by Jeremy Bates
Rex was shaking his head. He seemed haunted.
“Rex? Rex!” she said. “What’s going on?”
“We need to get out of here. Go get the kids.” He retrieved the golf club and stood.
“What’s going on, Rex?” she demanded, leaping to her feet to stand beside him. “Who did this? Did someone do this?”
“Get the kids! We’re wasting time!”
***
While Tabitha went upstairs to get Bobby and Ellie, Rex fetched the handmade throw quilt from the sofa and draped it over Daisy’s corpse. He knew you were supposed to perform CPR for much longer than he had on a victim in cardiac arrest, but in this case there had been no point. It was clear Daisy was doomed even if she resumed breathing. Her goddamn guts were spilling out of her stomach. Maybe if they’d had a phone he would have kept performing the compressions, because at least then there would have been a chance, however unlikely, of help arriving in time to save her. But they didn’t have a phone. It had been his crazy decision to leave them back in the car.
Rex went inside and collected the Mazda keys and the Maglite just as Tabitha and the kids came down the stairs. Tabitha was white as a ghost. Bobby and Ellie were sleepy yet alarmed.
Rex dropped to his knees so he was at eye level with the kids. “Listen up, guys,” he said, trying to make his voice as no-nonsense fatherly as possible. “There’s been an accident. Someone’s had an accident. So we’re going to go get help. Which means we have to get to the car. We’re going to have to move fast. Maybe even run when we can.”
“Who had the accident?” Ellie asked.
“A woman. She’s resting right now. But we need to go—”
“Did you cut your hands, Daddy?” Bobby asked.
Rex glanced at his hands, which were wet with Daisy’s blood. “No, I’m okay.” He stood and looked at Tabitha. “Should we carry them?”
“They’ll be okay on their own.”
Rex nodded. “Bobby, Ellie, you two stay right behind me. Tabitha’s going to be right behind you. Okay? Okay.”
Rex led them outside. The kids yelped in surprise at the sight of Daisy’s body, for despite it being covered by the throw quilt, the shape was still clearly that of a person. Tabitha hushed them, saying the woman was only sleeping. Rex scanned the night. He didn’t hear or see anybody. He dashed down the driveway, silently cursing the noise his footsteps were making on the mucky ground.
When he reached the road, he waited a beat for the others to reach him, then he started in the direction of the highway, sweeping the flashlight beam back and forth before him. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt sick with dread. He told himself they were going to make it, yet deep down he had his doubts.
Three families had gone missing on this lake over the years without a trace.
He had been the only known survivor.
Was fate trying to rectify that mistake?
***
As she followed Rex down the dark road, Ellie was trying to figure out what happened to the sleeping woman. Why wasn’t she sleeping in a proper bed? Why on the porch, without her head showing?
Ellie had tried sleeping like that once when she was allowed to take her afternoon nap in her mom’s bed. The bed was huge compared to hers, and she climbed all the way beneath the sheets and covers, holding them up with her head, so she sat in the middle of a little fort. She would have remained there for her entire nap, hidden away from the world with her imaginary friends, but it became really hot and hard to breathe. She remembered when she popped her face back out again how cool the air felt, even though it was probably the same temperature it always was.
She’s probably okay with her head not showing because she’s outside, Ellie decided. It’s too cold out to get hot beneath the cover.
T-Rex was moving pretty fast. He wasn’t running. He was only jogging, but because he was bigger than she was, jogging for him was like running for her.
She was pretty fast herself. They once had a hundred-meter-dash race at school for all the students. She ran against the other girls in grade one with her, and she had come in third place. Which was good because everybody knew Sylvia Sanders, who came in first, was the fastest girl in their grade, even faster than most of the boys. And Laurie Miller, who came in second, started running before the gun went off, which was why everybody called her a cheater.
Still, Ellie had never tried running far—and the car was far. It had taken them forever to walk all the way to the cabin. She didn’t think she was going to be able to run fast all that way back to it without taking a break.
