The Fallen Girls: An absolutely unputdownable and gripping crime thriller (Detective Clara Jefferies Book 1)

by Kathryn Casey

  “Yes,” he said. “She says it’s important.”

  He handed me his phone, and I walked my horse a short distance away from the others.

  “It’s Jessica Barstow,” the woman on the phone said. “I overheard the deputies you have here at the ranch talking. They said you’re going up into the mountains to look for Evan.”

  It surprised me to hear from her, but then I realized that she undoubtedly understood the man she’d married, and what he was capable of. Perhaps she had a vested interest in stopping him. Yet, I couldn’t assume her motives were friendly. “I can’t comment—”

  “Detective, there’s a cave up there where Evan and his brothers used to play as kids. They had a fort in it. Kid stuff, but they were really proud of it. Talked about it sometimes, about how no one but them knew where it was.”

  “Where in the mountains?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I had the impression it was a long hike, pretty high up, where the trees thin out and stop,” she said.

  “Anything else that might help us?”

  For a while she was silent, and in the end said, “I don’t think so. But if I think of anything, I’ll get in touch with the sheriff.”

  I had something I wanted to ask her. “One question, Jessica, about your sister Christina,” I started.

  “Christina?”

  “Yes. Who was the man stalking her?”

  “I don’t understand. Why are you asking about Christina?”

  “I just need to know, was it your husband?”

  Silence while she apparently considered my question. “Yes, it was Evan,” Jessica said. “That was the one time there was trouble between Evan and Gerard. My sister was beautiful. They both wanted Christina. She didn’t want either one of them. She saw how Evan treated me, and she told my parents that she’d run away before she married into the Barstow family.”

  “How did the brothers react?” I asked.

  “Evan was furious,” Jessica said. “He and Gerard fought. Not long after that, Gerard was forced out of Alber. I always figured Evan had to be behind it. But how is this related?”

  I thought about Sadie’s Seattle letter. So much was beginning to make sense. “Did your family ever hear from Christina after that letter from Chicago?”

  “No. Never. Why are you asking about this now?”

  I didn’t answer, but made an excuse and hung up.

  When I returned to the horses, I approached the tracker, a lanky guy with an angular face named Joe Rodgers. He had a long, thin mouth that tucked high into his cheek on the right.

  “Joe, I know this isn’t a lot of help, but we have a source who believes Evan may be heading for a particular cave. One he played in as a boy.”

  “Where’s it at?”

  “That’s the bad news. Our source doesn’t know, except that it’s rather high up.”

  Rodgers chuckled. “Well, that is a problem. There are dozens of caves up there, and a lot of them fit that description. Add in the deserted mines…”

  “Shit, a cave high up? That’s no tip,” Mullins murmured. “That’s no more help than throwing a dart at a map.”

  We took off, the tracker in the lead. I’d hoped to get night-vision gear, but the sheriff only had two sets and both were out for repair. That left us with flashlights and the full moon. We searched the ground looking for trampled grass and broken branches, hoof prints, shoe prints, debris left behind, anything that gave a clue about which way to head. The drought was our enemy. The sun had baked the earth to concrete, withered the underbrush and grass.

  “Looks like there’s an indentation in the lower tree line to the right. It could be a trail,” Rodgers said, staring through a pair of binoculars. “Let’s head there, forty degrees to the right.”

  We followed, seeing nothing that confirmed he’d chosen the right direction. No one talked. All of us focused on the ground beneath us and the landscape ahead of us, as we wound between the scraggly pines. The sounds of the horses’ hooves hitting the ground, their steady breathing, gave our quest a rhythm. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances, it would have felt good to be on horseback. It had been years since I had taken the time to ride. We caravanned toward the mountains. Before long the dry brush surrounding us grew denser, and as we approached where the woods thickened, Rodgers pointed out the opening in the forest he’d noticed earlier.

  “It’s a trail,” he said. “Could be where they’d head.”

  Mullins’s lips curved into a doubtful arc. “These mountains are scarred with them. Lots of old miners’ trails. You go a couple hundred yards down, and there’ll be another. You get farther up, and sometimes they run together. Sometimes they just dead-end and disappear.”

