“You the guy from the state?”
Pulling his focus away from the scene before him, Reed slid his gaze across the yard to an approaching member of the tech crew. A person Reed hadn’t noticed while driving past earlier, the top half of his Tyvek suit unzipped and peeled back, hanging down around his waist.
Standing almost even with Reed’s six-foot-three, the man weighed at least thirty pounds less. A build that wasn’t so much slight as simply stripped of anything extra, every muscle and tendon in his neck and arms plainly visible.
“Reed Mattox.” Stepping down off the sidewalk, he headed diagonally to intercept the man’s path, his hand extended. “Over there is my K-9 partner, Billie.”
Matching the shake, the man nodded hello before cutting his gaze toward the driveway.
“Ed Wainwright, most folks call me Wain.” Releasing the grip, he hooked a thumb toward the vans behind him and added, “My team, Scoot and Agnes.”
Glancing the direction Wain had gestured, Reed said, “Appreciate you guys making the trip over here so fast.”
“Same to you,” Wain replied. “When they said a team was coming down out of Columbus, figured it would be this evening at best before we saw anybody.”
Not an unreasonable assumption by any means, the thought of telling the man that it wasn’t really his choice occurred to Reed. Same for a good many other comments, most of them some variation on a crack at the governor’s expense.
Statements best left unsaid for the time being, his attention going back to the sanguineous mural along the front of the house.
“What can you tell me about it so far?” he asked.
“We’re still processing,” Wain said, “so for the time being I’ll just start with the punchline.”
Reaching to the side pocket of his suit, Wain pulled out a clear plastic evidence bag. One of the smallest size available, no more than a couple of inches square with a press seal along one edge.
A container more than large enough for the single item it contained.
“Most houses these days use wood framing,” Wain explained. “Since this one technically rests within the flood plain of the Ohio, the whole first floor is made from concrete block. Between that and the brick, kept the bullet from passing clear through.”
Extending it before him, he fell silent as Reed accepted the offering and held it up for inspection.
Even with one end of it mashed beyond recognition, it still measured the better part of a centimeter in length. Long enough that the base end of it still maintained some semblance of a shape, the sides cylindrical, the bottom flat.
“Damn,” Reed muttered.
“Yep,” Wain agreed. “I’ll have to get it back to the lab for a complete assessment, but best I can tell, that is a .300 Winchester Magnum round.”
Lifting his gaze from the bag to the house before him, Reed again took in the grisly scene. The blood spatter painting the brick and the front walk.
Damage wrought by a bullet normally reserved for taking down large game.
“Meaning this was either a hunter way out of season having terrible aim...”
“Or somebody wanted to make sure this poor woman didn’t walk away,” Wain finished.
Chapter Nine
Based on the state of the bullet and the angle it entered the front of the house, Wain estimated that the shot that put it there was around two-hundred-and-fifty yards. A distance that was barely a quarter of the bullet’s effective range, making it an easy feat for anybody familiar with a rifle.
Especially considering the hillside overlooking the house was one enormous firing platform, providing an elevated position and complete cover for someone to get into and out of with very little risk of being spotted.
“Alright, how about here?” Reed asked. Bent forward at the waist, he held a small square of glass borrowed from a crime scene unit kit in one hand. In the other was the Maglite from his sedan, using it to pass a beam of light across the face of the mirror.
An extremely rudimentary methodology that was about the best they could hope for under the circumstances, the heavy canopy and bright sunlight combining to make most other methods of being spotted from a distance too difficult.
Cover that the shooter almost certainly took into account when choosing an optimal position.
Stepping forward in Reed’s periphery, Meigs planted a boot on a rock peeking up from a bed of leaves. Leaning forward, she braced an elbow atop her knee, a two-way radio in hand. “Wain? You got us?”
Shifting his gaze to stare forward, Reed could make out a small snippet of the house across from them. A smear of red against a backdrop of green, any detail beyond that indiscernible.
“Yeah, I see you,” Wain replied after a moment of fuzz. “Still too close. I’m reading you at about a buck-seventy right now.”
Rolling his face toward his shoulder, Reed swiped his forehead across the sleeve of his shirt. Stripping away a fair bit of the humidity-induced perspiration lining his brow, he asked, “How’s our line?”
Raising the radio a second time, Meigs asked, “Angle okay?”
Stationed equidistant between them, Billie swung her muzzle from one to the other. A spectator at a sporting event following the action back and forth, her pink tongue easily discernible amid the mottled shadows of the forest.
“Looking good there,” Wain answered. “Just need to climb some.”
“Copy that,” Meigs replied.
Clicking on the end of the Maglite, Reed extinguished the light, stowing it away in the rear pocket of his jeans. A movement Meigs matched beside him, returning the radio to her belt before drawing a handkerchief out and using it to mop her face.
A losing proposition, the heavy canopy above serving to trap in the damp air rolling over from the river nearby. Moisture that was being superheated by the afternoon sun, turning the entire hillside into a veritable sauna.
