by Emily James
Erik laid the envelope on the desk and crossed his arms. “I agree with you, but I don’t see how that helps us.”
His words said no but his body language said yes. He wasn’t packing up any more. He was willing to listen to me at least.
If only I knew where I was going with it. “You said Chief Wilson let things go that he should have stopped, and so on the surface Fair Haven looks like a normal tourist town, but underneath it’s catering to people who want darker entertainment on their vacation.”
Erik picked up the envelope again and stood. “We’re just going in circles.”
I slumped in the chair. He was right. I had no idea how to figure this out. “Let’s watch the recording again one more time to see if there’s anything we missed.” I held up a hand before he could protest. “Only what you already showed me. Trust me, I don’t want to see any more than that.”
He poured the disk out of the envelope. “Only because I hadn’t sealed it already. And then you need to leave. I’ve bent the rules as far as they can go without breaking to let you know this much.”
It struck me again what a good man Erik was. If I was a better woman, maybe I’d have fallen for him instead of for a married man I could never have.
Erik started the recording. Same trees. Same clearing. Same barrels. Same ring.
Maybe I was running around trying to catch mosquitos in a jar and wasting Erik’s time.
The screen swung to the right again. A smear of blue in the background caught my eye. The screen kept moving before I could get a clear enough look to be sure of what it was, but it felt like I should know. “Scroll it back. Please.”
Erik paused the video instead. “I know you want us to solve this tonight, but that’s not the way it usually works in investigations. Things take time.”
I didn’t think we could solve all the pieces of this puzzle tonight, but I might be able to fit another one into place. One that might save a few canine lives. “Trust me. One more time and be ready to pause it when I say so. Then I promise I’ll leave if you want me to.”
Instead of starting it over, he moused it back bit by bit.
When the blue appeared, I held up my hand. I squinted and leaned closer to the screen.
The pit in my stomach re-opened and swallowed me whole.
The smear of blue was a sap line. The dog fighting ring was holding its events in my sugar bush.
20
The military precision snapped back into Erik’s bearing. “What do you see?”
Pieces tumbled into place like an avalanche trying to crush me. My lungs didn’t want to refill. “They’re running it at Sugarwood.”
“How do you know?” His voice sounded official again, more like a police officer and less like a tolerant friend.
I pointed out the blue line on the screen. My finger shook. “I’ve been walking those sap lines, checking for damage. I’d recognize them in my sleep.”
Oh no. The packed down circles I found. Those must be…
I covered my face with my hands. I took a picture to show to Russ, and then I’d forgotten all about it. My inexperience with what was normal and abnormal in nature had cost so much time, and I made it worse by getting distracted.
I sucked in a breath and lowered my hands. Erik was watching me as if he wasn’t sure whether to comfort me or push me for more information.
I flicked through my phone until I found the picture and turned it toward him. “I found two separate rings in the snow like this one. When I first told Russ about it, he thought it was probably from a wolf that’d caught something. I took this picture to show him because it seemed too big. Does that look like it could have been made by the same setup as in Paul’s video?”
Erik was already tapping at my phone. “I’m emailing these to myself.”
I groaned. I should have put it together sooner. “And that’s why a man who hated the cold was renting snowshoes. He must have followed the van until they headed into the bush, where he’d have been easily spotted if he kept after them. So he started renting snow shoes to figure out where, exactly, they were holding the fights.”
“Paul rented snowshoes from Sugarwood?”
I nodded.
He handed my phone back. “I need you to show me where you found these spots. After what happened here tonight, I doubt they’ll be hosting a fight this evening. Once I see the location, we can work on setting up surveillance so there’ll be no way they continue to get away with it.”
Within a half hour, we were at Sugarwood, I’d texted Russ to have him feed and walk my puppy, and I’d grabbed two sets of snowshoes and gear from the rental shop.
“I bet there’s a good story behind this.” Dave handed me the snowmobile keys. “No one goes out right before dark without a good story.”
I swear he was almost drooling over the idea of new fodder for his novel. “I’ll tell you all about it later, okay?”
He settled back at the desk, his pen and notebook already out again. “Sure. Oh, wait.” He looked up. “You want me to keep the shop open for you? Rentals are all supposed to be back by five because we don’t allow non-employees on the grounds after dark, so I’m usually gone by 5:30.”
I waved at him on my way out the door. “No need to wait up. I’ll keep them at my place until tomorrow morning.”
He didn’t reply. When I glanced back, his head was already bowed over his notebook, his tongue peeking out between his lips.
I dragged everything out the door to where Erik waited by the snowmobile. He helped me secure our gear to the trailer.
He motioned to the snowmobile. “I’d say ladies first, but it’s really more about you being the driver in this case.”
I swung over the seat and Erik slid on behind me. He wrapped his hands around my waist. I expected to feel some zing of energy, but nothing happened. It was sort of like hugging Russ.
I was clearly a lost case.
The snowmobile roared to life and I angled us down the trail I used to get close to my section of the bush.
We were still a minute or two from where I’d planned to stop when Erik squeezed my waist.
