All of it just felt like a hazy slog, shuffling forward, her mind disconnected from the rest of her form.
“Sounds like they knew what they were doing,” she whispered. “Like maybe the car was the goal, and our daughter got swept up by accident?”
Dipping his head just slightly, Russo said, “I can see how that is something you would like to believe, but I must caution, it is highly unlikely. If that were the case, they would have let her go by now.”
Her focus shifted to the side, Amber felt hot tears rise to the underside of her eyes. There they settled, pooling, threatening to streak south down her cheeks.
With them came a pang of hostility, her every instinct to lash out, to ask this man why he had bothered coming by if he had no new information to share, why he wasn’t out looking for their daughter.
An inch at a time, the animosity she felt rose upward, threatening to come spilling out of her.
The only thing that cut it off was the buzz of her phone. A simple pulse, it vibrated against her palm, the electronic spasm enough to cut through the anger she felt and the torrent she was about to unleash.
Raising the face of the phone, she thumbed into her message center, seeing a single new entry waiting for her.
In the parking lot. Come down. We need to talk.
“Is that them?” Josh asked, his voice pulling her attention up to see him resting on the front edge of the loveseat.
A few feet away, Russo also stared at her expectantly, leaning a little further at the waist.
“Uh, no,” she managed. “Just a friend of mine, checking to see if we’d heard anything.”
Chapter Fifty-One
My sister-in-law shot out the front door of the place like a woman possessed. She didn’t bother to so much as glance in either direction as she went, burrowing her way through the thin foot traffic surrounding the front entrance.
In her wake, a handful of people turned and glared, looks of disgust on their faces.
She never said a word. Didn’t even bother to look back in their direction.
Just like the first time I saw her a day before, my first instinct was a tiny spasm in my chest. Even after so long, even knowing what happened to her, it was impossible for me to look at Amber and not see my wife. There were some differences for sure, but the semblance was striking enough to give me pause.
Same shade of blonde hair. Same facial structure. Even the determined walk she used, marching my way, her hands pumping by her side, was the same.
Amber was already a few years older, and more than six years had passed since, but it still reminded me of what looking at my wife a decade into the future would have been.
And, to be honest, I’m sure it looked better than the way I had fared in the time since.
Crossing over the driveway running alongside the hospital, Amber stepped up onto the curb separating it from the parking lot. Pausing, she extended up onto her toes, peering in both directions.
Not wanting to draw any undue attention my way, I bypassed using the horn. Cracking the door open, I stepped out and extended a hand into the air, retreating back inside the instant she saw me.
As she came my way, I shoved in the last of the protein bar I’d been working on, a bottle of water in hand to wash it down. Much like the food last night and this morning, I had no taste for it, the bar being nothing more than a means to an end.
Food meant calories, which in turn meant energy. And that was something I was going to need all I could get in the hours ahead.
I was still chewing the last morsel, working to get it down, as Amber swung into the passenger seat. Slamming the door shut, she glanced my way, her features neutral.
“What have you got?”
Straight to it, just as I’d figured.
“You first,” I said, shaking my head slightly. There was no point in me launching into everything that had taken place if the official lines of investigation had already beaten me to it.
“Me?” Amber asked, surprise in her voice. Extending a hand, she waved it at the hospital, and said, “I’ve been here. Stuck in this damn building, standing vigil on my son.”
“Is he awake yet?” I asked.
“In and out,” Amber replied. “He’s aware enough to know that he was shot, that his nose hurts like hell, and his sister is missing, but he doesn’t remember much at all. Says most of the night is just a black hole.”
I nodded slightly. I had figured as much. The trauma alone of a gunshot wound would be enough to create a gap in his recall, self-preservation kicking in, essentially scrubbing it from memory.
Coupling it with a shot hard enough to break his nose and give him a concussion, there was little chance he’d remember much. That was why I hadn’t bothered to press to see him. Even with the name of Ronell Brinks and his friends, even with pictures of all three from Pally, there would be no point.
All it would do was put images to the nightmares Eric would soon be having.
“Any word from them?” I said, careful not to use words like kidnappers or abductors, things that might unintentionally trigger her anger. Or even worse, cause her to clam up tight.
“Nothing,” she replied. “We’ve both had our cell phones on, and Josh forwarded the home line. There’s been no attempt by anyone to reach out.”
A day ago, that would have been terrible news. It would have told me that whoever had Elyse wasn’t concerned with money, didn’t nab her for any form of extortion.
Now, it was still very bad, but it didn’t surprise me.
The S-2 didn’t sound like a group that had much interest in that sort of thing. It left too much of a footprint, required too much face time between various parties.
“Police?”
A derisive snort tilted her head back an inch. “Asshole acts like it’s our fault. Says he put out an alert for the car and tried to track it through traffic cameras, but outside of that, there’s nothing he can do until someone calls.”
I accepted the information without reaction. It sounded like a vast oversimplification of the investigation process, like someone that would rather wait for a conclusion to drop into their lap instead of actually putting in any work, but I made sure not to let the slightest inkling of that show.
