by Jen Blood
“You know we can’t stay out like this much longer,” Jack said to me, reading my mind. We’d searched only about a quarter of the grid area we had been assigned. Farther on, I could hear the rushing of the Bear River – a fourteen-and-a-half-mile tributary of the Androscoggin River. When we first moved to Maine, this had been a favorite destination of Bear’s.
“Are you sure that’s really the name of this river?” he’d asked, more than once. I assured him that it was, but he hadn’t believed me until I showed him on the map.
“I just talked to Steiner,” Hogan said. “He wants us to check the river, then we’re pulling the dogs out. Rain’s supposed to let up in a couple of hours; we can get out again then.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed.
We began our search of Bear River a few minutes later, heads down as we battled the elements. We hiked down in the dark, Casper up front while Jack and I trailed behind. Hogan, meanwhile, followed his own course – sometimes with us, sometimes not.
With the search team dwindling as the hours wore on, our search strategy remained clear cut: do everything possible to keep from surprising the shooter. We came in hard and bright, full force – a dozen searchers and their dogs in the dark at once, floodlights in tow.
“Our priority is finding these women,” Steiner had reminded everyone before we set out. “And everybody coming back safe. Let the cops deal with the shooter. You guys just get in there and make sure he knows you’re there, you’re not alone, and you don’t have any intention of being heroes.”
Based on the noise of the group as we streamed toward the riverbanks, everyone was taking his orders seriously. The air was filled with the sound of searchers calling for the missing women. Dogs yowled, a wide range of vocalizations, from the deep, throaty barks of the German shepherds to Casper’s high-pitched pit bull yap.
At the shore of the river, now partially frozen but far from stable, I followed the GPS to my assigned coordinates and gave Casper his command.
“Find them, Caz!” Casper’s tail whipped back and forth, the dog newly energized now that we had a fresh, clear goal. He dove forward, but I kept him on a long line this time to maintain some control in case he was tempted to cross the river.
We’d been searching for well over an hour, the wet and the cold now soaked into my bones, when another search dog began barking in the search quadrant just a few meters down the line from Casper and me. Casper pulled up short, recognizing the distinct sound of a dog who’s made a find.
“We’ve got something!” someone called just north of our position. Hogan, I realized after a minute. He’d gone on ahead of us. “Hold up.”
All activity along the river stopped, with the exception of a single bobbing light to our left.
“I need assistance,” Hogan called. “Stat. Jamie, get over here.”
I realized with a start that I was closest, and brought Casper to heel as we charged into the fray.
Five minutes later, I saw Hogan wading into the icy, raging river as another search dog barked wildly from shore, his handler hanging tight to the dog’s lead.
“What do you need?” Jack called to Hogan. I’d forgotten he was even beside me.
“There’s someone in the water,” Hogan called back toward us. “Careful coming in, though – it’s freezing.”
I shone the light toward him and saw what he had spotted immediately: something bulky and red caught on a rocky outcropping at the center of the river.
“Where the hell is your rope, Hogan?!” I called after him. There are protocols for nearly every situation in search and rescue. When going in to a rushing river, an anchor rope is required in order to ensure the searcher isn’t swept away in the process of trying to rescue a victim.
“I’m fine,” he called back. I shook my head in frustration.
“Stay,” I ordered Casper. He sat reluctantly beside the other search dog, a black lab gone apoplectic at the action.
Jack already had his pack off and was digging out a safety line. He handed it to me, and I looped it around my waist and double checked to make sure it was secure. I handed Jack the other end.
“Okay?” I asked.
“I’ll stay on my end if you stay on yours,” he said. “Be careful, please.”
“Always.”
The shoreline was pure ice. I strode across on my cleats, aware of the searchlights and eyes on me from all around. Was this Megan in the water? Would I hear Justin’s final words to her as I got closer?
