We will eventually try to track our escaped stalker. But we’re giving him room—lots of room. Let him flee to wherever he feels safe. The problem is that we don’t have Storm to follow him. Still, Dalton can give it a try. With the guy running full out, he wasn’t exactly hiding his trail.
We poke around the bush where he was hiding. The only thing we find is footprints, which match the ones left by Lilith’s stalker.
The mask and goggles also tell me this is the same guy who attacked Gretchen, the one she presumes killed Blake. If so, he could have thought it was Gretchen inside, having found an abandoned cabin to shelter in.
But why not just break in and kill her?
Because he wasn’t sure itwasher. Or that she was alone. He hoped to lure her into peeking out, so he could confirm his target and act. Then he returned tonight, only to hear Anders and know he’s not getting his chance.
There are other theories, of course, but this is the one that best fits all the parameters. It also means that Gretchen’s story seems to be correct. Shewasbeing stalked, which means she’s almost certainly not Blake’s killer.
After searching, I ask Anders to come out and walk with me. We need to plan our next move, and I don’t want to talk too much in front of Gretchen. Dalton and I murmured ideas while we were searching, and now he’s going inside to stand guard with Yolanda.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” I say, once we’re far enough from the cabin. Then I tell Anders my theory.
“Sounds reasonable. Iknownothing I said on the phone would spook the guy, so hearing a male voice must have been enough.”
“So next steps…” I say with a slow exhale. “We have two options here. Well, three, if you include taking Gretchen to Haven’s Rock, but I’d rather not consider that.”
“Agreed. If we need to bring her, she’d have to be blindfolded and confined to the guarded and windowless apartment, so she sees nothing, especially our residents. And we’d need her consent for that—we don’t want residents thinking we’d kidnap someone.”
“Yes, but that’s a last resort. For now the options are to leave her here under guard or have Émilie come and pick her up. Personally, I’d rather postpone the Émilie option—I want access to Gretchen so I can continue questioning her. The problem is that I don’t want to ask you and Yolanda to stay where it might be unsafe.”
Anders shrugs. “If the guy ran after hearing my voice, I’m not too worried. I’d be more concerned about an ambush if we take Gretchen out of the cabin. We’re going to need to stay inside, though, so we’ll have to check with Yolanda. She’ll tell me if she wants to leave.”
“Thank you.” I turn to look back at the distant glow of the cabin. “We have a forty-eight-hour maximum. If we haven’t solved this by then, we need to rethink this. Someone is coming to pick her up, and we have to deal with that.”
“Yep.”
“We’ll also move her out if there’s any clear threat to her. She’s not bait.”
“Unless you want her to be,” he says, with a knowing look.
“I’ll think about it, but again, I’d want consent, and I’m not sure she can give it rationally.”
He nods. “She might agree to anything to find her husband’s killer.”
“There’s something else.”
I tell him about the potential link between Blake and Mark.
“Shit,” he says. “You going to confront her about that?”
“I don’t know enough yet, and she can just make something up. I need to find out more.”
“Then go in hard. Because she might not be her husband’s killer but she may know why he was killed.”
“Yep.”
We start back toward the cabin. Then Anders says, “And hey, worst case, if she’s confined to this cabin long enough, with someone stalking her, she may break down and tell us the truth about what they were doing up here.”
I smile over at him. “That’s my backup plan.”
Yolanda wants to stay. She advises us to notify Émilie about the pick-up window, get her advice. If we can resolve this quickly and win Gretchen’s confidence, she can cancel that and Émilie can have the plane ready to extract her ourselves.
Back in Haven’s Rock, we retrieve our daughter. Once she’s fed and cuddled, it’s seven in the morning, which is late enough to call on my sister. We go to the front door and then stay in thewaiting room after calling April. Five minutes later, I’m pretty sure we hear someone sneak out the back door.
April cracks open the door and pokes her head through. “Your dog is fine. I gave her something to help her sleep, and she is doing exactly that, while drooling all over my floor, I might add.”
