Rise the Dark (11 page)

E
li heard the growl of the ATV's engine before it came into view, and he moved quickly to a high vantage point and turned his binoculars on the steep, rock-strewn, and forested slopes that led to the cabin. The path to the cabin was difficult to traverse, by design; only a skilled ATV rider would even attempt the final pitch. When he saw the driver of the Polaris begin to make the ascent without hesitation, he knew his visitor.

“Who is it?” Violet said nervously, extending a hand for the binoculars, but he stepped aside.

“I'll deal with it. Stay here. Tend to our guests. No disturbances.”

“But who is—”

“Violet. Do you think I haven't anticipated this? Do you think the spirits haven't already informed me of this? Do you actually believe in your heart that the mountains have allowed me to be
surprised
by this?”

“Of course not,” she murmured.

“Then please do as I say.”

He left her and went out the door and down the exterior stairs, moving with long strides, knowing that he had to cover the ground to meet Shields before he became visible. As much control as Eli had over Violet, he knew that she still had a weakness for Scott Shields. Perhaps something more than a weakness.

He punched a code into the keypad that worked the electrified fence, shoved through the gate, and clamped it shut behind him. He was standing in the middle of the trail when Shields arrived, standing in such a position that Shields had to cut the wheel abruptly to avoid running Eli down. On the precarious slope it was a dangerous maneuver, and for a blissful moment Eli thought he might roll the thing down the mountain. Shields was too experienced, though, and he cut the wheels back and hit the throttle when most men would have let off it, allowing him to spin up and over one of the high boulders and find flat ground above.

“What in the hell are you doing!” he shouted as he cut the engine.

“You're capable enough with the machine,” Eli said. “And I'm anxious to speak with you. There's much to discuss.”

“I should damn well say there's much to discuss,” Shields snapped. “I haven't heard from you in weeks. I'd like to know what you're accomplishing on my land.”

Eli nodded. “Let's speak, but not here. I need to return to town anyhow. We'll have a beer together, like the old days.”

Scott's eyes had drifted from Eli up to the fence. From this angle, the tops of the utility poles were just visible.

“What in the hell are those?”

“They'll provide backup power as needed.”

Scott gaped. “You're using
power lines
to run generators into the lodge? That's the craziest thing I've—”

Eli said, “I'm not flush for time. I'm headed to town, and you can accompany me or you can stay here.”

For a terrible moment, Eli thought he would demand to stay, and then things would become messy in a hurry. Instead, though, he jerked his head at his ATV and said, “Get on. I got plenty of questions. And when we come back, I want a look around this place.”

They bounced down the trail, the creek glittering beneath them and the Bighorn Mountains that abutted the property clear and beautiful in the morning sun. They rode on twelve hundred remote and rugged acres that were protected by miles of national forest; there was no access road, and the site was deeply concealed in the difficult terrain, as perfect a spot as Eli could possibly have hoped for but one that he would never have been able to afford. Enter Scott Shields. The land was his, purchased with settlement money from a lawsuit that had occurred three years earlier, when Shields had crashed a plane in the Alaska bush and his wife had been killed. Shields had sued the manufacturer, who had just “rehabilitated” the aircraft prior to the engine stall, and they settled for what was no doubt peanuts on the company's books but a windfall in rural Wyoming. Shields had purchased a property described as a ranch in the listing, though the land was worthless for cattle—steep, wooded, and rugged. His vision, though, was a hunting lodge with private guiding. Elk were plentiful, some moose as well, and the stream was filled with trout. The challenge was in access, but Shields had visions of using that to his advantage by bringing his clients in on horseback, enhancing the wilderness experience. It was a ridiculous use of a spectacular property. For Eli, however, the site was ideal. And so Eli had begun to work with Shields, which required working through Violet, the only woman Shields trusted. He believed she could bring him messages from his dead wife. These were the things Eli had to indulge in order to fulfill his own mission.

Violet had provided unexpected gifts. While he personally regarded her as a foolish woman who would believe a lie with eagerness and regard the truth with sorrow if not outright denial, others found her an expert navigator of the human spirit. As such, she was an ideal recruiter for Eli. The things that mattered to her—connections between earth and people, bridges between cultures, experiences of psychic phenomena—were all perfect for the candidates Eli sought. In many instances, they trusted Violet before they trusted Eli.

Shields had left his truck, a white Silverado splashed with mud, parked on the forest road, but rather than hike the two miles up, he'd used the ATV. Eli climbed off and watched as Shields got a pair of folding ramps out of the bed and used them to drive the ATV up into the truck. Eli had to turn away so his contempt wasn't evident. Here was a man so dependent on technology that he was literally driving one vehicle into another.

