Cold Sanctuary (John Decker Series Book 2) (14 page)

33

Decker walked through the early morning darkness back toward the south tower, with Mina following on his heel.

When she was sure they were out of the sheriff’s earshot she spoke up, her voice tinged with frustration. “You’re just going to let him get away with treating you like that?”

“I don’t have any choice,” Decker replied. “He’s within his rights, at least as far he sees it.”

“But…”

“He’s the sheriff, which means he can tell us to stay out of the way if he wants to.” Decker knew all too well the authority a sheriff possessed, and he also knew that sometimes a sheriff would use that power to inflate his own ego. There were a lot of petty people in the world, and Wilder was one of them.

“It’s not fair,” Mina continued.

“No, it’s not.” Decker was mad with himself. He should have known better. Wilder thought that Hayley had undermined his authority by bringing Decker in. She had stepped on his toes. Wilder also thought that Decker himself was a kook, and who could blame the man? After all, from an outsider’s perspective, the whole werewolf thing was pretty unbelievable. Now Decker had given the sheriff what he wanted: a valid reason to tell him to steer clear. Decker had played right into the sheriff’s hands when he broke into that building. Worse, he’d dragged Mina into it.

“What do we do now?” They had reached the portico leading to the main doors. “We can’t just give up.”

“Damn right we’re not giving up,” Decker said. “We will have to be careful though. I can speak to Hayley, but I’m not sure it will do any good, and the last thing we want to do is infuriate Wilder. I don’t know about you, but I don’t relish the idea of a stint in his lockup.”

“So what then?”

“We have this.” Decker pulled the key card from his pocket. “I would love to know what this opens, and Wilder has no idea about the bag.”

“Which is hidden in the north tower,” Mina said. “Wilder will be keeping an eye on the place from now on. He’ll be looking for us to sneak back there. How do you suppose we get the bag without landing ourselves in jail?”

“I’m not sure yet.” Decker held the door open for Mina. They walked to the elevators and waited for the car to arrive. “I have a feeling that the bag is somehow tied to the killings. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

“I agree.” The elevator doors opened and she stepped in, pressing the button for Floor 5. “That still doesn’t help us right now.”

“No, it doesn’t,” admitted Decker. “And to tell the truth, I have no idea where to go from here. I think it might be best to sleep on it. We need to proceed with caution from now on.”

“We should have just taken the bag while we had the chance.”

“And then Wilder would have seen it, confiscated it.”

“You’re right.” The elevator slowed and stopped. The door opened to the fifth floor landing. Mina stepped out, and then turned back to Decker. “Things will look different in the morning.”

Decker remained silent.

“I’ll come by tomorrow?” Mina looked hopeful.

“Sure.” Decker pressed the button for the tenth floor. As the doors closed he saw Mina turn and head toward her apartment. He had no idea what he was getting her into, and he hoped he could keep her safe, but he also knew that there was no way she was going to let him pursue this on his own. Like it or not, he had a partner.

34

At 8 A.M. the next morning Don Wilder left his apartment and went to the sheriff’s office on the third floor. This wasn’t his final destination, but no matter where he needed to be, he always stopped at the office first thing just in case any of the town’s residents needed to talk to him. Most days there was no one waiting for him to show up, but on occasion he would find someone loitering, anxious to tattle on a neighbor or report a missing cat. Today the corridor was silent and empty. Only the sound of his police issue boots disturbed the peace.

He let himself in, tucked the key back into his pocket, and checked his email. Satisfied that there were no emergencies, he left and locked the door once more, then started toward the elevator, and the lobby.

His encounter with John Decker the night before had left him annoyed and frustrated. It was clear that Hayley Marsh had no faith in his ability to stop the killing spree that plagued the town. That she had brought in her own outside expert was enough of a slap in the face, that it was a disgraced cop who had no right walking free, let alone pretend that he could be of some help, was downright insulting. Decker should be locked away in a padded cell, not wandering around conducting off the books investigations. And then there was the matter of the gun. Hayley going out of her way to skirt the law and provide Decker with the weapon was yet another show of disrespect. For a brief moment Wilder had contemplated hauling Decker off to the holding cell behind his office, along with that troublemaking kid Mina. But that would tick off Hayley Marsh, and even though he didn’t answer to her, he did need the budget she apportioned to him every year, without which he could not buy equipment or attend the police conference in Miami the following spring, or even get paid. No, when it came down to it, he needed to play nice with the town administrator. He did not need to do likewise with that idiot Verne Nolan at the bait and tackle shop though, which was where he was heading now. There was only one place Decker could have gotten that firearm, and it was from Verne. The man needed a reminder of his place in the pecking order, and Wilder intended to provide that lesson.

