Part 3 (1/2)

'Yeah? Down at the sheriffs house?' Parker reluctantly coaxed his hands out of his pockets to take Melody's binoculars. The local Police Chief was family to the White Shadow Captain, but Morgan Shaw had yet to pay his brother a visit.

'Not quite.' Now it was Melody's turn to aim him in her chosen direction. 'The kid from the sheriffs house. A while ago I saw her struggling with something we might be interested in, Parker. She was taking a lot of trouble to cart it off into those trees. No, over there.'

'Yeah?' Parker tried to sound fascinated, but as he raised the binoculars to his eyes, he could barely see the trees, let alone anything moving among them. 'Um, I never like to rain on your parade, but I've had daydreams with more substance than what I'm seeing right now.'

His partner s.n.a.t.c.hed back the binoculars as he lowered them. She nudged him in the ribs for his pains. 'That'll teach you to lie in, deadwood. The fact is, she was dragging a parachute. And there can't have been many of those left lying around on this mountain, can there?'

'Not lately,' admitted Parker, intrigued in spite of himself.

'You're sure you're not -'

Melody favoured him with a patient tilt of the head.

'No, you're not mistaken, 'he concluded aloud.

'So, are you up for a morning stroll in the woods, Agent Theroux?'

'In your company? What, are you kidding?' And Parker thought he'd have to dodge another blow to his ribs, but Melody was too intent on leading the way on the trail of the girl. By now he was properly awake, and there was no going back.

Makenzie wiped furiously at the pa.s.senger window and grimaced at the cold, burning his fingertips through his gloves. A good deal of the ice remained stubbornly fixed, doing its best to keep the car's interior hidden.

'There's another one up here, Chief!'

Laurie was a good twenty yards ahead of the lead vehicle and Makenzie didn't need anything more to worry about. This was a bad stretch of road, the turn and the trees blocking line of sight, and the winter just made it meaner. Makenzie was a cautious driver though and he'd pulled them up in good time as soon as they'd seen the half-buried car. Then Laurie's keen eyes had noticed it was just the tail vehicle in a frozen convoy.

'This one's off the road! Looks like he swerved, coming the other direction!'

'Take it slow, Laurie! Be right with you!' He'd told her to run on, get a count of the vehicles and check further along the road. Now he was less happy with his thinking.

He shook his head. His chest hurt from all the shouting, but Laurie sounded a mile away. d.a.m.n snow ate up sound as well as all the colour.

Well, no use putting it off any longer: Makenzie swiped the worst of the ice clean and stooped low to peer into the car.

He'd kicked the snow from the plates, so he was expecting to find a couple of frozen tourists in there. The couple Byers had been concerned about. His gut was knotting at the prospect.

But all he could see in there was darkness. And the frost crusting the opposite windows.

Makenzie took a step back and his gaze hunted around.

He'd popped his holster as soon as he'd stepped from his truck; they'd had a world of trouble with coy-dogs this past week, packs of them even scavenging in the town. But everyone knew, knew, Makenzie had made sure of that. Surely to Christ these folks would have the sense to stay in their vehicles and wait for help. Get busy dialling on their cellular phones. Makenzie had made sure of that. Surely to Christ these folks would have the sense to stay in their vehicles and wait for help. Get busy dialling on their cellular phones.

Makenzie worked his steady way along the small convoy, but as he sc.r.a.ped the ice at each window he thought he should be searching the wooded slopes instead. Down to the lake, or up towards Mount Shaw. Made no difference either way, none of these folks would have made it very far in this weather.

They'd gone though. All of them.

As Makenzie stalked past the lead truck he was almost hoping to find a body in the wreck Laurie had found. He didn't feel like hurrying his approach though. She was waiting on him by the upended tail.

'Oklahoma plates,' she said. And that was like a bolt through Makenzie's chest.

Dear Jesus, no. He had to inspect them for himself, to be certain. His eyes were permanently narrowed anyway, against the swirl of flakes. .h.i.tting his face, but he knew his frown had just got a whole lot tighter. Along with the knot in his gut, which was never going away.

'Where the wind blows,' he tried a joke, for his own sake.

'What about the others. Chief?' Laurie was reading all kinds of stuff in Makenzie's face.

'Nothing.' Makenzie gestured up and down the road and the hillside. Seems none of them were for sitting still but if they'd followed the road we'd have seen them.'

