He pulled a pair of binoculars out of his pack and focused in on the cabin. Starting at the bottom west corner, he moved slowly—south to north, bottom to top. He saw no wires, no motion sensors, nothing suspicious. Reaching down, he picked up a stick.
He looked back for Dana’s approval. She shrugged, then flattened her back against a tree. He threw, hitting the east wall of the cabin. Still no explosions.
Ben pointed at Dana and pointed at his tree. She was at his side in seconds.
“Might be the wrong cabin,” she whispered.
“I don’t think so. This is definitely the end of the road. Anyone else would have No Trespassing signs posted at the property line. Not Drogan though. He’d play it cool and hope everyone would go away.”
“Looks like it worked. I think the place is deserted.”
Ben glanced around the tree. “Maybe. One way to find out.”
“We could wait. Call in some drones.” She looked at him, the familiar worry lines pulling between her eyebrows.
“Or I could go first.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“You’re so sweet. We’ve only been dating a few hours and already you’re concerned about my welfare.” When she didn’t so much as crack a smile, he changed tactics. “You’re right. Drones would be the smart way to go, but it would take six hours to fly them up here by the time we get approval and send our location to the regional boys.”
Ben glanced around the tree. “Doesn’t look like he’s home right now. I say we go on in. I’ll go first. If nothing explodes, you come after me.”
Dana sucked her bottom lip in and worried it between her teeth. “What if you get blown up?”
“Call for backup.”
“Seriously, Ben.”
“We’ve circled this entire cabin. I haven’t seen any signs it’s rigged. Course he could have buried the wires. That’s why I want to go first.” He cinched the backpack up on his shoulders. “I don’t know. I get this itchy feeling when something isn’t right, and I don’t have it right now.”
“Not a real technical reason.”
“I think we’re good.”
“Okay.” She still looked worried. Actually, she looked like she wanted to kiss him. She’d been glancing at him oddly since they’d traced their route around the dam. Possibly, she was experiencing heat exhaustion though. He wasn’t very experienced with women.
She didn’t kiss him. Instead, she reached up and brushed some leaves off his shoulder. “Be careful.”
“I’ll whistle when it’s clear for you to follow. In the meantime, keep your back against this tree. Just in case.”
Forty-two
Dana watched Ben move into the clearing. When he turned to look at her, she ducked behind the tree as instructed.
Why did she let him talk her into these things?
Then again, what kind of maniac set his own cabin to blow? Surely Drogan wasn’t completely insane.
She peeked around the tree in time to see Ben cautiously climbing the steps of the porch. Closing her eyes, she tried to picture a summer beach or the view from The Block Head, but it was no use. The only image she could see was the wall in her office and three framed pictures.
Wrenching her eyes open, she stared at the trees in front of her. A cardinal hopped from a higher branch to a lower one, cocked its head at her, then flew away. Maybe it was a sign. Perhaps the bird knew they should run.
She was about to tell Ben to scrap the plan when she heard his whistle—two shorts and a long. Breathing deeply, she turned from the tree to see him standing in the open door of the cabin.
He waved to her, indicating she should retrace his route in the dew-moistened leaves.
Once she gained the steps, she noticed a look of disgust on his face. As soon as she crossed the doorway into the cabin she learned why.
“Tell me that odor is not a body.”
“Spoiled food. Bodies smell worse.” Ben walked in front of her as they covered the perimeter of the single room. A bathroom had been partitioned off at the back and there were two additional doors, one which led to a closet and another which exited toward the back of the property. Ben set his rifle near the front door.
“This surprises me,” Ben admitted. “Explosives guys are normally neat freaks.”
“Maybe we do have the wrong place then.” Dana found herself wishing she had gloves on. The place made her skin itch. There were dirty blankets and sheets on the unmade bed in one corner. A fireplace in another corner was apparently the only source of heat. Some animal had tracked ashes across the floor.
The end of the room which housed the kitchen was even dirtier and definitely the origin of the foul odor.
“What is that smell?” Dana held her sleeve up to cover her nose as she crossed the room to stand in front of the two-person table.
“Fridge. Looks like the power went out some time ago. Probably Drogan stopped paying his bills. Want me to open it?”
“I guess we should. Just to be sure… well, you know.”
Ben opened the fridge, scowled, and shut it quickly. “Definitely where the perfume is coming from all right.”
“Oh, my gosh.” Dana turned to the open door, stepped out on the porch, and drew several deep gulps of fresh air.
“You okay, boss?”
“I’m fine. What was it?”
“I’m not really sure, but I think it was game he caught and froze. Then the power went out.” Ben stuck his head out the door and grinned at her. “Sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.” Dana lifted her head, determined to have as tough a stomach as he apparently did. “What kind of game?”
“Maybe squirrel? Something small.”
“That is disgusting.”
Ben shrugged. “A guy has to eat. Long way to town from here, and I have a feeling Drogan wasn’t real sociable.”
Ben disappeared back into the cabin.
