Deadfall (28 page)

He leaned against the wall beside the door and trained the gun in her direction. She looked at him for a long moment, then turned to automatically flip the ham in the frying pan, while trying to concentrate beyond her anxiety.

He would not be so easy to surprise this time. He was alert, tense, and ready for trouble. Knowing that he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Tank, she made the dog lie down on the floor by her feet. He was not happy, but did as he was told and stayed there quietly. As long as Gill did nothing to threaten her, Tank would obey, but his eyes followed the man’s every move.

“Is there really a Terry Gill?” she asked him.

“There was. He wasn’t expecting the trap I set for you. Lost his rifle in the fall and didn’t know I was there until too late.”

“How did you know Ah…Jensen sent him?”

“Who else?”

“So you killed him, too, and took his clothes.”

“No, Jessie,” he chided her, almost gently. “I haven’t killed anyone. He won’t be showing up anytime soon, but he’s alive. He just doesn’t interest me.”

His expression changed from one of watchfulness to a grimace of anger and hate. “There’s only one person I want to see die,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Why me? Just tell me that. What did I ever do to you? I don’t even know you.”

He shook his head. “Ah, Jessie. You’re just the means to an end. Haven’t you figured that out yet? I wonder how long it will take your friend Jensen.”

J
ensen
had
figured out most of what was going on and was on his way, but it was taking longer than he liked.

“How soon can we get to Homer?” he asked Caswell, who was driving his truck east on Tudor Road toward the crime lab as fast as traffic would allow.

He had tried again to reach Jessie on Niqa, but there was still nothing but static on the line, and Caswell had seldom seen him so frustrated.

“As soon as I can get my plane and take us there,” he answered, glancing at his watch. “It’s ten-thirty. It’ll take me over an hour from here to be airborne. I can come back and pick you up, but if you come with me to Wasilla, we can fly directly without the Anchorage detour.”

“I’ll come with you, but I need to stop at the lab first to pick up the gear in my truck.”

“Gotta warn you, we may not be able to make it. I won’t be able to land in that unprotected cove in the kind of
weather they’ve been reporting. It’s blowing like a son of a bitch.”

“Can you get us to Homer?”

“I think so. There’s a sheltered lagoon near town that may be a little rough, but I can have a shot at it. Worst case, we go back to Soldotna and drive the rest of the way down.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“You know, he may not have been able to make it to Niqa, either. It can get pretty isolated in a real blow.”

Jensen’s jaw was stubbornly rigid, and what he spit out was half sarcasm and more tension.

“He’s been down there since Saturday. He just might have been able to find a way out there in that amount of time, don’t you think? So we’ll have to do the same, but a lot faster. There’ll be some kind of boat—Coast Guard, something—that can make it. I’m not leaving her out there alone—not if Wynne’s there, too, and there’s a hell of a chance he is. I think we should count on it. Now I wish we’d sent someone out there, whether she liked it or not. I’m too damned easy, Ben, and she’s too damn independent for her own good.”

Cas hesitated, but said nothing, and turned his attention to what he would need to ready his plane.

C
aswell’s estimate was right on the money. An hour and a half later, they were halfway to Homer, bouncing around the sky, knocking Jensen’s knees and elbows on interior parts of the plane. The weather was lousy on the Kenai Peninsula, but the storm had centered on Kachemak Bay. According to the Weather Service, it was about to blow itself out, was now only half as fierce as it had been for the preceding twenty-four hours. They should be able to land at the lagoon near Homer, though it might be a bit dicey, but a flight to the rocky beach of Niqa Island was still out of the question and would remain so for at least another day.

As they hit an air pocket and dropped sickeningly, Jensen hit his head on the window frame.

“Ouch, dammit. Couldn’t you fly something a more reasonable size?”

Cas grinned, but kept his concentration locked onto maintaining the progress of the small plane.

“Did I tell you I found out how Wynne figured out where Jessie was?”

“No. How?”

The grin had vanished and Cas looked a little embarrassed.

“As I filed a flight plan for this trip to Homer, I realized that I did the same thing for the flight last Thursday. Didn’t even think, just filed it like always. My fault.”

“What’s wrong with that? I thought you had to file one and it was private information.”

