Snakes and ladders

Lexa was an expert in finding her victims.

And that worried him.

Striker sca

Or they were the extremely well-to-do – victims who had good jobs. Victims who had money. And extremely good credit. Victims who had been carefully selected, because they had no family. No friends. People whose entire life was work. People who no one would bother to worry about if they went missing or passed away from an unexpected tragedy.

Striker took the box from the back seat and passed it to Felicia.

‘I’ve been through these already,’ she said.

‘Not like this,’ he said. ‘Go through the files one more time, but this time look for victims who had status.’

‘Status? Why?’

‘Because with status comes money. When you get the top ten or fifteen income earners, run their name through the property registries and see if any of them owned property up in Whistler or Blackcomb.’

Felicia’s eyes took on an excited look. ‘One of them was another doctor,’ she noted. ‘And one was a lawyer, I think.’ She opened the box and started pulling files.

Striker drove back on to the highway and continued north towards the village. Ten minutes later, Felicia had compiled a list of the twelve most well-off victims. She got on the phone with her contact at the land registrar’s office, and began making notes. By the time Striker drove around the last curve of road and saw the bright halo lights of the ski resort, Felicia had already finished narrowing down their targets.

‘We got three,’ she said. ‘Four, if you count the lawyer who owned a cabin back in Furry Creek.’

Furry Creek. Striker was frustrated to hear that; they’d passed Furry Creek Golf Course over thirty minutes ago. To backtrack now would waste more time. ‘What about the other three?’ he asked.

‘All up here,’ she said.

‘A guy named Robinson – he was a stockbroker – owned a cabin right up on the mountain. In Whistler Creekside, on Nordic Avenue. The next guy, a man named Bellevue – he had old family money – lived on Panorama Trail. Last person’s name is Sutton. He lived just off the main drag.’

Felicia pulled out her iPhone and opened Google Maps. ‘These cars should have satellite navigation built into them,’ she griped.

‘Welcome to city funding,’ Striker replied. ‘Just start querying.’

‘Which one first?’

‘Whichever is closest,’ Striker said. ‘And hurry up. We’ve finally arrived.’

Ninety-Four

‘I knew it!’

As the Doctor stood above the Adder, looking down on him, the mask she wore crumbled once again, revealing the monster that lay behind it. Without thinking, the Adder closed the laptop and hit the Eject button.

‘The moment I saw the other DVDs, I knew you had more,’ the Doctor spat. ‘Give it to me.’

The Adder felt his heart hammer inside his chest.

‘No,’ he said.

The laptop’s DVD player ejected out the disc. The Adder gently took it from the DVD tray and tried to place it back in the case; before he could, the Doctor reached forward and snatched it from his hands.

‘I’m destroying this thing once and for all!’

‘No,’ he said.

And now there was a tightness spreading throughout his chest. Into his lungs. Into his heart. A strange empty feeling ballooning inside him.

‘NO!’

But the Doctor refused to listen.

She stormed out of the room with his precious DVD in her hand. It was his one and only copy, with the original lost – his last co

This time, the Adder acted.

Ninety-Five

The search for the first of the three properties ended as quickly as it began. The first place, a private cabin previously owned by David Sutton, had been bulldozed to make way for a new set of condominiums that were already being sold as timeshares.

From there, they drove across the small village to the address for a man named Reginald Robinson. They’d barely set up on the place when a grey Audi Q7 pulled into the driveway, and a family piled out.

Striker spent less than a minute watching them unload their snowboarding gear before realizing this was another dead end. He approached the father, showed the man his badge and credentials, and explained that they were looking for Reginald Robinson.

The man’s response was direct. ‘He doesn’t live here. Hell, we just bought the place last summer.’

‘Do you mind me asking from who?’ Striker asked.

‘A doctor from the City.’

‘Dr Osterma

The man nodded, and his face took on a nervous look. ‘Yes, I believe that was his name. Is everything all right? Should I be concerned?’

‘You’re fine,’ Striker said. ‘Thank you for your time.’

They left Robinson’s lot and drove to the last place on their list. As they made their way there, Striker felt a sense of futility wash over him. The last address they had was slightly farther out, on the east side of the village. If it was negative, they had nothing. It would be canvass time.

Not five minutes later, the road turned from asphalt to gravel, and they came to a T in the road. The right lane turned back towards the highway; the one to the left turned from gravel to hard-packed dirt, and ran straight.

Striker looked down that way. With the night fully cloaked and a fog brooding through the trees, all he could see was a mass of blackness, with the odd porch light piercing the haze. He parked the car on a small outcrop of gravel on the side of the road, then took out his flashlight and shone it all around the road, looking for a street sign. He could find none.

‘Google Maps says this is it,’ Felicia said. ‘Panorama Trail.’

He nodded. ‘It’s desolate.’

‘If we drive in, anyone there will see us coming a mile off.’

Striker agreed. Walking in was the best choice.

They got out and started up the trail.

The man who lived here before his death was Luc Bellevue. No transfer of property form had ever been filed, so by all accounts the place should have been used by his remaining family.

Striker and Felicia followed the bend of the road.

On the left side, a small lake appeared that was backed by tall thick trees that looked completely black in the night-time shadow. The air above the lake was dark and seemed clouded in mist. Everything was very, very quiet.

They marched on. A hundred metres later, around the long curve of lake, a cabin came into view. It was small. Quaint. Made of logs. It sat on the north side of the lake and backed right down to the shoreline.

When they reached the front of the cabin, most of the windows were dark and had the drapes pulled tightly across. Striker spotted movement in one of them. It was fast and fleeting, but it was there.

Someone was home.

Ninety-Six

The Adder found the Doctor downstairs in the study.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘PLEASE! ’

It was the tenth time he had begged her. He knew of nothing else to say.

She walked past him into the kitchen, a smile stretching her lips and her ice blue eyes holding him in their grip. It was as if she was enjoying this moment, relishing it. And the Adder knew that she was. Cruelty had always been one of her strongest traits.