Chapter Fourteen
Cooper slammed his fist against the Pumphouse door. Thud, thud, thud. Three official raps. He listened. Buzzing insects, the thrum of an air conditioner, a couple of birds calling out for their mates—sounds of a summer morning but no hint of movement within the Pumphouse.
He pounded on the door again and this time added a slap, whacking his palm against the warm wood. A desperate plea that took the demanding, authoritative edge off.
If Rudi Abouesse wasn’t here, Cooper didn’t know what he was going to do.
He barely had a plan A, never mind a plan B. He couldn’t go to the Florence PD for help. If he marched into the station claiming Agent Park had been abducted and one or more of Florence’s own law enforcement was responsible, he was either wrong and would irrevocably jeopardize the case, or he was right and he would irrevocably jeopardize Park. The choice was obvious. If the unsub knew Cooper was close, Park might be considered a loose end...
Cooper didn’t allow himself to go there.
He couldn’t involve anyone else. Not yet. Not until he knew he was right and knew Park was safe.
But even if Park had gone to Baker’s to sniff around that morning, Cooper wasn’t going to be able to track him. Not alone.
He pounded on the door once, twice, and before his fist could come down a third time, he heard a dead bolt slide and the door swung open.
Rudi Abouesse stared at him from the open doorway. It was a toss-up whether her expression was more hostile or disbelieving.
“Why aren’t you as sick of me as I am of you?” She looked over his shoulder. “You know, the good cop/bad cop routine is usually more effective with two people.”
The last remaining hope that Park had found his way here shriveled inside of Cooper.
“I need your help. Please.”
Rudi’s eyebrows shot up. She crossed her arms, leaned against the door frame and observed Cooper with a “this oughta be good” expression.
“I think the same person who took Gould has taken Park. Whittaker, too. And Baker.”
Rudi dropped her arms and stood up straight. “What?”
“Whoever Gould called that day has been hunting wolves. Symer, Whittaker, Baker, Park. They’re all victims, not suspects. I think that’s why Jenny Eagler was taken and released unharmed. She was seen to be friends with Park and, like me, the unsub thought that meant she was a wolf, too. Then she was released because she wasn’t.”
“Slow down,” Rudi said. “You’re not making sense. Come inside.”
“We don’t have time. Oliver is in danger.”
“From you?”
“No!” Maybe. How else would anyone here have known Park was a wolf? He pushed away the wave of guilt and panic. “Listen to me. You said he called you this morning asking about the last time you saw Baker.”
“I thought you said Baker wasn’t a suspect.”
“He’s not. Not anymore. I think. But last night Park was talking about werewolves that have gone missing around here and I joked that they were with Baker and... I think he realized our John Doe in the woods might be Baker.”
“Craz—Geoffery Baker is dead?” Rudi said. He was relieved to see the first traces of genuine panic in her eyes. The sooner she believed him, the sooner they could get out of here, the sooner they could find Park.
“I think so. More importantly I think he’s been dead for a while. I think Park went to shift at Baker’s place to get a better idea of who’s been using his property since then and why.”
Rudi was shaking her head. Not in disagreement, necessarily, more like she didn’t want to accept what Cooper was saying. But now that Cooper had said it out loud, he felt even more convinced his theory was right. “Park knows how to take care of himself.”
“The way Baker could take care of himself? Whittaker? Symer? This unsub knows how to take down wolves. They’ve done it before.”
“The other body that was found, the guy with Baker, he wasn’t a wolf. Neither was that cop.”
“So I should forget it? Pretend everything is fine?” Cooper snapped, losing the little patience he had.
Rudi’s eyes flashed, glowing and inhuman. Rather than feel fear, he just missed Park. He made a conscious effort to calm down. He hadn’t come here to challenge Rudi, he’d come here to beg for her help. The kind of help the BSI should have been taking advantage of from the start.
“Listen, you’re right. I don’t understand it all. But you said the Worcester packs saw a state car show up. That Gould called someone to pick him up. I think that someone has been using Baker’s house as a base. I think Park went there this morning and was caught off guard. I can’t prove any of it. But I haven’t been able to get a hold of him. Will you help me?”
Rudi assessed him for a long moment. “Fine. Let me just...” She started to turn back inside, and Cooper reached out to grab her arm. Before he’d even touched her skin his wrist was trapped in her death grip, though interestingly he noticed her claws hadn’t come out and he wondered why. Regardless, he didn’t struggle.
