Untamed: Duty Bound Book 3 (11 page)

“Suit yourself.” Hidden behind a cluster a lofty pine trees with Vic, Matt didn’t care about his friend’s method as long as he left no evidence. They’d abandoned their snowmobiles a kilometer upstream, near the jagged hole in the ice, and trudged to the murder site.

Vic’s elbow connected with Matt’s side. “The brat ain’t there.”

“Stop poking, I’m not blind.”

The dimwit woman had stopped by a skeleton tree standing by the rocky formation where the creek split in two. She was alone and wasn’t carrying any visible weapons.
This is gonna be easy.

“The kid is probably home with the mutt. We’ll take care of him after. You walk around that way.” While he spoke, Matt indicated a pine tree with yellow needles on its lower branches. “Just make sure she doesn’t see you until I cut her off from her Ski-Doo. We don’t want her to escape.”

“She won’t escape.” His friend’s face contorted into a vicious leer. “There’s no one around. What about giving her a good time before she goes for a swim?”

“Accident, remember?” Cheap thrill and lust was what had gotten them in trouble five years ago. This was one mistake not worth repeating today. “There can be no sign of assault. Now put your ski mask on.”

“You used to be way more fun.” Vic walked away, grumbling and cursing.

Heedless of his friend’s litany, Matt plowed in the opposite direction. The snow crunched under his boot, and with each step, he sank some six inches deep. The exercise worked his leg muscles, which he needed for strength and speed when he played hockey.

Through the branches, Matt kept his gaze on the deaf woman. She’d moved away from her snowmobile and stopped near the skeleton tree. While she looked away, he plodded through the open stretch of snow. The engine wasn’t running. As he drew closer, he saw the helmet on the bench and the key in the ignition.

A yelp of surprise echoed in the forest. Hands at her sides, Parker stood still. Her attention was focused forward.

Some fifteen feet ahead of her, Matt’s friend had emerged from the woods with a thick stick in his hand.
Way to go, Vic.

Parker took a step back and looked behind her. Their gaze met. Shoulders squared off, she froze. The smell of fear radiated from her body. They had her sandwiched.

Ready to give chase if she made a mad dash for the woods, Matt advanced toward her. “Give it up. There’s nowhere to run.”

On the other front, Vic was also approaching, closing the trap.

Her gaze was locked on him, but there was no indication she’d understood his command. Then, without warning, she charged at him.

Caught off balance, Matt tumbled in the snow. “Shit!”

As he fumbled to get up, she jumped on her snowmobile and hurled the helmet at him. He lurched sideways to avoid the object, skidded on a patch of ice, and fell. The engine roared and the snowmobile plowed away. Vic moved to block her path. Slowing down, she swerved around him. His friend raised the stick and took a swing. She collapsed between the handles.

The vehicle came to an abrupt halt by the trees where her old man had drawn his last breath. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

“Check if she’s dead.” Matt yelled over the sound of the engine. “I’m coming.”

The branches of the nearest tree fluttered as Vic approached the girl.

“I smashed the back of her head,” he boasted, his voice carrying his accomplishment loud and proud. “I see blood, lots of blood. She’s—”

Without warning, Vic collapsed in the snow.

“Vic?” Matt wasn’t amused by his friend’s antics. “Get up. We don’t have time to play.”

A short, hooded figure materialized above his friend, chilling Matt’s blood. The vision—it could only be a vision—straddled the snowmobile.

Where’s my rifle when I need it.
Cursing his lack of foresight, Matt hurtled through the snow as the ghost from the past rode away with Parker.

Twitching and moaning, Vic tried to sit in the snow. “What happened?”

“Shit happened.” Matt pulled him up by his jacket. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah.” His friend ran a hand behind his head. “Who hit me?”

“A ghost, but I’ll take care of her.” This time, she would not escape him. “Go to Parker’s cabin and silence the kid. I’ll meet you back at the hole.”

***

Even if Avery hadn’t been instructed to trust no one, he still wouldn’t trust anyone, not after all he’d unearthed so far.

As they approached the spruce tree under which Avery had parked his snowmobile, so no one would notice he’d come to visit her cabin, Rory and Snowflake slowed down.

“Tired, little man?” The snow was deep, a challenge for the boy’s and dog’s short legs. “Want me to carry you?”

