Hard Evidence (17 page)

From somewhere in the distance…foggy, indistinct, came the low, venomous growl of an all-too familiar voice.

“You just wouldn’t take a hint. You were too stupid to listen. So now, sweetheart, you’re going to die.”

I
n a heartbeat, she knew who it was—though she could scarcely believe it.
Wade?

Stunned, she tried to get a good look at him as he wrenched her to her feet and dragged her toward the trees, his long black Aussie oilskin coat flapping at his ankles.

A bolt of lightning sizzled through the air, and a sharp crack shook the earth. The stench of ozone and burning pine sap filled the air in an instant.

He flinched and swore under his breath, his grip loosening for a split second.

“Please…let me go!” she screamed over the wind and the rain, struggling to escape his grasp. But here the wet pine needles were ice-slick. She stumbled, then fell, unable to gain any leverage against him.

She grabbed for a pine tree, but the rough bark scraped her palm and wrist as he relentlessly hauled her forward until he reached Cabin Two.

There, he shoved her face-first into the outer wall, wrenching her hands behind her back to loop a thin cord around her wrists. She flexed her wrists and fought to keep them separated, but he cinched the cord tight and then spun her around.

Disbelief turned her muscles to rubber. “Why? Wade—this is crazy!”

Panting heavily from exertion, his face red, Wade gave a single, harsh laugh, then his mouth twisted into a snarl. “You just couldn’t take a hint. You could have closed this place up. Let it crumble to dust. But you couldn’t leave it alone. Now, sweetheart, you have to join the others or my life will be in ruins.”

She sucked in a sharp breath against the black spots dancing in front of her eyes.
“Others?”

Once again he grabbed her arm, and now he shoved her up the steps and across the narrow porch, then kicked in the door. His voice turned smug. “The bones you found don’t matter—I found that grave again years ago, and made sure there was no evidence left. Your friends at the DCI will never be able to identify him.”

“‘Don’t matter’? How could a death not matter?” She tried to brace her feet against the door frame, but he wrestled her inside and threw her against the opposite wall.

Unable to catch her fall, Janna hit her head hard against the pine logs. A protruding nail stabbed her upper arm, ripping her shirt and her flesh as she crumpled into the corner. Searing pain snaked through her and hot, sticky blood dripped past her wrists to pool on the floor beneath her hands.

He swiftly bound her ankles with another cord, then pushed her over and pried the gold ring from her finger. He slid the ring onto his own little finger and held it up, admiring it with eerie intensity. “But this—” he shook his head “—
this
was a mistake. And I’m not making another.”

She fought past the pain and the nausea rising in her throat. She had no doubt that he intended to kill her. He’d never leave a witness alive.

Her only defense was time.

Had Michael listened to her messages yet? Had he heard enough, over the static-filled connection?

“At least tell me—tell me what happened here,” she pleaded. “
Please
. I…I just want to understand.”

He smirked. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

He strode out of the cabin, and his footsteps faded away. She knew, with absolutely no doubt, that he would be back and that she would be facing her last minutes here on earth.

She struggled to kick her feet apart, but the cord held fast. Then she twisted and pulled at the cord wound around her wrists. Slippery with her own blood, the cord gave—a few millimeters at best—but her hopes surged as she desperately fought for more slack. The cord bit into the tender flesh of her wrist. It stung, as sweat trickled into the abrasions.

Another millimeter? Closing her eyes tightly, Janna prayed for help. Prayed that she could find a way to escape.

The pungent smell of gasoline burned her eyes as footsteps circled the outside of the cabin. Wade came back inside carrying an upended gasoline can, splashing fuel across the floor and letting the last few ounces spill onto her jeans and shirt.

He peeled off a pair of rubber gloves and stuffed them in his pockets. “Did you know that fingerprints can be lifted from the inside of gloves?”

He gave her a satisfied smile as he hooked the lone wooden chair in the room with the toe of his boot and drew it to the center of the room, then sat and folded his arms. “I found myself doing a lot of research over the years, worrying about this place. Worrying about what someone might find. Now, it’ll finally be over. Your boyfriend will simply find a cabin burned to the ground and your charred remains. So sad.”

“He’ll figure it out.” She fought to control her rising panic. “You’ll get the death penalty for this.”

