They climbed, and then moved forward, and climbed again. He had grown up in Bakersfield, and now, below him, he saw familiar landmarks passing quickly. He stayed silent as Stinger acted as tour guide for Travis and Jack.
Frank thought of what it must be costing Jack to do this. The fuel cost alone would be outrageous — Stinger had said the helicopter used one hundred gallons an hour. All the trouble and expense his friend was going to on their behalf — how could he ever repay him? He knew Jack wouldn’t expect anything in return for his help, but still . . .
Stinger piloted with the ease of long experience, and of a man who knew his territory. Frank began to realize that another pilot might not have been able to lead them so readily to the mountain airstrip; when Stinger pointed it out as they passed over it, it seemed to Frank to be little more than a roughly mown narrow swath in a meadow.
There was patchy mist and fog below them; the mountain air currents, temperatures and shapes of the valleys affected this — in some places fog lay thick and still; in others, it was no more than softly moving mist; in still others, there was none to be seen.
They were moving closer to her, Frank told himself. He could find her on foot from the airstrip if he had to.
Maybe she would be just fine. Maybe he was asking Jack to spend a ton of money for nothing.
Irene would be furious with him if she was okay. She had accused him more than once of being overprotective. And the rangers might have already gone in and picked up the whole group — she could be on her way home . . .
“Wonder what that lawyer is up to?” Stinger asked, snapping him out of his reverie.
Frank had tried to call Newly several times before they left Stinger’s home. He had wanted to verify the GPS coordinates; the ones Frank had written down showed that the group had hiked in circles and doubled back on itself more than once. But Newly hadn’t answered the phone.
“He may be knocked out on pain medication,” Frank said.
“Hmm. Could be,” Stinger answered. “Kinda odd, though, giving you access to that GPS. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. Oh, well. We’ll be able to check out some of these places we marked on our maps, anyway — maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Any chance the rangers have already been in to pick them up?”
“I can radio them at their heliport. Only one problem, though.”
“What’s that?”
Stinger smiled. “Well, technically, this is wilderness area we’re flying over. And the law says we shouldn’t even be here in the first place, not in an aircraft, not in a truck — you know, emergencies and special situations only. Las Piernas cops must have had to have all kinds of special permission to be using that airstrip, which is really only there in case the Forest Service needs to land firefighters up here. Your department know somebody up here? We might need somebody on our side if we get caught.”
“One of the rangers — he’s had the help of the forensic anthropologists we work with,” Frank answered, wondering if he’d just be fired, or fired and arrested. “They aren’t department employees. The forensic anthropologists, I mean.”
“Hope that ranger got along okay with Irene. Anyways, if I call the ranger station, I’m basically asking them to bust us.”
“But you seem to know the area so well,” Travis said, reminding Frank that their conversation had been overheard in the cabin. “Isn’t there some legitimate reason we could be up here?”
“We’ll think of something,” Jack said.
“What the hell,” Frank said. “We’ll either get away with this, or it’s too late to worry about it.”
Stinger laughed. “I’m beginning to see how you and old Jack got to be friends.”
They flew to the last place Newly had recorded on the GPS, then began circling from there, flying over the meadows they had marked as the most likely candidates. Most of the meadows were shrouded in fog; low and flat, the moist, cool air collected in them.
“Too bad I don’t have infrared on this thing,” Stinger said. “This fog should burn off in a while; we may just want to set down and wait.”
They found three meadows that had fairly good ground visibility, which Stinger had explained was more important to flying the helicopter safely than most other weather factors. They had already taken a quick look over the third meadow when Jack said he thought he had seen something odd near a tree.
Stinger turned the helicopter and made a lower, slower pass.
“Good eye, Jack,” Frank said suddenly. “Look at the ground. Somebody has camped here.”
“Yep,” Stinger said, hovering over the spot. “Although it’s hard to know how long ago.”
“Let’s go back to that tree,” Frank said, pointing toward the other end of the meadow. “The place where Jack thought he saw something. Some serial killers like to pick out spots they can find again — many of them revisit burials. It does sound as if Parrish brought the group to Sayre’s grave — so he had some way of finding her.”
It took only a few seconds to travel the distance to the tree.
“Look out there!” Travis said. “Someone was digging.”
“Looks like you’re right, Frank,” Jack added.
They could all see it now, the dark oval, the markers, the loosened soil.
“I’m going to set her down,” Stinger said.
“No — not here,” Frank said. “They moved on from here, remember? We need to look for that ridge — the ridge that divides this meadow from another one.”
They moved around the edges of the meadow, and saw only one place that seemed to fit the description they had — a third-hand description that had gone from the ranger to the pilot to Pete, Frank reminded himself. They flew up over the ridge, but the meadow on the other side was a pool of fog.
“Okay,” Stinger said. “Let’s go back to the ridge. I saw a place where I can set this baby down.”
At the last minute, Frank did end up closing his eyes, and was thankful that Stinger was too caught up carrying off the tricky landing to notice his momentary loss of nerve.
“Jesus, Stinger,” Jack said.
“You think I was gonna trim the trees, Chicken Little?”
“No, I thought they were going to trim us. I’m not as tired of life as you seem to be.”
The dogs might have been veteran helicopter riders, but Frank noticed that they both seemed happy to be on the ground. They stayed close to him; every few moments they would venture a few feet away, peer out uneasily into the fog, sniff the air, and come back to him. He had been discussing a plan of action with the others, and only now did he notice that Dunk’s hackles were raised and that the dog was growling softly.
“Hey!” he called to the others, and they looked over at him from near the cargo door. He motioned them to silence.
Both dogs were standing with stiff legs and tails now, ears pitched forward, listening. Everyone was watching them except Stinger. He had hurried into the cabin of the helicopter.
When he came back out, he had a shotgun. “There’s another one in there if anyone wants one,” he whispered. “You probably have a fine enough handgun in that shoulder holster, Frank, but I’m gettin’ old, so I like something that doesn’t require such nice aim.”
Stinger looked at Travis, who shook his head, and at Jack, who smiled.
“Still a knife man?” Stinger whispered.
Jack nodded.
Stinger shook his head.
“Could just be a squirrel or something,” Frank whispered, but opened his jacket.
They heard twigs snapping, the sound of footsteps.
Dunk started barking; Deke joined him.
“Hush!” Jack said, and was obeyed instantly.
Good thing Jack gave the command, Frank thought, unsnapping his holster. The dogs were notoriously unruly around their true owners.