Tempting Evil (14 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Later that evening, Tyler knocked on Jo’s door.

She opened the door, her face softening when she saw him. Dark circles framed her eyes from lack of sleep and grief. He reached over and lightly touched the bandage on her face. A mixture of relief for her safety and rage toward Doherty battled within him.

She opened the door wider. She wasn’t smiling, but her eyes told him she was pleased to see him. “Come in.”

He closed the door behind him and put the tray of food Stan had prepared down on her small table before taking Jo into his arms. He held her close to him, breathing in deeply. She’d showered, smelled of soap and water, her hair still damp.

“How are you doing?” he asked, thinking that it was a dumb question after what she’d been through over the last two days. He needed to talk to her, to hold her, to let her know that he was here for her, whatever she wanted.

“Leah wanted me to leave.”

“She doesn’t blame you, Jo. She’s just upset—”

“I know. We had a good talk—as good as it could be right now while the pain is so unbelievable and raw. She wants to be alone. She’s in shock—she cried, but not the way she should. Grandpa is with her. Grandpa…I’m so worried about him.”

“What can I do?”

“Hold me.”

Tyler did, rubbing her back with his hands. Jo’s heart beat rapidly against his chest, then slowed as she relaxed. He ran his hand absently through her hair, wishing he could take all her pain for his own.

Jo sighed in contentment, stepped back and gave him a half smile. “How’s Mitch?”

“Better. Hans and I spoke with him before I came up here. He says he’s going on the search in the morning, but we’ll see.”

“I’ve been thinking about that.”

“About what?”

“The search. I’m going to go with you.”

“No you’re not.”
Over my dead body.

“I have to. Wyatt is in the hospital and while Billy Grossman knows the area well, he doesn’t know it like I do. I was raised here. Peter Nash can’t be back until tomorrow afternoon. You know I can do this.”

“You’re not a cop, Jo. And—”

“And what?”

“And it’s
you
Doherty wants to kill. I can’t put you in the middle of another dangerous situation.”

“I don’t have a death wish. Believe me, I have a lot to live for.” She touched the side of his face, her expression full of love even though she’d never told him she loved him.

Time, McBride, give her time.

He wanted her here, under lock and key. On the other hand, she was right: She knew the valley. Her knowledge could help them capture Doherty before he killed anyone else.

He said, “On one condition.”

“Anything.”

“You stay in the helicopter. Guide the pilot, give orders, I don’t care, but stay off the ground.”

She wanted to argue, he could tell, then she nodded. “That’s fair enough. Maybe I can do more good from the sky.”

Tyler kissed her lightly on the lips, then touched the bandage on her face. “Are you really okay?”

“I’m going to be fine.”

He skimmed her injured arm. The knife had cut deep through her tendons, rendering Jo’s hand useless. The SWAT medic had stitched her up, but didn’t know when or if she’d regain feeling and had urged her to see a specialist soon. “What about—”

“I still can’t feel my fingers. Don’t worry about me,” she said.

“I can’t help it!” He ran a hand through his hair.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I love you, Jo. I love you. When Doherty had you at gunpoint today, all I could think about was making sure you were safe. That you stayed alive long enough for me to tell you again that I love you. I should never have let Doherty and Chapman leave the lodge with you and Trixie. Maybe Trixie wouldn’t be dead if I had followed protocol. Never give in to the demands of terrorists. Never let them take a hostage!”

He turned away, squeezed the bridge of his nose. Getting angry wouldn’t help Jo. He’d run through every possible scenario, knew there had been no other way, but still felt like he’d done wrong.

“What were your options? They were going to blow up the lodge, killing everyone inside. Seven children. Leah. Jason. You did the right thing. It was me, I screwed up…”

He shook his head. “You got Doherty to come out into the open, enabling us to track the GPS on the Polaris.”

“Are they still tracking it?”

“We can’t get a signal, haven’t for hours.”

Jo looked down at her injured hand.

“You did everything you could,” he reassured her.

“Did I? I don’t know. I keep running over the scene in the kitchen. Over and over. Wondering if I said this or that Trixie might still be alive.”

“Stop second-guessing yourself, Jo.”

“Then you stop second-guessing yourself. I—” She stopped suddenly, glanced down.

Tyler pushed her chin up and forced her to look at him. “Hans thinks that Doherty had a specific reason for killing Trixie.”

“Are you saying she deserved it?”

“Of course not.”

“She didn’t deserve to die. No matter what mistakes she made in the past, she didn’t deserve to be shot to death. She—she—she said she was glad. She wanted to die. Oh, God.”

The tears finally came and Tyler hugged Jo tightly, carrying her to the bed. She was so cold. He left her momentarily and turned up the heater, then slid into the bed with Jo, fully clothed.

“You’re freezing.”

