Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries) (37 page)

“You don’t know the half of it.” They ate the animal crackers slowly, washing them down with water melted atop the woodstove. Clare was exhausted, her eyes smudged with deep shadows, her shoulders rolled forward as if the weight of her head were too much to carry. And poor Bob—Russ glanced toward the trooper. He was feeling no pain, thank God, but the Oxys would just mask the symptoms of the various problems they courted by not getting him to a hospital. “Tomorrow, we’re getting out of here,” he said.

“We need to find Mikayla first.” Clare picked up the water. “She’s gone, what, five days now without her immunosuppressants? She doesn’t have much time.”

“I agree,” Mongue said.

“Look, you need medical attention,” Russ said, turning to him. “And Clare—”

Mongue rapped on the first aid box. “I can manage for a while longer now I’ve got these. The little girl’s gonna die. We gotta help her.”

Russ pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow. First I have to get my truck and see if I can—”

“No more splitting up,” Clare said.

“I agree. Concur. Agree.”

Russ glared at Mongue.

“We should stick together,” Clare went on. “If there are three of us, it’ll increase our chances of being able to get Mikayla away from her father.”

“These are seriously bad people, Clare—”

“You don’t have to tell me that.” Her voice was sharp.

He tried another tack. “With Bob’s broken leg—”

“I can still shoot better than you can, Van Alstyne.” Mongue grinned. “Hell, you can stick me back in the canoe and strap me to the roof rack.”

Clare laughed.

“Okay. Okay.” Russ held up his hands. “We go together. But we go slow.
If
we can find the meth house, I’ll scout it out, and if I say it’s too dangerous, that’s it. And if either of you two give me any grief, I’m tossing you into the back of the truck and driving out of here. I don’t care if the highway’s closed down all the way to Lake George, with or without Mikayla Johnson, we’re leaving tomorrow.”

13.

Hadley had never been afraid before. She thought she had, when she was broke and homeless in L.A., when she went through the containment room on her first day as a prison guard, when she had been crouched beside her squad car while shots exploded around her. But those moments weren’t fear. This was, standing in the hallway of the Albany PD South Station, holding a paper that said her children had been taken.

“The airport,” she rasped. “We have to get to the airport.”

“Dylan can’t fly out tonight.” Flynn took the message and read it again. “The Albany airport’s closed down.”

“Closed down,” she repeated. “The airport’s closed down.” She nodded jerkily. Then started. “What if he’s taken them to another airport? What if he’s taken the train to New York? Is the train running? Would he know where to catch it?”

Flynn caught her hand and held it tight. “Hadley.” He was using his cop voice on her, the same voice she had used with distracted accident victims and frightened parents. “Chances are good he’s taken them back to his hotel. Let’s call there and see if he’s checked out or not.”

She nodded again—up, down,
Yes, let’s do that,
and followed him to the comm room, screaming inside her head the whole while. The dispatcher who had handed over the message looked at her carefully and agreed to call the Algonquin. After the third failure, she shook her head. “Sorry, Officers. The landlines are well and truly down. The only places I’m getting through to are other emergency systems, and those are getting spotty because we’re all trying to use the same broadband at the same time.”

“Okay.” Flynn exhaled. “Can you reach the MKPD dispatcher? Tell her we need a unit at the Algonquin Waters Resort. Officer Knox’s ex-husband is violating their custody—”

“No!” Hadley grabbed his arm. “No, don’t send that,” she said to the dispatcher. She dragged Flynn back out into the hallway.

“What?”

“You can’t send—” She took a deep breath. “Dylan’s not in violation of the custody agreement. I am.”

Flynn looked at her steadily. “Go on.”

“The decree gave us joint custody, and neither of us was supposed to move more than a hundred miles away from the other unless the agreement was modified by the court.” She had thought herself lucky at the time. The judge handling their divorce had openly doubted her ability to give the children a “normal, stable” home. “After the divorce was finalized, I … I realized I wanted to start fresh. Granddad offered me a place to stay as long as I needed one. So I went to Dylan and asked him if it was all right if I took the kids to New York. He said he was fine with it as long as I didn’t expect any money from him.” She coughed up a bitter laugh. “I figured since he agreed, I could save myself the cost of getting the custody agreement changed. I never thought to get anything in writing from him. So now he’s here, and he’s going to be able to get full custody because I’ve been in violation for two years!” She hung her head, squeezing her eyes against tears she wouldn’t let fall. “Oh, God. How could I have been so stupid?”

