Aim to Kill (31 page)
Authors: Allison Brennan
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Women Sleuths, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Assassinations, #Political, #Thrillers
A sliver of moonlight reflected off two eyes.
He was there. Right there. Feet away.
He would kill her.
She stifled a scream, and the body—covered in fur—ran past her so close she felt the animal’s terror. Or was that her own fear?
It was a deer. A deer, not a man.
She sank to the damp earth and cried. No one would find her. She didn’t know where she was, how close she was to Seattle, if she was even in
Get up, Nina.
No. I don’t want to. I’m tired.
But the voice was persistent.
Get up, get moving, keep running. Be smart, Nina. Start marking your trail.
She found a thick branch on the ground and started marking trees by either breaking a small branch or scratching the trunk with the branch she held. She didn’t know if it would do any good, but doing
something
actually calmed her down.
She didn’t hear him following. She heard nothing but four-legged predators. They were far less scary to her than the bad man. Like the deer, they feared her more than she feared them.
What was that?
She stopped. Listened. Faint, in the distance, a motor. Lights suddenly cut through the woods, then as the vehicle bounced, the light cut high and low.
Had help arrived?
She listened, her fear growing. No, not help. It sounded like the same as the truck the bad man drove. It was
him.
She hunkered down.
A screech and an inhuman cry.
Thud. Crunch.
Silence. Dead silence.
She ran. Ran as fast as she could along a narrow trail, then suddenly she was falling . . .
26
Zack had told Olivia that Miranda was coming with them on the helicopter search, but seeing her was still a pleasant surprise. Miranda gave her a big bear hug and asked, “How are you?” then glanced at Zack, who was talking to the pilot. “Quinn told me everything,” Miranda whispered. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Olivia relaxed. “Thank you. We’re so close. I don’t want to blow it now and not be here when we find him.”
“I know,
Liv
. I know exactly how you feel.”
Out of everyone, Miranda did understand. Having her friend here, not only to find Nina but as support, grounded Olivia. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was in Seattle when you called the other day.”
“We’ll talk about that later. Now,” she looked over at Zack, “I assume that’s Detective Travis?”
“Yes.”
“He’s umm, well, as sexy as
Viggo
Mortensen in
Lord of the Rings.
”
Olivia blushed. Miranda knew Olivia loved
Tolkien’s
trilogy. “Miranda! I hadn’t noticed.” Of course she had, the minute she saw him.
“Then you’re blind.” Miranda glanced at the sky. “We need to get a move on. The fog is creeping in.”
Zack approached. “Miranda Peterson?”
“Yes.” She shook his hand. “Let’s get going and I’ll tell you my plan on the way.” She handed both him and Olivia copies of a map of the central-west section of the Cascade Mountains.
“I just got word from my partner,” Zack said as he put on headphones and adjusted the equipment in the front of the helicopter to fit his long legs. “They found the owner of the truck. It’s registered to Karl Burgess. He and his wife left on vacation early this morning. Their neighbor said they drove themselves to the airport. Boyd is on his way to find Driscoll’s vehicle. We have a warrant and will tow it to the lab, plus have a twenty-four-hour stakeout at the airport in case he returns for his car.”
“I hope he doesn’t come back,” Olivia said. Miranda and Zack both looked at her skeptically.
“If he returns, Nina is dead.”
Zack coordinated with the sheriff’s department from the helicopter and listened to Miranda lay out her plan. They spoke through microphones attached to the headphones they all wore, their voices competing with the helicopter noise.
“Until the sheriff’s department says otherwise, we’re assuming the witness is accurate about the white truck he saw turning onto Road 56. That puts us . . . here.” She pointed to where Road 56 was accessible from the main highway. “In here are homes and cabins, spread out. Within a mile or so, the mountain starts a steep climb up. Here is the middle north fork of the
“All the way up the mountain,” Zack said. “I’ve been up there. Beautiful in the summer, impassable in the winter.”
“There are two places we can land other than this field near the turnoff. We can go up three miles to a lodge which has a flat, wide meadow. I talked to them already and cleared it. If we need it, it’s there. Or, we can land here.” She pointed about a mile farther up the mountain. “It’s a campground owned by the Boy Scouts.”
“He won’t be anywhere people might see or hear.”
“Agreed. He wants privacy, but he also wants accessibility. I’m thinking he’s already staked out a site.”
“He doesn’t need a lot to survive,” Olivia interjected. “His house was bare bones. Nothing extraneous. He won’t need a fire. He’ll plan ahead with a sleeping bag maybe, a space blanket. Water. Rations.”
“I agree,” Miranda said. “He was in the military; he knows how to live with minimal supplies. But he’s also going to want an escape route. He’s not going to isolate himself so much that he can be trapped.”
“But he’s been killing for years. He’s not going to think we’re on to him,” Olivia said. “We only learned his identity this morning.”
This morning? It had been a long day, Olivia realized. She rubbed her temples, suddenly weary. She was surprised when Zack reached over and massaged her neck with one hand.
She caught his eye.
“It’s almost over,
Liv
,” he said as if she were the only one in the copter. “We’re going to get him. Tonight.”
Miranda glanced from Olivia to Zack, then cleared her throat. “So, I’ve marked out grids on the map. The sheriff’s department is checking every trail off Road 56 to see if a truck has recently driven up it. They’re going in on horseback, vehicle, and foot. We have stations set up here—at the lodge where we can land—at this ranger’s station, and here, at the sheriff’s substation at the base of the mountain.”
