Beverly Connor - The Night Killer

Jin took in a deep breath. “We can still do this,” he said. “We’ve been in worse spots.”

“Have we?” said Izzy.

“Sure. Remember when Neva was stuck between the rocks in the cave and gravity was slowly sucking her down and Mike was shot and a killer was after them and Diane? That was pretty bad,” said Jin.

“That was before my time here,” said Izzy. “But you’re right; that sounds pretty bad.”

“I’ll get you a satellite phone,” said David. “Get your gun and load it. Take extra ammo. I’ll help you load a backpack. Wear your caving clothes. That’s what you’re most comfortable in. You’ve got the diary and that’s what he wants. Don’t take it in with you. In fact, let Liam have it. Do your negotiating on the spot.”

Diane nodded. Strange, she was starting to feel the fear ebbing away. Good. She hated the way fear made her feel.

“He’s keeping Andie in a cave. I’ve figured that out from the acoustics,” said David. “If he is killed and she’s in there, we’ll find her. We know every cave in the area. This is doable.” David looked at Diane, his dark eyes boring into her as if he were trying to send her strength.

“I agree. It’s doable,” said Diane. “Mike, Neva, Jin, go to King Cave and salt it. That may be the only place you’ll be able to catch up with him if he gets his hands on the diary.”

Neva looked at her, wide-eyed. What Diane was saying was that she would be dead. He would have killed her. That was what Neva was thinking-the others too. She could see it in their faces. This was the backup plan in case Diane failed.

“Damn it, if we only knew who it is,” said Diane.

“We do,” said Frank, standing up from the computer where he had been working.

“I thought you’d fallen asleep,” said Izzy.

Diane’s pulse quickened. Frank had figured it out. Maybe they did have a chance.

“You know? Who? How do you know?” said Diane.

“Clever little Andie told me. Come over here,” Frank said.

They all gathered around the computer that Frank had been staring at since he got there. Frank played the first video again.

“All that hesitation and uncertainty weren’t just fear; it was our little Andie acting-trying to give us a message.” Frank smiled briefly. “Watch. Every time she looks at the camera operator she is saying a word in the message. I wrote down the words for the first two videos. She didn’t have the same mannerisms in the third video. She kept her eyes on the paper she was reading from. She had delivered her message and it was up to us to find it and come for her. These are the words: contact, Right, Don’t and too, right, Andie, Vitruvian, Is, stupid. ”

Frank showed them the list. “She gave us everything she could. Use the first three letters in ‘contact,’ and she didn’t have an ‘a’ word after the word ‘right,’ but she lucked out on ‘Vitruvian.’ Clever girl.”

Diane looked at the words in Frank’s list.

“Conrad, Travis,” she read. “Travis Conrad.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Liam. “Clever girl, indeed. I told you she was smart.”

“Now if she could have managed latitude and longitude,” said Izzy, grinning.

“Travis,” said Diane. “Damn him. I thought he might turn out to be somebody good.”

“Earl and Maud said Leland Conrad’s wife committed suicide and his in-laws blamed him and tried to turn Travis against him because of it,” said Frank. “It worked. I’m willing to bet Cora Nell Dickson is Travis’ grandmother, and that she infected him with the story of a gold mine that was stolen from them. She probably called him ‘Dicky’ to remind him of his connection to the Dicksons, his mother’s side of the family, to distance him from his father. Travis likely kept his visits to her a secret from his father when he got older. His father’s idea of punishment is cruelly harsh. Imagine how he punished Travis’ misdeeds. It would have been bad for a kid to be put in jail with a bunch of low-life drunks.”

“How in the world did you find that code?” said Liam.

“I see codes,” said Frank.

“I thought I was good at that,” said Jin. “I didn’t see it. Man, that’s the second time you’ve out-decoded me.”

“Okay, it’s Travis,” said Diane. “Does he have help? Could someone like Jason or Bob be in with him? What are we going to do differently? Call him and demand to change the terms of the agreement? Will he keep her alive if he thinks that’s all the leverage he has?” Diane felt deflated again. Now that she knew, she still didn’t have a good plan.

“Good questions,” said Frank.

“If Travis knows you’re onto him,” said Liam, “he might not believe you can prove it’s him-if Andie is not here to testify. He might think it’s the smart thing to kill her. . or to have her killed. He’s probably trying to look normal-going about his normal business as acting sheriff. If he has an accomplice, the accomplice will be guarding Andie.” He paused and seemed to be thinking, studying something in his mind.

“Neva, Mike, and Jin-salt King Cave as planned-and wait in the cave for him,” Liam said. “Go well armed. David and Izzy can go to the sheriff’s office, Travis’ house, his haunts, and see if they can find him. If you do find him, bring him to the meet site he specified. Diane will continue on schedule and I’ll follow her.” He turned to Frank. “Do you do stealth?” he said.

“I’m a quick study,” said Frank.

“Are you the one who taught her the uppercut?” asked Liam, nodding toward Diane.

Frank nodded. “Yes. And I can handle a gun. And I’m motivated. Andie’s a dear friend and Diane’s my heart.”

Diane studied Frank for a moment. The corners of her lips turned up slightly.

“Let’s do it then,” she said.

Diane was back in the woods again. It wasn’t raining this time. And she wasn’t alone. She was being watched over. Though she couldn’t see the watchers, she knew they were there. It would be dusk soon, but there was still light filtering through the trees in crepuscular rays. It was quite beautiful.

The woods had already dried out from the drenching rain that fell the first time she was in the woods. It wasn’t damp; nor were the leaves crisp under her feet. She walked in relative silence.

It wasn’t far to where she was going. It was near the cave where the bodies of Larken MacAlister and Bruce Gregory were killed and dumped. Diane wondered if that was the cave he was keeping Andie in. It seemed like a risky thing to do. The GBI might return. She hoped that was the cave. She hoped Andie was near. She hoped it would be over soon and it would end well.

The underbrush was getting thicker and taller and the way harder. She ignored the discomfort caused from being slapped by weeds and branches, and walked on.

She had driven up alone in case she was watched. Frank and Liam drove an alternate route that took them to the national park. Liam said it would be an easy trek from there. She had done a lot of thinking in the car on the drive. Mainly to keep her mind off the shards of fear that threatened to tear through her new resolve.

Diane had figured it all out. Many of the details might be wrong, but she thought she knew what had happened and why. Not so much through the sifting and weighing of evidence, but from understanding the dynamics of greed. Diane understood greed. She’d seen a lot of it in her investigation of dictators and wannabe dictators. Greed was more complex than most people realized and kin to feelings as diverse as wanting simply to feel safe and wanting to be powerful. With Travis, Diane suspected it was a little of both of those, with some entitlement thrown in.