Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent (40 page)

McLellan called them over. “Come over and look at this. Ever see such a beautiful creature? Owen here has the devil’s own luck.”

The hunter had his face mask shoved up to his forehead, revealing a broad face covered with a bushy red beard. “I was afraid the season was going to get away from me without ever bagging anything,” he admitted. “This is the first time I hunted the Arapaho Forest. I’ve always stuck to the Roosevelt before.”

She was edging away toward their vehicle. What was it about men and trading hunting stories?

“Well, as soon as your story gets around, everyone and their dog will be hauling ass to the Arapaho. Hope you didn’t get the last one.”

“Too many people out and about in the forest for my taste. Don’t know why the snowshoers and cross-country skiers can’t stick to the trails and leave the rest to us. Damn near shot a kid out there yesterday. Walking around in hunting season without wearing any orange is just plain stupid.”

“What would a kid be doing out in the forest?”

The hunter shrugged his massive shoulders at Travis’s question. “Who knows? I warned a guy just this morning about the very same thing. Claimed he was the one who had made those snow shelters I’d seen, which he was damn lucky didn’t collapse on him in the night. But I got to thinking after I directed him back to the one I saw, they were awful small for someone his size.” The dog in his pickup barked through the back window, and he looked over, snapped his fingers at it. “Just saying, the wilderness is no place for amateurs.”

Macy turned back at the exact time Kell straightened from his stance against the truck. But she beat him to what she knew he was about to say. “Do you think you could show us to the place you saw the those shelters?”

“Turns out the guy—Owen Redmond—wasn’t all that motivated about being a good citizen. Took a hundred bucks to convince him to take us to one of the shelters he’d seen.” Kell was rubbing his hands together as he told the story to Raiker and Whitman. Macy could understand. She was still frozen through, as well. “We also had to buy snowshoes from McLellan to make the trip. Lucky we did. I’ve never seen so much snow.”

“Hats came in handy, too,” she murmured. Kell threw her a glance, his eyes glinting. She’d bought one when they were trying on the snowshoes and presented him with it as they followed Redmond to the forest entrance. Had she known, she’d have bought a face mask, too. The wind had been vicious, swirling snow around so wildly that they may as well have been in a ground blizzard.

“We marked the spot so we could find it easily again. Then talked to the Summit County sheriff. He put us in touch with someone who volunteers for the search and rescue team up there. He’ll have his trailing dog ready at first light.” Kell hunched into his coat, which he still hadn’t taken off. “I’ll need to take a scent article from the girl’s room. He said a toothbrush would be best. Then we’ll see if he can catch the same scent at the shelter.”

“The area seems to fit.” Macy looked at Travis with surprise. His attention was on his boss. “Burke started marking maps with the areas we know Dodge has been. If he stays in a fairly close proximity and wants a remote locale, he could find it in the Rocky Mountain National Park or the Roosevelt and Arapaho Forests. The park is out. Shelters aren’t allowed, and there’s a much heavier law enforcement presence than in the forests. But temporary shelters can be erected in the Arapaho. I don’t think we have anything to lose by checking it out tomorrow.”

“Except time,” Raiker murmured. He’d been silent during their account. “The girl would have had to have escaped. And then survived a day or two in the forests, in freezing temperatures. As much as I’d like to believe it, it’s difficult to think of her outwitting someone like Dodge.”

There was a sober silence in the room for a moment before Macy asked, “Has another note come?”

Raiker shook his head. “He’ll leave Mulder—and us—as little time as possible to respond. The longer lead time we have, the more preparation we can do to track the payoff. He wants to avoid that at all costs.”

“All the more reason to try to follow up on every possibility we have,” Kell maintained. “What about the passenger manifests for the airlines?” He’d finally stopped rubbing his hands together and just shoved them back in his coat pockets. His face, Macy noted, was still reddened from the time they’d spent outside. She was sure hers looked the same.

“That’s going to take a couple days,” Raiker replied. “And since the FBI’s new mantra is all terrorism, all the time, it’s doubtful Dodge was on any kind of watch list.”

“We’ve added a couple agents to follow up on the AMBER Alert tip lines,” Whitman put in. He was wearing a black suit she’d never seen before. Macy wondered if he’d sent home for it or had been saving it. “The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is being bombarded with calls. Several supposed sightings come in daily.” He made a face. “Of course the majority of them are from out of state.”

“Did Jonesy have a report today?” Apparently warmed through, Kell unzipped his coat.

“They were able to match the fibers found in the trunk of Hubbard’s car with the carpet in his house. Another match was found in the girl’s bedroom and in the room next door.”

Macy digested Adam’s words in silence. A couple days ago the discovery would have been another sign of Hubbard’s guilt. Now it painted another sort of picture altogether.

“Hard to say whether that was purposeful or not,” Kell muttered, scrubbing his hands over his face so his voice was muffled. “Dodge had to have planted those prints in the girl’s room. Likely did the same thing to the security specs I found behind that filing cabinet drawer at Hubbard’s. But he could have transferred the fibers himself. He probably was inside the house, waiting for Hubbard to get home, and did him in the bathroom. A bullet to the head, he falls into the tub, chops the thumb off there. Minimal mess.”

“Given the large piece of plastic found in the vicinity of the body, it’s likely Dodge wrapped Hubbard’s body in a sheet of it and hauled it out to the garage, dumping it in the trunk.” Whitman was looking at his watch. “At any rate, the focus of the investigation needs to become more narrow in scope.”

