"I"m going to feed your skull to my bugs. No time for more. Just your skull."
With a thrill of exhilaration, she picked up what she thought was her weapon. Was only a rock. Her fingers clasped around it tightly. And then she waited. Barely daring to breathe.
"Ah." She could here him moving on the forest floor of the roof of the cave. "Hurt yourself, didn"t you? I warned you, but you didn"t listen. They never do."
She huddled in a ball, just inside the entrance of the cave. A few feet inside so she"d have the shadows for cover. Then he was blocking the entrance, crouched down to peer inside, the shotgun in one hand.
When he caught sight of her, he smiled. "I promise I"ll take the best of care with your skull. You"ll be my new favorite."
She lunged. Swung the rock with all her might and struck him across the bridge of the nose. He howled, backed away frantically but slipped on the icy floor of the cave. Cait dove for the shotgun, and felt the shape of her weapon beneath her body. Reached for it.
When they fired, the two shots sounded as one.
Zach stared out at the d.a.m.n rain moodily. The rain p.i.s.sed him off. The mud he"d slogged through up the drive to his house p.i.s.sed him off. His mood, not the sunniest to begin with, had taken a decided downturn within minutes of entering JD"s when Joanie Barton had lasered her sites on him.
Normally the woman was too busy to toss him more than a casual hi. But despite the throng of people crowded inside the place, she"d had the time to march right up to him and read him the riot act.
About Caitlin Fleming, of all things.
Apparently his was guilt by a.s.sociation, and Cait"s sins, according to Joanie, were numerous. Supremely aware of the avid ears and sympathetic gazes all around him, he"d tried his best to soothe the woman, who"d been as close to hysterical as he"d ever seen her.
And when he"d figured out her outrage centered on Del being taken in for questioning, he could understand her wrath.
Barton? He was a c.o.c.ky little s.h.i.t, no doubt about it, but he"d rank about dead last on the suspect list in Zach"s book. He couldn"t imagine the man climbing a boulder, much less hiking up Castle Rock in the dead of night with a set of bones on his back. And since he"d been on the receiving end of one of the sheriff"s miscalculated interrogations himself recently, he"d been ready to empathize with Joanie and her husband.
Until she"d started in on Cait.
He shifted uncomfortably in the recliner. Well, h.e.l.l, he could hardly stand there, could he, while the woman called Cait names he"d never heard come out of a female"s mouth before? Apparently coming to Cait"s defense made his a graver sin than hers had been.
He"d told her a few hard truths, and now he was banned from JD"s for life. Or until Joanie got over her mad, whichever came first. The way the woman could hold a grudge, he was betting on the former.
His cell rang and he considered not answering it at all. There wasn"t a person in the world he felt like talking to.
That thought was immediately revised when he checked the caller ID.
Cait.
Resisting the urge to rub his suddenly damp palms on his jeans, he answered. "Okay, I screwed up last night, but I"m guessing after the last hour I"ve had, we"re even."
He waited for her response. "Cait?" He knew the call hadn"t been disconnected. He could hear her breathing. Thready and weak.
"Funny you were . . . the first I called. Funny, huh?" He frowned, straightening a bit in his chair. Had she been drinking? Her voice was slurred. "Should"ve . . . called Andrews. Told her. But wanted you. Should have had . . . you with me. Thought that. Before."
"Where are you?" He was on his feet, heading for the mudroom for a rain slicker. "Are you okay?"
"Hurts. G.o.d it hurts." Was that a laugh or a sob? Panic unleashed, galloped through him. "He"s dead, though. He"s dead. Both dead. Gibbs."
"Gibbs is dead?" What was going on? He ran out the door. Down the slick board that served as a walkway. Yanking the hood of the slicker over his head, his boot slipped. Landed in the mud. "Where are you?"
"Sawyer"s. Ice. I "membered." Her voice was fading. And the fear inside him roared through his system. Thundered through his veins until it was a living breathing beast. "Fell. But I thought . . . of you. Why is that, Sharper?" He had to strain to hear the words as he turned the key in the ignition and flipped the Trailblazer into gear. "Why"s my last . . . thought of you?"
"You"re at Sawyer"s Ice Caves?" Fear made his voice rough. What the h.e.l.l would she be doing there? "I"m coming to get you, baby. Just tell me. You"re at the caves?"
But there was no answer. No matter how many times he yelled her name, there was no answer.
And this time he couldn"t hear her breathing.
"You stay the h.e.l.l clear of there, you hear me, Sharper?" Andrews sounded like she was issuing the order through clenched teeth.
Zach peered out into the night, between the swipe of the wipers on the windshield. "f.u.c.k that. I"m going after her."
"I"ve got men in the area, and I redirected them as soon as you called in. But you stay put. There"s an armed suspect in the region, and I don"t want you in the crossfire."
