In the Dark

by White, Loreth Anne

  The trees closed in as he climbed higher. Branches and twigs scored the sides of his vehicle like fingernails on a chalkboard. It reminded him of school, and of Jenny and Luke. A vivid image flashed into his mind: Luke with his little dinosaur backpack on his first day of school. Mason’s gloved hands tightened on the wheel as his pulse quickened. He tamped the memory down and checked his GPS reading. He should be near the river. The evergreens around him were bigger now. Fat trunks covered in moss. Mist rolled down the mountain and sifted in ghostly fingers through the branches. It made his headlights look like hazy tunnels through the gloom. Perhaps he’d made the wrong move in taking this post.

  Usually an isolated northern posting like this was the preserve of rookies fresh out of Depot Division in Regina. But for Mason—a veteran major crimes cop with twelve years of law enforcement under his gun belt—it had been a Hobson’s choice, and an uncommon one. He’d put in the request himself.

  It was either this or digging himself into deeper shit on a road toward disciplinary action. Or worse: dismissal.

  Maybe he should’ve just resigned, quit while barely ahead. But something deep down inside Mason urged him to hold on, just for a while longer, to try to buy time to think in a place that was quiet, safe, under the radar. Maybe he’d pull himself right. Maybe after two years or so in these backwoods, he’d be ready to return to a major urban environment and serious crime work. Maybe he’d want to keep living by then.

  But the other part of Mason—the destructive part—whispered in his ear that he was deluding himself. He was washed up. Soiled goods. No one was going to want to work with him or trust him again.

  This is your last option.

  He rounded a steep bend and saw Hubb’s marked SUV ahead, parked beneath the sagging boughs of a Douglas fir, the engine puffing clouds of white into the dusk. The windows were fogged, but Mason could discern the silhouettes of three occupants inside. In front of the SUV was a mud-caked all-terrain vehicle painted in camouflage greens. A blaze hunting vest lay on the seat. Mason pulled in behind the SUV. As he put his vehicle into park, Hubb got out of the SUV and swaggered over to his truck, her arms held out in an unnatural position to accommodate her duty belt. Hubb was short—maybe five two in her steel-toed boots, and the heavy gun belt and bullet-suppression vest under her jacket bulked up an already padded frame. Hubb liked her doughnuts from the bakery across the street from the station. Her nose and cheeks were ruddy with cold, her eyes watery bright.

  “Hey, boss,” she said as Mason got out.

  He zipped his uniform jacket to his neck. The damp weather at this elevation had a way of fingering under one’s clothes. He heard the sound of rushing water.

  “Crash site is that way.” She pointed toward dense trees and berry scrub brown with autumn leaves. “It went down the gulley screened by that vegetation over there. I couldn’t really see the wreck from up top, but the hunters said the tail of the floatplane is hanging right in the river, the rest is stuck up on a ledge of slippery rock.”

  “Those the guys who found it?” Mason nodded toward the two men hunkered inside the marked 4x4.

  “Yeah. I got their statements. I asked them to hang around so you could speak to them, if you want. Left them inside the vehicle where it’s warm.”

  “Any signs the wreck has been there long?” Mason asked as he made his way toward the screen of trees that hid the ravine. Hubb followed behind him, boots crunching on stones. The rushing sound of water grew louder. Moisture boiled up in clouds behind the evergreens.

  “They said it wasn’t all rusted up and stuff. They figure the crash could be fairly recent. Who knows. I saw in the news the other day that a search party found a wreck that was thirty years old. Near Clearwater—found it while they were looking for some other missing plane from Alberta.”

  It was Hubb’s failing. Talking too much. She didn’t stop, and it drove Mason nuts.

  He parted a section of foliage that Hubb had flagged with strips of fluorescent-orange tape. He stepped through scrub. Holding on to a hemlock branch, he tried to peer down through the bushes into the gorge. His stomach swooped—the ground dropped clean away just ahead of his boot tips. Water rumbled and thundered about forty feet below, throwing up a cast of tiny droplets that clung to everything. To say he was afraid of heights would be an understatement. It was a flaw Mason had managed to hide. Until maybe now, just when he needed to prove himself capable to this new team, and to the townsfolk who were already wary of his ability to handle this remote wilderness post.