I gasped as the icy water closed around my ankles…my shins…my knees. I nearly lost my footing between the temperature, the rocky bottom, and the rushing current, but I recovered quickly and forged ahead.
Hogan was waiting a few feet from the object, his expression grim. When I shone my flashlight toward it now, I understood why: still tucked into the parka, caught hopelessly in the current, a woman floated face up. She was blue, her hair waving in icy tendrils around her head.
Ava.
I couldn’t imagine she could possibly be alive, but I wasn’t there to make that call. Bodies submerged in freezing water stand a better chance of survival than those in warmer conditions. It was possible.
Based on Hogan’s expressions and actions, he was praying for the same thing.
Carried in on the air like some insidious bacteria, I heard laughter. I ignored it, knowing I was the only one who could hear the sound.
“What do you need?” I asked Hogan.
“Go upstream,” he shouted, his voice choked from the crippling cold. “I’m going to try and reach her, get her loose. If I can’t hang on once she’s free, you can catch her when she reaches you.”
“At least tie yourself off,” I said. “I’ve got an extra rope.”
He shook his head. “No time. I’m fine, just go.”
I nodded my understanding. I couldn’t feel my feet, could barely navigate the rocky bottom or the rushing water as I stumbled farther upstream. Heart pounding, I watched Hogan as he struggled to close that final distance to the body.
He was within a couple of feet, just another step or two and he’d be able to grab hold. My breath caught when he stumbled, and went down hard. He flailed, caught in the current, cursing the whole while. Casper and the lab were both barking furiously now. I glanced back toward shore and watched as another of the searchers came forward to help keep the dogs at bay.
A second later, Hogan found his feet again. He swore roundly, water dripping down his face. Then, he started back, fighting the current once more to reach the body.
He produced a three-foot grappling hook from the bag he carried over his shoulder and slowly, carefully used it to bridge the distance between him and the body.
I didn’t breathe. Didn’t move. The water battered against me, moving me inches at a time even as I fought to hold my ground. All for what, though? Ava was certainly dead. We had failed.
After what seemed a lifetime, Hogan managed to maneuver the grappling hook under the red parka’s material. He worked the fabric for several seconds, his entire body tensed with the effort to stay still. For a moment, the hook held.
The fabric shifted; the body rolled.
Face still up, dreadfully pale. Virtually inhuman. Sightless eyes stared up at the night sky. I heard others shouting along the shore, dogs barking, but I held my ground.
Braced myself.
The hook slipped, and the body remained caught on the rocks.
“Goddamn it,” Hogan growled.
“Steady,” I said. He looked up at me, grimacing. Icicles had formed in his hair, his lips blue in the pale wash of my flashlight beam.
“Easy for you to say,” he said. He gathered himself for another attempt. “You ready?” he asked me.
“Hoo-yah,” I returned, a nod to his past in the Marines. He grinned, and nodded.
“Damn right,” he intoned, half under his breath.
With a mighty effort, he steadied the hook one more time. This time when he snagged the fabric, it held fast. Body rigid with
the strain, he worked the implement back and forth three times. Four. And then, finally…
It came loose.
I barely had time to register the accomplishment before the body was rushing toward me. I braced myself, legs spread to better hold my ground, but the impact when it hit was nothing I could have prepared for. My legs buckled, and I felt myself being pulled under as the laughter swelled – that insidious echo that I couldn’t shake.
An instant before I went down, strong arms caught me from behind.
“I’ve got you,” Jack said. “Just hang on.”
Together, we moved out of the worst of the current, dragging the body with us. I barely managed to stay on my feet once we reached the shore, but somehow we managed to get all three of us – Jack, me, and the lifeless body between us – to safety.
Paramedics pounced the second we were clear of the water, two of them going to work on the woman lying lifeless on the ground while others provided warming blankets for Jack, Hogan, and me.
“It’s Ava, isn’t it?” I asked Hogan through chattering teeth.
