Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell

by Vickie McKeehan

  When Kiya started to head one way, abandoning the other path altogether, Skye suggested, “Maybe we should split up. That way we’ll cover more ground.”

  “We stay together,” Josh insisted.

  “Josh, our priority right now is finding Zoe. Even though I only saw two people in the Jeep, you know as well as I do we might be dealing with two killers. Someone helped Jason Berkenshaw dump Willa’s body in the park. You said so yourself. I’ll take Kiya with me to the right. You follow your own nose to the left.”

  Josh still thought the idea of splitting up was a bad one, but there was no time to argue with her since Skye didn’t wait around for agreement. She took off with Kiya in the lead.

  On her own now, Skye looked up at the drizzling clouds, spotted a hawk floating overhead with a crow as part of its flock. She didn’t like being separated from Josh. But it was good to know she was far from alone.

  At a bend in the trail Kiya took a dog leg turn farther east into the forest of evergreens and aspen. They followed the ridgeline toward the military base, zigzagging at times to avoid boulders or stumps blocking the way.

  She followed Kiya into a small clearing where horsetail and thistle were thriving in bunches. Skye heard gravel crunch behind her before Kiya snarled in warning.

  But it was too late.

  Berkenshaw was already on her from behind. She only had time to throw an elbow to his ribcage. But his momentum knocked Skye back a few steps. Off balance, she managed to block his first blow. There wasn’t time to grab for the knife in her boot, only time to gather herself before he landed his next punch to her shoulder.

  Instincts took over. She pivoted and swung her leg out. With a hard kick she aimed for his solar plexus and watched as the wind sailed out of him. It caused Berkenshaw to double over. He was forced to step back to get his breath.

  Skye took advantage of his hesitation to slide out the knife from her boot. Anticipating his next move, she readied herself for what came next. Eyeing the fury on his face she knew it would be an all-out attack. When he launched himself with all the ferocity of a lion pouncing on his lesser prey, Skye landed the heel of her boot on his knee cap. She followed that by slashing her knife across his arm, causing Berkenshaw to stumble backward.

  When she spotted Zoe out of the corner of her eye, Skye yelled, “Get out of here. Head back to the road. That way.” Skye pointed to the west. “Run straight that way. The minute you get inside the car, lock the doors.”

  “But I don’t want to leave you.”

  “I said go. Do what I say! Now!”

  By that time, Berkenshaw had righted himself, but was still having trouble evening out his breathing. Skye caught a blur of movement. Berkenshaw tried to take something out of his jacket. She drove her boot into his wrist, knocking a Beretta M9 pistol out of his hand. The force of the blow had Berkenshaw back on his heels as Skye kicked the weapon into the sandy underbrush.

  The move gave her time to assess Jason Berkenshaw. He had brown hair, green eyes and stood about five-eleven. But there was something about those cool green eyes that said no one was home.

  “Well, come on you big wimp, haven’t you ever had a female fight back before?” Skye roared in challenge.

  “Bitch,” he spat out. “You’ll pay for this. I knew I should’ve taken you down first.”

  “Not as smart as you thought you were, huh? You’re such a dumb shit. You should’ve started with me. But you made a huge mistake. Trouble is I think you were scared, didn’t think you could take me.”

  As she hoped, her insult brought him closer. Skye saw the hatred in his icy eyes as well as the violent way they reacted. He was so mad his green orbs darted about, unfocused.

  “You killed your girlfriend, Ellen Schreiber, planted false evidence to frame my father for it when you were an MP.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? You’re crazy. I don’t know any Ellen Schreiber.”

  “Whatever you say.” Skye figured she needed one more slam to push him over the edge. “After all the women you’ve killed, it’s a female who has outsmarted you. That’s got to chap your butt.” Skye waited a beat for him to get within arm’s reach.

  “Fuck you,” he shouted and spit in her face.

  With the knife in her right hand, she jabbed him in the ribs, flicked her wrist ninety degrees, turning the blade for greater damage. With the heel of her left hand, she sent an uppercut to his nose. Although he staggered back for several seconds, the blow didn’t take him down.

