Silent Ridge: A gripping crime thriller and mystery (Detective Megan Carpenter Book 3)

by Gregg Olsen

  “Was the front door locked or unlocked when you got here this morning?” I ask.

  “I thought it was locked still. I used a key to get in but I don’t know if it was unlocked or not. I thought I locked it behind me. That’s why I was so scared when you yelled at me. The front and back were supposed to be locked.”

  “Call him,” I say. He’s not answering my calls. He was really ticked off when he left me at the restaurant. But he may answer for Jess. She hesitates only a split second, then pulls a phone from the back pocket of her skin-tight blue jeans. She calls and listens. After a dozen rings her expression becomes quizzical. She hangs up before I can stop her.

  “It didn’t even go to his voice mail. That’s really strange,” she says.

  Fifty-Five

  We’re back in the Taurus. It’s not like Dan. None of this. I haven’t told Ronnie about the little fight we had the other night. It’s none of her business but it is quickly becoming necessary.

  “I notice you had Jess call Dan,” Ronnie says. “You don’t think he’ll answer if he knows it’s you? Did you have a fight?”

  “We went out for drinks the other night and I had one too many.”

  I don’t know why I’m lying.

  “He got mad because you had too much to drink?”

  “It’s not important, Ronnie. We just need to find him.”

  “Megan, if I’m going to help you, I need to know what’s going on. I don’t understand why we’re looking for Dan. Was he a friend of Mrs. Delmont’s too? You haven’t told me much about why we’ve talked to these other people. And I think you’re keeping things from the sheriff.”

  Ronnie’s been a big help. More of a partner, really. But I don’t know how much I can tell her. She’s intuitive. That’s the problem with not telling her enough.

  “I’m going to tell you something that only I and the sheriff know. That means if you tell anyone I’ll have to kill you.”

  She can tell by the look on my face I’m not kidding.

  “You know you can trust me.” She already knows some things that I haven’t told anyone else. She saw me basically assassinate the guy last month who had shot me and was going to rape her. I shot his balls off while he was still alive. He was a rapist and a murderer. He got what he gave.

  “Okay, I trust you,” I lie. “I knew Monique Delmont. I had more of a friendship with her than I let on. I’ve been in her house before.”

  Ronnie gives me a hurt look. I lied to her.

  “I haven’t talked to her for several years and I didn’t know she had any idea I worked here.” That much is the truth.

  “The picture of you coming from the Sheriff’s Office,” Ronnie says. “It makes sense now.”

  “I don’t think Monique snapped that picture,” I say. “I think the killer wants me to know he knows where I was.” This doesn’t explain why I would think Gabrielle is in danger, so I say, “I never met her daughter but I figure the killer is crazy and killing people even remotely connected with her. And me.”

  “Why would the killer be after you, Megan?”

  Yeah. Damn it. I improvise and hope she doesn’t see through the lie.

  “Maybe the killer’s not specifically after me. Maybe it’s all about Monique. Dan showed me the picture that Sheriff Gray found at the scene. That’s what we argued about. He said it was left at his store and he wanted to know what was going on. He knows we’re working on this murder and wanted to know if the picture was connected. He wanted to know why the killer would send him one. I couldn’t tell him.”

  “I wish I had told him something. Anything. He could have gone somewhere and stayed out of the way, like Gabrielle, until this is over.”

  But I couldn’t chance him finding out about my past. Now he’s basically missing and maybe I’ll lose him.

  “You did what you thought was best, Megan. I know you and you wouldn’t put anyone in danger. I don’t know why you want to keep this so secret, but whatever. I’m in.”

  I could hug her. But I don’t really like people touching me. And that goes both ways.

  “We need to take another little ride,” I say.

  “Dan lives over in Snow Creek, doesn’t he?”

  I put the car in gear and carefully pull into traffic. “Can you keep trying his phone?”

  She does.

  I check with Dispatch. The patrol keeping an eye on Dan’s business haven’t seen him. I take State Route 20 to Discovery Bay, where I turn south on Highway 101 until it circles back north toward National Forest Service Road 2850. On a map it looks like an unnecessarily circuitous route, but it’s the quickest way to cover the almost twenty-five miles to Dan’s place.

