Chapter Twenty-Nine
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It doesn’t take me long to realize I was mistaken. These are not “stomach cramps.” They’re labor pains. It feels like another round of prodromal labor, which means it’s nothing to worry about. My body is just fussing. Or, better yet, getting the baby in position for birth in a few weeks.
I don’t tell anyone. I really am fine. It’s just sudden bursts of pain that make me want to double over. No big deal.
Okay, yes, it’s a big deal, but compared to Yolanda being in the forest with a sadistic serial killer? I can handle the pain. The baby isn’t coming yet.
We only need to circle the town once before finding Jerome and Yolanda’s trail. Even without Storm, I could have tracked them—there are two sets of prints leaving the main trail, only partly obscured by thick brush.
Halfheartedly obscured? Yes. Jerome could have found a better place to leave a trail, like the flattened mess of prints leading to the lake, from our investigation.
I look at these prints, and I see a sneer. At us? Because we left, taking Storm and Dalton and leaving the town—presumably— without a tracker. Jerome had little interaction with Jacob. He wouldn’t have realized Jacob would find this trail faster than Storm or Dalton.
Or is the sneer for Anders? Hopeless without his boss? While the forest is not Anders’s forte, he would have found this trail, because he’d have searched until he did.
I set Storm on it, and the others let her take charge while they scan for trouble and clues. It’s a clear day, which is a relief. Sunny but cold. The only thing slowing us down is the forest itself, thick with fresh snow. That makes it slow going, but it also means I can keep up easily.
Okay, “easily” might be an exaggeration. I’m keeping up, following in the path Storm cuts, but it’s still a slog and the cramps don’t help. At least the others are behind me, meaning I’m free to pull faces when the contractions hit.
With a trail Storm could follow half-asleep—plus three pairs of eyes on alert—I don’t need to do much more than guide Storm and encourage her. When she stops to snuffle the snow, I move up alongside her and bend over as best I can.
The snow here isn’t as deep. It’s an open area with scant tree cover, and the snow has blown away, leaving it only a few inches deep. I still can’t tell what Storm’s snuffling until I spot a small hole in the snow a foot to my right and then another beyond it. Telling Storm to stay where she is, I peer into the hole.
“Blood,” Dalton says.
I glance up to find he’s walked past us and is looking at another spot.
“Blood drops in the snow,” Jacob says. “They’ve sunk in, but we can see them.”
“It’s from that,” Anders says.
He’s pointing at one of the few trees. Dalton’s already bearing down on it. I waddle over as he takes a piece of fabric from the branches. It’s dark with blood.
“Part of a shirt,” he says, holding it up for me.
It’s the torn bottom section of a standard-issue jersey. It’s been ripped, and it’s drenched with drying blood.
“Is that Yolanda’s?” Jacob says quietly.
I shake my head. “The shirt is too big for either Yolanda or Lynn. It’s a lure.”
Jacob frowns over at me.
“Jerome said he heard something in the forest,” Anders says. “That’s how he got Yolanda to go in with him. This would have been the lure. He says it sounded like it came from this direction. Wait, is that blood in the snow? Holy shit, what’s that in the tree?”
“How the hell did he get it in the tree?” Dalton says. “These are the only tracks.”
I squint across the clearing. Then I track the blood droplets.
“Threw it.” I point to the tree line off to our left. “He’d have stood over there and thrown it. Drops fall and it gets tangled in the tree.”
“He was our snowball pitcher for a reason,” Anders mutters. “He has one hell of an arm.”
“So he comes in over there.” Dalton points. “Where Yolanda won’t later see his trail. He throws it to create a tableau guaranteed to get her attention.”
“Is anyone going to ask where the blood came from?” Jacob says. “That’s a lot of it.”
“It’s not blood.” I gesture for him to get closer to the rag and sniff it.
“Ketchup?” he says. “And something else?”
“Some mixture that looks a lot like blood, at least on a piece of fabric and some drops in the snow.”
“Uh, guys?” Anders says. “There’s something over there, too.”