“What if he sees the activity and kills her immediately?” Olivia asked.
“What else can we do?” Zack said. “If we do nothing, he’ll certainly kill her. But I assume, Miranda, you have a plan to minimize our activity.”
She nodded. “They’re radio silent. All conversation is via secure channels. If he’s monitoring commercial radio or television, then he’ll know we’ve identified him. We have his picture going up on all the networks throughout western
Zack studied the map. “Your husband said you were in search-and-rescue.
Liv
, I thought you said you two went to the
“We did,” Miranda said. “I left before graduation. Long story.” She glanced at Olivia, and Olivia felt awful that her friend was covering for her. “I was the director of Search and Rescue in
“Oh.” Zack’s face darkened as he remembered. “
Oh.
The Bozeman Butcher.”
“Yeah, well, that’s over.” A cloud fell over Miranda’s face and Olivia reached for her.
“I didn’t mean to bring it up,” Zack said.
“I’m fine. Now we have The Seattle Slayer on our hands. Don’t you just hate the crap the press comes up with?”
The pilot said, “I have a transmission coming in from Special Agent Quincy Peterson.”
“Put him through,” Zack said.
They all heard Quinn’s voice through the headphones.
“The sheriff’s department has found the truck 1.6 miles off of Road 56, well past the Boy Scout campground. They’ll meet you at the camp and take you there.”
“Nina?” Olivia asked, leaning forward.
“There’s no sign of Nina or Driscoll. The truck was in an accident—hit a deer. Air bags deployed, but there’s some blood in the cab. None in the back of the truck. What’s your ETA?”
“Four minutes to camp,” the pilot said.
“I’m about fifty minutes out. Doug Cohn and his assistant are with me. I have two agents following. And Travis, your partner Boyd found Driscoll’s car in the long-term parking lot at Sea-
Tac
. He’ll be in contact if there’s anything of use in the cab.”
“Thanks, Peterson. Out.”
Zack stared at the truck slammed against a redwood tree, one tire in a deep gully so the back tire didn’t even rest on the ground. In the middle of the road, a deer lay dead. It had barely been alive when the first sheriff deputies arrived on the scene; a park ranger had been summoned and he put the animal down just before Zack, Miranda, and Olivia arrived. Zack didn’t even have to look at the skid marks to surmise what had happened.
Deer crossed road, truck hit deer, and the impact forced the truck off the road, into a gully, and up against the tree.
“Why couldn’t the bastard be dead behind the wheel?” Zack muttered under his breath.
The deputy gave him a half-smile. “That’d be too easy.”
Zack didn’t want to disturb any evidence, but he needed as much information as he could get to figure out what had happened. Why Nina was not in the truck and where Driscoll had gone. Did he still have Nina? Was she alive? The sheriff’s department was bringing in additional lighting, but all they had now were a few heavy-duty flashlights.
The air bag had deployed and there was blood on it, as if Driscoll had hurt himself or perhaps got a bloody nose on impact. When Doug Cohn arrived, he would process the entire vehicle.
With gloved hands to avoid contaminating evidence, Zack went through the cab. He found maps, registration for Karl Burgess, some books on tape, a pair of movie ticket stubs. All appeared to be old, and likely left by the owners of the truck.
In the camper shell, Zack found ropes. Loops were still in them, and he held them, wondering what had happened.
Had Driscoll untied her? Had Nina freed herself? Had he heard the news reports and dumped her in the mountains—dead or alive—in order to escape?
Where had he gone?
Zack walked around to the front of the truck and put his hand on the hood. A hint of warmth. The accident probably happened an hour to ninety minutes ago.
He slowly circled the truck, sweeping his light back and forth. The third time around, something caught his eye.
He squatted, knees cracking, and picked up a shell casing. Was it new? There was no hunting allowed in this area of the Cascades, but that didn’t mean hunters hadn’t crossed the unmarked boundary.
He put it back where he’d found it, marking the spot with an evidence flag he’d taken from the deputy’s kit.
Standing, he looked around with his light. He saw it. Disturbed earth, footprints.
Driscoll’s flight path.
“Hey, Deputy.” Zack waited for the young cop to reach him. “This looks like a path of some sort. Where does it go?”
The deputy consulted a detailed map of the area. “Okay—the Boy Scouts use this area a lot, but primarily in the summer. The weather is too unpredictable in the fall. The main camp was where you landed . . . here. Two miles away. The Scouts mark off trails every year as part of their program. This path looks like one of theirs—it’s not on the map.”
“You don’t know where it goes?”
“Their program has the kids making paths with the goal to reach the main camp. There’re a lot of requirements; it’s been a long time since I was in the Scouts. But . . . less than half a mile from here is a fork of the
“Okay, let’s assume he’s uninjured. On foot, it’s still going to take him hours to get down the mountain. We need a team of trackers to head to a lower part of the river and start working their way up; another set starting from here and trying to track him. We might be able to intercept him. He can only follow the river or come back up to this trail. From what I remember of the map, there are some sheer drop-offs west of the river.”
“Correct. How far down?”
Zack called, “Miranda? Miranda!” Quinn’s wife seemed to have an intuitive grasp of the terrain, though apparently she’d lived in Seattle only for a few months. She might have a good idea of how far Driscoll could get down the mountain with his lead time.