He brought his head down as close as he could around our helmets. “Stop here,” he yelled.
I braked, and as soon as we slid to a stop, he leaned around me and turned the snowmobile off.
I shifted sideways. “What’s going on?”
He pointed to the right and I followed with my gaze. At first I thought he might have imagined something in his desire to find the spot.
Then I saw it. The faint flicker of fire light.
We were supposed to simply identify the likeliest spots for the dog fighting ring to setup, and instead they were in the middle of setting up for a fight.
I swung my leg over the snowmobile and sat sideways on it like a bench. “What do we do now?”
He hopped off the machine and strapped his snowshoes onto his boots. “We make sure those lights are on your property and then we call it in.”
I joined him and worked the pair of snowshoes I’d brought for myself onto my feet. I’d forgotten to grab boots, and my running shoes didn’t fit correctly. The snowshoes flopped like droopy dog ears every time I lifted my foot. But they’d do in a pinch. “Don’t we need proof of wrongdoing?”
“Not if they’re on your property after you close to the public.”
So, as long as we waited for five o’clock, I could call them in for trespassing. That was smart. We wouldn’t have to wait for evidence of something illegal, and we wouldn’t have to get close enough that I could identify the man who’d come to the shelter or close enough to be sure of what was happening. Getting that close would put us at risk of being spotted.
I fought my way through the snow behind Erik, allowing him to break the trail. Puffs of white, almost like smoke, billowed up from his face as his breath hit the cold air. I’d need a long soak in a very hot tub after this to take the chill out of my body. Even the exertion of trekking through the snow in Uncle Stan
’s oversized coat wasn’t keeping me warm enough.
As we drew closer, Erik stopped behind a wide maple and motioned for me to join him. “Can you see if they’re on your property?”
I peered around the tree. We were close enough now that I could see figures silhouetted against the flames. Based on how few of them there were, the fights hadn’t begun yet. Thank God.
“Nicole?” Erik’s voice had an urgent edge to it.
I squinted into the growing darkness. They were close to the right edge of the property. Russ might have been able to wager an accurate guess from this distance whether they were technically on Sugarwood grounds or not, but I wasn’t familiar enough with the landmarks. “I can’t tell. We’ll have to get closer.”
Erik’s arms twitched like he wanted to cross them over his chest but couldn’t because of the snow shoe poles. “I’m not taking you any closer. What do I need to look for?”
His body had a coiled look to it, like he was tense and ready to react without being stiff. It must be what he’d looked like in combat.
My core went as cold as my skin. The reading I’d done online about dogfighting rings said they also usually had connections to illegal drugs and weapons. Considering they’d already killed two people, it’s not like they’d hesitate to add a couple more to the list, even a police officer. Erik had his service weapon, but if they spotted us, we’d still be outnumbered.
It’d be stupid to argue with the man with the training at a time like this. “The boundaries are marked by small yellow stakes. I don’t remember how far apart they’re placed exactly. You might have to look around a bit.”
He unbuttoned the heavy outer jacket he’d added from the rental shop and dropped it to the ground. I was about to ask him what he was doing when he checked his weapon. He wanted to be sure he had easy access to it.
I tried to swallow, but my larynx seemed to be completely frozen. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay out of sight for now. If you hear anything that makes you think they saw me, you get back to the snowmobile, call for help, and leave.”
It felt cowardly to abandon him if something went wrong, but he wouldn’t have brought me in the first place if we suspected they’d be running another round of fights tonight, so close to the break-in at the shelter.
There was one major problem with his plan, though. “Cell service is patchier out here than in the rest of Fair Haven.”
Erik cursed and fished his cell phone from his pocket. He unzipped his lighter jacket and used the sides as a light shield, then woke the phone. He cursed again.
He didn’t have a signal.
“Russ let you come out here without any way to call for help?”
One part of me wanted to respond with a snarky flare-up and tell him he was sounding like Mark now. I bit that response back. “Of course not. We use walkie-talkies.” I patted the spot where the utility belt hung around my hips, underneath Uncle Stan’s oversized dress coat. I might not have remembered to bring the belt and walkie-talkie on my own, but I’d left it on the sled the last time I went out. Erik didn’t need to know that, though. “But it depends on someone listening in one of the buildings. We only have people monitoring the channel if they know someone’s out here.”
Erik ran a gloved hand over the top of his head. “Try the walkie-talkie then, but you go one way or another. Promise me.”
I clutched my snowshoe poles so tightly my knuckles ached. “I promise.”
He moved off, perpendicular to the firelight at first. The farther away he got, the more aware of the darkness I became. Sometime after we left the snowmobile, the last rays of sunlight died and the moon hadn’t risen over the treetops yet.
The shivers that ran over my body were only half due to the cold. I leaned my head back against the tree, wrapped my scarf over my mouth and nose for warmth, and hugged my arms around my body.
There isn’t anything in the dark that isn’t there in the light. There isn’t anything in the dark that isn’t there in the light.
Of course, in the light, I could see it and prepare for it. And things came out at night that wouldn’t be moving around in the daylight.
