by JT Sawyer
He nodded at her. “Former FBI agent—not serial killer.”
She relaxed her shoulders and exhaled deeply. Her eyes darted along the treetops. “God, we have to get out of here.”
Mitch pressed the side of his fist against a boulder, examining the deer trail again. “Only question is which way? The route to the right is sealed off with a huge concrete embankment that looks like a dam and whoever left us here is probably not too far off.”
She folded her arms and moved alongside him to peer down the trail.
“What’s your name?” he said, not taking his eyes off his surroundings and still keeping her in his peripheral vision.
“Lisa—Doctor Lisa Forgey—at least I used to be a doctor. Now, I’m in between careers.”
He narrowed his eyes, the name jarring a memory he couldn’t access in his post-drug stupor. “Forgey, eh?”
“Yeah, I worked out of Durango for years, in the ER, why?”
“Can’t remember but I think I may have seen you before on a job I was working in southwest Colorado once.”
“You from Durango?”
“No, I’m not from anywhere at this point in my life.”
“Said the serial killer.”
He smirked. “Name’s Mitch, Mitch Kearns. Formerly from Arizona. I was up here on a spring elk hunt.” He looked back at Mulhere’s dead body. “Was supposed to meet up with Barbara this morning at her home.” He paused, shaking his head. “Think it was this morning. Walked into the house same as you—lured by the laughter—and saw her on the couch, lying there with a bullet in her head then…”
Before he could finish his sentence, they both turned their heads to the left as the sound of footsteps crunching over pine needles emerged from the thick swath of vegetation fifty yards away.
Chapter 6
Mitch squatted down beside a large stump, gripping his club firmly while Lisa moved to the left between two boulders, gathering up several fist-sized rocks.
Throwing sticks and stone weapons—never thought I’d ever be in a predicament like this without my pistol or blades! He glanced back at Lisa, who was poised in a low crouch like a catcher at home base waiting to lob the ball out to the pitcher. She seems tough enough. He glanced down at her leathery hands again, which didn’t seem to fit with her occupation.
His attention shot back to the noise on the trail, which sounded like a herd of frightened deer trampling through the undergrowth. A second later, a man in a prison guard uniform emerged. He was tall and appeared to be in his mid-fifties; his thick torso was about the same girth as some of the small saplings he was stomping past. His clothing was soiled with mud and a thin rivulet of blood had dried on his left shirt sleeve. The man had the clumsy gait pattern of a panic-stricken dayhiker who was bent on getting out the woods at any cost. His frenetic pace caused him to stumble on the slippery pine needle footing every few feet and Mitch figured he was someone completely out of his element. As he walked past Mitch, his inflamed eyes darted over to the boulder near Lisa. The man paused, squinting his eyes at the faint blue sleeve of Lisa’s down jacket. As he started to move towards her, Mitch sprang up behind him and stood a few feet away with his club raised.
“Easy, fella,” Mitch shouted.
The man turned and immediately did a linebacker’s rush, his shoulders pitched forward. Mitch barely had time to sidestep as the man’s right hand clipped him on the forearm. Mitch spun to the right, nearly tripping backwards on a log and losing the momentum he had in his club hand. The hulking figure screeched to a halt and turned abruptly, like he was a bull enraged at the antics of the matador. He rushed forward, swinging his left fist at Mitch’s face. Mitch parried the blow using the club in lieu of his forearm and swung the arm down then put his entire weight behind the weapon and shoved it into the side of the man’s neck, causing him to slam against a tree. Mitch jumped back a few feet and began circling him with his weapon hand extended as if he had a fencing blade. “Take it easy, man. I’m not your enemy.”
The man lowered his center of gravity, leaning slightly to break off a dead spruce branch from a tree to his left. “You must have woken up today and thought you’d fuck with someone—only you picked the wrong guy.” He swung the thick branch in a figure-eight pattern, the air swishing as he moved towards Mitch.
