The Woodsman (The Jackson Clay & Bear Beauchamp Series Book 1) Read online

  The Woodsman

  B.C. Lienesch

  Contents

  Part I

  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

  Part II

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Part III

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Part IV

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2021 by B.C. Lienesch

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Name, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. For more information, visit: www.bclnovels.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  The subject matter is not appropriate for minors. Please note this novel contains profanity, violence, and kidnapping.

  First Digital Edition: July 2021

  For Meg

  My sentry,

  my savior,

  my soulmate.

  “Grief can destroy you — or focus you.”

  Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

  Part I

  Missing Persons

  1

  Jackson Clay was good at finding things. It had served him all his life and today was no exception. Ditching his pickup truck at a remote parking lot, he’d spotted the post that marked the local trailhead for the Appalachian Trail as soon as it came into view. On the trail, he made out the path for the David Lesser Shelter even though the sign for it had been taken out by a fallen tree. Every landmark he’d memorized he spotted long before he got to it. It all would’ve made for an easy hike. But Jackson wasn’t here for recreation. He was on a mission. He was here to find someone.

  To anyone else, he looked the part. Tall and muscular, his body showed no strain in shouldering the large rucksack on his back. His brown, close-cropped hair was tucked away underneath an olive green ballcap much the way his hazel eyes were masked by dark wraparound sunglasses. Add in his brown beard and the coat and pants he was wearing, and very little of his sandy complexion was left uncovered.

  The leaves crunched beneath his boots as he traversed a stretch of trail that traced the Virginia-West Virginia border. He listened as the mostly barren branches rustled in the early spring breeze. It had been an otherwise temperate day, but now, as the sun set, a storm system was forming in the valley to the west. The sky grew dark behind Jackson as he walked towards the fading light.

  The lack of foliage made it easy to spot the man coming up the trail the opposite way. Seeing him, Jackson instinctively reached for his Sig Sauer P320, sliding his hand around the cold metal grip and over the trigger. He slowed his pace and watched.

  The man was pale and wiry, drowning in a rain parka two sizes too big for him. The way he seemed to trip on a root every few feet told Jackson the stranger wasn’t exactly in his element.

  When the man looked up and noticed him, he smiled and gave a friendly wave. Jackson returned the man’s wave and tucked the pistol out of view.

  “Afternoon,” greeted the man, “How’s it going?”

  “Fine,” Jackson replied, “And you?”

  “Oh, I’m good,” replied the man, “Just wrapping up my second mile for the day. It’s about quitting time for me. A good solid two in a day? You can’t complain about that.”

  The man was better at talking than he was at walking. Jackson immediately wasn’t a fan.

  “Say, do you know how far it is to the next shelter,” asked the man.

  “It’s about a mile or so back that way,” Jackson replied, “Looks like a tree took out the sign for it. Look closely for the path or you’ll walk right past it.”

  “Oh, no,” said the man, “You don’t say. Looks like a storm’s blowing in. And my flashlight is dead. You don’t happen to have any AA batteries you could spare, do you?”

  Jackson paused a moment, deciding whether or not to fix the man up. Better to get him squared away and moving, he thought.

  “No problem,” Jackson said.

  He slid the rucksack off his shoulders and let it drop onto the ground. As he opened one of the front pockets, he slid his sleeves up, revealing the tattoo on his forearm.

  “Whoa, that’s some tat,” said the man, “You served?”

  The tattoo was a snake wrapped around a sword behind a shield. The shield was green and blue with a white sun and star and a red lightning bolt in the middle. The Ranger insignia. Over top of it was a furled banner that read 75 RANGER RGT.

  “Yup, 75th Ranger Regiment,” Jackson replied.

  “Where’d you serve,” asked the man, “Iraq? Afghanistan?”

  Jackson’s first deployment had been Kosovo, but the man wasn’t wrong, either.

  “Here’s four AA batteries,” Jackson said, ignoring the man’s questions, “Is that enough?”

  “Plenty, thanks,” replied the man.

  “Sure thing,” Jackson said.

