by Val Tobin
Hound Dog chuckled in reply. “Yeah, I am.”
“Enough,” Rachel said.
“This is my investigation. I’m paying you.” Peter snapped a few final shots of the store and headed for the door. “You coming? House first, then we’ll hit the docks.”
“Peter,” Rachel said, her tone compelling him to halt. “Yes, this is your party, but you’re under my leadership. The second you put yourself or my team in danger, the party’s over and we go home.”
“Understood.” He waited for her and Hound Dog to catch up. “How do we do this?”
She led the way, ordering Peter to fall in behind her, and Hound Dog took up the rear. Outside, the sky had clouded over, typical in this area. A bright sunny day often turned to rain, but the rain clouds frequently blew over as suddenly as they arrived.
As they entered the two-story house, Hound Dog sidled up to Rachel and said, “Those guys never searched the house or the store. Does that seem right to you?”
“I suppose it does if they had a known start location. They might end up working their way back here, but if their starting point was a cottage along the lake, they’d head straight to it.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” he replied, sounding as if he didn’t believe it but would accept it for now.
They toured the house, Rachel searching for signs of what might have happened to Enza and Dan. She found nothing. If they’d been killed in the house, she found no traces of them. Grendels wouldn’t clean up a murder scene, so there would’ve been blood.
When they’d last been here, Rachel’s mother had called to the marina’s owners from the open front door and received no reply. The couple likely was already dead. They’d probably heard activity outside. Dan would’ve stepped outside with his shotgun to check for trespassers. The grendels would’ve got him then. If Enza followed him, they’d have caught her, too.
The roof on the house was intact, which also indicated the owners weren’t hunted down indoors. The furniture still sat where Rachel remembered. Puffy pillows mouldered on the damp and muddy couch. An open book lay face down on the floor near a rocking chair by the fireplace as if a startled reader had dropped it there. Dishes sat untouched in the kitchen cupboards. A cup and plate sat in the dishrack next to the sink.
The mattresses on the beds and padding on couches and chairs gave off a dank, mouldy smell, and Rachel guessed from the rips and holes in them that mice nested inside. What had once been a homey, comfortable residence for a sweet old couple was now a decaying haven for rodents and God knew what else. If any grendels nested close to the house, they might scavenge here.
Rachel’s eyes teared up at the thought of the kindly couple suffering such a gruesome fate, but she shook it off at the sound of approaching footfalls.
“I’m done here.” Peter reached her side, Hound Dog close on his tail.
“Did you find what you wanted?” she asked.
“Not sure if it’s what I wanted, but I found no evidence Enza and Dan had defended the place. No spent shells, nothing to indicate they’d holed up here at all.”
“No, they disappeared before my brother and I got trapped in the store.”
She led them from the house. On their way to the shore, she instructed Code Master and Foot-Long to remain on alert at their current posts.
The marina store overlooked a series of docks where boats once tethered. Only two of the four docks remained, the other two likely getting chopped up by ice over the years. Rachel started her search by stepping out on the dock closest to the western shore. The boat her mother had died in had floated between that shore and this dock.
As she scanned the weeds in the water and the rocks on the shore, fat drops of rain splatted onto her head, hands, and shoulders. Angry to have her quest interrupted, Rachel verified Peter’s and Hound Dog’s locations. Peter walked among the rocks and boulders on the shore. Hound Dog followed close behind him, on guard.
In the distance, a shot rang out followed quickly by another. A moment of silence reigned, and then more gunshot blasts punctuated the air.
Rachel blared out a two-fingered whistle to get Hound Dog’s and Peter’s attention. When they caught her eye, she waved them back toward the vehicle.
“They might flush grendels back out this way. Let’s go.”
They raced for the car. From the forest came the sound of leaves and branches rustling as something crashed through the underbrush toward them.
Chapter Twenty
Before they reached the safety of the vehicle, two figures burst into the clearing. Rachel raised her rifle but held back when she recognized the leader of the team they’d met earlier. Beside him lurched one woman from the group. The other two team members were nowhere in sight.
“Hold your fire,” Rachel shouted at her team. “Friendlies.”
“What the hell are they doing in there?” Peter asked. “They’d have had to trek through the deep woods to get out here.”
“One of them’s hurt.” Rachel moved toward the pair. “Dog, cover us. No telling what might be following them.”
She reached the pair and held an arm out for the woman to grasp.
“I’m okay. Just scrapes from the underbrush.” Her breath came in ragged gasps. “He sprained his arm.” She waved a hand in her partner’s direction, where he stood cradling his left arm.
Rachel escorted them to the truck. “Where’s your vehicle? What the hell were you doing in the forest?”
The leader answered. “We traced the civilian’s GPS to the deep woods. The only way in was to hike it.”
“Who sent you in here?” Rachel asked. “If we’re going to help you, I want to know what we’re dealing with.”
“A private corporation hired us. We’re not free to discuss it. We’ve been given minimal, need-to-know information. The man we’re searching for works for the company. They lost contact with him two days ago and put together this team to locate him.”
Rachel thought of her father and his company, of Jeff’s sudden death. “And your name is?”
