Face Off (Dr. Evelyn Talbot Novels)

by Brenda Novak

  The tires struggled to grip the pavement. Ice was forming quickly, and it was so hard the chains could barely bite into it. At some point, the road would simply become impassable. But Amarok managed to keep the vehicle under control and rolling along. “How was she dressed when you saw her last?”

  Leland, who’d felt the truck slip, pressed a hand to the door to steady himself. “She was in bed, asleep.”

  “She wasn’t interested in going hunting with you?”

  “Nope. She was happy to stay where she was. She warned us to be careful and mumbled good-bye before we left. That’s it. What could’ve happened to her? Where could she have gone? There’s nothing but wilderness for miles around that cabin.”

  “Maybe the storm frightened her. Maybe she thought you were in trouble and needed her.”

  “That’s not it.”

  He sounded so certain. “What do you mean?” Amarok asked.

  “Something else happened.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because of the ax and the woodshed.”

  This was the first Amarok had heard of any ax or any woodshed. “Would you mind explaining?”

  “I don’t know what to make of it. You’ll see.”

  Amarok shot him a meaningful glance, wondering why he hadn’t mentioned this earlier. “We’ve got time to go over it now.”

  He sighed. “Someone used the ax to chop down the door to the woodshed.”

  “Someone? That had to be your sister, right? She was the only one there.”

  “She might’ve done it. The combination to the lock on the door wouldn’t work, so we couldn’t get any wood.”

  “Then it makes sense she’d force her way in.”

  “Except…”

  “What?”

  Worry lines creased his forehead. “The back door to the cabin was busted, too.”

  Amarok slowed even more as he navigated a particularly tricky turn. His headlights were almost no good; he couldn’t see more than two feet in front of him. “Busted how? You mean it was also chopped down with the ax?”

  “Not like the door to the woodshed, no. That was awkward, messy. The cabin door looked like it’d been pried open, probably with the ax, since the ax was lying on the back porch instead of hanging in the mudroom like before.”

  Again, his tires scraped and dug into the snowpack as Amarok pushed the truck to keep climbing. “Maybe she went out with the ax to get the wood and managed that, but when she returned to the cabin she realized she’d accidentally locked herself out.”

  “Could be.” He acted like he wanted to believe that. “There was some fresh wood inside.”

  “There you go.”

  “But she packed all our stuff, had our bags waiting by the door. Why would she do that? For one thing, she knew we still had another night. For another, we’re big boys. We can pack our own shit. We packed at home and in Anchorage, for crying out loud.”

  “Everything was by the door?”

  “Every single thing any of us brought, even the cards and games we played at night. That makes me believe she didn’t plan on going anywhere without us.”

  “Maybe she got scared for you, went out to find you.”

  “If she’d gone looking for us, she would’ve come out the front. There’d be no reason to go out the back and then have to walk around the cabin. Besides, she left the back door standing wide open. Why would anyone do that in the middle of a terrible storm?”

  “Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t latch it tightly and the wind did the rest.”

  An expression of despair distorted Leland’s angular features. “She didn’t come after us, okay? She didn’t even take her coat!”

  Amarok felt a chill run down his spine. He’d gone into this assuming some cheechako had done something foolish and gotten herself in trouble. But he was beginning to wonder if he’d jumped to that conclusion prematurely. A woman alone in a remote cabin wouldn’t simply wander away from warmth and safety, and she wouldn’t go out searching for her brother without suiting up.

  “Besides you and your sister, the two friends who came to town with you are all the people in your party?”

  Leland nodded. “It was only the four of us.”

  “And you’ve had no problem with anyone since you arrived? No one could’ve followed you out to the cabin?”

  “No. We’ve been there for three days without a moment’s trouble. We haven’t even seen another human being.”

  More determined to reach the cabin than ever, Amarok shifted into a lower gear as he headed up the steep grade of the final ascent. He had a bad feeling about this.

