Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2 (22 page)

Stella searched the center console first. She found a car charger for a cell phone, two lighters, packs of mints and chewing gum, several pens, wadded up pieces of paper, self-help cassette tapes, a few CDs.

“Maybe the glove box,” Cole suggested as he drove. The sky was still clear, but it was darkening quickly, the sun was already down behind the mountains. There were hardly any other vehicles on the road which was good, but it also made them more of a target to a passing police car.

Stella opened the glove box and found three maps among the other clutter inside the glove box which was stuffed to capacity. One was a map of New Mexico, and two were maps of Colorado. She opened up one of the Colorado maps and refolded it until she had a square of the section they were in right now.

“We need to find the most remote roads down to New Mexico,” he told her. “The backroads.”

She nodded, following a series of roads with her finger. She found Cody’s Pass and followed 217 down the map. “In a few miles, take a right,” she told him. “It’s called Cutler Road.”

Cole nodded.

She put the map on the center console and managed to get the glove box closed. She glanced in the back seat and David looked like he was sleeping now.

“We need to find a place to lie low for a few hours,” Cole told her. “Rest for a bit. I don’t want to drive too much farther until later.”

She nodded.

Cody’s Pass, Colorado—Nora’s house

S
heriff Hadley followed George Joekel in his squad car down Route 217 to Nora Conrad’s house as George plowed the road in front of them. The sheriff had called George thirty minutes ago and told him to turn around and come back; he’d changed his mind and now he wanted him to plow the road down to Cody’s Pass now that Ronnie had already taken off on the police snowmobile to follow the tracks. The sheriff still hadn’t heard anything from Ronnie yet.

Special Agent Palmer followed Sheriff Hadley’s cruiser. Palmer was on the phone as he drove, making sure the forensics team from Denver was on its way to the cabin. He wanted everything bagged and tagged, no mistakes on this one. This case was too big, too strange. Next, he checked in with Debbie: still no leads on Stella or David. No sightings of them anywhere, no credit cards or bank cards used.

Even though the road was plowed now, the back tires of Sheriff Hadley’s car kicked up snow and Palmer had to constantly use the wipers to push the scattering of snow out of the way. He dropped back a few more car lengths and it gave him the opportunity to take another few sips from his bottle of vodka. He was pretty sure the sheriff might smell it on his breath, but he didn’t care.

Could these bank robbers be the ones who had killed all of those people down at the dig site in New Mexico? Palmer wondered. Could they have taken Stella Weaver and David? It had to be the same killers because the deaths all seemed similar … they all seemed strange.

But something was wrong. Palmer felt like he was missing something very important, overlooking some clues that he wasn’t piecing together.

Twenty minutes later the sheriff’s car slowed down to a crawl on the slick road and parked on the side of the road near the entrance to a driveway that was hidden in a group of trees much like the driveway to the burnt cabin had been.

George stopped his truck and jumped out onto the snowy road. “You want me to plow that driveway for you?” he asked the sheriff.

“No, that’s good enough,” Sheriff Hadley told George as he got out of his squad car and slammed the door shut. “We’ll walk to the house from here.”

George nodded. “You still want me to plow all the way down to Cody’s Pass?”

“Yes,” Palmer answered for the sheriff as he walked up to the two men. “I have a feeling we’ll be going there soon.”

George didn’t nod at Palmer; he waited for an affirmation from the sheriff, showing his loyalty to him.

Sheriff Hadley looked a little annoyed at the intrusion from Palmer, but he looked back at George and nodded. “Yeah, George. Go ahead and plow all the way down there. Then come back up with another pass all the way back to Destin.”

“You got it, chief,” George said and smiled. He hurried back to his big truck which was rumbling in the middle of the road.

Sheriff Hadley looked at the driveway full of snow in front of them. “More snowmobile tracks,” the sheriff said, pointing at the sets of tracks with a gloved finger. “Looks like he’s been in and out of here a few times today.”

Palmer didn’t say anything. He sucked on a breath mint which made the chilly air taste even colder around his teeth. He figured the sheriff suspected the reason for his breath mint, but Palmer still didn’t care. He was probably a walking cliché in the sheriff’s mind anyway—the FBI agent with a drinking problem but too good at his job to get fired. Why not live up to it?

