by Jeff Carson
Tall, thin trees backdropped everything. He knew from experience that if the weather were more cooperative he’d have seen the Olympic Mountains jutting off the western horizon. And had they been in the right spot, Mount Rainier would have loomed white to the southeast. Instead they were surrounded by a gray, featureless sky spewing drizzle.
Nackley turned up the wipers and eyed Wolf. “You look a little uncomfortable.”
“It’s a lot more people than I’m used to.”
“Ever been up here before?”
“I was stationed at Fort Lewis in the army.”
“Really. Ranger?”
Wolf nodded.
“Marines myself. You do Afghanistan?”
Wolf nodded again and opted to keep silent—still unsure of Nackley’s ability to hold a conversation and follow three feet behind an ambulance at fifty miles per hour without killing them both.
A few miles later they exited the highway and hung a right. Only a block later they hung another right and pulled up to the Harborview Medical Center.
The medical campus was large, built from sturdy concrete, and covered in windows that looked out toward the Sound.
The ambulance veered away and parked underneath the emergency-room portico.
“We’ll park in the garage.”
Wolf relaxed as the ambulance disappeared, opening up the world beyond the windshield. “So, why’s your SSA down in Colorado with you? I would have thought the big man in the field office would have delegated that task.”
“Ah. Yeah.” Nackley shrugged. “Earnshaw’s not afraid to get his hands dirty with the rest of us. Or maybe you could call him a control freak.”
Nackley pulled into the parking garage, rolled down the window to get a ticket, and ducked back inside. “He’s a little spooked about Swain being missing, wanted to make sure he talked to Luke when she woke up. Every second counts, right? Jesus.” He wiped the rain off his arm. “Been forty-seven days straight with at least a tenth of an inch precipitation. I’ve been up here ten years and never gotten used to stretches like these.”
Wolf pulled down the corners of his mouth. He figured when it had been that long, you started keeping track. Like serving time in prison.
Nackley pulled forward and parked in a spot near some doors. He shut off the engine and turned to Wolf. “And I’ll see you get a proper rain jacket. That sweatshirt’s gonna be sopping wet if you stand outside in the Pacific Northwest for more than a few minutes.”
“Thanks.”
“When’s the last time you’ve heard of somebody getting amnesia?” Nackley opened the door and blew air from his lips. “It’s crazy.”
Wolf stepped out, once more taken by the density of the air. “I’ve seen it after a guy crashed skiing. Hit his head. Couldn’t remember much of anything for a few days. But it got better.”
He followed Nackley through a door that led to a sidewalk outside.
“Shit, it’s really coming down!” Nackley pulled up the hood on his jacket and jogged.
Wolf did the same, grateful for the movement after being cooped up in the hospital, the plane, and then the car. But the exercise was short-lived as they ran under the covered ambulance tunnel to some automatic glass doors.
Wolf’s phone vibrated. Lauren.
“Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Hey, how’s it going?” Wolf pulled to a stop and waved Nackley ahead.
“… you …”
Just one word, then a stream of static and some jumbled words.
“Hello?”
He received no answer and the icon read no service. He ran out of the tunnel and into the rain, and a single bar of reception appeared.
He called her back but got her voice mail, tried again with no luck, and shot off a text: I’ll call you as soon as I get better reception.
He waited for a few seconds for a response. The rain intensified and plastered his sweatshirt to his shoulders.
“Shit.” He pocketed the phone and jogged back into the tunnel.
Before he got to the doors, he saw a commotion ensuing inside. Three nurses and two doctors stood in a huddle, and at the center a woman backhanded a stethoscope away from her chest.
Kristen Luke had woken up.
Chapter 20
The view from Luke’s room lived up to the hospital’s name.
Wolf stood by the windows, staring out at the foreign city with its white cargo cranes near the harbor, steel-topped stadiums, and the forest of buildings. Beyond the thriving metropolis, the Pacific Ocean licked inland to create the still-looking Puget Sound, where a jumble of ships, boats, and ferries slow-danced in one another’s wakes.
