The Girl in the Moss Read online

  Almost halfway along the lake visibility became a serious challenge, and sleet turned heavy.

  Lights suddenly appeared in the mist behind her. Angie glanced into her rearview mirror. A big black shape approached fast behind her. A behemoth of a truck.

  Her pulse quickened. She tapped her brake lights in quick succession, making them flicker in the fog to increase her own visibility. But the vehicle kept on coming at speed, as if the driver still couldn’t see her. Angie’s hands tightened on the wheel. She tried to drive faster. Still, the truck loomed ever closer, closer. Her heart pounded.

  She flicked on her hazard lights, making them pulse repeatedly in the mist. The black behemoth kept coming. Angie engaged the rear window wipers, smearing an arc through mud and sleet. Through her rearview mirror she saw big silver letters across the grille. RAM. Her mind raced as she absorbed details—Dodge, black, diesel engine. Tinted windows, the passenger cab extended. Wheels had been tricked out with silver spurs and studs. Plate was obscured by mud. A row of hunting spotlights suddenly flared to life along the top of the cab. The diesel engine revved.

  Angie clenched her jaw as reality hit—this truck was trying to run her off the road. She pressed down on the accelerator, bracing her body in anticipation of a bang. But the Dodge abruptly dropped back, lights fading into the mist. Her heart slammed against her ribs.

  Angie swallowed, tried to breathe. Gripping the Subaru wheel tightly, she bent forward as she peered through the sleet-smeared windshield, trying to locate somewhere she could pull off the logging track and get out of the truck’s way.

  Part of her also didn’t want to stop. The truck’s occupants might be trying to force her to do just that, and then she could be in dire trouble, out here alone with them. Unarmed against hunters. Or perhaps it was just someone trying to spook her like Wallace and the twins had spooked Jasmine and the women along the river almost a quarter of a century ago.

  But the warning left in her trashed Mini Cooper suggested something more sinister.

  GO HOME BITCH BEFORE SOMEONE GETS HURT

  She flicked a glance at the drop to her left. She couldn’t even see where the water was now, the cloud was so dense, the sleet slashing at her windshield like thick gelatin. Worst-case scenario, the driver of that truck intended to run her off the road and into that frigid lake.

  The black behemoth suddenly came racing up behind her again, diesel engine roaring and revving. Her heart stampeded in her chest. She shot another look at the sheer, rocky drop on her left. She knew the lake was deep. Very deep. If her car went over and hit the freezing water, she’d sink fast, drown in the rental. If she could even get out in time, she’d have trouble making it to the surface before hypothermia got her.

  The road ahead of her rose suddenly in a sharp incline. Angie took the opportunity, stepping on the accelerator, fishtailing in mud as she tried to gather speed up the hill, revs high, engine whining. Maybe she could put some distance between her Subaru and the heavy truck on the uphill. The rear of her car jacked sideways suddenly, then whipped back. But she kept her foot down, her heart in her throat.

  Behind her, the truck began to fall back as she increased the gap between them. Angie hit the summit of the incline. In front of her, the road dipped suddenly. At the bottom of the hill was a tight bend. Fuck!

  She crested and immediately started gathering speed downhill. But she barely tapped the brakes as she careered down, fists tight on the wheel, teeth clenched, her shirt growing wet against her skin.

  As she neared the bottom at speed and the curve loomed, panic licked through her bowels.

  This fucking driver is trying to send me into the lake all by myself. It’ll look like a total accident in foul weather, with a driver inexperienced in this terrain.

  Behind her the truck barreled down the incline, gaining speed now, closing all the distance she’d gained. Angie’s stomach turned to water. She hit the curve, slamming on brakes. Skidding sideways, she smacked the right-hand side of the Subaru against a massive tree trunk. The impact jolted her bones, reverberating through her clenched jaw and slamming into her brain. She hit the gas again, fishtailing as she scraped the right side of her car against rocks along the upper bank.

