“Yeah. She said Nicole seemed nervous, but she went with him; greeted him by name.”
“So the dealers were introducing themselves at the party,” Walsh said, joining them. To Eden: “Do you have a picture of Nicole?”
“I took one the first time I spoke with her.” She pulled out her phone. “I’ll text it to you.”
Fox surveyed the sidewalk, the street. It was just before lunch in a bustling part of the downtown shopping district, just one red light down from the club-owned properties on Main. No place to hide, a high chance of being seen. “There had to be a vehicle. A van or a truck. Something with a door he could shove her into and then take off. He wouldn’t have risked taking her far, not when she could scream for help or cause a scene.”
“So we’re looking for a kidnapping van,” Eden said. “I’m sure there’s not any of those around.”
“What about traffic cameras?” Walsh asked, pointing to the intersection, and the camera mounted above the stop lights.
“I’ll ask Vince about that, too,” Ghost said.
Fox could tell by his expression that he could feel the reins sliding through his fingers, his control of Knoxville pulling against his grip.
He also had the sense that this tug-of-war was only beginning.
~*~
Rottie slipped his phone into his pocket and glanced back at them over his shoulder. “Ghost said there’s a lab team on the way. I want to do a walk-through before they get here and trample everything.” He glanced toward the alleys of bent grass that zigged and zagged across the field behind the mill. “Again.”
Carter turned – before they started off, following Rottie and Hound’s careful tracks through the waist-high grass – to look back at the mill. It wasn’t quite noon yet, the sun still behind it, and the building’s shadow stretched toward them across the ground, as steep-roofed and sinister as the rickety structure itself. It had a smell of dust, and rotting wood about it, undercut by the algae tang of the stream that ran beside it. Though the Interstate was within earshot, the rush and hiss of passing traffic loud from the bridge overhead, it felt a world apart down here, like they’d stepped back in time, or entered an alternate dimension. One filled with the droning of flies and bees, studded by the low voices of their own group – and yet, somehow, for all that, afflicted with an eerie sort of stillness. It was a building that seemed to watch them. It had seen things, Carter thought, fought off a shiver, and followed his brothers.
A glimpse from the corner of his eye proved that Reese walked beside him, his bright hair tied back into a utilitarian knot. He hadn’t bothered to cover the bandages on his hands or arm; they’d been affixed with a knowing hand, as tight and tidy as hospital wrappings.
Stepping up, Mercy had said. He seemed to be doing that on all fronts, lately, so he said, “How’re the hands? And the arm, I guess.”
Reese flicked him the barest, questioning glance as they walked, then resumed watching the path ahead, careful to follow in Hound’s tracks, rather than leave any of his own. “Sterilized. They’ll heal.”
When he’d first met him, those sorts of comments had left Carter uneasy; Reese talked like a robot from a post-apocalyptic movie, rather than a regular twenty-something boy. But he thought, now, that he was starting to hear the faint threads of uncertainty in statements like those; Reese wasn’t the sort who would ever ask someone how to sound more normal, wouldn’t admit to his own strangeness.
He thought about what Mercy had said last night, about how Reese wasn’t the wild card of their two assassins, that he could be trusted.
He thought about what else Mercy had said, about his own lack of involvement and interest.
About crossing that bit of distance earlier, and the fast press of lips with Leah; about the prospect of more.
He took a breath. “That was really quick thinking last night. Stopping Tenny like you did. I didn’t react fast enough to get to him in time.”
“You couldn’t have stopped him,” Reese said, matter-of-factly. It clearly wasn’t meant as an insult. “You don’t know where to pinch on the wrist. You aren’t used to being cut. And he would have killed you, anyway, for trying.”
“Heh? You think. Probably. He’s an asshole on a good day.” He thought he played it off well, but it was all too easy to imagine Tenny ripping the knife from between gripping palms and plunging it between ribs. What if he’d done that to Reese last night? What then? “Hey, what’s his problem lately? He’s being even more of a dick that usual.”
