Fogbound: A Lin Hanna Mystery (40 page)

He got up and
went into the bathroom where he splashed some cold water on his face and
brushed his teeth.
 
He’d showered
just hours before, but he needed to shave.
 
That accomplished he grabbed his keys and his jacket and headed out to
get something to eat.
 
The fact that
he was quite hungry surprised him, considering his level of anxiety.

Neal drove down
Milton Rd. toward town, deciding to head up north of the medical center to
Brandy’s.
 
He hadn’t been to that
popular local restaurant in months—actually more like a year.
 
He recalled that the last time he was
there he was with Lin, just before she’d returned to North Carolina.
 
Thinking about all that had happened
since then, he went in and took a seat at a small table near the back.
 
He thought back to the anger he’d felt
last night, how upset he’d been, questioning what his future with Lin would be
like.
 
Now, in the light of the
morning, he realized that his truest emotion had actually been fear—fear
that he might lose this woman whom he loved so dearly.

The waitress
brought him a steaming mug of fresh hot coffee and took his order.
 
Now his fear had resolved into
determination.
 
He was going to
finish his business here and get back to North Carolina as soon as possible.
 

By the time
he’d finished his breakfast, it was almost time for offices to be opened.
 
He asked for more coffee and decided to
make some calls.
 
The first was to
his realtor. Closing of the sale wasn’t the problem.
 
That could even be done from a distance
if necessary; what he was seeking was some help in ensuring that the folks who
were supposed to pick up furniture they’d purchased and the movers who were
coming to pick up his remaining things could get into his house if he left town
early.

He was in luck,
his agent was already in and she listened patiently as he explained his need to
finish things up as quickly as possible.
 

“The closing
papers are already prepared, that’s not a problem anyway,” she offered. “Let me
make a few calls and see what I can do to help with the other stuff.
 
I have a couple of ideas.
 
I’ll get right back to you.”

That was a
start, Neal thought.
 
Next, he
called the people who were coming to pick up things and asked them to give him
a specific time that they planned to come. “I have an emergency out of town,”
he explained, “and I need to make arrangements to have someone meet you at the
house.”
 
By the time his realtor
called back, he had a list of three times when he’d need someone to open the
house.

“We have a
young, summer intern helping us here,” his agent explained, “and she said that
she’d be glad to meet your purchasers if she has a list of times—the
movers too, if need be.”

“That’s
terrific.
 
I ‘ve talked to the folks
buying the furniture, and I’ll call the mover next. I’ll find out the exact
time he’s coming.”
 
Neal felt much
more light-hearted by the time he left the restaurant.
 
In spite of his concerns about Lin and
her friend, he was making excellent progress on this front.
 

He decided to
stop by the mover’s office in person and then go to campus to try to see Chris,
his co-worker and friend.
 
He needed
a safe place to leave his car until he returned from North Carolina.
 
Then he’d have only one more thing to
do—change his flight plans.
 
He just hoped he could do so given the fact that Wednesday was a
holiday.

Things were
going so smoothly, Neal began to wonder why he’d planned to take this entire
week to complete everything in the first place.
 
Then he realized that folks had a
tendency to step up when someone had an emergency—all of the times he’d
set previously had been at the convenience of other’s schedules, now they were
trying to help him.

After making
arrangements to leave his car with Chris, Neal headed back to his house to make
a final check.
 
He took a farewell
walk through the now almost empty rooms and sat down on the living room carpet to
dial US Airways.
 
It took a bit of
doing, and he was going to have to put up with a middle seat near the rear of
the plane, but he was able to change his flight to leave the next morning.
 
Next he booked a shuttle ride to Sky
Harbor and arranged to rent a car when he arrived in Charlotte the following
night.
 
Then he returned to his
hotel.
 
Chris would pick his car up
later and he’d take a taxi to meet the airport shuttle.

Suddenly, the
bustle of the busy day he’d had was over. All he had to do now was wait until
his morning departure.
 
He realized
that he’d heard nothing all day from Mark Scott regarding the search, so he
tried to call.
 
Mark didn’t answer
his cell phone so Neal left an urgent message for him to please call when he
could.

He found himself
sitting alone in a hotel room worrying about Lin.
 