“Well…if you do the books for the right people, and if you have a friend who owes you a favor…

“I made a phone call, just to check. The clerk I talked to stuttered and stammered some before he admitted that he’d copied the plan for his ‘friend.’ Of course, he didn’t have any idea why Wynne wanted it. Sorry, Alex. I should have either not filed one, or filed one for a different destination.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We can’t catch everything.”

Jensen settled gloomily into his seat.

“Wynne did a good job of setting up Moule, didn’t he? Getting himself hired on to do the books for Peters so he’d be close to Moule was inspired. What a twisted plan. Pinning a completely different crime on him to get even would have been genius if he had pulled it off.”

“He might have, if he’d left well enough alone—hadn’t added that unnecessary tale about Moule using the computer for his wife to tell Peters. Even then, if we hadn’t just happened to be there when she told him, we might never have figured it out.”

“Close. It was close. Judy Wynne’s an interesting person, isn’t she? Telling us what she suspected was hard for her.
Having that happen to a kid…well. Moule’s an animal—better locked up. I can almost sympathize with Wynne, but he’ll have the wrong guy in his face if he’s hurt Jessie.”

“Wynne has no way of knowing we’ve arrested Moule. It may make a difference to him, if you’re right.”

The plane lurched to the left as a gust of wind shoved it across part of the sky. The lakes of the peninsula below were gunmetal gray under the heavy cloud cover.

Caswell was glad to have Alex talking about the case. It eased the stress a little. Cas was sure he was unaware that he had been almost imperceptibly rocking in his seat, as if he could encourage the plane to a greater speed with his body.

As if he had tuned in to his friend’s thought, Alex frowned and complained, for the fourth time, “Taking a long time, isn’t it?”

“We’re going against the wind. Slows us down some, but not too much. There’s Anchor Point. We’re almost there.”

Jensen nodded glumly, clenching his fists, frustrated with nothing positive to do. He did not want to think. He wanted to be there, do whatever needed to be done. Jessie was irreplaceable. He was trying not to consider how alarmed he was for her—how terrified of losing her. That was true, he admitted, he was frightened for himself—afraid Wynne would hurt her—kill her—to force him to exact punishment on Moule. The man had no way of knowing that they already knew Moule was not the responsible party; he would still be acting under the impression that his plan was working. So
was
this what Wynne wanted—planned? That Alex should suffer this kind of dread and blame it on Moule? He had to admit that the fear that filled his mind and made him conscious of his own ragged breathing was very effective in creating an overwhelming desire to lay hands on the source of the threat—and soon.

For another moment he considered what Jessie might be feeling—then drove it from his mind. She could be helpless, hurt…anything. It did no good to imagine what he couldn’t know—and not knowing was the worst of all. He made himself
concentrate on the streets of Homer that were beginning to pass under their wings.

A few minutes later they dropped out of the sky and onto the waters of the lagoon, skipping twice as the wind tried its best to toss them back into the air, and taxied to shore, where they tied the plane down securely.

“Remember that flight into Nome, when it was blowing so hard?” Alex asked, recalling a storm that had once chased them from landing strip to landing strip during the Iditarod until Caswell was finally able to set cautiously down at the only possible airstrip.

“Yeah. That was another rough landing.”

“Not your fault. Most people couldn’t have made it at all—me included. My lunch was in my throat and Becker lost his, as I recall. Now, damnation, where’s the car that’s supposed to meet us?”

I
t seemed to Jensen that they would never find a boat to take them across Kachemak Bay to Niqa Island. The Coast Guard cutter was unavailable—gone to Seldovia to rescue a fishing boat caught out in the tempest and threatening to sink. Everyone else had hunkered down in the harbor, boats of various sizes and configurations tossing like corks at their moorings, waiting out the storm. None of them wanted to chance the condition of the bay.

It took the Homer trooper who had picked them up at the lagoon the better part of an hour to find someone willing to risk taking a boat to Niqa.

“This is Ted Carver,” the Homer trooper told them. “He says he’ll take you across in his water taxi.”

“That thing?” Caswell questioned, dubiously examining the medium-sized craft the trooper had indicated, which was rocking hard against its fenders at the dock. “I think I’d rather take my plane. This thing doesn’t look like it’ll float very long.”

“It’s really quite seaworthy,” Carver told him, in his optimistic way. “I’ve been out in worse weather and it was just fine. You’ll get bounced around, but we’ll make it. You going out to see Jessie Arnold? You friends of hers?”

