Elly's Ghost (14 page)

The boat was
anchored in the middle of rainbow-colored oil rings visible on the surface. All
three men were able to detect the slight odor of fuel in the air.

Grey reached up
to turn on the battery-powered light strapped to his head. He waved to Dunquist
and Peterson before disappearing again below the surface.

The water was
not as clear as Grey had hoped. The overcast skies weren’t helping visibility. He
descended down into the murky water, scanning the area with his headlamp.

Something red caught
his eye. At first he thought it was the edge of an old refrigerator, but then
he saw the green light bulb and knew he was looking at the end of an airplane
wing.

Grey remembered
the last plane he’d helped find underwater, eight years earlier. The images of
the dead pilot and his two passengers filled his mind. At the time, Grey knew
he was searching for a plane and three bodies, but now, without warning, instead
of searching for a gas can, he might be looking at dead people again. He took a
moment to mentally prepare himself for what he might find.

The pilot’s door
was hanging from one hinge and had been badly disfigured from fire. To Grey’s
great relief, there were no bodies to be found.

He swam to the
bottom of the aircraft and saw both floats were still attached to their
supports. The fire had gutted the cockpit, and the main wing was now in two
pieces. He swam to the rear of the plane to inspect the tail but found no
damage. He swam a full circle around the plane looking for any signs of a body.
He noticed the propeller was still intact.

Grey moved back
to the front of the plane to look at the engine. The fire had burned most of
it. He stopped as he spotted a round hole on one of the soot-covered exhaust
pipes coming out the side of the engine. Grey shined his light closer and
counted three more holes. Bullet holes. There were more in what was left of the
engine cowling.

Grey kicked his
legs and headed for the surface. He removed his mask and called to Dunquist and
Peterson, “You’re not going to believe this.”

The Dempter Ford
service bay was alive with the sounds of impact wrenches and air compressors
thumping away. Nick stood under a vehicle lift supporting a Ford Taurus and unscrewed
the oil pan drain plug. He turned around as a man approached him.

“Are you Nick
Wittenbel?” the man asked.

“I am. And you
are?”

“Agent Aaron
Beckholm, FBI.” He held up his badge. “Is there someplace we can talk?”

Nick wiped his
hands on a rag. “Sure.” He walked the man into the interior of the Ford
dealership to a conference room. Ever since he’d learned about the range of the
plane Elly had been in, Nick had been trying to figure out who to contact, someone
who wouldn’t just make him fill out another report, someone who would listen
and take action. Maybe that someone had come to him. Once inside, Nick closed
the door and they sat down.

“Are you
investigating the crash?” Nick asked.

“Yes.” Beckholm opened
his notebook.

“Let me ask you
something,” Nick said. “How is it possible for Elly’s plane to fly over three
thousand miles when the plane she was in had a maximum range around just over
two thousand?”

“That’s an
excellent question, and one we’ve considered. We’re working on finding the
answer,” Beckholm said.

Nick liked the
fact that this man had also figured it out. “You wouldn’t be investigating this
if someone didn’t think the circumstances are a little strange. I want to know
what happened to my sister. I want to know what you know.”

“First, you have
to tell me something.”

“What?”

“Why did you
argue with your sister the night before she was killed?”

Nick opened his
mouth to speak but instead took a deep breath. The memory of the argument was
fresh in his mind. It took a moment for him to decide where to start. “Being a
brother to someone whose popularity reaches almost everyone, from little old
ladies to young kids, is extremely difficult. It changes your life. I’m asked
about my sister on a daily basis and, I don’t know what it is, my pride maybe,
but I don’t like to talk about her. She’s been so successful and I … I’ve let
myself blame Elly for just about everything bad that has happened in my life.
What I said to her that night had been brewing in my head for over a year. I
lashed out at her for stupid, selfish reasons. I regret every word of what I
said to her.” Nick frowned at Beckholm. “Wait, are you here because you think—”

“The reason I’m
here,” Beckholm said, “is to learn about your sister and everyone close to her.”