Neal desperately wanted to feel normal,
but nothing was normal right now. Until he found Lin and knew that she was OK,
nothing could be normal.
 
Neal
realized that he was about to lose it.
 
He had to get out of that room.
 
He grabbed his jacket and left to walk to the restaurant next door
fighting the tears that were forming in his eyes.

***

Neal had just
cleared airport security and arrived at his gate the following morning when
Mark Scott finally returned his call.
 
As expected, neither Lin nor Sue had been located, and both were now
officially considered missing.
 
Mark
did have some news though.
 
He’d
located Ted Whitley at the local hospital where he was recovering from a
gunshot wound to his upper chest and shoulders.
 
Mark had been to the hospital, and Ted
had been able to talk to him.

“Did he know
anything about where Lin might be?” Neal asked.

“Not really,”
Mark replied. “He was able to tell me that the two of them had been together
looking for Sue at Luke Taylor’s home and that he’d been hit by a shotgun blast
through the barn door.
 
He thinks he
passed out sometime during the trip to the hospital, but he knows that Lin
drove him there and that she wasn’t hurt—nothing except the sprained
ankle she’d sustained earlier that is.
 
I was able to learn that Lin waited here at the hospital until she knew
Ted was OK.
 
Apparently, she went
home after that.”

“Yes,” Neal
said. “She was at home and it was late when she called me.
 
She told me that they were looking for
Sue but that they hadn’t found her.
 
The intruder or abductor, whatever you want to say, arrived before she
could tell me about the shooting.”

“Well, at least
that fills in the gaps a little, but I’m afraid we’re no closer to finding
her.
 
Frankly, I’m not sure where to
start looking—there are no clues.”

Neal tried to
think, what could he say that might help. “You know, Mark.
 
I believe Lin thought all of the
problems they’d experienced this summer might be related to these past unsolved
murders and possibly to the ginseng poaching that Bryan Lee might’ve been
investigating.”

“That’s really
the only avenue I can think of,” Mark replied. “Lin and Sue gave me some photos
that clearly indicated poaching going on near the site of one of those murders.
 
Maybe that’s where we should start
looking.
 
Maybe Bryan had some more
information in his files.
 
I’ve been
so busy just searching the woods and trails around here that I haven’t really
looked at them with that in mind.
 
Maybe I need to do a couple of hours of searching through papers before
I hit the road again.”

Neal agreed
that such a search might suggest new possibilities.
 
He reminded Mark that he expected to be
in Boone by sometime late that night. “I plan to stay at the house Lin and Sue
are renting.
 
Maybe you could call
me tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll do that,”
Mark said.
 
“Hopefully, I’ll at
least have some new ideas by then.”

After ending
the call, Neal sat quietly trying to collect his thoughts.
 
At least he knew that Lin had no new
injuries at the time she took Ted to the hospital.
 
He could only hope that was still the
case.

Suddenly, Neal
realized that, with everything that had been going on, he had forgotten to call
Lin’s children.
 
They had no idea
what was going on.
 
He knew that
they were traveling together with their families camping somewhere in the west,
but he had no idea where they were at that point.
 
He searched his cell phone contacts for
Ben, Jr.’s number.
 
Hopefully,
wherever they were, they would have cell service.
 

***

It was after
midnight when Neal drove up to the house in Boone.
 
The fog that Lin had mentioned earlier
had abated; the night was clear.
 
Still, the house exhibited a kind of eerie quality—it was totally
dark inside and out and clearly no one was at home.
 
Of course, Neal had no garage door
opener and he couldn’t recall the code so he parked in the driveway.
 
Tomorrow he’d have to find someone to
pick him up when he returned the rental car to the Enterprise location in town.

He recalled
that Lin and Sue had originally hidden an extra key to the front door under a
rhododendron beside the front steps, but when he checked he found nothing.
 
I guess they decided to quit doing that
after having so much trouble he thought, wondering how he could gain access to
the home.

He remembered
that the intruder had approached from the rear of the house, according to what
Lin had told him by phone; he decided to try the back porch.
 
As soon as he mounted the steps he could
see that the glass in the back door had been broken.
 
No one had bothered to board it up.
 
Neal thought that probably meant that
the local authorities had not come to the house seeking evidence for their
search.
 
At this point he was glad,
as it meant he could probably gain access.
 
