Pitch Black (3 page)

He parted the curtain, stepped inside, and said to Ethan, “You’re looking better.”

Ethan was in a dry hospital gown and wrapped in warmed blankets. Unlike Madison, the color was barely beginning to return to his skin.

“How’s Jordan?” Ethan asked. “Has he said anything?”

“The doctor is with him now. His parents are here. Maybe that will help him.”

“I need to see him.”

Madison put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “He’s with the doctor.”

“M, it’s important. I
have
to see him.”

Gabe said, “I’ll make sure the nurses take you to see him as soon as the doctor says it’s okay, how’s that?”

Ethan looked grim, but nodded.

“How are
you
feeling?” Gabe asked.

Ethan lifted a shoulder. “Okay.” He paused. “Is someone going after Mr. McPherson?”

“Yes. Tell me what happened up there.” Gabe sat down in a chair next to Madison. He rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together to keep from reaching to comfort her in front of Ethan.

“We didn’t want to leave him there like that—honest. That’s why it was so late before we came back down; Colin and J.D. and I argued about it for a long time. It seemed wrong . . . but Jordan had totally freaked out. No way could he make it back to the van on his own, and he needed help more than any of us. We sat with Mr. McP all night, you know, to keep the animals away. But nobody . . . ” Ethan pressed his lips together.

“Nobody what?”

Ethan’s gaze moved from one thing in the room to another, never coming close to landing on Gabe’s face. “Nobody wanted to stay up there alone with a dead person. So we left him.”

Madison stood beside the bed and put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “You didn’t have a choice. Jordan needed help.”

“Ethan, how did Mr. McPherson get hurt?”

“He must have fallen and hit his head on a rock.”

“None of you boys were with him at the time?”

Ethan visibly swallowed and shook his head. “Me and Jordan were picking up firewood. Colin and J.D. were in camp.”

“What was Mr. McPherson supposed to be doing?”

“I dunno. Like I said, me and Jordan were out getting firewood.”

“How did you find him?”

“We heard something, a weird sort of yelp, and went looking. We found him near the bottom of the waterfall.”

“Was he conscious?”

Ethan shook his head.

“How far is he from where you were camped?”

“I’m not sure. I mean, you could hear the waterfall at the campsite—not real loud; it sounded like rain on trees.”

“How did Colin and J.D. get there?”

“Jordan, he was going nuts . . . I mean, crying and stuff. I couldn’t leave him, so I ran partway back and just started yelling.”

A nurse came in. “Excuse me, I need to take his temperature again.”

Gabe got up. “I’ll get out of the way here.”

Madison followed him outside the curtain. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I hate it that they had to go through that. Poor Jordan . . . ” She shook her head.

“Just keep reassuring them that they did the right thing by getting Jordan back.”

She nodded.

He looked down at her jeans. They were still wet, and mud covered the hem and knees. “You should change out of those wet clothes. I’m sure someone has an extra pair of scrubs around here.”

“One of the nurses has already gone to get me some.” She glanced down at her ruined boots, then lifted a foot. “Guess you were right. I didn’t even make it twenty yards in these things.”

“Think they’re salvageable?” He raised a brow. “I was looking forward to taking you dancing in them.”

She gave him a half-smile. “Maybe.”

It lifted his heart to see some of the tension leave her face.

A young nurse came up and handed a set of blue scrubs to Madison. “You can change in the third door on the right.”

“Thank you.”

Gabe stopped the nurse before she walked away. “As soon as Jordan Gray is able to see anyone, will you have someone get Ethan? He’s desperate to see his friend.”

“Sure thing.” The nurse departed in the direction of the trauma room that housed Jordan.

Gabe turned to Madison. “Listen, I have to get back up there. Do you have someone who can pick you up and take you home?”

“Of course. I don’t think they’ll keep Ethan too much longer.”

Gabe looked into her eyes, probing for the inner woman. “He calls you M?”

She gave him a crooked smile and a little color returned to her cheeks. “Yeah. It took him a while to call me anything at all after the adoption. Finally, he started with M. He says it’s like the character in James Bond.” She looked down. “I guess at fourteen, starting to call me Mom was a little odd for him.”

Gabe brushed her cheek with the knuckle of his index finger. “James Bond, huh? Gotta keep up the tough-guy image.”

Her smile was tinged with sorrow. “I suppose so. That tough image protected him for so long. . . . ” Her voice trailed off with a sadness that said she wished Ethan’s life had been different—easier.