“I’d like you to drink as much liquid as you possibly can in the next few minutes.”
Wolf turned and watched the doctor continue her lecture. Earnshaw paced with crossed arms. Nackley had left the room minutes ago without saying where he was going.
“She needs to rest,” the doctor said to Earnshaw. “And she needs to eat.”
“Not gonna argue with the food part. I could eat this pillow.”
“There’s a menu right there.”
Luke stared at the piece of paper on the roll-table next to her bed.
“Okay. I’ll be back in an hour to check on you. When I return, I want you asleep and an empty food tray next to your bed.”
Luke closed her eyes and pushed her head back into the pillow.
“Later, Doc,” Earnshaw said. “Thanks.”
The doctor left quietly out the door.
Luke whipped the sheets off, revealing her bare legs. “I don’t want to be here. Let’s go.”
Wolf stepped forward and pulled the sheet back over her. “Relax. You were just unconscious for the entire trip from Colorado.”
“Which means I’m rested.”
“No, which shows how much rest you need.”
She looked up at him. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I’m up for Special Agent Luke resting more,” Earnshaw said. “But she can do so on the road just as easily. We have at least a two-hour drive ahead of us.”
“So let’s go.” Luke pulled off the sheets on the other side and stood.
She swayed, put a hand on the bed, and sat back down. “Shit.”
“Lie down,” Wolf said.
Luke shot him a defiant look and remained seated.
The door opened. Nackley came in with two large plastic shopping bags and dropped one on the bed.
“What’s this?” Luke asked.
“Clothes.”
She pulled out a pair of black sweatpants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a dark-blue sweatshirt, a pack of white socks, underwear, a large raincoat, and some tennis shoes. “Wow, thanks. It’s an outfit that says I’m ready for daytime television.”
“That’s as good as it gets from the sporting-goods shop across the street. You want to do some shopping downtown? Maybe stop at Pacific Place?”
She raised her middle finger. “This’ll do. Thanks.”
“That’s the civy raincoat from my trunk. Don’t screw it up.”
She held up a black raincoat that looked like it would fit her like a tarp. “I’ll try.”
Nackley pulled an FBI rain jacket out of the other bag and flung it over to Wolf. “That’s Earnshaw’s spare. You can screw that one up as much as you want.”
Wolf cracked a smile. “Thanks.”
“So what did I miss?”
“We’re about to order Luke some food,” Wolf said. “And she’s going to lie down.”
She rose to her feet again and put the sweatshirt to her front to check the size.
“We’ll get you some food on the way out.” Earnshaw turned to Wolf. “Before you freak out, I’ll brief you. We’ve found Swain and Luke’s department vehicle on a dirt road off Highway 2. If we’re going to jog Luke’s memory it’s going to be there.”
Luke sat on the edge of the bed. “I told you, I remember following him into an alley. I don’t remember goin
g east.”
Nackley and Earnshaw eyed one another.
“Thick forest,” Earnshaw said. “Moss everywhere. Up a wide valley.”
“No. Trash everywhere. Up a narrow alley.”
“And how about the eighteen-and-a-half-hour drive to Rocky Points?”
They looked at Wolf.
“I don’t know.” Luke put a hand to her head. “To all of it. I don’t remember.”
Earnshaw paced toward the back of the room.
“Your wedding is soon, right?” Luke asked him.
Nackley and Earnshaw turned.
“It’s tomorrow.”
“Maybe I went down there for that. Some kind of subconscious thing.”
“You hit your head in Rocky Points,” Wolf said. “You were alert up until that point.”
“I’d been shot in the back. Hit in the head, twice, according to that doctor who just left.”
“The big blow happened in Rocky Points. I saw the windshield.”
“Let’s hold up for a second, here.” Nackley put up a hand. “Your wedding is tomorrow?”
Wolf said nothing.