Dana preferred the porch, but if there were any clues to Drogan’s plans or whereabouts, she doubted they were carved on the front steps. Pulling back her shoulders, she stepped inside.
Which was when she saw Ben pull his Glock and signal for her to do the same.
Forty-three
Ben knew something was wrong the minute he opened the pantry door. The small room’s dimensions were all wrong.
Holding his firearm in his right hand, he signaled to Dana with his left. She pulled her own pistol and crouched in the doorway, aiming toward the bathroom at the back of the cabin.
He’d cleared that area when he first walked in, so he knew Drogan wasn’t there. But he hadn’t realized there was a space in between the bathroom and the pantry.
Creeping silently toward the back of the cabin, he stopped half way to the back wall. The cabin made an L shape, as if the area containing the bathroom and pantry had been added on as an afterthought. He had assumed the pantry backed up to the bathroom, and he’d cleared it as he had the rest of the cabin.
Only later, when he was searching for any clue as to where Drogan might have gone, did it occur to him the dimensions were all wrong.
Standing across from the bathroom, he couldn’t see anything to indicate a door or secret room. He was about to signal to Dana that he was going outside when she raised her left hand like some schoolyard crossing guard.
Her pistol remained steady in her right hand. Her left palm faced toward herself. She crooked her index finger—once, twice, three times. When he’d moved three paces toward her, she turned her hand and pushed it forward—the universal symbol to stop.
A smile spread across her face, and she pointed at the wall directly across from him.
At first he didn’t see it, then the light coming through the dirty windows shifted. Suddenly, in front of him was a barely perceptible seam in the smooth logs of the wall.
Ben ran his hand over the entire outline of the hidden door, which was as clear as the big dipper in the night sky once someone points it out to you. Once he was as sure as he could be that it
wasn’t rigged with explosives, he rested his palm against the place the handle should have been and pushed.
The door opened without a sound, revealing a set of stairs leading down into darkness.
Dana moved beside him.
She nodded once, confirming she was ready for whatever the next few minutes might bring. He took in a steadying breath, one filled with prayer for her safety and a plea that his aim would be true if need be. Then he plunged into the darkness.
Light from the room above showed stairs built to be sturdy, each one lined with rubber matting. His vision adjusted quickly. Although the room below was large, essentially the same dimensions as the cabin, he knew immediately it was empty.
“Throw me down a light, Dana.”
“Can I come down?”
“Let me check for wires first.”
She pitched him the flashlight from their pack. He ran it along the ceiling, across the floor, even behind the workbenches.
“We’re clear,” he said, flipping on the wall switch as she made her way down.
“Explain this to me.” She still had her weapon raised and in front of her, as if Drogan might appear out of thin air. “I thought the power was out.”
“We were supposed to think that, and it is out upstairs. He apparently bypassed the main box when he ran the lines to this room.”
Dana continued to grip her firearm, looking around in amazement.
“I think you can holster that, boss. We’re all alone down here.” He surveyed the high-tech equipment and contemporary furniture. It was minimal, but efficient. “Not quite what you’d expect underneath a hunter’s cabin.”
“I didn’t expect anything,” Dana admitted. She holstered her weapon, but seemed somewhat reluctant to do so.
“Probably this was a root cellar to begin with. He spent an impressive amount of money to turn it into his command center.”
“I’ll say. What’s the point though? I don’t understand why he bothered. This must have taken years, and what has he accomplished?” She remained in the middle of the room, slowly turning, trying to take in everything she saw.
“We don’t know what he’s accomplished or planned,” Ben agreed. “There are probably a lot of clues down here.”
“I’ll have to call in a crew to go over this entire room. Of course, if he comes back, any activity will scare him off. Maybe it would be better to post a patrol, sit back, and watch.”
“Turn around a second.” Ben unzipped her pack and pulled out two pairs of plastic gloves. “Doesn’t hurt to look a little while we’re here.”
He snapped on a pair and walked to the first worktable. Over it sat a map of the Abiquiu Lake. “No surprise here.”
Dana had stopped in front of the computer terminal. “Should we try?”
“I wouldn’t. It will be password protected, and it might have a remote alarm that alerts him when it’s been turned on—much like a LoJac. You can purchase tracking devices on the Internet now and have them alert your cell phone if someone accesses your computer.”
Dana scowled at him. “You’re not applying for a transfer to the cyber-crimes division are you?”
“And miss Saturday hikes in the woods with my boss? No way.” Ben laughed when Dana actually blushed, then turned to the next worktable. Above it was a map of Taos. “You might want to take a picture of this.”
Forty-four
Dana snapped on her own pair of gloves, then pulled the digital camera from her pocket and began snapping pictures of the map. On it were several marked positions. Some were obvious locations, such as the school and their office. Others she couldn’t assign any obvious logic to.
She was leaning in, trying to figure out why Drogan would have stuck a pin in what she was sure was the Bucket-o-Chicken location. Suddenly, she heard Ben suck in his breath. Turning around she saw his back had gone completely rigid.
