Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel) (25 page)

Until the driver side door was wrenched open.

*****

Daniel had just walked in at home when his cell phone rang. 
Slawinski.  Making sure he’d been able to get away?  “Yeah?” he said.

“Boss, Ms. Hedgecoth just stopped me on the way out.  She
got a call from someone who said his unit has been broken into.  She wants me
to go take a look with her.”

“Sophie with you?”

“No.”  The young officer sounded deeply uneasy.  “See,
that’s the thing.  She was ahead, and I don’t think she saw me stop.  She kept
going.”

Driving with the fog so heavy, she wouldn’t be able to see a
car overtaking her.  She might even miss a turn.

“To hell with Marge,” Daniel said sharply.  “You catch up to
Sophie.  You hear me?”

“Yeah, okay.”  There was a mumbled conversation in the
background.

He paced his living room, his tension growing.

“I’m on my way,” Slawinski told him.

“So am I,” Daniel said, making a quick decision.  “Call me
if you catch up to her.”

Three minutes later, he’d backed his Pilot out of the garage
and onto the street.  He was starting forward when his phone rang again. 
Slawinski.

“Tell me you’re behind her,” he said without preamble.

“Chief.”  Slawinski’s voice shook.  “Her car is sitting in
the middle of the road with the driver door standing open.”  He paused.  “She’s
gone, boss.”

Fear felt like a cold blade in his chest.

Sophie.

Rough hands yanked her backwards, shocking Sophie into
consciousness.  She opened her eyes to see that that her cheek was scraping
over a ribbed black rubber mat, and the next instant she was tumbling over a
black bumper that was high off the ground.  Her body wasn’t responding to
emergency commands from her brain, and she couldn’t prevent herself from
falling and landing hard on her side on damp earth.  She turned her head to
protect her face from a thick mass of fern fronds dotted with moisture.

She didn’t understand anything.  Last thing she remembered
was driving…

“You’re awake,” said a man standing above her.  “Good.”

Terror flooded her and she rolled and scrabbled backwards,
coming up against the broad bole of a tree, her fingers digging into the loamy
earth.

Benjamin Billington.  She’d seen him framed in the open door
of her car just before his fist struck her cheekbone.  Oh, God.

“You,” she said with loathing.

He laughed, his face with that widow’s peak appearing
demonic.  “Did you think I wouldn’t get my hands on you?”

He and his enormous black SUV were all she could see in the
thick fog.  And trees, blurred enough to seem spectral.  He’d driven her into
the woods.  They could be anywhere.

She inched to one side.  “You killed my mother.”

“Yeah, and I can’t tell you how much it pissed me off to
have to do it that way.  She teased me all that damn summer.  That’s all she
was.  A cock tease.  Just like most women.”

Sophie kept moving, even as low-growing vegetation slapped
at her and snagged her clothes.  She didn’t take her eyes off him.

He paced her, circling the tree, maintaining the same
distance from her.  “You’re going to make up for what I missed.  You look
enough like her to do.”

“We found the jewelry,” she blurted.  “Daniel knows.”

His face darkened.  “I don’t believe you.”

“Your fingerprints will be all over my mother’s necklace.”

“Bitch,” he snarled, and lunged forward.

*****

Every patrol officer and county deputy Daniel could summon
was out scouring the roads.

They wouldn’t have had anyplace to start at all if Daniel
hadn’t already been on his way.  As it was, he was able to stop the couple of
cars that might have passed the spot where Sophie’s Prius had been abandoned,
and it turned out one of the two drivers had seen a near-accident, with a car
skidding to a stop just short of a huge black SUV that, as far as she could
tell, had already been at a stop.

“I’m pretty sure it was black,” she’d added hesitantly.  No,
she didn’t pay attention to car models, but it was definitely one of those
monster SUVs.  She admitted it could have been a black pickup truck with a
canopy.

But Daniel heard the doubt in her voice.  First instincts
were usually right, in his experience.  And someone already on his radar drove
a black Dodge Durango.

Not Elias Burton, who was the registered owner of a boxy
older Land Rover, a silver gray that nobody could have mistaken for black.  No,
that Durango belonged to the Billingtons.

Daniel drove straight to the Misty River Resort.  All he
could think about was Sophie – when he wasn’t thinking that the resort would
have been an ideal place to bury God knows how many women.  If Benjamin
Billington was the killer, he’d had one hell of a good reason to give Doreen
Stedmann and company all the time in the world to raise the money to buy his
uncle’s resort.  He wouldn’t dare allow bulldozers out here disturbing the
ground.