Goddammit, Alex thought in disgust. Is there anyone in the area who
doesn’t
know Jessie’s on Niqa? How did this guy find out? Worse, who’s he told? In his hurry he didn’t bother to ask.

Carter, in his yellow waterproof suit, began to work with the lines at the bow and stern of his craft. Turning to the two still standing on the dock, he pushed his glasses up his nose and grinned.

“Come aboard and we’ll get going. The bay isn’t as rough as it was last night and earlier this morning. You’re in some kind of rush, huh?”

Well, Caswell decided, stepping into the boat, he looks sturdy enough to keep it on course, at least.

Ignoring the stream of questions, Jensen also climbed in and took a seat next to Caswell in the partial shelter of the cabin that was open to the rear. Carter cast off and started his engine.

I
t was a long and extremely unpleasant ride. If the waters of the bay were not as tumultuous as they had been earlier, it was not apparent to either of Carter’s passengers. Twice Caswell was sure they were going to roll over, but the buoyant craft somehow managed to right itself to continue its battle with the waves. He resolved that he would rather be in his plane in a hurricane than bouncing around where he currently found himself. Trouble in the air, and a person had a chance to reach the ground safely. Turn-turtle on this violent turbulence of water and wind, and he knew he would quickly drown. It was hard to be not in control, and he couldn’t wait to get back on solid ground, as they were tossed and thrown from
one side of the boat to the other, grasping at anything handy to keep themselves upright and out of the waves that regularly hurled themselves aboard, soaking everything, including their pants and boots. The skipper had handed them waterproof slickers and life vests, which they prudently donned, but from the waist down they were drenched by the time the battered water taxi drew even with Niqa Island and Carter turned to yell back at them over his shoulder.

“Where do you want put ashore? Millie’s?”

Jensen nodded. It was where he had left Jessie—and where he expected to find or start looking for her.

“You’ll have to wade in,” Carter informed them. “I can’t take the boat any closer or it’ll get hammered on the rocks.”

They lowered themselves into the surf from the back of the boat and were instantly half frozen. Struggling over the hidden unevenness of the stones on the bottom, they all but crawled out on the shore, then turned to wave their thanks as Carter swung his boat around to make the run to Tutka Bay.

“I’m not going back across till it calms down some more,” he had said as they disembarked—a comment that left Caswell wondering just how close they had been to actual disaster.

“Remind me not to ride with that guy again,” he told Alex. “He’s totally nuts.”

Jensen wasn’t listening. After quickly emptying the water from his boots, he was covering ground toward the house, which stood dark and silent at the top of the beach—no smoke from the chimney, no light inside. Neither Jessie nor anyone else had come out to see who had arrived in a boat they couldn’t possibly have missed. Nothing moved but a jay that flew away from a bench on the deck and into the trees as the two men went up the ramp and around to the side door.

It refused to open at Jensen’s attempt. Something was holding it solidly closed from the other side.

“Jessie,” he shouted, pounding on the door with his fist. “Are you in there?”

He remembered the day he had come home to find her
barricaded in the Knik cabin, but here no one came to open the door.

“Dammit. Something’s really wrong here.”

Hurrying around the building, they found the back door hanging open, swinging gently in the wind. Inside, the house was cold and damp, with an abandoned feeling—as if no one had moved through it for some time.

“Where the hell is she?” Alex, growing more concerned at her absence, allowed his irritation to show.

“Maybe she’s gone across to the other cove,” Caswell suggested, “found a more secure place to wait out the storm.”

“She’d have left a note. Look—all the supplies she brought are still here. She’d have taken some of it, wouldn’t she?” he said, and stumbled over pieces of something that rattled on the floor near the kitchen. He picked them up with growing anxiety.

“This
was
the cell phone,” he observed in agitation, and gestured toward a shelf. “Millie’s radio’s been smashed, too.”

Caswell had been examining the front door, curious as to what had kept it from opening.

“Look at this, Alex. Jessie’s rigged a couple of pretty clever bolts on this door. Something must have scared her.”

“What’s scaring me is that I know he’s here. No question. He’s been in here. She wouldn’t have smashed up her only communications equipment. We’d better hike on over to the other cove—fast.”