Shadow Moon

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  Eighteen hours later, the agents finally arrived in Portland. A delayed flight had kept them in San Francisco overnight. No word had come from Singh or Snyder.

  Driving from the airport into Portland, Roarke felt himself slipping back into the past, the white-hot urgency of his first case as an agent.

  While he drove, he filled Epps in. The Street Hunter case. The anomaly of Young John Doe. Roarke’s and Snyder’s theory that there was another killer covering his tracks by moving the boy’s body to the Street Hunter’s dump site. Roarke’s own nagging feeling at the time that John Lombard had something to do with the attack on Brandi Hughes, that he might have been responsible for the murder of Young John Doe.

  “But this Lombard just—what? Disappeared?” Epps asked, perplexed.

  That was the thing. Roarke had never found a trace of him. So had he disappeared, changed his identity, moved his killing ground elsewhere? Was Lombard the trail that Singh and Snyder were pursuing?

  He shook his head, and answered Epps, “I think we’re about to find out.”

  There were no cars in Snyder’s driveway, and no one responded to the bell.

  Roarke had last visited Chuck only four months ago, and Snyder had given him the door code the night he’d stayed there. He knew Snyder cycled through a set of passwords, so he hoped for good timing and punched in the one he remembered. It didn’t work. But an older one did. The door clicked open.

  The agents moved inside.

  The entry hall was quiet and dark. Roarke called out, “Chuck?” Epps followed with “Tara!”

  No response came. Of course, Snyder and Singh could just be out. But the house felt empty.

  The agents stepped into the living room. They both stopped in their tracks at the same time, hit by the sight of dozens of file boxes, scattered and piled on the table, the floor, every available surface.

  Epps looked around them in consternation. “What the hell have they been doing?”

  Roarke had expected files and some degree of chaos, but this much was unnerving. Especially with Singh involved. It was unlike her usual meticulousness.

  Epps looked equally disturbed by the sight.

  The two men moved through the house, checking rooms. Epps went for the hall to the bedrooms, while Roarke walked into the kitchen.

  It too was empty, with no dishes in the sink or on any countertop, no sign of recent meal preparation, no coffee in the coffeemaker. Roarke crossed to the inner door to the garage and opened it to look in. There was no vehicle parked inside.

  He closed the door and stepped back into the kitchen. He checked the trash bin. It was lined with a fresh plastic bag, completely empty.

  He stood in the middle of the room, running through options. There were things he still hadn’t told Epps. His agent still had no idea of what Roarke suspected about that night near the Salton Sea. The night that Singh was ostensibly kidnapped and left bound, drugged and unconscious in a derelict motel, while Cara’s nemesis, sheriff’s detective Ortiz, was murdered.

  Roarke was certain Singh knew more, had done more that night than anyone might ever know.

  He had also been sure that sending her to work with Chuck was the right thing, not just for Chuck, in his declining condition, but for both of them. Snyder had a lifetime of experience understanding and predicting violence, and infinite depths of insight and compassion.

  But now Roarke wondered if he might have created a perfect storm of obsession.

  Epps’ voice came from the living room.

  “Chief.”

  His tone made Roarke bolt out the kitchen door and take the living room in three strides, toward the door of Snyder’s study.

  Epps stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by more file boxes. He was facing a long case board, with a full-sized map of the U.S., dotted with push pins and photos and Post-it notations, and two parallel timelines pinned to the side of it, with dates connected by lengths of red string.

  Roarke’s initial, sinking feeling was: They are working on some case. An active case. He moved closer to the board. Epps turned to him and nodded to the timelines.

  Roarke focused on the two long columns of dates and notations. And he experienced a hot spike of unreality.

  The name on the top of the first timeline was his own. The name on the top of the second was Cara’s. And it didn’t take more than one long look to grasp that the red string showed correlation between his whereabouts and Cara’s on over a dozen dates.

  Not just in the past year. Going back fourteen years, to the year 2005.

