Hunting Fear (32 page)

Then he turned his head, and they all followed his gaze to watch the nearby clock’s digital readout counting relentlessly down. Nobody said a word as the last two minutes on the timer ran out—and Glen found himself suddenly supporting the weight of the heavy steel blade as a soft click announced the release of the cable. He carefully eased the blade down until it rested in the stained groove of the table.

“Shit,” Wyatt said in a wondering voice. “I thought I was a dead man.”

“You almost were,” Lucas said. He went to study the clock, which was actually attached to a metal rod hanging downward from the lighting. “And the bastard really wanted you to know it, didn’t he?”

“I’ll never look at a clock the same way again.” Wyatt frowned slightly as first Samantha and then Caitlin entered the circle of bright light. “Hey. Where the hell are we, anyway?”

“The old Six Point Creek mine,” Glen told him, sounding considerably relieved. “And if you’ll all excuse me, I need to get out of here so I can radio the other search teams. Assuming I can get a signal out here, that is.” He hurried away.

Still eyeing the women, Wyatt said, “What are you two doing here?”

Lucas immediately said, “If it hadn’t been for them, we would never have found you in time.”

“Yeah? Did Lindsay talk to one of you?”

They all looked at him in surprise, and it was Caitlin who said somewhat hesitantly, “She talked to me. Sort of. Left me a note.”

“Which pointed us in this direction,” Samantha said. “After that, it was Luke connecting to you that got us here.”

Wyatt flinched slightly, and said to Lucas in a wry tone, “I won’t talk about it if you won’t.”

“Done,” Lucas said immediately.

Samantha said, “Did Lindsay talk to you, Sheriff?”

Surprising them all again, Wyatt replied firmly, “You know, I think she did. Could have been my imagination, of course, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. She told me you were coming.”

Samantha wanted to ask him if that was why he’d stopped being afraid, but didn’t. Whatever Wyatt Metcalf had experienced here in this dark and lonely mine with a clock counting down and a steel blade set to end his life was his own business.

Instead, she said, “It’ll be dark by the time we get back down to the truck. Luke, I know you want to examine this place—”

“That can wait,” he responded. “We’ll send a couple of deputies to keep an eye on things tonight, then come back first thing in the morning with the CSU team. Not that I expect them to find anything useful. Wyatt, I don’t suppose you saw the bastard?”

“Didn’t even hear him. As far as I could tell, when I woke up this place was deserted. Except for me.”

“He’s being very careful,” Samantha noted. “He talked to Lindsay. Talked to most of the other victims, didn’t he?”

“We can’t know for sure,” Lucas told her. “Only the first victim survived to tell us.”

“Can’t legally know for sure, but you know, don’t you?”

He looked at her for a moment, then said, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure he talked to all of them, at least up to a point.”

“Then left them to die alone.”

Lucas nodded.

Samantha eyed the sheriff and said slowly, “I wonder why you were different? Maybe . . . because you would have recognized him? Even his voice?”

“It’s certainly a possibility,” Lucas said. “A change in M.O. at this late stage has to mean something.”

“Can we talk about it after we get off this mountain?” Wyatt requested. “I feel the need for fresh air—and maybe a nice, hot shower. And a cup of coffee. And a big steak.”

No one was about to argue with him. They left the cavern exactly as it was, bright lights blazing, and used their flashlights to illuminate the way back to the mouth of the mine. When they reached it, they found Glen about to enter. He had made contact with one of the other search teams, so the word was being passed that Sheriff Metcalf had been found alive and was safe.

“They’ll meet us back at the station,” he said.

“Good enough,” Wyatt replied. “I say we get the hell out of Dodge. I’ve had more than enough of this place.”

From his vantage point near the sheriff’s department, he saw the search teams begin to return and instantly knew something was wrong. Some of the cops were smiling, and all looked far less upset than they would have been had their search been fruitless or their sheriff’s body been found.

He checked his watch and swore under his breath, then settled down to wait.

It was nearly an hour later when the last search team returned. In the harsh lights of the sheriff’s department parking lot, he saw them get out of the hulking ATV, with media shouting questions and flashbulbs popping. And he saw the sheriff, who had obviously taken the time to shower and change after his ordeal.

Wyatt Metcalf was alive.

Alive.

The search team that had found the sheriff disappeared rather quickly into the building without stopping to answer questions, as did Metcalf—after making a stale joke about the reports of his death being greatly exaggerated.

Watching, teeth gritted unconsciously, he knew all he needed to know. On this move, at least, they had won.

Luke.

Caitlin Graham.

And Samantha Burke.

He discounted the deputy automatically, knowing there was no threat from him. But the others . . .

What was the Graham woman’s part in all this? It bothered him that he didn’t know, that he hadn’t expected her to turn up here in Golden. That he hadn’t even known Lindsay Graham had a sister.

It was what came of changing his plans, he knew that much, though at the time he hadn’t seen another choice.

He hadn’t intended to take Lindsay Graham, and from almost the moment he had, things had felt . . . wrong. He had the uneasy idea that from the instant he had decided not to take Carrie Vaughn—principally because it had both irritated and surprised him that the carnival “seer” had figured out who his target was and had warned the woman, following that surprise by managing to somehow convince the sheriff to watch her—that his mastery over events had slipped, if only a bit.

He really hadn’t expected the sheriff to listen to Samantha, whatever she told him. Metcalf was a hard-nosed cop who had no patience with carnival seers; everything in his past and professional record said as much. Just as Samantha Burke’s past involvement with the police indicated both her lack of credibility in the eyes of law-enforcement officials and her reluctance to involve herself in anything outside her carnival world.

