The Last Victim (A Ryker Townsend Story)

by Jordan Dane

  ***

  Prince of Wales Island – outside Point Baker

  An hour later

  “We’re over the coordinates where you last heard from your agent. You see any sign of him or Trooper Peterson?”

  The disembodied voice of Alaska State Trooper Whitmire came through Lucinda’s headset as the blades off the A-Star helo’s rotor whipped the treetops and stirred the dirt beneath them. The movement tricked her into thinking any second she’d see Ryker. She couldn’t stop staring out of the helicopter window, praying he’d step out from under the evergreens and wave for a rescue.

  “I got nothing,” she said into her mic.

  “Applewhite’s cabin isn’t far. You ready to move on?” the man asked.

  Lucinda clenched her jaw and nodded as she peered through the deepening shadows under the trees. They were losing daylight.

  ***

  Ryker Townsend

  “You’re…safe.”

  A woman’s voice whispered through my mind. The gentle timbre soothed me. It came in a breathy sigh as if she were inside my head.

  “I’m here. It’s me.”

  Her words overlapped like ripples on glassy water. I wanted to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. My body had no weight. In the distance I heard the hush of waves rolling to shore. The sound tapped into a sliver of memory I couldn’t quite place and I smelled the brine of the ocean.

  Justine. It had to be her.

  The instant I felt her presence, velvet fingers touched my brow and traced down my cheek. My face burned under the coolness of her skin on mine. I had to see her. When I cracked open my eyes, a bright stab of light blinded me and a throbbing pain shot from my eyes to the back of my skull.

  Shadows eclipsed the light. Wherever I was, I wasn’t alone.

  My eyes burned and watered from the strain of trying to see. When I tried to move, I couldn’t. A kiss pressed against my lips and trailed down my neck. A faint whisper—in words I couldn’t understand—brushed by my ear to calm me. A hand touched the skin of my chest and traced down to my stomach.

  The intimacy made me flinch, but I still couldn’t open my eyes. A woman’s face took gradual shape in my mind like colorful brush strokes oozing together. I didn’t want the touching to end. I wanted her and needed her to be with me. As I struggled to see who she was, a familiar voice came to me.

  You’re a bomb that hasn’t gone off, but the fuse is burning.

  I remembered that I’d replied, When I blow, I’ll think of you.

  When her face took substance and the blur cleared enough for me to see, I finally knew the woman who I’d wished wouldn’t leave me. I stared into the face of Lucinda Crowley and I kept my promise.

  She filled my mind and I willed her to stay.

  ***

  Prince of Wales Island – outside Point Baker

  Twenty minutes later

  The A-Star circled a break in the trees where it would be safe to set down. As the aircraft maneuvered for a landing, the ground spiraled into a dirt cloud and tree branches thrashed at the intrusion. Applewhite’s cabin wasn’t far. Lucinda had seen it before the pilot picked the spot to touch down. The log cabin looked deserted. No smoke came from the chimney. No sign of life.

  Seconds before the aircraft landed, she’d released her seatbelt and shifted to the edge of her seat.

  “We got first aid onboard, survival gear and rations, and a crime scene kit.” Whitmire took off his headset and unbuckled. “We’re ready to provide assistance…if he needs it.”

  The trooper had intended to reassure her, but he only stirred the dread she already felt after seeing the quiet cabin. When the cargo door opened, the trooper helped her out and pulled his service weapon. Lucinda did the same.

  Whitmire led the way toward the cabin. The co-pilot, another uniformed trooper named Sawyer, had joined them. No one spoke. They approached with caution, using tactical hand signals to communicate. Lucinda tightened her two-fisted grip on her Glock-19 as they neared the cabin. She strained to hear any sound coming from inside, but heard nothing.

  Come on, Ryker. Please…be here.

  Lucinda wanted her concerns to be over nothing. She wanted to find him safe, but as she got closer, the hair on her neck stood on end. Instinct sent her a message.

  Ryker wasn’t alright. Something was very wrong.

  Whitmire was first through the door. Lucinda shuffled behind him with her gun raised. Trooper Sawyer took the outside and yelled “Clear” once he’d secured the perimeter.

