Dark Mountain (The David Wolf Series Book 10) Read online

  Patterson shook her head with little conviction. She thought of Tommy again and closed her eyes. “I can’t,” she said.

  “Ethan Womack wants me. His older brother killed himself because of me. And he’s taken Rachette to make sure I show up, so he can take revenge. On me.”

  She wiped her eyes. “But he’s saying we both have to be there. Why is that? Why’s he involving us?”

  “He’s hurt. He worshipped his brother, and now his brother’s dead. He’s trying to inflict as much pain as possible on me by involving you and Rachette.”

  “He’s going to kill Tom when he realizes I’m not there.”

  “He may or he may not. But I’m not going to play that game.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “There’s no way in hell you’re going up there with me. And you know there’s no way Rachette would let you go if he were here right now.”

  The tears flowed down her cheeks. “If something happens to you two, how will I live with myself?”

  Wolf shrugged. “I’m not going to let anything happen. And I’m not giving you an option. It’s not up to you. This is my call, my decision.”

  “You’re not my boss anymore.”

  He turned and left her standing alone. Despite the screaming voice inside, demanding she go after him and help, she stayed where she was.

  CHAPTER 23

  Wolf started the engine and pulled forward, unclogging the traffic that had built up behind his SUV.

  He ignored Patterson, who stood on the corner like a statue, and flipped a U-turn, then accelerated up Main to the county building and parked in the rear lot.

  His phone vibrated and displayed MacLean’s name.

  “Yeah?”

  “They got nothing at the Beer Goggles. How about you?”

  “No. Nothing. That earlier rain was heavy. Any footprints or other signs are long gone by now.”

  “I’ve chartered a plane to New Mexico. The only clues to follow are going to originate down there. And with a deputy’s life on the line, I’m not going to outsource the work and watch it on Facebook while playing with my dick.”

  “I agree. Good move,” Wolf said.

  “So, get your ass in here. Flight leaves from Ashland airport in an hour, and we take a chopper in ten minutes.”

  On cue, the noise of an approaching helicopter seeped through his vehicle and appeared in the sky above the county building.

  He leaned back in his car seat. “I’m not going.”

  There was a brief silence. “What the hell do you mean you’re not going?”

  “I have to stay here.”

  “The clues are down there, Wolf. If you want to—”

  “I’m not going. I’ll be here, ready to act when you guys find something important. That’s the end of our conversation.”

  MacLean exhaled. “Okay, whatever you say.”

  The line went dead.

  Wolf stared at his phone and tapped the map application. His cell hooked up to the county-building wireless network and the map materialized quickly.

  He scrolled south of the meeting point again and zoomed in.

  With glazed eyes, he stared at the screen, and when his phone went dark and shut off, he let it sleep, because he no longer needed the display.

  Like magnets turned so that their opposite poles lined up, the seemingly unfathomable events of the day were snapping together and forming a line. And the line led to a place that boiled his blood.

  Moving fast, he got out and went to the rear hatch. He opened it and pulled out his emergency backpack, then fished inside for his Garmin handheld GPS.

  He shut the hatch and climbed back into the driver’s seat, plugged in the GPS, started the car, and made sure the charge light came on.

  As the GPS downloaded an update, the helicopter noise ramped up again, and outside a Bell 429 helicopter ascended from the roof and disappeared into the southern sky.

  A minute later the GPS was ready, so he entered the coordinates and studied the area closely. The trail he’d have to hike was 4.7 miles long. The meltwaters of Dark Mountain fed a thin stream that ran the length of the valley and the trail would have to cross it once. Wolf zoomed in on where the hiking trail crossed the river and saw a footbridge. The structure looked sturdy enough from a hundred-foot-height zoom, but he knew the water would be running high.

  He zoomed out and did some calculations.

  His dash clock glowed 4:38 p.m.

  That left him seven hours and twenty-two minutes to get to the top of a five-mile hike through rugged terrain—a hike that started thirty-nine miles away.

