by Steven James
The trooper seemed uncertain what to do.
“Hurry!” Daniel told him.
He left to talk to the paramedics, who promptly loaded his dad onto a rolling gurney.
The trooper helped Daniel to his feet, shuffled him toward his cruiser, and put him in the back seat.
“Let me ride with my dad.”
“Until we figure this out you’re staying with me.”
The car door was still open and Daniel could see the other officer assisting Dr. Fromke, who was still stuck between the two vehicles. “You need to cuff him,” Daniel called out. “He’s dangerous. He—”
“We’ll take care of this, son,” the trooper said as he closed the door.
Daniel yelled through the window, “He’s killed at least eight people!”
He wasn’t sure if the officer believed him, but he did open his door again. “What did you just say?”
“He’s murdered at least eight people. One of them is in the cabin.”
Immediately, the man went to search the building. When he came back he spoke with the other trooper and it seemed to take forever before the officer who’d cuffed Daniel climbed in and turned the cruiser around to follow the ambulance. The other officer covered Dr. Fromke.
“Did you try to run that man over?” he asked Daniel.
“No.”
“Did you shoot him?”
“No. He shot himself.”
“Really.” He didn’t sound convinced.
“Yes, and he killed that man in the cabin.”
The trooper spoke into his radio, relaying information about their location and giving them codes that Daniel didn’t recognize.
Daniel prayed his dad would be okay, that the paramedics would get him to the hospital in time.
They turned onto the county road that led past the Traybor Institute and he scanned both sides of the road for any sign of Mr. Zacharias or his car, but saw nothing.
Just after they passed the facility, an explosion rocked the night and Daniel turned in time to see the building erupting in a blazing mushroom of smoke and flames.
The state trooper pulled the car over to the shoulder and muttered, “What the hell is going on tonight?”
Malcolm Zacharias wanted to take out the research station. Maybe he blew the place up.
Daniel didn’t know, and right now he was more worried about his dad getting the care he needed than about what’d happened to the man who’d helped Hollister escape.
The trooper got on the radio and called for more units.
When they took off again, he drove Daniel to the hospital rather than the county jail.
So, maybe he did believe him after all.
PART VII
TWO WOLVES
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25
CHRISTMAS DAY
21 HOURS LATER
3:51 P.M.
CHAPTER
SIXTY-FOUR
Daniel repositioned his laptop so his dad could see the screen more easily from his hospital bed. “That good?”
“Yes.” He adjusted the angle of the bed a little higher so that he was nearly sitting up.
Last night the doctors had worked on him for several hours, re-suturing his side and counteracting the drug Hollister had injected him with. It was a good thing he’d mentioned the name of it, since, from what the doctors were saying, an overdose of Tribaxil could have been fatal.
As it turned out, Hollister had done a surprisingly good job of treating the stab wound over the past few days.
His dad was still weak, but the doctors said he was “on the road to recovery,” and Daniel figured that, at this point, that was about as much as he could hope for.
Daniel had spent a good part of last night and most of today filling in the deputies and state troopers about everything that’d happened. However, he did leave out the parts about his blurs so they would take the other things he had to say more seriously.
He had to go through it several times for them.
There was a lot to take in.
At first they’d kept a close eye on him, evidently still suspicious that he was lying to them, but when his dad woke up and corroborated his story, they let him spend the rest of his time with him in his room.
Dr. Fromke had been brought to the hospital as well and was being held under guard on the second floor. As far as Daniel knew, the psychiatrist hadn’t spoken with the police since last night, or asked to talk to a lawyer, and he wondered what was going through the man’s head, what he might be thinking or planning.
Whatever it was, Daniel did not like the fact that Dr. Fromke was in the same hospital as his dad, even if there were officers stationed outside the man’s room.
He tapped at the keyboard and brought up the video chat program they were going to use to talk to his mom, who was still stranded in Alaska.
Nicole sat quietly in the chair near the window finishing a drawing of a Christmas stable scene on the last page of her sketchbook.
Kyle and Mia, who’d come back from her grandparents’ house a day early, were on their way to the hospital to meet up with Daniel and Nicole and see how things were going. Kyle was also bringing a few things Daniel had requested—at least he was hoping his friend had been able to get them. Daniel had the envelope with him, but for the other two items he was relying on Kyle. From what he’d heard, Larry had come down from Bayfield and was at Kyle’s house with Mrs. Goessel, Glenn and Michelle.
Daniel had already spoken with his mom three times today. Though she’d tried to get a flight out of Anchorage, that hadn’t been possible, and his dad had only started feeling well enough in the last hour to have a video chat with her.
So Daniel had called her to set it up, and now here they were.
She came up on the screen, standing in front of her computer.
Champagne hair. A slight build. Worried eyes.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Daniel.”
She came closer to the camera, until just her face was visible.
Nicole waved to her. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Byers.”
