Murder on the Horizon (8 page)

“We don't need any advice,” John said, sending her a sharp-eyed look as he pushed himself to his feet and started gathering up the dirty dishes. “We know about fires. We've lived in Southern California for forty years.”

“Land sakes, John,” Vivian said, gently chiding her husband. “Gracie has some knowledge and ideas. So why don't we listen to what she has to say? Go ahead, Gracie. What would you grab if you only had five minutes?”

Shooting a look at John, who was walking into the house, hands loaded with dishes and food, Gracie said, “Essentials. Minnie first. Then my laptop and my strong box of important documents and valuables. Fifteen minutes, I'd take photo albums. Sentimental things. If I had two hours, I could remove everything I care about. Everything else, including the cabin itself, is replaceable.”

“That's an excellent idea.” She looked up at John, who had reemerged from the house and was walking back down the ramp. “We'll make out our own list tomorrow, won't we, John?”

Another noncommittal grunt.

“Now, where is it you're from, Gracie?”

“Grosse . . . , um, the Detroit area. I'm flying home in a couple of days. Family stuff.”

Acacia, who had left a half-eaten bowl of ice cream to throw the ball up in the air for Minnie, bounced over to stand next to Gracie. “Who's taking care of Minnie, Miss Gracie?”

“I . . . hadn't gotten that far yet. I—”

“Can I take care of Minnie? I want to take care of her.” She turned to Vivian. “Nana, can I? Please?”

“I—” Gracie tried again.

“I don't see a problem with that—do you, John?”

“What do I know?” John said, scrubbing the grill with a brush. “I'm just the cook.”

Vivian just chuckled and seemed to be amused by her husband's surliness.

With much good-natured back-and-forth between the two women, Gracie cleared the rest of the food from the table and, back in the kitchen, rinsed the dishes and placed them
in the dishwasher. As the women sat on the front deck, Vivian in her wheelchair and Gracie in the red Adirondack chair, John puttered around the yard, hand-edging the lawn, pulling nonexistent weeds along the wooden fence, unobtrusive, but obviously keeping a protective eye on his wife. From what—or whom, Gracie couldn't guess.

Acacia threw a tennis ball for Minnie on the front lawn, then, as Gracie discovered later, settled quietly on the bed in her room, sitting cross-legged on the spread of pink and yellow flowers, watching television with Minnie curled up at the end of the bed as if she belonged there.

It was pleasant and peaceful in the little house at the bottom of the Arcturus hill. As the sun dropped to the horizon at their backs, chilling the air, stretching the shadows longer, and turning the sky overhead incandescent opal, Gracie and Vivian chatted and laughed, the conversation as easy and comfortable as a pair of old slippers. As they talked, birds chirped their evening songs in the background and an occasional car drove by—three in an hour—the cranberry-colored Equinox that was a part-time neighbor's up the street, a maroon sedan that Gracie guessed was someone for the vacation rental two houses up from her cabin, and a rust-pocked white pickup truck with a hole in the muffler.

The evening was the most enjoyable Gracie had experienced in years, certainly one of the most serene. Vivian might be trapped in a broken and infirm body, but she was a wise and old soul infused with a calming spirit.

It was fully dark when Gracie walked with Minnie back up the steep curving road to her own little cabin. The night sky was bursting with stars—large and brilliant, with the Milky Way slashing across the zenith. As she walked, Gracie realized she was filled with something unfamiliar, something resembling contentment.

As she stepped up onto her front porch, she heard the telephone in the kitchen ringing. Unlocking the door, she
let Minnie run inside ahead of her, trotted into the kitchen, and grabbed up the telephone on the counter. “Hello?”

“Ahhh!” A man's voice screamed in Gracie's ear, sending a shock wave of adrenaline down to her fingertips.

She slammed down the receiver.