“Stop,” yelled Lisa. She had emerged from her rocky retreat and came out in the middle between the two fighters, both of them coming to a halt. “Look at me,” she said, swiveling her head towards the angry man whose chest was pumping furiously. “We just woke up out here, drugged by someone and dumped on the ground. Is that what happened to you?”
He slowly averted his fierce gaze from Mitch towards her, his nostrils still flaring.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Lisa said.
The man raised his chin up, his eyes scanning the ground in recollection. “I had just finished working at the Denver Pen and was driving home. I remember pulling up in my garage after and then…” He paused, standing up and slightly lowering his crude weapon. “Then some kind of sugary odor started pouring in through the vents of my car. Next thing I know, I wake up out here with a fucking squirrel staring at me and a stabbing pain in my back.” He waved his stick over his shoulder.
“That sounds familiar,” Mitch said, lowering his club and standing with his feet side by side. “You said ‘pen’—you mean the prison up in Florence, near Denver?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I’m the warden there.”
Mitch stole a glance at Lisa then at the bulky figure beyond her. “This is sizing up to be a regular game of CLUE, only I sure as shit ain’t gonna wait around for the next dice roll.”
“Whoever put us here had some reason,” said Lisa, placing one hand on her hip while fingering the rock in her other. She glanced down at his name badge. “Brian—you got anything in your pockets? Any tools or weapons or something they might have missed?”
“No, that was the first thing I checked. That and trying to figure out how to get at whatever splinter is stuck in my back.” He arched his neck back. “Feels like a damn tick burrowed into my skin.”
Lisa moved closer to him. “Turn around and let me have a look.”
“That shit ain’t happenin’. Why don’t you check out your hiking buddy over there first?”
Lisa frowned and bit her lower lip. She pivoted and moved back towards Mitch.
“Yeah, I am a little short on trust today, so I’ll pass too.”
She walked up to him and then turned sideways, palming the rock. “If you two alpha dogs won’t let me examine your backs then you’ll have to palpate mine.”
“So you’re dropping the whole ‘you’re a serial killer’ thing all of a sudden.”
“We all have two things in common: we woke up here, clearly drugged and abducted, and we all have an identifiable location on our backs for possible trauma.”
Lisa tried arching her hand back but couldn’t reach the spot between her shoulder blades. “Just run your fingers along my upper thoracic and tell me what it feels like.”
Mitch glanced over at Brian, who was standing like a statue, still clutching his timber bludgeon. Mitch exhaled and stepped up, moving Lisa’s long hair aside and running his index finger over her shirt between her scapulas. He paused at a pea-sized lump in her skin, tracing it with a finger, which caused her to grind her teeth.
“Something just under the surface—it’s round and just a little smaller than a pea.”
“Is there any blood on my shirt near the area?”
“Yeah, but not much, less than a pinhead, but—” He paused, moving closer to examine the fabric. “There’s a little prick in the fabric.”
She took a step forward, shrugging off his hand. “Turn around, let me examine yours. Doctor’s orders.”
Mitch was curious to know if she would discover the same thing and he was starting to feel a little more secure that she wouldn’t try to split open his head with the rock. “If you toss the cavewoman to
ol of yours there first.”
She rolled her eyes and flung the oblong rock on the ground, just missing his feet. Mitch turned around and stared directly down the trail at Brian, who was scanning the forest in between nervous glances at him.
“Some kind of sub-dermal implant that was injected into the rhomboids.” She removed her fingers from his upper back and began pacing back and forth. “I’m guessing you have the same type of implant in you, Brian.”
“Sounds like it’s a transponder or tracking device,” said Mitch.
“Or poison,” said Brian. “What if it’s some kind of vial that can go off at any time?”
“Or an explosive device near the nervous system,” said Lisa.
“Not likely. That kind of thing only exists in the realm of science fiction. This strikes me more like the kind of electronic devices that Secret Service agents and the president have in place to track their whereabouts.”
“Mitch, I’m beginning to think you really were FBI,” said Lisa.
