Murder at Granite Falls (22 page)

Which left the offer Trace had repeatedly made to her—the little cabin on his ranch.

Lord, help me figure out what to do here, because I’m at a loss and could sure use some help. And if You wouldn’t mind, please give Logan a hand, too.

Carrie awoke with a sense of new resolve. She
could
do something. Logan was right.

If Noah’s pictures had been a silent cry for help, then she needed to gently talk to him and make sure his father and aunt knew about the burdens he was carrying.

And if indeed Noah had been a witness to his mother’s death, that could be the key to helping Logan straighten out his past troubles and fully, once and for all, clear his name. It was the
least she could do before she had to leave town for good, in search of a job. And there was no better time than now.

With Logan off guiding a group of fly fisherman at several remote, hike-in streams for the day and Penny taking rafters down the river until five o’clock—the best day they’d had in a long while—she couldn’t leave until after six.

Logan hadn’t yet returned and Penny was still chatting with some customers out on the riverbank when six o’clock rolled around. Carrie debated, then called the nonemergency number at the sheriff’s department. The office secretary said the sheriff was out, but Carrie could leave a message for the deputy covering that area.

She hesitated, then left a brief message on voice mail.

After writing a note for Logan and Penny, she left it on the office desk.

On the way out of town she mulled over what she could say to Linda. “Your nephew is in danger” probably sounded too over-the-top. Unbelievable.

As wary as the woman had been, telling her, “You’ve got to come to the police station with me so Noah can make a statement” would probably send Linda running straight for the hills with Noah in tow.

And what about the child? If he had to talk to the sheriff—or even a jury—would reliving his mother’s death be too traumatic, too difficult for him to face? Could she even think of putting him in that position?

Following her previous set of directions, Carrie turned off the highway and followed a narrow curving road way up into the hills until it turned to gravel…then a turnoff onto an even more narrow, deeply rutted track.

It was dark back here, with the evening sun resting on the tips of the mountains to the west and its soft rays barely filtering through the heavy canopy of pines.

She passed several empty rustic cabins, the doors half-open
and windows staring out at her like black, empty eyes. She shivered, wondering why Linda and her brother would want to live in such a remote location. Privacy was wonderful, in a well-kept place, but the abandoned cabins were eerie.

The trees opened up into a clearing, where the last cabin stood. She pulled to a stop. Started to get out, then hesitated, as a sense of foreboding began prickling at the back of her neck.

Last time, there were lights in the windows. The door was firmly shut.

Linda’s car was still parked in front. But now the cabin was dark, its front door wide-open. She looked around the clearing for any signs of motion.

Nothing moved except for the breeze tossing the branches.

Had Linda and Noah’s father taken him and left in some other vehicle?

Or was the woman hiding, at the sound of an approaching car?

Or maybe it was all more innocuous than that. Maybe they were all out hiking, and still making their way home. Or maybe they were in a back room watching a movie on a DVD, and had lost track of time. Far more likely scenarios than anything Carrie could dream up just because the place seemed so dark, so terribly lonely without anyone around.

“Linda?” she called out. “Noah?”

No one answered.

She took a steadying breath, gathered her courage with a brief prayer, and started for the front door. “Linda—are you here?”

The silence was deafening as she tentatively reached up to knock on the door frame.
“Linda?”

The long shadows of sunset crawled across the clearing, casting the weathered cabin in dim light. Was that something
moving in the darkness over there—a wolf, or a coyote? A man, furtively moving through the darkness?

Her heart hammering in her chest, she turned to hurry back to her waiting vehicle.

And then she heard it.

A thin cry…like that of a dying rabbit.

Her imagination—or real?

Shaking, she turned around to scan the cabin, the surrounding brush. Maybe it had just been the wind, keening through the trees.

Maybe it was someone wanting to lure her back.

Breathing hard, a hand clutched at her throat, she started for her truck at a run. But as she climbed behind the wheel, she heard it again, and this time knew it was no mistake. The words, now repeated in a weak litany, chilled her to the bone.

