Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14) (41 page)

She tapped on the screen, then read aloud, “‘Evan, Since McKenna managed to convince the cops that you weren’t the murderer, he and you leave me no choice. Tell him you’re guilty and to bring you back into custody. This is your only chance to save what’s left of your world. If not, I won’t go so easy as you wanted me to with Jonas Montrop. We agreed that he was supposed to suffer, not escape. I won’t make the mistake of listening to you again.’”

Evan frowned and stuttered, “It’s lies! All lies! I don’t know who’s sending this. I never knew Jonas Montrop was kidnapped. I didn’t…” She stopped in mid-sentence as she dragged her finger to scroll further down the email.

Her sudden gasp was so gut-wrenching, it froze part of me, and I had trouble breathing. A guttural, moaning wail came from her mouth and rose to a full scream.

She held her phone out like it was on fire. Her eyes were fixated on the screen with such horror that I couldn’t imagine what she was seeing.

I reached out, took the phone from Evan, and turned it so that Street, Diamond, and I could all see. The screen showed a close-up picture of Mia’s face, a wide piece of duct tape over her mouth. The fear and terror in Mia’s red, weeping eyes was like a gut punch.

FIFTY-SEVEN

I handed the phone to Diamond. “Evan’s sister Mia,” I said.

He took the phone. Anger shone in his dark eyes.

Evan’s scream had died down to a terrified whimper. Her hands went to her mouth, and she sobbed and shook and gasped and choked.

I reached out and took Evan’s hand. She was quivering as if being electrocuted.

Street stepped forward and gently put her arm around Evan.

“Come sit down,” she said in her calmest voice.

She led Evan over to the couch, easing her down. I sat next to her, still holding her hand, trying desperately to think of a plan as I grappled with the statements in the email, the accusations of Evan’s involvement in the murders and the reference to the kidnapping of Jonas Montrop. Maybe the statements were true. I couldn’t tell. Either way, Evan’s shock and distress were real.

Diamond set Evan’s phone down on the kitchen counter where Evan couldn’t see it.

Evan was gasping, her head and upper body jerking with each choking breath.

“Breathe,” Street said. “Deep breaths. Again. Good.” Street rubbed Evan’s back.

Evan didn’t move beyond her labored crying sobs and efforts to breathe.

I said, “I have some questions, Evan. Would Mia have kept the door locked when she was here alone?”

“Yes. We rehearsed it. The door stays locked unless it’s me or a friend that she knows.”

“What friends are in that category?”

“The night swimmers. Nan and Gabby. Mia’s met them several times. She would probably open the door to them. Maybe there’s others, but I can’t think of any right now. I don’t really have friends other than my swim group.”

“What about Mia’s friends?”

“Her only friends are imaginary. Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Wendy.”

“If someone knocked and said their name was Nan or someone else Mia knows, she would probably open the door, right?”

Evan frowned, wiped tears off her face. “I don’t know. I never thought of that. Maybe. Oh, God, I’ve screwed up so bad.”

“The person who murdered David Montrop was probably connected to the kidnapping of his son Jonas Montrop. Evan, you and Mia were both regularly at Montrop’s house. Can you think of anyone you saw there who knew about Mia, anyone who paid her any attention?”

Evan tried to inhale, her breath catching. “No. Just Montrop. And his gardener, Kang. But they paid Mia no attention. I parked her in front of the TV, and they went about their business without regard to either of us.”

“Kang didn’t pay her attention?”

“No.”

“If Kang had come to your door, here, would Mia have opened it to him?”

Evan looked into space, her eyes looking horrified. “I once found him sitting on the couch with her in front of Montrop’s TV. He was speaking softly and pointing at the TV, and she was giggling. I don’t know what he said. But it made me realize that he knows English much better than he reveals to the rest of us. So yes, she probably would open the door to him.”

“You don’t know what he said to her?”

Evan shook her head.

“Did you ask her?”

“Mia doesn’t track like that. If you ask her about something that happened, she won’t remember. If you show her a face, she can tell you if she’s seen that person or not. But she won’t be able to tell you where or when.”

Looking at me, Diamond said, “You mentioned the black Audi at Montrop’s the day he was killed. I told you about the call we got. A vacation homeowner’s black Audi seen coming and going when the owner is nowhere around.”

“That could be it. Montrop’s son Jonas said that Montrop looked after three houses that belonged to bands he represented. One each on the West Shore, South Shore, and East Shore. Kang probably knew about them. Maybe knew where they were. It wouldn’t be impossible for him to get the alarm codes.”

I turned to Evan. “It’s a long shot. But it’s possible that someone has been using these bands’ vacation houses and their vehicles, both boats and cars. If that person has taken Mia, it’s possible he has her at one of those locations. Does that possibility fit with what you know of Kang? And if Montrop had written down the alarm codes to the vacation houses, would it have been possible for Kang to find them?”

Evan was shaking her head, not in denial, but in confusion. “I don’t know. He was the gardener, mostly outside. But sometimes he’d come inside to ask a question. I once found him in Montrop’s bedroom. When he saw me, he said Montrop’s name as a question, as if he was looking for him. So I guess anything is possible.”

I turned to Diamond. “You want to go to the house with the black Audi and look for Mia?”

Diamond nodded. “It’s a long shot.”

“Evan,” I said. “Can you think of anywhere that would be a more likely place for someone to take Mia?”

“No.”

“Then let’s go,” I said.

FIFTY-EIGHT

Evan and Street squeezed into the back seat with Spot. Diamond turned the light bar on and raced back around the lake the way we’d come.

