The Kill (30 page)

“It’s almost over, Liv,” he said as if she were the only one in the copter. “We’re going to get him. Tonight.”

Miranda glanced from Olivia to Zack, then cleared her throat. “So, I’ve marked out grids on the map. The sheriff’s department is checking every trail off Road 56 to see if a truck has recently driven up it. They’re going in on horseback, vehicle, and foot. We have stations set up here—at the lodge where we can land—at this ranger’s station, and here, at the sheriff’s substation at the base of the mountain.”

“What if he sees the activity and kills her immediately?” Olivia asked.

“What else can we do?” Zack said. “If we do nothing, he’ll certainly kill her. But I assume, Miranda, you have a plan to minimize our activity.”

She nodded. “They’re radio silent. All conversation is via secure channels. If he’s monitoring commercial radio or television, then he’ll know we’ve identified him. We have his picture going up on all the networks throughout western Washington, and the Amber Alert is out, which puts his face and description on thousands of websites in the country. He’s not getting away. We just have to find him before he kills Nina.”

Zack studied the map. “Your husband said you were in search-and-rescue. Liv, I thought you said you two went to the FBI Academy together?”

“We did,” Miranda said. “I left before graduation. Long story.” She glanced at Olivia, and Olivia felt awful that her friend was covering for her. “I was the director of Search and Rescue in Montana before Quinn and I got married last June.”

“Oh.” Zack’s face darkened as he remembered. “
Oh
. The Bozeman Butcher.”

“Yeah, well, that’s over.” A cloud fell over Miranda’s face and Olivia reached for her.

“I didn’t mean to bring it up,” Zack said.

“I’m fine. Now we have The Seattle Slayer on our hands. Don’t you just hate the crap the press comes up with?”

The pilot said, “I have a transmission coming in from Special Agent Quincy Peterson.”

“Put him through,” Zack said.

They all heard Quinn’s voice through the headphones.

“The sheriff’s department has found the truck 1.6 miles off of Road 56, well past the Boy Scout campground. They’ll meet you at the camp and take you there.”

“Nina?” Olivia asked, leaning forward.

“There’s no sign of Nina or Driscoll. The truck was in an accident—hit a deer. Air bags deployed, but there’s some blood in the cab. None in the back of the truck. What’s your ETA?”

“Four minutes to camp,” the pilot said.

“I’m about fifty minutes out. Doug Cohn and his assistant are with me. I have two agents following. And Travis, your partner Boyd found Driscoll’s car in the long-term parking lot at Sea-Tac. He’ll be in contact if there’s anything of use in the cab.”

“Thanks, Peterson. Out.”

Zack stared at the truck slammed against a redwood tree, one tire in a deep gully so the back tire didn’t even rest on the ground. In the middle of the road, a deer lay dead. It had barely been alive when the first sheriff deputies arrived on the scene; a park ranger had been summoned and he put the animal down just before Zack, Miranda, and Olivia arrived. Zack didn’t even have to look at the skid marks to surmise what had happened.

Deer crossed road, truck hit deer, and the impact forced the truck off the road, into a gully, and up against the tree.

“Why couldn’t the bastard be dead behind the wheel?” Zack muttered under his breath.

The deputy gave him a half-smile. “That’d be too easy.”

Zack didn’t want to disturb any evidence, but he needed as much information as he could get to figure out what had happened. Why Nina was not in the truck and where Driscoll had gone. Did he still have Nina? Was she alive? The sheriff’s department was bringing in additional lighting, but all they had now were a few heavy-duty flashlights.

The air bag had deployed and there was blood on it, as if Driscoll had hurt himself or perhaps got a bloody nose on impact. When Doug Cohn arrived, he would process the entire vehicle.

With gloved hands to avoid contaminating evidence, Zack went through the cab. He found maps, registration for Karl Burgess, some books on tape, a pair of movie ticket stubs. All appeared to be old, and likely left by the owners of the truck.

In the camper shell, Zack found ropes. Loops were still in them, and he held them, wondering what had happened.

Had Driscoll untied her? Had Nina freed herself? Had he heard the news reports and dumped her in the mountains—dead or alive—in order to escape?