  Ronnie’s GPS navigates until I tell her to turn it off. I know the way and the female voice on the iPhone is starting to get on my last nerve. I know with the GPS off Ronnie will have to fill the silence, and she doesn’t disappoint.

  I tune her out. I have my own thoughts and worries. I berate myself for not sharing my concern with Dan last night. I could have insisted he stay in a motel out of town. Or even at my place. Somehow I can’t see Dan on the run. He’s not like me. Especially if he thought I was in danger. I don’t know him that well, but I believe he’d protect me with his life. I would do the same for him. I can’t say that about many people.

  Snow Creek Road is just ahead and I look north toward the area where several people had secluded cabins and even a farm or two. They are all separated by almost a mile, and hundreds of yards from the road on winding hard-packed earth tracks. They have almost complete privacy. I remember the last time I was here, a teenage daughter had murdered her entire family. Another woman had kept the desiccated corpse of her girlfriend in her cabin for years for company. Maybe total seclusion drives you mad. Feelings of being alone turn to imaginings and that turns to fear. The only way to work off their mania is on each other.

  Another downside of the seclusion is that no one would hear you if you were in trouble. Dan works on his chainsaw carvings here, but you can’t hear the noise until you get close.

  I reach the turnoff to his house and smell smoke. I can see the fog of it settling in the trees but it isn’t unusual for people to burn garbage out here.

  “Someone has a campfire,” Ronnie says. “I hope they’re being safe. I don’t want to be in the middle of a wildfire.”

  I don’t, either, but I’d drive through it to see if Dan is okay. “Get on the phone and tell Dispatch we’ve got heavy smoke here. See if they have reports yet.”

  Ronnie is on the phone with Dispatch as I hurry down the dirt lane. I can see Dan’s house dead ahead. It isn’t on fire, but the smoke is heavier here.

  “They say they don’t have anything, but they’re sending a chopper up to check the area out and they’re notifying Fire.”

  I pull in the drive and immediately see the source of the smoke. “Call them back and tell them to send a pumper.”

  Someone has made a huge bonfire of Dan’s wood carvings. There must be over a dozen pieces piled almost six feet high. Flames are shooting three times that high. Dan’s truck is parked twenty feet from the bonfire and I worry about it catching fire or exploding.

  I know Dan keeps several foam fire extinguishers handy, but I don’t think it will be enough. There are two extinguishers on his small, covered porch. I grab one of these and Ronnie grabs the other. I pull the pin. It’s heavier than I thought. I’ve seen them used at the academy but never used one. I do remember one of the instructions. I yell at Ronnie over the roar of the fire, “Ronnie, sweep from side to side at the bottom and work your way up.”

  Ronnie pulls the pin and holds the heavy extinguisher under her arm with the bad wrist and moves toward the fire, squeezing the handle. White foam bubbles off the scorched wood.

  I see Ronnie has this as under control as it’s going to get until the fire department gets here. “I’m going to find Dan,” I say, and run to the house. The door is cracked open. Dan doesn’t do that even when he’s home. He l
ives out in the sticks but that doesn’t mean there are no thefts. I go inside still holding the fire extinguisher.

  It’s not a large place. The front room serves as living room and kitchen. A small bedroom and bathroom are at the back. There’s nothing in the front room. I go behind the counter that separates the kitchen from the front room and nothing is amiss. I see the bedroom door is shut.

  I put a hand against the surface of the door. The door is cool to the touch. I push it open and go in, extinguisher hose at waist level, ready. There’s nothing. Dan’s bed is messed up where he slept in it. I’ve never been in his bedroom before. I check the tiny closet. There are several more lumberjack-type shirts, worn jeans, canvas coveralls, boots, shoes and one blue suit with a white button-down shirt on the same hanger.

  The bathroom gives nothing away. A toothbrush, toothpaste still open on the sink. The towel is still damp; the shower has been used recently.

  I turn to go outside to help Ronnie when I see something on Dan’s pillow. It’s the laminated picture Dan had of me as Rylee. I stick it in my pocket. No blood is on the mattress or pillow. No blood is in the bathroom or any area I’ve been through.