  Please, dear God, please let them just be spooking me . . . I’m not ready to die yet. Got a wedding . . . need Maddocks to see my dress . . . I’m going to be a stepmother, can’t let Ginny down.

  Angie pulled through the bend and rammed the accelerator down again. Behind her the truck slid through the corner, almost smashing against the same tree. It came fast now, looming in her rearview mirror. The grille of the truck blocked light. She couldn’t get to her phone. Also knew from her last trip to the lodge with Maddocks that it would be no use. There was no cell reception along this strip, not until the lodge, where a signal could be received from a tower on the other side of the peak.

  The logging road dipped sharply again. Angie’s limbs shook with adrenaline as she once more gathered speed down the incline. She didn’t know how many of these she could pull through alive, how much longer she could stomach the adrenaline, keep up the intense focus. Fuck! How could they be so brazen. Fuckfuckfuck.

  As she closed in on the tight bend at the bottom with a steep drop to the left, Angie was suddenly convinced Jaz had been killed. Someone—or a group of someones—who lived out here in this desolate hillbilly redneck Canadian wilderness wanted to ensure the truth stayed buried. To do that they were prepared to kill her, too.

  Who’d known she was heading to Predator Lodge this morning?

  An image slammed through her mind. Constable Darnell Jacobi talking on his phone as he watched Angie drive out of the police station lot in her rental. Another image crashed into her brain. A black truck pulling off the verge and into the road behind her as she’d turned north onto the highway earlier.

  Had Jacobi called someone and described her car? Given them her rental registration? Was Jacobi in this with Wallace and the gang? Or was it someone else in that truck?

  Her car skidded. Jesus. She swerved, almost going over the edge of the bank on the left side. She swung her wheel sharply around another bend to her right. Her heart stopped dead. Oncoming lights in the fog. Fast. Not enough room to pass without one of them pulling over to give way. Or hitting head-on.

  The Dodge came up behind her at double speed. It slammed her rear. She screamed as her car veered sideways, sliding across the narrow track, the oncoming lights looming closer. Desperately Angie struggled to spin the wheel the other way.

  She went off the road on the uphill side. Through the fog the oncoming lights took shape. A red pickup. With an oval Ford logo on the front. The horn blared as it scraped past her Subaru and rounded the corner, heading straight into the path of the Dodge. Angie heard a bang.

  She struggled with her gears and hit the gas again. Spinning her Subaru tires, she skidded back onto the road. She kept her foot on the gas, kept going. No way in hell was she going to stop and go toe-to-toe with whoever was driving the Dodge. They wanted to kill her. She’d call for help for the driver of the red Ford when she reached the lodge.

  For the next several kilometers, Angie kept flicking her gaze up to the rearview mirror, fully expecting to see lights reappearing in the fog.

  No one came.

  Her muscles eased slightly, and that’s when the shakes began—big palsied shudders that seized hold of her body and rattled her like a rag doll and chattered her teeth. Fisting her wheel, she swore over and over, yelling every foul word she could think of in an effort to seize back power, to control her mind, to beat down the overwhelming fear that had exploded through her body, to stop the shaking of her limbs.

  Teeth still chattering with the effect of adrenal overload, Angie finally saw the dark shape of the big log lodge looming in the cloud ahead. Sleet became fat wet snowflakes as she turned off the logging track and bumped down the rutted driveway into a wide gravel-covered parking area.

  In the low cloud and swirling sno
wflakes, the lodge was huge and gothic-looking. She drew up her hood, opened her door. Her intent was to get inside and call the police to report the truck and crash. But she stilled as it struck her that 9-1-1 would dispatch Port Ferris police. Jacobi. There was no other detachment for hundreds of miles.

  Angie exited her vehicle, slammed the door shut, and tried to walk on wobbly legs toward the lodge entrance under a portico. She passed the garage area and froze.

  Coming at her through the snow globe of whirling snowflakes and mist was a hooded figure with an axe.

  CHAPTER 31

  Angie drew her knife, flicked it open, dropped into a defensive stance. Heart thumping in her chest, she blinked into the cold snowflakes. The apparition shifted closer. Fog swirled. The person materialized.

