by Inger Wolf
"Look!" Angie pointed over to some trees. "A black cat. And there was black cat hair on the dolls in the dollhouse. Maybe Connolly petted the cat. Here, kitty kitty, come!"
She squatted down. "Kitty kitty, come kitty!" She made a long kissing sound. The cat glanced at her and ran into the woods without looking back. In a flash, it was gone.
"Shit." Angie looked at him. "I'm going in and ask if anyone owns that devil cat, maybe it hangs around, sheds hair some place."
SHE RETURNED in five minutes with a disappointed look on her face. "They don't have a cat. And they've never seen a black cat around here, they say. Shit."
They stared at each other over the roof of the car. "Dammit anyway. What if that was our cat?"
He looked over at the trees, but there was no sign of the animal.
"Dammit," she repeated. She sighed. "Let's go."
She drove slowly out of the long driveway. The pines were sagging under the weight of the snow. "It could be the cat. If it is, we've got an extremely perverse killer in there. But he seems to be a decent man, it's hard to see him that way. I'm trying to imagine him putting a pistol to the forehead of a kid whose mother he's just raped, shooting him, taking his sister. Somehow, it just doesn't feel right. Connolly seems more like a bit of a wimp. Griffin, on the other hand. There's something very nasty about him."
"You can never know," Trokic said, thinking about a case where a killer had seriously duped him. Appearances were deceiving.
"And where could this Adam Connolly guy be hiding her? If he's really our man, he killed her soon after the rest of the family and dumped her somewhere."
"You said there were three million lakes in Alaska…"
She stared at him for a moment, then looked back at the road. "I hope we get her back, I really hope so, but right now I have my doubts."
"What about the cell phone? Can it be traced? Where Connolly has been?"
Angie grimaced. "You can see the calls, but as soon as you're outside towns here, a lot of times there's no coverage. You're on your own. A few people have satellite phones, most don't. Damn that cat!"
"Maybe we should forget about that for now," Trokic calmly suggested. "The dolls in the dollhouse are old. Lots of kids could have played with them, the hair could be from them."
She sighed. "You're right. I'm clutching at straws. What if she's out there right now, and he's hurting her. That poor kid. There's nothing in the world I want more than to get her back alive. But from what we've seen so far, this evil, I can't see him letting her live."
Trokic stared out the window. A big brown eagle with a white head circled over the pines. All the interrogation they'd been doing seemed routine, and yet so foreign to him. This wasn't a place he was familiar with from television or someone's photo album. It was one of the least densely populated places on the planet, and it would be very easy to hide a young girl off the beaten path. Only the trees would hear her scream.
Chapter Nineteen
THE CABIN WAS small and cold. Apart from the basement, there was a room with a kitchen and small table and four chairs, a bathroom, and one bedroom. That was it. And yet Charlie had proudly shown it all to her. It was his, he said. She cried and begged for her mother, but he said that now the two of them were a family. All they had was each other. She didn't understand what he meant; they couldn't be in the same family, she'd never seen him before. They didn't even know each other. She was constantly on the edge of tears.
He sat at the table and looked out the window, lost in thought. He actually didn't look like a bad person. He looked normal. Not ugly. His clothes were nice and clean. But why was he keeping her prisoner here? Did he want money for her? Her mom and dad weren't rich or anything. Tears came to her eyes at the thought of how worried her mom must be. Like back when she'd followed some squirrel tracks in the snow and lost all sense of time. When she finally came back, her mom had wailed and told her she must never leave like that again without saying anything. Marie had felt just as bad as her mother.
Charlie had been gone six hours that day, and all that time she'd been locked up in the basement. Where had he been? Out talking to somebody about trading her for money? He brought back several colors of paint. And brushes and chalk. At first, she thought it was for her, but then he'd begun using it himself. He started drawing something on the wall. First with a big magic marker. She couldn't see exactly what it would be, just some kind of body. It gave her goosebumps.