Wade paused, pulled a handgun out of his pocket and began methodically wiping off his fingerprints with a cloth handkerchief. “Actually, no. You were distraught over your financial troubles over this place, so you decided a bullet would be an easy way out. And when you fell, you knocked over a lantern and started the fire. I’ll be happy to tell everyone about how I counseled you to close the resort from the very start. Which is true, of course.”

She’d managed to inch back against the wall and pull herself into a half-upright position where her hands were out of sight. She kept moving enough to mask her struggles against the cord binding her wrist. “This is crazy. You have a good career. You’re respected. You said yourself that you took care of the evidence—no one would ever associate you with those bones.”

He watched her struggle for a moment with an expression of disgust. “You can’t get away, you know. You might as well give up.”

A corner of his mouth twitched, but his eyes were flat and emotionless. “See, if you’d been smart, you would’ve felt threatened by everything that happened out here, and now you’d be living in town and looking forward to old age.” He tipped his head in amusement. “Or if I’d been lucky, you would’ve simply died in that rock slide. But that’s just the way things go, isn’t it?”

She stared at him as he expertly dropped the clip of the gun and began snapping in its ammunition, one by one. When the clip was full, he rammed it into the butt of the gun and laid the weapon on the handkerchief in his lap and wiped the prints once again.

“This nearly got that fool kid killed, but he still doesn’t know what it is.” Wade pulled an old knife out of his pocket and held it up to admire its etched silver case. “But I got it back, so now I might let him live.”

Horror lanced through her at the thought of Ian and Lauren coming back to the lodge. Calling for her. Searching the cabins with rising uncertainty and worry—only to walk in on this madman and his gun.

As quickly as it had started, the rain slowed to a drizzle and the wind dropped, though daylight had now faded to dusk.

She could hear the faint sound of a motor in the distance. Michael—or his defenseless son? She kicked at a broom handle on the floor to distract Wade, but he lifted his chin and listened. Clearly, he had heard it, too.

He turned to the doorway, the gun held low at his side. In that brief moment she managed to gather her legs under her. The cord sliced deep into her wrist but now, slippery with her blood, it slid down.

A half inch.

Another.

Please, God—help me! Help me protect those kids
—

Wade pivoted toward her as if he’d heard her thoughts. He crossed the room in three strides and grabbed at her shirt, took a furtive glance behind him, then pulled back a fist and rammed it into her temple.

The room spun wildly as pain exploded through her head.

Then everything went black.

He smelled smoke before he even stopped his patrol car. Michael opened the door and stepped half way out. He scanned the resort grounds. There wasn’t another car in sight, though Janna usually parked out front.

The cabins and lodge were dark. Nothing moved, though from inside the lodge he could hear the sound of Maggie’s frantic barking.

There was something else in the air—the acrid scent of a fire started with gasoline as an accelerant.

Arson
.

But the smell wasn’t coming from the lodge. It was drifting down from somewhere up the hill. He released the safety on his Ruger and slid out of the car, quietly shutting the door.

Then he crouched low and slipped through the lowering darkness into the pine trees skirting the fence yard behind the lodge. At the far edge he glanced back and caught a metallic glint behind the house. Janna’s truck—but there was another vehicle, too, parked at a crazy angle behind hers as if to prevent her escape.

Given the disjointed message she’d left on his voice mail, he knew it wasn’t his imagination. Where was she—hiding in the darkened lodge? Trapped somewhere up the hill in a burning cabin?

He held perfectly still. Listened. Now the stench of burning asphalt shingles wafted from the hill, and he instinctively ran in that direction.

Past the trees, the glow of a raging fire pulsed through the heat-shattered windows of Cabin Two. Flames licked up the outside walls.

In an explosion of intense heat, a fireball burst through the roof, shattering into fireworks of flaming embers that shot into the sky. The roof imploded, and then flames inside shot even higher. Nothing could have survived the inferno.

No one.

His heart nearly wrenched out of his chest at the sight, even as he methodically jerked his two-way radio off his belt and called for fire trucks and backup.

This kind of intense fire could only have been set.

A possible scenario unfolded in his mind in horrific detail as he imagined Janna running for her life, someone overtaking her, dragging her to the ground with animal force, then killing her—or leaving her in that cabin to die an agonizing death.

He swallowed hard, his hands on his knees.

The enormity of that possibility literally took his breath away. The aching hole in his heart took over his whole being, until he felt as if he could fall straight into the abyss.

Except, maybe she’d escaped. He had to believe it.
Please Lord, let her be all right!

If she was alive, she was still in danger. She could be badly wounded…hiding somewhere. Bleeding to death.

