by Kyla Stone
He had been wrong about everything.
“It’s him. He’s the one.”
“He knows we’re onto him,” Devon said.
“Wherever he is, he’s got hours on us,” Moreno said. “The owner of the hardware store, Danny Ellison, says Boone stopped in around eleven a.m. That’s the last time anyone has seen him.”
“Not long after we picked up Fitch,” Devon said.
A chill raced up Jackson’s spine. “He set his cousin up to be his canary in the coal mine. He knew we’d suspect Fitch first. We’d sniff Boone out eventually, but he’d get the warning when we got to Fitch.”
Devon cursed.
“There’s more,” Moreno said. “Nash talked to the librarian, Mrs. Grady. Once he relayed the seriousness of the situation, she admitted that she’d seen Shiloh Easton. This morning, in town, just before eleven.”
Jackson stopped breathing. “Boone could have seen her.”
“It’s possible.”
“We need boots on the ground. Now. Everyone we can get. We need badges checking every vacation rental, every hotel, every campground.”
“Damn it!” Devon said in frustration. “No phones.”
“You’ll have to track them down, one by one. Go to Chief Erickson’s house if he’s not at the precinct. Find Sheriff Underwood. Get who you can on the radio. See if Hasting can drive to the Soo and get Steve Rickshaw, the Chippewa County Sheriff.”
Devon nodded, shoulders tense, expression grim.
Moreno shook his head. “Everyone is tied up with the crisis at the Locks. They called in everyone. The state police. The Coast Guard. A riot broke out this morning. People are trying to get at the supplies in the containers stuck in transport.”
“I need to find Shiloh,” Jackson said. “This maniac ran her off the road. If he thinks she can ID him, and that we’re on to him, he’ll be hunting for her.”
Devon shot him a look. “If you’ve got any aces up your sleeve, now is the time to play them, boss.”
Devon was right. His nerves were frayed. Fear pushed him to the edge. “Eli Pope knows where Shiloh is. I know he does. Enough with the games. I’m getting answers or so help me, I will shoot him myself.”
Devon’s eyes widened. “You sure about this?”
He’d never been less sure in his life. He knew only that a little girl was in grave danger. Shiloh and Cody were counting on him.
If that meant he’d have to climb into bed with the devil to save her, then so be it.
“Do you know where he is?”
Jackson turned for the door. “I know him. I know where he’d go. I can find him.”
Devon reached out and touched his arm. Concern flashed in her eyes. “Jackson. I’ll do everything I can, I swear it.”
Everything might not be enough. He didn’t say the words aloud. It would be challenging fate, an admission to the universe that he doubted. That in the end, his faith might fail him.
He gave her a grim nod. “Take me back.”
Devon dropped him off at the Sheriff’s office. She took the patrol truck and he switched to his Chevrolet Silverado 1500, but not before collecting supplies he might need in his search—more ammo, his Remington shotgun and county-issued AR-15, some flash bang grenades, and a pair of night vision binoculars.
He drove thirty miles over the speed limit, reckless, taking corners too fast, running stop signs. The passing seconds and wasted minutes felt like grains of sand passing through the hourglass.
Only so many grains of sand, only so much luck.
Jackson was fast running out of both.
52
JACKSON CROSS
DAY SEVEN
It took an hour to reach Eli’s campsite from the nearest trailhead. Jackson had suspected where he might go; he knew he’d been right when he discovered the trip wire—if he hadn’t been looking, he would’ve stumbled right over it.
This place had once been Jackson’s favorite spot, too. Before Eli had gone and ruined everything.
So many memories had been made here: Eli and Jackson fly fishing, wiling away the summers at the swimming hole with the girls. The beach upstream where they’d built the firepit and watched the stars while they drank to ward off the despair crouched at the edges of their lives.
He heard Lily’s effervescent laugh, saw a bare-chested Eli plunge through the river, grab her around the waist, and pull her under. How Lily had looked at Eli with naked adoration, ardent desire. How Eli had looked back.