The youngster looked up. Avery followed his gaze to a miniature log cabin built in a tree, complete with an angled roof and holes in place of windows. Pieces of timber, roughly a foot long, hammered onto the trunk at short, regular intervals, led to a square opening through the floor. Something in that tree house had scared the boy and stolen his voice.

Avery crouched down, putting himself at eye level with Rory. “I’ll make a deal with you, little man. If you climb with me inside the tree house, I’ll tell your mom not to feed you peas ever again.”

The boy’s eyes grew wider and wider as he glanced back and forth between the tree and Avery.

“No more peas. Forever.”
I’m so going to regret this promise.
“Do we have a deal?”

Rory moved his head into something resembling a reluctant nod, then picked up his dog and hugged her.

“Yes, Snowflake can come with us. I’ll carry you both.” When the youngster didn’t object, Avery scooped him from the snow. “Hold her tight, ready?”

Five vertical steps later, Avery popped his head through the opening. Some six inches of snow had accumulated inside the tree house, which looked sturdy enough for both of them.

“Put Snowflake down and hop in.” Avery lowered his quiet bundle on the floor then crawled inside.

At its highest point, the slanted ceiling reached five feet. High enough for a child to stand up, but Rory didn’t stand, nor did he approach either of the two windows. Instead, he retreated to the corner of the two solid walls with his dog.

What secret is locked in your head, little man?

Down on his hands and knees, Avery scanned the interior. The first window looked onto Hannah’s house while the other showcased the magnificent forest. He inched closer to get a better view. With any luck he might even glimpse Hannah as she returned from her lone expedition. A layer of snow covered the ledge. He absent-mindedly brushed it off, revealing a yellow object wedged in the corner of the frame.
This can’t be.

Avery pulled on it, but ice had trapped the fabric against the wood.
Come on.
He yanked again. The thumb ripped, and the yellow mitt broke free. His heart beating in dreadful anticipation, he flipped it over. On its palm was a black star, an identical match to the mitt found in Abbott’s pocket.

In an effort to make sense of the discovery, Avery looked at Rory. Tears had built in his eyes.

The boy recoiled farther in the corner. Snowflake curled into a ball on his lap. Her short tail pressed against her butt, as if she shared the youngster’s fears.

Rory walked to me, his bare hands colder than ice.
Those had been Hannah’s words when she’d described the traumatizing afternoon.

The mitt never belonged to Abbott’s daughter.
The medical examiner had been wrong. It was Rory’s.

Avery approached the frightened boy and sat beside him. “This is your mitt, isn’t it?”

The youngster didn’t answer, but he squeezed his dog tighter.

Where’s the key to your mind, little man?
None of the interview techniques Avery had perfected over the years applied to a child. He felt like a rookie facing his first witness.
If only the dog could talk…

A crazy idea popped into his mind. “If I ask Snowflake a question, you think she would answer me?”

Rory’s round face scrunched up into a quizzical frown.

“Let’s try.” By using Snowflake as an intermediate, Avery hoped to bypass the boy’s fears. “Snowflake, does Rory like peas? If she says yes, you pet her head. If she says no, you rub her back.”

The youngster moved his mitt onto his dog’s blue sweater, stroking it twice.

“She’s a smart dog.” Heartened by the small victory, Avery swept the yellow mitt in front of the canine’s eyes. “Is this Rory’s mitt, Snowflake?”

In the cold air, Rory’s ragged breath rose in misty bursts. For many long seconds, he remained motionless. Then he briefly touched his dog between the ears.

Pride swelled inside Avery’s chest.
Good little man.

The only way the mitt could have ended up in Abbott’s pocket was if he came to visit the day he disappeared, but Hannah didn’t mention him.
Hannah…

For reasons he couldn’t fathom, he trusted her. Maybe she didn’t see Abbott that day. There had been snowmobile tracks near the tree house. Maybe Abbott had seen Rory up the tree and stopped to talk to the youngster, but never made it to the cabin.

In his presence, Hannah had referred to his colleagues by their ranks or last names, but she’d called Abbott by his first name. It denoted a certain familiarity.

“Snowflake, the day Rory lost his mitt, did Corporal Brent Abbott come to the tree house to visit you and Rory?”