Where had he gone?

Zack walked around to the front of the truck and put his hand on the hood. A hint of warmth. The accident probably happened an hour to ninety minutes ago.

He slowly circled the truck, sweeping his light back and forth. The third time around, something caught his eye.

He squatted, knees cracking, and picked up a shell casing. Was it new? There was no hunting allowed in this area of the Cascades, but that didn’t mean hunters hadn’t crossed the unmarked boundary.

He put it back where he’d found it, marking the spot with an evidence flag he’d taken from the deputy’s kit.

Standing, he looked around with his light. He saw it. Disturbed earth, footprints.

Driscoll’s flight path.

“Hey, Deputy.” Zack waited for the young cop to reach him. “This looks like a path of some sort. Where does it go?”

The deputy consulted a detailed map of the area. “Okay—the Boy Scouts use this area a lot, but primarily in the summer. The weather is too unpredictable in the fall. The main camp was where you landed . . . here. Two miles away. The Scouts mark off trails every year as part of their program. This path looks like one of theirs—it’s not on the map.”

“You don’t know where it goes?”

“Their program has the kids making paths with the goal to reach the main camp. There’re a lot of requirements; it’s been a long time since I was in the Scouts. But . . . less than half a mile from here is a fork of the Anchor River. He’d be able to follow the river all the way down the mountain. There’s enough foliage to hide. The spruce is pretty thick all through this region.”

“Okay, let’s assume he’s uninjured. On foot, it’s still going to take him hours to get down the mountain. We need a team of trackers to head to a lower part of the river and start working their way up; another set starting from here and trying to track him. We might be able to intercept him. He can only follow the river or come back up to this trail. From what I remember of the map, there are some sheer drop-offs west of the river.”

“Correct. How far down?”

Zack called, “Miranda? Miranda!” Quinn’s wife seemed to have an intuitive grasp of the terrain, though apparently she’d lived in Seattle only for a few months. She might have a good idea of how far Driscoll could get down the mountain with his lead time.

She didn’t answer, and he pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Travis here. I’m trying to locate Miranda Peterson and Olivia St. Martin.”

Crackle
. “Travis? Miranda here. Liv and I are checking out something up the road. It looks like there was a scuffle. Hold.”

Hold
? Dammit, he didn’t like the idea of two women—no matter how well trained—off tracking in the middle of the night when a killer was on the loose.

“Where are you?”

“About point-six miles up the trail from your location.”

“I’ll meet you there. Stay visible.”

“Got it.”

Zack turned to the deputy. “Keep the area secure. I’m heading up the trail to see what they discovered. Keep the channel open—if there’s any trouble, let me know.”

With all the men in the woods, Zack didn’t think Driscoll was around. He was probably hoofing it down the mountain as quickly as possible, hoping he could get to the main road and disappear before they caught up with him.

His cell phone didn’t work up here, so he used his radio on the secure channel to call into the sheriff’s substation and relay the information he’d picked up from the crime scene. Before he hung up, twelve rangers and deputies were on their way to the base of the mountain to follow the middle north fork of the Anchor River up in the hopes of apprehending Driscoll as he made his way down. Another six were on their way to the Boy Scout camp, where a makeshift checkpoint had already been established.

Zack hoped he wasn’t wrong about Driscoll’s flight, but he had a bad feeling it wasn’t close to being over.

Please, God, if you’re listening, please make her okay.

Careful not to trample the evidence, Olivia ran through the scenario in her head.

A small camp had been set up. No fire, but a sleeping bag, backpack with rations and water, and a slick plastic tarp.

Olivia suspected that Driscoll used the tarp to transport the bodies back to town to dump. She wondered why he didn’t leave them in the wilderness. It would take much longer to find them. That was a question for the psychology experts in the Bureau. If she had to hazard a guess, either he wanted their bodies to be found for burial or closure, or he had a subconscious wish to get caught.

Or maybe something less profound: maybe he simply wanted to prove he was smarter than everyone, that he could get away with the “perfect” crime.

