Shadow Moon

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  “The War,” Cara repeats without inflection.

  “Like they say is in the Bible.”

  Cara feels her gorge rise. It is a weird madness some people have. Affecting more people in the country than anyone civilized would want to admit. Belief in imminent apocalypse.

  She suspects many of the “believers” don’t really believe. It’s an excuse to play with guns, to live out videogame fantasies of warfare and alpha male heroism. And exact bloody revenge on anyone who doesn’t swallow their end-time scenarios.

  “So they have guns,” she says aloud.

  The girl laughs shortly. “They have guns.”

  “That’s very dangerous,” Cara says. “Stupid men with guns… that’s a bad combination. They can come to bad ends.”

  Maise shakes her head rapidly. Her breath is elevated. “You don’t… you have no idea how many. More guns than you’ve ever seen before.”

  An arsenal. Even better. This may be easier than she could even dare to hope. They may have set their own trap. And again, she thinks briefly of Richmond. She’s seen this kind of thing too many times since then. These pockets of madness. Of It.

  “They’ll kill you,” Maise says again.

  Cara looks at her. “Maybe I’ll kill them.”

  The thought electrifies the girl. Cara can see it galvanize her body. “How?” she asks.

  “How would you do it?”

  And there on the girl’s face she sees the thought, the thought, the idea that will make this work. To defeat whatever vile thing is in this town.

  Chapter 95

  Portland - present

  Roarke

  The young woman who opened the door to him in the TV station green room was elegant, urbane, knowing.

  Roarke stood still at the sight of her. For a moment he could only look at her, remembering the medical chart detailing her injuries. It was a miracle Brandi Hughes was alive, much less thriving.

  A cynical smile crossed her face. “Didn’t you say the San Francisco Bureau? Surely I’m not that exotic to you.”

  She’d misinterpreted his surprise as transgender judgment.

  He apologized quickly. “I’m sorry, no. It’s just—I remember the attack on you. It’s good to see you well.”

  An inscrutable look crossed her face. “That’s kind of you. Please. Sit.”

  He did, and she lowered herself gracefully to the sofa across from him. He leaned forward, his arms on his knees, palms up, the body language of appeal. “I understand that this subject is difficult. But I’m here about Robert Jonah Barker.”

  The name did not produce the reaction he’d anticipated. Brandi merely arched her salon-tended eyebrows. “My goodness. The FBI certainly is suddenly very hot on a very cold case.”

  Roarke sat back, frowning.

  Brandi explained, “I spoke with a lovely Agent Singh about the same thing just a few days ago.”

  It was exactly what Roarke had suspected. Singh was thinking Cara was here in Portland in 2009, during the Street Hunter investigation.

  He leaned forward again. “Ms. Hughes, I believe we have a mutual friend.”

  “And who would that be?”

  Roarke paused. “I don’t know what she would have been calling herself at the time. But I think you knew her.”

  He reached for his phone, and put it down on the table between them. The police sketch of Cara looked up from the screen. Brandi did no more than glance at it. And Roarke knew.

  He spoke slowly. “I think you told the police that Barker attacked you—to protect her.”

  Brandi’s eyes widened in a surprise Roarke was sure was feigned. “That’s quite a story.”

  Roarke surrendered to what he knew he had to do, and spoke the truth. “I’m not going to arrest you for protecting her, Ms. Hughes. I’d have to arrest myself.”

  Brandi’s eyes widened. “Oh my,” she said softly. And there was something else in her face, now: pity. “She does have her fans, doesn’t she? But I’m afraid I have nothing to tell you. What does it matter now? A bad man got himself killed, ages ago. That was then. This is now.” She lifted a hand, languidly encompassing the elegant office, the framed posters of her shows on the walls.

  “Barker is dead,” Roarke agreed. “And quite possibly John Lombard is as well.” Brandi remained carefully neutral, not reacting to the name. “I’m not shedding any tears for either of them. No one is.” He leaned forward, made eye contact. “But the boy who the police thought was the Street Hunter’s last victim was never identified. Somewhere out there is a family that has no idea what happened to their son.”

  He watched Brandi’s face, saw the empathy there. He added softly, “And I think his killer is still out there, too.”

  Brandi’s eyes contracted, in fear, or anger, Roarke wasn’t sure. When she spoke, her voice was toneless. “All I can tell you is—that ‘mutual friend’ you spoke of—she wouldn’t let that go. Until it was done.”

  It crystalized what Roarke hadn’t known he knew.

  If Snyder and Singh were in Montana pursuing the Wolf, then Cara would be, too.

  Chapter 96

  Snake River, Montana - 2011

  Cara

  The sun sparkles like diamonds on a crust of snow outside her ATV, as she sits watching the street.

  She has passed the night in a motel out of town.

  Now she is parked again outside the mercantile store. Maise has pointed her here, but the hunter had already led her straight to him. The hunter and the hardware man are brothers in criminality and fanaticism. Arms traffickers. End-time dominionists. And if Maise is right, this one, this Strauss, is much more.

