Mask of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  She was finally realizing how serious this game was, and there was nothing he could do to make it any better.

  In the background, he heard the prowl of Mike’s engine. Ace glanced at his watch. Falconer was still at least fifteen minutes away. Mike would make their position in less.

  “He’s coming back. We can’t wait for Falconer.”

  He scrambled up the bank, salvaging a length of barbed wire from the downed fence. He tied one end of wire to a tree, the other to a broken, but solid branch. Trailing the wire, he crossed the road and laid down the branch.

  Standing in front of Rory in the drainage pipe, he looked down at her, knowing he was going to ask something of her that would test the limits of her courage. “Do you trust me?”

  She stared at him, emotions scudding through her eyes like storm clouds, then finally nodded. “Yes.”

  He took her hand and led her up the bank to the middle of the road. As he asked the impossible, he rubbed his hands up and down the arms of her jacket. “I want you to stand here.”

  Her eyes grew big. “Why?”

  “Mike’ll see you and he won’t see the wire that’s going to bring him down.” He pointed to the curve. “When he comes around, stay on the road and pretend you’re running for your life.”

  Swallowing hard, she nodded. “Okay.” She jerked her chin toward the curve in the road. “You’d better hurry. He’s close.”

  Ace ran to take his position out of Mike’s view behind a tree. The engine’s low growl menaced as it neared.

  Rory stood there like a brave soldier facing a firing squad, gaze looking straight at where her executioner would appear.

  Better get this right.

  One chance. That’s all he’d get.

  Mike rounded the curve, slowed when he saw Rory. As planned, she did an imitation of a scared rabbit, but Ace could feel a cougar’s courage pumping with every beat of her heart. She started to run. He braced. Mike revved the engine and sped right at her. The smile on his face crumbled halfway to its destination. Ace yanked the barbed wire into position just as the thought of deception slammed into Mike. But it was too late. He couldn’t stop.

  The Harley hit the wire and jerked to a stop, dragging Ace with it for a few feet. Mike went airborne as he pitched over the handlebars. Bone broke. Organs bruised. Blood stained the road. Asphalt scraped his face, ripped an ear, cracked his skull.

  Rory warily approached the heap Mike made in the road. “Is he dead?”

  Ace reached out for her and held her shaking body. “He’s still breathing.”

  He reached for his cell phone and called for an ambulance. Maybe it was time he got out of the business.

  AFTER RETRIEVING HANNAH, Ace insisted they head for the Aerie. Summersfield was no longer safe, he’d said. And for once, Rory had to agree. Once the news of Mike’s accident reached the gang, she and Ace would be persona non grata.

  She’d packed all of Hannah’s things, including the jars of baby food, the photo albums and the childcare books, and stuffed them into the car. She had no plans to come back here. There was no reason.

  The NecroLocation team arrived the next day. Liv, Falconer’s wife, volunteered to look after Hannah while Rory joined the team on the boat. They trolled more than a half-mile stretch of river. At the end of the day, someone handed Rory a map. “We identified seven anomalies that could be a car,” the team member explained. “We’d say you should start your search here.” He pointed to a bend in the river two hundred feet from the boat ramp. Sebastian arranged for a team to retrieve the car the next day.

  The next morning, Rory and Ace watched as a diver jumped into the river and descended to the riverbed.

  At 11:51 p.m. the diver emerged holding a license plate above his head. It was muddy, but the green numbers shone through above the Live Free Or Die motto. Live free or die. Felicia had tried to gain her freedom, and Mike had killed her for it. Rory reached for the metal plate and traced the numbers she’d memorized long ago. Something in her went cold. “That’s her tag.”

  There was silence as a tow truck dragged the car into a circle of cops who’d waited to see the salvage. Sun winked against the car’s side mirror. Ace wanted to spare her the sight of her dead sister, but Rory insisted on seeing this through. It was the least she could do for not keeping her promise. She wouldn’t leave her. Not this time.