“Chris Bowan.” He suddenly looked very young, the weight of his circumstances pressing down on him. Still, Rachel guessed he wasn’t any younger than she was.
She turned to the woman beside him. “And you?”
“Brenda Walsh.” The woman held herself together well despite the fresh welts on her face that must sting like a bugger.
“What happened? Where are your teammates?”
“On the trail. We went in to locate Maddoc—the missing guy—and bring him out. The other two stayed to guard the trail. We walked smack into a grendel nest,” Chris said.
Brenda continued the story. “The nest was empty, but we kept going. Our guy was nearby, according to the GPS tracker. We found two grendels and shot them. Another two appeared out of the trees, moving fast. We shot them and ran to where the GPS indicated Maddoc should be.”
“Did you find him?” Rachel asked, assuming they’d probably stumbled across his body. No one could survive two days in the woods with a nest of grendels, especially not a civilian.
Chris and Brenda exchanged glances.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
“We found his body. We need to contact the rest of our team and haul the body out,” Chris replied.
“So call them,” Rachel said.
“We can’t.” Chris tilted his head in Brenda’s direction. “Her cell battery died, and I must’ve lost my phone when we ran through the forest.”
“What training have you had for this?” Hound Dog broke in, disgust clear in his voice.
“The company hired and trained us six weeks ago,” Chris said.
Rachel gritted her teeth. Amateurs. This illustrated why private businesses and citizens needed to hire professional protectors. Too many big companies trained their own people, hoping to save a buck on search and rescues, retrievals, or expeditions into the woods. Professional protectors had survival training—which included wildcrafting and knowledge of plants u
sed in first aid—advanced first aid training, and training in weapons and tracking.
“I suggest, Mister Bowan, you take the trail to where your teammates are waiting, get in your vehicle, and leave. Have your company hire a team of protectors to return for the body. Call it in when you get back to your vehicle.”
She half-turned away from them, dismissing them. They had their own mission to accomplish. She refused to let a group of poorly trained civilians distract them. This wasn’t any business of hers, and she had a deadline. She didn’t want to keep her team in here any longer than planned.
Chris put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Please, we can’t leave him. We’ve eliminated the grendels. All we have to do is go back in, pick up the body, and return to the trail on the other side.”
“We’ll give you a lift to your vehicle—we’re heading in the same direction anyway. From there, your team can call in what happened and get protectors out here to help you deal with the bodies. You know the grendel kills must be reported and their bodies collected.”
“We understand, but the company wants to deal with the missing employee without involving Protector HQ. We’ll call in the grendels. We want to take our coworker’s body home first.”
“I can’t let you do that. We need to report this.”
“Well, can you return to the site and see what you think?” Brenda asked. “Maybe you can tell us if a grendel attack killed him.”
She could. Her experience as a team leader and former cop qualified and authorized her to assess a scene. But damn it, this isn’t what they came here to do. Yet she couldn’t ignore the situation.
“All right. Here’s what we’ll do: Hound Dog and I will follow you two into the woods,” she told Brenda and Chris. “Peter, you go with Code Master and Foot-Long in the truck to find their vehicle and the other two members of their team. They must be getting antsy waiting for these two to return.”
Code Master and Foot-Long exchanged glances but didn’t protest. They understood the situation, and though the delay obviously frustrated them, they wouldn’t disagree with the call she’d made. Peter scowled, but he too realized they’d have to take this detour. He perked up and his expression smoothed out.
“Might as well make the best of it. I can take pictures, right?” He looked at Rachel as he said this.
“Sure. If there’s anything you can’t legally photograph, I’ll let you know.” Perhaps he could get more than one story out of this trip. She’d be taking photos too.
Hound Dog waited patiently, his expression neutral. His gun, which he’d used while searching the house, was holstered, and he had his rifle at the ready.
“Peter’s driving. He knows the area,” Hound Dog said, sparing the three a discussion on the subject. He turned to Chris. “Tell him where to find your vehicle, and let’s get moving.”
The four who remained behind waited for Hound Dog’s truck to disappear over the rise in the road.
Rachel told them she’d take the lead with Brenda at her side to guide her and had Hound Dog take the rear. She told Chris to fall in behind her and Brenda. The four made their way to the woods along the shore, climbing over rocks. As they passed the point where she’d seen her mother climb into the rowboat twelve years ago, Rachel halted the group and asked them to give her a moment.
She scanned the water. According to her father, his people had found the rowboat capsized in the water but hadn’t recovered her mother’s body. He’d had the boat dragged from the water and left on shore. She searched for a sign of it but found nothing to indicate there’d been a rowboat here at all.
“Sorry, guys. I had to check.” She didn’t explain to Chris and Brenda what she searched for, but she knew Hound Dog would understand. The lack of anything to signify her mother had even been there made her want to cry, but she squelched the tears and led her little group into the woods.
Chapter Twenty-One
Twigs snapped under Chris’s and Brenda’s boots, and Rachel whirled on them. “No wonder you two were attacked. Watch where you’re stepping.”
