Cold Lake (23 page)

“MacLean.” The voice barked in Wolf’s ear.

“I need to know what bullets were used in the Idaho vehicle fire.”

“Sheriff Wolf? Hey, listen. I was so sorry to hear about your ex-wife. My God. I can only—”

“I need to know.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Just a second.” The phone line clicked and there was silence.

Breathing out his mouth, Wolf sat listening to the pulse pounding in his ears. A trickle of clotted blood slid down his throat and he made a face as he swallowed.

“You there?”

“Yes.”

“.308 FMJ.”

Wolf hung up and rubbed the sandpaper stubble on his chin. Sarah and Carter were murdered with a nine-millimeter hollow point. A pistol.

The rifle at Olin Heeter’s had a box of .308 Winchester full metal jackets, half empty, sitting on the bookcase next to it. It was looking like that rifle killed those two burned men.

With growing impatience he stood and walked to the hallway. The door to the lab was closed.

For ten minutes he’d been waiting on Patterson and Wilson, and on Jake Wegener, his friend from his football days who worked for the Carbon County Sheriff’s Department. Wegener had promised to send over all he had on Aspen’s Carter Willis, but the fax machine at the end of the hall sat dormant.

The lab door flew open and Patterson came rushing out. “Sir, the prints on the doorknob you gave us match the ones on the payphone receiver.”

Wolf snapped the sheet out of her hands and walked into his office.

“Where did you get that doorknob?” Patterson was on his heels.

“My house,” Wolf said laying the sheet on his desk.

Patterson shook her head. “What? Your house?”

Wolf nodded. “Kimber Grey was over at my house last night.”

“Sir.” Patterson spoke slowly. “I talked to Lorber today, and he said the watch they found in Nick Pollard’s truck proved Kimber Grey was telling the truth about being at the fireworks show when that payphone call was made.”

Wolf nodded.

“So … I don’t get it.”

The fax machine hummed and Wolf walked past them out into the hall. “I’ve been thinking about those doorknobs at Olin Heeter’s place for a while now. It was so out of place that everything was scrubbed clean, except for those doorknobs. It was like someone was trying to lure us in there.” Wolf paused at the fax machine and turned around to face Wilson and Patterson. “In fact, that’s exactly what it was.”

“I … sir, I’m not getting it.”

He turned to the fax machine and saw the first page spit out from Carbon County Sheriff’s Office.

Letting the machine do its work, he turned back around. “I was out with Kimber Grey last night. I don’t want to talk about it, but she ended up staying at my house. I took that doorknob from my bathroom, which I watched her touch.”

Patterson and Wilson frowned.

Patterson lowered her voice and spoke slow again. “But sir, the doorknob prints at your house did
not
match Kimber Grey’s.”

The fax machine finished and Wolf turned and picked up the pages from Carbon County. He was surprised to find a hefty stack of paper already in the incoming fax tray.

With mounting curiosity he picked up the entire stack. The heading on one of the pages read Boise County Sheriff’s Department.

As he flipped through the sheets one by one, he held his breath. With a toothless grin he pulled out the third sheet and held it in front of their faces.

Patterson stared at a picture of two teenaged girls standing side by side, arm in arm on the shore of a lake. The black and white photo was poor quality—a copy of an original that had been faxed—but she could see the two girls were of identical height, with identical haircuts, wearing identical sweatshirts.

With a sinking stomach she looked up. “They’re identical twins.”

Eyes glassing over, Wolf nodded and twisted his lip in a satisfied snarl. “Identical twins who are sadistic killers. That’s who was out murdering Nick Pollard at the same time she was at the lake watching fireworks. That’s why her father left that night. Because it was Kimber’s sister in trouble. She had a dead body to dispose of.”

Wilson frowned. “So she calls her father about it?”

Wolf walked slowly past them toward his office, staring at the fax from the Boise Sheriff’s Department. 

Patterson and Wilson followed.

