CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Darkness had swallowed the western side of Harlan County by the time Connor reached Talon Road.
The sheriff’s SUV moved through a tunnel of trees, its headlights sliding over trunks, weeds, and the broken edge of the pavement.
No houses had appeared for several miles.
The last porch light lay somewhere behind him, beyond two turns and a narrow bridge where the guardrail had been patched with fresh metal.
Connor held the steering wheel with one hand and the sheet from the phone company with the other.
Three sets of numbers had been printed beneath Linda Mercer’s name.
Latitude. Longitude. Margin of error. The location analyst had explained that the final network contact placed her phone within a broad rural sector, then sent a more precise estimate based on the last available data.
Precise still meant woods, abandoned property, and several miles of road.
Connor raised the paper toward the dashboard light.
A shape burst from the trees.
He dropped the sheet and slammed both feet against the brake.
The deer crossed in front of the hood so close that its flank filled the windshield. Hooves struck the road in a blur. The SUV shuddered beneath him, tires scraping over loose grit before the vehicle stopped at an angle across the lane.
For an instant, the deer stood beside the ditch.
Its head turned toward the headlights. A white throat, dark muzzle, and ears held rigid above its skull.
Then it bounded into the trees and vanished.
Connor kept both hands on the wheel.
His pulse hammered beneath his uniform shirt. The seat belt had locked hard across his chest. He eased one foot from the brake and listened to the engine idle.
Nothing moved beyond the windshield.
“Jesus.”
The word came out thin.
Connor shifted the SUV into park and lowered his head. The deer had missed the front bumper by inches. Another fraction of a second and it would have come through the glass or rolled beneath the wheels.
A memory rose before he could keep it down.
He had been nine when his father hit a deer on the road to his grandparents’ house.
Rain had fallen most of that morning. Connor sat in the passenger seat of the old pickup, holding a paper bag of sweets his mother had told him not to finish before they arrived. His father drove with one elbow against the door and the radio tuned to a ball game.
The deer came from the right.
There had been a heavy impact, followed by the sound of something striking the side of the truck. Connor remembered the bag leaving his lap. Sweets scattered beneath the dashboard. His father stopped, swore once, then reached behind the seat for the rifle he kept there during hunting season.
The deer lay near the center line, trying to rise.
One rear leg bent beneath it at the wrong angle. Blood ran from its nostrils and mixed with the rain. Connor’s father ordered him to remain in the truck.
He got out, walked close, and fired.
The sound passed through the cab as if the doors were open.
Afterward, his father dragged the animal to the roadside. Connor watched through the rain-streaked window as the body slid over the pavement. One of the deer’s eyes remained open, catching the gray light. It seemed to follow them when his father returned to the truck.
The rifle went behind the seat.
His father sat for several seconds without starting the engine.
“That had to be done,” he said.
Connor nodded because he understood that an answer was expected.
They drove on. Neither of them mentioned the deer again. His father turned the ball game back up and told Connor to pick the sweets from the floor before they melted into the rubber mat.
Connor had loved him. The man taught him to fish, change a tire, and hold his ground when other boys tried to push him around. Parenting had not come naturally to him. Tenderness arrived disguised as instruction, and fear was something a boy was expected to swallow before anyone noticed.
The SUV’s radio cracked with static.
Connor jerked upright and struck his knee beneath the steering column.
“Sheriff, come in.”
Cheryl’s voice filled the cab.
He grabbed the handset. “Go ahead.”
“Where are you?”
Connor retrieved the paper from the floor. “Out looking for numbers in a haystack.”
A pause followed. “What does that mean?”
“I got the coordinates from Mercer’s cell-phone company. They told me where Linda’s phone last connected to the network. I’m somewhere west of Talon Road trying to decide whether their idea of precise matches mine.”
“Any sign of her?”
“Not yet.”
The paper trembled slightly between his fingers. Connor set it on the passenger seat.
Cheryl said, “I hope you find her.”