  Skye swung her leg out in an arc, angled, and sent her boot into his face. But he still didn’t go down. Instead, he decided to charge. Like a bull running toward a matador’s cape, he tackled her and brought her to the ground.

  Her back hit first with a thud. Berkenshaw jumped on her, doing his best to straddle her. Her sheer grit refused to let him take control. But with the blood oozing from his wounds it was enough to soak her gloves causing her to lose her solid grip on the knife. It slipped out of her grasp, landed somewhere next to them in the dirt.

  She bucked hard and to the left, causing Berkenshaw to lose his balance and tip over. Momentum had her rolling until she prevailed on top.

  From her sitting position, she brought her knee up, jammed it into his crotch. From a standing position with full thrust, the pain in his balls would’ve been a lot worse. But she had to settle for what she could dish out. That’s why she didn’t let up. With gloved fists, she pounded him and sent punch after punch to his belly, his face, his throat.

  She spotted the knife about the same time he did. They grappled for it, but Skye got to it first. Wrapping her fist around the handle, they fought for control. While he pushed it away, she tried to angle it back toward his torso.

  Gripping the handle as tight as she could, she brought it up, inches off the dirt. Strength to strength, she forced the blade until it hovered over his midsection. With a final burst of energy, she managed to cut a ribbon across his chest.

  When he screamed out in pain, she changed directions, bringing the edge diagonally in a swath the other way. She raised the knife to stab him in the heart.

  And then everything went black.

  Josh might not have agreed with splitting up, but he couldn’t deny there was someone behind him, dogging him, and circling back. He smelled blood right before he heard Kiya’s mournful wail. He changed course and followed the abject moaning through a thick scrub of sagebrush and sedge.

  Since he recognized what that sound meant, he knew Skye was in trouble. As soon as he reached a clear route, he took off running.

  The minute he got to the little glade, he saw his wife lying on the ground, an open wound to the back of her head. Blood poured from the gash.

  The silver wolf stood over her charge, her front paws resting on Skye’s chest. Josh watched as Kiya licked the face of the woman he loved—and shimmered into an unconscious Skye.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Skye heard wheezing and someone gasping for air. She didn’t realize she was the one having trouble breathing until she flicked open her eyes. She tried to focus. Unable to speak, she tried to block out the white bright light that wanted to blind her. As her eyes cleared, she saw two of Josh crouching above her. She watched as tears rolled down both his faces. Maybe it was the raging pain in her head that had her seeing double.

  When the image finally merged together as one, everything inside her seared with heat. She felt a flash of energy as it spread throughout her body, organ to organ, limb to limb. Every nerve in her tingled.

  She tried to sit up, swayed a little. “What happened to Berkenshaw?”

  “You got the bastard.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “A knife buried up to its hilt through his heart generally does the trick every time. That’s my girl.”

  Her head still buzzed with a dull pain. “Is Zoe all right?”

  “I don’t know. We need to find her.”

  “Go.” She pushed at his chest. “I told her to head back
to the car. You have to see if she’s there.”

  “I’m not leaving you here alone, Skye.”

  “There’s another killer here, Josh. Did you get the other one?”

  “There’s no denying somebody was here to bash your skull in.”

  “It felt like they used a baseball bat. You have to go find Zoe. I don’t know how long I was unconscious.”

  “Not long.”

  “But by now, he could already have her. Go!”

  “Come on, get up and go with me. Can you stand?” When she nodded, he pulled her to her feet even though she was far from steady or a hundred-percent. “We’ll both go find her. Do you think you can walk?”

  About that time, her eyes tracked to the spot where Kiya lay, spent. There, under a rocky mountain maple, with golden paintbrush all around, the silver wolf looked near death.

  Skye’s heart simple broke. She went over and kneeled to where Kiya struggled for breath. As the wolf’s violet eyes fluttered closed, Skye ran a hand through the thick coat of silver fur. Her fingers gripped the medicine bag around her neck. She began to chant, asking for help from the Great Spirit.