Flynn pulled her toward him and she came, letting herself lean against him, pressing her face into his sweater. She was being weak and needy and she hated it, but she couldn’t help herself. He wrapped his long arms around her and she felt better, even though she knew it was an illusion.

“Why did he come here?” Flynn’s voice was quiet. “What does he want from you?”

She gave it up, just like any suspect in the interrogation room. “Money. He wants me to give him twenty thousand for one of his stupid business schemes. If I don’t, he’s going to take Hudson and Genny back to L.A.”

Flynn breathed in and out, her head rising and falling with his chest. “Do you have it?”

“No. I own”—she caught herself—“the assets of a business he ran. He’ll take that instead of cash.”

“Can you give it to him?”

She thought of those tapes, made digital, images that anyone with a computer and a credit card could download forever and ever, amen. How old would Hudson and Genny be before they saw them? How long before one of their friend’s fathers recognized her and the crude suggestions started up again? How long before the mothers found out and the invitations to playdates and sleepovers vanished? The kids had been too young to notice their ostracism back in California. Here, now, they were fully old enough to understand every slight and slur that would come their way. But she had no choice. She couldn’t lose her children. “Yes.” She pushed herself away and Flynn’s tight embrace instantly loosened. “Yes, I can surrender the business assets.”

“Then the first thing to do is retrieve Hudson and Genny.” He searched her face. “Are you okay to go?”

She swiped away her tears. “I’m sorry. I’m just … I think with the storm and my ex and the little girl missing … I’m just on edge.”

He nodded. “We can still get a call relayed through to the MKPD. The dep would send someone over to the hotel, no questions asked.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to involve anyone from work if I can help it.” She took a deep breath. “The kids aren’t in any danger from Dylan. He’s a cheating, lying jerk, but he’s never raised a hand against any of us.”

“Okay. Let me tell the dispatcher we’re all set.”

Getting out of Albany was a nightmare. Traffic lights were nonexistent, streets were blocked off, and the roads were so bad Flynn’s weighted-down four-wheel-drive SUV slid every time they turned a corner. The Northway lights were on, their orange sodium glow wavering in the rain-thick air, but huge swathes of land beyond the confines of the roadway were dark. No billboards, no gas signs, no lights brightening the windows of distant houses.

“It’s the end of the world,” Hadley said, staring out the ice-streaked side window.

“No,” Flynn said. “But it is one hell of a mess.”

“Like my life.”

She could hear him hesitate. “Hadley. Have you thought about what’s going to happen after you give your ex what he wants?”

“He’ll go back to California.”

“Is he reliable with money?”

“Oh, God, no.” Hadley twisted in her seat and adjusted one of the vents to blow more hot air her way. “Hudson’s got more common sense than his father.”

“Then what’s going to happen the next time he’s stuck and he wants cash?”

“Nothing. I’ll have a lawyer draw up a custody modification. Once we get it filed with the court, that’s it.”

“What if he doesn’t agree?”

“Of course he’ll agree. Dylan doesn’t really care about having the kids close, believe me.”

“Hand me my coffee, will you?” Flynn held out his hand, not taking his eyes away from the road. She gave him his go-cup—
two creams, two sugars
—and watched while he drank. He handed it back to her. “Do you have any way to
make
your ex sign a custody modification?”

“I’ll tell him if he doesn’t, I’m not signing over those business assets.”

“But if you don’t hand those over, he’s taking Hudson and Genny to California with him. Right?”

She opened her mouth. Shut it again. “Oh, shit.” She dropped her head against the seat back. “Oh, shit. He’s got no reason to sign a modification now. I’m going to become his piggy bank, aren’t I? He’s going to threaten to haul the kids back to California every time he needs money.”

“Is there anything your lawyer can pin on him? Is he behind in child support?”

She rocked her head back and forth. “Nothing. He wouldn’t owe any child support unless I legally became the primary custodian. Which is just one more reason not to sign a modification.” The rain flashed gold and silver in the headlight beams. “I’m going to have to move back to California.” The truth of her situation was a dull weight on her chest.

“Let’s not jump the gun. Let me think about what we can do.”