She had been an active participant in an investigation only once, three years before, and the disastrous ending of that—both the investigation and her turbulent, short-lived relationship with Luke Jordan—had sent her fleeing back to the safety of the Carnival After Dark.

She had seemed a handy tool, not because he believed that she could see the future but because of the personal turmoil she would undoubtedly cause Luke, and the media storm she was likely to attract to the investigation. So he had lured her here, intent on using her in that way. To keep Luke off balance and draw his attention away from his job.

It was, he had decided, a necessary step to take once the game settled here in Golden. He no longer had the advantage of moving constantly, forcing Luke to follow after him. So he needed Samantha’s presence to keep his opponent just that little bit distracted and unfocused.

To tip the odds more in his own favor.

But her behavior had been unexpected from the beginning. And rather than distract Luke, or rattle him with the unexpected presence of a discarded lover, she seemed rather to have insinuated herself both into the investigation—and back into Luke’s bed.

And instead of being the distraction he had planned her to be, it appeared that she was actually helping Luke.

He didn’t understand that. He understood how pain and fear could—for want of a better phrase—call out to anyone with the right makeup to be able to hear: the simple electromagnetic energy of emotions and thoughts alive in the very air around him made perfect sense to him. It was an ability he understood, not so much paranormal as it was a sharply enhanced extension of otherwise normal senses.

He even understood, because he had made it his business to, how and why Luke’s ability was a difficult one for the man to control at all, far less master. And why it drained him physically, exhausted him.

It’s what he had wanted, a man driven past his limits and emptied of everything but the memories of the pain and suffering of the victims he had not found in time, and the unbearable knowledge that he had failed.

A broken man.

A man who understood, at last, why he had been judged and was being punished.

Instead, the man he had watched enter the sheriff’s department after a successful search and rescue of Wyatt Metcalf had not seemed at all exhausted, and certainly wasn’t broken.

For a long time after the small search team had disappeared from view, he remained where he was, still. Even the media had dispersed by the time he reached into his inner coat pocket and drew out a plastic Baggie containing an envelope. Inside the envelope was the note he had written to Luke, telling him where he could find the sheriff’s body.

He took the envelope out of the bag and methodically, viciously, tore it into small pieces.

“Think you’ve won, Luke?” he muttered. “Wait. Just wait.”

“I’ve put in a request for an agent to talk to the first kidnapping victim,” Lucas said. “But I don’t expect to get much if anything beyond her original statement. She told us what she knew and then pretty much asked us to leave her alone. Understandably, she’s kept a low profile in the last year and a half, and I very much doubt she’d be willing to come down here to talk to us.”

“Not with him here,” Samantha murmured. “And who could blame her.”

Lucas nodded but didn’t look at her, and Caitlin wondered at the other woman’s twisted smile. They had an odd relationship, those two, she decided. So solidly a team during the search for Wyatt, they were now, she thought, separated by much more than the length of the conference table.

“I don’t know if she can tell us anything we don’t already know,” Lucas went on. “But she is the only one he released unharmed.”

“And I’m the only one he’s lost—so far,” Wyatt said. He frowned and looked at Samantha. “You really think the fact that he didn’t talk to me might mean something?” He was making a determined effort to at least pretend that he’d emerged from his ordeal unscathed, and everyone around him was playing along—for which he was grateful.

She shrugged. “Just struck me, is all. He’s picked Golden as his last stand, apparently, and he clearly knows the area. That means he had to spend some time here before now. If he didn’t talk to you, then maybe it’s because he was afraid you might recognize his voice.”

“But he left me for dead.”

“Yeah, but even with all his confidence, he had to know there was at least a chance you’d be found in time. And if we know anything about him, it’s that he’s careful.”

“I’ve lived here all my life,” Wyatt told her, “and I’ve met a lot of people. Talked to a lot. Residents, tourists, people just passing through. If we can’t narrow it down more than that, there isn’t a chance in hell I’ll be able to figure out who he is.”

Lucas said, “It’s a point to keep in mind, but with, as you say, no way to narrow it down, not very helpful at the moment. What baffles me is how he’s managing to get in and out of these remote places, machinery or parts to build it in tow, without leaving much if any evidence.”

“Maybe he has wings,” Wyatt grunted, just about half serious.

Jaylene spoke up to offer, “Or a hell of an ATV. And something that big and rugged gets noticed, even in these mountains.”

“I didn’t see any tracks near the mouth of the mine,” Lucas told her. “Maybe we’ll find something tomorrow morning, but if it’s the same as at every other crime scene . . .” He shook his head, adding, “And why weren’t mines on our search list? Especially after Lindsay was found at one.”

Wyatt shrugged. “Because none of them are marked on any of our maps, probably. Haven’t been for decades. Virtually all the old mines in this county have been closed for so long that most of us have forgotten about them.

“Thing is, people have been digging in these mountains for generations. Gold, emeralds, whatever else there is or was. Lot of defunct mines up there that companies shut down when the veins petered out. And that’s not even counting amateur efforts or natural caverns. Plus old cellars and other shelters hacked out of the granite during the last century or two and left abandoned. A big part of this county is federal land now, but it wasn’t always.”

“In other words,” Lucas said grimly, “we’ve got a wilderness full of countless places where he could hold a hostage.”

Wyatt lifted his brows slightly. “I take it you expect him to grab somebody else?”

“Until we’ve got our hands on him, it’s a given.”

The sheriff sighed. “Great. Well, what you said pretty much sums it up. Hell of a lot of land and not many ways of narrowing down the list of places to search. We might be able to find out who owns various remote parcels, but there’s nothing to say he’s even tied to them in any legal sense. From what we’ve seen so far, it looks like he’s just taking advantage of places nobody’s made use of in so many years most of us have forgotten there was anything useful there.”