Redemption (55 page)

Jane slammed down the phone. She checked the time. 5:30 P.M. A soft rain began to fall. By the time she got back to her car, the skies opened and sent a thundering downpour across Oakhurst. She pulled out of the parking lot, passing Clinton’s infamous black SUV parked in the lot. He’d obviously been watching her the entire time. She’d planned to drive past Rachel’s house to check for any sign of Lou but, thanks to Clinton, she’d have to abandon those plans now. Clinton continued to trail Jane back to the Cabins, parking in direct sight of their cabin.

“Make sure the curtain’s drawn tight!” Jane exclaimed when she walked in the cabin. “Clinton’s lying in wait.”

Kit was seated on the bed, balancing a book on her knee and writing on what looked like a journal. Jane repeated the entire conversation with Bartosh. “What if he can’t make any solid connections?”

Jane tossed the keys to the Buick on the table and sat down on her bed. Her body was bone-tired, but she knew if she fell asleep, she’d be out for hours. “I don’t know, Kit.” She plugged her cell phone into the charger. “It’s a crapshoot. But it’s all we’ve got right now.” Jane stretched her legs out on the bed. “What are you writing?”

“Oh, just thoughts and feelings.” Kit smiled, covering the page with a book.

The rain fell hard outside, pelting heavy drops against the lone window in the cabin. “I wonder if she can hear the rain right now?” Jane said to herself.

“She can,” Kit solemnly replied.

“I’m sorry,” Jane said with a sigh of resignation. “I’m sorry for not believing you. Not trusting you. Wasting your time—”

“You never wasted my time, Jane P.!”

Jane stared blankly. “I could have done more.”

“There are just so many hours in a day and you’ve used them well. Why don’t you get some rest—”

“No. I can’t sleep.”

“I’ll put on my whale music. It deeply relaxes the subconscious mind—”

“He may call. I gotta be sharp.”

The sound of rain outside mixed with the drone of truck engines pulling into the parking lot. Jane got up and peered through the drapes. Four large freight and delivery trucks parked at the far end of the lot. One of the drivers jumped out of his rig and ran toward the front office. Jane opened the cabin door.

“What’s going on?” she yelled to the driver.

“There’s been another mud slide on 41,” he said, sheltering his face from the rain with his jacket. “We’re stuck here ’til the road opens. Hopefully before dawn!”

Jane closed the door and retreated back to bed. “What else can happen?” There was a thick silence before Jane spoke. “You asked about good memories with my dad?”

“Yes?”

“Mary Bartosh has a black lab puppy. It triggered a memory. I was about ten or eleven. I know my mom was dead. One night, Dad brought home this black lab puppy. It belonged to his sergeant, who was on a two-week vacation, and Dad, for some reason, said he’d take care of the dog. My first impression was fear. Fear for the dog. But the strangest thing happened. Dad built him a pen outside where he could run during the day. Then at night, he let him come inside. The first night, after Mike and I went to bed, I came downstairs for a glass of water. Dad didn’t see me but I saw him. He was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking his whiskey, cradling the puppy in his arms and rocking him like a baby. I sat on the steps and watched him for over an hour. Finally, I got up
because I knew the dog would be safe.” Kit reached out between the beds. Jane turned to her and took her hand. Jane’s cell rang. She sprung out of bed and answered.

“It’s John,” Bartosh replied. “I’ve wracked my brain. There’s nothing I can point to that Emman—” Bartosh stopped, “
Lou
said that alludes to where he’s holding the child.”

“He
had
to have said something to you!”

“I’m telling you the God’s truth! We talked about the things we always talk about. Salvation, our love of God, the future—”

Jane ran her fingers through her hair. She went through the basics in her head. Criminals follow patterns; patterns with victims, patterns with crimes, patterns with locations. She thought of Ashlee and Pico Blanco.
“Pico Blanco. White Peak,”
she muttered to herself as she grabbed the large map. “A peak could be a mountain. His Forum post made a strong reference to mountains. It was within a thread about ‘The Power of Sacrifice.’ Sacrifice and mountains! How do they interconnect?”

“Biblically?”

“Of course,
Biblically
!” Jane yelled impatiently.