I can’t see what he’s pointing at. The perils of being a short woman with tall guys. I start heading that way when a contraction hits, and I manage to hide it by glancing sharply left, as if I heard something. Then I shake my head before anyone can comment.
The footprints proceed toward whatever Anders saw, though they meander a bit, and I can imagine Yolanda in tracking mode, scanning the clearing, walking around trying to find anything else.
Then she does. There’s a red patch in the snow, as if something else had been there but is now gone. I don’t spend more than a second looking at that, though. What seizes my attention are the marks in the snow. The smaller boot prints from Yolanda, and then the spot where she crouched for a better look… and the drag marks behind it, the wild thrashing as she struggled against Jerome hauling her backward into the thick woods.
I hurry after those marks. We all do—Anders and Jacob going on ahead with Storm, while Dalton stays with me, making sure I’m not left behind.
Jerome set this all up in advance. Then he brings Yolanda and leads her along until she’s engrossed in what has happened here, worrying that someone else is missing, wanting to process the scene as best she can before alerting Anders, trusting that Marlon has her back because she might not be interested in him romantically, but she trusts him as a person, as a colleague.
She bends to examine something in the snow. He needs that distraction. She’s smart, and she’s probably armed with her own gun, but her guard is down and she’s crouched, and it’s easy to grab her and drag her off and get her gun away before she can pull it on him.
I see the signs of that final struggle in the snow, where he must have gone for the gun and she tried to get to it, but he’s so much bigger and stronger and her brain is still trying to process what is happening.
With that, I realized he was even more careful in his choice of location than I thought. He’d needed the clearing to stage the tableau. But once he had Yolanda, he either needed to move her by force or carry her. The other option would be to kill her where he grabbed her, but we already know he likes to take his time. He’s not going to lay a trail that could bring Anders running before Yolanda is dead.
No, after he had her, he needed to move her and hide their trail. Just beyond that clearing, we hit rock, which the wind has swept nearly clear of snow. He was able to avoid the pockets of snow and get Yolanda out of there without leaving a trail.
Or, without leaving a trail that he expects Anders can follow. Jacob and Dalton pick up the signs of passage here and there. But it’s Storm who shines, easily able to follow Jerome’s scent across the rock.
And after all that, the trail heads to the place we would have expected him to take her. The lake. He circled around it, though, coming across the rock to the opposite side. Being careful, because without a snowstorm for cover, he needs to be farther from town.
Is he taking a risk bringing Yolanda to the lake? Of course he is. Anders might skip finding a trail and head straight here, knowing that’s where Lynn died.
Jerome is taking risks because he likes that. Added danger. Added excitement.
We’re already onto him. He hasn’t just happened to kidnap Yolanda at the same time I started getting suspicious. He’d probably breathed a sigh of relief when Dalton and I left mid-investigation. Then Anders took him off patrol.
Oh, Anders had been careful about it. With Grant grieving, someone needed to do his job, and the patrols were under control, with no sign of trouble. Would Marlon take over Grant’s job, please? Of course. But he’d also gotten suspicious.
There was probably more. Maybe he overheard something. Maybe he just got vibes from Anders that said he was a suspect. So, since it looked as if he wouldn’t get away with killing Lynn, why not take another victim before he escaped? And he didn’t need to worry about Storm being summoned to track him, because he had both satellite phones.
Anders will know who took Yolanda, and when she’s found dead, he’ll know who did it. So Jerome doesn’t need to throw Anders off the trail completely. He just needed to slow him down.
When we reach the lake, the footprints resume, sporadic but clear. He’s pushing her ahead of him. A scuffle. Then blood spatter, as he must have cut or stabbed her to keep her moving. My chest clenches when I see those.
Don’t fight, Yolanda. That might be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but we’re on the way. We’ll get to you in time.
I pray we’ll get to you in time.
Is it already too late? I’m trying so hard not to calculate. If they left Haven’s Rock around eight thirty, and we didn’t arrive until nearly ten…
It’s tight. If Jerome moved quickly, it’s too damn tight, and he will be moving quickly. Especially if he heard our plane.