“H-help me. Please…y-you’ve got to save Noah.”

NINETEEN

C
arrie drove the Tahoe closer to the cabin and turned on her headlights, then backed up and repositioned the vehicle a few feet over, aiming at the weak cries for help.

She grabbed a flashlight, made sure her phone was still in her pocket, and warily opened her door. “Linda?”

“Over…here.” The voice was weaker now. Raspy.

Taking another careful look around the clearing, Carrie hurried toward Linda’s voice.

She lay crumpled against the foundation of the cabin, half-hidden in a tangle of brush, her clothing crimson with blood, her face and throat clotted with it. The dirt around her was stained dark.

Carrie took a sharp breath as she knelt at Linda’s side and punched 911 into her cell phone.

“N-no,” Linda wheezed, choking on the fluid in her throat and trying to catch her breath. “Don’t. H-he’ll come back.”

“Who will come back? Who, Linda?”

“He…he’s got Noah. Go—find him.” The woman’s eyes rolled back and she slumped against the wall, her breathing barely audible.

Carrie finished her hasty 911 call, giving the directions and Linda’s name as she hurried to her truck for the simple first-aid kit she kept in the glove box. She jerked on her only pair of vinyl
gloves, then raced back to Linda’s side and tried to examine her wounds.

A cut trailed from below her ear to the base of her neck. Others—defensive wounds, probably—were crosshatched on her hands and arms, and there appeared to be stab wounds on her lower belly.

And everywhere Carrie looked, there was blood.

Opening the first-aid kit, she stared at the puny assortment of small adhesive bandages, two-by-two gauze squares and a roll of clingy stretch bandaging.

She grabbed the gauze squares and pressed them into place along the neck wound, using strips of adhesive tape to hold them in place. She added more and more layers of gauze while applying pressure with her palm until the bleeding slowed, then stopped seeping through the gauze.

She searched for the other wounds, wrapping the worst as best she could.

Linda stirred, opened her eyes halfway. “Noah…please go…”

A faint sound of sirens wailed in the far distance, though with the curving, narrow mountain roads, it was still a long ways off.

Linda’s eyes opened wider in alarm. “Shouldn’t…have called.”

“You need help. The ambulance will be here soon, I promise.”

“Don’t…stay here.
Go.
Now.”

“Where is he? Where’s Noah?”

“Taken. M-maybe an hour ago.”

“Who did it?”

Linda’s eyes drifted shut. Heaving shudders seemed to roll from deep within her. Shock…blood loss…would she even make it until help arrived? Carrie sorted through the memories of her last first-aid class.

Blankets.
Raise the feet—except with a heart attack. But with those abdominal wounds, maybe not in this case, either? She ran into the house and brought out blankets. Rechecked the wounds, then gently tucked the blankets around Linda.

“The…Falls,” she whispered, her voice weak. “Noah—please, hurry.”

Carrie rocked back on her heels, torn. Then she punched in 911 once again and relayed the situation to the dispatcher. “I’ve got to go after the boy. I can’t wait.”

“Ma’am, you need to stay there. Help is on its way.”

“The wounded woman is Linda Bates. She’s outside, on the north side of the house. I did what I could, but she’s hurt badly and I think she was left for dead. You need to get here fast.”

She recited the directions once again for good measure. Then disconnected the call. “Linda, the ambulance will be here very soon. Tell me where I should go to find Noah.”

The woman coughed weakly. “Stay…on this road. A mile. Signs—the Falls. Hurry. H-he said…j-just like your mother…”

“Who said? Linda—who am I looking for? Who took Noah?”

“D-didn’t see his face.” Her face was so soft now that Carrie had to lean close. “Mask. S-said Noah saw too much. Had to take…care. Of details.”

Sickened, Carrie stood and stepped back, then briefly closed her eyes.
Please, God, this woman really, really needs Your help. Please protect her…and bring help soon. And please, help me find Noah before it’s too late.