Not until Daniel was almost on top of the old lodge did he
see that there were lights on inside.  Fear was like teetering on the edge of a
thousand foot drop-off.  If Benjamin was here, then he had no idea who’d
snatched Sophie.  No idea where to look.  He imagined himself plummeting over
that edge in despair.

He slammed to a stop and vaulted out, then ran up the steps
and pounded on the heavy door.  The wait was next thing to unendurable.

Finally it opened a crack, showing a sliver of a woman’s
face.  “Who…?”  As if he couldn’t have slammed a shoulder against the door and
driven her back.  He had to grit his teeth against a desire to do just that.

“Mrs. Billington?  I’m Police Chief Colburn.”  He sounded
almost civilized.  “Is your husband here?”

“Why, no.”  Relaxing once she knew who he was, she opened
the door, framed by the golden light spilling out behind her.  He realized he
had seen her around town a couple of times, a plump, pleasant looking woman
whose brown hair was cut expertly.  “He had to drive over to Portland on
business.  He left not long after lunch.  I don’t know if he’ll make it back
this evening or not.  He said he’d call.”

“Mrs. Billington, this is very important.”  He heard how
ragged his voice was and saw her eyes widen.  “Did you donate some jewelry to
the auction?”

“Why…yes.”  She pressed a hand to her breast.  “Is there a
problem?”

“Can you describe it to me?”

“Oh, it was just a miscellany.  I found it up in the attic,
you see.”  She was almost chatty, except her gaze stayed, apprehensive, on his
face.  “I assumed it had belonged to my husband’s aunt, although I was a little
surprised because some of it seemed a little too modern.  She’s been gone a
long time, you know.”  She hesitated.  “Would you like to come in?”

“No.  This is urgent.  I really need to know.”

“I don’t know what I can tell you.  I worried later that I
should have bought some jewelry boxes instead of handing it over with a bunch
of necklaces and what-have-you dumped together in a shoebox, but really most of
it wasn’t worth much…”  She stopped before continuing slowly, “The shoebox was
in sort of a strange place.  I was packing up some other things – a really
lovely quilt, but nothing Benjamin or I would keep, and we don’t have children,
you know.”  She must have seen the savagery or desperation gathering on his
face, because she started talking faster.  “It – I mean, the shoebox – was
wedged between studs in the attic.  Almost hidden by a rafter.”

“Did you discuss the donation with your husband before you
gave it?”

“Well…no.”  Anxiety had begun transforming her face.  “I did
mention it later.  He wasn’t very happy with me.  I assumed, I don’t know, that
there had been some memento in there he’d wanted to keep.  I offered to ask for
it back, but he—”  She’d begun breathing hard.  “There’s something wrong, isn’t
there?”

“Yes,” he said harshly.  “There is.”

*****

Benjamin was allowing her the illusion that she might
escape, Sophie realized, and enjoying her fear.  Did he intend to rape her out
here in the woods, wet and chilly as it was?  Where else? she thought in the
part of her brain that was still capable of being rational.  After all, he
could hardly take her to the lodge.

If only she knew where they were…

But she did.  Or at least she could tell he hadn’t driven
her inland, because the roar of the surf was there, so familiar she’d been
unconscious of it until just now.  The ocean was close by.  She didn’t know how
that helped, except she was obscurely comforted to feel somewhat oriented.  In
the grey mist, the pounding of the surf was like a compass needle.

She groped for anything at all she could use as a weapon. 
With even the smallest bit of a head start, she had a chance.  The fog could be
her friend instead of an enemy this time.  It would be all right to get lost in
it, so long as he didn’t find her.

She could see the gleam of his teeth.  He was smiling in
anticipation.  No, she thought again – pleasure at the fear she must be giving
off like a rancid odor.

Still backing up, crablike, she pushed through a prickly
clump of salmonberry.  Her fingers scraped against something.  A fallen branch,
three or four inches thick, large enough to be a weapon.  Please God not too
long for her to swing.  Exploring, she found one end jagged where it had broken
off from the tree.

It came to her that she should use it as a ram.  If she
could get her feet under her…

“Run,” he told her.  “Run, Sophie.  There’s nothing better
than a good chase.”

She fumbled her way backward on the branch, gathering her
feet beneath her at the same time.  He watched in what seemed to be pleased
anticipation.

Then, in a rush, she snatched it up and drove it forward.

“What the…?”  He tried to step back and stumbled.

She hit him higher than she’d intended, on his shoulder
rather than hard in the belly.  Even so, he fell, his roar of rage only
slightly muffled by the fog.

