The hand was not that of a child, but of a young teenager, probably fifteen or sixteen. The size, texture, and shape were all wrong for Josie. Relief washed over him. This meant she might still be alive, but the new hope was mixed with reverence. The girl in front of him, violated and dead, was someone’s daughter.
Isaac studied her with more intensity. As he took in the fullness of her corpse, it became infinitely clear that it was indeed not Josie. The mangled girl was too tall, closer to womanhood than childhood.
He checked her face and got exactly what he expected. An empty cavity stared back at him, and he could see the floor on the other side of the scarlet flesh. The remnants of her eyes, mouth, nose, and upper lip were scattered into a million pieces. Whoever she was, even her own mother would not have recognized her.
Nausea churned in his stomach. Polaroids of brutalized victims were once the extreme. As Isaac held the abused teen in his arms, the reality was far worse in person than in pictures. He cradled her like she was his own, wishing he could have arrived early enough to help. Instead, he’d become the linchpin to her demise.
He laid the girl down and draped a blanket over her nude body. She had suffered enough indignation. Josie was out there somewhere on a path toward a similar fate. He didn’t know where, but she had to be close.
Once again, with spear and knife in hand, he moved toward the rear door. He checked for additional stratagems and found none. Cautiously, he raised the handle and stepped onto the back porch, looking for sign. All was calm.
One more tentative stride forward and a bullet struck him. It collided with his chest at over three thousand feet per second, and he stumbled backward in pained disbelief. He collapsed, coming to rest beside the girl under the blanket.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
W atching Isaac perish from the direct hit was one of the most riveting experiences of Ricky’s life. He had never shot a man before. It was new, utterly unexpected, and he immediately liked it. But questions rolled through his brain like a cigarette factory, and he squelched a rising panic.
What the hell? How did he know where to find me? Is he alone? This should be impossible. The list had begun the instant Isaac’s battered, shirtless body came into the crosshairs. The fact that Isaac was even there encroached on the realm of inhuman. Did I leave a trail?
A quick mental recap confirmed that all the precautions Ricky had taken were completed without failure. At the feint on the highway, he had taken Isaac and Helen’s keys and cell phones and left them with a serious case of fried circuits. That should have held them at bay, but here Isaac was, and the timeline numbers didn’t crunch. What am I missing?
The 30-06 round pierced Isaac through the ribcage, surely ending his life. Ricky had no qualms. The rifle scope was sighted perfectly. The shot had been less than one hundred yards, easy for a novice shooter, and he’d watched Isaac topple like a stone statue. He may be a supernatural badass, but he’s not bulletproof.
Ricky emerged from his hiding place and snuck down to the cabin, cautiously bobbing from tree to tree for cover. Retrieving the journal was still priority, but for practical purposes, he had to make certain his nemesis was defeated once and for all.
Ricky wondered what Isaac’s secret means of transportation was. If he’d driven, dust from the road or the sound of an engine would have easily given him away. A helicopter came to mind, but that didn’t add up either. The noise alone—steady, unmistakable thumps from the long blades—would have carried for miles. There was nowhere to land an airplane. Besides, Ricky had destroyed that option. The only other explanation was for Isaac to have arrived on foot, but the distance from the highway to the cabin was far too great for such a hasty appearance. Ricky put the riddle aside.
He leaned against the passenger fender of his white pickup and used it as a safety barrier. The back porch was on the opposite side of the hood, its wooden door ajar. Everything past the threshold was cast in dark shadow. Rifle at the ready, he stood with an alert posture. There was no detectable movement from within, just as he expected.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Searing, hot pain rippled from the wound. Severed nerves worked in overdrive, sending arduous messages to the brain. Isaac felt like he was being branded with a fiery poker with no relief in store.
