A Darkness Absolute

by Kelley Armstrong

  "Right. Did he speak proper English? Accented? Any indication of education level? Anything odd in word choice?"

  She thinks and then says, "He disguised his voice enough that I couldn't tell if he had an accent. His speech didn't strike me as particularly uneducated or well educated--it didn't stand out either way. I never heard him use dialect I didn't recognize. Or words that just weren't right, like you sometimes get in mental illness. He didn't talk a lot. But it was normal. Well, as normal as you can get under the circumstances."

  "When he spoke about women, his requirements, how they tricked him. What was his tone? His affect?"

  "Were they crazy rants? No." She pauses. "Have you ever gone out with a guy who complains about his ex? Who's still bitter about the whole thing? That's what it was like."

  "You said he burned pages of your books. That seems like a very deliberate punishment."

  "Oh, it was. Trust me. He wasn't going into a frenzy, ripping out pages. He'd slowly burn one page in front of me, then warn that next time, he'd do ten. Honestly, Casey, while I can laugh about the question, in every possible way, he was as normal as you could expect. Creepily normal. Which is why, in the beginning, I thought I could reason with him. But I couldn't, and it wasn't because he was too crazy to be reasoned with. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he didn't give a damn. That was the scariest part. That someone who seemed sane could do that to another person. That he could fully understand his actions ... and just didn't care."

  *

  I'm woken that night by a pounding at the door. I lift my head and see Dalton propped on his elbows.

  "Fuck," he says. "You hear that, too?"

  "I'm telling myself I'm dreaming."

  More pounding. Storm whines, nails clicking as she gets out of her bed.

  "You're dreaming, too," I say.

  She whines again. Dalton grumbles under his breath and swings his legs out of bed, saying, "If it's Val again--"

  "If it's about Val, we'd better go down together, prove we're both here."

  I follow Dalton down the stairs and pick up Storm as he opens the door. There, on the porch, is Shawn Sutherland, dressed only in his sweatpants.

  "Shawn?" I say.

  His mouth works, but he's breathing too hard to form words.

  "Come inside," I say, and I take his arm and pull him in as Dalton flicks on the hall light. That's when I see the bruises. A ring of them around Sutherland's throat.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Someone has tried to strangle Shawn Sutherland. We get him to the couch and try to ask what happened, but he's in shock and just keeps saying, "I thought I was safe. I thought I was safe."

  I tend to Sutherland while Dalton pages Sam, the militia he'd left on guard. After last night with Val, we've pulled out the radios. There's no answer, which could only mean the damn thing isn't working. I tell Dalton to go. Then I call Anders. It's 2:00 A.M., and it takes a lot of punches on the call button, but he finally wakes. I've just hung up from that when Dalton calls from Sam's radio.

  "He's out cold," he says. "Someone hit him from behind."

  "Is he okay?"

  "Yeah, I'm--" His voice cuts out. "--Kenny at Nicole's--not answering--once I wake Sam up."

  "I'm on my way as soon as Will's here."

  I lock Storm in the bedroom. Then I get out onto the porch, and I'm still zipping my jacket when I see Anders coming at a run. I jog to meet him. We pass without pausing, me calling, "I'm going to check on Nicole. Kenny's not picking up."

  "Shit. You want me--"

  "Shawn needs you. I'll be fine."

  He calls back that he'll catch up.

  I'm racing to Nicole's when Dalton shouts, "I'm here," from behind me. Not wait for me, which I appreciate.

  I race between two buildings, and there's Nicole's house ... with Kenny sitting on the front porch. He sees me and stands.

  "Radio?" I say.

  "Huh?" He lifts it and hits buttons. There's only static.

  "Shawn was attacked," I say as I climb the steps. "When's the last time you heard from Nicole?"

  "Before she went to bed. But Diana's on duty." He opens the door. "Di?"

  Silence answers. I push through. Dalton catches up, and he's shouldering past Kenny, gun in hand.

  We move quickly into the living room. Diana is lying on the futon, curled on her side, blanket pulled up. I let out a sigh of relief. There's no sign of a struggle. No sign of trauma. She's just asleep.

  Dalton heads for the stairs as I walk over saying, "Di?" I reach out and shake her shoulder. "Di? It's me."

