Into the Storm (37 page)

“Is the entire team back?” she asked them.

“Just us,” Jenk told her. “I called in some favors and came back as quickly as I could.” He exchanged a glance with Izzy. “As we could.”

Izzy pointed in the direction that Tracy had disappeared. “I’m gonna go and…” He vanished into the trees, no doubt to see for himself that she had, indeed, headed directly for the road.

His doing so left Lindsey alone with Jenk.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you.” She tried, but she couldn’t hold his gaze. “I was waiting until we found her and…” Unable to stand still, she went up onto the cabin’s little porch. She was running on pure caffeine. “Tracy left a clear trail. I know it was dark, but…She didn’t stop, she didn’t turn around, she moved at a brisk, even pace. It couldn’t have been easier to follow if she’d left a trail of bread crumbs.”

Unless Lindsey, in her arrogance, had missed something.

Jenk followed her into the cabin.

The fire that had been burning merrily mere hours ago had been doused when Tom pulled the remaining search teams from these woods. This area was in one of the computer system’s hot zones. It was twenty miles—at least—to the nearest dead zone. Unless Tracy had suddenly started running fourteen-minute miles—for five hours straight—it seemed likely that she had gotten a ride from someone.

Comspesh Tess Bailey was working, among other things, on establishing a clear map of those areas where cell signals were nonexistent or even patchy—assuming the reason they weren’t picking up the signal from Tracy’s jacket was because she was in one of those zones.

But right here and now, Jenk’s attention was drawn to the fireplace.

Lindsey had set kindling there. She’d built a ready-to-burn fire, complete with wads of paper to make it easier for an inexperienced person to light. She’d tried to make it idiot-proof, putting a box of matches on top of a nearby pile of blankets. A cell phone—one of those disposable ones—was next to the matches.

“In case she finds her way back here,” she told Jenk. “I wanted to make it as easy as possible for her to get warm, get a fire started.”

He turned to face her. “You think she’s still out there, somewhere in the woods.”

He’d left out the most important words—
lying dead, frozen to death.

“What if the jacket’s malfunctioning?” Lindsey asked. “The technology’s not infallible. Yet everyone’s acting as if it is. Besides, if someone gave her a ride, then where is she? Why didn’t she come back to the motel?”

“I’m assuming Lyle was called,” he said.

Lindsey nodded. “He claims he hasn’t heard from her. But Tom’s got a friend in the Manhattan DA’s office who’s verified that Lyle’s in the middle of some relatively high-profile criminal case. If there’s been foul play—”

Just saying those words made her sick. Not because she believed someone had intentionally killed Tracy. No, if Tracy were dead—and as each hour ticked past it was looking more and more likely that she was—then she’d died from exposure. From being lost in the woods. From falling and hurting herself and being unable to keep moving. The temperature was still well below freezing. A person lying unconscious and unprotected would have frozen to death in mere hours. As a SEAL, Jenk had surely had cold-weather training. He had to know that.

She forced herself to look at him, to hold his gaze despite the tears that were welling in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I was sure I’d be able to find her.”

“Lindsey, this isn’t your fault.”

“But maybe if Team Sixteen hadn’t left…” Her voice broke, and she felt all the emotion of the past few grueling days hit her square in the chest. “Maybe we could have found her right away.”

“Hey,” he said, reaching for her as—damnit—she actually started to cry. “Hey, come on.” This time she didn’t sidestep him or pull away. She couldn’t. She didn’t want to. She just went into his arms, just closed her eyes and leaned into him, her head tucked beneath his chin.

“The team didn’t leave because of anything you said or didn’t say,” Jenk told her, his voice as warm and solid as his body. “You know that. We get called, we go. That’s how it works in SpecOps. We don’t put in a call to SOCOM and say
Sorry, it’s inconvenient. Try us next week.
The only reason I’m here right now is because it was all just another drill. If it were the real deal, I’d be on that plane.”

He paused, and she knew she should take a deep breath and pull away from him. Force a smile and acknowledge his words—it wasn’t her fault—as being true. Instead, she’d turned into a little crying girl. But now that she’d started, she couldn’t seem to stop.

And it wasn’t just Tracy being lost. It was everything.

Her father’s phone call. And not just that one where he’d canceled their holiday plans, but all of them. He was so distant, so remote—and even more so since her mother had died.

