Cold Fear (34 page)

SIXTY-TWO

High atop
the treacherous fissured
cliffside of Sector 23, the ultra-soft hum of a lightweight gas-powered
generator traveled throughout the glacial valley and alpine forests.

Members of the FBI’s ERT worked quietly at the mouth of
the crevasse where traces of Paige Baker’s blood and hair had been discovered.

Special Agent Rob Clovis knew it was a critical
procedure. The probe would determine the outcome of the investigation. He felt
the weight of it on his shoulders. In twenty years of duty, he had been called
out to work on some difficult FBI operations, but he had never attempted anything
quite like this. He looked at his watch again. It seemed he was looking at it
every five minutes well aware Frank Zander and the other investigators were
counting on ERT.

No one beyond the people atop the cliff and the task
force knew about the probe. The massive search operation for Paige Baker in all
other sectors was ongoing and would not be officially terminated until Clovis
and the evidence team concluded their work here.

Clovis
surveyed the area, again
grappling between his professional expectations and private emotions. It was an
ideal location to dispose of a body. A small body. The mouth opened wide to
swallow it into an eternal abyss. He tried to block out the images of her
slipping and scraping down into the darkness. He had two granddaughters about
the same age as Paige Baker.

Imagine the condition her corpse will be in. What
kind of monster would…

Clovis
shifted his thoughts to
inventory the equipment, anxious about its reliability. Much of it had been put
together urgently for this emergency by the high-tech company in Mountain View. The stuff was not field-tested. There had been no time.

The generator was a new model with a microprocessor that
controlled its sine-wave inverter, greatly reducing voltage fluctuations and
wave distortion. It had an output of 3,000 watts to power the highly sensitive
remote-controlled fiber-optic probe and video transmission system that was
linked to a network of satellites. The two thousand feet of flexible hybrid
cable was coiled on a spool straddled over the crevasse. Controls for it and
the tiny camera at the end of it were linked to a powerful computer and
monitors.

Clovis
watched as the
technician, wearing a headset microphone to narrate, used the keyboard to
command the drop rate of the camera, pivot and focus, retrieving images and
displaying them on the computer screen and monitors at the work table, which
were connected in tandem. At the same time, with a two-to-three second delay
factor, the images and his narration were transmitted to the large TV in the
task force room at the command center.

“We’re ready,” the technician advised Clovis, who
nodded.

This better work,
Clovis told himself, hoping he could trust the untried system.

He heard a dog’s yelp. It was Lola, the shepherd who
found the site. Her handler, the kid from Colorado, soothed her. He sat off to
the side with the rangers, SAR people and paramedics. All were somber.

Clovis
knew the work from this
point on would be meticulous. The process would be agonizingly slow, moving at
a rate of a few inches or feet every few minutes.

The screen showed nothing but sweating black rock as the
tiny camera slowly descended.

Clovis
and the task force at the
command center were riveted to their monitors.

Yes, this was a perfect place to dispose of a body.

Perfect.

SIXTY-THREE

Isaiah Hood
stood in his death cell
and rubbed his stomach tenderly, taking comfort in feeling the small lump of
hardness near his navel.

Soon. Very soon.

“Feeling alright, Isaiah?” his deathwatch guard asked.

Hood nodded, careful to display the precise measure of
discomfort on his face.

Biting his lip, studying the closed-circuit TV, the
guard was wary. Determined to have no incidents of any sort on his watch, he
reviewed his options. He knew Hood’s medical history and risk of seizures. Most
officers in the death row housing unit did. He heeded DOC policies and
procedures.

“Want the nurse or Medical Services, Isaiah?”

Because the law requires we keep you healthy for your
execution.

Hood shook his head.

The keyboard clicked as the guard entered the small
development into the death watch activity log. Then his phone rang. “Really?”
he said. “Fine, I’ll ask him.” He replaced the handset. “Isaiah, seems your
lawyer is live on CNN discussing your case. Would you like to watch it?”

Hood nodded.

Then David Cohen was there before him, telling America about his case.

“…the governor to reconsider his position on the fate of
my client, Isaiah Hood, whose execution is set to go ahead at midnight
tonight.”

“Why?”

“On what basis, Mr. Cohen?”

“What’s your reason for...”

“You’re referring to her so-called confessional
letters?”

“Sir, are you implying that Emily Baker murdered her
sister?”

Yes, that’s right, David
.
Hood smiled to himself.

