“Of course,” Ilse murmured as the GPS barked arriving at destination on left. She was now thirty miles outside Seattle. Ilse stared through the windshield at the small, wooden cabin set against a backdrop of mountainous forests. “Of course he lives in a cabin in the woods.”
She felt her memories flitting back to her own experience in just such a home. The trees at night loomed around them, swelling across the dirt road. She felt exposed, all of a sudden. As if night itself were staring at her.
Ilse felt a flicker of anxiety, her hands so tight on the steering wheel one of her knuckles popped.
Sawyer just waited patiently as Ilse pulled to a halt outside the dusty cabin, and then he flung himself from the vehicle, marching up to the home. As he hastened forward, he suddenly went stiff. He frowned, glancing down at the ground.
Ilse moved as well, shaking badly, wishing to return to the car and hide. But hiding wasn't an option now. The twins were in danger. They might already be dead. Full steam ahead was the only option.
Still, as she moved through the shadowed trail beneath the dark branches, memories from little Hilda Mueller's own trek through a forest once upon a time came back to her. Ilse rubbed at her elbows, trying to fight off a slow chill.
Sawyer, though, was still standing stock still, holding out a hand over his shoulder.
“Wait,” he barked suddenly, as she drew nearer.
She went still.
“What is it?”
Sawyer pointed at the ground. “Tripwire.”
She blinked in surprise, but then leaned in and her eyes widened. A gossamer thin strand of wire stretched across the dirt driveway between two trees. Only the faintest hint of moonlight through tree cover dappling the road gave any indication something was there. She stared equal parts stunned at the tripwire itself, and also that Sawyer had even noticed it.
Sawyer followed the wire, moving along slowly towards one of the trees. Carefully, watching the detritus-strewn floor, Sawyer glanced behind the trunk.
“Huh,” he said. “An alarm system,” he murmured. He pointed up towards the branches. “Two cameras. See them?”
Ilse tried to make them out in the dark, but just shook her head. “Why,” she murmured, “would an innocent man need a tripwire?”
Sawyer shrugged, rolling his shoulders. “Prepper in the woods?” he guessed. “Stay behind me, doc. Keep back.”
The two of them stepped gingerly over the wire stretched between the trees. Ilse's apprehension was now at an all-time high. Her heart was pounding so loudly she thought it might collapse her chest. Her mind kept swimming with a million and one horrible possibilities of their plight. What if the killer was watching them now at the end of a sniper scope? What if the twins were in that cabin, cut to tiny pieces?
She gritted her teeth, trying to step behind Sawyer and keep up with his lanky strides. Even while moving cautiously, Sawyer had an excited energy about him.
He was not following the drive, preferring to step through the detritus and undergrowth of the forested area on either side. They reached the wooden steps of the cabin. The structure creaked from the faint wind and from old age. The beams of wood crisscrossing the threshold were tangled with cobwebs. Ilse spotted more than one fly trapped motionless in the webs.
Once Tom had made sure the steps weren't booby-trapped as well, he moved up them at a careful pace, gesturing, once he'd reached the top, for Ilse to join him.
Which she did, reluctantly, still full of anxiety that went down her spine and ended in a knot in her gut.
“Do we knock?” Ilse said in barely a whisper.
In answer, Sawyer just leaned in, peering through the windows framing the door. He hesitated, glancing through the darkened glass, then shrugged. He pushed a hand against the door, trying the handle gently at first. “No resistance,” he murmured. He shrugged again and then twisted the handle and pushed.
The door creaked, opening slowly.
Ilse frowned, feeling a cavern open in her chest, a deep, dark emptiness. An ominous foreboding rising within. What sort of man placed a tripwire but left his door unlocked?
What sort of cautious killer left a hair fiber?
Something seemed off.
But she didn't have time to dwell on it as Sawyer was now stepping into the cabin, gesturing at her to follow.
They both emerged in a dark room with odd, wooden carved furniture visible from the faint moonlight. Sawyer clicked a flashlight on, sweeping it across the cold space. A long, epoxy-resin dining table made of wood and chemicals centered the space beneath a chandelier of jutting antlers woven together.
A large elk's head sat above a fireplace, staring with glassy eyes towards the newcomers.
Ilse shivered at the items. By the looks of things, Mr. Wolfe was a hunter. Hunters had guns. She heard the faintest snap as Sawyer unbuttoned his holster.
She glanced back at him, but he was already moving towards the two doors in the back of the space. The cabin was small, much smaller, even, than Ilse's apartment.
It didn't take Sawyer long to push open each door and clear the rooms. His flashlight shone like a lighthouse beacon, illuminating a single, empty bedroom, save a cot on the ground. And a bathroom with a sink but no shower.
The kitchen was behind one of the walls, hidden in shadow, out of sight from the main room with the large table and antler chandelier.
“Clear,” Sawyer said after another sweep of his light beneath the table. He frowned, scratching at his chin. “Guy?” he called out, raising his voice now.
The two of them waited in the eerie dark, listening to the creak of wood. But there was no response. No sound except for the interruptions of wind and wood.
“Not here,” Sawyer said, looking back at Ilse. He studied her with his green eyes as if waiting for her to reach some conclusion.
Ilse bit her lip, thinking desperately. Mr. Wolfe was their killer—she felt certain of it. Certainty was more an emotional sense at times, but other times it came with a bone-deep knowing. This man was their killer. But also... also...
Why did it almost feel like he was toying with them? As if they were wandering into some game without even realizing it. Why had he left a hair fiber behind? Why was it so easy to find his cabin? Why had the door been unlocked?
And now, where was Mr. Wolfe? More importantly, where were the Denzel twins?
“Shit, Ilse,” Sawyer said sharply, causing prickles to erupt across her arms.