  Chapter 76

  Kalispell, Montana – present

  Singh and Snyder

  The ATV barrels up over rocky snowy fields, through a winter landscape of mountain peaks, valleys, forests, and an enormous, encompassing cerulean sky. Singh holds tight to a bar in the passenger seat, Agent Snyder is in the middle seat. Two bouncing border collies occupy the back.

  At the wheel is Agent Morris Ziskin, Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, retired. He has met Singh and Snyder on the road where they have left their vehicle so he can drive them up to the ranch he’d bought for himself when he left the ATF.

  Perhaps it is the oxygen-rich atmosphere, perhaps the breathtaking beauty, but Singh feels practically giddy. Agent Snyder is right, and there was a case, and they are on the right track. Or a track, anyway.

  Ziskin smiles her way. He is dressed for all the world like a rugged Montana rancher, boots and jeans and flannel shirt and parka, a Stetson over a wind-burned face. But when he opens his mouth, pure Atlantic City comes out. “They say no one who comes to Montana ever leaves on purpose.”

  Surrounded by the sheer drama of the mountains: the plunges of cliffs, the enormity of the landscape, Singh can understand the sentiment.

  “Of course they tend to say it in the summer,” Ziskin admits, and adds, “This place is off the grid. Anyone who wants to can get lost here. Problem is it’s so far off the grid a lot of batshit crazy people come up here to hide out.” And then he warns, “Prime example coming up. And it ain’t pretty.”

  He stops the Jeep and points out through the window at a swath of red in the brilliant white snow. Singh’s heart plummets at the sight of a woolly white carcass.

  “Wolves?” she asks tentatively, already knowing it is not the case.

  “The human kind.” Ziskin says grimly. “Not the first time, either. They want the Jew—meaning me—out, and they want to be able to hunt the wolves. So they kill my sheep and blame the wolves. Two birds with one stone.” He glances in the back of the ATV, at the beautiful, joyful dogs. “These days I have to keep the girls with me wherever I go. So the ‘wolves’ won’t get them, too.”

  Singh feels a flare of outrage. It is a sickness, this compulsion to conquer. To come into beauty like this and think only to take life.

  Ziskin evidently picks up on her distress. “Sorry to put you into the middle of my domestic squabbles. But you need to know what you’re dealing with. These people you’re looking for—they’re nothing to fuck around with.”

  In the living room of Ziskin’s ranch house, floor-to-ceiling windows look out on pristine white fields and snowy peaks. Ziskin brings a huge pot of coffee to sofas in front of a river rock fireplace. As he sits, he says to Singh, “I’m sure Chuck has told you most of this already…”

  Agent Snyder’s face is neutral. “I’d like her to hear it from you.”

  Ziskin shrugs expansively. “2011. It was a total clusterfuck, excuse my French. We were picking up chatter—a couple of lowlifes in Montana and Idaho belonging to a militia called the Northwest Brigade, making barroom boasts about an upcoming attack on federal law enforcement. The Brigade’s alleged plan was to assassinate a couple of police officers. In their larger scheme, they were thinking that when law enforcement showed up in force for the funerals, they could bomb the ceremony and take out dozens of our guys at once.”

  Singh stares at him, overcome at the monstrousness of the idea.

/>   Snyder speaks quietly beside her. “And that of course would be the spark to ignite the uprising against the government.”

  Singh glances at him. His eyes are focused and clear.

  Ziskin nods. “It’s the pattern we see over and over again. Militia amasses a stockpile of ammunition, weapons and survival gear. Plans a bloody attack or series of attacks on state and local officials, with the goal of forcing the state to call out the National Guard. Militias are always on the lookout for an opportunity for a small, ‘heroic’ private band of warriors to engage the big bad government.”

  Snyder adds, “And to be blunt about it, to suffer some fatalities. They want the fatalities because in their minds, it creates martyrs. Which is exactly what happened in Waco and Ruby Ridge. We’re still paying the price.”

