Whispers of the Dead

CHAPTER 21

THEY FOUND THE AMBULANCE next morning. Id spent most of that night in an armchair, dozing fitfully. It seemed endless. Each time I woke I’d check my watch and find that only a few minutes had passed. When I looked out of the window and saw a golden glow breaking in the sky, it felt as though time was starting up again.

Glancing at the other armchair, I saw that Paul was wide awake. He didn’t seem to have moved all night. I stood up stiffly.

‘Do you want a coffee?’

He shook his head. Flexing my neck and shoulders, I went into the kitchen. The coffee had been warming all night, filling the room with a stale, burnt odour. I poured it down the sink and made a fresh pot. I switched off the light and went to stand by the window. Outside, the world was starting to take form in the early morning gloom. Beyond the houses opposite I could just make out the lake, its dark surface smudged with white mist. It would have been a peaceful early morning scene, if not for the patrol car parked outside, a lurid splash of reality in the tranquil dawn.

I sipped my coffee as I stood by the kitchen window. Outside, a bird began to sing. Its lone voice was soon joined by others, a growing chorus of birdsong. I thought about Jacobsen’s grim forecast: If he hasn’t killed her already, she’ll be dead before the night’s out. As though on cue, the first shafts of sunlight touched the lake.

It was going to be a beautiful morning.

By eight o’clock the first TV crews and reporters began to arrive. Sam’s name hadn’t been released to the press, but it was always only going to be a matter of time before it leaked out. The uniformed officers stationed in the patrol car made sure the press stayed off the property, but in no time at all the road was choked with news crews and vehicles.

Paul barely seemed to notice. In the daylight he looked awful, the skin on his face grey and lined. He seemed increasingly withdrawn, lost in a private zone of suffering. The only time he came to life was when the phone rang. Each time he would snatch it up, tense with expectation, only to sag a moment later when it was just another friend or persistent journalist. After saying a few words, he’d hang up and retreat back into his shell. I felt for him, knowing all too well what he was going through.

But there was nothing I could do to help.

It was just before noon when the pattern was broken. The remains of sandwiches lay curling on plates beside us. Mine were half eaten, Paul’s untouched. I was beginning to think it was time for me to go back to my hotel. I was doing no good here, and Sam’s parents would be arriving in a few hours. When the phone rang again Paul grabbed for it, but I could see from the way his shoulders slumped that it wasn’t Gardner.

‘Hi, Mary. No, I haven’t—’ He broke off, his entire posture radiating a new urgency. ‘What channel?’

Letting the phone drop he grabbed for the TV remote.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

I don’t think he heard. He was flicking through the channels as soon as the screen came to life, scrolling through a cacophony of noise and images until he suddenly stopped. A young woman with lacquered hair and too-red lipstick was talking animatedly to camera.

‘… breaking news story, a report is coming in that an ambulance has been found abandoned in the Gatlinburg area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park…’

Paul’s face had gone slack as the impact of the words struck him.

‘… exact location has not been revealed, and TBI sources are refusing to confirm that this is the same vehicle used in yesterday’s abduction of Samantha Avery, the pregnant thirty-two-year-old from Blount County. There’s no word yet on the whereabouts of the missing woman, but unconfirmed reports say the ambulance may have been damaged in a collision…’

The newsreader continued, her voice breathy and excited, as a photograph of York appeared on the screen, but Paul was already grabbing for his phone. It rang before he could dial a number. Gardner, I thought, and saw my guess confirmed in Paul’s expression.

‘Have you found her?’ he demanded.

I watched him slowly deflate at Gardner’s answer. In the silence I could hear the TBI agent’s voice, tinny and indistinct. Paul listened, his face tortured and intent.

‘And you let me hear about it on TV? For God’s sake, you said you’d call when you had any news… I don’t care, just call me, OK?’

He hung up. He stood with his back to me, bringing himself under control before he spoke.

‘They found the ambulance half an hour ago at a picnic spot close to I-40,’ he said dully. ‘They think York abandoned it and stole a car before he got to the Interstate. That’d take him halfway across North Carolina. Unless he headed west. He could be on his way to New Mexico by now. He could be anywhere!’

