Inside the Echo

by Jen Blood

  Megan drank hungrily, eager for more, but panic soon overtook her when he tipped the bottle farther up. The water kept coming. It spilled over her lips, down her chin, as his other hand tightened around her neck. She fought to stay calm. Breathe through her nose. Not let the bastard drown her here and now.

  When she began to cough the water up, he finally removed the bottle from her lips. He didn’t bother replacing the lid, instead tossing the bottle aside. It was sacrilege to waste water out here like that, but Megan figured on Justin’s list of sins, that ranked pretty low.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked, when she could finally speak again.

  Justin moved closer. She could feel him, excitement growing, pupils dilated to pinpoints. His mouth moved over her ear, his breath hot. Wet.

  “I want to take everything from you,” he whispered, his hand still around her throat. “I want you to beg me for your life. And then, when I’m done with you, I’ll watch you beg me to put a bullet in your skull.”

  She wished she could think of a comeback. Wished she could be calm, cool, like the heroines in movies. So little oxygen was getting to her brain, though, she considered it a triumph just to stay conscious.

  Suddenly, she heard an eruption in the brush. A growl burst from Recluse’s throat, and the dog leapt away from Violet. At the same time, she watched as her friend ran full-out for the rifle Justin had left propped against the tree.

  Recluse knocked Justin off Megan with the wild abandon of a defensive tackle. Meanwhile, Megan was worried about her friend’s ability to deal with the firearm Justin wielded so easily. She had forgotten, however, that Violet was the daughter of a military man. The rifle was already cocked and ready to fire, something Violet thankfully recognized. The more difficult issue, however, was where to aim. Justin was pinned to the ground with Recluse on top of him, jaws wrapped around the man’s right arm.

  Violet focused on Megan instead, tearing the gag from her mouth.

  “Recluse, off!” Megan shouted, the moment she was able.

  The dog, well trained as he might be, was so far gone it took Megan another sharp command before he backed away. Blood flecked his muzzle, while Justin lay pale, inert, on the snowy ground.

  For all the show, however, the damage could have been worse. Justin would need stitches, and there would be a scar on his right arm where Recluse had taken him down. Beyond that, the man would be fine. Despite herself, Megan was grateful – not for Justin, but for her dog. Whether the victim is a bad guy or not, a dog known for fatally injuring a human doesn’t usually have a bright future ahead.

  “Good boy, Rec,” Megan said. Her voice was raw, her nerves fried.

  “Is he…dead?” Violet asked, nodding toward Justin. For the first time, Megan realized that her friend was shaking badly.

  “I think he passed out,” she said. “He might be on something. Or he might just be a spineless loser who can’t handle it when things don’t go his way. Hang on.”

  She forced herself to her feet, and turned slightly – careful to keep Justin in her sights – so Violet could cut the ties from around her hands. Once she had, she ordered her feet forward. One step at a time, until she was standing above Justin. She kicked him lightly in the side, and he came to with a start. Megan jumped backward, out of the way.

  Violet’s gun came up.

  “Stay where you are,” Megan ordered.

  His response was a string of curses, blood coursing down his arm. Despite her terror, Megan was proud to note that Violet kept the rifle steady on her target. The senator had trained her well, apparently.

  “Get up, Justin,” Megan said.

  “Fuck you.” He was crying. Actually crying. He wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve – or started to, then saw the blood and paled even further. He turned his head away from them, trying to get hold of himself.

  “No, thank you. Don’t be such a pussy. Get up.” It had been one of his favorite insults, whenever she showed any kind of emotional response to his abuse during their brief marriage. If he got the significance of her words here, he showed no sign of it now.

  “What do you plan on doing if I just sit here?” Justin said, gradually pulling himself together. He looked at Violet, his chin up. “Little Miss High and Mighty over there. What are you going to do? Call your daddy?”

  She aimed the rifle. Megan noted that she had steadied considerably since this whole thing began. Without even giving a warning, she fired. The shot kicked up snow a foot away from Justin’s butt, making Recluse yelp and Megan’s ears ring.

  Justin was on his feet in half a second.

  “What the hell, Vi?!” Megan said. “Give some warning next time, would you?”

  “Sorry,” Violet said. Her eyes never left Justin, rifle still held high. “I’ll do better next time. Do you have any other weapons on you?”

  “Why don’t you come closer and find out?”

  Violet nodded her head toward Megan, and Megan steeled herself for the inevitable. Recluse growled the moment she took a step toward the man.

  “Stay, Rec,” she ordered.

  She moved toward him – the devil incarnate. Bleeding and pale, a trail of snot and tears on his face. “Try anything and I won’t call my dog off this time,” she said.

  She ordered him to stand back to her, his good arm raised while his other hung useless by his side. Moving as quickly as she could without running the risk of missing something, she patted him down. All the while, ignoring his ugly comments, his endless dialogue.

  She came away with a survival knife she’d found strapped to his leg and a pistol he kept in a holster behind his back. More exciting was the cell phone in the pocket of his backpack. It wasn’t inconceivable that he had more weapons hidden on him somewhere, but short of making him strip naked she wasn’t sure how to find it.

