She hadn’t seen a single car since she’d crossed the bridge. As soon as the thought entered her head, a brown sheriff’s car came around the bend and pulled into the turnoff. The window went down, and the officer called out to her, “Everything okay?”
She forced a smile and nodded. “Thanks.”
As the window started to roll up again, she put out a hand. “Wait.” She approached the car and leaned down so she could see the deputy. About her age, he looked kind, his gaze steady and cautious. “I’m actually trying to find a cabin,” she said.
“In Molva?”
“I believe so.”
He glanced beyond her at the dog. “You have an address?”
She swallowed, hesitating, and shook her head.
“Hard to find a place without an address.”
She forced a smile. Feeling unbidden tears fill her eyes, she blinked hard to send them back. “I’m looking for the house where Derek Hudson held his captives.”
The deputy narrowed his eyes. “You a reporter?”
“No,” she said firmly. “A nurse, actually.”
He studied her face without speaking.
The urge to turn away was so strong she had to clench her fists to remain facing him. Finally, she said, “I was one of them.” And with the words, the ground seemed to pull her gaze.
“One of—” His voice halted, and she could hear the shock in the hard stop.
Several beats passed, and she was gathering her courage to stand up straight and walk away when he asked, “Why now?”
She met his gaze, her heart a thrumming beat in her neck and chest. “Because I need to.”
“I’ll take you there,” he said. “But I need to see ID first. You understand?”
She exhaled, half in relief and half in terror that she was actually going to face the place where she’d been held for sixteen months. The deputy’s engine went quiet, and he stepped out and followed her to her car as she pulled her Arizona ID from her wallet and handed it over.
“You have a driver’s license?”
Lily froze. Where was her driver’s license? Did she have one? All she had found in her wallet was the Arizona ID, no driver’s license at all. But she could hardly tell the deputy that. “I left it at home accidentally,” she lied as he looked up and down between her and the image on the ID.
The deputy frowned. “What about registration on the car?”
She had no idea. She’d come down to get closure, and she was going to end up getting arrested for driving without a license. As she opened the glove box and rooted around for a registration, Cal nuzzled against her leg as though to offer support. She located it and checked the date. It wasn’t even expired. The deputy studied it, then returned both registration and ID.
“The cabin is about three miles out of town to the north. You want to follow me?”
She nodded, unable to find words.
He started to turn but stopped and turned back. “There’s not much to see there. The cabin’s been empty for a decade, and it’s likely been taken over by varmints. I think the family tried to sell it, but there were no buyers.”
What was she expecting? That it would look as it had the day she had escaped? That seeing it would bring back her memory in full? Suddenly, she couldn’t even remember why she’d come here.
“My great-aunt knew the family,” the deputy said. “Hudson’s family, I mean. If you wanted to talk to someone, Mindy might be willing to answer some questions.”
Lily studied his face. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt. Did he know what had happened to them in that cabin? There’d been no mention in the articles of sexual assault, but maybe the press hadn’t printed that because they were children and it was too horrific.
“It might be more helpful than seeing the place,” he said. “I know she’s got some pictures of that day, ones her son took.”
Almost without thinking, she nodded.
He exhaled, a small smile curving his lips as though her answer was a relief. “Let me give her a call.” The deputy returned to his car. Lily knelt down to pet Cal, focusing her nervous energy on the dog while she waited. It seemed far too long had passed when she heard the deputy’s voice, still on the phone. “We’ll be there in about ten minutes. Thanks, Mindy.”
Lily rose slowly and turned to face him.
“She says she’d be happy to speak to you,” he said. “Her name is Melinda Danson, and she lives right off Main Street. You can follow me.” He pulled his badge and drew out a business card. “Then, if you still want to see the cabin, give me a call, and I’ll take you there.”
“Thank you,” she said, though what she felt was regret. Why had she thought this was a good idea? Because she had to know. Because she had to save herself. To find out what had happened to Abby. And maybe help Iver. Because she believed that the root of her lost memory, the root of all the bad decisions she’d made for who knew how long—all of it had started here, in Molva.
With Cal loaded, Lily climbed into the car and secured her seat belt. The deputy’s car was at the edge of the turnout, waiting for her, as she started her car and put it in gear.
This was the right decision. You have to know.
Aunt Mindy. As she started forward, she had the thought that it seemed odd that she would get such gruesome news from someone with such a light, happy name.
CHAPTER 42
KYLIE
Kylie paced outside Alvin Tanner’s home, waiting for the coroner while Smith and Sullivan collected evidence. The snow fell in whispers from the tall pines around the property as a light breeze trembled in the air. The sky, which had been blue when Kylie had left her house, was darker now and increasingly gray.
Her fingers searched for knuckles left to crack, but there were none. She’d been cracking her knuckles for two hours. Sheriff Davis had been on the phone since he’d arrived at the scene, and Gary Ross had gone inside and returned looking a little sick to his stomach. “Been a long time since I’ve seen one like that,” he’d said when he’d passed her. From where she stood leaned up against his car, it looked like Ross was on the phone as well.