  “Angie?” said a female voice. “Angie Pallorino? Is that you?”

  “Jeezus,” she said, lowering her blade, a whoosh of air escaping her chest. “Claire, God, I . . . I’m so sorry.”

  She quickly folded and sheathed her knife, secreting it into her pocket. “You spooked the hell out of me. On top of what happened on my way over here.” She took a breath and joined Claire under cover of the portico. “Someone in a black Dodge RAM tried to run me into the lake, and then I saw you with the axe. I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought.”

  “I was splitting logs for the fire.” Claire propped the axe against a woodpile near the door. “What do you mean, a truck tried to run you off the road?” She looked concerned.

  Angie wiped water from her face. “I didn’t see the plate. Who around here has a black Dodge diesel engine with extended passenger cab—hunting spots across the top?”

  “Just about a quarter of the guys in town.” Claire frowned. “Are you okay? You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “I’m fine. I need to make a call. I need to report the incident. Did someone just leave here or come by in a red Ford pickup?”

  “Yeah, my dad just left. He’s got a red Ford. He’s heading into Port Ferris. He—”

  “I think he might have collided with the truck. He almost hit me and then rounded the bend. I—”

  “Angie, stop. My dad is fine. He called me like two seconds ago. He was already on the east side of Carmanagh Lake when he phoned. He wouldn’t have gotten service between the lodge and the east outflow anyway. It’s all a dead zone along the lake.”

  Which is why it’s the perfect place to run someone off the road.

  “Did he say anything about colliding with a Dodge?”

  Claire scrunched her brow. “No. All he said was that some hunters had run into a spot of vehicle trouble. Their brake line had leaked fluid, and their brakes failed, which had sent them speeding downhill. They couldn’t stop on a curve at the bottom, and they smashed into a rock on the bank as he approached. He was giving them a ride back into town and calling in a tow truck.”

  Angie glared at Claire. “Hunters?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He didn’t know them?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know, Angie. He didn’t say.”

  She regarded Claire, not believing a word.

  “Look, why don’t you come inside? I’ll make you some hot tea and something to eat while you dry off by the fire.”

  Angie’s gaze flicked to the axe leaning against the woodpile. Was Claire solid? Could she trust her? Had Garrison honestly not known the guys in the truck and bought into their fake story about brake trouble? Was it conceivable that they actually did have brake line issues, and Angie had read the incident entirely wrong—imagining she was being run off the road?

  “Is . . . is your mother home?” Angie said.

  “No. She’s in town. My dad’s going to bring her back to the lodge after he’s done with his errands in Port Ferris.” Claire paused. “I imagine you came up here to talk to them about the body in the moss and the river trip all those years ago. I heard you were in town and looking into the accident on behalf of the woman’s grandmother.”

  Osmosis. Babs was right. Angie doubted she could even scratch her own butt without everyone knowing it within minutes. It made her uneasy. Nothing was secret, yet everything was. Like the woods had eyes and the trees were watching her through the mist.

  Is that how Jasmine and the women had felt with the men hazing them along the river?

  “So when will your parents be back?”

  “Late tomorrow afternoon. You should have called ahead,” Claire said. “You could possibly have met up with them in town. It would have saved you the drive out here.”

  “I wanted to come out anyway,” Angie said, marshaling herself. Focus. Claire’s a good kid. I’m sure she is. “I was hoping to visit the campsite where Jasmine Gulati was last seen alive. And to take a walk down to the bay where she slipped and fell into the water. As well as hike up the ridge to where your dad witnessed her going over the falls. I’d also like to revisit the grave site on the other side of the Nahamish and maybe go find Budge Hargreaves or at least see where his place is located. Plus, I’d like to see Axel Tollet’s homestead.” Angie met Claire’s gaze. “I was hoping I could tempt you to guide me, Claire, and have you show me how to get round to the woods on the south side of the river, if not by boat.”

