The Shadowkiller (16 page)

T
hanksgiving day broke and Ty awoke early. He left Ronnie in bed to sleep in and headed downstairs for some coffee, then hopefully an hour or two alone in his office. Hearing a noise in the kitchen, he expected to see Christopher and came face-to-face with Greta as she assembled breakfast ingredients on the counter.

“Good morning,” she said brightly. “Want some breakfast?”

Ty rarely ate breakfast. “No thanks, I don't really…”

“Oh please, let me cook you something,” she pleaded. “I found the eggs and some cheese. I'll make you an omelet. And toast. The kids just wanted cereal. I'm a good omelet maker. Please let me make you a real breakfast.”

“No, really,” Ty protested, but not vehemently.

“Please,” she said, turning her mouth and eyes down, a feigned sadness that appealed to Ty. She was certainly pretty. A beautiful young woman with a face animated by intelligence. Ty figured she was new to the household and didn't need to discover how dysfunctional they were right off the bat. He reluctantly pulled up a bar stool behind the counter.

“Make it wheat toast.”

Later Ty finished the last bite and set his utensils on the plate, which Greta whisked away.

“Was it okay?” she asked.

“It was delicious,” said Ty, wiping his mouth. “Hey, you drive? You have a license?”

Greta nodded. “Yah, I have a Swedish license.”

“C'mon,” he motioned, and slid off his stool.

She followed him to the front of the house. They arrived at the entry just as Ronnie appeared at the top of the stairs in her robe.

“Good morning, Ronnie,” Greta said.

Ronnie descended the stairs. “What's up?”

Ty opened the front door. “Greta might need a car for errands.”

They crossed the large plaza between the house and garage and Ty opened the side door and they entered. Greta's eyes widened at what looked like the motor pool for a small embassy. They arrived behind a fairly new red Suburban.

Ty swung back the driver's door. “Crap.” The interior of the Suburban reeked of gasoline. He'd forgotten to remove the full gas can he'd gotten for his mower.

He punched the garage door opener to air out the space, then put the gas can under the workbench. He gestured to the Suburban.

“When you can breathe in it again, you can drive this.”

Ben called Doris to wish her and the family happy Thanksgiving, then went downstairs to the Red Lion's restaurant for an early lunch. Even in his nondescript windbreaker a few people recognized him, and two kids, a boy and a girl of about ten, asked for his autograph. He obliged, then picked up a couple of local newspapers to search for interesting stories.

The waitress approached and handed him a menu. “Hi. My name's Cindy. What can I get you? Would you like some turkey? We have a Thanksgiving special.”

Ben pondered the notion of Thanksgiving with some bemusement. White men had come to the “New World,” had broken bread with his forebears…then over the next four hundred years had taken away most of what they had. Thanksgiving? For whom? He handed her back the menu.

“Cindy, I want the biggest, juiciest burger you've got. Hold the onions and put some cheese on it. Okay?”

She nodded, started to turn, then paused. “I really like your movies.”

Ben smiled graciously. “Thanks.”

On Thanksgiving morning Mac put in a few hours at work, then was back in his condo by one. He paid some bills and straightened stuff before putting his tri-tip in the oven around two. Then he decided to kick back and spend the afternoon catching up on the mountain of research on the desk in his home office.

As the smell of roasting beef wafted through his condo, Mac lounged comfortably with a book. He was engrossed in a story told in the 1890s by a crusty old woodsman named Bauman to President Teddy Roosevelt about an encounter he had back in the 1840s in a remote location in Idaho. Bauman related how he and a fellow trapper were terrorized at their camp for two days by a huge unseen creature that walked on two legs. When Bauman's partner was horribly murdered by the creature, Bauman fled for his life.

Mac got a chill as he put himself in Bauman's shoes 160 years ago, all alone in the middle of nowhere and coming upon the body of Carillo, his neck fang-torn, his head twisted hopelessly, his eyes open in terror but unseeing…

The phone rang and he jumped. “Schneider.”

“Mac, Kris Walker. This a bad time?”

Mac realized he was breathing hard from being startled. “Uh no. I just ran to the phone. What's up?”

“I was wondering if another Thanksgiving orphan wanted to go have dinner somewhere.”

“Actually I was making dinner—” he started.

“Oh sorry, I didn't realize you were—”

“No,” he stopped her, “what I meant to say was why don't you come over? Have a home-cooked meal. It's just me, so come on over.”

“A guy who cooks Thanksgiving dinner for himself? This I gotta see.”

