The Last Victim (A Ryker Townsend Story)

by Jordan Dane

  “I like your attitude, Royce,” Hutch said. “Let’s go. We got a long night.”

  Before Hutch left the room with the others, Lucinda stopped him.

  “The question you asked me before about the UNSUB—that if he’s hunting anyone who looks like Applewhite, who will he target next—I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “And?”

  “He’s killing the pretenders now. The surrogates. It’s like he’s murdering Applewhite over and over, annihilating anyone who reminds him of Nathan. That’s a great deal of rage.”

  “In the body of an organized and functioning predator,” Hutch said. “You ever hear back from Ryker?”

  “Not yet. I’ll let you know when I do.” She sounded more optimistic than she felt.

  As Hutch left the conference room, with Sinead negotiating for him to buy pizza, Lucinda went back to her office with her mind on Ryker. He hadn’t called in and no one could reach him.

  Something was wrong.

  She had a long night ahead, too. Sinead had given her Ryker’s coordinates, the one she’d recorded the last time they’d spoken to him when his SAT phone was operational. Lucinda also got maps of the location, including the aerial satellite variety. If she didn’t hear from Ryker by tomorrow morning, she’d made up her mind to call in favors, set up a recon, and get boots on the ground—preferably hers.

  ***

  Prince of Wales Island, Alaska

  Ryker Townsend

  I dreamed of the ocean. Suspended in its icy depths, I drifted in a slow moving current, pulled along its murky floor. Heavy viscous buoyancy lifted and carried me through long strands of seaweed that clung to my arms and legs. I pictured everything as if I were outside my body. I didn’t question why I could breathe underwater. I accepted it as fact.

  The water’s surface dappled light across my body in shiny ribbons that reminded me of the sunlight streaming through the trees on the hike to the cabin. I let the warmth of the light slide over me and I drew from the calming memory.

  But in the distance when I heard a shrill muffled sound, I felt the water surge in great swells that pushed me deeper. Large schools of fish darted in frenzy. In fear. Something came. It churned the water from a distance and disturbed the stillness—disturbed everything.

  Even though I drifted helpless, unable to move my arms and legs, I opened my eyes and looked up. A huge shadow eclipsed the waver of light from the surface and made the water colder. I shivered as it crossed over and glided above me with an undulating ease. A Humpback whale swept through the current, feeding on clouds of frantic krill. It killed to survive, yet it cut through the ocean’s depths with such grace that I wasn’t afraid of it—until it came for me.

  The whale opened its massive jaws and sucked at its prey. I felt the pull of gravity and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fight it. I fixed my gaze on the water’s surface and willed my body to rise. Panting for air, I flailed at the seaweed that held me down.

  “Ryker!”

  A loud crack jolted me from my stupor. I broke free of the sea grasses and floated toward a bright light.

  “Ryker! He’s here.”

  ***

  I opened my eyes in a panic. I’d gone from a blinding light to nothing but vague shapes that stirred the shadows. I threw off the covers and pushed from the mattress, as if sloughing off my deep sleep would be as easy as tossing a blanket.

  What had awakened me?

  A loud noise lingered at the edge of my mind—a familiar one—the distant echo of gunfire. Had I imagined the crack of gunshots or had that been part of my strange dream? With the cabin steeped in darkness, it took me time to realize the front door was open. The sun had gone down. Soon it would be too dark to see.

  Justine was gone.

  “Justine?”

  I fumbled in the dark searching for my Glock near the bed. When I stood, I racked the slide and hobbled for my crutch.

  “Where are you?” I called out. “What’s happening?”

  When I got to the door, I saw two bullet holes in the wood. Matson had attacked the cabin. The sounds I’d heard while I was too drugged to wake up. The holes in the door were fresh. They were real. I hadn’t imagined them.

  A crashing sound coming from the trees sent a rush of adrenaline through me. Someone was running. I heard Justine ordering Matson to stop, but the sounds kept coming. He wouldn’t give up.

  “Justine!” I yelled.

