Even the warmth of Hellhound’s softly-snoring bulk beside me wasn’t enough to lull me into a deep sleep. I dozed fitfully, waking at every thump from the adjoining rooms and every voice from the parking lot outside. The air conditioner cycled on and off with roars and asthmatic wheezes punctuated by machine-gun-like rattling.
Kane was visible only as a dark silhouette in the other bed, but from the artificially steady rhythm of his breathing I guessed he wasn’t sleeping much, either.
When my phone chirped its alarm at five-thirty AM, I silenced it with a groan. Light already glowed under the bathroom door, so Kane had either woken before the alarm or had never slept. Beside me, Hellhound snored on. I cuddled a little closer, unwilling to leave the comfort of his body heat for the morning chill of the room. He sighed in his sleep and tucked his arm over me, and I was fading into slumber when the bathroom door opened, spilling light into the room.
“Good morning,” I said softly, and slid out of bed to head for the bathroom.
“’Morning,” Kane agreed in a hoarse rasp that indicated how little sleep he’d had. “I’m going to McDonald’s. What can I bring you?”
“Egg-and-sausage McMuffin, milk, orange juice, and a yogurt parfait,” I said promptly. “And you’d better bring lots of coffee for Arnie. I don’t dare wake him at this hour unless coffee is the first thing he smells.”
The tired lines of Kane’s face eased into a smile as he regarded his best friend’s peaceful slumber. “Right. Back soon.” A ghost of humour flickered in his eyes. “Don’t shoot me when I come through the door.”
“Only if you forget my breakfast,” I promised.
By the time I emerged freshly showered, Kane had already returned and Hellhound was propped more or less upright in bed, alternating grumbled profanity with gulps of life-giving caffeine.
As I tore into the deliciously savory grease of the breakfast sandwich, Kane propped his elbows on the other side of the small table. “Mayweather called,” he said tightly. “They’re organizing the search teams at first light, but I’m not going to join them right away. I want to look at the accident scene first.”
I wiped my fingers on the napkin and reached over to squeeze his hand. “Will they let you do that? Will they be done there?”
“They’ll let me.” His face was grey and grim in the inadequate light, and I spared a moment of sympathy for any hapless police officer who might oppose him.
A short time later we hit the highway, following Kane’s Expedition while the eastern sky lightened to dawn behind us.
The sun peeked over the horizon as we turned south on the forestry trunk road, and Hellhound groaned and swung the visor to the side to block its rays. It hadn’t seemed wise to initiate conversation earlier, but now I turned to regard his sleepy features.
“Do you want me to drive?” I offered. “You could catch a bit more sleep.”
“Nah,” he croaked. “Then I’d just hafta wake up all over again.”
“How did you ever survive the army? Aren’t they all about early mornings?”
He squinted blearily at me before returning his attention to the road. “I can wake up early. I just really fuckin’ hate it.”
After that we drove in silence until Kane’s brake lights glowed through the plume of gravel dust we’d been trying to avoid for the past half hour.
“I’m leadin’ the way when we go back,” Hellhound grumbled. “His turn to eat dust for a while.”
Despite his grousing, he looked wide awake and alert when he pulled off on the side of the road and parked behind Kane’s SUV. We got out and hurried forward to join Kane where he stood at the edge of an embankment. The road sloped downhill before veering off to the right, and somebody had obviously missed the curve.
The path of Buck Murphy’s final ride was marked by crushed undergrowth, gouged earth, and snapped saplings. I held my breath as I leaned over the edge, but it wasn’t a sheer cliff. Steep but navigable by foot, the hillside fell away into a small valley. The wrecked truck had been removed, and its destruction was evident in the remaining twisted trim mouldings and glitters of broken glass. Streamers of police tape fluttered from the trees near the road but none stretched across to seal the site, so we moved forward cautiously.
Kane halted at the edge, his gaze sweeping side to side. “I’d like to walk a large perimeter first,” he said. “Let’s start twenty yards or so outside the damage zone and do a search pattern. Yell if you see anything out of the ordinary.”
I eyed the dense forest around us. “We might want to do a bit of yelling anyway. This is bear country.”
“Good point,” Hellhound said, and unleashed a ringing yodel that would have done an alpine herdsman proud. The echo bounced back on the clear morning air, and he promptly engaged the echoes in an enthusiastic yodelling competition.
