by Blake Pierce
seem to admit to herself that she was wrong.
She growled under her breath and thought …
If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.
Life would be a lot simpler if Crivaro never trusted her instincts again, and
she just went back to following his orders …
If he doesn’t fire me.
And in a way, that would simplify things too.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
When Riley turned their RV off the highway, she found herself driving
through deeper snow than she’d encountered before. However there were
fresh tread marks left by other vehicles, so she was sure they’d find someone
boondocking at Thorpe Overlook.
Would it be the killer they were looking for?
She carefully followed the treads. Soon the RV headlights picked up
several RVs in an open area at the end of the narrow road.
This was obviously the overlook, but her spirits fell when she saw the
boondockers. Her headlights fell on a couple of cars with trailers and three or four small campers. There weren’t any large motor homes in sight—nothing
close to the size of a Class A vehicle.
Riley heaved a deep sigh.
It’s hopeless, she thought.
She was about to admit her failure aloud when Crivaro spoke up.
“Back up and turn right a little. I think I saw something over that way.”
Riley did as she was told. Sure enough, the lights fell on a vehicle some
distance away from the ones they’d already seen.
It was a huge white motor home with a stripe on the side.
She pulled their RV a little closer. It was a Winnebago, exactly the type of
RV they were looking for.
Feeling a renewed surge of excitement, Riley said, “That’s got to be him.
Why would somebody in a luxury vehicle like that be roughing it out here,
with no utilities in sight? It must be because he doesn’t want to attract
attention, and also because he needs to be able to move out quickly. And I
don’t care what you say—”
Crivaro interrupted with a growl …
“Shut up, Riley. I agree with you.”
Riley looked at him, startled by his sudden affirmation.
“Turn off your headlights,” Crivaro told her. “We don’t want to advertise
ourselves.”
Riley turned off the headlights, then the engine, and Crivaro took a
flashlight out of his go-bag. When they both climbed down out of their
vehicle, they were ankle-deep in snow.
As she felt the cold seeping into her shoes, Riley realized just how unprepared they were for this setting. At least her FBI jacket was holding off
the chill.
Some of the smaller campers had lights on inside, but the Winnebago was
completely dark. Crivaro kept his flashlight pointed downward at the ground
right in front of them, taking care not to shine the beam in the Winnebago’s
windows.
As they neared the door to the Winnebago, Riley noticed Crivaro’s hand
hover close to his weapon. He rapped sharply on the door and a man’s voice
answered …
“Who the hell is it?”
Riley and Crivaro exchanged glances.
“We’re FBI agents,” Crivaro called back. “We just want to come inside
and talk.”
They heard a stream of muttered curses on the other side of the door.
Then the voice said, “OK, give me a minute.”
Riley could see Crivaro jerk upright at the sound of those words. Riley
guessed that he’d heard them before in situations like this.
A light came on inside the Winnebago, followed by a lot of rattling and
banging noises.
Crivaro muttered to Riley, “This is bad.”
Crivaro pulled the latch, and to their surprise the door came open.
Jake stepped up into the motor home and Riley followed. They were just
in time to see a man scrambling out through an open sliding window. Before
they could reach him, he was gone.
“Shit,” Crivaro said. “Back outside,” he snapped as he whirled around and
pushed past Riley.
They both dashed outside, and Crivaro searched the area with his
flashlight.
The suspect was taking off through the wooded area beside the overlook,
wading through the snow as fast as he could.
Crivaro shouted, “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”
The guy didn’t even slow down.
Of course, Riley knew that Crivaro’s warning was just a bluff. The man
they were chasing appeared to be unarmed, and Crivaro would never fire his
weapon under circumstances like these.
With a groan Crivaro took off after him. In the shakily focused beam of Crivaro’s flashlight, Riley saw that the fleeing man seemed to be headed off
to one side, so she cut in that direction. Even though the woods weren’t thick, running was hard here and the footing was slippery. When the runner slipped
and grabbed at a sapling for support, Riley closed in and tackled him.
He struggled as they both fell into the snow and rolled over each other.
Fortunately, he wasn’t a very strong opponent and Riley had him subdued
when Crivaro caught up with them.
“Good job,” Crivaro told Riley. He holstered his gun and took out a pair of
handcuffs. He helped Riley to her feet and handed her the flashlight. Then he
pulled the suspect to his feet, put him in handcuffs, and read him his rights.
“This is crazy,” the captive exclaimed in a whining voice. “I was scared
maybe the Highway Patrol would show up. I never figured the FBI would
come after me. Why me? This is too crazy. I can’t believe this.”
