“Stay on this connection.”
“Get Keith!” Broker shouted.
“Stay on the connection,” the dispatcher repeated.
They were approaching the tree line. Nina shouted over her shoulder, “Griffin hit him hard. All this blood. This guy ain’t going far.”
They ducked into the trees. The dispatcher came back. “Hello?”
“Keith?”
“He’s already in his car, on the way,” the dispatcher said. “We’re starting EMT…”
“Start everything!” Broker yelled.
“Calm down. We’re sending all we got. Now, Keith wants you to end this call. He has your number off our system. He’ll call you back on your cell. Do you copy?”
“Copy.” Broker ended the call, ran holding the cell phone up in his left hand, the shotgun like a dueling pistol in the other. They were moving fast, staying wide of the meandering bloody trail, with an eye for taking advantage of potential cover, aware that the bleeder at the end of these tracks was armed, had killed.
“Broker…,” Nina called out, a ragged edge to her voice. He saw what she was pointing at. More tracks, animal tracks, a lot of them. Too big for coyotes. When he looked up, he saw Nina sprinting ahead, arms pumping, charging headlong.
Broker tried to keep up, felt something, looked up, and swore, “Shit!” Not only were they losing light, but the top tier of the trees shivered and bent. Then the snow went off in his face like a white phosphorus round. Blinding.
Heard Nina’s muffled scream. “I saw them. They ran. I can’t tell…is it…” He ran forward to the sound of her voice. Found her dancing back and forth, peering down at…Oh, no. Without hesitating, he stepped forward, kneeling in it, checking the gristle of the face, clenched teeth showing two inches of bone top and bottom, the nose and lips chewed away.
Stood up, shook his head. “It’s the shooter. Griffin got him. C’mon,” he yelled, grabbing her as he went by. Dragging her away from the partially devoured corpse. His heart pounded hot as he pushed her forward. “See, look, look! There’s her tracks. They keep going…leave that for the sheriff,” he panted. Then he realized that Nina was crying, the tears freezing on her cheeks, yelling sweetly, “Harry!” over and over as she ran. Suddenly she stopped, raising her free hand cupped, like she was trying to hear.
“What?” he yelled.
“Phone,” she yelled.
Christ, the phone was ringing in his hand. He fumbled with freezing fingers; neither of them were wearing gloves. Hit answer. Heard Nygard yelling:
“Broker, it’s Nygard. Where the hell are you, man?”
There was a jagged adrenaline surge to Nygard’s voice, but also a touch of deference. “Not sure,” Broker stopped, looking around, trying to get his bearings. “Somewhere north of the house, in the woods between the lake and the road. Where are you?”
“At the foot of your drive. Tell me quick,” Nygard said.
“We followed a blood trail from the house and found a body. Griffin fought…” His voice failed.
“Broker, you still there?”
Now stronger. “Griffin got the guy, he was following my kid, judging by the tracks, and he bled out.”
“Where’s your daughter?”
“In the woods, still running, We’re on her tracks, but the snow…” Broker stumbled. Nina was dragging him by the arm, trying to stay on the fading tracks.
“I’m out of the car. I’m coming in,” Nygard said.
“No. Give me lights and flashers north along the road. Maybe we can pick you up, talk you in. We need a search party in here.”
“On my way. Stay on the phone.”
Almost immediately they spotted the blue-red slap of lights blooming faintly through the ghostly swirl of trees and white.
“Good girl. Good girl,” Nina yelled, pulling on Broker’s arm. “Look. See. She’d headed toward the road…the lights…”
Moving at a jog, watching the lights move away up the road, Broker shouted into the phone. “Nygard?”
“I’m here.”
“You still going north?”
“That’s affirm.”
“Turn around, you’re about two hundred yards past where we’re coming out of the trees onto the road.”
They broke from the trees bent double, trying to see the tracks. Nina was going back and forth, frantic, searching. “They end here. They end here.”
With the snow and the wind, they couldn’t read the ground.
“I’ll check the other side.” Broker crossed the road, peered along the shoulder into the impossible mix of descending night and flying snow. Nothing. They needed lights.
Lights were coming, blue and red strobing the sides of the road as Nygard skidded the cruiser to a halt and jumped out. He paused for half a second, blinked once, seeing Nina standing oblivious to the cutting wind in the flimsy Army running suit, the big Colt hanging in her hand.
“We came out on her tracks. She came out here,” Broker yelled.
“Okay,” Nygard shouted, voice charged, swiftly walking along the far side of the road, holding up a service flashlight, scanning the shoulder. “We got people coming from all over. We got experts in this up here, winter searches. Take a breath…”
More lights, really coming fast. Jesus, real fast, like ninety-plus on the snow. They all instinctively moved to the side of the road as a maroon Minnesota State Police Crown Victoria slewed sideways in a not quite controlled skid, tires crunching to a halt in a shower of snow.
The female trooper bolted from the car; she was a powerfully built black woman, no hat, short-cropped hair like a woolly cap, no jacket. Service belt creaking with cold. Unfazed by the wild aspect of Broker and Nina, she shouted, “Keith, get on your radio, goddammit!” Electrified by the trooper’s manner, they rushed with Nygard to his cruiser. Nygard hit the speaker box, and Broker sagged, hearing Kit’s voice come through the static. Felt Nina grip his arm.
“I don’t know where…” Kit was saying on the radio speaker.
“Just a minute, honey,” the dispatcher said. “Stay with me, break, Keith, where are you?”
“Right here, Ginny. You found her?”
“Are her parents there?” the dispatcher said with obvious controlled intensity.
“Right here.”
“Put them on. All this new stuff we got, I have her patched into the net. They can talk. Tell them to quiet her down.”
Nina immediately grabbed the mike. “Kit, honey, it’s Mom…Where are you?”
“I don’t know. I ran out of the woods, and this lady put me in the trunk of her car. Uncle Harry gave me his phone, told me to call 911 before…
The mike trembled in Nina’s hand, her chilblained knuckles blanched white, gripping. “Go on, Kit,” she said in a steady voice.
“The car’s moving. It’s so dark…”
Broker took the mike. “Kit, it’s Dad. Hold on, we’re coming. You have to keep talking on the phone. Even if no one answers you, just keep talking.”
Nygard grimaced, said, “Maybe you should reassure her…”
Broker shook his head, “No time.” He turned back to the mike. “Kit. Leave the phone on. If they take you out of the car, hide it, look for something. A sign, anything at all. Try to talk when you can.”
“Yes, Daddy.” The signal faded.
“Kit. Can you describe the car?” Broker asked.
Static.
Nygard took the mike. “Ginny, stay on her, keep talking. I need this radio free for a while. Then I’ll put her folks back on.” He turned to Broker and Nina, who had stepped back from the cruiser to give him room. “She’s close. If we keep hearing her, she’s within nine miles of the towers. They go at nine-mile intervals between Highway Two and Little Glacier, remember, the skeleton house?” He looked up to the state trooper. “Ruth. You got the best radio, you gotta handle the traffic on the state net. Soon as I talk to my deputy and EMT, I’m going to keep mine open for the parents to talk.” Nygard removed his hat and scrubbed at his thin brown hair with his knuckles. “All the roads in a fifty-mile radius, then work in. Let’s shut it down. Gotta stop anything moving. We’ll need everybody. I mean everybody.”