CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Robert Blackwood was distraught when the agents arrived at the house he shared with Lisa. A police truck was parked in the driveway, and Wyatt had a hand on the terrified husband's shoulder.

Wyatt nodded at the agents and offered a wan smile. Robert lifted his head, and his eyes widened with desperate hope. "You're the FBI agents, right?"

"That's right," Faith said. "I'm Special Agent Faith Bold. This is my partner, Michael Prince, and my K9 unit, Turk."

He nodded. "Robert."

"Okay, Robert. When did you last hear from your wife?"

"Um… right around lunchtime. She called me to ask if I wanted her to save dinner for me since I was going to be home late. I said not to worry, I'd pick something up on the way home. Um…" he ran his hands through his hair. "Yeah, that's about it. We were, uh, going to watch a movie tonight. She wanted to watch this new movie about dogs. I forget what it's called."

"Have you tried contacting her?"

"Oh yeah. I've called about a dozen times and sent texts, but everything gets left on read or goes to voicemail."

Michael looked at Wyatt. "Do we have a search organized?"

"We have people looking in the area," he said.

His eyes said what his voice couldn't. But it's a big wilderness.

"Does your wife frequently leave without telling you where she's going?" Faith asked.

"She goes out pretty much whenever she wants to," Robert replied, "but never without telling me. And with what happened to Ethan and Valerie…" His lip trembled, and he folded his hands and squeezed them tightly on top of the table.

Turk walked up to him and laid his head on Robert's lap. It was a technique he often used to comfort grieving family members, but it didn't work this time. Nothing would calm Robert's terror but seeing his wife alive and well. Faith wished she could be confident of finding Lisa like that.

"Where does she usually go when she heads into the wilderness?" she asked.

"Everywhere," he replied with a nervous chuckle. "Nelchina, Denali, Wrangell… sometimes on longer trips, she'll go north past Fairbanks into the tundra. Sometimes, she'll head to the Yukon. She's happiest when she's out there. I'm fine with it too. I'm not a hardcore camper, but I like seeing her so happy. I just wish… I don't get it. Why would she go out now?"

AN uncomfortable possibility occurred to Faith that Lisa might be working with the killer. She had an alibi for the nights of the murders, but if there was more than one person involved, then she might be out there helping with another murder. Or she was scared by her talk with the agents and was fleeing before she could be caught.

Faith thought of her options. With no information, there weren't many. But how could they get more information now?

"Does Lisa have an office somewhere?" she asked. "Or a room where she would keep personal correspondence?"

Robert frowned. "Like letters?"

"Yes. We're looking for anything that might tell us where she went."

"Um…" his eyes shifted to the left. "I can go look for you if you want."

Guessing the reason for his hesitation, Michael said, "We don't care about the marijuana. If that's where we need to look, you need to take us there."

Robert hesitated a moment longer, but his fear for Lisa's life was greater than his fear of any legal repercussions that might come about as a result of his wife's habit. "All right. It's in the basement."

Wyatt and the agents followed Robert down a narrow staircase. When he opened the door to the basement, the pungent smell assailed Faith's nostrils.

The small basement was filled with pot plants growing under powerful spotlights. Faith didn't know much about the drug, so she didn't know how much this setup might be making for Lisa, but it had to be making some money. The lights and irrigation equipment couldn't be cheap to operate.

As Michael had said, though, they weren't here for the marijuana.

"If there's anything for her, it's going to be here," Robert said, heading toward a desk sitting on the far wall of the room. "We keep most of the mail in a drawer in the kitchen, but I already checked there, and I didn't see any notes or anything. Nothing in the bedroom or the garage either." He opened the drawer and cried out. "Oh God!"

"What?" Faith asked. "What is it?"

"Her phone." His shoulders began to shake. "Her god damned phone."

"Can you unlock it?" Faith asked,

"Um… yeah. I know her password."

He unlocked the satellite phone with trembling fingers and placed it in Faith's outstretched hand.

"Is it normal for her to leave her phone behind?" Wyatt asked.

Robert shook his head. "That's my one hard and fast rule. I need to be able to contact her at all times. That's why I got her the satellite phone."

Faith opened the messaging app and found a series of texts from an unknown number. The texts consisted of pictures of the grow house in which they were standing, followed by threats to send these images to the authorities if Lisa didn't give the sender one hundred thousand dollars. The final texts were a list of instructions that told Lisa how to get to the meeting spot.

"Do you have a safe on the property?" she asked Robert.

He frowned. "Yeah. Why? Did she… she didn't take the money, did she?"

"It appears that someone was blackmailing her. Do you recognize this number?"

Robert took the phone. He released a choked sob when he saw the texts. "Oh, Lisa. Oh no."

"Robert, I need you to focus. Do you recognize that number?"

He sniffled. "No. The area code is Alaska, but I don't recognize the number."

