Loe raamatut: «Deadly Fate»

1

She lay in beauty.

Heartbreaking beauty, for she was gone.

There was no hope of resuscitation; she was as pale as the snow-white sheets upon which she rested. Her hair was sable brown, the color of soft fur. Her lips had been highlighted with a rich shade of red, and her features were as delicate and lovely as the intricate pattern of a snowflake.

She’d been a victim of the “Fairy Tale Killer,” a man Thor Erikson had been pursuing with his partner, Jackson Crow, for months. The killer had struck in cities from New York City to San Diego, and it was in Los Angeles where they’d caught him at last. He’d been kneeling over, bending down, tenderly touching a corpse—only to turn with a Smith & Wesson pointed directly at Thor and Crow.

Thor had fired first, and then rushed to the pallet upon which the killer had displayed his “Snow White,” knowing full well that they were too late; she was gone, drained of her life’s blood.

Thor could still see her in his mind’s eye, remember when she’d arranged a meeting with him and Crow; he could hear her sincerity as she had expressed concern about a coworker who had been dating a business executive, a man who traveled constantly. Her name had been Mandy Brandt, and she’d been so very worried about her friend, who worked at the tour center with her. He remembered the gentleness of her smile, her eagerness to help in any way...

And now here she lay, a beauty like Snow White. But no kiss would awaken her.

He turned to Jackson, who was kicking the gun from the killer’s grip, checking to see if he was dead; he was not. He was still breathing.

“Saved my life—and his,” Jackson said.

Thor was vaguely aware of Jackson getting on his phone, calling for medical assistance and backup.

Then the whole scene began to fog up and fade.

It was a dream that came to him again and again; a memory that played itself out in his mind when he was sleeping, when he was vulnerable. Over time it had come less and less, but sometimes, like now, it would return like the blade of a knife, digging into his mind as if piercing his flesh.

Tonight, however, Mandy’s eyes opened. And she looked at him with that beautiful and tremulous smile of hers. “Thor,” she said.

“Mandy!”

She reached up and touched his cheek. “You mustn’t let it happen again,” she told him softly.

He was dreaming; he knew that he was dreaming. He’d relived the scene a thousand times over.

And he’d wondered every time how he and Jackson and a slew of techs had managed to be just that little bit too far behind the killer...

No, he blamed it on himself. And maybe Jackson, just a little. Mostly it was his own fault. He should have known. They should have known. They shared a strange sense of...intuition, and they should have realized from the descriptions they’d received, from their gut sense of the past and time and purpose and...

Mandy had died anyway.

In his dream, he said, “Every day, Mandy, every day of my life, I still try to catch the killers, the bad guys, the sick, the evil... I am so sorry...”

She pressed a finger to his lips and sat up, then said softly, “No fault, Thor, no fault on your part. You two...you believed me, you investigated, you discovered the truth. No fault. But it’s happening again. This time, Thor...this time, you must stop him.”

She stroked his cheek; her eyes were immense on his...

And then his alarm went off with a jarring sense of reality and he woke up, bolting to a sitting position, reaching for the offending noise box to silence it.

He lay there for a moment; the dream had been so real he felt as if he could still smell the scent of Mandy’s perfume on the air.

But, of course, he could not. He glanced at the other side of the bed. It was empty. As always. He and Janet had split up months ago and since then, he’d never brought anyone home.

He rose and headed to the kitchen of his Anchorage apartment, poured a cup of coffee from the brewer that was set for 6:30 a.m. every morning and walked out to the living room. Large windows all across the far wall gave him great views of the city.

People had a tendency to think of Alaska as the frozen frontier.

Sometimes, he wished it was nothing but a frontier filled with ice.

But Anchorage was a large, sprawling metropolis—perhaps not on the same level as NYC or Chicago, but it was still a thriving city with well over three hundred thousand residents, almost half the population of the entire state. The great thing about the apartment was it offered him a place to stay in the city—and have this incredible and majestic view of the white-tipped Chugach Mountains rising in the distance—without having to live here full-time.

Thanks to his enterprising antecedents, his family owned a sprawl of property between Anchorage and Seward, a vast tangle of family homes, a horse farm and a sled dog–breeding facility. His sister and her husband managed the estate, so he could live in both worlds—he even had a pair of the best dogs anyone could ask for.

