Bear Bait (9781101611548) (12 page)

“Sweet.” Then there was a hesitation. “But an FBI agent is a fed, right? So maybe that’s not so sweet.”

“Trust me, Lili, he’s pretty sweet.” And then she was exasperated at herself, because now she
was
sharing her love life with a thirteen-year-old. “But I’m sure you didn’t call to talk about that.”

“Remember my career project? I wrote down a lot of questions about being a wildlife biologist. So I was wondering, can we get together tomorrow after school?”

Sam planned to spend most of tomorrow looking for more signs of trouble at Marmot Lake. “Well, Lili, I have to work.”

“And
I
have to go to school,” Lili retorted, her tone long-suffering.

Good point. She
had
promised to help. “You’re right. What time is ‘after school’?”

“I get out at two.”

Well, that was darn inconvenient—smack in the middle of prime survey time for her. “Lili, how’d you like to come out and do some fieldwork with me?”

“Really? That’d be cool! Maybe we could find a bear.”

“Maybe we could; I’m looking for one. Think your mom or dad might be able to deliver you around three?”

“I’m walking over to Dad now; you can ask him.”

“Wear your boots and bring a water bottle.”

“I will. Thanks, Aunt Summer! See you tomorrow.”

After making a deal with Joe to rendezvous with him and Lili at a forest service campground, Sam ended the call and wandered around the living room. She pulled the power knob on his old TV. Nothing happened. She checked the plug and gave the antique device a solid whack, clicked it on and off a few times. Nothing.

She perused Mack’s book collection, which consisted of military thrillers, truck catalogs, and botany textbooks, reminding her again that her friend might be a fellow outdoor enthusiast, but he was a guy, and a young guy to boot. She felt like a salmon that had leapt the wrong waterfall and ended up in an alien pond.

She plopped onto the floor, pulled her duffel to her, and rummaged through it, finally extracting a plastic bag that contained an embroidery hoop, fabric, and a small stack of quilt blocks. She dumped the bag’s contents out on the floor. The finished blocks were the beginning of an album quilt. Her grandmother had made one for her mother: a record of the milestones in Susan Crawford Westin’s short life. Squares commemorating childhood events, high school graduation, engagement, marriage, and the birth of her only child, Summer.

Her mother’s album quilt was traditional. Her own would be a record of a very different life. And with her mother and grandmother both in their graves, Sam would have to finish it herself.

The top square had been stitched by her mother. Sam couldn’t remember ever seeing her with a needle and thread, so she must have sewn this shortly after Sam was born, before ALS had robbed her hands of their strength. A yellow-haired baby sitting cross-legged on a Bible, reaching toward a black-and-red butterfly that fluttered just out of reach. Sam
knew that she was the baby, that the Bible represented her father. And the butterfly her mother? Had the poor woman been that perceptive? Sam sighed. She’d never know.

The next four squares had been pieced together by her grandmother. One showed a small figure in a tree filled with birds. Until her grandmother had produced this, Sam believed that her favorite hiding place was a secret. There was a square showing a girl on a galloping pinto, the horse’s mane and tail and the girl’s hair flying in the wind. Just looking at the appliqué image made Sam remember the happiness she’d felt riding Comanche through the prairie grass and wildflowers.

The next square was a girl in cap and gown: high school graduation. Then one of a college diploma clasped in the huge paw of a grinning grizzly bear. Her grandmother’s gentle humor, representing Sam’s college degree in wildlife biology.

Sam had sewn the last square herself, as evidenced by its uneven stitching. But at least the subject was original: a blond woman standing with a shovel in hand, shadowed by an ostrich. This square stood for her brief stint as a zookeeper. She’d added a malevolent squint to the ostrich’s embroidered eye. The giant African birds were not to be trusted; she still had a scar on the back of her neck to prove it.

She fingered the plain-colored squares of cloth at the bottom of the stack. What next? Did she really want to memorialize her first Internet reporting gig for the Save the Wilderness Fund? She’d certainly never forget it, and both a ranger friend and a cougar bore old bullet scars as permanent reminders. Several people had almost died, including a two-year-old boy. She shivered. No.

She didn’t really feel like sewing or even thinking about a design for a quilt block. She stuffed the squares back into her bag, went to the kitchen, and poured another Negra Modelo for herself. Ten forty-five. Mack should have left the hospital at nine. He was probably out with Jodi or one of his buddies. Or maybe avoiding his apartment because he feared she was there? Tomorrow, she’d take herself out of his hair.