“Sacrifice...mountains....” Bartosh repeated.

“
Abraham
,” Ingrid said in the background.

“Yes! Abraham was told by God to
sacrifice
his son on the
mount
of the Lord!”

Jane recalled Kit telling her the story. “Right. It was a metaphor for the Lamb of God...
Jesus
...who would be sacrificed on the
same
mountain 2,000 years later.”

“Exactly!”

“Well, he’s not headed back to Pico Blanco!” Jane stared at the map. “Wait a second, there’s a Pinoche
Peak
. It skirts the outside of Yosemite.”

“Ingrid’s bringing me the atlas.” There were a few moments of page turning before Bartosh returned to the phone. “I see it. I don’t know of its relevance—”

“I saw Lou drive north on Highway 41 and turn left. Based on approximately where I was that day, Pinoche Peak would still be miles away from where he turned.”

“Wait! He was driving
north
on Highway 41?”

“Yes!”

“That’s in the direction of our youth camp—”

Jane recalled the letters of the camp: CCYM. “Congregation Christian Youth Ministry—”

“No, the Congregation Christian Youth
Mountain
Camp—”

“Mountain?”

“My God....”

“That’s gotta be it! It’s not the same mountain, but it’s an offshoot of the same camp where there’s a peak of a mountain named Pinoche in sight. Where’s the camp?”

“It’s almost impossible to find in the winter. All of our signage is taken down.”

“You gotta give me
something
!
Anything!
A landmark?”

Bartosh struggled under pressure. “We...we have a large lake on the property where we do baptisms. Look on the map and you’ll see it. It wraps around a valley that’s about three miles off the highway.”

Jane remembered the distinctive body of water Bartosh referred to. She quickly located it on the map and marked it with a pen and arrow. “Got it!”

“Three cabins surround the lake—”

“
Cabins?
Shit! He’s copying exactly what he did to Ashlee!”

“I just realized something. The lake doesn’t have a name. But we refer to it as ‘The lake of sacrifice and resurrection.’ I think that’s your connection, Miss Perry.”

Bartosh told Jane of a gate that led to the property and gave her the combination. They said their good-byes as Jane focused on the map.

“What’s this about the camp?” Kit asked Jane. Jane traced her finger on the map, along the nameless roads, and toward the lake
of sacrifice and resurrection. “That seems like an easy enough trip for you,” Kit offered.

“Shit!” Jane exclaimed. “The highway is shut down!”

“When the truckers leave, you’ll know it’s open and you can go.”

“What about Clinton?”

“I’m sure you can evade him in that Mustang.” Jane paced. “Lie down, Jane. You’ve got to conserve your energy for whatever lies ahead.”

“I can’t sleep. I have to focus.”

“I’ll wake you when the trucks leave. Get some rest. Do it for me. Please?”

Jane tiredly agreed. Indeed, she was too exhausted to fight Kit. Kicking off her boots and removing her Glock and holster, she crawled into bed fully clothed.

“Goodnight,” Kit whispered as she slid into bed and turned off the light.

 

 

JANUARY 5

Somewhere in Jane’s dreams, she felt herself falling. But each time, before she hit the ground, a wave of ocean water lifted her up. She could almost smell the sea air and feel the sting of saltwater on her face. The monotonous drone of whales whined in the distance. It was so deeply seductive. So soothing. So perfectly planned.

Jane opened her eyes. The room was dark, but she could see whispers of daybreak creeping through the crack in the drapery. Still half asleep, she realized the sounds of her dream still vibrated. She turned to the side table to see Kit’s tape recorder and the circling tape of whale sounds. Jane turned on the light. The covers were pulled back on Kit’s bed; there was the sound of water running in the bathroom behind the closed door. “Kit! What time is it?” Jane leaped out of bed and threw open the drapes. The last freight truck was preparing to leave the lot. Across the way,
Clinton stood outside his SUV, talking feverishly on the phone and making frantic hand gestures. Jane looked closer at his car. His front tires were completely flattened. She spun around and grabbed her Glock and holster, securing it around her chest. “Kit! You said you were going to wake me!” No answer. “You’ll never guess what happened to Clinton’s SUV!” Jane grabbed her coat, cell phone, and the map. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a note on her computer in Kit’s handwriting.

