by Todd Borg
I thought about another of the basics of investigation, which was to treat all of your assumptions with skepticism.
A doe lifted her head from the side of the road and stared at me, her large eyes catching my headlights and looking sad and innocent. I slowed as I went by. She never moved, unaware that she couldn’t trust the human species to be safe any more than Anna could.
I reconsidered all of the victims. There wasn’t even any common aspect to the way the victims died. Grace had been bludgeoned to death. The nameless man on the boat got dropped into the lake with a chain around his neck. Nick fell into the lake wearing a heavy pack that dragged him down as effectively as a chain. Davy Halstead had a stake or something similar pounded through his chest. And Grace’s cousin Melody committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate.
For the hundredth time, I thought about what I knew of Nick, the likely hostage taker. He’d always been the main puzzle. Hijacking the Tahoe Dreamscape was such a dramatic way of getting me to bring in Thomas Watson for Grace Sun’s murder that it still made little sense to me.
I’d talked to him on the phone when he first called me, and I’d met him briefly on the boat. I’d seen his clothes, and his manner. I’d seen his pack with the wire, and I’d glimpsed his explosive belt. Street had seen him, too, and she’d gotten a glimpse of the 88 tattoo on his arm along with the intense blue eyes under his sunglasses. He didn’t wear a mask as he had when he attacked Anna, but his big hair and beard and sunglasses were just as effective a disguise.
In the category of things I thought I knew but wasn’t certain about, I believed that Nick the Knife was the knife-twirling man who wore a mask when he attacked Anna three years before. I’d shown his photo to the Dreamscape owners, Ford and Teri Georges. They didn’t know his name, but they recognized him. He probably came aboard the Dreamscape to check it out before the hijacking.
It seemed that Nick O’Connell was the key to everything that had happened since. Maybe I could learn something about him online. The explosives and the twirling of knives were the things about him that were the most unusual and hence probably the easiest to track. I could track down how people learned to twirl and throw knives. I could cross-reference that with the Red Blood Patriots. If I found out about sources for explosives, maybe I would discover that there was an intersection among all three.
To my knowledge, the U.S. doesn’t have a big black market for explosives. There isn’t that much demand. But the U.S. does have a large legitimate market. The mining and construction industries use large amounts of explosives. As do highway building and demolition of old buildings. Ski resorts across the country use explosives for avalanche control, as do highway departments in mountain areas. I assumed that Hollywood creates all their explosions on computers, but maybe there is still a demand for the real thing. A dedicated person who wanted explosives for illegitimate uses could probably find many ways to steal them.
Once again, I thought about questioning even my most basic assumptions. And there I found what may have been a major oversight.
I’d crossed the town of South Lake Tahoe and was driving through the bright lights by the Stateline hotels, but I didn’t see them as I struggled to grasp the implications of my thought.
It seemed a ridiculous notion. But the more I explored the possibility, the more it seemed plausible.
I worked through my wild premise as I drove, paying no attention to my route, my Jeep speeding up as my tension caused me to accelerate. I talked to myself, building my case, establishing what was the easy-sell part of it, the basic foundation stones and the supporting walls. The hard-sell part was the end concept, something that at first seemed ludicrous, like it could never be supported by facts. If I were looking at architecture, my idea would be like one of those ultra-modern buildings where it appears that the top is floating precariously as if it were held up by some secret architectural levitation.
But as I drove north toward Cave Rock, speeding faster, I began to realize that all of the supporting components for my ridiculous idea did in fact exist. It was like an unlikely building that, despite appearances, was in fact held up by cantilevered beams and hidden cables and a solid if improbable geometry.
I took a curve too fast, and the Jeep swayed as I brought it back into my lane. Spot suddenly stuck his cold wet nose onto the back of my neck, startling me. I reached back and rubbed his snout. “It’s okay, boy. Driving too fast. Sorry.”
