Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(70)

“There’s been an accident.”

“What kind of accident?”

“A Forest Service chopper went down an hour ago near Clayton Lake. Some ice fishermen out on Lake Umsakis said they saw it crash.” He paused and I heard my pulse pounding in my head. “There are rescue teams heading to the scene. A buddy of mine out of Ashland just got through to me.”

I could only manage one raspy word. “Stacey?”

“The fishermen said it went down hard and fast in a pretty dense woods. There was no distress call.”

I rushed to my closet. “I can be on the road in five minutes.”

“It’ll take you seven hours to drive that far, Mike.”

“Then fly down here and pick me up!”

“I’m in Bangor, at the hospital with Ora. I brought her here for a colonoscopy. I can’t leave before she wakes up. I couldn’t do that to her. My Cessna’s back in Grand Lake Stream. But I’ll probably bum a ride with someone over at BIA. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing you can do right now, young feller.”

“There’s got to be something.”

“Say a prayer for my little girl, and don’t give up hope. Stacey’s a tough one. Toughest there is.”

And then he was gone.

Not again. Not again.

Eighteen months earlier, one of the scariest men I’d ever met had held a gun to Stacey’s head, and I’d discovered, for the first time in my life, what it was like to feel helpless when someone you love is in mortal danger.

Not again. Not again.

I didn’t care if Clayton Lake was half a day’s drive from my house. I would race up there with lights blazing and siren screaming.

I grabbed my field uniform from the closet and my combat vest and my gun belt. I would call the Division G headquarters in Ashland once I was on the road. The IF&W office up there would have more information.

It felt as if the volume had been cranked up in my head. My thoughts were louder than normal. The last time we’d spoken together, we had argued over my having lied about my injuries: “You should have called me from the hospital. If you don’t understand how much that breaks my heart, there’s nothing more to say. I’m not interested in being with someone who’d rather be lonely than be loved.”

And then her final text message to me: “I am having trouble forgiving you.”

If that was it—if those were her last words to me—I couldn’t imagine what the rest of my life would be like.

I started up my patrol truck and I backed out so fast onto the road that the driver of an oncoming car had to slam on her brakes. I pulled forward to let her pass.

She gave me an annoyed toot on her horn.

I needed to calm down before I killed someone or myself. Slowly, I backed out onto the road and turned in the direction of Windham, where I could pick up the Maine Turnpike and begin my journey north.

Amber had said she’d felt the moment of Adam’s death as a physical blow. But she had been his mother.

Mink claimed to have psychic powers that forewarned him of bad things to come.

But I felt nothing except a buzzing in my nerves, as if they might short-circuit at any second.

I reached for my cell to push the autodial for Division G. Just as I did, the phone vibrated in my hand. The screen showed the number of the Ashland office.

“Yes?” It was more of a rattle than a word.

“Mike?”

I braked so hard against a snowbank, I heard ice scrape paint from the side of the truck. “Stacey?”

“It’s me,” she said. “I’m all right.”

My mind wouldn’t believe the evidence of my ears. “What happened? Where are you?”

“There was a crash,” she said, her throat thick with mucus. “The helicopter.”

“I know.” The words were coming out as gasps. “Your dad just called me.”

“He did? How did he—”

“It doesn’t matter. Where are you, Stacey?”

“Ashland. Graham wouldn’t let me go up with them. We argued about it. He wouldn’t back down. Told me to go back to bed. Everyone in the office thought I was on board the chopper. They didn’t know I’d gone back to my place.”

I covered my eyes with my cupped hand, as if in shame, and my palm came away wet. I had never felt so happy, so relieved, so overcome with disbelief. And then I realized how selfish these emotions were.

“They’re all dead, Mike,” she said, sobbing. “Graham, Marti, Steve. We just got word.”

“Oh God.”

“It could have been me, should have been me.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Graham was always so funny.” She sounded horrible. “I can’t believe he’s dead. And poor Marti—she just graduated. And Steve was such a big soul, so full of life. I’m having chills, Mike. I can’t stop shivering.”

Suddenly, I, too, was shaking. “I know, I know.”

“I need to sit down.”

“Do they know what happened?”

“The chopper just went down. Steve never even radioed that there was a problem. It’s a beautiful day up here, too. Light winds, clear skies. It doesn’t make any f*cking sense.”

“Maybe there was a mechanical malfunction.”