Deserted

by E. H. Reinhard

“You think that these prostitute vics were going for that sort of thing?” Scott asked.

  “Hell, I don’t know,” I said. “To me, if I’m a prostitute and a pair of early-twenty-year-old women pull up wanting to pay me for sex, I guess that seems safer than some random guy.”

  I didn’t get responses from anyone.

  I held up my palms. “At least it does in my head. I guess I don’t see the profession as the discriminatory type.” I turned and looked at Beth.

  “You want me to try to think like I’m a prostitute, don’t you?” she asked.

  “You’re the only female opinion we have,” I said. “So, um, yeah.”

  “I don’t know,” Beth said. “I guess I have to agree with you. It seems safer.”

  “Right,” Scott said. “So.” He let out a long breath and spread a few papers before him. “Evidence says female. Evidence says strangulation via rope. Possible tractor trailer, red with maybe-larger-than-normal exhaust stacks. Possible twins that may be in their early twenties. Possible luring of victims, related to sexual activity. Lots of possibles and little actual evidence. What else do we have that ties the vics?”

  “Seems like all their wallets, purses, and valuables, if they had any, were taken,” I said.

  “So our suspects are essentially robbing the vics either pre- or postkill,” Scott said. “Unless we know precisely what was taken, valuableswise, we can’t search local pawn shops or anything. There has to be something that we can dig into.”

  I snapped my fingers and pointed at Scott. “Maybe CDLs.” The thought immediately faded. I continued, “Damn, maybe scratch that. Our possible eyewitness stated that someone else was driving while these two tried to lure him into the truck.”

  “Well, I don’t think a search for early-twenty-year-old women possessing commercial driver’s licenses is the worst idea,” Scott said. “Who knows, maybe after spending what looks like six years at least in a truck, they may have wanted to take over at the wheel.” He turned his mouth to the side in thought. “Sounds like a good job for Lewis and Marcus back at home base.”

  “I already asked Ball to have them look into what they could find on twin females with criminal records,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything back, though. I’ll give them a ring when we wrap up here and see what they can do on the CDL thing.”

  Bill cleared his throat. “To further that driving-a-semi line of thinking, what about weigh stations?” he asked. “Gallo said that circulating the description of the truck might not be a bad idea. Maybe we can add twin females to that and see what we get. I mean whether they’re driving or not. You’d have to think a pair of twin women would ring a bell somewhere—and if it does, we can check out some video. Or if someone spots these two, moving forward, they can get a tag and call us.”

  “That’s if they’re even bothering to pass through,” I said. “Passing through would suggest someone actually using the truck for business and following the rules. We don’t know if these two are doing either. They could also be traveling minus a trailer.”

  “Or not in a semi at all,” Beth said. “We might be running off with that a touch early. I mean, we don’t actually have anything concrete that says that’s what they’re in right now. Or, like our eyewitness said, they were both in the passenger window of the truck while it was driving, meaning that someone was driving them around. There’s nothing to suggest that these women are the ones actually operating the truck if that is in fact what they are in. Technically, we aren’t even certain that we are looking for a pair of twin females.”

  “Shit.” I shook my head. “Damn, you know, Beth does have a pretty valid argument. If we’re just going off of evidence found, we have what seems to be two assailants going by what the ME said with the victim’s injuries, and we have hairs from a female donor. We don’t know for a fact that we’re dealing with twins. We don’t have anything that says that they’re in a semi at all at the moment.”

  “Well, let’s not start shooting stuff down before we look into it,” Scott said. “Picking everything apart before we dive in won’t get us anywhere. I think we head in the direction with the investigation that we’ve been spitballing here until something tells us otherwise. Putting the twins back in Manassas on looking into a few things isn’t going to hurt. Putting the word out to weigh stations, as Bill suggested, seems like a pretty solid idea as well.”

  “Sure,” I said. “So what’s our first move in the morning?”

  “Let’s go look at the drop point,” Bill said.