  Instead of prolonging the search any longer, she took a zip tie from the stash in his pack and repeated the procedure he’d done to her a short time before, binding his hands behind his back. It was a cruel thing to do given his injury, something that made her own stomach twist, but she knew how stupid it would be to let that keep her from securing him somehow. The instant he saw an opening, regardless of how much pain he might be in, she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to act.

  “Now what?” Violet asked. “My arms are getting tired.”

  “You can put the rifle down for a minute,” Megan said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  She took the phone she’d found in Justin’s pack, and turned it on. Megan wasn’t surprised to see it password protected. Nor was she surprised when she was able to unlock it on the first try.

  030175DIEMEGAN

  Justin’s birthday, and the mantra that had most likely helped get him through his stint in prison for the past five years. Justin had never been the most creative guy on the block.

  “We don’t have any bars out here,” she said to Violet, looking at the screen. “Big shock there. We’ll need to get to higher ground if we’re going to reach someone.”

  “What do we do with him?” Violet asked, nodding toward Justin. He sat on the ground now, hands bound behind him, eyes closed.

  “He comes too,” Megan said. “There are coyotes. If they find him out here bleeding and bound, they won’t hesitate to finish him off.” Why should that matter to her, she wondered? Somehow, it made her feel better that there was something left in her that still worried about such things.

  Violet nodded, unsurprised. Together, they got Justin on his feet and moving. Without a psychopath on her heels tracking her every move, Megan figured they would be found within the hour. They just had to get to higher ground, and keep moving.

  Chapter 23

  Flint K-9 Search and Rescue

  February 5, 6:00 p.m.

  WE RETURNED TO THE LODGE half an hour after leaving the WildFire base, where Jack was still waiting for a callback from his contacts in the FBI. An hour later the call still hadn’t come, and we agreed that waiting any lon
ger would do little to save Megan or the other women still missing. Casper was eager to get on the trail despite the darkness or the snow that had begun to fall. Personally, I didn’t care about my fatigue or the conditions outside; the search had long since lost its luster, and I just wanted our victims home safe and sound.

  The search teams were considerably more sober now than they had been earlier, the forest cold and quiet as snow continued to fall. One group had been ordered back to the site of the original camp, on the off chance that something had been missed or someone had returned to the scene after the fact. The rest of us, bundled up tight and with dogs still eager to get the job done, gridded out from the location where Charlie Babcock had been found earlier that day.

  An hour passed. The wind picked up. Casper was already in Kevlar and foul weather gear, but the snow beneath our feet was turning to slush and I worried he wouldn’t be able to handle the worsening conditions.

  “How are your paws holding up in this?” I asked the pit bull at one point, as he trudged across ice and snow with his head up, forever searching for that elusive scent.

  His tail waved, far more sedate than usual, and he dutifully lifted one paw at a time as I checked to make sure his booties were still intact and securely attached.

  “Does he show any sign of…anything?” Hogan asked me. The exhaustion was beginning to show on him. I wondered how he would handle it if the search went on much longer.

  “He can’t smell something that isn’t here,” I said. “Why don’t you go check on some of the other teams? Jack and I are fine out here on our own.”

  I expected him to refuse, but after another few minutes following Casper’s wagging tail and seemingly aimless trek, he fell back and got on his radio.

  I glanced at Jack, who had insisted on walking alongside me ever since the incident on the trail with Chase and the waterfall.

  “Still no word from your guy in the FBI, huh?” I said.

  “Who knows,” he said. “It’s not like we get reception out here. Even if he gets back to me, I won’t get the message until we head in again.”

  “You don’t seem too concerned by that,” I noted.

  He shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t think it will be that helpful.”

  I raised an eyebrow at that, waiting for him to explain, then realized he couldn’t see my expression in the dark. “Why not?”

  “If it’s Frank Mooney, he’s already out here doing what he does. How does it help us to know how he found out his wife was here?”

  “I don’t know – you’re the investigator, right? Or the former investigator, at least. Details like that must help, or people wouldn’t bother with them.”

  “They matter when you’re prosecuting. They definitely matter if you’re trying to figure out who did it in the first place. Personally, I don’t think Frank Mooney is our guy. Too many things have gone wrong. If it were him, he would have come in, hit his target – in this case, his wife – and gotten out again.”

  “Shonda said Ava wasn’t there when the shooting started, though,” I pointed out.

  “So he would have waited until she came back.” He shook his head. “I read the file on Megan’s ex-husband while you were gone. Spoiled rich kid who fancied himself a world-class hunter. We know he got out of prison somehow – that to me is all we need. This sounds a lot more like someone like that than a professional like Frank.”

  “Knowing who it is doesn’t really change the situation, though. Whether it’s Justin or Frank, we’re still stuck out here hoping we get to Megan, Violet, Ava, and Gabriella before the shooter does.”

  “True,” Jack agreed. “To be honest, I think I’d rather go up against Frank when push comes to shove, though. If it’s him, he has one objective: find his wife. Justin’s completely erratic. He’s just as likely to kill us as he is to kill Megan – we saw that with the warden he shot. He has nothing to lose.”

