Indelible (47 page)

Fleur shivered to think her home had been invaded. Pathetic as he’d seemed, he had intruded into her personal space, making light of her “inadequate lock.” She had flipped it every night, with the obligatory tug to feel the door catch, turned her back to walk inside. Had he been watching? Had others? The back of her neck felt clammy. The porch was all windows, her favorite place. Even though she couldn’t see more than a specter of light, she could feel it.

Seth said, “You okay staying here? If not, you can wait at my place until Piper gets off. Good thing you won’t see it, though.”

“You’re sweet, Seth. But I know how hard you’ve all been working. You need a day off.”

“To do what? Laundry?”

She tipped her head. “Do you need to?”

“Well, yeah.”

“We’ll go there then.” She felt bitter relief in that thought. “And Seth?” She clutched the arm he offered. “Please don’t tell people about my self-portrait. I’m horrified that he has it.” She could feel Seth’s stare.

“That guy broke in and terrorized you, and you’re horrified he has your statue?”

She didn’t expect him to understand. “Please.”

“Well, you know I won’t tell. I’m on the hook for it anyway.”

She smiled sympathetically.

“Chief’s too busy to realize just yet.”

She said, “Maybe he’ll forget altogether.”

“Yeah.” He sounded doubtful. “You ready?”

Sadly, too ready.

Driving in for a day of in-house survival training, Trevor phoned Jonah and asked, “Anything?”

“Nothing you’re hoping to hear.” The man sounded harried.

“He can’t just vanish.”

“Think about it,” Jonah said. “He breaks in and holes up in any of the vacant or temporarily empty places. Even though we’re still trying to reach people and find ways to check them out, he might be back in one we already searched.”

“How’s he getting around? I thought you found his car.”

“There’ve been three stolen in the past two days. All recovered in city limits and no sign of him.”

“What’s he living on?”

“Whatever he gets. Some of the time-shares and cabins have canned and dry goods.”

He gripped the wheel, frustrated. “What about the FBI?”

“He hasn’t committed a felony or—”

“Natalie’s assault—”

“Was an accident. According to Natalie herself.”

He hadn’t been able to shake that conviction. True or not, she believed it. “Michaela was no accident. Wreckless endangerment at least.”

“We’ll question the suspect when we find him.”

“If.”

Jonah blew out his breath. “Trevor, I know how dangerous he might be. But until he does something—”

“Like murder?”

“A Mississippi detective wanting to question a twelve-year-old victim six years after the fact doesn’t make him guilty. I know it sounds like I’m making excuses, but this is reality. The mayor wants us to handle it, but even without that I still have nothing to take to any other agency.”

Trevor frowned. “So we wait until he strikes? Someone as vulnerable as Fleur again?”

“He didn’t hurt her. Never touched her. I don’t mean that as callously as it sounds. I know it scared her. And sure, there’s unlawful entry, but there’s no criminal code for observing a painter.”

The weight of it settled on him.

“All we have is fear he might do something, based on pictures of events no one can verify. For all we know, he was trying to prove himself to you.”

“As what? My dark side?”

A beat, then, “Maybe so.”

Trevor pulled his SUV into the lot and said, “Just so you know, Chief, I’m not waiting for a crime. If I have something to go on, I’m acting.”

“Don’t make me come after you instead of the one we want.”

“Got it.” He parked and strode to the door, unlocked it and looked down.

An envelope lay on the wet stoop, snow collecting on its edges. Snatching it up, he tore it open and took out the photo. He had a moment of disconnect before realizing it was of him—holding Braden.

No. No no no no no!

He rushed back to his car and squealed out of the lot. He didn’t see Whit’s, but Sara’s car was in their driveway. He charged the door and found it locked.

“Sara!” He hammered with his palm, his pulse hammering in his neck.

She pulled it open, eyes wide. “What?”

“Where’s Braden?” He gripped her shoulders. “Where is he?”

Whit came up behind with his son against his chest. Trevor thrust the photo at him. “This was at the door.” His throat felt like someone had run blades through it.

The color left Whit’s swarthy cheeks. His hand tightened around his son’s head. “What—”

“You need to get out of here. Take your family out of here.”

“We’re not leaving you alone.” Sara’s voice shook.

Whatever debt they thought they owed was long paid. He said, “Sara, you have to. I can take care of myself, but not all the rest of you.”

“You don’t know. He might be …” She read his determination and raised her chin. “All right. I’ll take Braden and go stay with my mother.” She turned. “Whit—”

“I’ve got his back.”

While I to Hell am thrust,
Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,
Among our other torments not the least.

C
radling her face, he slipped through storm and cold to a new refuge, moving, moving constantly, carrying her now into a half-formed mansion sitting idle. Like a king in space so vast, chamber upon empty chamber, he held her gently, bearing her secret like his own. Not death eyes, but loss, deep and hollow. Pits of loss and longing that drove inside him like stakes.

For his loss, the consuming insult and injury, he wanted to strike back! He’d found the object, the tool to exact pain and suffering, and yet her eyes …

Setting her tenderly in the corner, the cavities watching with pity, her blindness, blessed blindness that, not seeing, had not recoiled. To follow his vengeful course, to betray the mission that lifted him from ashes would now betray her also. Agony and indecision.

He had come to challenge, to force the hand, even destroy! But … not an innocent. Not one like himself. As he was. Once.