11

W
ITH
Minnie at her heels, Gracie jogged along the long, flat plateau studded with California juniper and piñon pine, accented with clumps of sage and yellow rabbitbrush, and stretching south from the hill above her cabin over a mile to the community of Pine Knot. The midafternoon air was warm and light, the sky China blue infinity. But, at over seven thousand feet, the Southern California sun scorched Gracie's bare arms and the top of her head and she mentally chided herself for knowing better than to have gone out for a run without a hat.

Gracie breathed in, breathed out, keeping time with her footfalls in a rhythm that would carry her for miles.

At the sound of the man's scream on the telephone the night before, Gracie had slammed down the receiver, then prowled back and forth in front of the counter, eyes riveted on the telephone, waiting for—daring—it to ring again. But a second call never came.

Further increasing her frustration and angst, the caller ID had displayed only
Timber Creek, CA
. She told herself
that the odds were it was a prank call, logically shrugging it off as some idiot teenagers dialing numbers at random for their sick idea of a fun time. But the call had left its mark, obliterating the feeling of contentment from dinner and conversation with Vivian Robinson, piercing her psyche and leaving her more shaken than she would have imagined. She had lain in bed for hours, unable to sleep, the sound of the maniacal voice reverberating inside her head.

A hair-trigger jumpiness had continued into the next day. Running up on the plateau, she still felt destabilized, vulnerable, afraid.

And that pissed her off. “Royally,” she said aloud, and ran faster.

When Gracie jogged, she only occasionally looked around to check that Minnie was running along behind her. In the past several months, the little dog had learned to heel, black nose inches from Gracie's right foot. When Gracie trotted forward, Minnie trotted forward. When Gracie stopped, Minnie stopped, sitting down at her feet and looking up expectantly. Gracie had experimented with removing the leash to see how the dog acted with acres of rolling hills and woods and not a person in sight. The first time, Minnie had bounded around, tail wagging, running with her nose to the ground after a scent here, swerving after another there. But she had stayed within calling distance. So faithful and predictable was her behavior that Gracie had taken to running with the dog off leash all the time, carrying it along, wound around her own waist, in case it was needed.

At the perimeter fence of the community high school, Gracie circled around and headed back along the plateau toward home.

She glanced back over her shoulder.

No Minnie.

She thudded to a stop and turned around. “Minnie? Where are you?”

No dog.

Visions of coyotes and mountain lions rose in Gracie's mind. Alarm clutched her throat.

“Minnie!”

The only sound was the sighing of the wind.

“Minnie!” Gracie yelled again. Louder. Sharper. “Come!”

A fly shot like a bullet past her right ear.

Gracie's eyes darted from tree to bush to tree.

Then, twenty feet back, Minnie sauntered out from behind a giant piñon pine, its top domed like a massive umbrella.

Thank God!
Gracie pointed to the ground next to her feet. “Come here,” she commanded, the sternness in her voice belying her relief.

Minnie trotted up, wagging her tail, pink tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth.

“You scared me, little girl,” Gracie said, reaching down to stroke the black fur, hot from the sun. “Don't do that.”

Gracie withdrew her water bottle from its sling and took a long draught, pouring a little into her cupped hand for Minnie. As she replaced the bottle and looked around, her eye caught on a tree stump a few feet off to her left. She stepped over and looked down.

A symbol had been carved into the wood—a diamond shape with what appeared to be stick legs set above a pair of figure eights.

Gracie had jogged past the same tree stump countless times and had never noticed a carving. “How long has that been there?” she wondered aloud, frowning. “And what does it stand for?”

She peered at it more closely.

The edges were crisp, dug-out wood slivers lying on the flat surface of the stump.

The carving was recent.

And creepy.

The hair on her arms prickling, Gracie straightened and looked around again. She had been fretting about wild animals, forgetting completely about the infinitely more frightening,
more unpredictable and therefore more dangerous animal—the two-legged kind.

