Noah's Rainy Day (2 page)

Holidays sucked. Christmas was the worst. Too many people. Too many smiles. Too many packages being tenderly carried to their rightful places under countless trees. Didn’t he deserve a little something under the tree this year?

Yes. Of course. That was why he was here. He just had to have patience, patience and discretion.

The longer he remained huddled against the wall, the more likely it would be that someone would notice his ineffectual labors. But he was safe here under the overhang, away from the cameras’ ranges. He had escaped his cover being blown about thirty minutes ago when he was over by the food court beyond the ticketing counters. Only feet from where he had stood, pushing his broom in the shadows, some old bat had dropped her bag of popcorn in her awkward attempt to rise from a dining table. Several
travelers had glared in his direction as they stepped over the spilled popcorn. He had pretended not to notice. He had turned his back as he pushed the candy wrapper in the opposite direction, away from the food court where he’d be expected to sweep up a real line of food wrappers.

He wore his navy blue stocking cap, pulled down on his forehead. His thick, black-rimmed glasses obscured much of his face and certainly his eyes from being recognized. The pretense of limited peripheral vision was complete. Believable. The earpieces of his headphones were jammed deep in his protruding ears, which gave him the excuse to ignore any demands for his services. Just to be on the safe side, he meandered toward the bank of restrooms, hugging the wall under the overhang and pushing the tumbling candy wrapper.

But he was safe, invisible. Just a janitor gripping his broom. A shiver crawled up his spine. Gripping a broom. A child’s grip. In the closet. The closet filled with mops and brooms. Locked. Where his father had kept him. Where he had imagined growing up to be a janitor just to keep his mind off the darkness. And loneliness. In a way, his father was to thank for this clever disguise, he supposed. Especially since as an adult, he now had so many to choose from compared to the three sets of identical uniforms his father had forced him to wear throughout his childhood—a pair of blue denim husky dungarees, a white beefy T, and a crisp, white button-down shirt. He might as well have been wearing a “kick me” sign to school.

His stomach growled.

It had been too long since he last ate and he simply hadn’t eaten enough then. His large, doughy fingers uncurled from the broom handle and reached between the ties of his blue vest into the pocket of his olive-drab coveralls. Just as his fingertips reached the edge of the king-sized package of peanut M&M’s, he saw him.

Like a camouflaged hunter spotting a trophy elk in his scope, he kept his movements slow and deliberate. He eased the candy from his pocket without making a sound while he studied his prey.

A tall, lanky man wearing a BlueSky Airlines uniform was walking—more like prancing—off the escalator that brought arriving passengers from the underground trains. The man headed toward the Buckhorn Bar
and Grill. The bar was across from his safe haven under the overhang by the restrooms. It was less than thirty yards away.

The airline employee carried himself as if he were tethered to electric voltage. He was all jitters and nerves hidden by a phony smile plastered on his face. The man made a beeline toward a perturbed woman standing just beyond the row of barstools that separated the restaurant from the main terminal. She didn’t look happy. Her fists were planted on her hips. Her foot was tapping and her eyes looked angry.

Perfect. A lovers’ quarrel. There was no better distraction.

As the airline employee approached, he gave the irritated woman a quick peck on the cheek and leapt into a long, animated explanation trying to appease the irritated, foot-tapping, ball-fisted lover awaiting him. It was not important what the two lovers were so worked up about on this otherwise peaceful Christmas Eve. What was important was that Santa had not forgotten him this year. His Christmas gift had just arrived.

Delivered by a BlueSky Airlines employee, one of Santa’s elves.

It was a little boy. A beautiful, blond boy. A sad boy who needed him. Like a puppy from the pound. He’d save him.

The airline employee had long since released the little boy’s hand. The boy was lingering beside the quarreling couple, circling around the area. Just beyond the bar, busy pedestrian traffic was ebbing and flowing through the main terminal from the ticketing area to security and from the underground trains to the baggage claim areas.

Dressed in a beautiful hunter-green Christmas outfit, the boy danced about, oblivious to the tide of travelers. The boy was oblivious to his distracted escort, oblivious to the woman’s fury, and oblivious to the invisible janitor across from the bar who was fixated on his every movement.

