CHAPTER 60
A snow-laden tree limb slapped the windshield, exploding in a burst of white powder. Calloway didn’t slow. He followed the tracks around another bend, about to hit the gas, then quickly hit the brakes hard, bringing the Suburban to a sudden stop inches from the back of Tracy’s Subaru.
Snow covered the back window and the roof of the car, but it was only an inch or two thick. Dan looked ahead and saw branches sticking up from the snow, which had otherwise buried a tree that had fallen across the road.
Calloway swore under his breath and removed the radio microphone from its clip, playing with the radio’s controls, using his call sign and asking if anyone could hear him. He got no response. He tried a second time, but again, the response was silence. “Finlay, you there? Finlay?”
He replaced the microphone in its clip and shut off the engine.
“Get what?” Dan asked.
Calloway eyed him. “What?”
“You said I don’t get it. Don’t get what?”
Calloway unlocked the shotgun, pulled it from its rack, and handed it to Dan. “We didn’t frame an innocent man, Dan. We framed a guilty man.”
He slid out the door into the storm.
Dan sat stunned. What the hell had he done?
He picked up Tracy’s note from where Calloway had crumpled and tossed it onto a seat and unfolded it.
Truck that shot out window registered to Parker House.
No one checked alibi.
Going to get answers.
Bring Calloway.
She thought it was Parker. She thought Parker had killed Sarah.
Dan pulled on his hat and gloves, stepped out into knee-deep snow, and immediately felt the biting-cold wind. He plowed his way to the back of the Suburban. Calloway was sliding the strap of a hunting rifle onto his shoulder and shoving bullets into his jacket pocket.
“How do you know?” Dan had to shout above a gust of howling wind.
Calloway pulled two flashlights from a rear-wheel well, testing one and handing it to Dan. He handed him two extra batteries.
“Roy, how the hell do you know it was Edmund and not Parker?”
“How? I told you how. I told everyone how. House told me he did it.”
Calloway slammed the tailgate shut and stepped to the trail of footprints, which were already filling with fresh snow.
Dan pursued. “Why would he admit he did it?”
Calloway stopped to shout over the howling wind. “Why? Because he’s a fucking psychopath, that’s why.”
He moved to the tree across the road and walked to where its stump was buried in snow. He dropped to a knee, and cleared the snow. Dan could see from the straight cut that someone had felled the tree with a chainsaw.
Calloway stood, squinting into the blinding snow as he looked up the hill. “He knows we’re coming.”
He started along the trail of boot prints, Dan behind him, carrying the shotgun. After a short distance, he was struggling to catch his breath. After a hundred yards, they both had to stop, breathing heavily.
“If he buried her body, why didn’t you find it?” Dan said, struggling to get out the words.
A road map of red-and-purple veins traversed Calloway’s exposed cheeks and nose. “Because that was a lie. House didn’t kill her right away. He was playing us, playing me. And now he’s played you.”
“But you said you searched the property. If Sarah wasn’t there and House didn’t bury her, where was she?”
Calloway nodded in the direction of the mountains. “Up there. She was right up there the whole time.”