High-Caliber Christmas

by B. J Daniels

  “You know there’s those old mines north of town just up from the river,” the deputy said.

  “Near the Dennison ranch.” McCall felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Since she’d joined the sheriff’s department, she’d worked on instinct. “Let’s close up here. I want you to park somewhere inconspicuous and watch the house. I think I’ll go check those mines.”

  She could tell the deputy thought she was the one with the screw loose as she left. Who hid out in an old, dangerous mine tunnel on a cold, snowy, late-November day?

  She knew it was a long shot. But Ava Carris had circled the story. Add to that the fact that the mines weren’t far from Jace Dennison’s house.

  JACE TOOK THE BACK WAY, not surprised to see that Ava had done the same thing. That explained how he’d missed her. She couldn’t have left Kayley’s house much before he had, and yet he hadn’t seen her on the highway.

  He realized with a start that this hadn’t been impulsive. She had planned this, scoped out the area, decided where she was going to take Kayley. She would have seen the mine tunnel from the photographs of him and Kayley in the albums at the house, recognized the location and possibly even explored the mines.

  Which meant she had the home-field advantage.

  Jace tried not to think about what Ava hoped to gain out of this—or how far she would go as he drove down the narrow, snowy road. What scared him was the struggle he’d heard before the phone had gone dead.

  He’d tried to call back but got voice mail. He prayed Kayley was still alive as he followed the single set of tracks up the road toward the large bare-limbed cottonwoods that stood stark against the snowy landscape. It was there that the road ended—at the Milk River.

  This part of the valley had gotten a lot less snow and while it had still blown in some, the storm hadn’t closed the road.

  If the storm had been more extensive, Ava wouldn’t have been able to get in even with a four-wheel-drive SUV; she would have high-centered on the drifts and had to abort her plan. Unfortunately, that hadn’t happened.

  As he drove in, he knew the sound of his uncle’s pickup’s engine would carry for miles along the river bottom. Ava would know that he was coming.

  But she already knew he would come. That was why she’d taken Kayley. She knew his weakness. She’d read the letters his mother had saved from Kayley, including the ones that mentioned the baby she and Jace had lost. She’d seen the photographs of the two of them. She had been more aware of his heart’s desire than he had.

  Now, though, he had to believe that she wouldn’t hurt Kayley. That the person she really wanted was him.

  The road ended at the fishing-access site in a stand of huge cottonwoods. Deep in the shadows sat a silver SUV.

  Jace parked next to the SUV and got out, dragging the backpack he’d brought with him. For a moment, he stood looking toward the mountainside. The mines had been dug into the side of a cliff overlooking the Milk River back in the early 1900s during a late gold rush. A narrow trail led up to the first opening.

  This spot was a popular fishing-access site in the summer, but no one used it this time of year. Jace figured it was why Ava had chosen the mine. There was little chance anyone would stumble on to her. And since there’d been only the one set of vehicle tracks in, now it was just him and Ava.

  The wind whipped the branches over his head and moaned across the top of the vehicles, sending a shower of snow into the air. He saw no sign of Ava or Kayley, but he could see where they had made a trail through the fallen snow. The tracks had blown in, but there was still a shallow shadowed indentation where they’d walked.

  Figuring Ava was watching him from the darkness beyond the partially barred entrance to the mine tunnel, he started up the trail. He knew Kayley was with Ava in the mine. Ava must have gone into the mine to get her for the phone call. That was good. It meant they hadn’t ventured far into the mine, where anything could set off a cave-in.

  He thought of the narrow, cramped tunnel inside, could almost feel the cold rock walls and imagine Kayley’s fear. Had Ava now taken her deeper into the tunnel?

  In his mind, he tried to picture the maze of tunnels inside the mine. He remembered the main tunnel forked: to the right the tunnel went upward: to the left it dropped deeper into the mountainside into a honeycomb of tunnels.