He was, he knew, a damned lucky man.

Albeit a haunted one, because he could never shake certain images...

Lucky, he told himself firmly. Every man out there, every woman, too, lived with things that tore at them.

He shook off the feelings the dream had wrapped around him.

In his free time, he could head out to what was still pristine wilderness. He could spend countless hours in the national parks and encounter wildlife like he could in few other places.

He wasn’t a hunter. The only way he shot things in his spare time was with a camera. His day-to-day life had enough to do with violence.

He heard his cell phone ringing and headed back into the bedroom to snatch it up off his bedside table. His partner, Mike Aklaq, was on the other line.

“You ready, friend?”

“If you call standing in my shorts, drinking coffee and looking out windows ready, then I’m ready.”

“Cool. You’re always Mr. Early. Today I’m on the move. Coming to get you—got a call to rush it this morning.”

“Oh?”

“Just hop in the shower quick. We’re wanted down the road in Seward.”

“What’s going on?”

“Quit talking and shower. Put on something more than your briefs—Special Director Enfield will meet us at the airport.”

“Airport? Seward isn’t even a three-hour drive and only private—”

“Helicopter is waiting for us. I’m almost there. Hey, I’m pretty sure I’m along for the ride on this. Enfield thinks you’re the man for this situation.”

“What the hell is the situation?”

“I don’t even know yet. Just get cracking, eh?”

Thor didn’t say anything more; he hung up and hurried to get ready.

He managed a shave and shower in less than ten minutes. When he emerged—in his blue suit, Glock in the little leather holster at the back of his waistband—Mike was in his apartment.

“Hell, you must have been downstairs when you called,” Thor said.

Mike grinned. “I was. I figured you had coffee—you always have coffee.”

Mike was a big guy with broad shoulders and cheekbones to match. His dad was Native American; his mom had come up to Alaska with her father when he’d worked the pipeline. Mike was one of ten kids, all of them tall and good-looking. Thor and he made a good, colorful team, Thor often thought. He actually had Aleut blood himself. It was from a great-grandmother, while the rest of his family had hailed from Norway and it showed. He was bronzed just because he loved the sun; his hair was lighter than flax and his eyes were a blue only a little darker than ice.

They’d been partners three years in Alaska. Thor had done time in both the New York City and Miami offices while Mike had worked in Chicago and DC. Both of them had asked for the Alaska assignment—a different kind of job, for the most part. They were members of the criminal task division; in the three years they’d been working, most of their cases had been a matter of doggedly following clues and collaborating with Canadian and other US agents.

They headed downstairs. Thor knew that Mike was going to drive—he had the official car and the keys. They both preferred their own driving.

“What time did Enfield call you?” Thor asked when they were on the road.

“Six. He just said shake a leg and get to the airfield, and he’d meet us there. Man, it doesn’t bode well, him calling like that—when we were due in anyway.”

Thor nodded, feeling uncomfortable. The reality of the dream had faded—in his field, nightmares occurred in the darkness and the light. He’d always known that you had to live with the losses as well as the triumphs. But his dad—who was still with the Alaska State Troopers—had once put it into perspective for him by noting, You’ll never stop the flow of evil that some men will do, but each time you save one innocent, you make it all worthwhile.

So he had dreams.

Nightmares.

He woke up and shook them off.

But now, the dream that had plagued him right before he had awakened that morning seemed like some kind of a foreboding.

That feeling increased when they reached the airfield and saw Special Director Reginald Enfield there, waiting for them.

Enfield was a solid, no-nonsense director—a good man in his office. He’d had a kneecap shot out and knew he wasn’t fit for fieldwork, but he could analyze a situation like few other men and collect invaluable information with his group of techs. That he was at the airfield meant they were onto something serious.

Enfield shook hands with the men as he reached them, his expression grim. “Your chopper is ready and waiting. You’re heading straight to Seward—there was a murder last night,” he told them.

Thor waited for him to continue. It wasn’t as if Alaska was immune to murder—far from it. According to reports by statisticians at the Bureau, Alaska was the most dangerous state for violent crime. Most of the time, murders were related to bar fights, cabin fever, drug or alcohol abuse and sometimes, domestic battles.