  “I agree,” Scott said. “After we wrap up out there, we can head back to the Dallas office and put our heads together with the local agents. Make these calls and get some people working on a couple things.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me make this phone call back to Ball and see if he can get the twins started on the CDL search.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I woke a few minutes before seven, talked to Karen for ten minutes or so, and got ready for my day. The plan when we’d concluded the meeting was to leave the hotel by eight thirty, get over to the body dump site by nine thirty, and be back at the field office by around eleven thirty. Scott had taken a call from Supervisory Agent Gallo right before we concluded our meeting. Gallo said he wanted to have an all-hands-on-deck meeting around noon. Scott had informed him we would all be present.

  I sat at the edge of the hotel bed and slipped on my shoes. I glanced over at the clock on the small nightstand—7:35 a.m. I had enough time to grab a coffee and a quick breakfast from the lobby restaurant before we left. I grabbed my wallet from the top of the dresser holding the television and stuffed it into my pants pocket. I pulled on my suit jacket, which was hanging from the closet door, grabbed my cell phone from the charger plugged into the wall, and scooped up my room’s plastic key card. After I took two steps toward the door, my room phone rang at my back. I figured it was someone from the team inquiring about getting breakfast. I walked back and scooped up the phone.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “It’s Bill. When can you be ready?”

  “I’m ready now. I was just walking out the door to head downstairs for breakfast.”

  “Meet us down there, but grab your stuff for the day. We’re going to head right out. Gallo just called Scott. We have an eyewitness with a GSW sitting in a Dallas hospital.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” Bill clicked off.

  I set the phone back on its base and grabbed my bag with the investigation file from the long, skinny desk running along the wall to the left of the dresser and TV. I draped the strap of the bag over my shoulder, left my hotel room, and walked toward the elevators. The sound of a door closing at my back made me pause, and I looked back over my shoulder to see Beth walking toward me in the hall.

  “Did Bill get a hold of you?” Beth asked.

  “Yup. I just talked to him. I’m headed downstairs to meet him now.”

  After I waited for Beth to catch up, we rounded the corner toward the elevators, and I hit the button to take us down.

  “He said that we have an eyewitness with a GSW,” Beth said. When the elevator doors opened, she stepped inside with me then clicked the button for the lobby.

  “Same thing he told me,” I said.

  “Anything else?”

  “Nope. Just to meet him downstairs.”

  We took the ride down and stepped into the lobby. I looked left toward the bar entrance and then right toward the front counter and valet waiting area. Scott and Bill were standing near a small area to the right of the front counter that sold miscellaneous toiletries, candy, and soda. Beth and I walked over.

  “We’re headed to Parkland Hospital—about a fifteen-minute drive,” Scott said.

  “What did we get for details?” I asked.

  “Well, I just got what Gallo told me. He said that a citizen called 9-1-1 after finding a female with a gunshot wound to her leg on their front stoop. Farmhouse out near Royse City. Ga
llo said that’s about an hour east from here.”

  “Around the same place as our male vic from yesterday was found,” I said.

  “Correct,” Scott said. “Apparently, we got some more action in that neck of the woods yesterday as well. The woman was transferred to Dallas to treat her injury. The hospital reported the GSW and where the woman was found. Turns out we had a homicide and two abandoned vehicles out on the side of the road there yesterday as well. We’ll head out that way after visiting the woman.”

  “What is her condition?” Beth asked.

  “Gallo said she was stable,” Scott said.

  “Was Gallo still planning on doing this meeting today?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Scott said. “He’s going to meet us at the hospital, though. Let’s grab a coffee and muffin or donut from the restaurant and get over there. I told Gallo that we’d be over within the hour.”

