Snowy Misery (Alaska Cozy Mystery Book 7) Read online

  Sarah closed her eyes. Francis had bought her ploy and believed she had actually visited Conrad at the hospital with Amanda. The killer was unaware that she and Amanda had sat in her jeep until daybreak. “I'll thank the Chief once he puts a bullet in you.”

  Francis rolled his eyes. He was growing tired of Sarah's weak threats. “A mouse trapped in a maze pretending she is a lion,” he told Sarah and then warned her: “Stay in your cabin or the old lady is dead. I'll be in touch after the sun sets.”

  “I'll be here,” Sarah replied and ended the call.

  Amanda slowly slid the sleeping bag off her head like a child expecting to see the boogie man creeping out of a dark closet. “Well?” she dared to ask.

  Sarah tossed the black phone down onto the bed and spotted Mittens asleep in a warm dog bed in the corner. “We're trapped in the cabin until nightfall,” she said in a tired voice. “I'm going to make a pot of coffee. You can have the first shower.”

  “I could use ten hours of sleep,” Amanda yawned. Her eyes were sleepy and full of worry.

  “Me, too,” Sarah agreed and walked out of the bedroom and made her way into the kitchen. The cabin was quiet, and still captive to a powerful snowstorm. Even without a madman trapping her in her cabin, the storm would prevent her from leaving. Conrad had her snowmobile. The local plows were paralyzed. The entire town was shut down. People were locked in their homes in fear. “Think,” Sarah ordered herself in a quiet undertone and hurried to make a pot of coffee. “There has to be a way.”

  Sarah stood silent for a few seconds and studied the kitchen. If Francis was crawling out of his closet when the sun set, she had time to set a trap for him. But what type of trap? Surely a deranged killer would be expecting his victim to put up a fight. “He's giving me time to panic and hang myself,” she whispered and then jumped when the phone hanging beside the refrigerator rang. “Calm down,” Sarah scolded herself and ran to answer the phone. “Hello?”

  “It's me,” Conrad told Sarah, sitting up in his hospital bed. “I tried calling three times but didn't get an answer.”

  “Amanda and I were asleep,” Sarah told Conrad, feeling very thankful the man was alive. “We didn't get back from the hospital until daybreak.”

  “Huh?” Conrad asked, feeling groggy from the pain medicine Dr. Ross had fed him. “Oh...I see,” he said, even though his mind was having trouble focusing. “Sarah, I almost caught the bad guy. I had him right under me, I was preparing to put a bullet in him...but Andrew...oh man, Andrew really messed me up.”

  “Andrew told me,” Sarah confirmed. “Don't be hard on him, Conrad. He thought you were Francis.”

  “I know...I know,” Conrad sighed. “Andrew is a good man. He meant well.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  Conrad leaned his head back on a soft pillow. “Sarah, what's the plan? That rat is still loose in our town and he intends to kill. I'm out of commission...it's all on your shoulders.”

  “I wish I had a plan,” Sarah confessed. “Francis called me a few minutes ago. He's forbidden me to leave my cabin. He's threatened to kill Mrs. Raillings if I do.”

  “Yeah, Andrew told me some of the guys went out to her cabin and peeked through the windows. It seems like the woman's kitchen is lined with explosives,” Conrad said in a miserable voice. “The poor woman is still taped to a kitchen chair.”

  Sarah was anxious to tell Conrad about discovering Francis's hidden code and what his message to the world was. She held her tongue. Francis was listening to her every word. “Conrad, I've got to figure out how to find clue one,” she explained, hoping to force Francis into believing she was trapped in a corner. “I'm going to be on my computer for the rest of the day going over my old case files. I've got until dark to figure out the first clue.”

  Conrad detected a shift in Sarah's tone. “What can I do to help?”

  “My cabin is my prison,” Sarah told Conrad. “There's not much you can do to help me except keep your gun loaded and wait for Francis to show up. He's threatened to come for you after he's finished with me. If I were you, I would go out to the old cabin and hide there.”

  “What old cabin?” Conrad asked.

  Sarah sighed a breath of relief. Conrad had taken the bait. “That's for you to find out.”

  Conrad chewed on Sarah's words for a couple of minutes and then he felt a door in his groggy brain open, allowing clear sunlight to flood in. “Rental cabins!” he exclaimed. “That psycho is hiding out in a rental cabin?”