The plateau was on national forest land, open to anyone. In all the years Gracie had been jogging up on the plateau, while she had seen signs of other humans—a gum wrapper, a cigarette—they had been rare and weather-beaten. She had never actually encountered a single other person. It had simply never occurred to her to be afraid for her safety. She realized with a jolt that out here, a half mile from the closest building, essentially unarmed as she was, a man alone could attack, overpower, kill, and dispose of her body in any number of ways and no one would ever be the wiser.

Note to self
, she thought
. From now on, carry pepper spray.
And maybe jog somewhere more populated.

But Gracie loved the plateau for its solitude, its feeling of remoteness, its peace. The thought of never running there again left her feeling bereft. “It's just a stupid carving,” she said to herself, then, “Heel, Minnie,” and looked behind her.

Minnie wasn't there.

Fear constricting her throat, Gracie swung around, spotting Minnie twenty feet away, standing at attention, staring into the trees on the right, ears pricked, a ridge of bristled fur running down her back.

“Minnie, come,” Gracie commanded in a stage whisper.

The dog's tail began to wag slowly, then she trotted off into the trees.

“No!” Gracie started after her. “Minnie! Come back here!”

Minnie had disappeared.

Gracie stopped and listened. Nothing.

“Minnie!” she called again, and walked ahead several more steps, feet scrunching on the stony ground.

Then she heard a single yip followed by the whispering of a human voice.

What felt like tiny spiders ran up Gracie's arms, making all the hair stand on end.

She took a step forward, pressing her foot toe-to-heel on
the ground. Another step. And another until she reached the edge of the plateau where the ground sloped downward in a series of gentle hills, heavy with brush and trees.

She stopped again, leaning forward, straining to hear something, anything that might indicate where Minnie had gone and who was whispering and why.

“No, Minnie,” she heard a high voice whisper. “Go away.”

Gracie blew out a shaky breath. “Baxter?”

Silence.

“Minnie! Come!”

The dog appeared from within a thick clump of brush and sticks piled up against a mountain mahogany tree and climbed up the hill to where Gracie stood. “Good girl,” she said, patting the dog's head. “Hi, Baxter.”

On the hillside below, some branches waved, then a neat foliage-covered hatchway was moved to one side and Baxter crawled into view. The boy stood up and looked up the hill at Gracie. He was wearing the same camouflage pants as before, but, instead of the jacket, a black T-shirt.

Gracie crossed her arms and rested her weight on one leg. “What are you doing here?”

The boy shrugged a shoulder. “Hanging out.”

“Did you walk all the way here?”

“Yeah.”

“From your gran's?”

He nodded, then pointed back in the direction of Pine Knot. “It's not that far.”

“I guess it probably isn't. Does your gran know where you are?”

“No.”

“She's not worried when you leave like this?”

“No. I dunno. Maybe.”

Deciding an interrogation wasn't going to break down any barriers, Gracie switched tactics. “Is that your fort? Can I see inside? It looks pretty cool. I don't know the secret password, but the sun's kind of hot and I forgot my hat.”

Baxter shrugged again. “Okay.” He dropped down to hands and knees and crawled back through the opening in the pile of brush.

With Minnie on her heels, Gracie slithered down the slope, then, following Baxter's lead, dropped to her hands and knees and crawled through the opening.

Just inside the entrance, she sat back on her heels and looked around.

A camouflage tarp had been fastened over a framework of branches, and in turn covered with interwoven branches forming a shady enclosure, cozy and cool.

In the semidarkness, Baxter sat cross-legged on an inexpensive, three-season sleeping bag laid over a thick cushion of pine boughs on a level shelf of ground. Several water bottles, books, and a flashlight lay on the ground nearby.

Minnie pushed past Gracie and lay down on the bag next to the boy.

“This is cool, Baxter,” Gracie said. “You build it all by yourself?”

He nodded. “We learn about survival and stuff like that on Saturdays.”

“I'm impressed.”

No response.

“So, you've had this awhile?”

“A little while.”

“What do you do here?”

“Read. Practice my compass. Study my map. Mostly read.”

