In the Dark

by Loreth Anne White

  The radio looked simple enough. It appeared to have been inserted into an opening cut into the dash after manufacture. Jackie clenched her small flashlight between her teeth, took off her gloves, and tried to wiggle the radio out of its slot. To her shock, it came out easily. The screws that were supposed to hold it in place were gone. Her pulse quickened. She turned it over.

  Shit.

  The bundle of wires at the back had been neatly sliced clean through with a sharp blade. Stella had been telling the truth.

  Or had Stella cut them herself?

  Stella Daguerre was the one with the most control over them all. Stella was the only one with the means and the skill to have physically brought them here, and the one who had the ability to take them out. But the pilot could just as easily have been hired by the so-called RAKAM Group, like Amanda Gunn had been hired, like the rest of them appeared to have been invited and duped. Any one of those others in that lodge could be lying—she froze as she heard a change in the noise of the lapping waves along the dock.

  Another noise reached her. A creak of planks.

  Then she felt the plane tilt as someone put weight on the dockside pontoon. The pilot’s door creaked open. Jackie spun her head around and looked up from her crouched position. Her heart stopped as the beam of the little flashlight clenched in her teeth lit upon a white face under a black woolen hat.

  You?

  It happened so fast, so unexpectedly. Jackie saw the glint of metal in the raised, gloved hand too late. She tried to scramble out of the pilot seat and into the passenger seat, dropping her flashlight from her mouth as she bumped up against the controls and got caught in the seat harness straps. She then lurched the other way, in an attempt to scramble toward the back of the plane, but the knife came down fast, and hard. She felt it go into her neck. Deep. Shock ripped through her body. Her hands went to the knife.

  But it was yanked out. Jackie felt blood gush hot down her neck before she could even register pain. The blade went up again. She raised her arms in self-defense.

  It came down again, harder.

  One last thought went through her brain before she lost consciousness . . .

  Eight Little Liars flew up into the heavens.

  One saw the truth, and then there were seven.

  THE SEARCH

  MASON

  Monday, November 2.

  Mason exited the morgue and took the elevator up to the ground floor of Silvercreek Hospital. He stepped out of the elevator and pulled out his cell phone to make a call while he was in an area with cellular coverage. He walked straight into Callie.

  He started at the sight of a familiar face.

  “Callie?”

  She looked flustered, eyes reddened and puffy. She appeared embarrassed, and as though she wanted to flee. “I . . . uh, hi. I didn’t expect to see . . . anyone. What are you doing here?”

  “Pathologist,” he said. “Deceased pilot. Autopsy was conducted this morning.”

  “Oh, right. I . . . We don’t usually assist with homicides. I didn’t think about the postmortem being done here.” She stared at him, and he could almost see her brain returning from wherever it had been rushing. “Do you know who the victim is, or was, now?”

  He stepped aside for some people to pass into the elevator, touching her elbow slightly so she’d also make way for them.

  “Not yet.” He spoke quietly in the public space. “Forensic techs are looking to see if they can retrieve anything from a phone we found in her pocket.”

  “Well, I . . . Let me know if I can help.” She reached forward and pressed the elevator button.

  The words he’d heard Oskar say to Callie before she’d left the search mission with Ben sifted into Mason’s brain.

  “Go, Callie. If you don’t leave now, you won’t make it. We’ve got things under control here. Say hi to him for us, will you?”

  “Callie?”

  She turned.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Her mouth tightened, as if straining to hold emotion in. Her eyes glimmered. She made a motion with her hand for him to just leave.

  “Where’s Ben?” he asked.

  She took a moment. The elevator doors opened behind her and then shut without her. Someone came to stand close by.

  He reached out, took her elbow gently. “Come, let’s step away a moment.”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “Coffee? Can I at least buy you a coffee?”

  Hesitation flickered over her features.

  “Come on. I sure could use one.”

  She glanced at the elevator, then nodded. “Just a quick one.”