She looked around the small cabin. There wasn't much personal stuff. He'd told her that people on fishing trips slept in the cabin. The wooden walls outside were dry and unfinished, and the room was old and rundown. It smelled musty, and if there wasn't a fire going, it quickly got freezing cold inside.
"It has a story of its own," he'd told her, smiling in a cold way, with a strangely blank expression on his face; he wasn't telling the truth, she thought.
Suddenly, he said, "Make me a sandwich." He was looking at her as if he'd never seen her before.
Her hands were shaking as she took out two slices of bread from the sack and smeared a thick layer of mayonnaise on them, added ham and cheese, and put the slices together. She laid his sandwich on a plate and set it on the table in front of him.
"And a beer."
She brought him a beer and stood watching him for a moment. Then she looked outside at the snow. The forest was dense around the cabin, but she spied a lake some distance away. It was partly covered with ice. Earlier, she had seen a deer go down to drink.
He followed her eyes. "You know there are bears outside there, don't you? They haven't gone into hibernation yet; they're waiting for the first big snow storm. There's a mother bear lives maybe a hundred yards from here. She has a cub. You can't walk around outside. She's dangerous."
She swallowed hard. The mother bear might fish in that lake, and meeting her and her cub could be fatal. Marie had an enormous respect for brown bears especially; their big paws could break a buffalo's neck.
"You should eat something. Sit down."
She sat down across from him at the table. She wasn't hungry, though she hadn't eaten much since they'd arrived. The situation was weird. Why wasn't he talking about ransom money? That if her parents paid, she could go home? He hadn't said a word about her family.
"This is just a little outing here," he said. "Someday, when we get to know each other better, we can take a trip. There are lots of things we have to catch up on."
Catch up on? What did he mean by that? It felt like she was farther out in the wilderness than she'd ever been. She'd been given a cell phone on her birthday, but she didn't have it on her. It had been in her inside pocket—had he taken it away from her? She couldn't get ahold of her parents and tell them where she was. They had to be worried. Earlier that day, she had asked him about driving somewhere she could call her mom to tell her she was okay, but he'd flown into a rage. "You don't want to be here with me? Is that it?"
She'd kept her mouth shut after that. His sudden outburst had frightened her. She hadn't seen that side of him before in her short time there. For a second, she'd been scared he was going to hit her.
"Can we go for a walk when you finish eating?" she asked.
"Maybe," he mumbled.
Then he pulled up one pant leg and stuck his bare leg up on the table. It was pale and it reminded her of a monkey.
"Look at all that hair, kiddo. How black it is. Do you think I look like a fly?"
She shook her head anxiously. He kept staring at the hairs. Felt them. Then he pulled his pant leg down. He'd been acting even stranger since he returned. Where had he gone? It was as if he were in two places at once. With her, but somewhere else too. He'd been angry when he came back. He had kicked the tin bucket out on the porch and banged on the door. It had made her tremble.
He raised his head and chewed on his sandwich, looking at her in a way he never had before. Almost with sorrow. Or pity. She didn't like that look.
"I should never have brought you out here,
" he said.
"Why not?" Suddenly she felt the cold outside penetrating the wood, taking over the small cabin. What if he got tired of her? What would he do? He looked her up and down in a way that made her shiver and hunch up.
"You'll never understand."
"Understand what?"
He shook his head and pushed the plate away. "You need to work a little on the mayonnaise, there was way too much. It was like eating a sandwich full of bird shit."
She swallowed as the tears welled up again. She heard a fluttering sound outside. It took a while for her to realize it was a helicopter. She stood up and walked over to the window, saw it circling over the treetops, not far away. "State Troopers" was written on the side. But could they even see this small cabin tucked away in the trees? The sound faded out after a few minutes.
Marie's gut instinct told her they were looking for her. But what could she do? Apparently, they hadn't seen anything. At some point, they would give up.
She shrugged and sat down again.
"Probably some idiot got lost in the snowstorm yesterday," he said, even though they both knew it wasn't true. "Happens all the time."