“You think this
might be murder?”

“We aren’t
ruling out any possibilities.”

“And you suspect
me? You think I killed my sister?”

“I didn’t say
that.”

“But, you’re
here.”

“Look at it from
my point of view,” Beckholm said. “Until we started talking, all I knew was that
you had a loud argument with your sister the night before she died and you
stand to inherit a lot of money. Really, when you think about it, the two
events contradict each other.”

“What do you
mean by that?”

“If someone like
you were to sabotage the plane in a way to make it look like an accident, why
would you have a heated argument in a public setting with your sister, knowing
she’d be dead the next day? Why would you draw that much attention to
yourself?”

Nick nodded. “I
want you to know, whatever existed between me and my sister, there’s no way I’d
ever even think about doing something like that. I don’t want to inherit any
money.” Nick paused as he stared at Beckholm. “What else do you know?”

“We believe the
plane stopped to refuel. We’ve got people trying to track down where the plane
landed. We are also searching for evidence that may help us understand if the
plane was sabotaged.”

“What’s your
next step?”

“I’ve got a couple
more people to interview, and then heading to LA to continue my investigation.”
Beckholm pulled a business card out of his pocket and slid it across the table.
“Contact me if you can think of anything else I should know.”

Nick watched the
agent leave, grabbed the card, and then quietly left the dealership.

* * *

“How much food
do we have left?” Elly asked as she leaned against a tall maple tree.

She and Jay had
just finished the last of the canned meat and granola bars he’d packed.

“A half bag of
trail mix, some dried cranberries, and some cheesy sesame sticks. We’ll have to
make it last,” he replied to her grimace. “We’re making better time, so if we
keep going, we should be able to make the highway soon.”

They both looked
up through the trees at the gray sky as raindrops began falling on the canopy
of leaves. It sounded like popcorn popping in the distance.

“Great.” Elly held
her hands up to feel the rain.

Jay pulled a
large black garbage bag from his backpack. He held it by the closed end and
used his knife to cut a hole in the center and two more on the sides. Jay
pulled the center hole over Elly’s head. Her arms popped out the sides. The bag
hung down to her knees.

Elly twirled,
making the bag look as big as possible. “How do I look?”

“Very sexy.” Jay
smiled.

“I’ve always
liked wearing gloss black.”

“You can keep it
and wear it in your next music video.”

They walked
quietly for another hour as the gray sky slowly alternated between steady rain
and heavy mist.

The pine trees
were now outnumbered by maples and elms. Tall grasses, up to Jay’s waist,
filled all other spaces.

Jay finished
marking their latest location on his handheld GPS unit, and they topped a small
hill that opened up to a valley filled with tall grass surrounded by ash and
aspen trees. Jay caught movement off in the distance to his right. He pulled
Elly to the ground in one quick motion.

Jay held his
finger over her mouth, making sure Elly stayed quiet. In the cover of the
grass, he took off his backpack and removed his binoculars.

“Stay down and
don’t move,” Jay whispered to Elly.

He crawled back
to the top of the hill and used his rifle barrel to push the grass out of his
line of sight. It took several seconds, but Jay saw something brown in the
distance disappear behind trees. Another shape soon appeared where the first
had been, and also quickly vanished.

The two figures
disappeared and reappeared as they moved through the trees. Jay followed their
movement. One of the figures lifted its head, and he saw the antlers of an elk.

Jay knew he
should be relieved, but something wasn’t right. On the other side of the valley
was a massive flat-topped rock, a group of dead pine trees next to it. He set
the binoculars aside as the horrifying realization hit him. He’d stood on that
rock and looked out over this valley before. This was the southern portion of
the property Jay and Ben’s families co-owned. It was just as the police officer
described. This was the place Ben had died. This was the valley Jay saw in his
nightmares.

The lump that
formed in Jay’s throat made it hard to breathe. The rain and wind faded.
Everything rushed back as if he were living his nightmare. The sound of a
gunshot was clear as he heard his friend cry out in pain.