Thor had a feeling none of the above applied; if so, the local police or the state police would have been called in. Seward, Alaska, had a full-time population of three thousand plus, but tourism and the cruise industry could swell that number considerably. It was still a quaint and beautiful town—one usually loved by those who flocked to see the beauty of the nation’s largest, last-frontier state.

He realized they were going to have to ask questions and so he began with the obvious. “Sir, I’m sure you plan on giving us more. We’re being sent to Seward over a murder? Aren’t the local police and the state guys on it?”

“This one isn’t your typical murder,” Enfield said. “We’ve got agents headed here now from the DC area—it’s that much not your typical murder.”

“We have a serial killer on our hands?” Mike asked.

“Let’s pray that we don’t,” Enfield said. He glanced at Thor. “An old partner and friend of yours is on the way here. You remember Jackson Crow?”

Thor was pretty sure that his heart missed an entire beat.

He hadn’t thought about Jackson Crow in a long time, and had only seen him in his dreams.

“Sure, I remember Crow,” Thor said, hoping he sounded easy and casual. “Great agent. We worked together a decade ago.”

Enfield hesitated. “We don’t know yet if there’s any relation here or not, but...” He paused and then shrugged. “You remember, of course, the Fairy Tale Killer? Tate Morley?”

Now Thor felt as if his heart had fallen into the pit of his stomach.

“Of course I remember,” he said huskily.

“Well, he’s out.”

“He’s out?” Thor said, incredulous.

“Yeah. He escaped.”

Thor felt a surge of anger. He’d been afraid of something like this—he’d said so when he heard that Morley had been transferred for his good behavior. Morley had been incarcerated first in the Feds’ one supermax-security prison, but had then been transferred to max security and then a minimum-security prison—all over the last ten years or so.

Thor could never understand how the justice system allowed for such a thing to happen; the man’s ninety-nine-years-plus life sentence hadn’t been lessened by a parole board, and if he’d been left where he’d first been placed, escape would have been near impossible.

Enfield continued, “Seems he made himself a shank, got himself into the infirmary, stabbed a doctor and walked out easily in his white coat and with his credentials.”

“When did this happen?” Thor asked.

He was pretty sure that he was speaking normally, that he moved like a sane man. But in truth, he was going insane inside, his gut clenching and his body on fire.

“He busted out yesterday,” Enfield said. “He hasn’t had a lot of time to get here, but it wouldn’t have been impossible. Victim’s name is Natalie Fontaine. She was a producer for bad TV—bad being my opinion, of course—filming in the area. Well, Gotcha is very, very bad. Vacation USA is okay. Anyway, I knew about Morley’s case—everyone knew about him. I’m not sure he’s the one responsible here. But Jackson Crow will be coming in along with a few of his people, and you and Mike will be taking the lead with him. He seems like an all right guy, willing to listen to the local power. Says that he doesn’t know Alaska. You two do.” Enfield stared at them and added, “He must be something with the main powers that be—the calls I received came straight from the top.”

Thor was somewhat surprised that his old friend had the power to demand in on a case—and bring affiliates with him. But then, he’d heard about the “special” unit that Jackson headed beneath an enigmatic non-field agent named Adam Harrison. Very special. They even had their own offices.

Guys talked about it being the ghost-whispering-busting unit.

But jokes didn’t last long. His old partner’s team had solved too many cases to be considered a joke.

“You okay, Erikson?” Enfield asked.

Was he okay?

Hell, no. The Fairy Tale Killer was out. There was a murder in Seward that seemed to call for help cross-country.

He’d dreamed about Mandy and Jackson Crow.

Mandy was dead.

Jackson Crow was on the way.

Thor felt his sense of dread take hold again.

The Fairy Tale Killer might be back—in Alaska.

“Sir,” he asked Enfield, “why would anyone believe that the murder in Seward might have been committed by the Fairy Tale Killer? Was the victim laid out to look like a princess—like Morley’s victims?”

“No,” Enfield said. “Like I said, we’re not sure it’s the same man—the display of the victim was completely different. But the Fairy Tale Killer is out there somewhere. I have all the information in your folders in the chopper. You can read on your way. Just trust me—the Fairy Tale Killer may not be at work up here, but this isn’t your usual murder, not in any way, shape or form. God help you—you’d better catch this monster fast.”

* * *

Clara Avery came to an abrupt halt.

She’d been running, running, running through the snow, well aware that her very life depended on reaching the Alaska Hut before...

