The Abducted Super Boxset: A Small Town Kidnapping Mystery

by Roger Hayden

  Miriam covered her mouth with a gasp, feeling sick inside.

  Hayes held out his hand “Can I get the keys to the Land Cruiser you took?”

  Miriam dug into her pocket, pulled out the keys, and dropped them in his palm. “I’m sorry, but it was the only way.”

  Hayes placed the keys in his pocket and shook his head with disappointment. “That’s not an excuse.” He glanced at his partner for support, but Shelton seemed more interested in investigating the scene.

  “I get it. You found him,” Hayes continued. “But what’s the problem we have here, Detective Shelton?”

  “He got away,” Shelton said.

  “That’s right. And he still has one of the girls. Is that correct?” he asked, waiting for Miriam to answer.

  “Yes,” Miriam said. “We were having a discussion. I asked him some questions. For a moment, everything was cordial between us, then it just escalated.”

  “Take us through it,” Hayes said. “Right now, Detective Shelton and I need to know everything. As far as the department knows, everything was official and by the book.”

  Miriam took a deep breath and tried to explain. “My concern was that if I told anyone that I was coming here, Trudeau would find out.”

  Hayes looked at the ground, biting his lip and nodding. “That’s not good enough, Lieutenant. Everything is going to have to go in the report. What evidence you had of Dr. Trudeau’s involvement and why you didn’t trust the department to tell us so.”

  “What does this have to do with finding Trudeau? That should be our number one priority,” Miriam said, fighting back.

  A brief silence followed as approaching emergency sirens sounded outside. Miriam understood their predicament. Trudeau’s escape could have been prevented if she had had the proper backup. He would never have been able to ambush her had there been other officers present. Ultimately, that’s what they were going to harp on, and she expected as much.

  “We have a lot of work to do,” Hayes said, cracking his knuckles. “As you’ve probably guessed, the FBI has contacted our station and will be spearheading the hunt tomorrow morning.”

  Miriam patiently listened as he explained their plan to set up a tactical center in Trudeau’s ranch house until he was caught. The operation could take anywhere from days to months, depending on how wide their manhunt spread.

  “What troubles me the most, however,” Hayes continued, “is that you kept us out of the loop. Do you not trust me or Detective Shelton?”

  Miriam shook her head and fidgeted with her hands, feeling an increasing frustration. “I made the decision to pursue him alone after staring into that smoking blaze and knowing we had been set up. That was the last straw. I had a hunch Trudeau was involved, but I had no evidence. I didn’t think that anyone would believe me.” And so, she had felt compelled to sneak away, take the squad car, and follow her hunch.

  “She does have a point,” Shelton said, glancing at his partner. “Would any of us have believed her?”

  Hayes squinted his eyes. “I don’t know, but you’ve far exceeded your role as an advisor. I hope you can see that, Lieutenant.”

  Seemingly bored, Shelton walked along the other shelves, stocked to the brim with supplies. “Looks like he was stocking up for World War Three in here.”

  “Hold on,” Hayes said, raising a hand. “I want to know everything that was said between you and Trudeau. Help me out here. Take me back. You show up at his house, unannounced and without backup, and he lets you in. Then what happened?”

  “He was acting strange from the beginning. Nice, cordial, and professional as always, but I could tell I was interrupting something and that he wanted me out of there as soon as possible. I couldn’t say that I charmed my way in, but we did have a brief conversation about the case and some follow-up questions I had about Walter Browning and Ken Frohman.

  “We were in his kitchen and I saw something. Looked like blood near the pantry. Something in me just knew that he was involved. I tried to bring him in, but the minute I told him to put his hands up, he jumped out of the way into the pantry and emerged with a shotgun.”

  She ran a hand across her chest, wincing at the pain still there. “Beanbag round. Knocked the wind out of me. I was down for the count, but I shot him. I don’t know how, but I did.”

  “And then he got away?” Hayes said.