He reached the lobby, noting the pair of teens lingering near the fountain that dominated the middle of the space. He was about to tell them to move along, when a woman approached from the corridor.

She cast him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I know they aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He nodded and watched as she hustled the kids back toward the corridor. “Just make sure they get to school.”

“I will sheriff.” The relief on her face indicated that she expected a lecture, but Wilder had other things on his mind.

He reached the main doors and stepped out.

It was raining, again. A haze of drizzle that made being outside just miserable enough to make one think twice. He hurried to the sheriff department’s only car, a Jeep Cherokee parked in one of the two spots reserved for official vehicles near the tower’s main entrance, and slipped behind the wheel, slamming the door. He reversed out of the space, and then pointed the car toward the docks, driving through town at a slow pace until he reached the road that ran parallel to Baldwin Bay.

As he drove along, he glanced out of his side window toward the mountains that ringed the bay and the vast expanse of frigid gray water. Visibility was poor, with low-lying cloud cover that swathed everything in a muted cloak. He spotted a couple of large boats in the mist, trawlers most likely, on their way out to fish the deep waters of the Pacific, beyond the safety of the bay. He didn’t envy them their job. Commercial fishing was a hard, thankless task, and dangerous to boot. More than one boat had returned to shore missing a man, and sometimes a boat just didn’t come back at all. The weather could turn deadly with little notice in this frozen landscape.

Wilder turned his attention back to the road ahead. He could see the docks now, the jetty that stuck out with yachts and skiffs moored on both sides.  A few men hurried about their business near the boats, but otherwise the docks were deserted.

He arrived at the bait and tackle shop and eased the Jeep up next to the building. He climbed out, pulled his coat tight against the wind and rain, and walked around to the front of the store, nodding as he passed a group of fishermen heading the other way through the parking lot, deep in conversation, their words lost on the breeze.

When he reached the front of the building he was surprised to find the store locked up, a
closed
sign hanging askew in the window. He leaned close and peered through the glass but could not see much in the dim interior.

He glanced toward the dock. Verne’s boat, a small single engine cabin cruiser, was there, as was his beat up F
ord Bronco, tucked into a space between the dumpsters and a weathered fence that hid several racks of propane canisters.

Wilder reached for his cell phone and found the number for the store. It was unlike Verne not to open. Most of the trawlers and charter boats left early, and he wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to sell a cooler of bait or squeeze a few dollars out of some tourist for a rod.

Wilder lifted the phone to his ear and waited.

It rang once, twice, then three times.

After the fourth ring there was an audible click and Verne’s voice filled the speaker. For a moment Wilder thought the ex-marine had picked up, but then he realized it was just voicemail.

He cursed and ended the call.

Something was not right.

In all the years he’d lived in Shackleton, the bait shop was never closed when there was business to be had. Besides, Verne didn’t oversleep, ever. He was still stuck in Iraq, at least in his head, and now sleep was his enemy.

Wilder cupped his hands and peered through the window a second time. He pulled the flashlight from his belt and clicked it on, holding it close to the glass and shinning the beam into th
e gloomy interior. Now he could see a lot more detail, and this time he noticed something out of place. Toward the back of the store, near the counter, a rack full of lures lay scattered across the floor, the rack itself leaning at an angle, its fall stopped only by the shelves lining the aisle. A growing feeling of dread wormed its way into Wilder’s gut. There was something wrong here, very wrong indeed. All thought of Decker and the illicit gun was pushed from his mind now, replaced by the pressing need to locate the bait shop owner. He needed to get inside.