  Zipping up the front pocket he’d rummaged through, Jackson slid the rucksack back onto his shoulder and buckled it across his vest.

  “Good luck,” Jackson said as he started to continue on.

  “Thanks again. I’m Rick, by the way,” Rick replied.

  Jackson turned around and looked at Rick. He gave him a terse smile.

  “Stay dry, Rick,” Jackson replied, “You’re going to want to beat that weather to the shelter.”

  Before Rick the talker could say anything back, Jackson disap
peared around the bend in the trail.

  He stepped up his pace now. Rick had slowed him down. His mind told him to double-check his GPS to see how far it was, but that would only take more time.

  Time Jackson didn’t have. He was on a mission. He was here to find someone.

  And Jackson Clay was good at finding things.

  2

  Sara Beth Parker slammed the door so hard a couple screws came loose as the hinges rattled in recoil. Her mother was still yelling something at her, but she wasn’t listening. She didn’t want to hear it. What she wanted was to punch the woman she actually truly loved square in the face.

  She paced the room angrily, her rage converting into pent up energy she wasn’t quite sure how to expel right then. Sitting down on the edge of her bed, she reached for her phone, probably more so out of habit than anything else, and scrolled furiously through her social media accounts as she contemplated her next move.

  All she wanted to do was what everyone else was doing. Okay, not everyone. But her friends, at least. Elizabeth Schuster’s father had invited them all to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for spring break. A trip with her name on it that wouldn’t cost her parents a dime? She thought for sure she was in. That was, until she came home from school this afternoon and her mother quashed the idea with a quick and unceremonious ‘no’.

  Sara scrolled past Stephanie Adams’ most recent post as she continued to brood.

  10 days until Cabo Wabo!!!

  “Bitch,” Sara growled.

  She scrolled some more. Her screen became a slideshow of selfies, memes, and animal videos. She was watching a particularly obese cat struggle to clean itself before her phone buzzed and beeped with an incoming FaceTime. The name Emily Green flashed across the screen. Sara hit answer.

  “Hey,” Sara Beth said in little more than a sullen whisper.

  “Hey, I can barely hear you,” Emily replied, “I can barely see you, too.”

  “Sorry, hold on,” Sara Beth replied.

  She pulled her hoodie off and brushed her dark chocolate hair away from her face. A pretty girl, Sara had a peachy complexion, large green eyes and thin lips that naturally curved into a smile, though now they were frowning.

  “Uh, oh,” Emily replied, “Didn’t go as you expected when you got home, huh?”

  “She fucking said no,” Sara Beth stammered, “Can you believe that?”

  “I’m sorry, hon,” Emily said, “Did she say why?”

  “No! That’s the worst part of it! No reason! No reason whatsoever! Just a ‘no’. And ‘because I said so’. It’s bullshit. I swear, the things that woman makes me think of doing.”

  “I wouldn’t, orange isn’t your color.”

  The two of them laughed until a brief silence lingered.

  “Well, as long as you’re not going anywhere,” Emily said, “You might as well come out with us tonight.”

  “Ha, yeah right,” Sara Beth answered, “Adolf downstairs just nixed a parent-supervised trip. You think she’s going to let me go downtown alone with you?”

  “It won’t be just me,” Emily said, “Jessica and Katia are going, too.”

  “Oh, terrific. Yeah, that’ll sell her.”

  Emily laughed.

  “She doesn’t have to know, dummy,” Emily said, “You could sneak out. And, hey, if you get busted, it’s like you said: you’re not going anywhere for Spring Break, anyway.”

  Emily’s logic always seemed to have a way of getting Sara Beth in trouble. It was a particularly hazardous quality in a best friend.

  “I’ll think about it,” Sara Beth said, giving in.

  “Don’t think,” Emily replied, “Just do it.”

  Don’t think, Sara Beth thought. That could be the title of Emily’s memoir.

  “Maybe,” Sara Beth said, allowing a small smile to replace her scowl.

  “Alright, lady,” Emily replied smiling, “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “Good! Bye,” Sara Beth said, chuckling.

