Dark Mountain (The David Wolf Series Book 10) Page 9

  “Why does he have Rachette?” MacLean looked at Wolf. “He’s army. He was stationed the same place you were. When?”

  “Served from 1998 until 2002,” Wilson said. “He was … geez, dishonorably discharged and put in federal prison for shooting and killing two civilians in Afghanistan.”

  MacLean was on Wolf again. “You sure this doesn’t ring a bell?”

  Wolf blinked and said nothing, which served to amplify the suspicion of everyone else in the room.

  “You don’t know him?” Wilson asked.

  “No,” Wolf said.

  Patterson felt her sweat glands fire. What was Wolf doing? He was protecting Rachette, she reminded herself.

  MacLean zeroed in on her next. “Did you guys go to Beer Goggles?”

  She had trouble thinking through all the implications of telling these men about Rachette’s true predicament, what they could and couldn’t share about what she and Wolf knew, what they’d learned, and what it would be plausible for an outsider to know.

  Speak, moron! She felt her face flushing hotter.

  “Yeah, we did,” Wolf said. “We talked to Jerry Blackman and a guy named Tyler Eggleston who frequents the place and drank beers with Rachette last night. He said you were there, too, Yates.”

  Yates nodded, looking uncomfortable as the new center of attention. “Yeah. I was there at the beginning of the night. I told everyone that a few minutes ago, before you and Patterson were here.”

  “Okay, okay,” MacLean said. “So what did you guys find out?”

  Wolf shrugged. “Rachette was there, drinking like he always does. They didn’t see anyone suspicious. I checked the receipts for Ethan Womack’s name, which wasn’t there.”

  “He could’ve been in there and paid cash,” MacLean said. “You didn’t have his picture, did you?”

  Wolf shook his head.

  MacLean pulled the stack of papers from Wilson’s hands and held up one of the sheets. “Here he is.”

  They all stared at Ethan Womack’s mugshot photograph.

  The man’s dark-brown eyes stared into the camera like he’d just asked it a question and was waiting for an answer. Hi lips were full and shiny, and his jaw hung open, revealing crooked teeth. He had the most prominent brow Patterson had ever seen, other than in drawings of Neanderthal people in history books.

  “Whoa,” Lorber said.

  The placard said Taos Police Department and was dated two years previously.

  “There’s a DMV printout in there, too,” Wilson said. “1986 Ford F-150. Color: black. No photo.”

  MacLean snorted. “This guy’s seen as mentally deficient by a New Mexico court and yet he has a driver’s license and works at a gun shop?”

  No one answered.

  MacLean shook the mugshot photo. “You have to shove this picture in their faces down at the Beer Goggles. Nobody’s going to forget seeing this guy. And ask them about this black Ford F-150. You get a list of everyone at the bar?”

  “The people with Rachette,” Wolf said. “We’d have to go back to get more names.”

  “So do it. And show everyone this mugshot.” MacLean held out the paper until Wolf took it, then shoved the packet of papers into Wilson’s hands again.

  “What about his cellphone?” Wolf asked.

  “Shit.” MacLean turned and paced. “His cellphone.”

  Wilson flipped to another packet of paper marked with a New Mexico Wireless logo. “Got a ping map here that shows he came into Rocky Points four days ago. Monday at 3:10 p.m. he pinged on our cell towers. Is that how you read it?”

  “Let me see that.” Lorber took the papers.

  Patterson edged closer and got on her toes to see. The map showed a series of dots connected with blue; they followed along the fastest highway route from Taos and up through the center of the Rockies to Rocky Points.

  The next page showed a Summit Wireless map with Ethan Womack’s local movement.

  “He went downtown.” Lorber shrugged. “Looks like he hovered around Main Street. Right in our vicinity, in fact. Then, poof. He shut off his phone.”

  “Did he go to the Beer Goggles?” MacLean asked.

  “No. But his phone shut off on Tuesday and never came back on. Could’ve gone anywhere after that and we’ll never know.”

