He saw her instantly as she stepped into the circular space. She wore a down parka to conceal the Kevlar armor he knew she was wearing. Her coat hood was down, the light from the street lamps glinted off her pale hair. He had to admire that she walked with not one hint of the extra weight she was carrying.
She took her time crossing the plaza, stopping at a billboard to read a posted list of events, pausing at a railing to look out over the view of the lake. The full moon was rising over the dark ridge, heavy and huge, and the sight made Roarke colder. Then Soames turned in to the café. He waited edgily as she sat and had her coffee inside the front of the shop, lit up in the window like a precious object on display.
And he felt a chill that had nothing to do with the frigid air: that he was setting this very vulnerable human being out as bait for something unimaginable.
No, not unimaginable
, he reminded himself.
A twisted man. Just a man
.
Soames finished her coffee and walked outside again, now moving past the two-story high Christmas tree in the center of a landscape island, toward the wine shop. Inside, she stood near the front store window talking to the “proprietor,” who went about selecting a bottle for her, bagging it, ringing her up.
She emerged from the shop with bottle in hand; a good prop, but a better weapon, should the need arise. And finally, she moved toward the stairs leading down to the lake walk.
Moving quickly but without rushing, Roarke took an alternate staircase down to the upper path to follow her, descending past a terrace filled with concrete tables with built-in umbrellas, a restroom hut.
Down by the lake, the wind was icy and merciless, swelling the black water, pushing at the boats. Above the moon climbed higher, icy and round in the sky. Its whiteness made everything colder.
Soames walked the path, moonlight shining on her golden hair. Roarke followed on the upper path, the walkway in front of the dark shops, watching as she drifted, stopping often to look out over the lake.
She reached the corner of the row of shops, and he sped up to make the wider curve around. Now he could see the buildings and tents of the small midway: the arcade, the kid-sized bumper cars. He ducked behind the shadow of a post and looked down over the path to find Soames again. Above him, a cloud passed over the moon…
And then he caught sight of something that stopped his heart.
A family had emerged on the path that curved past the fun house. Father, mother and four children. It was the littlest girl who caught Roarke’s eye: five or six and blond, clinging to her mother’s hand.
Cara
…
When he registered the rest of the family, the dread intensified. The family was an echo of Cara’s: the tiny girl, a boy in his mid-teens, an eight- or nine- year old girl… and a boy the same size as Tanner Fairchild. For a moment he could only stare, as if confronted with a ghostly apparition. But the family before him was all too real.
He backed into the shadows between bushes and spoke into his collar mike, his lips stiff with tension. “There’s a family on the path, near the fun house. Mother, father, four kids. Get those people out of there
now
. Take them back to their vehicle and drive them out of here. Do
not
leave them alone.”
He tried to keep one eye on the family as he turned back to the path to get a visual on Soames.
She was gone.
The trees towered, dark and needled; the icy lake stretched out, vast and black, with the moon shimmering a wide swath across the center. Shadows arced across the empty path.
“I’ve lost visual on Soames,” Roarke muttered into his collar mike. “Jones, Epps, Aceves?”
For a moment there was silence.
Roarke vaulted over the railing and dropped into the dirt between the bushes below him. He stood concealed in the dark and stared out through the branches. There was no sign of the family or of Soames; the path was empty. He heard only the thin whistling of the wind, the creaking of the tied-up boats, the splashing of water against the docks.
Then he froze, staring out of the bushes at the path. Something glittered on the path… shattered glass in a pool of black. The bottle of wine Soames had been carrying, smashed on the concrete.
“Christ…” he breathed.
“I see her,” Jones’ voice came back on his earpiece.
Roarke spoke with sharp relief. “Where?”
“Southeast of the clock tower. By the pizza place.”
Roarke frowned, trying to register. The location was on the other side of the Village. “That can’t be right.” He’d only lost sight of her for a minute. Even at a full run she couldn’t have gotten clear across the Village.
“Blond, slender, parka…”
Cara
, his mind registered.
She’s here
.