  She wrapped another layer of detachment around her. Look, observe, take it in. Don’t feel. She couldn’t afford to feel. Not if she was going to make it through this.

  Trying to stay objective, she noted the mud sliding off the dull blue paint, the open window on the driver’s side, the piece of wood jammed into the gas pedal. Her fingers curled into her palms. She catalogued the hank of red hair stuck in the window’s crank handle, the blood staining the seat belt, the froggy smell of the water sluicing out of every opening.

  As if she were watching the scene on a muted television set, she saw an FBI agent direct underlings toward the trunk. They swarmed around the car like maggots on a kill.

  Oh, God, don’t think that. Felicia is alive. She has to be. But even denial couldn’t erase the reality of the car, dark with sludge, dragged out of the water like some slain Loch Ness monster. She sank her teeth into her lower lip. Watch. Observe. Don’t think.

  Her nails dug into the skin of her palms. She couldn’t feel a thing. Someone stuck a pry bar near the lock. The trunk popped open, bounced up a few inches. It squealed on its hinges as someone raised it higher.

  Biting into one fist, Rory took a step forward. The air felt as thick and slimy as raw eggs. She couldn’t breathe. Someone tried to hold her back. She lashed out with fists and elbows. Hands clawed around the trunk’s opening, she peered inside.

  The putrid smell was nauseating. At first, she couldn’t see anything, except a brown lump. Then the details of the mud-encrusted braids on the rug emerged.

  Someone tugged at her. “Rory.”

  A strangled cry escaped her, but she held on fast to the car’s solid metal.

  An agent nudged the soggy rug off the body lodged inside. Hair, long and mud-covered, writhed in hanks over the swollen face, sickly blue as muddy water from the wet rug rained down.

  Her skin prickled. She opened and closed her hands to get her blood flowing again. As if a magnet pulled it, Rory’s gaze settled on the golf-ball-size hole on the right side of the skull. Dead. No one could have survived that. Felicia was dead.

  Numb. All of her went numb.

  Until she saw the red nails.

  Then she screamed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “It’s not Felicia.” Rory hung on to the collar of his leather jacket as if it were the only thing holding her up. He couldn’t tell if she was laughing with relief or choking on sobs because she recognized the body. “It’s not Felicia.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Holding on to her, Ace started for the relative peace of the shore by the river.

  Her nails dug into his waist. Her dry sobs hiccupped against his ribs. Her feet dragged as if she was in the middle of a bender and she couldn’t quite find her legs.

  “It’s not Felicia,” Rory said again.

  He hauled her down with him onto a patch of grass. She crumpled as if someone had whacked her behind the knees. “Do you know who it is?”

  She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Still no tears. That scared him. Her teeth clacked like loose change in the pocket of a nervous con, and her body started to shake. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Adding the weight of his warmth, he held her close. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. They’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Karla. Felicia’s friend Karla Leach.” Eyes wide open, Rory pushed herself from him. A burst of gold pierced through the sorrow-darkened eyes. “Ace…”

  She licked her lips, then sucked in her bottom lip, anchoring it with her upper teeth. Her shivers became a Morse code that telegraphed her thoughts. What if? Joy. Hope. It was the hope tha
t nearly did him in. Hope had more hooks than Velcro, and when it didn’t stick, whatever you were trying to hang on to sacked you back into reality. Her gaze zigged to the car, then zagged back to him. Question marks skidded across her eyes.

  “Ace?” Her breath was nothing more than a puff. Her eyes pleaded.

  She wanted him to tell her Felicia was alive. She wanted him to tell her she had a second chance. But he couldn’t. Lying had come too easy for too long. He’d needed lies to fit in. He’d needed lies to do his job. But he couldn’t lie to her. She deserved the truth. Swearing, he picked up a dry stick and stabbed at the ground. The stick cracked, leaving a stub in his hand. “The windows were open, Rory. The body most likely floated out and it’s drifting down-river.”

  She wrapped his jacket tighter around her shoulders, shaking her head. “No, look at the way there are scratch marks near the door handle. The window was open because she opened it.”