  “Of course I will.” She placed her hand on Angie’s arm, kindness in her voice. “But you do need to come in out of the cold and warm up. Maybe we should get you into a hot shower and some dry clothes, too. The weather is not looking good for the rest of the day, but the forecast is fine for the morning. Why don’t you rest up, stay the night? You and I can make a day of it tomorrow. By the time we return to the lodge, my parents should be back.”

  Angie agreed. Claire gave her a room. Taking the young woman’s advice, Angie stripped off her wet gear and took a scalding shower. Once she’d changed into dry clothes, Angie tried to phone Holgersen. She wanted to let someone know where she was, someone other than Jacobi and the local cops, someone other than Maddocks. Just in case she disappeared into these woods. At least Holgersen could initiate a police response if she didn’t return home.

  But there was no reception.

  When Angie asked Claire about the cell connection, Claire explained that heavy weather like this often killed connectivity but that things should improve when the dense cloud lifted and the sleet blew out.

  CHAPTER 32

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22

  Angie stood in the campsite where all nine women on Rachel Hart’s documentary trip had last been together. It was early morning, and the air was like ice against Angie’s face. Mist tendrils snaked through the trees, and the falls boomed downriver.

  Claire had loaned Angie a toque, and she wore fingerless gloves as she took photos for reference and for the final report she would compile for Justice Monaghan. It was the same campsite where Angie had camped with Maddocks and the old couple from Dallas. It had been raked clean. The fire pit was empty. From the camping area she walked slowly with Claire down a short trail to the river’s edge.

  Angie raised her digital camera, adjusted the lens, and snapped several more shots of the boat pullout and the swirling water.

  “Won’t be doing any more guided trips until spring now,” Claire said as she stood beside Angie watching the muscled current rolling beneath the smooth, unbroken meniscus of the surface.

  “What do you guys do at the lodge all winter?” she asked Claire as she aimed her lens downriver at the boiling cloud of condensation above the falls and clicked.

  Claire stuck her hands deep into her pockets. She looked pretty, her nose and cheeks pink with cold, her pale-green eyes the same color as the Nahamish, her thick hair the same rich ebony as her dad’s and uncles’. They were good breeding stock, those Tollets—if one defined good by being able to guarantee a certain genetic outcome in the appearance of offspring.

  “My folks work on repairs, renovations, new plans for the warmer season. We host a few winter guests who use the lodge as base
for backcountry ski touring, and I do some ski guiding for them. I’ve also started volunteering for the local search and rescue crew, and I need to get some winter training in this year. I still need my ground SAR qualification.” She smiled. “I’m also waiting on a breeder for a puppy. I’d like to get into canine tracking and air scenting for SAR. Seeing the remains in that shallow grave with you guys, hearing the stories about that woman who went missing on my dad and Jessie’s trip—it just fires me up, makes me want to do more.” She paused, watching the water. “I can’t bear the thought of someone just going . . . missing. Gone. Makes me want to help find them. Search for them. Bring closure, you know?”

  Angie shot her a glance. “I know,” she said softly. “I always thought ‘closure’ was an overused and overblown concept bandied about in the media. But it’s not. Whether you like the outcome of a mystery or not, you need those answers. The truth. I know because I’ve been there.”

  Clair nodded and said, “I know. I read about you, Angie. When everyone started talking about you coming up here to investigate Jasmine Gulati’s accident, I looked up everything I could find on you.” She fell silent. Wind ruffled the water. “I’m on your side,” she said. “No matter what they say, I believe Jasmine would want her grandmother to have answers. I believe she is owed this last look into her grandchild’s final days.”

  Her words reached into Angie’s chest and squeezed. “Thank you for that,” she said without looking at Claire for fear she’d reveal too much of herself. “It means . . . it means a lot.” As she spoke she turned to look upriver. Angie stilled, hot energy coursing suddenly through her. She moved closer to the water’s edge, shading her eyes against the morning glare as she peered upstream.

  “What is it?” said Claire. “What do you see?”

  “There’s no promontory. The riverbank to the east curves backward toward the logging track.”

  “Yeah, so?”