“You can’t tell Brown,” he said.
Rudi’s eyes narrowed. “How did you—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you’re seeing each other. I know you’re keeping it on the down low for some reason.”
She frowned. “It’s complicated. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“You can’t tell her. Not yet.”
“This isn’t me gossiping with my girlfriend, asshole,” Rudi said. “She’s the chief of police. Of course I’m telling her. If this is some kind of posturing macho bullshit—”
Cooper was shaking his head. “Someone in a state vehicle picked up Gould.”
“Well, it wasn’t Mel,” Rudi snarled. Her grip tightened on his wrist painfully before she dropped it. “I know it’s not Melissa.”
“Does she know about wolves?”
Rudi’s gaze flinched away from his. “Not...yet.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
She stared Cooper directly in the eye. “Yes, I’m sure.”
He couldn’t tell if she was lying. He wasn’t sure it mattered. But he couldn’t let Rudi tell the chief. “All the more reason why you can’t tell her now. I don’t know what’s happening, but I know someone is hunting wolves and I wouldn’t want to pull someone I cared about into that situation without all the facts.”
Rudi hesitated.
“Please,” Cooper whispered. “I can’t take that chance.”
“All right,” she said finally. “What do you need me to do?”
* * *
The drive to Baker’s seemed to take three times as long as last time despite Cooper going twice as fast. Getting into an accident would help no one, but he had a difficult time focusing on the twisting mountain roads as the speedometer inched higher and higher. He couldn’t help picking out holes in his own half-assed plan. What if Park hadn’t gone to Baker’s? What if he’d been taken away in a closed car and Rudi wasn’t able to track Park’s scent? He was assuming Park was being held within ATV-traveling distance, but it was an assumption he made simply because the alternative didn’t leave him with any options.
Just like he was assuming Park was alive. He couldn’t deal with the alternative.
This was the best plan he had. He had to follow it through. And if it was a dead end...
He would face that when—if—he came to it.
Rudi hissed quietly, and Cooper realized he had pushed down on the gas and moved from reckless to suicidal speeds. He eased off, gritting his teeth.
“He’s going to be fine,” Rudi said. “But we’re not if you keep this up.”
He resisted the urge to snap at her. Instead he focused on loosening his grip on the wheel. He couldn’t tell if the tingling lightness in his arms was from adrenaline, anxiety or missing yet another meal. He took a deep breath. “You don’t know that. Something’s not right.”
Rudi sighed. “I know. But just because Ollie doesn’t like to fight doesn’t mean he can’t. Believe me, the Parks made sure of it,” she added darkly. That didn’t reassure Cooper at all.
This time they bounced all the way down Baker’s long driveway, plunging into pine shadow, and parked with a jolt on the front lawn between the untouched mowers. Baker wouldn’t care. Baker would never know. He felt a pang for the little awkward blond boy in the photographs. The self-enforced loneliness that had, if Cooper was correct, lasted the rest of his life. Pushing people away and falling ever further into a hole of solitude he could not pull himself out of.
It wasn’t such a leap to see himself in Baker’s place.
But Park. Park had pulled him out of the hole.
Cooper reached into the back seat and tried to hand Rudi a T-shirt he’d grabbed from Park’s room on the off chance this would work.
She stared at it, uncomprehending. “What do you want to do with that?”
He fidgeted. “I thought you could, uh, get the scent...”
If the circumstances were less serious, he was sure Rudi would have rolled her eyes. “I’ve known Ollie since he was a pup. I know his scent.” She paused. “And if by some chance I did forget, I could always remind myself with a couple whiffs of your choice areas.” She looked pointedly at him up and down.
Cooper blushed and Rudi smirked, though there was a grim edge to it. She turned and walked quickly toward the back of the house, staring at the ground.
“Are you getting anything?” Cooper said, following her.
“It’s faint. But Oliver was definitely here a few hours ago.” She paused and stared at the back door, her gaze unfocused. “There’s another trail here. Someone else.”
“Who?” Cooper practically choked on the word. His heart was pounding so hard his throat hurt.
“I don’t know. I don’t know everyone in town, you know. Besides, the scent is compromised by something chemical. Bug spray.”
Before Cooper could register that, she hurried to the edge of the woods, crouched and ran her hand over the ground. “They both got into a vehicle here.”
