Rock Harbor Series - 01 - Without a Trace (34 page)

There were tears in Kade’s eyes as well, and Bree’s heart was touched by his compassion and empathy.

“This must be Davy,” he said.

Bree was so full of emotion, she could barely whisper, “Davy, this is Kade Matthews. He’s been helping me look for you. Naomi and Steve too.”

Naomi knelt in front of them and held out her arms. “Remember Aunt Naomi?”

Davy nodded and limped over for a hug. His forehead wrinkled as
he thought. “Where’s Charley?” He released her then went back to Bree’s arms.

“He’s out looking for you. His nose isn’t quite as good as Samson’s,” Naomi said.

There was a bark from the top of the hill, then a reddish shape came streaking toward them, and soon Charley was all over Davy in a dance of joy.

Gradually, Bree became aware of the woman standing at the edge of the group. Her arms hung slackly at her sides, and her face was a mask of misery. Bree stood with Davy in her arms. She faced the woman and wondered what she could say. At least the woman had kept him alive. But why hadn’t she brought him to town and reunited him with his family the minute he was found?

“Who’s your friend, Davy?”

Her son’s small face grew solemn. “Her name is Mother. She takes care of me,” he said.

From his short explanation, Bree gleaned a wealth of information. No one else had ever taken her place with Davy. He had never accepted this woman in Bree’s place. Her heart was too full to speak. She tried, but nothing came out.

Swallowing, she tried again. “Who are you?” she whispered.

The woman raised pale blue eyes shadowed with sorrow. “Rachel Marks, ma’am.”

“I want to know everything,” Bree said. “How you found him and why you kept him and where the plane is.”

Rachel nodded. “I know.”

“Let’s take you home, little guy,” Kade said.

The woman’s gaze darted left then right as though she might bolt, then she slowly reached out a hand and grasped Bree’s. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I loved him so much, you see.” Tears slid down her windburned cheeks. She dropped Bree’s hand and followed them up the hill.

Bree carried Davy slowly while the rest of the group hurried ahead.
This was her time with him. She would remember the feel of his small arms clinging to her neck forever. His breath warmed her cheek as she recited everyone who would be glad to see him. “Grammy Anu, Aunt Hilary, Uncle Mason—they’ve all missed you so much. And remember the twins, Paige and Penelope? You won’t believe how much they’ve grown.”

Davy made a little sound of contentment. “Is Daddy coming too?”

Bree caught her breath. She wondered how much he remembered of that terrible day of the crash. “You and Daddy went fishing,” she said. “Wasn’t it fun for just you and Daddy to go fishing—just the boys?”

“I didn’t like it when Daddy yelled.”

“Daddy yelled?” Bree asked. Rob had been a loving and caring father. He’d rarely raised his voice to Davy. “Why did he yell at you?”

Davy stiffened, and his voice came out offended. “No, Mommy! At Uncle Palmer.”

Confusion made her pause to catch her breath. “Uncle Palmer went fishing with you?”

“I guess so.” Then he shook his head. “No, I ’member. He came to visit us at the lake.”

“Why would Daddy yell at Uncle Palmer? We don’t yell at friends, remember?”

“I know. But Daddy didn’t want Uncle Palmer to do some things. Like hurt people. We don’t hurt people.”

“Who did Uncle Palmer want to hurt?” Bree was growing more confused. Palmer had never mentioned he’d seen Rob and Davy. In fact, he’d mourned the fact he hadn’t been able to check Rob’s plane before the crash.

“I guess Daddy, ’cause he hit him.”

“Uncle Palmer hit Daddy? Where?”

“In the nose. There was blood, and I cried.” He said the words matter-of-factly.

“Do you know why he hit Daddy?”

“I don’t know,” Davy whispered. “But Uncle Palmer found gold.”

Gold. The only place he could have found gold would have been at Fay’s mine. And Fay was dead.
And so was Rob
. In her diary Fay had written that she wondered if “he” knew. Could the “he” she referred to be Palmer? Bree’s mouth was dry with an unnamed dread. Palmer wouldn’t hurt anyone. Would he?

Another thought slipped through her mind like a Windigo wraith.
Palmer worked on airplanes in the military.
Bree didn’t want to entertain such a thought, but the suspicions were multiplying.

Davy put his palms against her cheeks and pulled her face in front of his. “Don’t look scared, Mommy. We got away from Uncle Palmer.”

