out of me. You're lying.

  No. We want you to be there. To see.

  My hands are aching. I'm panting for breath, and I want to break the tablet in half, feel that glass shatter and splinter like breaking bones.

  But that's what Absalom does. Taunt. Misdirect. Threaten.

  "They want us to go to Wichita," I say aloud. Mike's looking at me with real concern when I turn to look at him. "Why?"

  "Keeps us from looking somewhere else," he says. "I've been smelling a rat since Atlanta. They've been playing you and me. Sending us where they want us, getting rid of their deadwood, like Suffolk; son of a bitch was already on the FBI's radar anyway. We got too close, and all of a sudden they're working on dividing us up. Sam, we need to think right now."

  I don't want to think. It's the last damn thing I want. But deep inside, I think Mike's right. They've got Gwen. We can't stop that by chasing bait. We have to get ahead of them.

  I take in a deep breath, hold it, let it out. "Okay," I say. "What first?"

  "We rewatch that video you got at the cabin," he says. "Because I think that's where they got us heading the wrong direction."

  I stare at him. "You think they meant for us to find that?"

  "No. I think they didn't, and everything since then has been countermeasures. We get that lead and suddenly there's a video implicating Gwen. Then a second one, when we grab Suffolk--and I'm pretty sure Absalom wanted to get rid of that rank bastard anyway, because he was careless. Somebody's leading us on a pretty little path, and we need to get off that trail, now."

  I force down the need to argue, to kick Mike out and grab the wheel and drive until I find her. Because he's right.

  Slow down. Cut loose. Reset.

  Because that's the only way we're going to find Gwen now.

  We need to get ahead of them.

  21

  CONNOR

  I hear Lanny go into the bathroom. She likes to take a shower at night, and I wait until I hear the water running before I shut and lock my door, pull out the Brady phone, and turn it on. It takes a full minute to come up and search for a signal, and I get a barely audible chime when it's ready. The sound of running water will cover my voice, as long as I keep it quiet.

  I go in my closet and shut the door. The clothes and blankets in here will muffle things more. I don't want anybody hearing me. The dark feels comforting, and when I put in the battery and turn on the phone, the TV-blue glow of its screen throws everything into sharp shadows around me. I sit down, cross-legged, a
nd lean against folded blankets in the corner. The closet's made of cedar, and the warm, sharp smell of it makes me want to sneeze.

  I can't do this, I think, but the bad thing is, I know I can. I know I have to. I have questions, and I want to hear his voice when he answers them. Lying in texts is easy. Maybe it's not so easy on the phone.

  I dial the only number in the phone book. My heart is pounding so hard my chest hurts.

  It rings, and rings, and then it goes to a voice mail that just has a mechanical voice that says, Please leave a message, and I hang up. I feel hot and sweaty and disappointed, and at the same time, I feel relieved. I tried, and he didn't even answer. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it again. That was hard enough.

  Being in the closet feels like being sealed off from the world. It's weird and kind of peaceful. I'm wondering how long I can stay in here before someone comes looking when the phone buzzes in my hand, and I almost drop it. I answer the call and say, "Hello?" My voice sounds high and uncertain and quiet. It's less sure than I am that this is the right thing to do.

  Dad says, "Hey, son, I'm sorry. I couldn't get to the phone in time. Thank you for calling me. I know that's a big step for you to take." He sounds like he's been running. I imagine he had the phone across the room, maybe in a coat pocket, and it was ringing and ringing and then stopped when he reached for it. If he's out of breath, he cared enough to hurry to get it. That means something. I think.

  "Hi," I say. I'm not quite ready to call him Dad, not like out loud. "Maybe I shouldn't have called . . ."

  "No, no, this is good," he tells me. I hear something like a door slamming. I hear wind over the phone speaker, like he's stepped out into the open. "Are you alone?"

  "Yeah."

  "Good." He pauses for a second, and I hear his breath. "How are you?"

  "Okay." I know I should say something more than that, try to really talk to him, but suddenly now that he's on the other end of the line it feels wrong. The fantasy was better than the reality. So I rush on. "It's cold out, maybe going to snow or something. I was out for a while today."

  "Did you go for a walk?"

  "No. I just went out."

  "You should get out more, Brady. You should go explore. Go for a hike, if you're somewhere that's possible. I always used to like hiking."

  I'm not like him, not a loner who goes off on adventures. I like stories where I'm part of a team, where I'm important not because I can run fast or fight well, but because I'm smart and clever and can solve a problem when someone else can't. I wonder if he would understand that. "Yeah," I say, because I don't want to disagree with him. "I guess. I could take the dog."