Sure enough he found the door was unlocked.
 
The intruder had obviously reached in
through the broken glass and unlocked the door from the inside.
 
Neal carefully opened the door, trying
not to step on the shattered glass inside.
 
He went back to the front of the house and out to the car to bring his
luggage inside.

Placing his
bags beside the stairs, Neal decided to conduct a search of the empty
house.
 
He wanted to make sure no
one was inside.
 
That took only a
few minutes, but it made him feel better to know that he was indeed alone in
this place.
 
He didn’t feel
comfortable to sleep with the back door open though, so he went into the garage
where he remembered that there were some tools and some scraps of building
materials left over from some of the owner’s woodworking projects.

He found enough
pieces to board up the broken window and secure the back door temporarily.
 
I’ll get someone out to do a more
permanent fix later, he thought as he swept up all the broken glass and also
cleaned up the remains of Lin’s meal she’d never gotten to eat. He located a
spare set of house keys for his use along with Lin’s car keys and decided to
take his stuff upstairs.
 
Even
though he was alone in the house, he bypassed the guest room and put his stuff
in Lin’s bedroom.
 
Somehow doing
that made him feel closer to her.
 
He was anxious to begin helping with the search efforts, but he realized
he was too tired, and it was too late to accomplish anything at this
point.
 
A hot shower helped him to
unwind.
 
As he crawled into bed and
arranged the pillows comfortably, he thought—Lin’s been gone now for
twenty-four hours and Sue for longer.
 
He said a silent prayer for their safety as he turned out the light.

Lin felt as if
she were climbing up out of a deep well of dreamless sleep, she felt as if she
were detached from her body—her spirit hovering above seeking to
escape.
 
Suddenly, she experienced a
falling sensation as if in a dream; she was tumbling head over heels in
space—then she hit bottom with a crash.
 
She awoke with a start and realized that
she was hurting all over.
 
Where was
she?
 
What had happened to her?

The pain was so
severe that she couldn’t really move.
 
Looking straight up from where she lay, she saw nothing but tall, dark
walls.
 
Finally her head cleared a
bit and she realized that she could see light streaming through green branches
overhead.
 
She blinked her eyes
several times trying to focus her vision.
 
She was evidently at the bottom of some sort of deep pit—the pit
was in a forest somewhere.
 
She
began to do a mental and physical inventory of her body, trying to move each
part in descending order from her head.

She was able to
move her head and shoulders a little, then her arms and hands.
 
She felt pain but everything
worked.
 
She lifted her legs one at
a time, trying to flex her feet.
 
That’s when she remembered that she had a sprained ankle.
 
Her left foot was still in a boot, and
when she tried to move the ankle she experienced sharp pain.
 
Finally, she tried to sit up, using her
elbows as leverage.
 
It hurt to do
so, but she gradually achieved a sitting position—it was too much for her
head though—she began to experience dizziness and nausea.
 
Realizing she was going to be sick she
turned her head to one side and managed to avoid throwing up on her own clothes.
 
She heaved several times; finally the
dizziness abated a little.
 
Her
mouth tasted awful though—she wished she had some water.

“I see you’re
finally awake,” a tremulous voice broke through the shadows. “Do you feel
better now that you’ve thrown up?”

“Sue, is that
you?” Lin found her voice.
 
She
looked around the place where she was, finally her eyes rested on a crumpled
heap over in one corner that was the source of the voice.

“None other,”
Sue replied weakly, “Are you hurt?”

Again, Lin
turned to her mental inventory, “My ankle hurts like hell, and I’m sore all
over, but basically I think I’m fine.
 
I don’t feel sick or dizzy any more.
 
I probably got a mild concussion from
being hit on the head.”
 
She felt
gingerly at the lump that had formed above her right ear, “otherwise, I’m
probably just badly bruised—how about you?”

“Not so good,”
Sue’s voice sounded weaker, “I think I have a broken leg and I was out for a
long time, I think.
 
I got hit on
the head too.
 
I don’t remember
anything much after that.
 
I woke up
here—I’m not sure how long ago.
 
I guess my leg broke when they threw me into this place.”

“When was I
thrown in?
 
How long have I been
out?” Lin asked, hoping to determine a time line.

