Fire in the Stars (19 page)

He looked up at her, his whole face twisted with pain and panic. “I can't feel my right foot.”

“It's probably just cold,” she replied. “Crawl on your knees. The important thing is to keep these rocks downstream from you.”

He crawled around the boulder and wedged himself between it and the next rock. Water sucked at his clothes and his lips were turning blue. He stretched a pale, trembling hand toward the next rock. “I … I can't.”

She broke off two branches of deadfall and splashed out into the water to brace them between the rocks, strengthening the bridge. Then she grabbed the top of his backpack and guided him to the bank. Tyler collapsed to his hands and knees. “I still can't feel my foot,” he managed through clenched teeth. She bent down to examine his foot, but could see no signs of blood or injury around the shoe. When she touched it, however, he screamed in pain.

“Can you bend it?”

“Hurts too much.”

“Wiggle your toes?”

He wrinkled his brow in concentration. “Yes,” he said after a few seconds.

“That's good. I think at worst, it's sprained. I'll splint it and make you a crutch.”

It took her fifteen minutes to fit him up with a splint and crutch fashioned from the branches she had torn loose. She tried not to think about their pursuers, and the gains they were making. When she hauled Tyler to his feet, he was able to hobble a few steps, but how they were going to manage the rugged terrain, she didn't know.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “I can't walk.”

“Let's see what's below these falls,” she said. “If I have to, I'll carry you.”

“You can't carry me. I'm almost as big as you!”

“You'd be surprised.” He was probably right, of course, but she wasn't about to let him know. “And I know how to make a stretcher too.”

“I'll sit here while you check out what's ahead.” He started to ease himself down.

“No you won't! Come on, lean on me.”

By bracing himself against her, he managed to hop forward. Their progress was excruciatingly slow, and all the while, she imagined she could hear crashing through the bush behind them. When they reached the bottom of the falls, the ravine opened up. Inky blue sky, a yawning drop, and beyond it the sparkling silver sea.

And down at the bottom of the hill, like a gap-toothed smile, a string of little houses clustered around a tiny bay.

A
s the police Zodiac steered back into Conche Harbour, Chris spotted the trademark fedora of Matthew Goderich. The journalist was pacing at the dockside, and he rushed forward before Chris or anyone else could disembark.

“The body — is it Amanda?”

“No comment!” Sergeant Amis snapped. “Let us get off the goddamn boat first.”

“But it's a body, right?”

“I can confirm that human remains have been discovered, yes, but until we have more information —”

“Oh, for fuck's sake! Man or woman?”

Amis hesitated. He studied Matthew, and Chris could almost see him weighing his options. News travelled fast between the close-knit communities up and down the coast, and keeping secrets was nearly impossible. In the end, Amis fell back on standard prattle.

“We'll be issuing a statement at —” he glanced at his watch “— ten a.m. tomorrow, and until then I request that you keep this information confidential until we have a chance to speak to the parties affected.”

Matthew wasted no further effort on him, but instead spun around to fall into step beside Chris. “Is it Amanda?” he whispered as they walked down the wharf.

Chris shot him an oblique glance. “No.”

A spasm of relief passed over Matthew's face. “Phil, then?”

“Matthew, don't ask me! You know I can't say.”

“Oh my lord, poor man.” Matthew faltered and grabbed the side of a pickup truck for support. “How did he die? Suicide?”

“Goderich!”

Matthew held up a conciliatory hand. “I know. Ten a.m. But where's Amanda?”

“We don't know,” Chris said. A wave of sorrow and fatigue crashed over him, tightening his chest. “Out there somewhere.”

“Alone?”

Chris hesitated.

In the silence, Matthew sucked in his breath. “Or with the kid! She's with Phil's kid, isn't she? Oh Jesus, a nightmare for her all over again!”

“I didn't tell you anything.”

“You think I'm an idiot? Goddamn it, Tymko! I'm on your side here. She's my friend. Phil's my friend. You think all I want to do is plaster some sensational story all over the headlines?” Matthew turned and stormed off toward the collection of trailers and tents that had sprouted up around the RCMP mobile command post on the hill above the village. He threw the last words over his shoulder. “Does his wife know? Someone will have to talk to her.”

“Don't you dare!” Chris shouted, sprinting to catch up with him. “Matthew, I will do what I can to keep you in the loop, as soon as we know details. But don't go messing around in here. If you care about Amanda and Phil as you say you do, please don't make it all worse.”

Matthew stopped. In the gathering twilight, his heavy-lidded eyes searched Chris's. “You'll keep me in the loop? Promise?”

Chris nodded. As he headed toward the police compound, he watched Matthew detour toward Casey's house and he wondered what the journalist's next move would be. And how much trouble he, Chris, would be in for it.