My thought was triggered by what Street had told me about the little girls with donkey and pig drawings on their faces. She’d thought they were painted on, only to watch the girls peel them off. It reminded me that the same could be done with tattoos. Stick-on tattoos. From there I realized that a person could also purchase colored contact lenses.
I realized that Nick’s big hair and beard and tattoo might not have been the only aspect of his disguise. I visualized the hostage taker standing at the bow of the Tahoe Dreamscape, yelling at me, threatening to dump Street into the lake. He spoke with a ragged voice, another easy way to disguise an aspect of your identity.
Of course, that still only suggested that he didn’t want to be recognized after the hijacking was over.
I remembered him yelling at me about the pressure at great depths and how it would crush someone’s ribs after it first squeezed the air in their lungs to nothing.
It was his knowledge of water pressure that made me realize what it was that nagged me.
He’d worn a custom belt, a wide, black nylon strap with multiple rectangular pockets to hold C-4 plastique or something similar.
I remembered where I’d seen a similar belt, and I now believed that the pockets on the hostage taker’s belt didn’t hold any explosives. Neither were there explosives in his backpack.
The belt wasn’t designed to hold explosives at all, but rectangular pieces of stainless steel. The number of steel pieces could be adjusted so that the belt weighed just the right amount to counteract the buoyancy of the person wearing it.
It was a scuba diver’s weight belt. Divers’ wetsuits are quite buoyant, and divers need extra weight to stay under water.
Nick the Knife wore a blue jacket and pack that would blend in with the water. He looked like a big man partly because he had a thick wetsuit or drysuit under his clothes. Because of the buoyancy of his insulating garments, he made certain that he had enough weight in his belt to sink him faster than any lifeguard could swim. Then he purposely tripped on his shoelaces, fell over the railing of the Dreamscape, took a big breath, and faked his tortured, gargled descent into the ice water. As Bukowski dove in and tried to save him, Nick the Knife put on his look of shock and terror and then followed it with his open-eyed death stare.
When he’d sunk past 100 feet or so, beyond the point where anyone could see him, he pulled the quick release on the belt and let it fall. In his pack was a scuba tank with the regulator already attached. It would be easy for him to pull out the regulator mouthpiece of his scuba gear and begin breathing.
Then Nick took a leisurely swim two or three hundred yards away before rising to the surface to climb into a boat or escape into the forest.
Why? Was it possible that Nick’s charade was just about making me think he was dead? It made no sense. I didn’t even know who he was before he took Street hostage.
When I realized why Nick had done it, the impact made me exhale.
Nick the Knife didn’t take Street hostage to make me think he was dead. And he didn’t do it just to get me to bring in Thomas Watson.
He did it to find Anna Quinn.
FORTY-EIGHT
Nick had been looking for Anna ever since she escaped when he broke into her bedroom. Three years of searching.
Thomas Watson and Davy Halstead had been looking as well. But neither was as focused and dedicated to the pursuit as Nick. Then something changed.
Perhaps Davy or Thomas said something that made Nick think that one of them was close to finding her. Or maybe he realized that they both had
the money and connections to find Anna, while Nick had few resources other than his determination.
Nick’s brilliance was in hatching a plan to get a professional investigator to find her.
It was nearly perfect. Just as Nick wanted, after he hijacked the Dreamscape and took Street hostage, I began to pursue Thomas Watson. In that process, I also began re-investigating Grace’s murder. I found out about cousin Melody’s suicide and, with Street’s help, Grace’s daughter Anna that she’d given up for adoption.
Because Anna decided to trust me, she came out of the woods. It was easy for Nick to watch my cabin and office. When she showed up, he and/or Davy followed her to Lacy Hampton’s home and carried her off. Then Nick killed Davy. I played into his plan so perfectly that I may as well have brought her to him myself.
She was his captive because of my stupidity!
I floored the accelerator, chasing a killer who had constructed a huge charade just to find a girl whose mother had a secret, a secret he desired enough that it drove him to kill. My anger was nearly incapacitating.