“I don’t care. Trixie’s dead. I can’t be mad at her. I want to be, but I can’t because she’s dead and she’s not coming back. I loved her, and I’m so mad at her.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Yes. Hans—he figured it out. How she led Lincoln Barnes to your house.”

“Oh, God, don’t tell Leah. Please. I don’t want her to know.”

“Shh, of course not. No one needs to know, not Karl or Stan or anyone else.”

He held her until the tears stopped. It was a long time before her breathing evened out, and she fully relaxed against him, asleep.

Tyler kissed her forehead, holding her close. “I will marry you, Jo. Someday you’ll say yes.”

THIRTY-ONE

Jane Jorgensen on rolled over and snuggled against her warm husband.

“I don’t want to get out of bed,” she sighed. “It’s probably still below zero.”

Bob draped an arm over her, pulling the down comforter tight around them. “I’ll feed the sheep if you cook breakfast.”

“That’s not fair, I burn everything.” Jane had tried to learn to cook, but she simply didn’t have the touch. Bob, however, could have been a chef in a five-star restaurant.

“How about if we eat fast then I’ll go out and help.”

“Umm, thanks for the offer, but I’d rather stay in this nice warm bed a little longer and have sex with my husband. Then I’ll be ready to brave the arctic chill.” She giggled when Bob tickled her.

Thirty minutes later, they were dressed and walking down the stairs. “Wow,” Jane said, looking out the large picture window in the breakfast nook to the dramatic Centennial Mountains on the edge of the valley. The early morning sun had turned them pink and purple, the blue sky a brilliant contrast. Low-lying fog wrapped around the base of the mountains, making the snow-covered peaks like majestic islands in the sky.

“I love you, Jane.”

She smiled and kissed him. “Make it a hearty breakfast. I’ve already worked up an appetite.”

She pulled on her sweater over her three layers of long-sleeve shirts, then her snowsuit, and finally her boots. She loved winter mornings like today, even if it was still only five degrees. There was no wind, and the drifts created the day before were smooth hills around their property. The white would be blinding when the sun peaked overhead, but now it glistened like cloudy crystal in the still morning.

She pulled on her ski mask and gloves, but the sharp cold still bit into her skin. The barn was heated, but it still wouldn’t be over fifty degrees inside. The sheep they kept over the winter were either too young to make the trip over the mountains, or too old. Some ranchers would slaughter the old, but the Jorgensens took them in from around the valley for another year or two of wool, which was a major income earner for their family.

The birds were out, soaring across the sky. Not all birds went south for the winter, but there were few who could withstand the cold. In summer, more than fifty thousand birds made the nearby wildlife refuge their home. They were spectacular to watch.

She approached the barn and was surprised the sheep weren’t baaing at the door. She was fifteen minutes later than usual to feed them. Fear squeezed her heart. Disease could travel so fast in a flock, what if they were sick?

They’d still be bleating
she thought as she opened the barn door.

Nothing prepared her for the sight of the blood. Blood everywhere, the smell so horrific that she gagged and turned her head.

All the sheep. Dead.

Killed.

She started to back away when she saw him.

He was standing next to her, naked except for boots and covered in blood. At first she thought he was injured, that he was a victim. Then she looked in his eyes and saw they were calm. Much too calm for what had happened in the barn.

Then she saw the gun pointed at her.

“Do exactly what I say or I will kill you.”

THIRTY-TWO

Fog grounded the helicopter until noon, but when it lifted, blue skies and a bright sun shone into the valley. It went from five degrees at dawn to forty-two degrees, and it was still warming. The sun would turn the top layer of snow to slush, making it slick and dangerous.

“Be careful,” Jo told Tyler as he mounted an Arctic Cat. “I need you back in one piece.”

He kissed her. “You, too.” He glanced at Mitch. “Keep an eye on her.”

“Yes, Sheriff.” Mitch saluted, then draped an arm over Jo’s shoulder and squeezed. He had wanted to be on the ground with Tyler and the rest of the team, but Hans Vigo—who outranked him—had said no.

“You’re not one hundred percent. You could get yourself killed, or someone else,” Hans had said. “You can go in the chopper.”

Hans was staying at the lodge with two federal agents tasked with guarding Jo’s family and Jason McBride. Two agents were at the Nash house in case Doherty backtracked there. Blackstone, Mitch, Jo, and the pilot were in the chopper, and the rest of the team—Tyler, his two deputies, and the remaining four agents—were on snowmobiles with Tyler in command.

They started out together, but would split into three teams. If the chopper saw anything suspicious, one team would check it out. Everyone was in open communication.

The GPS tracker on the Polaris wasn’t being picked up by the communications company, but Blackstone thought he might be able to pick it up when they were in close proximity. “Unless Doherty realized he could be tracked and disabled it.”

“Or switched sleds somewhere,” Mitch said.