  “If you say so.”

  “I'll run every rental cabin in town,” Conrad said in an impatient tone and tried to sit up. His shoulder cried out in pain.

  “When you get your strength back, leave the hospital and go hide at the old cabin,” Sarah told Conrad. “You'll be safe there.”

  “Okay, Sarah,” Conrad winced in pain. “I'll have Andrew run the cabins and get back to you.”

  “You bet,” Sarah replied. “You get some rest and don't go out into this storm until Dr. Ross okays it. I'll call you in a couple of hours.”

  “Okay.”

  Sarah reluctantly hung up the phone and began biting her right thumbnail. “Love?” Amanda asked, walking into the kitchen carrying Mittens in her arms.

  Sarah looked at Amanda. Her best friend was still wearing the same dress she had worn the day before. Her hair was a mess and her face wrinkled up with exhaustion.

  “Coffee is brewing,” Sarah told Amanda and forced a weak smile on to her face. “We're going to be okay, June Bug. Now, why don't you sit down and I'll cook up some flapjacks while we wait for the coffee.”

  Amanda wandered over the kitchen table and sat down. As she did, the power clicked off. “Oh dear,” she said, “I was wondering when the storm was finally to take the power out.”

  “I'll go crank up the generator,” Sarah told Amanda and walked out of the kitchen. When she reached the living room, she froze. Someone was trying to force their way in through the front door. Sarah yanked out her gun and dropped down on to one knee and waited. When the front door finally opened, she saw Pete rush past her inside.

  “Pete?” Sarah yelled in shock.

  Pete slammed the front door shut, turned around, spotted Sarah aiming her gun at him, and grinned. “Hello, partner,” he said and began shaking snow off a thick gray winter coat. “Some weather you're having.”

  “Pete?” Sarah asked feeling her shock transform into confusion. “What...how are you here?” she begged.

  Pete fished a half-smoked cigar out of the right pocket of his coat, popped it into his mouth, slapped the hood of the coat off his head, and said: “Heard a killer was loose up here. Figured you could use my help.”

  “Oh, Pete,” Sarah cried out. She jumped to her feet, ran across the living room, and wrapped her arms around Pete as tight as she could. “I'm so grateful you're here!”

  Pete, feeling like a father rather than a friend and partner, hugged Sarah back. “Listen, kid,” he said in a soft tone, “this isn't the time to get emotional on me. Francis Clark is loose and we have to catch that guy. Lives depend on it...unfortunately...one life was already taken. I heard about Brad. I'm sorry.”

  Sarah wiped at her tears. “So am I,” she told Pete, staring into his rugged, familiar face. “Having you here with me helps...you have no idea how much. But listen,” Sarah warned Pete in an urgent whisper and wiped at her tears again, “Francis has a bug in my cabin. I have an idea where but I'm afraid to tamper with it.” Sarah walked Pete over to the couch and sat him down. “He's holding a woman by the name of Mrs. Railings hostage in her cabin,” she continued in a normal tone of voice. “Mrs. Railings’ cabin is rigged with explosives that Francis has threatened to detonate if I leave my cabin.”

  Pete chewed on his cigar and offered Sarah the spare key to her cabin she had sent him the year before as an enticement. “You sent this key to me hoping I would pay you a visit.”

  “I know,” Sarah said and refused to accept the key. He put the key back in
his pocket, nodding.

  “Well, I'm here now and together we're going to put an end to Francis Clark,” Pete promised Sarah and put his arm around her. Sarah studied Pete's face. Her old partner arrived with a plan—a very clever plan. “Now, where's the coffee?”

  Sarah smiled and hugged Pete.

  “So, I have another enemy to destroy,” Francis growled and then hit the kitchen table he was sitting at with his good hand. “I have to figure out what your game is first, Pete. I'm not stupid enough to believe you're alone. The questions is: who did you bring with you?” Francis asked himself and hit the kitchen table again. His plans were falling apart right before his eyes. Suddenly, he no longer felt like a skilled, brilliant, serial killer. Instead, he was feeling like a desperate rat struggling to chew his way out of a deep hole. “All my planning...it will not be in vain,” he promised himself. “Detective Sarah Garland will suffer and then I'll make her friends suffer the same fate.”