Or she could be in the hands of her attacker this very minute, fighting for her life.

Off to the right he saw a flicker of movement. His heart leaped with joy as he grasped at the possibility.
Janna?

Cold logic slid back into place with the next breath. If it wasn’t her, it was likely someone with a weapon. Someone who could lead Michael to her, maybe. He whirled around and started through the underbrush, crouching low and moving parallel to the path of who—or what—he’d seen.

He froze. Listened.

Then zeroed in on the sound and kept moving, his gun drawn. The other footsteps were heavy. More careless now, as if the person sensed his presence and was starting to panic.

They were nearing the lodge—where there would be little cover. The footsteps suddenly stopped. Had the suspect reached the lawn, where his footfalls would be nearly silent?

A flash of movement appeared at the far corner of the lodge, followed by the lilt of feminine laughter and the deeper laugh of an adolescent male.
Ian and Lauren
.

“So, you’re all here together—how perfect.” His voice oddly calm, Wade Hollister stepped out of the trees, his gun hand pointing toward the teenagers. “Drop your weapon, Robertson, or your son will be the first to die.”

D
ropping his weapon wouldn’t save his son or Lauren.

Too far away to have heard Wade’s threat, they stood at the corner of the lodge—perfect targets in white T-shirts that glowed under the security light, their easy laughter floating on the night breeze.

Moving silently, Michael crouched low and edged closer. Another ten yards, the right timing, and he could take the guy down.

“I guess we’re at an impasse, Robertson,” Wade’s voice rose, tinged with hysteria. “I want you where I can see you—out there on the grass.”

From his vantage point, Michael could see the man slowly panning his surroundings with his upraised gun locked in both hands. He appeared rock steady and deliberate, and Michael’s estimation of the threat he posed increased a notch.

The gun swung back toward the lodge. Michael heard the click of a safety release. “Run, Ian! Run!”

Ian and Lauren startled, whirled toward Michael’s voice and froze. A shot rang out, splintering the wood siding just inches from Ian’s head. Lauren screamed. Jolted into action, both teenagers raced around the side of the lodge and disappeared.

“I didn’t miss, Sheriff,” Wade said softly. “I never do. You’re the only person who can identify me at the scene, so we need to take care of that.”

“It’s over, Wade.” Michael couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Now put down your gun, and we can talk this out.”

“I don’t think so.” Apparently following the sound of Michael’s voice, Wade turned and pulled the trigger. A bullet shattered a trunk just to Michael’s left.

Michael dropped and rolled, then circled to the right, moving ever closer, his gun drawn. At a slight rustle of leaves to the left, he stilled. The sound of a familiar, muffled sneeze made him turn slightly, and he felt his heart nearly tumble to the ground
. Janna?

She was dirty and bloodied, with a dark shadow on the side of her face that might be a massive bruise by tomorrow. But she was
alive
.

He closed his eyes for a split second in a prayer of thanks, then motioned her back. She shook her head. Pointed, then hefted a rock and threw it far to the left.

Wade spun toward the sound and Michael rushed him from behind, knocking him flat. In a heartbeat, he set Wade’s weapon aside and handcuffed him, then dragged him to his feet and hauled him out onto the lawn, where weak light from the solitary security light filtered through the trees.

Rage rushed through Michael, hot and fierce, nearly overwhelming him with the temptation to plow a fist into the man’s gut.

He forced his clenched fists to relax, then managed a cold smile. “Wade Hollister, you are under arrest, and I can’t wait to start counting up the charges—starting with attempted murder and arson.”

“Try. It’s my word against yours.” His eyes held a crazed gleam as he bared his teeth in a semblance of a smile. “Did my gun go off accidentally? Will you find any prints? A good lawyer has little to fear from someone like you.”

Janna moved to Michael’s side and looked up into his face. “I was so afraid for you,” he whispered. “When I realized what was happening, I couldn’t get here fast enough!”

He shook his head, scarcely able to believe the miracle standing before him, and pulled her into his arms for a gentle embrace.

She flinched, then sagged against his chest, and at the same moment he realized that her entire arm was sticky and dark with what felt like blood.

“It’s okay—just a cut from a fall in that cabin. It probably doesn’t even need stitches.” She managed a weak smile. “Though I suppose I’d better check on my tetanus shots.”

Sirens wailed discordantly in the distance, the nightmarish sound drawing closer.