Bobby was running right next to her. He was crying, but silently, like when you don’t want anybody to know you’re crying.
Ellie wondered again what happened to the sleeping woman. Her mom told her the woman had an accident, but sometimes when her mom said “accident” she meant something else. Like when Ellie’s real dad came over to the house and broke some things. Her mom and Ellie spent that night at Ellie’s grandparents’ house. Her mom had a bruise on her face and told Ellie she had an accident, but Ellie overheard her talking to Ellie’s grandparents in the kitchen, telling them how Jacob, which was Ellie’s dad’s name, had hit her.
So did the sleeping woman really have an accident? Or did something else happen to her? Ellie wasn’t sure what could have gotten her—
The monster under Bobby’s bed!
Maybe it had a whole bunch of different doors in its house, and it could go through them to get to other people’s bedrooms. After it left the space under Bobby’s bed, it went to this woman’s bedroom. It bit her or punched her or did something bad to her, and that’s why she was sleeping on the porch. She was scared of going back to her bed!
Feeling proud she had solved the mystery all by herself, Ellie concentrated on running fast.
***
Rex was terrified as he led Tabitha and the kids down the winding road into the unknown. He was terrified he had made the wrong decision leaving the cabin. Because they were now exposed and vulnerable. They had nothing with which to protect themselves save a rusty old golf club. If the murderer caught up to them, and was well-armed, they were as good as dead.
But what could they have done instead? Remained bunkered down inside the cabin? They would have been sitting ducks.
At least now they were moving. It was only another ten minutes to the car.
Yes, that was right.
The car, safety.
Another ten minutes.
The night air on Rex’s face and the adrenaline coursing through his veins was helping him to think straight. He began to rationalize the situation, dissect it, and in the process, temper the panic that had until then been dictating his thoughts and actions.
When he had first seen the dead woman on the porch, he had immediately linked her death to the disappearance of his family. The person who had gotten them had returned for Rex and those close to him.
But this was silly, wasn’t it? Theoretically speaking, say his father had been responsible for the kidnappings and, presumably, murders, over the years. He had been forty-four years old in 1981. That would make him eighty-three today. If he had spent the intervening decades roughing it in the mountains, living off a meager diet with no medicine or modern accoutrements, his life expectancy would not be ideal. If not already dead, he would be frail. He had not attacked Tony and Daisy.
If someone other than his father were responsible for the kidnappings and murders, someone who had only been, say, twenty in ’81, that would put him in his late fifties now. This person could very well have attacked Tony and Daisy.
Nevertheless, as Rex’s panic continued to ebb, he asked himself a question that had eluded him until then.
Why did the tragic events of the past have to have anything to do with those of tonight? It had been nearly forty years since Rex’s family went missing; twenty since the Ryerson’s went missing.
There was no connection between past and present.
The much more l
ikely suspect in Daisy’s murder, Rex decided, was her boyfriend, Tony. The guy was an asshole, that much was for sure. Did something happen that set him over the edge when they returned to their cabin? Did Daisy get a text message that made him jealous? Did she say something that pissed him off? Disagreed with him in some way? Perhaps an old argument came up, a touchy topic, money or an ex-boyfriend.
And then what? Rex wondered. Tony attacks Daisy with the knife he’d been using to dice onions? Uses it to slice open her gut? Did he take savage glee in this violence? Or did it occur in the passion of the moment? Did he immediately regret hurting her? Was he curled up on the kitchen floor in a puddle of his own tears right now?
No, Tony was a dick. He had too much machismo to ever shed a tear for a woman.
So Daisy fled, hands on her stomach to keep her innards inside, and Tony gave chase. But he had that limp. He was slow. She reached Rex’s cabin first. From the time she banged on the door to the time Rex and the others were on the road, on the way to the car, no more than five minutes had passed. The longest five minutes of Rex’s life, but five minutes nonetheless. Tony still hadn’t caught up.
So where did that put the guy now? Had he just discovered Daisy’s body? If so, he would know Rex and Tabitha and the kids had fled. He would be coming. He wouldn’t let any witnesses to his crime escape.
