Tahoe Skydrop (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 16)

by Todd Borg

  I made two fast leaps up the steps and caught Vince halfway.

  He was a heavy limp weight, and it took all of my strength to slow his plunge and lower him to the floor of the second-floor hallway.

  He moaned, indicating he was alive. But he wasn’t going anyplace anytime soon. I laid his head down on the floorboards. Blood was oozing from his forehead. I ran up the staircase.

  At the top of the steps was a small attic space that had been finished off. There were two windows, each set into gables on opposite sides of the slanting roof. The room was empty. It seemed the room existed only to serve as the access point for the door to the bird deck.

  I stepped through the open door out into the darkness. The little deck was vacant. The air was brisk with a slight breeze. But all was dominated by a single tone, a metallic sound, slowly rising in pitch as it grew softer and more distant. Zinging.

  I couldn’t place the sound, but there was a familiarity to it. I reached up above my head. Waved my arm back and forth through the air. Stepped over next to the deck railing. Waved my arm above my head again. My wrist struck metal. Not a hard edge. Something that wasn’t rigid. I wrapped my fingers around the object.

  It was a cable. The glint of light I’d seen earlier from down below. The cable vibrated.

  I realized it was a zip line.

  A groggy voice called out from down the stairway behind me. “Jon? Jon, is that you?” Vince said.

  I turned to face where the zip line pointed and cupped my hands to my mouth. “JON?” I called out. “ARE YOU THERE?”

  After a long moment came a reply, a child’s voice, high in pitch.

  “HELP ME!”

  The zinging sound faded far away.

  I called out again. But there was no reply.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  I turned to go back inside and down the stairs.

  At the edge of the doorway, some pieces of paper fluttered in the dark. I reached for them and saw they had gotten stuck in a gap where the door moulding had separated a bit from the frame. I pulled the pages out.

  My light caught similar pages out on the floor of the deck. Thinking it could reveal something about the kidnappers, I picked them up.

  I ran down the steps. Vince was struggling to sit up.

  “Where’s my boy?” he asked, still groggy.

  “There’s a zip line attached to the third-floor deck. A man took Jon and they went down the zip line.”

  Vince leaned over against the wall, despondent. “Do you think they’ll kill him now?”

  “No. If they wanted to, they would have already done it. They obviously need Jon for something that’s valuable to them. Probably the password we talked about.”

  Vince held his head as if trying to keep it from coming apart.

  I helped Vince stand and put his arm over my shoulder. He was heavy, and he wasn’t taking much weight by himself.

  “Sorry, I’m pretty wobbly,” he said.

  “I’m amazed you aren’t out cold or worse. You took two serious blows.”

  We worked our way down to the first floor.

  The room now had two lamps on, giving a soft illumination to the room. It was a grand lodge room, stone walls, and heavy rustic furniture. Above the fireplace mantle hung the huge bone of a whale jaw. The jaw had very large teeth. Probably from a killer whale.

  Diamond was standing guard over the men. One was near the door. The man was coughing and wheezing from the lingering effects of the bear spray. His eyes were shut, swollen and red, streaming tears. The other man was visible out the open door, next to the fence. He too was hacking and gasping for air.

  Diamond had added a second zip tie to their wrists and also put two ties on each man’s ankles. The man near the door was on his belly, his legs bent up behind him, and his ankles bound to his wrists. Diamond had also attached zip ties from the door hinge to the ties binding the man’s wrists and ankles. The arrangement had immobilized him.

  The other man was tied in a similar fashion but attached to the fence. Diamond had linked up ties like chain links. The result was effective. The only way either man could get free was if someone cut them loose.

  “Nice work,” I said to Diamond as I looked at the men. “Jon is gone, taken out of here on a zip line escape from the upper deck.”

  “Down off into the dark woods,” Diamond said.

  “Yeah.”

  Diamond made a nod of understanding.“Where he had left a vehicle. A brilliant escape. No way could anyone keep up with a zip line by running through the woods. And the pursuer would need a vehicle as well.”

  I said, “Even if the escape vehicle is a mountain bike, the concept makes it so any pursuer ends up stranded in the middle of nowhere.”

  Vince said, “How far do you think the line goes down?”

  “I have no idea. There’s one at Heavenly Resort that’s over three thousand feet long.”

  “We could drive down the mountain and try to find a road that would intersect with the zip line,” Vince said.

  “Maybe. But it’s almost certain they’re already heading away in a vehicle. Another possibility is this zip line leads to a second line going off in another direction. There would be no way to know the destination of a second line.”

  “It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Vince said. He sounded despondent. “I didn’t wait to go in with you through the hidden door. I saw the guy smoking, and I blasted him with bear spray. He yelled loud enough to wake anyone up. And then I threw in the M-Eighty. I woke up everybody and made it so they could escape with Jon!”

  “They might have already been awake,” I said to make him feel better. “Or there may have been a silent alarm that woke them when we landed in the yard.”

  “I doubt it,” Diamond said. “If a guy is sleeping, he’d want a loud alarm to make noise. But I didn’t hear anything. So I think those sensors out there are shut off.”