The phone shattered as he hurled it against the wall, scattering plastic across the room.

‘Jesus Christ, I can’t stand this! What am I supposed to do? Just sit here?’

‘Paul—’

But he was already heading for the door. I hurried after him into the hallway.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To see the ambulance.’

‘Wait a second. Gardner—’

‘Screw Gardner!’ He started to open the front door. I put my hand on it. ‘Get out of my way, David!’

‘Just listen, will you? If you go out now you’ll have TV crews trailing you all the way there. Is that what you want?’

That stopped him.

‘Is there a road at the back?’ I went on quickly, while I had his attention.

‘This one loops around the houses there, but I can’t—’

‘I’ll get my car. The press won’t follow me, but it’ll distract them. You go out the back and cut across the gardens, and I’ll meet you round there.’

He didn’t want to, but he could see the sense of what I was saying. Reluctantly, he nodded.

‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ I told him, and went out before he could change his mind.

Sunlight slapped my face when I stepped outside, dazzling me. I made straight for the car, trying to ignore the sudden clamour my appearance had sparked. The press surged forward, a wall of cameras and microphones, but their excitement was short-lived. ‘That isn’t Avery,’ someone said, and it was as though someone had nicked a switch. A few halfhearted questions were fired at me, but interest quickly waned when I didn’t answer. The attention of the TV crews and reporters was already back on the house as I climbed into the car and drove away.

The road meandered round in a slow curve before doubling back on itself behind Sam and Paul’s house. The street here was empty, except for Paul. He ran over as I pulled up, and had the door open before the car had even stopped.

‘Go back to the main highway and head for the mountains,’ he said, out of breath.

No trailing press cars followed us as we left the development. The route was signposted once we reached the highway. Apart from the occasional terse direction from Paul, we drove in silence. The mist-shrouded Smoky Mountains loomed up on the horizon ahead of us. The sight of them stretching into the distance was sobering, bringing home the impossible scale of any search.

The sun was high overhead, warm enough to pass for a summer’s day. After a few miles I had to use the screen wash to clear the glass of dead insects. The tension in the car grew as we reached the foothills and drove through Townsend. It wasn’t far from here where York had clipped the car and hit a tree. A few miles past the town we came to a tall oak by the roadside that had been ringed with police tape. The jagged white gouges in its bark were clearly visible. Paul stared at it as we drove past, his face bleak.

Neither of us spoke.

A few miles further on, he directed me to branch off the highway and we began to climb into the mountains. They rose up around us, plunging the road in and out of shadow as it wound through them. We saw a few other cars but it was still too early in the season for there to be many. Spring was everywhere. The woods were carpeted with wildflowers, blue, yellow and white dappling the vibrant new grass. At any other time the Appalachian beauty would have been breathtaking; now it seemed like a cruel joke.

‘Take the next right,’ Paul told me. The turn-off was a narrow road, gravelled like many of the minor roads and tracks out here. This one was steep enough to have the car’s automatic transmission straining. After a half-mile it levelled out. We rounded a bend and found our way blocked by a patrol car. Beyond it, I could make out wooden picnic tables and parked police vehicles before trees blocked the view.

I wound down the window as a uniformed deputy approached the car. He looked barely out of his teens, but walked with an older man’s swagger. He stared down at me from under the wide brim of his hat, one hand on his holstered gun.

‘Back up. Y’all cain’t come up here.’

‘Can you tell Dan Gardner that Dr Hunter and—’ I began, and then I heard the passenger door open. I looked round to see Paul climbing out of the car. Oh, Christ, I thought, as the young deputy scrambled to head him off.

‘Hold it right there! Goddammit, I said stop!’

I hurried out of the car after them, grabbing hold of Paul as the deputy planted himself on the track in front of him and drew his sidearm. I’d never realized how much I disliked guns until then.

‘OK, it’s OK,’ I said, pulling Paul back. ‘Come on, take it easy!’

‘Back in the car! Now!’ the deputy yelled. He gripped the gun in both hands, pointing it at the ground between us.

Paul showed no inclination to move. In the bright sun his eyes didn’t look fully focused. He couldn’t touch York, but the need for confrontation was consuming him. I don’t know what might have happened, but at that moment a familiar voice rang out.