Yawning, she dumped out the last third of the beer. She took a shower, and after leaving Hoyle’s message on Mack’s pillow, she folded out the futon and made up the lumpy mattress with the same wad of sheets she’d used a week ago. She woke only once, a little after midnight, when a square of light from the hallway spilled onto her face as Mack opened the door.

THE
next morning, Sam found Lisa reclined in a half-sitting position in her hospital bed, cradling her head in her hands. Twenty questions for her immediately leapt to Sam’s mind. Take it slow, she reminded herself. She smiled. “I’m glad to see that you’re awake this morning, Lisa.” Thrilled was more like it.

Lisa looked at Sam, her gaze unfocused. She didn’t smile back. Sam plopped into the visitor chair. It hadn’t gotten any softer since the previous day. “Remember me? Sam Westin? How are you feeling?”

A tiny moan escaped the blistered lips, then Lisa croaked, “Head hurts. Bad.”

“Did they give you something for it?”

Another half nod.

“Well, then, it’ll probably get better in a little while.” Sam slid the chair closer. “If it doesn’t, we’ll see if we can get the nurses to give you something else.”

The chair creaked as she leaned forward. No wonder the previous visitor had had a hard time meeting the girl’s gaze. Some of Lisa’s bandages had been removed, and her skin had been cleaned or scrubbed, or whatever torturous thing they did with burns these days. The right side of Lisa’s face was smooth white skin; the left half was bloodred jelly overlaid with white cream. Sam clasped her hands in her lap to keep from patting her own cheeks to make sure they were okay. “Lisa, last time I was here, you told me that you’d been kidnapped.”

The girl’s gaze moved to the far wall. “Yes.”

So it hadn’t been just delirious rambling. Sam stood up, curled her fingers around the side rail of the bed. “Can you tell me what you remember?”

Lisa cleared her throat before starting. “I was walking…before I went home.” The words sounded tentative, her voice hoarse. It seemed like she didn’t want to move her lips any more than she had to.

“Where’s home?”

Lisa’s eyes darted back and forth. “Oh…” She licked her lips. “I don’t really…have a place now. Weekends, I camp out…in my car. Save my money.”

“Can’t you can stay in the dorm on weekends? I think most of the trail crew does.”

Lisa’s gaze now seemed to be fixed on her toes under the sheet. “I don’t want to.” She swallowed. “Not with…those guys.”

“Why? Did they do something to you?” They were mostly convicted delinquents, after all.

Lisa shook her head. The motion caused tears to well up in her ice blue eyes. She blinked and said, “Nothing I could prove.”

Strange answer.

Lisa’s pale eyes connected with Sam’s. “I’m not one of them. They’d be in jail if they weren’t working there.”

“Yeah, I heard that. So, you left work, decided to take a walk. Where did you park your car?”

Lisa looked startled at the mention of her car. “I don’t know.”

“What kind of a car is it?”

“Chevy. Don’t know the license.”

That seemed an odd thing for her to volunteer, but now Lisa’s expression was so troubled that Sam just shrugged. “That’s okay. You parked it somewhere, and then what?”

“I was just walking.” She looked down at her lap again. “Then…three guys came out of the woods.”

Sam’s heartbeat sped up. “What did they look like?”

Lisa fidgeted, smoothing the sheet over her thighs. “I
didn’t see. They threw…something…over my head, then put me…in a car trunk.”

“You don’t remember anything about them?”

“They were dark.”

“You mean black? African-American?”

“No. But black hair. Greasy. Dark skin…swarthy.” Her brows knitted together in a frown. “One had a big nose. Maybe a Jew.”

What an odd, bigoted thing for a young girl to say. Squelching her irritation, Sam pulled a lined yellow tablet from her daypack. “Mack Lindstrom told me you were an artist. Could you sketch this guy with the big nose?”

Lisa’s blistered lips twisted into a grimace. “I’m not really an artist.”

Sam placed the tablet and pencil in Lisa’s lap.

The girl curled her fingers stiffly around the pencil. “I could try.” The IV tube taped to the back of her hand whispered across the rumpled sheet as she made a few tentative strokes.

“Why do you think they took you, Lisa?”

