Chest of Bone (The Afterworld Chronicles Book 1)

by Vicki Stiefel

  I pulled my phone from my pocket. No messages or voicemails. No Jason.

  My gut quickened with a sense of dread. “Let’s go find them.”

  arrimer slid behind the wheel, while I took shotgun. He’d grown taciturn, but the way he ran his finger down his long scar said my urgency was shared.

  “You call them,” he said. “I’ll call Jason again. He’ll be tracking them.”

  He varoomed to Midborough, while I bleeped out numbers, first Bernadette’s, then Lulu’s.

  The second he disconnected, I said, “Jason?”

  He shook his head.

  “All I get is voicemail, too,” I said. “I’ll keep trying. Lulu’s phone is sewn to her hip. But I’m going to call a bureau tech. Both Bernadette’s new phone and Lulu’s have GPS.”

  In Midborough we checked out Lonie’s and Barlow’s, the diner and Bishop’s Tables, then on to Mandolins in Hembrook.

  Dave’s house was gone, scraped away by someone to protect its neighbors from the smoldering fire. I hoped Lulu hadn’t seen this.

  “This is all helter skelter,” Larrimer said. “Your brand of crazy’s bleeding over onto me. Use that sharp mind of yours, Clea. What are you feeling? Describe it.”

  I looked away, toward the sky that spat a few flakes through the roiling gray. “I don’t know. I can’t. I’ve always been sensitive. But this is more.”

  “Be precise.”

  “I don’t know how!” And the fear crested over me. “It’s like a wave, an electric wave that twists through me. That’s the best I can do.”

  On our way to Ronan’s, Beethoven’s Fifth rang out.

  “Balfour,” Larrimer said.

  “Yes.” The man who’d avoided my contact for days was suddenly in touch. Pissed me off.

  “You going to answer?”

  “No.”

  “He’s a dick.” He stared down at me. “Give me the phone.”

  “He’s not. Stop it.” That’s all I needed, some macho confrontation. The least he could do was tell me how he and Bob were connected.

  There wasn’t enough air in the car, and for a few moments, I stuck my head out the open window.

  We drove past Ronan’s house—no Jeep—which was when the tech called.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  He gave me the coordinates for Bernadette’s phone.

  We headed up Bergen Hill, past the apple orchard, past the old Christmas tree farm, and down the undulating hill.

  A black Explorer, dirtied with winter, sat canted on the side of the road. Larrimer careened behind it. “That’s Jason’s car.”

  He climbed out, and I reached for the door handle.

  “Stay,” he said. “Please.”

  I settled back into the seat, and sat frozen by the white noise in my head. Larrimer tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he reached the Explorer. The darkened windows made it hard to see inside, but the driver’s seat didn’t look empty. Larrimer stiffened, but didn’t open the door.

  The white noise increased. I didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to know.

  Back in the truck, his eyes were flat, then his firecracker of pain stole my breath.

  “Jason’s dead,” he said, voice cool. “Bullet through the temple. Another through the forehead.”

  Bernadette’s and Lulu’s protector. A man with a warm smile and bushy sideburns. “I’m so sorry.”

  “He was hardcore,” Larrimer said. “But righteous, solid. Whoever did this was clever.”

  My hands turned clammy. I fisted them. They were all right. They had to be all right. “Bernadette’s cell signal is right down the hill.”

  Larrimer whipped the truck back on the road, and we continued down the near-vertical hill, my nails digging into my palms. At the dip, I spotted the orange Jeep half-on, half-off the other side of the road.

  We screeched behind the Jeep, anti-lock brakes thudding the pedal. He jerked it into park and we leapt out.

  Bernadette sat slumped against the wheel, a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth. She was alone.

  “She’s breathing,” he said.

  Relief, a cascade. She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, per usual. Oh, B, I could kill you.

  I tried the door. Locked. Rapped on the glass. Bernadette’s eyes fluttered open. She spotted me, frowned, and rolled down the window.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I think so,” she said.

  “Where’s Lulu?” I kept my voice even and slow.

  Bernadette cocked her head, shook it, then lifted the manual door lock.

  Larrimer carefully opened the door, while I made sure she wouldn’t fall out of the Jeep.