Before the killer caught up with her.

Her breath sounded like an orchestra to her own ears; her lungs burned as if they were ablaze with an inner wildfire.

Even as she came to a dead stop, she felt the thunder of her heart.

It was the blood, the blood spattered over the snow, that brought her to the abrupt halt.

There was nothing like it, nothing like the color of blood on the snow on a sunlit day. It was a riveting hue, brilliant and vivid against the golden rays shooting down from the royal blue sky. It was spattered in a clump and led...just over the next rise.

She’d thought he was behind her.

The killer.

But...

She couldn’t just stand there in indecision.

But she didn’t know what the hell to do. Was the killer behind her? Or had he somehow managed to move ahead?

No, that couldn’t be the case. She knew that he had seen her at the Mansion, knew that he’d still been in there, knew that he had heard her leave...

And was in pursuit.

There was only one way to go—forward. Yet she dreaded every step because now...

Now she followed a tiny trickle of blood over the next rise of snow.

Stopping had been a mistake; her body seemed to scream now at movement, even though she wasn’t running. She was walking slowly and carefully over the rise...

And then she saw her.

Dead in the snow.

Amelia Carson, her raven-black hair as startling as the color of the blood against the sea of white around her. She was faceup, arms stretched out as if she were embracing the sun or making a snow angel beneath it.

With her arms only. She was in two pieces, cut in half at the waist.

Her lower body and limbs lay just a few feet away, a pool of blood separating them.

She had met Amelia Carson—celebrity hostess of many a short-lived TV show—only once. But she had met her. She knew her. And here she was...

Who else was dead?

She didn’t even know! She’d seen the carnage at the Mansion and heard the movement upstairs and then the footsteps on the steps...

Clara stood still, her breath caught in her chest. She needed to think, but it seemed that her mind was as numb as her limbs. This scene had been displayed to strike fear and terror, to paralyze...

And it worked.

It was as if she was frozen.

* * *

Not your usual murder.

Though what was usual about murder?

And did it matter to Natalie Fontaine now that she had been victimized whether her death had been usual?

Natalie hadn’t been killed for her money or possessions; she hadn’t been sexually assaulted. It didn’t seem that the act had been carried out in a fit of passion—though a great deal of thought and strength had gone into the execution of the deed.

Thor could still close his eyes and picture the room in the hotel, just as they had seen it, the body curled on the bed in what appeared to be a sleeping position. According to the medical examiner, the killer had strangled his victim before laying her out as he had, as if she were curled up...

Except her head was missing. It had been left on the dresser for all to see the minute the door was opened.

It was the head that had immediately assured the hotel staff that foul play had occurred.

The scene had been arranged like a tableau. It haunted Thor, and he knew he had viewed such a scene before...

In a picture? In an old crime scene photo?

Memory eluded him, so he’d made notes of all the facts.

Joe Mason of hotel security had come up because some neighboring guests had dialed the desk about a disturbance.

Mason had dutifully gone to the room, called out, tapped and banged for entry, and then, receiving no response, opened the door at 5:35 a.m.

The FBI offices in Anchorage and across the country had been alerted soon after.

The crime scene had filled with members of different law enforcement agencies and forensic experts. Most of their information had been gleaned slowly and painstakingly from Misty Blaine, Natalie’s production assistant, who had just been getting dressed for the day in her room on the first floor. As experts learned more and more, they began to fear for others.

Law enforcement had to get out to Black Bear Island and find the people Natalie Fontaine had been scheduled to work with that morning.

A surprise had been planned for that day—not the horrifying one that had befallen her after all, but something gruesomely similar.

All in the name of reality TV.

And so Thor and Mike were now in a coast guard vessel, headed out to Black Bear Island.

“Ironic,” Mike murmured.

Yes, it was. Misty Blaine had told them about the scene that was to be staged later that day. The cast of the Celtic American Cruise Line’s Saturday-night performance on the Fate ship had been told that a film company would be interviewing them for their show Vacation USA. Unbeknownst to them, the cast was actually going to be featured on the show Gotcha, a knockoff of Candid Camera and Punk’d. Yes. Ironic.

The scenery that they encountered on their way was, in Thor’s opinion, some of the most beautiful and spectacular to be viewed anywhere on earth. Crystal-blue waters, peaks of white ice rising, a sky clear and majestic.

