She sighed as she turned onto Village Creek Road, the house coming up fast in front of her. As she drove up the muddy driveway — Ryan really needs to pave that — she saw something that made her frown. A black Mercedes, sitting on the grass in what had become their unofficial parking area. When she saw that it had government tags, she swore under her breath. Ryan must have returned from Washington early, and Callie knew they were probably way too wrapped up in each other at the moment to even think about answering the door.
She got out of the car anyway and ran through the rain to the shelter of the porch. She had come too far to just turn around and go right back, and she got more and more annoyed as she thought about her wasted trip.
She knocked on the front door. No answer. Hmmm. After a brief moment of hesitation, she turned the knob and stepped inside, shivering again, but with pleasure this time when the warm air hit her face.
Not that warm, though, and she could see why: directly in front of her, down the long hall, the back door to the kitchen was hanging open, swinging back and forth in the wind.
She saw shattered panes of glass.
She felt a cold ball of fear in her stomach, a wave of apprehension that turned into outright terror when her eyes moved down, and she saw what looked like thin crimson streams working their way across the wooden floor.
God, no. She was carried forward against her will. Turning the corner, she found Katie carefully arranged on the kitchen floor, eyes closed, lips slightly parted. Her friend wasn’t moving.
Then she saw why, and she started to scream uncontrollably.
Jonathan Harper was fast asleep when something roused him from the dark.
He sat up and reached out, fumbling for the nightstand without turning on the light, swearing under his breath when he heard a glass of water hit the carpet below. Then he had the receiver up and next to his ear. “Hello?”
He would have answered the telephone differently had it been the second set residing by his bedside, but this was his house phone, and not the secure unit that was checked every two weeks by DST personnel from Langley. Thus, he was surprised when he heard a young female voice: “Director Harper? Sir?”
He swore again and fumbled again for the lamp. “Yes, this is Jonathan Harper.”
“Sir, this is Sarah Bernstein, the night-duty officer at Langley. I tried to reach you on the secure line, but it didn’t go through…”
Harper glanced over and spun the unit around with his left hand. The cord had been pulled out from the back. He scowled and looked over at Julie’s stirring form.
He’d give her an earful in the morning. “What do you have for me, Bernstein?”
She hesitated. “Sir, perhaps you’d like to call me back through the switchboard.”
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he silently reprimanded himself for thinking so slowly. “You’re right. Give me a minute.”
He slammed down the phone hard enough to wake his wife. She sat up and copied his sleepy gestures, running her palms over her face and back through her sleep-tossed hair. “Who is it?”
“I’ve told you a thousand times, Julie. I need to be able to take calls here immediately.”
“Sorry. I just thought you deserved a break…”
There was no use in arguing with her. He plugged the STU-III back in and dialed a number from memory. “This is Deputy Director Harper.” He recited his authorization code. “Give me the duty officer, please.”
A series of clicks and whirs, then: “Bernstein.”
“Yeah, this is Harper… What’s going on?”
Her voice was clipped and efficient. “Sir, I have a call here you probably want to take. Benjamin Tynes from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. He says it’s important.”
“Cumberland County…?”
“It’s in Maine, sir.”
He sat straight up in bed. At the look on his face, Julie’s eyes grew wide. “What is it?”
“You have him on hold?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Patch him through.”
More clicks, then a grizzled old voice cutting over the line: “Mr. Harper?”
“You’ve got him.”
“My name is Ben Tynes, sir,” the man said unnecessarily. “I’m the sheriff for Cumberland County, and I got something here you might want to know about.”
Harper was already losing patience; he wanted to know how the man had gotten his name and number, but he wanted answers first. There was only one person he knew in Maine. Jesus, Ryan… “What do you have, Sheriff?”
“I’m at 1334 Village Creek Road. We got here twenty minutes ago in response to an emergency call. What we found was a young woman, DOA, and a man in critical condition. The woman has been identified as Katherine Leah Donovan, twenty-four years of age. She was a student at Orono. The injured man’s wallet has him as Ryan Thomas Kealey… Is this making sense to you?”
Harper squeezed his eyes shut. After a long pause, he let out a strangled, “Yes.”
The sheriff seemed confused, expecting the other man to elaborate. Finally, he said, “We’re still trying to figure out what happened here. From what it looks like, we’re missing a third person-”
Jonathan had a pretty good idea who the third person was. “What about Kealey, Sheriff? What’s his condition?”
“Not good, sir.” Another long hesitation. “Not good at all. He was outside for a long time. He’s got a badly broken ankle and a gunshot wound to the right side, in addition to a few broken ribs on the left. The bullet’s still in him, but there doesn’t appear to be any major damage. That’s the good news. On the other hand, his core temperature was 91 degrees Fahrenheit when they brought him in. That’s severe hypothermia… They think he’ll pull through, but it’ll be close.”
“What about the girl? Are you sure that she’s…?”
“She was pronounced twenty minutes ago, Mr. Harper. She’s gone.”
“Give me a second, okay?” Harper lowered the receiver and, ignoring Julie’s panicked inquiries, took a moment to collect himself. Finally holding up a hand to quiet her, he got back on with Tynes. “What’s it look like to you, Sheriff? Any ideas?”
“Me and my deputies haven’t been here all that long, sir, but… I think that your third person got the drop on one or both of them. He did the woman in the kitchen, and we found your man in a clearing 200 feet behind the house. There were signs of a struggle.”
“How did you know he’s my man?” Harper asked.
“One of Donovan’s friends found the body and called 911. They had to take the friend to the hospital with Kealey — she’s in shock — but she was still reasonably coherent when we got here. Somehow, she knew your name, and there’s a car outside with government plates, so I thought it made sense to at least try and get hold of you.”
“You did the right thing, Sheriff. Uh… any sign of the third person?”
“Nothing. They warmed Kealey up with heat packs and blankets, trying to get some information out of him. What he gave us wasn’t much, but from what I gathered, the other guy went over the side-”
“What do you mean, over the side?”
“Into the ocean, sir.”
Harper pushed his left palm hard against his temple, thinking about it. Ryan had moved to the house only a year earlier, and Jonathan had never been there. He had no picture in his mind to refer to. “What does that mean, Sheriff?”
“It means that he’s gone.” The deputy director heard Tynes clear his throat over the line. “Dead.”
“How can you be sure?”
“It’s about 180 feet to the water, sir. From that height, it’s like hitting cement.”
A long pause. “I hope you’re right about that,” Harper finally said. “I really hope you’re right about that.”
Ben Tynes could tell that he wasn’t convinced. “Sir, unless you hit at just the right angle, whatever’s left of your rib cage will tear your insides to shreds. And even if you do make it through the initial impact, you’ll either go so far down that you drown before you can get back up, or you’ll be too badly bruised to get out of the water. They
