Her Last Steps: A psychological suspense thriller Read online

  Her Last Steps

  A psychological suspense thriller

  Norma Hinkens

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  A Quick Favor

  Biography

  Also by N. L. Hinkens

  Books by Norma Hinkens

  Prologue

  “Can I run, Mommy?”

  Ava Galbraith flinched and pressed her knuckles to her lips. Her daughter’s last words ricocheted around inside her skull like metal balls, echoed by the sound of her tiny footsteps crunching the icy surface beneath her like the dry Cheerios she’d eaten for breakfast that morning. Footsteps Ava might never hear again. Dread, more numbing than the frigid air chilling her cheeks, shot through her, trailed by the forlorn bleat of an animal in pain. She blinked at the snowy expanse that stretched for miles in every direction before it dawned on her that the desolate cry had come from her own lips. She shouldn’t have returned. She should have run and never looked back.

  1

  One last, long weekend to tie up all the loose ends, she’d promised herself. And to pick up the collateral she would need to take him down. Ava and her four-year-old daughter, Melanie, had arrived late Wednesday afternoon and set out early the next morning to take pictures of the wraithlike lake at dawn. A heavy storm was forecast for that evening, and Ava was eager to capture what she could of the area before it hit, especially the spectacular peaks which rose like a frosted granite stockade around the lake. She was closing in on one-hundred-thousand followers on her Instagram and making decent money from the sponsored posts she featured—a stream of income she sorely needed thanks to Gordon’s sporadic child support payments. At least that’s what she told herself. It was easier than admitting to what she had set in motion. She had covered her tracks well, rehearsed her narrative until she almost believed it, but the fear of everything unraveling fermented inside her.

  Shortly before seven, she woke her daughter and, after packing up a quick breakfast of cereal in a baggie for Melanie and hot coffee in a thermos for her, they pulled on their coats, hats, gloves, and boots, and headed down the trail toward the lake, a solid mass shrouded in a dove-gray dawn. Their frozen breath dangled in front of them as they trudged along, hand-in-hand, the black rocks that scattered the shoreline frosted with a light dusting of snow. The lake groaned and grated—testing its icy bonds, unable to resist the call of spring. In a few short months, it would be brimming with birdsong and dragonflies, the laughter of children doing backflips off rickety docks, and the gentle plopping sounds of fishermen casting their lines. Ava and Melanie wouldn’t be here to witness it of course, but that was all part of the plan.

  “It’s twinkling, Mommy!” Melanie clapped her hands and squealed with the pure delight of a four-year-old as she scooped up a palmful of snow in her purple mittens. Ava smiled and marveled with her as she took several shots of her daughter in quick succession trying to capture her expression of wonder. Her creamy skin was flushed against the biting morning air, framed by dark chestnut curls tumbling out from under her woolen cap with the ridiculously oversized glitter yarn pom-pom she’d insisted Gammy—as she called Gordon’s mother—make for it. Ava felt a familiar sickening twist in her stomach at the thought of her mother-in-law. Patricia Galbraith with her smoky brows, slick silver bob, and tongue as razor-edged as her jaw, had gone all out to press her thin lips together in a cold smile when they’d first met. Their relationship since that first arctic encounter hadn’t progressed beyond tepid. Patricia had only tolerated her as long as she served her purpose as a socially suitable and dutiful wife to Gordon. They hadn’t spoken at all since Ava and Gordon separated last Christmas. If things went as planned, they would never speak again.

  Ava collected her rambling thoughts and knelt for a moment by a rock to take a photograph of the ski runs criss-crossing the mountains like silver scars on the other side of the lake. She looked through the viewfinder and locked the center focus point, sucking in a hard breath at the staggering beauty of the snow-filled veins traversing the mountains. The play of light and shadow on the frosty expanse surrounding the lake lent an element of drama to the surreal scene. It was the perfect shot that blurred the lines between art and life, fact and fiction. Ava had gotten particularly good at blurring those lines of late. Gordon thought her incapable of subterfuge, and she had no intention of correcting his misconception until it was too late for him to do anything about it.

  When she turned back around, Melanie had disappeared from view. “Wait for Mommy, Mels!” Ava called out gaily.

  When her daughter didn’t respond, she hastily packed away her lens and scrambled to her feet, tamping down a niggling worry before setting out to catch up with her. But, several minutes later, Melanie was still nowhere to be seen. As best Ava could make out, her daughter’s footprints led away from the lake toward the road, like faint, silver shadows in the hard-packed snow, and then simply vanished. It made no sense. Ava frowned, trying to compute where her daughter could be. A ball of lava-like fear smoldered in her chest as she agonized over what could possibly have happened. How long had she spent taking pictures? She’d lost all track of time, something she tended to do when engrossed in her work. Five, six minutes, longer? Long enough for a four-year-old to run into trouble. But surely not long enough to climb the steep embankment to the road? Ava’s pulse thudded as her fear mounted. Melanie’s footprints indicated she hadn’t made it as far as the road, but the ground was so frozen it was difficult to be sure a lightweight like her daughter would leave much of an imprint.