The cameras captured Emily Baker escorted by the FBI
from a helicopter; then they once again showed Hood’s picture, Paige Baker’s
picture, the prison, the gurney, and an old photograph of the dead girl from
over twenty years ago.

The only girl who ever agreed to be Hood’s friend.

He stared at her eyes, feeling everything around him
dissolving into a bright light.

The guard’s jaw dropped.

Isaiah’s eyes rolled back. Just the whites were visible.
His arms rose from his sides, extending before him.

Jesus Christ he’s going into one of the friggin’
trances.

“Isaiah!”

He feels her little wrists in
his hands. Smell the sweet forest-scented breezes sweeping up to the cliff as
she gasps, sobs and pleads for her life. She is so light in his large hands.
Her little feet dangle, kick.

It is just a game. One where he
can strike fear in the heart of a weaker thing. He has learned that from his
father.

The hooks.

Those rounded, steel, hard
hooks hammering his forearms, his shoulders, his neck, his head. One day, a
direct blow connected like lightning, exploding in his brain. His eyes blinded
with a painful white flash.

He ran from the house and spent
the next few days alone in the mountains. So painfully alone. All of his life
he had no one but the mountains. His head hurt so god-awful bad he thought his
skull had split and his life and thoughts were leaking out. He had a hard time
concentrating. Forming a thought. The whole time he ached to be with someone.
Anyone to play his game.

Just a game.

He’d played it before with the
dog, then the rabbit.

But it didn’t feel right.

They did not walk on air.

Then he came upon the butterfly
girls with bright eyes.

The big one did not want to
play. But the little one did.

She comes to him right away.

Eager.

But the big one pushes him.
Snotty. Stuck up.

“We’re not supposed to play
with you.”

Like they walk on air. Go to
church every Sunday and treat people the way they do. It was their doing. All
of them in town.

“We’re not supposed to play
with you.”

Well, he was going to play with
them. He’d show them.

The little one weighs nothing
at all. Surely, she does not walk on air, like the rest of them. That was the
game. She plays it well. How she kicks and screams. But the big one tries to
stop him. She was trying to ruin it, trying to ruin everything. Like she is
now. It was just a game. Just the game of a lonely boy in the mountains.

Now they want his life for it.

They could not have it.

No. He is tired of paying. He
had given them twenty-two years. That is enough. Maybe Emily, the big one,
should pay something for what she took from him. She knew it was a game, but
she never told them that. He knew why she came back.

To watch him die.

Well, that is not going to
happen.

It is time for her to learn.

“Isaiah!”

Someone was calling him. Far off and far away.

It was time.

Hood’s heart began throbbing, slamming against his rib
cage. His brain began pulsating. Bringing this one on could kill him. That was
one secret he kept from the doctors. He could bring on his seizures and almost
control them depending on the magnitude. They were dangerous to control. This
time, he needed to bring on the largest fit he had ever summoned. It was time.
It was coming. He felt it rising from within his brain waves, popping like
broken malfunctioning electrical circuits. His heart stalling, galloping…

“Isaiah!” the guard yelled.

Hood’s body was quaking and flopping on the floor like a
fish jerked from a lake to a dock. His head was banging against his cot, his
chair, he was growling and howling, his head twitching spasmodically.

“Open the cell! Open the cell! one of the male nurses
shouted. The guard had summoned medical help. Two nurses and two guards
arrived, one pushing a defibrillator. They worked on him swiftly. Check vital
signs. One nurse opened the medical bag, placing a rubberized tongue guard in
Hood’s mouth. “He’s going into cardiac arrest!”

They prepared an injection.

“Call the warden! He better alert the director,” said
one of the nurses.

“His heart has stopped! I’m getting nothing!” said the
nurse with the stethoscope.

“Get him out of the cell. Set the machine! Pass me the
paddles! Clear!”

They worked on Hood on the floor outside his death cell.

After two attempts, Hood’s heart resumed beating. One of
the guards quickly cuffed Hoods hands and put restraints on his ankles.

“He’s in bad shape. He’s got to be airlifted to Missoula.”

Everyone stared at each other, then down at Hood.

The guard on the phone passed it to the senior nurse.

“The warden needs to talk to you.”

SIXTY-FOUR

Emily Baker’s
world turned black.

Voices. Yes, she heard voices.

The FBI agent was talking to her. The technicians at the
mountain on their radios. Everyone distant, distorted, like people talking
underwater, drowned out by the beating of her heart ringing in her ears.

