Last to Die: A gripping psychological thriller not for the faint hearted (22 page)

T
he road was
in deep shadow when Ace drove off his brother’s property; the remainder of the day’s light gently retreated in bursts of red cloud over the western sky.

Ace had told Mike he was heading home, but he pulled in a little way up the road and parked again. He climbed out and stretched, feeling muscles pop in his back. It had been a gruelling day, but he was used to running on next to nothing, and as bad as he felt physically, he would rather feel that way a thousand times over than how Mike had to be feeling right at that moment. He was worried about his younger brother and had offered to stay with him. Mike had refused him, saying he did not feel much like company.

Ace knew what was weighing heavy on his brother’s heart. Ever since they had found Jessie’s car up on the logging road, Mike had been battling to tramp down the unspoken, gut-wrenching idea that Jessie was dead, done in by her own hand. Ace could see the guilt and fear written all over him.

But Ace wasn’t sure he believed suicide to be the case. That was not to say it wasn’t possible, but his sister-in-law had never struck him as a cruel woman and to do what Mike feared would have been the cruellest thing she could possibly have done to him. Jessie was, Ace thought with genuine affection, someone he admired for her ability to see past the shit and dirt of life and was happy to add a little grace to her surroundings. The Jessie he knew would not inflict a deliberate agony on those who loved her.

He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Behind him, Captain hung his head out through the driver’s door window and gave a soft huff, reminding Ace that where he went, Captain would be happy to follow. Ace let the dog out and Captain sat by his feet, gazing up at him. Even though the dog had to be as weary as he, Captain was ready and willing to do his master’s bidding. Ace scratched the top of his head, the trace of a smile on his lips. Most dogs could be trained to hunt – Ace had done so many a time before – but with Captain the instinct was in his DNA, passed down from long bloodlines of brave, diligent animals who would rather die of exhaustion than let their master down.

Ace fetched a torch from the glove compartment, then tied a long thin line to Captain’s collar and walked down the road. The night was silent, apart from the chirp of crickets and the click of Captain’s nails on asphalt.

They entered the woods where they had done so two days before and walked half a mile along a trail line before Ace stopped and located the exact bank where he had found Rudy. He bent down and held Rudy’s collar under Captain’s nose, letting the dog sniff it carefully.

‘Seek, seek.’

Captain trotted to the front, criss-crossing the path. Ace left enough give on the line for him to work comfortably.

They worked left to right along the trail. Captain’s demeanour was different now, as he was focused on his task. Every so often he pulled the lead line taut as he collected scents of interest and siphoned them through his remarkable nose. When he found one of these, he would pause and retrace his steps, but he did not indicate for Ace.

A half a mile in, Captain picked up the pace, leaped off the track and began to climb the left embankment. Ace let him have as much head as possible and dug his boots deep into the compact soil to follow. At the top of the ridge, Captain hung a sharp right and began to tug, moving along the tree line. Ace’s grip on his torch tightened as he recognised the same slopes he and Mike had climbed; he knew where they were headed.

Captain led him exactly to the spot where he had located Rudy’s corpse.

‘Good boy,’ Ace said, but Captain was not finished. He snuffled around the flattened ferns and plants and pulled hard on his tie to a section deeper into the undergrowth. Ace allowed him to lead on.

A couple of yards in, Captain signed and gave a deep cry. ‘Barru,’ the dog called. ‘Barru.’

Ace pushed him to one side with his knee. He shone the torch on what Captain was so interested in. It was an arrow. He picked it up and examined it. There was dried blood on the shaft; blood which, he suspected, belonged to Rudy. Half a foot long, with unusual fetching and paint design, it had a hand-tooled obsidian fathead, and someone with considerable skill had created it.

Ace bounced the arrow in the palm of his hand and looked behind him. He calculated the distance from where Rudy had lain: twenty feet. Yep, this was the weapon.

Which brought him to his next thought. It took skill to make and use a traditional arrow like this one, and skill to shoot a moving target.

This was no accident.

Someone had wanted the dog dead, out of the way.

He walked Captain back to where he had found Rudy and searched around the area a little more thoroughly. He found impressions in the grass that had not yet sprung back. Ace calculated the distance from Rudy’s body. He could not be certain, but he did not think he or Mike had been this far up the slope. He directed Captain’s attention to the area and ordered him to seek once again.