The copper-coated lead had passed between his torso and left bicep. A mass of muscle on his outer ribcage, the latissimus dorsi, had an aperture through it, just below the armpit. Agonizing as it was, he much preferred it to the alternative. Two inches in either direction, he would have suffered a punctured lung or a missing appendage. Death might be something he sought before the end, but he wasn’t there yet. Josie. I have to find Josie.
He shuffled across the floor toward the front entry of the cabin, keeping low in fear that another bullet might come whizzing by. Thus far, Derek, the alleged grocery store clerk, had proven rather shrewd.
Isaac inspected his weapons. Shit. A knife and stick against a psycho with a rifle. He squeezed them tightly. They felt so inadequate. C’mon. I need a plan. He turned and faced the old bed. The shotgun!
After a couple quick slices from the knife, it fell off the frame and into his hands. Please have extra shells. The shotgun was an auto-loader, Remington 11-87, and the breech was closed. It was the best news he’d had all morning. A closed chamber meant the weapon had automatically ejected the spent round and pulled a live one from the magazine. It was cocked and locked.
Quickly, he slid back the breech to confirm. It was loaded. He glanced underneath and checked the magazine. Brass and the unstamped primer of another round shined back at him. Two shots. He urgently searched for a box of ammunition. No extra shells were in sight. He would just have to take what was given and get the hell out.
Before escaping the same way he had come in, Isaac briefly took one last assessment of the room to make sure there was nothing of further use. A leather-bound book atop a plywood table caught his eye. He probably never would have noticed, but the space was so vacant of décor, the object demanded his attention. He hurriedly secured it in his grip, not bothering to look inside.
The sanctuary of the forest was only yards from the porch. Refuge was in its shadows, and he concealed himself within. Where are you, Josie?
“Where has he taken you?” he quietly whispered and searched the surroundings.
Keeping his senses alert, curiosity told him he should open the journal. Pictures and rows of detailed notes filled the inside of the book. The contents were meticulously organized, and nothing short of eye-popping.
Polaroid pictures of little girls, vile words of intent, and abduction jottings were all neatly laid out, page by page, each labeled with a name. The chronicle was laden with more victims than Isaac imagined possible. This was not the work of an opportunistic pedophile. This was the doings of a cold, calculated sadist with a very long track record.
He quickly flipped through, bile rising in his throat, until two familiar faces stared up at him. Next to Josie and Caroline’s picture was an article from the Ruidoso News editorial. It pertained to their brilliant rescue of Jason Smith. Following the publication were detailed descriptions of their daily routines and schedules, each listed by date. The printed composition was carefully glued to the page, and the notes were written in clean penmanship. He immediately recognized the handwriting. It matched all three of the letters they had received over the summer. It proved what he already knew. This was the property of the man who had killed Caroline and promised to return for Josie almost three months ago.
The smell of fresh-cut grass, the sound of children’s laughter, and scents of a home-cooked meal drifted through Isaac’s memory. A photograph of Josie and Caroline running in their Ruidoso backyard was clipped to the page. Josie had a Frisbee in her hand, and Caroline gave chase. The side deck off the kitchen could be seen in the background. Two people were on it. He squinted closely and saw himself. The other person was garbed in tan clothing.
Charlie. He remembered sitti
ng on the porch that evening with his friend, having a beer while the kids played. Sarah was out of sight, just inside the screen door.
It sent chills down his spine. They had been stalked, tested for weaknesses. It was not by chance that he had come into their lives. If the twins had never saved Jason and made headlines, life would have gone on as usual. The canvas was much larger than he ever fathomed, sobering yet enraging.
He continued through the pages dedicated to Bailey Davis, followed by Lindsay Watson and, finally, Mindy Kessler. After Mindy, the next sheet of paper was devoted to the young teenage girl in the cabin. Now that he could see her face, he placed who she was. She was the cashier from the grocery store, Ashley. He had taken her sometime between yesterday evening and that very morning. The man posing as Derek was the culprit, and he had snared her out of convenience.