Rachel and Hound Dog passed among the trees like wraiths, neither giving even a hint of their location. The four grendels Chris and Brenda said they’d killed were probably the only nest in the area, but Rachel didn’t trust the forest was clear of danger. These two incompetents certainly hadn’t secured the site.
The rain fell more heavily, making the ground mucky and adding to the soggy mess they had to cross. Only a thin layer of soil covered solid rock. The entire area was part of the Canadian Shield, rock that made up the Earth’s crust and near the surface in this part of North America. Even the trees here found it challenging to root themselves to the ground. Most of them, whether evergreen or deciduous, clung to the soil with roots spreading visibly across the ground. It made walking a trip hazard.
After ten minutes, Brenda sidled up to Rachel. “We’re close to where we found Maddoc.”
Rachel raised her hand, ordering them to halt. Rain pattered down through the trees. If birds or animals lived here, they kept still and silent. Wind tossed the treetops and made the air bone-chilling and damp.
“What are you waiting for?” Chris said.
Rachel turned a withering gaze on him, and he pressed his lips together with a scowl. She trained her ears on the environment. Had she heard movement just as Chris spoke? He hadn’t even kept it to a whisper. Whoever had hired this team hadn’t done a good job of vetting the crew. They were more than incompetent. They were reckless and stupid.
“Let’s go.” Chris moved the two steps needed to catch up to Brenda and Rachel. “We don’t have all day.”
“Shut up.” Rachel kept her voice low, but her tone was as harsh as her words. She didn’t have time for niceties. She needed silence.
“What?”
“Chris, if you insist on flapping your gums and ignoring my commands, I’m leaving you here to fend for yourself.” She bluffed. Walking away from improperly trained civilians would be irresponsible. She just wanted to scare him silent. If he feared the protectors would withdraw their support, he’d have to call the company they worked for and admit their screw up. Likely, Chris’s motive for dragging them in here was to have the protector team help clean up their mess.
The bluff worked. Chris fell silent.
A click alerted Rachel to a weapon somewhere outside their small group.
“Take cover!” she whispered.
Rachel and Hound Dog moved to melt into the trees, but before they could disappear, Chris and Brenda raised their weapons. Chris, whose left arm appeared fine, pointed his rifle at Rachel. Brenda had hers trained on Hound Dog.
“Freeze. You two aren’t going anywhere,” Chris said.
Four figures detached from the trees surrounding them, all holding rifles, all training their weapons on Rachel and Hound Dog.
“What the fuck is this?” Hound Dog said. His coarse words implied anger, but he spoke in a conversational tone, as if he were simply curious.
“You’re coming with us,” Chris said.
“We already were coming with you,” Hound Dog replied amicably.
“Not here,” came Brenda’s response.
“Then where?” Rachel asked. “Was this even a search and rescue?”
Brenda and Chris grinned, and Chris replied, “In a way. We searched for you and your team, but it’s not a rescue.”
“Grendels never attacked you.” Rachel contemplated shooting Chris. He and Brenda had tricked them into entering the woods. What about Peter? And Code Master and Foot-Long?
“The others. Where are they?” As she spoke, a crew member divested Rachel of her weapons while another confiscated Hound Dog’s. Her heart sank as he thoroughly patted her down and found her ankle holster. He also took the Bowie knife from the sheath at her waist and her cell phone. But he didn’t find the trinkets hidden on the inside of her belt—small items, such as a lock pick. They found all Hound Dog’s concealed weapons and his cell phone.
Rachel
gritted her teeth. They would find out her bare hands worked just as well—she looked forward to showing them all how well.
“You’ll see them soon. This way.” Chris waved his weapon in the direction they’d been headed. “Road’s closer in this direction.”
With a glance at Hound Dog, Rachel started walking.
They reached the road after a twenty-minute hike. Four military-type Jeeps sat in the roadway, a driver behind each one. Hound Dog and Rachel were escorted to different vehicles and ordered to sit in the back seat. Before she entered the vehicle, the woman guarding her cuffed her hands in front with zip ties.
As they drove, Rachel stared out the window, watching the vaguely familiar scenery scroll past. They headed in the direction of her family’s cottage. Unease settled in the pit of her stomach. Did this involve her father? If he wanted to meet with her, he didn’t need to do it at gunpoint.
She swallowed, futilely trying to clear the lump in her throat. The more time she had to think about things, the more convinced she became of her father’s involvement in this kidnapping and in Jeff’s death. But why?
Fervently, she wished Hound Dog were here with her instead of in the vehicle behind them. Of course, that was why they’d separated them. Individually, each of them made a deadly opponent; together, they’d be unstoppable.
Rachel leaned back in her seat, encouraging her body to relax. Worry and rage wouldn’t help her. She needed calm so she could figure a way out when the opportunity presented itself. That the mercenaries hadn’t killed Rachel and Hound Dog immediately gave her hope the person behind this—her father, insisted her brain—wanted them alive.
The rise leading to the cottage appeared. Instead of the dirt and gravel Rachel remembered from her childhood, the driveway was paved. Ten-metre-tall chain-link fencing led off in two directions, and the gate barring access to the cottage was no longer just a simple barrier to keep vandals out. Now, a large iron gate as high as the fence barred the way.