Her mother’s death. The relief Lindsey had felt that her mother’s pain had finally ended, mixing unpalatably with the looming sense of total loss. Her mother was
gone.

It was Jenk being so kind and inviting her home for Christmas when she wouldn’t have blamed him for never speaking to her again. Jenk, naked amidst the rumpled sheets of his bed, smiling at her, his eyes sparking with amusement and attraction and…

Satisfaction. He’d found what he was looking for—or so he’d thought.

Of course, she’d had to go and prove him wrong.

“Dan Gillman’s sister lived in New Orleans,” he told her now, clearly just talking to fill the space so that they didn’t have to stand there awkwardly—more awkwardly—listening only to the sounds of her ragged breathing. “His dad died a few years ago, and his mom moved down to live with his sister and her family. When Katrina hit, we were in Iraq. News started coming in that New Orleans had flooded, that people were literally dying of thirst, their homes destroyed, that nobody was helping them—the whole FEMA goatfuck, remember that?”

He didn’t bother to pause, as if he knew that even a nod was too much for her right now. He just kept going. “Dan was frantic. He had no idea if his family was even alive, if they’d gotten out of their house in time, if they were trapped in their attic, if they were dying right that moment, while he was an entire world away. There was no word for two whole weeks, but we were fighting insurgents. It’s what we do. He couldn’t just pack up and leave.

“Turns out they all survived,” he continued, “but it was a nightmare for a while. They made it to the Superdome, which was twice as terrifying after the storm ended. The kids finally got put on a bus to Houston, but by the time Sandy and her husband and mom got out,
they
ended up in San Antonio. Then they spent all their energy finding the kids. Getting to a computer to e-mail Danny just didn’t happen.” He paused. “Maybe something’s going on with Tracy that’s taking all of her attention. Or maybe she walked until she reached a house, knocked on their door…Maybe she’s sleeping on someone’s couch, and she’ll call when she wakes up. Or maybe she’s somewhere safe and warm, but she’s waiting to call because she’s pissed at…us.”

“She wouldn’t not call on purpose,” Lindsey told him. “If she hasn’t called, it’s because she can’t.” He let her turn away, so she could wipe her eyes, her face, blow her nose.

“I wouldn’t have expected her to go out and get ripped the other night, either,” Jenk pointed out. “I respect your opinion. You know I do. But I just don’t think any of us knows her well enough to rule out the possibility that she’s purposely hiding. I think we’re going to find her—well, really I think she’ll just turn up, call in for a ride, whatever. I also think she’s going to be really disappointed that Lyle isn’t up here, helping with the search, wringing his hands.” He smiled ruefully. “Actually, hand-wringing probably wouldn’t cut it. Tracy’ll be disappointed with anything less than hair tearing and rending of clothes.”

Lindsey had once believed that Jenk didn’t really know Tracy, that he couldn’t see the true person behind her
Girls Gone Wild
body type, pretty face, and perfect hair. Apparently, he’d been taking a closer look.

He’d also come to this cabin not only because this was where Tracy had last been seen, but because he knew Lindsey would be here. He’d come because he knew how upset she was. He’d come to offer support and comfort. And a solid shoulder to cry on.

“I
was
jealous,” Lindsey admitted, as much to herself as to him. “Of Tracy. When she called that night, and you just…were ready to leave, like I didn’t matter…”

“Ah, Linds, I’m so sorry.” He stepped toward her, but she stepped away.

“It scared me,” she said. “That I should care so much. And then you scared me even more by doing a complete one-eighty, by suddenly being so into me when, God, you don’t even know me and…But I can’t stop thinking about you. About us, about the sex,” she admitted.

“The sex was great,” he agreed. “It’s kind of hard not to think about.”

“But I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have,” she told him. And she really didn’t want to put herself in a position where he would end up hurting her. Except wasn’t that exactly what they’d been doing, pretty much continuously since that night? Hurting each other?

Jenk was looking at her with what she thought of as his Navy SEAL face—an unwavering gaze, steady determination in the set of his jaw. “Maybe I should be the one to decide when and if I’m being hurt.”

Her cell phone rang, saving her from having to respond to the quiet reasonableness of his words. Lindsey took off her glove with her teeth so she could dig in her pocket. “It’s Sophia,” she told Jenk as she pulled it free.

“Maybe it’s good news,” he said, as she opened it.

“Fontaine.” At this point, any news would be good.

