The Survivors Club

He actually laughed. “I made one hell of an impression—literally—went in six, seven inches down in the bog. Just smushed into it—the mud got into my eyes, my nose, my mouth, I was this close to drowning. Thank God someone got to me in time to pull me out. Even so, the wind was knocked out of me and my heart stopped. I broke my ribs, collarbone, fractured my pelvis—”

“You survived all that?”

“I was lucky someone was there to give me CPR.”

“You could have been killed.”

“I was dead, for a very short period of time.”

Tess felt the tingle low in her abdomen. She had always—literally—felt with her gut. When she was getting close, when everything came together or was about to…

“You should go with me sometime,” Alec Sheppard said. Tess barely heard him. There was a buzzing in her ears. She saw the burned and crushed frame of the Spokane Indians’ bus—a photograph that had accompanied the article.

“Lucky Lohrke,” she said.

“Who?”

“Just a guy. Look, I’ve got to go. Can we talk later?”

“Sure.”

Tess knew he sounded a little put off, but that didn’t matter. She loved Max.

Scratch that. She was in love with Max.

She walked back to her car.

Tess turned onto the freeway going west. Thinking about DeKoven.

Not Michael DeKoven.

Quentin DeKoven.

She could see it on the page, as she had a few days ago.

“In 1999, Quentin DeKoven was the lone survivor of a single-engine plane crash in northern Arizona. After dragging the dying pilot nearly three miles through rugged country and spending the night in frigid temperatures, DeKoven was found by the search team, nearly dead from exposure.

“He lost two fingers on one hand and a foot to frostbite.”

She saw the words. She remembered the sun beaming down on the page. She knew what she was wearing, knew the side street she’d pulled into, knew the time of day.

“In a cruel twist of fate, Quentin DeKoven died in 2005 when his private plane abruptly lost altitude and crashed into a wilderness area in the Pinaleno Mountains, six years after he survived a similar incident in 1999.”

Quentin DeKoven had survived a private plane crash that should have killed him.

Six years later, he’d died in another.

He wasn’t the only one who’d dodged the Reaper.

Tess flashed on Steve Barkman’s self-satisfied grin. The cat-that-ate-the-canary grin when he asked her about George Hanley’s death.

How many times was he shot?

The question hadn’t made any sense when he’d asked it. Why was he obsessed with the number of shots?

Now she knew: George Hanley was shot six times the first time he died. Yes—died. His daughter Pat had told her he “died on the operating table.” He’d died and been revived.

There were similarities.

That first morning, waking up, Tess had thought of that baseball player in the magazine, Lucky Lohrke. Lucky Lohrke, who was bumped off a flight back to the States at the end of World War II. Lucky Lohrke, who was traded to another team and got off the bus before it crashed and burned on a snowy mountain.

Lucky.

George Hanley had been lucky. He’d survived death on the operating table.

Later, he won the lottery.

But after that, all these years later, his luck had run out.

She called Danny. “Remember the DVD George Hanley had in his apartment? You found it, the second pass through?”

“The Ultimate Survivor show.”

“That’s it. The show he was featured on.”

“Yeah, the one that’s on the History Channel.”

“Have you watched it yet?”

“Yeah, I watched it the other day. It was kind of hokey. You know how they have to catch people up with the story after the commercials, just in case somebody new is watching?”

“Repetitive, I know,” Tess said. “When did the show air?”

“I’ll have to go look at my notes. Call you back.”

Ten minutes later, he did.

“It was last season.”

“What month?”

“November. Why?”

“I’ve got a theory, but that’s all it is.”

“Care to share?”

“I will after I look into it some more. Right now it’s just a wild hare.”

“Hey. Shoot it, skin it, put it in the pot with some mole and let’s have a feast.”

Tess saw Steve Barkman again, his head through the coffee table. The man who had blazed the trail for her.

He’d been investigating Michael DeKoven.

She had three men here: George Hanley, Alec Sheppard, and the patriarch of the DeKoven family, Quentin DeKoven.

Quentin DeKoven survived a plane crash in 1999.

Quentin DeKoven died in another plane crash in 2005.

Alec Sheppard’s parachute failed in Florida a year and a half ago.

Alec Sheppard’s parachute failed in Houston in March 2013.

George Hanley was shot in Phoenix in 1991.

George Hanley was shot to death in Credo in April 2013.

Only Alec Sheppard survived, and that was because he had help.

In all of these cases, there was one common denominator.

Michael DeKoven.

CHAPTER 23

Jaimie Wolfe’s place was buttoned up. There were no little girls on big horses prancing around the ring. Jaimie’s Dodge Ram was gone. The only vehicle on the property was the old ranch truck.

Tess heard a vehicle slow down on the road and turn in, rumbling over the cattle guard but hidden by a copse of trees near the entrance. Tess watched as the truck appeared, shadows from the trees scrolling over the hood.

A Ford—not Jaimie’s Dodge Ram—a recent-model Ford F-350. If it wasn’t covered up past the wheel-wells in mud, the truck would be white—typical for working trucks in Arizona.

White deflected the heat.

The driver was thick-bodied but not fat and looked to be in his early fifties. He wore jeans, boots, and a snap-button long-sleeved shirt. Pink face, sun-peeled nose, aviator sunglasses, straw Stetson.