“That true?” Earnshaw asked.
“Yes.”
“Then we’re wasting our time sitting here,” Earnshaw said. “We need to leave. Special Agent Luke wants to leave. She wants to help. We have a long drive ahead of us, and she can rest in the car. Let’s go.”
They looked at Wolf.
He stared down at Luke’s eyes, could see her mind working at less-than-full capacity.
“Good.” Luke stood up. “It’s settled. We’ll get some food at the cafeteria downstairs. Now get out of here so I can change.”
Chapter 21
Detective Tom Rachette sipped his second coffee of the afternoon and stared out the third-floor windows of the Sluice–Byron County building.
The light outside dimmed as a cloud passed in front of the sun, dousing the trees and rooftops of Rocky Points in shadow.
A glowing cloud obscured the top of the ski resort, though the rest of the clouds skated past quickly. There must have been an eddy behind the twin rocky peaks from which the town had acquired its name.
Why was he clenching his jaw while gazing at the mountains? He looked down at the empty cup in his hand. He’d had three this morning and two this afternoon to counteract the persistent lethargy. Too much, perhaps.
It was TJ. The little guy had kept him up the past few nights. Nights? More like weeks. He and Charlotte needed to figure out how to get the little bastard to sleep, and keep him there.
He rubbed a hand over his scalp and yawned.
“Rachette!”
He turned back to the squad room. “What?”
Patterson stood near her desk, waving a hand.
“Yeah, coming.”
The squad room felt like a deserted European church. Its tall ceilings echoed back his footsteps as he wove his way through the desks. The sheriff’s office could be peaceful at certain times of the day.
“He just blew a .01,” Patterson said, hanging up her desk phone.
“Oh, great.” He walked to the kitchenette wall, poured the coffee, and led the way out of the squad room.
“You look like a buck fifty.”
Rachette eyed Patterson up and down and had to admit she looked good. “You look like shit, too, thank you.”
“Little Tommy Junior keeping you up?”
“Yep.”
“What time does he go to bed?”
“Whenever. It varies.”
“Aaaaand there’s your problem.”
They reached the elevator banks, and he decided to pull the chain and get dumped over the head with unasked-for advice. “What’s the problem?”
“TJ needs a strict bedtime routine or else he’ll never sleep well.”
“Pssh.”
They got into the elevator and pressed the button for the basement.
“Never mind. I’ll talk to Charlotte about it.”
He stretched his neck side to side, feeling a knot begin to form. “Precise bedtime every night. Where’d you learn that trick? The Patterson school of anal retention?”
They rode the rest of the way down in silence, and Rachette knew he’d irked his partner. Like his sister, she was easy to piss off, and to do so thoroughly satisfied him.
“Cell three,” she said.
“I remember, thanks.”
“I like to beat things into your head. You know, make sure they get through that thick layer of fat. Precise bedtime.”
“Hmm,” he said, unable to come up with a retort before they walked up on Deputy Barber.
“He’s up and at ’em finally,” Barber said.
“Lead the way, Deputy,” Rachette said.
Barber ambled on thick legs to the third glass door. He pressed a button, releasing a lock inside the wall with a smack.
They pushed through the door into the cell.
Eli Banks sat cross-legged on the cot, his curly brown hair stuck against one side of his head. His eyes looked like somebody had been rubbing sand in them all day, and the sour stench of alcohol stung Rachette’s nostrils.
“Whoa, Eli. You sure he blew a .01?”
Barber shrugged. “You can do it again if you like.”
“Let’s go, Eli.” Rachette tapped him on the shoulder. “We’re going to take a walk across the hall to one of our interrogation rooms and have a little talk, okay?”
Eli nodded and stood. “Okay.”
“This way.” Patterson led him by the arm to Interrogation B.