As I approached the first car on the highway, I realized that I was helpless. I had no idea where to look.
Maybe Nick’s instincts would have him trying to put distance between him and me, heading east to Carson City or north to Reno. Maybe he wouldn’t want to find a place to stop and hide.
I overtook the car in front of me. A minute farther up the dark highway, I passed a pickup. Then two more cars, followed by another mile of dark deserted highway. A white vehicle appeared ahead. An SUV. Just before Cave Rock. I stomped on the gas as I raced up to it. It was a Suburban, not an Expedition.
I shot past the SUV, careened north through the Cave Rock tunnel, then accelerated harder.
I dialed Street as I drove.
“Hello?” Her voice was groggy.
“Sweetheart, I’m calling to say that I’m okay.”
Her sigh of relief was audible over the noise of the Jeep. I gave her a quick explanation of Nick the Knife and how I believed that he was still alive.
“My God! The man who nearly killed me is alive?!” I heard her breathing over the phone. She knew that Nick’s primary goal hadn’t been to kill her. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t come for her again if it suited him.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “He won’t come after you again. He has what he wants. I have to get off now,” I said. “But can you do me a favor? Call Diamond and tell him that Nick O’Connell didn’t die when he went overboard. Diamond can call the others. Tell Diamond that I believe that Nick the Knife has kidnapped Anna Quinn.”
“No, don’t tell me...”
“Yeah.” I was now shooting past the road up the mountain to my cabin as I spoke to her.
“I’ll call Diamond.” Street’s words were shaky. “Where are you headed?”
“I’m heading north up the East Shore. It’s a long shot, but he could be somewhere in front of me.”
Street was silent for a moment. I went around the curve by Glenbrook then pushed the Jeep up to 80 as I climbed up toward Spooner Summit.
“Owen,” she said, her voice so soft I could barely hear her over the roar of the Jeep.
“Yes?”
“I know I can’t tell you not to do this. Maybe Anna is still alive. Maybe she’s already dead. But you know that man is a cold killer. He’s sick and desperate and feral. I saw it in his eyes. He’ll put a knife through your heart without even hesitating.”
“I know,” I said. Up ahead were taillights that were not getting any closer. A vehicle going as fast as I was. The red lights flashed bright for a couple of seconds then jerked left at the turn from 50 onto 28 going north around the lake. I accelerated hard to close the gap, then braked for the turn and cranked the wheel. My tires skidded through the turn. In my peripheral vision, I sensed Spot sliding across the back seat. I hit the gas, brought the Jeep back up to 70.
Street said something else, but I couldn’t make it out over the roar of the engine.
“What?” I said.
“Please be careful.” She was pleading. “Please.”
“I promise,” I said. “I love you.” I folded my phone and stuck it in my shirt pocket as I came to the first curves up by the Spooner Lake Campground.
I took most of Highway 28 at half again the speed limit, careening the Jeep through the S-turns. Gradually, I closed on the vehicle in front of me. It was a dark van.
There was no oncoming traffic, so I swung out and shot around him.
The highway was dark with few vehicles. I kept up my speed, hoping that Nick might be going along at normal speed, as confused about his next move as I was about mine.
I raced north, trying to guess his moves.
On the lake side came the viewpoint parking area just south of Incline Village. I shot by. A moment later, I realized that there’d been a white vehicle parked in the dark.
I stood on the brake pedal, not caring about the screech of my tires. Came to a smoking stop. Threw it into reverse. Ran my Jeep up to the tach’s redline going backward. Came even with the north entrance to the little lot. Stepped on the brake again and shifted back into drive. Spun the wheel and squealed into the lot.
Nick must have heard me brake. The white Expedition was already moving. He shot out the south entrance and turned north. I followed.
I raced after and got close, then dropped back a bit, not wanting to make him so tense that he did something stupid that could end in a fatal crash. We flew past the first residences south of Incline Village.