When he finished, grinning, Kane squinted at him as though peering through a blinding headache. “Good God. If there were any bears around earlier, they’re long gone now. That sounded like Tarzan being slowly roasted over hot coals.”
Hellhound feigned injured pride. “What d’ya mean? That was my best Franzl Lang imitation.”
Kane shook his head. “I don’t know who Franzl Lang is, but I hope I never meet him. Let’s get started.”
As he turned away, I reached up to give Hellhound a kiss. “You sounded great to me. I’ve always loved yodelling.”
“Really? I didn’t know ya were a yodeller, darlin’.” He waved an expansive arm over the quiet valley. “Let’s hear ya.”
“Oh, jeez, no! I didn’t mean I love to yodel myself. I meant I love listening to yodelling.”
“Aw, go on. Give it a try,” Hellhound urged.
“No way. John might have thought you sounded bad, but he’d think somebody was strangling a cat if I got going. Come on.” I hurried over the edge of the embankment, but halted when a police car pulled to a stop on the road above, blipping the siren.
Kane emerged from the woods and the three of us trekked up to where the uniformed officer stood beside his car. “This site is part of an active investigation,” he informed us. “I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m investigating,” Kane said shortly, and flashed his badge at the officer. “This is my team.” He indicated Hellhound and me.
The officer gave the badge a cursory glance, then nodded and left, obviously focused on wherever he’d been heading before he spotted us.
“Was that, um… a good idea?” I asked hesitantly. “Isn’t that kind of like impersonating a police officer?”
Kane just shrugged and turned to plunge into the forest again.
Several hours later, I stretched the sleeve of my T-shirt to mop the sweat off my forehead while I trudged up the embankment for what seemed like the hundredth time. At the top I flopped down to sit on the ground, stretching out my legs.
Crackling in the undergrowth made me jerk to attention but it was only Hellhound emerging from the woods, brushing spruce needles out of his beard.
“Hey, darlin’,” he said as he strode over. “How ya doin’?” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I figure you’re due to pass out pretty soon if ya don’t get some lunch.” He lowered himself to the ground beside me and I leaned into him despite our mutual sweatiness.
“I’m starving,” I agreed. My stomach let out a rumble of complaint, and I massaged it absently. “But mostly I’m thirsty. I didn’t realize we were going to do a marathon hill-climbing session here. I already drank my bottle of water, and I should have brought more.”
“Yeah.” Hellhound frowned downhill to where Kane was still methodically pacing back and forth across the accident site. “I shoulda known he’d do this. If we don’t stop him, he’ll spend the rest a’ the day here without food or water.” He let out a halloo and when Kane looked up, he beckoned and shouted, “Come on up. Time to go back to town. Aydan’s gotta eat, an’ you do, too. We can come back after lunch.”
“You go ahead,” Kane called in return. “Just bring me back something when you come.”
Hellhound sighed and rose, extending a hand to pull me up. “Come on, darlin’. No point arguin’ with him, an’ the sooner we go, the sooner we’ll get back. It’s gonna be stinkin’ hot pretty soon so he’s gonna need more water.”
“It’s already stinking hot.” I trailed after Hellhound on legs rubbery from exertion and hunger.
A shout from behind made us pause, and a moment later Kane jogged up over the lip of the embankment. Not for the first time, I marvelled at his fitness as he approached, his breathing only slightly accelerated after running up the steep hill.
“Changed my mind,” he said. “I don’t have a cellular signal out here, so I’ll go back to town, too. I want to call Mayweather and see if there are any new developments.”
“Okay,” Hellhound agreed. “Meet ya at the Burger Baron.” He hustled over to his SUV and put it in gear seconds after the passenger door closed behind me. “Ain’t gonna eat any dust this trip,” he said smugly as we pulled away.
A logging truck surged into view over the crest of the hill.
“Don’t be too sure about that,” I replied as a giant dust cloud enveloped us.
With a burger and fries nestling comfortably in my stomach, I leaned back in my chair and sipped the remainder of my milkshake while Kane dialled Mayweather’s number.
After a terse greeting, Kane asked, “Anything new?”
At Mayweather’s response he sat up straight in his chair, his eyes narrowing in concentration while he listened.
