Ridley Pearson - In Harm's Way

“I picked up his trail and believe he may be heading into the next drainage. I’m headed for the Engleton place.”

He called for backup on the way. His closest patrol was nearly twenty minutes away. He directed them to approach without siren or lights, expecting to have completed the first part of his rounds by the time they arrived.

Beatrice knew when Walt was excited. She shot between the seats, her paws on the center console, and licked Walt below the ear.

“Back off!” Walt shouted.

The dog whimpered and backed up, but the thumping of her tail against the backseat, in concert with the pounding of Walt’s heartbeat in his ears, gave away her enthusiasm.

Hillabrand’s two-mile driveway was crushed stone and steep with a half-dozen hairpin switchbacks. As fast as Walt drove, it wasn’t fast enough. He one-handed his phone to dial Fiona’s number from his contact list, wondering why he hadn’t programmed a speed dial number for her. It made perfect sense that he should have her number set as a speed dial, and yet it seemed too personal at the same time, and he wondered if he was afraid to be seen dialing her via the shortcut, and if so what caused such fear in him. His sense of Fiona and him, of Gail and Brandon, could get so tangled up that it seemed impossible to unknot. He couldn’t risk exposing himself to another person the way he had with Gail. It had left him raw and vulnerable in a way he hadn’t felt since adolescence, and that was too many years behind him to offer any guidance. As a teen he had stumbled and crashed his way through his early relationships, not understanding himself enough to have much to offer. By adulthood, in his twenties, his focus had been on building a career for himself, with little time or energy to devote to the otherworldly nature of getting inside Gail’s skin. They’d made love, they’d had laughs, they ate meals together and attended parties, but never with too much talking, never fully explaining themselves to the other the way he expected relationships were supposed to function. That his only fully invested relationship had collapsed, unexpectedly on his part, left him with the sinking feeling it could happen again far too easily.

The phone rang in his ear. He urged her to pick up. Then the click of the voice mail and his cursing into the car, and Beatrice whimpering again. He skidded to a stop before Hillabrand’s reinforced gate and waited for its electronic eye to detect the Cherokee’s motion and open. The steel bar climbed and Walt threw a rooster tail behind as he sped out and into a dirt-spewing fishtail turn and down the canyon road, his thumb finding the green button on his cell phone, and redialing her number.

He’d never figured out how a few minutes could stretch into hours, but that was how it felt. The short drive took too long. The Cherokee climbed up the Engleton driveway and Walt jammed the brakes. He hesitated, then shut the engine off and climbed out, running for Fiona’s front door.

He pulled up just short of the door, his chest tight despite the fact that there were no signs of any problems here.

He knocked lightly, and when she failed to answer, knocked louder.

No answer.

He called out. “Fiona! It’s me!”

A ringing in his ears. The chorus of a summer evening: insects and frogs.

How far to press this?

He stepped around to the side of the cottage as a light breeze stirred the trees. The wood-slat Venetian blinds were pulled, but he pressed an eye to the edge.

It was the sitting area. He flashed back to the two of them on the floor, her legs hooked in his, the back of her head pressed against the leg of the coffee table and thumping softly-that chortle of hers, both satisfied and amused as she arched her back, her nails digging into him. For a moment he didn’t breathe. Given the angle, he could barely make out the couch but he thought he saw her curled up on it.

He rapped softly on the window. She’d invited him back anytime. He wanted to see her. He wanted the door opened.

She didn’t move. Maybe it was nothing but a blanket and pillows, he thought. He went to the next window, but couldn’t get a decent angle there either. His knuckle hovered next to the glass. He withdrew it and returned to the front door and knocked lightly one last time.

No answer.

He faced a choice of kicking in the door or checking the area and leaving. The temptation to bust it down was overwhelming-but was it to satisfy his need or hers? Why the hell wouldn’t she answer him? Had she reconsidered? Was that even her on the couch?

He stepped away and walked the perimeter of the cottage, then circled the main house, also dark. He knocked on the front door and the back, but was not answered. From the back patio he looked down over the small pond, its surface gently stirred by the light breeze.

He looked up the hill to the general area where he’d been standing only twenty minutes earlier. Hillabrand’s intruder would have passed through the property without going out of his way to circle well around.

He studied the steep incline of the mountain, recalling the campsite. It seemed a plausible destination.

He called dispatch on his radio. “Find Gilly Menquez for me. Fast.” He provided a radio channel number for Menquez to use to reach him and then switched his handheld to that channel.

He returned to the Cherokee, not quite able to put the vehicle in gear and leave the Engleton property. He called Fiona’s cell phone for a third time. Voice mail.

Again he fought the temptation to kick in her door. She took her privacy seriously, ardently savored her downtime. If she was staying on the couch and not coming to the door, then all his shouting in the world wouldn’t make her admit him. To violate that might create an insurmountable wall between them. Along with this came the realization his decision was not professional, but personal. He disliked himself for it. He was supposed to know better.

He cranked the engine, put the Cherokee in gear, and backed up. His headlights suddenly illuminated a young woman-Kira Tulivich-hiding behind a tree just beyond the cottage, a baseball bat firmly in hand. She stood within striking distance of where Walt had had his face pressed to the cottage window. He felt a shiver. What the hell? He slammed on the brakes.

But a voice called out over the police band radio. “Sheriff, we’ve been unable to raise Ranger Menquez. I called his home. His wife hasn’t heard from him. He’s late and she’s worried.”

When Walt looked up again, Kira was gone. He accelerated and arrived at the end of the Engleton driveway. Instead of turning right toward the highway, he swung the wheel left, pointing the Cherokee up the hill in the general direction of the abandoned campsite.

“Tell backup they’ll find my Cherokee up the old mining road across from Red Top and to catch up to me on the trail. Channel six,” he said.

Beatrice beat her tail against the backseat furiously again, somehow understanding they were going for a hike.

An evening thunderstorm had moved through an hour earlier, leaving raindrops like strung crystal beads on the cottage windows. Moonlight now peeked out from behind fast-moving clouds, throwing shadows into the woods like light from behind a slowly moving fan.

Fiona saw men in those shadows. She couldn’t tear herself away from the window, had been unable to do so for days now. She stared out over the back of the couch for hours at a time, like a cat or dog, her imagination running wild. She’d been here before, nearly in this same situation, forcing her to question how it was that she might face such a thing twice in one lifetime when some women-most women-never experienced it even once. Did she invite it upon herself, as some had suggested? Did she ask for it, subconsciously want it? If so, what kind of twisted individual did that make her? How could she not know her own self?