Night Stalker

by Shirlee McCoy

  “That you’d be together forever?”

  “I’m not sure what this has to do with anything, Wren,” she responded, pulling the towel a little tighter around her shoulders. “Adam and I were kids when we married.”

  “Eighteen and nineteen,” she responded. Obviously, she knew the story. She’d probably read whatever background report the FBI had done when Adam had gotten his security clearance.

  “Right. Like I said. We were kids.”

  “You were legally adults. Me? I was sixteen.”

  “When you got married?” Charlotte glanced at Wren’s ring finger, but there was no band on her left hand. No diamond. Not even a ring of pale flesh indicating that she ever wore them.

  “Yes. Rafael was twenty-seven.”

  “And marrying him was legal?” She sounded shocked. She was shocked.

  “My parents signed the papers. We were married by the pastor of our church. It was very common in our church community to marry young and to marry someone quite a bit older.” She shrugged. “But that’s another story for another time. Rafael and I were married for a long time. He never made me feel important.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte offered.

  “I didn’t tell you that part of my story to get your sympathy. I told you because you and Adam seemed to have had something special.”

  “Had is the correct word,” Charlotte cut in.

  “Maybe, but losing your son didn’t mean you lost your love for your husband or that he lost his love for you. You went different directions, grieved in different ways, but none of that changed how you felt about one another.”

  It was a statement rather than a question, and she didn’t wait for Charlotte to respond.

  She stood, shrugging out of her coat and leaving it on the back of the chair. Her white button-up blouse was still crisp and wrinkle free, her shoulder holster snug against her lean frame. “I’m going to check the other doors and windows to make certain everything is locked. We’ll keep the shades and curtains closed. If the dog needs to go out, let me know. I’ll take him. Why don’t you take a shower and warm up? Adam didn’t save your life so you could freeze to death.”

  She walked into the hall, disappearing from view.

  Charlotte could hear her footsteps on the floor and the brush of her slacks as she moved. She was probably walking into Charlotte’s room, checking the window and pulling the curtains closed. She was probably also noticing the picture that still sat on the dresser. The one of Charlotte, Daniel and Adam on the first camping trip they’d taken as a family.

  Daniel had been tiny. Just four months old, dressed in a blue onesie, his little legs dangling from a carrier strapped to Adam’s chest. He’d been asleep. They’d been smiling. Behind them, a river had bounced over rocks, the water splashing into the air and creating a rainbow.

  Maybe Charlotte should have put the photo away years ago, but she’d never been able to make herself. It was a snapshot of life before things had gotten hard, a photo of a young couple who’d had their entire lives ahead of them.

  They’d had no clue what the future would bring.

  They hadn’t known about Daniel’s autism. They hadn’t experienced his head banging or screaming or self-harm behaviors. They hadn’t spent hours and days and weeks and months in therapy with him, doing everything they could to find a way into his world.

  They hadn’t lost him.

  Or themselves.

  She blinked, hot tears pooling behind her eyes.

  They were as surprising as the memory that she’d allowed to surface.

  Tears weren’t her thing.

  Neither was dwelling on the past.

  She walked into the bathroom, turning on the water and letting it heat up. She’d promised to stay in the cottage until Adam returned. She hadn’t promised that she wouldn’t go to the hospital after that.

  She’d shower, change and wait.

  When he returned, she’d get in her Jeep and go to the hospital. Doing that would be easier than sitting in the cottage remembering all the things that had once made her life so beautiful.

  * * *

  The logging camp had changed a lot in the years since Adam had last been there. Most of the shanties had collapsed. The ones that remained looked like they’d recently been used by campers and hikers, their support beams reinforced and their roofs thatched with layers of dry grass and mud. What had once been a clearing was now filled with sapling trees and sparse grass. Dead leaves and pine needles littered the ground and muffled his footsteps as he moved through the camp. He glanced across the clearing. River should be around, moving as silently as Adam as he searched for signs that a vehicle had been there.

  It had to have been there.

  They’d driven most of the length of the road, moving slowly and searching for breaks in the trees and foliage. There’d been no indication that the shooter had pulled off the road. River had stopped the Cadillac a couple of miles from the camp, and they’d walked in, splitting up when they reached a sign that had fallen years ago and was nothing but rusted, rotting metal.

  The wind blew through the clearing, picking up debris and scattering it across the ground. If a truck had been there, the tracks had already been covered.

  It had been there. It still must be.

  If the shooter hadn’t pulled over and hidden his vehicle, if he hadn’t driven back to the main road, this was the only place left to go.

  Leaves rustled and grass whispered, its hushed murmur familiar and comforting. As a kid, he’d spent more time outside than inside. He’d learned nature’s sounds, and he preferred them to just about anything else.

  The only thing better had been the sound of Daniel’s giggles and the soft sigh of Charlotte’s breath as she slept.