And all this was good news.
Because they had a head start. There was no way limping Tony could catch them. Even if he went back for his truck, he wouldn’t reach them before they reached the Mazda. They would be zipping down Highway 99 toward Lillooet shortly. They would be at the police station in less than an hour, safe, nightmare over—
A light flashed between the trees.
From ahead.
Rex stopped in his tracks. He felt Bobby and Ellie bump into his legs. Tabitha stopped beside him and whispered, “He’s out here!”
“Shit!” Rex said, flicking off his own flashlight, plunging them into darkness.
How had Tony gotten ahead of them?
Rex squeezed the golf club tightly in his right hand. It didn’t instill confidence in him. Tony would be armed with something more lethal. The knife he’d used on Daisy. Or maybe even a gun. Canada had strict gun laws on handguns, but anybody could purchase a rifle from their local Walmart.
The light was coming closer.
“Rex?” Tabitha said worriedly.
Should they duck into the forest? No, they would make too much noise, especially with Bobby and Ellie. Tony would surely hear them and catch them.
Which meant the only option was to turn around.
They couldn’t return to the cabin. But if they got far enough away from Tony, they could look for a proper spot to hide.
Until when? Morning?
One step at a time.
“We have to go back,” he whispered.
***
Tabitha was totally freaking out as she followed Rex and the kids down the dark and winding road. She clenched her jaw to prevent herself from issuing unwanted sounds as she struggled to comprehend how abruptly her world had been flipped upside down. Just a few hours before they had been sitting around the fire, roasting wieners, happy and unharassed. Now they were being pursued through the night by a vicious killer.
They rounded a bend, and Rex slowed the pace from a stealthy jog to a hurried walk. Tabitha glanced back and could no longer see the yellow light from the flashlight beam. She gave Ellie and Bobby a reassuring shoulder squeeze.
“You guys are doing great,” she said, bending over to whisper in their ears.
“Where are we going, Mommy?” Ellie asked in a hushed, conspiratorial voice, almost as if she were playing a part in a movie.
Tabitha wondered the same thing.
Where was Rex taking them?
Back to the cabin?
Tabitha didn’t think this was the best idea. The killer knew they were staying there. It wouldn’t take him long to realize the woman might have gone there for help.
Perhaps Tabitha and Rex could hide the body, blow out the candles, and make it look as though they were all sleeping, unaware of what the killer had done.
He would leave them alone then, wouldn’t he?
No, she decided immediately. He wouldn’t. A pool of blood stained the porch. There was no way they could clean that up in the short time they had. There was no way the killer would miss it either.
So did they lock the doors and windows and barricade themselves inside the cabin? Until when? Morning would bring no salvation. Nobody was going to come and rescue them. Almost nobody knew they were there. The woman at the tourist center did. But why would she give them any thought? And all Vanessa knew was that they were visiting Rex’s cabin somewhere in Canada. Tabitha and Ellie weren’t supposed to be home until Sunday evening. Even then, Vanessa likely wouldn’t get worried enough to call the police until Tuesday or Wednesday. That was more than half a week away. They couldn’t hunker down in the cabin for that long with the scant food and water they had.
“Don’t worry about that now, sweetie,” she said in answer to her daughter’s question. “Just keep up with T-Rex, and we’ll get where we’re going soon.”
The road continued straight for the next hundred yards through the old-growth rainforest, which had been so alive and green during the day, but which was now silent and ominous. After another hundred yards, Tabitha made out the white, canted mailbox at the end of the McCleod’s overgrown driveway. She pictured Rex and his brother Logan as kids running wildly for their lives from a yapping Yorkshire terrier, arms and legs browned from long days in the summer sun flapping madly, mouths pulled into rictuses of fear.
If only it was a toy dog we were running from now.
“Ow!” Bobby cried out.
Rex stopped abruptly. Tabitha did too.
“What is it?” Rex whispered between pants.
“I stubbed my toe. The one that went to the market.”
“Do you want me to carry you?”