“Are you still up at the cabin?” Sophia asked. “Are Jenk and Izzy with you?”

“Yes and yes,” Lindsey told her. “What’s going on?”

She could hear Sophia relaying the information, probably to Tom. “They’re there,” she said. Her voice got louder as she spoke directly into the phone. “We’ve got a blip. It just entered your area. According to the computer, Tracy’s moving southwest, about eight miles east of you.”

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

B
eth woke up slowly, gradually, with the awful realization that the house was still silent.

She lay in the bed, just listening—automatically testing each of the restraints that held her prisoner there.

They were all still secure. All and then some. He’d cuffed her other ankle, now, too.

“Hello?” Beth called, her voice as weak as her body. Still, the sound had to carry. If he were here, he’d hear her.

Nothing moved. Floorboards didn’t creak. No one so much as breathed.

She knew the sensation of being alone in this house quite well. Of course, she was used to being down in the basement.

“Tracy?” she called, but of course, there was no answer.

Tracy, who’d dared to stand up to him, was gone.

She’d given Beth an antibiotic to fight the infected cut on her arm. She’d washed and bandaged it, too—using some of the ointment he’d brought back from the pharmacy.

Her makeup had been streaked from crying and her face pale, but as she’d sat bandaging Beth’s arm, she’d dared defy him.

Can you read my lips?
she silently asked Beth, as she kept giving him reasons to leave the room. The water he’d brought was too cold. She needed a needle and thread to stitch up the wound. Both had to be sterilized. Ice to numb the raw edges of Beth’s skin. No, never mind, now that she’d cleaned it up, she could see it would be better to leave it open to allow it to drain.

That sounded like bull to Beth, who’d taken first aid in the army, but he didn’t question her.

Squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no,
Tracy told her silently.
Did he kidnap you, too?

Beth squeezed once.

If we scream, will anyone hear us?

She squeezed twice. With the amount of screaming that she alone had done in this house, it was clear there was no one around to hear and come to the rescue.

Were those really eyelids?

Beth squeezed once, and Tracy’s eyes filled with tears.

Is he going to kill me?

Two squeezes, as Beth felt herself start to cry, too.
I am,
she told Tracy silently. But she could tell Tracy didn’t understand.
He’ll make me do it. He’ll make us fight until one of us is dead.

And then Tracy did understand, horror on her pretty face.

He came back then, his footsteps heavy in the hall.

But Tracy dared to say one more thing:
Two against one
…

She wiped her tears and faced him. “Beth’s in agony. I’m going to give her something for the pain.”

He hit Tracy, backhanding her across her face, sending her flying into the wall.

“Five,” Beth said frantically. “I’m Five!”

“Five,” Tracy sobbed. “I meant Five.”

“Give her what she needs.”

Tracy crawled to the piles of medicine bottles on the floor, searching through them. She found what she was looking for, opened the bottle, brought it to Beth.

Her lip had split—it was bloody and already swollen, and her face was wet with tears and snot. She handed Beth a plastic tumbler that held water, and put the pill into her mouth.

Except…there was no pill.

“Swallow,” Tracy had told her, then turned back to him. “I’ve given her Percodan. It’ll knock her out for quite a few hours. I suggest you help improve her circulation by unlocking her during that time.”

It had been a valiant try.

“What did you give her for her arm?” he’d asked then.

Tracy had shook her head, chin high in defiance. “If I tell you, you won’t need me. You’re just going to have to keep me around to give her the next dose, in eight hours. Although I’ll be surprised if she keeps it down, with only bread in her stomach. She needs soup.”

It was then that he grabbed her. He just pulled her, kicking and screaming, out of the room.

“What are you doing?” Tracy had shrieked, over and over again. And then, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

And then she’d just screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

Until she’d stopped.

Izzy heard the distant sound of a car horn and ran back toward the cabin.

Sure enough, it was Jenkins making all that noise. Lindsey was in the front with him, so Izzy scrambled into the back.

“The computer picked up the signal from Tracy’s jacket.” Jenk took off like a rocket, even before Izzy got the door shut.

“About freaking time.” He slid into the middle of the backseat, pushing aside a bag of Lindsey’s gear, so he could see both of them. “So why the double grim?”

Lindsey was on her phone, but Jenk glanced at him in the rearview mirror and Izzy knew the news wasn’t going to be good. “Tommy also just got a call from the local police,” Jenk said. “There’s been a robbery/murder at a twenty-four-hour pharmacy about twenty miles north of here.”