An engine roared in the distance.
Go for another ride, Hannah. I need more time with your son.

The dog wore a pink collar with a silver tag. It chimed when Rory rubbed her nose. A myriad of emotions were reflected on the youngster’s face. Avery was at a loss to isolate one, but he believed the affirmative gesture. The corporal had been here that day, and somehow he’d picked up the boy’s mitt. Maybe Rory had seen Abbott through the window and dropped his mitts waving. One had fallen down in the snow while the other lodged in the frame.

If Abbott picked up the mitt, why did he take the time to put it in his pocket instead of climbing the trunk and returning it right away? Maybe Abbott didn’t see the boy, only the mitt, or maybe he was interrupted.

A door slammed.

Hannah was home. In a few minutes, she would come barging in, demanding to know what he was doing alone in the tree house with her son.

Avery was running out of time. “Rory, did you see other people with Brent Abbott? Did they argue?”

Tears fell down the youngster’s rosy cheeks as he cupped his dog’s head with both hands.

Children didn’t stop talking because they saw grown-ups yell or fight. Something more traumatizing must have happened.

Blood…

Hannah had seen blood in the snow near the tree house and the autopsy report showed Abbott had received a vicious beating.

The door slammed again. Once she saw the raw pain on her son’s face, Hannah was bound to shoot him with his own gun.

“The men with Brent Abbott, they hurt him, didn’t they?” Avery hadn’t expected an answer, let alone the solid nod given by the boy. “Did you see their faces, Rory?”

The youngster shook his head, crushing Avery’s hope he could identify them.

“Were you hiding with Snowflake in the tree house?”

Rory bobbed his head up and down.

The tears streaming down his face broke Avery’s heart. Unsure what to say, he scooped boy and dog into his arms and hugged them. “You didn’t do anything wrong, little man.”

An engine roared to life, startling Avery.
Your son needs you, Hannah. What are you up to?

He rose to his knees, and stretching his neck toward the window, Avery glimpsed a snowmobile whizzing away. To his bewilderment, the lone rider wore a black jacket, not a purple coat. “What the—”

An explosion rocked the forest, throwing him to the floor.

Chapter Eighteen

The tracks in the snow stopped in the middle of a frozen pond.

Not familiar with the undercurrent of this particular body of water, Matt was reticent to venture on the ice. Some twenty feet ahead, the snowmobile had crashed into a beaver lodge. Only the tail of the backseat was visible from the shore.

He circled the pond on foot, looking for prints. Bears, coyotes, moose, foxes, and beavers had marked this area of the forest with their paws, excrements, or teeth, but no sign of human tracks.

Vic had shed some of her blood, and Matt wanted to make sure the rest was spilling inside the beaver den. Had they been home, the large rodents would have fled upon impact, but they would soon return. When they did, they wouldn’t take too kindly to the intrusion. With their razor-sharp teeth and their strong, powerful tails, the animals would put Parker out of her misery, unless the crash, the blow to the head, or hypothermia killed her first.

On the other side of the pond, Matt stumbled onto a barricade of logs and branches connecting the den to the shore. He took a tentative step, then another. Beavers were reputed for their craftsmanship. The makeshift bridge should carry his weight no problem.

Snow and ice had reinforced the barricade. Despite some slippery sections, the farther he advanced, the more confident Matt became that it wouldn’t crumble under his boots.

The snowmobile had slowly tipped farther down. By nightfall, the pond would have engulfed the vehicle. By tomorrow, the beavers would have rebuilt their home.

Pale sunlight filtered through the damaged wall and roof of the den. Leaning forward, Matt spotted a purple and gray coat slumped over the handlebars. “Don’t worry about your boy, he’ll join you soon enough.”

After circling the pond three times and seeing no other footprints than his own, Matt returned to his snowmobile.

History had repeated itself, but with any luck, the ghost had drowned with Parker.

***

Bloody blast! What happened?

The pounding inside Avery’s skull was compounded by the weight of the roof on his back and the dog’s barking. Safe against his chest, Rory gripped his jacket. “Quiet, Snowflake. We’re fine.”

He’d been thrown forward and the bloody roof had collapsed at the same time the detonation burst his eardrums, but he’d succeeded in protecting the boy with his body.