He had opened what looked like a dartboard case, but his body fully blocked what was inside.
“Ben?”
He didn’t answer immediately, frightening her more with his silence than with anything he could have said.
She moved toward him, reached out to touch his back, and caught a glimpse of her own face. Was it a mirror?
“What is it?”
“Back away, Dana.”
His voice suddenly sounded very far away. There was a sound like the waves of Puget Sound, crashing against the rocks. She tried to draw a breath, but couldn’t.
Putting her hand against his shoulder, she attempted to push him out of the way.
He turned and caught her by the arms. “Don’t look at it, Dana.”
“What do you mean, don’t look at it? It is me.” She knew she was shouting, heard her voice rise to a frantic pitch. She tried to push past him, clawed at his arm when he barred her way.
Ben remained rooted, immovable. “Stop it. Dana, stop. Look at me.”
“What kind of freak is he? What kind of freak does that?”
He was backing her up, moving her across the room and away from the unimaginable. She momentarily calmed, and his hands went from her arms to her face.
It was less than a split second, but it was enough.
She shot past him, drawn to the collage of pictures like a magnet.
While the rest of the room was as orderly and clean as any surgical operating suite, this cabinet seemed to contain the heart of the madman they sought. Inside its felt-lined doors, Dana gazed in horror at a myriad of pictures of herself.
Not merely pictures, but Picasso-like dissections.
Many had been carefully dismembered so they looked as if she were viewing herself through the mirrors of a circus fun house. Except there was nothing fun about the words and blood spilled there. She knew without a doubt it was real blood—hopefully his blood and not someone or something else’s.
She felt the trembling start in her arms and spread until she was sure her legs wouldn’t hold her.
“You’ve seen enough, honey.” Ben reached around her and closed the doors to block the messages, but he couldn’t take away the images seared in her mind. “Let’s go upstairs. Come on.”
Shaking, she only nodded. He gathered their things, turned out the lights. When they reached the top of the stairs, the stench greeted them, reminding her again of what she’d seen, what Drogan had dreamed of doing.
She bolted for the door, down the steps, and across the clearing.
She’d finished vomiting her breakfast by the time Ben caught up with her there, kneeling in the woods.
“Take this,” he said, holding back her hair.
She accepted the bandana, wiped her mouth and face. Rinsing her mouth with the water from their bottle should have cleaned it of the putrid taste, but it didn’t.
When Ben touched her shoulder, she began to shake again.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
He sighed as he sat there, kneeling beside her in the leaves. “I don’t either. Maybe you remind him of someone. LuAnn said you looked a little like her cousin. We can do some checking. You’re sure he’s never made contact?”
Dana shook her head. “I would remember.” She drew a deep breath and stiffened her spine. “I’ve had people shoot at me before, try to kill me. But I’ve never had anyone obsess over me, think of doing those things before.”
Ben stared out through the trees. Maybe he was questioning her ability to continue to lead this op. He didn’t understand what it felt like to be a woman, to be soiled in such a fundamental way. He certainly didn’t know about her childhood and how this attack against her personally somehow brought those memories to the surface.
“He’s obviously a very sick person, Dana. Once we get analysts to look over it, maybe they can figure out some pattern—”
“No analyst will ever see those pictures.” Dana stood and marched back toward the porch where their pack lay.
Ben hurried behind her. “What are you talking about?”
“You heard me.”
&nb
sp; “I heard you, but I don’t understand what you said.”
Dana turned to face him, both hands on her hips. “I said no analyst will ever see what is in that cabinet.”
“That’s crazy. There might be something important there.”
“Important? You think my house, my face, my body as I jog in the morning is important? How about those photos of me sitting on my back porch?” She stepped closer until she had to look up to glare at him. “I’ll tell you what’s important. Catching this maniac, and no one has to go into his cabinet to do that.”
“But—”
“No. Don’t contradict me. This isn’t a discussion.”
“So we ignore this place because you’re embarrassed?”
His words were like a slap in her face. She took a step back, nearly choked on the sudden rush of fury she felt.
“I am not embarrassed, Ben. I am violated. If you don’t know the difference…well, maybe you don’t know me very well.”
She bent down, grabbed the pack, and walked to the end of the clearing.
Ben closed up the cabin, removed any traces of their having been there, then met her where the shadows were long and the sunlight didn’t quite penetrate. He had shouldered the heavier of the two packs and carried his rifle in his left hand and her pack in his right.
“How am I supposed to do this, Dana? Tell me what the rules are.”
She knew she’d unfairly lashed out at him, but she felt as if a bubble had descended around her. One which kept her from reaching out to him and kept him from being able to cross over to her.
She had calmed while he was working. It was an icy, numb feeling. The mosaic Drogan had created continued to play through her mind like some terrible horror flick.
“Bring Clay or Red back tomorrow.” She took her pack from him. “Set up a perimeter around the clearing and at the entry points. We can requisition a drone to watch the place. But no one is going inside that cabin.”
Hidden (Jacobs Family Series Book 1) Page 16