  They found a quiet corner table in the hospital cafeteria with windows that overlooked a small and wintry rock garden. People at the other tables watched him with interest as he went to the counter to buy two coffees. He’d need to grow accustomed to wearing a uniform again.

  He bought two coffees and two pastries. Callie had composed herself by the time he returned to the table, and she looked more like the efficient climbing expert and SAR manager who’d saved his ass. He suspected Callie Sutton was inexperienced with being caught looking emotionally vulnerable.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, accepting the coffee from him. “You just got me at a bad moment. Benjamin is upstairs with his dad. Peter. My husband. I . . . We only have a few minutes, and then I need to go check out of my motel.”

  An odd sensation went through Mason at Callie’s mention of a husband. His gaze ticked briefly to her wedding band as she lifted her cup to her lips. He reached for his own coffee.

  “Is Peter ill? Or . . . forgive me, maybe he works here.”

  She inhaled, took a sip as she considered, perhaps, how to frame something. “Peter is a forester,” she said slowly, setting down her cup. “Based out of Kluhane Bay—our house is on the big bay east of town. We . . . built it . . .”

  Mason could see she was struggling, and he wanted to stop her right there, stop the pain of talking. But the selfish part of himself, the curious part, let her struggle on, because now he wanted to know more.

  “He had an accident at work. A tree came down in heavy winds. It was rotted in the core. Big fir. One of the branches hit him and knocked him down a bank. He cracked his skull on a rock.” She cupped her hands around her drink as if for warmth, or courage to continue in a composed fashion.

  “It sent him into a coma.” She paused for another while and looked out the window. Her face was pale. He liked her face. He felt for her. He let her take her moment, growing uncomfortable that he was putting her through this.

  She suddenly met his gaze again, those moss-green eyes clear, sad. The way she looked at him, into him, sent a frisson through Mason. Her gaze was so direct that it felt intimate. Like she’d slid an invisible hand inside his shirt.

  “He was in a coma for two weeks. They thought he wasn’t going to make it.” A soft snort. A tilt upward of her chin. Her voice grew more assured, a little louder. “But he’s a fighter, my Peter. A climber. Survivor. He was the Kluhane SAR manager. Strong. Mentally and physically. He came out of that coma. Surprised everyone, but now . . . he’s now in what they call a vegetative state.”

  The tension and emotion in her voice were palpable. He thought of her little boy in his Joker suit and surprised himself with the strength of the emotion he felt in response. But he knew why. It was because he knew loss. He knew this kind of pain. But he also didn’t. Because his theoretically had an end. Death. She hung in limbo. In torture. Between hope and despair. Neither here nor there. But he didn’t want to say the wrong thing.

  “I hate those words,” she said, a sharp bite of anger entering her eyes. “Vegetative state. He’s not a vegetable. He’s aware, I’m sure of it.”

  “How long has it been, Callie?”

  “Fourteen months. And counting.” She leaned forward, an energy suddenly coursing through her. “They tell me these states can last decades or, in very rare cases, the patient can improve over time. I kn
ow there’s brain damage, but it’s frustrating not understanding the full extent of Peter’s mental capacity, not knowing if he has any level of consciousness. And . . . there are times we really feel he’s with us, and that he understands everything we’re saying. I believe he’s able to grasp his surroundings, and his family. And there is science,” she said. “Cognitive neuroscience that claims about one in five patients thought to be in a vegetative or unresponsive state actually have some level of awareness.”

  She fell silent. Then looked down. She picked at the flakes of pastry peeling off her untouched confectionery.

  “I’m sorry, Callie.”

  She nodded. A muscle spasmed at the side of her mouth. “The brain is so complex,” she said softly. “We’ve come so far with so many medical issues, but the brain is still a dark area with injuries like this.” She swallowed. “Now he’s got a bacterial infection. His immune system is weakened, and he took a turn for the worse on Saturday, which is why Benny and I stayed in town. Peter’s pulling back today, though.” She looked up. “The IV antibiotics are working. His blood work is coming back better. It’s . . . it’s just . . . You know, when there is no clue in sight as to when he might come back to me, come home to me and Ben.”

