Last Track, The (33 page)

“It seems that way,” Mike said.

“She doesn’t think we can do it.”

“It sounds like she’s not the only one.” said Mike

“What does she think we’re doing out here? Doesn’t she understand how close we are?”

“Your commitment is admirable, Officer. Welcome to the minority of two.”

“Look, Mike, I may not understand how you do what you do. But I know what I’ve seen in the past forty-eight hours. We’ve been finding signs of that kid from the clearing. That must count for something. The watch. The campfire. The skeletons. Come on, now.”

Just like Jessica said, results are not enough.
“For the record, I don’t entirely agree with Lisbeth on this point. She said there’s a lead that needs following. I have to believe she has information we don’t.” Mike explained the problem with the coordinates they sent Lisbeth and how the searchers failed to recover anything. Again.

“Damn stalkers,” Dagget said. “Can’t they mess up someone else’s investigation?”

“I guess we’re special.”

“Hey,” Dagget said, “does anyone we trust know where we really are?”

“Afraid not.” Leaning back from the flames, Mike added, “We’ve been out here awhile. Things appear differently after a few days in the open air.” The botched coordinates infuriated him, even if there was an explanation. There was nothing more frustrating than doing a job, trying diligently, holding nothing back, and have some invisible hand wreck all the work.

“Lisbeth didn’t tell you this, but almost from the beginning we believed there was a connection between Sean and the missing body.”

“Why would she lie about that?” Mike said.

Dagget cleared his throat. “It’s real bad business. Dead man found outside a major tourist site, then the body vanishes. Plus a missing guest. It’s the kind of thing that draws bad press. Your wife is a reporter. Don’t take this the wrong way, but Lisbeth realized who Jessica was way before your name ever came up. This county doesn’t need any more negative attention. There are enough rumors.”

“What are you saying?” asked Mike, cautious.

“I wasn’t exactly square with you earlier when you asked about the drug issues around here,” Dagget paused, gathering steam. “We’ve got the same problems most towns have, Mike. We get a lot of methamphetamine traffic. We see tons of overdoses and crime. I know guys on the narcotics squad, and they’re raiding labs constantly. Three a week at least. They’re good cops, fighting the real fight, and not holding back. And no matter how many labs they crack, the supply on the street never shrinks. Which means the ones they nail aren’t even distributing around here and a heavy producer runs the show.”

“How does this tie into the rumors Lisbeth was worried about?” asked Mike.

“That goes back to the never-ending supply,” said Dagget. “If the narcotics team intercepts that many shipments, and never slam-dunks the big guys, then either someone must be protecting them or it’s really coming from someplace else.”

“Lisbeth?” Mike didn’t entertain that prospect with any seriousness. He asked only to solicit Dagget’s comment.

The officer shook his head. “Absolutely not. She’s got her issues, yes. Lisbeth makes questionable decisions. But malice like this demands a lot more calculation.”

“Too bad we weren’t talking straight with each other from the beginning,” Mike said.

“Would you have believed me then?” Dagget said. “I’m not sure you would have heard me. You had one thing on your mind. Finding Sean your way.”

For a moment Mike didn’t know what he believed about the case. While Dagget had a point, Mike remembered Dagget’s tremendous amount of resistance to his methods at the onset of their collaboration.

Dagget continued. “Every cop figured that the murder was drug-related, and that Sean just might have stumbled into something. But no one asked those questions aloud. With the body gone, all we had to work with was a poor missing kid.”

09:20:03 PM

The dream returned, building on the images from the previous night, drawing Mike inside the action . . .

Near the field alongside the supermarket, a group of officers watched. The mother of the missing boy yelled at someone. She was behind him. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t see her, didn’t want to see her.

A single set of boot prints with a vertical stripe led to the woods. In his mind, the field vanished, as did all the officers. There was no need for the tracks anymore; he knew right where they went by instinct. A knot tightened in his stomach, constricting further with each step, as if a vise was squeezing his intestines. He walked among the fifty-foot-tall pines.

