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Authors: Craig Schaefer
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tourist traffic. Someplace they can interrogate him uninterrupted.”
Someplace he can scream as loudly as he wants to, I thought, but I didn’t need to say it.
“All right,” Jessie said. “Auntie April, you got that Glock handy?”
“Locked and loaded, and don’t call me Auntie while we’re working.”
She waved me to the door. “Harmony and I are going to track down Lawrence. In the meantime, I want the two of you barricaded in here. Don’t go near the windows, and don’t open up for anybody , you got me? We don’t know how much these people know, or how much they know about us .”
We heard them locking up behind us as we sprinted down the hall, taking the stairs to the lobby two at a time. I headed straight for the check-in desk, where the same clerk from yesterday was wiping down the wooden counter with a wet paper towel.
“We’re trying to meet up with a friend of ours,” I told him, “and I think he got some bad directions. Is there anywhere else in the area where people tend to camp out? Like, off the beaten path?”
He rubbed his chin, thinking. “Well, there’s always the woods, if you really want to go off the trail, but there’s also an RV camp not far outside Sisters—you probably passed it on your way over.”
I remembered it. Half-empty, but still too big of a crowd for what Lawrence’s kidnappers probably had in mind.
“What about places that are closed for the season already? We talked to him on the phone, before his signal gave out, and it sounded like he was the only person around.”
“Huh. Not as much—the state government’s really strict about who gets to build inside the forest.” He paused and snapped his fingers. “There is the Suttle Lake Bible Camp. It’s a summer camp, for the kids. If your friend got turned around on Brookline Road, he could end up there, easy.”
“We’ll check it out,” Jessie said. “How do we get there?”
“Just take a left out of the parking lot. Road runs all the way around Suttle Lake: if you’re going north, you’ll pass it eventually. I’d say it’s a twenty-minute drive or so.”
We made it in ten.
An iron gate stood at the head of the dirt road, but somebody had gone ahead and opened it for us. A length of chain, chopped clean with a bolt cutter, lay coiled in the dust. To one side, a sign bore the face of a smiling sun rising over a hand-painted slogan: S UTTLE L AKE B IBLE C AMP : W HERE W E L EARN , G ROW , AND H AVE F UN !
I killed the ignition. We went the rest of the way on foot, scurrying down a steep slope paved with wooden-log stairs, into the compound below. Olive-roofed cabins stood empty and dark, locked up tight for the season, windows sealed under thick sheets of glazed plastic to shield them from the coming winter.
It was still a shooting gallery. Too many angles, too many places for a gunman to hide in wait. I nodded to one side, and Jessie followed me as we skirted the backs of the outermost cabins. Minimizing the ways anyone could come at us. Not minimized to zero, though.
Jessie squinted, tapped my shoulder, and pointed. I followed her gaze. One of the cabin doors had been jimmied open the crude way, the frame bearing the scars of a heavy-duty crowbar. It hung open, just a couple of inches.
I was first through the door this time, breaking left. I froze. Jessie stood at my side.
“Damn it,” she breathed.
We’d found Agent Lawrence.
NINE
The outside light strained to push its way through sheets of double glazing, trapping the cabin in perpetual dusty twilight. A moment frozen in time, like the motionless naked body handcuffed to a bed frame in the middle of the room.
I moved closer to get a better look at his face. It was Lawrence, and Lawrence was dead. He hadn’t died quickly. Or easily. His abductors had taken the mattress from one of the camp beds and strapped him tight against the metal bed frame. Off to one side, the jerry-rigged contraption they’d used on him lay discarded beside
Someplace he can scream as loudly as he wants to, I thought, but I didn’t need to say it.
“All right,” Jessie said. “Auntie April, you got that Glock handy?”
“Locked and loaded, and don’t call me Auntie while we’re working.”
She waved me to the door. “Harmony and I are going to track down Lawrence. In the meantime, I want the two of you barricaded in here. Don’t go near the windows, and don’t open up for anybody , you got me? We don’t know how much these people know, or how much they know about us .”
We heard them locking up behind us as we sprinted down the hall, taking the stairs to the lobby two at a time. I headed straight for the check-in desk, where the same clerk from yesterday was wiping down the wooden counter with a wet paper towel.
“We’re trying to meet up with a friend of ours,” I told him, “and I think he got some bad directions. Is there anywhere else in the area where people tend to camp out? Like, off the beaten path?”
He rubbed his chin, thinking. “Well, there’s always the woods, if you really want to go off the trail, but there’s also an RV camp not far outside Sisters—you probably passed it on your way over.”
I remembered it. Half-empty, but still too big of a crowd for what Lawrence’s kidnappers probably had in mind.
“What about places that are closed for the season already? We talked to him on the phone, before his signal gave out, and it sounded like he was the only person around.”
“Huh. Not as much—the state government’s really strict about who gets to build inside the forest.” He paused and snapped his fingers. “There is the Suttle Lake Bible Camp. It’s a summer camp, for the kids. If your friend got turned around on Brookline Road, he could end up there, easy.”
“We’ll check it out,” Jessie said. “How do we get there?”
“Just take a left out of the parking lot. Road runs all the way around Suttle Lake: if you’re going north, you’ll pass it eventually. I’d say it’s a twenty-minute drive or so.”
We made it in ten.
An iron gate stood at the head of the dirt road, but somebody had gone ahead and opened it for us. A length of chain, chopped clean with a bolt cutter, lay coiled in the dust. To one side, a sign bore the face of a smiling sun rising over a hand-painted slogan: S UTTLE L AKE B IBLE C AMP : W HERE W E L EARN , G ROW , AND H AVE F UN !
I killed the ignition. We went the rest of the way on foot, scurrying down a steep slope paved with wooden-log stairs, into the compound below. Olive-roofed cabins stood empty and dark, locked up tight for the season, windows sealed under thick sheets of glazed plastic to shield them from the coming winter.
It was still a shooting gallery. Too many angles, too many places for a gunman to hide in wait. I nodded to one side, and Jessie followed me as we skirted the backs of the outermost cabins. Minimizing the ways anyone could come at us. Not minimized to zero, though.
Jessie squinted, tapped my shoulder, and pointed. I followed her gaze. One of the cabin doors had been jimmied open the crude way, the frame bearing the scars of a heavy-duty crowbar. It hung open, just a couple of inches.
I was first through the door this time, breaking left. I froze. Jessie stood at my side.
“Damn it,” she breathed.
We’d found Agent Lawrence.
NINE
The outside light strained to push its way through sheets of double glazing, trapping the cabin in perpetual dusty twilight. A moment frozen in time, like the motionless naked body handcuffed to a bed frame in the middle of the room.
I moved closer to get a better look at his face. It was Lawrence, and Lawrence was dead. He hadn’t died quickly. Or easily. His abductors had taken the mattress from one of the camp beds and strapped him tight against the metal bed frame. Off to one side, the jerry-rigged contraption they’d used on him lay discarded beside
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