Ridley Pearson - In Harm's Way

Minutes later, Walt hopped over the rail fence alongside the gate and Beatrice slipped through, catching up to his leg and heeling obediently without further command. Walt stayed in the shelter of the planted aspens that formed grove after grove as the driveway climbed up the knoll. He reached the end of the drive, where it widened into a turnaround and parking area connecting Fiona’s cottage to the main house’s garage, and a path leading to the front door. He crouched here and waited, settling his heartbeat and getting control of his respiration, his left arm over Beatrice’s back as she panted at his side.

He rubbed the dog’s head, rewarding her, and as he stood, gently placed his hand on the outside of his left leg, reinforcing the heel. She followed him to the right, around the back side of the house, rather than across the inviting, open space of the turnaround. He passed more beds containing the yellow lilies reminding him of the fire, then his conversation with Fiona near the tree house. He held to shadow, Beatrice at his side, moving silently.

Walt stayed low as he finally reached the southeastern corner of the main house, facing the scar of burned earth directly in front of him, then moved up the hill, the tree house now immediately to his right. A pine rail ladder was attached to one of the three fir trees supporting the tree house, a sizable structure fifteen feet off the ground. He signaled Beatrice to stay and then moved in a stealthy crouch to the base of the ladder and began to climb. Beatrice followed his every action, her nose rising with each ladder rung.

It was a trapdoor entrance leading up through the tree house floor. Walt paused just beneath it. He fished out his Maglite and Beretta and, marrying the two while holding to the ladder, used his back to push and throw open the trapdoor. The Maglite’s bluish halogen beam flooded the lavishly decorated space, past posters, curtains, a hand-hooked rug, crumpled tissues on the floor, a child-sized table littered with half-eaten food and open soup cans, and landed on Gilly Menquez, stuffed awkwardly into the corner, his tongue purple and grotesque, his eyes open and unmoving.

Walt threw himself up into the space, spinning, preparing for someone on the other side of the elevated trapdoor, but the space was empty. He caught his breath as he scrambled to Menquez, still not quite believing the tree house was empty. The flashlight’s beam caught the overhead vaulted ceiling, a tiny loft, and the rope ladder leading to it.

Gilly Menquez was warm to the touch. No more than thirty minutes dead. Probably closer to ten or fifteen. Walt called it in as calmly as possible over the radio, but there was no return, the radio’s signal lost to the contours of the geography. He tried his phone and got through.

“I want the highway entrance sealed,” he explained to his dispatcher. “Ambulance and coroner to the residence. Every deputy available is on the manhunt. We want Greenhorn covered and a team to watch Cold Springs. Contact Roger Hillabrand and have his place locked down. This guy could be out there. Could be long gone.”

The bottom third of Gilly’s boots were soaked. Brown mud filled the space between the heel and sole. There was a piece of velvet leaf caught in the cuff of his khakis, along with pine straw and flecks of bark. But it was the amber beads of field grass that won his full attention. These, along with the cheat grass stuck to his socks. You didn’t find grasses in the forest, only in meadows, and one meadow in particular came to mind: Gilly had returned to the high mountain campsite they’d discovered, the same campsite he’d been keeping an eye on when he’d drunk himself into a blackout. Walt could picture Gilly, an expert tracker, starting there and working his way down to the Engleton estate. Could picture him finding his way directly to the tree house, could only imagine his surprise when he’d thrown open the trapdoor ahead of him.

As he came down the exterior ladder, he slipped a couple of rungs, catching himself at the last second. Seeing this, Beatrice lunged, but did not leave her spot. He saw her and, reminded of her value to him, returned to the tree house, carefully retrieving two of the discarded tissues without touching them himself. A moment later he presented the tissues to Beatrice’s discerning nose and issued a single command: “Find it.”

The dog, a bundle of repressed energy, took off at a shot, nose to the ground, executing her bizarre loops and double-backs at the base of the ladder at astounding speed. Wagging excitedly, she faced her master and paused expectantly. She’d caught the scent.

“Find it,” he repeated, motioning into the woods. Beatrice raced off into the darkness and Walt followed, his mobile phone already dialing Fiona’s number.

“What’s going on?” she said before even identifying him. “Are you here?”

“I need you to listen carefully and do exactly as I say,” he said. “Are you with me?”

“Okay.”

He hadn’t checked her Subaru. He hadn’t cleared the main house. He was trusting Beatrice but knew some slight possibility existed that the dog might be following Gilly’s scent and not the killer’s.

“Do you lock your car?” he asked.

“What the hell?”

“I need you to stay with me, Fiona. I need you to answer my questions and do as I say.”

“Why are you breathing like that? What’s going on?”

“I’m in the woods above you. Do you lock your car?”

“No.”

The car was a likely hiding place. If the killer had spotted Walt’s approach, had left the tree house while Walt had circled the main house, he could be anywhere-including in the back of the Subaru, awaiting a hostage.

“Your doors and windows are locked?”

“Yes. You’re scaring me.”

“Good. I want you alert. My people are on their way. It may take them a while. They’re coming in quietly, on my orders. Do me a favor and don’t shoot one of my deputies. But if anyone tries to break into your place, shoot first and ask questions later. You got that?”

Silence.

“My guys will not break into your place. Certainly not without announcing themselves. Are you with me?”

“What the hell’s going on, Walt?”

“It wasn’t Kira,” he said.

“I told you that!” she said indignantly.

“The guy… our mountain man. He’s been living in your tree house.”

Her gasp was audible through the phone.

“At least part time. He’s been up there.”

“The tree house? Our tree house?”

“Stay put. My guys are maybe ten minutes out. Are you with me?”

“I won’t be a victim again, Walt.”

“It’s not going to come to that.”

Beatrice’s continuing up into the forest pulled Walt in that direction. He could call her off, return, make sure Fiona got in the Subaru and that the Subaru was safe.

“I’m just saying.”

“We won’t let that happen.”

“We?”

“You and me.”

The silence was protracted. Walt felt it in his chest.

“Okay,” she finally said. “Okay.”

He signed off and holstered the BlackBerry and followed the sound of Beatrice up ahead of him. She was focused and determined, and it was her level of concentration that returned him to the task at hand. Swallowed in the darkness of a thick conifer forest, navigating more on instinct than vision, led by the sounds from a dog he had come to trust and depend upon, he drove himself on, half-blind, half-terrified, determined to push Fiona from his mind, but finding it impossible. Higher and higher they climbed, Beatrice leading him along a meandering game trail. They were moving quickly, Walt light on his feet and nearly silent, and he wondered if they weren’t closing the gap on Menquez’s killer. The man might or might not know Walt was in pursuit; might or might not be experiencing remorse over killing Menquez. Walt imagined him justifying taking the baseball bat to the head of Martel Gale. But strangling a Forest Service ranger, whether panicked or not, had to weigh differently. Walt imagined him desperate, irrational, and in search of some way out of his actions. He didn’t picture the man a lunatic despite his having jumped through a window at the Casino. The break-in at the Berkholders’ had been cleverly planned and disguised as the work of a bear; that wasn’t the mark of a lunatic.