Captain put his nose to the ground and lifted it once or twice, unsure. He circled back to the original site, then returned to where Ace stood. This time he moved past Ace and climbed a shorter, rockier ridge, pausing every few feet to check a tuft of grass or seemingly innocuous stone. At the crest of the ridge, Captain sniffed around in a circle, wagged his tail and sat.

Ace reined him in and climbed to the ridge. The ridge was covered in crabgrass and weeds, most of which had been flattened and trodden into the ground. Someone had been up here, for a while too.

Ace stood and looked around. A slow breath left his chest as he realised that from where he stood, he was looking directly down into the front yard of his brother’s home. The lights were on inside the house and he watched Mike come out onto the porch in his bare feet, a bottle of beer in one hand and his phone in the other.

‘Son of a bitch.’

C
aleb tightened
the leather strap that held the quiver to his hip. He crossed the rocky open ground and followed her line, moving quietly and confidently through the thick rhododendrons before the trees and into the woods. Once there, he allowed time for his eyes to acclimatise to the gloom, after which he began to search for her signature track, a mark that belonged to Jessie and Jessie alone. He found it in less than thirty seconds – the herringbone imprint of her trainers.

It was easy to follow her progress. She had been moving with haste and one of the reasons he chose this point of release was the abundance of undergrowth. Everywhere he looked he found traces of Jessie’s passing, broken twigs, freshly bruised vegetation, leaves bent or torn. This was the ‘shine’ and it was as obvious to him as a runway.

He trailed her out until she found the track. From here, as he had predicted, Jessie had not strayed, although judging from the length of her strides she was running hard.

He followed her trail for over a mile, taking note of the changes in her stride length and the depth of her footsteps as she slowed. He stopped by the tree where Jessie had rested. He squatted and studied the dirt by the root system of the tree. The ground had been much disturbed and he wondered what she had been doing. He didn’t know, but he picked her footprints up once again and followed them.

As he followed, he felt a prickle of disappointment. He had not expected her to be quite as predictable as the others. But, he supposed, life had long ago taught him that people, by and large, were stupid and unimaginative.

He carried on tracking her until he reached a section where the path veered steeply downhill and out of view. Here he stopped. Once they hit this section they were well and truly set in their direction. If he was right, and she kept running to the creek at the same pace, he would be there about eight minutes before her. It was time for him to play his trump card. The mines.

Caleb dropped down from the track into the undergrowth and picked his way carefully over the briars and rocks. The mines had been there for decades and had been long abandoned. They didn’t even show up on maps any longer; he had checked. Caleb had discovered them by accident one morning while out hunting whitetails. He had slipped on a bank slick from one of the many sudden thunder squalls that passed by this section of the mountain, and tumbled over the lip of an embankment. He fell twenty feet into a shallow ravine, the fall broken, somewhat painfully, by a host of poison oak.

Whilst lying amongst the wretched plant, trying to draw air into his body, Caleb had noticed gaps in the ivy overhanging the rocks and assumed he had ripped it free in his fall. Closer inspection revealed it to be the collapsed and near invisible entrance to an old mine. Caleb had marked the spot with a green inverted branch and returned the next day with a flash-light, rope, chalk, water and a pickaxe.

It had taken him six weekends to clear the first passage and shore up the rotting timbers below the earth. Once he was finished, the shaft allowed him access to deeper areas that were less damaged. The shaft beyond was narrower, with barely room for his shoulders to pass through, but pass through they did until he reached a cavern that spanned a fast-moving river which he guessed was part of the Black Water Creek.

The next time Caleb returned to the cavern, he carried with him in his knapsack a small orange buoy and a spool of heavy-duty twine. He tied the end of the twine to a clump of rock inside the cave, testing it carefully for purchase. Satisfied it would not snap or come loose, he looped the spool through the ties on the buoy and set it into the fast-moving water. It was snagged by the current immediately and vanished in seconds.

Caleb made his way back to the surface and hiked across the mountain to where the creek came flowing from the rocks. He found a stony outcrop near an old trail and, sure enough, there the buoy twirled and dipped on the surface of the calmer water about a hundred feet clear of the cave opening.

Caleb sat down and stared at the buoy, thinking. The line itself was about one hundred and ten feet long. That meant the opposite side of the underground cave was about five feet from the rock face. If he could cross the underwater cavern and widen the exit, he would have a perfect – and unknown – way to move through the mountain.

He had done exactly that.

He thought of Jessie Conway’s expression when she made it to the water and realised he was there before her. Most times, the sight of him alone was enough to make them give up. They fell to their knees on the bank, exhausted, broken by the realisation that despite their best efforts, their fate was sealed.