After a quick, hot shower to wash the blood, dirt, and fatigue away, Chris bundled up against the evening chill and headed up the slope to the command post. He walked out of the velvet dusk into a brightly lit world of computer screens, radios, and phones, all alive with the rapid-fire exchange of data. The Emergency Response Team had arrived — specially trained tactical officers mainly from the eastern part of the province who'd left their regular duties to conduct the search.

Their leader, Corporal Vu, stood beside Noseworthy studying the large, gridded map on the wall. She had four inches on him, but his lithe, wiry body radiated energy and his muscles rippled like a racehorse in the starting gate. As Noseworthy traced a long, bony finger along the highway toward St. Anthony, she seemed to sense Chris's presence without even shifting her gaze from the map.

“You're off duty until 0600 hours, Corporal.”

“Someone needs to notify his wife, ma'am, before it's all over the news and Twitter.”

Noseworthy turned from the map reluctantly. “Grand Falls-Windsor detachment has gone out to the house. The officer will call here with his report shortly.”

Chris hovered just inside the doorway. He had no real excuse to linger, but was dying to know how Sheri would take the news and how much information she would share with the police, who were, after all, Jason Maloney's colleagues. Worse, perhaps it was Jason himself who had made the visit!

He strolled across the room to pour himself a coffee and to sneak a look at the map, which was divided into standard search quadrants and dotted with coloured pins. Noseworthy and Vu continued to argue logistics and assignments for the morning search, including helicopter coverage, roadblocks, and vehicle searches, as well as ERT search teams on the ground. It was a mammoth task. The air search was their best chance; the heat-sensing equipment could detect the presence and shape of live beings even through dense tree cover, down to the arms and legs, and could even pick up the residual heat of recent footprints. But the area to be covered was huge, and the weather and wind patterns unpredictable. Similarly, looking for a small boat bobbing on the endless seas would be like sifting through grains of sand.

Furthermore, having negotiated just a small section of the near impenetrable tuckamore to find Phil's body, Chris knew the ground search would be even more of a challenge.

On the boat trip back to Conche from Phil's body, Chris had argued again for the use of the local civilian ground SAR team, which was based in Roddickton and could be in place before nightfall. We need as many eyes on this as possible, he'd said. The nights are getting cold and Amanda has few supplies. The ground SAR team is experienced in wilderness searches and familiar with the local terrain.

Noseworthy had refused. There's a multiple killer on the loose and a firearm unaccounted for, she said. Civilians are not to be put at risk. We don't need a hundred people crawling all over the bush; we need professionals and an effective plan.

Chris had fumed in silence.
Effective plan, my ass
, he'd thought.
More like a
by-the
-book
, “if we fail, we followed the most modern search protocols” plan. It would look good in a report, but it might not find Amanda and Tyler.
Although the ERT team was a crack unit, at full strength it was only twelve officers, and Vu had been able to round up only ten, the other two being off on training. None of the ten were local. None knew the terrain. Even the most effective plan had to cover at least five hundred square kilometres of ocean and forest.

Studying the map now, Chris saw that the search perimeter was even larger than he'd expected, stretching all the way from the shores of Canada Bay on the south to Grandois on the north and extending ten kilometres out to sea. Before he stopped to consider the wisdom of it, he blurted his thoughts aloud.

“Why is the perimeter so far out? There's no way she'd travel that far.”

Vu had been consulting his second in command, and he swivelled around slowly, letting the silence lengthen as he sized Chris up. Apparently unimpressed, he signalled the other man to follow and he stalked out of the trailer.

Noseworthy kept her face dispassionate as she watched the door slam in their wake, but Chris sensed it was an effort.
Just what we need
, Chris thought.
A pissing match at the top
. Noseworthy's jaw was set as she turned to answer him. “Missing three days at a conservative ten kilometres a day, that's ERT's outer limit.”

“But no one can cover ten kilometres a day in that terrain, and even if she could, she wouldn't. She'd be looking for a place to be found. The coast, or a road out.”

“Vu thinks if she's running from the killer, she might be trying to get as far away as fast as she can. And she'd stay out of sight.” Noseworthy paused. “I'm told this is a resourceful, savvy woman. We know from her history that she travelled four hundred kilometres through hostile territory to safety in Nigeria, much of it on foot under the cover of darkness.”

Chris stared at her in surprise. “I'm former ERT myself,” Noseworthy said. “First rule of search and rescue — know your subject. So I spoke to the journalist.” She softened. “We know what we're doing, Corporal. We'll find her.”