  Most of the drive was highway, then a dirt road meandered into dense forest and up the valley until it ended at the trailhead. The last two miles of road were labeled as jeep trail, which meant it might be hairy. Especially during melt season. And surely after the rain they’d just received. Then there was the weather forecast for tonight, which called for more of the same.

  If the drive took two and a half hours, say three for good measure, that put him at the trailhead at 7:39, which would be about an hour before sunset.

  Hike the 4.7 miles beyond that at a one mile-per-hour trudge and he’d arrive at 12:39—leaving him thirty-nine minutes late and Rachette dead. At two miles per hour, he’d be there at 10 p.m.

  He was confident he’d be there before 10 p.m.

  He had plenty of experience with long, grueling hikes. Marches with fifty-pound packs on their backs—ruck marches—had been numerous the first seven days of RIP.

  That’s how he’d gotten to know Paul Womack: by hiking in front of him. The man had jabbered constantly, telling anecdotes and dirty jokes. Anyone who marched in Paul Womack’s vicinity was subjected to it, but nobody complained. He had a gift for making his fellow soldiers laugh.

  Wolf backed out of the parking spot, thinking about Paul Womack’s open head glistening in the New Mexico sunlight.

  He cracked the windows and let a fresh breeze flow through the cab.

  Looking in the rearview mirror, he stared at his own eyes and saw broken capillaries, a wrinkled forehead, and baggy eyelids. He was half the Special Forces soldier he’d once been. He hoped that was enough to prevail over the evil that awaited him.

  CHAPTER 24

  Rachette heard a noise and opened his eyes, then realized his own moaning had woken him up.

  As before, he itched like hell, but now he was soaked in sweat. Pain coming from his hand fueled nausea.

  Blinking, he saw a different view than last time. Rafters and the underside of an A-framed roof filled his vision now. Gray daylight filtered through the gaps in the shack’s wood.

  The straw dug into his back.

  The blankets held in the heat. Too much heat. He was so hot.

  He thrashed underneath the blankets, somehow pushing them aside to let the cool air caress his naked body.

  His left hand throbbed and it now dawned on him that his hands were lashed in front. His legs were no longer pulled up behind him and he lay on his back. The hair on his arms stuck to crusted blood on his belly.

  “You need water.”

  Rachette blinked and searched for the source of the noise. A shadow approached, its movements accompanied by the sound of a thousand tinkling bells. It came close and then bent down next to him.

  “Here.”

  A man spoke to him, Rachette realized for the first time.

  The man’s prominent brow came into focus and he recognized it, though he failed to remember where from.

  “You need water.” He held out a bottle with the cap off.

  Rachette sat up and put his lips on the opening, and the man tipped.

  He coughed and spat the water onto his chest, which felt so good on his burning skin. My God, he was so hot.

  “Again.”

  He drank greedily from the bottle until the water was gone, then collapsed on the straw.

  The ice-cold liquid made his body tingle from the inside out. A breeze flowed in from the door, which was propped open
with a rock, and it wicked the sweat from his body. All at once, the memories came flooding back and he realized where he was.

  Unibrow, that was his name, turned and walked to a pallet of water bottles on the floor. There was that sound again when he moved, like he wore bells, or … chains.

  Rachette saw them now.

  Unibrow picked up a bottle and turned around. Rachette saw that the man’s wrists were handcuffed together. A much longer chain was attached to the cuffs and ran to a metal bar under the workbench. Like a dog on a leash, he had a range of around ten feet. As the man approached with the water, Rachette thanked God he was within that range.

  “What’s your name?” Rachette asked.

  No answer.

  The man unscrewed the bottle and poured the water down Rachette’s throat.

  With a full belly, he collapsed to the hay. Then he turned over retched, and water shot out of him like a firehose.

  The man stumbled back, then bent down next to him again. “Drink. I think you got a fever.”