  We grabbed a quick breakfast to go from the hotel restaurant near the bar and headed out. We arrived at the Parkland Hospital facility around eight thirty. I stared at the giant complex as Beth pulled in to the emergency-parking lot, following Bill and Scott. The main buildings were a silver-gray color and resembled two giant rectangular cheese graters stacked one on top of the other. A glass bridge connected the newer-looking larger buildings with the older-looking one across the street. I spotted another glass bridge off to my right that appeared to lead over to a parking structure. I guessed the center part of the facility had been recently constructed, by the futuristic architecture. Ahead of us, Bill tucked into a parking spot—Beth found a free one a few slots down. We stepped from the car and walked toward Bill and Scott.

  “Well, this is one hell of a complex, huh?” Bill took his sunglasses from his eyes and stared up at the building. “Kind of looks like building blocks stacked on top of each other.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “Gallo said meet him by the emergency entrance,” Scott said. “I’m guessing probably due to it being the easiest place for us to find. Let’s head in and see if he’s here yet.”

  We started toward the entrance. Agent Gallo, coffee in hand, was seated on a bench beside the sliding doors as we walked up. He spotted us and stood.

  “Morning.” Gallo took a drink from his coffee and went through a round of handshakes with our group. “We’re going to be looking for a Dr. Singh inside. I spoke with him a bit earlier. He should be expecting us.”

  We walked inside through the sliding doors.

  “Let me get our guy paged.” Gallo made a left for the reception desk.

  Beth, Bill, Scott, and I went to the waiting area and had a seat. I took a chair opposite them next to a stack of magazines on a table. Gallo returned a minute later, said our doctor would be down shortly, and took a chair next to Bill. I flipped through an off-road magazine while we waited, thinking maybe I should be out doing more with my Jeep.

  “Do any wheeling, Rawlings?” I heard.

  I looked up to see Gallo staring at me. He motioned to the magazine I was holding.

  “I just picked up a Jeep not too long ago. I was just thinking that I should probably do it some justice and get some dirt on it.”

  “Sure. That’s what it’s made for,” he said. “I used to have a dedicated wheeler. But over the years, I kind of moved on to more of the overland-expedition setup with my Jeep.”

  I gave him a nod but didn’t really have a clue what he was talking about.

  “Here, check this out,” he said.

  Gallo came over, pulling his phone from his pocket. He clicked buttons on the screen, passed it over to me, and took the free chair beside me. “Just swipe the screen to the right. These are from a trip the wife and I took a couple of months back.”

  I took Gallo’s phone in hand and swiped through the photos. His Jeep was similar to mine—four-door hardtop with a lift, aftermarket wheels, and big tires, though I imagined he had probably another Jeep’s purchase price worth of add-ons bolted to his. My eyes went from one accessory to the next—light bars and spotlights; different bumpers; winch; fuel cans; a cage over the top, holding a roof-mounted tent; even some kind of awnings mounted to the side in one photo of it out in the middle of the bush.

  “Wow,” I said. “You could live in this thing.”

  “We do,” he said. “The wife and I. A couple days at a time while we’re out. Mostly just campgrounds, but every now and again, we’ll find ourselves out in the middle of nowhere in it for a night or two. When my son was younger, he loved going out on weekends. That was a different Jeep then but set up similar.”

  I thought about my chances of getting Karen to sleep in a tent on top of the Jeep in the middle of nowhere—they were pretty slim. She wasn’t much of a camper though I could see how it could be a pretty cool family thing to do.

  “That’s a hell of a setup,” I said.

  “Thanks. Always a work in progress. I’ve been around—and owned Jeeps—damn near my whole adult life. If you ever have questions about setups or anything, feel free to give me a ring.”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  We chatted about his truck for another couple of minutes until a man in a white coat over a light-blue shirt and tie appeared at the edge of the waiting area. He adjusted his glasses on his face, looked over the couple people other than our group seated in the room, and walked directly toward us.

  “I’m going to assume you are the agents that are here to see Ms. Goff,” he said.

  “We are,” Gallo said.