She raised her eyes to meet Gabe’s and the connection he’d felt from the first time they’d locked gazes hit him once again. It was both unfamiliar and potent, and went straight to his gut. It made him want to do extraordinary things. If anyone had ever told him he’d pursue a woman like he was this one, he would have called them fifteen kinds of a fool.

With concentrated effort, he dropped his hand back to his side. “I’ll check on you two later.”

“Okay.”

He started to walk away.

“Gabe.”

He stopped and turned around. She was standing there wet and dirty, looking more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her.

“Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t taken me up there. It could have been hours—”

“But it wasn’t. You listened to your instincts and the boys are all safe—” He started to add
and sound
, but considering Jordan’s condition, he felt that would draw fire from the levelheaded journalist. “You did good.”

Chapter 3

T
HE NURSE WHO TOOK Ethan’s temperature was a soft-looking grandma type with dark brown skin and a gentle touch. She looked at him with a sympathetic smile and pitying eyes.

Unsettled, he looked away. He was accustomed to strangers looking at him with wariness, suspicion. Even though he’d been with M for nearly two years, he was still getting used to kindness. Consideration continued to settle upon him with a sense of expectation, of measuring what would be demanded in return. Mistrust was a habit he could not seem to break.

“There now,” the nurse said after the thermometer beeped. “You appear to be warming right up.”

Kids down here were all about “ma’am” and “sir.” Jordan would have given a clear, “Yes, ma’am.” Ethan only managed a nod. Southern manners still felt like wearing scratchy wool without anything underneath.

The nurse wrote something down on a clipboard that hung on the wall. “I’ll see about getting you something to eat. Growing boy like you must be starved. You just close your eyes and rest now.” She slipped outside the curtain.

Rest? Ethan didn’t dare close his eyes. Every time he did, he saw the bloody crater in Mr. McP’s skull—and the terror on Jordan’s face.

There had been plenty of times he’d seen Jordan scared. It seemed Jordan lived most of his life scared—but never anything like last night. Jordan had been scared right out of his mind, scared enough that it had frightened Ethan—and Ethan couldn’t remember the last time he’d been truly afraid.

The sharp edges of fear had a way of wearing off when you lived in a constant state of risk. For as long as Ethan could remember, uncertainty and chance had ruled his world. As he’d gotten older, things had become more dicey; it was more difficult to slip through life invisible and unnoticed. It seemed the more hazardous life got, the more danger it took for fear to slice into Ethan’s heart. He decided that living the life he had had developed a sort of anti-fear force field in him. But that had been before . . . before M had come into his life.

Last night, he’d been as afraid as he could ever remember being. Maybe living with M—living with less risk, less danger—had worked in reverse, sucking away the power of his protective force field. Maybe he was turning into an ordinary kid.

There was only one problem with his anti-fear force-field buildup theory. Jordan. The kid didn’t seem to be building any fear-deflecting powers. In fact, he seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. But even for Jordan, his reaction last night had been crazy—way too crazy even for seeing his stepdad like that.

That was another thing Ethan hadn’t figured out—the stepdad. It was one of the reasons he’d wanted to go on this camping trip in the first place. Jordan was his friend, and Ethan always looked out for his friends. But to take care of Jordan, he needed to sort some stuff out about Jordan’s family.

He and Jordan came from places as different as the earth and the moon. But they were alike in a lot of ways. Neither of them fit where they’d been planted. Jordan seemed as uncomfortable in his life as if he’d been dropped into it by an alien mother ship. Ethan had often wondered if it had been different before Jordan’s mom married Mr. McP. Had Jordan been happy and comfortable at home? Or had he always skittered, ratlike, along the edges of his family as he did now? It wasn’t something the two of them talked about, so Ethan needed to find out on his own.

Unfortunately, things had gone terribly wrong. Still, Jordan needed to be protected. And Ethan had to figure out a way to do it.

He glanced at the curtain that closed him off from the rest of the emergency room. Where
was
Jordan? Ethan had been straining to hear his voice, or the mention of his name. So far nothing. The ER hadn’t seemed that large when they’d come in. Had they taken Jordan off someplace else?

M came back in. He was glad to see she’d changed out of her wet stuff and had on some dry nurse clothes.

“Can I see Jordan yet?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Did the sheriff tell them? He said he’d tell them.”