“An ATV,” Cooper said, crouching even as she stood and wandered away again. He could see the divot of tire tracks in the grass himself. They looked the same as the tracks in the woods at the dump site, but faded to nothing as they moved into the woods and leaf litter.
He stared at the lack of a trail and dug his fists into his own thighs. The scent was hours old, she’d said. Why had Park come here by himself?
Cooper turned, looking for Rudi. “Would you be—” He abruptly stopped and jerked his gaze away. She had taken her top off and was wiggling out of her jeans. “Um.” He cleared his throat.
“I’ll have a better shot at following the trail shifted.”
He continued to stare at the tracks in the dirt. “Er—” A pair of jeans hit him in the face.
“Make yourself useful and carry my clothes.”
Cooper opened his mouth to respond when an intense guttural ripping sound startled him so much he nearly fell over. He reached for his gun and spun in the grass on his knees.
A huge gray wolf with patches of russet along its flanks was shaking itself vigorously. It stopped and looked at him.
“Right,” he breathed.
He blinked rapidly and searched for some sign of Rudi left in its—her—fierce face or shining bronze eyes. But he saw nothing. The wolf growled at him, the sound making the hairs on his arms stand up, and twitched her eyebrow, looking impatiently annoyed. Ah. There she was.
He swept his hand out. It was only trembling a little. “Ladies first.”
Rudi took off with a huff, trotting into the shadows, and Cooper followed.
The forest was eerily silent besides their feet crunching through dead leaves and branches. No signs of a trail or habitation. Not even the wildlife dared to poke their heads out to chirp as the two predators darted between the trees.
How far from Baker’s would they go? Would they be able to make it on foot? Rudi would if Cooper didn’t hold her back.
He quickened his pace. His side ached and his throat was dry from panting. Every tree and jutting cliff and pile of boulders looked exactly the same. Cooper had long since stopped seeing any sign of tracks. They could be traveling in circles and he wouldn’t know. All his trust was in Rudi.
And then he saw it.
The opening to a mine. It appeared suddenly, almost like an optical illusion. Looking at it from one angle it was just another shadowed rocky crag. From another the shadow widened and deepened and became the mine entrance. Sloping piles of rubble surrounded the entrance, and Cooper could see glinting chunks of yellow quartz amidst the gray. A chill, damp air wafted at the entrance, hinting at colder and wetter spaces inside. He shivered. What was it Bornestein told his neighbor?
Sitting on a mine, he always said.
Rudi passed him, her warm solidity brushing past his hip oddly comforting as she trotted into the mouth of the mine, disappearing mere steps in.
“Wait,” Cooper hissed. “Come back.” He could just barely sense a shifting in the shadows and then he saw the gleam of her flat, reflective eyes staring back at him. “You need to stay here.”
She snarled furiously and the sound echoed down the mine. Christ, how big was it? He imagined walking through the darkness in the cold and the dark. How stable could an abandoned mine possibly be? In the darkness, would he even notice the passage getting narrower? The walls closing in?
For a moment he considered letting Rudi go on ahead. She’d be able to see in the dark fine. Could slip through narrower spaces better than he could, too.
“I can’t let you go down there,” he said firmly. “Stay here.”
Another ripping snarl and some loud clacks and snapping sounds echoed out of the cave, and Cooper thought for a moment the mine was collapsing. He had the strangest urge to run in. Park’s trapped in there. But the stones weren’t moving, the reflective orbs of her eyes were. Rising up until they were almost even with his. Was she standing on her hind le—
“The hell I can’t!”
Cooper’s heart slammed into his chest at the sound of her voice. Blinking, he tossed the clothes he held into the darkness.
“We don’t know the situation down there. It is totally against protocol for me to have involved you at all. You are a civilian. You are unarmed—”
“I thought the BSI’s opinion was that a wolf is always armed.”
“Well, it’s bullshit,” Cooper snapped back as Rudi stepped out of the shadow of the mine, buttoning her top. “How’d that work for Baker and Whittaker and—and Park?”
If she noticed the stutter in his voice, she didn’t comment on it. “I can help. I need to help.”