Jackson had watched them, sitting on the flat rock beside Lena, who had been sunbathing, eyes closed, a backward baseball cap over her face.
Bitter Jealousy had curled in his stomach like a snake eating its own tail. Lena hadn’t seen a thing.
He remembered Eli holding Lily beneath the water. The bubbles streaming, the water disturbed as she thrashed.
“Eli,” Jackson had said. “What are you doing?”
Eli looked up. His eyes dark, face unreadable.
Jackson half rose. “Eli! Let her go!”
Eli released her and swam a stroke backward. Lily came up sputtering. Her arms pinwheeled as she gasped. Water streamed down her face, tendrils of chestnut hair stuck to her cheeks, her forehead.
“You jerk!” she screamed.
Eli’s expression darkened. He’d stalked from the river, hands clenched at his sides, water streaming from his shoulders, his chest.
“Eli!” Lily had called after him, still in the lake. She smiled, pushed her wet hair back from her face. In only an instant, she’d gone from angry to charming, tantalizing. Everything always a big joke. “Don’t be mad. Come back!”
“She wanted to see how long she could go,” Eli had muttered as he’d strode past Jackson. “She told me to.”
Lena sat up, groggy. “What’s going on?”
But it was already over. It had only been a moment. Jackson had felt it, though. A frisson of doubt. Of fear, at what Eli might do, what he was capable of.
He’d hated himself for it at the time. Later, that memory had haunted him.
Jackson blinked and shoved the painful memories down deep. It was one of many when it came to Eli, to Lily, to those sun-drenched moments that hinted of the shadows to come.
The campsite was empty.
“I know you’re here,” Jackson said loudly.
With one hand on his sidearm, he surveyed the scene. The Dakota fire pit. The log for seating. The tent in the center of the clearing. The ground swept clean of footprints. To his left, a couple of damp shirts hung over a fishing line stretched between two trees.
Blue jays twittered in the trees. Thirty feet to his right, the river burbled over moss-strewn boulders. The clear water sparkled in the dappled sunlight. A heron strutted in the shallows. It watched him, wary, ready to take flight if he made a sudden move.
“Enough with the games,” he said. “Come on out.”
Something struck him in the back of the head.
He spun around. An acorn lay on the ground behind him.
He felt Eli’s presence though he couldn’t see him. Like a cool touch on the back of his neck, a ghost walking across your grave. The hairs on his arms stood on end.
“Got you,” Eli said.
It was a game they’d played a million years ago. Jackson would try to sneak up on Eli and nail him with an acorn or a pebble. He’d never managed to hit him. Eli had known every time.
Jackson couldn’t see Eli. He was hidden somewhere within the cover of the tree line, blended into his surroundings. Anxiety ate at him, but it was too late to back down. He was pot committed.
He kept his hand on the butt of his service pistol. His pulse thudded in his ears but he didn’t reveal his nervousness, his desperation. Like any predator, Eli could sniff out weakness.
“Come out, Eli.”
Ten yards away, a shadow moved among denser shadows. Eli appeared from between two cottonwoods. He wore a homemade ghillie suit—twigs and leaves woven into netting over his back, shoulders, and h
ead. Black mud streaked his skin beneath his eyes.
His feet were spread shoulder-width apart, the butt of an AK-47 pressed to his shoulder, the barrel aimed at Jackson’s chest. He looked every inch the skilled killer that he was.
Jackson had expected the hostile reception. Didn’t mean he cared for a weapon pointed at him. “Put the gun down, Eli.”
“I would, but how do I know you won’t shoot me? I seem to recall a promise to that effect.”
“You’re going to have to trust me.”
Eli guffawed.
Startled, the heron took flight in a flurry of wings. Across the river, a squirrel scolded them from the branch of a jack pine.
“I’m here to ask for your help.”
“There’s a bald-faced lie if I ever heard one. You’re going to have to do better than that, friend.”
“It’s not a lie. It’s not a trick.”
“Heard that before.”
