By five o’clock my head was pounding and my stomach was in knots. I logged out of the network and sat staring at the blank computer screen for a few moments before jitters drove me to my feet.
“Fuck this,” I muttered, and headed for the door.
After a short stop at my farm to grab road food and my small backpack, I hit the highway heading west.
When my cell phone rang a few miles past Drumheller, I slammed on the brakes and veered over to stop precariously close to the ditch, heart pounding.
“Hello?” I gasped.
“Hello, Aydan, it’s John.” His deep baritone was still edged with fatigue, but he sounded a little better than he had earlier.
I hesitated, afraid to ask the question.
“I just wanted to let you know that there’s nothing new at this end,” he said tiredly. “The cadaver dogs didn’t find anything. The search teams have combed everything within a two-mile radius from the campsite, and I’m certain that if Daniel had been in that area, they would have found him.” He went silent.
“Oh.” The syllable fell from my lips like a stone. “So… what does that really mean?”
“Nothing. We’ll keep looking. It’s all we can do.”
“Okay. I’m on my way. I should be there in about two and a half hours.”
“You don’t need to do that,” he protested. “It’ll be nearly eight by the time you get here. The search teams only stay out until sunset at nine.”
“That’s okay. I have my gear with me. I’ll help you search tonight.”
He let out a breath. “Thank you.”
“See you soon,” I said, and disconnected.
When I pulled into the motel parking lot I cast a wary look around, but apparently the bike rally had moved on. The place was deserted except for Kane’s and Hellhound’s vehicles and a couple of white half-tons bearing oilfield-service logos.
I parked and shouldered my backpack before crossing to tap on the door of Kane’s unit. When he opened it, my heart smote me at the sight of his haggard features and unshaven jaw.
“Oh, John.” I stepped inside and drew him into a hug. He sank his face onto my shoulder and I held him close, stroking his hair and wishing I could do something to ease the terrible pain in his eyes.
After a moment he pulled away, squaring his shoulders. “Welcome back to the Ritz,” he said with an attempt at a smile. “It’s just as ugly as before, but at least it’s quieter now.”
“Hey, darlin’,” Hellhound added from behind him. “Nice to see your pretty face. I’m already sick a’ lookin’ at Kane’s ugly mug.”
“Look who’s talking,” Kane retorted without rancour as I went over to collect a hug from Hellhound. He looked almost as careworn as Kane, but as always his embrace gave more comfort than it took.
“Thank you for coming,” Kane added as Hellhound released me. “I was hoping for a chance to communicate over a secure channel, but this is better.”
“Really? You have something?” I demanded, trying to hide my hope.
“No, I need something.”
“Oh.” My heart sank again. “What can I do?”
“Can you get me Murphy’s autopsy report?”
I glanced at Hellhound’s curious expression and said carefully, “Not this instant, but probably tomorrow.”
“Would you please?” Kane hesitated, then added, “If you’re still all right with doing that…”
“Of course. Set up a bogus email address tonight and I’ll deliver it as soon as I can. It won’t be first thing in the morning, though, because I have to do my requalifications at nine AM. Once you get my report, delete the email account.”
“Wait, you’re going back to active duty? Tomorrow morning?” Kane demanded at the same time as Hellhound growled, “Whoa, what the hell?”
“Yes.” I answered Kane and avoided Hellhound’s frown with a question. “Why do you need the autopsy report? I thought Mayweather already told you what was in it.”
“He only gave me the preliminary findings.” Kane made a frustrated gesture, his fist clenching before dropping to his side. “And he won’t give me the whole thing because I’m not on the case. Privacy Act; open investigation; blah, blah.”
“Aydan ain’t on the case, either,” Hellhound said suspiciously. “Are ya, darlin’? So how the hell are ya gonna get that report? Are ya some kinda super-hacker or somethin’?”
“Oh, hell, no,” I lied with a light laugh that sounded almost convincing. “Spider’s the hacker. I’m just-”
“A bookkeeper,” Hellhound finished. “Uh-huh.”
“Well, no,” I conceded. “You know that. But I have my ways.”
“That why you’re goin’ active again?” Hellhound asked. “So ya can get us information?”
“If that’s the reason, don’t do it,” Kane added. “We’ll find another way.”
“Um…” I eyed the two frowning faces across from me. They didn’t need any more worries right now. “No, I just, um… I had to anyway. So it’s okay.”