The two elk wove
their way in and out of the trees as they ran away. Jay put his head down in
the grass and covered it with his hands. Ben had been so mad when Jay told him
he was joining the Marines. It was the last time he’d see Ben alive. Jay had
never stopped asking himself the question,
What if he had stayed?

“I’m sorry I
wasn’t there. I’m so sorry,” Jay repeated again and again.

Elly’s hand
touched his leg, and he jumped, ripping his leg away.

Elly recoiled,
“What’s going on?”

“We need to go.”
Jay scrambled to his feet. “We can’t go through here.” He picked up the binoculars
and backpack and started heading to the west. “Come on!”

Elly stood and saw
the empty valley, then ran to catch up with him.

* * *

“They’re all
dead,” Belgrade said.

“All four of
them?” the voice on the other end of the phone asked calmly.

“Yes, I saw the
bodies with my own eyes.” The men had radioed their location to Belgrade when they’d stopped to set up camp.

“How? How did
they die?”

“One was stabbed,
one looks like he had his neck broken, and the other two were shot.”

Belgrade waited for a response.

“Where is the
girl?” the voice asked.

“I know where
they were,” Belgrade said, “and I know where they are headed. There’s a highway
north of their location.”

“Who the hell is
killing my men?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m very
disappointed. The fact that you killed the girl’s bodyguard, yet you let her get
away boggles my mind.” The voice grew louder. “Do you know how long it will
take us to cash in if the girl’s death looks at all suspicious? We’ll be
screwed because the money will be frozen while they investigate. It might take
two years for her parents to inherit anything. We can’t ransom her if they
don’t have the money! Find the girl!”

* * *

The rain poured
even harder as Elly hurried to keep up with Jay, who was hiking twice as fast
as normal. Her confusion was compounded by the fact that if they were in any
kind of danger, Jay wasn’t letting on.

“Jay!” Elly said
over the rain pounding the tree leaves all around them. She tried again, and
when he didn’t respond, she ran in front of him. “Jay!”

He stopped but
wouldn’t look at her.

“What happened
back there?”

“Nothing.” Jay
moved around her.

“That wasn’t
nothing!” Elly shouted. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“We need to keep
going.” Jay continued to walk.

“I’m not moving
until you tell me what’s going on. What did you see back there?” Elly knew things
were bad. If the kidnappers found them now, she wasn’t sure what would happen.
She needed Jay to be here, his old self, and this situation to be resolved immediately.
She shouted at his back, “What are you sorry about?”

Jay stopped.

“You told me
you’d been back from Afghanistan a couple days.” Elly walked toward him. “Your
sister doesn’t know you’re home, does she?”

Jay stood still
for a moment, then carefully pushed the hood off his head and ran his free hand
through his hair. He turned to look at her. Elly couldn’t remember the last
time she’d seen someone so sad.

Jay shook his
head. “No, she doesn’t know.”

“Why didn’t you
go see her?”

“I needed time
to be alone before I see my family. I couldn’t face them until I came here
first.”

“What did you
see back there?”

“I saw what I
see in my nightmares. I saw the place where my best friend died.” Jay slowly
sat down in the grass, dropped the rifle, and put his head in his hands.

“Tell me what happened,”
Elly said softly as she joined him in the grass.

Jay took his
time before beginning. “He hired himself out as a guide and took a hunting
party out here. Our families co-own the property. The party came across an elk
and everyone opened fire as it ran across in front of them. One of the bullets
hit a tree and ricocheted. It hit my friend in the stomach. He died several
hours later in the emergency room.”

“I’m so sorry,
Jay.”

“I came out here
because my nightmares won’t stop. I wanted to come out here to find this place.
I wanted to find some way to tell him I’m sorry. He wanted me to be a guide
with him. I chose to join the Marines instead. I left him behind. If I’d stayed
here, he’d still be alive.”