His brake lights flashed bright and hard in the night. He took a sudden left turn off the highway and onto Lakeshore Blvd. I closed ranks again so I wouldn’t lose him as he raced by the mansions, the fenced estates, the big gatehouses with the automatic wrought-iron entrances. As he approached the stop sign intersection where Country Club Drive came down from the highway, he sped up, ran the stop sign, and slid into a right turn.
I’d wondered for a few moments if I was wrong, if I’d merely come upon some kids doing drugs in daddy’s Expedition. But his high-speed flight convinced me that Nick O’Connell was alive and driving the big Ford in front of me. And even though I had no direct evidence that Anna was with him, I knew it just the same.
I followed as the Expedition powered past the Hyatt Hotel. A few blocks up Country Club, he stomped on his brakes and took a left turn into the Sierra Nevada College campus, the small, beautiful and exclusive school where a few privileged kids got to exercise their neurons when they weren’t skiing or snowboarding on the mountains above or plying Tahoe’s vast water playground.
I thought that Nick the Knife had made a mistake turning into the narrow college streets with the esthetically pleasing but confusing arrangement of parking areas. My vague recollection of the campus was that most of the routes had no alternative outlets. As he turned toward the famous Tahoe Center For Environmental Sciences, I thought I had him trapped.
But he jerked the Expedition up onto the sidewalk and careened between the trees near the library. There was a natural-landscaped garden area with only a walking path between the plantings, but the SUV plowed through at high speed, bouncing hard. He shot out onto another parking area with access from the other direction.
I tried to follow, but made a wrong turn and got trapped between trees that were too close to let me pass. I backed up and felt my bumper scrape and bounce. My Jeep slammed to a stop. I shifted into drive, gave it gas. My wheels spun, but the Jeep was stuck.
I jumped out and looked at the dark rear wheels. I’d backed over a small boulder and caught it under my bumper. I’d need a jack to get off. But I didn’t have time. I went around to the other side, squatted down and sighted under the bumper. The boulder was like an egg, half again as long as it was across. Driving forward would tip it the long way. If I could jockey the Jeep a quarter rotation, the boulder would tip the short way.
I got back in and went forward and backward, turning the wheel back and forth, gradually rotating the Jeep.
Then I shifted into 4-wheel-drive and gave it gas. I felt the rear of the Jeep lift up and drop down with a thud. The wheels dug into the dirt and I shot forward. I bounced across the landscaping onto a parking lot. At the far end, I went up the college’s north access road and headed up to the main highway through Incline.
But I was too late. The Expedition was gone.
On instinct, I turned left to continue counter-clockwise around the lake, thinking that Nick wouldn’t take Anna back the way he’d come.
I came to a red light near the Raley’s supermarket in Incline, slowed to a near stop, glanced at the deserted cross street, and raced through the intersection. Up the road was the intersection where the Mt. Rose Highway climbed up to the highest year-round pass in the Sierra. I wondered if Nick had turned up the mountain. A sudden thought made me think he didn’t.
Crystal Bay was to my left. Home of the Tahoe Dreamscape. Nick the Knife had hijacked the boat once before. Would he do it again? It seemed a far-fetched notion, but it was nothing compared to his faked death. And the Dreamscape offered him a good escape possibility. Nick could also threaten Anna with death by drowning in a last effort to get her to tell him what she knew. He could find another length of anchor chain, tie it around her, and drop her overboard. Then he could pull the Dreamscape up to any dock on the lake, steal another car, and escape.
Ford and Teri Georges had mentioned a mystery visitor to the boat during a time when they were gone. Nick had probably been that person. He’d likely have taken the time to explore the vessel enough to figure out how to orchestrate the hijacking. Did that include visiting the bridge and checking out the controls? Was Nick knowledgeable enough about boats that he could run the Tahoe Dreamscape? Did he possibly find where they kept an ignition key?