  With detached interest, Rachette studied his new hand. A blood-soaked makeshift bandage made from what looked like T-shirt fabric bound the red stump where his pinkie had been.

  He turned over and heaved all the water out.

  “Here.” The man tilted the water bottle up to his lips.

  “Forget it.”

  The man stood with a blank look.

  Rachette eyed his handcuffs. “Were you handcuffed last time I was awake?”

  No answer. No head movement.

  He’d been hogtied and facing away from this guy before. Earlier, a hangover had clouded his mind, and then there was the whole distraction of Lucky Charms barging in and chopping off his freaking pinkie.

  A noise begun deep in his gut and he rolled to his side, heaving again. This time nothing came out.

  After what felt like an hour, he rolled onto his back and caught his breath.

  The guy stood unmoved.

  “What’s your name?”

  A blink. “Eeth …”

  “Eeth?”

  “Ethan.” Ethan turned away and set down the bottle on the workbench.

  Rachette noticed that the toolbox no longer sat near the doorway. “Where’s the bearded guy?”

  “Gone for now.”

  Rachette’s shivering intensified, so he sat forward and pulled the blankets over him. They were damp and smelled like piss, and that sparked the memory of having to take a leak before that asshole cut off his finger.

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who put this bandage on me?” Rachette closed his eyes and waited for the blankets to do their job.

  “I did.”

  He shivered and rubbed his legs together for warmth, then cracked his eyes and craned his neck to see if Ethan was staring at him again. But the man’s back was still turned, and Rachette saw the angry scar cutting across his shaved head.

  “What happened to your head?” He closed his eyes and lay back again, wondering if he’d just crossed a boundary, then decided he didn’t care.

  No answer.

  Cracking his eyes again, he saw Ethan rub a hand over the scar.

  Ethan’s jeans looked like they’d been washed a few months ago, if at all. But the blood smeared on one pant leg looked fresh.

  “You know what happened to my friend last night?”

  Ethan turned around, and although darkness swallowed most of the shack, Rachette could see tears running down his face. “They killed him.”

  Rachette had already suspected as much, but the news still made his chest constrict. “Who’s they, Ethan? Do you know? What’s going on?”

  He had trouble seeing Ethan’s face through the dark now. A breeze picked up outside, sounding like a howling wraith.

  A flash lit the doorway. Seconds later, thunder shook the shack and rolled into the distance.

  Ethan looked up like he’d heard the voice of God, and then he walked to the propped-open door. The chain snapped him to a halt and he seemed completely caught by surprise. He grunted, pulling on the restraints as hard as he could.

  Rachette watched the chain’s connection to the underside of the bench with intense interest.

  The man’s rage flowed and a primal scream came from his mouth. But he failed to budge the chain or the bench. Then he lay down on his back and tried to kick the rock free from the door, but still he failed to reach. And when lightning flashed, this time closer, Ethan ducked underneath the workbench and put his hands over his head.

  “We’ll be all right,” Rachette said, startled by the man’s animalistic fear.

  There was a knock against the roof, and then twenty, and then a thousand as hailstones and fat rain drops pelted the shack.

  Two consecutive lightning bolts struck, each followed by thunder.

  “Or not,” he said under his breath.

  Rain mist flowed inside the door and through the many cracks in the walls, but the roof seemed to be holding the brunt of it out.

  Ethan’s pulled his head inside his jacket.

  Another flash. More thunder.

  Hailstones pelted the entrance, skittering across the dirt inside.

  He watched another bolt of lightning lick the ground on the other side of the valley.

  When the thunder hit, Ethan rolled to his side and a muffled cry came from his coat.

  Rachette ripped aside his blanket, almost passing out from the pain in his hand. Sitting forward on his naked ass, he spread his knees, since his ankles were bound tightly, and got up.

  He teetered and landed back on his butt, and the pain throbbed anew in his pinkie.

  “Ahhh, shit.” His voice was inaudible over the raging storm.