Reese didn’t answer right away, and a glance proved his hands had curled into fists, the bandages cutting into the skin, and his mouth had turned down at the corners. He unflexed his fingers, but it looked like it took effort.
“Did you guys have a fight or something?” He was pressing too hard, probably, but true curiosity was winning out.
“Yes,” Reese said. And offered nothing further.
“Dude, that sucks.”
Reese nodded and stepped over a spiky clump of blackberry leaves.
“I may have to get you to show me the trick with the wrist pinch sometime.” Reese turned his head a fraction to regard him, brows lifted an infinitesimal amount in silent question. “In case I ever need to disarm anyone.”
After a long moment of his cold, blue, impossible stare, Reese nodded slowly and faced forward again. “I can show you.”
“Cool.”
Ahead, Rottie reached the tree line, and halted; squatted down and disappeared amid the tall grass. Everyone else halted, save Hound, who went to join his protégé, standing over him, looking down at whatever Rottie had found.
Carter cast another glance back at the building, its slanted shadow, the grass rippling like the sea in the stretch between. Crows squawked and fussed in the trees, unhappy about the human trespassers.
Something had happened here. He could feel it.
When he turned back, Rottie was standing, holding a dead, brown leaf carefully by the stem. “Blood,” he announced. “It’s old, and dry, and been sitting out in the sun and the rain, but it’s definitely blood.”
“Could be an animal,” Hound said, hands on his skinny hips. “Coyotes coulda killed a possum.” He was frowning, though, more than usual.
“Could be,” Rottie agreed, but he pulled out a clear plastic envelope and tucked the leaf carefully inside. “The pine straw’s disturbed here, going back through the trees. It’s too uniform to just be squirrels or birds digging around. It’s a trail. Someone walked – no, ran through here.” He glanced at Carter, specifically, as he tucked the envelope into his cut and said, “Walk very carefully. If you spot something, call me, don’t just pick it up.”
Carter nodded. “Yeah.” When they started up again, he said, “Still the incompetent one. Nothing changes.”
“No,” Reese said, surprising him. He stared at the ground, stepping lightly as they entered the shade of the forest. “You lack training.”
Carter felt another grin threaten. “I’ll have to work on that, too.”
“Yes,” Reese agreed, and fell silent again.
It was slow going, following the two trackers as they scanned, and knelt, and sniffed, and plucked at leaves, none of it jumping out at Carter as significant in any way. Though it was daylight, they clicked on flashlights often to sweep the ground, here in the shadow of the closely-clustered pines.
More blood was found on a green leaf still attached to its branch. A place where all the pine straw and litter had been disturbed, an uneven circle of bare dirt where a scuffle had ensued; Rottie snapped photos of partial boot and shoe prints; the shoes had been small, and distinctly feminine in shape.
Reese stood and fingered the bloodied leaf after the area had been cleared by the trackers, and a photo had been snapped. “This is his,” he mused, leaning in to sniff it – for a minute, Carter was afraid he’d lick it.
“How can you know?” Carter asked, moving to stand beside him.
“If they’re going to sell the girl
, they won’t want her injured. The only wounds we found on the girls in Texas were the places where their bonds had chafed, and where they’d bruised themselves jostling around in the dark. You can’t sell something damaged.” Matter-of-fact, and emotionless – but his frown was harsher than any expression Carter had seen on him before.
“Come along, boys,” Hound called, and they followed. Through a dry creek bed full of last year’s leaves, and up a slope, where it crested at a road. Carter heard the shush of traffic before they reached the shoulder.
Rottie looked both ways. A single truck trundled past, a flatbed loaded down with pallets. It was a two-lane, with badly cracked and faded pavement; not a major thoroughfare to be sure.
Two fresh tire tracks marred the near lane, thick, black rubber laid down as a vehicle had accelerated away from the curb. They were short. Not a great slide, but a quick, hard start, and then gone.
“This was where the van was staged,” Rottie said, grimly, pointing to the tracks. “Our boy wrestled her through the woods, and she was conscious for at least most of it, and then shoved her in the van, and off they went. He turned around and went back to meet with the Connors boy, told him she got away.”