  She doesn't stir. I try harder. One good hard shake, and she topples to the floor, head lolling.

  "Eric!" I shout as I drop beside her, my hands flying to her neck, searching for a pulse.

  "Nicole's gone," he says as he thunders down the stairs. His wet boots squeak as he draws up short behind me. "Her bed's empty."

  I take one running step toward the stairs. Then I glance back at Diana.

  "Nicole isn't there," Dalton says. "Stay with Diana. Is she knocked out?"

  I drop beside her again. "I don't know. Damn it. I can't tell."

  He's on the floor, hands going to her neck as I check her wrist.

  "I think I feel something," I say as I pick up a faint pulse. "Do you?"

  He shakes his head and yanks a picture frame from the coffee table and holds it in front of her mouth. A light fog of condensation forms on the glass.

  "Kenny!" he shouts.

  Kenny's right there. He's been here the whole time, in the doorway, watching and waiting for instructions.

  "Get Will, right?" Kenny says.

  "Please," I say. "As fast as you can. Then get everyone. Nicole's gone."

  He takes off. I check Diana's vital signs again, as if that breath-fog was a trick of the light. It wasn't. She's breathing. Her pulse is weak, though.

  I shine my light on her neck. No signs of strangulation. I look around. Dalton has backed onto his haunches, and he's holding out a teacup. I lean over and sniff. It's an herbal blend, which makes it impossible to tell if it smells as it should.

  "It's almost empty," Dalton says. "The cup was teetering on the edge."

  As if she'd been falling asleep fast, with just enough energy to put it back on the table.

  "Sedative," I say. "But it's too much."

  He sedated Diana to kidnap Nicole.

  Nicole's gone.

  We couldn't protect her. He's taken her again.

  Diana twitches, reminding me I have to focus on her. Her breathing is dangerously shallow. I start CPR. Between bouts, I try to get her to regain consciousness. She doesn't.

  Our first thought is that she's been given the sleeping pills we left for Nicole. Anders knows where they are, though, and when he arrives, he checks. Nicole's supply hasn't been touched.

  We get Diana next door to the clinic, and as he's assessing her, I'm digging through the drug locker. It's secured with a heavy-duty lock, and there's no immediate sign that anyone has broken in. I go straight to the sedatives. The box looks fine, but when I grab the stock chart, I can see exactly what's missing.

  I run back into the examination room. "You haven't given Nicole or Shawn any benzo without marking it down, right?"

  He shakes his head. "So that's what we've got? Shit."

  I know enough about overdoses to understand his curse. Too many sleeping pills is rarely fatal. An OD of benzodiazepine is another matter.

  "I'll..." He trails off and then exhales. "The only remedy I even know is to pump her stomach, which I've never done."

  "We have instructions," I say, grabbing the binder from the shelf. After Beth left, Dalton and I went on a research binge.

  "Manuals are awesome for figuring out a new car stereo," Anders says as he scrubs in. "Life-saving procedures are not exactly the ideal time to learn a new skill."

  "Sorry," I say, squeezing his arm as I walk past. "Stomach pumping is one procedure you just weren't getting volunteers for."
/>   He lets out a ragged chuckle and then says, "I had a beer after work."

  "Hmm?"

  "I know you can smell it on me, and you're trying to decide if you should ask how much I've had. You can always ask, Casey."

  "I don't need to because you'll always volunteer."

  Anders does drink too much. It never interferes with his job--Dalton wouldn't allow that--but we do wish he'd cut back a little. Yet we also know why he drinks and that, maybe, if it doesn't become a problem, there are worse ways for him to silence his demons.

  We pump Diana's stomach. Then I need to go work the scene. I don't want to. Whatever she's done, when I saw her unconscious on that floor, it felt the same as when I'd found her passed out from her ex's supposed beating, right before we came to Rockton.

  I still care. I've never pretended I didn't, but that heart-in-throat terror reminds me how much. It won't fix anything. Things might never be fixed, probably should never be fixed. But I care. I always will.

  *

  Next door, Dalton is hunting for Nicole's trail. It should be easy. It's not, because her captor isn't stupid. He realizes snow on the ground will make it very easy to track him, particularly with a captive in tow.

