Deadly Fate (27 page)

How much
did
Kimball know about the island? Had he discovered some secret nook or cranny among the many caverns and caves carved out by ice that others had yet to discover?

Day had waned to evening; Thor was exhausted. He was suddenly determined to find out exactly where Kimball had gone. He reminded himself that he couldn't harbor suspicions on the man because he outright disliked him.

But logically, Kimball stood in the line of possible Tate Morley accomplices.

And if they could get the accomplice, they could get the man.

He thanked Magda and turned away. Outside, he put a call through to Mike.

His partner would keep searching the island.

Thor was going to find Marc Kimball.

* * *

Clara lay down on her bed in her cabin—in what had once been the “Irish” section when the
Fate
had brought immigrants to America. She was tired, but wired. Jackson Crow had been set up in the cabin next to her and she'd join him in about an hour to have dinner with him and the cast. But she was in a restless mood.

Another woman was dead. Horribly. They believed two people were guilty; even if one person had done the killing, that person had help. Help that was close to home.

Would Thor come here tonight? Was there something between them? Would this all end when the killer was caught?

And most important, would the killer ever be apprehended?

Her cell phone began to ring—something that actually happened now that she was off the island!

Expecting Jackson or a friend—or even Thor—she answered it quickly.

For a moment, there was nothing. She wondered if her connections had gone on the fritz again.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Miss Avery.”

“Yes, hello. Who is this?”

It was only then that a strange sense of dread settled over her.

“We haven't met, formally. But I've seen you.”

“Who is this?”

“I am God, I am the Devil. I am both rolled into one. In a past life, I was the Fairy Tale Killer. Now I see myself as the Media Monster. Some fool at a newspaper gave me that moniker. I suppose it's as good as any.”

She sat there frozen for a second, wondering if it was real, trying to remember from crime shows what she should do.

Hang up?

Keep him on the line?

He kept talking; thank God—she didn't need to think of her response.

“I don't understand how they're missing all this. Yes, it's my purpose now to bring to light memories of some of the greatest murderers known to man.” He paused to laugh softly. “Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia killer and, yes, the Deadly Dancer.”

Keep him talking? Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

But for what?
There was no recording device on her phone—it was just a cell phone.

“Frozen to silence, Miss Avery?” he asked.

“No,” she managed. “I was just thinking that they weren't the greatest murderers of all time. You had many killers out there who committed more atrocious crimes—by number of victims, by ingenuity of form...” She was on her feet as she spoke, racing out to the hall. She tried to bang on Jackson's door without the sound being heard over the phone.

“I haven't even begun to leave behind my trail of victims,” he said, his voice low and chilling.

Jackson quickly threw his door open; looking at her, he apparently read her face and realized the killer—or someone purporting to be the killer—was on the line.

He drew her into his cabin, pulling out his own cell as he did so. He motioned to her to keep talking as he stepped aside and made a call. She could barely hear his voice. Tense, hushed, concise—she wasn't sure who he had called or what he was asking for, but perhaps there was a way to follow through on the satellites being used by her phone.

“You're also not unknown. You're Tate Morley. You've been arrested and convicted and you'll wind up dead or back in prison. You're no great genius who has gotten away with his crimes,” she told him.

She thought she'd lost him; he went silent for so long. She had annoyed him. His tone was peeved when he spoke again. “No. When I end my reign of terror, the police and G-men and what have you will all be looking like a pack of ice spiders busy racing over the ice with nothing—nothing! I come and go at will. I disappear into the white mists of the snow. They'll all be standing with their little dicks in their hands. I will reign as long as I choose, Miss Avery.”

“No,” she said quietly, “you are nothing.”