  It was never quiet in Boston. Traffic was always busy, horns honking, people shouting, engines rumbling. Even in the darkest hours of the night, the noise drifted through his apartment window—a not-so-subtle reminder that he’d succeeded in accomplishing his goals and achieving his dreams. He’d applied and been accepted to the FBI. He’d moved from small-town America to the city. He’d bought a little apartment in a well-established neighborhood.

  And yet, he felt like he’d failed, because he hadn’t done any of it with Charlotte by his side.

  He frowned, stepping around one of the old shanties that had been reroofed. The wind gusted, and he caught a whiff of dirt, dried grass and...soap?

  He inhaled deeply, trying to figure out where the scent of soap was coming from. The shanty?

  He crept around the old hut, moving as silently as he could. There was no door on the front of the structure. Just a rectangular hole where one used to be. He could have ducked a couple of inches and walked inside, but he couldn’t see what was waiting for him there. He was certain something was. He could hear it scrabbling around in the darkness. Not a raccoon or possum. Whatever was in the shanty was much larger and heavier than either of those things.

  A person?

  That was what he suspected. He didn’t pull his phone out or try to signal River. He didn’t want to give away his presence. He’d been hunting the Night Stalker for three years. He was closer than he’d ever been to finding him. He could feel it the same way he felt the cold wind and the first icy drops of rain.

  He rounded the shanty, eyeing a back door that hung listlessly from its frame. It banged against the exterior wall, thudding rhythmically with the gusting wind. He walked toward it, staying to the left of the opening and out of sight of anyone who might be inside. This was the part of the job he loved most—the quick hit of adrenaline as he closed in on the criminal, the rush of energy that sharpened his thinking and his senses.

  A figure appeared in the doorway, a black shape in the darkness, darting outside and racing for the edge of the clearing.

  “FBI,” Adam shouted, pulling his firearm
but not discharging it. “Freeze!”

  The person skidded to a stop a hundred yards away.

  “Down on the ground,” Adam commanded. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “Don’t shoot,” a woman responded.

  “Down on the ground,” Adam repeated, moving toward the woman as she dropped onto her stomach, her arms splayed out beside her.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said as he approached. “I just needed a place to stay.”

  “How long have you been out here?” he asked, flashing a light onto her prone figure. She was young. Probably not even out of her teens, her hair buzz-cut and dyed purple, a half dozen studs in the ear Adam could see.

  “I don’t know. Maybe a couple of days.”

  “It’s not a good time of year to be living outside.”

  “I wasn’t outside until you came around.”

  “There’s no heat in that shack. It’s a thatched roof and a storm is blowing in. You’re going to be wet and cold by the time the night ends.” He patted her down, pulling a bowie knife from the pocket of her cargo-style pants and a Swiss Army knife from her combat boot.

  “I need those,” she muttered, but she didn’t make any effort to reach for them.

  “What’s your name?” he responded.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “It might be a good idea just to give the answer,” River said, stepping out of the shadows near the edge of the clearing. “You’re on state land posted with no-trespassing signs. Squatting. That’s never a good thing as far as the law is concerned.”

  “If you are the law,” she said, scrambling to her feet.

  She didn’t run, but she looked like she wanted to—her muscles tense, her fists clenched.

  “We are.” Adam holstered his firearm and pulled out his wallet, flashing the badge he always carried.

  “Whatever,” she muttered, sounding exactly like the teenager she obviously was. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  “I think I mentioned trespassing,” River responded, walking past her.

  She winced, the movement so subtle Adam wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been watching so carefully. He’d seen other teenagers react that way when someone they didn’t know got too close. All of them had been victims of violent crimes or abuse.

  “I didn’t see the signs,” she claimed.

  Adam didn’t point out the white sign nearly glowing against a dark tree trunk a few feet away.

  “Maybe not,” River replied as he neared the threshold of the shanty’s door. “But you were still doing it. Is anyone with you?”

  “I’m standing here by myself, aren’t I?”

  “How about inside? Anyone in there?” River asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “I guess we’re about to find out how honest you are,” River said, pulling out his firearm and stepping into the darkness beyond the shanty’s door.

  “Hey!” the girl protested. “You can’t just go into my place and look around. You need a search warrant.”

  “First, it’s not your place,” Adam responded, because River had already disappeared from sight. “It’s state land. Second, if there’s someone else in there, now is the time to say so.”

  “There’s no one else,” she huffed. “Just my stuff, and I don’t want anyone touching it.”

  “He’s not going to touch your things.”

  She snorted. “Like I’d believe anything you tell me.”

  “Is there a reason why you think I’d lie?”

  She pressed her lips together and didn’t speak.

  “If you don’t want to answer that question, how about we go back to the previous one. What’s your name?”

  She hesitated and then shrugged. “Savannah Johnson.”

  “Are you a runaway, Savannah?”

  “I’m eighteen. I can go where I want and do what I want.”

  “Were you a runaway?” He rephrased the question, and she frowned.

  “I’ll take your silence as assent. Where did you run from?”