“He told them.” She came closer and pushed his hair off his forehead. As always, he turned away; reacting as if she was admonishing him for his long hair. But somewhere along the way, he’d actually gotten so he looked forward to her doing it. In fact, he guessed that was one of the reasons he refused to wear his hair shorter.

“I know you’re worried about Jordan, but he’s where he needs to be right now. It might be a while before he can have visitors.”

“I just need to see him for a second. I won’t stay. I promise.”

She sighed and looked really tired. “Ethan, I don’t think you should expect too much. He might need a few days—”

“No!” He sat up straighter and threw off the blankets. “I need to see him now.”

As he started to get out of bed, M put her hand on his shoulder. “All right, all right. We won’t leave until you see him, okay?”

He eased back and looked her in the eye. “No bull?” Unlike lots of adults, M didn’t say stuff just to get you to do what she wanted; if she said no bull, he could trust her to her word.

She smiled, looking like herself for the first time since they’d gotten here. “No bull. But I don’t want you to be upset if he’s the same as when we got here. It might take time.”

“I know. I just need to see him.”

The nice nurse reappeared with a tray of food. “We’re between food-service shifts. I had to go down to the kitchen myself.” She slid the table over his lap and set the tray on it. “Since the dietitian didn’t have any part of it, I could pick out the good stuff.” She gave him a wink.

“Thank you.” Again, he had to shake off that feeling of being set up; remind himself that sometimes people did things just to be nice.

“You should eat up. I think your dismissal papers are almost ready.”

M said, “That’s great. Thank you.”

The nurse nodded to M and then smiled at him again before she left. This time he made himself look her in the eye and smile back.

Ethan asked M, “Would you go ask how soon I can see Jordan?”

“Sure. I need to call someone to take us home, too. I won’t be long.”

He nodded and picked up his fork.

Most kids complained about “cafeteria food” and “hospital food,” but Ethan had been hungry often enough that he knew better. That’s why he felt so guilty when he couldn’t eat it; that and the fact that the nurse had gone to so much trouble. He uncovered everything and rearranged it enough that he hoped it looked like he ate some of it. He really didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but if he swallowed anything right now, he’d spew for sure.

GABE WAS ANXIOUS
to get a firsthand read of the situation. He had no reason to believe McPherson’s death was more than a tragic accident. Nevertheless, it was his job to investigate every death thoroughly. He’d delayed questioning the other boys for fear he’d run out of daylight before he could get McPherson off the mountain. He didn’t want to have to assign someone to spend the night up there, plus he needed confirmation of death so he could inform Kate without further delay.

He tried to radio Carter while driving to the trailhead. He wasn’t surprised when he didn’t get a response. Once he got within range, which would most likely be partway up the trail itself, he’d try his small two-way.

While he’d been inside the hospital, the rain had cleared. Now the sun shone in the late afternoon sky. Good news; they would have at least thirty more minutes of daylight than if it had remained overcast. They were going to need every second of it.

Gabe pulled into the trailhead. Carter had brought one of the department’s SUVs, which was parked next to McPherson’s white full-size van. The coroner’s wagon and a Search and Rescue truck from the fire department were there, too. Gabe parked next to Carter’s vehicle and tried his two-way. He was pleasantly surprised when Carter’s crackly response came through.

“Have the ME and FD made it on scene yet?” Gabe asked.

“Dr. Zinn came up with me. She’s almost finished. Four FD rescue guys just got here. We’re burning daylight. How long before you’re on scene?” Carter asked.

“The body’s at the base of Black Rock Falls?”

“Yes.”

“I’m starting up now.”

“You’re cuttin’ it close. The doc and I agree; McPherson fell. These damn rocks are slippery as hell. Doc estimates TOD was most likely last night. I took plenty of photos. You sure we can’t just load him up and start down?”

“No. I’m moving as fast as I can.”

Carter was the best-trained officer he had. And Gabe had confidence in his deputy’s ability to investigate a scene. Still, they hadn’t had a homicide in Forrest County since Carter had come on staff—hell, there had only been a handful in the eleven years Gabe had been with the department. With various pieces of this puzzle still having blurry edges, Gabe wanted to have a look for himself before the body was moved.