“I’m not sure,
maybe only a few hours—maybe longer—a whole day—I’m fuzzy on
time.
 
I keep going to sleep or
passing out.
 
I can’t remember,” Sue
answered.

“Then it could
be Tuesday or maybe Wednesday. I don’t know how long I was out of it either.
 
You were probably brought here Monday
afternoon after whoever it was grabbed you from the park.
 
Did you see them?”

“Not really,”
Sue said. “They grabbed me and hit me on the head too; I have no memory until I
woke up in this place. It was dark, but I don’t know how long I’d been out. It
was sometime before you and the other person were thrown in here.
 
Whoever, came with you hasn’t moved or
spoken, I think they may be dead.”

Luke, Lin
thought.
 
She remembered hearing the
blast of a shotgun shortly before her captors found her in the woods. “That
would be Luke Taylor,” Lin told Sue, “Where is he?”

“I think he
landed on this side of the hole, but down from where we are.
 
If he’s moved since, I’m not aware of
it.”
 
Sue replied, “I tried to crawl
to reach you, but I didn’t get very far with this leg—it hurt too
much.
 
Reaching him was out of the
question.”

Lin shifted a
bit, sitting up straighter and rubbing her hands over her legs to determine if
her initial assessment of no broken bones was accurate.
 
Her joints and muscles ached, but that
seemed to be the only problem.
 
Her
ankle was badly swollen inside the boot; she thought she’d be more comfortable without
it and managed to remove it.
 
Finally, she rolled over into a crawling position and headed toward the place
Sue had indicated Luke was.
 
The
light was dim but she did see another heap piled against the wall.
 
When she reached that spot she saw that
this was indeed Luke.
 
He was very
still and pale and his clothing was plastered to his body with blood.
 
It was almost impossible to determine
where the bleeding had come from.
 
Lin didn’t want to disturb his clothing because she thought it might be
helping to stem the flow.
 
She
crawled up beside him and put her cheek against his lips, she thought she felt
a faint movement of air.
 
She moved
her face down toward his chest, laying her ear against his bloody shirt.
 
Again, she thought she heard a faint heartbeat.
 
Finally she tried to check his wrist for
a pulse.
 
At first she felt nothing,
but then she thought she found a thready delicate beat.

“I think he’s
still alive, but I’m not sure how much longer he can last.
 
We’ve got to get him and ourselves out of
here,” Lin said, moving again toward Sue.

“I don’t see
how,” Sue commented as Lin curled herself against the wall in a seated position
beside her. “I nearly passed out when I dragged myself over here to this wall
and I couldn’t possible move any further.
 
This is some kind of old pit.
 
I think we were all thrown in here, and I don’t think there’s a way
out.”

“But your
abductors came back here or never left after they brought you here,” Lin
reasoned. “That’s when they caught Luke and me. Maybe there is something
here—something that might help us.”
 
Lin was determined not to die in this hole, but right at the moment she
felt too tired and sore to do much exploring.

She rested for
a bit and then decided to examine Sue’s injuries. “Is it OK if I check you out,
Sue?
 
I know you’re in pain, but I’d
like to see exactly what’s wrong, or at least what I can determine is wrong.”

Sue nodded her
assent and Lin began to carefully probe her friend’s body.
 
Her upper body and arms seemed to be
more or less OK—just bruised and sore like Lin’s, but, when she reached her
right thigh, she knew immediately that she had a broken femur—maybe in
more than one place.
 
She could feel
the jagged bone edges under the fabric of her pants.
 
As soon as she’d touched the leg, Sue
had cried out in pain.
 
There was
blood on the leg of Sue’s khakis—a dark stain.
 
This might be a compound fracture, Lin
thought.
 
She elected not to try to
remove Sue’s pants for further examination—no point.
 
That would just cause her further pain
and Lin had no way to do anything in the way of first aid.
 
She continued her examination.

“I think that
leg is your only major problem—other than maybe a concussion—but I
think it’s probably a compound fracture.”

Sue could only
nod.
 
She was too exhausted.

Lin continued
to crawl along the side of the pit—finally coming to Luke again and
checking to see if he was still breathing—he was but just
barely—and then positioning herself as comfortably as possible next to
Sue, who appeared to be asleep at this point.
 