  And no sign of Dan Anderson.

  I rush back outside and spray foam around the fire, but these extinguishers have no chance of putting down the conflagration that threatens to eat everything in sight.

  Then I hear the familiar sound of fire trucks not too distant. It couldn’t have been timed better. Both extinguishers are running out of foam.

  Fifty-Six

  After the firemen arrive I squeeze the Taurus around their equipment and park on Forest Service Road 2850 a safe distance from the blaze. I sit in the car with Ronnie, watching the flames rise above the trees. We might have saved Dan’s house by acting so quickly, but all of his carvings will almost certainly be ash. I think of the bear he carved and gave me and of how I moved it because it was in my way. I can be mean-spirited sometimes. I need to value things more, but I grew up moving from one place to another and leaving everything behind at the drop of a hat. I learned not to get attached to things.

  Ronnie sits with her arms crossed over her chest. We both smell of smoke. We have the windows down and smoke drifts our way when the wind changes direction.

  “Maybe someone is mad at him for something else entirely and set the fire? Or maybe it started on its own. Spontaneous combustion.” She doesn’t sound like she believes it. Neither do I. The fire was meant to draw me here. Of that I’m sure. Well, I’m here. So what next?

  “I think we may have saved his house at least, Megan.”

  I don’t say anything. She’s trying to make me feel better. It doesn’t work but I’m grateful anyway. Here she is, sitting with me, when she’s to be sworn in shortly at the Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Gray must be losing his mind, wondering where we are.

  “Call the store again and ask Jess if she’s heard from him.”

  Ronnie calls Dan’s shop and gets the voice mail. She leaves a message that Dan or Jess should return the call right away. She says it’s a police matter. As she does this my phone rings and I dig it out of my pocket.

  It’s Dan’s phone number.

  “Where have you been?” I say a little sharper than I intend to. He doesn’t answer. “Firemen are at your place.” Still no response. I’m starting to get a little miffed. And then I feel a chill. I ask, “Who is this?”

  A synthesized voice comes over the tiny speaker. “Do I have your attention?”

  What the?… “Who is this?” I ask, but I know who it is. Rader.

  “Where is Dan?”

  “He’s with me. He’s alive. For now.”

  “Why are you doing this? And why are you using a voice synthesizer? You think I’m recording this call.”

  “You know why, Rylee.”

  “I think you have me mixed up with someone else,” I say.

  Ronnie leans toward me trying to hear. I push her away.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” the robotic voice says. “I’ve been following your career closely since you murdered Alex and Marie. I was there when you drove your aunt’s car into the river. Did you get the present I left for you at your friend’s house?”

  I assume Rader’s talking about Monique. But something about the way he’s using words is different. For one thing, there was that pause between the last words. It feels like the words are being read from a teleprompter. I saw a deputy playing with a computer program that did that. It could change the voice to anything. A man, a woman, cartoon characters, celebrities.

  “Why do you care about Dan? What is he to you?”

  “He was yours. And now he’s mine. An eye for an eye. That’s what you do. Right, Rylee?”

  My breath catches. Alex Rader, serial killer, said those words to my mom. He told my mom she belonged to him. That I belonged to him. And he was going to have me. But Alex Rader is dead.

  “I did believe that once,” I say cautiously. I don’t want to go into details with Ronnie sitting right here, but the person calling obviously wants to rub my nose in it. “Let me talk to him.”

  Rader, or that damn program, laughs. “I know your friend is in the car. Let me speak to her.”

  Asshole. He knew I wouldn’t do that. “What do you want?”

  “I’ve got what I want from you. You understand? I’ve taken two of yours.”

  “Listen to me, Michael. I don’t—”

  The laughing starts again in that peculiar Siri way. “You don’t know who I am, but I know who you are, Rylee.”

  I’m quiet, thinking furiously. He’s lying. Trying to confuse me. Or he thinks I’m recording the call and he’s trying to keep his name out of this. But if it’s not Michael, then who? Maybe there’s another brother I don’t know about. A son. Maybe one of Marie’s kin.

