Deserted

by E. H. Reinhard

  “Any reason that wasn’t the first thing out of your mouth?” Beth asked.

  The manager rolled his head back on his chair. “Well, she kind of hit on me a little, and I gave her my number before she left.”

  “Right,” Beth said.

  “Can I ask what this is about?”

  “We believe this man and woman to be missing, and the description of the woman that had the altercation with the older couple, as well as the person she was with, lines up with some people we have interest in.”

  The manager’s face looked a bit troubled. “Let me grab Jan so she can maybe give you a little more information. I’ll be right back.” He stood and exited the office.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Beth made a quick phone call to Scott while we waited for the manager to return with the waitress that had helped the women we believed to be the twins. She let him know that we probably had ID’d the two in the truck stop. Scott told her they were in the process of getting the vehicles printed.

  The manager walked in with a short blond-haired woman in tow—I put her somewhere in her twenties. The manager took a seat at his desk, and the waitress stood at the edge.

  “Jan, these are Agents…” The manager’s sentence trailed off when he forgot our names.

  “Rawlings and Harper,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said. “Joe said you wanted to know about the twin girls yesterday?”

  “They were in fact twins?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Dark-haired one and blond-haired one. Their faces were identical, though. I think the dark-haired one had some tattoos. I couldn’t really tell you what they were of, though.”

  “How did they pay?” Beth asked. “Do you remember?”

  “Cash,” she said.

  “What else can you tell us about them?” I asked.

  “I don’t really know. I guess they kind of looked like they just rolled out of bed. They ordered breakfast in the middle of the afternoon. But that’s not entirely uncommon.”

  “What made you think that they just woke up?” Beth asked.

  “Well, the dark-haired one kind of looked like she was still in her pajamas. They both kind of had puffy eyes. I don’t know—you can just kind of tell when someone just woke up. They had that look.”

  “Did you see them come from or leave to a vehicle?” Beth asked.

  “No, I didn’t. Sorry.”

  “You can park tractor trailers here overnight, correct?” I asked.

  “Of course,” the manager said.

  I looked back at the waitress. “Anything else that you can think of about these two girls?” I asked.

  “Not really,” she shrugged. “They ordered, ate, paid cash, and left—the same as any other customer would.”

  “Did you happen to see the altercation that occurred between one of these girls and an older couple that were dining in at the time?” Beth asked.

  “No. I just heard about it from Joe here after. I think I was checking on some food at the time or something.”

  “Sure,” Beth said. “What time were they here exactly? Do you remember?”

  “Well, my shift started at one. I’m guessing this was maybe around three o’clock or so. I usually take a little break right around then, and this was right before that.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Do you remember what booth in the restaurant they sat in, precisely?”

  “Furthest front-corner booth. Right below the television.”

  I gave the waitress a nod. “I think that’s about all we’ll need from you.”

  She looked at the manager, who excused her, and left his office.

  “What do you guys have here as far as video we could look into?” Beth asked.

  “All the cameras, except for the one we have on our register, would have to be handled from inside of the gas station itself. We’re connected but two separate businesses.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m guessing you could point us to who we need to talk to over there?”

  “Yeah, I’d have to see who is actually working, but we’ll be able to find you someone.”

  “All right. The camera that you have here—is there a way that we can have a look at that?”

  “Well, sure, but it’s not really going to give you anything other than the register and hostess area,” he said.

  “That’s fine.”

  “Let me pull it up. Are we just going to be looking for yesterday around when Jan said they were in here? Three o’clock or so?”

  “Let’s start there,” Beth said.

  The manager woke the computer sitting on the corner of his desk and plugged away at the keyboard. A few minutes of silence passed before he cleared his throat and spoke up. “This is yesterday at two forty-five. As you can see, there isn’t a ton here to look at. Basically, the camera is for if the drawer comes up short.” He turned the computer monitor sitting on his desk so it faced Beth and me.

  I had a look at the screen where recorded footage was already playing. What the manager had said about us not being able to get much from it was accurate. The camera view covered whoever was standing at the register, the register itself, and the brown wall at the back of the hostess area. Only a single customer came to the register to pay, and all we could see was the person’s hand holding out a credit card, which the hostess swiped and passed back.

  “See what I’m saying? Not much here,” he said. “The gas station is going to be your best bet. They have probably a dozen cameras or more.”

  “Okay.” I knew we wouldn’t get anything from the diner’s footage and didn’t feel like spending any more time watching the recording of a register and a wall. “Did you want to show us over to the gas station and who we should be talking to over there?”

  “I can lead you over, sure.” He pushed his chair back and stood. I grabbed the papers with the old couple’s driver’s license photos and stuffed them back into my bag as we followed the manager back through the kitchen and the diner. I stopped near the hostess station. “Was that the booth they were at?” I pointed over at the empty corner booth under the television.