Mayweather seemed to be giving him a lengthy report, because Kane sat in silence punctuated only by mutters of acknowledgement. Suddenly the colour drained from his face.
“So… you’re searching downstream?” he asked, obviously trying to hold his voice steady and not quite succeeding.
Mayweather’s response was short, and Kane cleared his throat and added, “All right. When the forensic team is finished, I’d like to look over the campsite. Then I’ll join the search team.”
He pressed the disconnect button and leaned his elbows heavily on the table as if holding himself up by sheer will. “They found the campsite uphill about a mile from the accident site,” he said. “It was hidden back in the woods. We drove right past it this morning without even seeing it.”
Hellhound and I exchanged a worried glance. “And…?” I asked, my stomach clenching.
It had to be bad news. I didn’t want to hear it.
“Daniel had definitely been there. They found his toy soldiers in the tent.”
We waited in silence while he gathered himself.
“They brought the dogs in, and they picked up Daniel’s trail leading away from the campsite.” Kane swallowed. “Toward the river.” He drew a ragged breath. “They found Murphy’s missing boots neatly lined up beside his tent. Tracks matching those boots overlaid Daniel’s footprints in the soft soil at the edge of the river. Murphy’s prints went down to the river and back again. Daniel’s…” He swallowed again. “…went down to the river and ended there.”
Sick silence enveloped us.
“Maybe he got tired an’ Murphy carried him back,” Hellhound offered unconvincingly. “It’d be uphill from the river, right?”
“They have preliminary autopsy results, too,” Kane went on, his voice tight. “Murphy was intoxicated. Double the legal limit, but investigators guess he was only going around twenty kilometres per hour when he went over the edge, so there’s no way he should have missed the curve unless he either passed out or swerved to avoid something. There were no marks indicating he’d swerved or braked, but that’s a well-travelled road so any marks in the gravel might have been obliterated by the time investigators got there.”
“That doesn’t make sense. What the hell was he doin’ drivin’ around shit-faced in his sock feet?” Hellhound demanded. “An’ I ain’t ever known a drunk to drive carefully. He woulda been flyin’ down that hill, unless…”
“Unless he was in shock,” Kane said tersely. “If he’d just seen Daniel being swept away down the river… he might have gone back to the campsite, tried to drown his sorrows, then driven away in a daze…”
“Nah,” Hellhound objected. “He’d a’ freaked out an’ run for help. He’d a’ been drivin’ like a bat outta hell. An’ why would he take off his boots?”
“Or he killed Daniel in cold blood and threw his body in the river,” Kane said grimly. “Then went back to his campsite and got comfortable. Took off his boots and had a few drinks…”
“He wouldn’ta,” Hellhound said with certainty. “A murderer woulda gone screamin’ outta there an’ called the cops to make it look like an accident. An’ anyway, why would he take Daniel all the way out here to kill him? He had lotsa other chances that woulda been a helluva lot less trouble.”
Desperately clutching at any semblance of hope, I blurted, “Wait, here’s a scenario that makes more sense. What if they were just having a nice camping trip? They go down to the river and play around a bit, then Murphy carries Daniel back. Remember, Daniel would be tired after the birthday party, and it would be getting late. So Murphy puts Daniel to bed and then he sits up drinking for a while…”
“The cooler full a’ food an’ beer,” Hellhound said with a nod.
“Right,” I agreed. “So he’s drunk when he decides to call it a night. Puts the cooler back in the truck so it won’t attract bears, takes off his boots, goes into the tent, and then realizes Daniel has wandered off. He panics, jumps in his truck and goes looking for him. Doesn’t bother with boots or seatbelt.”
“Driving slowly,” Kane said, sounding more hopeful. “Maybe calling out the window. But because he’s drunk and his attention is divided, he misses the curve and goes over the edge of the embankment. The autopsy showed that he died of a broken neck. He sustained a couple of blunt-force facial injuries just prior to death, but his other injuries were consistent with being ejected from a rolling truck and the examiner believes they occurred post-mortem.”
“So he smacked his face as he went over, which broke his neck, and he was dead before the truck ever rolled over him,” I translated, and Kane nodded.
“If your scenario is right, they need to send those tracking dogs out again,” Kane said, already dialling his phone.