He nodded, though his attention was fixed on the paramedic working on the woman.
For three endless minutes, we stood riveted as the paramedic worked on Ava’s lifeless body. Finally, just when I was sure all hope was lost, she coughed. A shout of triumph went up from the crowd. The EMT rolled Ava to her side, where she vomited half the river water onto its banks. I was shivering, soaked through myself, but felt a rush of relief regardless.
Through tears and near hysteria, Ava started talking in a steady stream of unintelligible Spanish. Unintelligible to most of us, anyway. After a few seconds when no one else responded, Jack stepped forward. He crouched beside the woman without touching her, careful to keep his distance, and spoke to her quietly in her native tongue.
I recognized “Miami” when Jack said it, and Ava reached out and took his hand. She clutched it to her, holding on with what little strength she had left. Jack asked her about Violet and Megan as the paramedics were preparing the sled to take her away, and she shook her head. I couldn’t understand her answer.
“We need to get her out of here,” one of the paramedics told Jack.
“What did she say about Megan?” Hogan asked, crowding in.
“You can ask her more questions after she’s been treated,” the paramedic insisted, pushing them both out of the way. “Not before.”
Chapter 24
WildFire Expeditions
February 5, 10:30 p.m.
FROM EVENING TO LONG PAST NIGHTFALL, they hiked under darkening skies. The last time Megan had seen a weather report, they’d been predicting snow or ice in the days ahead. The taste of moisture in the air made Megan think whatever that storm had become, they were about to experience the full weight of it.
The snow began shortly after dusk – heavy, wet flakes at first that quickly gave way to a sharp, relentless freezing rain. And wind. So much damned wind, Megan thought she would blow away with it.
“I can’t keeping going in this,” Justin complained as they trekked up another steep mountain pass.
“I’m happy to leave you here to die,” Megan said. “Your choice.”
Head down, mumbling curses under his breath, he kept going.
Before long, however, it became clear that Justin was right: they couldn’t safely keep going in this weather. All three were already soaked through, and Megan would be damned if they died before she got a chance to use Justin’s phone to save them all. The irony was just too good.
They stopped and used fallen trees, branches, and the tarp Justin carried with him to make a crude shelter, then hunkered down. The phone still had no reception here, but if they followed this trail another mile or so, Megan felt sure that would change. Just not right now, with ice slashing down at them and her body frozen through.
The shelter they came up with was barely six feet from end to end, the tarp providing only slight relief from the elements. Megan relegated Justin to one side of the structure and tied him tightly, ignoring his complaints. Then, she and Violet sat up together and waited – Violet with the rifle across her lap, Megan with the handgun she’d taken from Justin. Recluse, meanwhile, insisted on remaining outside despite the weather, curled into a tight ball and seemingly immune to the elements.
“You always thought you were so much better than me, didn’t you?” Justin asked Violet at one point, after they’d been sitting in silence for at least an hour.
“The past twenty-four hours makes me think I was pretty on point about that,” Violet said.
“Not to mention the decade before that,” Megan chimed in.
“You and Chase, pristine in your ivory tower,” Justin continued, undeterred. His speech was slurred, the words coming slowly. Megan hadn’t looked at the wound from the dog bite, too afraid that Justin would try something if she got close. She wondered now if it was worse than she’d originally thought.
“What if I told you I know a secret about you and Chase,” Justin taunted. “I wonder what you’d give me if I told you that secret.”
“Probably not more than we’d give you to shut up about it,” Megan said.
Her curiosity was piqued, though – she hated that. Violet remained conspicuously quiet beside her. Megan glance at her in the darkness, wishing she could see the woman’s face. Violet remained upright, silent, hanging onto the rifle for dear life.
“Why don’t you take a break,” Megan told her. “Close your eyes; get some sleep. We both don’t need to stay awake through this. I’ll handle this idiot for a while.”
“You sure?” Violet asked wearily. “I’m okay if you need me.”
