Killer Ambition - [7]

“You took Fryman Road?” Bailey asked.

Russell, who was seated in front of me on the passenger side, nodded. He’d taken off his baseball cap and was kneading it between his hands. “Take Fryman to the end. We’ll have to walk from there.”

Fryman Canyon is beautiful during the day, but nightfall shows its other side. The towering trees blocked what little ambient light managed to reach the mouth of the canyon, and even the moon was barely visible between the dense mass of branches and leaves. Standing at the entrance to the park, I could see only a few feet of fire road. The rest was a deep, impenetrable darkness. I was glad to see the other patrol cars pull in behind us.

Russell led the way. The patrol cops fanned out and encircled us. The smell of damp earth and pungent growth filled my nostrils and we moved slowly, our flashlight beams illuminating the road ahead, but the path under our feet was left in shadow. Unwanted visions of a bloodied, battered, and possibly dead Hayley kept flashing through my mind. The moment I pushed one away, another took its place.

After a few minutes, Russell turned left on a path so narrow and overgrown I might have missed it even in daylight. The path took us straight uphill for another five minutes, and my wedge heels, comfortable enough in normal conditions, were starting to slip on the steep, grassy terrain. No one spoke as we made our way through the canyon, and every so often I could hear the rustling of creatures scurrying about in the brush just feet away. I told myself it was probably prairie dogs or rabbits, maybe a coyote, but I knew that mountain lions and bobcats had been sighted there. To say nothing of the more dangerous animals of the two-legged variety. Officers surrounded us, but I knew it would take only a second for man or animal to launch a surprise attack-too fast for any officer to be able to react in time. With each furtive sound, I could feel the skin on the back of my neck tighten and my heart beat a little faster. Finally Russell stopped at a small clearing to the right of the path.

“I left the duffel bag right there.” He pointed to a spot between two trees. As described in the ransom note, both had white string tied around their trunks.

I had to admit it was a good hiding place. If you didn’t know where to look, you’d never find it. We moved forward and Bailey shined her flashlight where Russell had indicated.

There was nothing there. Russell lunged forward, but Bailey pulled him back.

“We’ll need to process this place for evidence, Russell. Please step back-”

Russell’s body sagged and he sank to his knees as though his spine had melted. He let out a harsh bark of a sob and cried out in anguish, “Hayley! Oh God, Hayley!”

But the canyon swallowed his words as quickly as they fell from his lips. We all stood rooted but unable to watch as he dropped his head and cried. The air was heavy with the weight of unspoken belief that Hayley would never be found alive. For reasons I couldn’t explain, the passive acceptance of doom made me clench my fists in anger. They might be right, but I refused to believe we were too late. At least, not yet.

4

The next morning, Bailey and I planned to get out to Russell’s house in the hills bright and early. It was only seven thirty a.m., too early to reach my boss, Eric Northrup, at the office, so I called him on his cell phone.

“Hey, Eric, it’s me.”

“Not at this hour it isn’t.”

I have been forced to admit, repeatedly, that I am not morning’s freshest flower. I come in as late as I can get away with. But in all fairness, I also stay later than anyone else. Since deputy district attorneys are public lawyers, we get paid a flat rate regardless of the hours we put in. So more work does not mean more pay. Toni once totaled up my hours and figured out that my actual rate of pay was about a buck seventy-five an hour. Before taxes.

“That’s very funny, Eric. So funny you probably won’t care about a possible new case Bailey picked up last night. And you’ll be laughing so hard you probably won’t mind that Vanderhorn will hear about it before you-”

“Okay, okay. Shoot.”

The threat of getting holy hell from District Attorney William Vanderhorn for not bringing him up to speed on a big media case predictably got Eric’s attention. I filled him in on the night’s events.

“I’ll call Vanderhorn and make it official for now,” he said. “But if this turns into a fileable case, he’ll be all over it. You might want to rethink taking on this one, Rachel.”

District Attorney Vanderhorn and I got along…well, in truth, we hated each other. He liked his deputies subservient, fawning, and ubiquitous. I liked my bosses smart, trusting, and hands-off. So it was a perfect storm of disappointment for both of us. To top it off, Vanderhorn was in love with Hollywood, not just because it was a big source of campaign support, which it was. But also because he loved rubbing elbows with the stars, and the sheer glitz factor. This meant that Hayley’s kidnapping case would be a chance for Vanderhorn to ingratiate himself with all the right people. So Eric was warning me ahead of time that I’d be in for a nightmarish tour of duty with Vanderhorn riding me like a Preakness pony.