Backcountry

by Pamela Beason

  She chewed on her lower lip, trying to screw up her courage to drive to their Everett address tomorrow and question Nick. She wanted to make sure the boy was okay, but she wasn’t looking forward to crossing paths with his father. Despite the man’s friendly demeanor, he struck her as a bully. Or maybe a con man. Something off-kilter, anyway.

  She decided to drop by around four p.m. Tomorrow was a Monday. School should be out, so probably Nick would be home, but Tom would likely still be on the road somewhere. Maybe she could convince Maya to come with her. Was that cowardly?

  Lost in thought, she dipped her paddle too deep and had to do a hard brace to keep from flipping. Focus on the here and now, she chided herself, taking a deep breath of fresh evening air. Just be.

  A sleek head parted the water off to her left. An otter. Feeling blessed by its presence, she stopped paddling and let her kayak glide. Two smaller heads emerged—kits? The family swam toward the shore, sliding out onto a horizontal rock there and then vanishing into a crevice beyond.

  Otters. Magical.

  A week ago she’d told Chase that she would spend more time in Salt Lake City. There were no otters there. No saltwater bays like this. That was going to be a hard promise to keep.

  When the otters didn’t reappear, she paddled onward in the shadow of the cliffs, where the soft sedimentary rock had been carved by wind and water into dramatic standing waves. High up on the vertical sides were nest pockets where birds raised their chicks. All those sites were vacant now but marked by white guano stains dripping down from the indentations.

  As she reached the point, the wave action picked up, the breeze and current pushing the water in from the southwest, waves banging up against the rocks and islands. Near the small bird sanctuary island in the middle of the bay, harbor seals on surrounding rocks bathed in the last rays of the sun. In the distance, she heard a speedboat zipping up the channel from the south.

  Turning her kayak around the point, she drifted into another bay, where the water once again stilled between the cliffs. Locals often called the small inlet Fossil Bay because several large, obvious fossils stood out from the rock wall to one side. An expert once told her that the segmented columns of rock stretched out there were fossilized palm tree trunks, but to her they looked more like the vertebrae of some giant prehistoric creature. She liked to visualize plesiosaurs swimming here in ancient times.

  The sound of the speedboat motor grew louder as the craft neared. If the idiot driving it didn’t know that rocks lurked only inches beneath the surface, he’d end up shattering his hull. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the boat zoom into the bay, slowing only a little as it rounded the rocky point.

  She quickly looked away, hoping the boat would zip out as quickly as it had slammed in, but instead it just kept coming. Damn it! She didn’t want to share Fossil Bay, and the creep was shredding the tranquility of the evening with his macho racing stunt.

  A crow took flight overhead, cawing noisily. She dipped her paddle into the water to change course, and caught the flash of white fiberglass in her peripheral vision as the boat skidded into a turn only a foot short of her kayak.

  The wave the speedboat kicked up lifted her kayak, slamming her into the vertical wall of rock. Her paddle snapped. Her right elbow crashed into the sandstone. Her forehead was thankfully slowed by glancing off her upraised arm before it, too, smashed into the rock. Everything went white for a slow-motion second as her kayak flipped. Cold saltwater slapped her face and raced down her neck as she turned upside down, her boat rebounding again off the rock. She involuntarily sucked in a mouthful of water before she came to her senses, choking. Bending forward in the dark water, she reached for the grab loop on her spray skirt.

  The boat motor was deafening, and for a few horrific seconds, she was terrified she’d feel the blades of the propeller rip into her torso. She pulled on the grab loop. In rescue practice, she’d always been able to easily jerk the spray skirt loose from the coaming and free herself to swim out of her kayak. Now it didn’t budge. Hanging upside down, blind in the murky water, she and the kayak bounced off the shore again. This time she smacked her left shoulder against the rock, and she nearly opened her mouth to gasp in pain.