An unaccompanied minor.

He spied the airline wings pinned to the little boy’s vest lapel that confirmed his assumption. It explained the tall, nervous man and his inattention to the boy. The child was traveling alone from one place to another and just passing through Denver International Airport.

What good fortune!

He closed the distance between them, careful to stay close to the wall
yet out of the spatting lovers’ peripheral vision. He stood between the boy and the small family bathroom that was nestled between the expansive bathrooms dedicated to men and women only. The family room, which was really just an oversized restroom intended for mothers and fathers to help their young, offered him privacy with its locking door.

Pushing the small line of gray dust and the well-traveled candy wrapper toward the door, he felt the weight of his concealed backpack against the small of his back, under his blue vest, and smiled. Opening the door, he set the broom just inside and turned back toward the child. He rattled the bag of M&M’s. The child looked up. And stopped dancing.

The child saw the bright yellow bag and a dimpled grin spread across his smooth, white cheeks. After cutting a quick glance in his escort’s direction, the boy tiptoed toward the man with the bag of candy.

“What Child Is This?” was playing on the PA overhead, and he scanned the airport before he ducked, unseen, into the bathroom with the bag of M&M’s.

The boy followed.

SPECIAL AGENT LIV BERGEN
, my ass.

As I was yanked off my feet and my teeth were sinking into Rocky Mountain turf, I wasn’t looking very agent-like and I certainly wasn’t feeling very special despite my new credentials from Quantico.

I might be new at all of this—formally trained as an FBI agent, specifically assigned to be the handler for this tracking hound—but I wasn’t born yesterday. In fact, I am quite confident in my abilities as one of the youngest managers ever promoted in the mining and mineral processing industry. And soon turning thirty, I can confidently say I know what I’m doing. An expert. In mining. Not as a first office agent with the Bureau.

That’s my problem.

Having given up my quarrying experience and knowledge to work closely as an investigator with Special Agent Streeter Pierce, a legend at the Bureau, I am hell-bent on proving to him that his confidence in me at replacing my friend Lisa Henry—God rest her soul—in her official capacity as Beulah’s handler was not in vain. So I’ve spent every waking hour of my personal time since returning to Colorado from Quantico out training with this bloodhound, relying on the help of my brother-in-law Michael or one of many family members to be “lost” so I could track them.

I had expected more from my Christmas Eve than this.

I spat out the pine needles and attempted to free my hands from underneath me. The same hands that by sheer instinct should have reached out to break my fall but didn’t. I just could not make myself let go of the lead, afraid Beulah might get away from me. I wriggled my body off my hands and let the lead pull my arms above my head. Rocks, sticks, icy snow, and mossy dirt scraped into my jeans as my belly dragged across the forest floor.

The taut lead between us held snug against a pine tree as she bolted in a different direction. She hesitated for an instant and I jumped on the opportunity of the angled lead. Scrambling to my knees and scampering around the tree, I levered myself against Beulah’s mighty force so I could regain my footing, my composure, and my dignity.

I muttered, “What’s gotten into you?”

She ignored me, baying at something up the hill, pulling hard against her harness. In all my training with her, I hadn’t seen her behave like this. I wondered where my brother-in-law Michael was, hoping it was he that Beulah was marking. But something about her behavior made me think not. So what had Beulah winded? And why was she off Michael’s scent?

I had intentionally interrupted Beulah’s momentum by tying her leash to a tree while I caught my breath. That would make this particular search inadmissible in court if we were tracking a criminal for real, but I was getting better. And the true benefit of spending my free time like today in the field with Beulah was so that she could train me to better understand her signals for when it really counted.

We’d both been working so hard every day since I’d been home that I felt like the two of us—dog and handler—were becoming one. We were thinking alike, moving together, and honing our skills as a specialized trailing team. And thanks to Michael, who was willing to get lost every time I asked, we were getting better.

I was so grateful to my brother-in-law. Especially on Christmas Eve. I knew he and my sister Elizabeth had better things to do, considering they weren’t home in Louisville, Colorado, much these days, spending every moment possible building the future facilities for the Lost Boys, an outdoor campus for at-risk youth, in Rochford, South Dakota. I didn’t want
Michael to think he’d wasted his holiday break on me if I’d missed Beulah’s signals. So to say I was frustrated would be a gross understatement. How could I ever impress Streeter with my newly acquired skills if I didn’t have a clue about what was setting Beulah off?

