“You told him about Bob.”
“I called him at six o’clock this morning.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared out of the window. “I’ve seen a lot of death. Last night was different.”
Kit saw that his eyes were wet with tears.
“Last night, when Bob lay there dying, I prayed for him. Out loud. Everything was slowing down, his breathing, his heart … but when I said the name ‘Jesus,’ he squeezed my hand, and he got this look … so I kept praying and he squeezed my hand again, and then he was gone.”
Kit’s heart pounded.
“There was a supernatural peace in his death. I was there. I felt it. I saw it.” David faced her. “What happened last night was terrible. But Kit, Jesus showed up on the side of that road. He was there. I knew it, and Bob knew it, too.”
As she drove back to the offsite office, David’s words gripped her. Had he really become a believer? He said he had. What’s more he said now, he felt so different. “All these years, it’s like I’ve been numb,” he’d said. “Now, it’s like someone turned on the lights. I can feel again. It started with you, Kit. Now I know where that was leading.”
The thought gained momentum in her mind, like a stone tumbling downstream.
But you know, she argued with herself, as she negotiated the causeway, it’s one thing to forgive a parent who’s dead. And David’s stepfather wasn’t a believer. But Eric! Good grief … how many Bible studies had they been in together? How many worship services? How many service projects had they worked on? He had betrayed all of his promises. Walked away from her … and from God, for all she knew.
The worst of it was, all Eric had to do, she knew, was ask for God’s forgiveness and he’d be off the hook. Completely. Where was the justice in that? Didn’t God care about her pain? Her abandonment?
She hit the steering wheel in protest. Then, unexpectedly, tears welled in her eyes.
“Quantico’s going to FedEx it to me in the next couple of days,” Chris told her the next day. “They can modify an iPod. Meanwhile, did you hear? Hector Lopez wants to meet with David.”
Kit’s stomach tightened. “For what?”
“Not sure yet.”
“When?”
“Tonight. David said he’d call you when he knew the details.”
“Not tonight! That’s when I’m meeting with Sam Curtis!” Kit had made arrangements to interview Curtis again, this time at his house. She wanted to get a different view of the man, and get some more questions answered.
“We can handle it.”
But when Kit heard the specifics from David she had her doubts.
“He wants me to meet him at 9:00 tonight at the tomato processing plant.” David’s voice on the phone was tight.
“Why there?” Kit shifted her weight on her feet.
“I don’t know.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants me to meet somebody. My guess is, it’s his boss.”
Kit took a breath. Her knees were shaky. She began to pace. “No good, David. Make it some public place, where we can back you up.” She had already cancelled her meeting with Curtis in her mind.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“He just killed somebody!”
“I know. And I suggested a diner up the road, but Lopez said no. It has to be the plant.”
“Then blow it off.”
“No. I’m not going to do that.”
Kit’s mind raced. This felt too risky, too dangerous. She glanced up to see if Chris or the others were around. Maybe he’d listen to Chris, maybe …
“Look, Kit, Lopez isn’t going to hurt me. I’ve given him what he wanted. He has no idea I’m law enforcement. Now, the timing is right. He has a new truck. I think he’s going to ask me to move something illegal. People, maybe. It’s great—a chance to find out who he’s working for. Lopez isn’t the main man.”
“Then who is he?”
“The enforcer. He’s a psychopath, Kit. I can see it in his eyes. He likes it when people get hurt.”
“Great! So you’re going with a psychopath to meet someone else in a place we can’t get to!”
“Yeah, well, our clients aren’t Boy Scouts, Kit. I’ll be all right. Trust me. I’m betting that tonight I’ll meet Carlos—and I’ll be one step closer to finding Maria and nailing Lopez on Bob’s murder.” He hesitated. “Who knows? We may find out who killed your little boy.”
The other team members were talking to Jason, the tech guy, when Kit walked back into the main room. She outlined David’s plan and used the graphics on her computer to show them the tomato processing plant.
“We can’t back him up there,” Chris said.
“I know. I told him. He says it has to be there.”
Roger spoke up. “We can be in the woods. We’ll have to walk in a ways, but the three of us can get within twenty yards or so of the building.”
“Two. Kit’s going to be with Sam Curtis,” Chris said.
“I’ll cancel that,” Kit said.
“No need to. I can get a couple of guys to help out,” Roger suggested.
Chris stretched. “Curtis is leaving for a convention tomorrow morning, Kit. If you don’t go tonight, you won’t have another chance for three or four days.”
“If David has his cell phone in his pocket, he can have a number programmed in. Then all he has to do is push one button if he’s in trouble,” Jason added. “As a backup, he can bust out a window. We hear glass breaking, we move.
Everybody else thought that was good enough. Kit had her doubts.
Kit called David later in the day. “Jason wants to program in a number on your cell so you just have to hit one button if you get in trouble.”
“Right. I talked to him.”
“Did you get some sleep?”
“Not much. You?”
Kit shivered. “No.” She outlined the back-up plan she and the others had concocted and told him she would be at Sam Curtis’s home at the same time he was meeting Lopez.
“He may not know Lopez, but he will know Lopez’s boss.”