“Not likely. Most of the ranches are on the east side of the valley. He was heading west. He could have backtracked, but we would have heard him. Sound travels well here.”

“We’ll start our sweep where we found Bianchi yesterday,” Blackstone told the pilot.

“Yes, sir.”

Jo had never flown over the Centennial Valley. The view was breathtaking. They stayed in pattern with the seven snowmobiles below, going ahead, circling around, returning. The valley itself was virtually treeless; on the mountainous slope south of the road, thick woods made it nearly impassable on a snowmobile, unless the rider was a pro. Aaron Doherty was not, and they had no indication that he had moved south.

By the time the riders on the ground reached the point where Mitch had been thrown from his sled, the helicopter pilot had searched a five-mile perimeter. There were several zigzagging lines, and Jo studied the pattern. “I think he was trying to make it hard for us to track him.”

“How so?”

“Going in circles. Crossing over his own path. Or he was completely lost. But there’s a compass on the sled. He would at least have known what direction he should go in. And he has a map of the valley.”

“This same one you gave me?” Blackstone said, holding up the brochure Karl Weber gave to every guest of the Moosehead Lodge.

“Yes.”

“What are these lines?”

“Known fences. Mostly ranch property. The thick blue lines are snowmobile trails.”

Jo picked up the binoculars Agent Blackstone had given her earlier. The snow sparkled like broken glass under the bright winter sun, the rivets Doherty’s snowmobile had made like gouges in the earth. “He’s moving northwest,” she said.

“How can you tell?” Mitch asked.

“When the snowmobile cuts through the snow it moves the powder to the sides. The faster it goes, the farther out the snow spreads and at more of an angle from your direction. Just like a boat moving through the water.”

“What’s northwest of here?”

She stared at the map. “A lot of it is the wildlife preserve, some ranches, and the Lima Reservoir. He might think the reservoir is his way to escape. There are two roads leading into it, one on the north, one on the south. They’d be snowed over now, not a lot of traffic, but eventually they merge into more residences and the interstate.”

“The Sheriff has the roads closely watched. Every car coming from the valley is being stopped.”

“There isn’t going to be a lot of traffic now, though this beautiful weather will bring out recreational skiers.” She bit the knuckle on her thumb. “And there is a thirty-mile stretch where he could circumvent all roads. The Sheriff’s Department can’t cover every inch.”

Mitch said, “He has patrols on snowmobiles and increased police presence. The surrounding counties have sent in patrols to help.”

Jo looked down at the valley. Trixie’s killer was down there somewhere. Where? Where would he go?

“Keep going northwest,” she said.

“We agreed to follow his wake,” Blackstone said.

“He’s heading northwest. And those impressions are old. You can see that the wind from last night has already obscured them.”

“I can’t tell, but I’ll take your word for it, Ms. Sutton.” Blackstone told the pilot to head northwest direct for the Lima Reservoir, then he radioed Tyler and told the ground search the same thing.

Within two miles, they picked up Doherty’s trail again and he was heading straight for the Lima Reservoir. “It’s thirty miles from here,” Jo said, “and I don’t think he had enough fuel, especially since he was moving so fast. There’s a natural barrier—a creek—that he would be a fool to try to cross at this point. He’d need to follow it, which will curve around and add another five to ten miles.”

The pilot spoke up. “Agent Blackstone, I have a faint signal on the GPS of the suspect.”

“Can you track it?”

“I’m trying. Hold.”

The pilot adjusted his coordinates. They turned northward, leaving Doherty’s trail behind.

The signal became stronger.

“Why would he go north?” Jo asked out loud.

“Maybe he doesn’t know how to read the map,” Mitch said, looking below with his binoculars.

“If he was planning on leaving the valley through Lima, he’d need to follow the creek southwest, not north…it only gets wider there, and with the temperatures rising today there will be melting and make it more difficult to cross.”

“Maybe he crossed last night.”

“The signal is getting stronger,” the pilot said. “About three miles. Stationary.”

Jo stared at the map, tried to remember what was out here. They were on the edge of the refuge, flying now over private land. All this was owned by the Jorgensens.

“There’s a ranch up ahead. Right at the widest point in the creek. He couldn’t have known about it, but if he was following the creek up to North Centennial Road, he would run right into it.”

“Are there people there?”

“The Jorgensens. They raise sheep, take them out of the valley every winter, but their son and daughter-in-law stay on and care for the animals too old or sick to make the trip.”

Please let them be okay. No more death. No more…

Blackstone got on the radio and using Jo’s directions, told the team below to proceed with caution to the Jorgensen ranch.

Tyler approached the Jorgensen property cautiously. The pilot reported that the GPS signal was coming from near the barn. They were circling and spotted the Polaris Doherty had stolen on the far side of the barn.

There was no sign of movement.