The limited efforts she’d made left her
feeling tired and weak also.
 
She’d
picked up her boot during the search and now she tried to use it as a prop for
her foot so as to elevate it at least a little bit.

This was not
the first time Lin had ever found herself in similar circumstances.
 
She was not one to simply give up and
accept her fate.
 
Sue had been
right, though.
 
She’d found nothing
at all that might help them to escape, but she thought perhaps their captors
would eventually return to this spot—at least she hoped they would.
 
Maybe they used this pit for some
purpose, she couldn’t be sure, but if they came back she wanted to try to use
it to some advantage.
 
She just had
to think of a way.

The sound of
Sue’s breathing beside her lulled Lin into quiet relaxation.
 
Perhaps she should take a nap also.
 
She knew she’d wake up if anyone
returned; taking care to keep her foot balanced on the boot, she slid down
along the damp wall of the hole and curled herself up on one side to try to
rest.

***

When Neal awoke,
the sun was shining brightly through the bedroom window.
 
A quick check of the clock showed that
it was already almost eight-thirty; he’d slept almost seven full hours.
 
He jumped up and had started to get
dressed when he realized that the only clothes he had that were even somewhat
clean were the ones he’d worn to travel in yesterday.
 
He decided that his first visit needed
to be to the basement laundry room.
 
He grabbed his suitcase and headed downstairs.

When he’d
loaded the washer, he went back up to the kitchen to hunt for breakfast.
 
Soon he had a pot of coffee started and
bacon sizzling in a pan on the stove.
 
He was anxious to try to learn more about
the search for the missing women.
 
Neal had managed to persuade Ben, Jr. not to end the family’s trip just
yet.
 
He assured him that everything
possible was being done to locate his mother and promised he would call him
with daily reports.

 
He decided to try to reach Mark
Scott.
 
No luck, Mark wasn’t answering
his cell so he left a message.
 
His
bacon was done, so he put in on a paper towel to drain while he scrambled a
couple of eggs and dropped bread into the toaster.
 
Soon he had a great breakfast ready to
eat.
 
By the time he’d finished, the
clothes were ready for the dryer; he took care of that and returned to the
kitchen.

Pouring another
cup of coffee, he decided to call the hospital.
 
It had occurred to him that Ted Whitley
might be able to share some information that would help with the search.
 
Mark had already talked to him, but
there was always the possibility that there was more to learn.
 
He dialed the hospital reception desk
and inquired.
 
Ted was still a
patient and had been moved to a regular room.
 
Neal determined that he was able to have
visitors and then decided that was where he would head as soon as he had some
decent dry clothes to wear.
 
He
didn’t try to call, realizing that sometimes hospital patients had trouble
reaching their phones anyway.

The dryer was
buzzing in the basement, so he went down and gathered his clean clothes into a
laundry basket and headed upstairs.
 
Fortunately, most of his clothing was of the no-iron variety, but he did
take the time to fold and hang up things before putting on clean jeans and a
plaid sport shirt.
 
He’d just
finished dressing when Mark Scott returned his call.
 

Mark didn’t
have any direct news of the missing women, but he had taken the time to review
Bryan Lee’s files the previous day.
 
“I know now that Bryan was convinced there was a significant poaching
ring illegally harvesting ginseng on public lands.
 
He’d even marked several areas where he
believed the operation was well established.
 
Apparently he was in the process of
searching some of these areas and trying to document the operation when he was
shot.
 
I’m thinking now that he was
lured to that parking lot deliberately by the poachers.
 
Any one would know that tourists who saw
a man with a gun might call authorities, and I’m sure it wouldn’t have been
hard to discover when Bryan was on duty.
 
Anyway, that’s not proof, but it does strengthen the case that the
poaching and the murders are connected—at least some of them.”

“Do Bryan’s
files reveal any names or other information about the operation?” Neal asked.

“Unfortunately
no,” Mark said. “The best information was the map where he marked several
places he was planning to search.
 
Actually, most of his files are pretty sketchy otherwise.
 
Some notes and a couple of typed
reports.
 
I think he must’ve been
trying to collect evidence and information sufficient to convince his superiors
of the problem.
 
He wanted to make
sure he had a good case before he lowered the boom.
 
If he had any information identifying
the possible culprits it’s not in these files.”