  The manager, walking a step ahead of me, stopped and turned to look where I was pointing, and he confirmed.

  “Do you think we should get someone out here to try to get prints or something from it?” Beth asked.

  “I would doubt there is anything on the surface,” I said. “The busboys, or whoever cleans the tables, probably wipes them down between each guest. Let’s just check out this video, and we’ll get back to that.”

  “All right,” Beth said.

  “Are we good?” the manager asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “If possible, can we just not have anyone seated in that booth for a bit?”

  “Sure. We’re pretty slow right now anyway.” The manager turned, continued walking past the pay phones, and stopped at the gas station’s front counter. Beth and I followed.

  The diner manager got the attention of the midforties female cashier who was removing cigarettes from cartons in totes and putting them in their respective slots on the back wall. “Who’s managing today?” he asked.

  The woman looked at the diner manager, flipped shut the top of the tote she had been pulling cigarettes from, and took a couple of steps toward us. “Tyler is in the back. Need him?”

  “Please,” he said.

  The woman turned and poked her head into a doorway and then returned to her tote of cigarettes. A man dressed in black pants with a blue tucked-in dress shirt and black tie emerged from the back room. He walked from behind the counter and stood before us.

  “Joe, how are you doing?” he asked.

  “Good, good,” the diner manager said. “These two are with the FBI. Agents…” He paused again and looked at Beth and me for our names.

  “Harper and Rawlings,” Beth said.

  “Tyler Joseph.” He nodded. “Just Tyler is fine. What can I do for you?”

  “They actually wanted to see if they could possibly have a look at
your camera feeds from yesterday,” the diner manager said before Beth or I could speak.

  “Sure, I guess. What exactly are we looking for?” he asked.

  “Just a couple people on video,” I said. “They were in the diner, but we weren’t able to get any footage of them over there. Ideally, we’d like to try to find them in the building here and possibly outside. We believe these people in question to be traveling via a tractor trailer.”

  “Okay. Our security office is tucked back down the hall that leads to the driver’s lounge. If you would just like to follow me back, we can see what we can come up with.”

  “Great,” Beth said.

  “I guess I’ll leave you guys to it,” the diner manager said. “I’ll be next door if you need anything else from me.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  The diner manager walked off, and Beth and I followed the gas-station manager toward the security office. He led Beth and me past a couple large cases filled with CB radios and miscellaneous electronics and into a hallway at the back of the station. I spotted a small arcade off to our right. A sign for the drivers’ lounge and showers was bolted to an open doorway at the hall’s end. The manager stuck a key in the first door on the left.

  “It’s a little tight in here, but we should be able to squeeze in.” He pulled the door open, revealing a small room not much larger than a broom closet.

  A single desk spanned from one side of the back wall to the other. Three computer monitors and miscellaneous scattered papers covered the surface of the desk. A single office chair sat before a keyboard. I took in what was displayed on the computer screens—real-time security footage. Each screen displayed four feeds—twelve total. Beth and I squeezed into the room beside the gas-station manager, and he took a seat in the chair. The door closed unassisted at our backs.

  “Do you have a specific time that we are looking for here?” He wheeled himself closer to the desk and clicked in a password, which showed as a group of stars in a box on the center screen.

  “Yesterday around three o’clock in the afternoon, we believe the people in question were in the facility,” I said. “We’re going to be looking for a pair of early-twenties females.”

  “What did these two do?” He didn’t take his eyes from the computer screen.

  “They’re wanted for questioning in an ongoing investigation,” I said, hoping my non-answer answer would put an end to his questioning, which it did.

  The gas-station manager clicked a button on his keyboard and motioned to the screen, which went all blue for a moment before coming back on, again displaying essentially what they had just been.

  “This is yesterday at three o’clock,” he said. “Everything you see was taking place then. The left monitor there is the east side of the building—fuel pumps and parking lot. The center here is more fuel pumps and our front entrance. The right screen is everything that we have inside here.”

  My eyes went left to right, looking at each quartered screen and the footage recorded.

  “There.” Beth reached out and pressed her fingertip on a camera view that showed the gas station’s front counter. The camera’s angle allowed us to see into the diner. A pair of women sat at a booth in the corner. “That’s them.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Silas

  Silas sat in the family room of the farmhouse, staring at the television. Some sitcom from the 1970s played behind the static of the television’s poor reception. Silas glanced over at his brother Harper, slouched back into the sofa cushions beside him and snoring. He looked toward the kitchen to see Kerry leaning against the wall, talking with her cousin Ben. Ginny was rummaging away in the kitchen, fixing the supper they’d have in a couple hours. Silas’s mother hadn’t been out of her bedroom all day.

  “This TV sucks,” Kitty said.

  Silas turned to face her. Kitty sat leaning forward in an old recliner, fixated on the television on the opposite side of the room. In the corner behind her, one of Harper’s countless rifles leaned against the wall.