  With that grim thought to torment us, we fell silent and kept searching.

  We continued on for another hour, Casper still vigilant up ahead. My hands and feet were frozen despite the layers, but that just made me more determined. If this was bad for me, what must Megan be going through? And what about the other women out here? Ava Mooney: a woman with almost no English who had risen up against all odds to escape a man who, by all accounts, made his living as a hired killer. Then there was Gabriella Garcia, the subject of public scrutiny for all of her adult life and much of her childhood. She’d left her home much like Ava, only to find herself at the mercy of a monster the world viewed a hero.

  And finally, there was Violet. Chase said she was working on her dissertation on domestic violence. Her mother’s story made it clear that Violet had personal experience with the subject, but did that experience extend to her marriage? Was that what Sally Price had wanted to tell me, before the crash that nearly ended her life?

  Casper stopped up ahead, so I forced myself out of my own head to tune into the dog. His gear was holding up well and his energy still seemed good, but this wasn’t the kind of night when we could just search for hours with no thought of consequences. Casper was a young, healthy dog, but he wasn’t invincible.

  “What is it?” Jack asked, coming up beside me once more on the trail.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. I crouched beside Casper and scratched under his chin. “What have you got, boy? Need a break?”

  He shifted his head away from me, clearly focused on something. Though his ears were cropped too close to his head for me to learn much, the tilt of his head told me he was listening for something.

  Not so fast, baby girl, a voice whispered on the wind. My stomach rolled, and I nearly lost my balance before I recovered. Heedless, the voice continued. Don’t worry. I’ve got bigger plans than that for you.

  I straightened with some effort, my vision blurred. Jack studied me, clearly unhappy.

  “You’re still hearing the voice?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “What did he say?”

  Go ahead – tell him, sweetheart, Brock growled. Show him just what a basket case you are.

  I ignored Brock, or the voice in my head masquerading as him, and answered Jack’s question. “I think he might have her.”

  When I tell you to do something, do it, the voice growled. The ‘baby girl’ voice – not Brock. The tension rose in the air around me, and something as real as a physical blow landed in the pit of my stomach. I gasped, staggering backward.

  “Jamie?” Jack said. “What is it?”

  I fought for my breath. I could feel her now – beyond the empty, hateful words Justin had been spewing in Brock’s voice, I could feel Megan there.

  “He has her,” I repeated.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. “I don’t see anything; I don’t hear anything but his voice.”

  “Take it easy,” Jack said. He touched my arm, but I flinched away. Jack took a step back, hands at his sides. “Sorry. Just try and breathe.”

  I nodded, and managed a deep breath through my nose while I considered what had just happened. He had hit her. I was unshakable on that fact. Were we too late?

  Before we could discuss the issue any further, Casper’s head came up sharply. This time, I heard it too: barking, somewhere on the mountain.

  “There’s something happening out there,” Jack said, nodding in that direction.

  “Sounds like it,” I said. “We should keep going. Hogan will let us know if we can stop.”

  “Right.”

  “Keep looking, Caz,” I said to the dog. I pulled out the scent article in case he needed a refresher, but my guess was that the scent wasn’t our problem. He couldn’t track the missing women here if they never visited this spot, and it was looking more and more like that was the case. Regardless, Casper trudged on gamely, Jack and me sticking close behind now.

  Minutes later, a crashing in the underbrush on the trail behind us had Casper barking furiously while
I fought a near-fatal arrhythmia.

  “I swear, you need the dang bell more than Phantom,” I said as Hogan approached.

  “They’ve got something?” Jack said to him. Hogan nodded.

  “Gabriella Garcia – the model.”

  “Is she all right?” I asked.

  “She is. They found her hiding in a gully not far from the camp – scared out of her mind, and near hypothermic. Otherwise, though, she’ll be all right.”

  “Did she see the shooter?” I asked.

  He shrugged, completely dispirited. “She doesn’t speak much English, so we’re having a hard time figuring that out. At the end of the day, though, what does it matter?”

  Not much, I realized. And more and more, I was convinced Jack was right: Megan’s ex-husband was the mysterious gunman roaming these woods. If we could find him, we could stop this thing. Assuming Megan was still alive.

  “We keep gong?” I asked.

  “We keep going,” Hogan confirmed. “Gabriella had been there for a while – she was just too afraid to answer when people were out there searching. Which means Megan, Violet, and Ava could still be out there.”

  I hoped he was right, but the experience I’d just had made me think time could be running out for Megan.

  #

  By ten o’clock, snow had given way to a hard freezing rain that came down in a near-horizontal stream, the wind howling through the trees. Casper’s head was down now, tail between his legs. Some humans may have the ability to continue with a job for years at a time even when they loath it; dogs do not. My goal as a SAR handler is to keep it fun and interesting for my dogs. As with people, there are dogs who’ll continue to go through the motions even when the job is killing them, but even those dogs will never be as effective as an enthusiastic, fully engaged search and rescue dog.

  Casper was definitely not enthusiastic at this point, and he wasn’t even partially engaged. Beyond that, the weather conditions were such that even at his best, it was unlikely he’d be able to find much of anything out here.