  “Precisely,” Miriam said.

  “Why one girl?” Hayes then asked. “Why not both?”

  Shelton stepped forward. “He had to leave in a hurry. There was no time to take them both. Plus, he was shot…” Shelton paused and turned to Miriam. “Where did you shoot him?”

  “The lights were out, but I think somewhere in the upper chest or shoulder,” she answered. “According to Tara, he was only going to choose one of them anyway.”

  “For what?” Hayes asked, equally astonished and disgusted.

  “I have no clue, but if we don’t find him soon, I fear the worst for April.”

  They stood quiet for a moment as the sound of more personnel entered the house. The investigation, so far, had been less than perfect, and maybe, for that moment, they could agree that mistakes had been made all around.

  Miriam was no more to blame for losing their suspect than the department was for letting a man like Dr. Trudeau work so closely with them in the first place. The scandal would hit the department in ways from which they might never recover. None of their careers would be the same, and there was still a lot riding on the outcome.

  “Trudeau won’t get far,” Hayes said with a confident tone. “We’ve got an APB on his silver Mercedes and license plate statewide.”

  “You need to see this hidden room immediately,” Miriam said.

  Shelton took interest. “What’s he got down there?”

  Hayes, on the other hand, seemed more distracted with Miriam’s actions.

  Nonetheless, Miriam walked to the circuit breaker and flipped the red switch once again, revealing the exposed crawlspace. “Weird, scary things. There’s a work bench with explosive materials, cabinets with medical supplies, and a bunch of other things: tools, instruments.”

  The two detectives were still coming to terms with their suspect having close ties to the department. It had the makings of a conspiracy. However, conspiracy or not, the threat they still faced was very real and far from solved.

  “There’s a cache of notebooks, documents, computer files, and other information all stored down there,” she continued.

  Suddenly a knock came at the door.

  “Give us a minute!” Hayes said, turning back to Miriam.

  The look on both detectives’ faces indicated a need for answers. They couldn’t understand the situation any more than she could. However, the words didn’t come easily, and the truth was almost too much to relate.

  “He’s been watching me for weeks,” Miriam said, flipping the red switch and opening the secret entrance. “He has photos of me, Lou, Ana, our house, our places of work, and our neighborhood all posted downstairs.”

  Stunned, Hayes seemed on the verge of a panic attack. “Just what in the hell does he want with you, anyway?”

  “To use me in his game,” Miriam said, taking a step back from the crawlspace. “We need to go in here. Everything else can wait.”

  Without further objections, the detectives followed Miriam to the crawlspace as she flipped the black switches of the circuit breaker on. She crouched down, holding onto her flashlight just in case, and then crawled inside as Hayes and Shelton looked at each other with slight apprehension.

  Once in, she shined the light ahead. The door leading downstairs swayed open. She could see lights on below, confirming that the circuit breaker was in fact a power source to Trudeau’s underground laboratory. It was time for Miriam to take another look and show the detectives what only hours before had seemed a far-fetched suspicion.

  Traveled Road

  The Next Morning:

  Nicholas Trudeau sat outside his cabin under
the shade of a small canopy, metallic cup of coffee in hand. The fresh bandages under his flannel shirt covered his aching wound, recently cleaned and stitched. His arm remained in a sling, barely able to move. He knew the shoulder to be one of the worst places to get shot. The bruising around his neck and the inflammation down his side indicated a dozen different fractures or possible broken bones. It would take some time to fully recover, which was acceptable in the grand scheme of things. He didn’t plan on going anywhere for a while.

  The peaceful quiet of the forest offered a relaxing beginning to his day, and he couldn’t have felt more at home. April hadn’t left the room yet. He didn’t expect her to. Not for a while. She still had a lot of adjusting to do. To make her more comfortable, Trudeau had taken his sleeping bag to the living room to allow her the privacy any girl would desire. She was eleven years old, older than Anabelle when she had disappeared. A suitable replacement, Trudeau thought, taking a sip of warm coffee that tasted surprisingly bland. He’d have to make do. Living outdoors had its drawbacks and advantages.