  A nasty bruise bloomed above her eyebrow.

  What if she were badly hurt? So of course, I said, “Why the hell don’t you wear a seatbelt?”

  She hissed, then straightened her turban.

  “I’m sorry. We’re worried. Lulu’s not with you, and we find you on the side of the road with a bloody lip and a bruised head. What happened?”

  “Skidded. Black ice.”

  “And Lulu?”

  “She’s at a friend’s.” She sighed.

  A friend’s. Lulu was at a friend’s. Except Jason was dead.

  Over Bernadette’s protests, Larrimer helped her out of the Jeep. I supported her other side as we limped over to Fern.

  Larrimer got Bernadette situated in the passenger seat and buckled her in. I got in back, he put Fern in drive, and we headed down the hill.

  I leaned forward. “Just tell me where you dropped Lulu off, and we’ll go get her.”

  “Here,” she said. From her pocket, she pulled out a pair of red cashmere mitts, the ones I’d knit for Lulu. “Lulu forgot them. Foolish girl.”

  Her speech was slurred, quivery.

  Silence. The air thickened.

  So I could see her eyes, I leaned forward, clamped my hands together, and forced a smile.

  “Which friend’s, Lady?” Larrimer said. “Where is she?”

  She bit her lip, her forehead crinkled. “Can’t remember.”

  I put an arm around her and hugged her to me.

  “She needs a hospital,” he said.

  As he drove, he called his agency about Jason, while I rang up the bureau.

  My fingers hovered over an extension, Bob’s extension. Instead, I tapped out the digits for Mary Conroy, not really a friend, but a rock-solid gal who worked in our Boston office. I detailed today’s events and requested she send the report to both Bob and the SAC.

  “Not just Bob?” she asked.

  “No. Not just Bob.”

  Thankfully, the waiting room at the hospital was deserted. Fear rode me like a sadistic jockey. Larrimer sat beside me, still as marble. I thought I’d jump out of my skin. They had her.

  The doctor appeared and told us they were keeping Bernadette overnight. She might have had a mini-stroke or she could be concussed. When we went to say goodbye, we found her asleep.

  I kissed her cheek, and we left, almost unbecomingly quickly.

  But that thing inside me, it kept building and building and…

  At a friend’s. At a friend’s, at a friend’s, atafriend’s.

  Arms around my shoulders, pressing my back to a rock-hard chest. “You’re shivering,” he said.

  I stared straight ahead. “She’s not at a friend’s.”

  “I know,” he said.

  A text pinged, and I fumbled for my phone. The tech had sent me a screenshot with the words, Just got a read on second phone. Location…

  Numb, I texted a thanks.

  “The MacDaniel reservoir,” I said. “In the middle of the frozen lake. Let’s go.”

  We stopped at the house and loaded the snowmobile into Fern. We both changed, geared up, and headed for the lake.

  Neither of us said it could be a trap. Neither of us cared.

  I’d been to MacDaniel reservoir many times, in many seasons. In winter, the lake’s pristine, icy cloak shr
ouded reeds and rocks and froze the lake into folds. As Larrimer drove, the snowfall became more insistent, the sky’s gray blended with the snow on the trees and the gunmetal shades of the earth.

  I input the coordinates of Lulu’s cell into my phone’s nav, and directed Larrimer. We turned right, wound up Binder Street, then past the row of small houses, past the dam, to a lone two-story white house, and a little further on, where a brown wooden swing gate blocked the road. We parked in the small plowed area to the left of the gate, and I jumped out.

  Larrimer was geared up by the time I retrieved my shotgun, knife, monocular, and an extra magazine for my Glock from the bag I’d packed. I checked my gun, sheathed my knife, and slipped my monocular into the breast pocket of my down vest.

  “Let’s leave the snowmobile until we need it,” he said. “Noise. I’m a strong tracker. We’ll find her.”

  I nodded, nerves bow-string tight.

  My boots offered solid purchase as we walked to the gate, padlocked and chained, and climbed over.

  Quiet shrouded the world. He paused, cocked his head, listening.

  Few sounds—the swoop of a bird, the sigh of the wind, the tink of the snow as it hit the frozen earth. My staccato breath.