When they hung up, Mac changed from sweats into casual pants and a golf shirt, then quickly set another place at the dining table so she wouldn't feel she was intruding. Flipping on the stereo, he popped in a Joyce Cooling CD, then uncorked a nice zin and set it on the kitchen counter to breathe. He was ready.

Soon there was a knock on his door. Smiling to himself, he realized she had probably been well on her way when she called. Even without traffic his condo in Edmonds was at least thirty-five minutes from downtown Seattle. She was a sly one. As he crossed through the living room to the door, his eyes fell upon what was, at least for the moment, a top secret item. Sitting on the end table by his recliner was the giant plaster foot, left out in contemplation of his meeting with the anthropologist the next day. He quickly hefted it to the entry closet and buried it under some rubber waders he used when investigating river deaths.

He opened the door to find Kris bundled in a long black coat, its fake fur collar contrasting with her natural, almost white-blond hair. She held up a bottle of champagne.

“Happy Thanksgiving.”

Mac took the bottle and waved her inside. He helped her with her coat and nearly reopened the closet.

“I love your place,” she said. “This is really spacious. Give me the tour?”

They wandered down the hall and he glossed over his office, not turning on the light in hopes the shadows would conceal all the books on his desk that a reporter might find interesting. In his bedroom Kris went to the sliding glass door.

“I like this. Hey, look at that. You can see the Sound from here.”

Mac nodded. “Just peekaboo.”

“Nice. You decorated?”

Mac looked around, seeing it through her eyes. “Yeah. When I got divorced and moved from L.A., I started over with new stuff. It was kinda fun.”

Kris noticed he still had her coat under his arm. She pulled it away and tossed it on the bed. She smiled and headed to the living room. There was sly promise in the quick, confident flash of her eyes.

Ty had a list of people who had been involved with the three missing men as well as the truck. He had some phone numbers but they weren't panning out. Ty still needed to talk to the deputy, Bill Alexander, as he seemed to be a connecting link. He wondered if he was working on Thanksgiving. Just as he picked up the phone to try the sheriff's department, Ronnie pushed open his office door and leaned against the frame.

“Can you cut the turkey?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I'll be right there.”

“Ty, honey…what are you doing?”

“Just some research.”

She looked around his office and noticed he had recently pinned up some maps and newspaper articles. “Please tell me this is a hobby not an obsession, right? Are we going to go through this again?” she asked, her voice rising slightly.

Ty shut off his computer and approached Ronnie, who stepped back slightly.

“Well, are we?” she demanded.

Backing her into the wall, Ty wrapped his arms around her. “I wouldn't do anything more to hurt this family. I love you, baby, and I love our kids. You three are everything to me. Okay?”

Ronnie didn't answer but just looked at him, praying things would be all right.

Ty took her hand and led them out to the hall. “Now let's eat some turkey.”

He hadn't really answered her question. Nor would he, she feared.

F
rom the moment they arrived at Nikki's folks' home for Thanksgiving dinner, Skip Caldwell had been bummed. She had totally roped him into the Thanksgiving dinner, and to an athlete who ate selectively, it promised to be a total cluster-fuck of cholesterol, starchy carbs, and junk calories. Her promise had been to have him home by two because his daily workouts were essential, given it was three weeks to a major event in Arizona and he always got nervous as they approached. A world-class mountain biker, Skip had just signed a sponsorship with one of the hottest sports bike companies around and he needed an edge. Or a miracle.

His primary competition was reigning world champion mountain biker Dewey Devlin, and now the pressure was on Skip to show his sponsor that their faith and money were well placed. This was, by far, the most pressure he'd ever been under, so just to make sure everyone at the dinner knew that, he pouted the whole time, enough so that Nikki finally decided to bail the moment everyone else had finished gorging on turkey. On the way home, his mood lightened as hers sank. To get his adrenaline pumping he fished out his favorite death-metal CD,
Heartwork
by Carcass, pushed it into the player, and turned it up to eleven.

Back at their apartment in Monroe, Skip quickly loaded his downhill bike onto the bed of his Ford Ranger while Nikki flipped the tailgate closed, already missing her boyfriend. Skip kissed her long and hard, then pulled back and touched her nose with his finger.

“Back by seven, tops. Bye.”

She nodded, then watched him drive away, wondering if he was pushing a little too hard. It was already three fifteen, so she guessed he had less than two hours of light and worried that he'd probably ride until it was pitch-black. But there was nothing she could do about it, so she went back inside their apartment.