  His crank-powered radio sat on a small crooked table at his side, delivering the latest weather report: high seventies throughout the day. There had been earlier reports of an incident involving Ector County police and the missing person’s case, but few details had been released. Trudeau braced himself for the coming fallout.

  Things were a lot better when they didn’t know who he was. Now, it just wasn’t as much fun. He envisioned the barrage of police and investigators pilfering his property and tearing through his ranch home in search of evidence to use against him. They’d find his underground cellar where he had kept the girls, but he was confident that they’d never discover the other room—his work room under the garage.

  Within the hour, he planned to make breakfast for Ana. A 9mm GLOCK pistol rested on the table next to him, just in case they had any outside visitors. Despite their secluded location, there was still the possibility of a traveler or two wandering onto his property. He hadn’t so much as set foot in the cabin over six months, and, as a result, it had been left largely neglected—overgrown weeds on its side, holes in the roof, and signs of wood rot around its foundation.

  The brush surrounding the cabin needed a minimal amount of clearing for him to lay various traps for intruders. He felt protective of his cabin, a sanctuary from the civilized world, and he was also beginning to feel protective of his captive, April.

  On his lap rested an old paperback copy of Frank Herbert’s Dune. The novel reminded Trudeau of the sand dunes located around his beloved ranch house, a place he’d probably never see again. A fully-charged satellite phone rested next to his pistol, another emergency item he had carefully packed in his getaway bag. He thought of calling his ex-wife, Pat, before she heard everything about him on the news. He hadn’t spoken to her in at least ten years. Happier times long gone, bitterly suppressed over the years, began to resurface, a time when he was a promising medical student with a loving wife and daughter.

  Had he wasted those years with his absence and neglect? Could he have been a better husband and father? The answer was clear, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it. That life was a distant memory, a fading dream, and as he had often told his patients, there was no sense in living in the past.

  He shifted in his lawn chair as birds chirped and fluttered nearby. He heard the scratching and scurrying of squirrels, circling around trees, chasing one another. They could care less who he was or what he had done. Out here, all were equal. He set his coffee cup onto the table and tossed two Ibuprofens into his mouth. He looked out into the leaf-covered ground of bushes and trees before him, trying to decide the ideal places for his various tripwire alarms.

  A branch snapped in the distance, gaining his immediate attention. Perked up with his hand on his pistol, Trudeau leaned forward and scanned the quiet forest ahead. The coming news broadcast suddenly distracted him. It appeared as though they finally had enough information to offer, at the very least, a preliminary report.

  “Ector County Police Department has reached what has been described as a breakthrough in the case of local missing girls Tara McKenzie and April Johnson. Newly released details center around the possible rescue of one of the girls earlier last evening amid troubling reports of a vehicle explosion that reportedly injured several detectives searching for them.

  “Odessa Mayor Teresa Dyer advises parents to remain vigilant, assuring the public that officials are doing everything to find the missing girls and capture the so-called “Chancellor of Doom” who has written letters to police taking responsibility for the kidnappings. More details as they come in. In other news…”

  Trudeau leaned back in his seat, curious. He expected more, but could understand Miriam and her band of investigators keeping details to a minimum. The storm had yet to arrive. They hadn’t even mentioned a suspect. He felt relieved, but oddly unfulfilled. The news continued as a pounding noise came from inside the cabin.

  “Ah,” he said. “Looks like she’s up.”

  Shifting in his chair, shuddering in pain, he reached for a long wooden stick he was using for balance and pushed himself up. He then grabbed his radio and the pistol and looked to the cabin as the muffled noise continued.

