Page 74 of The House of Cross

“Calm now, thinking about her grandkids,” Ned said.

“Thank God for that,” he said, sounding worn out. “She’s been getting worse. Was she able to give you the information you were looking for?”

“Unfortunately, no,” I said, and then stopped as fragments of our conversation with his wife fell into place. “Well, maybe. Can you do us a favor?”

“I’ll try,” he said.

“Could you look in your Quicken records from last Labor Day weekend, see if you can find the name of someone who bought a lot of jam?”

“All of Lucille’s huckleberry jam,” Big Ed said, opening a drawer. “She wrote his name down on your wife’s card.”

He handed me Bree’s business card. I flipped it over and saw a name in Lucille’s careful print:Ian Duncanson.

It didn’t ring any bells. I showed it to Mahoney, who shrugged.

I pocketed Bree’s card and we thanked Big Ed and left. Outside, a bitter wind had kicked up, so we hustled to the car and Ned fired up the heater.

“Who do you think Ian Duncanson is?” Mahoney said.

“Lucille said she recognized Malcomb from the picture Bree and Sampson showed her,” I said. “And she did say he bought all of her jam. So maybe Ian Duncanson is an alias that Ryan Malcomb used or maybe Ryan Malcomb did not buy all that jam but his long missing twin brother did.”

Ned’s eyebrows shot up. Before he could reply, his phone rang.

He grabbed it, looked at the screen, said, “No caller ID.” He answered anyway. “Mahoney.”

After a few moments, he said, “You’re going to have to repeat that. I’m in the middle of nowhere and you’re cutting in and out.”

He listened, then nodded at me. “Write this down.”

I got out my notebook.

Mahoney said, “Northeast of a place called Huckleberry Hollow, mile marker eleven on the road to Salmon.”

I scribbled it down. Ned thanked the caller and hung up.

“That was Sixt car rental,” he said. “They found the Jeep and notified the local sheriff to sit on it until we got there. And what’s with all the huckleberries?”

CHAPTER 54

BENEATH THE WOOL HOODand the blanket, Bree shook uncontrollably as the snowmobile dragging the sled she was on slowed and then accelerated rapidly up a steep hill. The sled went airborne and slammed down, blowing the breath out of her.

She choked and gasped, her body shivering and trembling, but finally calmed down enough to breathe. She’d never been so cold in her life. Her toes and fingers had lost feeling. She was sure she was developing frostbite and did not know how much longer she could take it.

Finally, after what seemed like a five- or six-hour trip, they stopped. There were voices, and the hood was pulled off.

Bree blinked against the light, turned her head against the bitter wind, and saw armed men in balaclavas, goggles, and snowcamo removing the straps that held her to the sled. It was late in the day. There were flurries falling.

Bree’s ankles were cut free; two of the men lifted her up, but they left the wrist cuffs on.

Her feet felt frozen and then burned painfully as she took a few cautious steps in the knee-deep snow. When the men were sure she could stand, they walked away from her and got on their snowmobiles.

Bree, still shivering, saw Sampson about thirty yards from her, also shaking from the cold. His goatee was coated in frost.

The one who’d abducted them, Toomey, gestured toward a stand of fir trees. “Take the trail. Find the old metal building and do it fast. It’s going to get brutal out here.”

He whistled. The six snowmobiles started up and sped off, leaving Bree and Sampson in the fading light. John began struggling against his wrist restraints.

“John,” Bree said. “It’s too cold. We will die if we don’t seek shelter.”

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