Wherever they'd thought they were, they had to know Melvin Village was closest. Laurie bit her lip and was probably running through the same thoughts as Makenzie.

'I'll go take a look up the slope, Chief. The trees are pretty dense up there, might have kept the worst of the snow off their tracks.'

Makenzie didn't like it, but he wanted to have a good dig round inside this upended Buick. Now there was a more personal worry to add to his growing list. Laurie took his nod for a green light and Makenzie watched her go for a second or so before walking around the wreck to the driver's door. It was hanging open.

The inside was a mess: cigarette packs, take-out cartons, a flotilla of plastic cups down by the pa.s.senger seat. The glove box was hanging open like the door. And when he swung around to pop the trunk, he found the worst of omens waiting for him: an untidy pile of boxes, all s.h.i.+ny gift-wrap and ribbons. Makenzie gritted his teeth and delved in there to grab one of the boxes. He knew what he'd find on the label but he needed to read it anyway.

'Happy Thanksgiving. To Amber With Love, Daddy.'

The impulse to throw the box back in the car was strong, but Makenzie weathered it, holding the package clumsily for a while and thinking about collecting them all. He wouldn't need help carrying them to his truck, but he'd sure as h.e.l.l need Laurie to talk to on this one.

'Laurie!' he called. 'You haven't got anything yet, I think we should be heading back!'

Makenzie looked up. Laurie's silence was all wrong. Badly wrong.

'Laurie!' Only a cold echo came back at him, sounding angry now. 'Laurie!'

But his deputy was lost in an ocean of white.

Chapter Three.

White Shadow operated as a platoon-sized unit, trimmed and pruned to fit its role. Three squads plus a headquarters squad of key specialist personnel. McKim's squad, Delta, was stationed with the vehicles. That still left plenty of orders to be issued and Captain Shaw was out doing his rounds of the officers and sergeants, making sure n.o.body was left standing idle. Lieutenant Joanna Hmieleski was a key specialist, an Alpha female, as she liked to put it, and already had her orders: keep an eye on the Doctor, and comb these floors and walls for clues, evidence or a note from a TV magician explaining how this stunt was pulled off.

She'd ruled out any chance of the latter, but appreciated the dose of humour. Based on the reports that each room revealed a similar Mary Celeste Mary Celeste ambience, she'd elected to concentrate her efforts in the one place for now and ordered everyone out of the dining room. So it was down to her and this Doctor guy, and so far her new colleague had remained mute and humourless, pouring heavy thoughts into every corner. ambience, she'd elected to concentrate her efforts in the one place for now and ordered everyone out of the dining room. So it was down to her and this Doctor guy, and so far her new colleague had remained mute and humourless, pouring heavy thoughts into every corner.

Actually, Joanna found herself taking frequent pauses to watch him at work. Even when she was focused, on a blood-stain or the litter of dead cartridges, his was a constant presence, impossible to ignore. Why? Because, she realised, he reminded her so much of her father.

They looked nothing alike, of course. Her father had been tall, like this Doctor, but always overweight, and with a smear of dark hair clinging to his head like a thinning oil slick. A community doctor with his own practice, he was a man who might have equated with the tribal elders of Kristal's ancestors. So loved and respected, and not least by Joanna. To her, he'd shone like an oracle, an oracle who had ultimately guided her into medicine.

But long before she'd wound up on that road, she'd seen all the unwelcome change that comes hand in hand with growing up.

Joanna had gone through the requisite teen-rebellion phase nice and early, as though to clear it out of the way; and thinned her father's hair some more in the process. It was as she started to emerge that her father began to weaken, growing old fast, losing his mystique. In fact, he had many healthy years ahead of him, and Joanna was only coming to terms with a common discovery: her father was an ordinary man. Fallible and flawed. And in his case, bearing all his private sadnesses behind the gentlest manner and a pair of smiling eyes.

Working alongside this Doctor guy, Joanna Hmieleski was a girl again. He inspired a similar awe in her. This strangest of strangers was, she reasoned, like a father seen through the eyes of a child. 'So, Doctor,' she ventured courageously, 'care to offer an educated guess?'

'I never guess.'

His face was fixed on an area of the wall, punched and scarred with bullet-holes, a single glance tracing a trajectory between the impacts and the scattered cartridges at Joanna's feet.