Wilder stepped back for a moment. He took a deep breath, calming himself, and then approached the window once more. He turned the flashlight so that the grip faced forward, took aim, and brought the hilt down on the glass. The metal shaft made contact near the frame, the window breaking into a spider web of cracks. He tapped again, knocking the shards away, and then, careful not to cut himself, reached around and found the deadbolt holding the door closed. He groped for a moment until he found the knob. He snapped it left to release the bolt, and withdrew his arm.

With the door unlocked, he stepped inside, turning the beam of the flashlight frontward again, and picked his way through the store, his unease growing with every step.

35

Dominic Collins sat on a metal chair placed in the corridor outside of the furthest cell in the quarantine wing and watched the creature within consume a pile of raw meat.

It ate with gusto, tearing off huge chunks of the flesh and gulping them down, a look of contentment in its eyes.  Blood smeared its chin and hands, not to mention the floor of the cell.

The meat came from a cold storage locker stocked by Adam Hunt, who had left specific instructions to feed the beast four times daily, with the last meal at midnight. This sated the creature and kept it docile, although that was a relative term. It still lunged at the glass at every opportunity, and Dominic was sure that it would just as happily munch on him as the chuck steak.

He stood and inched closer, able to see into the cell thanks to a halogen work lamp positioned in the corridor. The cells were fitted with a sedation system that pumped gas into the room, allowing for easy access, but changing the bulb was pointless since the creature would just break the light again as soon as it woke up, so the halogen lamp stayed, even though it pumped out enough heat to make the corridor uncomfortable.

On the other side of the chair stood a tripod with a small digital camcorder attached. Dominic had set it up the previous evening and left it running all night, even when the halogen lamp was turned off. Thanks to the array of infrared LED’s attached to the top of the camera, he was able to record even in total darkness, and this gave him a record of the creature’s behavior over a full cycle. It also freed him up to spend time preparing his lab for the harder work which was to come. He was not looking forward to that work, which included taking blood samples, skin scrapings, and doing a full analysis of the creature’s physiological makeup. The thought of being in the same room with the beast, even though it would be heavily sedated, was not an appealing one. For one thing, they had no idea how long the gas, pumped through vents in the ceiling of the quarantine chamber, would last. He would need to run several tests to ensure that the creature remained asleep throughout the entire time it was outside of the cell, and even then, there was no guarantee that something would not go wrong. Those tests would take a couple of days, since putting the creature under too many times within the same twenty-four hour period might adversely affect it. That was fine with Dominic. The longer he could delay going hands on with the thing, the better. Not for the first time he wondered why his employer had selected him for this job. He spent most of his time peering into microscopes, and he was sure there were other scientists in the fold, people with experience working with large animals, who could have done the job. Was he the only available person, or had he pissed someone off enough to land an assignment that could end with a set of sharp teeth ripping out his windpipe?

The creature had finished eating now.

It sat on its haunches and observed him, a baleful, sad, look in its eyes. Dominic stood for a moment longer, meeting its gaze.

A shudder ran through Dominic, and he turned away.

Something about the way it looked at him, about that unblinking stare, made him feel odd. It was as if there was still some vestige of the person it once was behind those eyes. Dominic could not explain it, but he felt as though the man was a prisoner trapped within a body he could not control, a slave to the new, depraved instincts that now controlled him.

When Dominic turned back toward the cell, the creature had moved away, slinking back into a corner of the small room and curling up in a fetal ball, its head tucked down. This was nothing unusual, at least so far as Dominic could tell. The beast was in that position most of the time, except when it saw him and lunged for the glass, which it did with a little less gusto now. It was as if the damn thing knew that its attempts to break out were futile, and that realization frightened Dominic more than anything. Even if it was a violent monster with a raging temper, it must still have some form of rudimentary intelligence. He didn’t know if any of the human reasoning and intellect remained locked in the beast’s brain, but he did know that he must be careful. He had no idea what the creature was capable of, and until it was proven otherwise, he must assume that it still had access to some degree of human thought.

Dominic folded the metal chair and placed it against the wall. He glanced at the camera for a moment, at the red light that blinked just above the lens, and then turned toward the door. Let the camera keep watch; he had better things to do.