They both trudged through the snow that blanketed the driveway, both of them walking in the ruts created by the snowmobile tracks, their shoes crunching the snow down as they walked. The trip to the house took a few minutes, but neither man spoke, both of them had their hands shoved down into the pockets of their jackets.

Nora’s house was a simple wood framed one story structure with a wooden deck built onto the front of it that continued around the right side of it, presumably to the back, Palmer thought. The windows were dark. No smoke drifted up from the chimney.

“They might not be home,” Palmer said.

Hadley chuckled like he knew an inside joke. “Nora doesn’t go anywhere. She’s hardly been out of the house since her husband died six months ago.”

Palmer wasn’t sure if the sheriff was expecting him to express some kind of sympathy or not so he changed the subject. “Your dispatch get a hold of any of them here?”

“Nope,” Sheriff Hadley answered. “But Nora’s truck is here, and like I said, she never goes anywhere anymore.”

Palmer thought they were there to talk to Travis, not his mother. But he didn’t say anything.

“Well, we’re here,” the sheriff said and started trudging through the snow towards the house. “Might as well knock on the door.”

They walked through the snow, the sheriff already beginning to huff and puff a little from the exertion. “I don’t see Travis’ snowmobile over there,” he said through misty breaths. “Might have to come back later.”

Palmer thought he would head on down to the next town if Travis wasn’t here.

The sheriff waited by the wood steps that led up to the deck as Palmer climbed them. “You go ahead and knock,” the sheriff said. “I’m going to go look around back for Travis’ snowmobile.”

Palmer didn’t argue. He continued up the steps as the sheriff worked his way through the snow to the far corner of the house. Palmer approached the front door that had a glass storm door in front of it. There was some scattered snow on the deck up here, but a porch roof had kept a lot of it off of the floorboards, and it looked like some of it had been shoveled off recently. Maybe yesterday. He opened the storm door and pounded on the wood door with the edge of his balled-up fist—a police knock.

He waited a moment.

No answer. He didn’t hear any footsteps inside the house coming towards the door.

There was a window on the left side of the door and he cupped his hands to the sides of his face and tried to look through it. No luck … drapes covering it from the inside.

He knocked again.

Still no answer.

He rang the doorbell again, holding the little button down with his gloved thumb. He waited a few seconds and pounded on the door one more time.

Giving up, Palmer let the storm door close on its pneumatic hinge. He walked down the wood deck, following it around to the side of the house. The deck was sturdy and well-built, constructed by someone who knew what they were doing. When he got to the back of the house, he saw the sheriff in the backyard, walking towards a free-standing garage that looked somewhat similar to the one on Mr. Gordon’s property. A large Soccer Mom SUV was parked in front of the garage underneath a massive wooden awning with a tin roof that was covered with snow.

“I don’t think Nora’s truck has moved since the storm came,” The sheriff called out to him from across the yard. “I don’t see Travis’ snowmobile anywhere.”

The sheriff started walking towards a set of wooden steps that led up to this back section of the deck as Palmer walked over to a set of sliding glass doors. The vertical blinds behind them were closed but he saw that the sliding door was open about six inches.

Palmer tensed a little as he stared at the door.

Sheriff Hadley noticed Palmer’s reaction. “What’s wrong?”

“That door’s open,” Palmer told him in a low voice. He didn’t wait for Hadley; he was already on the other side of the door, his gun in his hand and ready if he needed it. Something felt wrong here. He didn’t know what it was, but after the carnage and horrors he’d already seen, it felt like something terrible lay beyond those doors.

“Nora Conrad!” Sheriff Hadley yelled at the sliding glass doors, standing on the other side of it. “It’s Sheriff Hadley!”

No answer from Nora. No sounds from inside at all. Everything was eerily quiet around the house. Even the wind had died down to nothing.

“Ms. Conrad! Are you in there?”

No answer.

“Is it okay if we come inside?”

Still no answer.

Hadley looked at Palmer almost like he was seeking permission to enter the home. Palmer could see the concern on the sheriff’s face. The man knew this area, he knew his neighbors, and, like Palmer, he knew something was wrong here.