  After Whitmire called out, “Clear inside,” Lucinda lowered her weapon and headed for the front door. She ran her fingers over the gouged wood.

  “Bullet holes,” she said. “Splinters are fresh.”

  “Yeah. Looked that way to me, too.”

  “This place has been trashed. Who would do this?” she asked.

  Parts of the cabin looked well-maintained, but someone had torn things off the wall, ripped up personal treasures, and tossed Applewhite’s possessions in a fit of rage. The way some items were gathered and stacked, it appeared as if someone had cleaned up a bigger mess. Had it been Ryker and Trooper Peterson? If they had made it to the cabin, why weren’t they here now?

  Lucinda didn’t like any scenario that her instincts conjured.

  “Someone with a grudge. Looks like drawings from a kid were shredded.” Whitmire holstered his service weapon and thumbed through a stack of mementos on a bookshelf. “People on the island are more respectful of someone else’s property. They watch each other’s backs, but whoever did this, it was personal.”

  “Someone could’ve ransacked the place before Ryker and your trooper got here. Maybe they were the ones who tidied up after they saw the mess, but with the bullet holes on the door, I have to say I’m worried. Why aren’t they here?”

  Whitmire didn’t answer. He called out to the trooper outside and ordered him to search beyond the clearing of the cabin.

  “For what it’s worth, it looks like someone stayed here recently.” Whitmire grabbed the flap of a backpack and fished his hand inside. “This pack has food, gear, and clothes. If I had to guess, I’d say the clothes belong to Peterson. The trooper shirts are her size.”

  “Ryker didn’t have a backpack with him, but he’d have his clothes and personals.”

  “I’m sure Trooper Peterson had gear enough for a small platoon. Alaskans who enjoy the outdoor life are like that. She would’ve loaned him what he needed, but where is it?”

  The bullet holes in the door, the remnants of a trashed cabin, and now only one pack with no sign Ryker had been here. Lucinda didn’t like what that meant. If there was one pack, maybe only Trooper Peterson made it to the cabin.

  “The stove’s been used, but it’s like whoever was here left in a hurry,” he said. “When Alaskans leave a place, they put it in order for the next use. And Trooper Peterson would know better than to leave food behind for bears to sniff out. Something’s not right.”

  “There’s blood on the bed linens.” Lucinda stared down at the mattress after she’d tossed back the sheets. Once she spotted the stains, she looked for more. “Bloody bandages…and there’s discarded wrappings from first aid supplies. Someone was injured.”

  Whitmire joined her search and rummaged through the backpack left behind.

  “Peterson would’ve brought first aid. It’s part of our duty gear,” he said. “If this is her pack, the med kit’s gone. I bet Applewhite had a cache of med supplies, but looks like that’s missing, too. Whoever was here took first aid with them. You don’t double down on supplies unless you need them. Someone was definitely hurt.”

  “Maybe that’s the reason a pack was left behind. An injured person might not be able to carry much.”

  “Yeah, good point. We could fly down the mountain to see if they’re still on the trail. We have time before we lose visibility. If we don’t find them, we could check Justine’s place in Point Baker. Maybe ask people who know her there.”

  “Yeah. Goo
d idea. Let’s…”

  When Lucinda took a step, her foot crunched on something. She lifted her boot to see white powder residue and more.

  “Wait. What’s this?”

  She dropped to a knee and picked up two white pills she found on the floor by the bed. More were shoved into a crack in the floorboards. What the hell?

  “They don’t look like aspirins, exactly,” she said.

  Lucinda palmed the pills and showed Whitmire.

  “I’ve seen these before,” he said. “They look like Ketamine, normally a tranquilizer used in veterinary medicine, but it’s the new date rape drug of choice. On the streets, they call it Special K.”

  “What? Why would Applewhite have a date rape drug at his cabin?”

  “Good question,” Whitmire said. “Could Nathan Applewhite been given the drug to get him out of here? Traces of Special K could be in his system for up to four days. Anything from his autopsy?”

  “We haven’t gotten the lab results back.”