  “The scratch marks were there before. Both windows were open. Mike wanted the car to sink faster.”

  Rory picked up a pen one of the task force members had most likely dropped during their frenzied posturing for top-dog status and rolled it between her palms. “The seat belt is unlatched. Corpses don’t unlatch seat belts.”

  “Seat belts are for protection. She didn’t need any.”

  “But he would have put it on to hold her in.”

  She had him there. “The car’s old. It could’ve come undone on its own.”

  Ace pitched the stick stub into the river, watched it float away on the current. When her hope sank, she’d take it hard. He wasn’t sure he was up to seeing her drown in guilt. “Her purse—”

  “She was trying to stay alive,” Rory said, jaw tight. “She wouldn’t give a damn about her purse.”

  “Her purse confirms her ID, that’s all.” He reached for her. Come to me, sweetheart. “Rory—”

  She scuttled away from him and hugged her knees. The pen bridged her hands. “No, I feel it, Ace. For Hannah, she would have found a way to live.”

  “You’re—”

  “I know.” Jostling her red curls from side to side, she dismissed him. Her gaze cranked to the river and followed the current. “But until I see a body, I’m not going to give up.”

  She didn’t want to hear the truth. She didn’t want his help to see her through it, either. He got up and dusted the dirt from his seat. “Stay here. I’ll go check on the task force.” And make sure the divers went back in. The faster they found Felicia, the better it would be for Rory.

  Just as he turned toward the gaggle of law enforcement strutting and scratching for control, the phone in his jacket rang. Without shifting her gaze from the water, Rory handed the phone up to him.

  “Mr. Lyon?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Principal Walker from the Cheshire Academy. Your sister Bianca didn’t report for her first class this morning.”

  “What do you mean didn’t report?”

  The principal cleared his throat. “She’s missing.”

  Ace swore. He didn’t need this right now. “How long? What have you done to find her?”

  “Her bed was slept in. No one recalls seeing her at breakfast. When she wasn’t in her first class, the school was searched.” The drum of a pen on a desk jigged to the principal’s irritation. “As per the procedure handbook you signed, when we failed to locate your sister, the local authorities were notified.”

  “So you don’t know when she left or where she is?”

  The principal seemed to dislodge a rock from his throat. “Yes. But we’re doing everything to rectify the situation. I thought you should be informed.”

  “Thanks.” For nothing. They were supposed to help her. That was their specialty. They were supposed to keep her safe. That was the deal. That’s why he was paying them the big bucks. That’s why he’d taken this job.

  “What’s wrong?” Rory asked.

  He stuffed the phone in his jeans pocket. “Bianca. She’s run away from school again.”

  Rory scrambled up. “I’ll help you look for her.”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  He jerked his chin toward the divers donning their gear once more. “You stay in case they find anything.”

  As Rory looked at the divers with their black suits and shiny tanks, she pressed her lips into a straight white line. He’d give anything to find out what was going on in there. But her curtain was down and no light was coming through. “I want to help.”

  “If you want to help, you stay right here.” She needed to find her sister as much as he needed to find his. “I don’t want to have to worry about you. You’ll be safe here.”

  The divers frog-walked past them. Task force members with their various lettered windbreakers followed like some sort of macabre parade.

  This time when he reached for Rory, she leaned into him. With both hands, he ponytailed the red frizz he’d come to love and tugged on it until she looked up. “You need to know.”

  Her eyes darkened with grief once more. “I need to know.”

  Her pain sighed into his chest. “Call me if you hear anything.”

  She nodded, distracted by the plop of divers slipping into water. “I left my bag at the Aerie.”

  He rolled the phone in his hand. His one link to Bianca. But Bianca was on the run. Chances were she wouldn’t dial his number. In this mood, her usual m.o. was to make him chase her. He handed Rory his phone, then checked the beeper at his waistband and made sure it was turned on. “Page me if you hear anything on Felicia. Or if Bianca calls. I’ll get to a phone.”

