Douglas Preston - White Fire

Corrie listened. Maybe it was the wind again, rubbing a pine branch back and forth against the house. But if it was the wind, it sounded awfully regular.

She pushed back the covers, got out of bed, and — heedless of the cold — stood in her darkened bedroom, listening.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

At her feet, Jack whined.

She stepped out into the little hallway, turned on the light, opened the door into the mansion proper, and paused again to listen. The sound seemed to have stopped. No: there it was again. It seemed to be coming from the ravine side of the house, maybe the living room.

Corrie walked quickly down the corridor, shadow-striped and echoing, and ducked into the security room. The various devices were on, humming and clicking, but the central flat panel was off. She turned it on. An image swam into view: camera one, the default, showing the front drive, currently empty.

She pushed the button that toggled the screen into a checkerboard of smaller images, looking at the feeds from various cameras. Two, four, nine, sixteen…and there, in the window of camera nine, she saw it: a red M , with a circle around it.

M for “movement.”

Quickly she pressed the button dedicated to camera nine. Now its image filled the screen: it was the view out the back door, leading from the kitchen onto the vast deck overlooking the ravine. The M was much bigger now. But there was no movement, nothing she could see. She squinted at the pixelated image. Nothing.

What the hell had Fine said? When a camera registered movement, it recorded the video feed to hard disk: one minute prior to detecting the movement, and continuing for another minute after the movement ceased.

So what movement had triggered camera nine?

It couldn’t be the wind, shaking the tree limbs: there were no trees in view. Even as Corrie watched, the M disappeared from the screen. Now she saw only the back of the house, with the date and time stamps imprinted across the bottom of the feed.

She toggled it back to the checkerboard of cameras and looked at the computer, hoping to get a playback of camera nine. The machine was turned on, but when she moved the mouse a window popped open, demanding a password.

Shit . Now she cursed herself for not asking more questions.

Something red flashed in her peripheral vision. Quickly she turned back to the screen. There it was, in camera eight: something large and dark, creeping around the side of the house. Black rectangles hovered around it, tracking its progress. The M was once again flashing on the screen.

Maybe she should call 911. But she’d left her mobile in her car, and the cheap bastard Fine had of course disconnected the house phones.

Corrie looked closer, heart starting to pound. That section of the back deck was in shadow, the moonlight obscured by the house, and she couldn’t make out exactly what she was seeing. Was it an animal? A coyote, maybe? No: it was too big to be a coyote. Something about the stealthy, deliberate way in which it moved sent a thrill of fear coursing through her.

Now it was off the screen. No alerts came up on the other images. But Corrie was not reassured. Whatever she’d seen, it had been coming around the side of the house. Her side of the house.

She turned suddenly. What was that noise? The squeaking of a mouse? Or — maybe, just maybe — the soft protesting squeal of a window, being gingerly tried?

Heart in her mouth, she ran out of the security room and across the corridor into the den. The tall windows yawned dark before her.

“Get the fuck away from here!” she yelled at them. “I’ve got a gun — and I’m not afraid to use it! Any closer, and I’m calling the cops!”

Nothing. Utter silence.

Corrie stood in the darkness, breathing hard. Still nothing.

At length she returned to the security room. The video feeds were quiet; no movement registered on any of them.

She stayed before the monitor, eyes glued to the various feeds, for fifteen minutes. Then she went through the entire house, dog at her heels, checking all the doors and windows to make sure they were locked. Finally she returned to her bedroom, lay down in the dark, and gathered the covers around her. But she did not fall asleep.

The following morning was, if possible, even colder than it had been the day before. But for the time being, as she bustled around the ski shed, Corrie barely noticed. After a breakfast spent convincing herself she’d been imagining things the night before, she bundled up and went outside — only to find out there were very real, very human footprints in the snow all around the house. Someone apparently had been wandering around out there for a long time, perhaps hours.

It scared the hell out of her, but she couldn’t follow the confused welter of tracks or figure out where they’d come from.

Getting into her car and checking her cell phone, she played back a message from Pendergast announcing that he’d arranged the necessary permissions for her to examine three more skeletons from among the coffins in the shed. She drove down to the Hotel Sebastian to collect the necessary paperwork and thank Pendergast — only to learn that he was out, but had left everything for her at the front desk.

She almost forgot the cold as she tracked down the first of the three skeletons — Asa Cobb — carefully removed the remains from the rude coffin, and placed them on the examination table. Arranging her tools, she took a deep breath, then began a methodical analysis of the bones.

It was as she suspected. Many of the bones displayed damage from a tool: scrapes, gouges, cuts. Again, there were tooth marks: clearly human, not bear. And again, there was no sign of pot polishing, burning, or cooking of any kind — this man, too, had been eaten raw. Nor were there signs of bullet or knife wounds — death had been caused by a massive blow to the head with a rock, followed by the same brutal beating and dismemberment evidenced by the bones of Bowdree. The old brown bones told a graphic, violent tale of a man who was set upon, torn to pieces, and consumed raw.

She straightened up. There was no longer any doubt: these miners had fallen victim to a gang of serial killers.

“Is it as you expected?” came the honeyed drawl from behind her.

Corrie whirled around, heart suddenly pounding like mad in her chest. There was Pendergast, dressed in a black overcoat, a silk scarf around his neck. His face and hair were almost as white as the snow that clung to his shoes. The guy had the damnedest ability to sneak up on a person.

“I see you got my message,” Pendergast said. “I had tried calling you last night, as well, but you didn’t pick up your phone.”

“Sorry.” As her heart returned to normal, she felt herself flushing. “I was on a date.”

One eyebrow went up. “Indeed? May I inquire as to whom with?”

“Ted Roman. A librarian here in Roaring Fork. Grew up in town. Nice guy, ex — ski bum, snowmobile addict. Good researcher, too. He’s helped me quite a bit.”

Pendergast nodded, then turned — significantly — toward the examination table.

“I’ve only had a chance to examine one of the skeletons,” she said, “but it seems to have all the earmarks of the Bowdree killing.”

“So it’s your opinion we’re dealing with, how shall we call it, a group engaged in serial killing.”

“Exactly. I would think at least three or four, possibly more.”

“Interesting.” Pendergast picked up one of the bones and turned it over in his hands, giving it a perfunctory examination. “Two murderers working together is uncommon, but not unheard of. Three or more, however, acting in concert, is a rara avis indeed.” He put the bone back on the table. “Technically, three separate killings are necessary to establish a serial killer.”