Paradise Valley (Highway Quartet #4)

“He said he was a mechanic or he knew something about cars. Something like that. I can’t tell you his exact words because I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. He said I should open the hood so he could take a look at the engine. I told him I didn’t know how. And he said he did.”

“Then he came after you,” Pat prompted from the kitchen.

“No, mom,” Joanne said with disdain. “He didn’t come after me. He just kind of took a few steps closer before I knew it. He didn’t run at me.”

“Did he have anything in his hands?” Cassie asked.

Joanne looked up and said, “I couldn’t see. He had one hand behind his back when I think about it.”

“His right hand?”

She paused and closed her eyes as if conjuring up the image. Then: “Yeah, his right hand.”

“So what happened next?” Pederson asked.

“I heard shouting,” she said. “It was a bunch of kids coming out of the stadium to the parking lot to get more beer. They were loud. I told the guy, Here they come now. He kind of looked over his shoulder at them and then back at me like he couldn’t decide what to do. Then he just vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“I looked away and when I looked back he wasn’t there.”

“Did you see him get into a car?”

“No, but I heard one start up outside in that field that’s next to the parking lot.”

“Did you get a description of the vehicle?”

“No. He didn’t turn his lights on. I thought that was weird.”

“Tell him about the van,” Pat urged from the kitchen.

“My friend Toby looked under the hood,” Joanne said. “He said the battery cable or something was loose like somebody had used a wrench and taken it off.”

Cassie expelled a long breath.

“Then Toby put the cable or whatever back on the battery and I started it up and came home,” Joanne said brightly. “End of story.”

“But her mother was home by then and made her call your office,” Pat said sternly.

“I’m glad you did,” Pederson said.

Cassie stood off to the side while the sheriff talked with Joanne and Pat. He told Joanne that if she saw the man again she should call 911, and she shouldn’t borrow the van again without her mother or dad knowing where she went. Joanne still acted a little embarrassed about it all.

As Pederson clamped on his hat, Cassie said to Joanne: “Thank God you’re still here.”

Joanne’s face froze.

“That was kind of a scary thing to say to her,” Pat said to Cassie. “Are you trying to give her nightmares?”

“Yes.”

*

IN THE SUV, Cassie said quickly, “It’s classic Lizard King: preying on a lone female at night. When he kidnapped the Sullivan sisters they said he wore a white one-piece Tyvek jumpsuit. I’ll bet you anything he had a syringe filled with Rohypnol in his right hand behind his back. And he knows his way around cars enough to disable them.”

Pederson looked over as he drove. He said, “That kind of thing doesn’t happen around here. Not in my county.”

“It almost did,” Cassie said. She was shaking.

“It pisses me off to no end.”

“That was Ronald Pergram,” she said. “He’s here, all right. He was here last night. Right here.”

“There’s no proof it was him, Cassie.”

“Then let’s go prove it.”

*

PARADISE VALLEY FLEW PAST on both sides and the mountains began to close in on them. It felt to Cassie like they were entering some kind of geographical chute that would suck them up and fling them to Gardiner and Yellowstone Park. The terrain got rougher, wilder, and more vertical with each mile. Bison straying from the protected confines of Yellowstone grazed in hay meadows, and Pederson had to slow down to let a herd of mule deer does and fawns cross Highway 89 in front of them.

The V of Yankee Jim Canyon could be seen several miles ahead. Cassie knew there was going to be a signal outage for her cell phone within the canyon so she quickly pulled out her phone and speed-dialed the first number on the list.

“I think we’re getting close,” Cassie said to Leslie Behaunek. She related the story of Joanne Vinson’s near miss.

“Does she know how lucky she was?” Leslie asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“And this happened last night?”

“Yes. While we were a few minutes away at the time.”

“My God.”

Leslie said she’d drive to her office and start making calls.

“It’s Saturday morning so it might be difficult to get a hold of everyone on the joint task force,” she said.

“Don’t worry about the North Dakota folks,” Cassie said. “Concentrate on the Montana people. Light a fire under them and tell them to be prepared to scramble at any minute.”

Pederson, who had overheard Cassie’s side of the conversation said, “Ask her to see about any available aircraft. Bozeman has access to a helicopter and the Montana Highway Patrol has fixed-wing aircraft and a helo, too.”

Cassie relayed the message and could hear Leslie keying it into her computer.

“Make sure,” Pederson said, emphasizing what he was about to say by pausing between each word, “make sure they don’t start flying over the top of us until we’re ready for them. If one of those pilots finds Pergram before we get to him it could spook the guy and make him run. Or he could kill his hostage. We need to get there first.”

Cassie nodded, related what he’d said, and told Leslie, “There’ll be five of us. We’re well-armed. We’ll have GPS equipment and a satellite phone along with us. If we find Pergram we’ll call in the coordinates.”

“If you locate him don’t try to take him by yourself,” Leslie cautioned.

“Of course not,” Cassie lied. Then: “We’re entering a canyon now and I’m about to lose you…”

She disconnected the call and dropped the phone into her lap. The mouth of Yankee Jim Canyon was still a mile ahead.

“Clever,” Pederson said.

*

AS THEY ENTERED the tiny community of Gardiner there was very little traffic on the street. Cassie felt suddenly haunted and she glanced up the side of the mountain instinctively and saw the closed-up building that had once been Yellowstone Quilting. It was at Sally Legerski’s shop that she’d first connected Sally’s ex-husband—a rogue state trooper—and the Lizard King four years before.

That moment, when Cassie viewed images on a crude DVD of women being tortured and raped by Pergram and Ed Legerski was still as shocking to her as if it had occurred that morning.

Cassie’s lower lip trembled and she turned away.

*

BULL’S POWER WAGON with the trailer attached and the deputies’ rig were parked side by side off the highway in the parking lot of the grocery store. There were less than a half-dozen civilian vehicles in the lot.

“It’ll take me a few minutes to transfer my gear,” Pederson said, “and then we can get going.”

“Finally,” Cassie said with a sigh, although mentally she was still in Yellowstone Quilting.

Pederson wheeled his SUV into the lot and parked it behind the sheriff’s department horse trailer. Cassie bailed out of the other side and strode up to Bull Mitchell who was standing next to his truck making a show of looking at his wristwatch.

“We’re burnin’ daylight,” he said.

“I know, I know,” she said to him. “We’re late. But the delay was worth it.”

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