The last page before the blank sheets began was titled “Josephine Snow.” There was a photo of her, Isaac’s Cessna, an outline of the weekend’s events, and a short synopsis of intent. The final inscription was the most recent and meaningful. It read simply “Ghost Town.”
There was no question that the words implied Josie’s current locale. Without a second to lose, Isaac closed the journal. A flicker on the front flap caught his eye. In the lower, right-hand corner of the leather cover were three letters, each stamped in gold leaf: R.E.D.
Do you like … red? Isaac recalled the unwelcome posts, all ending with the same unexplained question. We’ve had his initials from the beginning. He was asking if they liked … him.
Isaac bolted up the mountainside in a flash of raw power. R.E.D. had to be somewhere between the two locations. This was the pivotal wormhole in time, an opportunity to find Josie without the dangerous tension of a standoff.
He had flown over the ghost town multiple times on patrols. In fact, the reference point was often used in his flight logs. She was there. He could feel it.
The device inside Isaac’s pocket was now an invaluable form of communication. He tugged at the flap on his cargo pouch without breaking stride. With sure fingers, he activated the personal locator beacon. Somewhere, a dot on a screen was about to start blinking. Search and Rescue would scramble and arrive at his exact whereabouts. Isaac was no longer off the grid. He was at the center of a map and screaming for help.
Hopefully, word of the crisis had spread to all local authorities by now, and the rescue signal would bring more than just a search team. He wanted the whole damn cavalry.
Chapter Seventy
As an adolescent, Ricky never imagined he would be brave enough to stash an extensive porn collection in his bedroom, but he had. And while he obsessed over magazine prints, he never fathomed the audacious task of buying dirty videos from a stranger on the street, but he had done that too. It definitely never crossed his mind that child pornography would become his addiction. One lustful pleasure after another morphed him into a predator.
His history was one of repetition. The quest for stimulation was in his nature, and new sensations led the way to satisfaction. His bored, neglected intellect always craved something to do. Someone to do.
Now, a grown man apart from his humble beginnings with an X-rated magazine, he was a cold-blooded killer many times over. And with the shot to Isaac, he had laid waste to his first non-target victim.
New gusto flowed through every step he made from behind the pickup and toward the cabin. Adjacent to the back landing, he pressed himself against the exterior log wall. Isaac was cunning, and for his own safety, Ricky aired on the side of caution.
Slowly, his sharp, aqua eyes peeking around the corner, he bolted into the doorway, gun in front and swinging left to right. Instantly, things didn’t add up.
Ashley’s body was there, covered and alone. Dammit! Where is he?
Chapter Seventy-One
The ghost town appeared very different at ground level than from above. Everything seemed smaller from the air, more manageable. The perspective on foot was much larger.
Isaac estimated there had originally been twenty or more buildings in the old mining camp. Maybe five of them were still in fair enough condition to safely enter. One in particular looked to be in better shape than the other four, and it seemed the logical choice. He decided to begin there.
Finally, he had some hard-earned time on his side. The play-by-play of events had been the most intense of his life, even beyond those in the air force. But in the last five minutes, the tables had turned. Even if it were only marginal, he was in the superior position.
Still, the clock ticked. Short of breath, Isaac raced into the clearing of the ramshackle town. He held his left arm snuggly against his shredded rib muscles. The wound bled enough to leave a dribbling trail if he didn’t apply pressure. He clutched the shotgun in his right hand with the barrel pointed out front and ready for a fight.
The rickety shanty was not airtight, and the single entry point stood permanently agape. Cracks in the walls let in tiny beams of filtered light, but not enough to spy into the inner hollow. He desperately wanted to call for Josie. In the mountains though, a voice could resonate and he thought better of it. What if he’s already in there? No, he can’t be. Not yet. Only the intonation of the woods whispered.
The operation required stealth, and stealth meant complete silence. Soft earth and sparse blades of grass cushioned his approach. Fear begged the obvious question. What will I do if she’s not here?