“Ah, bravo, bravo, Miss Avery! But, then, of course, you are an actress—a real one, at the least. Not like those pathetic ‘reality' stars. Quite frankly, the nation should thank me,” he said, and laughed as if deeply pleased with his own joke. “Yes, I was lured by the promise of my fifteen minutes of fame, and what a lovely circumstance it proved to be! A perfect killing field, perfect victims, and the bastards who put me away all there, all ripe for the taking! But don't be so very, very pleased, Miss Avery. The show doesn't always go on. I see you right now—you've run to Special Agent Crow—yes, yes, laugh, laugh,
Special
Agent Crow. He's special, all right! He's there, he's listening and he's trying to get a tab on where I might be calling from. Well, duh, we all know I'm near, right? And his partner, ever so
Special
Agent Erikson, is running around on the ice right now, certain that he—great old tracker that he must be!—can find me in a snowbank. Pardon the crudity, but, yes—dick in his hand, dick in his hand! Oh, wait, I guess you'll fix that for him later.”

“I'm hanging up now,” Clara told him.

“You don't hang up on me. I hang up on you.”

Clara looked at Jackson. He nodded.

She clicked End on her phone and the call went dead.

She looked over at Jackson worriedly.

“It will ring again,” he said.

He was right. The phone began to ring.

“Let it ring several times. Not too quickly,” Jackson said.

Sixth ring. Jackson nodded.

She answered it. The man she believed to be Tate Morley began to speak, furious and cursing and spitting words.

“How dare you—how dare you! Every state in the Union wants me. You're behaving as if I'm not the most important person in the world, and you know that I am. You know that you need me—any contact with me.”

Clara glanced at Jackson, shaking, but ready to do her best. “Don't be ridiculous. You're talking to me because you believe we can't get an exact fix on you through my phone. I don't know if we can or can't. I know that all you want to do is taunt me. Well, I don't want to be taunted. You're being rude and obnoxious and full of yourself. I think you're a bitter little prick of a man who's a sociopath and a psychopath all rolled into one.”

“Oh...oh...oh! Miss Avery. You do have claws. Nice survival instincts. I almost wish I was still the Fairy Tale Killer. What a beautiful Sleeping Beauty you would make! Or, if I had to stretch—I mean, no one's hair is that long these days—you might be Rapunzel. You do let down that long hair, don't you? Ah, but you're not with lover boy right now, are you? You see, I know where Thor is and I know that you're with Jackson Crow. Yeah, like I said, I see all! I've not decided exactly where I'm going next...there are still a few tasty ideas rolling about in my mind! You shouldn't make me mad.”

She glanced at Jackson, not sure who he was now on his phone with—and really having no idea if anyone could trace this kind of cell phone coverage in any way, shape or form.

“You're a cruel human being. You've stolen all that matters in any way—you've stolen life. You're horrible, worse than the lowliest crawling bug, because even a bug does good things, and you...”

He broke in. “Oh, really? I've ended some bad TV!” he said, and seemed to think that his words were hilarious. He started laughing.

“Well,” he said finally, and she could hear a deep inhale, as if he was trying to get over his spurt of mirth, “you don't need to try to pinpoint my location, Miss Avery. I'll be happy to tell you where I am,” he said.

“And where are you?”

“Closer than you can begin to imagine!”

* * *

Because communication could be so patchy—even with Wi-Fi and their walkie-talkies—Thor wanted to see Mike Aklaq before he left the island.

He had the feeling that the killer was no longer there. He held the firm belief that the actual killer was Tate Morley—whether he had been abetted by Becca Marle or someone else, Morley had done the killing. He'd had an accomplice who had known Alaska, known the Alaska Hut and Black Bear Island. He was able to come and go easily. With the amount of law enforcement officers looking for him, he should have been caught by now. He knew how to disappear at will. Be here when he chose, escape when he chose. He wasn't using the docks; that meant some kind of a small conveyance he'd been able to pull up onto the shore—and hide.

That meant a cavern.

Though
how
he was managing to come and go was a mystery, Thor wasn't sure solving it would help, except that he'd quit being torn as to where he'd best be putting his own efforts. Thor knew how good an agent his partner was, but he still wanted to see him before he left. Because while his gut told him that Morley was no longer here, the latest victim had not been discovered long ago.

