Killer Summer

by Ridley Pearson

  He was the caretaker, was more like it.

  Searching for a phone and not finding one, Kevin didn’t panic. Summer had told him about the radio and portable GPS in her father’s emergency bag on the jet. If Kevin struck out here, with the right distraction he might be able to return there.

  Just when he was about to give up, he spotted a radio atop of a walnut cabinet. Its face was dark, and a handheld microphone on a spiraled black cord was hanging from it that reminded him of the CB radio in his uncle’s Cherokee.

  Kevin heard deep voices rumbling through the wall, and he looked out the window to the top of the stairs, where the cowboy was talking to the copilot from the jet. The two men turned toward the lodge.

  He now rushed to the radio, switched it on, grabbed the microphone, and hit the TALK button.

  “Mayday! Mayday!” he whispered. “I’m at some lodge… on the Middle Fork, I think. Our plane went down… a jet. There are guys after me… the guys who took the jet.”

  He heard the cowboy’s boots and the pilot’s shoes clomping up the steps of the lodge.

  Replacing the microphone, ducking down, and making for the nearest door, he looked back to see he’d left the radio on. At that moment, the front doorknob was turning. Only then did he spot the open gun case to the far right of the door. It held at least five rifles.

  He hurried through the door and found himself in the study, with its two-person couch, beat-up recliner, and flat-screen television mounted on the wall. There was a cowhide under the harvest-table desk, and on the walls a pair of snowshoes, a brass clock, and some old black-and-white photographs. The fireplace was constructed of river rock, with a wide hearth for sitting close to the flames, and nearby was a closet with sliding doors. The room smelled sweetly of pine sap and pipe smoke, and it felt like it would be a cozy place to spend a long snowed-in day.

  Kevin had his ear to the study’s door while searching for a way out-the door and a casement window immediately behind him.

  “… basically, a ten-acre island in the middle of God’s country,” a man’s heavily accented voice was saying on the other side of the door. It was the cowboy. “The river is down there by the strip, with gorges at either end. Amazed you made it in. We extended that runway a year ago, but the boss’s pilot took three weeks of simulation before daring to try it.”

  “What do you mean ‘an island’?” asked the other man, the copilot.

  “This cabin’s on Shady Mountain. It’s four thousand feet. Between it and the river… It’s the isolation of this place, the privacy, that the boss finds so pleasing. Original cabin was built eighty years ago from logs cleared from the land. Major redo when the boss got it ten years ago. You can fly in, float in, but you don’t get hikers knocking on your door like at some of these ranches… Can I get you something?”

  “I’m okay, thanks… So, you take care of it by yourself?”

  “That I do.”

  “Must get a little lonely.”

  “Not that I’ve noticed-”

  “Come back. Didn’t copy,” a nasally thin voice broke in.

  “Ah! The radio,” said the pilot.

  “Huh?” the cowboy said.

  “Didn’t copy your call,” the radio voice clarified.

  “I didn’t call.” The cowboy raised his voice for the radio.

  “Is this John?” said the radio.

  “It is. Ernie?”

  “Get yourself off the channel, would you, John?” said Ernie. “You’re clogging the airwaves. Someone was calling on this frequency.”

  “Keep your britches on,” John said.

  There were a couple pops, then Ernie’s voice was no more.

  “Not sure who we should contact first,” said John. “I’ve got a satellite phone. I’m thinking you might want to call your boss before I go getting the Custer County sheriff all in a froth.”

  “You’re right about that,” said the pilot.

  “I’ve got to call it in, but I sure as shit can wait ten minutes if that’ll keep you your job.”

  “It might.”

  “I’ll chase down that sat phone for you.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The cowboy’s boots sounded as he crossed the room, then stopped abruptly.

  “You must have made a shout-out to ATC once you caught fire,” the cowboy said.

  The pilot stuttered with his answer. “Ah… of course we did.”