“Merry Christmas, Nicole.”
“Hello, LeAnne,” his dad said.
“Jerry. How are you?” Deep concern laced every word. “Daniel said you were—oh, I can’t believe all this is even happening.”
“I’m feeling a lot better than I was last night. Thanks to your son.”
“More like thanks to the doctors,” Daniel corrected him.
His dad directed his attention to the screen. “I understand Daniel spoke with you earlier, filled you in on everything?”
“He told me about Dr. Fromke, and this maniac, Hollister, who stabbed you, all of it. It’s unfathomable. Do we know how many people Dr. Fromke killed at that barn?
“They’re still not sure. We have to be careful not to jump to conclusions, but my deputies are following up on the names carved into the wallboards to see how many of them are of missing persons. Daniel noticed seven names that were all apparently done with the same knife. We’re checking into those first.”
She let that sink in. “I can’t believe I ever trusted Dr. Fromke. That any of us . . . And Ty Bell shooting those wolves? And then going after Nicole? What happens to him now?”
“Wolf poaching is a serious enough crime, but trying to attack her like that takes things up to a whole different level. He’s over eighteen. He’s looking at some serious time.”
“Was Lancaster involved at all?”
“Doesn’t look like it. Ty just let Hollister use his dad’s hunting cabin.”
“The same place he used as a base to go out and shoot the wolves.”
“Exactly.”
“And he confessed?”
“Nicole recorded it all.”
Daniel’s mom shook her head in disbelief. “And what about this Malcolm character?”
“I haven’t met him yet. You’ll have to ask Daniel about him.”
Daniel hadn’t heard from Mr. Zacharias since yesterday evening, but no bodie
s were found in the charred remains of the Traybor Institute after the gas leak explosion, so it didn’t appear that he’d been inside it when it blew.
At least they were saying it was a gas leak.
Daniel didn’t buy it.
The timing was just way too suspicious.
“I’ll introduce you,” Daniel promised his mom. “The next time he shows up.”
If he ever does.
No—he also wanted to talk to you about your “gifts,” remember?
He’ll be back.
His mom asked about the lighthouse and while Daniel answered her, his thoughts wandered back over everything that’d happened.
This morning, after he’d told his story to the police, some officers from Bayfield went up to the lighthouse and recovered the bones from the cellar.
Then, just an hour or so ago, a forensics specialist from UW-Superior reported that her preliminary findings indicated that it was the skeleton of a female between the ages of ten and fourteen. They were doing more tests, but it looked like the story Jarvis Delacroix had written in his journal checked out.
They were going to do some DNA tests this week to determine if the girl was related to Daniel, but in either case, it looked like at last, after all these years, she was going to finally get a proper burial.
After Daniel finished summarizing things for his mom, she turned her attention to his dad again and asked him once more how he was doing.
He assured her that he was fine, then said, “Daniel told me about your talk with him the other day.”
“My talk?”
“You said that you left to protect us, that you were afraid of what was happening with you.”
“We don’t need to discuss any of that right now, Jerry, we—”
“Listen, I want to protect you, LeAnne. That’s what I signed up for back when we got married.”
“I should’ve done more to help Daniel.” She lowered her gaze.
“None of that matters right now. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you—both you and Daniel—feel safe. Trust me.”
“I do. I just don’t want to hurt you.”
“Being apart hurts more than being together ever could.”
A pause settled between them.
He said, “When you come back we’ll give things another shot, okay? We can make this work. I know we can.”
She brushed away a tear, but didn’t reply.
“Oh,” Daniel said, “I just remembered that Nicole and I are supposed to be meeting up with Kyle and Mia in the lobby. We’ll be back in a few minutes. C’mon, Nicole.”
Carrying her sketchbook, she joined him and they slipped into the hall.
“Good idea,” she said. “Give them some privacy.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, listen, I think I understand most of what’s happened—or at least why it has—but I need to ask, did you ever figure out why you went sleepwalking with that knife?”
“No. Not exactly, but it might have had something to do with my subconscious sorting through dealing with the carved names in the wall.”
“That makes sense. And Dr. Fromke? Do you know why he helped Hollister?”
“Maybe because of their history together, maybe for the challenge of it all, or maybe just because he’s crazy.”
“I’ll vote for that last one.”
“No kidding.”
They passed the elevator bay and he said, “Anyway, leaving my dad and mom alone gives you a chance to open some Christmas presents.”
“Presents plural? As in more than one?”
“They’re small. You’ll see.”
“Where are they?”
“On their way.”
When they were almost to the lobby a husky man came striding toward them.
Daniel recognized him right away: it was the detective who’d been asking him questions when he woke up in the psychiatric hospital on Sunday morning.
“Excuse me,” he said to Daniel, “but can I have a word with you?”
CHAPTER
SIXTY-FIVE
“I’m Detective Poehlman. Do you remember meeting me in Duluth?”