  Ava darted frantic glances in every direction before hurriedly retracing her steps, repeatedly calling out her daughter’s name. Her heart shuddered beneath her ribs like a train changing tracks. Tracks that, moments earlier, had been taking her on a weekend full of the promise of newfound freedom and a fresh start, were suddenly taking her against her will into a dark tunnel of indeterminate length. The kind of house of horror train ride you heard about on the evening news that took parents to lonely, desolate places they didn’t want to believe could exist. A hideous nightmare that shouldn’t be happening to her. She was a good mother, wasn’t she? She had made plans to save them from the danger they were in—the danger Gordon had put them in. And now this…

  Squeezing her eyes shut against the blinding brightness of the snow, she forced herself to think rationally. Maybe she’d missed something. Melanie had to be close by. She was only four—how far could a four-year-old walk in a couple of minutes? But Melanie had been running! Ava gasped. Her daughter could be farther away than she’d imagined, or she might have tripped and become buried in the snow. Fighting her rising panic, Ava began hunting methodically around the area, digging with the fervor of a dog unearthing a bone, yelling for her daughter until her throat was raw. She walked in increasingly hopeless circles, widening her search, but there was no way to tell which direction Melanie had gone.

  A quick glance at the deserted lake confirmed she hadn’t wandered out on the frozen surface. It would be weeks before the ice began to break apart anyway—ruling out the possibility that she’d drowned.

  Think, Ava, think!

  There must be a less macabre explanation. Melanie was in all likelihood playing in a snowdrift somewhere, her thick woolen hat muffling the sound of her mother’s frantic cries. Ava cast another desperate glance around at the endless white carpet rolled out as far as the eye could see in every direction, and then set out at a determined pace along the perimeter of the lake. Her camera bag slapped haphazardly on her hip as she scoured the area for any sign that her daughter had continued their walk around the lake without her. As she drew in jagged breaths, she racked her brains for a rational explanation of why Melanie’s footsteps abruptly stopped. Had someone picked her up and carried her off? Ava’s breath caught in her throat and she quickened her pace. She hadn’t noticed a third set of footprints—only hers and Melanie’s.

  Another hideous thought soon wormed its way into her distraught mind. What if a wild animal had carried Melanie away? Like the dingo story in Australia. Or even a bear, perhaps? She forced air into her lungs, chiding herself for needless fearmongering. The only wolves in the entire state roamed the wilderness hundreds of miles north, and everyone knew that bears hibernated in winter. The only creature they were likely to encounter in the early hours at the lake was a harmless deer or a curious fox. She stifled a groan. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing either. Melanie was fascinated by foxes. If she’d spotted one, she might have followed it. Only yesterday, they’d see
n one hanging around outside the cabin, its bushy tail curled beneath it, watching the door, as if testing the extent of their hospitality. At Melanie’s insistence, they’d set an egg out on the back porch and watched as the hungry creature surreptitiously snuck it off the deck and loped off between the trees to enjoy its loot.

  Ava retraced her steps and studied the area where her daughter’s footprints disappeared more closely. The snow was flattened in parts, which was curious, but there were no clear tracks leading away from the location. Thankfully, there was no evidence of blood, or signs of a scuffle, which gave her some small measure of comfort that nothing heinous had transpired. She shivered at the dire scenarios her thoughts so quickly gravitated toward; feral animals, and wild-eyed serial killers topping the list. But, this was sleepy Brooksbury, the safest community on the planet. Gordon had grown up here, and they’d been coming to the lake as a family for years. Bad things didn’t happen here.

  As the minutes went by, Ava’s search grew more and more frenzied, her every rational thought melding in a torrent of panic. She kicked at banks of snow, screaming out Melanie’s name over and over, listening to it reverberate around the empty lake, desperately trying to keep alive a smidgen of hope that at some point her daughter would peek out from behind a pile of snow, her laugh tinkling through the crisp, morning air as she yelled, “Your turn to hide, Mommy!”

  Salty tears pricked at Ava’s eyes. She shot a glance toward the distant spires of smoke rising up from the few, remote cabins nestled in the foothills on the other side of the lake. She couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone had taken Melanie. But the idea sounded even more ridiculous than the notion that a wild animal had run off with her daughter in its jaws. Ava chewed on her lip contemplating another disturbing thought. What about a drifter? Or a hitchhiker passing through? It seemed unlikely. The harsh conditions didn’t make Brooksbury an appealing stop for anyone sleeping rough. As she rapidly eliminated every possibility that sprang to mind, her head began to pound with a new fear. Could this be connected to what she’d uncovered? But, how did they know she was here?