Caleb heard the water up ahead. He wondered what her reaction would be. Would she be different from the others?

He hoped so.

It was why he had chosen her.

M
ike sat
on the porch and sipped his beer. He was tired. No, more than that, he felt destroyed. He wondered how he was going to face another day without Jessie. The idea that he should carry on without her sickened and frightened him. He couldn’t see how it would be possible to continue without her smile, her love.

The phone on his lap bleeped. He glanced down, but it was another reminder that his voicemail was full. He wished people would leave him be, then thought of the number of people who had turned out that day to support him and he felt like a heel. These people were his friends; simple folk, like him, with jobs and children and lives that demanded their participation. They had come at short notice and stood to be counted when he had needed them.

Of course the rumour mill was already in full motion, too. Word had already reached him that some folk thought Jessie was dead, having flung herself from the waterfall, others muttered that she had skipped town in shame.

Where was she?

Mike closed his eyes. He had never felt so afraid before, so helpless.

‘You don’t need to go hitching yourself to someone like me,’ she told him once, when he had made it clear he was interested in more that a casual fling. They had been walking across the town square to his truck, after an evening at the cinema.

‘Need?’ he had stopped walking and caught her hand in his. ‘No, I guess I don’t 
need
 to do anything.’

‘I’m not the woman for you, Mike. I have—’

‘This is not about need,’ he had interjected, resting one hand on her shoulder. ‘I 
want
 to marry you.’

Jessie had looked at him startled. ‘We’ve only been seeing each other a few weeks.’

‘I don’t care about that.’

‘You don’t even 
know
 me.’

‘I know what I know and that’s good enough for me.’

She had grown serious then, her eyes drifting left as they often did when her mind left the present and went elsewhere. After a few moments she looked up at him again.

‘Mike,’ she said it so sadly he felt his breath catch in his chest, and he knew then, immediately, that he loved her, and if she said no she would break his heart.

‘No harm in food, is there?’ he said, trying hard to keep the pleading from his voice. ‘Let’s go grab a bite to eat.’

They had gone for food. What had transpired lay unspoken between them. Mike had known, then and there, that whatever secrets she had, whatever pain they caused her, he could stand up to them. He would let her tell them in her own time and in her own way. As long as she was with him, he figured, he would be the rock she could cling to in whatever storm came their way.

He had tried. As had she, he knew that, and maybe it had been easy to pretend there was nothing to question. Jessie had never ventured much by way of information, and over the months and years he had simply stopped asking. He knew whatever she carried had hurt her deeply. He had learned to read the signals, to pre-empt the sudden depressions, to leave her be when she struggled with her private battles. To wait until she emerged, exhausted and wan, but victorious, on the other side. In return, she had loved him with a ferocity that never wavered and her passion for him seemed to grow with every ounce of freedom he granted.

So, it made not a lick of sense to him that Jessie, the woman he knew and loved, would go up onto a ridge, drop a dog collar and toss herself into the raging waters. No matter how dense the clouds around her, no matter how sharp the agony, the woman he knew and loved would not do that. Not to herself and not to him.

He had to get out of the house. He had to get out of there before he went crazy. He went inside, grabbed the keys to his truck and drove into town, winding up at Ray’s Diner. Feeling fully defeated, he got out of the truck. He went inside and heard the fleeting hush as heads turned his way. Ray looked up from his crossword at the end of the bar, put his pen down and said, ‘Good to see you, Mike.’

Mike nodded and took a seat at the counter. He took his cap off and wiped his hand over his head, feeling older than he had ever felt in his life.

‘What can I get you?’

Mike yanked a menu from the counter and flipped it over, with little or no interest.

‘You got any food left? I know it’s late, but—’

‘You can have whatever you like.’

‘I’ll take a steak sandwich, Ray, and give me a beer.’

‘Sure thing.’

As Ray went to see about his food, Connie Vale, a short, ruddy-cheeked woman with a dimpled smile that belied a tough life, approached him and laid her hand on his forearm.

‘How you doing, Mike?’

‘I’m okay, Connie. Hanging in there.’

‘Me and Bob are real sorry we couldn’t come today, but we can come tomorrow, if you need us.’

‘I appreciate it Connie, but I think today was plenty. I thank you for your offer.’