  “My wife was in a coma.”

  Her eyes snapped to his. Held. An electricity seemed to crackle through her body as she waited for him to say more.

  Mason was committed now. “Car accident. Her name was Jenny. She was in a coma for three days before she passed.”

  “I . . . I didn’t know.” He could see her brain wheeling, reassessing him, recalibrating.

  “It’s been almost two years ago now since I lost Jenny and Luke, my little boy, in one devastating moment. Driver tried to overtake two cars, clipped Jenny’s, she lost control and went straight into a cliff face.” A pause. “I wanted to kill him, the driver.”

  “Mason—” She lifted her hand as if to touch his, but didn’t. Her eyes gleamed. God, this woman had surfaced emotions in him, made him say things he’d not been able to say to just about anyone.

  He gave a wry smile. “In fact, I almost did kill him. I hunted him down. Went to his house. Waited outside.”

  “And?”

  “And let’s just say I have some very, very good colleagues, law enforcement friends, who saved me from myself. I took some time off work, went on a walkabout—rode a bike across Australia. But when I returned home, I couldn’t quite get back into things in the city, or my job. I couldn’t quite shed the ghosts. Didn’t even really want to. And I began to screw up.”

  He glanced down at his hands. He’d taken off his wedding band because he’d grown weary of the questions. He now wore it on a leather string around his neck under his uniform, side by side with Jenny’s ring. Still together. A pair. The questions still came, only not voiced so overtly as they once had been when people saw his ring: Where is your wife? How is she?

  “Was it a drunk driver?” Callie asked. “Was there alcohol involved?”

  He shook his head. “He was just a kid. Had only just received his full license. Driver inexperience.” He gave a snort. “Yet for a while back there, I would have been happy to kill the little bastard for his ineptitude, for his mistake. He went into a road safety and driving education program, as per the judge’s orders. He was remorseful. And broken up himself, so were his parents.”

  “Is that why you came north?”

  “Pretty much.”

  She studied him. Callie was the first person he’d told—at least told this much in such simple terms. Somehow it lifted something from him. Defogged his brain a little. And he felt bad because she was the one who needed his help. And he’d gotten benefit out of it himself.

  “It’s a long drive between Kluhane Bay and Silvercreek,” she said, moving her cup aside. “Ben and I should get going. He needs to go back to school tomorrow—he’s already missed today.”

  “How often do you do the drive?”

  “Ben and I do it three times a week, usually. Peter has visitors all the time, though. The other SAR guys stop by whenever one of them is in town to shop for supplies, or do business, or run other errands. His extended family flies in sometimes. His work friends visit regularly. He’s well loved.” A sad smile crossed her mouth. “I need to think about relocating, perhaps. But Ben’s school, my work—”

  “And the not knowing,” he offered. “Whether it could turn around tomorrow, and you might not need to give it all up. He might come home.”

  Surprise filled her eyes. She regarded him in silence for a moment. “Yeah,” she said softly. She pushed to her feet. “Thank you, Mason.”

  He stood. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You helped. I . . . Thanks a ton.” She turned to go, but hesitated. “How old was your son when you lost him?”

  “Seven.”

  He saw her thinking. Ben. Almost the same age.

  “He had a Joker suit,” Mason said. “The Halloween before he died, Jenny bought it at Walmart. She felt bad about it—said there was a whole shelf full of them on sale, but she didn’t have the energy to make Luke anything original.”

  Her nose pinked. Her hand went to her mouth.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He nodded.

  She turned to leave, and Mason watched her walk away. He liked the way she moved and hated himself instantly for the thought. At the elevator banks, she paused, glanced over her shoulder.

  He gave a nod.

  She went into the elevator.

  Mason sat for a moment, feeling as though something seismic had just happened . . . and that nothing had just happened.