“She might’ve ditched the phone. She was pretty pissed at her husband when she left.”
“Men are trying.”
“That cuts both ways.”
“Does it?”
“It does from where I’m sitting.”
The words carried more edge than he intended. Cheryl went quiet.
Connor rubbed one hand over his jaw. “Sorry. Nearly hit a deer.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. It ran off.”
Another pause passed over the channel.
Cheryl lowered her voice. “There’s a barn dance at Keaton’s place this weekend.”
Connor glanced toward the darkness beyond the driver’s window. “All right.”
“I’ve got two tickets. Somebody dropped out, and I wondered if you wanted to go.”
He closed his fingers around the radio.
Cheryl had asked before. Dinner once. A county fair. Drinks after a retirement party. Each invitation had left them both an easy retreat.
“Sorry, Cheryl. I just…”
“I’ll keep asking, Sheriff,” she said. “One day, you’ll say yes.”
Her tone remained light, but the quiet after it carried what she had chosen not to say.
Connor rested the handset near his mouth. “You deserve somebody who isn’t still trying to sort himself out.”
“I didn’t ask you to sort yourself out before Saturday.”
He almost smiled.
Cheryl continued before he found an answer. “Dana’s taking over the phones for the night. I’m heading home.”
“Good night, Cheryl.”
“Good night, Sheriff. Be careful out there.”
The channel went silent.
Connor returned the handset to its clip and shifted into drive.
The road curved downhill. Trees closed over it again, their upper branches meeting beyond the reach of the headlights.
The navigation screen showed the blue position marker approaching the coordinates in slow increments.
Each bend reduced the distance, though the estimated location remained away from the road, somewhere inside the wooded slope to his left.
One mile.
Half a mile.
The pavement narrowed until weeds brushed the passenger-side tires. Connor passed a collapsed shed, then a gate secured by a chain orange with rust. No drive matched the map. No mailbox marked the land.
The navigation system announced that he had arrived.
Connor stopped beside a ditch.
Trees stood on both sides of the road. Oak, hickory, and pine crowded the slope, their trunks disappearing into darkness beyond the headlight beams. Fallen leaves covered the ground beneath them. No building showed between the branches.
He switched on the roof light and compared the coordinates with the display.
The numbers matched.
Connor picked up his flashlight and got out.
Cold had settled into the valley since sunset. The air carried leaf mold, wood smoke from some distant house, and the mineral scent of the creek running below the road. His boots crunched along the shoulder as he swept the beam over the trees.
Nothing.
The phone could have been thrown from a moving vehicle. Linda might have driven past, switched it off, and continued toward Tennessee or Virginia. A last network contact did not guarantee that the device remained nearby.
Connor walked fifty yards north.
The beam caught reflective paint on a tree, then an empty drink can crushed near the ditch. Farther ahead, the roadside widened around a break in the brush.
He raised the flashlight.
Two wheel ruts left the pavement and climbed into the woods.
Branches hung across the entrance, concealing it from anyone driving at normal speed.
The track appeared unused, but fresh tire marks had pressed through the layer of dry leaves near the road.
Connor took out his phone and photographed the impressions from several angles before returning to the SUV.
The turnoff was too narrow to enter cleanly. He reversed, angled the hood toward the opening, and eased between the branches. Twigs dragged along both sides of the vehicle. The headlights found a dirt track climbing through the trees, its ruts barely accommodating the SUV.
He advanced at walking speed.
The road twisted twice, then leveled near the top of the slope. Tree trunks passed close to the mirrors. A low branch struck the roof with a hollow knock that made Connor grip the wheel harder.
Connor had always hated these woods after dark.
Old stories returned from childhood.
Men at the feed store used to speak about these woods after drinking past the point of caring who listened.
Hunters heard footsteps circling their camps when no one else had been on the mountain.
Dogs refused to follow trails beyond certain ridges.
A boy vanished near an abandoned mine and returned two days later unable to explain where he had been.
Most of the stories changed with each telling.
One remained clear.
