by Elle Gray
I slip through the gate and take exaggerated care to close it again. Then I turn and run as fast as I ever have down the driveway, hoping I look like nothing more than another shadow. My feet slap the pavement hard, making me grimace at the sound. But I make it back to the SUV and dive in. Astra starts her up and pulls away from the curb, driving quickly down the street and to safety.
“Holy crap that was close,” I gasp, still trying to catch my breath.
Astra is grinning wide at me. “You sure do know how to show a girl a good time.”
“Like I said,” Brody’s voice sounds in our ears. “Issues, ladies. Y’all have some serious issues, and I encourage you to seek help.”
Astra and I laugh hysterically as she drives, ferrying me to safety.
Thirty-Four
Wilder Residence; The Emerald Pines Luxury Apartments, Downtown Seattle
We didn’t get what we needed with tonight’s raid. Oh, I saw plenty that was suggestive. Put before a jury, I have no doubt they’d come back with the right verdict and send Tony Svboda away forever. The problem is that with what we have now, we won’t ever see the inside of a courtroom. That famous old saying about a prosecutor being able to indict a ham sandwich doesn’t apply here. What we have is more like a wish sandwich—two pieces of bread and we wish we had something between them.
The adrenaline that lit me up for most of the night has finally ebbed, leaving me feeling weak and shaky. I slump against the wall of the elevator car and when the doors open, I trudge slowly down the hallway to my door. My hands are shaking so badly, it takes me a minute to manage to get the key into the lock, but I finally get it. All I want right now is a hot shower and some sleep.
I close and lock the door behind me, and when I step into the dimly lit living room, I find Mark sitting on the couch, his face pinched and tight.
“Very moody. Atmospheric,” I comment. “Sitting in the dark like this.”
“Why are you dressed like a cat burglar?”
I shrug. “We had to do a little burgling tonight.”
He stares at me with an expression on his face I can’t interpret. It’s obvious he’s upset though, and there is nothing I want to do less tonight than argue about whatever the issue is.
“Listen, I can tell you’re mad about something, but can we schedule our fight about whatever it is for tomorrow?” I ask. “I’m beat and—”
“I saw your room.”
“I guess not,” I mutter, letting out a heavy breath. “Fine. What room?”
“Your conspiracy room, I guess you’d call it.”
That gets my attention and upsets me. The void inside of me left behind by the rush of adrenaline begins to fill again as a fresh flood of it washes in. I silently chastise myself for not getting the lock taken care of already.
“So, is that what we’re doing now? Just snooping through all of my rooms?”
“I wasn’t aware there were places I wasn’t allowed to go.”
“The door was closed. I closed it,” I growl. “In most polite, civilized societies, a closed door means don’t come in.”
“Like I said, I didn’t know there were places I wasn’t allowed in here. Maybe we need to draw out a formal map and you can label the ‘no entry’ zones for me, so I don’t see something I shouldn’t see again,” he snaps.
“I wasn’t aware I was hiding it,” I reply. “Because as best as I recall, I told you I wasn’t giving up on the investigation. I seem to remember telling you that in very clear terms.”
“Have you seen your board in there? It’s conspiracy theory craziness,” he fires back. “Are we going to need to start wearing paper robes and tin foil hats around here?”
I shake my head, feeling the anger swelling within me. “What are you so pissed off about, Mark? You knew I was looking into this. So, why are you acting so shocked and surprised right now?”
“Because I didn’t realize how absolutely out there and nuts this all looks,” he says. “So thank you for giving me a very well-illustrated demonstration of how crazy this conspiracy crap is.”
I clench my jaw as I stare at him. “Did you read everything in my room? Do you know what a freaking violation of my privacy that is?”
“I had the time since you were out apparently robbing people or whatever you were doing tonight,” he fires back. “I mean, do you really believe that somebody assassinated Supreme Court Justices?”