  I limped on my crutch and rushed toward the commotion in the trees, praying I wouldn’t be too late. A thin path cut through evergreen trees. They could have gone anywhere. All I had to follow was the sound. Panting and gasping for air, I picked up my pace, hobbling until sweat poured off me.

  In the deepening shadows, every tree looked like Matson. I saw things, heard things, I wasn’t sure were real. The fever had returned and the heat of it stirred under my skin. Sweat trickled from my scalp and drained down my spine. Dark what ifs punished me. Guilt had its grips into me deep. I struggled to remember what I’d heard, but that wouldn’t help Justine now.

  She’d gone after Matson, alone. Without me.

  I heard more gunfire over the next hill. Two different weapons. Oh, God. Please. I pushed through the pain and cursed as I stabbed my crutch into the ground and kept moving. When I heard a woman cry out and scream in pain, I couldn’t tell where it came from.

  Too far. I wouldn’t make it.

  Hang on, Justine. Please hang on.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Prince of Wales Island, Alaska

  Ryker Townsend

  I chased after the sounds of a fight. The noise recoiled off trees and came at me from all directions, haunting me with cries that had to come from Justine. With each passing second my mind tortured me with what might be happening to her. I trudged in the darkness and limped on my crutch, swinging my weight until I nearly fell. My body and head ached as I clawed through thick brush, but when the noise stopped and the night grew eerily still, I lost my last hope of getting to her in time.

  The only sound in the woods came from me.

  “Justine!”

  My voice cracked as I cried out for her. I felt as helpless as the day my parents died, when I sensed my mother taking her last breaths, but couldn’t do anything to save her or my father. The terror of that day had returned—the hopelessness of it—and the God awful guilt of not being able to stop it.

  Stumbling up the hill, I neared the spot where I thought I’d heard Justine in trouble and raised my Glock. I took aim with my hands sweating and shaking. I kept my eyes alert for anything that moved, blinking back the blur of my failing vision. I put up a front I didn’t feel. Something from my past—the sense of being completely helpless—had its grips on me.

  I’d fought that feeling my whole life. I never wanted it to happen again. I’d chosen the FBI to put my gift to good use, and stay in control over how I would use it, but the sense of being powerless had come back too easy.

  “Justine. Talk to me. Please.”

  I lowered my voice and spoke only to her. She hadn’t called out to me. Matson could be hiding, waiting to attack. I griped my weapon, hard, and slowed my heart. I was messed up already, but because of my worry over her I wasn’t thinking clearly.

  As I approached a clearing, I steadied my breath, ready to shoot. I hobbled in steady measured steps to stay quiet. A pale light flickered through the dense trees and made the deepening shadows play tricks on my eyes. I turned in a slow circle and aimed my Glock, praying she’d walk out from the darkness, unharmed.

  That didn’t happen.

  When I got to the edge of the small opening between the trees, I stepped in something wet and slick. The smell got to me first. Even in the dim light I knew what it was. In the bluish haze of nightfall, a blood pool looked like thick oil as it coagulated and glimmered in the cool air. My eyes trailed over the sheen that was too large for anyone to have walked away from.

  Oh, God.

  Someone had died where I stood. There w
ere signs of a struggle. A torn piece of red plaid from Matson’s shirt had been ripped loose and wedged into the base of a tree. Something else was caught in the rough bark—long strands of blond hair.

  “Justine,” I whispered.

  For a split second I had hope for the strong woman Justine was. If she’d fought Matson, she might’ve gotten away. The blood could be Matson’s, but when I looked closer at the thick pool, I noticed an imprint. A boot with a distinctive gouge in the right heel had left a void pattern in the dark puddle.

  No. Please no. I winced when I realized what that meant.

  With Matson able to stand over the blood—after it had been spilled—the blood had to come from someone else. I felt gut punched. I couldn’t move. The sounds of the night closed in on me as I strained to sense Justine or pick up on the evil that hit me in my hallucinations of Matson and Applewhite.