Chapter Forty-two
He crashed out of the bushes and half-ran along the lake walk, under white lights strung from poles. The dark expanse of lake stretched beyond, pure black and fathomless. Every few feet gates and stairs led down to docks. Soames could be behind any of the fences. Below him boats creaked and splashed, bobbing wildly in the swells.
There was a sharp curve at the end of the path and two forks to take, one that headed up into a small park at the edge of a spit, rimmed with trees, with a swing set and picnic tables, benches looking out on the lake.
The other path curved around to the little children’s amusement fairway, with its miniature golf course and autopia. The rides were closed, but he could hear music: at the far end of the park a small carousel, deserted in the cold, was still eerily piping calliope music. The sound prickled on his skin.
He turned away from it, back toward the park, and bolted up the short span of steps, scanning the park. The wind tossed empty swings in the air and whistled through the trees… the water lapped at the shore. He strode a wide circle around the periphery of the park, searching the shadows. Past a split rail fence a path curved down to the sand.
On the pale drifts lay a dark heap: a crumpled body. He caught a glimpse of gold hair in the moonlight under the trees. He lurched forward, ran for it, pounding down the dune.
He dropped to his knees in the sand beside the body.
“Cara,” he said, and turned her over.
It was Soames.
Her limbs were limp, her skin pale as snow. As Roarke reached to turn her head toward him, he saw black blood oozing from a vicious scalp wound.
He shouted into his collar mike: “Officer down. I need EMT
now
. The beach below the park behind the funhouse.” He grabbed for her wrist, digging his fingers in for a pulse. It was there, faint.
She was breathing.
The EMTs were on scene in a minute, the ambulance speeding through the village and onto the path. The EMTs bore Soames up from the beach on a stretcher as Roarke hustled along beside.
“Her breathing is stable,” an EMT told him, and Roarke felt the news as a hot wave of relief.
At the ambulance, he hovered over the stretcher while the EMTs opened the back doors. His heart lurched as Soames’ eyes suddenly opened, staring straight up at him.
“Soames?”
She murmured something he couldn’t hear. “Just rest,” he told her. “You’re okay…”
“Peace,” she said thickly… then her eyes closed.
Roare froze. “Soames!” he shouted. But then he saw her lips part, her chest rise in a breath.
The EMT was beside him, reaching for the stretcher. “We’ve got her.”
Roarke stepped back to let her go.
As soon as the van’s doors had closed on her, he was shouting orders into his collar mike. “Epps, Jones, Aceves, meet me in the arcade.” It was their designated rendezvous for that side of the village; Roarke had a key card to get in.
He used his key and left the door cracked open. He stood in the dark of the small arcade, with funhouse mirrors on the walls around him. He stared into his own reflection, distorted, rippling images. Inside his thoughts were screaming.
He turned as the door was pulled open and Epps and Jones strode inside, followed a beat later by Detective Aceves.
“What the hell happened?” Epps demanded.
Roarke moved to meet them. “Someone attacked Soames. Head wound. She’s alive.”
The other men relaxed almost simultaneously, a palpable relief. They stood with their reflections cast in grotesque shapes in the mirrors.
“Did you see him?” Jones demanded.
“I didn’t see anything. There was a family—” Roarke stopped, and felt a sudden stab of dread. “Aceves, did your men get to them?”
“We couldn’t find them,” the detective said grimly.
Roarke stared at him.“What do you mean, you couldn’t find them?”
“We never saw them at all. They must have been parked somewhere besides the main parking lot. We stopped every car leaving the Village entrance but there was no sign of them. I got a man on the fairway entrance right away and we went up and down every aisle. No family of that description.”
Roarke’s blood went cold. “Jesus. We have to find that family.
Now
.”
Epps asked it first. “You want to call off the stakeout?”
Roarke forced himself to be still, to consider. They were in a dangerous place. The case had expanded to three tracks, their manpower now searching in three different directions: Cara, the Reaper, and the unknown, unnamed family.
What is the Reaper thinking
?
Why did he attack Soames and not kill her
?
Why not finish off the job
?