  He's left a very clear trail from the back door--boot prints combined with uneven drag marks, as if he'd put Nicole on a tarp or a sheet and hauled her. That's easy to follow. He lets it be easy. There's nothing else he can do. But his trail goes directly to the main groomed path. And then it is lost. We continue on with our lanterns, hoping to find footsteps leaving the trail, but only see those from people zipping off for business best not done on a path.

  "She's out here," I say.

  "I know."

  "It can't be this hard. There's snow. We just need to get farther along the groomed paths. Past the logging sites, past the lake, past everything." I take a deep breath and when I look around again, the forest seems to shimmer through a veil of exhaustion.

  "We can do this," I say. "We have to."

  "We will."

  I squeeze my eyes shut. "Okay, so methodically tackling it, we start with the old logging path. That's the shortest. Get to the end of that and..."

  A flake of snow lands on my arm. Then another.

  "No," I whisper. I look up at the sky to see snow falling.

  "No. No, no, no!"

  Dalton's fingers wrap around my arm. "Let's do what we can. Quickly."

  FORTY-NINE

  We barely get to the old logging site before the wide path is covered. We try another direction, in case heavier tree cover keeps the ground barer, but by the time we reach that, it too has been blanketed in snow.

  I want to keep searching. Blindly searching. Stumbling through the dark and the snow. I think I might have, too, if the wind hadn't whipped up, a true storm blowing in, Dalton all but picking me up and carrying me back to Rockton.

  "We'll go out at first light," he promises. "The first hint of light, and we'll be out on the horses, searching."

  Searching for what? I don't even know. Nicole's captor isn't going to set up camp right off a main path. He's not going to light a fire and call attention to himself. He's not going to take Nicole to the same cave where we found her.

  Back in Rockton, Dalton doesn't even suggest sleep. I have a witness to question and a scene to process.

  First, I talk to Sutherland. The marks around his neck tell me it was a soft ligature. Manual strangulation leaves very different pattern. The thick mark and lack of abrading suggests a fabric, like stockings, rather than something rough, like a rope. I notice fibers and remove them.

  Anders found no sign of serious injury. Just a very traumatized victim. He escaped his captor, made it back to Rockton, thought he was safe ... and he wasn't. We promised safety and failed to deliver on that promise. Failed him, failed Nicole. She's back out there. Back with her captor, her tormenter, her rapist.

  Like Val, Sutherland woke to someone in his room. Someone strangling him while holding a bag over his head.

  A surge of adrenaline let Sutherland throw off his attacker. By the time he clawed free of the bag, he was alone in the room. That was when he'd grabbed a knife and raced outside to find Sam unconscious. He'd left him there and run all the way across town to Dalton's place.

  That's all he can tell me.

  *

  On to the scene of the main crime: the poisoning of Diana and the abduction of Nicole. I find the tea blend in the kitchen. There's only one, making it easy to dose. I bag that as evidence. Then I pour Diana's leftover tea into a jar.

  Upstairs, I stand in Nicole's bedroom doorway and visually process. Dalton says he only came as far as the door, so the scene is intact. I sketch it. Then I go straight for the teacup on the nightstand. I pick it up and sniff. It's nearly empty, and it smells the same as Diana's. There's no sign of struggle in the room, suggesting Nicole was unconscious when she was taken.

  I hunt for further clues but find nothing.

  *

  I'm at Sutherland's place, piecing together the evidence with his story. I find the ligature used to strangle him. That doesn't exactly take skilled detective work--there's a ripped length of sheet lying beside the bed.

  A strip from a sheet seems an odd choice until I think about it. His attacker undoubtedly made a choice not to use rope. It would abrade the attacker's hands, leaving marks. It also isn't easy to stuff a suitable length of rope in your pocket. For this, all Sutherland's attacker needed to do was rip a length from his victim's spare set.

  *

  I'm back at the clinic. Anders and Dalton are talking to the militia and volunteers, preparing for tomorrow's search. Diana is being watched by Sam, who's back on his feet and eager to prove himself. Jen's assisting.