No matter how vile she might have been to me in the past, she was a mother in a state I could only guess at.
And she was family.
“What have you found?” Amber asked, this time making it clear that it was my turn to do the talking.
Parked in the rear of the lot, my gaze moved over the scene before us. Careful to look everywhere but to my immediate right, I saw as handfuls of people came and went from the facility, many of them trading parking spots in the front few rows.
Above, the sun was already starting to trudge toward the horizon. The longest days of the year now well behind, shadows were lengthening, promising to bring chilly air with the coming evening.
“I started this morning at the Antioch Galleria, just like you mentioned,” I began. In short order, I ran through everything I’d done in the time since. I profiled the crime scene as I found it, from the vantage point that had been used to the flattened bottle that was likely what caused them to stop and Eric to climb out.
I didn’t bother to mention that the police hadn’t even thought to bag and take it along as evidence, likely discarding it as nothing more than common parking garage detritus.
Without slowing down, I shoved straight through reaching out to Pally, referring to him simply as an electronic and surveillance expert I had worked with at the DEA. I outlined how we had found the images of Elyse leaving in the BMW, followed by Pierce and Bernstein thereafter.
About how that had led me to Bernstein’s house.
In my periphery, I could see her hands tighten when I mentioned pushing my way inside and finding the room where Elyse had been held. Her knuckles glowed white beneath her skin as she clutched the meat of her thighs, her body rigid.
Glossing over some of the deta
ils of my interaction with the two young men, I told her about the S-2 and the warehouse in West Nashville. I outlined the meeting with Pete Simpkins and everything he had to say.
When I was done, I looked to the clock on the dash to see I’d been talking for the better part of ten minutes. All of it uninterrupted, I could feel my heart rate had increased. My chest rose and fell as if I was out of breath.
Once I was done, I unscrewed the top from my water bottle and upended it, letting half the contents slide down my throat. Giving Amber all the time she needed to process, I drank some more, before returning it to my thigh.
In total, it took her just a couple of minutes to get back to me.
“So she’s alive,” she whispered.
The question of whether or not Elyse was still breathing had never entered my mind, though I could imagine that someone in Amber’s position must have run through every possible scenario in her mind. Having heard nothing from the kidnappers, it wouldn’t be surprising if most of those had started to trend toward the negative.
Or even the horrific.
I thought of correcting her, of mentioning that she was of this morning, though I opted against it.
“Where are the boys now?” Amber asked. “Did you...?”
“No,” I replied, finishing the clear insinuation for her. “I didn’t kill them. I wanted to, but I thought we might need them later.”
A flash of blonde hair informed me she was looking my way. Bracing myself, I waited for a sharp retort, though none came.
Instead, she simply turned to face forward as well.
“Did you make them pay?”
I did. I did things to both of them I hadn’t done to another human being in years. Things I thought I had left behind.
Things that returned with an ease that would probably be frightening if I stopped to actually think about it.
I considered telling Amber about them in excruciating detail. I thought of grabbing the ball bat from the back seat and showing her the blood staining the aluminum.
But I didn’t. I could tell she wanted revenge, but I’d come to learn over the years that was a construct many people didn’t truly understand. They wanted someone to pay for what had happened, for their own fear or unhappiness, but they weren’t actually prepared to see what had gone into it.
“Those two won’t be hurting anybody else for a long, long time,” I said.
“Good,” she whispered. Lowering her face toward her lap, she slowly unfurled her hands from her legs. Laying them flat on her thighs, she leaned forward, drawing in deep breaths.
I kept keep my eyes facing out. I stared at the elderly man that opened the car door for his wife two rows over, watched as he closed it behind her and shuffled around to the driver’s side.
But I couldn’t ignore the sound of her deep breathing. Or the stifled sniffles that came with it.
“What are you going to do?” she whispered.
I still didn’t bother looking her way. “Whatever you want me to.”
“Meaning?” she asked.
“Meaning, if you want me to hand this over to the police and step aside, I will,” I said.
There was no way of knowing even if Elyse was at the warehouse. If she’d ever been there, or hadn’t just stopped in before being shuffled off again.
What I did know for sure was that walking into a place like that, alone, would be dangerous. And more than a little foolish.
Contemplating it for a moment, Amber grunted softly. She shook her head, the sound and the movement both steeped in frustration.
“I called you because I needed you to find my daughter,” she said. “That’s what I want.”
Every possible response I could give her, every reason why it would be crazy, sprang to mind, though I didn’t bother voicing a single one.
She was right. She had called and asked me for a favor. Completing it wouldn’t make things right between us, but that was hardly the point.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” she said. Reaching for the handle, she tugged back, cracking the door open slightly.
“When I got there,” I said, making her pause without turning to look my way, “one of the guys had this enormous chunk sliced out of his side. Long cut, deep gouge, lot of blood.”
Shifting just slightly, she looked at me, saying nothing.
