“Hand me that map, babe,” Nick said. He looked into the rearview mirror to see Molly pulling herself up from the flowered couch of the fifteen-year-old, thirty-seven-foot RV. She walked toward the front and plopped down in the front passenger seat. Molly reached into the passenger door’s side pocket, pulled out the map of RV attractions and held it out to Nick.
He pushed it back toward her. “Open it up and find that RV park again. I need to see if we even have enough gas to get there. We’re getting pretty low. If we can’t make it, we may have to find something closer.”
“Why don’t we just stop and fill up?” she asked.
“Other than the fact that we’d be wasting our money on fuel, gas stations have cameras. They also have bright lights and countless people who can identify us. We stick with the plan. Wherever we run out of gas, we pick up a new vehicle and go. It’s worked so far—no reason to do anything different now.”
“Are we going to get a new RV at this place?” Molly asked. She unfolded the map and spread it out in her lap.
“If we can get there.”
“What if we can’t? I’m really liking this being able to lounge around.”
“If we can’t, we’ll dump this thing, grab a car, and then go to the RV park. We’ll get one overnight.”
“Cool,” Molly said.
“Well?” Nick asked.
Molly pointed at the RV campground they’d decided on. “Um, looks like it’s about forty miles yet.”
“Forty?”
Molly looked over at him. “Yeah.”
Nick stared at the gas gauge. The needle was a hair from empty.
“We ain’t going to make it,” he said. “We need to ditch this thing and get something else. Sooner rather than later. I don’t want to be sitting here on the interstate in it. Start watching for exits that look like there is some action going on. We don’t want a gas station, but maybe some kind of big parking lot would do—a mall maybe.” As soon as the words came out of Nick’s mouth, he saw a blue sign that said Rest Stop One Mile. “Forget it.”
“Rest stop?” Molly asked. “Are we going to do the same thing we did last time?”
“Same exact thing. Risky during the day, but we don’t have an option here. We need to park this thing and find us some different wheels before we can’t.”
“Whatever you think, baby. I trust you.”
Nick checked the mirror on the right side of the RV and put on his turn signal to get into the far-right lane. He took the exit for the rest stop, slowed, and turned into the lot for semis and buses. The lot only had three rigs parked, and Nick found a spot and shut down the RV.
He unclipped his seatbelt and looked over at Molly. “We’re going to head over to the car lot. We do it just like we did the guy from Jackson.”
“Make them drive?” Molly asked.
Nick nodded.
“Use the RV map. We’ll need it anyway.”
“Okay,” she said.
The two got out of the RV and headed for the main building and the parking lot for cars located on the other side. Molly and Nick slowed as they approached the corner.
“Right there. What about him?” Molly asked. She pointed to a sixty-some-year-old man taking his dog from the rear of his car.
The man was a little larger than Nick would have liked and could probably still put up a bit of a fight if he was so inclined. The dog was some form of small breed that wouldn’t be a factor. The guy wore a pair of blue jeans and a tan zip-up hooded sweatshirt. Wrapped around his gray-hair covered head was a golf visor.
“Shit,” Nick said. “Just missed him.”
The guy walked the dog over to the grass of the rest stop. He drove a new white hybrid with out-of-state license plates. The car was parked closer to the area for relieving pets than it was the main building. Nick looked back and forth for anyone else that might be an easier mark—he spotted no one. The man in the hybrid would have to do.
“Okay, as soon as he comes back to the car, go,” Nick said. “Tell him you’re lost and you don’t know how to read a map. Play stupid. Then try handing the RV map to him. I’ll come as soon as he unfolds it.”
“Okay,” Molly said.
The pair stood at the corner of the building and watched the man walk his dog back and forth across the grass, trying to will the dog to do its business. The second the dog was finished, the man headed back toward the car.
“Now, go,” Nick said.
Molly started toward the man and his car. She pulled her hair back and tied it with a rubber band.
Nick stood and watched as Molly approached within twenty feet of the guy.
“Excuse me, sir?” she said.
The man looked like he was going to help. Nick watched Molly hand the man the map and the man unfold it and spread it across the hood of his car. Nick let out a hard breath and walked toward the two. He reached into the back of his waistline, pulled his weapon, and kept it close to his hip. Nick walked directly to Molly’s side at the front of the vehicle.
“This is my boyfriend, Matt,” Molly said.
“Helping her out?” Nick asked.
“Well, trying to.” The man pulled the golf visor from his head and then snugged it back down. “Where are you headed?”
Nick stepped directly to his side and jammed the barrel of the gun into the man’s ribs.
The man took a step away from Nick and looked down. A look of shock crossed his face as he laid eyes on the pistol. Nick glanced at Molly to see her showing the man her revolver in her waistline.
“Now, don’t say a word,” Nick said. “Put the dog in the backseat with my girl. I’m getting in the passenger side. You get behind the wheel and drive. You do what we say, and you live.”
The man said nothing.
Nick looked the man dead in the face. “I’ve killed two people today, and unless you want to be the third for standing there like an idiot, I suggest you get that little rat of a dog in the back and get your ass behind that wheel. Move.”