The muscles in Gabe’s legs burned and his lungs were huffing, but he made it to McPherson’s campsite in just over fifty minutes. The sight of the abandoned camp gave him a rippling chill. The pup tents’ flaps were open; the sleeping bags inside sodden with rain. A skillet full of water sat on a rock next to the ashes of a dead fire. An open bag of marshmallows had a steady stream of ants entering and leaving. A box of graham crackers had been trampled under someone’s careless foot, smashing the crackers and splitting open the sealed packages, before the rain turned it all into a gray-brown, spongy pulp.

Just as Ethan had said, Gabe could hear the distant rush of the falls.

In another seven minutes he was standing next to Steve McPherson’s cold corpse.

The body was near the small, shallow pool at the base of the falls, far enough away that the mist spray didn’t reach it. The boys had folded a jacket and placed it under McPherson’s head and put one over his chest and another over his legs. It appeared that they had wrapped a T-shirt around the head wound. The medical examiner had peeled the makeshift bandage away and it now lay in a bloody lump on the ground.

McPherson had been an experienced climber and hiker, probably the best in the entire area. He’d not only mastered the Appalachians, but had conquered most of the peaks in the Pacific Northwest. Of course, accidents happen to even the most experienced outdoorsmen. But the idea of him being off by himself without any of the boys didn’t make sense. His entire purpose for taking kids up there was to teach them respect for the elements and the land, to give them wilderness survival skills. Why would he have gone off alone?

Gabe walked closer to Dr. Zinn, who was kneeling beside her large backpack, carefully loading her equipment. Her hiking boots and cargo pants were caked with mud. She was a woman whose active lifestyle allowed her to wear her fifty-five years well enough to pass for ten years younger. He’d gotten to know her long before she’d been appointed county ME; back when he’d been a new deputy he’d had to deliver the news that her then-fourteen-year-old son, Jimmy, had tried to jump Bear Creek with his dirt bike and had ended up in the ER. The boy’s trouble had been compounded by the fact he’d been on private property without permission when he’d done it. It was the first call of that nature Gabe had had to make. It had been more difficult than he’d imagined.

Gabe’s respect for Dottie Zinn had begun that day, when she’d made his job easier by staying calm, and showing uncommon regard for
his
uneasiness.

Young Jimmy had recovered. Dottie and Gabe had become friends.

Standing, she gave him a nod. “Gabe.” Her gaze moved to the body. “Looks pretty straightforward; head trauma. Of course, the autopsy will confirm. I’ve bagged his hands, just in case.”

“Can you estimate time of death?”

“Based solely on rigor and livor mortis, I’d say anywhere between six last evening and six this morning. Pathologist will likely be able to call it closer.”

He scanned the immediate area, looking for a possible scenario for McPherson’s fall.

The ground was a mix of dirt, gravel, and various-sized boulders and rocks. Stony outcroppings flanked the falls. There plant life clung tightly; saplings, mountain laurel, and ferns sprouted from what appeared to be solid rock. At the base of the falls, there was a jumble of stone chunks that, with the passing of time, the rushing water and vegetation had pried away from the body of the cliff.

The exposed layers of dark stone beside the falling water were unstable in many places. Steve would have known better than to have climbed there. Still, Gabe gestured toward the top of the falls and asked the question. “Possible that he fell from up there?”

She shook her head. “Doubtful. His body is too far from the drop. Even with this rain, we’d see some evidence that the kids had dragged him this far. Unless they were strong enough to carry the dead weight.” She raised a brow in his direction.

With a half-shrug, he said, “With as rough as the footing is here, probably not.”

“Most obvious trauma is to the left temporal region, but there are other suspicious areas on the head.” She pointed to the gash in McPherson’s skull. “My best guess is he lost his footing and fell sideways—maybe even tumbled and had more than one impact.”

“I suppose the rain didn’t help in locating the rock that inflicted the wound?”

She shook her head. “Carter’s gone over everything. He photographed all of the rocks within ten feet of the body, as well as those near the falls.”

Gabe walked slowly around the body, then worked his way out, looking for anything that could speak of what had happened here. Interspersed between stones was a jumbled assortment of footprints in the mud. They were concentrated near the body, lots of them positioned in a way that said people had been sitting on the rocks. The only discernible trail of prints led up the narrow path toward the camp. Of course, with the rain arriving this morning, only the tracks made today would have left deep depressions in the mud.

He saw nothing that would contradict the theory that this was an accident. “Carter, bag the jackets and the T-shirt. Then you can go back down with Dr. Zinn.” He turned to the four rescuers shifting restlessly nearby. “All right, let’s get him off this mountain.”