  Larrimer led us deeper down the road as snowflakes danced. The storm held off. The further we went, the more closed off he became, as if he were a machine honed to a single purpose.

  In my pocket, my fingers massaged Lulu’s mitts.

  He picked up the pace, and we trotted down the snow-packed road and found a rhythm. Every so often, I’d check my phone to make sure we were headed in the right direction.

  Woods flanked us, mostly pine, but maple and oak and beech, too. Larrimer angled left, toward the thick pines, and hissed.

  I froze. Here, footprints churned up the snow, ones that had come from another direction.

  Larrimer pointed to a small evergreen bush, then plucked something from a branch. A necklace of stars.

  “It’s Lulu’s,” I said. “I’ve seen her wear it.”

  “It’s fresh. Not covered with snow. Nor is the clasp broken.”

  Smart girl.

  He slipped it into his pocket, held up a hand for me to stay and ghosted out of sight.

  Several other access points existed, and they’d come in from another direction. Didn’t matter. My mouth watered. Soon, Lulu. Soon.

  Larrimer reappeared. “The lake.”

  I followed him until we crouched by the shore of the immense frozen lake, dotted with a few islands that sprouted thick stands of pine, its borders fringed by forest.

  Bootprints in the snow, and an ice boat’s runners. They usually held one person, but perhaps they could hold two. I didn’t know.

  I did know they were fast.

  I shielded my eyes, scanned the lake. Nothing as far as I could see. I pulled out my monocular. A clear trail showed the iceboat heading north up and across the lake. I handed it to Larrimer.

  Google Maps showed no roads flanking the opposite shore. Just forest for miles.

  “While you get the snowmobile,” I said. “I’ll keep watch here.”

  He cut me a sharp look. He didn’t like leaving me alone. I knew that. But he could get the snowmobile off the truck on his own and drive it here. The man had skills. “I’ll be fine. Badass, remember?”

  His eyes skimmed the lake once more, and then he vanished into the trees.

  Sweat dampened my temples, and I moved backwards toward the cover of trees. A crack, like ice failing.

  I crashed onto my belly, swinging my shotgun off my shoulder. My monocular had flown out of my hand. Damn.

  Another shot, and a spray of ice stung my forehead and cheek. Way too close.

  I pumped the gun, returning fire, then rolled toward the cover of trees that looked miles away.

  Was the ice boat a ruse? I was pinned near the frozen lake, a lying duck for the shooter. I blew off another round, belly crawled right.

  He had to be using a rifle, and he wasn’t such a great shot or he’d have hit me by now.

  I sprayed blasts in an arc, and flattened again. Gah! Still hideously exposed.

  A snowmobile’s roar broke the silence.

  “Stay down!” Larrimer shouted from behind me.

  Then a red laser beam, just before the repeats of a semi-automatic shattered the world.

  A tinkling, like breaking glass, a bark of pain, and a moan from across the lake. But that might have been the wind.

  I retrieved my monocular and hoofed it across the lake to the far shore. No movement, no sound.

  Then a helmeted Larrimer was beside me on the snowmobile, one hand wrapped around his semi-automatic. I donned the second helmet, took out my handgun, and slid behind him.

  “We’re going to go in low and slow.”

  Lulu’s smile flashed in my mind, then her smile, her walk, her russet braids, bouncing.

  I tightened my hold on Larrimer, gun firm in hand, and scanned right to left as we drove across the ice, following the ice boat’s tracks. When we came to a small island in the middle of the lake, he parked the machine just above the embankment.

  Given our noisy arrival, the shooter might be gone, but we climbed the small slope, hunkered low, guns at the ready. We entered the stand of trees accompanied by silence. Snow now fell in a steady stream.

  Lulu’s hands must be cold without her mitts.

  We walked on, and he motioned we should circle the shooter’s possible locale and come out above, then signaled, you, me, together.

  I nodded.

  The snow came faster, almost white-out conditions. The pines helped, but not enough.

  I caught myself wondering just how many covert ops had he led to grow so skilled and assured, as if it were second nature? Ten? Thirty? A hundred?

  A crack and boom. We stopped.

  “Not from this island,” he whispered.