Oh, please, no. “Tracy?” Izzy managed to ask. The computer had picked up the signal from Tracy’s jacket, they’d said. Not Tracy, her jacket.

Lindsey turned to look at him, her phone still to her ear. “We don’t think so. We don’t know much, though,” she told him. “Apparently the store’s owner—he’s also the local pharmacist…He was bludgeoned to death, about nine o’clock last night.”

Mere hours after Tracy had left the cabin.

“Yeah, Tess, I’m still here,” Lindsey said into her phone. She was talking to Tess Bailey, Troubleshooters’ computer expert. “We’re moving though, and the signal’s not too good. What’s the road we’re looking for?”

“The police think the crime’s drug-related,” Jenk reported. “The store’s entire supply of prescription meds was stolen. If Tracy stumbled in there, in the middle of the robbery…”

“Wellington Mountain Road,” Lindsey said. She was peering at a map. “It’s a left? Okay, I found it on the map.”

“But there’s only one body?” Izzy asked.

“As far as we know,” Lindsey said—words to offer little comfort. “Tom literally just got the call. He’s sending a team to the crime scene. He himself is heading in our direction. He’s aware that we’re not armed.”

“Fuck that,” Izzy muttered. “I don’t need a weapon to rip off some motherfucker’s arm and use it to fucking bludgeon
him.
”

Jenk just shook his head, but Lindsey felt the need to issue words of warning. “We’ve been given a direct order to proceed with extreme caution.”

She’d
been given one. He and Jenk, however, didn’t take orders from Tommy Paoletti. “Was there any sign of a struggle? I mean, other than the…bludgeoning.” Jesus Christ.

“We don’t know that either.” Lindsey was apologetic. “Damnit, the cell signal’s gone. Great—we’re supposed to be in a hot zone.”

Last but not least was the question of the hour. “Do you really think Tracy’s with the killer?” Izzy asked.

“Tom seems to think so.”

“What do
you
think?” Izzy persisted. Lindsey had clocked a lot of hours with the LAPD.

She glanced at Jenk before looking back at Izzy. “Honestly?”

“No, make something up for us. Yes, honestly. Christ.”

“In the law enforcement realm,” she said, “when a person goes missing—mysteriously—on the exact same night as a murder, in a rural area where most people don’t lock their doors, yes, odds are the two are linked.”

Izzy sat back. It was possible he was going to be sick.

“Oh, one thing we
do
know…” Lindsey looked at Jenk. “I don’t think I told you this either. The killer took the time not just to lock the door behind him, but he also put up a sign saying that the septic system wasn’t working again. Left up here, remember—it’s a fork. Wellington Mountain Road, but there’s probably not a street sign.”

Lindsey turned on her flashlight so she could read the map she was holding. Even though it was dawn, the sky was overcast, with clouds that were heavy and dark. It was only a matter of time—hours—before the snow started.

“Got it,” Jenk said, as he made the turn.

“We’ll take this to the end, and then take a right.” Lindsey turned off the torch. “The store was open twenty-four hours,” she continued. “Apparently the owner was an insomniac. Kind of eccentric, but a longtime local—a favorite son.”

“What’s your take on this sign that was put on the door?” Jenk asked.

Lindsey didn’t need any time to consider the question. “It’s the
again
that’s key. Perp knew there’d been a sewage problem in the past,” she said. “Perp’s a local boy.”

“Boy?” he repeated. “Isn’t that sexist?”

“Bludgeoning,” Lindsey said, as her phone rang. “According to the LAPD homicide handbook, it’s generally not something people do while singing ‘I Feel Pretty.’ Good timing,” she said into the phone.

Jenk was slowing as the road ended in a T. “Right?”

“Right,” Lindsey confirmed. “Tess, we’re pulling onto the state road, and there’s a car approaching us. What’s Tracy’s status?” She paused as she listened, but then immediately reported to the two SEALs, “Tess says Tracy’s been mostly stationary for about five minutes now, about two kilometers due west. We’ll need to take another right onto Quarry Road, about a kilometer from here.”

The approaching car passed them—an older-model American car, possibly an Impala. Izzy turned, trying to see the plates, but it was moving too fast. “We’re sure she’s in front of us?”

“What is
mostly stationary?
” Lindsey asked into her phone. She frowned as she listened to Tess’s response, then looked from Jenk to Izzy. “The computer is giving them some weird data.”