“It’s all here,” Wolf said, flipping to another page. “The family disappeared from Idaho twenty-five years ago, right after a similar killing happened. Near decapitation. Mutilation. It was a murder in McCall, Idaho. A neighbor of the
Kiplings
. A teenaged boy found murdered in the woods near his boat shed. Stabbed nineteen times, head almost severed clean off, a slice from the pubic bone to the ribs.”

Wolf dropped a page with four photographs of the gruesome killing printed on it and turned to the next sheet. “Here are their real names: Parker Grey was actually named Dustin Kipling. The twins are Hannah and Rachel. The mother is the same name: Katherine.”

“That’s why the Grey’s past never checked out with the Tennessee commune,” Wilson said.

Wolf paced in a circle, reading farther down the page. “Dustin Kipling used to own a chain of boat dealerships in Idaho. Kipling Boats was the largest statewide seller and buyer of watercraft and fishing boats, with four dealerships. Says here he sold every dealership in the span of a single day for pennies on the dollar to a casino owner in Wendover, Nevada, named Gabriel Sithro. In the middle of the night of that same day, their house in McCall, Idaho burnt to the ground, and the family went missing. Suspected arson. No bodies were found in the fire, and the family cars were in the garage … and then the family was never heard from again.”

Patterson leaned against the wall with wide eyes. “So they were fleeing … trying to disappear, because of their murdered neighbor?”

Wolf held up another sheet and ran his eyes down the entire length of it.

Patterson’s curiosity boiled over. “What?”

“Looks like a family friend, a psychiatrist, came into the Boise station after the Kiplings disappeared. He had recently prescribed anti-psychotics for Dustin. Knowing that, Idaho law enforcement has assumed all along that Dustin murdered the neighbor, but the Kiplings whereabouts stumped them.”

Patterson frowned. “That was the same story Kimber and her mother told about Parker Grey. He was psychotic and needed meds.”

Wolf perused the next page. “Here’s a statement from a school psychologist taken a few months after the Kiplings disappeared. She reported two incidents involving Hannah Kipling at Duck Mountain Middle School. First, Hannah received minor injuries while fighting a boy. Hannah said she was just sticking up for her sister, Rachel. A few months later …”

“What?” Patterson asked.

Wolf shook the sheets of paper. “Hannah retaliated against that same boy, beating him with a baseball bat until he was unconscious. The kid was hospitalized with a fractured skull, broken ribs, and a broken arm, and she was expelled from school.”

“Wow,” Wilson said. “A middle-schooler taking a bat to someone?”

“She had extremely violent tendencies according to the class psychologist,” Wolf said shaking his head. “It was the girls. It’s always been them, not their father. They killed that teenager in Idaho, and that’s why the family left. It makes sense now why we found Parker shot in the head. A girl called from the payphone that night. It was one of Parker Grey’s girls, sorry, Dustin Kipling’s girls, who killed Nick. She’d killed him and had his blood all over her hands, and called her father to help clean it up. There must have been a family meltdown after that. Think about it, they leave Idaho because of their psychotic, violent daughters. They literally burned their old life to the ground, and now the girls are starting up again?”

Patterson nodded. “Serious meltdown.”

“After my father and Burton went up to the lake and talked to them on the 5
th
, maybe Parker had had enough. Maybe he threatened to hospitalize them. Turn them in? Who knows exactly? But the family all knew what happened to Nick Pollard that night. And in the end, Parker Grey was a threat to the girls. So they shot him and dumped him out in the lake, right next to Nick.”

“And Katherine Grey?” Patterson exhaled with realization. “She would have known about her husband’s death. And she came in and did that interview knowing he was dead, killed by the hands of her own daughters. But she stood there and lied to your father. My …”

“I knew she was hiding something in that interview. She had a tell,” said Wolf, “and now she’s at the bottom of the lake in front of Olin Heeter’s place.”

“What?” Wilson asked.