  MacLean looked at Wolf. “Beer Goggles. Go.”

  Wolf nodded, then turned to Yates and Wilson. “You two go. It’ll be better to send new faces. You might be able to get a fresh perspective out of Jerry.”

  Wilson glanced at MacLean to check and then nodded. “Let’s go.”

  “So what are you gonna do?” MacLean asked.

  “Patterson and I have a hunch we might’ve missed something up at the shooting site.”

  The sheriff narrowed his eyes, then nodded. “Fine. Let’s move.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Wolf pulled up one of Patterson’s office chairs and sat down next to her. He stayed silent, watching her fingers tap in a blur on the keyboard—entering numbers into cells and clicking the mouse in different spots.

  He checked his watch. “Six minutes.”

  “His number is still not registering on the network.” Patterson clicked some more keys and tapped the trackpad on her laptop. “He’s not turning on the phone until the last minute. Or maybe it’ll be a different phone.” She shook her head and checked a cable inserted into the back of her computer. “Ethernet’s still connected. Calling from a different phone would be the smart thing to do. For a mentally disabled guy, he seems pretty smart.”

  “Or whoever’s with him is.”

  She grunted in response.

  Wolf felt useless sitting next to her so he stood and looked out the window.

  The sun glinted off wet trees, rooftops, and asphalt. The storm was a black hole behind the northeastern mountains and a low cloud clung to the eastern side of the valley, shining white.

  “Anyway, even if it’s a different number, I’ll run it and we’ll get a location. I just have to type fast.”

  Wolf said nothing.

  Four minutes and thirty seconds.

  “If it’s the same number, I’ll hit the enter key and we’ll have a good chance of getting a location. Here, I’ll hit it now.” She pressed the enter key. “Nothing.”

  Wolf walked to the other side of the room and studied a picture of her, Scott, and Tommy. The kid had her eyes and Scott’s mouth. The freckles were all Patterson. A perfect hybrid of the two. Father and son gazed upon each other, smiles alive on their faces.

  Given the tension of the situation, Wolf was surprised to feel a smile fading from his lips as he turned back to the window.

  Patterson’s phone chimed and vibrated on her desk.

  With lightning reflexes she picked it up. “It’s a text, and it’s a different number.” She dropped the phone onto the desk. Another blur of fingers on the keyboard. Then she pushed back. “There. I have a location!”

  Wolf stepped around the desk and picked up the phone. The blood and flesh on the screen made him flinch.

  “Downtown. Somewhere within two hundred feet of Third and Main. I can’t get more specific than that.”

  Wind Shade Bliss was located on Third and Main, and Wolf’s already skyrocketing pulse redlined.

  He pocketed the phone and ran out the door.

  “Wait for me!”

  CHAPTER 21

  Wolf was unable to find a parking spot in front of the art gallery so he stopped in the middle of Main Street and got out, blocking traffic behind him.

  Spilling more than one glass of wine, Wolf and Patterson pushed through a crowd of people who’d gathered out front and entered the gallery. Jazz played over speakers in the corners of the room, and the people packed inside turned to look at them as if a pair of moose had barged inside.

  Wolf ignored the stares and spotted Lauren in the corner, talking to Baron.

  Finishing a breathless laugh, she saw him come in and her face went crimson.

  Craning a f
inger, he turned away and looked for Ella.

  Lauren threaded her way through the crowd. Any embarrassment, and Wolf had seen it loud and clear, left when she saw his concern. “What’s happening?”

  “Where’s Ella?” he asked.

  “She’s in the back room with the other kids. What’s going on?” Lauren watched him look past her toward the back doorway. Her face dropped and she began pushing people aside. “Excuse me. Excuse me.”

  He followed her close.

  When she stopped abruptly he almost ran into her and Patterson crashed into his side.

  Lauren exhaled like she’d explosively decompressed and held up a hand. “Right there. She’s right there. Now what the hell is going on?”