“I’ll be fine,” Megan assured her. “Just lie down.”
Violet managed to find a spot in the far corner and curled up, a sweatshirt from Justin’s pack over her. Megan saw Justin watch the proceedings with interest, and prepared herself for his psychological warfare. It didn’t take him long to begin.
“I bet you’re wondering why Chase bought me all this gear. Boots, pack. Guns. He funded this whole operation, you know.”
A few feet away, Megan saw Violet tense where she lay. So she wasn’t asleep. Megan, on the other hand, forced herself to remain nonchalant.
“Not really, Justin. I wonder very little where you’re concerned.”
“Now that’s a lie, baby girl. You know firsthand how thin that line between love and hate is.”
“Not as thin as you think,” she returned.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Megan didn’t give him the satisfaction of responding. She was relieved when Violet, likewise, refused to engage. She had no doubt that he would continue regardless of whether either of them encouraged him. Justin had something he was dying to get off his chest – that much was clear.
Sure enough, he was the one to break the silence.
“You didn’t happen to notice that Chase upped your insurance policy a few weeks ago, did you?” he asked, directing the question toward Violet’s inert form. Megan watched her best friend’s body go rigid. Justin chuckled.
“Yeah. Thought that would get your attention. You going on this trip was his idea, wasn’t it? He was the one who thought it’d do your client so much good. But only if you were there, too.”
“We both decided that,” Violet said, the words breaking from her like she had no control over them. She sat up. “It was his idea, but we’d talked about it before.”
“He pushed pretty hard to make it happen this time, though,” he pressed.
“Shut up, Justin,” Megan said.
“Why? You gonna sic your dog on me again? What have I got to lose? But maybe if you’re willing to make a deal, I could tell you a little more.”
“You make your deals with the lawyers,” Megan said. “Not us. Now shut up, or I’ll make you shut up.”
He started up again regardless. Megan scooted across the short length of the shelter in a second and hit him squarely in the nose with the butt of the r
ifle. Justin screamed. Cursed. Bled.
He stopped talking, though.
Chapter 25
Flint K-9 Search and Rescue
February 5, 11:30 p.m.
AVA REMAINED HYSTERICAL and almost completely unintelligible as the paramedics carried her away from the river, where a snowmobile met them to take her to safety. She wouldn’t let go of Jack’s hand as they loaded her onto the sled that would take her to the hospital, sobbing when others tried to separate them.
“I’d like to go with her,” Jack said to Hogan, now trying to pull the rescue together and get Ava out. “I promise, I won’t get in the way. She needs someone who can communicate with her.”
One of the police detectives intervened before Hogan could answer one way or the other. “We need to question her,” the detective said. “Could you act as translator? We don’t have anyone who speaks Spanish that well, and you’ve already established a rapport.”
“Not until she’s stable,” Jack said. “But if she agrees, I’ll ask her whatever you want.”
“Go ahead then,” Hogan said. “Whatever you can find out.”
I stood by as they left, Casper standing solid beside me. Hogan turned to me when they were gone.
“You should get that dog back in. You’re both going to get pneumonia if you don’t get warmed up.”
I knew he was right, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Ava. Did finding her mean that we were close to Megan now? Or had those words I’d heard earlier mean that Justin still had her? Was she even still alive?
“I’ll put Casper back in and let him get some rest. I’ll get changed, but then I’d like to go to the hospital. We’ll go out again once the rain’s stopped.”
To my surprise, Hogan was either too worried about Megan or too exhausted himself to argue.
I dropped Casper back at the house and found Bear and Ren on the couch watching a movie together, Minion, Whippet, and Phantom stretched out on the floor at their feet. I changed into clean clothes, then took a few minutes to check on Phantom, who was clearly still stiff when she got up to greet me. Bear and Ren hit me with a barrage of questions about how the search had gone, and I gave them whatever information I had before informing them that I was heading back out again.