“It’s okay until you ship out on your next mission,” Kane said flatly. “Based on what you told me two days ago, you’re not ready. What does Dr. Rawling say?”
“Fuck Rawling and the horse he rode in on,” I snapped. “And then bend him over and let the horse fuck him, too. He’s an asshole, and I’m done with him.”
“Uh, darlin’, if he doesn’t think you’re ready…” Hellhound began worriedly, but I overrode him.
“He’s the one who set me up.”
“What do you mean, he ‘set you up’?” Kane inquired dangerously.
A glance at the fire in his eyes made me backpedal hurriedly. “I didn’t really mean that. He was only doing his job, and I shouldn’t be so pissed off at him. It was just that I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go back to active duty for a while yet…”
Try ‘never’.
I bit back the word and continued, “…but this is just how it worked out. No big deal.”
“Sure as hell sounds like a big deal,” Hellhound observed, his brow still furrowed with concern. “What ain’t ya tellin’ us, darlin’?”
“The usual classified shit.” I waved a dismissing hand, knowing those magic words would prevent him from questioning me any further. “But don’t worry,” I added. “Stemp promised he wouldn’t dump me into the deep end. I’ve just got a simple courier job on Friday.”
“Any mission can turn into ‘the deep end’ if things go sideways,” Kane growled. “And if you’re not at a hundred percent…”
“I am,” I assured him. “Really. Stop worrying.” I changed the subject. “But speaking of worrying, you need to go in for your debriefing. Stemp’s getting antsy.”
“That will take hours. Maybe days.” He brushed the issue away with an impatient gesture. “It can wait. So, you might be able to send me the autopsy report by late tomorrow morning?”
“Probably. Are you looking for anything specific?”
Kane let out a breath of resignation. “I don’t know what I’m looking for. At this stage I’m grasping at straws. Maybe…” He hesitated. “According to police statistics, children Daniel’s age rarely travel farther than a mile on foot when they’re lost. The radius we’ve searched already exceeds that. There’s a diminishing rate of possibility that he went farther, but it seems more likely that we’re looking in the wrong place entirely.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then went on, “The river is the strongest possibility. If he fell in and was swept away…”
I reached over to squeeze his hand, but he went on, his voice hard and level. “The cadaver dogs searched downstream a long way today. Using the statistics we have available and knowing the river’s flow rate and terrain, it’s unlikely that his body would have been carried beyond the area they searched. It’s possible, of course, but…”
He shrugged, a tense jerk of his shoulders. “My gut tells me he’s not here. Maybe I’m fooling myself because I don’t want to believe the truth, but at this point it doesn’t matter. If there’s more to this situation than Daniel simply wandering off, I need more information and the autopsy report is the place to start. We’ll search again tonight, but tomorrow it’s time to shift our focus. And… Mayweather as much as told me…” Kane’s voice went husky. “…they’ll be winding down the search tomorrow. After thirty-six hours…”
His fists clenched.
“Dammit!” he exploded. “This shouldn’t have happened! I should have been the one taking him camping! I should have… If I had called Alicia even once in the past six years, I would have found out about him. He wouldn’t have needed a loser like Murphy…” His voice choked off.
My heart breaking, I put my arms around him, but he disengaged himself and stepped back, squaring his shoulders. “I’ll hire searchers to take over as soon as Mayweather calls off the official search,” he said levelly. “Others can do that as well as we can, and our time will be better spent investigating. I’m going to set up that email account now. Aydan, if you have to requalify tomorrow morning, you should go back to Silverside now. It’ll be nearly eleven by the time you get home.”
“No, I’ll help you look,” I disagreed. “I brought my night-vision and infrared gear, and three sets of eyes are better than two.”
“That’s true, but…” I could see he was torn, and after a moment he let out a breath. “All right. If you want to search with us until midnight, that’s fine, but then you need to go home.”
“Okay.” I flopped onto the bed. “After we coordinate the email account, you can lead the way to the site. I’ll follow in my car.”
By eleven-thirty PM my body was aching from the fatigue of the day compounded by nearly three hours of pushing through dense undergrowth and trudging over uneven ground in the darkness. Kane and Hellhound strode tirelessly a few yards on either side of me, the heat of their bodies glowing in my infrared vision.