  “Providence, Rhode Island. Can we be done now? I want to get my things and clear out before you decide to toss me in jail for trespassing.”

  “I’m not interested in throwing you in jail. I’m interested in getting some information from you.”

  “What information?” she asked, her expression guarded.

  “A car drove into this area earlier. Did you see it?”

  She hesitated, her gaze darting away. “I’ve been inside all night.”

  “You’re avoiding my question again.”

  “I try to mind my own business.”

  “That’s hard to do when it’s the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere and someone drives through in a car.”

  “A truck,” she corrected and then pressed her lips together.

  “So, you did see the vehicle?”

  “Are you going to let me leave if I answer your questions?”

  “That depends on whether or not there are any outstanding warrants for your arrest.”

  “I’m not a criminal,” she muttered.

  “We’ll still have to run your information before we release you.”

  “I’m not a criminal,” she repeated. “And I did see the truck. It drove right through the middle of the clearing and headed that way.” She gestured toward an abandoned road that had been used to transport logs to barges that would carry them across the lake to the trains that had once run endless shipments of lumber up and down the east coast.

  “Did you see anything else?”

  “No, I was packing my stuff and getting ready to hit the road when I heard you coming.”

  “Packing up? Why?”

  “I heard a gunshot before the truck drove through. Up until tonight, things have been quiet here. Now they aren’t.” She shrugged. “I don’t like taking chances.”

  He didn’t, either. And right now, he felt like they were. The lake was only a half mile from the logging camp. A quick walk even at night. The Night Stalker could be standing feet away, watching from the trees. Or he could be hiking back to the cottage, hoping for another shot at Charlotte.

  “All clear in there,” River said, rounding the side of the shanty and striding toward them. “I texted Wren. Honor arrived. She’s on the way here to collect our—” he glanced at Savannah and said “—witness.”

  “I’m not a witness,” she protested, a hint of panic and fear in her voice.

  She was a kid, and she was scared.

  In other circumstances, Adam would have taken the time to reassure her. Right now, he wanted to find the truck that she’d seen.

  “You want to wait for her here?” he asked River. “I’ll head down to the lake.”

  “You’re on leave, remember?”

  “I think my leave ended around the time a bullet slammed into the ground a few inches from my head. Since I know the area better than you, I’ll head to the lake.” He was already striding across the clearing.

  River didn’t try to stop him.

  Like Adam, he knew just how close they were getting, just how precious every second was. Finding the truck would be great, but they were seeking a bigger prize.

  The Night Stalker had already ended the lives of people who had hopes, dreams and aspirations. He’d stolen the futures of women who had spent their lives serving and helping others. He’d left empty spots at dinner tables, giant holes in hearts.

  If he wasn’t caught, he’d continue.

  And his next victim would be Charlotte.

  Adam found the old road and stepped into the foliage beside it, moving quietly as he navigated the terrain. Drops of rain turned into a downpour that soaked his hair and slid down the col
lar of his coat. He ignored it. His focus was on the glint of lake water he could see through the trees. The truck had to be parked on the beach. If the Night Stalker knew the area, he’d know he’d hit the end of the road. That there was nowhere to go but back. He’d have two choices. Stay with the vehicle or leave it.

  Adam knew he’d leave. The killer was smart and cunning. He weighed odds before he took risks. Sitting around in a truck hoping he wouldn’t be discovered was the kind of chance he wouldn’t take.

  The question was, what direction had he gone?

  Back toward Charlotte or away?

  The truck was the place to begin the hunt.

  Adam stepped out of the trees and into winter-dry marsh grass, scanning the rock-strewn beach littered with rotting logs. An old dock protruded into the lake. Sturdily built to hold the weight of trucks and their lumber loads, it had weathered the test of time. Near the end of it, so close to the lake a strong push would have sent it tumbling in, a truck sat abandoned, its headlights on, its driver’s door open.

  Adam pulled his firearm, his body humming with adrenaline as he probed the darkness and tried to find some sign that the Night Stalker was still there.

  Rain fell in sheets, masking sounds and reducing visibility, but the beach looked and felt empty. He eyed the truck, the headlights, the door, the lake beyond the dock. At first, he saw nothing. Then a dark shape separated itself from the rain-speckled surface of the lake. He watched as it glided across the water. A boat. It had to be. No motor. It wasn’t speeding away; it was moving languidly as if the person steering it had all the time in the world.

  Adam raced across the beach, pounding onto the dock, his gaze focused on the boat. He could see the person in it now—a hunched figure paddling toward the distant shore.

  The Night Stalker.

  His flesh crawled with the knowledge.

  He tried to make out details, but rain and distance obscured his view. He wouldn’t be able to add anything to the description Charlotte had provided. He wasn’t close enough to fire a shot, either.

  He grabbed his phone and dialed Wren’s number.

  They needed manpower on the other side of the lake and they needed a boat, because Adam wasn’t going to stand on a dock watching as a cold-blooded murderer made his escape.