Kit chewed her lip. “David, if something looks wrong, get out, OK?”
She heard him take a deep breath. “It’ll be all right, Kit.”
The hours seemed to stretch out as the sun crawled toward the horizon. The rumble of thunder in the west announced that the predicted thunderstorms were going to materialize eventually. Kit hadn’t eaten all day. Her stomach felt knotted. She thought maybe she should eat some yogurt, at least. But even that wouldn’t go down.
Sam Curtis’s house wasn’t far from the tomato processing plant. She’d told Chris to call or text her if anything went wrong. She could leave and be at his location in ten, maybe twelve minutes.
The heavens broke loose at 5:40 p.m. Torrential rains poured down on the thirsty ground as lightning split the sky. Kit stood in the back doorway of the offsite office and watched as rain pelted the little pond in the back, tore leaves from the trees, and sent muddy rivulets racing toward low ground. “God,” she whispered, “you are so powerful. Please help us get through tonight.”
Lately, she’d been talking to him more. What was changing?
David dressed as if he’d been working, in a grubby T-shirt, jeans, and workboots. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. As he looked in the mirror, he saw fatigue and boredom, which was the look he was going for. Low threat.
Carefully putting his real cell phone in a drawer in his room, he clipped the pay-as-you-go phone on his belt and slid his wallet in his back pocket. Then he put a knife in his boot, and picked up a small revolver, and stuck it in his jacket pocket.
The air was still steamy as he stepped out of his room, closing the door behind him and slipping the key in his pocket. The sky was dark. Water from the late afternoon thunderstorm dripped off of the roof. The asphalt in the parking lot remained studded with puddles.
David got into his SUV. The drive to the tomato
processing plant was short, just fifteen minutes or so. In his mind’s eye, he could imagine Chris and the others skirting through the woods, headed for the area near the tomato processing plant, having hidden their vehicles some distance away. They’d been waiting. He hoped he didn’t have to call on them. But he had all of his options in mind.
He felt just as glad Kit would be out of the area. His instincts would be to protect her. Now, he could concentrate on his primary goals: meeting Lopez’s boss and not getting killed himself.
22
KIT COULDN’T EAT, SHE COULDN’T SLEEP, AND HER HANDS FELT COLD AS she got into her car and headed for Curtis’s house. Calm down, she told herself, but she was spitting into the wind.
The country roads she had to travel were dark and empty, and still wet from the thunderstorm. She watched her speed, and took the curves carefully, aware that an accident was the last thing she needed tonight. Periodically, her headlights would catch the light of some animal’s eyes, a cat, perhaps, or a possum, crouching on the edge of the road.
Curtis and his wife Anne lived in a modern brick rambler at the end of a long lane. Surrounded by tomato and cornfields, the house had a wheelchair ramp leading to the side door and a circular driveway made of crushed oyster shells. The lights were on as Kit drove up. She parked in the driveway, and heard dogs barking as she approached the front door and rang the bell.
“Come in, come in!” Curtis said, opening the door wide.
Kit stepped in to the modest home and a black Labrador retriever and a Jack Russell terrier came up to her barking, tails wagging.
“They won’t hurt you none. Come on in!”
She walked past the dogs, into the living room, painted blue and carpeted in beige. A high-backed couch sat near the wall to the left. Two wing-backed chairs were arranged in a conversational grouping, near a fireplace with an enormous, natural wood mantle. Over it was the mounted head of a ten-point buck.
“Sit down!” Curtis said. “Can I git ya something to drink?”
“No, thanks. Is anyone else in the house?” Kit stood with her back to the front wall, facing all of the entrances to the room.
“My wife Anne will be out shortly. She’s back with Mawmaw. That’s her mother. Ninety-six years old. Pretty much bedridden though.”
As if on cue, a gray-haired, attractive, sixty-something woman came into the room. “Ms. McGovern? Welcome to our home,” she said extending her hand.
Kit rose to meet her. “I’m sorry I had to make it so late.”
“Not a problem, dear, we’ve got a good hour before we go to bed.” She pronounced the word “ow-wah.” Kit caught the “old Virginia” in her voice. She glanced at her watch. It was 9:05 p.m.
David intentionally arrived early at the tomato processing plant. He laid his head back, his iPod earbuds in his ears. He wanted Lopez to see him using the device again. And if his boss saw it, too, all the better. He heard someone drive up, but stayed still, as if he were asleep. He heard footsteps approaching his car, and then slam! Someone hit the side of his Jeep.
“What!” David said, as if he’d been startled awake.
“Wake up, cowboy!” Lopez said, grinning. “Let’s go.”
David pulled the earbuds out of his ears, stuffed them in his jeans pocket, making sure to leave a little of the white wires showing, and got out of his SUV. “Just catching some sleep,” he said to Lopez.
“Give me the gun,” Lopez said holding out his hand.
David hesitated, then drew the revolver out of his pocket and slapped it into Lopez’s hand. The man jerked David’s cell phone off of his belt, and threw it and the gun into David’s SUV. Then he turned and patted him down. He didn’t find the knife in David’s boot.
“All right, let’s go, let’s go.” They began walking toward the main building at the processing plant, then Lopez suddenly stopped. “Oh, I forget. We change the meeting place.”
