Cold Fear (30 page)

FIFTY-TWO

The Blueberry Hill
Lodge was an
independently owned first-rate motel located a few miles south of Glacier
National Park’s west gate, not far from Columbia Falls. Its spacious lobby had
hardwood floors, oversized leather sofas, floor-to-ceiling windows framing
mountain views, log walls and a massive stone fireplace, where a dying blaze
crackled.

In the dimmed tranquility of the late hour, a solitary
guest sat near the soft light of a lamp, her hands working on the needlepoint
scene of a hummingbird hovering at a glacier lily. Embroidery was the only way
FBI Special Agent Tracy Bowman could keep her hands from trembling since coming
away from the task force briefing an hour ago.

Well, you wanted field work, girl
.

She could not stop thinking of Paige Baker, Emily, Doug.
Isaiah Hood.

If Hood is innocent? Dear God.

Bowman had held Emily in her arms just a few hours ago.
Was she comforting a murderer? Had she been manipulated by a calculating,
cold-blooded woman who killed her little sister?

And now her own daughter?

Bowman thought of Mark, ached to hold him. She ached for
Carl. Ached for him in every way. She should sleep.
Stop this. I’ve been an
FBI special agent for over seven years now.
Respectable on the GS pay
scale. She’d done well at Quantico and Hogan’s Alley. She’d had a duty to carry
out.
So much is riding on this case. For Mark. Just concentrate on the job.

“Tracy,” a large warm hand touched her shoulder. “Are
you okay?”

Frank Zander came from behind.

“Oh!” She smiled. “Just a little wound up and saddened,
thinking of Paige Baker.”

“I understand.”

Zander had obviously showered, changed into fresh
clothes, and had a clipboard and records with him. She detected some cologne.
Looked good.

“That a hobby?” He nodded to the needlepoint.

“Helps me relax. This case has been tough.”

“It’s one of the most difficult files I’ve ever had.”

“It’s so intense. So much. So fast. I guess I didn’t
expect it to take so much out of me.”

“They all take something from you.”

“You got kids?”

“No. I’m not married, I’m sep--Well, I’m getting a
divorce.”

“I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that I think of this
case and Paige Baker, wondering if she’s dead out there. Then I think of Mark.
He’s nine, and I think of Doug and Emily Baker. We look into their eyes. We
talk to them. What’s the truth here? I fully appreciate that it’s our job to
find out fast, but it just eats at you.”

“I know,” Zander glanced round to ensure they were
alone, keeping his voice low. “Perform our duty in silence. That is what you
do.”

“I’m sorry. I should get to bed and not lay this on
you.”

“Tracy, it’s okay to talk about it. I don’t mind.”

“Really?”

“It eats at me, too. Always has. If it’s any comfort, I
think you’re a good investigator.”

She nodded appreciatively, staring at her needlepoint.

“You’re incredibly intuitive and come at things from
different angles. Tell me your story. You’re in Missoula.”

“Yes. Mostly computer work, government fraud. Pretty low
key. I applied for extra course work at Quantico and rotation to a big-city
division. I’m up for a job in Los Angeles…if I don’t screw up here.”

“You won’t screw up, Tracy.”

“You sound so sure.”

“Trust me.”

She liked being with him. It had been so long since she
had talked, really talked to a man.

“So, Frank. What’s your story?”

He told her. Everything. About the two wives, his
loathing for the snake pit within the Beltway and desire for a new start. His
dedication to the job. His life-defining case in Georgia, which earned him his
reputation as a prick and shaped his legendary status as an investigator.

When he finished, she said, “It’s getting very late, we
should turn in.”

Zander walked Bowman to her room. She thanked him at her
door, was about to say good night when his eyes held hers.

“Tracy, I--”

She saw desperation in his face. In the short time they
talked, they both realized they were two painfully lonely people at the
crossroads of their lives. Each had something the other wanted, needed, yearned
for. Yet each was so afraid. A strange feeling came over her.

Would he be good with Mark?

What was happening? It was like meeting someone
wonderful at a funeral. There is time, Bowman thought.
If it is meant to be,
there is time.

“The morning is almost here, Frank,” she said. “We’ve
got to see this thing through to the end.”

He nodded and walked off, checking his watch. He was
going to his room to review the videotaped interviews of Doug and Emily Baker.
In a few hours he expected to be laying charges in the death of their
ten-year-old daughter, Paige.