“Yes.”
The detective faced Nicole. “And you must be Nicole Marten—ou visited Daniel at the hospital under the guise of being his sister.”
“What do you want?” Daniel asked.
“May I speak with you in private, Daniel?”
“About what?”
“It has to do with . . . well . . . how you left the hospital in Duluth.”
“I already told the whole story to the other officers. Malcolm Zacharias helped me. Now, we’re on our way to meet some—”
“It’ll only take a minute.”
Daniel glanced at Nicole, who shrugged slightly.
“What is it?” he said.
“In private, if you don’t mind.”
“Nicole stays with me. What do you need to know?”
“Well. Alright.” He held up an iPad. “We’ve been reviewing the security video footage of you leaving the hospital. There was no one there with you, Daniel.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you were alone when you left the building.”
“Mr. Zacharias was there.”
“No.” The detective shook his head. “I have the footage right here.”
“Show me.”
Detective Poehlman finger-swiped to the video.
The footage was grainy and there was only movement in the distance, so it’d obviously been filmed from the other end of the hall, but there it was: the video showed Daniel open the door to his room in the psych ward, then pass into the hallway.
Alone.
That doesn’t make sense.
The next section showed him round a corner and dart toward the cafeteria, alone. Finally, an external camera had caught him leaving the facility and sprinting away from the property on the road bordering the park beside Lake Superior.
Alone.
All alone.
No. That’s not possible.
Either you’re going completely crazy or someone edited that video, changed the footage somehow.
“Then how did I get to Beldon?”
“You stole a car,” Detective Poehlman answered.
“I don’t know how to hot-wire a car.”
“Then perhaps the keys were in it. Look at the video.”
Daniel watched the footage as it showed him rushing toward the sedan, climbing into the driver’s side and then, a few moments later, taking off.
“That can’t be. I climbed into the passenger’s side. I distinctly remember that. I know I did.”
“There was no one with you at the hospital, Daniel.”
“What about the night security guard? I heard him talking with Mr. Zacharias.”
“The guard on duty that night says he didn’t speak with anyone.”
“He’s lying.”
“And why would he do that?”
“I don’t know.”
You never actually saw that guard talk with Mr. Zacharias. You just heard them from the other side of that maintenance closet door. You could have imagined it all. But then—
“I saw Mr. Zacharias,” Nicole said to the detective. “At the Traybor Institute. I was there with Daniel. He’s real.”
“What did you see?”
“One of the guards, the officers, whatever, was the man who’d driven into the snowbank.”
Detective Poehlman consulted his iPad, obviously fact-checking something. “The man Daniel and Kyle helped get back on the road Friday night?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure it was the same person?”
“Well, I . . . I mean, I didn’t see the guy that night, exactly—he didn’t get out of the car, but Daniel told me he was the—” She hesitated, perhaps realizing that she was inadvertently making the detective’s case for him.
“What are you going to believe, Daniel?” Detective Poehlman asked. “Your memory or the evidence?”
>
That’s a good question. Your memory or—
Kyle and Mia passed through the automatic doors and entered the lobby. Kyle was sipping from a can of Dr Pepper. Mia took longer than she needed to stomping snow off her boots, muttering something about wishing she lived in Florida.
“Kyle can prove it,” Daniel said to the detective.
“Sure.” Kyle joined them. “I can prove it. Prove what?”
“You heard Mr. Zacharias, remember? I was talking with you on the phone while I was on my way to Beldon and then I handed the phone to him. He was driving. He told you he was with me.”
“Yes. Absolutely. I remember.”
“Really?” Detective Poehlman asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“I’m just . . . Well . . .” The detective’s phone rang and he checked the screen. “If you’ll excuse me for a second.”
He stepped away to take the call, but Daniel heard him say, “He’s awake? Okay, I’ll be right there.”
He hung up and finally stopped trying to convince Daniel that Mr. Zacharias hadn’t been there to help him. “Thank you for your time,” he told them. “I do want to follow up on a few things, though, Daniel. There’s still the matter of the car that we need to clear up.”
After he’d left, Mia asked, “Who was that guy?”
“A detective,” Nicole said.
“From where?”
“You know,” Daniel replied thoughtfully, “I didn’t ask.”
“So, what was that all about?”
“He has footage from the hospital in Duluth. It shows that it was just me leaving—Malcolm Zacharias doesn’t appear on it at all. But I know he was real.” He faced Kyle. “I let him speak to you on the phone, anyway. That proves it.”
Kyle was quiet.
“What?”
“Well, I mean I spoke with someone. It could’ve been the guy from the snowbank. I’m not really sure.”
“Who else could it have been?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It might’ve been you.”
“Me?”
“I can’t really say. You might have altered your voice, but what does it matter? You’re here, you’re safe. Your dad’s okay. Things are . . .” He seemed to backpedal. “Well . . . except for the car.”