  “Well, hell, there’s no putting it off, then. They’ll be organizing searches. We had something similar last year-a Beechcraft Bonanza gone missing. Radio’s probably the way to go. Call off the dogs, you know… not fair to them.”

  “I know what you’re saying, but I’d sure appreciate contacting my boss first. That phone would be a big help.”

  “Timing won’t make any difference,” the cowboy said, his voice suddenly cautious and reserved. “How many souls did you say were on board?”

  “I didn’t say,” said the other man. “But it was three of us: me, my pilot, and one crew.”

  A loud knock caused Kevin to jump.

  “Yeah?” the cowboy hollered. “Come in.”

  The door opened, then banged shut.

  “Whoa!” said the cowboy. “You took quite a hit.”

  “That’ll teach you to tighten that seat belt,” the copilot said, “won’t it, Bobby?”

  Bobby…

  Kevin knew the newcomer. He’d hammered him with the wrong end of the fire extinguisher.

  Kevin hoped the cowboy’s change in tone meant he’d reasoned through the radio being found switched on. The discovery had to be weighing on him, had to have prompted the question about the number of passengers.

  One thing became clear to Kevin: the cowboy wasn’t part of the team. He and the copilot were strangers to each other, each testing the other. Distrustful of each other, it was beginning to feel like.

  “Let’s do hold off on the radio,” the copilot said, a little too insistently, “until I can reach my boss and let him know what’s going on. He’s a low-profile kind of guy. He’s not going to want a lot of attention over this.”

  “Who’d you say the owner of the jet was?”

  “I didn’t say. He keeps a pretty low profile,” the copilot repeated. The tone between him and the cowboy had turned chilly.

  Kevin, glancing again at the window, then the closet, was riveted by what he was hearing. He knew he should run, but his eavesdropping had him glued to the spot.

  “A plane that fancy and all,” the cowboy said, “surprised it don’t have its own sat phone. Most do, right?”

  “You know what?” said the copilot, his voice less antagonistic. “Of course it does. I didn’t even check before coming up here, the power being down after we fried that panel. I didn’t think anything was working. Let me go check.”

  “Not a problem,” the cowboy said, also sounding less tense, “you can use mine. Now, about keeping a low profile around here? Not possible, I’m afraid. It’s big news when a bear rips into the trash. But a private plane-a jet, no less-hell, if this is handled wrong you’ll have Boise news choppers getting aerial shots by sunup. And let me tell you something: my boss wouldn’t appreciate that. So I’m thinking, maybe we’re of a like mind here. First we’ll call your boss, then mine. We’ve got to call off the search somehow, but let me set on that for a minute. We best go about this with kid gloves. Let me get me that satellite phone. I just remembered, it’s not upstairs.”

  The clomp-clomp of boots was now coming Kevin’s direction as he frantically glanced around the study on his way to the closet. He spotted a small green light on the bookshelf. It was the satellite phone. It had been there all along, just five feet away.

  He was late getting to the closet, his hand on the sliding door as the cowboy entered the room.

  They locked eyes.

  Kevin’s eyes must have looked fearful. The cowboy’s eyes widened at first, then softened.

  “Won’t be but a minute,” the cowboy called out to the
others. He then shut the door.

  The moment the door closed, the copilot’s footfalls hurried toward the study. He wasn’t having any doors shut on him.

  The cowboy stabbed at the air, directing Kevin to hide in the closet.

  Kevin got in the closet but didn’t shut the door in time. He let it go rather than chance making any noise shutting it. Just then, the pilot, not the copilot, charged into the room behind the cowboy. He hit the cowboy on the head with a lamp, dropping him with the single blow. He was about to deliver a second blow, quite possibly fatal, when the copilot stopped him.

  “No!” said the copilot. “That’s enough!”

  “He’s a big son of a bitch,” said the wiry guy. “Let me give him another.”

  “He knows this place… he’s our way out of here. Tie him up.”

  The wiry guy, “Bobby,” raced over to the phone and grabbed it. “Got it!”