And Black Bear Island before them.

The main problem with the island was that not even the newest, “smartest” smartphone worked out there.

Natalie Fontaine should have arrived that morning. Ready to greet her first interviewee for the day.

Four members of Natalie’s film crew were also supposed to be out on the island already—cameraman Tommy Marchant, sound technician Becca Marle, hostess Amelia Carson and fabricator Nate Mahoney. Joining them should have been four members of the cast and crew of Celtic American Cruise Line’s Broadway-style Saturday-night show.

Also expected were the island’s caretaker, Justin Crowley, along with the property manager, or glorified housekeeper—his wife, Magda.

The film crew was not answering the radio. Neither were Mr. or Mrs. Crowley.

Thor chafed inwardly, dreading what they might find, anxious to get there.

He’d been chafing all day, he knew.

The dream; the nightmare.

And now Jackson was coming, as well.

He tried to breathe. Usually, being on the water was like receiving some kind of a cleansing balm on the heart and soul. Nowhere else in the world was the air so crisp and clean.

The wind was in his hair, the sun on his face, as the ferry approached the rugged terrain of the island. There were no roads here that allowed for cars—the ferry gave transport to snowmobiles and dogsleds, the only conveyances that could bring supplies to the island.

Pity that it was privately held; it should have been part of the national park system—a little piece of crystal heaven for the world to enjoy. It was elevated to such a height that even in summer, when the average mean temperature of Seward hovered around sixty degrees, there was often snow on the ground. Snow also covered the many peaks that rose in haphazard beauty here and there, dotted with crystal lakes, birds and animals finding refuge among them.

The island wasn’t owned by the government or the public; it was the property of an absentee landowner, Marc Kimball, oil baron and Wall Street phenomenon. Enfield had assured Thor that Kimball had been advised via his assistant—a very soft-spoken woman named Emmy Vincenzo, who Enfield hoped had truly comprehended the severity of his message—that Natalie Fontaine had been murdered and police and FBI would be headed to the island in her stead. Kimball had rented the island and its properties out to Natalie Fontaine and her Wickedly Weird Productions, and was expecting their film crew this morning.

Thor had read the folder that had been left for him on the chopper to Seward—and listened to Misty Blaine’s panicky and barely coherent explanation of the day of filming that had been planned. None of it was good; all of it added ridiculousness to what was already bizarre, gruesome and horrible.

As far as the film company, Wickedly Weird Productions, went...

To be fair, Thor conceded, some of their reality TV was interesting. They did shows that dealt with roadside diners, special tours that no one should miss and unusual cities or areas in the United States. He had a feeling that the real powers that be at the film studios loved history and travel—but they also needed to make money.

That meant that some of their shows were, at best, juvenile.

Those were the programs that were mostly popular with a young crowd—the kind of viewers who found fart jokes hilarious and also seemed to enjoy the distress or humiliation of those caught in the wheels of their “Gotcha!” factory.

Wickedly Weird Productions had rented two of the main properties on Black Bear Island. They included the Mansion, a sumptuous house that had begun its existence as a log cabin only to become something of a modern-day castle, and the Alaska Hut, a “rustic” lodge with eight or nine bedrooms, a huge living room, kitchen, dining room and expansive porches.

The crew was supposedly filming a piece on the Celtic American Cruise Line’s entertainment venues—that’s what the cast members from the ship believed, and what they thought they were signing release forms for. However, the real plan for the day had been to film a segment for their show Gotcha.

Other agents and the Alaska State Troopers were still busy going through procedure in Seward; dealing with the crime scene units, possible witnesses, hotel staff and more. But Thor and Mike and three officers were on this trail—hoping to find that Natalie’s crew and the cast of the Fate were patiently waiting for their leader or already in the midst of filming.

In short, that they were all alive and well.

And it might be very difficult to figure that out.

Because, according to Misty Blaine, they were going to find a scene of carnage—blood and destruction—whether it was real or not.

Misty had supplied them with the file folder on the day’s intended shoot. Wickedly Weird Productions had filled the Mansion and the Alaska Hut with bloody mock-murder scenes. Scenes meant to terrify the Fate cast. Of course, before anyone succumbed to their terror—the film crew would jump out and scream, “Gotcha!”