FIFTY-THREE

Emily
was alone, listening to the
night wind whipping her tent at the command post. Depriving her of sleep, of
rational thought, fraying her soul.

She was slipping from sanity into a yawning abyss.

Paige’s face. Rachel’s eyes. Falling.

God. Please.

Darkness into darkness. The accusing wind.

Where’s Rachel? Where’s your sister?

Where’s Doug? He’s been gone so long. The FBI took
him. Zander took him.
Leaving her alone with
strangers. The agents, who never smiled, were watching her, and it was so cold.
Lord, help me. I am begging you. End this, please. If Paige is not alive, I
cannot bear to face it again.

My Sun Ray. Her eyes. Her hand brushing mine,
slipping from mine.

The wind would not stop.

Remembering her obsession after it happened. After
Rachel died, her need to comprehend, to understand,
to know
...what a
human being experiences in the seconds they are falling to their death.

She
had
to know.

Emily actually studied it.

Terminal velocity. Vestibular sensory input.
Horror
in her eyes.
The overload of messages through the neurological system. The
automatic impulse to defy reality by “grabbing at air” in order to save one’s
self.
Fear in her face. Hands reaching
. Suspended in space as the earth
rushes to hammer your life into heaven.
Knowing death was upon her.
The
“agonal phase,” the instant before death when all that is physical in a being
ends.
Did she suffer?
Emily had spent her life searching to know if her
sister could have been comforted by some spiritual phenomenon.

Rachel was only five years old.

Did she suffer?
She had
to know.

The wind would not tell her.

Where’s your daughter, Emily? Where’s your husband?

Doug had been alone with Paige. Had been the last to see
her.

Emily, I sent her to be with you. I thought she was
with you. She followed you with Kobee, I swear, not more than five minutes
after you left. I thought all this time she was with you.

His hurt hand. Her T-shirt was wrapped around it.
Chopping wood. They had argued so intensely. He was incensed with her for not
talking to him about her family history.

No.

Stop thinking like that. She was drunk with exhaustion.
Struggling.

She was slipping. Falling.

Paige, come back, please.

FIFTY-FOUR

Is Paige still alive?

She has to be.

Doug had to hope beyond hope. Not give in to doubt, the
traitor. Paige had to know he had not abandoned her.

Bitter winds shook the command center, clattering the
window of his room. He lay on a soft, dry cot, under the warmth of a woolen
blanket. A huge bowl of vegetable soup and butter biscuits sitting cold, untouched
a few feet from him, tempting him, mocking him. He broke down and wept.

If Paige was alive, she was fighting for her life.

He had no appetite.

Oh, Paige, can you ever forgive me?

If you’re dead…

Doug stared as his wounded hand.

She had only wanted to talk and I chased her away
with an ax in my hand. “Get the hell away from me and go find your damned
mother!”

Emily.

Emily had a sister. Her sister was dead. Emily was
present with Isaiah Hood when her sister was killed. Do I actually believe my
own wife could have harmed my daughter?

The night they arrived in Montana.

He recalled again watching Emily slip out of bed at the
Holiday Inn watching the TV item about Hood’s execution. He remembered
glimpsing her as she rummaged through her purse, retrieving something. She sat
by the window, staring at the retrieved item, then into the night, weeping
softly.

In the morning when Emily showered, he scoured her bag
and found it. Old snapshots. She had sat up studying old pictures. Girls. A
group of girls playing in the mountains. Smiling, laughing. Childhood friends,
he thought.

One of the girls looked familiar.

It became clear to him now.

The face in the newspaper. The little girl Isaiah Hood
had murdered. Emily’s sister.

Rachel.

Oh Christ. It’s true. The FBI is not lying
. He had not wanted to think about it. It was starting to fit
together. This was the ghost of her past.

What do the police know that he didn’t?

His skin prickled.

They were digging hard into their lives. Revealing
nothing.

“Do you know Cammi Walton?”

Yes. Most teachers knew Cammi was having terrible
problems with her parents’ divorce.

“Did you strike her?”

Had she made a wild accusation about him? It’s possible.
Her life was in turmoil. She’d had outbursts. He had done nothing wrong.

His lawyer telling him, “The fact is they are trying to
build a case against you. They want to charge you.”

Doug had to find out the truth about his family.

About his wife.

They know. The FBI knows something.

The wind swirled.

“Will you love me always no matter what, Doug?”

Paige.

Not a trace of her. Not a trace.

Doug searched the darkness for answers.