  The ground was so unstable that a portion of the mine had caved in years ago, leaving a cavernous hole where the ground had given away above the upper tunnel, dropping into the lower ones.

  If Ava took the right fork, he didn’t have to worry about Kayley having enough oxygen, since the tunnel ended in a cliff with blue sky above it from where the ground had given way.

  The problem was that the tunnel ended in a cliff—the drop to the rocks below was a good fifty feet.

  But if Ava had taken the lower tunnel, it would eventually end in a wall of rock because of the old cave-in.

  Jace hated to think where Kayley was being held. Anywhere beyond the entrance was bad. The deeper Ava took her in the tunnels, the harder it would be to get her out safely. That’s if he could find her in that maze inside the mountain.

  And if she was still alive.

  He smacked that thought away. He had to stay focused. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone into a situation knowing little about what he would be up against until he got there. The difference was there’d never been this much at stake.

  Before, it had been only his own life he was jeopardizing. With all his other covert operations, the expected outcome was bad, because he wasn’t called in unless there was little to no hope of getting the person out alive.

  It was part of the job. There were always losses, because he wasn’t called in unless all other alternatives had failed. But failure was not an option in this case.

  He tried the cell-phone number again. No answer. He could see the mine opening just ahead. Behind what few boards still blocked the entrance, all he could see was darkness.

  “Ava!” he called as he pulled the .357 from the holster. “Ava!” She either wasn’t answering or she was deeper in the tunnel.

  He moved cautiously. Standing to one side of the opening so he wasn’t silhouetted in the entrance, he pulled the headlamp from his backpack, slipped it on and snapped on the light.

  Then he stepped through the space between the boards, ducking his head as he entered the mine.

  The inside of the mine was cold, damp and cramped. Each footfall echoed through the tunnel. Jace had gone only a few yards inside when he’d stopped to listen. He could hear water dripping somewhere ahead and feel a breeze against his face.

  Cautiously, he moved deeper into the mountainside. The tunnel was narrow. In places he had to bend down to clear the rocky crags overhead. He and his uncle Audie had gone in a few hundred yards—to the point where one tunnel went down and the other went a little to the right and upward.

  “Bad deal,” Audie had said, shaking his head. “That lower tunnel will weaken the earth under the other. If it hasn’t already caved in, it will.”

  They had taken the high tunnel but hadn’t gone much farther when his uncle whispered for him to stay back. Jace had felt the fresh air on his face and known even before he reached his uncle that there had been a cave-in from overhead.

  What surprised him was that the earth had dropped into the lower tunnel, leaving a crater, the ragged rocky edge high above as if a hole had been punched in the sky.

  He and his uncle had turned back, with Audie eliciting a promise from him that he would never enter the mine again.

  Jace had kept that promise. Until today.

  As he reached the fork where the tunnels diverged, he saw a piece of cloth stuck in the rocks and recognized it as a strip of fabric from a shirt Kayley had been wearing just a few days before.

  His heart pounded at the sight of it and the realization of which tunnel it marked. Weapon in hand, he took the higher tunnel—the one with the piece of cloth marking it—knowing that it ended abruptly
on a ledge of unstable ground with a deadly fall to the rocks below.

  He stopped again to listen, hoping to hear voices or the scuff of a shoe on the tunnel floor. All he could hear was the pounding of his own heart. He moved forward, his headlamp cutting a swath through the darkness ahead.

  The tunnel turned. Jace bent to go under a low-hanging rock.

  She came out of the darkness like a ghost, startling him not only by her sudden appearance, but also by the look on her face.

  He straightened as the tunnel ceiling opened a little. “Ava.” His voice sounded funny to him. It echoed around him. “Ava, where is Kayley?’

  She stood at the edge of the cave-in, light spilling in from the opening to the sky. He realized what had startled him was the frightened look on her face.

  Jace was doing his best to remain calm and patient, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it together. “Ava, what did you do with her? Is she all right?”