  His jacket slid off her shoulder and she hugged it to her chest. “I don’t know your beeper number.”

  “Here.” He reached for the pen in her hand. But when he took off the cap, the pen turned out to be a thermometer. “What the hell?” He capped it again, handed it back to Rory and snagged a local cop at the rear of the task force procession. “Got a pen?”

  The cop threw him a gas station gimme ballpoint.

  “Thanks.” Ace took Rory’s hand, printed his number into her palm and curled her fingers around it. “I’m just a phone call away if you need me.”

  She pressed his jacket to him. “Ace…”

  “Yeah?” He shrugged into the jacket, felt himself ripped in two like cheap paper by the twin needs to stay with Rory and seek his sister. The pressure of time ticking away didn’t help. Where would Bianca go? West back to New York? What if the divers found Felicia while he was gone?

  Rolling the thermometer case between her palms, Rory fixed her gaze on the point in the river where the divers had sunk. “Find your sister,” she said. “She needs you.”

  Energy flailed around her like sun on hot pavement. He could almost see the halo of it writhe around her. She needed him, too. She needed someone to lean on. But she was safe here and Bianca was on her own. Somewhere. Waiting for him to find her.

  “I’ll be back,” he said, but she didn’t hear him, and he didn’t know why that should hurt so much.

  RORY KEPT ROLLING the black thermometer case in her hands. Sun skipped on the waves in the river caused by the red diveboat keeping track of the divers. Much too cheerful a sight for such a gruesome job. But it was more than the divers’ task that had Rory scuffing the small patch of grass raw. Something she’d seen or heard kept biting at her as fiercely as the cloud of blackflies circling her head. Something that should somehow be obvious.

  She skimmed through her mind as if she were thumbing through an old-fashioned card catalog. But she didn’t know under what heading she’d filed the information she needed, what category she should even look under. The wasp’s nest of law enforcement buzzing about didn’t help. Why did they have to keep in constant motion? Why did they have to shout? Why did they have to make this about them?

  She spotted Sebastian, walkie-talkie in hand, standing on the edge of the boat ramp. Water licked at his boots. He’d promised her he’d find Felicia and he would keep th
at promise. Knowing she had someone that solid on her side somehow eased her burden. But she could not stay here a moment longer. Whatever the divers managed to bring up, it would not be Felicia. There was no logical reason for that knowledge, no facts to back her up, but she knew, and it went deeper than just wishful thinking.

  Making her way through the law enforcement drones, she avoided the stinging bite of their orders to stay back and tugged on Sebastian’s sleeve. “Sebastian? I have to go back to the Aerie.”

  Instant concern deepened the upside-down V crease between his eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”

  As if it were a genie’s lamp, she could not stop rolling the thermometer case between her palms. “I have to look something up and my computer is back at the Aerie.”

  He studied her for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll have someone drive you.”

  He motioned to a blond agent with ATF emblazoned in yellow on the navy windbreaker and met him halfway. After a short pow-wow, he called her over. “Glasser will take care of you.”

  Glasser, as he led her toward his car, didn’t seem too pleased with his reassignment. His scowl made him look like a petulant second-grader denied a ride on the roller-coaster because the top of his head didn’t reach the clown’s nose.

  “You’re back on the task force.” She gripped the dashboard as he peeled off the farm lane onto River Road.

  “Yeah, as you can see, I’m a real valuable member.” To thwart further conversation, he turned up the police radio and its crackle and cough crammed the car.

  At the Aerie’s gates, Glasser identified himself and Rory, held his badge to the camera for confirmation and was let through. As soon as he slowed by the navy front door, Rory shoved open the car door. “Thanks.”

  She fled up the stone stairs and through the door, ignoring Glasser’s, “Wait a minute!”

  Somewhere in the bowels of the house, she heard Hannah’s laughter and Liv’s delight. But Rory didn’t pause to check on either. Once in her room, she dove onto the bed and flipped open her laptop. She called up her file of notes and paged through them.