  The trees were black soldiers, night sneaking in. We slipped through the darkening forest, and spotted a break in the trees. He glided forward, hands lightly wrapped around his two drawn guns.

  It felt like I walked through static electricity. Tingly. Inert, but still present.

  Just before the tree break, he gestured we move to our bellies, and we began inching across the snow, headed back toward the lake. He slipped over a small rise. We’d covered the island, come across the ice boat. Empty.

  Impending dark gloomed the world, the three-quarter moon painting the snow a grayish white, inky patches scarring the hill.

  “A body,” he said.

  Please no. Please.

  As one, we moved until Larrimer flowed forward to hunch over the pieces. “It’s not her.”

  His face was in shadow. But the pieces, the torn flesh, the string of entrails. A foot. Part of a hand. A head. Turned away from me. Wearing a navy knit cap.

  I chewed my lip, snow bitten and raw. How could he be sure?

  He crouched over the remains. “Clea. It’s not—”

  “Don’t say it,” I hissed. “You don’t know.”

  “It’s a man. Look at the length of the fingers, the foot, the size. It’s one guy, and it’s not her.” He kept his voice just as low.

  He was right. Of course he was right. My chest contracted, expanded. A sharp pain stole my breath.

  I crept closer and got to my knees.

  What was left of the shooter in the snow, we hadn’t done that with our weapons. He’d been ripped apart. By whom, or what, I couldn’t imagine.

  Closer. I needed to see the face.

  Eyes wide. Mouth agape. In a scream? I knew this man, but…

  Long, long ago, I’d cradled another head. Da’s head.

  I dizzied, stuttered in a breath. Da. Had I held my dead father’s head? Oh gods.

  “Clea.”

  “It’s Harry Rosdale. He was an artist. A potter, maybe. We should keep looking for her. The other islands and—”

  “I’m sorry, but they’re long gone.”

  “How can you
know that?”

  “The ice boat’s here. No tracks leading away. However they managed it, gone.”

  Yes, how?

  I walked to a granite outcrop and sat, back against the stone, legs stretched out. That memory. The head. My Da. I shook it away. Harry Rosdale. Why would a man like him be involved in this horror?

  Larrimer crouched before me. “I’m going to circle the island again. On the off chance.”

  With a curt nod, I called up my contacts. “I’ll buzz this in to the state cops. Balfour, too.”

  I dialed Bob first, who snapped his concerned anger at me, telling me he’d take care of the state and the search-and-rescue dogs. I answered in clipped tones, then stabbed the phone off. A bitter laugh flew from my lips. The one good thing about Lulu’s kidnapping was it guaranteed the FBI’s full engagement. Then I searched, too, and found a smashed phone. Lulu’s? I sensed Larrimer near. A few more steps toward the clearing, and a stolen glance showed him lifting some samples of Harry Rosdale’s flesh into a plastic bag. Silent. Efficient.

  We’d learned all we could with approaching night. I swiped the snow off a boulder and sat, butt freezing, chilled from the cold sweat I’d worked up.

  Lulu had been here. How many were with her? Two, three?

  And just what had torn apart Rosdale? He wasn’t cut, but ripped. And not by animals.

  Larrimer walked over to stand beside the boulder, arms relaxed, waiting, anticipating.

  “Maybe Lulu escaped.” I looked across the expanse of reservoir.

  “She didn’t,” Larrimer said.

  I kneaded my hat in my hands. “No.”

  “The rifle. The casings. Whoever did this took them from the scene along with Lulu.”

  “I’ll go get Grace, see if she can’t track—”

  “Stop.” Larrimer squeezed my shoulder. “This isn’t you. You’re not thinking, and you’re always thinking, Clea. The SAR dogs will be here soon.”

  “I can do this.”

  He hunkered down in front of me and took my hands. “You can do many things. But you’re fogged with emotion.”

  He was right. Still grated to admit that. I squeezed his hands back and looked into his eyes, and though it was too dark to really see them well, I knew he was looking at me, too.

  “I’m scared,” I said. “I’m really scared. Of what they’ll do to her. How they’ll frighten her. If they might hurt her.” I sighed. “I don’t like being scared, this feeling squeezing my heart. Do you ever get scared?”