“I don’t know what I believe right now,” I shout at him. “That’s why I’m investigating this. So I can separate what’s real and what’s not. So I can figure out what I believe and what I don’t believe. Jesus, Mark, can you get off my back and let me do my thing?”
“I didn’t realize doing your thing involved falling down a rabbit hole of absolute insanity.”
I shrug. “Well, now you do.”
We fall silent for a long moment, both of us just staring hard at one another. I can’t believe he went through my things without my permission. What I can’t believe even more is the fact that we’re having this argument. Again. I thought we put this to bed the last time we fought. But apparently not.
“What is this really all about, Mark?” I ask. “Why are you freaking out so bad right now?”
“Other than the fact that what you’re doing is nuts?”
“Yes, Mark. Other than that.”
He opens his mouth to reply but closes it again without speaking. He stands up suddenly and starts to pace the room, more agitated than I’ve ever seen him before. It strikes me then that there is more going on here than he’s saying. He can’t be this upset about something he already knew I was doing. He knew I wasn’t going to back off. No, I feel like there’s something else at play here.
“What is really going on here, Mark?”
“I just think what you’re doing is crazy.”
“Yeah, I got that. But that’s not news,” I say. “So, what is the real issue here?”
He finally meets my gaze, and in his eyes, I see the fear and the worry. I see a man who is terrified of what could happen. Of what he fears might happen.
“Talk to me, Mark. What’s really happening here?”
He looks at me and I see his eyes shimmering with tears that he’s fighting hard to keep from falling.
“I’m just afraid, Blake. If you’re right, and they can murder Supreme Court Justices, what’s to stop them from getting to you?”
His words knock the wind out of me, and I find that I have no answer for him. So I do the only thing I can do and step forward. I pull him into a tight embrace and just hold him.
Thirty-Five
I check my watch and see that it’s just after nine as Svboda exits his house. It’s been a week and a half since our adventure into his house. After that night, we put him on round-the-clock surveillance. Mo, Astra, and I have all divided up the day, all of us pulling eight-hour shifts, watching him. Waiting for him to make his move.
I know the pressure is building up inside of him. The cooling-off period from Emily Tompkins, to Summer Kennedy, to Serena Monroe, had shortened considerably. And I know he has no other outlet, so his need to release has got to be growing stronger and stronger, day by day, hour by hour. It’s only a matter of time before he tries to snatch another girl off the street and when he does, we’re going to be right there.
I’m parked several houses down from his, camouflaged between a Range Rover and a Chevy Silverado. When I see his black Audi A4 pull out of his driveway, I start my engine and wait for Svboda to turn the corner before I pull my Suburban away from the curb and follow him at a distance. The tracker is still fixed to his car, so I’m able to keep a good gap between us.
I touch the button on my Bluetooth headset and wait until I hear the chime, connecting me to home base.
“Rick, are you there?” I ask.
“Here, boss.”
“Svboda is on the move,” I tell him. “I’m about half a mile behind him. Keeping tabs on him with the tracker.”
“Copy that,�
�� he replies. “Think tonight’s the night?”
“God, I hope so. I’m ready to be done with this fool.”
“That makes two of us,” he replies. “Four of us, if you count Mo and Astra.”
“Well, here’s hoping we catch him in the act tonight.”
“I’ll be on comms,” he says. “Happy hunting, boss.”
I disconnect the call and glance over at the tablet fixed to the dashboard. Svboda looks like he’s heading for Belltown. Trendy and popular, Belltown is what people call a target-rich environment. There are more bars than Starbucks in Belltown, which is notable. The sidewalks are always crowded with people, and the party never seems to end. It’s no wonder he likes hunting there.
I turn the corner onto Evergreen Avenue and see Svboda about a hundred yards ahead of me. Evergreen is one of the less crowded streets in Belltown, but it’s still pretty crowded. Svboda is driving slowly down the street and I feel that charge of electricity fill my veins. He’s on the hunt. This is it. Tonight is the night. He takes a right onto what looks like a dimly lit side street. Has he spotted somebody?