  Again, he pulled his feet underneath him and tipped forward, this time standing up. His head felt light, like a helium balloon rising to the ceiling. He stood still until the wave of dizziness finally passed.

  Gritting his teeth to stop the chattering, he hopped over the blankets and onto the dirt. Each time he landed, hailstones assaulted the bottom of his bare feet and pain shot up his legs, which protested from hours of inaction and the fever coursing through his body.

  As he neared the door, his feet slipped on mud and shot out from under him. Landing on his side, rain and hail pelted him like a shotgun blast. He rolled, kicked the rock away from the door with his heels, then swung it shut with his feet.

  Almost shut.

  It slowed on the wind and blew back open.

  “Fuck you!” Again, he rolled, got into position, and kicked the door. It slammed home against the jamb and caught.

  The darkness was absolute. Rachette sprawled in the mud, shivering harder than ever.

  He used his hands and feet to inch himself back towards his makeshift bed, grunting through the pain in his finger every time it hit the ground. He fell when he reached the hay, landing on his face and chest. Then, with shivers wracking his body, he rolled onto his back and began searching for the blankets.

  “Ah!” He reached through the darkness but found nothing but more dried grass. Rolling to his right, he sat forward and tried again, but there was nothing.

  There was no sound now but the chattering of his teeth in his skull.

  Thrashing some more, panicked squeals started coming out of his mouth.

  You’re going to die, said a voice in his head, and he believed it.

  “Help,” he called out, just as a pair of strong, warm hands grabbed his shoulders and forced him into the hay. Then a scratchy blanket was pulled over his skin, then another. And then weight pressed down on him.

  Ethan’s hands moved over the course wool, rubbing the heat back into Rachette’s shivering form.

  Rachette had a half-thought about the gayness of the moment but, as he felt the warmth returning to his body, decided he would have added some Liberace music if it meant surviving another day.

  “Thank you,” Ethan said. “Thank you.”

  “Hey, yeah.” Rachette
winced at Ethan’s vigor. “No problem.”

  CHAPTER 25

  This fever is killing you.

  More images swirled in Rachette’s mind, accompanied by flashes and booms, and Lucky Charms pouring water on his head, spiking the water bottle off his scalp.

  “Wake up!”

  He opened his eyes. A white-bearded man filled his vision.

  Shit.

  He instinctively held up his hands, willing himself to burrow into the straw, away from this man with the tin snips.

  “Ha ha ha!” Lucky Charms’s laugh thundered. “See? Got the kid shitting himself. Check his butt cheeks for mud.”

  Another man laughed with startling aggression.

  The shack bustled with activity. The door was propped open, letting in subdued light and air that smelled like rain. Clouds clung to the side of the mountain where Rachette had seen lightning strike earlier. Had that been a dream? Hadn’t he kicked that door closed?

  “Okay, okay,” the other man said. “Back it up. Let him breathe, and let’s get this unloaded before another storm rolls in.”

  Steller’s jays hopped on the ground outside and made incessant noise.

  “The fuck are they doing here?” Lucky Charms stepped to the doorway, raised a gun, and shot.

  Rachette flinched at the deafening boom and saw one of the birds explode in feathers.

  Lucky Charms laughed again.

  “Christ, asshole! Put that away!” A third man came up fast and pushed Lucky Charms out of the doorway. He was the same age and body type—mid-fifties or sixties, tall and overweight on top of an athletic body. Judging by how fast Lucky Charms had flown out of the doorway, and the tumbling sound outside, the guy was strong as a bull.

  “Here. Pick this shell up,” one of them said. “It’s something like this that’s going to ruin everything. Then I’m gonna shoot you and tell them you did all this.”

  The conversation traveled outside, then dropped to a murmur as crunching footsteps receded.

  A squeak echoed, and then came the sound of a door opening, or maybe a tailgate dropping.

  Ethan stood in the corner, looking out the open door with the same fearful expression Rachette had seen during the thunderstorm.