  I felt nothing. Nothing.

  I was alone, yet in the presence of death. I knew how to sense death and that feeling was thick and suffocating now. I replayed what I remembered of the gunshots and her cries for help over and over in my mind. I searched for her until it got too dark to see. Guilt had a steely grip on me and I deserved the abuse.

  In the silence, death drew nearer and I felt Justine’s kiss on my lips. The smell of her skin and the touch of her fingers haunted me. Even with the evidence of a deadly struggle staring me in the face, I didn’t want to believe Justine had been killed. She hadn’t deserved to die like this. The only reason she’d come with me was for the love she still felt for Nate, and when Matson had chosen to make trouble, she took lead to protect me because I’d been wounded.

  But what if she wasn’t dead yet? What if she was too weak to call out to me or unconscious and needed help?

  I stayed longer to search, even though it had gotten too dark to see. I wanted to believe I had a shot at finding her, but if she was already dead, I’d be making it easy for Matson to kill me. Justine’s death would be for nothing. My head and body ached and my ankle throbbed in pain. I didn’t want to leave one of my own behind, but if I stayed until morning, Matson could come for me and have daylight to hunt me down, at the cabin or on the trail.

  I didn’t know what to do, but the blood pool in the clearing had been undeniable proof something terrible happened to her. Justine had been a State Trooper trying to do what was right. She’d bled out at the hands of a killer. I felt bad, but if I wanted her death to mean something, I had to make it off the mountain and make Matson pay for what he did.

  Justine.

  After I got hurt, she had been my rock. The island was her home and I had relied on her. I felt lost without her now. I fumbled my way back to the cabin with my excruciating headache blinding me like a migraine and my ankle on fire and swollen.

  I was bleeding again.

  As I got closer to Nate’s, I picked up my pace. My eyes searched every shadow. I pictured Justine making it back to the cabin and needing my help, but when I got there, the place was cold and dark as I walked through the open door.

  Still as a tomb, the empty cabin made me feel hollow inside. Nate’s hope for a better life for him and his boy Tanner were gone. The love Justine had never told Nate about—gone too. I had an idea what that kind of loss felt like. The tragedy of lives cut short bore deep holes that could never be filled. Violent death ripped apart families and left a wake of emotion and loss that never truly went away. Violence happened to other people. When it happened to me, it became a whole new ballgame, without rules.

  I grazed my fingertips over the bullet holes in the door, the ones Matson had left when he attacked. Justine had been alone to face a cold blooded killer because I’d been wounded and in a drug stupor.

  I didn’t need another ghost to haunt my dreams, but this one I deserved. If Justine was gone, her death would be on me.

  ***

  Minutes later

  Inside the cabin, I stumbled through the dark searching for one of Nate’s lanterns. After I lit one, I saw where Justine had packed our gear before she ran out to chase Matson. She’d done as she promised until Matson took shots at the cabin and everything changed. She’d yelled for me to wake up, but I couldn’t shake off the drugs fast enough to help her.

  I felt sick.

  The fire she’d started in the hearth had died to embers and she’d left the first aid kit and my pills on top of the pack and had refilled my canteen. The Remington rifle and the twelve-gauge were loaded and ready. She must’ve taken the Winchester.

  Seeing what she’d left behind, I knew I hadn’t imagined the gunfire or her running after Matson into the woods. Regret over those precious minutes when she was still with me in the cabin—with me being unable to help her—would haunt me like one of my waking nightmares.

  I still felt her presence, but she’d become the shadow of a memory. The familiar essence of her was strong enough for me to miss. I sensed with some certainty that Justine was gone.

  “Damn it. Why did you go after him alone?”

  I shut my eyes. Now I knew how Lucinda Crowley felt when she’d asked me the same question and got no answer. I hadn’t been much of a team player, but I knew why Justine might’ve gone off alone. She’d gone after Matson because that was her way. Even from the first day, she’d raced after the man without hesitation after he ran from Nate’s cabin. She’d been fearless and gutsy—a State Trooper doing her job. She went after Matson tonight because she wanted a piece of a guy who could’ve killed Nate—or maybe she thought she could end this.