  “I’ve already put in a call to Cal,” Hubb said cheerily from behind him.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Cal?”

  “Kluhane Search and Rescue. Cal Sutton is the manager. We’re going to need SAR techs with ropes and swift-water experience if we want to haul that wreck up that bank. I also put a call in to the Transportation Safety Board.”

  He stared at her.

  Her cheeks flushed a deeper red. “I . . . uh, Ray—Sergeant Ted Newman, who was here before you—he usually left the SAR tasking to me, so I, uh—”

  “So you took the initiative.”

  “Correct, but if you’d rather—”

  “It’s fine. We’ll stick with the routine. For now.”

  Until I’ve been here long enough to figure out how the hell things function up here.

  She swallowed, and her eyes lost their smile. “Yes, sir.”

  Mason clearly had big shoes to fill. He’d arrived only two weeks earlier, and it was obvious his predecessor had been both well loved and respected. So much so that the Kluhane Bay residents, in an unusual move, had campaigned to have Sergeant Ted Newman’s tenure extended. But now they had Mason. Who was not in the mood for making friends.

  “Did the TSB say if there were any reports about aircraft going down or missing in this area?” he asked.

  “Negative, sir. No reports of overdue or missing planes in this region over the last two years. TSB investigators are standing by and will dispatch a team as soon as we have more information.”

  Holding tightly to the branch, Mason gingerly tested the matted ground underfoot.

  “Careful, sir. It drops right off beneath that moss.”

  It felt solid. Slowly, carefully, he transferred weight onto his front foot, edging slightly forward. He leaned over a little farther. He could see part of the fuselage down below, and a pontoon. Upside down. Bright yellow with blue detail. The floatplane lay wrong side up on a ledge of rock. He could just make out part of the registration painted in bold black letters on the fuselage. He inched forward a little more. The left wing was crushed into the side of the ravine, the tail in the river, causing white froth to foam around it. He swore softly and called back to Hubb, “How did they even find it down there?”

  “Wounded a bear,” she yelled back over the crashing of the water. “Placed a bad shot on a black male last night. Been tracking the animal since first light. It climbed down into the gorge and they followed it.”

  “Down there?”

  “Guess the bear wanted to live real bad.”

  And the hunters must have wanted to kill him real bad if they tried to climb down these rocks.

  “Did they see anyone inside the wreck?” he called, leaning a tiny bit farther over the edge to see if he could make out the cockpit. His arm began to shake. His stomach heaved.

  “Negative, sir.”

  The branch in his hand cracked with the report of a rifle. Before Mason even registered, it broke free of the tree. He fell fast, bouncing down against rocks. He smashed into a bush growing out of a crevice. It broke his tumble. He grabbed at a handful of twigs, but they sliced out of his grasp. He slid and bumped down rocks and over slick moss, grabbing wildly, blindly at scrub and saplings nestled in the crevices. But he failed to find purchase. He slammed hard onto the ledge that jutted out over the roaring river. He rolled and landed with a thump against the upside-down plane fuselage. He stilled, heart racing, head spinning. The section of the ledge
upon which he’d come to rest tilted precariously toward the foaming water, the surface as slippery as wet soap.

  The wreck gave a metallic creak, then a groan. He felt it move against his leg. Mason held dead still.

  “Sir! You okay, sir? Sergeant?”

  “Fine,” he barked up, adrenaline pumping. Slowly—very slowly—he turned his head toward the cockpit window. His heart stopped. Directly in front of his face—close enough for him to touch if he dared move his hands—was a corpse hanging upside down in the pilot seat, held fast by a harness. The face was fish-belly white, bloated. The mouth hung open. Milky eyes stared back at Mason. The corpse’s hair was white blonde, cut very short. He noticed an earring, and it struck him—the dead pilot was female. From his position he could see no one else inside the plane, but it was a bad vantage point. Mason sucked in a deep breath, counted to three, then inched carefully backward up the sloping ledge, away from the fuselage and the water’s edge. The aircraft creaked. Metal grated against rock as it slid a little deeper into the churning water. The current tugged harder at the tail.

