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“No way! So you had your little escape. Why did you leave it?”
“Like I said, it’s just falling water. It gets old, quick, and it’s loud always. I like water, but rivers are enough for me.”
“So did you sell the cabin?”
He shrugged. “I rent it on occasion to foolish young couples who don’t know any better.”
“Why Dr. West,” Faith said in mock offense. “That is positively rude of you.”
“I’m a therapist,” he said with a smile, “not a saint.”
Faith woke with a gasp. Turk immediately barked and rushed to her side, licking her face.
She pushed him away gently. “I’m fine, Turk,” she said.
Niagara Falls. How had she forgotten about this? Dr. West had a cabin in the forest near Niagara Falls. If he had fled Philadelphia, that’s where he had gone.
She got out of bed and pulled up a map of Niagara Falls. Turk sat at her side, watching intently, sensing that Faith was doing something important.
There were a number of service roads that wound through the forest surrounding the falls on both the American and Canadian sides. Faith focused on the American side. It would be very difficult for West to make it over the Canadian border now that there was a manhunt for him.
Then again, he had bought the cabin long before the manhunt. Still, Faith imagined that a serial killer wouldn’t want his identity logged every time he wanted to take a weekend off in the woods. Odds are, he was on the States side of the falls.
She eliminated most of the service roads as being zoned for public use. A few more were eliminated because they were off-limits to anything other than government vehicles.
One road was open for public use but zoned for private use. Meaning that if Dr. West wanted to buy an acre or two and build a cabin nearby, he could.
She tracked the length of that road. It was about three miles long, a short spur that led from another service road into a thickly forested area.
Cabins lined the spur, although from this image, they appeared to be houses more than cabins. A small vacation subdivision. The perfect place for a serial killer to hang out. Far removed from the city but not so removed as to raise eyebrows. Faith wasn’t sure which one was West’s, but she imagined the answer to that would be clear when she arrived.
“Found you,” she said, grinning. “I found you, you prick.”
She reached for her phone and called Michael. It went to voicemail. She sighed irritably and tried again. Once more, no answer.
She dropped the phone onto the table and pressed her palms to her temples. Of course, it made sense that when she decided to do the right thing and call for backup, her partner wouldn't answer his phone.
Well, could she blame him? She hadn’t exactly been a good friend to him. Not in a while.
Just answer the phone when I call.
Well, she called. He didn’t answer the phone. That was answer enough.
She took a deep breath and released it slowly. She could feel sorry for herself later. Right now, she has a job to do.
She looked at Turk, who continued to gaze intently at her.
“Ready for round two, boy?”
He barked assent, and Faith smiled grimly. “All right then. Let’s go catch a bad guy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
This cabin was far nicer than the one in Pennsylvania. It was larger, the size of a small ranch house rather than the one-room lodge on the Titmouse. A brick chimney extended three feet beyond the shingled roof, and the logs were sealed with some sort of epoxy resin for weatherproofing and sturdiness.
Despite the admittedly overwhelming drone of the nearby falls, others had apparently decided to build their own vacation homes here. There were a dozen houses of a similar layout to West’s. The tourist season was over, so none of the houses were occupied, but the mood wasn’t of some reclusive cabin in the woods so much as it was of some idyllic picture-perfect cookie-cutter suburb. Faith was reminded of that old movie where all of the houses looked the same, everyone wore the same outfits, and everyone drove the same vehicle out of their driveways at the same time.
A Jeep was parked on one side of West’s house, lifted and modified into a true bug-out vehicle with balloon tires, tall suspension and armored panels. It was a bit of overkill for the admittedly rocky but far from impassable road that led here, but the perfect vehicle for someone who intended to disappear from society. Faith imagined West would drive it as far as he could, and when he ran out of gas, he would walk until he found the place he wanted to settle down at until things blew over.