  4

  Leland Yerbowitz hadn’t been exaggerating. His sister was gone, and there wasn’t much to indicate what’d happened to her. The storm had obliterated all footprints and tire tracks. There was no way to tell how many vehicles had approached the cabin or how many people had gone inside, where they might’ve come from or which direction they might’ve traveled when they left. Although the floors were wet, especially near the front and back doors, the fact that Leland and his two friends had come in soaked would be enough to create those puddles, so that didn’t prove much of anything, either.

  Amarok found it interesting that she’d packed everyone and piled the luggage by the front door. It didn’t look to him as though she was planning to stay another night. Why would she decide to go early? Was she hoping to beat the storm before they could get snowed in?

  Possibly.…

  Sierra’s coat and boots were wet, so she’d been out in the elements. But she’d come in and cast her outerwear aside. She’d also stoked the fire. Leland insisted that he and his friends hadn’t bothered with the stove when they returned to find her gone, and yet there were still a few glowing embers. That meant it couldn’t have been more than three or four hours since she was here, depending on how much wood she’d used.

  What had she done after she packed up? Why would she go back into the cold without protection?

  She wouldn’t. No one with any sense would. He had to find another answer.

  He unzipped her suitcase. Some of her clothes were neatly packed. The rest had been tossed into the bag as though she’d been in a hurry to gather up what she’d recently used.

  He checked her makeup case. He had no idea what she’d brought with her, of course, but he doubted anything was missing. He saw plenty of makeup, shampoo, hairspray, deodorant—that sort of thing. Although her toothbrush was no longer wet, there’d been plenty of time for it to dry. Her purse was still in the cabin, too, on the floor next to the luggage, and it didn’t appear to have been disturbed.

  Whatever this was, it wasn’t a robbery.

  Leland followed him from room to room and stood at the bottom of the ladder in the living room as Amarok climbed up to peer into the loft. Using his flashlight, he swept the room.

  Nothing. Just a bed, with a blanket folded neatly at the foot of it, and a dresser.

  “We didn’t even go up there,” Leland told him. “No one wanted to climb the ladder, so I slept on one of the bunk beds in Peter’s room and Ted slept on the couch.”

  That gave Sierra her own room, which seemed polite but didn’t mean anything. Amarok might’ve suspected that her own brother or one of his friends had harmed her and they were pretending she’d gone missing as a way to cover it up. After all, they were the last ones to see her. They were also the ones to discover she was missing. But Leland seemed genuinely distraught. Although he’d been quiet since they arrived, Amarok had seen him, several times, turning away to wipe tears from his eyes. The fact that he wasn’t trying to put on a show lent him credibility.

  “Are you sure you haven’t seen anyone out and about in this area since you arrived?” Amarok asked.

  Below, Leland cleared his throat. “No. I told you that in the truck. But maybe someone we met in Anchorage followed us out here.”

  If so, where would that person have hidden for the past three days? There wasn’t another cabin wit
hin five miles. Or did he—or they—leave and come back?

  Amarok climbed down the ladder. “Were there any vehicles behind you?”

  “None that followed us for any length of time, and none once we got away from Hilltop. That would’ve been pretty obvious.”

  True, but Amarok had to eliminate the possibility. “Where did you go while you were in Anchorage?”

  “Nowhere of any consequence. We wanted to see the touristy stuff—Denali and the glaciers—but the tours close down in mid-September. We missed all that. So we simply tried to experience Anchorage like the locals would for a day and a half while preparing for our hunt. Then we came here. We’re supposed to move on to Juneau tomorrow morning.”

  Amarok didn’t say it out loud, but he figured they wouldn’t be finishing the trip. “If someone had followed you, my guess is they would’ve struck before now. Why wait for your last day?”

  “Exactly. There’s nowhere close by to watch what’s going on here, so one day would seem as good as the next. It’s not as if this was the first day she was alone.”