Retreating back from the rocky outcropping that had afforded the small window through the trees, Reed returned to the trail. A game path that was only wide enough for the three of them to travel single file, their journey a constant process of crouching or knifing their shoulders to either side to avoid low-hanging limbs. Stray branches that tugged at their clothes and the straps of the packs they wore.
Slow moving that had Reed’s eyes burning with sweat, his entire t-shirt nearly soaked through.
Same for Meigs beside him, the tips of her hair separated into damp tendrils, small droplets of sweat and humidity dripping down onto the collar of her uniform shirt.
Grabbing up his pack from the ground, Reed uncinched the top and drew out a bottle of water. One that had been brought from home, already it had lost most of its original chill, Reed not caring in the slightest as he removed the top and took down a long pull.
When he was finished, he dropped to a knee, all the signal Billie needed to pad closer.
“Stay on the same course?” Reed asked, glancing up to follow the ascension of the trail they’d been on since slipping into the woods fifteen minutes earlier. A route that looked to wrap itself up the hillside at an angle, following whatever provided least resistance, carved by runoff and later commandeered by wildlife passing through.
“We can give it a try,” Meigs said, stepping up beside him. Her own bottle of water in one hand, her opposite fist was planted against her belt. Staring off in the same direction as Reed, she considered the option before lifting her gaze to the rising face of the hill.
A climb that rose at a much sharper angle, void of any clear path to speak of. A hike that would basically be bushwhacking, requiring them to force their way through thick undergrowth.
“Or you wanting to go for the faster option?” she asked, lifting the water to gesture up the hillside.
Offering the suggestion no more than a moment of consideration, Reed returned his focus to his partner. Extending the bottle before him, he drizzled the water out in a slow trickle, allowing Billie to draw it in with quick flicks of her tongue.
<
br /> “As appealing as faster does sound right now,” Reed replied, “I’m seeing two big drawbacks. First, trying to get through that brush would be hell on Billie.”
To that, Meigs grunted in agreement though said nothing, letting him continue.
“Second, I’m guessing that our guy probably followed some form of trail to get in here, so if we just go tearing up the hillside...”
“We’re likely to go crashing right through his hide,” Meigs said, finishing the thought.
“Exactly,” Reed agreed, doling out the last of the water before screwing the cap back on the bottle and rising to full height. “Defeat the whole damn purpose.”
Chapter Ten
The time from the moment Reed and Billie and Meigs entered the woods to when they stopped to check their positioning and take water was fifteen minutes. Told they needed to go another thirty to fifty feet in flight distance, it took an additional ten minutes for them to work their way at an angle across the face of the hillside before finally finding what they were looking for.
A makeshift path even fainter than the one they had been on previously cutting back in the opposite direction. A narrow fold folded into the dense forest with ample sign that someone had been through recently. Broken twigs and small smears in the mud. Markers of someone that had been moving fast, no longer completely concerned with hiding their movements.
Flush with the adrenaline of finally spotting what they’d been searching for, the pace of the group increased. A climb that was just short of a jog, the team needing just five more minutes to reach their ultimate destination.
Exactly a half hour invested to find themselves where they now stood.
A spot Reed recognized in an instant, even without going the extra step of using the mirror and flashlight to get another measurement reading from Wain.
“Look at that,” Meigs whispered, staring at the pile of tall grass and leaves arranged in a loose heap on the ground just off the side of the path. A makeshift pallet that had been culled together to brace against the rocky outcropping under it and then kicked a few times upon departure to keep it from being so obvious.
An effort that, like the signs on the trail leading them in, had been hasty at best. Half-hearted swipes in hope that if somebody did ever make it this far, they might not notice.
The start of a destruction that would be taken over by time and the elements soon enough.
“Made himself a damn shooter’s nest up here,” Reed whispered. Taking a step forward, he stopped just shy of the tangle of grass and leaves. Lowering himself into a crouch, he dropped the top of his head to the side, peering out over the ledge of the rocks before him.
A view not exactly in line with that of the shooter, but close enough he was afforded a clear line of sight to the house a couple of hundred yards away. A gap that was a few feet square, providing ample room to allow someone to sight in on the house.
Especially considering it was likely being done through the tight focus of a riflescope.
Gaze narrowed, Reed stared at the brick façade a short ways off. Comparing it to the view just fifteen minutes earlier, he attempted to gauge the total distance in his mind.
A gap that, as soon as they got Wain to hit with his rangefinder, Reed was willing to bet fell right around the mark that was previously hypothesized.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered.
Easing up beside him, Meigs matched his stance on the opposite corner of the pallet. Elbows balanced across her knees, she craned her neck forward, peering out through the trees.
“Bastard could have been up here for days,” Meigs said. “Tucked away completely out of sight, watching them come and go.”