Jackson stared down the barrel of the AK-47, his heart pumping. He was painfully aware that Eli knew a hundred ways to kill a person, none of them using a bullet. “Please put that away.”
“Forgive me for not taking you at your word.”
“Damn it, Eli! Stop playing games.”
“The only one playing games is you.”
“Shiloh is in danger.”
A brief silence. Eli’s expression didn’t change. His Ojibwe features were sharp as a blade, black eyes glittering like obsidian.
“Did you hear me?”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree. As usual.” He paused. “Unless you’re here to plant more evidence.”
Jackson didn’t flinch. He knew he had it coming. “I’m here for Shiloh.”
“I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing. I don’t care.”
“You’re lying on both counts.”
“Good thing I don’t care what you think.”
“She came to you.”
Eli didn’t answer for a moment, as if deciding whether to continue the deception or start playing straight. Jackson needed him to play straight.
“I care for Shiloh, Eli. I care what happens to her. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m asking for your help. I have nowhere else to turn.”
“What makes you think I would help you?”
Jackson licked his dry lips. “Somewhere down deep in that black soul of yours, you have a soft spot for Lily’s daughter. I don’t know why. I despise the thought of her anywhere near you. My back is against the wall. I don’t have a choice.”
Eli didn’t lower his weapon. Something crossed his features—a hint of concern.
“You helped her after the accident.”
Eli didn’t deny it.
“Is she hurt?”
“Banged up. No broken bones.”
Anger thrummed through him. “And you didn’t take her to the hospital?”
“I patched her up. The hospital would have notified social services. She was terrified.” Eli’s mouth hardened. “Her injuries were superficial.”
Jackson looked around the campsite. “Where is she now?”
“She stayed with me for two nights, then she did her thing and disappeared. She’s flighty. Has trust issues. Remind you of anyone?”
Jackson ground his teeth in frustration. “Eli!”
“She’s fine.”
“Except that she isn’t.” Jackson had to push past Eli’s defenses. Get him to see how high the stakes were, that they mattered to Eli, too. “I know you didn’t kill Easton. Neither did Sawyer. Or Cody. Someone else did.”
Eli studied him.
“We had it wrong. I had it wrong. It’s Walter Boone. I still don’t know why he was after Cody, but he was. We think Cody was the target, not Amos. Shiloh witnessed it.”
“I’m listening.”
“He knows about her. He tried to run her off the road and clipped her four-wheeler. We found it a mangled wreck off that old forest road near County Road 552, near Candle Creek.”
Eli’s eyes darkened.
Jackson caught it. A flicker of anger, a shadow there and then gone.
“We can’t find Boone.”
Eli stilled. “What do you mean, you can’t find him?”
“He’s not at his house. Looks like he hasn’t been there for a while. We can’t get access to his financial records, credit cards, or phone logs because every system is down. He’s in the wind.”
“You think he knows you’re on to him.”
“Yes.”
“And that he’s going after Shiloh.”
Fear churned in his belly. “Yes.”
“He doesn’t know where she is. No one does.”
“You do. And we don’t know that, not for certain. He could have followed her. He could’ve picked her up in town. On the trail. Anywhere.”
Eli’s face remained impassive. Jackson couldn’t tell what he was thinking—he seldom could, even when they were best friends.
“This man is dangerous. We think he already got to Cody. Whether that boy is dead or he’s being kept somewhere, I don’t know. If Shiloh thinks Walter Boone has her brother, what do you think she’s going to do?”
It didn’t need to be said aloud. They were both thinking it. That feral, half-wild child would set out on her own. She would not ask for help. She had courage but she was also reckless and would get herself killed trying to be brave.
Eli’s eyes flicked to the campsite. He scanned their surroundings, hardly moving. His gaze roamed constantly, his muscles bunched and tense beneath his ghillie suit.
“Where are your fellow officers?” he asked. “Shouldn’t they be searching every square inch of this place? Turning over rocks to see what’s squirming underneath? Arresting innocent people?”
