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Chapter 25
Wolf
We ride out, tearing down the road north of Helena.
It feels like everyone was waiting for this moment. As soon as I started making calls, the word traveled like wildfire, and everyone mobilized. Tracker’s at the clubhouse with a couple prospects, all of them glued to computers as they search security footage and study maps. There are livestreams in certain areas along the roads. Some are public, for bored folks to watch wildlife from the comfort of their own home. Others are private, but that doesn’t stop Tracker from using them.
While they’ve got the tech side of things covered, there are other men, mostly older members, prowling the town and the surrounding areas for signs that Malcolm’s stuck around. Gone to ground, as Steel said.
But I don’t think he’s in Helena. Helena’s not his ground. He’s gone to that hunting cabin Julia described.
I lean over my bike, pushing my speed up further until my ride starts shuddering like it might break apart, like a rocket failing on reentry. My eyes are on the prize, the straight gray road screened in with trees on both sides.
Steel sent some advance riders ahead of us to scout out possible side roads and turn-offs. We know what car Malcolm was driving. Not his pretty little new one, but a nondescript blue rental. The fucker prepared for this. Add that to the laundry list of charges that are going to be brought against him.
Except for the advance riders, I’m the one at the front, with Edge right behind me. Steel’s at the back, going the slowest. He’s the one in constant communication with the team we left back in town, shouting over the roar of engines. Any word he has travels up the line, but there hasn’t been much. The only progress that’s been made is narrowing down the area of the cabin, thanks to Julia’s details and the prospects with their maps.
If it wasn’t for Julia, we would hardly know anything. She’s the real hero here in my mind, keeping it together even though she’s got to be going insane.
Suddenly, a rider comes back our way, waving and gesturing. They’ve found something ahead.
I grit my teeth and ride his ass until I can see it for myself, a private side road. We ride into the trees, sending whole flocks of birds screaming up into the sky.
The private road turns from gravel to dirt and then stops. Parked at the end, surrounded by bikers, is Malcolm’s blue car.
I dismount and run up to the car, pushing my way past the others. There’s no one in the vehicle. I slam my fist on the window. “What the fuck? Where is he? Why’d he park back in here?”
Steel and Edge come up beside me and take a look in the car for themselves, like I’m too much of an idiot for them to trust me that it’s empty. “Based on the maps I’ve been gettin’,” Steel says, “this is right at the edge of the forest. This road’s probably only used for maintenance, or maybe there used to be some buildin’ out here. Malcolm would be familiar with the area and have known about it.”
“So he used this to sneakily cut through to wherever his cabin is,” Brick says. “What direction is the river in from here? We should spread out while we head toward it, search around like the cops do for search-and-rescue shit.”
“Good idea,” Steel says, nodding to Brick. “Everyone gets in a line, no more than ten or twenty feet from man to man. Search for any clues. Hair, fabric, crushed plants, footprints.”
“How are we gonna see in there?” Gun jerks his chin at the forest. Even on the sorry excuse for a road, the branches interlace overhead, blocking out the sky. The air is damper and colder, too.
“You got a goddamn phone, don’t you?” Steel grabs his out of his pocket and turns on the flashlight up to max brightness. “River’s that way. Let’s fuckin’ go.”
We make our line, each of us with our phones lighting up a portion of the forest. Right away, I learn how there can be these SAR missions that cover the same patch of ground multiple times without turning up any clues. The forest floor’s no lawn. The weeds and shit form big tangles, and all the trees and thorny bushes make it so it’s impossible to go in a straight line. Leaves pile up in huge mounds, and there are hidden roots and rocks to constantly trip and slip on.
And the mud. Not all of Florida is swamp, but all of Florida would like to be a swamp if it could. Soggy patches of ground suck at my boots. Walking is difficult enough even without all the extra obstacles, and it never lets up, never gets any goddamn easier. In fact, it gets worse. The further we go, the thicker everything grows and the damp earth turns into murky puddles.
Our straight line quickly bends out of shape as guys struggle to keep pace or redirect around obstacles.
We walk for I don’t know how long. Every now and again, someone shouts a discovery.
“Hair!”
But it’s reddish and short, obviously from a deer.
“I got some trash!”
It’s beer bottles. Neither Malcolm nor Artie were likely to have been drinking.
Desperation grows inside me, the agony of a failing hunt. I stray farther and farther from the others, then fully strike out on my own. My lonely light struggles to penetrate past the next few trees ahead of me. Shadows layer together in a web. I start to feel like we’re never going to escape here, that Malcolm is a spider who has snared us all.
I sweep my light around on the ground in front of me, illuminating a mossy log studded with bright white mushrooms. One of the ‘shrooms is different from the rest, a brilliant green.
“The fuck?” I mumble and bend down for a closer look. It’s not a mushroom at all. It’s a flat wedge of something snagged on the moss. It almost looks like…