  “I know you’re the one who’s leaving the pictures. First at Monique’s and then at Dan’s.”

  “I left something for Sheriff Gray. Did he get it?”

  He’s talking about the newspaper article.

  “Rylee, Rylee. You’re wasting time and you don’t have much left. Dan doesn’t have much. He’s alive now, but I think I’ll carve him like the bear he gave you. I’ve never used a chainsaw before. Sounds like fun.”

  “Listen to me, Michael. If you let Dan go, unhurt, I won’t track you down and show you real pain. You know I can do it. I won’t stop until I find you. Do you hear me?” I feel more than anger or hate. Rage has taken me to a new plane.

  “Feel better? You know I’m watching you. I’m coming after you. And your friends. You won’t know when or where I’ll take one again. You can only be certain of one thing. In the end I will kill you, Rylee.”

  I shouldn’t have pushed his buttons. I realize too late that he might kill Dan sooner. “Let me talk to Dan,” I say into a dead phone.

  I drop the phone on the seat. Ronnie is silently watching me. I don’t know how much of the call she could hear, but even a little is too much.

  “You should have recorded the call,” Ronnie says.

  I struggle with this for only a second.

  “No need to.”

  “Why not?”

  Good question. I didn’t have an answer. I take the phone back out and bring up the last number. “If I give you the number, can you track it?”

  “I can try.”

  I give her the number and she gets busy on her phone. “No luck,” she says. “I can try getting the last cell tower it pinged when we get back to the office. If we’re going back, that is.”

  I have no choice but to go to the office and hope Rader calls again. He’s playing with me. He won’t kill Dan until he’s finished torturing me.

  Fifty-Seven

  “This isn’t the way to Port Hadlock,” Ronnie says.

  “Pit stop.”

  “Are we going to Port Townsend?”

  “Yes.”

  To her credit she doesn’t ask why. I have a feeling that Rader wasn’t just toying with me during the cal
l. He was giving me a clue. I step on the gas until I reach the town limits. I drive past Dan’s shop just on the off chance that someone is there, or I see something out of place.

  Nothing.

  I pull up in front of my place. Everything seems to be the way I left it this morning. Rader knew about the bear in my bedroom. He was wrong about its location. I’d moved it near the door a week ago. But he said it was by my desk.

  I want to go in alone, but Ronnie ignores my order. We have to work on that. I open the door and go in. I immediately see the bear is not by the door. My weapon is in my hand, and when I look at Ronnie, hers is as well. Some things are just reflex.

  I whisper at Ronnie to stay by the door and keep an eye out in front. She nods. I mouth at her, “Don’t shoot me.” Probably not necessary, but better to put the idea in her head just in case.

  I clear the kitchen and then go to the bedroom. The bear is on top of my desk. It’s facing me. There’s something rolled up in its mouth.

  I want to see what it is, but I clear the bathroom and closet first. Then I go to the bear. I pull a glove from my pocket and slide it on. A piece of paper the size of a dime coin wrapper is rolled up and stuffed in the bear’s jaws. I lift it out of the mouth and feel something inside the paper. My blood runs cold. My imagination runs wild and I suddenly don’t want to see what has been left for me.

  Ronnie calls from the front. “Megan. Are you okay?”

  Stupid question. If I weren’t okay, I wouldn’t be able to tell her. I’m not used to working with a partner yet, but it’s good to have someone checking on me. I know if I don’t answer, she will come back here, and I don’t want that.

  “One more minute,” I say.

  I unroll the paper. A severed finger falls out of it and lands on top of the desk. My pulse quickens. There is something written on the paper but my attention is drawn to the bear’s mouth. Dan carved the bear with a wide-open mouth. Another object is stuck deep in its maw. I take my phone out and use the flashlight to see. It’s another finger. I use an ink pen on the desk to pry it out. Both digits are long and thin. Almost like a woman’s hand, but there is dark hair on the knuckles. I know they are not Dan’s and my heart slows. His fingers are much bigger and calloused. A sense of relief washes over me even though I know they belong to some unfortunate soul.