Death on Heels (38 page)

“You wanted to join the party,” Vic said. “This is the fun part.”

After their teeth were sufficiently rattled, their spines shaken out of alignment, and Lacey’s stomach knotted
like a crocheted doily, Vic wheeled off the trail into a small clearing in the sagebrush. He parked the Jeep in a slight depression where the brush was taller and the vehicle couldn’t be seen from the trail. Opening the hatch, he retrieved his holstered revolver from his duffel bag. He strapped it on over his sweater and under his jacket.

“Guns? You think we need guns?” Mac asked, his eyes wide.

“Just a precaution,” Vic answered, strapping on a fanny pack filled with his water bottle, handcuffs, phone, and spare ammunition.

“It must be like having an umbrella, isn’t it?” Ben offered. “Or a lawyer. Bring one along and you won’t get rained on.”

“Exactly,” Vic said.

“When I think of taking precautions, I think of handing out condoms in high schools, not guns,” Mac countered.

“Cheer up, Mac, there might be an unprotected road sign to blow full of holes,” Tony said.

“Anyone who thinks this is too dangerous doesn’t have to go,” Vic said. “Stay in the Jeep. Keep warm. Read the paper. Play the radio, if you can find a station.”

“Didn’t say that,” Mac protested. “I just haven’t handled a gun since I was in the military.” All heads swiveled toward Mac.

“Military?” Lacey asked. “You?”

“What? A couple of years in the army, long time ago,” Mac said. “No big deal.”

“Must be where you got that soothing way of barking at people,” Lacey cracked.

“I don’t bark!” Mac barked.

“Yeah, you’re a lamb,” Tony said. “You got a gun for me, Vic?”

“Nope. There’s only one gun out here, so far as we know. Mine.”

“Brooke will hate missing this.” Ben smiled. “She loves guns. You don’t really think anything is going to happen, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” Lacey said.

Ben pulled out his ski poles and handed one to Mac to use as a staff. “Now what?”

“We walk. Half a mile or so.” Vic glanced at the map. He showed it to Lacey and the others before folding it up in his pocket.

Lacey bundled up, put on her ear warmers and her scarf, and slung her heavy backpack over her shoulders. The sky had turned an unpromising shade of gunmetal gray. The air smelled like snow and tickled her nose. The men turned their jacket collars up, and Vic pulled two ball caps from his duffel bag, one for himself and one for Tony. Vic’s was a souvenir from out of the past. It read S
AGEBRUSH
C
OLORADO
P
OLICE
D
EPARTMENT
. Mac looked ready for action in his enormous black cowboy hat. Ben pulled his fleece ski hat, sky blue with white snowflakes, down around his ears.

It was a desolate spot. The main roads lay far behind them, and only jeep and horse trails lay ahead. The nearby bluffs were striped in peach and white stone. Silver green sagebrush poked through patches of crusty snow, but most of the muddy path had been blown clean by the wind, which was picking up.

It was a tricky walk up the slope toward the bluffs, and slower than Lacey liked. All talk ceased as the group concentrated on not falling. Lacey stopped for a break, and she and Vic shared their water bottles with the less Boy Scout–prepared members of their party.

Vic forged ahead. He spotted the cabin around a bend in the trail before the others saw it. There was no sign of activity, but he signaled them to stop. He directed the group back around the bend, out of sight of the cabin.

On the bluffs, a half-dozen wild horses stood watching them with curiosity. They all turned to admire the animals. They watched the horses watching them.

“Wow! Got to get a picture of that for my girls,” Mac said, handing Lacey his small camera. She took several shots of Mac grinning in the foreground in his new hat with the horses posing on the ridgeline behind him. Tony also snapped photos, and Ben asked him to e-mail copies.
Vic waited patiently for the photo op to conclude; then he told them to wait there while he and Lacey went on ahead.

They stopped when they caught sight of a weathered log structure about fifteen feet by twenty. The cabin looked decades old. A rusted stovepipe rose at a rakish angle through its sloping roof. The logs had long since turned a silver gray, but the chinking between the logs held against the snows, and there were no obvious gaps in the roof or walls. Still, the cabin was sagging slightly to one side and it looked like a heavy wind might knock it down. Not far away, an ancient outhouse was visible, leaning down the hillside, downwind.

The cabin was a lonely interloper in a harsh land. It was too far from the roads to be anyone’s home year-round, and clearly had no electricity or plumbing or running water. Yet it had once been a welcoming temporary home on the range for cowboys moving cattle to the good grazing land near the bluffs.