Taking one of the snowmobiles, he headed past the forest toward the southern tip of the island where the icy cliff jutted up from the sea and an ancient wall of ice had carved out the peculiar landscape.

He could see that there were snowmobiles and the larger snow sleds used by the forensic teams present at the base, closest to the shore and cavern entrances. Men and women in uniform moved about the area, looking like ants from a distance and growing larger as he approached.

One of the crime scene investigators he knew waved to him and indicated that Mike was in one of the caverns. Thor waved his thanks and hurried on down.

The cold here seemed to be exceptionally fierce; people breathed as if they were dragons as they worked, spouting steam rather than fire.

He almost slid down one icy ledge, caught his balance and righted himself, and arrived at what might be considered “the ground,” where the ice crunched beneath his feet. He could see Mike was back speaking with a few of the officers—asking them, Thor was certain, to see that no crevice remain unseen.

“Thor—thought you were leaving,” Mike said. He smiled suddenly. “You have to trust someone, my friend. You can't be everywhere.”

“I am leaving. I'm going to find Kimball,” Thor told him.

“Kimball is off the island?” Mike asked, surprised.

“Apparently, he left with the others. None of us can be trusted. He wants the protection of being in the city. Or so he told Magda.”

“Maybe he is afraid,” Mike said with a shrug. “Hey, the man is an ass. You know as well as I do that being an ass isn't illegal.”

“No, but something about him...”

“He treats people really badly.”

“Yeah. Anyway...”

Thor broke off, blinking. The sun had shifted just slightly, casting a different light onto the scene. He felt his muscles tighten; the fierce sun could play tricks on the mind. And for a moment, he could have sworn that he saw Mandy Brandt standing there, a shimmer of white mist in the ice and sunlight. And then she was gone, but, of course, he still stared at the place where she had been standing.

While there had been people there since they'd first discovered the killer's stash of cutting tools, and the ground was well trodden, Thor was pretty sure he saw a strange line in the crunched ice ground.

“What?” Mike asked.

“There it is,” Thor breathed, because, where Mandy had stood, he thought he saw what he had been seeking.

“There what is?”

“His trail.”

“What are you talking about?”

“A boat. Look at that line. He's been using a boat himself. Something incredibly small, but must have a motor or he'd never make it here or back. He dragged it here—it's how he kept any of the patrolling Coast Guard vessels from seeing it. I'm willing to bet if you head further to the west you'll find marks like this, as well. That one strange line that only shows under a direct ray of the sun. He's come and gone with ease, Mike. And I'll bet he is off the island now. He chopped up his latest victim and headed straight back into Seward.”

“We'll search with a fine-tooth comb, farther to the west,” Mike assured him.

“I'm heading back to Seward,” Thor said. “Now.”

“I'll find what there is to find,” Mike promised quietly.

Thor turned, left Mike and drove the snowmobile straight for the docks. Just as he reached them, his phone—via the Wi-Fi hookup—rang. He glanced at the caller ID, and was grateful that the call had come through.

It was Jackson. Thor answered quickly. “Yeah?”

“Morley called Clara.”

“What?”

“Yes, he's actually called her twice. I have our techs working with her cell provider, finding satellite usage, pinpointing a position. We've traced the number—”

“And it goes to a pay-as-you-go phone?”

“No. That's just it. It was a business line purchased by one of Marc Kimball's companies.”

“Kimball's companies?”

“Yep.”

“Morley threatened her?”

“He's taunting her—not a direct threat. You know. Defending his actions, touting his prowess—and letting us know that he's near.”

“Kimball is off the island,” Thor said. “And Tate Morley was on the island. But I believe he's off it now, too. I'm heading to the docks right now.” He hesitated. “Has anyone checked? Did Kimball come aboard the
Fate
?”