The man held his palms out toward Nick. “Okay, just relax. I’ll do what you say.”
“I know,” Nick said.
“Cool, a hybrid. I’ve never been in one of these,” Molly said. She looked left to right, searching for anyone watching. The few cars in the distance seemed to just be parked, their owners in the wayside. Molly got in.
The man set the dog in the back seat next to her and took his seat behind the wheel. Nick sat in the passenger seat.
“Drive. Loop around over to the semi lot,” Nick said.
The man gave him an unsure look.
“Just do it,” Nick said. He prodded the man in the ribs with the gun.
The man started the car and pulled from the parking spot. He made a hard left into the exit for the semi area of the rest stop—a Do Not Enter sign passed on the car’s right.
“That RV there,” Nick said. “Pull up alongside it.”
He did as instructed.
“I’ll be back in a jiff,” Molly said. She left the backseat and returned a moment later with an armful of camping gear. Molly lifted the hatch on the car and tossed everything inside. “One more trip,” she said. Molly once again went to the RV and reappeared in the doorway with an armful of rifles a moment later. She popped her head from the RV’s door and looked left to right to make sure the area was clear. Satisfied it was, she quickly transferred the guns to the back of the hybrid and jumped back in.
“Back out on the interstate,” Nick said.
The old man turned the car and did as he was told.
Nick held the gun barrel on the man as they pulled back onto the interstate, heading west.
“Give me your phone,” Nick said.
“What do you need my phone for?”
Nick pressed the gun against the man’s stomach. “Phone,” he said.
The man passed it over. Nick lowered his window and tossed it out.
“Wallet.”
The man handed it to him. Nick pulled out the cash inside
and jammed it into his pocket, a little over a hundred dollars. He looked at the man’s driver’s license. “Your name is Lindsay?”
“It’s Scottish.”
“That’s a girl’s name,” Molly said from the back.
“Well, Lindsay Dunbar,” Nick said, “we appreciate the lift. You’re a real help.” He tossed the man’s wallet out the window.
“Where… where are we going?” the man asked.
Nick pointed out the windshield straight ahead. “That way.”
The man obeyed. The car was silent for almost ten miles.
Lindsay, driving, cleared his throat and spoke. “You’re the two from the television,” he said.
“Ding, ding, ding. Well, aren’t you a smart one,” Nick said. “What does he win, Molly?”
She lunged forward with her revolver and placed it to the side of his head. “Bang! A bullet!” She laughed and sat back again.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want you to shut up and drive until I tell you to do something else,” Nick said.
He went quiet.
“Hon, isn’t this puppy just the cutest?” Molly asked.
Nick looked at her in the backseat. Her gun rested on her lap—clutched in her hands was the dog, licking her face.
“What’s his name?” Molly asked.
“It’s a she, and her name is Matilda,” Lindsay said.
“Matilda? What kind of name is that for such a cute little thing? I’m going to call you Boots because of your little white feet,” Molly told the dog.
Nick turned his attention from Molly cooing over the dog back to Lindsay. “Get off on the next exit,” he said.
“And then what?”
“I’ll tell you when we get to that point.”
Two miles up the road, Lindsay followed Nick’s instructions and made a right off the freeway.
“Make another right,” Nick said.
Lindsay did and drove down a rural two-lane road. Nothing but cornfields spread out to both sides of the street. Since they’d left the interstate, not a single car had passed. Nick looked back at Molly briefly. She nodded her head.
“Pull over here,” Nick said.
“Here?” Lindsay asked.
Molly smacked him in the back of the head. “He said here, didn’t he? What are you, deaf?” She flicked Lindsay’s ear.
He slowed and pulled to the side of the street. The gravel shoulder crunched under the car’s right-side tires. “You can have the car,” he said. “Just let me go.”
“Get out,” Nick said.
The man did as instructed.
Nick opened the passenger door and stepped out. “This side of the car. Get over here.” He waved the man to the passenger side.
Lindsay rounded the front of the vehicle, paused for just a second, and then ran toward the cornfield just beyond the ditch at the shoulder of the road.
Nick brought his gun sights up on the man just as he juked right and disappeared into the corn. “Son of a bitch!” Nick said.
The rear passenger-side door of the hybrid opened, and Molly ran past Nick in a flash. “I’ll get him, baby,” she said as she disappeared amongst the cornstalks. Nick glanced back to see the dog leap out of the car’s open rear door and run behind Molly.
A moment later, Nick heard the sound of two gunshots echo in the distance. He went to the driver’s door and took a seat behind the wheel.
CHAPTER FIVE
Our food came, followed immediately by an incoming call to Scott’s cell phone.
“Agent Matthews,” he answered.
Scott only said a few words over the course of the brief phone call, but from the sound of his end of the conversation, we may have had another scene. Scott clicked off from his call and waved our waitress over. “We need our bill,” he said.
The woman acknowledged.
“Shovel your food down. We’re headed out,” Scott said. “North of here about fifteen miles.”
I spoke over a mouthful of chicken sandwich. “What did they say?”
“That was the Omaha office. They cover all of Nebraska and Iowa. They just got a call from the local sheriff’s department at the scene of a fire in Van Meter. It’s our couple, and apparently they torched the house they were at.”