  The back room had been converted into a children’s arts and crafts space for the occasion, and a half-dozen children were working on lumps of clay.

  “Dave!” Ella jumped up and came over. “Look at what I’m making. It’s a mountain.”

  “What’s happening?” Baron stood at the doorway.

  Wolf felt Lauren’s eyes burning into him as he studied Ella’s sculpture. “Oh, wow. Looks great.”

  “Go back and work on your sculpture, honey.” Lauren’s voice had a sharp edge and Ella did as she’d been told. “Now, what are you guys doing in here?”

  “Is everything all right?” Baron shuffled closer and loomed next to Patterson.

  “Please, Baron. We’re okay,” she said.

  Baron rolled an icy glare towards Wolf and left.

  Patterson backed away and melted into the main-room crowd behind him.

  “Sorry. We have a—”

  “A situation?”

  Wolf met her gaze for the first time.

  Her pupils had contracted to points. She shook, staring at him like he’d just slapped her across the face. This woman had been through soul-ripping trauma twice in her life—both times almost losing her daughter.

  The children were staring at him, concern etched on their faces.

  “Everything’s okay,” he said with a smile that he hoped looked genuine.

  The back door to the gallery was open, letting in a shaft of afternoon light and a fresh breeze.

  Wolf grabbed her hand and brought her outside to the dirt alley muddied by the storm.

  When they were out of sight of the children he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was just worried.”

  She leaned into his chest. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

  He pushed her back to arms-length and softened his expression. “I have to go.”

  “Go where?” She studied his expression. “Are you in trouble?”

  He pulled her into another hug but she pushed back. “Talk to me. Why did you think Ella was in trouble? Are we in danger?”

  Wolf thought about that. “No. We traced a call and it came from this vicinity, so I was just making sure you were okay.”

  “What call? You’re tracing someone near here? Is it somebody dangerous? Do we need to be worried?”

  “No. Listen, they’re not going to stick around. They’re running from us.”

  Lauren rubbed her forehead with a shaky hand.

  “I really have to go.” The window was closing and he needed to start looking for Ethan Womack. Patterson had gone out the front.

  Lauren nodded and said nothing.

  “How’s it going in there?” Wolf asked.

  She rolled her eyes, a hint of a smile tilting her lips. “It’s going fine, or at least it was. Go.”

  He kissed her and watched her go back inside.

  CHAPTER 22

  Patterson ignored scathing looks as she exited the art gallery and went to the edge of the crowd that had spilled onto the sidewalk.

  “Hey, Heather.”

  She heard a familiar voice behind her and turned, then immediately regretted it. Chet Chamberfield worked with Scott up at the mountain and was attracted to her, or desperately wanted to be her friend, or something. He talked her senseless every time they saw one another.

  “You checking out the art? Lauren Coulter. You know her?” Chet sipped his wine. “I think she’s dating your former boss, Dave Wolf? Isn’t that right?”

  She looked up and down the road. What did she expect to see? Ethan Womack standing with a cellphone in his hand, staring in her direction with a holy-shit-I’ve-been-caught expression?

  “Good stuff. I’d recommend checking out the Cave Creek landscape. It’s one of the bigger ones on the right when you walk inside. How’s Scott doing?”

  “Listen, Chet. This isn’t a good time.”

  “Oh.” He took another sip. “Why’s that? Something going on?”

  “Goodbye, Chet.” She looked him in the eye and walked away.

  “Yeah … okay. Geez, what was her problem?”

  She headed south and studied the patrons alongside the road in the immediate vicinity. Then she studied the crowd she’d just ditched, carefully avoiding looking at Chet again.

  On the drive there, she and Wolf had searched the traffic for a 1986 black Ford F-150 and seen none. Scanning again, she got the same result.

  Ethan Womack had changed cellphones before he’d texted the second message, which meant he was, despite the “mental deficiency” listed in his file, an intelligent person. The guy had trophies for long-distance fifty-caliber shooting. And as MacLean had pointed out, he had a driver’s license and a job. That sort of man wouldn’t be standing out in the open. Nor sitting in his truck on Main Street, watching her.