Brian moved closer and looked at Mitch. “You work the Phoenix branch at one time?”
Mitch’s eyebrows scrunched together. “That’s right. How did you know?”
“We had a murder at the prison last summer. Had a lot of guys from the FBI and US Marshals investigating, asking a lot of questions. The paperwork referenced an FBI agent out of Phoenix who worked the case of the convict. I remember his name was Mike or Mitch…”
“Mitch Kearns?”
“Sounds right.”
“You know anything about a Barbara Mulhere out of Durango?” said Lisa.
Brian shook his head in the negative. “Should I?”
“She was a dear old friend whose body is now lying over there in the boulders.”
“So this prisoner,” said Mitch. “Did he…”
“Jesus,” gasped Lisa, pointing to a figure strung upside down from a tree fifty yards away like a cocooned insect trapped in a spider web. His formerly motionless body was now moving as he tried to free his bound hands. Twenty feet below him was a jagged expanse of rock scree. The thin rope lashed around his ankles was frayed and with each motion of his legs, it began unraveling.
Mitch rushed past Lisa and hopped over a fallen moss-encrusted log as he made his way to the now thrashing figure who began shouting for help.
Chapter 7
After leaving the Durango airport in a rental car, Dev had driven to the outskirts of the city to the gas station where Petra indicated Mitch had last used his credit card.
“Yeah, that’s him,” said the heavyset woman behind the counter as she squinted at the photo on Dev’s phone. “Said he was heading up somewhere near Trew Creek Road in his truck.”
“Can you show me where that’s at?”
The woman pointed to a foldout map that was secured under the counter glass, her chubby index finger outlining the route. “It’s about an hour’s drive north of Bayfield then you got to turn off on a dirt road maintained by the county. There are only a couple of homes out there—rich folks in their McMansions, you know.”
“Do you know where the Mulhere place is at?”
She pressed her finger into her doughy chin. “Oh, Lord, yes, she was the poor mother of Tom Mulhere, the sheriff who was gunned down in the hospital by that psycho.”
“You know the Mulhere family?”
“Not personally, but, my dear, everyone remembers that awful weekend. Nobody likes to bring it up much but these damn treasure hunters keep comin’ around here, poking around in the canyon where that Kruger fellow crashed.”
“What do you mean—what for?”
“Supposedly, Kruger was carrying some steel plates for making fake money and they think he buried them in the canyon somewhere.” She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Don’t know how that was possible because he was supposed to be unconscious in his overturned car when the paramedics arrived.”
The woman walked around the counter to a small carousel containing DVDs and books. She handed Dev a hardbound book entitled 48 Hours: An American Manhunt by Julie Gonzalez. “It’s all in there—that lady just came out with that book and was through here on an author tour not long ago. A lot of the locals don’t really like the angle she took on the story with all her focus on the Kruger guy but the details of what happened here in Durango are pretty accurate.”
Dev glanced at the writer’s photo on the back. A petite woman in her late thirties with too much red lipstick and a frilly white blouse amidst a backdrop of the mountains. Wonder if she’s the reporter Mitch was talking about?
She shoved the book on the counter and then walked to the aisle with automotive supplies. Dev grabbed a package of wrenches then went into the next aisle and picked up some duct tape. Heading back to the front of the store, she snatched a newspaper off the rack and placed all the merchandise on the counter.
Dev hastily removed a fifty-dollar bill from her purse and paid the woman, thanking her for her help as she exited without waiting for her change. She trotted through the torrential rain and hopped in her rental car. Dev removed the wrenches from the package and slid them into the newspaper then tightly rolled up the entire bundle. She used the duct tape to secure the improvised bludgeon on the sides and at either end then laid the inconspicuous weapon on the back seat.
She sped out of the gas station, heading north towards what she hoped would be the welcome sight of Mitch at Barbara Mulhere’s place but her certainty started wavering with each mile as the details of the past few hours began unspooling in her head.