“Aren't you supposed to be in school?”

“I'm homeschooled,” Baxter said, reminding Gracie she had learned that tidbit of information from the Missing Person Questionnaire on the search. “Mom Brianna teaches us.”

“Your mom's name is Brianna?”

He nodded. “But Gran teaches me lots of stuff. She has this really cool globe of the whole world. It's kind of old, so some of the countries aren't right. And she has a map of the United States. She made me memorize the name of every
state and every capital. Now I'm learning all the state birds. And the flowers. And the trees.”

“Wow. That's a lot.”

“The California state bird is the California valley quail. The flower is the California poppy. The tree is . . . uh . . . I can't remember.”

“The redwood, I think.”

“Yeah. The redwood.”

“That's very good, Bax,” Gracie said, thoroughly charmed. She moved over to sit on the sleeping bag, clasping her hands in front of her knees.

“Mom Brianna gives me boring stuff. Math.”

“I thought your mom's name—”

“Gran gets me fun books to read from the library,” the boy said. “I can't read 'em at home. Grandpop doesn't permit it. So I read 'em when I'm at Gran's. Or here.”

Gracie smiled. “Your gran is pretty great, I think. Don't you?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems like most kids your age have their noses stuck in their iPods or iPads or smartphones or whatever.”

“Grandpop won't let us have electronics.”

Not all bad
, Gracie thought. She looked around the hideout, then back at the boy, who sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, head bowed, staring through his legs at the ground.

“You can't keep running away, Bax.” When he was silent, she added, “I know it's . . .”
Impossible living with a violent butthole father.
“. . . really hard living with your dad . . .”

Baxter snorted at the understatement. “And my grandpop, too,” he said. “And my uncle Win. And some of my cousins. Like
Jordan
.”

“They all live with you? At the compound?”

“Yeah.”

“You said your gran was going to adopt you. Has she started the process yet, do you know? Filed any papers?”

“She told me it might take a long time.” Then with a
bitterness beyond his years, he said, “I don't think it'll ever happen.”

Gracie put a hand on Baxter's arm. “It'll happen, Bax,” she said. “Things will get better. You just have to wait them out.” Knowing exactly how it felt to live with a violent parent, she added, “I'm sorry.”

“That's okay, Gracie. I know you want to help me.”

Gracie smiled at the bent head. “Hey, when's the last time you ate something?”

“I dunno. Breakfast, I guess.”

“You hungry?”

He looked up at her. “I guess.”

Gracie gestured over her shoulder with a thumb. “My cabin's not very far from here. Why don't you come home with me? We'll give your gran a call. Let her know where you are and not to worry. I'll fix you something to eat. Then I can give you a ride home.”

“Um, I dunno. I don't think I'm supposed to.”

“Supposed to what?”

“We only eat what we make ourselves.”

“Really.” Gracie stared at the blond head and wondered what the hell was going on in that home, in that compound.

“Sooo, it'll be another of our little secrets. I make a mean PB and J.”

“What's that?”

Gracie blinked. “Peanut butter and jelly. In this case, it's probably ‘and jam.'”

A pause, then a lifting of the shoulder. “Okay.”

*   *   *

GRACIE HUNG UP
the phone in the kitchen and called out to Baxter in the living room, “Your gran said I was supposed to bring you home to the compound no later than five o'clock.”

“Okay,” the high voice answered.

Gracie hung from an arm from the kitchen doorway and looked into the living room.

With Minnie sitting at his feet, Baxter was standing motionless in the middle of the room, arms at his sides, staring at the shelves running along the far wall crammed full with books.

Gracie ducked back into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and scanned the contents: a shriveled slice of week-old pepperoni pizza, five cans of Coors Light, an almost-empty jar of Smucker's strawberry jam, four bottles of Alice White, an unopened half gallon of 2 percent milk, a half loaf of whole wheat bread, and three unopened packages of PayDay candy bars.