Rachette hung back and studied Eli’s shuffling gait. He almost felt bad for the guy. He’d hung out in the bars with the man a few times and knew he had a penchant for drinking four or five too many and then starting fights. Not necessarily in a violent way, Rachette corrected himself. He normally just pissed people off to the point where they wanted to beat him up. He’d never really fought back. Except once, and that had been because Ned Luber had punched him twice in the head.
That fight had been the one he and Wilson had remembered earlier, hadn’t it?
“Take a seat,” he said.
Eli complied.
“You want me to lock him?” Deputy Barber asked, meaning lock him in handcuffs and chain him to the table.
“Nah,” Rachette said. “You’re not going to attack us, are you?”
“No.” Eli frowned. The expression seemed to pain him.
“Some hangover, eh?” Rachette asked.
“Yeah. My God.” Eli put his head in his hands.
Patterson sat down and crossed her legs. “Do you remember what you did yesterday afternoon, Eli?”
“I need to talk to you guys about this. I had no clue you were outside my place. I thought you were someone else, there to kick my ass.”
Rachette and Patterson eyed each other.
“Is that so?” Rachette asked. He hadn’t expected a flat lie to start things off but, then again, he’d never seen Eli cornered.
“Brenda told me her brother and a bunch of his friends were coming to kick my ass. I swear I thought you guys were them. I was just trying to scare you—them. You ever seen Brenda’s brother?”
Rachette hadn’t. Patterson shook her head.
“Listen, Eli,” she said with a sigh. “We’d like to talk about before that.”
“Okay.”
“What were you doing earlier in the day? A couple of hours before.”
“I don’t know. Watching motorcycle racing. Drinking.”
“Did you visit Brenda earlier in the day?” Rachette asked.
Eli closed his eyes. “Yeah. I went and talked to her earlier. Before lunch.”
“What did you two talk about?” Patterson asked.
She did a good job of leaving any judgment out of her voice, Rachette thought. Rachette had watched the fist she’d made earlier while looking at the pictures of Brenda’s house.
“I … I don’t know. I begged her for forgiveness … for cheating on her. I wanted her t
o forgive me. I tried to make amends.”
“But that didn’t work out, did it?” Patterson asked.
Eli’s lips fluttered. “No.”
“And then what?” Rachette asked.
Eli shrugged. “I don’t know. She … whatever, I drove home. On the way back I picked up a bottle of whiskey, a six-pack, and a pizza, and … you know the rest.”
Patterson blinked like a gnat had flown into her eye. “You’re saying you just left after talking to her?”
“Yes.”
Patterson eyed Rachette.
“Why?”
“Eli,” Rachette said, “Brenda called us to her house. When we got there, her living room had been destroyed by a baseball bat.”
“And a few kicks,” Patterson said.
“That’s right.” Rachette leaned forward onto an elbow.
“Well, I didn’t do anything.” Eli frowned. “I didn’t do that shit. She pulled that bat on me.”
Rachette and Patterson sat back in their chairs.
“She pulled that bat on me. Wait a minute, you think I … is that what this is about? She said I destroyed her living room with a baseball bat? She pulled that bat on me. Chased me out of the house. I barely got out of there alive.”
Rachette eyed his partner. Patterson’s eyes were unblinking, like ice.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. She ... no. She kicked me out. She hit me and she pushed me out the front door. I tried to talk to her, but she pulled a freakin’ baseball bat out of the closet. She told me she was going to get her brother to kick my ass. Dude,” he looked with pleading eyes at Rachette, “her brother’s one of those cross-fit freaks. Does frickin’ MMA. He’s like six four, two fifty, solid muscle. I’m gonna lift a finger on her after she tells me she’s gonna get him to kick my ass? No way. Are you serious? That’s what this is? Tom, you gotta—”
Patterson held up her hands. “Eli!”
Eli froze. “What?”
“Just … so you’re saying, what? You left her house peacefully after you went and talked to her?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what happened. And I don’t even play baseball. I’ve never played baseball. Like, when I was a kid, for one season, but that’s it. Is Dave here?”
They shook their heads.