Suddenly, a group of college kids in pink button-up shirts, shorts, and boat shoes drunkenly waves their way across the street, forcing me to slam on the brakes, causing my tires to screech. I lay on the horn and earn fingers and a slew of curses from the group of kids. And with every second that passes, I feel Svboda getting further away from me. Maybe I’m paranoid, but something doesn’t feel right.
I glance at the tablet and see that his red dot is still sitting in the same spot and try to relax. He’s probably running his usual routine on whichever girl he selected, which means I may have a minute or so before he slips that needle filled with ketamine into her.
“Come on!” I shout out the window. “Get the hell out of the way!”
Other groups of students, emboldened by the frat-boy crowd, began heedlessly walking across the street, holding up traffic going both ways. While I lay on the horn, they laugh and give me the finger in addition to hurling insults at me. My stomach is churning as I wait for these idiots to clear the road. The dot still hasn’t moved, and the feeling of something being wrong grows even thicker inside of me.
The assholes finally clear the road and I jump on the accelerator. I take the right Svboda did and race down the street as fast as I dare. The street ahead of me is empty. Svboda’s car is nowhere to be seen. But the red dot still has not moved. As I pull even with it, I slam on the brakes and jump out of my SUV. I turn in a circle, not understanding how the red tracking dot could still be on the screen when—
“Oh God,” I groan.
On the sidewalk, I see a purse laying on the concrete. I run over and snatch it off the ground and open it up. There, nestled in with the girl’s belongings, is the tracker.
“Dammit!” I shout.
I dig into the bag and find the girl’s wallet. Her name is Scarlett Porter. She’s blonde, thin, and beautiful. Just his type. Panic gripping me tightly, I key open my comm.
“Rick.”
“Go ahead, boss.”
“Svboda knew. He knew we had a tracker on him,” I say. “He grabbed a girl, dumped the tracker, and took off. I lost him.”
Rick groans. “Oh, God. How in the hell did he know?”
“I have no idea. Maybe his lifestyle makes him paranoid,” I say. “Paranoid people are hypervigilant.”
“What now?”
I turn in a circle, my hand on my head. My stomach is seething so hard, I feel like I’m going to be sick. I rack my brain, trying to figure out what to do next.
“Okay, here’s what I’m going to do,” I say as I move. “I’m going to drive. Try to find Svboda on the road. I need you to call Astra and Mo in. Get them on the road too. We need to find this guy, now.”
“Copy that.”
I drive the streets, searching for his Audi, but don’t see anything. There are a thousand directions he could have gone. Driving around blindly feels like searching for a needle in a stack of needles. I’m feeling the tendrils of panic gripping and squeezing me so tightly, I can barely breathe.
Now that Svboda knows we’re onto him, there’s no telling what he’ll do. There’s no guarantee he’ll stick to his usual pattern of keeping the girl for a night. If I were a betting woman, I’d say probably not. He’ll be rushed. He’ll be needing his release so badly that he may just do it to get it done.
But then, maybe his ritual is so important to him that he needs to accomplish it no matter what. Yeah, he’s onto us, but part of me is hoping that since he found the tracker and got rid of it, he’ll believe he’s in control again. If he feels like he’s got the upper hand on us, maybe he’ll stick to his pattern and take his time with the girl he just snatched. And he does have the upper hand—we don’t know where he is. But it may give us the time we need to figure this out.
I rack my brain, trying to come up with something. I turn down his street and cruise by his house. The Audi’s not there. I didn’t think it would be, but I wanted to cover my bases. The last thing I’d want is to not go by his house and find out later that he’d killed the girl there.
“Where are you, Svboda? Where in the hell are you?”
Fear and dread have taken hold of me and it’s keeping me from thinking clearly. I need to clear my head. I pull to a stop along the curb and close my eyes. I count to ten then let out a long breath. Then I do it again. And again. It takes me until I’ve counted to eighty before I’m even approaching rational thought once more.