  “Evie has her. She’s my identical twin sister. That’s how she knew about Kayley. I told her Kayley wasn’t a threat, but I’ve never been able to keep secrets from her.”

  Jace took a step toward her. Ava took a step back. He stopped, realizing how close she was to the edge of the cliff. He had to know what she’d done with Kayley.

  “Evie doesn’t have her. Your sister Eva is dead. She died when you were born.”

  Ava shook her head adamantly. “Papa just said she was dead. She was dead to him because she defied him when we were both fifteen, but Evie’s not dead. Remember how she was always around, and you used to get so tired of it, John? You used to say—”

  “Ava, you have to listen to me. I’m not John. I need to find Kayley. You have to help me.”

  “Evie—”

  He was losing his patience. Every minute they were in this tunnel, the less chance they had of getting out of here without causing a cave-in. “Take me to Evie. If she has Kayley—”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” she said in a little-girl voice.

  His heart dropped. “What wasn’t your fault?”

  She cocked her head to one side, her eyes filling with tears. “Eva took her down the other tunnel. I think it caved in.”

  Jace swallowed hard. Kayley had to be all right. If he could just find her quickly… “Ava, I need you to go with me.”

  She looked and sounded like a little girl. “I can’t. Evie will hurt me, too. I always get blamed for what she does,” Ava cried, closing her eyes as she shook her head from side to side. “She does horrible things. Horrible things.”

  Jace reached for her, needing her to lead him to the spot where she’d last seen Kayley, but Ava took a step back, now just inches from where the tunnel floor ended and the earth dropped away to end fifty feet below in a pile of rocks.

  “Ava,” he said, lowering his voice. “Just show me where Kayley is. I will help you. I will make sure that Eva gets the blame for everything. I will protect you from her.”

  She opened her eyes and smiled ruefully. “No one can protect me from my sister.”

  “Ava, you’re not like her. You’re a nice person. I know you didn’t hurt Kayley.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I only followed you because I thought…” She looked confused. “Evie said you are John come back from the dead. I knew you weren’t, but I missed him so much. John loved me. He never loved Evie. He always wished she would go away and never come back.”

  Suddenly her head jerked to the side. Her eyes widened in alarm, and he could see that she was listening to something. Someone.

  “Ava, what’s wrong?”

  Suddenly, her gaze swung to a spot just over his right shoulder. Her eyes widened in terror. “Ava—”

  When she opened her mouth, her voice was an eerie whisper. “Evie. She’s right behind you.”

  Jace felt the hair rise on the nape of his neck as he swung around.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jace turned and came face-to-face Eva Carris.

  He knew at once she was the woman he’d met that night at the bar in Whitehorse.

  “Hello, Jace,” she said, smiling.

  His heart hammered against his rib cage as he looked into the woman’s eyes. She was identical to Ava—except for the eyes. There was something so cold and dangerous in them that he felt chilled to his bone marrow.

  He held the .357 Magnum on her, his finger itching on the trigger.

  “Where is Kayley?” he demanded, trying not to let her see just how shaken he was. Or how terrified of what he knew this woman was capable of.

  Behind him, he could hear Ava whimpering like a puppy.

  “I didn’t tell him anything, Evie. I didn’t. I did just as you said. I just stood here and waited for him like you said.”

  Eva sent her twin a look of disgust before she settled her gaze on Jace again.

  “You aren’t going to shoot me,” she said. “If you do, you’ll never find your precious Kayley. At least not until it’s too late.”

  “What do you want?” he demanded, never taking the weapon off her.

  “I like a man who gets right to the heart of the problem,” Eva said. “What do I want?” She smiled, her eyes darkening with a twisted sickness. If he hadn’t known it before, he did now. Here was a woman who loved tormenting others—especially her twin.

  “I want you to kill my sister,” Eva said.

  Jace shook his head. “I’d rather kill you.”

  Behind him, Ava had let out a gasp at her sister’s words.