  And for the first time in his life Francis Clark, the Back Alley Killer who had always killed under cover of night, slithered out into broad daylight, ignoring his fatigue, and aimed his body toward the hospital. “First, I need bait,” he said in a hideous voice filled with deadly rage. “Oh yes, I need bait.”

  Francis walked into the emergency room very calmly. At first, the nurse on duty thought the nice-looking man walking up to the nurse's station might be lost. But when she saw the man aim what appeared to be a tranquilizer gun at her, she panicked.

  “Time to go to sleep,” Francis said in a cold voice and shot the nurse in the neck. The nurse grabbed her neck, but before she could let out a single sound, her world went dark.

  Francis walked past the nurse's station and looked down a short hallway. A cop was perched in a chair sitting outside of Conrad's room. The cop was asleep. “Nice,” Francis rolled his eyes, walked up to the cop, and put him into a deeper sleep. “Now let's pay Detective Spencer a visit,” he said and reloaded his tranquilizer gun. Sure, it was tough using his left hand, but what other choice did he have?

  Conrad was half asleep when he heard the door to his room open. When he saw Francis walk through the door he wondered if he was dreaming. Then he saw a real-life monster aim a tranquilizer gun at him. He jerked awake and went for the gun lying at his side, but failed to reach it before Francis put him back to sleep. “The element of surprise is always a wonderful benefit,” Francis grinned. He walked over to Conrad and looked down at his unconscious face. “You're going to suffer for your crimes. But first, you're going to be a nice bit of bait to lure in an ugly fish,” Francis said. He put the tranquilizer gun into the right pocket of his coat, removed a pair of handcuffs, rolled Conrad over to his stomach, and handcuffed his hands behind his back. “Now, let's go down to the morgue.” He wrestled Conrad’s limp form onto a nearby gurney and wheeled him out of the room and toward the elevator.

  Sarah poured Pete a cup of coffee. “Francis is sure to know you're here,” she said in a worried voice.

  Pete chewed on his cigar. He looked at Amanda. The lovely woman staring at him was scared stiff. Of course, he thought, she had every right to be. A crazy killer was on the loose. “Thanks for the coffee,” he told Sarah and focused his eyes on the piece of paper before him on the kitchen table. Sarah had written down the message she and Amanda had discovered. “We're dealing with absolute evil.”

  “Yes, we are,” Sarah agreed. “And—” Before Sarah could finish her sentence, the kitchen phone rang. “One second, Pete,” she said and ran over to the phone, expecting the caller to be Conrad. “Hello?”

  “Sarah,” Andrew's voice came through, excited and scared at the same time. “Boy, what a morning...what a morning.”

  “Andrew, what's the matter?” Sarah asked, alarmed.

  “Mrs. Raillings’ cat is what's the matter,” Andrew said cryptically and chugged down a cup of coffee. He was frozen stiff and but the inside of Mrs. Raillings’ cabin felt warm and nice. “We had someone watching the cabin and her old cat wandered into the kitchen and began chewing on what we thought were electrified wires. Oh boy, Sarah, I thought we were going to see some fireworks. But the darn cat kept chewing and chewing and nothing happened. And then,” Andrew explained, watching Mrs. Raillings fuss at one of his guys, “the cat stopped chewing on the wires, jumped up onto the kitchen table, and knocked over one of the explosives. The explosive hit the floor and busted.”

  “Busted?”

  “Busted right open,” Andrew confirmed. “I expected to be blown into a million little pieces, but—”

  “No fireworks,” Sarah said.

  “Exactly,” Andrew replied and continued. “Well, after my mistake last night, I decided it was time to stand up and do right. So I kicked open the kitchen door and ran into the kitchen...never been so scared in my life. And as you can hear, I'm still alive and so is Mrs. Raillings and her cat.”

  Sarah threw a thumbs up at Amanda and Pete. “Andrew—”

  “Wait, that's not all,” Andrew interrupted Sarah. “I called the station a few minutes ago to check on my wife and son. I had my wife calling around about the rental cabins for me.”

  “And?” Sarah asked in an anxious voice.

  “My wife had to nag at old man Greenson to make him give up the information, but finally the old coot caved in. Anyway, three cabins have been rented out in the last month, Sarah. Two were rented out for one-week intervals. The folks who rented those two cabins have already left. The third cabin was rented by—”

  “Brad Garland,” Sarah finished for Andrew.

