Max mentioned seeing Caldwell the night he investigated the house for the first time.
“Could be that he got suspicious of Gabe and made him divulge this address. Once he knew he could easily have come here and took Gabe out.”
“Do you think Caldwell knew that these girls were underage?” Liz asked.
“Maybe. Or maybe that was Gabe’s side gig. See, when you don’t micromanage the operation, it allows wiggle room. Skimming, that sort of thing. So maybe Gabe has himself a little side business of underage porn production and does it on Caldwell’s dime. Uses his house, his equipment, his distribution network. A guy could make a lot of money on something like that.”
Liz frowned. “Sick.”
“It pays,” Smith said. “It’s the way of the world. It could explain how your daughter got caught up in all this. Amanda might have fallen in with the wrong people. Maybe she met Ruby out somewhere. Maybe they had one of those amateur nights over at The Hustle.”
“Amateur night?” Liz asked.
“Yeah. Girls come in, strip for a night and get some attention and some cash. If the club owner likes what he sees, he might ask the girl back to dance regularly. Do you know if your daughter ever spent time at The Hustle?”
Liz shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
“Well, it’s not the kind of thing kids tend to share with their parents. Point is, she could have met up with Ruby anyway, anyhow. Maybe Ruby offered up a chance to dance on weekends. With Ruby in cahoots with Gabe, the next step would be to con her into doing a few movies. Kids are often lured in by easy money.”
Liz looked at Gabe’s lifeless body sitting in the chair, still bound by the ropes she’d tied herself. “I feel sick.”
“Problem is,” Smith continued, “we not only have nobody to question now, we also have a crime scene on our hands. Your prints are all over this place. Either of you two have priors?”
Max and Liz both said they didn’t.
“Did you get fingerprinted when your daughter disappeared?”
Liz shook her head.
“That’s good. You won’t come up in the database then. We’ll wipe down what we can, but that’s only so good. These assholes did a pretty good job of cleaning up after themselves already. Reality is, nobody’s going to really care that this asshole got wasted. This case will get worked fast, tossed into a box with the lid on it by the end of the week. That’s good for you both.”
“We should report this,” Max said.
Smith shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Why not? We can’t just leave a body here to rot.”
“I’ll call it in later. First, we need intel. This guy’s not going anywhere. Right now, we need sleep. It’s three a.m. and I’ve been up as long as you have.”
“And after that?”
“After that, we hit that cabin. We might be able to find some clues there that’ll point us in the right direction.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Max and Liz returned to their hotel room. Smith got himself a room nearby, electing to stay close to help protect them. Max wondered if part of the reason he stayed was to keep an eye on him and Liz, to make sure they didn’t try to run, but Max decided to take the protection any which way they could get it.
Sleep came quickly to Max and he slept well into the morning the following day. By the time he awoke the sun had come out in full force. It looked like it would be a hot one that day and the thought of going back into that desolate cabin to spend time with a desiccated corpse did not exactly appeal to him.
“I wish I had a change of clothes,” Liz said from the bed. She sat up and wiped the sleep from her eyes.
“Maybe we could swing by your house to pick some up on the way.”
“I’m not going home yet, not until this thing is done.”
Max thought of his own house, turned upside down by Caldwell or some other gang of criminals who likely wanted him dead. “Me neither.”
Liz hopped in the shower and put her clothes from the previous day back on again. Max did the same. Detective Smith showed up a little later wearing the same striped shirt as yesterday. Max let him in.
“You two ready to go?”
Max looked at Liz. Her face held the same reservations as his own. “As ready as we’ll ever be, I suppose.”
* * *
With the back window busted in his car, Max rode out to the cabin in Liz’s car. They drove in silence most of the way, finding very little to talk about. The side road leading to the cabin proved nearly as hard to find in the daylight as it had at night, but they found it eventually and began the trek out the pitted and potholed road. Smith followed them in his own car, a large Crown Victoria that looked well past its useful life.
“Are you going to be okay?” Liz asked.
Max thought of the panic attack he’d had the previous night upon discovery of the dead man hanging in the cabin. By the time they found Gabe Harris’s bloody body he’d barely blinked. “I think so. I seem to be getting used to the sight of dead bodies.”
They made it to the cabin a few minutes later. Liz turned her car around, facing it back toward the direction from which they came, as Max had done with his own the previous night. Smith stopped his massive tank of a car directly in the road, just before the forest opened up into a clearing, blocking the road.