  Trooper Whitmire reached for one of the pills and took a closer look. “We have a drug field test kit in the A-Star. It’ll take a minute to test. No sense speculating until we can confirm or deny. We’ll at least know what we’ve got here. Maybe it will tie to Applewhite’s autopsy.”

  Lucinda knew a seasoned officer like Whitmire wouldn’t have leaped to a conclusion unless he had a pretty good idea he was right. She followed him to the helicopter with her mind filled with questions.

  “But I thought there wasn’t a definitive field test for Ketamine,” she said.

  “Our troopers on the front line needed a way to test for it in the remote villages we cover. We use a modified Scott’s test. Scott’s failed its intended purpose to detect for Cocaine, but it was adapted to specifically test for Ketamine hydrochloride. It works.”

  “If someone with two legs is drugged with Ketamine, what symptoms would they manifest?” she asked as they approached the helicopter.

  Lucinda watched Whitmire rummage through his gear on the A-Star and retrieve his drug test kit. The picture she’d taken of Ryker in the Cascades, where he’d looked as if he’d seen a ghost, shadowed her memory and wouldn’t leave her.

  “That depends on the dose, but the victims I’ve seen were really messed up,” he said. “They pass out if they’re lucky, but most suffer through severe hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, and insomnia. I’ve even seen body tremors and convulsions in the worst cases. And if something scares them, the fear is extreme and irrational. But there’s no sense worrying until we test what we found. Hang tight.”

  Whitmire performed the test without hesitation. He’d obviously done it many times. One of the pills found on the cabin floor was dropped into a vial and shaken.

  “If it tests positive for Ketamine, it’ll change color quick.”

  In seconds the color in the vial turned dark and from the look on Whitmire’s face, she knew what he’d say.

  “It’s Special K. What in the hell happened here?”

  Before Lucinda said anything, she heard a voice behind her.

  “Lieutenant?” The trooper charged with searching the perimeter of the cabin called from the trees and ran until he reached them at the A-Star.

  “I found something. You gotta see this, sir.”

  “What’d you find, Sawyer?” he asked.

  “Blood. Lots of it, LT. I found a blood trail near the cabin and backtracked it.”

  “Show me. Now,” she said.

  Lucinda didn’t wait for Whitmire to give his order. When Trooper Sawyer turned on his heels and ran back the way he’d come, it took all of her self-control not to run by him and take the lead. Bullet holes on the cabin door, bloodied bandages, and now this.

  Ryker was in serious trouble.

  ***

  Ryker Townsend

  A scream woke me. It jumpstarted my heart and I choked a gasp. The visceral desperation of the cry reached deep and dragged me from wherever I’d been. I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming, but when I opened my eyes, I got hit with a flood of misery. My body had saved every ounce of agony after I lost consciousness and it hit me all at once.

  The pain felt too real not to be.

  The first thing I saw was my body. I hung from a harness and bounced when I moved, like I’d been tied into a parachute dangling from trees. The sway did nothing for my nausea. I’d been stripped of my boots and hung like a carcass of meat. My hands were tied behind me and the harness straps cut into my legs, my shoulders, everywhere. I didn’t think I could touch the ground. My numb legs dangled and my bad ankle must’ve bled. The dressing was clammy and soaked through. When I struggled to hold my head up, I paid the price. My stomach churned bile and the room spun.

  But the memory of the scream rushed back to me. The chilling sound made me forget about my pain. I knew the unimaginable desperation. I’d heard that cry in my nightmares. It was the sound of someone dying. I didn’t have to see to know, but I looked anyway.

  Two by fours in a framework and plastic sheets were everywhere, tinted by the pulse of a red blinking light. I squinted through the crimson shadows of a dimly lit room that looked like a workshop in a garage. Through a blur came shapes. Walls bulged in swells as if the cramped space were made of an undulating gel—like waves in the ocean of my dream about the whale—but that’s where the similarity ended. Here I felt a smothering heat. The stale air carried thick vile smells. I didn’t want to breathe, but I had to.