David stopped. A warning flashed through him. “What are you talking about, man?”
“My boss, he say he can’t meet here. We go to him. Get in.” Lopez motioned with his head toward his truck.
For a split-second, David thought about opting out. Refusing to go. But then, they were so close, so close. He wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. “I’ll follow you in my car.”
“Get in, man!” Lopez said.
Heart drumming, David put his hand on the truck door and pulled it open.
“What are they doing?” Chris exclaimed. His voice was transmitted to Roger and four other officers scattered in the woods near the tomato processing plant building.
“Looks like they’re leaving.”
“That wasn’t the plan!”
“How can we follow him?”
Chris quickly calculated their options. It would take them ten to fifteen minutes to get back to their cars. By that time, Lopez’s truck would be out of sight. “Roger, call your dispatch. See if you’ve got a car in the area.”
He did and they didn’t.
Chris called Jason to see if he could track the truck using the GPS bug David had put on it. “It’s sitting still, man. He must be in a different vehicle,” Jason replied.
“Cell phone?”
“I saw Lopez grab David’s off of his belt.”
And the realization that David was completely on his own left Chris’s mouth dry.
Kit had her Bureau cell phone on vibrate. Ten minutes into her interview with Curtis and his wife, she felt it go off. Removing it, she glanced down at the screen. A text message from Chris read: “Changed location. Will try to follow.” Try? Her heart seized up.
Lopez was driving a white Ford. David didn’t buckle up, preferring to leave his options open. Lopez took the twisty, dark country roads at a breakneck speed, accelerating to sixty-five at one point, and David hung on. The man looked relaxed, but David knew psychopaths were never more at ease than when they were hurting someone.
Twelve minutes later, Lopez pulled off the road and into a driveway. He stopped the truck in front of a low, white cinderblock building. “Here we are, my friend,” he said, smiling at David.
Wordlessly, David got out of the truck. He looked up to the sky to try to orient himself, but a blanket of clouds lay over the moon and the stars. There would be no help from the heavens tonight. His heart pounding, he followed Lopez to the rear of the building. He could smell the pines, feel the sweet humidity in the air, hear the crickets chirping innocently in the woods. But he could also sense the presence of evil, dark and foreboding. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.
Chris was out of breath by the time he got back to his Bureau car. They’d divided up the five roads in the vicinity of the plant and were scattering to see if they could find a trace of Lopez and David.
Thirty minutes later, they all agreed they’d have to give it up.
Lopez unlocked the door with a key. The building was dark. He motioned David in. “You first,” David said, standing his ground. So Lopez entered. He flipped a switch and a single bulb suspended from a fixture in the ceiling came on. David followed, keeping his back to the wall to the left of the door, glancing quickly around as he closed the door behind him.
The room was empty. Lopez walked through it to a second door. David followed. But then Lopez dropped his keys, blocking his path and forcing David to step quickly to the right. In one split second, David knew he’d made a mistake.
Suddenly a strong arm gripped his neck and he felt the blade of a knife pressed against his throat. Instinctively, David reacted, driving his elbow into the gut of the man behind him, jamming his foot down on his instep, and throwing his head back into his assailant’s face. He knocked the knife arm away as the man reacted. Then David flexed his knees, twisted, and was free.
He turned. He was face-to-face with the man he’d seen in the surveillance photo with Maria.
Lopez was laughing. “You see, Jefe, I told you. He is a bullfighter, no?”
The man Lopez called ‘jefe’ had slicked-back black h
air and black eyes. He was taller than David, and not as burly. His black Western shirt had pearlized buttons and he was wearing black jeans and pointed Western boots. A trickle of blood emerged from his nose, and he put down his knife and removed a white handkerchief from his back pocket, wiped his nose, looked at the blood, and said, “You are good.”
David’s heart was pounding and his mind flashing like someone had lit off a firecracker inside his skull. He exploded, barreling toward the man, slamming him into the wall behind. He backed up, drove his fist into the man’s gut, and then his mind registered the click of a gun. He turned. Lopez had a .45 aimed straight at him, four inches from his head.
David’s breath came hard. He straightened up, unclenched his hands, and with a sweep of his arm, moved Lopez’s gun away and walked across the room. He backed up to a wall, put his hands on his knees, and fought to calm down. He could feel blood trickling down his neck from where the knife had cut him. A white-hot anger coursed through his veins. “Who are you?” he said.
“Carlos Cienfuegos,” the man said, extending his hand. “Very pleased to meet you. Hector here says you are the one we have been waiting for.”
The guy came across smooth, oily, and David was still trying to figure him out when he shook his hand.
“Please forgive our fun here. We always like to test those we want to do business with, no?”
“Next time, ask for a résumé,” David muttered.
“Ah, but ours is physical work, no?”
“What do you want?”
“Hector says you are looking for more work.”
“Maybe.”
“He says you have good references.”
David blanked on that for a minute, then remembered using the name of an MS-13 gang leader with Hector. “So what?”
“So, Señor Castillo, we have more jobs for you. More for you to do. And after that, more again.”
“Why would I want to work with you?”
Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838) Page 19