"Then tell them to keep out of my way." He clicked disconnect and dropped the phone to the seat. Clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles ached. And did the one thing he hadn"t done since coming back from Afghanistan.
Prayed.
"Cait!" The sweep of the Maglite was little help in the utter darkness of the forest. The wind blew the rain sideways, tiny needle p.r.i.c.ks of bone-deep chill. The canopy of trees provided little protection as he went farther into the interior of the forest. "Cait!"
He checked the biggest of the caves first. And his bowels went to ice when he saw the body crumpled in the entrance. With his heart a hard knot in his chest, he pulled the figure over. Shone his light in what was left of the man"s face.
"Jesus." He took a hasty step back. Jodie Paulsen? What the h.e.l.l did Jodie have to do with this mess?
"Cait. Dammit." Dread was trickling down his back to pool nastily at the base of his spine. Frantically he swept the area with the beam of the light. Took two steps away before comprehension slammed into him and he bounced the beam back to the small figure leaning against the base of a nearby pine.
"Cait!" Her lack of response was like having a spike drilled into his gut. He ran to kneel beside her, setting the Mag next to him so it bathed her in its beam. Her face was white. Deathly so. And her hands, when he lifted them to feel for a pulse, were frigid.
Her pulse was a mere flutter, but his relief was nearly overwhelming. That emotion dampened immediately when he noticed the blood covering her. Paulsen"s? Or her own?
His hands shook as he ran them over her, halting when she moaned. And when he saw the blood cover his palms, he felt true fear for the first time in years.
Her eyelids fluttered. "Sharper." And miraculously she smiled a bit. "I knew . . . you"d . . . find me."
Rapidly he shed his slicker, pulled his shirt over his head and began ripping at its seams for makeshift bandages. "That"s right, baby, I found you. I"ll always find you."
Fear lodged in his stomach like molten lead as he pressed the cloth against her wounds to stanch the blood loss. He just hoped like h.e.l.l that he hadn"t found her too late.
Epilogue.
ONE MONTH LATER.
"So you"ve got all the remains identified?"
Cait c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at Adam Raiker, who was roaming the length of the lab, the head of his heavily carved cane clasped in one scarred hand. "All but one. I told you that on the phone yesterday."
He turned to look at her with his lone eye, the patch over the other making him look like a modern-day pirate. "It"s been twenty-four hours since we spoke. What have you been doing?"
"Slacking off," she said mildly. "Same thing I"ve been doing the last four weeks."
He gave a bark of laughter, and her gaze was drawn to the jagged scar bisecting his throat. She wasn"t about to complain about a couple bullet wounds to him. Not after all he"d suffered when his last case for the Bureau had gone so wrong.
"Fired a gun yet?"
"Went to a range yesterday." Against the express orders of her doctor. But she"d been driven to rea.s.sure herself that her shoulder injury hadn"t impaired her ability to shoot. Raiker would never allow one of his investigators into the field again who couldn"t fire a weapon.
The door to the lab pushed open and Barnes stepped in. Stopped short when he saw she wasn"t alone.
"Mitch Barnes, Adam Raiker."
The deputy surprised her by going up to the man for a solid handshake. "It"s an honor, sir."
"Deputy. Sorry to hear about your man."
Barnes"s face clouded for a moment. "It"s hard to lose one."
Cait felt a hitch in her chest at the thought of Tony Gibbs. The cruisers Andrews had sent to Paulsen"s place had arrived much too late to save the deputy. And it would be a long time before she"d stop second-guessing herself. Wondering what she could have done differently. If there was a way that would have spared Gibbs"s life.
"Let it go."
At Raiker"s quiet command her gaze flew to his. Saw the understanding in his expression. She appreciated the thought but wished it were as easy to comply with.
"The sheriff got word from the feds. They"ve traced the accounts Barton was bouncing the bank transfers to. They all ended in the Caymans."
Cait felt a flicker of surprise. "The travel information found in Paulsen"s place was for Belize."
Mitch folded his arms across his chest. "I"m betting Barton was planning to end-run Paulsen. Promise to meet up with him in one location and split the take, but head for a different country altogether and keep the whole thing for himself. And at the rate he"s going, he"ll have the whole thing pinned on Paulsen before it goes to trial." Mitch moved back a step to lean against the counter. "According to him, it was all Jodie"s idea, which is pure BS because Paulsen just didn"t have the mental capacity to carry this thing out."
"The forensics on the computers we can link Barton to will be incriminating. His lawyer might be able to dance around the spyware installed on the computers" resorts, but finding the exact same software installed on those in his Internet cafe will be a bit more difficult to explain." And Gavin Pounds had explained to her, in mind-numbing detail, just how the spyware he"d installed remotely to the victims" home computers could be traced back to Barton, as well. "We don"t have him for the killings, but he isn"t going to be able to dodge the kidnapping charges. He hasn"t been able explain his absences that correspond to the days the victims disappeared. Especially when the farmer, Tim Jenkins, is willing to swear that Jodie Paulsen was doing ch.o.r.es twice a day for him every day for the last ten years, with the exception of a day or two."