“I think Katherine’s daughters killed her that night after the interviews with my father at the station. Maybe they were skittish about whether or not Katherine would crack under the pressure. Whatever the reason, they killed her and dumped her body out on the lake, but in a different place the following night, and Olin Heeter had a front row seat to watch it, complete with a spotlight, thanks to clear skies and the moon’s reflection.” Wolf stared out the window.

“So Katherine leaving to go back to Tennessee was all a big—”

“Shit-shit-shit.” Wilson blurted.

Patterson and Wolf looked at him.

“Rachette took a call from the Boise Sheriff’s office earlier, and they said they were sending a fax. He told me to keep an eye out for it. He was talking with Kimber Grey at his desk at the time, and took the call at Patterson’s desk. At your desk.”

“Okay,” Patterson said. “And?”

“And Rachette hung up and left with her, said he was going up to the lake with her and would be back in a while.”

“So she knows we know.” Wolf darted past them toward the door.

Rachette scanned the woods on either side as they crept down the dirt road towards Kimber’s cabin.

The windshield wipers squeaked across the windshield and Rachette turned them off. The rain had finally abated, but the clouds were still low and thick, and though it was only late afternoon it seemed dark as night outside.

He leaned back in his seat, wondering where someone lurking in the woods would have taken shelter in a storm like this. A cave? A tent? Heeter’s place? They needed to get back up here with the cavalry. Tomorrow.

Kimber eyed him from the passenger seat. “What is it?”

Rachette shook his head. “Just thinking. Nothing.”

“Slow down here. Your back bumper will scrape.”

“I know. I’ve been here a few times myself the last couple days.”

The SUV rocked back and dropped down as Rachette eased into the giant pothole between two rocks. Back and forth they swayed in the seat and then they were coasting down the dirt road once more.

Rachette stopped at Olin Heeter’s turn off and looked up the road. The dirt was undisturbed, or it had been and then it was smoothed over by the earlier deluge of rain.

He let off the brake and wondered if the rescue divers had made any progress out on the lake today, and if not, would they still be out there?

The dashboard clock said 5:12—a few minutes past a normal workingman’s clock out time. They still had nothing, he decided, otherwise he would have heard.

A few minutes later Rachette parked in front of the cabin and stomped his foot on the parking brake. “Here we are. You want me to wait here for you?”

She smiled. “No, why don’t you come in. I’ll make us some coffee before we head back.”

Rachette twisted the keys and got out. A drop of moisture slapped him in the face from his roof as he got out and the soggy dirt gave way beneath his boot. The air was thick and moist, and he zipped up his jacket all the way against the chill. 

The lake was a magnificent sight to see, so calm, lead color from the reflection of the clouds above. A crow sailed by and over the edge of the cliff that severed the land to the rear of her house.

“Geez. You aren’t afraid of heights I take it.”

She chuckled. “No. In fact I climb that face most days. Got a top-rope set up. You should try it.”

“No, thank you.” He shook his head. “I’d have a chain link fence along the top of that thing if I lived here. I couldn’t ever trust myself after a six-pack. Probably fall trying to take a leak off it.”

She scrunched her face and walked up the stairs.

Shaking his head at his own last comment, he followed her up the stairs. When he got to the top his boot slipped on the wet wood and he almost went down. Regaining his balance without slamming into her, he stood up straight and felt his face reddening, but Kimber’s soft smile disarmed him and he smiled back. “I’m a klutz, what can I say?”

For a second she leaned towards him, like she was going to kiss him or something, then she looked down at the ground and dug in her jeans pocket. She produced a key and opened the door. Stepping inside, she turned and beckoned him in with a bashful look.

Rachette swallowed at the sight of her beautiful eyes and took a deep breath to calm the racing of his heart.

“Let me take your coat.” She took off her own jacket, revealing her slender body, and turned to him.

He unzipped his jacket and sloughed off one sleeve, and then the other.

Inexplicably she bumped into him as he pulled off his other sleeve, sending him off balance for an instant.