He felt it crumble, all his grand delusion. What lies, what figments he’d woven. What was he that even hell would deign receive him? Weeping, he rocked. Rocked and rocked. Then, tears deserting, arid heaves and sobs. Nothing. He was nothing. And now he knew his course.

He had left one message one place, another in the other. The guardian must choose.

From the door, along the base of the mountain, in borrowed boots and winged cape, he plodded. In a hut, the metal door yielded, the lever pulled. Engine whirring, he climbed aboard and rose.

At the right moment, he leapt, sliding, skidding, rolling. Gaining his feet, he trudged through snow like heaps of ash. The time was now, and he must come, heaven’s chosen. He had thought to carry, captive, one cherished babe. But in truth, the child was already lost and crying to be found.

Twenty-Eight

L
eaving Whit and Sara, Trevor answered Natalie’s call. He’d left her only an hour ago, trying once more with clay, this time in his kitchen. “What’s up, Nat?”

“I think you’d better come home.”

Again his neck muscles tightened. “Is something wrong?”

“You got mail.”

What? There?
“Did it come to the door?”

“Urgent. I signed for it, but there’s no return address.”

“Don’t open it.” He wheeled out of Whit’s and tore down the wooded lane and onto the highway. Jonah had a point about the impossibility of finding someone hiding in this terrain with the nature of the community. The locals were tight, but half the population transient.

Natalie met him at the door. Except for his name and
home
address, the envelope was blank. Maybe that car the other night, before Natalie was attacked …

If the guy knew where to find him, why hurt her? Trevor scowled. He still couldn’t believe it had gone down the way she claimed.

The purple hollows had paled, the crease between her brows smoothed. Her eyes were brighter and her speech had almost no lag until she got tired, though her motor skills and balance had a ways to go. The blow still seemed to have destroyed whatever anomaly caused her eidetic memory.

She said, “Open it, Trevor.”

He didn’t want to. Braden was safe, but reluctance dragged at him. Two missives in one day? What was this guy trying to say?

“It’s not going away.”

He tore open the envelope and stared at the photo, a closeup of a young boy’s face, haunted eyes mutely pleading. Eerily close to that last expression of Ellis’s, it clamped his heart like a vise. This had to stop. He
had to stop it. He turned over the photo and, for the first time, found words:
angel falls
.

Angel. This innocent child? Or him? Was he calling the archangel, challenging his nemesis? Falls. Falls from grace, falls to hell, falls to his death? Whichever one of them it was, he had to know where the angel would fall, and why.

“Trevor?” Natalie’s voice hardly registered.

Angel falls
. Why did that strike a chord? Something … He recalled a conversation—with Tia? He took out his phone and found her in the contacts. “Tia, this is Trevor. Does ‘angel falls’ sound familiar to you?”

She paused a beat, then asked, “Why?”

“It’s bumping around in my head.”

“Isn’t it one of the new ski runs at Kicking Horse? In the basin maybe?”

The black double-diamond that would follow the ridge and plunge down the clifflike hollow. “Is Jonah in his office?”

“No,” she said. “County court. It’s a grand jury. They drag on forever.”

“Can he take a call?”

“Not when he’s testifying. Officer Moser—”

“If you talk to him, tell him ‘Angel Falls.’ ” The chief would come if he could, but this was obviously personal, something between him and a young man—a monster?—he’d never met. He hung up and told Nattie, “I need to go.”

“Please don’t.”

He looked at the photo, heart kicking. “This kid’s in danger. Just like Cody. It’s what I do.” He hugged her hard. “Don’t worry. I’m coming back.” Adrenaline charged him. No more waiting and worrying. Race day.

He called Whit. Their dialogue was short, no time wasted in argument. Whit would organize a search. Trevor was going on ahead.

He loaded ski gear and drove to the resort parking lot closest to the hardest runs. They hadn’t opened, but the snow base was building, and once they started operating the snow machines, the slopes would fill with an elite clientele. Today’s snow came hard enough to limit visibility, but he
could still see that, strangely—or maybe not—the lift to the basin was running.

He put on the pack that held things he’d need—rope, ice picks, and first-aid supplies—then got his skis and poles. He clipped into his boots, stomping the heels into his skis. He poled to the base of the lift and boarded.

Snow wiped out the landscape as he rose into the cloud, barely seeing the lift-control shed at the top. He launched seamlessly, schussing down the slope to the narrow trail that led to the Angel Falls sign. The double-diamond symbol warned all but the most skilled to keep off.

There were tracks in the snow. Not from blades, footprints.

Heart hammering, Trevor paused. He took out his phone, grateful for the cell tower atop the mountain. He reached Jonah’s chief officer and told him where he was and what he saw. They had reached the chief, but as with everything, timing was all.

He blinked through the falling snow, then followed the tracks, not into the basin, but along the ridge. Sidestepping up a rise, he negotiated the narrow spine where no trees grew. One misstep could be death.

As the sky brightened, he blinked through the clumps of falling snow. He had nearly navigated the entire crest. This end terrain was treacherous. Had Evan McCabe left a child where one gust of wind could send him onto rocky pinnacles below?

Trevor raised his face once more, and there, through the storm, a shape, huddled and dark. Wind swirled the snow, then it settled, drifting more lightly than before. A bluer tint came to the sky. Smaller flakes began to sparkle. The figure raised its head, transfixed by the sky.