  When she yanked on the loop, the front part of her kayak flexed too, the coaming refusing to release the spray skirt. Horror added fuel to her burning lungs as she realized the bow of her kayak was smashed. She was bungee-corded upside down into the resulting flotsam, which continued to crash into and then rebound off the rocky cliff. Her legs were trapped. She might drown here in the heavy duty wash cycle of Fossil Bay.

  Pressing her feet upward against the hull, she pushed with both feet while she yanked on the loop. Her lungs were exploding, her throat burning with the need for air. Her right foot slid off the fiberglass into the cold water, and she lost her leverage.

  Blindly flailing to locate a solid position for that foot again, she wondered if she should simply abandon the effort and try to pull herself upright with her arms. That seemed unlikely to work, but maybe she could get a breath of air before the debris dragged her down again. She hit the rock once more, this time with a bit less force. Finally her foot found purchase against the remains of the hull. Oh God, air, please. Air! She pushed with both legs and pulled with both hands, nearly folding the kayak around her body.

  Finally the spray skirt cord snapped off the coaming, freeing her from the cockpit. Kicking and clawing upward through the floating pieces, she fought her way out of the wreckage.

  Coughing violently but finally upright with her face in air again, she drifted for a minute with the debris, clacking against the shore in the waning daylight, gasping for breath, and thankful she was still wearing her life vest.

  Cliffs rose on all sides of Fossil Bay. At the shallow end of the bay, she knew there was a small sandy beach, submerged under frigid water now at high tide. Assuming she managed to haul herself on shore before hypothermia claimed her, she’d still have to scramble up the cliff in her wet clothes.

  The speedboat had vanished.

  Chapter 26

  In her kayak, Sam could paddle from Fossil Bay to the shore of Mud Bay in under twenty minutes, but traveling overland was a whole different experience. Anger kept her warm enough to dog-paddle to the far end of the cove where, shivering and standing in knee-deep water, she shucked her spray skirt and life vest and eyed the best way to ascend the steeply sloping bank. It was the only possible route up out of the bay, but it was covered with Himalayan blackberry bushes, the invasive scourge of the Pacific Northwest, the interwoven spiked branches eagerly waiting to claw her hair and skin.

  There was nothing to be done except battle through them. She’d lost one of her water sandals, so she kicked the other one off. She tossed her spray skirt as far as she could up the bank, then started to follow that with her life vest, remembering at the last second to recover her car key from the front pocket, slipping it into her waterlogged bra.

  Her right arm felt numb, and she had a hard time controlling that hand. Her left shoulder ached but still worked. The warm liquid that ran down her face had to be blood, but she had nothing to control the flow, unless she peeled off the lightweight shirt she wore. She settled for wiping blood out of her eyes with her shirttail and periodically pressing her hand against the gash she felt at her hairline. Finally, out of desperation, she plastered a fallen leaf against the wound, which was no doubt unhygienic but miraculously served to glue the cut more or less closed. By the time she finally gained the top of the hill, the sun had set.

  She checked the lone house there. Not a single light shone through the windows. No vehicles. No sign of life. She remembered reading that the family who owned the property had generously left it to the county as park land. Looked as if the owners had already abandoned it. No help there.

  She set off again, still shivering but warmer now from her exertions, climbing along the hillside above the water, forced to hang onto rocks and trees and claw h
er way along to keep from falling into the bay. The cliffs rose steeply from the water, their vertical sides either slick wind-polished sandstone or obstacle courses of vines, twisted madronas, and ferns barely clinging to the rocky slopes.

  She was an idiot. Why the hell didn’t she carry her cell phone when she went on these little adventures?

  Because they were little adventures, she argued. If she’d been kayaking between islands in the San Juans, she would have worn her wetsuit and dry top and armed herself with a marine radio as well as a cell phone. But this was her back yard; she paddled in Chuckanut Bay all the time. There were usually enough boaters here to call in an alarm if needed, and she’d never landed in trouble before.