He gently cupped her head in his hands. “I thought you were in the fire. I thought you were—”

“Almost.” She touched a fingertip to his lips and smiled. “But the good Lord must have more things planned for me on earth, because I managed to crawl out just in time. What took so long afterward was trying to untie the cords on my wrists and ankles.”

She lifted her gaze to where Wade stood, his chin lifted defiantly and his eyes cold. “You won’t have any trouble getting testimony at his trial, because I’ll be there with bells on. Quick,” she added in a whisper. “See if he still has a gold ring on his little finger.”

Michael immediately turned toward Wade and closed the distance between them, then stepped behind him and examined the man’s hands.

“Looking for something?” Wade’s laugh held a note of derision. “Like I said, you’ll have trouble proving anything.”

The ring was gone.

A night in the slammer had an interesting effect on Wade Hollister. Initially cocky, belligerent and threatening all manner of lawsuits, blustering that he would certainly be defending himself, his arraignment in the morning appeared to bring reality into greater focus. Maybe the ring would have been useful evidence, but Janna’s testimony and the other evidence was clearly sufficient.

The one-million-dollar bail, based on charges of double murder, attempted murder and arson, proved to be an even stronger wake-up call.

By morning, he was pacing his cell—turning noticeably gray when Michael told him the ring had been found. By midafternoon he was asking to contact a criminal defense lawyer and was ready to talk.

Michael mulled over the events of the past couple of days as he waited for Janna to come out of the doctor’s office. He felt edgy until she appeared in the waiting room, then had to hold back the need to sweep her into an embrace and never let her go. “Is Tessa coming back, or do you need a ride home?”

“She took the kids over to the store for a few minutes, but thanks anyway,” Janna said, awkwardly reaching around to drape her sweater over her shoulders. “Good news—the doctor says my wound is healing well. No signs of infection, and the stitches can come out in a few days.”

Michael took the sweater from her and shook it, then settled it gently into place. “It could’ve all been so much worse. I can’t stop thinking about what happened—what could’ve happened. It’s just a miracle that you came out of the cabin alive.”

“I didn’t stop praying for a minute, once I came to. The roof collapsed just seconds after I got out.” She smiled up at him. “Any more news?”

He offered her the crook of his arm, and they strolled out of the doctor’s office into the late June sunshine. But instead of ushering her to his truck, Michael steered her over to the privacy of a park bench surrounded by tiger lilies before saying anything more.

“When Wade knew he was going to be caught, he threw the ring out into the trees. My deputies found it using a metal detector. Once we had it, we were able to find its owner, and now Wade’s singing like the proverbial canary.”

“Is she—” Janna’s voice caught.

“We found her remains this afternoon, buried close to Cabin Ten.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I was hoping you’d find her happily living out East.”

“Unfortunately, no…which is why Wade was so worried about the lodge opening. When you asked him about septic system regulations, he probably feared that backhoe work might uncover her grave. So then he escalated.”

“The rock slide?”

“To scare you into leaving the lodge, or simply eliminate you altogether.”

Janna shivered. “He almost succeeded.”

“I just wish I’d gotten my answers sooner. This afternoon I learned that he was the one buying those imported cigarettes. Then I got your message and went to his office, but he was already gone.”

“He tailed me back to the lodge,” Janna said with a shudder. “So he’s the one who sabotaged the backhoe?”

“Fingerprints will probably prove it. He was no doubt the cause of most of your problems, Janna…though he denies ever breaking into Cabin Ten before you moved here. The trashy magazines and liquor bottles were probably left by some vagrant—or maybe, kids who came out to party. The faded stains on the floor were red wine, not blood.”

Janna pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders. “Do you know anything about the owner of the ring?”

“She was a college girl, out West on a spring-break road trip. Her girlfriend got sick and caught a plane home, so she had to drive back alone.”

“How on earth did she end up out here?”

“Conjecture so far, but at the time, Snow Canyon Lodge was closed, and even back then, apparently, there were some wild parties out there, far away from the eyes of the law. Maybe that’s why some of the locals haven’t been forthcoming about the past. No longer able to recall exact details, they might be afraid they’d incriminate relatives or old friends.”

“But Wade…” Janna shook her head. “I still don’t get it. I’ve always thought he was a nice guy.”