But something was odd about this cabin. Set into the old logs on the front side of the structure was a brand-new wooden door, no windows. And in the long wall facing them someone had set a new window, high up, with a clear pane of glass.

Vic told Lacey and the others to wait out of sight. He quietly worked his way through the sagebrush, clear around the cabin and back to her side.

“Appears empty,” he whispered. “There’s a small window on the back side, no other doors. Some muddy footprints, but no one around. But fresh glass? New door? That’s just weird. Somebody’s been making themselves at home.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“No, Lacey, wait here till I give the all clear.”

She watched him from her cover behind a large sagebrush. Vic stepped silently to the front of the cabin and flattened his back against the log wall, next to the doorknob. With one boot, he kicked back hard on the door, the sound echoing against the bluffs. There was no answer. He turned the knob, his revolver drawn. The door
wasn’t locked. Vic carefully opened it without exposing himself and let it swing into the cabin, slowly. It squeaked on its dry hinges. Not another sound. He slipped quietly around the corner of the cabin to the far wall, the wall Lacey couldn’t see.

She saw Vic slide around the corner to the open door and roll right through it in a crouch, leading with his gun. He turned to call her, but Lacey didn’t wait. She was already through the door right behind him.

Despite the open door and the two windows, the light was dim inside the cabin. The air was dank and it smelled of—what? She couldn’t quite place the odor. Sour beer and sweat? And something else. Fear.

As their eyes began to adjust, Lacey stopped short. A huge rack of elk antlers was nailed high on the far wall. Cowboy boots were impaled upside down on the antler points. Four pairs: eight boots. Their leather was decorated, embroidered, and tooled. One small pair, with a boot missing its heel, was trimmed in filigreed silver. Lacey gasped. They had to be Rae Fowler’s boots. A length of heavy rope hung looped over the rack of antlers, ending in an untidy noose. It swung slowly as the wind blew in through the door.

Before she could say anything, she heard a muffled sound coming from the far corner. Something was huddled on the floor under a metal cot.

The hair rose on the back of Lacey’s neck. Vic spun around with the .357 at the ready, but Lacey put up her hand to stop him.

“Emily?” she said through dry lips. “Is that you?” Lacey inched closer, holding her breath. Vic let out a slow whistle, the only hint that he was as stunned as Lacey.

She bent down to see a young woman, barely more than a girl, shivering in a fetal position beneath a filthy quilted covering that looked like an old sleeping bag. Shaking with fear, the captive was making sounds that might have been screams, if she weren’t already hoarse from screaming. Her long white-blond hair—the hair Vonda had described to Lacey—streamed out against
the dark floorboards. She shrank farther back in the shadows against the wall as Lacey lifted the light metal cot and approached her.

Vic checked the rest of the one-room cabin. Satisfied, he holstered his gun. Mac, Tony, and Ben stood in the open door watching, as still as toy soldiers lined up in a row.

“It’s all right, Emily. My name is Lacey. I won’t hurt you.” She sat on the floor next to Emily, who was whimpering like a hurt animal. “Vonda told me about you. Your friend, Vonda.” Lacey didn’t know if the woman understood her. “She was worried about you when you didn’t show up. We all were. We’ve been looking for you. You are Emily Ogden, aren’t you?”

Emily nodded and tears leaked from her eyes. She put her hands up to her tearstained face and sobbed. Her wrists were handcuffed and her blackened eyes were as wild as a cornered animal’s.

“Water.” Lacey slipped off her backpack and grabbed a bottle. “Here, drink this.” Lacey uncapped it for her and Emily struggled to sit up, her shaking hands reaching for the bottle. She drank greedily, water dribbling down her chin. “Better?”

Emily nodded. She drank more and then leaned against the wall, panting, watching the men warily. She screeched when Vic came near her. He backed away, his hands turned up to show her they were empty.

“We have to get you out of here,” Lacey said.

“Can’t.” Emily’s voice croaked. She pointed to her feet.

Lacey lifted the sleeping bag. Emily was dressed in nothing but a short skirt and a thin top. Wrapped around one of her bare ankles was a length of metal chain, as heavy as a tow chain. The steel links were padlocked to the cot with just enough slack to reach a nearby chamber pot and an empty water jug, or to stoke the now-cold stove. Her ankle was scraped raw.