  She shivered, darting another glance around, all at once unsure of who or what she was looking for, wondering if her well-laid plans had come together too late to save her and Melanie. A gentle snowfall was already alighting on the trees around her. She estimated she’d been searching for her daughter for close to an hour. If her worst fears were realized, Melanie was in extreme danger from the kind of people who had no qualms about doing whatever it took to protect their secrets. Ava scratched frantically at her scalp. She should seek help before the day was spent and the storm rolled in. The tumult in her head grew louder as she weighed the risks of involving the police in an investigation which might turn up more than she wanted it to. Should she call Gordon first? Probably not a good idea. If she gave him control, she couldn’t be sure he would put their daughters’s safety first—not with everything that was at stake. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned and ran back toward the log cabin that had been in her husband’s family for three generations. She’d forgotten to charge her phone last night which left her with no choice but to drive all the way into town to alert the sheriff. Time was racing away from her, and with it any hope of assembling a search party and finding Melanie before darkness fell.

  Heaving for breath as the cabin came into sight, Ava flung open the door of her station wagon parked in the driveway, jumped inside and revved the engine before tearing off down the narrow, rutted lane. As she veered out onto the main road, hot waves of terror washed over her at the thought of leaving Melanie alone in the white silence of the brooding lake. But, if someone had taken her daughter, she would never find her without help. The sooner she alerted the authorities, the better. Everyone knew the first forty-eight hours were the most critical.

  Two miles down the road, Patricia Galbraith’s house came into view, a lavish rustic retreat of natural stone and cedar that Gordon had built for her when he and Ava got married. The curtains were tightly drawn and the house was in darkness, but Ava slammed on the brakes regardless. Gordon’s mother was in Chicago on a shopping trip with a girlfriend—which was one of the reasons Ava had chosen this weekend to come up to the cabin to wrap things up. It was highly unlikely Melanie had wandered this far on her own, but it would only take a moment to check. She jumped out, leaving the engine running, and hammered on the front door. “Patricia! Anyone home?” After scouring the front and back yard for any sign of Melanie, Ava ran back to her car and rammed it into gear.

  As she swerved out onto the main road again, sweat beaded on her forehead, despite the brisk temperature inside her vehicle. No doubt the sheriff would deploy a search party right away. Soon, everyone in Brooksbury would know Melanie was missing—that she had failed as a mother. This was supposed to have been her final stay at the lake, a bittersweet farewell of sorts. Not just to the cabin, but to everything it represented; her intact family, all the memories yet to be made that had dissolved along with the countless tears she had shed over the dark secrets she had stumbled across.

  She’d planned on breaking the news of her and Gordon’s impending divorce to mutual friends and neighbors this weekend. Now, she faced a far more dreadful proposition.

  2

  Detective Mallory Anderson fixed a keen gaze on Gordon Galbraith’s distraught wife who sat crumpled in the chair opposite him in the small sheriff station on the edge of Brooksbury. Limp, blonde hair framed her pale, oval face like a shroud, magnifying swollen, violet eyes that stared vacantly past him, looking as lost as her missing daughter. Either the woman was genuinely gutted, or she deserved an Academy award for the heart-wrenching performance she had just given. He had little reason to doubt her somewhat puzzling story of her missing four-year-old daughter as she’d recounted it, but he would make every effort to verify it before he began an official investigation that would require dispatching Search and Rescue in the looming blizzard.

  Eying the camera she fiddled with constantly in her lap, he recalled that Ava Galbraith was an avid photographer, and an exceptionally good one. He’d even bought a set of her framed photographs of the lake at the annual craft fair two summers ago and hung them up in the family room. To his annoyance, his wife, Tammy replaced them soon after with some cheap prints she picked up at a chain discount store which he was less than enamored with. He’d learned to keep his mouth shut though. Things were prickly enough between the two of them without starting a pointless argument over home decor that might well escalate into another cold war of indeterminate length and chill factor. They couldn’t go on like this much longer. His heart felt like a shriveled piece of fruit in his chest that had long since decomposed. Despite the efforts he’d made to prop up their marriage, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Tammy had no interest in trying to rekindle what they’d once shared.

  “Do you have a photo of Melanie?” Mallory gestured to Ava’s camera.

  When she didn’t respond, he added in a low, composed tone. “Mrs. Galbraith, did you happen to take a picture of your daughter at the lake this morning? Before she went missing?”

  Ava blinked uncertainly and then her eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, yes, of course! You need to know what she was wearing.” She hastily pulled the nylon camera strap over her head and began clicking through the pictures before passing the camera to Mallory. He studied the screen, schooling his expression to neutral as he took in the gap-toothed smile of the chocolate-eyed child beneath the knit purple hat with the glitter pom-pom that was almost as big as the head it adorned. She was Gordon’s double, a Galbraith through and through. The smile was trusting, believing, a smile of faith in the mother behind the lens—misplaced faith as it turned out. Rotten luck to have scored two loser parents. A pang of conscience hit as he inwardly acknowledged it might be an unfair judgement of Ava Galbraith. He didn’t know her particularly well, unlike her overbearing husband. Although he didn’t have kids of his own, Mallory harbored a low tolerance for people who neglected or abused their offspring. Losing a four-year-old next to a frozen lake fell into that category in his black-and-white world.