Books by Sue Henry

by Henry, Sue

  Steam rose from the hot water, drifting over its surface in the light breeze, but it was clear enough to see pebbles on the bottom as she went down the middle flight of steps. Water from the spring, farther up the hill, was too hot to tolerate where it flowed into one end of the pool but cooled as it slowly drifted toward a small dam that had been built at one end to contain and deepen the water. A submerged stone bench rested on the bottom in the center opposite the steps, and Jessie headed toward it, knowing from past trips here that when she sat on it the water level would come to just under her chin and cover her shoulders. It smelled sulfurous but felt wonderful as she sank onto the bench, resisting her body’s tendency to float.

  Sunlight fell through the trees around the pool, making bright, sparkling lines across the water. Resting on the bench, she closed her eyes against the glare and leaned back, allowing her sore muscles to relax and the heat to permeate her whole body. A squirrel chattered somewhere off in the trees and a few birds chirped in the branches. Ah-h, this was even better than she had imagined. It reminded her that the last time she had been here she had thought how nice it would be to have a hot tub at home in Knik, where all winter long she could soak away the aches and pains suffered in wrestling a sled and driving dogs. When she got home she thought she would talk to Vic Prentice about it—see if it would be possible to include one in her plans for the rebuilding of her cabin. Saunas were fine too, but there was something about immersing herself in hot water that she liked much better. Maybe she could have a hot tub on the side of the new cabin nearest the yard, so she could watch her mutts while she enjoyed the heat. Might even be good for some of their sprains and strains, cuts and bruises.

  It was very calm and peaceful. How terrific that there were no children splashing about, or crowds of people, some of whom would also want to sit on her bench. The quiet allowed her to clear her mind as she eased her physical hurts. After ten minutes or so, she yawned and realized she was feeling sleepy and limp all over. Time to get out for a few minutes and cool off.

  Standing up, she started to move toward the steps but noticed something half floating, half resting on the lip of the dam, as if it were about to wash over into the stream that flowed away on the other side. It looked rather like a peeled log of some sort. How inconsiderate of someone to toss a log into the pool. As she moved in slow motion through the resistance of the water and came closer to the floating object, it began to look less and less like a log—but what was it? Curious now, she did not climb the steps but waded past them and peered toward the dam. It was hard to see in the contrast of sun and shadow, but slowly her vision adjusted.

  There was a moment of utter mental stillness when she didn’t think at all—as if her mind had shut down and refused to interpret what it saw. Her body went still as well, and she stood staring at the body that bobbed gently in the small waves she had created in moving through the water toward it. The log she had thought she was seeing had transformed itself into an outstretched human arm, shoulder, head, and neck that hung over the lip of the dam. Now she could see that the rest of the body floated just below the surface of the pool. In the water the hair looked almost brown. But it was not brown really. It was dark—and red.

  As Jessie stared the squirrel chattered, and she was again aware of the rush of water splashing over the dam to her right. Then she could move. As fast as she could, against the resistance of the waist-deep water, she waded close enough to lay a hand on the shoulder of the person who floated there and leaned to see if he was breathing. He was—in short, shallow breaths that hardly seemed to draw in enough oxygen to sustain him. She could see that it was a boy—but not Patrick, though the hair was red. His skin was very pale, almost blue-looking around his mouth. Pressing her fingers into the angle of his jaw, she could discern a pulse, but it was not as strong as it should be.

  Accidents were not uncommon in the sled dog races Jessie participated in each year. In anticipation, she had made sure she was well trained in both first aid and CPR, but she knew she couldn’t help the boy in the water; he must be pulled out and onto the deck. She tried to raise his body back over the dam and found he was too heavy for her to lift, let alone carry up the steps. Resting as he was over the edge of the dam, he was not in danger of drowning, so the best she could do was make sure he would not slip off, then go and find help. She wished now that she had not been in the pool alone. She didn’t like to leave him by himself, but she could not be in two places at once. There was a park ranger station near the entrance. Someone would be there—had to be.

  Frightened and feeling desperately alone, she quickly climbed the steps to the deck and ran around the bathhouse onto the walkway. There, perhaps fifty yards away and heading directly toward her, was a park ranger.

  “Help me,” she called to him. “Someone’s almost drowned in the pool.”

  The man began to run, and in seconds she was showing him the boy who lay on the dam. At the opposite end of the pool was a building for park officials. He ran toward it, shouting back, “Keep his head out of the water. I’ll get my equipment.”

  Jessie waded back in and over to the boy, where she was joined almost immediately by the ranger.

  “Let’s get him up on the deck.”

  Together they lifted and carried the boy up the steps, but by the time they laid him down on the boards of the deck his breathing had stopped. Feeling again for a pulse, Jessie felt no rhythm at all under her fingers.

  Without hesitation the ranger pulled out a mask from his case of first-aid equipment, made certain the boy’s airway was clear, positioned the mask, and began breathing through it into the boy’s mouth.

  “You trained?” he asked Jessie, between breaths. “Good. Start compressions.”