Matching her gaze, I said, “She’s a fighter. She’ll do what she was to to stay alive, and I’ll do what I have to to find her.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
John Kuntzman thought of the place like a medical clinic, though in reality, it was nothing more than the back room in the home of someone that happened to be a physician. Thrown together on the cheap, the place had an examination table and a row of cabinets on the wall, each filled with enough remainder supplies to render basic care.
Beneath it was a standard counter and sink. A bin for disposing of sharps hung on the wall. A smaller bin beneath it was set up on the floor, the top of a red plastic bag hanging over the edge, the universal symbol for biohazard stamped on the lid.
Fluorescent bulbs were inset into the ceiling, tossing an unnatural shade of light over everything.
Seated in the sole chair along the side of the room, Kuntzman angled himself sideways. Attempting to find a spot where the plastic corners of the seat weren’t digging into his ribs, he shifted once more before balancing his hat on one knee.
A few feet away, the girl was perched on the front edge of the examination table. With her feet hanging down over the side, her palms were pressed down into the pad she sat on, fingers squeezing it tight.
Beside her, the man Kuntzman had brought her to see stood with an elongated cotton swab in hand, the tip of it stained pink. Dabbing at the open cut on her face, he cleaned away what bit of dried blood was present, oblivious to her wincing.
“How bad, Doc?” Kuntzman asked.
The man’s name was Dr. Martin Childress, though Kuntzman had never used the title. Another of the many people he’d been put in contact with since taking up this post, he was told to make a point of never using the name in the presence of others.
Thinking it better to avoid the subject altogether, he referred to the man simply as Doc, never needing to be careful about how or when he addressed him.
“Pretty standard,” Doc replied. With a set of glasses perched on the end of his nose, he continued cleaning the wound, the smell of antiseptic in the air.
The scent was just enough to keep Kuntzman from smirking at the scene, the spectacles completely out of place on a man that looked like Doc. Several inches shorter than Kuntzman, the man was built like a barrel, everything from his knees to his shoulders seeming to bow outward in one smooth arc.
Around either side of his midsection hung the lapels of his white coat, revealing a pair of jeans and Vanderbilt Med t-shirt beneath.
Brown curly hair was splashed across his head, chin, and forearms, the sheer amount of it being what Kuntzman would consider a hygienic hazard.
Not that anything in the place was too concerned with such matters. The shop was little more than a plug-and-play, a spot where Kuntzman could get minor care done without going to the trouble of bothering with a hospital or clinic.
Places where they might want paperwork or start asking questions about how something happened.
Doc knew better. Just like he knew that cash was the best currency.
“Nothing structural?” Kuntzman asked.
“Naw,” Doc replied. “Couple of stitches and a few days to heal, won’t even know it ever happened.”
“Nice,” Kuntzman replied. And it was.
In person, the girl was even better than Big Man had previously stated. It had been a mess getting her, but the payoff afterward would be worth it. Asai would be pleased. A girl that looked like her would be quite the commodity.
Netting him and everybody involved a lot of money.
Feeling his phone begin to vibrate against his ribs, Kuntzman moved to the side. The point of the
chair again jabbed into him as he extracted the phone, checking the screen before looking back at the pair before him.
“Hey, I need to-“
“Take it outside,” Doc replied without looking over at him. “I gave her a light sedative. We’ll be fine in here.”
Nodding, Kuntzman rose from the chair. He clamped the hat back on his head and exited out into the hallway, retracing the steps they had made upon arrival.
A moment later, he stepped outside, the light of day fast fading from the sky. With it, the temperature had already dropped a half-dozen degrees, threatening to go even further in the hours ahead.
“Yeah?” Kuntzman said. He made it as far as the side of his truck before stopping, leaning forward and resting his elbows against the side of the engine.
Within the confines of Doc’s backyard, there was no need to worry about being overheard. The man lived alone, his property lined with mature oak and pine trees. A small gate was the only entrance, having been closed the moment Kuntzman pulled inside.
His own personal garden, free of eavesdroppers or onlookers.
“Where is she?” Detective Ben Russo asked.
“We’re at Doc’s now,” Kuntzman replied. “Meeting up with Paco in a bit.”
“Doc’s?”
“Just a scratch,” Kuntzman replied, not appreciating the insinuation. “Kid that grabbed her got a little overzealous. Why? What’s up?”
In the background, he could hear absolutely nothing.
“I’m sitting outside the hospital now,” Russo replied. “I just met with the girl’s family, and I got the impression they’re hiding something.”
Raising the toe of his boot, Kuntzman kicked at the front tire, his foot bouncing back off the rubber.
“What? There’s no way they could know anything. Her being grabbed last night and our request happened almost simultaneously.”
Russo paused, lingering just long enough to let it be known he didn’t appreciate the statement or the sentiment behind it. “I know that, but I still think the mom might have someone looking into things on the side.”
Home Fire: A Suspense Thriller (A Hawk Tate Novel Book 5) Page 18