As I brushed off my clothes and scooped the mossy decay out of my waistband, my eyes looked ahead to see if I could see what Beulah was howling at.

And I saw it.

In a tree less than ten yards ahead of my bloodhound, fifteen yards from where I stood, were two remarkably green eyes peering down at me. Beulah was bobbing stiff-legged and baying so loudly my ears were pounding. I debated whether my head hurt from her baying or from crashing to the ground when I was trying to keep up with Beulah’s sudden and mighty sprint up this hill. I was thinking back, wondering if maybe I’d hit my head on something. After all, this was the Rocky Mountains and there was nothing but trees and rocks and mountain lions out here.

A mountain lion.

I suppose that’s where my wonderment should have been focused. Not on whether or not I had hit my head on a rock a minute ago. But it was all so surreal to me. I blinked and rubbed my eyes with my free fist.

About twelve feet from the ground in the crook of a heavy branch, the cat was crouched. Its eyes shifted from me to Beulah, it laid its ears back, and it hissed, baring its teeth. Beulah kept bobbing and baying, excited by the strange creature she had marked. The cat crouched lower, lifting its hind end higher in the tree. It was positioning itself to pounce. I had never seen a mountain lion, even though I grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I don’t know what I expected in a face-to-face encounter, but this wasn’t it. I didn’t think I would find the animal so beautiful, so mesmerizing. So scary.

I had read somewhere, or Michael had told me, that over the past few decades, the mountain lions had evolved to be fearless of dogs and would eventually be fearless of humans. With the expansion of the suburbs into the pristine areas west of Denver and along the Rocky Mountains, the cats had been pushed out of their natural habitat. With the ban on mountain lion hunting, the roaming acreage available to the cat population had
plummeted, leaving the young male cats no other option but to double back into the populated areas. At least, this is how the experts justified the increase in kills attributed to mountain lions over the past five years. Humans, flipped over, filleted, entrails eaten, and discarded for other predators or later eating if times got tough. We had come to expect at least one death a year of a hiker or runner in the foothills.

We were nothing but lunch for this cat, if I didn’t do something.

Fast.

The cat could have gone further up the tree or outrun us. But instead, it crouched and readied itself for Beulah. My hand slipped to my waist, searching for my six-inch hunting knife. My breath caught when I realized it was gone. As if the cat could read my mind, its gaze slid back to me, ignoring Beulah for the moment. I did not want to take my eyes off the cat for fear I’d miss something. Our eyes locked, and I let the lead ease through my fingers, giving myself just enough slack so that I could back up but not enough to let Beulah lurch forward. I reached the end of the lead, took a cleansing breath, and waited.

The cat grew tired of my stillness and directed its gaze back to Beulah. I took advantage of the moment, searching around my feet for the knife. Nothing. I must have lost it farther back. I looked up at the cat and it was still studying Beulah, but it had shifted its weight. The cat’s back was swayed, and its tail twitched back and forth. I had to find that knife. Or something.

My eyes scanned the forest floor, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. Just behind me and off to the right, I saw a small bit of brown that did not blend with the other drab browns and grays in the shadows and snow. It was the leather sheath with my knife. I eased down to a squatting position, hoping beyond hope that the cat wouldn’t see my vulnerability. Clutching the lead with one hand, I reached behind me with the other, my fingers searching the pine needles and rocks for the knife.

Just as my fingers touched the cold handle, the cat’s deep green eyes shifted to me, and it stopped moving its tail. I snatched the knife and bolted upright, making myself look as big as I could by holding my arms above my head, tugging the lead accidentally as I did. Beulah’s head jerked back and the cat’s attention returned to her, sensing her momentary weakness.
My only thought was I had to get Beulah closer to me, away from the tree. I clipped my knife back onto my pants and clasped the lead with every ounce of strength I had. I circled the tree that I’d used as a pulley device, unwinding Beulah. I tightened the lead and pulled harder against Beulah’s weight, coaxing her to be calm.