“What’s he doing?” Liz asked.
“I don’t know.”
Smith got out of his car and closed the large door. It squeaked on hinges in need of oil before slamming shut loudly.
Max made his way toward the detective, wondering if a door that large could ever be gently closed.
“Chokepoint,” Smith said.
Max looked at Smith quizzically.
“If the bad guys show up they’ll have to get past this beast.”
Max nodded.
Smith looked at the cabin. “So this is it, eh? Place looks creepy.”
“What are we looking for in there?” Liz asked, arriving behind them, her purse slung over her shoulder.
“I wish I knew. Unless these creeps have covered their tracks again, we’ll at least have some physical evidence to inspect. Not sure what else we’ll get off the body, but there might be other stuff left behind. We won’t know until we look.”
Liz took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I suppose we’d better get in there and get this over with.”
“You two impress me,” Smith said. “You haven’t had any training for this sort of thing, but you jumped in with both feet. That shows a lot of guts. Hell, you assaulted a police officer—a felony offense, mind you—not to mention tapping Gabe Harris for that intel.”
“We just kinda got tossed into this whole thing,” Max said.
Smith shrugged. “Who knows, maybe when this thing is over you two might want to look into a career in law enforcement.”
“Let’s not go overboard,” Liz said.
Smith chuckled. “Fair enough.” He glanced toward the cabin door. “Let’s do this.”
Liz headed toward the cabin, followed by Detective Smith and Max. As they arrived at the door, Smith paused, motioning toward the door. “After you.”
Liz headed into the cabin just as Max’s phone buzzed with a text message. He stopped and reached into his pocket.
“Just a sec,” he said.
Max retrieved the phone and took a few steps away from the cabin to ensure he had a better signal. On the phone’s home screen he saw that he had a text from the same unknown number as twice before.
He slid the lock on his phone and typed in his security code. He glanced at the signal indicator, but it read No Service.
The text message appeared on the screen a second later.
It consisted of two words.
He’s dirty.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Max froze as a chill ran through his body. He turned around slowly to find Smith standing behind him with his revolver in his hand and a smile on his face.
“You idi
ot,” Smith said, the smile on his face growing wider. “You really bought it, didn’t you?”
Max didn’t reply.
“Honestly, I thought you had me back there in the hotel. I mean, that was a slick move with the fire extinguisher. I’ve put a lot of people down over the years and I’ve made it out of my share of sticky situations, but the thought of you two amateurs taking me out made me sick. I deserve an academy award.”
Max found himself surprised that he wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. He’d done what he could, he’d tried to live a decent life and he’d failed anyway. Now Katie was gone and his only son was dead. He was too old and too tired to start over. The bullet would be a quick way to go at least. His only regret would be not knowing what happened to Josh.
“So you’re in Caldwell’s pocket,” Max said.
“That commie piece of shit? Hell, no. Not in a million fucking years. I work for another interested party.”
“You killed Gabe too, didn’t you?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“And Ruby?”
“Can’t claim that one. Somebody did me a favor, because she was next on the list. Saved me the trouble.”
“Why?”
“That’s what they always say. Always looking for a reason.”
“You don’t have a reason for the things you do?”
“I don’t run this shit, I just take the money. This gig pays nice. You should try living on a cop’s salary. It doesn’t go so far these days.”
“How do you live with yourself?”
“Do you honestly think any of this shit matters? Any of it at all? You cared about that kid of yours, right? What the hell good did that do you? That kid was a piece of work.”
“You knew him? You knew my son?”
Smith cocked his head to the side and smiled. “Sure did. Motherfucker was hard as nails.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean he was a tough son of a bitch.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look, this is nice and all, but I’m done with the conversation. After I put the two of you down, I’m gonna get myself a nice steak and wash it down with about a dozen beers. You’re keeping me from that right now.”
Smith pointed the pistol. “Adios, asshole.”
Max closed his eyes and waited for the end.
Chapter Forty
Max didn’t hear a gunshot. Instead, he heard Liz’s voice. “Drop the gun.”
He opened his eyes to find Liz standing behind Smith, her pistol in hand and pointed at the back of the detective’s head.
“Why would I do that?” Smith asked.
Liz cranked the hammer back in response.
“I see,” Smith said. He closed his eyes as a look of anger and frustration passed over his face. When he opened his eyes again Max saw only black pools of emptiness in their place.
“Drop it,” Liz repeated. “Now.”
