The Shadowkiller (34 page)

A
t the entrance to his driveway, Ty stopped the Suburban at the large cyclone fence he had ordered erected to block all traffic. It was manned by two private security guards.

“Checkpoint Charlie,” Ty said to Ben.

Despite—or because of—the fence and guards, there were even more newshounds lining the road than the day before. Their flashes were popping, but Ty didn't give them a chance to take a good picture as he wheeled past his men, with Mac following in his car.

Mac was impressed by Ty's security measures. The fence and guards had not been there that morning. As they walked into the house, Mac remarked,“Man, you act quickly.”

“All it takes is pesos,” said Ty.

After dinner they looked over the map in Ty's office and plotted in red pen the path they had explored that day. Ty logged onto his computer to check his Web site and waded through a bunch of e-mails. They were useless, save for one from a local, ConspirAC, who had zealously been following all the events. ConspirAC mentioned the abrupt disappearance of the noted artist Carlin Arial. ConspirAC, also an ardent monitor of his multiple police scanners, passed on some helpful information, like Arial's address, and his theory that the sheriff's department might be tailing Ty.

“Check this out,” Ty said.

The others gathered around the computer as Ty punched Arial's address into a map site.

“That's nearby,” Mac said.

“Damn near my neighborhood.”

“Ben, you get any more bad dreams last night?” Mac asked him.

Ty began searching the Web for news stories on the artist.

The old Indian shook his head. “Nope. Slept in the lobby, though. Think the staff's beginnin' to wonder.”

Mac patted Ben's back.
No wonder he looks so tired.

Ty got some hits and clicked on one. “Look at this. The dogs. See? His wife said the dogs didn't bark. Mac, didn't that old couple have dogs too?”

“Yeah, but the closest neighbors were too far away to hear any barking.”

“They didn't bark,” stated Ben. “If it was Oh-Mah, the dogs didn't bark.”

“I read that,” said Mac. “Supposedly dogs don't bark, the forest falls silent. Is that true?”

“It's true,” said Ben. “That's why Oh-Mah is Boss of the Woods. All animals know it. You ever see a squirrel and a bird eatin' together? Birds and squirrels, they're sorta on the same level, they can break bread, no problem. But send a dog in and they both run. The instinct is to fear what can kill you. With Oh-Mah, the animals get quiet 'cause instinct tells 'em so. If you're a forest animal, Oh-Mah may not eat you that day…but he could.”

Ty began,“Then why don't people—”

Ben stood suddenly, raising his hand and cutting him off.

Ben quickly walked out the French doors into the backyard. Mac and Ty fell in behind. Ben walked to the pool's edge and stopped. His head moved back and forth as if scanning with his eyes, but it was his mind that was searching. The others stepped behind him.

“Ben, what—,” started Mac. Ben shushed him.

The three just stood there—two of them, eyes wide open, the other, eyes shut—saying nothing for several minutes. Ty and Mac felt the cold creeping through their light clothing. Ben stood motionless, unaffected. Another few minutes passed.

“He's here,” Ben whispered softly,“watchin' us.”

Ty and Mac looked at each other. The image brought a chill to both.

“Where?” whispered Mac after a few moments.

Ben shook his head and turned, speaking in his normal voice, “He's gone.”

As the old Indian walked back to the warmth of the house, Mac and Ty exchanged another look, this time wondering whether their old friend was drawing on acting skills or if he had really sensed the thing. Maybe Ben's imagination had him truly believing in what he just experienced. Nevertheless, they shrugged it off as an exciting, if not completely rewarding moment and went back inside.

The old one had been searching for him, and except for the time at the creek and this brief time, he had not allowed the old one's mind voice to find his. But he was too close to stop it.

He watched the three go back into the big wood cave, the biggest he had seen. The idea of rushing in on them flashed through his mind, but the size of the wood cave and the many small two-legs he sensed, both on the other side of the big wood cave and inside it, stopped him. He needed time to look it over, time to see inside the big wood cave. And most important, he needed to come when they did not know he was there. The cave seemed to have many hiding places and ways out. If he made his move now, they might escape.