  He keyed the radio near his shoulder. “Hubb? You read me, Hubb?”

  He released the key and swore to himself. The plane moved again. Time elongated. His vision narrowed. A buzz started in his ears. Vertigo. He closed his eyes, trying to tamp down the panic surging into his chest, the dizziness. Sweat broke out over his face.

  “Sir?”

  He keyed the radio again. “Got someone inside the cockpit. Pilot. Looks female. Deceased. Get on the sat phone. Call the coroner and activate a full SAR response.” He paused and refocused, trying to bring his adrenaline and panic under control.

  Silence.

  He keyed his radio again. “Hubb?” No response. “Can you hear me, Hubble?” Carefully, he looked skyward. But his movement redistributed his body weight and gave power to gravity. It shot him over the slick moss and back down the rock. His body hit the plane fuselage again with a bump. The plane groaned. Water boiled higher around the tail, tugging more forcibly at the plane.

  Fuck.

  “Hoi!” came a yell from above. “Sergeant Deniaud! Sit tight. Do not move! I’m coming down. Don’t move!”

  He didn’t dare. If he slid any farther, he was going right into the churning white water along with the mangled wreck.

  A rope’s end hit the rock ledge near his face. He heard movement above. Small stones and debris skittered over him. He shut his eyes to avoid the dirt raining down.

  A few moments later the climber landed on the flat and drier part of the ledge. Mason opened his eyes, saw boots. A gloved hand reached down for him.

  “Can you take hold of my hand?” The voice was female.

  He swallowed and reached up toward the voice. The climber grasped hold of his wrist. Relief shot through him.

  “Hold tight around my wrist—can you do that? It forms a more solid lock, like a chain.”

  He grasped firmly so they were clasped wrist to wrist.

  “Good job. Now I’m going to pull you toward me. Try to use your feet to assist. Got it? Dig your toes into the rock to get a grip.”

  He nodded. As his rescuer pulled, he found traction with his boots. Carefully he edged himself free of the wreck and closer to the climber, but as he did, the floatplane gave a massive groan and slid into the water. It made a loud sucking and crunching sound as the boiling foam embraced it. Then it was gone, swallowed by the raging and frothing water.

  He froze.

  Fuck.

  He’d just sent a crashed floatplane and dead pilot, and a whole barrel of evidence, downriver.

  “Don’t look. Keep your focus on me. Just focus on coming toward me.”

  Mason inched up the slippery incline with his rescuer’s assistance. Finally, after several slips and starts, he made it back onto the flatter, drier section of the ledge. The woman helped him up onto his knees. He was breathing hard, drenched with sweat and river mist. It had started to rain, too. Immediately she secured a rope and harness around his torso.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked once he was securely fastened.

  “Negative,” he said.

  “You sure?”

  He looked up from his position on his knees. She wore a helmet and headlamp. It was getting darker, and her headlight blinded him, so he couldn’t really see her features under the helmet.

  “I’m Cal,” she said. “Callie Sutton. Kluhane Bay Search and Rescue. I’m sorry we couldn’t meet under more favorable circumstances, Sergeant Deniaud.” She smiled—he could see that much below the glare of her headlamp. A big, wide grin full of white teeth.

  Irritation punched through Mason. Callie Sutton’s apparent conviviality in the face of his having sent a planeload of evidence into a raging river was the last fucking thing he needed.

  “Did you see any sign of survivors?” she asked.

  “Negative. But I can’t be sure. The pilot looked like she’d been dead awhile.”

  “She?”

  “Could have been male, but the earring made me think female.”

  “Right. We can start a search downriver at first light. Sending my guys out in the dark will risk lives, especially in these conditions. There’s a storm moving in. And this section of the Taheese is dangerous in high water. Come, let’s get you hauled back up. I’ve got someone to belay us from the top.”

  Callie hooked him up with more ropes and carabiners. “You ever done this before?” she asked.

  “Nope.” He was certain she could feel him shaking.

  She gave him instructions. Mason struggled against vertigo and the blood thumping in his eardrums to focus on her instructions.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  He blinked against the light from her headlamp. “As I’ll ever be.”