“And the little dipshit didn’t notice he had blood on him?” Hound asked, spitting on the pavement, disgusted.
Rottie shrugged. “It was dark, the kid was drunk. Ricky could have been wearing dark clothes.”
“Okay, so they took her,” Carter said, pulse giving an uptick. “Where did he take her? Straight out of town? Or are they holding her somewhere?”
Rottie sighed. “That’s the million-dollar question. But if the friend got snatched, I’m thinking there’s a staging area of some kind. Maybe.” He shook his head. “Who knows.”
“Hey!” A voice called from down the hill. Carter turned and saw a CSI in a county windbreaker standing below, waving two blue-gloved hands to get their attention. “What the hell are you doing?”
“And that’s our cue to leave.”
~*~
Ghost called Vince Fielding about the traffic cams, but going through the proper channels, even with the wheels of justice heavily greased, took too long. Ratchet hacked into the city’s system and looked up the footage. A van had been parked one door down from the boutique where Nicole worked; her assailant, the self-appointed “Fred,” had taken her in his arms, and made wrestling her look like a young, passionate couple embracing right there on the sidewalk. One passing woman even gave them an ugly look and hurried past, never realizing what was really happening. Their faces close together like they were kissing, Fred bundled her into the sliding side door of the van, and tumbled in after her. The van pulled away before the door had finished closing.
Ratchet was able to zoom in on the license plate, and then find out who owned the vehicle: a Mr. Jorge Ortega.
He owned a matting and framing shop, one at the end of a strip mall, and that was where Fox and his four Stateside brothers stood, now, in the parking lot, surveying it.
“The van in the video didn’t have any lettering on it,” Albie said, “but I’m guessing it used to.” He pointed to the SUV parked out front, the one with decals advertising Ortega Frame on the rear windows.
“Easy enough to paint over it,” Fox said. “But they didn’t bother changing the plate.”
“How else could they waste our time on this wild good chase?” Walsh asked, tone dry, but Fox could read the tension in him, the lines of it pressed as grooves into his forehead. “Let me do the talking.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Fox said, as they headed for the door. “Shane, why don’t you ever challenge him?”
Shane cast a glance back over his shoulder, mildly amused. “I think you do enough of that for the whole family, Charlie.”
“Heh,” Albie deadpanned. “Got you there.”
Tenny trailed along silent and bored-looking behind his aviators, but Fox knew he held his own tension, and that it had nothing to do with this interview, and everything to do with the fact that he’d nearly stabbed his best friend last night.
That was a conversation for later. Right now: this.
A bell above the door jangled merrily as they entered. It was a small shop, that smelled of lacquer, its walls lined with frame samples, stacked up one above the other, pointing like arrows to the ceiling.
The proprietor – presumably Ortega – stood at the counter in back, and looked up at the sound of the bell. Fox noted the way his gaze widened as it skimmed across their cuts. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Walsh said; he and Shane headed for the counter.
Fox left them to it. Tenny had immediately slipped off down an aisle, and Fox followed at a slight distance. He was aware of Albie behind him, hovering, and cast a glance back.
Albie nodded toward Tenny’s back and mouthed, What’s with him?
Fox shook his head; he wasn’t going into that here, now. If Albie had remained this oblivious – and of course he had, he only had eyes for Axelle and his shop right now – then he could remain so a little longer.
He hung back, thankfully, and Fox tailed Tenny around an endcap and into the next aisle, this one’s shelves loaded with ready-made frames whose stock images could be replaced with personal photos or drawings.
Tenny reached out and tapped a pane of glass with the back of a fingernail. “You aren’t being subtle.”
“Not trying to be.” Fox drew up beside him. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you last night before you hid away in your room like a child.”
Tenny hissed a dismissive noise, lip curling as he side-stepped, trying to put some space between them.