We searched in silence, an unspoken surrender to the knowledge that Daniel, if he was here at all, was likely beyond the ability to hear or respond to a call.
I had just switched from full-infrared to night-vision when Kane snapped, “Heat signature, two o’clock!”
Flipping back to full-infrared, I spotted a glowing horizontal blob at approximately chest height. Maybe a child lying on a rock…?
I switched back to night-vision and we crashed through the woods, only to pull up short when we cleared the intervening trees.
“Shit,” Hellhound muttered.
My already-racing heart delivered a shock of adrenaline that burned all the way to my toes. “Open your jackets!” I barked. “Make yourselves as big as you can!”
My Glock was already in my hand, though I didn’t remember drawing it. One-handed, I fumbled my jacket open and spread it wide, an instinctive growl rumbling in my throat.
On my right, Hellhound’s pistol was steady in his hand, his free arm widening his jacket, too. Kane grew dramatically on my left, his arms and jacket widespread.
Obviously unimpressed by our show of dominance, the giant cougar subjected us to an intent inspection, rising slowly from its reclining position on a rock ledge. Its heavy dark-tipped tail swung rhythmically side to side, a furry pendulum counting down the final seconds of its prey.
A snarl ripped from my throat, fading into a keening growl that rattled between my bared teeth. The big cat’s eyes widened as if in surprise and it backed away a step, tail twitching.
Hellhound roared, “Fuck off!” at the same time Kane bellowed, “Scat!”, and the cougar gave us one last considering glance before turning to glide sinuously into the undergrowth. When the dark tail-tip disappeared into the bushes, Hellhound let out an explosive breath.
“Jesus Christ, Aydan, what the hell? Ya scared me worse’n the fuckin’ cougar, growlin’ like that.”
My laugh came out high and nervous while I turned slowly, scanning a full circle. “Sorry. Habit.”
“Habit? What the fuck, darlin’? How often d’ya hafta swear in cougar-language?”
“I used to do it a lot when I was a kid.” I flipped to full-infrared, still scanning anxiously around us. “There were some really aggressive feral tomcats around our farm and they used to scare the hell out of me. But once I learned to speak their language, they’d always back down and run. It was pure reflex to let fly with a snarl when I’m shit-scared by a cat.”
Hellhound laughed. “Well, it still works like a damn. And I’m glad we didn’t hafta shoot it. What a beauty!”
“Our scare tactics might have worked for now.” I turned another slow three-sixty. “But cougars will stalk you and attack from behind. I’d rather meet a bear than a cougar any day.”
“Yeah,” Hellhound agreed. “But it ain’t gonna take on the three of us.”
“If it does, it’ll likely attack you, Aydan,” Kane supplied not-too-helpfully. “You’re the smallest of us.”
“Yeah, but she cussed it out big-time,” Hellhound argued. “It prob’ly fucked off for good.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Kane replied. “Aydan, we’re going to walk you back to your car now. It’s time for you to leave.”
“You don’t need to-” I began.
“Let’s go,” Kane said firmly, and turned back toward the road. “I’ll take point. Hellhound, follow Aydan and watch our six.”
I didn’t protest any further. It was nearly midnight anyway. And with the back of my neck tingling at the thought of the cougar stalking us in the darkness, I was pathetically glad of their protection. I stuck close behind Kane’s broad back and took comfort from the sound of Hellhound’s footsteps behind me.
At my car, I hugged each of them in turn, wishing I could convince them to go back to the safety of the motel and knowing with an ache of pride that they were both too brave. I got into my car amid exhortations to drive carefully and pull over for a nap if I got tired, which I countered with equally forceful instructions to watch each other’s backs, stay warm in the chill of the high-country night, and call me as soon as they got back to the motel.
The drive home seemed interminable. In the forested higher elevations I strained my eyes for wildlife at the edges of my headlights’ range. Twice I braked hard when deer skittered out beside the road, and once my heart gave a hard thump at the sight of glowing green spots in the ditch. I slowed to a crawl, recognizing the telltale reflection of elk’s eyes, but the huge animals made no move to cross the road. I drove on, easing my tense fingers one by one on the wheel.
When I reached the blessedly open grain fields of the east, I relaxed my vigilance at last. The long day and cessation of tension dragged at my eyelids and I stopped repeatedly, getting out of the car to walk around before sliding back into the driver’s seat to sing at the top of my lungs while I drove.