  Kevin, behind the closet door, peered through a crack.

  A second light came on in the room.

  “We’re out of here, right?” Bobby asked. “Same plan?”

  “Get real,” barked the copilot. “The airstrip and the river are the only ways in and out of here. The jet’s not going anywhere, Matt. We smashed up his Cessna, something he doesn’t even know about yet. Maybe we could float the river… Or maybe we could contact Lorraine and just sit tight.”

  Lorraine, Kevin noted. Matt, not Bobby. He now had two of their names.

  “What about the girl?” Matt said. “She’s worth something to someone.”

  “Trust me, I’m aware of that. The ranch is an island, is how he described it. Those kids aren’t…” His voice trailed off.

  With his narrow view of the room, Kevin couldn’t see anyone. But he hadn’t heard them leave the room. The silence stretched out.

  “I don’t have time to play games,” said the copilot.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” said Matt.

  “Shut up, Matt.”

  When he spoke again, he was immediately on the other side of the closet door.

  “There are two ways to play this,” the copilot said through the door. “You come out of the closet with your hands where we can see them or you stay in there and it plays out worse for you.”

  Kevin held his breath. The copilot was talking to him. But how-?

  Then he spotted his own wet shoe print on the floor outside the closet, the toe pointing in. His black Reeboks were soaking wet from the dew.

  “Okay, have it your way,” the copilot said. He then slid the closet door shut.

  Kevin was overcome by the darkness of the space.

  “Find a broom handle,” the copilot said to Matt, “and hammer and nails.”

  “Jesus!” said Matt, as he took off out of the room.

  “What are you, kid, a size nine? Too big for her. And you’re in there alone, which means she’s alone too. Or hurt. Or whatever. If you want to help her, you start talking.”

  Kevin heard Matt’s footfalls returning to the room. Then he heard wood crack. The sliding door nearest him wobbled as the broken broom handle was jammed in place. Then there was more wobbling as the copilot tested the doors.

  “Bad decision, kid,” the copilot said through the door. “Find the girl,” he then said to Matt. “She’s probably close by.”

  “Roger is not going-”

  “No names!” the copilot shouted.

  “Search the house first. Radio our friend at the plane. Tell him the girl’s alone. We’re going to be fine.”

  Kevin finally exhaled. His head was spinning. Roger. Three names.

  “But get me those nails or some screws or something first,” the copilot said.

  The storage room!

  Speaking to the closet door, he added, “You had your chance, kid.”

  56

  Summer squeezed her legs together, her swollen bladder making it impossible to think. Kevin, who’d said he would hurry, hadn’t returned. How long was she supposed to wait? Only moments earlier, she’d heard noises and voices coming from inside. Scary noises, angry voices.

  Despite her sense of security beneath the tarp, she had to get out of the garage, both to relieve herself and to escape the claustrophobic panic spreading through her. But she was no fan of the great outdoors; the closest she had gotten to wilderness was Orange County, a wasteland without a decent shopping mall in sight. The idea of fleeing alone into the woods at night made her have to pee all the more badly.

  She slipped from beneath the tarp, ducked behind a combination ATV-trailer, and kept still. In the colorful, eerie light of power tools recharging, she searched the pegboard above her. There, she found a chisel with a razor-sharp blade about the width of her little finger. She leaped to her feet, slipped it in her pant pocket, and instantly cut a hole first in the pocket and then nicked her thigh. Noticing the leather sheaths on other chisels, she stuffed hers into one and put it in her other pocket. She then pressed her pants against the wound-only a scratch.

  Armed, Summer made her way to the shed door, paused, then slipped out into the chilly night air. She pulled the door behind her, ensuring it was latched shut, and sneaked a look at the yard.

  Empty.

  The woods were incredibly dark and more than a little terrifying. How had she let Kevin get away with the flashlight? There was probably one in the shed, but she wasn’t about to go back there. She tasted freedom in the crisp air. If they were after her, as Kevin had claimed, they were going to have to find her.