Chris drew in his breath and ventured farther out on his limb. “Maybe the civilian ground SAR coordinator could provide —”

Noseworthy's softness vanished. “For the last time, out of the question. This is a police operation.”

On her hip, her satellite phone rang. She shot Chris a last warning glare. “Don't push your luck,” she said, turning her back to answer. She spoke little, but jotted notes and when she signed off, she turned back to Chris.

“Grand Falls-Windsor has informed the wife.”

“How did she take it?”

“Do you know her?”

“No, ma'am. Just of her, through her husband.”

Noseworthy glanced at her notes. “She's holding up well, considering. She told the constable she has been concerned about her husband's mental health and had recently received a goodbye letter from him. She assumed it was suicide.”

“Did she mention the reason for his …” Chris searched for a neutral phrase, “troubles?”

“PTSD. Nigeria.”

Chris nodded. So Jason Maloney's name hadn't been mentioned. “Did the constable tell her how he actually did die? Shot in the back? Definitely not suicide?”

“No, but he had to ask her about potential enemies and reasons why anyone might want him dead.”

“And did she give him any?”

Noseworthy's eyes narrowed. “Why the intense interest, Tymko? I can tell you're an interfering son of a bitch, but is it just your nature, or do you know something?”

Chris felt a flush creeping up his neck. “He's a friend. Amanda and I have been tracking him and he's been acting more and more like a man on a mission.”

“Well, I can't give you any more details. You'll have to talk to Sergeant Amis. The murder investigation is his responsibility.” Noseworthy's lip curled and in that hint of distaste, Chris realized she didn't like Amis any more than he did.

“By the way,” Noseworthy tossed off almost as an afterthought, “the wife really wants to talk to you. Maybe she'll tell you something she wouldn't tell the local officer. But you better clear that with Amis first if you want to keep your balls attached.”

The sight of the little outport basking in the sunset gave Tyler hope. A smile lit his pinched face and he hobbled forward eagerly. Amanda propped him up as they both scrambled down the slope. They passed from the forest to open tundra, where there was no protection or place to take cover should their pursuers spot them, but Amanda barely gave it a thought. Civilization, and help, beckoned.

Beyond the houses lay a small, sheltered inlet in the cradle of jagged grey cliffs. As they drew closer, Amanda scoured the village for signs of life— laundry on the line, boats at the wharf, or smoke from the chimney.

Nothing.

Doubt began to creep in, and by the time they reached the first of the shacks, Amanda knew the place was deserted. Long ago.

Flecks of red still clung to the wood, but the clapboard was gap-toothed and weather-worn, the windows boarded and the doors broken in. The wharves sagged into the water, half ripped from their moorings.

Nonetheless she ran from house to house in the gathering gloom, looking for any remnants of habitation. A can of beans, a jar of pickled beets, a moth-eaten blanket. The houses smelled of fish and rot. Her boots echoed in the empty rooms, and the ocean wind whistled through the broken slats. The houses looked like decaying museums to a dead era, abandoned in the midst of daily life. Kitchens, tables, daybeds, rocking chairs, and dishes — all simply relinquished to nature.

She had left Tyler resting on the stoop of the first house, and she returned to find that he'd crawled inside to get out of the wind. His skin was blue and his teeth chattered. “There's no one here, is there?” he said.

She sat beside him and put her arm around him. “Must be one of those outport fishing villages that was relocated in the 1950s. But at least we have shelter, and I saw quite a few useful things. If we pick the best house, we can move a couple of chairs and beds into it.”

He hung his head. “There's no food, either, is there.”

“No, but there's still an hour or so of light. Once I get you settled, I'll see if I can catch some fish.”

“I'm so cold.” He was soaking wet, as was she, and she knew that unless he got into dry, warm clothes, he might not be able to go on in the morning. She had spotted an intact stove and a stack of firewood in the next house.

“Come on, tiger,” she said cheerily. “Let's go next door and light a fire.”

“But they'll smell the smoke! They'll know we're here.”

“No they won't. Even if they can smell smoke, it will be too dark to see us. They'll just think people live here.”

He gazed around in exasperated disbelief. “Here?”

“Why not? At first glance, it looks like a village. If they're on the run, they'll beat a hasty retreat.” She spoke with more bravado than she felt, but she knew it was a risk she had to take. If Tyler didn't get warm, it wouldn't matter how many hordes of terrorists were on their tail.

It took a long time to coax a decent fire out of the old black stove and rotting wood. The fire smoked and hissed so much that she was afraid there was a nest in the chimney, but finally roaring orange flames filled the box and heat began to spread into the corners of the draughty little house. She hung all their clothes except their underwear from a beam above the stove, dragged some mouse-chewed bedding from the house next door, shook it off, and settled Tyler in front of the fire.