  “Fight like I fought and you’ll be okay. You have to fight, Kiya. Don’t die on me. Don’t let go. You will not die.”

  Josh went down on one knee, stroked Kiya’s head. “The merge took everything out of your wolf, Skye. Kiya’s weak just as she was before when she did the same for me. But she’ll be okay. You know she’ll be okay. All she needs now is time to heal.”

  A sob caught in her throat. “I’ll be back, Kiya, I have to go make sure Zoe’s okay. You understand that, right?” When the wolf lifted her head to howl, Skye got to her feet, still wobbly.

  “Come on, we need to go find Zoe.” Josh grabbed Skye’s hand, leading her through the underbrush, back through the creek bed.

  Having been through the transformation himself, Josh knew about how long it would take for her to start feeling revitalized. It wasn’t until half an hour later that he could tell that Skye began to gain her strength back twofold. He recognized the moment it happened. He saw a light come into her eyes—the aura around her brightened. Instead of sluggish steps, her pace quickened in the way she maneuvered around the vegetation.

  As they made their way back to the road where they’d left the car, the two said nothing. It took them twenty minutes to reach the Subaru and when they did, they found it empty.

  “Damn it! Zoe! Zoe!” Skye shouted as she hit the hood out of frustration with her hand. The force put a dent in the metal. In her dismay, Skye didn’t even notice to what degree her strength had increased. “Maybe she’s hiding. Zoe! Come on, Zoe! It’s us. Where are you?”

  When she started to storm off to search in what Josh termed was the wrong direction, he took her hand. “You’re still disoriented. Remember things have changed. Use your instincts, Skye.”

  She leaned back on the vehicle, closed her eyes, thought of her protectors, the wolf, the hawk, the crow. Channeling those positive forces into a ball of light, she took several deep breaths and let her new abilities take over.

  “Zoe’s in complete darkness, a room without windows. Wherever it is, it’s not that far away. We have to hurry though. Let’s move out.”

  They headed east, talking as they went.

  “Feeling better?”

  “I would if Zoe had been where she was supposed to be. I never should’ve told her to go back.”

  “Not gonna work, Skye. Even if you had done that and Zoe had stayed planted where she was, the other guy would’ve come along and likely snatched her after taking you out.”

  “Okay. True.”

  “So how do you feel?”

  “Energetic. Recharged. Like I could scramble up Mount Rainier in one climb. Now I know how you must’ve felt after it happened to you.” She sighed. “But poor Kiya.”

  “Even though we talked about two killers we never actually ran with it.”

  “It’s one thing to theorize he had help in disposing of Willa and quite another to affirm he utilized another person. But you won’t convince me Berkenshaw started out relying on a partner,” Skye interjected. “He was a loner back then. I’m certain of it.”

  “I think that’s true. He killed Trisha Danes, Ellen Schreiber, by himself without the help of anyone else. But Vanessa Farrington, Maggie Bennett, Willa Dover, Selma Tolliver, and God knows how many others, he had an accomplice, which means he had to take his time finding the right recruit.”

  “Working in tandem? It’s not unheard of. There were the speed freak killers, Shermantine and Herzog, in California, and then Ng and Lake who worked together holding their victims captive for long periods of time. Then there was the pair of lovers, Coleman and Brown, who terrorized the Midwest in the eighties. And let’s not forget, the Hillside Stranglers who turned out to be cousins. Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi worked together for three years, to name a few. I could go on but you get the picture. So it certainly isn’t the first time.”

  He shouldn’t have been surprised at the way she could rattle off a string of sick minds at the drop of a hat, and yet, he was. “You’ve done your research.”

  “I’m always doing research into the mind of savage killers. So who do you think we’re dealing with here, Josh? Berkenshaw’s son? His brother? A cousin? A BFF?”