“Okay, think,” I mutter. “Think.”
I remember something Paxton told me once that’s stuck with me for a long time now. He said that when things are getting hairy and the world seems overly complicated, the best thing you can do is go back to basics. Do the most basic thing and build out from there. But the most important thing is to get that first block down, and to do that, you need to think and act in the simplest, most basic of terms.
For me, going back to basics is going back to my profile. Trusting my profile. I cycle through it all in my head a couple of times. I’m about to run through it again when the thought blindsides me. It is literally such a basic thought, I’m embarrassed I didn’t have it before. I reach up and key my comm. For Svboda to do his work, he needs privacy. It was one of the first things we talked about.
“Rick, you there?”
“Go, boss.”
“I need you to search property records. I need you to find a secondary property for Tony Svboda,” I instruct him. “He’s got to have a property someplace secluded. Somewhere private. That’s where he’s going.”
“Copy that,” Rick says. “Standby.”
In the background, I can hear the clacking of his computer keys as his fingers fly across the board. I gnaw on my bottom lip, trying to stave off the panic that’s still hovering like a malignant spirit waiting to descend upon me.
“There’s nothing, boss,” Rick sighs, sounding as dejected as I feel.
I shake it off and focus my mind again. “Okay. Try his father’s name, and then his mother’s,” I say. “There’s a property out there he’s using as his kill site. I can feel it in my bones.”
“Roger that.”
I hear the clicking of the keyboard again and Rick muttering to himself in the background. And then the clacking stops and Rick gasps.
“Boss, you’re a genius,” he says excitedly. “There’s a cabin in the name of Svboda’s father, out in the Olympic Forest.”
“Great work, Rick. Shoot me the address.”
“Already done,” he tells me. “You’ve got a drive ahead of you. It’s about three hours from where you are now.”
“I’m on the road. Send Astra and Mo to my location. Also, I need you to liaise with the local LEOs. I want them on standby. But until we know for sure whether Svboda is at that cabin or not, they don’t leave their station. Make sure they understand we have jurisdiction and they’re not to make a move without us.”
“Roger that. I got it, boss,
” he replies. “Hit the road and good luck. And be careful.”
“Thanks Rick.”
I disconnect the call and pull the directions to the cabin up on the tablet. After that, I throw my bubble light up on the dashboard and stand on the accelerator. Svboda has almost an hour lead on me, and I need to cut that time down. I need to get to that cabin before he has a chance to harm a single hair on Scarlett Porter’s head.
“I’m coming for you, Tony.”
Thirty-Six
Svboda Family Cabin, Olympic National Forest; Near Quinault, WA
“Talk to me, Rick,” I say.
“There’s a turnoff about half a mile ahead of you. The access road will lead you to the Svboda cabin about a quarter-mile in from the road,” he reports.
“Where are Astra and Mo?”
“Still half an hour out,” he replies. “I think this is the part where you let me liaise with the locals again and have them send everybody.”
I pass the turnoff he mentioned and see the long, dark access road. I stop the car, pulling as far over onto the shoulder as I can, and turn on the hazard lights. The trees press close to the shoulder, and the interior of the forest beyond is nearly pitch black.
“Boss?” Rick asks.
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to wait for the locals, right?”
My mind fills with images of the torture Scarlett could be enduring right this very minute. I picture Svboda putting his cigarettes out on her flesh. I can practically hear the sound of her screaming ringing in my ears. The bodies of Serena Monroe, Summer Kennedy, and Emily Tompkins flash through my mind. I see every slice, every stab wound, every bruise and broken bone. I see the deep purple bruises that ring their necks and see their wide-open eyes, glazed over, completely lifeless.
“Not sure Scarlett Porter has the time.”
“If you go in there alone—”
“I’m not even sure he’s there,” I cut him off. “I’m playing a hunch.”