While Shields worked with his ramps, Eli squinted at the high slopes. Nothing of his camp was visible to the naked eye. The tops of the utility poles blended with the dead lodgepole pines. Without a helicopter, one was unlikely to stumble across the site.

“We'll go to my place first,” Shields announced when he had the ATV secured. “I'm not interested in running you into town until I've gotten my answers, Eli. The work I hired you to do up there doesn't seem to be getting done.”

Eli didn't realize he was smiling until Scott Shields said, “Something funny about this to you?”

“No,” Eli said. “Not at all. I was just remembering something.”

He was remembering that Shields currently lived in a massive Winnebago and considering that the man had loaded one vehicle onto another to drive to another still. What was next for him? A tractor-trailer for the Winnebago? A ship for the tractor-trailer?

At what point will you have enough large machines to feel confident about the size of your pecker, Scotty?

They drove down the forest road to the paved county road and then went west toward Lovell and continued west, toward Byron. The drive was excruciating, pulling Eli farther and farther away from the work he could not afford to delay.

They headed into a blighted countryside along another forest road, this one leading to the Shoshone River, where Shields paid for the privilege of parking his motor home. He claimed it was for the fishing, but Eli knew it was because the location was remote but still easy enough for the bikers to reach. Shields had a drug habit that had started with painkillers after his plane crash and progressed from there, and he was on a regular route for the dealers that growled through northern Wyoming, working the oil fields.

As if finally comfortable now that they'd arrived, Shields began talking even before he opened the driver's door.

“That property is a
hunting camp
. You said you'd get it powered for me cheap, using your windmills and whatever the hell, but we've missed every hunting season this year and now I'm not even hearing from you.”

Eli took a deep breath and turned away briefly, reminding himself of why this had to be tolerated, why the burden had to be borne. Then, just as Eli turned back to Scott Shields with a calm face and a ready explanation, he paused.

Things were different now. Markus Novak, down in Cassadaga like a thorn in a wolf's paw, required acceleration. But…if the timetable was sped up, why did he need Scott?

Scott said, “I asked you a question, Pate. Give me an answer.”

Eli turned from him again and gazed down the lonely road to Byron. At some point, someone would come looking for Scott Shields. But how soon? Scott, paranoid sort that he was, did not maintain much contact with the outside world.

It will take some time. A few days, at least. What is the bigger problem for you, a walking and talking Scott Shields or a corpse?

“Scott,” Eli said, “I'm on the brink of a crisis decision. Please understand that.”

“
You're
on the brink? Son of a bitch, you're bringing these packs of idiots onto my property without giving me so much as a word of notice? I don't give a damn about your troubles, I'm concerned with preventing my own.”

“You don't give a damn about my troubles. Is that so?”

“Better believe it. We had an arrangement.”

“I remember. One stipulation was privacy. Have you told anyone else where I am?”

“Of course not. I know you're lying low.”

“I'm just curious what my exposure here is.”

Scott's eyes widened. His big chest filled. “Curious about
your
exposure? It's
my
property! I've got the risk!”

“And I intend to eliminate that for you.”

That mollified him just slightly. “How are you going to do that?”

“Before coming to see me, who did you speak to? Maybe have a beer with, do some bitching about the problems I'm creating for you up there, running behind schedule?”

“Not a soul. I came up to see you and find out what the hell was going on.”

“No other contact, then. You haven't spoken to, say, Lawrence Novak?”

“Larry? Hell, no. I told you, he thinks I'm back in Alaska. What does he have to do with it?”

“Not a thing, evidently, which is excellent to hear. Now, Scott. About your risks…the way I understand it is that, so long as the property remains in your ownership, you're worried about every activity that occurs there.”

“Damn right I am! You already knew this. That was the—”

“You don't own the land,” Eli said. “You only rent it.”

Scott pulled back as if Eli had slapped him. “What kind of drugs are you on? I
own
that land. Go down to the damn courthouse and look at the deed.”

“The deed is not the point. We're all renters here. Of earth, of our time. We don't own either of those things. Understand?”

“You're a lunatic. My only concern is—”

Eli lifted a soothing hand. “I can assure you—absolutely
assure
you—that all of your worldly concerns have reached their terminus.”

Scott Shields cocked his head and gave Eli a confused stare with the barest glimmer of suspicion. Then he spoke again and got as far as “You mind putting that in English, you crazy son of a—” before Eli drew a tiny .22-caliber Ruger from his jacket pocket and shot him directly in his right eye.

Scott reeled back; his feet tangled, and he fell. Eli closed on him without hesitation, a pouncing cat, pressed the pistol directly to Scott's left eye, and fired again. The little gun barely kicked, but Scott's face spit blood back at Eli. He wiped it away and remained there, kneeling over the man, until he was sure that he was dead.