“No sign of the couple, though?” Bill asked.
“Gone.”
“Why light a house on fire to announce where you are?” Beth asked.
“Don’t know. But it means they’re still around,” Scott said. “We need to get on scene and see what we can come up with as quickly as possible.”
“Is someone from Omaha going to meet us there?” Bill asked.
“Yeah. A couple of agents and a forensics team, but we’ll beat them there by a half hour or so would be my guess.”
The waitress came to the edge of the table and set down a black folder with our bill inside.
“I’ll get it,” I said. “We can figure it out later.” I glanced inside the folder, took my copy of the receipt, and fished enough cash out of my wallet. I jammed the remaining quarter of a chicken sandwich in my mouth and stood.
“We’ll meet you out front in a minute,” Scott said. “We need to go gather our things.”
“Not coming back?” Beth asked.
“Doubt it.”
We waited for them out front of the hotel and then made our way to Van Meter, a small city located next to West Des Moines.
Beth and I followed Scott and Bill down a two-lane country road. Each home was spaced out by an acre or more at the minimum—a handful of times we didn’t spot a house for a half mile or more. Miles from the property, we saw smoke hanging in the air above the treetops. We could smell it coming through the vents of our rental car as we neared the house. A minute or two later, I saw law-enforcement vehicles and a fire truck at the right-hand side of the street. Beth slowed, and we tucked in behind Bill and Scott, pulling to the road’s shoulder behind a local sheriff’s cruiser.
The four of us stepped from our cars and headed toward the scene.
Scott pointed over toward the house as we approached. “There’s our BOLO truck.”
A white Ford F-150 sat parked off to the side of the driveway in the grass. The house was a light tan ranch, and the left side of the home, including its roof, had mostly burned through, leaving a few smoldering studs. I spotted what appeared to be charred appliances farther back inside the building. The right side of the home, including the garage, was still intact. The garage door was open—a black pickup truck and a smaller dark-blue car were parked inside. To the right of the garage was a double-tall carport that spanned the entire depth of the home.
A deputy in a brown sheriff’s-department jacket over a tan shirt and brown tie met us at the base of the driveway. He held out his hand for a handshake to Bill, who led our group. “I take it you’re with the FBI?” he asked.
We went through a quick round of introductions with the deputy, named Marrero. He took us up the driveway to meet with the fire chief, Paul Siegfried, and Captain Partridge of the sheriff’s department. The pair of men stood together, talking roughly fifty feet from the front of the home. We made our introductions while the firemen, nearer the house, sprayed down a few areas still smoldering.
“What do we know here?” Bill asked.
Siegfried, the fire chief, tucked his helmet under his arm. “The call came to us about an hour ago. We were on the scene here with our truck maybe ten minutes later.”
“Who called?” Beth asked.
“A car driving past saw the flames and made the call to 9-1-1,” Captain Partridge said. “A couple of my deputies were here on scene about the same time the fire department was arriving.” He scratched at his round, pink cheek. “Bennet and Stadler. Bennet is the one who spotted the BOLO Ford there and made the call to the FBI. Both of them are out doing some door knocking with the neighbors now. I have a handful of other deputies patrolling the area.”
Beth looked at the fire chief. “What did you
guys see when you arrived?”
“No cars, no people. The home was mostly engulfed. We called inside, searching for any occupants but never got a response. The rooms we could get at safely were searched. We got hoses on it pretty quick and knocked the fire back a bit before my guys could get in to search the rooms. Well, that’s when we saw the two at the kitchen table—or what was the kitchen table. Both bodies were nailed to what remained of the table’s surface by their hands. It looks like most of the fire was concentrated to the kitchen area of the home where the occupants were.”
“The occupants, they weren’t burned alive, were they?” Beth asked.
“I couldn’t tell you that,” Siegfried said. “They were deceased at the time we found them. We’re assuming it’s the homeowners, a Nancy and Bruce Crawford. We can’t really be certain at this point, though.”
I pulled my notepad from my inner jacket pocket and wrote down the names of the homeowners.
“Did you want me to get a coroner in here, or do you have a forensics team coming?” Partridge asked.
“We have a team coming,” Scott said. “Let’s keep out everyone that’s not needed to keep the flames under control until our forensics guys can have a look in there.”
“Sure,” the captain said.
“Do we know what we have for registered vehicles for the property owners?” Bill asked.
“Same thing the agent I spoke with over at the Omaha FBI asked. They have a 2012 Honda and a 2010 Chevy pickup. Both vehicles you see in the garage there. The agent told me that these two have been stealing the vehicles of those they attacked, but both of the homeowners’ cars are here. Like I said, I put some deputies out patrolling the area on the chance these two are on foot.”
“Okay, good,” Scott said.
“What was in there?” I asked. I pointed toward the double-tall carport.
“I don’t know. Looks like a carport for something. Motorhome or big rig maybe,” Partridge said. “Nothing like that registered to them, though.”
I nodded. “How long do you suppose it was until now since that fire was started?” I asked.
“An hour and fifteen minutes or so,” Siegfried said.
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