  Still, she got the sense that she was being watched, though that was the norm for her ever since the Van Gogh killer. But he could’ve been working with someone else. They’d already established that to pull off the crime would’ve been difficult for one man.

  She honed her focus like a laser beam and scanned the crowd in front of the art gallery. No one drew suspicion.

  She checked her watch and calculated that six minutes had elapsed since she’d received the text. If there was more than one of them, they were probably long gone by now.

  That text message.

  She allowed herself to dwell on the recent memory. There’d been blood and a severed finger. She’d only given it a glance before trying to trace the number, but that’s all it had taken to etch that picture on her mind for the rest of her life.

  Poor Rachette. He would be sweating right now, his hand in unimaginable pain, waves of nausea probably flowing through him. She sweated for him just thinking about it.

  Turning back in the other direction, she walked past the crowd and took some deep breaths, scanning both sides of the streets.

  Wolf appeared at the next corner, and she was confused at first, then realized he must have exited the building from the back door and come around.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  “No 1986 Ford F-150. No one who looks like Ethan Womack.” She searched her pockets for her cellphone and realized that Wolf still had it. “Can I see my phone again? I want to look at that message again.”

  He gave it to her and got in close to look.

  A second later, the photo glowed on the screen. Rachette’s severed digit lay on a wood surface, and beneath the severed end pooled fresh blood.

  “My God,” she said.

  The message underneath said: If you both fail to make the meeting point in time, he dies. If you tell anyone, he dies. I’ll be watching.

  Following the picture were a set of coordinates and two words: Midnight tonight.

  “I’ll be watching?” Patterson asked. “So it is one guy.”

  Wolf said nothing.

  “Midnight tonight.” Sweat broke out on her forehead. The edges of her vision started dancing and she looked up to stop vertigo from taking over.

  “Read those coordinates to me.” Cradling his phone, Wolf waited for her.

  She read them off and dizziness took hold, but she got the coordinates out of her mouth without her voice shaking.

  She felt like she was on a ship o
ut in the middle of rough seas, teetering on the plank with a sword to her back.

  When she opened her eyes, Wolf had his cellphone held toward her, showing the map of the coordinates.

  The picture slowly resolved into a narrow, east–west valley, dozens of miles south and west of them, on the other side of Williams Pass. A blue dot pulsated near the base of a white-capped mountain.

  Wolf pinched and zoomed out, then waited for the spotty mountain cell service to resolve the picture again. “I’ve been there. That’s remote.”

  Patterson said nothing. All she could think about was Tommy. Her little boy was probably sleeping right now, cuddling his new stuffed tiger.

  “Dark Mountain,” Wolf said. “Thirteen thousand plus feet. The spot he has on here is at the foot of it. Probably at least eleven-five up there,” he said, meaning eleven thousand, five hundred feet. She’d been up the road before, but never hiked the way in.

  “So, we hike in.” Patterson’s voice sounded hollow in her own head.

  “There’s a road that offshoots from Highway 734.” He pointed. “Goes up a few miles, then the rest is a hike. Probably four or five miles of walking.” He checked his watch.

  Patterson swallowed and took long, deep breaths.

  “It’s going to rain again tonight, isn’t it?” She closed her eyes, feeling like she was hyperventilating.

  Wolf held out his hand. “Could I please see your car keys?”

  She opened her eyes and turned to him. “What? Why?”

  “I need to see something.”

  She fished them out of her pocket and handed them over.

  He put them in his pocket.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m taking your keys.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want you to drive anywhere.”

  She shook her head. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m doing this alone and I don’t want you following me up there.”

  They stared at one another.

  She felt a tear form in the corner of her eye. Her chest heaved and the only noise she made came from her labored breath.

  “There’s no good ending to this thing,” Wolf said. “I’m not going to knowingly march you into an ambush.”