“What?” she demanded, slipping back into the skin she'd nearly jumped out of.
“Look! Look here!” Sawyer was tapping a finger at the table, his eyes the size of quarters.
Prompted by the urgency in his tone, Ilse hastened forward, peering down at the indicated portion of the wood surface. She blinked, studying it, feeling her blood bruit as if at a quickened pace. Someone had carved words into the table with a knife.
Recently too, judging by the peeled strands of wood.
The words were in phrases, listed. The first was clear: Gingerbread Man. Arthur.
Ugly Duckling. Adelaide.
Jack and the Beanstalk. Lee Jackson.
Hansel and Gretel.
The final title didn't have a name next to it. But the other three names had all been crossed out as if with a red marker. Ilse stared at the words and names etched in the wood. She felt a rising sense of terror followed by the stunned realization that this confirmed it.
“See,” she murmured. “It is him.”
Sawyer just stared at the names, scowling. He looked at her, didn't apologize, but did give a faint nod. “Yup,” he said. Then he went quiet, watching her, waiting. After a moment, trying to gather her thoughts, Ilse realized this was Sawyer's version of deference. He was holding his tongue now. Not quite an apology, but at least a willingness to let her take the lead. She'd been right.
But what did it matter if she couldn't find the missing kids?
Why had the killer just etched the names on his dining room table? It all seemed so... contrived. Intentional.
Like a trail of breadcrumbs.
Ilse pressed her tongue against her lower lip if only for the sense of something sturdy. She glanced faintly around, studying the table, the rest of the room, searching for... for another breadcrumb?
Then she spotted something. More gouge marks on the table, but this time in the epoxy rather than the wood. She frowned, leaning in, and her eyes suddenly widened.
“Tom...” she said slowly. “Look!”
He did, leaning in also. The two of them both stared, desperately trying to make sense of the markings just beneath the resin surface of the table.
There, in the blue and green swirls of the resin, beneath the smooth varnished surface, Ilse spotted more marks. More X's across the wood.
And also, nearly invisible, next to the X's, she spotted the names of locations. Caspen Studios. An X next to it. Then, a foot off the right, she read Central Park, and another X. Then, her eyes traveled to the very edge of the table. Another mark beneath the surface, and this one read, Jackson's farm. And another X.
“Shit,” Sawyer said suddenly. “Ilse—Ilse I think it's a damn map. He's left us a map. That's where he killed them. Those three marks. It's a confession. He did it. Holy—”
“There's a fourth,” Ilse said suddenly, pointing. Another X mark, this time off to the left of to the Northeast of the rest of the marks. Ilse hesitated, frowning, trying to piece together the geography in her brain. This mark was in green resin...
“That's this forest,” she said suddenly, tapping her finger. “He's here. Somewhere. In the woods, in the mountains. Tom, shit, he's nearby!” She spun around, facing Sawyer, her eyes blazing. “He's going to kill them in this forest!”
“Damn it.”
“How big is the wood here?” Ilse asked, desperately.
“Hundreds of square miles, Ilse.”
She winced, but then pointed towards the X mark. “Where is that?” she said.
Sawyer shrugged. “Even if the map is to scale, it could cover any amount of space. A thousand acres, maybe more.”
Ilse gritted her teeth, glancing once more to the empty bathroom, then the bedroom as if convincing her subconscious he wasn't just standing in the empty rooms. She huffed and then said, “We need to contact the search parties. Reroute them. Get them all in the woods—everyone. Two together. Make sure they're armed.” She glanced towards the elk head over the wall and shivered. “He damn well is going to be.”
Sawyer was already pulling his phone, placing the call to dispatch to reorient the searchers.
Ilse walked quickly, with stiff steps, but then broke into a jog. “Come on!” she called. “I need your flashlight.
“--Right now,” she heard Sawyer saying hurriedly. “I'm sending coordinates. All of them! Yes, dammit, everyone. No time—just send them!”
Then as she rushed out the door, taking the steps hurriedly, she heard the sound of Sawyer giving rapid pursuit.
She faced the trees, closing her eyes for a moment and picturing the table with the X mark. If it was to scale then... then the killer would be...
“That direction!” Sawyer was saying, rushing past her, his flashlight waving back and forth. He jammed a finger towards a dirt road leading away from the house. “Come on, doc! This way—the rest are coming.”
Ilse's lips felt suddenly dry. For a moment, she felt as if she'd discovered a tripwire of her own. Here, amidst the driveway, near a cabin, she was near the forest without quite being in it. But the trail, leading away, through the woods?
It was like something out of a storybook. She'd endured such a story before. She'd wandered away from a trail in the past. People had died then. Two people, in fact—her brothers. Little Hilda Mueller had gotten lost in the woods, and people had died.
She stared, eyes wide in their sockets at the trees around her. Her heart hammered so wildly she wanted to scream.
“Doc!” Sawyer shouted back, waving the flashlight in her direction. “I think I see ATV tracks! You coming?”
Now wasn't the time for hesitation. It wasn't the time for fear. Sometimes, all that remained wasn't the certainty of an outcome, but the courage leading up to a conclusion.
Courage wasn't the absence of fear. At least, that's what some said.
If this was the case, then Ilse was filled with every opportunity to be courageous imaginable. All she felt was terror. Not just the fear of the moment, or what lay beyond. Not even the fear of confronting a brutal torturer in the woods.
But other fears. Dormant fears.
Would she react under pressure? Or would she freeze up?
Too many questions... Too many thoughts. She gritted her teeth, muttering beneath her breath, “Three victims. Guy Wolfe. Brown hair. Dead eyes.”
Then, she picked up the pace, stepping over her own imaginary tripwire and rushing after Sawyer and his bobbing flashlight into the woods.