  She is sure that Maise is right. The girl knows what happened to her brother, knows he is dead. She knows it in her soul. She has lived in this town her whole life. Like everyone alive, she is innately attuned to the essential nature of the people around her. Maise is simply more willing than most to accept the clues she is given.

  And yet with these stakes, Cara needs to see for herself, to be sure.

  She gets out of her vehicle and heads for the mercantile. She will buy a few innocuous items on pretense, so that she can see Strauss face to face.

  There is no recreational store in a town this size, so the mercantile stocks items for the slopes, and advertises those items in its window. Get your ski gear here! No doubt in the hope of catching trade from tourists passing through. That is the part she plays.

  Strauss watches her from the first moment she walks in through the door to the jangling of a bell. She does not have the luxury of lingering. She gives the store a glance, zeroes in on the front racks of ski accessories, and crosses directly to them.

  She chooses a few ten-packs of hand warmers and foot warmers, several cans of oxygen, a knitted face mask, and a dark hat with earmuffs. All things a skier en route to the slopes would buy, and perfectly useful for tonight’s Work.

  She takes them up to the counter and drops them on the counter beside the register. Under the glass of the counter is the same violent yellow bumper sticker with its coiled rattlesnake that she had followed all the way up from Wyoming.

  She feels Strauss studying her, but she doesn’t look at him yet. She focuses on a front rack stocked with gloves and glances over the selection without acknowledging him.

  “Headed to Whitefish?”

  She turns to look at him for the first time.

  She is wearing polarized glasses—a pair that looks like prescription lenses, with a tint that slowly fades indoors. The tint shields her eyes but doesn’t draw the attention that sunglasses would.

  In the few seconds she is staring at him, she sees hunting photos framed on the walls behind him, smug men showing their dominion over slaughtered animals. And a photo of Strauss beside a baseball team of boys just Maise’s brother’s age.

  She puts the gloves down on the counter with her other accessories. “How much?” she says. Her voice is flat and cold, intended to provoke.

  She sees just a fl
ash of him, just for a moment. But it is more than enough. The seething hostility. The burning eyes. The simultaneous fear of her—of all women—and a desire to crush out all life. The blind hatred she knows as It.

  Then he turns away to ring her up.

  She takes her purchases and returns to her ATV. Although no one is following her, she locks the doors and drives immediately out of town, putting distance between herself and the man she has just seen.

  She takes the turn back toward Kalispell.

  There is a Walmart and a Home Depot there, where she will be able to buy several innocuous items in bulk. Flares. Fertilizer. Lighting fluid.

  As venal men have proven over and over, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to build a bomb.

  She even knows where to find a very large truck that might be very easy to steal. While its owner is busy at football practice, for example.

  Poetic justice. Using Maise’s teenage tormentor’s truck will put him in dire straits with the men Maise calls the Brigade.

  She will have no compunction about leaving him to worm his way out of that situation.

  The wild card in the mix is Maise, herself.

  Cara doesn’t do this. There is no “we” in her journey. But this girl has stayed strong despite ultimate powerlessness in a town which assigns women and girls not one shred of value. She has earned the right to justice for her brother. Cara will not deny her that.

  She will let Maise choose for herself.

  Chapter 97

  Snake River, Montana - 2011

  Roarke and Snyder

  After a night’s sleep in a hotel in Kalispell, the agents spent the first part of the day reading over every entry in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database for the last three years, making notations they would be able to cross-reference with Strauss’s coaching activities.

  In the afternoon they met with Ziskin in a motel room that was one of the ATF’s centers of operation, Snake River being too small for the Bureau to have set up inside its borders. Snyder filled Ziskin in on their brief but tantalizing conversation with Jean Lange. Ziskin confirmed that he knew of no other missing children from the area.

  Roarke and Snyder headed back to Snake River as the blue shadows of night crept across that enormous sky. Snyder got out of the Tundra a few blocks away from Main Street to walk the rest of the way into town, where he planned to sit at a front window table at the Huckleberry Diner and order a large, leisurely meal.

  Roarke drove the Tundra the rest of the way into town to park on the street and watch the hardware store from there.

  Sitting in the chill dark, he typed out a text that said simply, “Moving.” He didn’t send it. He only wanted it on hand to push Send, in case he had to go without being able to contact Snyder.

  Then he sat, watching the plate glass windows of Strauss’s store, while Strauss moved around in the aisles, straightening, stocking, counting money from the cash register.

  This man who may have killed children, after torturing them for his pleasure.

  It was the most incomprehensible thing to Roarke. Equally incomprehensible that Strauss’s militia buddies probably suspected this of him, if not outright knew it, and that somehow didn’t disqualify him from the inner circle.

  The twisted logic of dominionism in action.

  Right on the dot of seven pm, Strauss moved away from the store counter, and crossed to the front door. He turned the sign from OPEN to CLOSED and shot the deadbolt.

  Almost simultaneously, a Range Rover with the Sheriff’s department logo emblazoned on the side pulled up in front of the diner.

  Roarke’s adrenaline spiked as he watched a bulky, deliberate, uniformed man get out of the car. The handlebar mustache made him easy to recognize from the photos in Ziskin’s file. Not a deputy, but the Sheriff himself. Preston. An Oathkeeper, Ziskin had said.