Deke, Marge, and Ricky Allison were interrupted three times during the day, once during the NFL game and another time during their turkey dinner, by real estate agents showing potential buyers through their home. The fire-sale price on the house had real estate people climbing all over them, even on Thanksgiving. They all showed interest and Deke quietly told each of the agents to “make an offer,
any
offer” as soon as possible. Deke's biggest fear was that they'd walk the property and come across a giant footprint. Actually, his biggest fear was that the prospective buyers and agent would walk out behind the house to the property line two hundred yards down the trail and not come back.

He moved to a new place overlooking the low areas where the small two-legs lived. He marked it by breaking off the surrounding trees. This spot was flat but elevated, and after breaking the trees, he fashioned a shelter. He could sleep under trees, but when staking out an area, he preferred to make himself more comfortable. He was always careful to conceal evidence outside his area—his droppings, his tracks, and the remains of his kills. The old ones taught that the small two-legs were clever and might use such things against him.

He thought of those teachings, and though he followed them by instinct, he wondered why he should be careful of the small two-legs. They were fearful of him and easily killed. He was questioning the old ways, but habits were hard to break, so he built his shelter far above where a small two-leg could go.

The small two-leg from the little wood cave filled his belly for two suns, and after burying the remains of its body and arms, he carried its
legs for two more suns. But he had eaten those just before turning over the hardshell. Now he was hungry again. With the dark time coming soon, he decided to go down from the mountain and hunt. Then he felt a presence. He rose, concentrating on where and what it was.

It was a small two-leg. And it was near.

Skip Caldwell was having the kind of run only a world-class mountain biker could have. He'd been on this trail once before but had made the mistake of splitting off on a fork too soon that dumped him down onto a cream-puff single-track. This time the run promised to be epic as he continued to climb, up past the fork, higher and higher. He guessed his elevation was about forty-five hundred feet, but he still didn't yet see daylight in front of him, just more hill, more trees. He hoped he would gain another several hundred feet before peaking. He'd heard the track on the backside was damn near vertical. He couldn't wait. It was getting darker but he guessed he had maybe thirty minutes left. But so what? Once he hit the top, he'd do the two-mile drop in less than five minutes.

As he climbed, pumping his muscled legs in his lowest gear, he started to feel he was being watched. He glanced around for other bikers, hoping to find some guys who had the
cojones
to run with him and to demonstrate his prowess as a downhiller. But he saw no one and refocused on the difficult task of cranking uphill without slowing enough to fall.

Coming upon what he guessed was the crest, he pistoned his legs harder, anticipating the rush of seeing the valley and trail below him. Then he saw something disturbing, a quick glimpse of what seemed to be a form, moving in the trees and high underbrush ahead. And despite the endorphin blast that had him at one with the universe, he suddenly felt very uneasy, because as he approached the trees, their increasing scale implied the form he had seen was definitely not a person. Too big, way too big…and shaped…well, wrong.

He pedaled harder, hoping to quickly pass the place where he thought he had seen the shape. Then he'd be at the crest and he'd fly. As he wheeled to the place, there was nothing there now. Ahead, the edge of the ridge beckoned, and he spun toward it.

Then, at most a few yards behind him, the air molecules came unglued, shattered by a rending scream as if all the machines in a factory had broken simultaneously. It was a horrid, grating metal-on-metal, louder-than-loud sound like a lion and a tornado and Metallica might make if they were trying to drown each other out.

Skip Caldwell didn't look back. He pedaled for his life.

While Mac busied himself in the kitchen, Kris found a stool on the other side of the counter.

“Where did you learn to cook?”

He rummaged in the fridge for a tomato. “Was married to a woman who hated to cook. Like getting thrown out of the boat. Learn or starve. You?”

Kris leaned on the counter. “I was Daddy's little girl. He wanted a son but he got me. The only cooking I ever learned was frying fish over a campfire and the only grocery shopping I ever did was helping tie a deer onto the roof of the car. I'd help dress it, then I'd tend the smoker.”

“You said at the restaurant you two weren't that close anymore.”

Kris took a sip of wine and paused for a moment. “When Daddy's little girl started looking more like a young woman, Daddy took an interest in her.”

Mac quit prepping food and looked up while Kris reflected for a moment before continuing. “Anyway, it went on until I was sixteen. I never told my mom. He finally stopped when we reached an understanding.”

Kris saw the question on Mac's face. “When I was sixteen, we were bear hunting and I pointed my crossbow at him and said, ‘You ever touch me again and I will use this on you.' He saw my point, pun intended. Anyway, until all that went on, I'd been quite a tomboy.”