  Despite being alarmed by the subject matter, Singh is aware and pleased to see that in context, Agent Snyder’s memory is functioning perfectly.

  Ziskin spreads his hands. “These guys are absolutely convinced that that’s all it would take for a majority or a significant minority of the U.S. population to take up arms against the government and overthrow it. But try to call it terrorism, and see what happens.”

  Snyder is fully into the memory now. “2011 was an especially active year on the militia front. There was a two hundred forty-four percent increase in militias, minutemen, and other anti-government patriot groups. Three hundred sixty-three new groups in a single year.”

  “Because of the election of an African American president,” Singh guesses.

  Snyder nods to her. “Exactly. The combination of economic distress and racial animosity sent militia membership skyrocketing.”

  Ziskin returns to his story. “We had a multi-state investigation into the group. There was a ticking clock on it, too. Word was they were planning the attack on April nineteen.”

  “The anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing,” Singh realizes.

  “You got it. Like other terrorists, militias are big on anniversaries. We’d been watching known Northwest Brigade members in Kellogg and in this little town called Snake River, near Glacier National Park. We were focused on a few key players. The owner of the snowmobile shop you just ran into, name of James Furman. Abraham Strauss, a hardware store owner in Snake River. And Jeremiah Hardee, aka “the Colonel”—the owner of the sports vehicle chain. We believed Furman was moving arms for the Colonel through his snowmobile sales route. And that the militia was getting significant funding for arms from the Colonel as well. The destination of all this arms movement was Snake River.”

  He glances at Singh to be sure she is following. She nods, riveted. “So we’re putting this whole case together. Then an eleven-year old kid, Timothy Whitcomb, disappears during a family vacation at Flathead Lake, in Montana.”

  Singh sits up straighter, electrified. Ziskin continues grimly.

  “Hundreds of officers, volunteers and cadaver dogs combed through several square miles of wilderness area. Various organizations offered tens of thousands of dollars in reward money. Tragic, but nothing to do with us, right? A month goes by, no sign of the kid. We’re putting together our case, watching our players. And then the tip line for the missing kid triggers a name on an ATF list. We had a flag on all the main Northwest Brigade players so that anything related to any of these guys gets passed on to us before someone else takes action. They trace the call to Snake River. A woman, calling anonymously, with a tip on one of the militia members we’d been watching: Strauss, the owner of that Snake River hardware store. The caller says the Whitcomb family passed through Snake River the day Timothy disappeared, and that Strauss had been watching him. And that,” Ziskin made air quotes. “‘It wasn’t the first time.’”

  Singh feels a chill that has nothing to do with the snow outside. It is Agent Snyder’s story, exactly as he told it to her. The locations nearly all the same. Only the date and the missing boy’s name and age are different. She looks toward Snyder. He is nodding, intently processing.

  Ziskin stands, too caught up in his story now to stay still. “I made the request to state police to let me handle it. We didn’t want another investigation compromising our surveillance on this domestic terrorism threat. That bought us some time, but it was tricky. ‘Specially because the sheriff in Snake River was tied up with the militia. We didn’t know if he was a card-carrying member, but it sure as hell looked like he was doing some covering for them.”

  “Was that Sheriff Preston?” Singh asks.

  “Preston, right.”

  Singh can still feel the unpleasantness of his voice on the phone. “He is still the Sheriff, there. I have spoken with him.”

  Ziskin’s face darkens. “Not a good guy.”

  “That is my impression,” Singh agrees fervently.

  “Preston is, or was, an Oathkeeper. It’s a far-right organization that encourages law enforcement and military veterans not to obey orders that they believe would violate the Constitution. Basically meaning anything to do with suppression of gun rights.”

  Singh understands instantly. “So if there had been some criminal activity by a militia member, Sheriff Preston may have chosen not to look too closely at it.”