  He walked with heavy, booted steps up the sidewalk to the front door and entered the diner.

  Roarke watched through the glass as Preston went straight for Snyder’s booth and stopped there, in front of the table.

  Even as Roarke tensed, he was telling himself, Chuck knows what he’s doing. Keep your eyes on your target.

  A minute later he saw a heavy Toyota truck pull out of the alley beside the hardware store. He hit SEND on his pre-written text.

  And he followed, as far back on the road as he could stay.

  Preston took a seat in the booth across from Snyder, settled in with an easy smile and flat, assessing eyes. “Fed, right? It’s customary to let local law enforcement know you’re in town.”

  Snyder knew Preston was either a militia member or an ally of the Brigade. As far as Snyder was concerned, his main goal was to keep the man talking, so Matthew could move if he needed to move.

  He pushed his plate away, leaned back with an open gesture. “Sorry if there’ve been some crossed wires. I doubt my business has anything to do with your town, though. I’m Special Agent Snyder, with the Behavior Analysis Unit, Portland FBI. Violence against children, specifically. We’ve been asked for assistance in the disappearance of Timothy Whitcomb in Flathead Park in October.”

  To Snyder’s surprise, the Sheriff tensed slightly, his pupils dilating.

  That’s interesting, Snyder thought.

  Outside of Snake River, Roarke followed Strauss’s truck on a dark and incredibly winding road. He kept easing further back on the gas, knowing he had to stay far, far behind to keep Strauss from catching on that he was being tailed.

  After fifteen minutes of following, he called Snyder and got voice mail, which gave him a spike of unease. It likely meant that Chuck was still stuck with the Sheriff.

  “I’m on Lenzie road, heading east, following Strauss in a Toyota 4Runner.” He recited the license plate number. “About nine miles out of town now—”

  He broke off, startled, at the sight of a looming shadow beside the road. An enormous standing bear.

  His heart started a crazy hammer in his chest, until he realized the bear was a sculpture, one of those chainsaw-carved things.

  Strauss’s truck had disappeared.

  Roarke put the ATV in reverse and backed up toward the bear. He spotted an unpaved, unlit road to the right, curving into the woods.

  He made the turn.

  Chapter 98

  Woods outside Snake River, Montana - 2011

  Cara

  Dark has fallen and stars are popping out in the frozen sky.

  Cara and the girl sit in the stolen truck on a low wooded hill, Cara watching the small valley below through binoculars.

  The setup she sees through the lenses is one she has seen before. A couple of doublewide trailers buried deep in the forest within the property adjacent to Maise’s family’s farm. It seems to be militia standard: the doublewide weapons warehouse.

  Cara suspects that the stockpile’s proximity had been lethal for Maise’s brother. But now, it is a point in their favor. Maise knows how to navigate through those woods, how to get to the trailer by truck via a just-wide-enough path on her grandfather’s property.

  Everything has proceeded without a hitch. The truck acquired, fertilizer and other items bought and loaded. Every part of the operation so smooth it is clear that the way they have chosen is correct.

  Even if she had not seen the man called Strauss for herself, the number of guns Maise has told her about is always the work of It. The damage these men can wreak is unfathomable. She has been led here, one sign after another. She does not need to know what precisely these townsmen have planned with the weapons to know that it must be stopped. It is the only reasonable thing to do.

  It will not be long, now. Now that it is dark, she could let Maise out, and drive this truck with its cargo of explosives down the hill, then jam the accelerator and let it crash into the trailer. But Maise has said that Strauss visits the trailers almost every night after he closes his shop.

  Strauss is worth waiting for.

  The girl is talking. She s
tarted fifteen or twenty minutes ago and now she can’t seem to stop. Cara understands that. She cannot imagine what would pour out of her if she ever began to speak.

  “People in this town believe these crazy things. Like they say God is gonna Rapture up all the Christians any day now. But so far they’re all still here. Even my Mom believes it. I don’t think she all the way believes it but she’s scared to not believe it. You know? I think maybe she wants to believe that Danny got Raptured because he was too good for this world. And he was.”

  Her eyes are wide, dilated.

  “They want the end of the world. They want it. They want a war so they can fight and hurt and kill. And everyone knows it,” the girl says in anguish. “Everyone knows, and they don’t do anything.” She is overcome, barely present in her own body.

  Cara puts her hand out to halt the mad outpouring of grief. She doesn’t touch her, but the girl stops anyway.

  “We are doing something,” Cara says. She sees the girl’s rapid breathing slow, and consciousness returns to her eyes.

  Now that Cara has Maise’s attention, she says to the girl, “But you need to leave. Here. This place.”

  Maise shakes her head automatically. “I can’t leave my Mom. She’s lost my dad, my brother...”

  “You and your mother both. You need to get out of this town.””

  “She’ll never go.”

  “She’ll go—for you.” She has seen Maise’s mother. She believes this is so. “Not right away. But soon.”

  The girl withdraws into herself. Thinking. And Cara does not speak again… until she sees the sudden flash of headlights in the woods.

  Chapter 99

  Woods outside Snake River, Montana - 2011