Gone Missing: A gripping crime thriller that will have you hooked

by T. J. Brearton

  “Alright.”

  “To shoot again, you’ll hav’ta slide the bolt back, get another round in dere.”

  It was the most articulate Hoot had been since she’d met him. He was calm, exuding a cold focus.

  She felt the sweat running down the sides of her face. Thunder rumbled in the distance. She tried to commit the rifle lesson to memory while she watched closely for Leno.

  There was a faint rustle in the trees on the opposite side of the bald rocks, but Leno didn’t appear. Then there was a crunch. The noise emanated from a different spot, like Leno was still moving through the woods, not showing himself.

  “He goin’ around behind us,” Hoot whispered.

  Katie’s heart pounded. She clutched the hatchet and waited, breathless. Hoot crawled away, moving behind her.

  “Wait,” she called in an urgent whisper.

  He turned to face her, still on his hands and knees.

  “If something happens – how do I get out? How do I get to Atwell?” She’d been trying some variation of Where am I? and How do I get out? since they’d left the original cabin.

  “Southwest. This is Twin Mountain. You need to go o’er the next peak, make camp by the lake. Go o’er Spruce the next day. That’s a big ’un. Then there’s the trail to Haskell Road. You might get out in two days, or could take ya three.”

  A flood of relief. At last she had some references, some direction. She thought she’d heard of Haskell Road before.

  But maybe it was wishful thinking.

  Hoot moved deeper into the trees before she could ask more questions. She didn’t risk calling to him. Then he was gone, leaving her alone.

  She waited, getting pins and needles in her legs from crouching. She thought she detected Hoot still moving, but farther away. The bramble was thick, and she couldn’t see shit. She tried to get a better view of the far side of the peak, where the trees were stippled, the visibility better.

  And then she saw Leno, moving through the tall pines, just for a second. He was at least a hundred yards away.

  She waited a few more seconds, building up the nerve, then she bolted from the cover, sprinted across the open rock, and plunged into the stand of spruce on the other side, the downslope providing all sorts of momentum – too much momentum – and she fell.

  She sprang back up, gnashing her teeth against the terror of harming her baby. Fresh pain grasped at her leg, like something had finally given – her quad muscle tearing – but she kept going, skip-running down into the valley.

  Of all things, the tale of Peter Rabbit occurred to her. She remembered her mother reading it, and the part after Peter left Mr. McGregor’s garden where he went “lippity lippity” along.

  She scurried into the cabin clearing, darted past the sawhorses and wheelbarrow, and slipped in the front door.

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, but she saw a rifle hanging on the wall. It looked just like the gun Hoot was carrying.

  As she reached for it, she heard a shot.

  She froze, her hand inches from the weapon.

  It could have been a bolt of lightning. The sky was really rumbling now, and the sound might have been the onset of a storm. The mugginess was cloying, the cabin rank. Flies buzzed in the dirty windows.

  There was another crack from the hilltop, and the sound rolled away, echoing off the mountains.

  It had to be gunfire.

  Two shots, within seconds of each other.

  She took off her backpack, grabbed the rifle and pulled it down.

  There had to be bullets somewhere in the cabin; she’d heard Hoot collecting a few handfuls earlier. She started going through his things.

  The cramped space was oddly tidy, all of his tools neatly arranged, hanging from wall pegs. She brushed against a dangling coyote hide as she reached for a burlap sack on a nail.

  There was a box of ammunition inside.

  Katie lowered to the dirty floor and opened the gun’s breech the way Hoot had just shown her, by moving the bolt upward and sliding it back.

  Her hands were steady as she loaded in the five shots and slid the bolt back with a click. She’d never held a rifle before, let alone fired one.

  Someone was coming down the hillside – a snap of branches. They were moving at a good clip, careless about the noise they were making.

  Her heart slammed against her ribs. Movement like that, it didn’t sound like Hoot.

  “Katie!”

  The voice sent a spike through her heart. She panicked. Leno was out there, howling, coming for her, making a racket.

  His figure slid past the window. She tried to breathe.

  A few seconds went by. She struggled to stay composed, though her heart was beating so fast she thought it would give out.

  Leno appeared in the window, smacking his palms against the glass, leering, his eyes wide.

  “Katie Calumet!” He loomed there then jerked away, leaving a red print where his hand had been.

  He was wounded. Or he was covered in Hoot’s blood.

  She couldn’t think. Her hearing had gone – just the thrum of blood in her ears.

  Then she saw it: Hoot had installed a deadbolt on the door. In a rush, coming into the cabin, she hadn’t noticed.

  She started to get up, stopped.

  Leno wouldn’t leave, not even if the door was locked. He’d smash the window, maybe shoot at the door; he’d force his way in however he could.

  This was it.

  Feeling numb, as if bathed in ice water, she aimed the gun at the door, tucking the back of the rifle up under her arm.

  She gripped the stock and stuck her finger through the trigger loop.

  The safety.

  Leno was right outside, his footsteps coming to the door. Katie found the lever and clicked it back to the fire position, the way Hoot had done it.