"Where in Alaska?"

"Huh?"

"The area code is for which part of Alaska? Anchorage?"

Robert's face fell. "Alaska has the same area code for the entire state. There's a town in the southeast that borrows area codes from the Yukon Province, but almost the whole state uses nine-oh-seven."

Faith sighed. "All right. Where is your safe?"

"It's in the root cellar. Do you want me to check?"

"Yes. If the money was still there, Lisa could have left for another reason. If it's missing, then we know she's going to meet this caller."

"How would she know where to go without the instructions?"

Faith could understand Robert's hesitation. If he could find a reason why Lisa hadn't met this mysterious caller, he could cling to the hope that she hadn't been lured to her death. Faith didn't have the luxury of that hope, nor did she have the luxury of gentleness.

"She's an experienced survivalist. It's possible she memorized the instructions."

Robert sighed and pressed his palms to his temples. "Okay. All right, um… the root cellar's outside. Follow me."

He led them up the stairs and around the house. "I don't know why they didn't just connect the root cellar to the basement," he said. "Seems like it would make more sense that way. Then again, this is an old house. Maybe they did things differently back in the day."

He opened the hatch to the root cellar and descended the small staircase into the room. A musty smell hit Faith. It reminded her of damp, cold Earth, the sort of Earth one might find in a cemetery.

"Oh, shit!" Robert cried.

"What is it?" Wyatt called. "What did you find."

He came to the door. "It's gone. The money's gone. All of it. Oh, God. Lisa."

Faith didn't waste any more time. "Wyatt, stay with Robert. Robert, you stay here."

"I want to help," he insisted. "I want to help find her."

"The best thing you can do is stay here in case she comes home," Faith countered. "We'll look for her."

Robert didn't look pleased, but he didn't argue further. "Okay. Bring her home safe. Please."

Faith wished to hell that she could make that promise.

***

The three of them trekked rapidly through the forest. The phone had led them to a thick stand of hemlock three miles from Lisa's house. The instructions were fairly clear, for which Faith was grateful.

Not that it would matter how clear the instructions were if they arrived too late to save Lisa. At this point, all they could do was hope that she hadn't yet sprung any of the traps the killer might have set.

Turk kept his nose to the ground, trotting ahead of the humans as he searched for Lisa's scent. The cold was sharp and biting, piercing Faith's skin even through her thick parka. Her breath escaped her lips in a cold fog that seemed to freeze in front of her eyes.

Turk, thankfully, didn't seem to mind. His coat was fairly average for a German Shepherd, but his short hair evidently sheltered him from enough of the weather for him to move without discomfort.

Maybe he should keep working, and I should retire , Faith thought. Aloud, she asked, "What do you think the likelihood is that this is just blackmail?"

"It's at least a small chance," Michael replied, huffing a little. "That's a lot of money. If other people found out about her operation, then it makes sense they would assume she has money to pay for their silence. But if I'm being honest… it's not a big chance."

Faith sighed. "Yeah. I'm not very hopeful either."

Just then, Turk barked and sprinted forward. The agents drew their handguns and followed, their flashlights tracking the K9 as he followed the scent he had found. Faith thought of the bear trap that had nearly caught Turk at Ethan Holloway's house and called to her dog. "Careful, Turk!"

Turk didn't slow. Faith pushed as much of her anxiety away as possible and instead focused on watching her own step. Her reflexes weren't as good as Turk's, and if she was caught in a bear trap, she would be in serious trouble.

Turk came to a stop in front of a massive stump in the middle of a small clearing. He lifted his head and released a mournful howl.

Faith and Michael slowed to a stop in front of him. "What is it, boy? What do you see?"

"Oh shit," Michael whispered. "Faith."

She followed his flashlight beam and found the reason for Turk's howl and Michael's epithet. A trail of blood led from the opposite side of the stump deeper into the forest.

"There's nobody," Faith said. "She must have survived this trap, whatever it was. Come on, she could still be alive."

They moved carefully forward, following the blood. Turk followed in between them this time, his tracking skills not needed at the moment.

The trail led to a small path or perhaps a game trail about a hundred yards into the forest, then turned right to follow that trail. The three of them ascended a narrow slope for another eighty yards and came to a small wooden shack similar in design to Ethan's and Valerie's cabins but much smaller.

Turk's howl brought the news to Faith's mind moments before the smell did. Her flashlight was the last to inform her of the tragedy when it fell on the body of Lisa Blackwood. Her left hand was pressed against the small door of the shack. Her back was soaked in blood.

Michael stepped forward and checked for a pulse. Faith wasn't surprised at all when he said, "She's dead."

She didn't realize until she heard the words aloud how much she hoped they would be in time. She knew better than to hope, but she still did.

They were too late. Instead of rescuing Lisa Blackwood, though, they only stumbled upon the hunter's freshest kill.