  He was startled by the ring of his cell phone before recalling he was back in a cell coverage area. He checked the caller ID. It was the number of the Prince George RCMP detachment. He connected the call.

  “Deniaud,” he said.

  “It’s Gord Fielding. Looks like we have a preliminary ID on the decedent from the plane.”

  “From the victim’s phone?”

  “Affirmative. We have yet to confirm anything with DNA, or a dental records match, but the techs have started to recover some data—contacts, a partial call history, some SMS messages, emails, and a few photographs so far. From time and date stamps on the photos, it appears the two most recent images were shot in the Thunderbird Ridge area—it’s a new ski and golf development just north of Squamish. The photos were taken at eleven thirty-one a.m. and eleven thirty-six a.m. on Sunday, October twenty-fifth. I’m going to forward them to you now.”

  A photo pinged through.

  Mason opened the image. It showed a woman standing on a dock—the living image of the corpse he’d just seen on the morgue slab. Wearing the same clothes.

  “Jacqueline Blunt,” said Detective Fielding. “Seems from emails that she was more commonly known as Jackie Blunt. Owner of Security Solutions, a close-protection and security outfit based out of Burlington, Ontario.”

  Another picture pinged through. Mason opened the file. It showed a group of eight people, all similarly dressed. Five females, including Jackie Blunt. And three males. They were gathered in front of a bright yellow-and-blue de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver Mk 1. On the fuselage was the same fake registration mark they’d seen on the downed wreck. A distinctive black mountain peak rose in the background of the photo. All eight people were smiling.

  Mason’s pulse quickened.

  If those eight people all got onto that plane, where were the rest of them?

  THE SEARCH

  CALLIE

  Tuesday, November 3.

  Callie listened to the morning news on her radio as she made coffee. Her kitchen was one of her pleasures. She and Peter had built this house while living in a small trailer on the property when Ben had been two years old. It was their dream home, set back on a lot on the shores of Lake Kluhane with a view of snowcapped peaks across the fjord. There was swimming and paddleboarding and kayaking from their dock in the summer,
and ice skating and cross-country skiing onto the frozen lake in the winter. On the walls in their living room hung framed photographs of their little family taken over the years—the three of them camping, horseback riding. Benny learning to swim and ski and skate. Benny with Peter on Benny’s first day of school. Peter climbing a granite cliff with helmet and ropes. Peter and his new truck, which now sat quietly waiting for his return in the garage because Callie refused to drive it.

  Ben sat atop a stool at the counter, chattering between slurping cereal from his bowl. A box of Tooty-Pops cereal was positioned in front of him, and he was reading about the prizes that would be in the new boxes. Callie glanced at the clock.

  “Rachel will be here in ten minutes. Ben, you better finish up and brush your teeth.” She slipped his packed lunch into his bright-red backpack.

  “I don’t wanna go to school today.”

  “Sure you do. You always like it once you get there, right? And you missed yesterday—”

  “And I missed the Halloween party.”

  She ruffled his hair. “Yeah, bud, but we were able to spend some extra time with your dad, right?”

  He nodded, jumped down from his stool, and ran on his socked feet toward the hall that led to the bathroom. He did a dramatic skid across the hardwood floor as he went around the corner. Callie smiled. She picked up his bowl and spoon and poured the leftover milk into the sink. It ran pink from the strawberry flavoring in the cereal. She didn’t like giving Ben such sugary stuff for breakfast. She really should wean him off it, but it was one of the few things that made Benny really happy these days, and she was allowing her son to hold on to some of his “happy things” in Peter’s absence. She paused for a moment as she watched the pink milk swirl down the drain. Pain and loneliness washed over her. It would come like this, out of nowhere, at the most unexpected times, prompted by some small thing. Or it would rise like a flood from her belly when she was faced with direct questions. Like Mason’s yesterday. The memory of their conversation seeped into her mind. Again she saw the look of understanding and kindness in his gray eyes.