Last Track, The (26 page)

Wiping the sweat off his brow, Mike finally answered. “We keep moving. If by some stroke of luck they are legitimate searchers, we have no worries. If they’re hunters, we make sure we don’t move like deer. If they’re working for the Partner, then we should be all right as long as we press ahead.”

“But what if they are out gunning for us?” Dagget asked.

“That doesn’t change the fact that we have to keep moving.”

“I don’t like it,” Dagget said.

“Before you start belting out the swan songs,” Mike said, “listen for a second. I said we had to keep moving; I didn’t say which direction or how. We’ll take a route through the woods that will give us additional cover. Every so often, we touch base with his tracks to make sure we’re on course. And the cell phones stay off for the next ninety minutes. That should put a little space between us and whoever is in the trees.”

“What if the Partner balks about not being able to make contact?” Dagget asked.

“We say we’re out of the coverage area,” Mike said. He powered down his phone. “It’s conceivable that we crossed a dead zone. I don’t see any cell towers. Do you?”

Dagget agreed, though the commitment sounded halfhearted.

“Exactly. Out of area. That’s our story.”

“It makes sense,” Dagget said. “But I just know the Partner is going to be pissed about this.”

01:32:46 PM

Jessica removed the key, her face ashen, and hoped no one was waiting for her inside.

A few doors down, a maid listened to an iPod while tidying up another room, the volume cranked up. A cart full of cleaning supplies and freshly laundered towels blocked the hallway.

“Did you just clean my room?” Jessica asked the maid. With her back to Jessica, the maid was oblivious, lost in her music. Repeating the question, Jessica raised her voice, and still got no answer. She touched the maid’s shoulder gently.

Removing one earbud, the other still wedged against her tympanic membrane, the maid spun around. Vintage Pink Floyd pierced the air. The maid smiled. “Hello.” Her hello sounded like
ha-low.
Jessica tagged the maid as Swiss, closer to Geneva than Zürich—a much heavier French influence than German. “You need clean towels?”

“I can wait on the towels, thanks. Right now I just need an answer. Did you just clean my room?” It sounded harsh. Jessica didn’t particularly care what she sounded like at that moment.

“Well I start at room twenty-four,” the maid said, “and work to room one. Twenty-three is next. But if you need clean towels or linens right now, help yourself to some off the cart.” She fidgeted with the earbud, spinning the plastic between her fingers.

“Did you see anyone come in or out of my room?” Jessica said.

“The only thing I see is a huge mess in twenty-four. Hello.”

Jessica relented. She pushed open her door. The thick slab of oak swung into the room, and bounced against a rubber stop. At least she didn’t need to worry about Andy right then. All children at the ranch were participating in a ninety-minute craft workshop on building fly-fishing lures. Jessica had time to sort this out.

Inside room twenty-three, her possessions appeared in order. She checked her camera and jewelry. Valuables present and accounted for. Everything looked the same, save one item: the laptop. The lid was halfway open, instead of clicked shut. By habit, Jessica always shut the case to send the machine into hibernation, locking the session, and preserving the battery charge.

With the screen display locked, she brought up the login prompt, typed her credentials, and searched for recently modified or accessed files on the hard drive. The file most recently changed bore a time stamp from twenty-seven minutes ago. In theory that was her doing.

The new mail indicator rose above the task bar. A message from her contact at NASA read:

Jessica,

Perfect timing. Yesterday we rolled out a new software package for image correction that’s more robust than the last version, and you caught me working through lunch again. If you need it clearer, it will take another hour. Who was this poor soul anyway?

Regards, KF

Attached to the message were the corrected pictures. The image processing had made a tremendous difference. What had been grainy and coarse now looked sharp and crisp. Jessica enlarged until the picture filled the entire screen. Who was this, indeed. She had not a clue.

Cara rushed inside the room, ebullient. “Good idea! This is a good time for a break.”

“You about ready for the next ride?” Cara hovered near Jessica. Peering at the screen, Cara gasped. “Oh, my God!” Her eyes were locked on the picture of the dead man stretched across the screen. Reaching for the bureau, Cara steadied herself.