Fox let him have it – but he didn’t drop the matter. “You nearly stabbed him. You did slice him up.” He let the words settle between them, watched the way Tenny’s jaw clenched. “Proud of yourself?”
Tenny turned to regard him through the mirrored lenses of his shades, and his effort to hold still, to not even swallow, was obvious – at least to Fox.
“You know,” Fox said, conspiratorial now, “Eden and I have been known to fight like cats and dogs. We were absolute bastards to each other when we reunited in London. But trust me: it’s a lot easier to just fuck, get it out of your system, and then carry on like adults.”
Tenny did swallow then, throat moving like it was dry and difficult. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, turning away, moving down the aisle in the same aimless way as before – but his shoulders were drawn up now, the line of his back rigid beneath his cut.
“If you deny it,” Fox said, and Tenny paused, hand half-outstretched toward another frame, finger poised to tap, “if you deny yourself this. You’ll be angry every day for the rest of your life. Anger like that will make you more human, sure – and more dangerous.”
Tenny took a breath and let it out slowly, whole body moving.
“Haven’t you gone long enough without ever having anything you want?”
Fox thought, for a moment, as Tenny wet his lips and gathered another breath, that he would respond, even if it was just to tell him to fuck off. But he kept silent, and moved off again.
When they reached the end of the aisle, Walsh was waiting. “The van was stolen two-and-a-half weeks ago. Overnight, out of this lot. He filed a police report.” He held up a flash drive. “And he made copies of the security footage that night.”
Fox nodded. “Where to next, oh wise and powerful vice president?”
Walsh smirked. “Your house.”
~*~
Eden had three laptops open on her desk, and flitted between all of them, barefoot and stripped down to just a t-shirt and the black jeans she’d worn earlier, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. “So, timeline.” She pointed to the corkboard, and the transcript of Jimmy Connors’ confession to Ghost; Fox had recorded it. “Our mystery dealers approach Jimmy, and start feeding product.
“Next, the van is stolen outside of Ortega’s.” She pointed to the first laptop, open on t
he paused security video which showed two masked men breaking into and hotwiring the van.
“Night of the party.” A spread of glossy photos she’d taken at the mill, and the second laptop, open to the lab results from Ratchet’s friend, confirming that shirt had belonged to Allie Henderson. “Allie goes missing, and Jimmy claims Ricky chased her off behind the mill, and she disappeared. There we have blood – on its way to the lab – signs of a struggle, and tire tracks.
“Today.” The third laptop, the traffic cam footage pulled up. “Nicole Myer is abducted outside of her place of work, with no contact since.” She straightened, and bit absently at one ragged thumbnail. “I’ve spoken with her parents, and tried not to alarm them, but they were headed down to the precinct, apparently.” She turned to survey them. “All of this smells like trafficking to me. Now we have to find where they’re being held.” Her expression shifted from fractious, to furious. “And find our Fred and Ricky as well.”
Fox was struck by a hefty dose of déjà vu.
Albie, too, judging by his frown. He had a shoulder braced in the doorjamb of the office, arms folded. “Why is this sounding so terribly like Texas?” he asked with a sigh. “It’s another manhunt.”
“No dead bodies yet,” Axelle said. She was seated in Eden’s office chair, twisting it aimlessly side-to-side. She shrugged. “For whatever that’s worth.”
“It’s worth a little,” Eden said. She turned to Walsh. “Any chance you know which empty barn or warehouse might be holding abducted girls?”
“Not off the top of my head, no. I say we lean on Jimmy again. They came to him, some, but he must have gone to them as well.”
Eden nodded. “I also asked your Lieutenant Fielding for a list of all the reported missing persons in the last three months. The victims we found in Texas were female, and all post-pubescent, so, using that criteria, I've found another of interest.” She plucked a print-out off the desk and handed it to Walsh, who then passed it around the room.
Shauna Davis, age twenty-five. The photo was of a slight girl with dark hair and a shy smile. She looked retiring, pulling back from the camera, her arms around a small dog, but her eyes were keen and bright, intelligent.
Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8) Page 29