  “Yes,” Andrew confirmed. “The check-in date was two days ago.”

  “Two days? But Brad arrived in town yesterday—” Sarah stopped talking. “No, he didn't. Brad arrived a day early. He didn't call me from Los Angeles. He called me from the rental cabin.” Sarah bowed her head. “Dr. Ross said he had rope burns on his wrists and ankles. Oh, how could I have missed that?”

  “I have a man at the hospital watching Conrad, Sarah. I'm going to take all of my guys and go over to the rental cabin and cut the head off the snake terrorizing our town.”

  Sarah closed her eyes. She wanted to urge Andrew to stay where he was. But the truth was, the man was a cop—and a good cop at that. “Go,” she said in an urgent voice. “But be careful. Please be careful,” she begged.

  “You bet,” Andrew promised. “I'll call you from the rental cabin.”

  Sarah hung up the phone. “The explosives Francis set at Mrs. Raillings’ cabin were all fake,” she explained in a whisper. “Mrs. Raillings is safe.”

  Amanda closed her eyes and said a whispered prayer of thanks for Mrs. Raillings and Andrew’s quick thinking. Pete said, “Amen,” when Amanda finished her prayer.

  “Now what?” Amanda asked.

  Sarah wanted to mention the rental cabin but kept her mouth shut. If Francis was listening she didn't want to alert him to Andrew's attack plan. She sat down and state at Pete. “We wait. Francis said he was giving me until tonight to figure out the first clue,” she said, maintaining the misleading dialogue for Francis’ ears as she tapped the piece of paper on the table. “We wait until Andrew calls me back.”

  Pete removed the cigar from his mouth. He read Sarah's eyes. “Okay, kid, we'll wait,” he said and snatched up his coffee.

  “I—” Sarah began to tell Pete but stopped when the black cell phone sitting on the kitchen table rang.

  “Oh dear,” Amanda fretted in a whisper. “It's the monster. He heard us.” Amanda looked down at the message written on the piece of paper and shivered all over.

  “Answer it,” Pete told Sarah. “It's okay, kid. The decoy killer Clark set loose in Los Angeles is behinds bars. I slapped handcuffs on the guy two days ago and then got moving in your direction.”

  “Pete, why didn't you call me?” Sarah begged.

  “FBI put me under a gag order and took my phone,” Pete explained. “The FBI wasn't happy that I stole their spotlight in catching who they assumed was Clark. Afterwar
ds, they placed me under house arrest. I knew I had to reach you, kid, after I figured out that we had arrested a decoy who had been hired to be an exact copycat of Francis Clark. I didn't want to call you because I was worried the FBI might be monitoring your phone. And they very well could be.”

  Sarah stared at Pete and then grabbed the cell phone. “I'm here,” she told Francis.

  “Next time, answer my call in a timely manner,” Francis hissed at Sarah, closing the door leading into the morgue. He walked out into the hallway and looked around. “Your old friend Pete has paid you a visit, I see.”

  “Yes.”

  “You realize he has signed his own death warrant?” Francis asked.

  “I thought you were resting?” Sarah asked Francis, avoiding his question and fishing for clues.

  “I had a change of heart,” Francis informed Sarah. “Now, we're going to play a little game, Detective Garland. For now, we're going to put the game I had designed for us to play on hold...temporarily, of course.”

  Sarah bit down on her lower lip. “Where are you? You're not in your snake hole.”

  “The games we play, Detective Garland, sometimes force us to leave our warm...snake holes,” Francis told Sarah. He studied the hallway, removed the tranquilizer gun from his coat pocket, and methodically began exploring the hospital for other staff and patients. “Detective Conrad Spencer is in my custody at the moment, Detective Garland. If you want to ever see the man alive again then you will do exactly as I tell you.”

  Sarah froze. “You're...at the hospital?” she asked.

  “Officer Densmore was asleep outside of Detective Spencer's door. He was very easy to disable.”

  “John Densmore...” Sarah began to speak and stopped. John Densmore was the cop Andrew had assigned to guard Conrad. “I'm listening, Francis.”

  “Send Pete to the hospital...alone...or Detective Spencer dies,” Francis ordered Sarah in a voice that sent chills down her spine. “If you or your coffee-guzzling friends attempt to leave your cabin I will detonate the explosives I set in Mrs. Raillings’ cabin.”