“I don’t know. Maybe…” The smooth side of her face reddened.

“For sex?” Sam guessed.

Her chin dipped again. “’Cause I’m tall. Fair.” Her fingers patted the charred remains of her hair, then touched her burned cheek. The ice blue eyes filled. “Least I was. Now I’ll be…a monster.” A tear escaped her lashless eye and trickled over the ruined side of Lisa’s face.

“I doubt that,” Sam murmured. But what the hell did she know? Lisa’s scars might make little kids run for the rest of her life. But she didn’t know how to comfort the girl, and she was determined not to get derailed. “Lisa, we found you near Marmot Lake.”

The girl thought about it for a few seconds. “Where?”

“It doesn’t really matter right now. Near where we found you there was an old mine. It looks like dynamite blew it open. There was a big explosion on the night we found you. Do you know anything about that?”

Lisa’s eyes widened. “No. This thing was over my head.”

“You thought they had rape in mind,” Sam stated bluntly. Lisa winced at the word. But the question had to be asked. “Did they rape you?”

Lisa’s attention shifted back to her lap. She drew another tentative line on the tablet, then stopped. “Something…hit me. I don’t know anything more.”

Sam noticed the momentary eye-to-eye contact after each question, then the girl’s averted gaze as the words came out. Had Paul Schuler guessed right? Was Lisa lying? Or was this just a very hard story for her to tell?

Sam pressed. “You didn’t have anything over your head when we found you. Did these guys have guns? Explosives? Gasoline?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you estimate what time it was when you got hit?”

“I don’t know—everything’s black!”

A nurse cruised by the doorway, gave Sam a sharp look. From the bedside table, Sam picked up a plastic glass full of water and angled the straw toward Lisa. “I don’t want to badger you, Lisa,” she said softly. “But we need your help to catch these guys.”

After taking a sip, Lisa closed her eyes and clutched both hands to her temples. A tear rolled down her cheek. “My head’s going to explode. Make this bed flat?”

Sam set down the water glass, retrieved the tablet from the girl’s lap, and reached for the controls on the hospital bed. “Do you want me to get the nurse? Ask if you can have some more pain medication?”

“No. I just want to sleep.”

“Of course you do.” Sam patted the girl’s hand. “Thanks for telling me about the three guys. You did the right thing.”

The girl turned her back to Sam. “No. I shouldn’t talk.” A soft moan, then what sounded like, “’Specially not to you.”

“
OLD
man Craig was by here again,” Philip King said.

“Glad I missed him.” That was the last thing Jack
needed. He bent over his drafting board, trying to calculate the proper curve for the restaurant counter he was designing. Tears pooled in his own eyes when he looked at Ernest Craig’s mournful face; when he heard the guy’s voice break, his own throat closed up. He felt a lump growing there now.

King was going on and on about how they needed to get rid of Ernest Craig. Jack didn’t ask the psycho what he had in mind. Could open up all sorts of possibilities he didn’t want to think about, just like the two long scratches on King’s left cheek this morning. He wasn’t going to ask where those had come from, either.

“This’ll do it.” King stuck a postcard under Jack’s nose.

Swallowing hard, Jack pulled the postcard out of King’s hand and forced himself to focus on it. It was a photo of that famous Hollywood sidewalk with the handprints of the stars.

“My ma brought a bunch of these back from visiting her cousin. I wouldn’t be caught dead in faggot land, even if Schwarzenegger used to run the place, but her cousin’s married. To a man. I mean, her cousin’s a woman, married to a regular—”

Jack interrupted, “How’s a postcard going to help?”

King rolled his eyes. “You write on it, like Allie—you got some of her writing around you can copy, right?”

Jack’s thoughts leapt to the note in the drawer of his bedside table. The one where Allie had written in big loopy letters that the times they spent together were the best times of her life. Turquoise ink. She’d signed her name with a heart over the letter
i
.

“We mail it to Craig. And he thinks she’s run off to Los Angeles.”

If only Jack could make
himself
believe she’d run away, that his golden girl was living down in the California sunshine. “But the postmark—”

“Port Angeles.” King slapped a stack of envelopes down in front of him. “Check these out.”

They were window envelopes—the kind he typically
received invoices or checks in—from one of the restaurants in Port Angeles. He eyed King suspiciously. “Where’d you get these?”