  “Your sister doesn’t have any problems with drugs or alcohol?”

  Leland seemed frustrated by his own emotions as he wiped the dampness from his cheeks again. “No. She doesn’t drink more than an occasional beer or glass of wine. She’s not a party girl, if that’s what you’re thinking. She’s a reader. That’s what she did while we were out; she read—and she was happy to do it.”

  “So she’s not someone who would ever purposely harm herself?”

  “Absolutely not! If you want to know what she’s like, I can tell you. She’s solid. Smart. Kind. She—” He choked up and had to stop talking.

  This guy hadn’t hurt his sister; he loved her.

  Amarok touched Leland’s arm. “I’m going to do everything I can to find her.”

  Still too overcome to speak, he nodded.

  “How did she get along with your friends?” Amarok asked as he looked through closets and drawers and under all the beds. He didn’t come across a single questionable thing.

  Leland replied without hesitation. “Great. We’ve known Peter for most of our lives. He lived down the street when we were growing up. She met Ted just before we left Louisiana, but they were cool, too.”

  “There was no romantic interest between her and either friend?”

  “None. Peter and Ted are both married, and she’s engaged.”

  That didn’t necessarily mean anything, but Leland seemed convinced. “And you were with them all day. There was never a time they were out of your sight?”

  Leland grimaced. “I don’t like the implication. They’re my best friends. They’d never hurt her.”

  “Good to know,” Amarok said. “But the question stands—was there ever a time they were out of your sight?”

  Sierra’s brother raked his fingers through his fine blond hair. “No. They were with me every minute. They couldn’t have snuck back.”

  “Okay. Let’s take a look at the back door—and the woodshed.” There had to be something here that would tell a story, provide a clue. Amarok had been a police officer for ten years. Not long as most careers went. But he’d seen some crazy shit when it came to the outdoorsmen who visited from the Lower 48—stupid, drunken antics where one guy or a couple of guys put themselves or others in danger. He’d never encountered a situation like this one, though. One so inexplicable …

  Leland led him back through the cabin. Sierra’s brother must’ve gained control of his grief and fear while Amarok studied the splintered wood where the door on to the back porch had been pried open. When he spoke, he sounded steady, less in danger of breaking down. “It would take some strength to force that door.”

  More strength than his sister possessed?

  Amarok raised his voice, as Leland had done, in order to be heard over the bluster of the storm. “Can you show me where the ax was when you first noticed it?” Right now, it was leaning against the back of the house, visible in the dim glow of the porch light. But that wasn’t where Leland claimed to have found it when he’d first mentioned it in the truck, which meant it’d been moved.

  As that thought registered, Amarok bit back a curse. If this was a crime scene, having three hunters stomping through the house, touching, moving and dripping on everything, wasn’t going to make his job any easier.

  “There.” Leland pointed at the rough wooden planks that served as the porch floor, about five feet away.

  Amarok rubbed the beard growth on his chin. He hoped this wasn’t what he feared. Two years ago, the owner of the Moosehead had stumbled upon a severed head behind his bar. That had launched Amarok’s very first murder investigation. He didn’t want to be in charge of another one. “Did the ax look as though it’d been dropped? Or was it placed there?” he yelled above the shriek of the wind.

  “Dropped. Discarded in a hurry,” Leland replied.

  Pulling his flashlight from his utility belt, Amarok squatted to take a closer look. He couldn’t see any blood or human tissue on the blade. Thank God. He hadn’t noticed any blood inside the cabin, either, and he’d been looking for it. That gave him hope Sierra hadn’t yet been the victim of foul play, but it also deepened the mystery. If someone had broken into the cabin with the intention of harming Leland’s sister, where was the evidence that she’d been hurt? The blood spatter? The body?

  Or had she been dragged off to another location?