  Leno yanked the door open. “Alright now, Katie, you—”

  Katie squeezed the trigger.

  Leno hadn’t expected it.

  His mouth had formed an oval, his eyes widened with surprise.

  Now he lay on his back, wheezing in the dirt, trying to roll over and get to his feet. He was wearing camo pants and a camo hoodie, like a hunter. Katie could see the dark blood spreading through the shirt.

  She thought she’d shot him in the stomach.

  The rifle trembled in her grip. She got a better hold of it, took a deep breath, and stepped toward Leno.

  Leno managed to get over then up on his hands and knees.

  Shoot him again.

  She’d never fired a gun, never shot anyone, never even been in a fight. Once in the eighth grade, Mary Tamburlaine had pulled her hair, and Katie had slapped the girl on the arm, forcing her to let go. That was it. Now a man was crawling away from her, and she’d put a bullet in his body.

  He was reaching for the handgun he’d dropped when he fell over. He was almost to it.

  But he wasn’t moving.

  Katie got closer, aiming down the sight of the rifle at the back of his head, and moved in front of him. She was able to hook the heel of her foot over the handgun and drag it through the mud toward her. She got a hold of it and tucked it in the waistband of her skirt.

  Then she ran.

  As close an approximation to running as she could, anyway, hobbled by her many ailments, especially the pain in her leg. She went back into the woods toward the hillside and the chapel, justifying her actions as she snapped and cracked through the trees, tearing at the branches – she wasn’t a murderer.

  You’re scared. And now you’ve left him alive. You don’t know anything about guns. What caliber did you just shoot him with? Maybe it missed his abdominal artery, maybe it’s just a “flesh wound.”

  Maybe so. But she had his handgun.

  He could have another weapon. Or get into Hoot’s things, find another rifle – Hoot had one with him on the hill. You just left the most dangerous man in your life alive when you could have ended it.

  She
scrambled up the hill and came to the section of rock, searching for Hoot.

  He wasn’t at the lean-to, and she pushed her way into the bramble flanking the cabin, to where she’d sat beside the hermit twenty minutes before.

  She clawed her way to the other side of the thicket, to the more open area. Spotted Hoot twenty yards away, just his hand, sticking out of the bushes, and she ran over.

  His eyes were open, but he wasn’t moving or breathing. His neck was covered in blood. The bullet wound was high in his chest, likely his heart had been pierced.

  Leno was a better shot than she was.

  Katie lost tension in her legs and dropped to her knees, suddenly weak, short of breath. Her mouth filled with saliva and her stomach rolled.

  She pulled herself away from Hoot and threw up. Everything came out of her.

  Shaking all over, feeling cold and exhausted, she rolled over onto her back and stared up at the sky as the first drops of rain started to fall.

  * * *

  It became a downpour.

  Lying face up, Katie let it soak her. She closed her eyes as the droplets pinged off her lids, opened her mouth and let it rain on her tongue. Then she sat up at last and looked around.

  The world was a gray wash, the trees sagging in the deluge, water already coursing down the rocks in great streams.

  No idea what to do next. The sun was going down somewhere behind the thick pate of dark clouds.

  She glanced at Hoot and considered doing something with his body, but she was in no shape to drag him back down to the valley, and she had more pressing concerns.

  Maybe Leno was just waiting for her to come back. Or maybe he was making his way up the hillside.

  She didn’t see anyone. The hush of rain drowned out any sounds.

  She waited.

  It occurred to her that Leno could have a sat phone, paired to the one she’d found in the cabin. She’d been afraid Carson’s phone meant someone was coming – now she knew it was Leno. Carson could have easily been checking in with him when Katie wasn’t watching.

  Carson’s sat phone hadn’t been subscribed to the emergency service network, and probably Leno’s wouldn’t be either, but Leno might have been the one making ransom demands, and his phone – if he in fact had one – was likely to have battery power.

  She shakily rose to her feet. She hobbled back to the thicket around the lean-to, sure that any noise she made was concealed by the storm.

  If Leno had a phone, even if it had gotten wet, it was built to be rugged. More shock-proof than Carson’s GPS, possibly.

  She snuck up alongside the lean-to and risked a look into the open structure. No one there.

  Her view overlooked the valley, but not with an angle on the front of Hoot’s cabin. If Leno was still there, she couldn’t see.

  She needed to get closer.

  In a minute.

  Katie stayed in the chapel, keeping cover out of the rain. There was no need to rush down there. Leno was shot – let him bleed out. Even if the bullet wound hadn’t been instantly fatal, it could still be a mortal wound, certainly not survivable without medical attention.

  Her monitoring mind mused about having such thoughts. Three days ago she’d been focused on an upcoming presentation for the SPCA board, and obsessing over whether or not to spend the money on a new pair of running shoes (she hadn’t).

  Today she was in the middle of the mountains, miles from anywhere civilized, considering how long it would take for the man she’d just shot with a rifle to die.

  What would she do if she was in his position? If he had made his way in, it was more than reasonable to think he knew the way out. In addition to the sat phone, he might’ve had a GPS, like Carson. Or maybe the sat phone itself had GPS. So he might be cutting his losses, desperate to survive his wound and making his exit through the woods right now.