  Kneeling beside the boy, she began the basic five-count rhythm of the CPR procedure while he maintained artificial resuscitation. Between breaths he used his radio to request help from the park staff.

  They worked together efficiently until three park people showed up at a run and took over. Then Jessie slumped to a seat on one of the deck’s wooden benches and watched until suddenly, with a couple of gasps, the boy began to breathe on his own. They halted the procedure while one of them felt again for a pulse. He nodded. “It’s there. You can stop.” Not long after that the boy was breathing shallowly but regularly, his chest consistently raising and lowering.

  “You found him?” the ranger asked Jessie. “How long had he been there?”

  “I don’t know. I was in the pool for ten minutes before I noticed him, but I have no idea how long he was there before that.”

  “Who is he?”

  Jessie hesitated slightly before saying, “I don’t know that either.”

  It was true. She knew that he wasn’t Patrick Cutler, but was it Patrick’s other friend, Kim Fredricksen, one of the two who had come north from Wyoming to find him? If so, where was Patrick? She felt the same way she had at Kiskatinaw, when she had withheld information from Inspector Webster, but short of trying to explain the whole unbelievable story, she could see no way to speculate on this boy’s identity. He was alive, breathing, and what was most important was keeping him that way. An ambulance was on its way, probably police as well. She would wait till they arrived and make a decision then whether to try to explain or to make an attempt to reach Webster.

  She didn’t think his near drowning had been accidental, for in the midst of CPR she had seen that his neck was badly bruised. What appeared to be the finger marks of someone who had held him from behind were evident around his neck. Who?

  “Can I go change clothes, please?” she asked the ranger.

  He nodded but asked for the number of the space in which she had parked the Winnebago. “I’ll find you if we have any more questions.”

  Retrieving her clothes from the bathhouse, she started slowly along the boardwalk toward the parking lot, feeling so tired, physically and mentally, that she could hardly move or think.

  Just before the end of the boardwalk,
she passed an older man and his wife headed for the hot springs and realized she had seen them before—in the parking lot at Fort Steele.

  “Something wrong?” the man asked, turning to look after her.

  “Someone almost drowned,” she told him without stopping.

  “Come, Mother.” His words to his wife were the last Jessie heard as she moved away from them. “Let’s go back to…”

  What could have happened to the boy in the pool? Could it have been an accident? She didn’t think he had drowned by himself any more than the boy at Kiskatinaw had jumped from the bridge. Who had held him under long enough for him to float like that? She remembered the dark red of the wet hair and her stomach lurched with apprehension. Oh God—not again.

  17

  MAXIE FINISHED MAKING A TUNA SALAD AND PUT IT in the refrigerator to wait till Jessie came back from her soak in the hot springs. It was too fine an afternoon to sit indoors, so she settled comfortably in one of her padded lawn chairs with a tall glass of iced tea on the table beside her. Lacing her fingers behind her head, she leaned back and listened drowsily to the rustle of leaves in the light breeze and the chirping of the many small birds among them. Though it had been pleasant in Arizona, it was lovely to feel spring in the air again and especially nice that the rain had stopped. Periodically a car or motor home went by on the loop road, looking for a camping space, but resting peacefully, she didn’t bother opening her eyes to see them pass.

  On her trips up and down the highway, she had come more than once to the Liard campground and was fond of it. Later she would go out to the springs and spend some time in the pool herself, but not yet. It was enough simply to sit in the sun and think agreeable thoughts of the summer to come. For the moment she refused to consider what she had learned about the Wyoming case from the two law enforcement officers earlier in the day.

  When she reached Anchorage, she planned to stock up on groceries and gardening supplies before heading on down the Kenai Peninsula to her house in Homer. Once they knew she was back, some fisherman pals of her first husband, Joe, would undoubtedly stop by with fresh halibut or salmon, as they had every year since his death. Though it was a welcome addition to her dinner table, she appreciated their gestures of friendship more than their fish.

  She looked forward to cleaning her deck of whatever leaves and detritus the winter had left and to giving it a new coat of weatherproofing stain. There would be gardening to be done—she would need bedding plants to fill the flower beds around the yard. She had created a garden overlooking the bay, on the sunny southern side of the house, so her perennials would be up and growing well when she arrived. With long hours of Alaskan daylight, in July she could look forward to the deep blue of tall delphinium and a host of orange tiger lilies in bright contrast against them. This year she thought a basket or two of blue lobelia and white petunias might be attractive hanging from the edges of the roof over the deck.

  Stretch, on his lead, had been snoozing contentedly on the indoor/outdoor carpet that she had laid down before setting out the chairs. He suddenly sat up and barked at the trees behind the Jayco. A squirrel chattered from among the limbs of one of them and Maxie shushed him. “Too quick and high for you, galah.”

  She leaned back in the chair and started to close her eyes again, but the determined dachshund was up and moving. Reaching the end of his tether, he barked again, and this time she heard something larger in the brush that separated her parking space from its northern neighbor. The bushes rustled loudly, and Stretch set up his usual complaint against intruders.

  “Hush, you twit,” she told him, listening carefully and with the beginnings of concern.