He needed to plan. So he just watched them. This time.

In Ty's office, the three men discussed the incident. A knock at the door caused them to jump. Ronnie leaned in. Though harried, she still smiled at Ben and Mac, then turned to Ty. “Hi.”

Ty looked impatiently at his wife. “Hi. What's up?”

Ronnie motioned toward the hallway. “Can we talk?”

Ty got up and followed her. After they left the room, Mac shook his head. “The worst three words a woman can say to a man. ‘Can we talk?'”

Ben smiled. “You have women problems?”

Mac thought about his answer for a moment. “No, not really.”

“I heard you talkin' on that reporter's story. She had you sayin' there was a serial killer and all. You said she doctored up a tape she made?”

“Yeah, she took the tape, which she made secretly, by the way, and then edited it to make me say whatever she wanted. I told her the whole truth and she screwed me.”

Ben stared at Mac for a moment, trying to decide if the detective was gullible or had just been blindsided. “Man, she really screwed you.”

“Yeah.” Mac shrugged. “Literally too.”

Ben raised his eyebrows and made a face of mock seriousness. “I see.”

“So I kinda dropped my guard.”

Ben nodded. “I would say so.”

They caught each other's eyes briefly, then laughed.

“She's a looker,” remarked Ben.

“Yes, she sure is.”

They laughed again.

R
onnie wanted privacy, so they went upstairs to their bedroom. Ty knew whatever she had to say was big, but he decided not to prepare an argument in advance. He'd just play it by ear. Ronnie closed the door to the bedroom, which Ty took as a bad sign. She folded her arms, which he interpreted as a second bad sign.

“I love you,” she started. “You know that.”

Yet another bad sign. Ty leaned on one of the dressers.

“I love you too,” he answered with some wariness.

The normally soft, pretty features of her face were strained into flat planes and lines that hadn't been there a month ago when this all started.

“We need to make a change. We went through this before for nearly a year and I can't do it again. If you won't get help, I have to take a step.”

Ty braced for impact.

“I want you to move out,” she said, then added, “for a while at least.”

Ty didn't believe the actual words, yet the message was what he had been expecting for some time. He just felt numb. He knew he should fall at her feet and beg her to stay.

“When?” he asked coolly.

Ronnie almost broke down over his quiet, unruffled response.
When? When? That's all you can say? Like you're asking what time lunch is?
She reminded herself he was ill. He was not the man she married, he was a pod person. The real Ty had been stolen in the night like in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

“Now. Tonight,” she said, reining in her desire to cry.
Two can play this game.

“It's Christmas Eve tomorrow. The kids…,” he said weakly.

“Don't bring them into this,” she cautioned, standing her ground. “You give this up, right now, tell your friends it's over, and we're okay.”

Ronnie saw the hurt on Ty's face. She knew how precious being around his family at Christmas was to him. But Tyler James Greenwood was a stubborn son of a bitch, and when he had a goal, he pursued it, no matter what the consequences. He had been that way all his life.

Ty turned to his closet. “I'll get a few things.”

Ronnie put her hand to her mouth as the tears welled. She'd made her big ultimatum and he'd called her bluff. But she knew he would. And for the first time since this all began three years ago, she realized what it really meant to him.

Ty reappeared in the office about fifteen minutes later, carrying an overnight bag. Ben and Mac guessed the significance. Ty swept the room with a hand gesture.

“Get the maps, the files…I'll be right back.”

Mac and Ben started gathering their command post.

Ty walked down the hall to the TV room. The kids didn't need to know anything other than he was “leaving for a little while.” Meredith was too young to remember the past, but Chris would certainly recall his father's absence and realize it might be happening again. Ty held it together with all his strength, not allowing his emotions a millimeter of leeway, for if he did, he'd fall to pieces.