“…we’re at one hundred feet now…”

Every iota of Emily’s being was focused on the TV monitor
and the tiny camera searching the crevasse for her daughter. The horror was
clawing at her; the camera was dropping deeper and deeper, its intense light
reflecting the slick, sweating rock walls, like the throat of some overwhelming
evil entity.

“…one hundred twenty…”

Did she fall here?

Was Emily’s only child devoured by the mountains that
haunted her for much of her life?

The camera was descending.

Darkness into darkness.

“Every family has secrets, Emily,” Zander’s attention,
like those of the others in the small task force room, was on the monitor.
“Tell us what you think happened.”

Doug?

Where is Doug? What did they do to him? He has that
cut on his hand. He has a lawyer. He was the last to be with her.
Emily sobbed. Her body convulsing.

“…one hundred ninety…”

This time, no one comforted Emily as she wept.

“Oh, Paige,” she whispered through her tears.

Inspector Walt Sydowski glanced at her briefly. He was
troubled. Zander was the lead and he was very good, but Sydowski did not like
his approach. Something about the pieces just didn’t fit. It was close but it
wasn’t there. Hood’s case was forcing them to accelerate. Lives and careers
were on the line. The entire file was a national, political time bomb ticking
in their hands. But what they had so far didn’t feel right to Sydowski. It
gnawed at him yet; he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Maybe we should consider removing Emily from the room
for the time being, Frank, since we don’t know what’s coming.”

Zander’s attention remained on the monitor.

“…two hundred ten feet…”

Zander did not respond.

“Frank?”

“You can step out if you like, Walt,” Zander didn’t turn
from the TV. “Emily, are you prepared to tell us what happened? It might help
you.”

“I don’t know what happened.”

“…two hundred twenty—wait, we’ve got something…”

Everyone in the task force room froze as the
three-second delay passed. The FBI agent operating the probe narrated as a
white fabric-looking object came into view. “It looks like a…wait--” The camera
turned and moved in, then pulled back. The object was hung up on a small, sharp
edge.

Emily groaned. “It’s her sock.” She thrust her face into
her hands.

“Should I bring this pair, Mom?” White cotton with
pink frilled ankles. “Will these work in the mountains?” Purchased one night a
few weeks ago during a mother-daughter shopping expedition to Stonestown. Oh,
my baby.

The camera resumed its descent.

Emily trembled; someone said something.

“It would be in your interest to tell us what happened,
Emily,” Zander continued to work on her. “To tell us
what you think
happened?”

“…two hundred forty…”

“Doug told us things.”

Emily sniffed.

Tracy Bowman passed her a tissue. She didn’t know what
to think, couldn’t believe what was happening. Was Zander a genius, or a
monster?

Was Emily the monster?

“… three hundred feet…three hundred ten…hold it! Got
something--”

The images floated on the TV screen. It was impossible
to determine what it was. Then, yes, it was a backpack. A small backpack. The
task force members knew it from the photos of the Baker family.

It was Paige Baker’s backpack.

“Everybody got that? A backpack?” The camera operator’s
voice crackled over the radio.

Emily moaned, raising her palms slowly from the table,
replacing them silently as if in unbearable pain, as if begging for an end to
it.

“Please,” she whispered. “Oh, please.

The camera descended.

“Emily, how do you think Doug hurt his hand?”

She did not answer Zander.

“We understand he can be a violent man some times.”

“…three hundred seventy…”

“What happened twenty-two years ago with your sister?
What really happened?”

Her monster, Isaiah Hood, was laughing.

“Why did your mother change your name? It seemed like
you were running from something. Show her the old report from the attorney
general, Tracy.”

Bowman slid an FBI file folder to Emily, opening it for
her. But Emily did not need to read it. She knew about the letters she had
written all those years ago.

“…four hundred feet…”

Paige. Rachel. Oh, why?

“…four hundred twenty—wait. Christ! You see that?
Jesus--”

The task force room tensed. The three-second delay
passed and something shining fluttered on the monitor.

A pair of eyes.

Dead. Soulless. Reflecting the light. Not quite in
focus. Strange-looking.

“Dear God,” Bowman said.

And a row of white teeth near the eyes. Slammed tight
against the rock. But the transmission was unclear. A blizzard of static
hissed. The image vanished.

“What the hell happened?” Zander said.

“Stand by. We’ve got satellite trouble.”

Emily’s breathing quaked. Her skin and scalp prickled
with horror.

Please, God. Not again.

Her soul was screaming.