  “Bingo. Anyhow, we’re running out of time on that April nineteen anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. We can’t not follow up on a potential child abduction. And I’m undercover, can’t move on it.” Ziskin nods to Agent Snyder. “Chuck has a shitload of experience on both militia activity and child abuse/abduction. So I ask him to come up and take a look at the situation as a favor.”

  Snyder’s next words are a quiet triumph. “And I brought Matthew up with me to investigate.”

  Chapter 77

  Portland - present

  Roarke and Epps

  Roarke stood in front of the case board, paralyzed, mesmerized.

  Singh’s work, as always, was precise, clear, meticulous. She had tied unsolved murders in Cara Lindstrom’s style to locations, dates and cases that Roarke himself had worked on since 2005.

  All he could think was, It can’t be…

  Beside him, Epps seemed equally unnerved. “I know what this is. She has this crazy…” He stopped himself. “No. Crazy isn’t the word. There’s a myth that Lam told her that she’s—taken with, I guess you could say. About a red string that signifies Fate.”

  As Roarke listened to Epps’ explanation, he could feel his heart rate elevate. A red string that binds people who are meant to work or be together. An unbreakable, uncanny connection.

  It was eerily how he felt—what he felt with Cara. It seemed as if Epps was laying Roarke’s own soul bare. He was bristling at the violation, so agitated that he almost missed what Epps was saying.

  “She brought it up in the context of her and me. But she was really talking about herself and Lindstrom.”

  Roarke was startled out of his absorption. He looked at Epps.

  “She feels that connection, somehow,” Epps finished. “I know she does. There’s something between them.”

  Something between them. Roarke wanted to laugh. He stared at the board, trying to process it.

  The year of his college graduation. His first case as an FBI intern, in Richmond. Here in Portland, on the Street Hunter case…

  In every instance, if Singh was right, there was some connection to Cara.

  His past rose up around him, threatening to overwhelm him.

  Epps was still talking, but Roarke could no longer hear him. He turned without a word and walked out.

  PART SIX

  Chapter 78

  Portland - present

  Roarke

  The air was heavy with the promise of rain.

  Roarke walked in the woods in a daze.

  It was a trail he’d hiked many times during his years working with Snyder, a path he could pick up from the back end of Snyder’s property and trek all the way into Portland proper on days when he had the time and the mindset.

  He’d left Epps at the house, without excuse
or explanation. He’d had to get out. To get away from that map, those charts, the double white boards, the implications.

  Those lists. Dates, names, places. Richmond. Portland. Snake River. San Francisco.

  He couldn’t begin to wrap his mind around the idea.

  Six months ago his life had changed forever, the day he saw Cara Lindstrom standing on the sidewalk across the street from him, just before Agent Greer had been crushed by a delivery truck.

  He’d reeled to find that she was the girl whose survival of the Reaper massacres had been the beginning of his life path. The synchronicities of their lives had sometimes felt overwhelming.

  But it was now clear that Singh honestly believed, and Chuck, too—Chuck, the rationalist, the statistician—they both believed that his path and Cara’s had crossed over and over.

  He had to stop on the trail, overcome with a breathlessness that had nothing to do with the pace of his walking.

  Wherever I’ve gone, she’s been there.

  His rational mind was fighting it.

  But the cop part of him, his blue sense, knew. And he was already back in the past, feeling her presence.

  Chapter 79

  Montana - 2011

  Roarke and Snyder

  Roarke stood beside the Tundra in the parking lot of the gas station. Chuck was inside the small station store, buying what was probably his seventh coffee of the day. It had been a long drive from Portland.

  It was freezing outside. Roarke had to keep stamping his feet to keep warm. But he didn’t mind waiting. He’d never been at a gas station with quite such a breathtaking view.

  It was his first time to Montana and “Big Sky” didn’t begin to cover it. It was mythic. The layers on layers of peaks and valleys. The contrast of blinding white snow and black volcanic fields. The fog, carved out into mountains and valleys of its own. The hush of it all, that made it feel like he could hear for miles and miles… the snap of an icicle, the hoof step of a deer.