Why the hell did I take so long to realize Yolanda was gone? That could make all the difference here. When Anders said Yolanda had the second phone—the one going to voicemail—I should have been more worried than I was.
Storm barks, shattering my thoughts, and I look to see she’s trying to get my attention. Her tail is moving with excitement and she’s looking over the lake to a spot on the ice.
Shortcut! I found a shortcut!
“She smells Jerome and Yolanda on the wind,” I say. “Over there.”
The footprints continue straight, hugging the shore. Jerome and Yolanda headed along it, but they’re over to the right now.
“Split up?” Jacob says. “Eric and I keep tracking while you, Storm, and Will head that way?”
Dalton shakes his head. “If Storm smells them, this is the shortcut. We’re downwind of where she’s scenting. We mark this spot, in case we have to come back.”
“It’s awfully open,” Anders says, shading his eyes against the sun.
I see what he means. If we take the shortcut, it’ll put us out on the ice, where our approach can be spotted.
“And he’ll be armed,” Anders says. “Yolanda always carries her gun, and he’ll have taken it from her by now.”
“The safe path is along the shore,” I say. “There’s cover. But we could be running out of time. He’s bound to have heard the plane.”
“I’ll find us a path,” Dalton says. “Everyone fall in line behind me and keep quiet.”
Dalton picks a path that doesn’t satisfy either part of me—the part that worries we’ll be too late or the part that worries Jerome will spot us and kill Yolanda faster. But there’s no way to eliminate both those concerns, and the route he takes is the best we can manage, not quite cutting across the open ice, but not quite hidden in the thick trees either.
We move fast. It’s all we can do. When I can’t move fast enough, Dalton tells Anders and Jacob to go on ahead.
“You can go, too,” I say. “I have Storm.”
He doesn’t even answer that. I made a mistake coming out here. Yes, Storm works best with me, but this has been such an easy trail to follow that she didn’t need my guidance. I’m slowing them down. I’m holding Dalton back. And the contractions haven’t stopped. If anything, they’re getting stronger.
Could it be actual labor?
I push aside the panic. Even if it is, I know from my research that labor lasts for hours. Many hours. Early contractions are just a signal to start thinking about packing a bag for the hospital.
We’ll get Yolanda and return to Haven’s Rock. I won’t tell Dalton, of course—he can’t afford to be distracted right now, when we’re so close. But I do need to issue one warning.
“Don’t rely on me,” I whisper. “I’m doing okay, but I’m struggling. If there’s a confrontation, I’ll keep myself safely out of it, but I can’t help.”
Dalton lets out a low chuckle. “You’re eight months pregnant, Butler. I wasn’t planning on relying on you for backup. No offense.”
“Hey, my trigger finger works just fine.”
“But you can’t charge and wrestle him to the ground?” He sighs. “There goes that plan.”
“If you wrestle him to the ground, I can sit on him. I’m big enough for that now.”
“You’re fifteen pounds heavier, Butler. That’s not much help.” His arm goes around my shoulders, and he gives me a squeeze. “When we get close, I’m going to find you a place to hunker, and you will hunker. With your dog and your gun at the ready, but you will hunker.”
I nod. “I will.”
I’m breathing easier now, the conversation easing my worry and lightening the tension. We’re so close. We will get to Yolanda. We—
Storm goes still, nose lifted. Then she whines, and her entire body shakes with excitement. She’s looking to our left, inland instead of across the lake. Jacob and Anders are still moving forward in the old direction—heading away from wherever Storm seems to be scenting her target.
Dalton seems ready to bird-call to them, but then he stops. Jerome knows that birdcall. Dalton shifts his weight, glaring at his brother and deputy, as if he can mentally force them to turn around.
“Go on,” I whisper. “I’ll stay right here with Storm.”
He glances at me. I move closer to a bush and maneuver Storm in front of me as a blockade.
“Look, I’m hunkering,” I whisper.