“Well,” Eli said, “we approach warp speed, it seems.”

Passersby here would be rare, and the RV was unlikely to give them pause, but a body lying in front of it would. Eli fished through Scott's pockets until he found his keys, and then he unlocked the oversize motor home and stepped inside. There was a back bedroom with closed window blinds and a door that screened the room from every other window. It would do. There were far better hiding places in any direction in this rugged land, but Eli was short on time, and Shields was a large man, certain to be difficult to maneuver.

He left the motor home, returned to Shields, and grasped the collar of the dead man's jacket. He dragged Shields inside and all the way to the bedroom, and then he heaved him up onto the bed. Shields's head flopped onto the pillow and his body fell naturally into a sleeping posture. The peacefulness of it bothered Eli. He took the gun out and fired two more bullets, one into each eye again. With the existing wounds, the small .22 shells worked like drill bits, boring cleaner tunnels.

Better. Those who found him should be able to grasp the problem that had led to Scott Shields shuffling off this mortal coil: his eyes were useless, for he had no capacity to understand what they offered him. By any definition that truly mattered, Scott had never been able to see things for what they were.

“Thanks for the land,” Eli told the corpse, and then he left the bedroom, checked himself in the bathroom mirror, washed the blood speckles off his skin and clothing, and returned to Scott's truck. The pickup would be valuable; the ATV even more so. Eli hated the ghastly clatter of the vehicles and the smell of the exhaust, but sometimes, you had to make your deals with the devil.

M
ark met Lynn Deschaine at a bar overlooking the Halifax River, a stretch of Intracoastal Waterway that was more like a lagoon than a river, separating the mainland from the barrier islands.

He sipped a beer, the cold bottle numbing the bandaged cut on his thumb, and watched a wood stork shift from one dock pylon to another, studying the water, and he waited on the Pinkerton to arrive. He thought of his uncle, wished he had a number for him, just so he could call and tell him that, because Larry would have loved it. Ronny would have loved it even more, but he'd been dead for years. Now it was just Larry, if he was even alive. That thought made him deeply sad. He'd walked away from his past for smart reasons, but he missed them all the same. His uncles, in particular, had been good men to him, if not to the rest of the world. And they'd cared for his mother.

Lynn Deschaine called from her cell phone while she stood in the shadowed interior of the bar, and Mark raised a hand to indicate where he was sitting. She was tall, only a few inches shorter than Mark, with hair so dark it shimmered in the light like oil. Her features betrayed some of the French look of her name, with high cheekbones, a delicate jaw, and eyes that seemed to be in on a joke that the rest of the world hadn't gotten yet. They weren't eyes that matched her phone style. Except for that one time he'd felt certain that she had smiled.

After she shook his hand, she said, “If you don't mind my asking…what happened to you, Mr. Novak? You look a little worse for the wear.”

His face, neck, and arms were lined with scratches, and his hand was wrapped in gauze.

“Had a little trouble getting out of a house last night.”

“Why was that?”

“Your friend Janell had set it on fire.”

She stared at him.

Mark passed her a cocktail napkin that he'd been writing on while he waited.

“Refresh yourself,” he said.

She looked at the napkin and what he'd printed on it.

1. Accept no bribes

2. Never compromise with criminals

3. Partner with local law enforcement agencies

4. Refuse divorce cases or cases that initiate scandals

5. Turn down reward money

6. Never raise fees without the client's pre-knowledge

7. Keep clients apprised on an ongoing basis

 

“That came from Allan himself,” Mark said. “The big boss.”

She lifted the napkin and held it up with two fingers of her left hand. He noted there was no wedding band. It had been a long time since Mark had noted that about anyone. He felt strangely ashamed by it.

“I truly don't understand this,” Lynn said.

“Ethics?”

“No. Your amusement with my agency.”

Mark shrugged. “As a student of the profession, I feel like this is a really special opportunity for me.”

“I'm sure that it is.”

He leaned forward and took the napkin, set it down in front of her, and tapped it with his index finger. “These still hold true, right? The company never disavowed them?”

“Mr. Novak, if we could communicate like adults for just a minute here, I'd like to know what—”

“I think they're still governing rules,” he continued. “In which case, I'm in luck. While I'm not local law enforcement exactly, I am working on a case
with
them. I can provide you with the name of a police officer in DeLand who will confirm that, but it will mean I'll tell him about Janell before I tell you.”

“Let's not rush,” she said.

Interesting.

They were silent for a moment, and then she broke it, saying, “You want an exchange of information. I can't do that. Client confidentiality.”

“I don't need to know who your client is. I just need to know who Janell is.”