“Hey, what’s the…” Staring down the barrel of a pistol, he let the question die on his lips. A closer look revealed the gun was a Glock 17, and then he looked down at his duty belt and saw his empty holster and his stomach dropped an inch.

He quickly regained his composure, and there was no doubt in his mind that he was going to duck and grab for the weapon, but before he could make his move she stepped back with lightning speed and fired a deafening round into the ceiling.

“Ah!” Rachette ducked and raised his hands to cover his now ringing ears. “What the hell?”

“Don’t think about it.” Kimber’s lips were raised like a rabid dog, her beautiful face twisted into pure rage.

“Yeah. You got it.” Rachette said with his arms raised, watching crumbs of drywall ceiling fall past him.

Kimber took forced breaths through her nose and looked at the floor beneath her. Keeping the pistol aimed steadily at Rachette’s chest, she stomped her foot down on the wood, and a boom echoed through the whole house around them. “Get up here!”

Rachette frowned. “Who are you talking to?”

Closing one eye, she brought her other hand up to the pistol and aimed. “Keep quiet. Or I will shoot you in the head.”

There was a creaking sound below the floor, and then a door shutting.

Listening intently, Rachette stood stock-still and heard nothing more. He stood transfixed, noticing the calm of Kimber’s steady aim. A few seconds later footsteps creaked on the wood outside, and Rachette eyed the closed front door.

Kimber waved the gun. “Step over here.”

He stepped forward into the living room as she stepped back.

“Back there. Lean against the wall.”

Rachette backtracked and leaned against the wall, keeping his hands motionless above his shoulders.

Kimber stepped to the door and opened it. “Stay out there. We’re coming out,” she said, and then she turned to Rachette.

“What’s going on?” The female voice called from outside.

The sound of the voice—it was so familiar.

“Out.” Kimber came back into the family room and waved him out the open front door.

Rachette obeyed. The air flowing in the door penetrated his uniform shirt, making him shiver as he stepped out onto the porch. At the top of the stairs he froze and widened his eyes. “What the hell?” With a quick jerk of his head he looked over his shoulder, making sure he was seeing correctly.

Kimber stood behind him, thrusting the barrel into his face with renewed vigor. “Keep walking.”

He turned around and walked, almost falling down the stairs as his mind whirled with the reality of the situation. “There’s two of you? Holy—”

“Just shut up, or I’ll shoot you in the head and throw you off that cliff.”

Rachette ducked his head and raised his hands higher, quickening his pace down the stairs.

The other Kimber stood out of the way at the bottom of the stairs, wearing a matching jacket with her doppelganger sister.

“Over there. Against your car.”

Rachette leaned up against the ticking front end of his SUV, grateful to feel the warmth streaming out from under the hood. He turned to look at both women, who now stood next to each other. In every way they looked alike, from the amber eyes to the smooth lips, to the wavy thick brown hair that was too much to tame.

He shook his head. “Wow. You guys are so much alike.”

The Kimber with the gun whipped her glare toward him and marched with the muzzle raised. “I said shut up!”

Rachette lowered his gaze submissively. For ten long seconds they stood.

“Why are you with him?” The Kimber at the bottom of the stairs broke the silence.

The Kimber with the gun backed up and lowered her aim. “They know. Or at least, they’re gonna know. Boise Sheriff called them this afternoon.”

“Oh, my God.” The Kimber without the gun gripped her thick head of hair and began breathing hard. She paced with crunching footsteps and looked at the ground, her lips moving without sound. With an exhale she crouched into a ball and sat on the first step of the stairs.

Rachette’s pulse was escalating with each breath, because he was thinking about the dead bodies in the morgue, and how these two were cutting off people’s heads, people that matched Rachette’s description—young men—and dropping them in the lake.

It was one of them in the woods last night, he realized.

With immense effort he took a breath through his nose, trying to calm his racing pulse and relax his tightening chest.

“What’s our plan here?” The Kimber on the stairs raised her head.