Enough natural sunlight came through the doorway to reveal two separate tripods. One supported a camera; the other had a camcorder. Both were pointed to a pallet of bedding. And there, in the middle of it all, Josie laid bound and gagged. She appeared unharmed, but her eyes were wild with trepidation.
Isaac’s silhouette, the outline of a man holding a gun, revealed itself in the backlit portal, and she thought it was her captor. The sound of gunfire from down the hill had heightened her terror.
The roughly spun ropes that fixed her in position were excruciating. Her hands and feet throbbed with each rapid pump of her heart and swelled with a bluish tint. She tried to scream. The grass-rope gag gnawed into her cheeks.
Relief blossomed inside of Isaac. The angst he had of losing Josie relinquished its grasp and pulled the corners of his mouth into a grin. Water filled his eyes, and joy flooded his heart.
Moving further into the room, he went to his knees beside her. “It’s me, baby,” he whispered.
Josie wriggled hard, not realizing who it was.
“Shhhh!” he demanded, holding a finger to his lips. “It’s okay, Jo. It’s me.” He leaned over, put his face in front of hers, and gave the best reassuring smile he could muster. “He can’t know I’m here,” he said in a hushed murmur. She needed to stay calm.
The distress was still there, visibly emanating through the passages of her eyes.
“We’re getting out of here, kiddo.” Their departure needed to go quietly and quickly. “I’m going to cut these ropes.” His hand ran along one of the taut cords marring her young skin. He couldn’t bear to see her tied like some wild, untamed beast.
He leaned the shotgun against the wall and immediately took out his knife, grateful that he had kept the tool and not abandoned it after the weapons upgrade.
As badly as he wanted to whisk her away into the forest and be done with the killer forever, Isaac snapped back to reality. What he wanted and what was necessary were entirely different. R.E.D. would continue to hunt them and haunt their dreams. Just like he had done all summer, he would pursue them relentlessly, never retreating until he fulfilled his purpose. Running and hiding were no good.
With knife blade ready to cut away the painful restraints, he had to make a judgment call. Footsteps from outside were heading their way. He would have never heard them, but the swirling sierra breeze blew in the right direction and cemented his decision. To liberate Josie now would alert the huntsman, and battle would surely ensue.
He held his finger to his lips once more and gestured for Josie to be silent. The
appearance of her solitude was the best way to save her life.
“Jo,” Isaac whispered. “I am not leaving you.” He gave her a hard, uncompromising stare. “Don’t … move.”
She nodded.
“I have to hide. Do not look at me. We can’t let the bad man know I’m here, okay?”
She nodded again, so brave and trusting of her father.
“Good girl,” he said, barely audible. He stroked a lock of hair from her face and assured her with another smile. “I’m going to get him. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
They were on the edge. One blunder could end it all, this duel to the death. No rules.
Isaac rose and pocketed his knife. He took up the shotgun and backed into the darkest corner of the room. It was against the same wall as the entrance. He stood rigid in the nook, gun pointed at the doorway, safety off, and finger on the trigger. All the maniac had to do was walk into the line of fire.
Josie trained her eyes on her father, and he tilted his head toward the door. She moved them appropriately.
Good girl. Don’t give Daddy away.
A shadow of a man materialized along the outer wall, opposite where Isaac hid. The figure blocked sunshine from passing through pinholes and cracks in the wood. It slid forward and crept to the corner nearest the entry.
Isaac watched, unblinking, each calculated step. At such close range, the lead projectiles would rip through R.E.D., much the same as they did Ashley. There was no way to prevent Josie from witnessing the slaughter.
Isaac could hear his own heartbeat. Intensity bled from his pores, and sweat slicked his palms. He feared that his presence might be sensed. The frozen moment lingered, an undetectable lapse in time. The stalker loomed, his silhouette obstructing shafts of sunlight. Isaac wondered how long he would wait there. C’mon, you bastard.
First Night of Summer Page 23