“Oh, God, Vic, she’s chained. And handcuffed.”

“Let me see.” Vic knelt to heft the chain. Emily sobbed helplessly as Lacey wrapped her in her arms.

“He won’t hurt you, I promise,” Lacey said, her own eyes misting up. “Trust me.” She found it hard to breathe, Emily was holding on so tight. Lacey took in the cabin with a turn of her head.

The meager furnishings of the cabin included a table, a few chairs, and several coils of the same heavy rope as the noose hanging over their heads. There was more chain, coiled in a rusty bucket, and Lacey could just make out things that looked like bullwhips hanging on the smoke-stained log walls. Battered Styrofoam coolers, pizza boxes, and empty beer and liquor bottles littered the floor in the gloom. She saw shreds of fabric so torn up they were almost unrecognizable, perhaps remnants of women’s clothing. A pair of ripped black tights lay near the cot.

Lacey saw a fleece-lined jean jacket hung tauntingly out of reach on a nail on the wall. “Is that your jacket?” Emily nodded. “Tony, hand me that jacket.” He tossed it to Lacey and she draped it over Emily’s shaking shoulders.

The air was frosty. Vic found a kerosene lamp on the table and lit it. “We may have to break this cot apart to get her out,” he said. “There’s a hell of a big padlock on this chain, and the cot’s chained to the wall.” Emily shivered in Lacey’s arms and wouldn’t look at him.

“It’s almost over now, Emily,” Lacey said. “I promise.”

“Emily, my name is Vic.” He crouched down to her level. “I’m going to help you. Do you know if there are keys for these padlocks?” She shook her head no without lifting her face from Lacey’s neck. “Okay. At least we can take these cuffs off.”

He fished out his standard police-issue handcuff key, and Lacey used it to release Emily’s wrists. They were chafed and bleeding from trying desperately to work her hands free. Lacey helped her slip her arms through the sleeves of her jacket. She rubbed Emily’s cold hands.

“Phones!” Lacey said. “Anyone got a signal up here?”

The four men checked their cell phones, including Ben’s new ultrasmart smartphone. No one had service.

“Mac, Ben, see if you can get a signal outdoors,” Vic ordered. “Here, take mine too. Try down the hill out in the open, or up on top of the bluff. Stick together. If you get a signal, call nine-one-one. Tell the dispatcher you’re with me. We’re on the lower western slopes of Black Mountain. You got that?” Mac frowned. Ben nodded eagerly. “Tell them we have Emily Ogden and she’s alive. Alert Firestone and tell him a helicopter would be nice. Or they can meet us with an ambulance back at the highway. Now go.”

Ben and Mac headed out the door. Vic turned to Tony. “We’re going to tear this cot apart, you and me. See if you can find us a pry bar, a piece of pipe, a big stick, anything for leverage.” Tony nodded and started pawing through the cabin’s litter.

“Vic, her feet are nearly frozen,” Lacey said. “Can we get a fire going in here?”

Vic shook his head no and took one of Emily’s feet. “Might signal the wrong folks.”

Emily flinched at first but then she relaxed while Vic gently massaged one foot to get the circulation moving, then the other. He kept at it until Emily’s feet were warm enough she could flex her toes. She relaxed her grip a little on Lacey.

“Boots,” she said. “My boots. Please. That bastard took them.” Emily was beginning to recover her voice, but it was still a whisper. She pointed to the rack of antlers on the wall.

Tony reached up. “Which ones?”

Lacey knew. Vonda had told her. “The white ones, Tony. The ones with the sunsets. Wait. Get photos first.”

“Already got ’em.”

Tony handed the boots to Lacey, who hesitated a moment before asking Emily, “Do you want your tights too?”

Emily shook her head. She wiped tears away with the back of her hand and hugged her beautiful boots. Lacey reached into her backpack with one hand.

“You hungry? I have a granola bar.” Emily nodded. Lacey ripped it open for her and Emily took a big bite.
Whoever had left her chained to the cot hadn’t left her anything to eat. Lacey pawed through her pack and finally pulled out a pair of socks. She handed them to Emily, who tried to put one on, but she grimaced with pain as she bent over.

“Oh, God. I think he broke some of my ribs.”

“Don’t try, Emily. I got it.” Lacey took the socks and gently tugged them onto Emily’s bare feet. The chain around her ankle was just loose enough to snug the sock under the links.

“Socks? You brought socks, Smithsonian?” Tony gave Lacey an incredulous look.