by Kathi Daley
“It’s in my truck.”
“Get it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to try to connect with this maniac before, but I think I’m ready to do whatever it takes to get him now.”
Houston frowned but did as I asked. When he handed me the photo, I closed my eyes and tried to focus. I wasn’t expecting to connect right away, but I had to start somewhere.
After several minutes I opened my eyes and looked at the others. “Sorry. I didn’t pick up anything. Not that I expected to. Connecting to someone who isn’t an innocent rescue is new territory for me. And I have no reason to believe he’s in close proximity or is feeling any fear or pain right now.” I glanced at Houston. “The last incident associated with this monster took place on Tuesday morning. Do we have any reason to believe he’s still in town?”
“Not really,” he said. “He could very well have done what he came to do and moved on by now. But until we know for certain, I think we need to continue to try to track him down.”
“I agree.” I looked at Landon. “There has to be some way to figure out where he’s been for the past thirteen years. I’m not sure that will help us figure out where he is now, but the more information we have, the better our chance of figuring out what he’s up to.”
“I’ll keep looking. We haven’t found employment information, tax returns, a driver’s license, or a vehicle registration, which leads me to believe he’s been out of the country. I’ll start trying to find something in passport records, although there is the possibility he’s simply been living totally off the grid or under an assumed name.”
“That’s a possibility,” I agreed, “but we have to keep looking. Maybe something will pop.”
“I need to get back to Wyatt,” Jake said. “As predicted, he doesn’t understand the concept of taking it easy. I’m afraid if he doesn’t let his body heal before trying to resume normal activities, he’s going to reinjure himself. Jordan agrees.”
I didn’t envy Jake the task of trying to slow Wyatt down. He’d always been hyper, and I didn’t think a few broken bones was going to change that.
“Will you be in at two?” Jake asked.
“I’ll be there. I hope we can close on time tonight. I’m exhausted.”
“Me too. We’ll close at ten whether everyone has gone or not.”
Jake left, and Landon announced he was going to his house to work for a few hours on his much more powerful desktop computer. Although he’d walked the dogs, I felt the need to walk them myself before getting ready to go in to work, so I asked Houston if he wanted to come with me. He thought Kojak would enjoy hanging out with my pack, so we gathered all the dogs together and set out along the path behind my home.
“I keep thinking we’re in for a major storm, but everything seems to peter out before it gets going,” Houston said. “Is it always like that?”
“No. Most of the time, when it looks like a big storm is heading this way, we get the snow that’s been predicted. This has been an unusual October. We’ve had a little snow, but we should have had our first big storm by now.”
“Personally, I’m just as happy to wait.”
I turned onto a side path leading in the direction of the pond. “Me too. I’d like to get this whole thing with Zane or whoever the killer is wrapped up before the winter settles in.”
I paused as we neared the woods on the far side of my property. “I wonder if we should check the cabin we discovered last spring with the secret passage. The empty property was used by a killer wanting to stay off the grid before.”
Houston hesitated.
“It would fit the fact that the guy seems to be hanging around here,” I added.
“Okay. Let’s go. But hang back and let me take the lead. If he is using the cabin, we have no reason to believe he won’t be there now.”
Chapter 14
“The place looks empty,” I said as we paused behind the tree line. We were holding all eight dogs in a sit stay behind us.
“Yeah. It looks deserted.” Houston took out his revolver. “You wait here with the dogs. I’m going to check it out.”
“Be careful. If the guy’s been here, the cabin might be rigged to explode when the door’s opened.”
“I’ll be careful.”
I hated waiting, but I knew that was the right choice. As long as I hung back, my dogs would also, and if my dogs hung back, so would Kojak. I almost held my breath as Houston walked slowly forward. He was definitely taking his time. He walked around the exterior of the house, looking through all the windows as he went, before he even attempted to open the front door. I only let out the breath I’d been holding when he turned the knob and slipped inside. So far, so good. In the back of my mind I was expecting a big bang to accompany his entry into the small space.
After a few minutes, Houston returned to me. “Well?” I asked.
“I have good news and bad news. The good news is, the place didn’t blow up when I went in. The bad news is, there are enough explosives in the secret passage to blow up half the town.”
My heart sank. “So he isn’t finished.”
“I’d say he’s just getting started. It doesn’t look like he’s staying here, but there’s definitely evidence someone has been going back and forth between the cabin and the road.”
“If he left his explosives here, maybe we can use them as bait to trap him,” I suggested. “We can set up men around the perimeter, and when he comes back for his supplies, we’ll have him.”
Houston looked around. “That sounds like a good idea, but from what we know about this guy, I have the feeling he’ll be on to us. I think the best thing to do is to confiscate everything he has stored here.”
“Wait.” I put out a hand. “This still feels like a trap. I know the cabin didn’t blow when you went inside, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t set to blow if someone tampers with the explosives.”