“Mhm,” Reed replied, his jaw tightening as he continued to stare straight ahead, having arrived at the same conclusion only a moment before.
Plenty of times in the last couple of years, he and Billie had investigated murder scenes. Before that, he’d been involved with countless more while working with his previous partner.
Cases that almost always fell under the heading of being crimes of passion. Instances of heated debates or unforeseen escalations, times when someone would get angry and reach for a weapon or catch somebody doing something they shouldn’t and overreact.
Quite rare were the occasions that included forethought. To commit murder often took a level of emotion and adrenaline that few people possessed outside of a very particular moment. A confluence of rage or shock or sorrow or whatever else strong enough to cause them to be willing to take another person’s life.
Making what they were staring at now all the more harrowing.
Never had Reed seen something like this. A scene where it was clear someone had done meticulous planning, not only identifying a target, but going the additional step of parking themselves on a hillside hundreds of yards away and observing from afar.
A commitment to process that was truly depraved.
“Hunting accident, my ass,” Reed whispered.
Forcing himself to look away from the house across the street, to not allow himself to continue imagining the shooter lying on the ground between them, staring through the scope of a rifle at Cara Salem in a way that bordered on fetish, he pushed himself to full height.
Shoving heavy breaths out through his nose, he took a step back.
And then another.
A retreat that made it as far as a third step before coming to an abrupt stop, his entire body clenching tight as his gaze fixed on a low-lying branch just inches away from his foot.
“Val?”
“Yeah?” she replied, still perched in her previous spot looking out toward the house.
“You have any evidence bags in that pack of yours?”
“Yeah,” she repeated.
His head cocked to the side, Reed tracked the sound of her movement behind him. The crunch of leaves as she rose and went to her pack. The clicking of the plastic clips along the top as she unfastened them.
The crinkling of plastic as she found what she was looking for.
His focus never once leaving what he’d spotted, his mind practically willed it to stay fixed in position as it shifted slightly with the faint movements of the air.
“You find something?” Meigs asked, pressing a bag into his outstretched hand.
Drawing it over in front of him, Reed grasped it in both hands and pulled open the press seal along the top. Leaving it gaping wide, he pinched the bottom of it between his thumb and forefinger, pushing it forward so the sides of the bag collapsed around the length of his digits.
An impromptu pincer, the best form of sanitary collection he could manage without gloves or tweezers.
“The thing about a working dog like Billie is that they use scent the way you or I use our eyes,” Reed said. “She doesn’t just smell the last thing to walk by, she picks up every bit of flora and fauna in the area and the animals that have stopped to piss on them.”
His hand ensconced in the plastic evidence baggie, Reed slowly extended it before him. Fingers flexed, he wrapped the baggie around the branch, clasping the entirety of it before starting to pull back.
“That’s why we couldn’t just have her lead us straight here,” Reed said. “Telling her just to go search in a place like this, with who knows how many different scents, would have been impossible.”
If she was confused at all by the sudden shift in his demeanor or the unasked-for teaching moment, Meigs didn’t let it show, merely replying, “The old needle in a haystack.”
“More like a needle in a needlestack,” Reed corrected. Turning back to face her, he kept the evidence bag out before him, letting her see what was clutched in his hand.
A small scrap of fabric no more than a square inch in size. A smear of camouflage cloth that he only just happened to see, spotting it snagged against a thorn along the edge of trail, resting at ankle height.
A snag the shooter probably hadn’t even noticed in their urgency to get away.
“But now...”
Picking up on the slight hint of anticipation in her voice, Reed replied, “As long as we want. Like I said, she can pull scents from something going back weeks or more.”
Offering a small nod in understanding, Meigs shuffled her feet, shifting her body perpendicular to Reed’s. Short, stilted movements covering no more than a couple of inches each, affording her a view of the shooter’s hide they’d uncovered just minutes before.
A movement Reed matched, gaze settling on the spot they’d been seeking for the last half hour.
“What are you thinking?” Meigs asked.
Choosing not to answer just yet, Reed slid his gaze from the shooter’s nest to his partner beside him. Body raised onto all fours, she seemed to be feeding off the sudden change in his physiology. The sharp spike in animosity that arose upon finding the hide and the bits of adrenaline seeping into his system after spotting the scrap of cloth.
A combination that had her practically bouncing in place. A coiled ball of energy aching to be utilized, merely needing a few good whiffs of the discarded material in his hand before tearing back down the hillside.
A reverse trek that would, at the very least, provide them with a third point of reference. Another spot to be combed through and analyzed, hoping the shooter made another mistake. Left something else behind that could point them to their next direction.
The completion of the first rule in any investigation.
Always work the scene, then the victimology.
“We should call it in to Wain,” Reed said. “Let him know we found the site so they can start making plans to get up here.”
Rotating her focus to look at him, Meigs asked, “And then?”
“And then we let Billie do what she does best.”
Chapter Eleven
The Promisor: A Suspense Thriller Page 5