‘What the hell’s going on?’

I never thought I’d be glad to see Gardner. The TBI agent was striding down the track, tight-lipped. The deputy glared at Paul, gun still outstretched.

‘Sir, I told them they cain’t come up here, but they won’t—’

‘It’s all right,’ Gardner said, but without enthusiasm. His suit looked more crumpled than ever. He spared me a cold glance before addressing Paul. ‘What’re you doing here?’

‘I want to see the ambulance.’

It was said in the inflectionless tone of someone whose mind is made up. Gardner considered him for a moment, then sighed.

‘It’s this way.’

We followed him back up the track. The picnic area was set on a grassy clearing overlooking the foothills. They spread out below us, miles of tree-covered peaks and troughs: a frozen ocean of green. This high up the air was cooler but still warm, sweet with pine and spruce. At one side of the clearing the police vehicles were clustered in front of a handful of civilian cars.

Parked slightly away from them, quarantined by crime tape, was the ambulance.

Even from a distance I could see the damage caused by the collision. Parallel gouges ran along one side, and the left wing had crumpled like tinfoil where it must have hit the tree. Small wonder it had been abandoned; York had been lucky to get as far as he had.

Paul stopped at the police tape and stared into the back of the ambulance. Its doors hung wide open, revealing shabby bunks and cabinets. A forensic agent was busy inside, and we could see restraining straps dangling from one of the bunks, as though they’d been hurriedly flung off.

I felt someone beside me, and turned to find Jacobsen. She gave me a solemn look. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and I guessed Paul and I weren’t the only ones who had gone without sleep.

Paul’s face was a mask. ‘What have you found?’

He didn’t seem to notice Gardner’s slight hesitation. ‘There were blond hairs on the bunk. We’ll need to check them against samples of your wife’s hair, but we don’t think there’s much doubt. And it looks like York must have taken quite a knock in the collision.’

He led us round to the front. The driver’s door was hanging so we could see into the grubby and well-worn interior. The steering wheel was buckled and skewed slightly to one side.

‘Chances are York’s pretty banged up himself if he smacked the wheel hard enough to do that,’ Gardner said. ‘Must’ve busted a rib or two, at least.’

For the first time something like hope showed on Paul’s face. ‘So he’s injured? That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe.’ Gardner was noncommittal.

Something in his tone sounded off, but again Paul was too preoccupied to notice. ‘I’d like to stay here for a while.’

‘Five minutes. Then you need to go on home.’

Leaving Paul there, I walked away with Gardner and Jacobsen. I waited until we were out of earshot.

‘What aren’t you telling him?’

Gardner’s mouth compressed, but whatever he might have said went unspoken as someone called him from the crime scene truck.

‘You might as well let him know,’ he told Jacobsen before walking away, the line of his back as uncompromising as ever.

The shadows under Jacobsen’s eyes added to her solemnity. ‘There are bloodstains in the ambulance. On the bunk and on the floor.’

I pictured Sam as I’d last seen her. Oh, dear God. ‘Don’t you think Paul’s got a right to know?’

‘Eventually, yes. But not all of the stains are fresh, and we can’t say for sure that any of them belong to his wife.’ Her gaze ficked to where Paul maintained his vigil by the ambulance. ‘Dan doesn’t think knowing about it is going to help him right now.’

I reluctantly accepted that. I didn’t like keeping information from Paul, but his imagination would be torturing him enough already.

‘How did you find the ambulance?’ I asked.

She brushed back a strand of hair that had strayed over her face. ‘We got a report of a stolen car, a blue Chrysler SUV. There are rental cabins about a quarter of a mile away but they don’t have a road. Tenants leave their cars here and hike up the rest of the way. That’s probably why York chose this place—even this early in the season there are usually one or two cabins rented out. Anyone familiar with this area would know there’d be cars here.’

I looked over at the damaged ambulance. It had been left out in the open, a few yards from a thick clump of laurel bushes. ‘York didn’t make much effort to cover his tracks.’

‘He didn’t have to. Cars can be left here for days while their owners play at pioneers. York could bank on the one he took not being missed till this morning at least, and maybe even longer. It was pure luck that the owner noticed when he did.’