She hesitated, trapping the tip of her tongue between her teeth as she took a deep breath. “A basic profile of what I know about her, that's all?”

“That's all.”

“And in exchange…”

“I'll tell you where she has been staying for the past few months, what vehicle she's traveling in, and the name of at least one associate. As for the house, well, as I said, it was burning the last time I saw it. And the owner was dead. I think your friend Janell cut her throat.”

“Let me call my client,” she said.

“That's fine,” Mark said, though he was disappointed. You could only push so hard when you weren't sure of your leverage. “I'll go inside to the bar and leave you in private. You want a drink?”

“Vodka tonic,” she said, and she extended a credit card to him as she got her cell phone out. He waved it off but she reached out and caught his wrist.

“No, no. I'll pay for my own drink, thank you. If I could refer you to rule number one, Mr. Novak?”

She had her index finger on the cocktail napkin:
Accept no bribes.

That was the first time Lynn Deschaine smiled at Mark. First time she touched him too. Sometimes you don't remember those things and later wish you did. Sometimes they stand out, almost as if you know from the start. Like someone whispers in your ear to take note. The last time Mark had experienced that feeling was on a dive boat on the Gulf of Mexico, and he'd been watching his future wife underwater, working her way slowly toward the surface.

Toward him.

Mark ordered another beer and Lynn's vodka tonic and stood in the cool shadows of the bar and waited while she talked on her phone. It wasn't a short conversation. He had time for another beer, and most of the ice had melted in her drink when she was finally done.

“Well?” he said, returning to the table and handing her the vodka tonic.

“I'm assuming you aren't willing to lead off the conversation by telling me how you located Janell,” she said. “So you'll want me to open the dialogue.”

“Correct. If I led, I'd have nothing left to bargain with. And you, Ms. Deschaine, strike me as a hard-bargain lady.”

“Your intuition exceeds your sense of humor. And please start calling me Lynn.”

“Lead the way then, Lynn.”

“Janell Cole is thirty-six years old, originally from Pennsylvania. She's a graduate of Purdue University, where she earned a degree in electrical engineering.”

“She really is an engineer.”

“A very good one. She left her job fifteen months ago. She gave no indication as to why she was leaving.”

“Where did she work?”

“Atlanta.”

“I mean the company, not the location.”

She hesitated. It was brief, but it was there. Then she said, “I believe it was a utility company,” and took a long drink of her vodka.

Mark said, “That's your client.”

She responded with total poise, unfazed. “I didn't mean to imply that, sorry. But I also asked you to respect the confidentiality of—”

He held up a hand. “I don't care about your client. But it might be easier on us both if you didn't have to dance around it either. You're too good not to know the name of her employer, Lynn. You won't share it, though, and that means you're trying to protect them, but I honestly don't give a damn.”

She looked irritated, but he didn't think it was with him. It was with herself for allowing him to make the determination so easily.

“Independent detective one, Pinkerton zero,” Mark said. “You hate that, don't you?”

She didn't bother to respond and chose to pick up where she'd left off. “After leaving her job, Janell moved from Atlanta to Daytona Beach. She had no known contacts or friends in the area. By the time I was asked to locate her, she'd left there too. I haven't had any success finding her. As for the vehicle you mentioned, I'm assuming it's a red Dodge truck? Purchased a year ago?”

“That's the one.”

She nodded. “That's how you got the Daytona address. BMV records.”

“Yes.”

“Let me ask you a question,” she said. “Do you know where she is
now?
”

Mark shook his head, and he could see the air go out of her.

“I know where she was last night. She just took off and left the house burning down behind her. That's what led me to knock on her door out here.”

“So you're looking for her? You're not just interested in background. You'd also like to find her?”

“I'm doing more talking than you,” he said. “That wasn't the deal. So tell me this: Do you know of any overlap between Janell and the criminal element? I've got to tell you, I didn't have her pegged for an EE. I was going to guess any paperwork she'd left behind was in vice reports, not diplomas.”

“She has no criminal record. Not so much as a speeding ticket.”

“I asked about connections.”

She hesitated again. Mark sighed and set his beer down.

“Listen,” he said, “I get it—”

“My first responsibility is to—”

“Stop.” He leaned forward. “I'm going to go ahead and tell you what case
I'm
working. Why
I
want her. Then you can make a judgment call. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Here's my case,” Mark said. “Lauren Novak. Homicide. Unsolved.”

She didn't say anything. She'd gone very still.

He pushed back from the table. “Spend some time on your phone, Lynn. Do some searches for Lauren, and for me. Then call your client back. When you've decided what level of cooperation you're willing to show, I'll be ready.”

Mark left the deck and returned to the bar.