  But she’d seen his face. If he wasn’t hurt too badly, he’d try to salvage the kidnapping, counting on the ransom money to keep him out of the law’s reach.

  Or, he might try to kill her. Just tie up the loose ends and then vanish.

  The rain showed no sign of letting up, and she wasn’t getting any drier sitting in the lean-to. She wouldn’t be safe in the chapel tonight, despite Hoot’s statuette of the Virgin Mary.

  And her view was disappearing with the daylight.

  Stay here, and risk another confrontation with Leno – on his terms.

  Take control, confront her fear, maybe get a sat phone or a GPS out of it at last.

  Katie tucked the rifle under her arm and moved down the rock face, careful this time not to take a tumble. She kept watch for Leno anywhere near the cabin until the forest obscured her view.

  It was dark within the trees, everything a white noise of rain, gloomier by the second.

  She said a small prayer that Leno was dead, and that he had a sat phone on his person somewhere, one with battery, one that worked.

  Just this one thing, God.

  I haven’t asked for anything so far. I’ve been patient.

  Now I’m asking.

  Just this one thing.

  Just this.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It was growing dark as Cross drove into the small town of Speculator. A light rain began to fall.

  The main drag passed the fire station. Bouchard had gotten in touch with the local fire department and the three-bay firehouse was going to become the new incident command.

  The press had already begun to gather, their contacts within the community doubtlessly tipping them off that the locus of the investigation had shifted. One intrepid reporter was braving the worsening weather, standing with his back to the fire station, face glowing in the camera light.

  There was a diner further down the street. Cross needed a place to meet David and Gloria – David had been released by Bouchard after Gates made convincing statements. And Cross needed to go through the plan he was going to lay out for Burt Frost, the man heading up the massive search and rescue effort.

  The small diner looked open, and Cross killed the engine. The rain was really coming now, pelting the car like stones. He ran inside holding an arm over his head.

  He’d barely shaken off the water and taken a booth by the window when David called, minutes away.

  “Order us whatever you’re having,” David said. “We haven’t eaten all day.”

  That makes three of us, Cross thought.

  * * *

  An odor of greasy hamburgers filled the air. Country music played in the background, a child wailed at a table where parents looked red-faced and overwrought. The cook called from the kitchen that an order was up.

  David and Gloria entered; David sat down across from Cross at the booth and Gloria excused herself to the bathroom to wash up.

  David used a napkin to blot his wet face and ran a hand through his dark wet hair.

  “Thank you. You know, for…”

  Cross nodded.

  “You probably have some questions.”

  Cross glanced out into the advancing darkness. Right now, Burt Frost was putting out the call to searchers to converge in Speculator at the firehouse as soon as the storm cleared. Volunteers would be preparing to leave their families to search for someone they’d never met.

  “I’m only interested in what could help us get Katie back,” Cross said.

  “And so am I,” David said. “If I wasn’t completely focused on that, I’d be pretty upset that I was detained for trying to help my own wife.” There was a vein protruding from his forehead.

  “I know.” Cross omitted any comments about David getting physical with a trooper, how he could be in worse trouble right now if Bouchard had decided to take him to the woodshed rather than let him go. “I’ve been putting myself in your shoes from the beginning,” Cross said. “But I think there are things that… I need you to be straight with me now.”

  The waitress came, interrupting, poured coffee, and left.

  David took a sip of the hot l
iquid and grew contemplative. “You know how in families, people try to help, everyone has their advice, or suggestion, and mostly you just want them to leave you to your business? This is that on a nightmare scale.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Too many cooks in the kitchen.”

  “Well you’re going to have that, with something like this,” Cross said. “But what would you do differently?”

  “They should’ve just dealt with me,” David said.

  Cross wasn’t sure who he meant – the police or the kidnappers.

  The wind threw a spray of rain against the windows. The storm was getting worse and Cross could see trees bending in the dark.

  “We have to find her,” David said.

  “I know. We’re close.”

  David lowered his head. “Ah man, this thing is so fucked up.”

  Gloria returned and sat next to David. “That’s better.” She’d managed to partially dry her hair and Cross could smell the hand soap.

  “Let’s go through it,” Cross said. “The three of us. Let’s figure this thing out. Let’s start with what’s happening with Jean and Sybil. David, you said, ‘I’ll start talking.’”

  David closed his eyes a moment. The way Gloria was watching her brother-in-law, Cross felt like she was as in the dark as Cross was. But both of them had secrets, Cross thought. It was in their body language; it was in everything they didn’t say.

  “Jean is not a bad guy.” David opened his eyes. “He’s just made some bad deals. Sybil is trying to protect him.”

  “What sort of bad deals?”

  “I can’t really say.”

  “You can’t say or you don’t know?”

  “I don’t really know any details.”

  Cross opened his mouth to pressure David, but Katie’s husband put up his hands again. “Trust me, if I thought it would help find her, I’d make some up.”

  “Okay – you realize you were the one who gave me the names. We’ve been looking into Henry Fellows, Eric Dubois, Lee Beck…”