Linda had seemed terrified because Carrie had called 911, and now Dante’s words slammed back into her thoughts as she drove away.
Don’t trust anyone. Not even the ones you know.

She’d had no choice but to make the emergency call. Linda might not have much of a chance, but she’d surely die without immediate attention. But making that call had also alerted the
entire area of the attack. Most of the locals owned scanners and eavesdropped on police and fire calls, day and night.

And it wasn’t only the good guys who listened in.

Linda had been sure of it. She’d been willing to risk her own life to avoid letting her attacker know she’d been found and that emergency help was on its way.

Had she been trying to give Carrie more time to find Noah before his abductor started to panic? Was it already too late?

With just a faint wash of moonlight overhead, the forest loomed over the rutted track leading north from Linda’s house, creating a nearly impenetrable menacing darkness that the headlights barely touched.

Leaning over the steering wheel to peer out into the night, Carrie crept forward, her foot barely on the accelerator. Here and there, pairs of eyes glowed at her through the trees, then disappeared.
Please, Lord—help me,
she whispered.
And please let me get there in time.

She glanced at the odometer, marking the tenths of a mile slowly rolling past, then straining to see any signs for the falls. Up here, there might only be a small wooden sign overgrown by brush.

A patch of white flickered in the beam of her headlight, then disappeared. She stopped and angled the flashlight at it.
Granite Falls, 1/2 Mile.

The road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass, but she pulled over as far as she could, the underbrush scraping at the side of the SUV.

Fear clogged her throat as she grabbed her backpack and climbed out, defenseless. Alone. The darkness fell like a heavy blanket in front of her now that the Tahoe’s headlights were no longer leading the way.

She took one tentative step forward. Then another, until she picked out a narrow path toward the falls with her flashlight.

Move,
an inner voice whispered.
Hurry.

She edged forward, prickly wild raspberry vines tearing at her ankles; her feet bumping up against unseen rocks strewn in the path. Biting her lower lip, she picked up a faster pace, swinging her flashlight wide to avoid the larger boulders and downed trees. How far had she gone now? A quarter mile? A third?

What if Noah and his captor were off to the side somewhere, down another path, and she missed them completely?

The fact that she had no weapon hit her a moment later.

If somebody was on the verge of harming Noah, how could she possibly stop him?

Logan drove slowly through town, searching for Carrie’s car. She
had
to be here somewhere, trying to talk that student and his mother into coming forward.

But now Logan had been up and down every single street and avenue twice—not a time-intensive feat in Granite Falls—without a sign of her. Could she have doubled back, and then gone home?

An ambulance screamed through town, heading up into the hills. Another hurt climber maybe…or some three-hundredpound old fogey with high blood pressure on vacation.

Still, an uneasy premonition worked its way through his midsection.

He’d asked Carrie to check with the mother of the anonymous student who had drawn the picture. But she’d hedged her reply, answering obliquely to maintain the privacy of the student. Now he realized why. She’d had to sidestep with her answer, because the child didn’t
have
a mother any longer.

Noah.

The answer made perfect sense. If the killer had forced Sheryl up to the falls and then pushed her to her death, her son could have followed, frightened for her.

A nightmare, from beginning to end.

And now an ambulance was wailing up into the mountains in that general direction.

Logan thought for a second, then did a U-turn in the middle of the street and pulled to a stop in front of the Daisy Diner’s drive-up window and peered inside. “Hey, Marge. Do you have your scanner on?”

She bustled up to the window. “Sure enough. What’s up?”

“That ambulance. Where’s it heading?”

“One of those cabins just south of Granite Falls.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “The Colwell place, I believe.”

If the killer had discovered that he’d had a witness, then Noah’s life was in danger…if it wasn’t already too late. And now there was a very good chance that Carrie was up in the woods somewhere—maybe in danger, too.

He floored the accelerator, his tires squealing as he took the corner back onto Main Street and rocketed toward the road leading to Granite Falls.

He wanted to prove his innocence.

He wanted to see justice served, and a killer taken off the streets.