Kylie was still anxious to talk to Pete McIntosh about the scene of Jenna Hitchcock’s murder. Despite the fact that Hitchcock’s murder had occurred in Glendive, it seemed more obvious than ever that Hagen was at the center of these crimes. Or at least that their killer was close by.
She thought again about the footage Alvin Tanner had on those cameras—footage that would have helped them identify a killer. Davis had confirmed that no one in the department had ever received the footage from Tanner. All of it was gone now, along with the monitoring computer and the backups.
Judging from the severed fingers sitting in the ashtray and the amount of blood on the floor, Kylie suspected that whoever had killed Tanner had tortured him first. Tanner had likely put up a fight over giving up his precious cameras. The killer got what he wanted—the cameras and footage were gone. There was no computer in the house either. If a digital backup had existed, it was gone, too.
Why hadn’t she insisted on taking the footage when she was here yesterday? Would she have been more demanding if the highway patrol officer hadn’t been with her? And how had the killer found out that they were collecting footage? She’d told Gilbert, Davis, and Vogel. But Will Merkel might have mentioned it to someone else.
Davis approached, muttering a curse and pocketing his phone.
Kylie waited for him to explain.
“There was a call to the man camp last night. Big fight, supposedly.”
“Supposedly?”
“According to the Dispatch call, they requested all available cars, so we sent over everyone.” Davis shook his head. “Took forever to get access to the camp because it was after midnight, when the gates are closed. When they finally got in, there was no fight. Call was fake.”
This had to relate back to Tanner. “Larson,” she whispered.
“We pulled the guard off his room last night to deal w
ith the man-camp situation. Gilbert’s over there now. Seems Larson might have left his room.”
“Might have?”
“One nurse thought she saw him outside his room. She isn’t sure.”
Kylie looked back at the house. “So Larson could be good for Tanner.” Then she remembered the way Gilbert had threatened Iver Larson. Everyone in Hagen knew about Tanner, how he recorded every living thing within a hundred yards of his house. When Gilbert had spouted off about the footage that would prove Iver had killed Jensen, Iver would’ve known Gilbert was referring to Tanner’s cameras. She told Davis, who nodded.
“Gilbert remembered the same thing. He’s on his way to interview Larson.” Her phone buzzed at the same time as Davis’s. They stared at their individual screens. A text from Gilbert. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but soon she made out the profile of a tennis shoe, its sole muddy. Another image showed dirt on a linoleum floor and Gilbert’s note. Larson’s. It looked like fresh dirt.
“I’ll have Smith and Sullivan document any tread marks around and inside the house,” Kylie said. “Maybe we can match Larson’s shoes.”
Davis pressed thumb and index finger to the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to have to deal with the mayor on this.”
“I haven’t had a chance to follow up on Pamela Nolan’s alibi,” Kylie said.
“I think that can wait a day or two,” Davis told her. “We’ve got to close this case.”
Kylie sensed that Davis was getting pressure from the mayor, maybe even someone in the state building. Either way, she was grateful not to have to argue the importance of solving the murder over some crazy theory that a woman had run her husband’s car off the road. “Have you seen any results from the state crime lab yet?”
Davis shook his head. “No, but I can give them a call, see if we can speed things along,” he offered, nodding toward the house. “Especially in light of this.”
“That would be great,” she said.
“Absolutely,” Davis said. “I’ll call up there as soon as I’m off with the mayor.”
She thanked him and went to check on the scene, where Smith and Sullivan were still collecting evidence. Sullivan was printing around the table and body while Smith searched the living room for anything that might have remained of the cameras and recording devices.
“I think the perp got it all,” Smith said.
She’d figured as much. She told them about the muddy tennis shoes in Larson’s hospital room and requested they document anything they found, but she didn’t notice many footprints as she walked back to her car. Not much mud either. There wasn’t a lot about these past few days that made her feel lucky. She only hoped that her trip to Glendive brought some answers.
Back in her car, Kylie texted Pete McIntosh, telling him she’d been delayed but was on her way. As she pulled back onto the 1804, she found herself puzzling over the muddy shoes in Larson’s hospital room. Pausing at a stop sign, she brought up the images again. In the second one, mud appeared right beside the small locker where Larson’s personal items were stored, but nowhere else.
If Larson had left the hospital and returned with muddy shoes, wouldn’t there be tracks all the way back to his room as well as by the locker? And if he’d gone to all the trouble to sneak out and then torture and kill Alvin Tanner to destroy the footage of the highway, wouldn’t he have been smarter about the mud on his shoes? It reminded her of Abigail Jensen’s boots. Larson had gone to the effort of getting his truck washed, but he’d left her boots in the truck’s lockbox.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Gilbert. Larson’s guilty.
Again, Kylie found herself wondering about Carl Gilbert’s motives. Was he working in the best interest of the case, or was there something else at play?
She thought about responding but decided against it. Instead, she set her phone on the seat and pulled onto the highway, hoping that some discovery in Glendive would clarify Jensen’s death and put an end to her doubts.
CHAPTER 43
IVER
Iver woke to the sounds of voices in the hospital corridor, and within seconds, his door opened and two police officers stormed in, followed by a nurse. At the front of the herd, a red-faced and breathless Gilbert went straight to the corner of the room where the small melamine locker contained Iver’s clothes, the ones he’d been wearing when he’d been admitted yesterday.