Mac was somber. “I'm sorry.”

Kris laughed to lighten the mood. “Hey, it's ancient history. I'm past it. I think it all made me tough. Do you think I'm tough?”

Mac continued dicing his tomato. “Yeah, you're tough. You like that label?”

Kris finished her wine. “I do.”

Mac poured her more wine. “I prefer strong. That's how I see you.”

Kris smiled at that. “Strong? Hmmm. I think I like that more than tough.”

She held up her glass and Mac touched it with his. “To strong,” said Kris.

“To strong,” seconded Mac.

The trail blurred as Skip dodged rocks and roots and bobbed into ruts and water-cut trenches. With that thing behind him, nothing mattered but escape. Skip had passed through the can't-believe-it stage in about a microsecond. When he'd seen the shape, he'd had suspicions, but that otherworldly primate bellow told him exactly what it was.

Skip Caldwell needed every bit of his considerable skills as he plummeted down the slope. With potential catastrophic failure presenting itself several times a second, those seconds telescoped to seem like minutes as Skip's eyes and mind settled on just getting down—
fast.
For a damn near vertical drop his speed was appropriately insane.

Three hundred yards downtrail Skip took a dip, hunkered down behind his seat to keep his center of gravity low, then zoomed up, getting some big air. As he looked for a landing spot, within a half second he knew he was screwed. He was headed toward a snake basket of deep ruts with no way to avoid it and no way to stay rubber down.

He took it like a man as his front tire clipped the rise between two of the scars and then hit the wall of the next. His big downhill shocks crunched down all the way and that's when he lost it. His front wheel jerked right and dug in, sending Skip flying over the handlebars, the bike coming with him because his lock-in shoes were married to the pedals and he'd had no time to kick out. In three seconds Skip was on his back, the bike on top of him. Stunned at having gone from thirty to zero so quickly, he forced himself to shake it off and scrambled to get to his feet.

That's when he got a really good look at his pursuer in the waning light, and the sight took his breath away. Less than fifty yards above, the thing was bounding toward him, its exaggerated body moving with a sprinter's grace, taking eighteen-foot gulps of the hillside at a stride. Skip's heart rate exploded as he threw the bike upright, leaped on, and shoved off.

A half revolution of the wheel told him it was bent.

He pedaled anyway, the bike now fighting dips with its Flintstone front wheel. Gaining speed, Skip knew he had little control. A lesser rider would not have gotten ten feet, but Skip was a gifted biker. He heard the thing thundering down on him and knew by its ferocious expression and fervent pursuit that if it caught him, it would kill him.

Another hundred yards with a crooked wheel and the beast was now three or four seconds behind him, its huge lungs venting like a steam train, both of them bouncing up and down on the rocky track, a man on a broken bicycle losing ground to an unstoppable colossus now but three inhuman strides of the hill behind.

That's when Skip fell again, this time tumbling ass-over-teacup, the bike flying away, his forearm smashing hard on a coffee-table-sized rock. Despite the injury he managed to get up and start running, but his narrow bike shoes with the snap-in bindings weren't suited for hiking, let alone trail running, and he slipped within ten feet and crashed onto his back. His broken arm sent blinding electric sparks up and down his body as waves of nausea rolled through him. Sliding on the slope, he turned and looked around. Expecting the thing to be upon him, Skip was stunned by his impossible fortune: it had stopped to study his bike.

Skip stood and ran, stretching his legs until his groin muscles nearly tore from their moorings. It was as if the governor had called just as the executioner put his hand on the switch. He would outrun this thing somehow. He would do it. He would live to tell about it. Live to marry Nikki and have kids. Live to beat Dewey Devlin.

Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. Skip Caldwell was going to live.

He watched the small two-leg flee in fear down the trail as he picked up its tool. The small two-leg had ridden on this shiny thing's back. It had round legs like those of the hardshells but smaller, thinner. He tested it in his grip and found it gave, but not easily. He exerted more force and twisted it until the two round parts met.

Below, the small creature tripped and stumbled its way down the hill, adding distance between them. He watched it for a moment, its fear glowing like fire at night. He knew it was injured and in pain. He particularly
enjoyed the increased chaos of their thoughts when they were scared and hurt.

His hooded gaze followed the frantic little animal, then scanned far ahead of him, finding two landmarks, a large rock and a dead tree. He tossed its shiny tool into a gully and calmly decided which of those points he would let it pass before continuing his pursuit.