  “Coming…” he called as he took each deliberately slow step. A wave of dizziness hit him, along with a cold shiver and throbbing of his shoulder. If he could only keep April calm for the day, he might be able to rest. But that wasn’t going to be an easy task. She hadn’t adapted yet. She was as defiant as any girl her age would be, yanked from her surroundings and held captive in a small cabin with a stranger. He inched toward the rickety front cabin door, pushing against the stick and sliding his pistol into the side pocket of his rugged blue jeans.

  The pounding intensified as he entered the cabin. Between the small living room and kitchen was the door to the only other room inside, the bedroom. April was on the other side of the door and repeatedly knocking with full force, calling out for help. Trudeau leaned against the door, pulling a key from his pocket. He smacked a fist against the door, silencing her, and then spoke.

  “I’m only going to let you out if you calm down, okay?”

  She didn’t respond, but he could hear her sniffling.

  “Would you like some breakfast?” he asked, looking toward the small, two-burner propane-operated stove on top of the kitchen counter. The thin curtains of an open window above the sink swayed from the incoming breeze. “April?” he said. “I know you’re hungry.”

  He took her quietness as a yes and was happy to hear her comply.

  “Okay. I’ve got some instant grits I can make over the stove. Do you like grits?” He walked away from the door, not expecting an answer. “Of course you like grits.”

  He walked to the kitchen and grabbed a box of matches on the counter. He turned the knob of the first grill, lit a match, and ignited the center flame. The full tank would provide weeks of cooked meals, and he planned to use it sparingly. Their first morning in the cabin, however, was a special occasion. He grabbed a small metal pan from the sink and placed it on the grill. The powdered milk, butter, salt, and water were all laid out on the sink. Years of living on his own had expanded not only his resourcefulness, but his cooking skills as well.

  As he began mixing the ingredients, a soft knock came at the door, followed by April’s voice, speaking timidly through the door. “Please… Nicholas. I-I see your book here on the dresser. I didn’t know you were an author.”

  Trudeau froze and then turned around, intrigued at what she was trying to do.

  “I’ve learned my lesson. You can let me out now.”

  “In time,” he said, turning around. “You still have a ways to go, but it won’t take long.”

  “I really have. I know that you hurt yourself. I saw all the bloodstains in the bathroom. Let me out, and I-I can help you.”

  “That’s okay,” Trudeau said. “You just take it easy while I get breakfast started. It’s going to be—” Pounding
immediately resumed against the door, cutting him off mid-sentence.

  He approached the door and spoke loudly. “You know, this is the most I’ve heard out of you since we’ve been together this past week and a half.” The pounding gradually slowed and then ceased altogether. “Had enough yet?” he asked. With no response, he turned back to the kitchen, feeling a little bad for taunting her.

  “We need to build trust,” he said under his breath. “A real, lasting connection, and that’s not going to happen when you mistreat her.” He continued mixing ingredients as a news update sounded on the radio, the announcer speaking with an entirely new intensity. The reports were coming in, and by the alarmed tone in the announcer’s voice, it was clear that investigators were starting to put things together.

  “Three Midland detectives are dead and two are injured after an improvised van explosion now linked to the missing person’s case of Tara McKenzie and April Johnson. Officials say the detectives had discovered the van after following an anonymous tip many believe came from the perpetrator.

  “Reports have also surfaced of two suspects involved in the case who are both dead, one in an apparent suicide. Residents are also reportedly baffled by the growing complexities of the case, and mounting pressure is on officials to find the girls and capture all suspects in what appears to be a small-town conspiracy.”

  “Very close,” Trudeau said while stirring. “But yet so far.”

  More reports were coming in, and it wouldn’t be too long before his name entered the news cycle. How far would they dig into his past, and what would they find? Was there any possible escape for him and April? As he poured a cup of grits onto the crackling pan, his focus shifted to the pistol lodged in his pocket. Even as a last resort, it had rarely entered his mind. Trudeau considered himself anything but a quitter. He thought of Ken Frohman, who hadn’t killed himself at all. It would take police a while to figure that out.