Bree didn’t know what he meant, but she decided not to ask him any more questions now. She didn’t want him to see her agitation, and he’d been through enough. There would be time to sort it all out later.

“Put your head against my shoulder and take a nap,” she told him. “Everything is fine, sweetheart. You’re with Mommy now, and we’re going to be okay.” But even as her son’s breathing deepened and his weight sagged in her arms, her thoughts tumbled over one another like rabbits running from hunters. She couldn’t believe it, could she? There had to be some other explanation.

“The plane is just over there.” Rachel’s soft voice startled her so near to her right side.

Bree looked to where Rachel pointed. A deep ravine ran along here. Bree swallowed hard. Rob’s body lay there under a blanket of snow.

Naomi came up beside her. “Let me take Davy,” she said softly. “Go on. This is what you’ve been searching for.”

In a daze, Bree carefully handed her sleeping son to Naomi. Steve and Kade flanked her as Rachel led the way to the ravine.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t want the animals to get the man, er, your husband, so I buried him.”

Relief flooded her. “Thank you,” Bree whispered. She stood on the edge of the ravine and looked down at the plane. The Bonanza Beechcraft was level with the top of the ravine, and the wind had swept it clear of snow. One wing was shattered and bent, the windshield was missing, and most of the top appeared to have been sheared off.

Bree closed her eyes. She’d searched eleven months for this moment. The crushed plane was mute evidence of the horror Davy had gone through, of Rob’s last moments on this earth. Why had it gone down? He and Palmer had kept it in perfect shape. Palmer. Could Palmer have actually hurt Rob? She was afraid to think it through.

She’d come this far. Opening her eyes, she gripped Kade’s hand, thankful for his steadiness and concern, then she slid down the ravine to the plane. Steve followed while Rachel turned away and rejoined Naomi and Davy. Bree fumbled at the door, but it refused to open. Kade wrenched it open for her. Though it was hard, she needed to do this—see if there was anything in the plane’s cabin that might reveal the truth about what had happened.

She’d expected bloodstains, but the brown seats and effects of the weather hid most traces. Many of the gauges were shattered. Davy’s blanket was in the back. It had brown stains on it, which probably accounted for Rachel’s decision to leave it behind.

“What are we looking for?” Steve’s face was pinched with cold.

“Davy said something strange. He told me Palmer fought with Rob, that he’d found gold,and was planning to hurt someone.”

Steve took half a step back. “Are you saying you think
Palmer
might have killed Fay?”

All Bree’s doubts coalesced into deep suspicion. “More than that. I think he might have had something to do with the crash. He’s an airplane mechanic. He never told me he stopped to see Rob and Davy at the fishing cabin. All he’s ever said is how much he regretted being gone so he couldn’t check out the plane for Rob. He blamed himself. What if he really is guilty?”

They all fell silent. Bree’s gaze met Kade’s, and she saw the anguish in his eyes, pain for her. It gave her strength to know his soul was so tuned to hers.

“I’ll help you,” he said. “Any idea where to begin?” He entered the plane and stooped to look around.

“No. We need to see if we can figure out what caused it to crash.” It seemed a hopeless task amid the jumble of debris. “Not that I know a thing about the mechanics of this plane.”

Kade knelt and began to go through the rubble. Rob’s tool chest lay upended against the rear seats. Tools were scattered beside it. At a loss, Bree knelt and began to pick up the tools with her gloved hand and put them back in the toolbox.

She remembered when Rob had bought these tools. He’d bought a complete set of Stanley screwdrivers because he liked the black-and-white handles. Seeing them here on the floor of the crashed plane pained her. Maybe Davy would like to have them someday.

“Hey, come out here!” Steve called.

Bree scrambled over the wreckage, and Kade followed her. They found Steve crouched under a wing.

“Look.”

The jumble of wires he showed them meant nothing to Bree. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone has shorted out this fuel transmitter. See this wire? It’s been jumpered across the contacts.”

“What does that mean?” Bree asked.

Steve sighed. “It would make the gauge read full when it wasn’t.”

Bree leaned in closer to look and saw something glint back inside the wing. She reached in and touched it. A screwdriver. She pulled it out. It was red, blue, and clear, not white and black.

“Something wrong?” Kade asked.

“This isn’t Rob’s. He always bought Stanley. This is a Craftsman.” She turned it over and caught her breath.

“What is it?” Kade moved closer.

She held it out. The letters PLC were engraved on the handle. “Palmer’s initials. He always marks his tools like this.”