  Still, she cursed her stupidity as she clawed her way along the steep sides of the bay, crossing above the railroad tunnel as one of the damned coal trains thundered through beneath her, the engine blasting its horn as it went. It might have been possible to climb up to the houses of the wealthy perched on the cliff top above her, but she was more interested in reaching her car, and even if some kind neighbor there drove her the circular route back to Mud Bay, that would no doubt take just as long. After two hours of struggling along the steep banks and one startling encounter with a fang-baring raccoon, she finally was able to stand upright on the beach at the north end of Mud Bay.

  She stomped her way back to her car. There was absolutely no doubt that the attack had been deliberate. Someone had tried to kill her. It had taken her so long to extract herself from the wreckage that he probably believed she’d drowned.

  She had no doubt that her attacker was a “he.” A “he” with a pickup and a speedboat. He knew both her and her kayak, and she’d foolishly told him about Mud Bay. He couldn’t have put his boat in there to follow her, but it was a relatively short drive to the boat ramp in Larrabee Park, and then a speedy trip around the coastline to Chuckanut Bay and Fossil Bay.

  He knew she’d found a button belonging to his son on a trail where two women had been murdered. He knew she’d heard his pleas to his son about leaving the past behind. He’d cost her a kayak worth more than a thousand dollars and a paddle worth five hundred. He had intended to cost Sam her life.

  In the dark parking lot, she swapped her drowned and torn pants and shirt for the dry clothes she always kept in the trunk: fleece top, yoga pants, dry socks, and running shoes. She was hungry, she was exhausted. Her head hurt, her shoulder and elbow ached, and her hands and feet were on fire, shredded by her trek back from Fossil Cove.

  Tom Lewis no doubt believed he had killed Sam Westin, just like he’d killed her friends. She was furious, and suddenly absolutely certain she was right. But the murders still made no sense, and she still had no proof. Nick had to know about the crime—what would happen to him? If Tom was willing to go after her, would he kill his son?

  The Lewises obviously had guns in the house. At times during the Wilderness Quest expedition, Nick had seemed almost suicidal. Was he likely to kill himself? Was he already dead? Her imagination produced a terrible vision of Nick’s body sprawled in blood across the floor. The clock could be ticking for that boy.

  As she started her car and pulled out of the shadows, she considered calling 9-1-1. And say what? She didn’t have time to explain what had just happened and detail all her suspicions; she jammed her ancient plug-in GPS unit into the cigarette lighter and yelled at it to wake up and find the Lewis address in Everett as she pulled onto I-5 southbound. If only the dang thing could make a phone call. What would get the police to go and check on the Lewis house right away?

  She could think of only one thing. She pulled into the first rest stop and called 9-1-1 from the pay phone there. It took five minutes of repetition to explain that it didn’t matter who or where she was, she needed the Everett police to check on the welfare of a child at the Lewis address. There were guns in the house and the child could be in danger from his father.

  “Who are you in relationship to this child?” the operator kept asking. “Why do you think the child could be in danger?”

  In exasperation, she hung up, unsure if the operator had taken her seriously. As she exited the highway on the outskirts of Everett forty minutes later, she passed a police cruiser headed the opposite way. She honked and waved, but the officer driving didn’t even glance in her direction as he accelerated onto the on-ramp.

  The voice of her grumpy GPS unit guided her through a maze of dark streets to the Lewis house, often issuing directions too late to make the turns, and then chanting “recalculating...” to her annoyance. Twice it ordered her to make a U-turn and backtrack.

  The address was on the edge of a newish suburb, down a long gravel side street. The area appeared to be a subdivision in progress, or maybe one that had run out of financing midway. Gigantic white “For Sale” signs sprouted along the roadside, like weeds grown out of control. Wooded lots predominated, with only two houses carved out of the forest bordering the long street. The Lewis house was the last indication of development in the area.

  Lights from within the small ranch-style house spilled out through windows into the dark yard. She parked in the shadows of the forested lot next door, then walked back to the Lewis house. The speedboat, on its trailer, was parked next to a detached garage. She limped toward it.

  A security light flashed on.