“Stop it,” I whispered to myself.
I closed my eyes. At least then I could pretend the darkness came from my eyelids.
With my eyes closed, the sounds that already carried on the night air amplified. The occasional snap of wood in the fires. Voices, but the words weren’t clear enough for me to hear. The screech of an owl hunting.
I focused on the breeze through the trees, and my heart rate came back to normal. I reopened my eyes.
A gunshot shattered the stillness.
21
I crouched and threw my arms over my head. It wouldn’t have protected me from a bullet, but my body reacted before I could think.
Erik’s instructions to run warred with my instincts to hide or run in his direction rather than away from it. The more logical part of me knew that running directly into danger wouldn’t help him as much as going for help, the way he’d ordered me and the way I promised.
I plunged out from behind the tree as fast as my snowshoes would allow. The ring of light was in chaos now. Yelling, and another shot rang out.
A bellow that sounded like “There’s another one!” came from behind me.
I glanced back over my shoulder. Two shadowy figures had broken off from the lighted area and were heading in my direction. It was clear from the smoothness of their movements that they were more skilled on their snowshoes than I was.
My lead might not last long enough to reach—
I went down face first into the snow.
I rolled onto my back, reaching for the ties on my snowshoes. I yanked them both off, scrambled to my feet, and plowed forward.
I sank into the snow deep enough that it was like trying to run through water, but it was still better than with the ill-fitting snowshoes on. The men behind me had already gained ground. Another fall like the first one and they’d be on top of me.
Uncle Stan’s heavy coat now dragged behind me, along the tops of some of the bigger snow drifts, slowing me down further. I shucked it off. Frostbite wouldn’t matter if I was dead, and I was certain now that I’d be dead if they caught me.
A shot splintered the bark on one of the trees to my left. For a second I wanted to scream at them for hurting one of my trees, and then common sense kicked in—they’d been aiming for me, not the tree.
I dodged to the right, off the path Erik and I had started to beat down on our way there. It’d be slower going for me, but slower going for them as well, and they wouldn’t have quite as clear a shot at me. My best chance to survive seemed to be to weave and dodge. The sugar bush was too well-tended to have much underbrush, which left me no way to hide unless they lost sight of me.
They might in the dark, if I could put space between us.
I picked up my pace. My lungs and thighs burned—one from cold, the other from exertion—and sweat dampened the collar of my shirt. I grabbed a branch and used it to help swing me around at another right angle. My lack of snowshoes at least gave me that advantage.
Off to the left, a spiky blob loomed in the darkness. One of the piles of cleared underbrush Russ had told me about? When Uncle Stan died suddenly last fall, they’d run out of time to finish hauling away all the clean-up piles.
I took another sharp turn, gathered up the last of my flagging energy, and sprinted forward. I dove behind the brush pile and into a little hollow in the pile, pulled as many loose pieces as I could down around me for cover, and curled myself into a ball.
My breathing was still too loud and ragged. I balled my scarf over my face and forced myself to breath more slowly.
Please let them pass me by. The mantra turned into a prayer somewhere around the third or fourth repetition. Please let Erik still be alive.
The crunch and squeak of the men’s snowshoes drew alongside the brush pile.
“Check behind,” one of them said.
I couldn’t see out well enough to know exactly where he was, but the footfalls moved closer.
“Not back here,” a deeper voice said.
Their discussion of whether to keep searching for me or head back faded away.
I let out a breath. Chills wracked my body and my teeth chattered. I hadn’t noticed the cold while I was running, but now my damp clothes allowed it to soak into my skin, into the blood in my veins.
I had to get back to the snowmobile and go for help for my sake now as well as Erik’s. If I stayed out here much longer, I’d catch hypothermia.
I crawled out from my hole. The bush felt abnormally quiet now and the dark pressed down on me again, threatening to bow my legs. Either that or they were weakened from the cold.
I trudged back in the direction I’d come and stopped. I pivoted slowly in a circle. All the trees looked the same. And with so many people traipsing through the bush, checking lines, adventuring on rented skis and snowshoes, and, apparently, attending dogfights, I couldn’t tell the path I’d made from all the others.
I’d changed directions so many times in my mad dash that I didn’t know where I was.
Worse, I didn’t know where the snowmobile was.
22
I was going to die out here. In the fracking Michigan cold. Any other way of dying would be better. I’d much rather drown for instance. Or fall from a ledge and break my neck.
“Pull it together, Nikki. You’re rambling again.”
I patted my cheek in lieu of slapping some sense into myself the way they had in an episode of Myth Busters I watched one night when I couldn’t sleep.
“Think it through. There has to be a way out.”
It’d felt slightly warmer curled up in the brush pile. I’d climb back in. It wouldn’t keep me alive if I ended up stranded out here for the rest of the night, but it might buy me a few extra minutes. I’d cling to every minute I could beg, borrow, or steal.
I worked my way back into my brush pile hole and tugged out the walkie-talkie. I pressed the button. “Is anyone at Sugarwood receiving this?”