Barnes looked a little green at her words. She knew he was remembering her theory that after defleshing the bones, Paulsen had likely fed the remaining tissue and organs to the pigs he"d tended. They"d found the bone saw in the shed that matched the TPI measurements she"d done on the skeletal remains. Barnes had brought Kristy to the site while Cait was in the hospital to take a soil sample inside the structure.
And Cait had had to listen while her a.s.sistant crowed about being right regarding its composition. The hot springs that ran beneath the dirt floor of Paulsen"s shed erupted in only one s.p.a.ce near the end of the property line. And the shed had, at one time, housed sheep in inclement weather.
"How long do you think it will take to ID the remaining set of bones?"
"As long as it takes you to dig up Jodie Paulsen"s body and get me a DNA sample."
"What?" Even Raiker was regarding her with a skeptical look.
"I"ve spoken to every detective with a missing persons in the database that falls within the same general description. Have compared the remains to no fewer than a dozen reference samples. Zach said something about Paulsen"s father being in a nursing home in Portland, but we were unable to locate him in any of them. There was no contact information for such a place in Paulsen"s home, Mitch said." She looked at the deputy. "I think his father might have been Paulsen"s first kill."
Barnes scratched his head. Sometime during the last month he"d shaved his mustache. It was an improvement. "That"s going to be a tough one to get by Andrews."
"It"s the only way she"s going to get an ID." The other option was that the remains belonged to someone who hadn"t been reported missing. That was unlikely given that the other victims all had had substantial funds transferred from their accounts.
"I"ll talk to her," Barnes said dubiously.
"Where is the esteemed sheriff?" Raiker said in a silky voice Cait immediately recognized. "Holding yet another press conference?"
The deputy shifted his gaze to a speck on the floor. "I couldn"t say."
He didn"t have to say. Cait had long suspected that Andrews would use a successful resolution to this case and ride it into the governor"s mansion. From the positive publicity the woman had garnered from this case, it looked like she might be successful.
Mitch straightened. Looked at Cait. "How much longer you going to be around? I mean"-he smiled a little-"how much longer do I have to convince the sheriff to do an excavation?"
"A week." Raiker"s voice was steely. "I want my investigator back."
"It"ll be two before I get a medical release to return to work," Cait said. But she avoided her boss"s searching gaze. And when Barnes said his good-byes and left the lab, her heart gave a bit of a leap as the door remained open to admit Zach.
She wondered how long it would be before he stopped regarding her with that hint of worry in his eyes. She"d a.s.sured him, repeatedly over the last month, that she was fine. Had proved it, again, just last night.
He smiled and she felt something inside her soften. Then started guiltily when she caught Raiker"s gaze on her, shrewd as a laser.
"OhmyG.o.d." He looked from her to Zach and back again, an expression of disgust on his face. "Why do I have the feeling that this son of a b.i.t.c.h is going to cost me one of my best investigators?"
"Zach Sharper, Adam Raiker." She made the introduction mechanically. But she was focused on her employer"s words. "How come you only break out the sweet talk when you think you"re going to lose me?"
"A question that could be leveled to all men in your life, it appears." Zach came farther into the room, a glint in his eye warning her. "This son of a b.i.t.c.h has an invested interest in keeping Cait around."
"But I have a way guaranteed to make us all happy," she interceded smoothly. The men looked like a couple of junk-yard dogs, squaring off. To her employer she asked, "Have you given any further consideration to our conversation last month about the mobile lab?"
His expression eased from fierce concern to general irritability. "I was planning to staff the labs with techs, not investigators."
"I"d be mobile, too," she said easily. Crossed the s.p.a.ce to slip her arm through Zach"s arm. "How many jobs have you turned down on the west coast because they wanted private lab facilities as well as an investigator?"
"Not enough to bother keeping track of."
"Well, now the answer would be none. And when I"m not on a case, I could fly to headquarters regularly for updated training." Raiker was a taskmaster about continued schooling for his investigators and scientists.
"Spend all your d.a.m.n time in the air," he groused.
"Not all her time," Zach said pointedly.
Raiker was silent for a moment, regarding her with a fierce look. Finally he said, "I"ll think about it."
Something eased in Cait"s chest. But she knew better than to release the smile that threatened. "That"s all I ask."
He walked toward the door, his limp p.r.o.nounced even with the help of the cane. "Guess I"ll have to bodily drag Andrews out of whatever media frenzy she"s whipped up today to settle with her." He gave Zach a nod as he went by him. "Sharper."
"Good meeting you." Watching the man until he went out the door, Zach turned to regard Cait quizzically. "Was that good news?"