Sophie ran.

*****

Daniel leaped into his Pilot and gunned it in a backwards
sweep that left him pointing toward the paved lane leading past the ramshackle
cabins and out to the highway.  Where would Billington take Sophie?  If he
buried his victims here, was this his killing field, too?  If so—  God damn it,
where was his SUV?

Use your head
, Daniel told himself sharply. 
Think.

All right.  Billington would have no way of knowing anyone
suspected him.  No reason to think he had to do anything different than he had
in his young twenties, when he must have considered the undeveloped acreage
here as his macabre playground.  Why would he take Sophie anywhere else? 
Unless he was intent on killing her only to keep her from recognizing her
mother’s necklace, he’d
want
to bring her here, where everything had
gone so wrong with her mother.

What if he’d already dragged her into the dunes?

Then where was his vehicle?  He’d had to get her here
somehow.

When the steering wheel creaked, Daniel deliberately
loosened his hands.  He couldn’t let the panic take over.  He made himself
drive slowly, his head turning as he searched to each side.  There was no dark
bulk in any of the surviving carports attached to cabins.  There was no boat
launch on this side of the river, no way to drive down to the river bank.  He
couldn’t make out any tracks leading into the scrub and then woods to the other
side of the lane, either.

Where?

A detached part of his mind listened to the terse voices
coming from his radio.  A deputy had pulled over a dark green SUV on Highway
101.  The driver was a woman, a resident of Jasper Beach, the next town north
on the Pacific.  Other officers and deputies were prowling the parking lot at
the state park, traversing alleys and private drives.

When he reached the highway, some instinct sent Daniel
south, away from town and the river.  He drove slowly, paralleling the resort
boundary.  He’d heard this stretch of forest was old growth, not as impressive
as it would have been on the sheltered side of the coastal mountain range, but
still thick, the trees larger than anywhere else hereabouts.

He hadn’t gone fifty yards when he saw it – an opening in
the vegetation that might have allowed passage of a vehicle.  He pulled to the
shoulder of the highway, got out, walked forward and saw parallel tracks left
by tires in the damp ground.

The turmoil in his chest didn’t leave room for satisfaction. 
He returned to his Pilot long enough to call for backup, then pulled his Glock
and started forward, stepping quietly, pausing every few steps to listen.

Nothing.  But, even in the fog, he had no trouble following
the fresh tire tracks.

Twenty yards into the woods, he saw the gleam of black
metal.

*****

Sophie crashed into a tree trunk, bounced off it and kept
going.  She heard her pursuer, not doing any better than she was at moving
quietly.  The harsh sound of her breathing alone would allow him to follow
her.  Occasionally, he called out her name.  It floated eerily through the fog.

“Sophie-ee.”

Once her foot slid into a hole and she fell hard.  Somehow
she scrambled back up and kept going, searching desperately for someplace to go
to ground.  Maybe foolishly, she was heading for the ocean, even as she knew
she didn’t dare venture into the open.

Oh, God.  Maybe he was
driving
her toward the dunes.

There were depressions where she could hide.

He knew the dunes as well as she did.  Better.  Until the
one day here with Daniel, she hadn’t been back in twenty years.

But she still knew every curve and slope and hillock she and
her mother had explored.

Her back to the broad trunk of a fir tree, she struggled to
control her breathing.  Maybe she should be trying to circle behind Benjamin,
go toward the highway.  At least she could hope for traffic.  She could throw
herself onto the road in front of the first passing vehicle.

Daniel might come to the resort.

Why would he? she asked herself in despair.  He might have
his suspicions about Benjamin, but he suspected others, too.  What if he’d
driven up to Elias’s mountain home?

“Please, Daniel,” she mumbled.  “Please.”

She pushed off from the tree and kept going.  Pain lanced up
her leg with each step. 
I hurt it when I fell in that hole
, she
realized in despair.

It didn’t matter.  She hobbled on.

“Sophie-ee,” the monster behind her called.

*****

Once Daniel determined that no one was in the SUV, he moved
forward into the fog, his eyes trained on the ground.  A city boy, he’d never
done any tracking, but the mist made the forest floor soft enough he saw
occasional deep imprints.  There – fern fronds were broken off.

Daniel’s advance was slower than he would have liked, but he
was unpleasantly aware that Billington could be two steps away from him and he
wouldn’t see him. 
Damn this fog.
  He tried to move silently.  The dark
boles of trees materialized in the gray, then disappeared.  The understory –
salal and ferns – glistened with droplets of moisture drawn from the ubiquitous
fog.