Raiker put in brusquely, “While you follow up with the dog in the morning, we’ll put others to work tracking Dodge’s transportation to Hubbard’s house. If he took a taxi, it’s not liable to tell us a damn thing. But if he left a car in the vicinity . . .”

Macy exchanged a glance with Kell. Discovering a vehicle that Dodge had used and then abandoned would be a rare find, indeed. But she didn’t like the odds. The man hadn’t left any trace identifying evidence in Hubbard’s car that had shown up yet. He didn’t build a reputation like his making mistakes.

But his DNA had been left behind at least twice, she reminded herself. Once to land him in the CODIS system, and again with his blood on Ellie’s bedsheet. And if a miracle had occurred and the girl had escaped, that would be another very big error.

She was going to hold on to that thread of hope until they were proven wrong.

And she wasn’t going to think about how long an eleven-year-old girl could survive on her own in the wilderness.

The briefing broke up shortly afterward, and Macy got up and began to drift with the others toward the door. Kell fell in beside her. “I haven’t thanked you properly for the hat. Or for the fact you put so much thought into it.”

She smirked. “You didn’t like it?” Tricolored, it had featured earflaps and a large tassel on the top.

“It did the job. But you obviously could use a few lessons in selecting . . .”

“Macy.” They turned to find Raiker approaching. “I’ve got a couple interviews set up. I’d like your help with them.”

“All right.” It was useless to try to search the man’s expression because it rarely showed any emotion other than impatience. But she found herself doing so anyway. If he’d given any more thought to what he’d mentioned that morning about firing her, it didn’t show. But then, it wouldn’t.

She held back until everyone was out of the room, with the exception of Whitman, who was on his cell phone. “Who’s the interview with?”

“Follow me.”

Obediently, she fell into step behind him. He waited until they were in the hallway and out of earshot before speaking again. “Althea Mulder is in her office waiting for us. I requested that Lance Spencer meet us in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.” Mystified, she trailed along beside him until they neared the woman’s office. “And we’re talking to them because . . .”

“They’ve got a history of being more than just friends in the past. I want to get an idea of what they are to each other now.”

“Adam.” Althea Mulder rose at their entrance, one hand seeking the desk beside her, as if for support. She wore lavender wool pants and sweater, with amethysts at her ears and throat. The color highlighted her delicate blond beauty. “I thought . . .” She took in Macy’s entrance with a glance before returning her attention to him. “I hoped you had news.”

“We’re constantly sifting through news, Althea, and prioritizing where to best utilize our efforts.” Raiker’s ruined voice could never sound gentle, but there was a note of compassion in it. “Sit down. Please.”

There was a slight slump to the woman’s body, as if a tenuous thread of hope had just been snapped. “Stephen said you have the name of the man who did this. That it wasn’t Nick Hubbard at all.” She sank back down in her chair as Macy and Adam found seats.

“We’re fairly certain we know who carried out the abduction.”

And Macy knew intuitively that Althea Mulder hadn’t been told who—or what—Vincent Dodge was. Raiker was probably more forthright with the woman’s husband. But she’d seen how protective Stephen was of his wife. The information wouldn’t have been shared.

“So it should be easier to find him,” the woman said urgently. She looked from one of them to the other. “You have a name. That’s more than we had the first time Ellie was taken.”

“It gives us some avenues to follow, yes.”

There was a glint in the woman’s eye that might have been temper. “My husband treats me like a hothouse flower, but I’m stronger than I appear, Mr. Raiker. I know you’re keeping him informed, but he filters what gets passed on to me.”

“Does he have reason for that?”

She looked taken aback. Then as quickly as the temper had appeared, it vanished. “I didn’t handle it well last time. Ellie’s disappearance . . . she was gone so long. I was under a doctor’s care for a time.” The woman drew herself up with a faintly regal air. “That would seem like weakness to some. But I got through that terrible time and I’ll get through this one. She was brought home safely once.
You
brought her home. She’ll come home again. I cling to that certainty.”

“A case like this . . . we’re buried in information.” Adam leaned forward, his hands clasped between his spread legs. “Most of it’s meaningless. But each detail gets the same amount of attention because I never know where it might lead. I don’t know at first what’s important and what isn’t.”

“All right.” Clearly, Althea was lost.

“So what I’m asking you now won’t go outside these walls. There’s no need for it to. But you have to be frank with me, because I’m the only one who can decide if this information connects to anything else in a meaningful way.” He stopped, giving her time to digest his words. “Do you trust me to do that?”

Her gaze was clear. “Mr. Raiker, if we didn’t trust you—both Stephen and I—you wouldn’t be here.”

He gave her a slow nod, as if her response was no more than he had expected. “Are you romantically involved with Lance Spencer?”

She recoiled as if she’d been slapped. And her hesitation was telling. “No, of course not. Why would you ask that?”

“Have you ever been?”

An arrow of sympathy pierced Macy when she took in the stricken look on the woman’s face.

“Yes.” Her voice was nearly inaudible. “I’m not proud of that. It eats at me every day. Realizing what it would do to Stephen if he ever knew. I could offer you a hundred excuses but that’s all they’d be. I take my marriage vows seriously. And there really is no excuse for infidelity.”

“We aren’t here to pass judgment,” Macy put in gently.