  "So, you guys screwed up," Jen says as I walk into the room where Diana is still unconscious. "Val has some lunatic break into her place, and the very next day, Nicki is taken. Again."

  I'm about to answer when Dalton's voice drifts in from the hall, punctuated by footfalls. "Yeah, I fucked up. Now go make yourself useful."

  Jen turns on him. "You did fuck up, Sheriff."

  "Didn't I just say that?"

  "No, we fucked up." I turn to Jen. "All evidence suggested Val's intruder was only a nightmare, but we should have proceeded otherwise. Added extra guards. Maybe moved both Shawn and Nicole into a place with a single entry point."

  "Happy?" Dalton says to Jen. "Or do you want us to sign a confession, too?"

  Jen's eyes narrow. "I was just pointing out--"

  "That we fucked up. That Nicole is gone. That Shawn could have been killed. Yeah, we're disappointing you by not arguing, but we don't have time for that. We take responsibility. Now move on, so Casey and I can figure out how to find Nicole."

  "I want to help. As permanent militia."

  "Does this seem like recruitment time? I've told you that I'll pay you for what you do now, and after this is over, I'll consider your application."

  "Bullshit. You'll never hire me. You hate me."

  "Hate?" He snorts. "Too much effort. I just don't like you much, which wouldn't stop me from hiring you. You know what would? The fact you've got a longer infraction record than anyone in this town."

  She crosses her arms. "I've done my time."

  "Still, getting hired might not be in your best interests. Militia are subject to triple penalties for all infractions."

  "You just made that up."

  "Yep. Now go think about it, and if you still want to apply, see me next week. In the meantime, if you join the search, you'll get militia pay."

  She still grumbles as she heads to the door, saying, "I'm going to be right outside, and I'm coming back in to watch Diana when you're gone. You're not ripping me off halfway through a shift."

  "Thank you," I say. "We appreciate the dedication."

  She snarls a fuck off over her shoulder as she leaves. When she's gone, Dalton and I collapse into chairs beside Diana's bed. A few minutes later, I'm sound asleep.

 
; FIFTY

  We're on the trail at first light, as Dalton promised. Out all day on horseback, in hopes that the quieter ride will help us hear anything untoward. We don't.

  We return to the cave. As much of a long shot as that might seem, that's exactly why we have to go back. It's like when I played hide-and-seek as a girl--my favorite trick was to return to a spot I'd used earlier because no one ever checked those. We're dealing with a smart man, in full control of his choices and actions. He might do the same. He didn't. We comb through that cave system and find no sign that he's even visited it again.

  Late afternoon, we return to join the general search. The hunt is both organized and controlled--the last thing we want is for Nicole's captor to grab a second victim.

  There's no shortage of volunteers. Too many actually, more than we can afford to have in the forest and keep the town running. I used to hear about searches like this down south. Someone would go missing on a hiking trail, and I would always wonder at that. How could you leave groomed trail--often to go to the bathroom, as Val had--and get lost? The search would be organized, with hundreds of volunteers and tracking dogs and search helicopters--every tool available to modern search-and-rescue. Yet they'd find nothing. How was that possible?

  I've already discovered how easy it is to get lost only a few steps from a path. Now I see a massive search effort, how flawless it seems, how futile it feels. Nicole could be bound and gagged under a fallen branch, and we would pass right by her.

  Which does not stop us from searching. All day. Into the night. Up the next morning. Out again. Endlessly searching.

  I overdo it. I can't help that. I found her. I brought her back. And I let her be taken again.

  I finally understand exactly how Dalton felt when Abbygail disappeared--that devastating level of guilt. For him, it was a girl with an unrequited crush, threatening to go into the forest to get his attention ... and then disappearing. For me, it is the woman I brought home from an unimaginable ordeal ... only to let her captor take her again, right from under our noses.

  We talk about that, as we're out there, searching. Shared guilt. Shared reassurances that we'd done our best. Shared fears that we hadn't, that we couldn't, that when it comes to keeping another person safe, there is never going to be a point where you feel you did all you could.

  Here, part of doing all we can means taking the plane up as soon as the wind dies down. It also means recruiting every human resource. That morning, Dalton tacks a piece of yellow cloth to a tree. It's a sign for Jacob to meet him when the sun is high.