  She’d been wrong.

  In the dim glow of the lantern, I removed my bandage and checked the damage to my ankle. The dressing was saturated with blood. I winced when I pulled it free from my wound and my eyes watered with the pain. I did my best to clean my injured leg, the way Justine had done for me.

  I thought of her as I fortified my dressing for the hike out and prepared to leave.

  Stay focused.

  Matson will pay for what he’d done to Justine, but only if I got off the mountain. A part of me wanted to stay. I wanted to believe she was still alive, but every minute of not hearing from her left a crater in me. She wouldn’t have left me alone, just as she wouldn’t have willingly backed down from a fight. The only way I could help her now was to make it off the mountain and track Matson down.

  I rattled the bottle of aspirin and poured too many into my palm. I had the shakes, bad. Pills dropped to the floor and rolled in all directions. I picked up what I could, but left the rest. I couldn’t see well enough to hunt for them. I dosed up and gulped water from the canteen and thought about Grady Lee Matson.

  I’d witnessed the man’s anger and saw how fixated he’d been on Nate. The guy had even destroyed the cabin to wipe Applewhite out of existence. Now he systematically hunted anyone who stood in his way. Matson could’ve drawn Justine out—knowing if he killed her—he’d only have an injured Fed to deal with. I’d be easy prey for a guy who poached on the island and could take his time.

  I winced at the thought of becoming a Totem topper like Applewhite—with my team sent to process the scene. To process me. Fear gripped me for a split second until anger took over.

  I’m a hunter. Not a victim. I repeated the mantra in my head. It helped with the pain.

  Matson had terrorized us from the start. If he had connections to Seattle or a pilot’s license, I’d stumbled onto the lead I’d come to the island to find—thanks to the strange visions I’d seen of Nate—but I had to survive to stop a killer. More was at stake. I had to stop TK.

  After I finished packing and was ready to go, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared across the cabin. I still couldn’t leave and I knew why. I was waiting for Justine to walk through the door. In the silence, I turned out the lantern and sat alone in the dark and listened to the sounds of the night. Lightheaded and sick, I drank from the canteen and shut my eyes tight. At first the glimmer of the blood pool haunted me and the smell of it had stayed with me. In denial, I shoved those things from m
y mind.

  Instead I concentrated hard and pictured Justine’s face when she was alive. It wasn’t tough to remember her quiet intensity and her fierce attitude as a trooper, always ready to do her part. But when she let me see her grief over Nate, her unexpected vulnerability had gripped me the most. I didn’t want to imagine her dead now, but I had to come to terms with how it had happened.

  The guilt I felt was regret over Justine’s life cut short. The man who killed her deserved the blame. That’s what I told myself, but it would take time to believe it.

  In the dark with the hush of night around me, I welcomed Justine into my memory. I visualized her being with me and imagined the sound of her voice in my head. I knew the hike out would be tough. I’d need her to push me through the pain and I had to cover as much ground as I could in the dark, to make it harder for Matson to hunt me. Justine’s strength and her knowledge of the island would get me down the mountain, like she’d promised.

  When I sensed her with me, I used my crutch to stand. I shrugged into the gear she’d packed, grabbed my rifle, and headed out the cabin door into the dark.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Prince of Wales Island, Alaska

  Hours later

  Ryker Townsend

  Moonlight made ghosts of everything as its bluish haze flickered between the deep shadows of trees. Branches became severed arms and tree trunks turned into bloody Totems. I knew it had to be something in me that distorted trees into gruesome stumps, but it didn’t make them any easier to look at.

  My bountiful mind had gotten good at conjuring nightmares.

  I leaned onto my crutch and staggered over the uneven ground as my eyes searched the darkness. At first I looked for things I remembered on the way up as I tried to make sense of the landmarks now. My eyes searched the shadows for Matson. For Justine. For Nate. Even for the face of my mother.