  “Mullins is right. I used to go three-wheeling around here,” Max said. “But let’s go. At least this’ll get us into the woods.

  “Sure, let’s take it,” I decided. “The choppers should show up soon. The pilots can use the path as a center divide, to plot sections to search.”

  We headed up the path, and fifteen minutes later we heard helicopter blades beating overhead.

  “They’re here,” Conroy shouted.

  “Quiet down,” Mullins warned. “You want to let the whole blasted forest know we’re here? Keep it low.”

  The kid, embarrassed, nodded.

  “Chief Deputy Anderson,” a voice came over our headsets.

  “Here,” Max said.

  “We’ve got sights on your party. We’re going to start scanning with the thermal equipment.”

  Finally, I thought.

  While the choppers searched for the bright images of body heat on their monitors, we continued up the mountain. We moved slowly. We didn’t want to be too high if they spotted Evan east or west of our position.

  “We think we’ve got them,” an excited chopper tech radioed. “We can see a group, looks like a horse, maybe three other figures…”

  I held my breath. The seconds dragged.

  “Not them. A clutch of elk,” the man said. “Sorry, folks.”

  Half an hour passed. We had more false sightings, ones that turned out to be a small herd of mule deer and two black bears foraging.

  The helicopters kept spreading out. As we traveled higher, the woods grew deeper. The trees massive, shafts of moonlight illuminated the ground between them. Our tracker stayed in the lead. He saw no sign that the trail we were on had been used in more than a year. The forest had begun to retake it, sending up young pines. Nothing in front of us looked disturbed. To our disappointment, Joe announced, “This can’t be the way. I would have seen something by now, broken branches, crushed vegetation.”

  I’d made a mistake. Anxious to get started, I’d jumped the gun. “We should have waited for the dogs,” I said to Max. “Find out where they are.”

  Max tapped the button on his radio’s mic. “Sheriff Holmes, has the K-9 unit arrived yet?”

  “Yeah, they’re here. You want them?”

  “Looks like we need them. We’re not picking up anything out here,” he said. “We’ll head back down the mountain to meet them. You can truck them to our position on the three-wheelers.”

  “We’re on it,” the sheriff said.

  The ride down the path seemed longer than the ride up. I chastised myself for wasting time. The choppers flew above us, little radio chatter because we kept noise levels low, and they flew high to keep from tipping Evan off with the sound of their engines and blades.

  In the distance, a pack of coyotes howled at the full moon. Without the sun to warm it, the thin air turned cool. It smelled of pine trees and dust. We emerged from the woods, and I glanced at my watch. Ten to one. My weary eyes burned. The day long, exhaustion weighed me down like a heavy shroud. And we were back where we started.

  Forty-Five

  The bloodhounds had jowls and ears that drooped, giving them as dour an expression as I’m sure I wore. Wide black mesh harnesses circled their chests. Two trainers held onto the ends of heavy rope leashes, le
tting the animals root around. The dogs in charge, we followed. They’d been exposed to the scent inside of Evan Barstow’s squad car. The dogs’ training had only one purpose – to hunt people.

  This wasn’t something I’d encountered in my years in Dallas. I hadn’t used dogs on any of my cases. “What if Evan’s on horseback? Will they still be able to follow him?”

  “Yeah,” Mullins said. “Out here in the boonies, we have to use dogs off and on, missing persons and such. The scent drifts down and settles. It’ll be harder with the scent of the horse mixed in, but they’ll get it.”

  I looked over at the Alber PD detective and thought about how his attitude had changed. Finding the hanging body of a young girl with her throat slit had apparently been enough to convince him that we had evidence, not some misguided hostility against Evan Barstow. Was I too hard on Mullins? Perhaps. I wasn’t in a particularly forgiving mood.

  We sauntered on the horses at the rear, while the trainers worked up front. The dogs scouted, noses to the ground, darting off into the trees and then circling back. We tracked them with our flashlights, and it gave the dogs a firefly appearance as they darted about in the shafts of light flickering between the trees. Twenty minutes passed. An hour. Nothing.