“Good point. I’ll call the state police to see if they can get a bomb squad out here. In the meantime, why don’t you take all the dogs back to your place? I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the cabin until the state police arrive.”
I hesitated. “I hate to leave you here alone.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m a cop, remember? It’s my job to hang back and keep an eye on a potentially explosive situation. It isn’t yours. Now go home. I’ll come by as soon as I’m done here.”
I wasn’t happy about going, but I didn’t argue. I wanted the dogs to be safe, and as long as they were near the cabin, it was possible they might get hurt. When I got back to the cabin, I called Jake to let him know I might be late to work. I explained what was going on and promised to keep him up-to-date with any developments that occurred.
Jake must have called Landon, because the next thing I knew, he was banging on my front door. “I thought you went home to use your computer.”
“I did. I’m back.”
“Jake called you.”
Landon nodded. “He did, and you should have.”
I stepped aside and let him in. “You know this isn’t necessary. If this guy decides to blow me up, the only thing your presence is going to guarantee is that you’ll be blown up along with me.”
He shrugged and set his laptop on the dining table. “Perhaps, but I feel better being here, so you’re stuck with me.” He turned on his computer and waited while it booted up. “Is Houston still at the cabin?”
“Yeah. He was going to call the state police and wait for them to get there. I’m making some coffee. Would you like some?”
“I’d love some.”
I headed into the kitchen while Landon typed in his password. After the coffee had brewed, I poured two cups and took them to the table where he was working. “Have you found anything?” I asked as I set down his cup near his right arm.
“Actually, I have. It took some digging, but I think I know where Zane has been for the past few years at least.”
I sat down across from Landon. “Where?”
“Prison.”
; I frowned. “Prison? It seems a stint in prison would have shown up during an earlier search.”
“It would have if Zane had been in a US prison, but from what I just uncovered, it looks like he spent at least part of the past thirteen years in Nicaragua.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “Why was he there?”
“I don’t know. I most likely would never have found him, but one of my searches led me to an article from a French newspaper about a multinational humanitarian group that somehow negotiated the release of a group of prisoners from five countries. There weren’t any details of why each prisoner was incarcerated in the first place or for how long. All the article really had was a list of the names and nationalities of the prisoners who were released.”
“I get that this group might have done a good thing overall, especially if the people were unjustly imprisoned, but in the case of Zane Hudson, I wish they’d just left him there.”
“I had the same thought. I don’t know that the knowledge that he was imprisoned until two months ago is valuable to our search for him, but I suppose if he’d been locked up for a long time, it might answer the question why now. Maybe this is the first chance he’s had to do what he likely had a lot of time to think about.”
“I guess we do have the answer to that question. And who knows? Maybe being in prison is what sent him over the edge and turned him from a guy who helped Walter to survive and may have tried to help Val as well into a monster who’s killed three people that we know of.”
“I suppose a prison term in a place like Nicaragua could change you, especially if you were on the edge to begin with,” he said.
I glanced out the window. It had started to snow. I wondered if the state police had shown up yet. Probably not. I was tempted to text Houston to ask whether he wanted me to bring him some hot coffee, but I was sure he’d just tell me to stay put in the cabin and wait for him. I could take a thermos and skip the asking, but Landon would never let me leave. I hated being managed by others who thought they knew what was best for me, even if I knew the management came from a place of love.
“I heard we could get a couple of feet of snow tonight,” Landon said.
I got up to toss some logs into the woodburning stove. I had two sources of heat in the cabin: the woodburning stove in the kitchen and the fireplace in the living space. I’d thought about having a heating system put in, but over the years, I’d managed to control the temperature of the well-insulated cabin using those two sources combined with a couple of electric space heaters for the very coldest days.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Landon said. “It seems as if you’re somehow at the center of everything that’s going on, but you barely met the guy. Why after all this time is he fixated on you?”
“Good question.” I lit a match and started a fire. “Houston said Walter told him that Zane had visited him to ask about Val’s sister. I guess he thought Walter lived in Rescue before the incident.”
“Val’s sister? That makes it sound like his interest in you isn’t based on the brief meeting at the store before Vern and Zane went off on their camping trip but because of your relationship with Val.”
“That’s the way I took it. Houston said Zane wanted to know my name and whether I still lived here. Of course, Walter didn’t know. Zane left right after he realized that, so obtaining the information seemed to have been his only reason for visiting Walter.”
“Do you think Val knew Zane?” Landon asked.
“I don’t see how she could have. He wasn’t in town for more than a couple of days before he went up the mountain with Vern.”
“Maybe Val talked about you before she died,” Landon suggested. “Assuming Zane really was with her when she died, which he very well might have been.”
I sat back down after both fires were going. The snow was coming down even harder. “I guess she might have. If he tried to help her, she might have shared her thoughts with him. Though I can’t imagine what she could have said that would have made him want to kill people who are close to me.”