  Whatever was in the brush, it was coming directly toward them and fast. A bear, frightened by someone else in the park and making a speedy getaway, would make this much noise. Thinking it might be wise to be inside the motor home, she quickly grabbed up Stretch, unclipped his lead, and moved toward the door. Before she could reach it, the source of the noise burst into the clearing, stumbled over the fire pit, and fell to his hands and knees on the ground.

  It was a near-naked boy—barefoot and wearing only a pair of underwear shorts—a boy she recognized, though his damp hair was brown, not red. Whitefaced and plainly terrified of something, he stared up at her, mouth and eyes as wide as if he had seen a ghost. “Maxie?”

  “Patrick? How did…What’s the matter?”

  Shoving Stretch into the Jayco, she stepped toward him as he scrambled frantically back to his feet, gulping in ragged breaths the air he had lost in his apparent effort to escape whatever had panicked him.

  His body was scratched and dirty from his dash through the brush and roll on the ground. Wild-eyed and practically hysterical, he limped toward her on a foot he’d apparently injured in his flight over rough ground, and panted out a plea. “Please—hide me. He’s here! He got Kim and he’s—after me. Please, Maxie. I’ve gotta get away—gotta hide.”

  There was more crashing in the bushes through which he had come, as someone followed, in a hurry.

  Without hesitation Maxie whirled and held open the door to the Jayco. Patrick leaped in and crouched on the floor below window level as she followed him and locked the door behind her.

  Stretch was frantically barking again. With one hand she grasped his muzzle and held it closed. “No. No barking.” When she let go he remained quiet, though alert and wary.

  Listening intently she heard someone dash from the brush behind the motor home, pause, then start around it to the door. Patrick cowered on the floor in a huddle, hidden between two seats. Quickly Maxie backed into the shadows beyond the galley and out of sight from the open windows.

  A sharp knock rattled the door in its frame. “Hey. Open up,” a gruff voice she did not recognize demanded. “Anyone in there?” Another knock, then a hesitation. Feet moved on the outdoor carpeting, on dirt and gravel. She listened as they went around the rig. Then she could see the shape of a person peering in through the window opposite the door, but not well enough to identify him.

  This encroachment was more than Stretch would tolerate. Flying onto the bench nearest the window, he barked aggressively into the face of the person looking in, startling him into a backward step or two.

  “Shit!” Maxie heard him swear. “Just a goddammed dog!”

  Motioning Patrick not to move, Maxie froze where she was, allowing Stretch to deal with the intruder in his best defensive style, though she was thankful that he was inside and his size not so obvious.

  There was a long moment of silence. Then she heard footsteps walking away toward the loop road. Leaning out of her hiding place, she looked out and saw a man in jeans and a dark jacket disappear from sight beyond the sheltering trees. With a sigh of relief she stepped from the shadows and, finding her knees a little weak, sat down abruptly on the bench and took a deep breath, laying a hand on the dachshund’s head.

  “Good boy, Stretch. Good dog.”

  Turning to the boy, still huddled on the floor as small as he could make himself, she stared at him in astonishment. “Who the hell was that? Why was he chasing you?”

  He looked up at her, tears of fright and anguish running down his freckled cheeks, still terribly pale.

  “That,” he told her, bitterness and distaste twisting his mouth, “was my bastard stepfather. Oh God. He’s going to kill me, too. What am I going to do?”

  Maxie frowned, considering the obvious extent of his anxiety and her own confusion. The adrenaline that had stimulated her heart to a pounding against her ribs dissipated slowly, leaving her limp with relief.

  “I believe the first thing you’d better do is tell me what’s going on. Then we can decide what to do about it. Get up off the floor while I find you a towel and something to put on. Then I’ll get us both some iced tea.”

  “But he can see me if I get up.”

  Maxie looked cautiously out all the windows again and shook her head. “He’s gone—at least for now—and all the doors are locked. I�
�ll close the blinds so no one can look in.”

  She did so, then went for the towel and a shirt. Patrick, still trembling, climbed awkwardly to a seat at the table, put his elbows on it, and buried his face in his hands for a minute.

  “Here,” Maxie said, handing him the things she had brought, setting the liberally sugared tea in front of him, and sitting down across from him. “Drink that now and tell me.”

  He looked up at her, tears still running, and choked as he tried to speak. She waited patiently, and when he finally found his voice the words spilled out in a flood.

  “I don’t know how he found us. After he caught Lew, we drove to Summit Lake. When he showed up there we ran and hid, then we hitched to here—thought we lost him. We went out to the hot springs and got in with some other people—but they left and it was just us out there. I got out for a minute, but Kim was still in the pool. I came back from the dressing room and saw that bastard jump into the pool behind him and grab him around the neck. He pushed him under the water—and held him down—for a long time—till he quit fighting. I was really scared. I just couldn’t move—didn’t know what to do ’cause—he’s really big. Then I started to run—to get away—to get somebody to help. But he heard me. He turned around and saw me running. I don’t think he knew it was me—but he knew I’d seen him drown Kim. I mean—I think he thought Kim was me. That’s why he jumped in the pool, see. Kim looked like me from behind because—”