“Maybe Rob borrowed it,” Kade said.

“Palmer never loans his tools.”

The silence was almost palpable. “I like Palmer,” Steve said. “I always have. Why would he kill Rob? Fay I can understand, if she found out about the gold and wasn’t going to go through with the sale. The diary makes it sound like she’d hired an assayer to look at things.”

“That might be why she wouldn’t let me join her the morning she died,” Bree said. “I assumed she was meeting—” She broke off with an apologetic look at Steve.

“You assumed she was meeting Eric,” he finished. “It’s okay.”

“So Palmer must have met her at the mine,” Bree continued, “killed her there, and taken her to the cliff to make it look like an accident.”

“Maybe,” Steve said. “But how do we prove it?”

“We need to get Mason out here for fingerprints,” Kade said. “The National Transportation Safety Board too, to investigate the cause.”

“Are you guys about done?” Naomi spoke from the top of the embankment. “I’m freezing, and Davy has grown since the last time I lugged him around.”

The discovery of Palmer’s screwdriver had left Bree shell-shocked. This couldn’t be happening. An incident about tools tickled the edge of her memory, but she couldn’t seem to grasp it, no matter how hard she tried. It did no good to try to force it.

“We’re coming,” Bree finally called back.

A few minutes later, they gained the shelter of the cabin. They shucked their snowshoes at the door, then Naomi went to the stove and began to build a fire while Kade went out to split more wood.

Davy opened his eyes when Bree laid him on a cot. She took his coat off and ran her hands over his arms and legs. He winced when she
touched his arms. Frowning, she eased him out of his shirt. There were red marks on his arms that looked like burns. She bit her lip. He needed to be seen by a doctor. Continuing her examination, she noticed his leg was still a bit crooked, obviously from a break. But at least he was alive.

He lay quietly under her gentle touch, his eyes drooping as he became warmer. She started to stand.

“Don’t go, Mommy,” he murmured.

Leaning down to kiss him, Bree caressed his hair. “I’ll never leave you,” she whispered against his ear. He gave a contented sigh and closed his eyes again. She kissed his forehead and backed away.

Kade came in with an armload of wood. He dropped it by the stove then went to Bree. He touched her shoulder and whispered, “Steve and I have been talking. My cell phone is dead. I’m not sure if the battery needs to be charged or if the service is down, so we can’t call for help. Why don’t we go for a couple of snowmobiles? It would be easier on Davy if he didn’t have to walk, and it’s a long way for you to carry him. I’d be glad to carry him, but he doesn’t know me. A snowmobile would have you all out of here in no time.”

“That’s a great idea,” Bree said. “Rachel seems harmless. Naomi and I will find out what we can from her while you’re gone.”

Kade nodded. “I feel sorry for her. She obviously loved Davy very much.” He paused to regroup his thoughts. “We’ll be back in an hour or so. There’s plenty of wood for the fire.” He put his palm against her cheek and smiled down into her eyes. “God gave us an incredible miracle, didn’t he?”

The touch of his hand added to the crazy sensations swirling inside her. “I can’t believe it’s real and not a dream.”

“Believe it. You’ve got a little boy to take care of again.”

Steve closed the door to the stove and joined them. “Louis Farmer has snowmobiles, and he’s only five miles away. We’ll get to the Jeep and be back in no time.”

Bree nodded. “Just hurry. I can’t wait to see Anu’s and Hilary’s faces.”

Kade let the dogs out, then he and Steve left. Naomi followed them out to make sure the dogs didn’t trail after them.

Bree’s gaze found Rachel standing awkwardly in the corner as if she wanted to escape notice. “Have a seat, Rachel.”

Rachel regarded her silently before going to the rocker by the window. She looked out anxiously before easing down into the seat. They sat in silence for a long time.

“Tell me how you found Davy,” Bree finally began. “Why didn’t you bring him to town to find me?” She struggled to keep the anger from her voice. “Didn’t you realize he had a family who mourned him? I thought he was dead.”

Tears overflowed as Rachel squeezed her eyes shut. “I—I didn’t mean to do anybody any harm. I moved out here to have some peace and quiet.” She gulped. “M—my picture had been in the papers for weeks, and I was tired of it. Everyone thought I was responsible when some of my patients died in the nursing home where I worked, and even after the jury said I was innocent, reporters camped outside my house and called at all hours. Everyone saw the accusations, but no one seemed to care when the truth came out.” She pressed her lips together.