  Shit. Gasping, she dove into the shadows between boat and garage. She ran her hand along the flank of the speedboat. Dry. Damn.

  She gave herself a mental slap; of course it would be dry after Lewis had towed it the same distance she’d just driven. Out of her sight, she heard the back door of the house open.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  A wave of relief passed through her gut. Nick’s voice sounded small and wobbly, but he was alive.

  The security light winked out. Sam stood up, placed her hand on the rollers on the side of the trailer. Tom had wrapped them in terrycloth to protect his precious boat. They were still wet.

  “Go check.” Tom’s gravelly voice.

  Crap. She crouched, waiting in the shadows as tentative footsteps neared.

  The security light flashed on again, illuminating Nick, who seemed to have shrunk since she last saw him. His face, still with mustache and soul patch in place, gleamed in the bright light, his bruises completely healed.

  “Nick,” she whispered.

  He startled, and for a second she was afraid he might scream. Instead, he slapped a hand over his lips and peered intently in her direction.

  She stepped into the light.

  His mouth popped open, and for another second, she was terrified he was going to shout a warning to his father. She abruptly remembered that she’d forgotten to check her car mirror. Coated in filth, with wild hair and streaks of dried blood running down her face, she probably looked like she had recently escaped from the grave. In a way, she had.

  “Cap’n Sam!” Nick threw himself at her, hugging her fiercely.

  His embrace hurt her shoulder and elbow, but she closed her arms around him, glad to see he seemed okay. He stuttered into her neck. “He said ... he said ... you were dead.”

  “He tried. Why, Nick?”

  “It’s my fault.”

  “Nick?” Tom’s voice boomed into the quiet evening. “What’s going on?”

  Nick stepped away from the garage wall into the driveway, swallowed hard, turned his face toward the house. “Nuh ... nothing.”

  Tom’s shadow preceded him. The silhouette of a big man, striding purposefully in their direction.

  “Run!” Nick urged, stepping forward to tug on Sam’s sleeve.

  She stood her ground, wanting to see Tom Lewis’s reaction when he spotted her.

  She wasn’t disappointed. The man’s eyes rounded, his mouth dropped open, and he even took a step backward.

  He recovered quickly. “So that was you who called the cops, you little bitch. Child endangerment, my ass.”

  The police car she’d passed must have responded to her 9-1-
1 call after all. But Tom had obviously passed their questioning.

  “What are you doing here?” he growled.

  “I wanted you to see that you didn’t succeed.” She ignored Nick’s insistent tugging.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nick, come here.” Tom slid his hand behind his back and she saw the shadow of the pistol before the weapon itself as he drew it from his waistband. “Nick, come here!”

  Nick yanked on her sleeve so hard he nearly pulled her off her feet. “Run!”

  Grabbing his hand, she did.

  Chapter 27

  “Nick, goddamn it, get back here!” Tom Lewis crashed behind them into the dark woods.

  The boy towed her by the hand, dodging between trees, which was a good thing because he clearly knew where he was and her night vision had been damaged by the security light. The ground was uneven and Sam stumbled, feet burning inside her running shoes, blackberry scratches and rock scrapes inflaming her soles. The right arm Nick had hold of flashed a lightning bolt of pain to her shoulder and neck with every tug.

  “Dammit, Westin, I’ll have you charged with kidnapping!”

  A loud boom blasted through the night air, and they both stopped, flinching. But she didn’t detect the sound of a bullet whizzing past. She chanced a glance back over her shoulder.

  The tall figure of Tom Lewis was barely visible between the trees, backlit by the light streaming from the house. He’d come from inside the house, so Sam hoped his eyes were taking even longer to adjust to the darkness.

  “My car,” she urgently whispered to Nick. “It’s parked in front of this lot.”

  His voice cracked as he grabbed her arm again. “This way.”

  The sounds of snapping twigs and thudding footsteps behind them proved his father was closing in. Sam and Nick burst out of the woods onto the road, yanked open the doors of her car and jumped in.