Against a pounding in his skull, Iver pushed himself up in the bed. “What the hell is going on?”
Gilbert was pulling the stuff out of his locker and going through his clothes.
“Hey,” Iver called out, but the officers ignored him.
“I tried to stop them,” the nurse said. “Should I call someone?”
Iver watched them, only then realizing they were here because something had changed. This was not good news. He grabbed his cell phone off the bedside stand and texted Mike.
Hospital asap.
He waited a beat and added, Please.
“No car keys,” Gilbert announced to the other officer. “Someone picked him up.”
“What are you talking about?” Iver called to Gilbert, but the officer didn’t even look up at him. Iver turned to the nurse. “Could you try to get hold of Henry Cooper? He’s an—”
“Sure,” she interrupted. “I know Mr. Cooper. I’ll call over to his house.”
Iver almost grabbed her hand, he was so grateful. “Can you ask him to hurry?”
She nodded with a look at the officers, still rummaging through Iver’s things. “You bet I will.”
His phone pinged. As he read Mike’s message, a rush of relief hit him.
There in ten.
The nurse left, and Iver gripped his phone, waiting for Gilbert to tell him what the hell was going on.
“Look at his shoes,” Gilbert said, then swung around to face Iver. “We’ve got you now, asshole.”
Iver followed his gaze to his tennis shoes, which Gilbert held in the air. Bits of dirt and mud dropped from the soles. “What happened to those?”
Gilbert narrowed his eyes, and Iver shut his mouth. He’d seen enough television to know that now was the time to shut the hell up. He gathered the awkward skirt of his hospital gown and walked toward the bathroom, bringing his phone with him.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“To take a piss,” Iver said, closing the door behind him. He jabbed the lock and then looked around the tiny space. The bathroom was barely the size of a linen closet, covered in railings and a cord that he could pull if he needed assistance. It would almost be funny . . . but it was not funny. His heart pounding, he drew a breath and reminded himself that the nurse was calling Henry Cooper, and Mike was on his way. He just had to wait.
There was no toilet seat to sit on, so he pulled the single thin towel off the rack and spread it on the cold tile floor before sitting down. His thoughts drifted to Cal. They hadn’t been apart even a night since Debbie had brought the dog home. He’d forgotten to tell Mike to pick him up. He’d been so shocked about their news. His ex-wife and his best friend were together. A month ago, it might have derailed him, but compared to everything else going on right now, he didn’t even care.
Or maybe some part of him had known, even before Wednesday.
Someone pounded on the door. “Larson.” Carl Gilbert.
He didn’t answer. Let Carl Gilbert scream himself hoarse.
“Mr. Larson?” a woman’s voice called. “It’s Dr. Prescott. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he called back. “But I’m not coming out until my attorney arrives.”
Gilbert’s loud voice bled through the door as he issued some invective, and Iver leaned his head back against the bathroom wall, a pulse of satisfaction in his sternum. But it was short lived. Gilbert had been saying something about no car keys, that someone else had driven him. Driven him where?
And what was with the mud on his shoes? He’d been in his living room when the seizure
had started. He shouldn’t have had mud on his shoes. He dropped his face on his folded arms, closing his eyes against the escalating pain in his head. Why was the pain back?
“You’re going to have to discharge him,” Gilbert announced. “Because we’re booking him today. Soon as he comes out of the damn bathroom.”
Iver strained to hear Dr. Prescott’s response.
“I do have a good reason,” Gilbert shouted loudly enough to be heard clearly through the bathroom door. “He killed another man last night. Those shoes prove it.”
Iver froze. Killed someone last night? He shook his head. No. He remembered last night. He’d slept well, soundly. At one point, he had woken to the sounds of sirens, followed by noise in the corridor, people shouting. But he hadn’t been awake long. And then he remembered going to the bathroom at some point. But he remembered the whole night. There were no gaps. He couldn’t have killed someone.
The room had long gone quiet when a gentle knocking reached him. “Iver? It’s Henry Cooper. And your friend Mike is here, too. Will you come out and speak to us?”
Iver rose slowly, his joints achy from the cramped position. He opened the door slowly and scanned the room. Gilbert and the other officer were gone.
“I’ve asked them to wait outside,” Cooper said.
“Thank you.”
Cooper glanced at Mike, but Iver shook his head. “It’s okay. Mike can stay.”
As Cooper told him about the man who’d been killed, Iver felt the first rush of true relief he’d experienced since arriving at the bar on Thursday morning.
“I was here, all night,” Iver said, making his way to sit on the bed. “I never left this room.”
“And your shoes?” Cooper asked.
“No idea. They weren’t muddy when I came to the hospital, and I haven’t left.”
Cooper nodded. “We need to find you a criminal lawyer, Iver. This is way outside my area of expertise. I’ll get working on that. In the meantime, Officer Gilbert has an image of you attacking a woman at the bar on Wednesday. From what I can gather, that is their primary evidence against you.”
White Out: A Thriller (Badlands Thriller) Page 21