Flynn’s voice was warm and reassuring. And Hadley wanted to be warm and reassured. She wished she could believe there was a way out. “You always read about cases where some guy is holding custody over his ex-wife’s head, and you think,
Why don’t you just let him have them? After two months he’ll be begging you to take them back.
Then you’re the ex-wife in the story, and you realize you can’t. You just can’t.” She looked at Flynn. “I can’t have Hudson and Genny thinking I’d abandon them.” Her eyes burned. Flynn laid his hand, open, on the console between them and she took it without hesitation. She linked her fingers through his, for once not weighing or worrying what it meant.

“You’re not going to give up the kids. And you’re not going to have to move back to California. I promise you, we won’t let it happen.”

Once they had taken the Millers Kill exit, the drive became two-handed and white-knuckled again. Route 9 was a pair of ruts dug through ice so thick the rest of the road was pale gray. Flynn hunched forward, his eyes fixed on the narrow tracks, all his attention focused on keeping them in line. Hadley knew if they bumped over the edges and onto the ice, they’d keep on sliding until they lodged in the thick snow at the side of the highway, and they wouldn’t be getting out.

Sacandaga Road was even worse, an expanse of icy wasteland so unmarked by plows she couldn’t tell where the road ended and the fields on either side began. “There it is.” Flynn sounded like a swimmer almost out of strength spotting the shore. Hadley hadn’t seen the resort’s sign until he mentioned it. The lights that normally illuminated its tasteful carved wooden face were out. She finally registered the time. “Are we going to be able to make it up there?” The driveway—it was really more of a road—snaked two miles up the mountain before reaching the hotel complex.

“We’re going to try.” Flynn inched the Aztek onto the drive and downshifted. The engine grumbled with a vibration that went up Hadley’s spine. The SUV lurched forward and began climbing the hill. “Hah!” Flynn grinned, showing his eyeteeth. “Gravel over the ice. Thank you, Algonquin Waters.”

“Gravel? Like … part of a roadbed?”

“Yep. One or two dump-truck loads, I’ll bet. Very expensive, but you gotta make sure the rich people can drive in and out.”

As they drove higher and deeper into the mountain, Hadley’s heart began racing. It had taken them so long to get here, the normally twenty-minute drive eating up nearly two hours. If she and Flynn had misjudged, if Dylan had already gone to the airport or the train station with the kids, they would never reach him in time.

The drive leading to the grand entrance was designed so that the heavy forest fell away at the last S-curve, and the resort spread out to be viewed in all its glory. Tonight, though, Hadley could barely make it out. Flynn rolled into the lower parking lot and killed the engine. He leaned back, shook out his hands and rolled his neck, then twisted to look at her. “Are we going in as cops? Or as civilians?”

“Oh. That’s a tough question.” She glanced to his plastic lock box, where they had stored their weapons for the drive. Tempting, but … “Civilians,” she said. “I don’t want there to be any hint of police coercion. Even though having the extra authority is nice.”

“You already have authority.” He smiled a little, his blue eyes warm. “You don’t need the suit and badge to make it work.”

She ducked her head.

“Who’s the man?”

“Oh, God, Flynn.”

“C’mon. Who’s the man?”

“I’m the man,” she mumbled.

“I can’t hear you, Officer Knox! Who’s the man?”

“I’m the man! I am the Man! I am
the
Man!” She laughed for the first time in what felt like days and threw her arms around Flynn, easy, just like taking his hand had been, no second guesses, no regrets. “Thank you, Flynn. You didn’t have to do any of this. Thank you.”

“Hey, now. Hey.” He patted her back awkwardly. “We’re partners.” He pulled away to look into her face. “That means I’ve got your back. Always.”

The interior of the SUV felt close and hot. She didn’t know what to say, so she nodded.

“Why don’t you grab the Maglite and see if you can spot his rental while I get my parka on?”

She nodded again, thankful for a moment alone to get her bearings. The cars in the lot were anonymous in their icy shrouds, identifiable only as shapes: sedan, SUV, station wagon. She trained the flashlight’s powerful beam on the bumpers instead. Rental companies’ in-and-out bar codes were brightly reflective. She saw one—an SUV—and then another, a four-door that on closer inspection was a Ford. The third car with a Hertz sticker was a Lexus. She beat against the windows, shattering ice until she could illuminate the interior. When she saw the Dragon Ball manga, she bent over, light-headed with relief.