The Kimber with the gun shrugged, her eyes staring through Rachette. “We get in that cop car and drive.”

“And then what? Don’t they have GPS trackers on those things?”

Rachette nodded, but neither of them noticed.

“They’d find us in minutes. And then what?”

The Kimber with the gun refocused on Rachette. “We bring him.”

“And then what, Hannah?”

Hannah.

“Then we what? Ransom this cop for a helicopter ride to somewhere? Yeah, that’s going to work.”

“I don’t know!” Hannah paced a few steps forward and then back, and then rubbed her nose. “Then we’ll just go into the woods.”

“And then what?”

The Kimber with the gun looked into the forest behind Rachette. “We don’t have a choice.”

Rachette heard the rolling hiss and pop of tires somewhere in the far distance. He flicked his eyes left and immediately caught movement—a white SUV with roof lights flitting in and out of the trees along the lake’s edge.

Kimber looked. “Shit. Go see.”

The Kimber on the stairs stood up and jogged down toward the lake to the edge of the cliff and looked left. She shook her head and walked back fast. “It’s the frickin’ cops. What are we going to do here, Hannah?”

Rachette cleared his throat and lowered his hands a fraction. Whatever was going on was apparently all explained in the fax message that the Boise Sheriff’s Department had sent. Rachette blinked, pausing to clench his eyes with a prayer that whatever it was, Wolf and Patterson had figured it out, that they had found the fax message and were coming to his rescue. He prayed that Wilson had done as he was asked and had kept an eye on the fax machine, despite his smartass attitude—he prayed that Wilson had done that.

Amen.

When he opened his eyes Hannah was sneering at him, walking slowly in his direction, the pistol rising like a drawbridge.

“Please don’t do it, Hannah.”

Rachette swallowed, unnerved by Kimber without the gun’s tone. Because it was as if she’d seen it all before. Because it was starting to make sense to Rachette. It was like Hannah was the uncontrollable one who killed. Who chopped off heads. Who stabbed eyeballs with a blade and then sliced from balls to chin. Who murdered her father. And Kimber? She was the one who sat back and watched in horror.   

“Please.” He lowered his gaze submissively. “You have to tell me what’s going on. I can help you guys. I can help you out of this.”

Her footsteps crunched all the way to him and the cold steel of the pistol barrel pushed against his forehead, forcing his chin up.

She bared her teeth. “What the hell are they—”

With a lightning quick move he ducked to the right and swatted up with his left arm. The gun fired, deafening him and sending a blast of heat onto the side of his face, but the shot missed, just like he knew it would. Nobody could react fast enough to such an unexpected, ballsy maneuver. A split instant later he gripped her gun arm with both hands and pushed his full weight back into her, knocking her back and to the side.

With a whimper she fell sideways and before she even hit the ground Rachette had twisted the gun from her grip.

“That’s right!” He screamed in triumph at the top of his lungs.

Gripping the pistol and twisting to raise it at the other Kimber, he flinched when he saw she had her own pistol raised at him already.

There was a lance of fire, and his gun-holding shoulder was wrenched back like he’d been clipped by a semi-truck, and as he twisted his feet slipped out from under him. With a stutter step he tried to keep his balance, but slammed headfirst into the tire of his SUV.

For an agonizing eternity he convulsed on the ground, trying to take a breath that would not come, all the while a warm pool of blood spread underneath him, lapping against his chin in rhythm with his pulsing heart. 

There was an eardrum-tearing scream, and Rachette felt powerful arms pick him up and drag him away from the pool of blood, and then he was on the ground staring at the leaden sky.

Hannah’s eyes, bloodshot and evil, were right in front of his now, and she sat hard on his chest.

With a squeal, his lungs finally opened, and a cold breath of wind rushed down his throat. And then Hannah’s cold hands locked on his neck and squeezed.

He tried to struggle, but the strength in him was already gone.

The last thing he saw was Hannah’s drooling snarl, and then popping stars in his vision, and then Kimber wrapping her arms around her sister.