  An instant later, he heard her lose her footing. He swung around in time to see her off balance on the edge of the precipice.

  She windmilled her arms frantically as she tried to regain her balance. He lunged for her, saw the change in her expression, the acceptance, the relief, as if she suddenly welcomed what was about to happen.

  His fingers brushed hers as she fell. He dropped to the edge, still grasping for her, but she was gone. She didn’t make a sound, even when she hit the rocks below.

  Jace turned away in horror, a cold silence rushing in that was broken only by the soft click of the safety being snapped off on a pistol directly behind his ear.

  MCCALL GOT THE CALL AS she left Whitehorse, headed north. She checked and saw that it was the retired detective from the John Carris case in Alaska and was marked urgent.

  “Sheriff Winchester,” he said, sounding upset when she answered.

  “I have a homicide down here and a possible hostage situation,” McCall told him. She’d just driven by Kayley’s after not being able to reach Jace and seen where there had been a struggle. “A rancher who was drugged, then stabbed eleven times. The last person he was seen with matches Ava Carris’s description. I have an APB out on her. I suspect she has taken the local hostage to an old gold mine. I’m going there now.”

  “It might not have been Ava,” the former detective said. “That’s why I called you. Her twin sister is alive.”

  McCall felt her blood run cold. “I thought—”

  “Ava’s father showed up at the police station yesterday. He said he was afraid of his daughter. Of course the detective in charge thought he meant Ava. That’s when he admitted that he had lied when social services had come around all those years ago. Eva had run off when she was fifteen. He’d literally buried her memory in the backyard. Apparently she’s been living with him off and on for years. She came and went, but he had become worried about her, fearing she might want to harm her sister. He said she was always jealous of Ava.”

  “Why would he make such a confession now?” McCall asked.

  “He said he’d heard from Eva and that she’d threatened to come home soon. According to him, Eva told him that she was taking care of Ava and from now on she would be living as her sister. He said that Eva had always been filled with sin. He had tried to beat it out of her but had failed.”

  McCall cursed under her breath.

  “Sheriff, the district attorney up here was planning to reopen the case against Ava Carris in th
e murder of her husband. With the twin sister being alive, this sheds a whole new light on everything we know about Ava Carris.”

  McCall thanked him, promising to keep him informed.

  The moment she hung up, she called Jace’s number. No answer. She left a message for him to contact her immediately, that it was urgent, then slowed for the turnoff to the mines.

  That’s when she saw two sets of tracks going into the fishing-access road.

  As she drove toward the river, she couldn’t help but think about the ten years that Ava Carris had spent in a mental institution—and all because she’d sworn her sister had killed John Carris.

  What if it had never been Ava who hurt anyone? What if it had been her sister, Eva, all along? Being twins, Eva could come and go at will as long as she made sure the two of them were never seen together.

  When McCall saw the two vehicles parked at the end of the road, she put in a call to one of her deputies. “I’m headed for the old mines north of the Dennison place. I believe that we have four people inside.” She gave the deputy the information about Ava Carris’s twin, warning that both should be considered armed and dangerous at this point, and asked for backup.

  Then she parked and, grabbing her shotgun, stepped out and began the hike up to the old mine entrance.

  “ARE YOU INSANE?” Jace demanded as the report of the pistol set off a series of small cave-ins along the tunnel behind them.

  Eva chuckled after firing the shot into the air. “Do I really need to answer that?” She pressed the barrel end of the pistol into the back of his head again.

  He was still in shock that she would do that to her own sister. Her twin. “You killed her just as if you’d put that gun to her head.”

  “You think? Actually, I’m going to miss her. She was so much fun. But with her out of the sanitarium, it was causing a little problem. There can’t be two of us. One of us has to be dead. Now, get up slowly. Remember, one wrong move and Kayley dies.”

  “How do I know she isn’t dead already?” Jace asked as he slowly got to his feet. It was all he could do not to take that gun away from her and strangle the twisted life out of her.