He grunts. Then he takes off at a silent lope. I watch as he catches up with Jacob and Anders. There’s a quick conference. Jacob peers around and points at something. Dalton nods and ducks his head, half crouching as he runs past a line of low bushes back to me.
“Jacob spotted tracks,” he says. “On the hillside.”
I hesitate. That’s in the general direction where Storm was indicating, which is away from where she’d originally indicated. But it’s also heading inland from the lake. Does that make sense?
Yes, it probably does. There’s no reason to think Jerome would kill Yolanda the same way he killed Lynn. As far as I could tell, he’s never repeated an MO. The apparent destination of the lake could be a decoy.
“You should go,” I whisper.
Dalton starts to shake his head.
“Go,” I say. I lift my gun and point to Storm. “I’m fine. Storm and I are downwind, and I have a clear sight line across the ice. Jerome isn’t going to sneak up on us. They need you out there.”
“You’ll stay here?”
“Hunkered in place,” I say.
He pauses for another two seconds. Then he gives an abrupt nod and takes off.
Dalton’s soft footfalls have long since faded to silence. I check my watch, and only five minutes have passed, but it feels like an hour. Storm isn’t helping. After Dalton left, she started to fuss. Then the fussing turned to low whines. When that didn’t work, she tried to leave her stay position. She’d step forward, and I’d stop her and she’d fidget, like a child forced to sit too long. Except she can hold a stay indefinitely without more than a grunt of complaint.
She keeps looking to her left. I think she’s glancing in the direction Dalton went, a clear message to me that we should be following. But then I notice her gaze is fixed farther left.
She seems to be looking at the bush we’re crouched behind, and I check that, as if Jerome could somehow be on the other side. Of course, he’s not, but when I move to peer around it, Storm rocks forward, as if I’ve finally understood her message.
I creep until I can see past the other side of the bush. She takes two steps in that direction.
“Wait,” I say.
She looks back and huffs, frustration pouring off her.
They’ve gone in the wrong direction. Yes, Jacob saw tracks, but Jerome and Yolanda must have circled back this way.
And, if they have, the guys will be on it. I just need to be patient.
A call comes. It’s not Dalton’s usual birdcall, but I know it’s him letting me know he’s okay. Except the call comes from even farther off than I expected him to head.
Jerome has a two-hour head start on us. Just because he may have circled back my way doesn’t mean he didn’t leave a winding trail first.
Storm lets out a low whine. She thinks I’m not understanding what she’s telling me. Her target is over there, and I’m just crouching here, doing nothing.
Her whine sharpens, and she nudges me. I take a closer look at her eyes and her body language.
Not frustration. Anxiety. She isn’t annoyed that I’m ignoring her. She’s worried, because something is wrong.
A little voice whispers that I’m overreacting. Willfully assigning emotions to my dog that suit my purpose, because I’m concerned that the men are heading in the wrong direction and I’m so conscious of that ticking clock and—
I clench my fists against a fresh contraction.
The voice whispers that maybe this is what Storm is stressed about. Me. Because I may very well be in active labor and Dalton is gone.
But while she presses against me and licks my face during the contraction, once I’m breathing normally, she’s focused to our left again, whining.
I have a gun. A gun and a very big dog, and Dalton isn’t that far away.
Move toward whatever Storm senses. If it’s Jerome, stop and assess. If he’s sitting on a log watching Yolanda die, then it only takes one shot to end it. Otherwise, I can get Dalton.
I will only go as far as I need to. I’m not being reckless. I know my limitations right now, where I could get into a showdown with Jerome only to be doubled over by a contraction.
I creep forward with Storm at my side. When I veer to a section with larger trees, she doesn’t like moving from our trajectory, but she accepts it. That lets me straighten and continue forward a little faster. I get past that line of trees to see windswept rock to the right. It’s a big open area, and I can easily scan it and see nothing more than scrubby bushes. Patches of snow are all unbroken by footprints.
I look down at Storm. She’s focused on one cluster of those bushes. It’s not big enough to hide Jerome and Yolanda, though. It’s barely big enough to hide one—
There’s a foot protruding from the bushes. A slender, bare brown foot.