At the same time he was thinking it, Epps was shaking his head, saying aloud, “Why didn’t he finish Soames off? Why not kill her?”
And it hit Roarke.
Because he had a more important task
.
“He didn’t have time,” Roarke said, his voice hollow. “The family. He left her to go after that family.”
He twisted around to face his agent. “Jones, you keep your team here in the Village, looking out for the Reaper or anyone who might have seen the family. Question everyone. Someone must have seen them. Go now, spread out and search.”
“Yes, boss.” Jones disappeared through the door.
Roarke turned now to the detective. “Aceves, how do we find these people?”
Aceves punched a number on his phone and handed it to Roarke. “Give the dispatcher the description.”
Roarke concentrated, called up in his mind the image of the family on the path in the wind. “Parents in their early forties, father five-nine, average build, fit, brown hair, eye color unknown. Mother five-five, medium build, blond, eye color unknown. Two boys, about fifteen and thirteen, brown and blond. Two girls, about eight and five, brown and blond…”
Aceves took the phone back. “Put a radio message out to all officers, and one on the website and Village mail loop,” he ordered. “Get a team on the phone to all the hotels and motels, find out if anyone remembers them checking in or eating at any of the attached restaurants.”
He turned back to Roarke and Epps. “We have to hope they lived in town. The truth is, they could be from anywhere.”
“Or that they’re
not
from out of town and they’re headed down the mountain already,” Epps said.
Aceves spoke into the phone. “I need roadbocks set up at the 189 and Highway 18 junctions, checking every car for that family, is that clear?”
Roarke tried to breathe through his dread. He turned to Aceves. “We need to put together a list of locals and renters that might fit the description of the family and divide it among your men as the possibles are coming in. Have them work in groups of two so one can be phoning down the list while the other is driving them to each location. The ones the team can’t reach by phone, they’re to go directly to the address and
make sure
each family is safe.”
Aceves nodded, planning. “Roger that.” He was already headed for the door.
Epps lingered behind. “You didn’t see who attacked Soames?” he asked, low. Roarke looked at him. “Are you sure it was the Reaper?”
“Who else—” Roarke started, and then stopped.
Epps nodded meaningfully. “We know she’s here. We know she’s been watching. News coverage, fake investigation, all of it. What if she didn’t like the idea of someone walking around pretending to be her?”
Roarke’s mind followed the thought frantically, back to the chilly paths beside the lake, the smashed bottle of wine, Soames’ crumpled body on the sand…
“No,” he said tightly.
“Had to say it,” Epps said, equally taut.
“It doesn’t make sense that—” Roarke stopped mid-sentence, as it struck him what he had forgot.
“What?” Epps asked, already alarmed.
Roarke grabbed for his phone, speed dialed the sheriff’s dispatch. “Agent Roarke speaking. I need to talk to the guard on duty at the Crestline cabin.”
“Holy Mother, the Fairchilds,” Epps muttered.
Roarke waited in agony as the call was put through, and then a brusque voice came on. “Deputy Shaber.”
Just the voice answering was a relief. “This is Agent Roarke checking in. Anything suspicious happening tonight? Anything unusual?”
“Negative. Been quiet all day. The father got here a couple of hours ago. Everyone’s upstairs.”
Roarke thanked the gods he’d been wrong. “Glad to hear it. Stay alert tonight.”
“Will do.”
Roarke punched off the phone, turned to Epps. “They’re fine.”
“Oh, man.” Epps looked as if he’d just aged ten years in half a minute.
Through the adrenaline buzz of relief, Roarke knew it had been a mad thought, pure paranoia. There was no way the Reaper, or Hughes, could know where the Fairchilds were holed up.
And yet no more mad than the rest of the case.
“We need to get out there,” he told Epps. “Patrol the Village. Look for that family, look for the Reaper. Someone saw something.”
Chapter Forty-three
Roarke walked the path by the arcade, past the carousel, the calliope music. He could hear the addresses of potential families to check out coming in over his earpiece. He felt nearly insane with tension, and worse, unsure what to do next.