Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

Ah, Doug and Paige.

  She was Daddy’s girl. He was so good to her, using just the right mixture of tenderness and Marine Corps discipline. Paige was bright and perceptive, like her dad. At times, Emily realized Paige and Doug had a bond so strong, it was as if he had given birth to her.

  As Paige got older, it became clear to Emily her monster would not rest. She thought it was dead, that she had constructed a new life, become a new person. But the monster was only sleeping. As Paige got older, it had awakened and began coiling around Emily, tightening itself, pulling her back.

  “Guess what I’m going to do.”

  Suddenly, an icy wind slithered from a glacier valley, gripping her in a flurry of images. Dragging her back.

  Emily was thirteen. The day it happened, the county sheriff brought her home in that big Ford. Emily could not step far from the car. Her knees would not stiffen. She was drowning in fear. Her ears still ringing. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. This was not real. It was not…Oh God. Her mother on the porch, her face, her eyes. A couple of deputies had arrived earlier to break the news. Her father coming to the sheriff’s car, his tear-stained eyes searching it in vain. The sheriff removing his hat out of respect. “I’m so sorry, Winston. So godamn sorry,” he says, and her father, suddenly aged, looking so weak, moaning an awful animal squeaking-groan as if something buried deep inside of him was breaking with such agony that it forced him to his knees, his large fists pounding the earth. Her mother collapsed on the porch, one of the deputies catching her. Her mother’s screams rolling from the home into the mountains.

  That night, women and men from the church came to their house to be with them, talking softly. Her father staring at the floor. Defeated. Mrs. Nelson, the organ player, rubbing his shoulders, whispering psalms. Her mother had gone to her room to lie down. The reverend and his wife were with her, talking, comforting her. The reverend’s wife, stroking her mother’s hair, soothing her. In the kitchen, some of the men sat at the table, talking in low tones about what the hell happened. How could it happen? The house filled as word got around town. Emily in shock, walking from room to room. Embraced by a grieving adult, pulled tight to clothes smelling of perfume, cigarettes, alcohol and despair.

  Oh, child. Poor Emily. You will get through this. God will protect. Be strong. Be strong for your mother and father. Her mother and father? What about her? She was there. She was part of it.

  “Guess what I’m going to do.”

  It was her fault.

  Emily running alone from the woods back to girls’ camp. Heart pounding so loud, pulse ringing in her ears. The voices of the camp counselors were faint and distant, faces awash in concern.

  “Lee, where’s your sister? What happened to Rachel, Lee?”

  Emily standing there. Just standing there, her mouth not moving. Eyes seeing nothing. The club camp going silent except for the counselors asking over and over about Rachel, her little sister.

  It was all her fault.

  “Guess what I’m going to do.”

  “No. Don’t, please! No.”

  The monster was out there doing what monsters do.

  Her sister screaming.

  “No, don’t. Oh, please!” Emily pleaded. “You can’t have her!”

  Rachel screaming. “Lee, help me.” Squealing horribly. “Save me!”

  “No, you can’t have her! Stop!”

  “Emily, shh-shh…Emily…”

  Emily screaming at the darkness, her voice echoing from the sleeping peaks down into the valleys.

  “…you can’t have her…oh God, it is all my fault….”

  Emily collapsing to the ground in tears. Rangers rushing to her. Pike Thornton watching in the lantern light as Doug took her into his arms.

  “It’s all right, Emily. We’ll find Paige. We’ll get through this.”

  His strong arms solid around her. Safe. The good things.

  But the monster was right there. Breathing on her with the cold night winds from the mountains. She could not stop shivering

  “What happened to your sister?”

  It’s all my fault.

  “Guess what I’m going to do.”

  EIGHT

  Emily slipped into a fitful sleep in Doug’s arms as the eastern horizon awoke with predawn light. The rangers had draped blankets over them as they sat on the ridge silhouetted against the peaks.

  Portrait of an anguished vigil.