Her fingers tightened on his arm. ‘I’m sorry, Mike. She was a real nice lady. I don’t care what that paper has to say ’bout any of that other business. I can tell you I won’t be buying it again neither.’

‘I appreciate you saying that.’

‘You need anything you call, okay?’

Mike thanked her again, feeling eyes on him from every angle. This had been a mistake. When Connie returned to her table he tried Ace’s number. It went directly to his answering machine.

His food arrived. Mike picked at it with little enthusiasm, drank his beer, and ordered another. He traded a few words with Ray, drained the last of his drink and paid the bill, despite Ray’s protests. As he walked to the door, a second woman rose from a booth and made her way towards him. Mike recognised her as Louisa Winters. He could see she was well into her cups. Her eyes were red and small, her skin flushed with an alcoholic bloom.

‘Mr Conway?’

‘Ma’am.’

‘I knew it was you. Do you remember me? Your father used to come over to my Jimmy’s place regular back in the day.’

‘I remember, Miss Winters. How are you?’

‘I am fine. Just fine.’ She smiled, and leaned into closer to him. He could smell the alcohol and not just from her breath. It seemed to ooze from her pores. ‘I’m real sorry to hear about your wife.’

‘Thank you.’

‘She seemed like a real nice person. Real nice.’

‘Thank you.’ He tried to ease past her and get the hell out before another person mentioned how nice Jessie 
had
 been, using the past tense. But when he tried to step away she gripped his arm and held him in place.

‘I was telling a man all about her just the other day; she sure knew how to treat people. You can’t be taught that, it has to come natural. Your daddy was the same. A real gentleman.’

Mike removed his arm from her grip. ‘I’m glad you think so.’

‘I do, I surely do. Hope he found your place okay,’ Louisa said. She turned and weaved her way over to the bar.

Mike, almost at the door, paused and glanced over his shoulder. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The fella … the fella who was asking how to get to your place.’

‘Which fella was this?’

‘Beardy guy,’ she shrugged. ‘He was here asking after y’all. Yeah, real nice he was.’

Mike followed her to the bar. ‘When was this, Louisa?’

‘I don’t know exactly. A few days ago?’

‘Think.’

‘Ray will know. 
Hey, Ray
.’

Ray looked up from lowering a tray of steaming glasses into a dishwasher. ‘What?”

‘When was that fella in here?’

‘What fella?’

‘The one I was talking to.’

Ray slammed the door and pressed a button. ‘Want to narrow that down a bit, Louisa?’

‘He was generous, that ought to narrow it enough ’round these parts.’

Ray flicked a dish towel over his shoulder and walked to the end of the bar. ‘The Maker’s Mark guy?’

‘That’s him.’

‘Thursday.’

‘Thursday,’ Louisa repeated to Mike.

‘You see this guy, Ray?’

‘He was here a while, sitting two seats from where you were having your food.’

‘He was asking about us? About Jessie?’

‘Couldn’t be sure. He shut his yap anytime I came near him. Probably trying to hide that accent of his.’

‘Accent?’

‘He didn’t have no accent,’ Louisa said.

Ray snorted. ‘I’ve been knocking around long enough to know an accent when I hear one.’

He wiped a glass with the tea-towel, smearing it from clean to dirty. ‘Come on Louisa, you must have noticed that hill twang.’

She shrugged one shoulder and plopped down onto a stool, exhausted from thinking.

‘What was he asking about? ‘Mike asked.

‘I dunno. He talked about a lot of things. He spoke about … uh … his sick mother and the school and uh, things of that nature.’

‘What about Jessie? What was he asking about my wife?’

‘I didn’t really like to talk about that none.’

‘Louisa.’

‘Well, he was real keen on knowing about her, he said she was … uh …’ she scrunched her features tightly together, ‘uh, I guess a hero or something. He wanted to send her flowers. Like I told you, he was nice.’

‘You gave him our home address?’

Louisa shot Mike a guilty look and then turned to the barman. ‘Ray you saw him, right? He was nice, right?’

‘I couldn’t say, Louisa. I didn’t talk to him.’

Mike said, ‘Ray, I need you to tell me everything you remember about this guy. You still got the camera outside?’

‘I do.’

‘I’m going to need to see Thursday’s footage.’

‘Well sure, Mike. What’s going on?’

Before Mike could answer, the door opened and Ace walked in, looking wired and as grimy as hell. He headed directly to Mike and leaned into his ear, turning his back to Ray and Louisa. ‘We need to talk.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s Jessie. I think she’s in a world of trouble.’