  “Sure. I’m Doctor Singh. Why don’t you all follow me upstairs. There’s another waiting room on the third floor. I’d like to try to keep it to just two of you meeting with Ms. Goff, so the rest of you can probably just have a seat there.”

  “What kind of state is she in?” I asked.

  “She’s in the best damn state in this nation,” the doctor said. A smirk crept across his face. “Texas.”

  I figured he’d used that line countless times. The zinger led me to believe that she wasn’t in too bad of shape.

  “Good one,” I said. “The condition?”

  “Let’s see. She was shot in the right upper leg. Pretty lucky in the bullet’s placement, actually. Didn’t hit bone or any arteries. Pretty clean through and through. Dehydrated and said that she hadn’t eaten in a couple days, so we have her on an IV and are just trying to get some fluids into her. Aside from that, some bumps and bruises. A few superficial lacerations and injuries.”

  We followed the doctor down the hallway and boarded an elevator for the third floor. The topic of who was going to go in to interview the woman came and went fairly quickly—that would be Gallo and me—at Gallo’s suggestion. I imagine he selected me due to our newfound Jeep bond.

  We exited the hall and walked toward another waiting area.

  “She’s just down the hall here,” the doctor said.

  Gallo and I followed the doctor while Scott, Bill, and Beth took seats in the waiting area.

  “She’s in here.” The doctor paused momentarily at the door of Room 306. “I’m going to stick my head inside and make sure she’s ready for you. I already informed her that you’d be coming. One moment.”

  Gallo and I stood outside the door as the doctor walked in. I could hear him telling her that we were there to ask her some questions.

  He reappeared from the room a second later. “Try to keep it brief. Five minutes or so. She needs her rest. From what she’s mentioned, it sounds like she’s been through a hell of an ordeal.”

  “Sure,” Gallo said.

  A thought ran through my head. “Damn. Give me one second, Gallo. I’ll be right back.” I turned from the room door and hustled back to the rest of the team in the waiting area, where all, Bill, Beth, and Scott, had their noses in magazines. “Beth,” I said.

  She looked up at me and set the magazine on her lap. “What’s up?”

  “We’re only going to have a couple minutes with this woman. Do you still have the recorder? I don’t want t
o miss anything with her.”

  “Yeah, hold on.” Beth dug her hand down inside her bag and came back with her small voice recorder. She held it out toward me. “Here you go. Just hit the record button.”

  “Got it. Thanks,” I said.

  The recorder in hand, I went back to Gallo, still standing at the door—the doctor had since disappeared.

  “What did you need?” Gallo asked.

  I showed him the recorder in my hand, and we walked inside the dimly lit hospital room. Gallo and I took up a spot at the foot of the woman’s bed. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her long dark-brown hair disappeared under the bed’s white blanket, which was pulled up almost to her chin. I spotted a black eye and a couple of cuts and bruises to her forehead.

  “Miss,” Gallo said. “We’re with the FBI. I’m Agent Luke Gallo. This is agent Hank Rawlings.”

  The woman scooted herself up in bed and then grabbed the remote control to adjust the bed’s back. “Sarah Goff,” she said.

  Her voice didn’t seem groggy as though she was sedated, yet I wanted to be sure that she had her bearings.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked. “You’re well enough to answer some questions?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She rearranged herself in bed again and grimaced. “It’s just a leg. I have another.” Her mouth turned to a half smile. “I’ll take the getting shot in the leg if it means I’m out of where I was and away from those psychopaths. You need to find those two. There’s more people still alive in that semi.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kerry

  “Almost there.” Kerry stared out the windshield at a gravel road not much wider than a single lane. Mountains broke up the horizon, endless sand, and green-and-brown knee-high brush.

  Kitty didn’t respond. She stared out of the truck’s passenger window.

  “Get over it, already. What, are you going to sit and worry the rest of your life?” Kerry asked. “You’ve been acting this way since last night. It’s getting old.”

  “It was just stupid.” Kitty snapped her head and looked at Kerry. “I think you let that woman go on purpose.”