“She’s always home,” Sheriff Hadley said for the third time.

Palmer nodded for Hadley to enter the home. He would take any flak for this decision if he had to … but right now he was going to trust his instincts. After what he’d seen at the dig site in New Mexico, and at the young couple’s house, and then at the cabin only hours earlier, he knew this wave of strange deaths wasn’t over yet.

Sheriff Hadley slid the glass door open and the warm smell of rot and death drifted out at them from between the vertical blinds, clashing with the cold air. The smell backed the sheriff up a step.

“Your door is open!” Sheriff Hadley yelled with his gun drawn, still following procedure. “We’re coming in!”

Hadley went in first, pushing the vertical blinds to the side. He stepped into the house like a man who had a familiarity with the property, like he’d been in this house many times before, maybe for coffee or a beer with Nora Conrad’s husband when he was still alive.

Palmer was right on the sheriff’s heels, his gun aimed into the murky room. They were in the dining room, and they both saw the carnage in the living room to their right.

“Clear!” Palmer said as he aimed his gun at the empty kitchen. He looked back at the sheriff.

Sheriff Hadley only walked a few steps towards the living room and then he stopped. His big shoulders were slumped, his gun loose in his hand almost like he was going to drop it. He was frozen with shock, his mind and body shutting down.

Palmer looked past the sheriff into the living room at the body of a man on the floor and the pieces of two women spread out all over the furniture and the floor. Palmer got a sudden flashback from the dig site, the body parts stacked up on each other in the cave. But the pieces in this house were fresh, the blood still wet and glistening in the early afternoon light that flooded in from the open sliding glass door. And these pieces weren’t carefully arranged together and displayed like some twisted piece of artwork—this looked more like a temper tantrum thrown by a monster.

Even though there were differences, this still had to be the work of the same killers.

Palmer studied the man on the floor closest to them. He lay sprawled out on the hardwood floorboards about ten feet away. He was face-down, his arms stretched out. His skin was gray and he wore a dark suit coat and pants that were filthy with dirt and grime. He also had a hole in the back of his head big enough for Palmer to stick his fist through. The edges of the hole were rimmed with jagged pieces of broken skull and a grayish-colored goo.

Palmer’s eyes wandered over to the pieces of the two women. Their heads were on two dining room chairs that had been set up in the living room side by side, about three feet away from each other. Both of the heads were facing towards him. One woman looked much younger, a girl really, and her eyes were closed. The other woman’s eyes were wide open like her last moment in life was one of shock and surprise. Both of their mouths were wide open, their dull dark hair hanging down off the sides of the chair, wet with blood. A pool of sticky blood was puddled underneath the two chairs on the wood floor. Arms and legs, pieces of their torsos, and ragged strips of clothing were spread out all over the couches, chairs, and a massive wood and glass coffee table … blood smeared everywhere.

Sheriff Hadley hadn’t moved a muscle yet. Hadn’t said a word.

“That man on the floor isn’t Travis Conrad, is it?” Palmer asked in a low and even voice.

The sheriff shook his head no, his Adam’s apple bobbing furiously like he was either trying to swallow, talk, or inhale a breath.

“We need to see if Travis is still here in the house,” Palmer told him.

Sheriff Hadley just nodded. He hadn’t even looked at him yet.

“I’m going to check the rest of the house,” Palmer said in a low voice and walked away from the sheriff, giving him time to process what he was seeing in front of him. But eventually the sheriff was going to have to snap out of his fog and do his job.

Palmer walked over to the front door in the entryway. He checked the front door. Unlocked. He saw puddles of water where someone had come in and the snow from their boots had melted.

He went into the kitchen. It was cozy, decorated in a flowery country design with geese being the main theme. There was coffee made in the coffee machine, a loaf of bread open on the counter, and frying pans on the stovetop ready to cook. A normal kitchen ready for a normal day.

Palmer walked down the hallway off of the kitchen with his gun still in his hand. He checked all of the bedrooms and bathrooms, expecting to find Travis’ body back here somewhere. But Travis wasn’t back here and there wasn’t a drop of blood or any signs of struggle.