“Wade either invited her or met her there, and somehow lured her out to the farthest cabin for some private action. He claims she wanted to play, but from all accounts she was a girl who never would’ve done anything like that. He says she ‘went crazy,’ and things got out of hand.” He hesitated. “It…was fairly clear from the remains that he’d beaten her badly. Some broken bones, and it looked to me like a fractured skull.”

Janna rested her fingertips at her mouth, her eyes stricken. “That’s so awful.”

“He buried the body in a panic, but was too drunk and scared to remember exactly where. All this time, he’s been afraid that he left evidence behind. Sure enough, he did.”

“What about the other remains?”

“A backpacker rambling throughout the West. He saw Wade disposing of the body, so Wade stabbed him, then buried that body, too, but during the fight he lost his grandfather’s monogrammed knife.”

“Wade said something about finding it in your cabin.” Janna wrapped her arms around her waist and looked up at Michael, her voice filled with sadness. “What if he’d hurt Ian?”

“That could’ve happened, because Wade’s guilt and fear have been growing for years. He panicked when he heard the lodge was reopening, and started searching with a metal detector. Found all sorts of little metal things, though not what he was after.”

“Then how did Ian get it?”

“The detector had just started clicking again when Ian showed up. Wade ran to avoid being recognized. Ian discovered the knife and kept it for over a month. He never told me.”

“I feel like such a fool. Wade acted like he was concerned about our welfare, but all along he was lying. If I’d been smarter, none of us would’ve been in danger.” She drew in a shaky breath. “And what about the people in town, all those years ago? Did no one at that party notice him with an unfamiliar girl? See that he went home alone or think he acted strangely?”

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who lived here at the time. When I asked about Wade, they all got a little edgy. His dad was once very influential in these parts and wielded a lot of power. So even if anyone suspected something back then, they probably wouldn’t have dared testify against the man’s son.”

“I want to believe in people,” she said in a broken voice. “But after this, I’ll always wonder.”

They both fell silent.

There were a hundred things he wanted to say to her, but he didn’t even know where to begin.

“I know it’s been hard, dealing with your job and my problems at Snow Canyon,” Janna said, turning to him. “But we’ll be fine now, if you want to move into town. You can rip up that silly penalty clause for the early departure fee.” A sad smile tipped up a corner of her mouth. “I hope we can still be friends, though.”

“I don’t want that, Janna.” At the flash of surprise and hurt in her eyes, he winced at his poor choice of words. “I couldn’t sleep last night, because all I could think about was the fact that I’d nearly lost you forever. And if I don’t make things right, it could still happen.”

The flicker of hope in her expression gave him the courage to continue. “During the last year I’ve struggled a lot with my faith. I haven’t been able to forgive myself for Ian’s disabilities and Elise’s death, because it’s my fault Ian was behind the wheel. That guilt has been with me every minute of every day. I just couldn’t understand why God let all of that happen.”

“Oh, Michael. Most parents buy their teenagers a car…and bad things don’t happen to all of them. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I think you said something like that to me a while ago, but I wasn’t ready to listen, because I’d failed my family so badly.” He exhaled slowly. “I was still overwhelmed with grief, and I couldn’t see how that would ever change. How could it? The accident could never be reversed. Nothing could bring Elise back or make Ian whole again. God could not give me what I wanted most.”

Resting a hand against his cheek, Janna searched his face, her eyes filled with compassion…and something much deeper that seemed to reach out and touch his heart. “And now?”

“Thinking you’d died in that fire and seeing Wade shoot at Ian shook me right to the core. But God answered my prayers, just as He always has. I’ve just been too blind and stubborn to always see His answers.” Beneath her loving touch, he felt the healing balm of forgiveness and grace spread through him, warming him. Making him feel complete. “His forgiveness has always been right in front of me, too. I’ve just been too busy blaming myself to accept it.”

She nodded. “Last night I realized a few things, too. The whole time, I was praying for rescue and for the child I might never see again. God’s answer was giving me a way to escape and the strength to do it on my own. I still can’t believe I made it out that window in time.”

“For which I will be forever grateful.” Michael stood and offered her his hand. When she rose, he curved his arms around her in a gentle embrace, and tucked her head beneath his chin. It felt so perfect, so right to hold her, that his heart seemed to swell until it filled his chest.

She pulled back and gave him a rueful smile. “Since last night, one thought has been running through my head. Why do I ever doubt Him? There was never any love in my childhood home, and ever since my husband left, I’ve been afraid of risking another failure. But that isn’t the way God wants His children to live—and I could have missed a chance with you if all of this hadn’t happened.”