Freaking perfect. “If she’s not there,” Izzy started. “If it turns out she was in that car…” But another zipped past—a pickup truck this time, followed closely by a beat-up Volvo. It was rush hour in Dogbutt, New Hampshire.

“A variation in altitude?” Lindsey was saying to Tess, skepticism heavy in her voice. She turned to Jenk. “Is it possible she’s…skiing?”

They all looked more closely out the windows. The terrain was hilly enough for someone to set up a low-level beginner slope, sure, but everything Izzy could see was covered with a dense growth of trees.

“On what snow?” he asked.

“At dawn after being missing all night?” Jenk asked. “Is this my right?”

“Right here?” Lindsey asked Tess through the phone. “Yeah,” she relayed back to Jenk. “She says we’re close.”

How did Tess know where they were? Izzy was about to ask, but then he realized that one of the training op jackets was among Lindsey’s gear. Tess was picking up their signal, too, and monitoring their movement. Someone had put on their thinking cap this morning. Lindsey.

“How close?” Izzy asked instead.

“One point two three kilometers,” Lindsey reported. “According to Tess, the strange movement has stopped. Tracy’s now fully stationary. Let’s hope she’s inside of a house or some other shelter. Maybe she went into the basement.”

Jenk, who was driving, had to slow down. The road was little more than broken rocks and frozen mud, similar to the seldom-used path they’d taken to the hunting lodge. If there was a house out here, it was owned by a hermit who’d gone off the grid.

The next few tenths of a kilometer took forever, but finally they moved into what should have been visual range. But there were no other cars, no one standing in the road, nothing but trees, trees, and more trees.

“Where is she?” Izzy asked. And what would she be doing, out here in the middle of the woods?

“Still a quarter kilometer west of us. Stop here,” Lindsey ordered Jenk.

Izzy got out of the car. “Which way?”

“Wait for Jenkins,” she told him.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. West could only be one direction.

He started to run, and the sky lightened because the trees thinned and no, no, please God no.

A pond stretched in front of him, desolate and frozen.

Except for the hole someone had cut into the ice. The opening had already frozen over, but he cracked it easily with his heel. He took off his jacket, his sweater. His boots.

He felt Jenk’s hand on his arm. “Zanella, don’t. If she’s in there…”

“We’re on top of the signal,” Lindsey reported, her face drawn.

“How many feet down is she?” Izzy asked, shaking off Jenk’s hand to unfasten his belt. He took off his pants and put them on top of his boots.

“Izzy, God, she’s been underwater for more than twenty minutes,” Lindsey told him. “That’s assuming she was still alive when she was dumped in there.”

“Well, fuck that,” Izzy said sharply. “I didn’t ask you that. I asked how many fucking feet down is she.”

“Watch your mouth,” Jenk snapped back. “You’re not the only one who’s upset here, okay? So just back the fuck off.”

“Guys,” Lindsey said. “Please.” She stepped between Izzy and the hole in the ice. “You’re not seriously going to—”

“I’m getting her out of there,” Izzy said.

Something in his eyes must’ve convinced her he wasn’t going to be talked out of it, so she nodded. “There’s rope in the car.” She looked at Jenk. “Why don’t you go get that? It’s in the pack.” He hesitated, and she added, “Izzy’s not going in without the rope.” She looked at him. “Right?”

Sometimes people who drowned in the winter were able to be resuscitated after longer-than-usual amounts of time, with little or no brain damage. It had something to do with the freezing temperature of the water. But twenty minutes…?

Izzy nodded, and Jenk ran for the car.

“We’re also figuring out how far down she is. Tess’ll have that info for us, in just a sec,” Lindsey told him, as Jenk sprinted back to them with the rope—a length of blue mountain-climbing cord. She listened to Tess on the other end of the phone, then added, “The best guess is that she’s about thirty feet down.”

“It’s really that deep?” Izzy asked as he tied the end of the rope securely around his chest. Just beneath his arms. He should have been freezing, but he couldn’t feel anything—just an absolute need to get Tracy out of that water.

“Deeper,” Lindsey told him. “It’s a flooded quarry. It’s more than a hundred feet in places. We think that she’s…snagged on something.” It was clear that she didn’t find that a particularly pretty thought, so she kept talking. “Tess has already notified Tom. He’ll get the equipment we need to get her out, so….”