  Another body hung beside me in a bloodied harness. I couldn’t see a face—only a blurry shape. I squinted to clear my eyesight, but nothing helped. How many more were held hostage here with me?

  A cry forced my eyes to search for the guy making the noise. The gut wrenching wail had come from a man. Across from me, a shiny metal table reflected the red light that pulsed in erratic beats. Water dripped into a sink and the drops became louder. The incessant noise punished me like the pulsing light, but I stared at the man on the table.

  His arms and legs were tied down. His wrists and ankles were bloody. He lay on his belly with a hood over his head. Naked. A strange song came over speakers. Why hadn’t I heard the music before? The singer. I remembered hearing the song before, but couldn’t place it. Ray Charles? The lyrics were brutal. Cruel.

  A dark shape hovered over the guy on the table. Gloved hands held a surgical knife that glinted in the red light. Every cut, blood ran down pale skin and pooled on the table. Another scream sent chills over me.

  “S-stop. Leave h-him…alone.”

  The words were mine, but they came at me from a faraway place. I strained to see the face of the cutter, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open or my head up for long.

  The screaming stopped.

  Time drifted between the darkness like a curtain opening and closing. At the sound of boots scuffing on wooden stairs and the creak of a door, I knew the cutter had gone. The music stopped. The eerie stillness closed in, broken only by the plop of dripping water.

  Had I imagined it? The naked man—and the cutter carving into him—never settled in my mind. Everything felt like the remnants of a bad dream, as if what I’d seen hadn’t been real. I blinked to clear my eyes and took deep breaths. Unfortunately for the guy on the table, he had to be real, but nothing stayed in focus for long. When my vision became clearer, the blur had turned out to be a mercy. The victim had been worked on with a blade.

  I recognized the carving and the skill of the artist. I’d found the Totem Killer. Or rather, he’d found me. Matson must’ve heard my gunshot. He’d tracked me down the mountain from the cabin, waiting until I collapsed—until I couldn’t put up a fight.

  My gaze shifted to the guy on the metal table. His bloodless skin looked blanched and dead compared to the red meat of the scrolled cuts that were carved into his muscles. His butt, lower back, and upper thighs had seen the most work, but the artist was far from done.

  I knew what he’d look like when it was over.

  “Who…are you?”

>   No answer. He didn’t move.

  “Tell me your name?” I said it louder, but everything sounded muffled in my head. “Please…talk to me.”

  The body stirred. I saw him twitch.

  “Ben. My n-name is…Ben Stevens.”

  I almost hadn’t heard him. The way he slurred his words, it sounded as if he were drugged.

  “My name’s Ryker. Who’s the guy next to me? Is he dead?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see when they brought him in. Can’t see his face.”

  Ben lifted his head, but he couldn’t hold it up. I thought about telling him I was FBI, but considering I didn’t exactly look like the cavalry, I kept my creds a secret. Telling him would only strip him of hope. I couldn’t do that.

  “Do you know where we are, Ben?”

  “Y-yeah.”

  He choked on a laugh or a cry. I couldn’t tell which. Were we still on the island? Because I didn’t know how long I’d been drugged and unconscious, I had no idea where we were. I prayed he did.

  “Hell,” he said. “We gotta be…in h-hell.”

  He mumbled something I couldn’t hear, but his sobs told me that he’d given up. He was broken. I wanted to tell him to hang on, to not give up hope, but that sounded like bull shit, even to me. I had no idea where we were. Help wasn’t coming. Help was strapped into a harness and on deck for the next spot on the table, after the blood was washed away—after it would be too late for Ben.

  I wouldn’t have to wonder what the UNSUB did to his victims. TK wanted me to have a front row seat to every cut, to every degradation. It had to be the reason I wasn’t wearing a hood. I didn’t want to die, but to see Ben suffer—and do nothing—felt like another way of dying. I couldn’t save him. I’d watch him get butchered.

  Then it would be my turn.

  “Ryker?” A faint voice whispered to me from the shadows. “That…y-you?”

  I stared at the body hanging next to me. The drugs had muddled my brain. I still couldn’t see a face—only a hazy trail of blood coming from a head wound—but I recognized the voice. Oh, God.