  But then the dogs, one after the other, took off down a trail that cut into the forest, not unlike the one we’d traveled earlier. “We’ve got something,” one of the trainers shouted. We followed, hanging back, letting the dogs lead us in.

  “Detective Jefferies, can we hold the dogs up?” Rodgers asked after we’d traveled a hundred feet or so into the woods. “Let me go a little ahead, see if I can find anything on the path.”

  “Whoa,” I shouted to the trainers. “Pull them back.”

  Reluctant, the dogs stretched their leashes taut. They considered this playtime. At the end of the trail, when they found their prey, there’d be praise and treats. But the trainers held the leashes tight, and our tracker rode his horse ahead. He scrambled down and walked in a ways. Wielding his flashlight, Rodgers knelt to examine the foliage and then called back. “Someone’s been on this trail. Broken branches. The grass is packed down. Looks like a horse, some footprints. Smallish ones. Women or kids.”

  “Can you tell how long ago?” Max asked.

  “Recently,” Rodgers said, holding up a broken branch. “This cut is still seeping sap.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” I said.

  The dogs took over again. Meanwhile, I radioed the helicopters. “We’re heading your way,” one of the pilots said. Five minutes later, we heard the faint beating overhead. We rode on for another hour or so, the dogs darting into the woods off and on, and then coming back to the trail. Rodgers followed directly behind them, watching for more evidence that signaled we were on the right track.

  “Hold up!” he shouted.

  “Stop!” I called out.

  Rodgers got off his horse again, looked around. He motioned toward us, and we all got off our mounts. “There’s something that looks like blood here, ground disturbances, something happened.”

  “How long ago?” Mullins asked.

  “Blood’s dry, but, from the state of the vegetation, compacted recently, I’m thinking not more than a few hours ago.”

  Just then, Stef broke in on our radios. “Detective Jefferies?”

  “Yeah, Stef. I’m here.”

  “The pilots have a hit on something large up ahead. Could be a man on a horse.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Hold the dogs back,” Max ordered, and the trainers did. We gripped our weapons and doused our flashlights. All we had to light our way were the thin beads of moonlight from above, the dawn still nearly four hours off. I whispered a thank you for the full moon. “Radio silence. Let’s go in slowly, see what we’ve got.”

  We scanned the woods as we ambled in on the horses, picking our way on the trail. The tracker and the trainers with the dogs took a position behind us. We watched, waited, suspicious of what was hidden in the woods. The landscape dark, the moonlight illuminated the trees in silhouette. Then I spotted the outline of a horse ambling listlessly fifty feet ahead. The mare had a saddle on. No rider.

  “Wait here.”

  The others fell back, and I moved forward. I dismounted and approached the horse. It had a sloping back, one that befitted an animal that had worked hard all its life and earned the aches and pains of old age. It neighed as I ran my hand over its neck. “What’s going on?” I whispered, as if the horse could answer. I searched around, saw no one.

  “Just the horse. No rider. I’m not seeing anyone from here,” I said into the mic. I kept nervously scanning the trees. I half expected to hear a shot ring out from the shadows. “Keep watch. He could be nearby, hiding.”

  I needed more eyes on the woods. “Stef?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Do the helicopters see anything, anyone else around the horse? Anything at all close to our position?”

  A pause while I presumed that she checked the screens and double-checked with the chopper pilots. “Nada. Just you, the horse, and the rest of your party behind you.”

  “Looks like we’re clear,” I told the others.

  Just then, one of the dog trainers called out, “Back here!”

  Instead of the others riding up to join me, we turned our horses and retraced our steps about sixty feet. As I approached, I saw that the dogs had meandered off the trail, a short distance into the woods. Rodgers, the tracker, stared down at something hidden in the brush. I dismounted, as did the others. Conroy took the reins of all the horses and kept watch. Mullins and I walked in behind Max. My heart quickened when I realized that Rodgers stood over a dead body. I thought of the blood we’d seen a short distance down the trail. Was it Delilah?