“Sorry,” Jessica said. “That wasn’t meant for you to see. It is a little disturbing. I’ll shut this down.”

Cara shuddered and squinted at the screen. “No, wait. I want to be sure.” After studying the pixilated image for a moment, she said, “I can’t believe it. That is definitely him.”

01:36:02 PM

Surprised, Jessica asked, “You know him?” Inwardly, Jessica leaped at the possibility that Cara knew the victim in the photograph, but she buried her excitement beneath the surface. A friend in need came before the story.

“My God. David St. John,” Cara said. She shuddered. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

“Were you two close?” Jessica said.

“I’ve known him for years. We fell out of touch very recently. He was a science aficionado,” Cara said, “always hanging out in the lab doing research after hours back in school. Very, very bright. Kinda geeky, but endearing all the same.

“He was the sort of person you can have lunch with every five years and not feel like a day passed. As much as he fit in the science lab, he didn’t fit in so well in social situations. Still, I can’t imagine why anyone would murder him.”

Jessica said, “I’m very sorry that you found out this way. Obviously, I had no idea.”

“How could you know? I really hope they catch the killer.” Here Cara looked away from the screen and right at Jessica. “You don’t see someone for a little while, and look what happens.” She paused. “Where did you get this picture? How did you get this picture?”

If there was a good explanation that kept the truth under the covers, Jessica missed it. Instead she fumbled, trying to mask a sheepish tone. “I know it looks odd.”

“Does it!” Cara said, astonished. “If I was a more suspicious person . . . I might think crazy thoughts.”

“I understand and I’m very sorry about your friend. And I don’t want things to be weird between us, so I will tell you that I’m helping the police with a case. But please, you can’t let anyone know you saw this picture. People’s safety could be in serious jeopardy.”

Cara crossed herself and nodded in a way that said she understood Jessica’s instructions. “One thing I wonder about you, Jessica. You get huffy about Mike when he picks adventure over time with his family, but you have no trouble working your way right inside the action?”

03:40:11 PM

For the remainder of the afternoon, moderate weather aided the search effort. The sun burnt off a trail of wispy clouds, leaving behind a swath of clear, blue sky. The wind, which had blown like a fury that morning, had slowed to a gentle breeze.

While he and Dagget eluded those who followed them, working through the canopy in silence, growing the distance between the stalkers and themselves, Mike was thankful for their one advantage. He knew as long as they stayed out of sight and kept the cell phones off, their exact location would remain unknown.

Despite the temporary reprieve, Mike remained both leery and aware of darker possibilities. Traces of foul weather beckoned in the distance; when his energy levels flagged, he pressed Dagget harder.

Mike noticed that the officer struggled to keep pace, gasping at points. But until they exhausted the ninety-minute limit there was no respite, no peace, no other choice. If Dagget balked, he did so on the inside.

As they hiked, signs of the approaching storm grew. A rise in humidity, backing winds that changed direction several times—it implied a maelstrom ahead. But again and again, the possibility of bad weather nudged them forward. They must make it as far as they could. The image of the masked face burned fresh in Mike’s mind.

Finally Dagget heaved and stopped. “We’ve gone more than ninety minutes, man,” Dagget said, wheezing. “I call time out.”

Mike relented. Certainly they had come farther than he expected. And he wanted a closer look at the tracks; that last turn Sean took had Mike thinking.

As Dagget walked away, Mike said, “If you’re making any calls, be brief and shut it off as soon as you finish. The longer we stay off the grid, the less chances they have to tag our location.”

03:41:57 PM

Crotty didn’t wait for an opening. He had no time for social graces. “So tell me, what does Ms. Jessica Barrett’s laptop say she knows?”

“Just talked with my eyes on the scene,” the Partner said. “Your program worked perfectly. I heard it took longer to restart her machine than to bypass the password and scan the contents. And it changed the time stamp on the accessed files. Jessica will never know anyone snooped.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Crotty said. “But again I find myself asking, why am I asking you about details that I should already have?”