  That was possible except there were no signs of a struggle. And how did the perpetrator know she was here alone and it was safe to strike? Why would he risk coming out in such a terrible storm when Leland, Peter and Ted could return at any moment? And what did he stand to gain by harming her?

  Some killers enjoyed inflicting pain on others, killed for pleasure—like most of the psychopaths Evelyn studied. But Amarok was trying not to let his mind automatically shoot off in that direction. There were over three hundred psychopaths, many of them serial killers, at Hanover House, which wasn’t far.

  But they were all supposed to be locked up.

  He needed to bag the ax, see if he could get any fingerprints off it, but he’d left his forensic kit in the truck so he could walk through the cabin first, discover what he could from a macro perspective.

  Unfortunately, he’d discovered much less than he’d hoped. “Did your sister have any known enemies?”

  Leland blew on his hands. He wore no gloves. Wasn’t wearing a hat, either. He didn’t seem concerned about the cold; he was too worried about his missing sister to let the weather distract him.

  Amarok wore the hat that went with his uniform in the colder months, the one he could Velcro at the chin to keep his face warm, but that didn’t help his hands. Since he knew he’d be entering what could be a crime scene, he’d put on a pair of latex gloves instead of his heavier GORE-TEX ones, and boot covers.

  “No enemies,” Leland replied. “Even if she did, they’d be back in Louisiana. This is the farthest she’s ever been from where she was born. I can’t believe anyone would follow us to Alaska to snatch her. It would make more sense to stay in Louisiana and follow her home from work one night. She lives alone.”

  It was a long shot, but if the killer thought murdering her in Alaska would make the crime easier to get away with he or she could’ve hopped on a plane. If someone had kidnapped her, it might be someone with whom she’d shared the details of her trip.

  Louisiana to Alaska would be a long way to come, but Amarok had heard of crazier things, and he had to start his investigation somewhere. Hilltop was the closest town, but he knew all the locals and knew them well. None of them would seriously harm a young woman. Besides hunting and fishing infractions, which were a big part of his job in the summer months, he typically dealt with bar fights, petty theft and domestic disturbances. Anything worse had always been tied to outsiders.

  Or Hanover House …

  He hated to jump to conclusions. He’d made that mistake before. But had one of the dangerous criminals Evelyn
studied somehow escaped?

  He didn’t have anything else to explain how or why Sierra had vanished.

  Bracing against the wind, he used his flashlight to survey the area directly off the porch. No visible tracks. No clothing or blood. Nothing that seemed out of place. But, of course, just about anything could be buried in the snow, including a body.

  Amarok frowned as he watched the blizzard continue to pummel the cabin and the mountain rising behind it. They had to go. If they didn’t leave soon, they’d be stuck here. But he had to check the woodshed, in case there was something inside to indicate what had happened.

  “Point me in the direction of the woodshed.” Amarok couldn’t see it; the darkness was too complete, and the beam of his flashlight couldn’t penetrate the snow beyond a few feet.

  Leland didn’t point. He started to lead the way.

  Amarok caught hold of his arm. “I’ve got it. You need to go back in before you freeze,” he said, but Leland refused to listen. Pulling away, he lifted his other arm to block the onslaught of the storm and continued to wade through the knee-deep drifts.

  When Amarok’s flashlight landed on the five-by-eight-foot structure not far from the back porch, he pushed Leland out of the way. Whoever had broken into the shed hadn’t known how to use an ax, not efficiently, but had managed to get inside. That, in addition to what he’d seen so far, made him think it was Sierra. She came out, broke into the shed and carried more wood inside.

  “That look like vomit to you?” he asked as Leland squeezed into the small space with him so they’d have some shelter and be able to hear each other.

  Leland stared at the puddle Amarok had found. “Yeah. Smells like it, too.”

  “She was sick out here. Was she ill before you left?”

  “If she was, she didn’t say anything.”

  Amarok wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he turned his attention elsewhere. “You told me the rental company didn’t give you the correct combination to the padlock?”