“I think I’m okay.”
“Where are we going, Rex?” Tabitha asked. “We can’t go back to the cabin.”
“We’re not.” He hesitated. “We’re going to their cabin.”
“Whose cabin?”
“Where Tony and Daisy are staying.”
“The guy chasing us?” she said in disbelief.
Rex nodded. “He didn’t see us. He doesn’t know we’re out here.”
“He will when he gets to our cabin. And you want to hide in his cabin? That’s—”
“Not hide. I want to take his truck.”
She blinked. “His truck?”
“Hopefully he left the keys behind. Then we can drive right out of here.”
Tabitha considered this. “What if they’re in his pocket?” she asked.
“Do you keep your car keys in your pocket when you’re relaxing at home? Anyway, even if we don’t find them, we might find one of their phones. We can call for help.”
Call for help.
The wonderful warmth of hope filled her chest, and all at once she felt woozy with relief.
They had a way out of this nightmare after all!
Tabitha scooped Ellie into her arms, kissed her daughter on her button nose, and allowed herself the briefest of smiles.
“How far is it?” she asked.
CHAPTER 8
The Crown Vic’s high beams flashed on the late-model Mazda coupe parked alongside the dirt road. Frowning, Paul Harris pulled up behind it and put the patrol car in Park. Leaving the engine idling and the headlights on, he climbed out, his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. He walked to the Mazda and peeked in the driver’s side window. Empty. He continued a few feet past the vehicle’s hood. In the swath of yellow cast by the Crown Vic’s high beams, the road was clearly visible, including all of its starkly outlined ruts and potholes. This explained why Rex Chapman had abandoned his car here, if the Mazda was indeed his car, though he couldn’t fathom to whom else it might belong.
> One mystery solved, Paul thought sardonically. And one new dilemma.
Because without a four-wheel-drive vehicle, he wasn’t going to be able to drive down the road either.
Tugging his pack of Marlboro’s and lime-green Bic lighter from his hip pocket, he lit up, rocked back on his heels, and studied the overcast night sky.
Although the Lillooet Country’s boundaries were only loosely defined by cartographers, anyone who lived in the area would tell you they encompassed the land within the Fraser Canyon from Church Creek and Big Car Ferry in the north, to a spot known as the Big Slide on Highway 12 south of Lillooet. They’d probably agree the summit of Cayoosh Pass near Duffey Lake on Highway 99 was the western “border,” if you wanted to call it that, and the summit of Pavilion Mountain Road the eastern one.
Pavilion Lake was located just inside this northeastern demarcator, putting it in Paul’s jurisdiction.
Paul had first come up here to investigate the Chapman family’s disappearance in 1981, and again to investigate the Peterson’s and Ryerson’s subsequent disappearances in 1987 and 1998 respectively. Over the years he fished on Pavilion Lake and hiked in Marble Canyon. His most recent recreational visit, however, must have been…well, it was before the Ryerson’s went missing. So that would make it probably twenty years or so ago. Maybe even twenty-five. He would have been in his thirties.
Jesus Christ, where did the time go?
Paul took a drag on his smoke, his eyes going back to the derelict road.
Pretty much undriveable, he thought. A good enough reason to turn around and head home. Then again, undriveable didn’t mean unwalkable. How far was it to the Chapman’s cabin? Three kilometers? How long would that take on foot? Twenty minutes? The rain had stopped for the moment, and it was a pleasant enough evening. Walking never hurt anybody. In fact, the exercise would do him good.
Taking a final drag on the smoke, Paul flicked the butt away and returned to the cruiser. He killed the engine and retrieved the Streamlight tactical flashlight from the glove box, which was more powerful than the smaller version he kept in the holder on his duty belt. He clicked it on and started down the poorly kept road. Soon tall conifers and broad-leaf deciduous trees loomed above him, their shadowed boughs blocking out the sky. The air smelled of wet soil and pine needles and wildflowers. Gravel crunched beneath his footsteps, and he did his best to avoid the water-filled potholes.