In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(95)

“I couldn’t tell you,” Bibby said. He had trouble catching his breath. He wanted to get the idiot as far away from the house as possible, where the coyotes would come and eat the body, maybe even gray wolves, which were said to have returned to the area. “But this is where he told me to bring you.”

“There’s no trail. He would have left a trail,” Evan said.

Maybe he wasn’t such an idiot after all, Bibby thought. “Sometimes it’s like a light comes on in that thick skull of yours, Evan, and you aren’t as dull a bulb as everyone thinks, are you?”

“I don’t understand you, Bibby.” Evan called out Franklin’s name several times.

Bibby had run out of steam, but he figured they’d gone far enough. “Okay, Evan. I think this is the spot.”

Evan turned. “I don’t think—why are you aiming the rifle at me, Bibby? Daddy always told us to point the muzzle at the ground until we mean to shoot.”

“There you go remembering again. Your memory comes and goes, doesn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“And that is the problem. You don’t remember what happened on the trail, with that girl, but one day it might just come back to you.”

Evan scrunched his face. “I don’t understand you, Bibby.”

“That’s not important now.” Bibby leveled the rifle at Evan’s chest.



Tracy slid behind a pine tree but kept her eyes on the two men. She’d moved closer, fifteen yards. She didn’t trust her aim at this distance, not with the wind and the driving snow. Not with her body shivering and her hands cold and numb. She should have taken Peterson’s rifle. Arrogance. She hoped her arrogance didn’t get Evan and her killed.

She blew on her hands, alternately shifting the gun from her right to her left. Then she moved forward, behind the trees, approaching from the side so she had an angle to shoot, if she had to. She didn’t want to be behind Bibby and miss, hit Evan.

Confusion was etched on Evan’s face. Bibby had the muzzle pointed at him. Tracy moved again, to the next tree, slow going in the unpacked snow. Ten yards.

She leaned out from behind the tree trunk, her pistol aimed at Bibby. Evan spotted her and shifted his attention to her. Bibby turned his gaze from Evan to Tracy and quickly got off a round. She pulled behind the trunk and heard the bullet graze the tree, a chunk of bark splintering near her face. She yelled, “Evan. Run.”

When she leaned out, Evan had stumbled to his right. Bibby had moved to his left, seeking cover behind a tree trunk. He pointed the rifle in the direction Evan had run. Tracy fired two shots, hitting the tree trunk and forcing Bibby to pull back the rifle barrel.

When she could no longer see Evan, who had disappeared into the tree line, she yelled, “It’s over, Bibby. We know all about you and Ed Sprague. We know what you did. There are cadaver dogs in the space under the house. We’ll bring them out here and find more bodies.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bibby said.

“We know you killed Franklin, Bibby. And Cole remembers you from the trail,” she said, to make Bibby’s situation seem even more hopeless. “It was you who hit her. That’s enough right there.”

No answer.

“There are officers at the barn. They heard the gunshots. They’ll be coming, Bibby. Your only chance is to put down the rifle.”

No answer.

“Bibby, don’t do this to your wife and your family. Just come.”

A rifle crack broke the silence, but no bullet hit the tree or brushed past it. Tracy waited a beat, then leaned out. The rifle had dropped from Bibby’s hands. A moment later, his body toppled to the side and fell into the snow.

“Coward,” Tracy said, stepping out from the scene. “Coward in life and a coward in death.” She hoped he burned in the same hell he’d created for so many women here on earth.





CHAPTER 40

Minutes after the final crack of Bibby’s barrel, Tracy heard the sound of boots crunching snow and someone breathing heavily. She looked up from taking pictures with her cell phone. Pete Peterson came up the trail Evan had made fleeing. He looked at Brian Bibby lying in the snow, then to Tracy.

“He shot himself,” she said.

After a moment, Peterson said, “I’ll tell the paramedics it’s a body retrieval. Who is he?”

“A neighbor of the Spragues down in Seattle, but that isn’t the whole picture, far from it,” she said. “I assume Evan made it back to the barn?”

Peterson nodded. “The young man? He’s kneeling over the body in the snow. I had Herr handcuff him and stay with him. I’m going to need copies of any photographs you’ve taken and to get a statement.”

“What you’re going to need to get is a CSI team with cadaver dogs out here when the snow melts to look for more bodies.”

Peterson’s eyes narrowed.

“There could be many,” Tracy said. “In the interim, you may want to search for the names of any missing girls from around here, though I suspect they’re more likely to be women from Seattle.”

Peterson swore. “What the hell was this place?”

“My partner stumbled onto a house from hell in Seattle,” she said. “The Spragues own this cabin as well. The father was a psychopath. Bibby here also. Two on the same block. One playing off the other, perhaps, feeding their sickness. They preyed on women. I assume they did much of it here.” She blew on her hands. “Is Herr watching the girls?”