Wondering what he meant, Riley turned the light into the suspect’s face.
Something’s wrong here, she realized.
The man they had just arrested didn’t look anything at all like the killer
she’d pictured in her mind. He was a grubby-looking bearded man with
stringy hair and bulging eyes. They were looking for a man who had aroused
no suspicions at the roadblock, who had charmed several women to their
deaths.
She followed along glumly as Crivaro led the captive back inside his
Winnebago. Crivaro pushed the man into a seat and said to Riley …
“Check the bathroom. Make sure he hasn’t got another victim.”
Riley went to the bathroom and opened the door.
Her spirits fell.
This was no “kill room,” just a rather dirty RV bathroom. There was no
insulation on the walls, no sign of blood.
There was, however, something dark inside the toilet bowl.
She flashed her flashlight into the bowl and saw what it was.
Marijuana.
There must be several pounds of it stuffed in there.
The suspect, obviously not very intelligent, had tried to get rid of an
enormous stash down a toilet that wasn’t even hooked up to any sewage
system. Even if he got it flushed, it wouldn’t be going anywhere.
In a resigned and weary voice, she called out …
“Agent Crivaro, I think you’d better have a look at this.”
*
Within minutes, Riley and Crivaro pretty much understood the entire
situation. The man they had caught was not the killer they had hoped to find.
He was now all too eager to talk, anxious to convince them that he wasn’t
guilty of whatever terrible crime they thought they’d arrested him for. He was
merchandise north to Salt Lake City.
Crivaro took out his cell phone and called Perosky at the campground,
who in turn called the Highway Patrol. The troopers arrived in about twenty
minutes.
By then, a few boondockers stood outside their campers gawking at the
action. Other faces were peering out through their RV windows. Riley
noticed that at least two vehicles had slipped away, perhaps alarmed by the
activity or perhaps wanting to avoid any attention to themselves.
Even though boondocking here wasn’t legal, the troopers ignored the
bystanders. They took the guy Riley and Jake had caught into custody and
whisked him away, leaving a man behind to guard the suspect’s RV until
they could pick it up.
Once they were free to go, Riley took a moment to change into dry clothes
from her go-bag. She wiped off her wet FBI shoes, hoping that they weren’t
ruined. Finally she found a pair of bright-colored sneakers in their camper’s
gear and put those on.
She felt angrier than she could remember ever feeling in her life.
And she was angry with no one but herself.
After all, she had no one else to blame.
As she climbed back onto RV driver’s seat, Crivaro asked …
“Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“I don’t know, Agent Crivaro,” she hissed. “Somewhere. Anywhere.
Nowhere. Does it even matter?
She heard Crivaro heave a deep, weary sigh as she started the engine.
“No, I don’t guess it does,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
As Sally Marino ordered a much-too-expensive margarita in the swank
clubhouse at the Delphi RV Resort, she wondered …
Oh, God.
Have I made a terrible mistake?
Earlier in the day back at that truck stop, she’d told that man, Pete, that she was coming to this exclusive campground. In fact, she had planned no such
thing. But she’d come here anyway, just because she’d said she would.
What on earth had she been thinking?
I was just trying to impress him, she thought with a sigh.
As soon as she’d seen him sitting at that table, she had really liked the
looks of him—or more specifically his expensive Rolex watch and the fancy
Winnebago he was driving. She’d gone straight over to his table and
introduced herself. She’d even told him a lot about herself.
The problem was, quite a bit of it wasn’t truthful.
While it was true that she was a “free spirit” who liked to travel, it wasn’t
at all true that she’d inherited a lot of money from her dead parents and was
able to do pretty much whatever she liked for as long as she liked.
The reality was, she’d left her working-class family behind years ago and
hadn’t looked back. She had traveled everywhere, but not in the style she’d
led him to believe. She’d actually been backpacking across Europe,
hitchhiking wherever it was still legal in the United States, and just generally going wherever suited her fancy. She’d lived by her wits and taken whatever
jobs she’d needed to get by, ranging from washing dishes to a brief stint as a
disk jockey for a country radio station.
And through it all, she’d relished her freedom and had made few human
attachments.
But she’d just turned thirty-five this year, and her nomadic existence was
starting to wear her down. For example, it took a lot longer to recuperate after a vigorous hike than it used to. She’d been wondering whether it might be
time to finally settle down, maybe even reunite with her long-estranged
family …
She’d also started taking a hitherto nonexistent interest in prosperous-
looking single men, which was why she’d started flirting with Pete back at
that truck stop. She’d liked him more and more as she’d talked to him, and she’d even begun to fantasize …
What?
