Page 41 of So Dark

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Page 41 of So Dark

“She came into my tent the first night of our group trip to Wrangell-St. Elias. She stayed in my tent every night after that.”

“I see. Is that why you left the group?”

“Yes. It’s why both of us did. The thing is, no one was super close in Nature’s Guardians. We were friends, but we weren’t bosom buddies. Kelly and I didn’t think anyone would mind if the two of us hooked up. Turns out they did. They never said as much, but the way they treated us after that, it was like we were diseased. Then my wife found out.”

“Did someone from the group tell her?”

"I can't see how else anyone would have found out. I… well, I kind of blew my top. I started shouting at people, demanding to know who had done it. No one came forward, and when Lisa told me I needed to stop being a dick—her words—or leave the group, I left. Kelly left a couple of weeks after me."

“And are you two still together?”

“No,” he said with a chuckle. “No. We had that camping trip together, and that was it. I lost a twenty-five-year relationship because of that. I’d been with my wife since I was sixteen, and one pretty blonde blows a kiss at me, and I throw it all away.”

“It’s a tale as old as time,” Faith said. That was as close to sympathy as she could come for him.

“Yeah.” He shrugged and sipped more of his coffee. “Guess I made my own bed.”

Michael walked inside and nodded at the two of them. “I checked the phone. He was never within ten miles of our crime scenes.”

Faith tried to hide her disappointment. She didn’t feel great about hoping anyone was a murderer, but she really hoped to put an end to the killing. It was frustrating to know they had hit another dead end.

Still, Jake might have something useful for them. “Before we leave you, can you tell us the locations of any cabins frequented by the members of your group?”

He laughed. “I mean, I can tell you the ones I use. There are a dozen of them.”

“A dozen?”

“Those are just the ones I use. If you’re talking about the whole group, there might be over a hundred.”

“Just in this area?”

“Oh no. Hundreds of square miles. We move all over the place, Special Agent. If you were hoping to watch potential crime scenes, you’ll need an army. This is Alaska. For all of its good qualities, it has the major drawback that it’s very, very easy to get away with murder here.”

Turk walked inside right after Jake said that. He snorted and dipped his head at Faith. He hadn’t found anything.

Jake must have noticed the disturbed look on Faith’s face. “I don’t mean to be callous. That’s just part of survival. Much as we like to think we’re the dominant species on Earth, if you take us out of our comfort zone, we’re as weak and vulnerable as any animal.”

The problem is that our hunter isinhis comfort zone.And everyone else was weak and vulnerable.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

While Michael drove them back to their hotel, Faith sent a warning to the surviving former group members warning them of the danger and asking them to avoid going into the wilderness. Jake replied with a thumbs up, but Kelly and Graham remained incognito.

“I’m beginning to worry about Kelly and Graham,” Faith said.

“Graham? You don’t think he’s the killer?”

“I’m not convinced yet,” Faith said. “But if he is, then there’s still Kelly to worry about.”

“Do you want me to call Wyatt and see if we can put an alert out for her?”

She nodded. “Yes, please. Both of them. Just in case.”

Michael dialed the number while Faith thought about what their next move was. Finding Kelly Connor and Graham Nash was obviously step one, but the police were going to have to handle that. They knew this area far better than the agents did, and the Alaskan wilderness was far too vast a place for them to trust Turk’s nose to lead them to the killer fast enough.

The distance really complicated things. The killer could effectively disappear whenever he wanted to. Once he was finished taking his revenge or having his fun or whatever it was he was doing, he had hundreds of thousands of square miles of empty land he could go to. Hell, millions if he hopped the border into Canada. If he was a survivalist like his victims, then he could survive out there indefinitely and maybe even be happy that way. Faith was taught that there was no such thing as a perfect crime, but this spree sure as hell came close.”

Michael sighed. “Right. I understand. Just do your best.” He hung up and looked at Faith. “So he put the alert out, and they’lldo their best, but he wanted to reiterate to us that there are far more square miles of land than their resources can cover. He would also like to remind us that eventually, the Anchorage Police Department and state and national park services are going to stop pouring the limited resources they have into this case. He didn’t say this out loud, but I’m starting to get a strong impression that to a lot of people out here, these tragedies are just ‘something that happens.’”


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