Natalie’s mind turned into a murmuring creek as she followed the DWW ranger across the beachfront, keeping a safe distance between them. She passed several emergency crew members on the scene, as well as a handful of reporters talking into their microphones. Stray voices threaded through the air: “A number of drownings have taken place at Devil’s Point over the years … could not be reached for comment … another unfortunate accident this year … the drowning victim was a local woman.”
Samuel paused at the snack bar, and then glanced over his shoulder at Natalie, his eyes resting briefly on her face. He nodded respectfully. After speaking to someone inside the command post, he continued on his way up the beachfront toward the parking lot. His wet brown hair was the color of baking chocolate. He had a cocky swagger.
A tear slid down Natalie’s expressionless face as she hurried past Luke.
“Natalie?” he said, stopping her. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” she lied.
“Let’s get a cup of coffee,” he suggested gently.
She shook her head. “I’ve got to go.” She strode past him up the beach, across the boardwalk, and toward the public parking lot.
Shock meant not enough oxygenated blood was circulating through the body. Symptoms included sweaty skin, a weak pulse, irregular breathing. Psychogenic shock was caused by emotional trauma, where the blood pooled away from the brain, causing dizziness and confusion. Natalie knew she was in psychogenic shock.
Fortunately, she’d parked her car in a poorly lit corner of the lot. She made sure Samuel didn’t see her as she unlocked the door and got inside. She sat for a minute, cradling her head. No tears. All thoughts gone. She was on autopilot. She inserted the key in the ignition and started the engine. She waited in a mental fog.
Samuel was loading his equipment into a weathered white pickup truck. He got in and started the engine. The mud-spattered pickup shuddered and died. “Damn. Come on.” He tried again.
Natalie could hear tinny voices coming from his sputtering radio.
He peeled away in a spurt of gravel.
She could feel her irregular pulse at the base of her throat as she stepped on the gas and cautiously followed. How you began a moving surveillance was crucial. You were supposed to keep a fair distance between yourself and the subject, but you couldn’t fall too far behind, or else you might lose him. Surveillance by automobile was tough in any city, but way out here in the boonies, only an idiot wouldn’t notice another car following them on such sparsely traveled country roads. Natalie would have to stay sharp. She’d have to keep several hundred yards between herself and the pickup at all times if she wanted to remain undetected.
The white pickup kept rolling through the stop signs. She tried to keep one or two vehicles between them whenever she could. The roads were familiar, but the woods always looked different at night. Dark clouds were beginning to congregate overhead, creating welts and bruises in the moonlit sky.
Now the ranger took a left. Natalie took a left.
He turned onto I-87. She turned onto I-87.
She’d taken this road out of town how many times? She shuddered. She understood what she was doing—pursuing a deeply disturbed individual while she was in shock. There was nothing chaining her to reality anymore. She had no center. Her father once told her, “That’s what being a detective is all about. You search for a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert. As the facts pile up, it’s only a matter of time before the case collapses inward and the truth is revealed.”
Natalie radioed Dispatch. “I need a license ID.”
“Okay, shoot.”
She rattled it off.
Five minutes later, the BLPD dispatcher came on and said, “Belongs to Samuel H. Winston, New York DWW Forest Ranger.” He gave her a home address.
“What’s the middle initial stand for?” she asked.
A short pause. “Hawke with an e.”
“Thanks.” She planted the mike.
Samuel Hawke Winston. What the hawk eats.
A strange feeling of disorientation and nausea came over her, fueled by sheer naked terror. She saw Grace’s unseeing eyes. She saw the boy crouched on the bank of the stream, poking the dead raccoon’s swollen belly, and the pus-filled intestines gushing out. She saw Daisy dead in a pool of blood. The smooth oblong bones of her sister’s legs, kicking as she swam in the high school pool. Grace drowning in a swirl of bubbles, unable to breathe. Natalie saw her entire life in a flash of stunning emotion, but then it faded just as quickly, an ember winking out.
The pickup’s taillights shimmered distantly in the smothering darkness as Samuel Hawke Winston turned north. The Adirondack Mountains were a protected area, consisting of six million acres, which included two thousand miles of hiking trails, three thousand lakes, and more than a thousand rivers. People got lost hiking in these mountains all the time. There were boating accidents in the rivers and lakes. The Adirondack Park, which was larger than Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon combined, was maintained by the New York State Department of Wetlands and Woodlands. The Division of Forest Protection had approximately 134 forest rangers, most patrolling in the Adirondacks and Catskills. They drilled for all types of missions. They responded to hundreds of missing-persons incidents in the parks and forests each year. On average, three hundred individuals were lost or injured on state lands and required an emergency response. The DWW utilized thermal-imaging equipment, search dogs, patrol vessels, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, and a helicopter to augment their rescue efforts. Each ranger had a geographic territory he was responsible for.
Being a ranger was a 24-7, 365-days-a-year job. You were on-call for fires, missing persons, injured or trapped visitors, wounded animals, and any other emergency situation that fell within the park’s jurisdiction. Samuel was one of many brave men she’d known for years, exchanging platitudes in the most dire of circumstances. He would’ve had extensive training in wilderness first aid, law enforcement, emergency medicine, and other specialized fields. He was required to maintain his Emergency Medical Responders certification and participate in high-angle rescue, swift-water rescue, and dive rescues. Because of the frequency of campfires in the parklands, he was also trained in wildland firefighting, as well as structural firefighting. Rangers at the DWW were jacks-of-all-trades. She’d once considered joining their ranks herself.
The roads were narrow and curving. Natalie drove along in silence, but there was a rush-roar sound in her ears. They were twisting through the foothills now, moonlight seeping through the heavy cloud cover. Up. Down. Gliding through the turns.
They passed the exit to Thaddeus Falls—Samuel’s hometown, according to the dispatcher. But he ignored the exit. When they passed the next exit, Natalie realized he wasn’t going home.
There were more lakes farther north. It was chillier up here. The farther north you went, the longer winter dragged on. Many of the rustic cottages were empty. There were lots of arts-and-crafts-style lodges and vacancy signs. After several more miles, the white pickup took a one-way street, and Natalie had to find a parallel road so Samuel wouldn’t suspect he was being followed.
After a few minutes she panicked, thinking she’d lost him. She drove around in circles before spotting the white pickup again at a gas station. Natalie kept on driving another fifty yards or so, then pulled over to the side of the road, where she picked up her phone and did an online search for the DWW website, but there was no employee information available. Next she found Samuel Winston’s Facebook page. He was certified in EMT, underwater recovery, high-angle rescue, and public-safety diving by Dive Rescue International. He’d been awarded for his rescue efforts, involving everything from boating accidents and plane crashes to accidental drownings. He was married with two children. The pictures of him posing with his lovely family were Instagramworthy.
Her heart fluttered as she made an illegal U-turn and doubled back. Her fury and outrage were stuck in her throat like a handful of sand. She didn’t want to lose him. As she approached the gas station, Samuel did her a favor by pulling out well in front of her and heading in the same direction she was going. She followed him for half a dozen blocks before he took a right onto Mountain Pass Avenue, the town’s main artery. She kept a good amount of space between them, while he continued his ascent through the foothills. When the white pickup truck turned north onto a little traveled road, she switched off her headlights and followed him for many more miles into the woods.