  “Do you think there’s another guy still hiding out here at this lodge?” Vince asked.

  I answered. “There’s no way to know. But you went up the mountain with three men. One blew off in the windstorm. Two men are tied up here. It’s likely the leader was the only one left, and he escaped with Jon.”

  I took a quick look around, shining my flashlight into several rooms, wondering if I might find anything that would suggest where the man had taken the child. But I found nothing.

  Back in the main room, I said, “Let’s hurry. We can talk in the Jeep.”

  Vince walked over to the man by the stairs. “This is for taking my kid.” He shot a blast of bear spray in the man’s face. The man gasped and coughed and writhed. It was cruel and unusual punishment, but I understood Vince’s anger.

  Vince went outside, over to the other man, and did the same thing.

  As bear spray wafted toward us, we left and hurried away from the lodge, our shadows from the floodlight lengthening before us.

  When we got to the gate, I made the wolf whistle that meant treats for Spot.

  He and the German Shepherd came trotting around the corner, tongues out, panting hard from their run. They were side by side as if they’d been best friends forever.

  But that didn’t mean the shepherd was best friends with me. He hung back, carefully regarding the three of us as Spot came up to me, sniffing the pocket where I keep treats. I gave him one and tossed one to the shepherd.

  “Where’s your boss, boy?” I said to the shepherd. “Who brought you up here?”

  I watched him carefully. A dog who is aware of the location of his master will often betray that location with a glance. The shepherd just watched me, wary, still panting hard.

  “Let’s see what he does as we hustle out of here,” I said.

  We went out the dark drive, through the open gate that Vince had rendered inoperable. Vince moved slowly and held his forehead with one hand and his jaw with the other. Spot came along with us. He glanced back toward the shepherd, who was staying in the yard, no doubt waiting for the person who�
��d brought him there.

  “If there is still a man here, he’s probably hiding from us,” Diamond said.

  “It could be. I could send Spot on a search. But I think it’s more important we go after Vince’s kid.”

  I turned around as we entered the dark tree shadows, out of line from the flood light at the lodge.

  The shepherd was still hanging back, watching us.

  “How far is the Jeep?” Vince asked, his pain obvious in his voice.

  “Down the drive about three-quarters of a mile,” Diamond said. “Maybe more. Parked in the trees.”

  “You okay with that, Vince?”

  “Yeah. It’s nothing compared to carrying the glider up the ski run. I’d sprint around the lake if I thought it would help get Jon back.”

  Spot trotted out in front of us. Like all dogs, he was always waiting for the slow humans. He would also pause at road hazards that were obvious to him, even if unseen by us. As our leader, he would alert if he sensed a person. And because he’d already come up the road, he would be aware of any changes, especially if those changes involved the scent of a person.

  Vince spoke between fast breaths. He turned toward the pages in my hand, which must have been catching the dim light. “What’s that you’re carrying?”

  “Some papers got caught in the moulding of the doorway out to the upper deck. I thought they could be the kidnapper’s notes.”

  “What are they?” Vince asked.

  I turned them over in the light and flattened out a folded portion. It was a title page of a book. The words were visible. “It looks like it’s from a book called, ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho,’” I said.

  “Oh, that’s Jon’s favorite book. A cheesy romance that was written centuries ago. Good riddance for him to lose it. The last thing Jon needs is to be reading girl books.”

  “Your kid will be very sad to have lost it,” I said.

  “Growing up to be a man means learning to appreciate a man’s perspective on the world,” Vince said.

  After some silence, Vince added, “But you think Jon is really a girl. I get that feeling from other people, too. I can’t cope with this.”

  “Hard to be a parent,” Diamond said.

  In a minute, Vince turned to Diamond. “What do you think? Do you think it’s okay for a boy to decide he’s really a girl?”

  Diamond was silent. For a man who was better with words than anyone I knew, he still understood the importance of thinking before speaking. “I think your kid sounds very bright and thoughtful and not like someone who comes to opinions without careful consideration.”

  “Right,” Vince said. “But even with the most ridiculous notion, he’s still stubborn as hell. He just won’t let go of this infatuation he has with being a girl.”

  “You probably had some stubborn characteristics when you were that age,” Diamond said.

  “I sure did. I thought I knew everything. And I thought adults got a lot of things wrong. So I think I’ve got a pretty good grip on how these things work between kids and adults.”

  Diamond continued. “You’ve probably never doubted your own gender.”

  Vince scoffed. “Of course, not. I was a boy’s boy from point A. I grew up to be a man. There was nothing to doubt. Ever.”

  “So what if you’d been born in a girl’s body?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” Diamond asked.

  Vince wasn’t walking fast. But he slowed down.

  Diamond’s words weren’t that far from things I’d already said to Vince. But they seemed to make a stronger impact.

  Diamond and I matched Vince’s new pace.

  “I’ve read some stuff about gender,” Diamond said. “And what scientists have learned about it.”

  “What, you’re some kind of science expert?” Vince asked, his tone disparaging.

  “Ain’t no brain scientist,” Diamond said. “I’m a cop. But I’m a reader. Turns out that gender is pretty much how you feel.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That how you feel is more important than how you look.”