  How long had Paige been out there now? Two nights. Nearly forty-eight hours. It had rained. The rangers said the temps had ranged from the seventies to the mid-forties at night. Emily was certain Paige had a sweater. She also had Kobee and some food. Most importantly, her wits. Could their daughter save her own life? Stay put, Paige. Doug whispered advice. Do not travel; build a shelter. Stay put. Stay warm and dry. She had Kobee. They were bringing in dogs. They should be able to pick up Kobee. But there were bears out there.

  Oh Jesus.

  Doug rubbed a hand across his whiskers. How could he just let her go off? He should have known better. He was a teacher. He just lost control. Lost it. Over this trip. Over Emily. Over everything. He wanted it to end. He just lost control. His hand hurt, throbbed. He had the ax. He just…how did it come to this? How? Despite Emily’s troubles, they had been happy. She owned his heart. She was so right for him. He always thought so, ever since he first set eyes on her.

  He was a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, among the first forces about to be deployed from Pendleton to trouble in the Eastern Hemisphere. Emily was a photographer, stringing for Newsweek, sent down from San Francisco to join the news hordes profiling “a day in the life” of his unit. Doug did not even notice her when she first arrived. Just another member of the press to be baby-sat, to be briefed on the mission, to be introduced to the members and afforded access. Even to personal quarters. Doug punctuated every part of the tour with his gruffest, hard-ass “Any questions?” Translated, it meant if you voiced one, you were going to be made to look stupid. So none were asked, until halfway through the day.

  “I have one, Sergeant?” Emily said.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Why would a guts-and-glory warrior like yourself have a copy of Paddle-to-the-Sea in his locker?”

  Doug was at a loss and Emily’s camera caught it. After snapping the picture, she lowered her camera, revealing the most engaging, charming smile he had ever seen. He knew then that this woman had captured his heart.

  The next evening, she agreed to go for a walk with him along the beach. While looking out at the Pacific, he told Emily he was preparing to leave the Corps and finish his college degree in English Literature so he could teach. The picture book Paddle-to-the-Sea was on the study list of one of his correspondence courses, along with classics like Crime and Punishment and Homer’s The Odyssey. As luck would have it, he told her, he was accepted at Golden State in San Francisco.

  “Well, I’ll have to show you my studio.” Emily grinned, bouncing her eyebrows. “Look me up when you get there, soldier.”

  He did.

  They were married a few years later. They had chemistry, but Emily always had an opaque air about her, a sadness that she would not talk about. She would close herself off. Doug could handle that. Theirs was a good life. He got a teaching job at a high school. Her photography work was steady. They had Paige, beautiful and with an eye for details, like her mother. They had a good life. Emily only began withdrawing recently.

  Doug watched the morning sun paint the Rockies.

  He had figured Emily’s problems were related to her childhood here and the deaths of her parents. She would not, or could not, open up to him. She guarded her past, and despite his delicate probing, Doug was unsuccessful in learning more about that dark period of her life. At least she was getting counseling. It seemed to be working. Doug was counting on this trip to help resolve things. They were in this together.

  If only the thing tormenting Emily were something alive, he would kill it for her. But how do you kill ghosts? He was power
less. It ate him up. Once they arrived, Emily infuriated him with her unwillingness or inability to tell him exactly what was the source of her anguish. They had come here to resolve things and still she held back. Until the other night. Dropping the mother of all loads on him: She has a sister. Then she clammed up. Instead of understanding, supporting her first major step to talk to him, he began an argument the next day. Emily walked off, headed up the trail to be alone to contemplate. It pissed him off further. So what did he do? Grabbed his ax, chopped wood like a madman, and took it out on Paige. He was furious with Emily. All Paige wanted to do was talk to him, but he screamed in her face until he wounded himself, then terrified her and chased her into the woods. Chased her with an ax in my hand! Ordering her away until she vanished into the Rocky Mountains. How could I be so stupid? So cruel?

  Oh Christ. Paige, I am so sorry.