He had that part right; people were always being rescued. A snowmobile broke down, someone lost their sense of direction, a boat tipped over in one of the rivers, someone sprained their ankle on a mountainside. But what if they really were looking for her? How long would they keep at it?
"What am I going to do with you?" he asked, mostly to himself. He toyed with his knife on the edge of his plate.
"We could go for a walk—"
He stood so abruptly that his chair scraped the floor. "I'm going out to look for some wood. You stay here. It's going to be cold tonight."
"I want to go along."
"No. I'm going by myself. I told you, there are bears outside, it's too dangerous."
"But I want—"
"Shut up," he screamed, his eyes bulging.
She stared at him with tears in her eyes.
He walked outside and locked the door.
The moment he was out of sight, she ran over and shook the door, but it didn't give. She ran around to all the windows, but she couldn't open them. Tears welled in her eyes again. Even if she could get out, there were animals outside.
HE'D BEEN GONE ten minutes when she noticed his billfold on top of the refrigerator. She didn't dare touch it. Instead, she fumbled around with the radio on the shelf above the sink, but no sound came out. She turned it around; it was broken. Had he ruined it? Somebody had wanted to break off contact with the outside world.
She glanced over at his wallet again. Brown leather. She grabbed it and opened it up. Apart from one hundred twenty-two dollars, it was empty. No credit cards, no driver’s license. She closed it and put it back in exactly the same place, at exactly the same angle. He would be so mad if he knew she'd been snooping into his things.
Marie glanced around the room and noticed his backpack. He'd already told her not to open it, but he wasn't there, and she was curious about him. About what he wanted with her.
She heard the helicopter again. So, they hadn't found the person they were looking for. It had to be important to them since they kept looking. Were they really looking for her? It wasn't just some random flying, she understood that. Maybe they were looking for an escaped convict? Not long ago, she'd seen a program on TV about criminals from other states who fled to Alaska to hide. It was so easy to disappear there, they'd said. She shivered at the thought.
While pacing the floor, the backpack caught her eye again. Finally, she glanced out the window to make sure he wasn't on his way back, then she leaned down and unzipped it. It was a big backpack, the kind people used on long hiking trips. How long had he been thinking they would stay here? He'd said a few days, but they'd already gone by. Maybe until he got the ransom money?
She noticed a slip of paper in one of the pockets. There was something dark on the edge.
Blood.
Her mouth turned bone dry. Where did this come from? Was it his own blood? Had he been hurt? She couldn't recall seeing any scratches on him.
Her insides turned to ice when she saw the name written hastily in crooked letters.
Chapter Twenty
DAVID GRIFFIN. And an address. But that was her dad's hunting friend, she'd met him several times. Why did Griffin and the man keeping her know each other? Thoughts raced through her head. In her mind, she saw the big, rough man, his huge nose with big open pores, his bad teeth, always wearing a crummy old flannel shirt and smoking a pipe. A man she'd always been afraid of, even though she couldn't say why. A man who in the past few years had looked her up and down with eyes that chilled her.
Suddenly, she sensed that something was all wrong. She felt nauseous. They knew each other, she told herself again. Charlie and that horrible, half-old man. What connected them? Had they kidnapped her together? Charlie and Griffin?
And why was there blood on the paper?
Then she heard the car door slam outside. She froze for a moment as she heard him cussing about something or other. She moved lightning-quick to stick the slip of paper back in the pocket.
But while closing the backpack, the zipper got stuck on a white T-shirt. Panicking now, she struggled to free it while listening to his footsteps. The few steps up to the porch, the door.
At the last moment, she managed to free the zipper and close the backpack, and she gasped for breath as she stood up. The door opened. Would he see it? She hoped the T-shirt hadn't ripped when she'd unstuck the zipper. She had the feeling he would be very, very angry if he found out she'd opened it. That she'd seen the slip of paper. What was going on? Thoughts kept racing in her head, and her nausea returned.