  She stilled for a moment, reading his fear, hearing it in his voice. “It’ll be fine,” she said gently. “Just relax and follow my lead.” She raised her gloved hand and made a big winding motion to whoever was handling the ropes from above. “Okay, bring us up!” she yelled.

  He was swung out into the void.

  Way to prove yourself to the new guys, Deniaud. Just don’t piss your pants now.

  He’d managed to hide his acrophobia from his colleagues for twelve years. Mason figured it was all about to go downhill from here. To calm himself he called up a mental image of the bottle of whiskey waiting for him at the isolated waterfront cabin that was now his home. He told himself he could always just drink it all and walk into that goddamn lake if it all got to be too much.

  THE LODGE PARTY

  DAN

  Saturday, October 24.

  Dan Whitlock sat at the rear of the Executive Transit shuttle bus. His tour group had been on the road for two hours since leaving the Gateway Hotel at Vancouver International Airport. He checked his watch for the umpteenth time.

  He needed a smoke. A drink. Or four. He glanced out the tinted window. Endless forests and mountains blurred past as the shuttle began to climb the twisting Sea to Sky Highway into the mountains. There were eight on the bus, including him, a tour guide, and the driver. They were headed for Thunderbird Ridge, a brand-new ski and golf destination resort north of Squamish due to open to skiers for the first time this year. But it was still autumn. Too late for golf, too early for skiing. A fresh dusting of snow coated the peaks, and it was cold out. Dan hated cold. He’d tolerated it once, but no longer. At age fifty-nine it hurt his joints. His gout played up.

  He checked his watch yet again. Not too long now. He’d hit the hotel bar first or, at the very least, crack open something from the minibar in his room. Booze—everything on this junket—was on the house. Courtesy of the RAKAM Group, which was hosting the jaunt. The plan was for their group to overnight at the spanking-new luxury hotel in Thunderbird Ridge; then tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. they would board a chartered West Air floatplane and fly to a high-end wilderness lodge and spa located at a secret destination in the BC interior. There they would be wined and fine-dined, be given tre
atments like Swedish and hot stone massage, and enjoy outdoor saunas by the lake. Or they could “luxuriate” in front of wood fires in “architecturally designed” waterfront cabins for ten days, surrounded by nothing but “nature” plus room service and open bars. Dan had won the trip at a casino function in July.

  From having spoken to the other tour participants over a buffet breakfast at the Gateway Hotel this morning, he’d learned that the Forest Shadow Wilderness Resort & Spa had yet to officially open to guests, but the new managers were seeking to “partner” with businesses that offered services like housekeeping, catering, security, and expertise in advertising to niche markets. To this end, several professionals were being flown out to undergo the “lodge experience” and decide whether they in turn wanted to put in tenders for long-term contracts.

  Dan didn’t much care either way who was there for what reason. He’d accepted the prize because he never turned his back on a freebie. Ever. Especially when it came with booze and high-end cuisine, and words like luxuriating. He was a run-down old private investigator who’d catered for most of his life to clients who generally crawled out of some gutter, so it wasn’t like he was going to be able to afford anything like this out of his own pocket. Besides, he might get lucky. He’d be rubbing shoulders and schmoozing with some rich folk—real influencers. And that could lead to business opportunities. Even rich folk did dirty shit. And dirty-shitters needed PIs like him to clean up their crap—good old gumshoes who operated beneath the radar and around the legal fringes. Even PIs from top law firms sometimes passed the shady stuff under the table to him.

  The woman in the seat in front of him turned around and smiled. “I so love a secret, don’t you?”

  Her name was Monica McNeill. A breathy brunette in her early fifties with perfect makeup. She was married to the balding dude sitting beside her, Dr. Nathan McNeill, a professor of mycology at the University of Toronto. Monica was a grocery-chain heiress who’d moved her family empire into the whole foods/organic era and made a killing out of her Holistic Foods chain. Her company now owned “green” supermarkets in pretty much every city across the country. Holistic Foods also boasted a catering arm. Which was why she’d been invited on this junket.