The clock was ticking. Her throwing him out two days before Christmas told him he had little time before the rules would change for good. If he stopped this madness, it all ended and they would be back together. But he couldn't just yet. Ty muted the TV and the kids looked up.

With Ben in his rental car and Mac in his department-issued Malibu, Ty took up the rear in his Suburban. They moved down the driveway and the guards let them through the gate. Ty stopped outside, rolled down his window, and summoned one of the many media hounds.

“We're moving down to Bellevue, the Red Lion,” he said. “Tell everyone the show's over and to leave my family alone.”

The reporter ignored Ty's request to alert the others, but as soon as he jumped in his car to follow, the rest quickly followed suit, pulling the zoo away from the house and attaching it to Ty, Mac, and Ben's caravan.

T
he midmorning din of the newsroom was so distracting Kris gathered the files she was studying and went outside to the deck on the third floor. Reserved for summertime employee and client get-togethers, it was now damp from the morning rain, the glass tables collecting puddles. Kris lit a cigarette, shook the water off a plastic deck chair, and sat down, her overcoat protecting her from residual wetness. The top of the Space Needle, two blocks away and six hundred feet above her, was barely visible through a misty shroud.

She smiled at the vision of the Seattle police spiriting J. D. Watts away the day before. The officers were particularly motivated by Kris's spectacular rendition of what had transpired. She had no problem lying about the encounter if it meant Watts would pay dearly for trying to pull a very bad joke on her. She was angry that Mac Schneider would have gone to such lengths to perpetrate such an idiotic prank to get back at her. And for his trouble, Mac's friend the Tattoo Man would now do a serious stretch in prison. No big surprise, turned out the guy was on parole, so he'd be out of society for quite some time.

She opened the file on the mountain biker. She had been pleased with the mileage she got out of the interviews with Skip's girlfriend, Nikki, what with their impending engagement and Skip's ascendancy in the mountain biking world. But then, in an embarrassment of riches, fortune presented Kris with yet another victim with a marketable story, a well-known Northwest artist who had gone missing in the last twenty-four hours.

Kris juggled the files on the artist and the biker. While the artist was perfect for a story, his world was very well insulated and gaining access to his wife was proving difficult. Carlin Arial must also have had friends in high places, because the police weren't releasing his address and she couldn't find it through any of her sources. On the other hand, the mountain biker had been on the verge of entering the biggest event of his career on this very day, Christmas Eve, and Kris seized on that as a hook for tonight's story.

She visualized the potential theater of doing her piece live from the place he'd disappeared, a gloomy, dank forest. It would make a sorrowful—and brilliant—contrast to what would have been the glory of a world-class, nationally televised competition,“the race of Skip Caldwell's life…one he was destined to never finish.”
It's inspired.

The overnights had given her a sizable lead over all the other stations in her quarter-hour time slot. And as each report got more sensational, those numbers were actually building. Kris knew this was the stuff that got you to Fox or CNN, or better yet, one of the broadcast networks.

Kris pulled out another file marked “Tyler Greenwood.” She looked through it and brainstormed an angle. There was a five-year-old photo of Greenwood at a software convention. She thought he was a very handsome guy—
not your typical software geek.
She had thought Mac had thrown in his name to confuse her, but apparently he really was a primary suspect in the case. On top of that, Greenwood said Bigfoot chased him in Idaho. But he wasn't your regular nut; this guy had made millions in software. Mac had said he didn't think Greenwood did it and she now believed him.

She toyed with the idea of using some of the unused part of Mac's tape to bolster an interview with Greenwood, but there were two potential problems: Greenwood probably wouldn't allow an interview and Bigfoot could absolutely kill her credibility. Then a thought crept in that the interview could be done as a companion piece, almost as comic relief to her main series. But she had to be careful, particularly about the Bigfoot element. She had to meet with Greenwood. But how? Then she reminded herself.
When Kris Walker wants something, she gets it.