Landon chewed on his lower lip. “This isn’t adding up.”
I got up, crossed the room, and looked out the window. No sign of Houston, but I hadn’t heard any loud bangs either, so he might still be in a holding position. “Do you think I should take a thermos of coffee to Houston?”
“No.”
“The snow is really coming down. He had a jacket, but he isn’t from around here. I bet he isn’t used to the cold coming on the way it does.”
“Houston sent you back to the cabin for a reason. I think it’s best to do as he says. He’s the one in charge.”
“I guess.”
Landon offered me a smile. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine.”
I turned away from the window. I picked up the photo Houston had left of Zane and sat down on the sofa to study it. I closed my eyes and focused, and suddenly, seemingly from nowhere, I had a flash of insight. I felt his pain, I felt his anger, but I also felt the longing. “He craves the connection,” I said.
Landon looked up from his computer. “Connection?”
“He’s lived a life of isolation. He’s never felt as if he belonged. He’s been desperately seeking a connection since even before the fire. It isn’t my connection to Val that’s sent him to seek me out but his connection to me.”
Landon sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m not sure I do either. I think maybe when I connected with Val while she was up there on the mountain, Zane somehow was able to feel it as well. My instinct is telling me the echo of my connection to Val served as the first real connection he’d ever experienced with anyone. Zane ran away when he was sixteen. There must have been a reason. Find out what you can about his family.”
Landon turned back to the computer. “If he feels a connection with you, why is he hurting you by killing people close to you?”
I stood up and began to pace. “I’m not sure. I think somehow he’s learned to equate pain with pleasure. I know that sounds weird, but I think somehow everything is tied up with his desire, his obsession, with creating a situation where he and I can connect, even if just for a moment.”
I continued to pace while Landon searched for information on Zane’s background. My thoughts were pretty jumbled. Despite the insight I felt I’d gained when I looked at things logically, none of this made a lot of sense.
“It looks like Zane was born to a pair of scientists,” Landon said. “His mother is a physicist, his father a neurobiologist.” Landon paused and looked at me. “They seem normal. From what you just told me, I was expecting to find he’d grown up in an abusive home, but it appears to have been just the opposite. He attended private schools and summer camps. He appears to have had an ideal upbringing.”
“Ideal? It seems to me he was shuffled from one institution or another, in an effort, I have to assume, to get him out of his parents’ hair.”
Landon frowned. “I attended private schools and summer camps and I consider my childhood to have been both stimulating and productive.”
I wanted to point out that stimulating and productive weren’t the same as warm and caring, but I decided to hold my tongue. Landon was perfectly happy with his childhood. Who was I to suggest that perhaps he’d missed out on something wonderful? Children with differing personalities might require different types of parenting. In Zane’s case, I thought he craved the connection he didn’t seem to have gotten. And after being burned in the fire, he might have concluded that establishing the sort of relationship he’d always longed for was going to be even more difficult to find.
I remembered that Vern had mentioned Zane liked to blow stuff up even before the fireworks on the mountain. Maybe he’d learned to find release from his longings and frustration with a big blast of energy even before the first big bang that had killed Austin.
I sat down on the sofa and tried to connect again, but it was gone. I wasn’t even sure my brief flash of insi
ght had been an actual connection. It might have been a realization. The longer I sat on the sofa staring at the photo of Zane, the more certain I was that connecting to him was the key. It seemed to be what drove him to do what he had. Now I just needed to figure out a way to use that connection to get him to turn himself in.
I was about to say as much to Landon when the entire cabin shook a fraction of a second after the sound of a huge bang echoed from beyond the forest line.
Chapter 15
Saturday, October 20
Fortunately, no one had been hurt in the blast. The state police had arrived while Landon and I were in my cabin. Given the amount of explosives hidden away and the unpredictability of the man who had amassed them, they’d decided to send a robot in to check things out. The end result was that the only casualties suffered when the explosives went off were the cabin and the robot. The snow had helped to quell the fire that followed the explosion, so the situation was contained without too many consequences, except, of course, for the heart attack I’d thought I’d suffered when I realized the earthquake I thought we were having was actually the cabin where I’d left Houston exploding into a million pieces.
Looking back, there were several very bad moments between the blast and Houston appearing in the distance as I ran toward the last place I’d seen him. After the danger passed, I’d been forced to undergo a lengthy scolding from both Houston and Landon, who thought I should have waited for Houston to come to my cabin instead of running out into the storm without my rifle or my jacket, but I was so relieved to find he was unharmed, I didn’t even mind.
Now that the cabin had gone kaboom, and it appeared as if all Zane’s explosives had been destroyed, I hoped Rescue would be safe from his particular form of courtship. Of course, as my lack of luck lately should have predicted, my assumptions regarding Zane were completely wrong.
“I think this is the killer,” I said to Landon when my phone rang as we prepared to take the dogs out for their morning run.