  Rodgers called out, “We’ve got a dead man.”

  My mind grasped the most likely scenario. We had one man missing. “Is it Gerard?”

  As I walked up, Max rolled the body over. We all stared at it, stunned and silent until Mullins wandered close enough to get a good look. “Who the hell shot Evan Barstow through the damn head?” he said.

  Deep-red blood trailed down Evan’s broad forehead from a smoky black circle of ruptured muscle and tissue where the bullet had entered. His eyes open, he stared out unseeing into the darkness. I wished I could have asked him questions, wondered what he would have told me, but his voice was silenced, forever.

  A minute earlier, I’d assumed the body would be Gerard’s. Now I had to rethink. What had I missed?

  “I bet Gerard rescued the girls and he’s bringing them down the mountain,” Mullins speculated. “That would be just like the chief, to come up here on his own to rescue them. Let’s head back down, see if we can meet up with them.”

  All three of the men looked at me expectantly. Meanwhile, the dogs milled around in the woods. I saw one dog amble up higher, as if still following a scent.

  “No, I…” I paused, thinking it through. “Mullins, that can’t be right. If Gerard found them and had to shoot his brother to save them, he would have called for help. If he took the girls back down the mountain, it would have been on the path we took. We would have run into them on our way up.”

  Mullins took off his bill cap with CRIME WATCH—ALBER PD on the crown and scratched his scalp through his thin, graying hair. “Well, I guess,” he said. “You’ve got a point there, Detective.”

  “It’s Gerard we’re trailing,” Max blurted out. He appeared angry, perhaps with himself, when he added, “How could I have missed this? Why didn’t I ever consider that it could be Gerard who took the girls? Even when he went missing, I never thought… We’ve been chasing the wrong brother.”

  Max had to be right. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “I never considered it either. He always seemed like—”

  “The better Barstow brother,” Max said, finishing my thought.

  “I don’t understand,” Conroy said. “The flashlight was at Evan’s house. He owns that ra
nch where the girls were kept. How does this make sense?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But Gerard has to be involved. Either the two brothers did this together, had a spat and one shot the other. Or Gerard has had Delilah all along.”

  “Look at that,” Mullins said, pointing at the bloodhounds pulling their trainers up the mountain.

  “Looks like we might have been chasing the wrong suspect, but we’re on the right trail,” Max said.

  “That’s all that’s important,” I said. “Somewhere up ahead, we may find the girls.”

  “Detective Jefferies, should we leave anyone here to wait for the ME?” Mullins asked.

  “No. We’re sticking together. Evan is long dead. No one can help him. And it’s too dangerous for the CSI folks and Doc Wiley to come up here until we’ve got Gerard.” I looked down at the body sprawled out below us, Evan’s hulk spread across the ground. “He’ll be here when we’re ready.”

  “So…” Max started.

  “We keep moving,” I said. “And we end this.”

  Forty-Six

  “We’ve arrived, girls,” Gerard Barstow said, relief in his gruff voice. “Time for you to see your new home.”

  Hidden behind the trees, the vast cave’s opening yawned, a crude half-moon cut into the mountainside, black even against the dark night. Gerard dismounted from his dead brother’s stallion. “First things first,” he said. “Let’s get you two secured.”

  The entrance looked scary, and Delilah didn’t want to go in. “I bet there are bats in there,” she whispered to Jayme. “Maybe rats. Could even be coyotes.”

  Jayme had her arms up against her chest, bracing the one she’d hurt. “Maybe he’ll take the chains off.”

  Delilah gave her the slightest of smiles, but she didn’t believe it. She felt the same dread as the evening he’d carried her through the cornfield, as much anxiety as waking up blindfolded and chained to the wall in the house.

  The man walked over with the end of the chain in his hands. “Go inside.”

  As frightened as she felt, Delilah didn’t argue. She led the way, Jayme behind her. Once inside, the man aimed his flashlight around the interior. As it flicked back and forth, Delilah glimpsed an old mattress flat on the ground, a pile of camping equipment, a stove, and three sleeping bags in rolls.