He stared at her, then over to the backpack, then at her again. He looked desperate. "Down in the basement, quick!"
She froze and stared back at him. He flew over and grabbed her arm, opened the trapdoor, and pushed her down the steps. She fell on the cement floor and yelled out in pain.
"If you so much as make one sound, I'll stick my gun against your forehead and shoot you, you understand?"
Her heart hammered as she mumbled yes. He closed the trapdoor, and she heard him pacing above. Restless. The floor above her creaked.
Finally, she heard a knock on the door. Five loud knocks. She held her breath; who was it? Griffin? What would happen if it was? Or was it a policeman? Their voices sounded faint through the floorboards, like they were mumbling, but then they spoke louder. She heard her name mentioned. Her name. The voice sounded like someone in charge, and she imagined him to be a big man. It must be a policeman. Or a state trooper on patrol. Were they negotiating for her release? Or were they just looking?
She wanted to scream as loud as she could, but she couldn't get it out of her throat. What if he shot her and she never got to go home to her mom? Or if her mom would see her dead? Her sweet mother.
Tears ran down her cheeks and her chest felt like it was about to explode. She missed her mom so much. She swore she would never do anything wrong, ever again, if only the policeman shot Charlie and brought her back home to safety.
She heard something like, "Take a look in your pickup," followed by a few minutes of silence. Had they gone outside? At last, she heard Charlie say, "No problem." Silence again. Then she heard the faint sound of a car engine. She slumped on the step. It was too late. It might have been her only chance, and now it was gone. No one would ever find her.
Chapter Twenty-One
THEY'D BEEN DRIVING through Matsu Valley for some time. Apparently, it was a long way to Talkeetna, and Trokic had leaned back in his seat and got comfortable. The landscape was monotonous but beautiful. The small pine trees looked like overgrown Christmas trees. Angie had told him it was because the growing season was so short; the trees got smaller the farther north they drove. But far ahead, he could see Denali, a glacier-covered mountain, the tallest in the United States, located in a gigantic national park. Once in a while, he spotted a moose
in the trees.
For the first time in a while, he thought about Christiane back home. Things had been strained between them for a long time, and they had parted in anger. It seemed as if their relationship had been doomed from the start. She was an exceptional woman, but he couldn't give her what she wanted. They had a lot in common because she was studying pathology and planned on following in her father's footsteps by entering forensics. But, in a way, it wasn't enough.
"That blue car, two cars behind," Angie said. "I think they're following us."
Trokic sat up. He looked at her, then glanced in the side mirror. "Why do you think that?"
"It's been there since Wasilla. It pulled out behind us not far from the lodge." She gave him a cryptic look, then turned back to the road ahead. Her fingers tapped on the wheel. "It's just this feeling I have."
"But who could it be?"
"I don't know."
They were silent for a while. Trokic kept glancing in the mirror, keeping an eye on the blue car. When they turned off at Talkeetna, the car followed them, though at a distance. Then it turned again and drove off in a different direction.
"It's gone," Trokic said.
"Maybe it was nothing," she mumbled.
TALKEETNA'S POPULATION was only eight hundred, but it had much to be proud of. It was a national historical town, with wood houses from the early 1900's. The main street had a small grocery store, a roadhouse, and a bar. A few dogs ran aimlessly around the streets.
"Talkeetna's mayor is actually a tailless red cat called Stubbs," Angie said. "He wanders around all over town, none of the dogs dare to bother him."
Trokic stared at her to see if she was pulling his leg. "A cat?"
She smiled. "Yeah, believe it or not. This goes back about fifteen years. There was a lot of controversy about who was going to be mayor, and finally, the woman running the grocery store suggested her kitten could just as well be mayor. Stubbs got the most votes, and that's how it's been ever since. They say the cat's got a big head nowadays. He'll only drink water from a wine glass with cat grass, he marches into all the restaurants, he demands a spot on the counter at the grocery store, he sleeps during work hours."