  “Try wiggling those rabbit ears,” Silas said.

  Kitty walked to the television on the cart and moved the antenna around a bit until she shrugged and returned to her chair.

  The clock on the wall read a couple minutes after four. Silas took a sip from his beer, set it back down on the small table at the edge of the couch, and rearranged himself to get more comfortable.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Beth and I sat on a bench just outside the truck stop’s doors, waiting on Gallo. He was en route with someone from his tech department, as well as someone from forensics. I tucked my phone back into my pocket, having just finished a couple-minute phone call with Karen.

  “Was Gallo leaving right away?” Beth asked.

  I turned my wrist and got the time from my watch. “He has to be pretty close by now. He said he was going to grab the guys he needed and head right out. I talked to him about an hour and fifteen minutes ago, and it’s about an hour drive.”

  “I’m going to go grab a water from inside. Do you want something?”

  “Yeah, grab me a coffee. As big as you can get.”

  “No sweat,” she said.

  “Get me a muffin or donut or something, too.”

  “What do I look like? A waitress?”

  “Nah, just someone who asked if I wanted something from inside,” I said.

  She flashed me a smirk, rose from my side, and disappeared into the front door of the gas station. I looked over at the truck stop’s main entrance from the road on my right, waiting to see Gallo pull in any moment. My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I slid it out, glanced at the screen to see it was Ball, and clicked Talk.

  “It’s Hank,” I said. “Anything on that phone number?”

  “Not yet,” Ball said. “I’ll let you know as soon as we get anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “The reason for the call—we have our video here from Tennessee. It just came in. Both girls are clear as day at the register inside. We should be able to get some great stills of these two for you guys to distribute.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Are you guys still waiting on everyone over there?”

  “We are. Bill and Scott are going to head this way as soon as they finish up over at the local PD. Bill said that they did lift prints from the vehicle, but they’d have to be processed back at the field office.”

  “Right,” Ball said. “Well, I’ll get this video that we got sent off to all of your e-mails. You guys can share it with the agents there as you see fit. What’s the plan as soon as everyone gets there?”

  “I only spoke with Gallo for a couple minutes, but we’re going to get us some copies of the video and try to get some prints from a couple of spots inside. Hopefully, we can get actual identities on these two. Even if we can get a hit on one of their prints, we know they’re twins. All we need is one match in the system, I guess.”

  I glanced to my left to see Beth holding out a coffee. In her other hand was a small brown paper bag. I held my cell phone to my ear with my shoulder and took both from her so she could sit back down.

  “Did you want me to just give you a ring when we wrap up here?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Call me when you’re headed back to the field office,” Ball said.

  “Will do. Talk to you later.” I set the coffee beside me on the bench, clicked off from the call, and put my phone back into my pocket.

  “Ball?” Beth asked.

  “He was just checking in. I guess they got our Tennessee truck stop video, and Ball is sending it to our e-mails.”

  “Good.”

  I scooped up my coffee, took a big drink, and set it back down—the flavor was about what I expected, standard gas station fare, that was just acceptable enough to not pour out. I’d just finished off the cruller Beth had gotten me when a dark sedan pulled up and parked in the lot—the car appeared to be the same variety as what Gallo had driven to the hospital that morning. Two more car
s followed the sedan in and parked beside it. After I took a few bites of my cruller, Gallo stepped from the parked car, accompanied by Agent Chris Rockwell. A man exited from each of the two cars that had followed Gallo in—one of the men went to his vehicle’s trunk and pulled out a black carrying case. Both men walked to Gallo, and the group started toward Beth and me. I balled up the bag the cruller had come from and tossed it into the garbage a couple feet from me, using my best basketball shot.

  Gallo stepped up to us. “Rawlings, Harper.”

  Beth and I rose from the bench.

  “You guys have met Chris. This is Brian Cox from our tech unit and Steve Palmer from our forensics unit.”

  The man on the left, a midthirties man with a round face and finger-length dark hair reached out for a handshake. “Steve,” he said.

  After shaking his hand, I went on to the next man, Brian, from the tech department—a taller, wiry man with a stubbly beard, who looked somewhere in his forties.

  With our introductions complete, Gallo pointed at the truck stop’s main entrance. “Can we go and have a look at this video? We’ll do that, and then I can put these two on getting whatever we need from here.”

  “Sure.” I scooped up my coffee from the bench and led the group through the front doors. We entered, and I requested the manager from the gas-station section of the truck stop at the front counter. He came out from the office a moment later—I’d already informed him that we would have a few more people who would need to see the video and that someone would come out to get a copy of it.

  The manager walked from behind the front counter with the cash registers and came to our group. “Is this everyone?” he asked.

  “It is,” I said.

  “Well, I’m not sure how everyone is going to fit into our security room, but I’ve put together a list of the time stamps where we had your girls.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  “Let’s head back.” He waved for our group to follow.