He followed no defined trail, blazed no new path. Prints left by the man with vertical-striped boots showed the way.

A quarter mile from the field, the tracks T-boned with a narrow dirt trail, then veered back into the woods. Two hundred yards from there, a broad rectangular area of recently disturbed soil next to a maple awaited his discovery. Someone had smoothed out the dirt, scattered sticks and leaves on top, and tamped the soil with the flat side of a shovel.

When the cop asked why they had stopped, Mike asked him to notify the officer in charge and to bring a long pole.

Mike showed the team of diggers the right area. Using the pole, the lead probed the loose topsoil. Two feet down, the wooden post struck an object. Glancing among themselves they all suspected what it probably meant.

He stepped aside, and the officers dug carefully. They used their hands and wore thick latex rubber gloves. Soon enough they hit a layer of plastic.

Every fiber of Mike hoped that he was one hundred percent wrong. But another part knew he was right. Mike told the cocksure part to shut the hell up even though the tracks said this was the spot.

Let me be wrong, he thought. Let me be embarrassed and wrong.

Powerful flashbulbs fired again and again. Photographers documented the scene. A crowd gathered. Mike swung wide of the fray.

The dirt cleared; an investigator carefully cut the bag along the seams. Whatever was inside had been sealed in several more layers. It took an eternity to get through it all.

A round-faced investigator in latex gloves peeled back the last sheet . . .

And then Mike Brody woke up, disoriented and groggy. Heart palpitations, increased blood pressure, and shortness of breath—all the usual symptoms of a night terror.

Dagget sat nearby, his back to the fire ring, legs facing Mike like a blockade. The flames had burned themselves out. The chamber was cold and damp.

“Rough dream?” Dagget asked.

“It’s nothing,” said Mike.

“You were talking in your sleep again. Throwing punches.”

“It’s not on purpose,” Mike said, more to reassure himself. His heart rate was elevated. “Sorry if I hit you.”

“Oh no, not this time; I caught it early and backed off.” Another share from Dagget. He tilted his head slightly, as if curious. “Ever talk to anyone about these nightmares?”

“Are you volunteering?” Mike asked dubiously.

“Just seems like something is eating away at you. Something dark.” Clearly the prospect unsettled Dagget as much as it intrigued him.

“Everyone has issues,” Mike said. “Things better left unsaid.”

“Yeah, but most people don’t wake up in the middle of the night looking like they had a heart attack.” A pause. “Why do you track people?”

Mike almost answered Dagget when the most welcome sound beckoned like a clarion: absolute quiet. The rains had stopped, the storm—over. Mike brushed loose stones off his legs and torso. Upright, he said, “I’m going to check outside.”

Beyond the main entrance, a new wrinkle beckoned. The storm may have ended, but puddles now covered large swatches of earth. Overhead, clouds blotted out the moon and stars, permitting only enough light to deliver the landscape from pitch-blackness. Before the foot search could resume, more water would have to drain off the surface.

Mike returned and said, “There’s water everywhere. We’ll give it until dawn. Then we make the best of it.”

Dagget said, “You didn’t answer my question. Why do you track?”

“That’s a long story,” Mike said.

“We got a long night.”

“It’s just something I do,” Mike said, not quite dismissively, but hoping to end the conversation.

“I figure a guy does this for one of two reasons,” Dagget said, leaning forward. “First reason is by choice. Something about tracking interested you. Maybe you read something, or heard about it and the more you learned, the more you wanted to learn. The other cause is situational. Something bad happened to you as a kid and made you what you are.”

“You certainly have given this a lot of thought, Dagget,” Mike said. He was impressed, yet repelled, at the astuteness of Dagget’s reasoning. Explaining the truth meant opening some wounds. Mike wasn’t ready. “So which do you think it is?”

“I’m going with number two. Something awful in your childhood. Am I close?”

“You really want to know?” Mike asked.

“Yeah,” said Dagget, finally all the bluster gone from his voice.