  Doug ran his hand over his face. His heart feeling as if was about to shatter into a million pieces. He could hear the distant thumping of an approaching helicopter. Then he smelled fresh coffee and noticed a cup was being offered to him. By Pike Thornton.

  “Thanks.” Doug took a needed sip.

  Thornton studied him from the brim of his cup.

  “This chopper could be the FBI.”

  Doug’s eyes met Thornton’s and he did not like the way the old ranger was assessing him. So poker-faced.

  “Doug, if there’s anything you want to talk about, anything that’s been troubling your mind--” the chopper grew louder--“now would be a good time to do it.”

  NINE

  U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn squinted through his good eye and shouted across the plain at the outlaw Ned Pepper and his gang.

  “I aim to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s convenience. Which’ll it be?”

  Pepper surveyed the odds of three against one, smiling. “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!” Pepper shouted back.

  Special Agent Tracy Bowman pointed her remote at the TV, freezing the videotape. She turned to Mark, her nine-year-old son, slouched beside her on the couch, his hand resting in a nearly empty bowl of popcorn.

  John Wayne’s True Grit was their favorite movie; Rooster’s standoff with Ned Pepper’s gang their favorite part, the next line, their favorite line. It was a ritual with Mark’s dad to stop the movie at this point to say the words together. Since his death a few years ago, Bowman kept the tradition.

  Mark’s bright eyes widened to respond to Pepper’s taunting of Rooster as she chimed with her son:

  “Fill your hands you sonofabitch!”

  Then Rooster said the line, commencing the shoot-out with Pepper’s gang. Bowman smiled. It was another quiet night at home--just the two them, with the lights dimmed, watching the movie in the living room of their modest home on a few acres outside of Lolo, Montana. Seeing the movie light flicker on Mark’s face warmed her heart. She saw so much of Carl in him. How anguished those first months had been for her after Carl’s death. Dreaming of him, reaching for him. Waking alone in their bed. She went through the motions of living without him. As months passed, her clothes gradually got pushed to the empty side of the closet. God, she missed him. Some days at home, she wore his old shirts that she had saved, loving how they still held his cologne, feeling him wrapped around her.

  True Grit was Carl’s movie.

  He had operated a towing business based in Missoula. They were two solitary, shy people who met a lifetime ago it seemed, finding each other at a car wreck north of Milltown when she was a rookie Montana Highway Patrol officer. Got married in a little chapel in the valley south of town, built their own home near the Bitterroot River. Then she had Mark.

  A few years later, when she learned the FBI was looking to hire more agents in Montana, Carl urged her to apply. “You’re as sharp as the rest of them, Trace.” She was accepted. Scored high during training and luckily landed a job at the Bureau’s Missoula office downtown on West Front Street. Sometimes, Carl would meet her for lunch and they’d walk by the river.

  Initially, she worked on government fraud cases, investigating corruption involving federal contracts, then on environmental crimes as part of multi-agency task forces.

  She was among the dozens of agents who played a minor part in some of Montana’s big cases--the arrest of the Unabomber near Lincoln, the Freemen standoff near Jordan. Those high-profile files involved agents from across the United States, and it was in Jordan during the militia operation she overheard two out-of-state female agents chuckling behind her back about her size.

  After Mark’s birth, Bowman had become some thirty pounds heavier than she should be for five feet seven inches. Her weight had been a life-long struggle for her. She pretended she did not hear their remarks, but they hurt. She tried to shake it off; she knew she was fit, strong, a good, dedicated agent.

  But somebody must have said something up the chain of command. For not long after the Freemen case ended peacefully with arrests, she was reminded constantly of fitness requirements and confined to computer work at her desk, assisting with NHQ on Internet crime.

  The Bureau envisioned her post as holding potential to gather criminal intelligence, but that never really happened. Bowman became a vehicle for clerical requests made by other agents in the region needing data from the Internet. She soon tired of it. Many days, when she had little to do, she sat at her desk, chewing carrot and celery sticks, gazing out her office window, longing to be freed from office job to do criminal investigative field work.