  The screen went blank as the call ended. Sara Beth sighed as she scooted back into the bed and crossed her long legs. She opened Instagram up on her phone and searched for photos of Cabo San Lucas. Her screen became a sliding kaleidoscope of sun-drenched beaches and emerald blue water. She tapped on a photo of three women playing in the surf. She pictured herself as one of them, running and laughing as the warm ocean water lapped at her feet.

  But she wasn’t a woman on the beaches of Cabo San Lucas. She was a 16-year-old girl lying in her own bedroom of her family’s quiet house in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Suffocating in the claustrophobia of her small town, drowning in the sea of things she wanted to do but couldn’t. What did she know about Cabo? It might as well be Mars to her.

  She flopped back and stared at the ceiling, replaying the fight with her mother in her head, when her phone buzzed. She looked over. It was a text message from Emily.

  TONIGHT! COME!

  Looking back at the ceiling, Sara Beth sighed again. It was bad enough she was going to miss Mexico, but if she had to stare at this ceiling all night with its chipping plaster and faded paint, she was going to go stir crazy.

  Emily had offered her an out. And she was thinking about taking it.

  3

  Jackson was studying the sky as the first clap of thunder boomed in the distance. The temperature had risen as the air above had become more unstable and was now heavy with humidity. The storm would be on him shortly. On them, if he could make it there on time.

  He checked his handheld GPS one more time. He was less than a half mile from the waypoint he’d programmed in. Perfect, Jackson thought. At this pace he’d be there in five minutes.

  The branches of the oak and hickory trees rattled hauntingly overhead as the blue sky was slowly covered with dark gray clouds. The warm and sunny spring day was shaping up to be a stormy night.

  Jackson had seen only two hikers since Rick the talker. They were an older couple headed north. Jackson had smiled politely as they passed, but now there was no one. Even the birds had stopped chirping. Jackson was alone and in his element.

  He moved swiftly down the trail, taking each step as though he’d made it time and time before. He hadn’t – in fact he’d never been on this stretch of the trail before – but Jackson had spent his life in woods like these. A childhood of playing in them had served him well in Boy Scouts and running cross country. His friends from school used to joke it took him getting deployed to the Syrian desert in Iraq to keep him from the woods.

  A second clap of thunder broke the eerie silence, this time in the opposite direction of where the first had come. Jackson didn’t slow down to look. A rain storm wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle, but he wanted to be in position before it hit.

  Coming around a bend in the trail, the path straightened before jutting awkwardly around a small gully. That was the final landmark.

  Jackson jogged to the spot and pulled out his GPS. Right on target. He checked the trail each way and scanned the woods to either side of him. There was no one.

  “Go time,” he said under his breath.

  Dropping the pack off his shoulders, he unzipped it and pulled out a Winchester Model 70 rifle that could be folded in half to stow away. He assembled it and laid it on the ground.

  Another clap of thunder. Jackson kept moving.

  He pulled out his FLIR infrared monocular, gun holster, and his P320 pistol. Jackson put the gun in its holster and attached it to his leg. He put the monocular in a coat pocket, grabbed the rifle, and slung his pack back across his shoulders.

  In less than two minutes, Jackson had transformed from recreational hiker to someone resembling a paramilitary operative. He looked around again before stepping off the trail and down into the gully as he headed for the side of the mountain. This is where he and the Appalachian Trail parted ways. The rest of his trek wouldn’t be on this trail or any other.

  4

  The decision about what to do tonight had consumed Sara Beth for the rest o
f the afternoon and into the early evening. She had hardly said anything at dinner, stirring the tomato and cucumber salad around on her plate as her parents debated how the Burrows down the street could afford that new Lexus parked in their driveway. They’d probably taken her silence as her continued protest of their decision, Sara Beth thought. She didn’t care. The less they knew, the better.

  After all, if she was going to go out tonight, there would be no running it by them first. That much she had decided. She wasn’t going to give them a chance to say no to her twice.

  If she couldn’t go to Mexico, she wanted to go somewhere. Did she think she’d really go out and make it back unnoticed? She didn’t know. But in that particular moment, she didn’t know if she cared, either.