Mike sat cross-legged, relaxed. The flames warmed his face as he decided whether he wanted this conversation now, here with Dagget. Usually Mike avoided discussions like these. He had his reasons.

“We find Sean,” Mike said, “and then I’ll tell you the story.”

Day Four

04:59:43 AM

Convinced the inhaler had given up its last hit of relief, Sean let it fall to the rocks beside him. He slumped against the wall, hands on his knees. Lying down aggravated the attacks, so he forced himself upright.

There was one way through a mild attack without medication: remain relaxed, and concentrate on controlled exhales. He did so, metering out the breaths cautiously. A whistling sound accented each fall of his chest. Every twenty beats, he held onto the air a few extra seconds. Taking in less oxygen slowed his heart rate.

Focusing on a task—even one this basic—distracted him from the dryness in his mouth. After so many days without food, the sensation of being hungry had faded to the background like a white noise.

Occasionally he thought of eating, fantasizing about his favorite meals, but the brunt of the cravings had softened now, and let him be. The thirst, however, would not be so easily ignored.

There were many symptoms of dehydration: a raspy whine in the throat, dizziness, lips that cracked and bled. The fact that he cowered mere yards from more water than one might drink in a hundred lifetimes roiled him. Until his wind returned, though, a short dash out and back was too much strain. Sean needed water. He needed air more.

His senses degraded in phases. First disorientation—a loss of focus. Then the realization that his senses were failing. He understood the process as clearly as he knew any fact, until he crossed the point where he could no longer realize how serious his predicament was.

His sense of positioning—the notion of where his body was relative to its surroundings—changed, too. He wondered where he really was. He was not in the woods. He knew that. Yet he was not inside, either. Not what he considered inside, anyway.

Moisture weighed down the air. When the rain stopped, animals stirred. A few even scurried near him. Of these events, all that got through to Sean were varied shades of gray. The tunnel and the alcove beyond was black. Within the low-light conditions, shadows flickered across the rock walls. Which of the images taunting him were real and which he imagined, he was unsure.

As unannounced as its appearance, the attack eased; his heart rate stabilized. Mucus still congested the air passages, but more oxygen reached his lungs. He heard the difference. Waiting a few minutes to be certain, he was grateful. Although another attack might strike at any time, this one was through.

Now that he could breathe, he thought about drinking. He wanted to stay hydrated and supplies of water were plentiful. What he needed was a means to gather and cache water for later use. If the helicopter patrols resumed before daybreak, he wanted to wait until nightfall before breaking for it. He fumbled around in the darkness, half expecting a bucket to appear. Nothing of the sort materialized.

Then he remembered another lesson from cross-country. Ancient marathoners who traveled incredible distances, running for days, subsisting on just a mouthful of water. So long as they held that water in their mouths without swallowing, it reduced the amount of moisture lost through sweat, and suppressed the sense of thirst. The difficulty would be keeping his mouth closed for a long period. Asthma made it hard to breathe through his nose, so he would crack his mouth open slightly. He would have to. Should an attack take him down, all bets were off. How he wished he had recalled that kernel two days earlier. Panic did terrible things to a boy on the run.

Shaken, he slipped out of the alcove and into the trees. The temperature difference between the cave and outside stung. And it was the darkest night he had ever seen. Somehow Sean knew he would be stuck in the cave until dawn.

Beyond the alcove, water ran off the rocks and formed a super-sized puddle. Large, clear drops collected above, rolled down the ledge, and splashed the pool. Hoping the stream’s movement filtered out the impurities, he sipped some. So far he had been very lucky finding clean water, sticking with fast-moving streams.

When he had his fill, he stretched out his legs until the muscles loosened. He shook his head from side to side. Ready, he took one last swig of water, and swished it around his mouth. Instead of swallowing, he held it. Keeping his jaw clamped down was far more awkward than he expected. Swallowing was a natural response. Not doing so required a great effort. He tipped his head forward so the liquid settled against his lips, and he let gravity do the work.

An hour passed, then another. The method worked. He never believed something so simple, so small, could reap such great benefits. At least he learned something from his mistakes.