  Then came the winter night Carl answered a radio call in a snowstorm. A bus carrying a girls’ basketball team from Wyoming broke down on Interstate 90, west of Garrison. They had trouble getting someone to come out. Carl was on the road returning from business in Drummond. But he never made it home that night. He turned around to help the girls. Not long after he arrived, a Freightliner hauling Christmas toys for malls in Spokane jackknifed, crashing into the bus. Carl and one of the girls were killed.

  Bowman’s life changed forever that night. She thought she would never survive but she hung on. For Mark. They helped each other.

  It’s okay if you feel like crying a little today, Mom, he would tell her in the months after it happened.

  They endured.

  After Carl’s death, Bowman’s attempts to escape her desk job seemed futile, but she did not give up. A few years later, she had shed some pounds but was still a little overweight. The hell with it, she thought, she was fit strong and could perform her duties.

  Her hope for a change came recently after she took more training at the Academy. Bowman had an analytical mind that took her to the top percentile when she completed specialized courses at Quantico in the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Program. It covered everything from fugitives to sexual exploitation of children, kidnappings to assaults against the president. Bowman was hopeful her course work would make her a candidate for assignment to Violent Crimes, which had current openings in the Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas divisions.

  Just before Carl’s death, Mark was diagnosed with a rare lung ailment. Those three cities had medical centers specializing in ground-breaking research on Mark’s condition. It would give Bowman peace of mind to be close to one of them.

  Medication helped Mark’s lungs function properly, allowing him to live the normal life of a nine-year-old. He loved school, computers and dinosaurs. They had visited key sites in Montana, Colorado and Alberta. Mark designed his own dinosaur Web site and posted it on the Internet, which Bowman monitored. You never know what’s lurking out there.

  She was expecting to hear word on her applications for the out-of-town jobs any day now. She was originally from Miles City and feeling bittersweet about the possibility of leaving Montana. The insurance claims had long been settled. She had sold Carl’s business. They had a little money to start a new life. She and Mark both needed a fresh page, she thought, reaching into the popcorn bowl, watching Duke in all his glory, reins in his teeth
, guns blazing. Bowman’s telephone rang. She grabbed it.

  “Tracy, Roger Cole in Billings.”

  She sat up. Cole was the resident agent for Montana. “We’ve got a situation and you’re going to be involved. In fact, your name came up from Washington for this.”

  Her mind raced. What could it be?

  “It’s a major investigative case out of Glacier National Park. A California girl missing in the wilderness. Ten years old. But there may be much more to it. A lot of political buttons have been pushed. There will be a multi-agency task force. We’ll be working with the National Park Rangers, County; San Francisco PD is sending a body. We have the lead. Everything is being marshaled out of Salt Lake. Bowman, your file shows that before you were an agent and with Montana Highway Patrol, you were a seasonal ranger at Glacier, correct?”

  “Yes, but sir, I don’t quite understand. I am the Internet GFP person out here.”

  “No, as of now, you’ve tentatively got the job at the Los Angeles Division. But I am sorry Bowman, I have to hold my congratulations.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “Look, I’m not very good at complicated political bull so I am going to tell you something so far off the record that they will take my testicles if they knew. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Quantico was very impressed with your recent course results and so was Los Angeles. The supervisor at Quantico said you were, I’m reading notes here, ‘blessed with incredible instinct and a natural talent for dissection.’ You wowed them in the classroom. What I am saying is you have got the post in California; but unbeknownst to you, NHQ wants to see how you perform on this one. They picked you for this assignment because you are at the top the curve. Our offices in Kalispell and Browning are down right now. Vacation, illness and assignments. At the moment you are the closest available FBI agent to the scene. Now, do you understand?”

  “I do not believe this. I mean, I want Los Angeles for Mark, but I just can’t--and I am not supposed to know this?”