  Vince didn’t respond.

  Diamond said, “A majority of people were born with a body that conforms to the way they feel about their gender. But it’s not a giant proportion. A significant portion of people have bodies and genders that don’t match up.”

  More silence from Vince. “And you’re saying my boy is one of those people. That Jon is really a girl because of the way… the way she feels. She was just born with the wrong body.”

  “Seems like it. And if that’s a hard thought to wrestle, you can know that she’s got a lot of company.”

  Vince still had a hand on his head.

  “Here’s another thing to know,” Diamond said. “This stuff isn’t black or white. Some people feel like girls, some like boys. Some people are in between in the way they feel. There’s a lot of middle ground.”

  “Jon… Jonni likes boys,” Vince said. “If Jon is really a she, then she wouldn’t be gay. She’d like boys the same way most girls like boys.”

  “Could be,” Diamond said. “The fact she’s trapped in a boy’s body makes things difficult.” Diamond paused. “But it could be having a mis-matched mind and body, so to speak, isn’t that difficult for her. It could be the most difficult thing about the whole situation is your dismissal and lack of acceptance. She might be going through life pretty well except for your refusal to acknowledge what she knows and what her friends know. And probably what your girlfriend knows.”

  I was sure Diamond didn’t mean it to sound harsh. But it sounded harsh.

  Vince didn’t respond.

  There was no more talk as we hustled down the drive. Spot led the way, slowing as we slowed so he maintained the same distance in front of us. He came to a near stop at the three different switchbacks, waiting.

  Then Spot turned off the drive.

  “Jeep’s here,” Diamond said. He walked into the trees.

  “Good place,” I said. “I can see it now. But I never would unless someone pointed it out. Can you drive?”

  Diamond looked puzzled.

  “Either that, or you take Spot on your lap in the back seat.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  Diamond got into the driver’s seat. Vince took the passenger seat. I squeezed in back with Spot, which he thought was fun because he got to lie on me. He didn’t know that his elbow points were splitting my thigh muscles and lighting them on fire.

  Diamond turned the headlights on, pulled out, and headed down the rest of the drive. He drove for a bit, then cranked the wheel and made a hard turn around a 180-degree switchback. He sped back up and raced down the dark drive. We came to a neighborhood street. “Which way?” he said. “You want to look for the end of the zip line?”

  “No. I’m confident they’re long gone from the canyon. Let’s head out to the highway.”

  “My cop sense tells me the man would get off the highway as soon as possible,” Diamond said. “He’d assume we might have put out a ‘Be On The Look Out’ for him.”

  “You think he’d hole up until the BOLO got old?” I said.

  “Maybe. The question is where.”

  “He might fall back on the same idea that brought him to the Stone Lodge,” I said.

  “What would that be?”

  “Isaiah Hellman’s Stone Lodge was accessible through Hellman’s AHAB concept. Always Have A Backup entrance. That made it a good place to hide. I think the kidnappers knew about the hidden entrance, because there were no broken-down doors or windows that we saw. There’s a possibility that Hellman would have an AHAB entrance at the Hellman Mansion, too. The leader of our kidnappers might also wonder that. He’s obviously fairly smart, considering what he’s already orchestrated.”

  “You’re thinking that the kidnapper would take Jonni and hide at the Hellman Mansion,” Diamond said.

  “It makes as much sense as any other idea. Hiding in plain sight until things bl
ow over.”

  “It seems so unlikely they’d hide there,” Vince said. “They give tours there every day. The tour docents will be arriving this morning, in just a few hours. But I guess that would make it a great place to hide, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We should get Brie. She’s probably tearing her hair out worrying about Jon.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Diamond sped up to the highway, slowed just a bit for the stop sign, then made a right turn. He floored the accelerator. We raced south, heading down the West Shore. Diamond sped up to 65 down the curving highway.

  “The turnoff to our house is coming up,” Vince said as we went through the Tahoe Pines neighborhood.

  Diamond slowed.

  “The intersection after this one,” Vince said as we sped past a cross street. “Okay, turn here. Then go slow and take the very next right.”

  Diamond did as told.

  “See the house on the corner? Just after the next left is the drive. Coming up. Yeah, here.”

  Diamond turned in.

  “Pull all the way back. Past the house. To the garage behind. We live upstairs.”

  Diamond braked but hadn’t completely stopped when Vince got out.

  Vince went up the stairs slowly and deliberately and went inside the apartment.

  Vince and Brie came down the steps a minute later. Vince leaned in to the open window. “We can’t all fit in your Jeep. It would be good for Brie to ride with you so you can catch her up on what we’ve been doing. I’ll follow you in Brie’s truck.”

  I realized Vince probably didn’t want to talk with his head aching.

  Brie climbed into the front passenger seat of the Jeep.

  Diamond pulled out, worked his way back to the highway, and turned south again.

  Vince followed us.

  I briefly explained how we’d nearly gotten Jonni before one of the men took her down the zip line. I didn’t go into the details of crash-landing the paraglider or using bear spray on men and tying them up.