An hour later, she found the narrow turnoff to the right and proceeded up the bumpy dirt road. The heavy rain had cleansed the road of any signs of vehicle tracks. She continued past the first driveway, which was gated, and the landscaping beyond overgrown. Dev continued up the hill, the overhanging tree branches and heavy rain causing her to proceed slowly. Her phone chimed and she pulled over beside a large ponderosa pine tree. It was a text from Petra with the phone number of Ed Roth.
She thought about what she was going to say, not wanting to sound like a panicked girlfriend to someone she didn’t know and not even clear how she would relay all the information Petra had obtained by what would appear to be dubious methods. Dev decided to wait and instead texted Petra back her location and plan, instructing him to notify Ed Roth in one hour if she didn’t report back.
She reached into the back seat and withdrew the newspaper club. How much more confident she would have felt driving in this remote region with Mitch by her side and a pistol at her disposal. Yet, here she was going in blind in dicey weather without any backup. She thought about calling the marshal again but what if he showed up to Mulhere’s place where Mitch and the others were having coffee around the dining room table? That would only exacerbate old tensions between the two men and make a difficult situation even worse with the still-grieving mother.
She pushed on along the winding road until it ended at a hilltop driveway. The rain had let up a little and she could see Mitch’s truck along with two other vehicles. She breathed a sigh of relief and began to pull forward then noticed a small guest house fifty feet away to the rear of the property. The twelve-by-twenty green building was nestled in the treeline and barely noticeable. Ten feet away from the structure, anchored in the ground in a clearing, was a small satellite dish. Parked next to the door was a dirt bike with a black helmet atop the seat. She stared at the portable satellite dish again. It was the type of military-grade device that she had used herself many times on missions abroad. Why would someone have that here?
Given how overcast it was and how late in the day it was, she also found it odd that there were no interior lights on in the main house. She got out of the vehicle, quietly closing the door and walking up to the front porch. Dev removed the newspaper weapon, toting it like it was nothing unusual. The heavy wooden door was locked. She moved over to the bay windows and peered inside, past the thin veil of white lace curtains. There was an antique lamp lying on the floor next to the fireplace and a gree
n recliner that looked off-center.
She walked around the side of the house and saw a series of drag marks near the rear door that led to where a vehicle had been parked. Its tread marks had disappeared in the rain but she could still make out the depressions of where the tires had been.
The rain was coming down hard, the gutter spout in front of her overflowing as the torrent ran over a bed of gravel that led past the guest house. She caught sight of someone moving inside, his back to the window. Dev bolted across the grounds, taking up a position beside the front door. She peered into the window again. A stocky, blond-haired man inside was busy jamming radio equipment and some rifle magazines into a large duffle bag on the floor.
I’d say it’s time to call the marshal. She backpedaled towards the side of the house. Just as she stepped around the edge, her coat caught on the rear luggage pannier on the motorcycle. She felt it happen but her tactile awareness didn’t allow her to prevent the helmet on the seat from sliding off. It clanked on the rubble before coming to a standstill. Dev held her breath, clutching the newspaper in her hand, hoping that the noise of the falling rain would obscure the sound. She saw the handle on the door begin to twist slowly and heard a floorboard inside creak.
Ah, hell. She knew there’d be no running for cover and she decided to take the fight to the enemy, charging forward and smashing her foot into the wooden door. It crashed into the man, causing him to recoil into the wall behind him. Dev bolted inside, seeing an HK pistol in his hand. She slammed her bludgeon down on the man’s forearm then immediately swung up in an arc, striking him across the neck as the wrenches clanked loose. The tools had served their purpose and she flung the bundle at his face. He ducked and dove for the pistol on the ground but Dev had jumped on his side, applying a chokehold to his neck while trying to hook her heels around his waist.
The slippery fighter pivoted enough to slam an elbow into her ear, which loosened her grip enough for him to scurry away. She kicked the pistol out of his reach under the woodstove. He grabbed a cast-iron poker and rushed at her, swinging in a controlled pattern that indicated he had some measure of combatives training.