The ground was moist up here, littered with pine needles and pebbles and lots of wet dirt. The foot impressions were excellent—she and Miranda had flagged several she thought would make good casts.

The smaller set of footprints led down the mountain, but with the fog growing thicker and her flashlight not providing enough illumination, she wasn’t sure if they belonged to Nina.

“Miranda, come over here,” she called, wanting her friend’s expert advice.

“I just got off the radio with your detective. He’s on his way up.”

“He’s not
my
detective,” Olivia said.

“Hmm.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Olivia shook her head. “Save it. Look at these.” She shined her light on obvious footprints that headed down the mountain.

“Someone was running, but the ground is moist and they slid here . . . and down here,” Miranda said.

“They look small.”

“Small for a man.”

“I’m thinking Nina escaped,” Olivia said, hope bubbling. “What if she got away somehow? What if she ran and ran and got away from him? We need to go after her.”

“I agree, but you need to prepare yourself that she might already be dead.”

“No. Why? Why do I have to? She could just as easily be alive. I can’t be too late.”

“This isn’t all on your shoulders, Liv.”

Olivia shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “I didn’t mean that. You understand better than anyone.”

“It’s okay, Liv, but I just want you to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. Look here—” Miranda parted two spruce saplings and pointed to deeper impressions in the earth. “He pursued her. He may have caught up with her.”

“Or she could have got away,” Olivia said stubbornly.

“Yes, she could have. Or she ran and he caught up to her and killed her. Or he thought it would be easier to find her in the truck. Or maybe he wanted to escape.” Miranda’s eyes were filled with compassion. “Liv, prepare yourself, okay?”

Olivia closed her eyes, pictured Nina dead. Nina’s face turned into Michelle Davidson, then Missy.

“No. She’s alive. I feel it.”

“Olivia!”

Zack’s voice cut through the still fog.

“Over here!” she called, and watched as his shadow emerged. The quality of light was surreal with the flashlight beams bouncing off the mist.

“What did you find?”

Olivia walked him through the evidence. “Zack, I think she escaped. She’s probably scared to death, terrified, and cold. We have to go after her. Miranda has extensive experience tracking.” She glanced at Miranda, hoping she wouldn’t contradict her. Olivia knew she was putting her friend on the spot, but right now finding Nina was the most important thing.

She
had
to be alive.

“I agree,” Zack said.

Olivia was about to protest when she realized Zack was on her side.

“The three of us will go, stay in sight of one another. I’m going to call in our location.”

When he spoke to the deputy, he learned that Quinn Peterson and Doug Cohn were only fifteen minutes out.

It was surprisingly easy to follow the tracks, even in the dark. The beams from the flashlight made each impression stand out, and they proceeded at a steady pace. At first, the ground dropped away and Olivia feared Nina had fallen down the steep slope to her peril; there were several long, sliding impressions. But only a hundred feet downslope the ground leveled out. In the dark mist, the smell of spruce and pine and damp dirt overpowered all other scents.

Nina had to have been terrified. Running at night from a man who wanted to kill her for no reason her ten-year-old mind could fathom. But what impressed Olivia more than anything was that Nina had the wherewithal to escape in the first place. She was an amazing girl, and though Olivia didn’t know her, she was immensely proud of her.

Nina had zigzagged down the slope for several hundred yards. Even with a down vest over her sweater, Olivia was chilled. Nina had no warm jacket and would be freezing.

A flash of yellow to Olivia’s left had her stopping. Miranda was leading, focused on the ground, while Olivia took the middle and Zack the rear. “Stop,” she called.

“What do you see?”

“Look.” She pointed to a bright yellow spot on the ground. Her heart leapt into her throat.

Nina was last seen wearing a bright yellow windbreaker.

“Stay here,” Zack commanded.

He sidestepped over to the jacket, cautious. He squatted, then came up with the jacket and brought it back.

It was ripped to shreds. From the looks of it, by a sharp knife.

Miranda held out an evidence bag and Zack placed the windbreaker in it, then marked the spot with a red flag.

“Oh no, oh no. You were right Miranda,” Olivia began, her hands shaking.

“She’s not here.”

“But—”

“There’s no blood on the jacket.”