  Josh cocked a brow. “Whoever it is has lost their other half. That leaves them vulnerable. When we split up back there, I felt someone following me. I was pissed off at you for separating until I heard footsteps behind me. Before I could do anything about it, I heard Kiya howl and knew you were in trouble.”

  “You know what we have to do.”

  “Yeah, we have to do whatever it takes to locate the lair.”

  As they plodded up another incline and down a ravine, they went over what they knew.

  “We know the location is close to the base. We know there has to be a building around here somewhere that houses his dungeon.”

  “What about backtracking to that old train station? Maybe we missed something there,” Skye wondered. “But you didn’t pick up on anything when we were there last time.”

  “As you’ll find out on your own, it isn’t an exact science,” Josh explained.

  Suddenly she stopped walking. “The floorboards? The train station had a lopsided floor with space underneath. Could there have been—?”

  “No. The train station is due west from here. We keep heading toward the military base.”

  “Right.”

  They slogged through a muddy marshland just as the sun peeked out behind another layer of pesky clouds. “It’ll be dark soon,” Skye noted.

  “Don’t worry. You should be able to see just fine with your new super powers.”

  Skye found that funny. “Really? I guess it’ll be an excellent test. I hope Kiya is okay. Maybe we should’ve brought Atka.”

  Josh grinned imagining the pup’s playful energy out here in the woods and her tendency to wander around curious about everything. “Atka would be all over this place. She needs seasoning before we turn her loose on the likes of Berkenshaw. And Kiya’s slow recovery is the price of her valor. Our wolf will be fine, just as she was after giving me her bloodline. Now, she’s given it to you. I hate to suggest this, but try to put Kiya out of your mind for now. Focus on the hunt, on Zoe. Keep your mind on the goal. You sure, you’re feeling okay? You aren’t a hundred percent yet, are you?”

  “A little fuzz-brained still but I’ll be fine. Stop worrying about me.”

  Up ahead, an open field came into view, a meadow laden with blue-eyed grass and golden lady’s slipper. They spotted a female hiker heading toward them from the opposite direction, the first person they’d encountered besides Berkenshaw. As the woman grew closer, in a friendly gesture, she sent them a casual wave of her hand as backpackers often do when they meet others on the trail.

  After the hiker had passed them heading in the opposite direction, Josh looked over his shoulder, muttered, “That’s strange.
She’s the first sign of life we’ve seen since tramping all over this place from the road in and back again.”

  “Except for Berkenshaw.”

  “She seemed surprised to see us, especially you,” Josh decided.

  “She did, didn’t she?”

  They both stared at each other until all at once they came to the same conclusion. “It’s her!”

  Turning on their heels, they took off running. The minute they did, the woman looked over her shoulder and began to sprint to reach the thicket of trees.

  But Josh and Skye ran her down in a dozen long strides.

  Out of breath, the hiker finally pulled up short of the woods. “Hey, what gives? If you plan to rob me, you’ve picked the wrong person. I don’t have any money.”

  “Maybe you could tell us why you’re out here in such an out-of-the-way spot. Alone.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I’m backpacking, found myself off the main trail in this place. Besides, two people start chasing me, I start trying to get away from them.”

  About that time, Skye noticed a series of blood droplets on the woman’s sleeve. The spots seemed perfect for castoff from whatever the woman had been used to bash Skye’s skull in earlier. “Where did you ditch the baseball bat you hit me with?” Skye asked.

  The woman’s eyes went on guard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You guys are talking crazy.”

  About that time, Josh caught Skye staring at the woman’s jacket and followed her eyes to the red drops. “Where’d you get the blood?”

  “Huh?” The hiker looked down at her hoodie. “Oh that. I had a nose bleed earlier.”

  “Where’s Zoe?” Skye asked matter-of-fact.

  “Who? I don’t know a Zoe. Ah, so you’re out here looking for someone? This area’s pretty secluded. If they got lost you may never find them.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Skye shot back. “We were just about to call the cops. I thought you said you wandered from the main trail, just happened upon the area. You talk as though you know it well. Where were you two hours ago?”