Old Amos Pike had leaned toward Connor across the counter when he was ten and said, “There are things walking around those woods that shouldn’t be.”
His father told Amos to stop filling the boy’s head with nonsense.
Connor had laughed because his father did.
That night, he kept the bedroom curtains closed.
The trees opened.
An old barn stood in a clearing, its roof sagging at the center. Weathered boards covered the walls, some split or missing. One sliding door hung slightly forward from the track, leaving a narrow black gap between it and the frame.
Connor stopped twenty yards away.
The engine idled.
No lights showed inside. No vehicle stood in the clearing. The place seemed abandoned, yet the dirt before the doors held tire tracks too recent to have survived the last rain.
A warning tightened low in Connor’s stomach.
He shut off the engine and listened.
The sudden quiet made the woods seem closer. Leaves moved overhead. Something small rustled through the brush behind the barn. No insects called. No night bird broke the stillness.
Connor took the flashlight and stepped outside.
His hand rested near his holster as he crossed the clearing. The beam traveled over broken boards, a rusted hinge, and weeds growing through an old feeding trough. The barn doors had been pulled together but not secured.
At the gap, Connor stopped.
He directed the light inside.
A white car sat near the rear wall.
The beam caught the rear passenger door first. A long scrape marked the paint. The right rear wheel was bare, missing its hubcap.
Linda Mercer’s Toyota Corolla.
Connor stepped back and reached for the radio on his shoulder.
“Dispatch, this is Sheriff Chase.”
Static answered, then Dana’s voice came through.
“Go ahead, Sheriff.”
“I’ve found Linda Mercer’s vehicle off Talon Road at an old barn, approximately two miles from the highway. I came in through an unmarked track north of the final phone coordinates.”
Keys clicked faintly at Dana’s end. “Do you need assistance?”
Connor held the flashlight on the gap. He knew he should wait for help, but he couldn’t risk Linda being either hurt inside or a hostage of the killer.
“Send the nearest unit, I need backup, Dana.”
He drew his weapon and pushed one barn door sideways.
The rollers protested above him. Metal scraped against metal, and the door moved less than two feet before sticking. Connor slipped through the opening.
The odor reached him first.
Oil. Old hay. Rotting timber.
Something else rested beneath it, faint but wrong.
His flashlight crossed the interior.
Broken farm equipment leaned against one wall. A ladder lay across the floor. The Corolla stood with its nose toward the rear boards, driver’s side facing him. Mud coated the lower panels. The windows reflected his light, hiding the interior.
Connor advanced along the left side.
“Sheriff’s department,” he called. “Anyone inside?”
No answer.
The flashlight passed over the windshield.
A shape occupied the driver’s seat.
Connor stopped.
“Linda Mercer?”
The figure did not move.
“Put your hands where I can see them.”
Silence held inside the barn.
Connor approached the front quarter panel, keeping his weapon aimed below the window line. The driver’s door appeared closed. Grime dulled the lower edge of the side glass.
He shifted toward the hood and angled the flashlight through the windshield.
A woman sat behind the wheel.
Her brown hair rested against the seat. Dark jeans. Red sweater. Tan coat open across her lap.
Connor circled toward the driver’s door.
Linda Mercer’s head had fallen slightly toward the passenger side. Her eyes remained wide, fixed on the windshield. Her mouth hung open.
Blood had dried along her chin and neck.
Connor’s beam moved across the center console.
Something dark and wet rested on the passenger seat.
A piece of flesh.
The severed tongue lay beside Linda’s purse.
For one second, Connor could not move.
The barn narrowed around him. His breath stopped halfway into his chest. Karen Sloane’s body returned in a rush, followed by Ruth Keller on the study floor.
Three women.
Three mouths emptied.
Connor stumbled backward, nearly catching his heel on the ladder. He lowered the weapon and forced himself toward the doorway without touching the car or anything around it.
Outside, cold air struck him.
He grabbed the radio.
“Dana, get me forensics and every deputy we have on shift. Now.”