That he might take an interest in me?
That we might have a relationship?
Now she was shocked by her own romance-novel shallowness. What was
getting into her—aside from a fear of winding up old and broke and all alone
in the world?
Anyway, here she was, at one of the most exclusive campgrounds in the
west. As soon as she’d gotten here she’d maxed out her credit card to become
a member, just so they’d let her in.
And all because she’d harbored some hope of meeting Pete here!
She looked all around the clubhouse and didn’t seen any sign of him.
But then, had she really expected him to show up?
She smirked to herself as she considered the possibility that Pete, too, had
been lying about coming here just to impress her, and that he wasn’t on his
way here at all.
Wouldn’t that be a joke?
Of course, the joke would be on her—and it wouldn’t be very funny.
She was going to have to start rebuilding her precarious finances all over
again.
She glanced over at the bar and wondered …
I wonder if they’re hiring any bartenders.
And yet, if Pete did show up, what would that lead to? If they struck up
any chemistry together, wouldn’t she have to come clean about the lies she’d
told about herself?
What would he think of her then?
He might be amused, she considered.
For all I know, he harbors some secrets of his own.
Meanwhile, she was here and she might as well spend the rest of one night
here. Not that any of it looked appealing to her. She looked out the window at
the spacious grounds where mostly high-end RVs were spaced nicely apart,
rather like an upscale suburban neighborhood where her own little Starcraft
trailer looked distinctly out of place.
There were several indoor swimming pools, and she’d just done a few laps
in one of them. Then she’d relaxed in a Jacuzzi, dried her hair, and finally
come on over to the clubhouse.
She wasn’t used to all this luxury. Roughing it was more her style. As far
as she was concerned, life at the Delphi campground was no more like real
camping than a trip on a cruise ship.
And this clubhouse was much too cheerful for her liking, with its holiday
decorations that emphasized angels and crystals and other New Age
paraphernalia, along with the bland, droning versions of Christmas songs
piped in over the speakers.
No, she really and truly didn’t belong here.
She looked at her watch and saw that it was very late.
He’s definitely not going to show, she thought.
It had been silly of her to ever imagine he would.
And yet she thought it was probably just as well.
She signed for her drink, adding a tip that she definitely couldn’t afford,
and walked on outside. Again, she was startled by the cold—a real change
after having just driven up here from Arizona. Fortunately, she was warmly
dressed in slacks and a sweater.
She actually enjoyed such variations in the weather. It kept her aware that
she was traveling.
As she walked along the paved and well-lighted path that led to her
camper, she smiled to see that snow was starting to fall. Of course it would
melt
off tomorrow, but tonight was going to be quite pretty.
Just then, a shadowy figure stepped right in front of her, silhouetted for a
moment against an outdoor floodlight.
A familiar male voice said …
“Hi, Sally. Where are you off to?”
She squinted and asked, “Pete? Is that you?”
The man stepped squarely into the light. It was Pete, all right, looking as
good to her as he had back at the truck stop. She was sure his sweater was
cashmere.
“Who else were you expecting?” he said with a rakish smile.
Sally felt suddenly and strangely ill at ease, as though little bells were
going off in her mind. People who lived her kind of lifestyle had to develop a
warning system regarding certain other people, although she knew that hers
didn’t always work as well as it should. She’d felt quite at ease with Pete
back at that truck stop, even enthusiastic over him. Now she just felt confused
over her own reactions.
She stammered, “I—I just figured you weren’t going to show up.”
Pete shrugged and said, “I told you I’d be here. I always keep my
promises.”
For some reason, that struck Sally as an odd thing to say.
She took a quick glance around. No one else seemed to be outside at this
late hour.
For an awkward moment, she and Pete just stood there, facing each other.
He seemed to be waiting for her to speak, but she couldn’t think of anything
to say.
Finally Pete touched her arm and said, “Come on, let’s get out of the cold.
My RV’s just a short walk away.”
Well, this is what you came here for, Sally told herself. You’ve already spent a fortune just for a chance to get to know this guy.
She walked beside him toward his RV. Her own trailer was also nearby,
which felt somehow reassuring.
She really wasn’t sure why she was feeling so nervous now that it seemed
her romance-novel fantasy might be coming true …
It all seems a little too unreal.
As they drew near Pete’s majestic Winnebago, she noticed something
peculiar. She didn’t see any power cord or water line running from the
utilities hookup to the RV. Unlike her own trailer, his RV didn’t seem to be
hooked up at all. It was as if he were boondocking—only right here in the
campground.