“They’re otherwise occupied. Phones are down. Communications screwed to hell. Servers disrupted all over the country, half the planet. There’s a riot at the Locks. More happening downstate in Detroit and Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo. People getting scared, starting to panic, realizing the government won’t be able to save us all.”
“The world is going to hell.”
“Yeah, looks like maybe it is. But I still have a job to do. And that job is to apprehend Walter Boone for the homicide of Amos Easton. I intend to do that. But Shiloh is my priority.”
Jackson cleared his throat. “I promised her mother. On her grave. Not that you would understand that.” He took a breath, struggling to tamp down his anger, his frustration, his desperation. He could feel slender threads of hope slipping through his fingers. “Shiloh Easton is more important than either of us.”
“That we can agree on.”
“If you care about her, then you have to help me find her. She’s a little girl and she trusted you. Do not let her down.”
A tense minute passed. Eli didn’t move. He might have been a statue, no emotion on his face, no twitch in those rock-steady hands holding the AK-47.
Jackson knew his mind was whirring, examining the angles, looking for traps. He had the unsettling sensation that Eli wasn’t looking for a trap as much as setting one of his own—one for Jackson.
The two of them, alone in the woods. No cell service. He was the undersheriff of Alger County. He was about to head into the remote wilderness with a former elite tier one soldier, a convicted killer. A killer who had every reason to hate him. To want him dead.
Jackson was capable with a gun; Eli was an expert. Jackson could fight; Eli had been made for it.
Jackson’s heart kicked into high gear. Adrenaline shot through him. He had to be smarter. Had to be faster. And when the time came, if it did—he needed to be ready.
As if reading his thoughts, Eli smiled for the first time. It was a wolf’s smile. The smile of a predator on the hunt.
Eli lowered the rifle. “Then let’s find her.”
53
SHILOH EASTON
DAY SEVEN
The cabin stood in the center of a small clearing. Tall trees rose around it. Junk in the overgrown yard
, weeds as high as her knees. She checked three other cabins on her route before finding this one.
The ramshackle building looked cheap, slapped together. The dusty windows stared at her like blank eyes. Faded green paint peeled from the front door. Three concrete blocks served as steps. The roof sagged, the shingles carpeted in moss.
It was the rusty birdbath in front of the cabin that had drawn her attention. The same one from the picture. She’d forgotten it until now.
This was it. This was the one.
A sense of palpable wrongness sifted into her pores, her skin, her bones. Nausea slicked her insides. The closer she got to the cabin, the sicker she felt. Her gut in knots. Her palms clammy.
Her first instinct was to rush to the battered front door and use her lock pick to break in. The truth lay in wait for her inside those shabby walls. She knew it. Felt it. Cody was in there.
Shiloh dropped to her hands and knees. The crossbow slid off her shoulder but she jerked it back and crept forward, leaves in her face, twigs snagging her hair, her kneecaps muddy.
A spider crawled over her right hand. The leaves of a fern tickled her cheek; a twig poked into her ear. She ignored it all, focused on the cabin, drawing closer through the tangle of underbrush.
The grass driveway consisted of twin ruts to the right of the cabin. A lopsided shed stood behind the cabin, along with an outhouse. A pile of firewood next to it, a rusted wheelbarrow covered in leaves. Three rain barrels were stacked along the left side of the cabin.
It didn’t look derelict but neither did it look lived in. It existed in an in-between state. Like the witch’s candy house in the Hansel and Gretel stories. Or a secret abode in the stories of fairies and fae, demons and goblins—mysterious, compelling, dangerous.
The air was still. Crickets and insects buzzed in the underbrush. No vehicle was parked out front. But maybe he parked somewhere else and hiked in. Didn’t mean no one was there.
Time passed. Seconds, minutes. Hunger rumbled in her belly. With one hand, she dug into her sweatshirt pocket and tugged out a Snickers bar. Tearing the wrapper open with her teeth, she took a few bites, caramel and nuts sticking in her teeth, chocolate coating her tongue.