  57

  With the fallen telephone pole and wires cleared from the bike-path bridge, an hour and twenty minutes after the log spill, two vehicles carrying half a dozen Search and Rescue volunteers, including two canines, were the first allowed across.

  Vocal citizens, demanding to be allowed to cross, kept Tommy Brandon and four deputies busy.

  “I need to get across,” said yet another man from behind Brandon.

  “You and everyone else, buddy,” Brandon said.

  A group of twenty to thirty volunteers was working to clear the bridge, using a combination of chainsaws, four-by-fours with hitches, and even a team of draft horses from out Green Horn Gulch. A third of the fallen logs had been removed, and now efforts were under way to tow the semi clear.

  “Give it another hour and we’ll have it open again.”

  “I’m the girl’s father,” the man said.

  Brandon turned.

  “Excuse me?” he said.

  “The girl who’s believed to be on the plane with the sheriff’s nephew. Teddy Sumner,” he said, then introducing himself. “I need to get to the sheriff… now!”

  “Yeah, okay,” Brandon said. “You parked back there somewhere?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Problem is, Mr. Sumner, there are about a hundred cars in front of yours, and no one’s going to take kindly to someone jumping the line.”

  “I’m going across that bridge, Officer.”

  “It’s Deputy. And, no, you’re not. Not unless I say so, sir. Right now is not a good time, as you can probably see.”

  “Those cars just came across…”

  “They’re Search and Rescue. We just about had a riot on our hands when we allowed that to happen. So we’ve got to let things cool before trying it again.”

  “One of your patrol cars… someone could drive me.”

  “I’m not exactly long on deputies here. I’ve got four men to see that the bridge is cleared and to hold back a couple hundred very pissed-off people, all of whom have a better reason than their neighbor for getting across. I’m sorry, sir, it’ll be maybe twenty minutes.”

  “I can walk across,” he proposed.

  “Of course… as you can see.”

  People on bicycles and motorcycles and on foot were crossing the bike-path bridge in both directions.

  “How far to Hailey?”

  “Four or five miles.”

  “I demand to be taken to the sheriff.”

  Brand
on looked at the man, dumbfounded. “You demand?”

  “Call him, tell him I’m here.”

  “I respect your situation, Mr. Sumner, and I really wish I could help…”

  A tricked-out pickup truck rumbled off road through the sage just then and gunned for the bridge. Brandon hurried toward it, waving the driver back.

  “A little busy here!” he called back to Sumner.

  The man was clearly frustrated. “Call Fleming. Tell him I’m on my way.”

  Sumner charged across the bridge with overemphasized strides.

  Who?” Walt said. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Someone had called in some of the office’s civilian employees. Walt had borrowed three deputies from the jail. He recognized the woman he was speaking to but couldn’t recall the department she was with.

  “Here?”

  “Front-door desk. Wants to see you.”

  “Send him back. Absolutely.”

  Teddy Sumner wore attitude on his face as he entered the Incident Command Center. But as he saw the nearly dozen deputies and civilians at their laptops, as he sensed the orchestrated effort led by Walt who stood behind a central lectern, his brow furrowed and he looked as if he might cry.

  “Down here,” Walt said.

  Sumner made his way through the room slowly, taking it all in.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  “Your tax dollars at work,” Walt said. They shook hands. Walt reintroduced himself. “We don’t usually allow civilians in here while we’re running an operation. I’m happy to have you look around, but you’ll have to wait in my office if you want to stay.”

  “She’s my daughter.”

  “Which is exactly the point,” Walt said. “I make decisions here that affect the investigation, the search, and hopefully the outcome. This is not a democracy.”

  One of the deputies looked up, about to say something, then went back to his laptop.

  Sumner looked around. “How certain are you that they’re on my jet? Before you even think about trying to get me out of this room, I suggest you share some of the circumstantial evidence you spoke of.”