Tyler split the team in two. Four of them took the barn, the other three the house. “He’s armed and dangerous. He may have hostages: a man and woman in their late twenties.”

Tyler took the barn with Grossman and two Feds. They rode right up to the main doors, got off the sleds, and drew their guns. The roar of the snowmobiles, in addition to the circling chopper, would have alerted Doherty to their presence, so Tyler didn’t bother with stealth.

“Doherty! This is Sheriff McBride. Come out with your hands up.”

Nothing.

No sound, but the smell. Blood. A lot of blood.

He held up his fingers.
One. Two. Three.

He and Grossman went in high, the Feds went in low.

Though Tyler had expected death inside, nothing prepared him for the violence inside the Jorgensens’ barn.

There were at least a hundred sheep, their wooly coats stained red. The wet, sickly sweet smell of blood filled the large barn. Blood arced across the walls, the tack, the pillars, and hay.

Some of the sheep had their throats slit. Some sheep had been stabbed. None moved. They were all dead.

Tyler and the cops searched the barn for Doherty; he was nowhere inside. Grossman called to him. “Over here.”

Grossman was in a small tack room in the corner. He pointed to a pile of blood-drenched clothes. “Looks like what Doherty was wearing.”

“Where did he find a change of clothes?”

They looked toward where the house was. Tyler’s gut churned at the thought of two more dead.

Just then one of the Feds said over the walkie-talkie, “We have one unconscious male victim, alive with a strong pulse. No visible sign of injury.”

“What about a woman?”

“Nothing. We’ve searched the entire house.”

“Look again,” Tyler said, not expecting to find Jane Jorgensen, but wanting to make sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere.

Tyler looked around and tried to put himself in Doherty’s shoes. Getting in the heads of killers was far from his comfort zone. Agent Hans Vigo seemed much better versed in understanding how psychopathic minds like Doherty’s worked.

But Tyler also understood that part of being a good cop was trying to figure out what the criminal planned to do next. He inspected the sheep more closely, hoping for a sign or clue about Doherty’s next step.

Many of the animals had only one or two stab wounds. A couple were decimated, shredded to such an extent that they were barely recognizable as sheep. But for the most part, the kills had been relatively clean, the predominant method of murder: a slit throat.

Without a forensic expert, it would be virtually impossible to know where the slaughter started. However, the three overkills were bunched together. The sheep nearby were repeatedly stabbed, and the sheep closest to the doors—as if they were trying to escape—had slit throats or one or two stab marks. Tyler figured something had triggered Doherty and he blindly killed the first sheep, and then—maybe because he feared the sheep would make noise and wake the ranchers, or maybe out of some sort of sick perversion—he systematically killed the rest, one after the other.

Tyler walked carefully through the carnage. He noticed something oddly similar in the bulk of the sheep. The same type of stab wound on their abdomen.

Tyler examined some of the carcasses more closely. He wasn’t an expert in forensics, but since Beaverhead County didn’t have a crime scene unit, all the deputies, including himself, had basic forensic training. It appeared that some of the wounds were made postmortem, as if after killing the sheep, Doherty came back and stabbed them once in the abdomen. Why? To make sure they were dead or for some psychotic reason?

Grossman came in. “I got blood outside along with an impression of a snowmobile and tracks leading away from the shed next to the main house.”

“So maybe the Polaris wasn’t working right and he stole one of the Jorgensens’ sleds.”

“Jane is missing. They searched the house top to bottom and she’s not in there.”

“Is Bob still unconscious?”

“Al is working on him.”

Tyler left the barn and the dead sheep, relieved. He radioed the chopper. “It’s safe to land. Doherty is gone and he has a hostage.”

Just as he gave the clearance, he heard a snowmobile in the distance, coming in fast.

“Hold it, Blackstone. There’s a sled coming in from the north-northwest.”

Blackstone said, “We’ll check it out. Stand by.”

A couple minutes later Blackstone came back on the radio. “One sled, lone rider, coming straight for you.”

“Can you identify the rider?”

“Negative. He or she is wearing a bright yellow helmet and blue ski jacket.”

Tyler motioned for his team to take positions. They watched the horizon. Within minutes, the snowmobile was in view, the SWAT helicopter behind it as if urging it forward.

Blackstone’s voice came over a speaker system. “This is Agent Blackstone with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Person on the snowmobile with the yellow helmet: Stop your sled and put your hands up.”

The snowmobile didn’t stop.

Blackstone issued the warning again. “This is the FBI. You are surrounded. Stop your sled immediately.”

The snowmobile slowed, then stopped.

“Rider, remove your helmet and put your hands on top of your head.”

The rider complied. Blonde hair fell down the rider’s back.

“It’s Jane Jorgensen,” Tyler said and called to his team, “Hold your fire! It’s Jane Jorgensen.”