“Damn right you’re going to help. I need you to go back to Baker’s and wait for my partner, Jefferson. I need you to lead him here. If you see anyone else, stay out of sight.” She frowned at him, unconvinced. “I’m trained for this. Jefferson is trained for this. Please. This is the best chance Sam has.” He hoped that was true. Cooper wasn’t sure. He had no idea what he was going to find in the mine. But he could not and would not risk her life.
“You have no idea what it feels like, being part of a pack. Knowing your pack mate’s in danger. In pain.”
It was true, so it shouldn’t have hurt. Cooper was a loner. He knew it. He chose it. After his mom died he hadn’t wanted to risk the pain and fear he saw in Rudi’s face now.
But he couldn’t help thinking of Park. His unwavering, soothing energy that had made Cooper feel so safe now needed saving.
“I will protect him,” he said, and it didn’t matter who he was talking about anymore. All of them. Any goddamn wolf he found in there. “But I need you to trust me.”
She stared into his eyes, irises expanding to block out the whites of her eyes, and he felt suddenly vulnerable. Not physically, but mentally naked, the way only an animal could see past your façade.
Finally she nodded and walked past him. Her arm brushed him, and just for a moment, as she pressed her shoulder into his, Cooper felt stronger. He didn’t need to prove it. She believed him. They depended on him. He could do this.
Then Rudi trotted back through the woods towards Baker’s and Cooper took his last breath of warm, dry air. He walked into the mine.
* * *
The way through the mine was wider than Cooper had thought. His phone flashlight picked up on the ATV tire tracks in the dirt and rubble under his feet, deep from frequent trips back and forth.
He swept his phone light over the path, looking uselessly for any other hint of what had happened. For some sign of a struggle. But if Park had been taken down here, he hadn’t been in any position to fight.
A flash of orange caught the light on the path up ahead. A bit of warning tape left over from the mining days? Cooper approached and, after warily glancing into the pitch-black shadows in front of and behind him, crouched down.
His first thought was it was some sort of event bracelet.
From all the big rock concerts and clubs they have in Florence, Maine? Right.
Using a pen from his pocket, he tugged it loose from the dirt.
UltraPlay Arcade was printed in faded letters.
The hairs on the back of Cooper’s neck stiffened and a flush of goose bumps raced up his arms. The darkness outside the edges of his phone light suddenly felt watchful. He scanned the shadows, willing them to move, to shift and take shape. But he saw nothing.
He carefully pocketed the bracelet without touching it, stood and turned off his phone light. It didn’t illuminate more than three feet, and if he couldn’t see ahead he certainly didn’t want ahead to see him.
Cooper listened. He heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing and that silence. A silence that seemed almost...alive.
He moved forward again, one hand guiding him against the wall, the other tightly gripping his gun. A pressure was building in his ears, and he wondered how far below ground he was going. He wiped the moisture off his upper brow. Despite the icy air, he was dripping. The hand he held against the stone-and-dirt wall to guide him was so cold it ached. He flexed his fingers and embraced the rush of agony. He needed to keep the circulation in his hand or lose the advantage of his shooting skills to some stiff fingers. Or missing fingers, depending on how much longer this mine went.
Hypothermia.
Was this where Jenny Eagler had been held?
His eyes were adjusting at least. Or was it getting lighter? There was a gray tinge to the darkness now. It was just a little easier to see in front of him than behind him. The pressure in his ears increased until it was almost a buzzing sound. In fact, Cooper rubbed his ear, trying to pop the pressure, and listened—there was a buzzing coming from up ahead, right around the curve of the tunnel.
He raised his gun and peered around the wall, cheek brushing the cold, rough stone.
A bright yellow-white light blinded him. Multicolored spots raced across his vision. He squinted into it, his senses on high alert. The mine had widened into what seemed to be a large natural cavern. How large, he couldn’t tell, because the walls were thrown into deep shadow while the middle was lit up like a Broadway spotlight.
Well, off-off-off Broadway.
Huge stadium-style lights were set up around what looked like a large metal cage carpeted with Astroturf. At the adjacent corners, video cameras were mounted atop steel ladders and positioned to point down at the center of the cage.
There, lying curled on his side, was Sam Whittaker, and crouched over him was Park. They were both naked. The turf around them was stained in blood.
“Oliver?”
Park looked up, though Cooper couldn’t have spoken louder than a whisper if he’d spoken at all. He stared at Cooper in horror.
“What did you do?” Cooper said.
“Nothing yet,” said a voice behind him.