Luck. It wasn’t something we’d had much of so far. ‘I’d have thought he’d at least have parked it so the damage was less obvious.’

Jacobsen gave a tired shrug. ‘I expect he had more important things to think about. He’d got to get Samantha Avery into the car, and that can’t have been easy if he was injured himself. Hiding the ambulance would have been the least of his problems.’

That made sense, I supposed. York only needed it to remain undiscovered long enough to get where he was going. After that it wouldn’t matter.

‘You think he was heading for the Interstate?’ I asked.

‘That’s how it looks. It’s only a few miles away, and from there he could go deeper into the mountains, double back west or head for another state.’

‘So he could be anywhere.’

‘Pretty much, yes.’ Her chin came up. She looked over towards the ambulance where Paul was standing. ‘You should take him home. This isn’t doing anyone any good.’

‘He shouldn’t have had to find out about it from the TV.’

She nodded, accepting the implied rebuke. ‘Dan was going to call him as soon as he had time. But we’ll let Dr Avery know straight away if there’s any more news.’

I noticed she said if, not when. The longer this went on the less chance there was of finding Sam.

Not unless York wanted us to.

I went back to Paul as Jacobsen joined Gardner at the crime scene truck. He cut a forlorn figure by the ambulance, staring at it as though it might help him divine the whereabouts of his wife.

‘We should go now,’ I told him gently.

All the fight he’d shown earlier seemed to have burned out of him. He looked at the ambulance for a second or two longer, then turned his back on it and walked with me to the car.

The young deputy gave Paul a hard stare as we passed him on the track, but it was wasted. Paul didn’t seem aware of anything as we left the picnic area behind. We’d gone several miles before he spoke.

‘I’ve lost her, haven’t I?’

I searched for something to say. ‘You don’t know that.’

‘Yes I do. So do you. So did everyone back there.’ The words were spilling out of him now like water from an overfull cup. ‘I keep trying to remember what I said to her last. But I can’t. I’ve been going over and over it in my mind, and there’s nothing there. I know it shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I just can’t believe the last time I saw her was so ordinary. How can I not have known?’

Because you never do. But I didn’t say that.

He lapsed into silence. I stared numbly at the road ahead. Dear Christ, don’t let this happen. But it already had, and the silent woods offered no relief. Insects bobbed through the broken columns of sunlight, insignificant specks beside giant oak and pines that had stood here since long before I was born. A slender waterfall tumbled through a cleft in the hillside, foaming white over dark rocks. We passed fallen trunks covered in moss, others being slowly choked by vines while they still stood. For all its beauty, everything that lived out here was in a constant fight to survive.

Not everything succeeded.

I’m not sure when I became aware of my unease. It seemed to come from nowhere, announcing itself first as a prickling on my forearms. I looked down and saw the hairs on them were standing up; a similar tickling told me those on the back of my neck had started to rise as well.

As if only waiting for that, the disquiet bloomed into a clamouring sense of urgency. I gripped the steering wheel. What? What’s wrong? I didn’t know. Beside me Paul still sat in haunted silence. The road ahead was clear and empty, dappled with sunlight and shadows from the trees. I checked the rearview mirror. There was nothing to see. Behind us the woods unrolled with indifferent monotony. But the feeling persisted. I glanced in the mirror again, and jumped as something hit the windscreen in front of me with a dull slap.

A large insect was mashed against the glass in a tangle of legs and wings. I stared at it, feeling the urgency begin to coalesce. Without thinking what I was doing, I stamped hard on the brake.

Paul braced himself against the dashboard as he was flung against his seatbelt. He stared at me in bewilderment as the car screeched to a halt.

‘Jesus, David!’ He looked round, trying to see why we’d stopped. ‘What’s wrong?’

I didn’t answer. I sat gripping the steering wheel, my heart bumping against my ribs. I was still staring at the windscreen. The dragonfly was big, almost as long as my finger. It was badly mangled, but I could still make out the tiger-striped thoracic markings. Its eyes were unmistakable, just as Josh Talbot had said.

The electric blue of Epiaeschna heros.

A swamp darner.