“Because they won’t ever be in your hands, unless my contact gets a second chance at the room. There was just enough time to realize it was gold, but not enough time to dig it up and copy the files. The maid almost walked in.”

“Lovely.” Crotty was seething. “Wait a second, where are you calling from?”

“Goddamnit. You know exactly where I am.”

And Crotty did know. He asked anyway, because pressing people to answer questions he already knew the response to was a habit he enjoyed. If he knew the answer in advance, he also knew if someone was lying. He learned it by watching lawyers. “So what do we allegedly know?”

“At the very least,” the Partner said, “Jessica has all of Mike’s recent cell phone records, a crystal clear picture of our old friend, and a charge record linking a company to a certain disposable phone. There could be more.”

“He was never my friend,” Crotty said. “And he wasn’t yours, either. As for the phone being traced back to its owner, let them. I planned for that possibility. The phone only dials out, so there’s no way they can touch you.” Crotty was proud of that particular rewiring and programming job. It could send whatever it liked, but it could never receive. “Right after this call ends, take out the battery. Then wipe the phone down for prints, and ditch it in a moving stream so it drifts far away.”

“And Jessica Barrett?”

“Sounds like if she has enough time, she’ll figure out the rest. Or enough to be dangerous. We need to slow her down.” More forcefully, he added, “Maybe we can stop her and teach Mike a lesson at the same time. His cell phone has been dark for well over an hour and a half.”

“How are you going to stop her?”

“There’s one person Jessica Barrett will drop everything for.” Crotty detailed his sly plot with great vigor.

“Now just a minute,” the Partner said. “That’s unnecessary and I don’t want any part of it.”

“I expected you to have a problem with this,” Crotty said matter-of-factly, “so I made sure it was taken care of. It’s already in motion.”

“I can’t let that happen, Crotty. It’s too risky. Too many variables.”

“Risky is thinking for yourself. Besides, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

03:42:22 PM

Just beyond the riding stable, Jessica helped Andy slide his foot into the stirrup. Then with a tiny push, Andy propelled his body
_{over Mr. Jones. His bottom thudded against leather as he fell}
onto the saddle. Proud that he had mounted the horse unassisted, he smiled at his mother. Jessica smiled, too. The boy recalled her earlier instructions. To be safe, Jessica reminded Andy anyway. “Never drop the reins.”

She caressed Mr. Jones’ neck. Satisfied Andy was ready, she climbed on Tic-Tac.

There was much to love about riding horses: fresh air, speed, the escape. But of all the benefits, she most relished the chance to view things from a new perspective. To her, riding had no equal. She was at home on a saddle.

Jessica and Andy nearly led the entire pack, goading the staff leader from her spot a length behind. The pace varied; Mr. Jones broke stride at points and Jessica talked Andy through several bumpy spots. Despite Andy’s improvement the past few days, she maintained reservations about the continued pairing of Andy and Mr. Jones. She sensed the horse wanted a more experienced rider on his back. But she trusted her skills, and believed in her son’s willingness to listen and follow directions. Andy’s patience helped assuage her concerns; while Mr. Jones might not be the ideal choice, he was not entirely the wrong one either.

Early afternoon. At a vista edge, the group paused. The scenery stretched beneath them, overwhelming and awing the crowd. The wraparound landscape was picturesque. Right before the lead rider, a hawk circled, dove, and spiraled down the valley. Sensing a photo opportunity, Jessica ripped a few shots off with her digital camera and panoramic lens. Other guests did the same.

From the vista, they traveled single file on a trail wide enough for two horses. A half-mile from the head, the path ended at a sprawling lake. Pine needles layered on the lake bottom made the water appear reddish brown. Riders dismounted and stretched their legs. Gathering at the bank, a pack of horses drank heartily.

Jessica snapped a few more pictures, this time of the horses lapping water, though the shots also captured a few people nearby. Cameras often inspired one of two feelings from people: excessive interest or aversion. They had to be photographed; they hated being photographed. Neither extreme produced a very interesting shot, and forced photographers on a tightrope between the two extremes.