Jane ran across the room, bursting open the bathroom door. Kit had left the faucet running. The full impact hit Jane. “Oh God, Kit,” she whispered to herself. “Don’t do it.”

CHAPTER 35

Jane flung open the cabin door. Her earlier interest in the trucks and Clinton’s car trouble had prevented her from seeing that the Buick was gone. Clinton was still on his cell phone screaming for someone to get him alternate transportation when he saw Jane bolt to her Mustang. He wasted no time and sprinted to a delivery truck just as it was about to leave the parking lot. Jane peeled the Mustang around the truck and burned rubber onto Highway 41. She laced the car in and out of traffic, keeping an eye out for the blue Buick. Running the timeline through her head based on when the trucks left the parking lot, she hoped that Kit was only five minutes ahead of her. If that was the case, she figured she could make up the time by speeding. The only problem was the road. The rain had finally stopped, but there were sporadic stretches of soupy mud slicks that had to be maneuvered around carefully. Jane’s cell rang. Checking the number, she saw that it was Weyler.

“Boss! I need your help! I’m pretty sure I know where the kid is!” Jane ran down the details of the location, giving as many references as she could. “I need backup! You gotta call it—” With that, Jane lost cell phone service. “Shit!” Checking the rearview mirror, she saw the delivery truck Clinton had nabbed bearing down fast. Knowing Clinton, he probably used his name and the promise of celebrity if the driver did whatever it took to follow her up the highway. Jane pressed the pedal to the metal.

Forty-five minutes later, there was still no sign of Kit. The morning sun crested over the farthest peak, illuminating the puddles on the asphalt with a golden luminescence. The seeming peacefulness and staggering beauty belied what was taking place on the other side of the ridge.

Jane sped past the Shell station and The Hummingbird Motor Lodge. She’d successfully created distance between she and Clinton. The thought occurred to Jane that there was a gate with a combination lock. She had memorized the combination but not given it to Kit. That was sure to slow Kit down. Checking the map, Jane slowed down and kept an eye out for several mile-markers she used for reference. Locating them, she approached three separate dirt roads on the left and came to a screeching halt. Jane scanned the map again, trying to determine which road led to the camp. Each road had crisscrossing tire tracks. None of the three roads showed a speck of disturbed debris left from the Buick tearing up the gravel. Jane was about to abandon the area when her eye caught the edge of a wooden sign that had been placed behind a large rock. She swung the Mustang into the middle road and got out to check the sign. In large, yellow, hand-painted letters, it simply read CCYM with an arrow. Jane ran back to the Mustang. In the distance, she heard the fast approaching rumble of the delivery truck. Jane gunned the Mustang up the narrow, steep hill, but her tires began to shift and sink into the wet earth and gravel road. Pockets of dirt and pebbles spewed from the rear of the Mustang as Jane shifted gears and fishtailed farther up the hill. The field of debris gave the trucker an easy heads-up to Jane’s destination. She snuck a glance in her side mirror. About 500 feet behind her, the truck began the tricky ascent. Jane spotted a patch of flat ground and turned onto it. She gained immediate traction and was able to speed forward with greater resolve. Behind her, the truck moaned. There was a loud clank of shifting gears, then the sound of tires losing their grip against the gravel. She was almost certain she heard Clinton screaming a stream of expletives as she gunned the Mustang up the hill.

Jane pressed forward another half-mile. About 1,000 feet ahead, she saw what looked like a gate. She figured Kit would have to be stalled somewhere at that point. However, as she moved closer, the image became clearer. The gate had been smashed and
driven through, leaving only the remnants of blue paint against the twisted metal. This was a woman on a mission, Jane realized.

She gunned the Mustang through the broken gate and quickly came to a flat clearing. The Buick stood alone with the driver’s door wide open. Jane sped toward the car, sliding to a stop. Grabbing her cell phone, she noted only one bar of service. Hoping for the best, she dialed 911 and purposely didn’t disconnect the call. If Weyler couldn’t send help from his end, Jane figured the cell would have to function as a GPS beacon.