A mile south of Cave Rock, Diamond slowed, shut off the light bar, then pulled off the highway on a no-see-um drive that was shared by several houses. He drove a short distance toward the lake, came to a split and took the right fork, turning off his headlights so that he was driving by just his yellow parking lights. He came to a locked gate, turned the patrol unit off. We all jumped out.

“You still carry that megaphone?” I asked.

Diamond nodded, opened the rear hatch, pulled a small megaphone out of his supply box, and handed it to me.

“Follow me,” Diamond said.

He ran around the gate, which blocked the drive but had no attached fence. Diamond would have disappeared into the darkness were it not for the moon, which was still fairly high in the sky even though it had been a few hours since it had illuminated Bosworth’s hockey mask in the forest at my cabin.

Street held Evan’s hand as we ran.

I held Spot’s collar. Partly, to keep him from running ahead. Mostly, because, like all dogs, he reads the darkness with his nose and constantly makes mini-alerts if he senses a person or a dog or something more unusual in the dark. I’d learned his tells and his physical vocabulary. With my knuckles against his neck muscles, I could get a good idea if we were heading into dangerous territory.

Fifty yards down, Diamond turned right and angled off through the woods.

Diamond picked his way through the forest, heading north. There was just enough moonlight coming through the branches to give us a sense of where to go. The air was thick with the scents of pine needles and moist dirt and the herbal scents of nightshade plants. Every smell seemed to be made more pronounced by the dropping temperature, a crisp presence of cold that felt threatening. The cold flowed over us like an evil spirit, warning us away, letting us know that if things went wrong, they would do it with intensity and without forgiveness.

I felt Spot alert. He didn’t express tension so much as awareness. I looked down at his head to see which way he was focused.

Ahead and toward the left. Toward the water.

To the right loomed a house lit by moonlight. It was down a slight slope. It consisted of two large boxes set at 30 degrees to each other, and it had a gabled roof that faced multiple directions. It was a large house, suitable for a rich rock band. The windows were black. No yard light that I could see.

Diamond made a soft shhh sound and held his arm up as he walked slowly forward. As we got closer, the house’s garage came into view.

With a shift of pressure on Spot’s collar, we angled out of the forest, toward the house. Parked in the drive was a black Audi wagon, invisible in the dark but for the reflection of moonlight off its shiny surface. I felt the hood. The heat was significant. The car had been driven recently.

I stopped and raised the megaphone with the small end of the cone not to my mouth, but to my ear. By pointing the large open end of the cone toward the house, I could listen to an amplified version of any sounds that might come. There was nothing beyond an airy whoosh, similar to what one hears when putting an empty conch seashell to one’s ear.

With Spot as my guide, I took the lead and walked slowly and silently around to the lake side of the house. There was a large deck and a long expanse of floor-to-ceiling glass. I raised my hand, signalling the others to stay put. Then I moved over to the edge of the dark windows. I could see in the moonlight that there were open drapes gathered at the window edge near me. I carefully lifted up my megaphone, wide end toward the house, and eased it up against the glass. I made sure that I was positioned behind the bunched drapes. If anyone was in there, I didn’t want them to see me or the megaphone.

Moving slowly so that I didn’t rattle the cone against the glass, I leaned over so that my ear was at the megaphone.

I held my breath and listened.

There was nothing.

After a minute, I pulled the megaphone away from the glass, looking carefully, studious in my effort to not bump anything.

As I lowered the megaphone, something nagged at me from just below my level of consciousness.

I stopped, trying to grab the thought.

I turned back toward where I’d just been focusing, reenacting my previous movements. I brought the megaphone back up to the window glass, listened again to the age-old sea, turned it away from the glass. I was very deliberate, looking for whatever had nagged at me, going slowly, taking in every aspect of the night, the moon, the cold air, the humid smells, the sound of distant waves lapping at the shore.

And there it was.

Two things.

The first was that, as I’d brought the megaphone around, away from the house, I noticed that Spot was once again looking out to sea, staring at Tahoe’s black plate of ice cold water ringed by snow-covered mountains. The other was that, as my megaphone made its arc away from the window, I did indeed hear sounds. Strange sounds. Possibly even human voices.

But they came not from the house where I’d come to listen.

They came from the lake.

FIFTY-NINE

Once again, I lifted my megaphone up and aimed the large open end out toward the lake. I heard waves. Wind. Water smacking rocks. A distant Canada Goose honking as he flew under the moonlight, trying to keep his family together as they wedged their V-formation north on a night trip toward the Arctic. Then came water slapping something more resonant. A boat hull, maybe. I stopped swinging my megaphone, brought it back a bit, waited, adjusted my position.

When I heard what might be the sound of water slapping a boat hull, I paused and waited. Maybe there was a different sound. Maybe not. I held still. Focused on maintaining a fixed, solid position. My shoulder muscles got sore. Started to quiver. But I kept the megaphone in place. And there it was. A human voice. Unintelligible. But human. Low in tone. Male. Tense.

I lowered the megaphone and whispered. “There’s no one that I can sense inside the house. But there’s a man out on a boat.”

I stared out at the water. The moon reflection was to the south from where I’d pointed the megaphone. The area where the voice had come from was to the right, northwest. There was a stand of trees on the shore, blocking the view, nothing but blackness.

I whispered, “Let’s walk down to the shore. Try to stay in the tree shadows. We’ll come up behind the boathouse. We can probably see the boat from there.”

I held Spot’s collar and let him lead. The ground between the house and the shore appeared to be a rock garden, paths between boulders, cedar trees trimmed into sculptures, pools of water, and cascades down to the lake. The tree shadows fell to the side of the garden. The moonlight was bright. We were in full view, if anyone was watching. I bent down to minimize my profile and moved fast to the boathouse. The others followed my lead.