“You’re making a big mistake here, Liz.”
“The only mistake I made was believing you. I won’t do that again.”
“You won’t shoot me.”
“Try me.”
A grin spread across Smith’s face. He seemed to be considering her invitation. “The question you should ask yourself, Liz, is whether or not you can shoot me before I pull the trigger on your boyfriend here.”
Liz didn’t respond.
“We can work this out,” Smith continued. “I’m not an unreasonable man. You put the gun down, and I promise I’ll—”
Liz pulled the trigger. Smith’s forehead disappeared in a spray of blood and brains as the gunshot echoed throughout the woods. Smith’s body dropped hard to the ground, landing prone as a flock of birds took flight from a nearby tree, lifting into the sky and racing away from the noise. Blood pooled around Smith’s ruined head, soaking into the ground.
Max stood, frozen, as he watched Liz’s face become a mask of shock and terror. She dropped the gun, staggering a few steps away. She stared at the body lying on the ground and began to shake.
Max broke free of his paralysis and ran to her. She collapsed in his arms, taking both of them to the ground. He held her tightly, stroking her hair as she sobbed into his shoulder.
He held her there for a very long time. Her body was warm and her skin was smooth. She smelled like strawberries and bar soap.
When the tears stopped she pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. Her black, curly hair spilled over her shoulders, framing a face that was so much more beautiful than he’d noticed before.
He leaned in and kissed her.
She returned it.
Chapter Forty-One
Max and Liz sat on the front bumper of her car, staring at the front of the cabin. Smith’s body lay where it had fallen, one leg crossed over the other, face staring straight down into the ground. Most of the blood from his ruined head had soaked into the ground, leaving only a reddish wet spot behind.
“I killed him,” Liz said. “How could I have done that?”
“You saved my life. Both of our lives. It wasn’t murder.”
Liz sighed. “I should have disarmed him. We could have restrained him.”
“And then what? Go to more dirty cops?”
Liz shrugged.
“How many others are there like him?” Max continued. “Let’s say we did go to the cops. Now we get another dirty one, he arrests us and charges us with a half-dozen felonies. Maybe he plants drugs in my hotel room or your car. Smith backs him up, they lock us up and they get away with it. Caldwell and all the others keep doing what they do and a hundred more girls just like Amanda get chewed up and spit out by the machine.”
“I’ve never killed anybody before, Max.”
“Of course you haven’t.”
She looked at him, her eyes imploring. “What the hell do we do now, Max?”
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll figure it out.”
“You can’t tell anybody about what I did.”
Max looked her in the eye. “I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
She shook her head. “This is bad. We’re in way over our heads.”
Max nodded. “Yeah.”
She laughed and then stopped herself.
Max shrugged. “It’s the truth, isn’t it? You said yourself that honesty was what we needed.”
Liz looked at him and smiled. “Keep telling me the truth, Max. Always tell me the truth.”
“I will.”
Liz returned a weak smile.
“We need to figure out our next move. We can’t go to the cops, not the ones that Smith works with at least. We’ll need something hard to go on, something that’ll get the big guns in here.”
“The big guns?”
“The F.B.I. They investigate this kind of stuff. Trafficking rings, criminal enterprises, stuff like that. We get the proof, we get the feds in. They won’t be on anybody’s payroll.”
“You trust the F.B.I.?” Liz asked.
“More than the local cops.”
“So you think this other group that Smith talked about—the ones he said he worked for—you think that’s all true?”
“Could be. Smith said that liars will use the truth within their lies. I think he did that. I think he told me that stuff because in his mind I was already dead and it didn’t matter what he said. He wanted me to know that he’d outsmarted us. He just didn’t count on the harmless woman inside the cabin to be not so harmless.”
“Smith was probably lying about your bartender friend Ruby then.”
“I think he was.”
“Do you think he killed her?”
Max shook his head. “No, I think he was telling the truth about that. Like I said, he had nothing to lose if he was going to shut me up. But I think that he was lying about Ruby and Gabe being in cahoots. I think Gabe was flying solo on that one.”
“If that’s true then he really might have been going to cops on Caldwell.”
“The evidence has to be somewhere then, Max. Whatever Gabe had and was trying to hide.”
“Unless Smith’s backers already have it.”
“I think he would have told you. He liked to brag.”
Max considered that. “So if that evidence is still at large, it’s possible we could find it.”
“Where would we even begin?”
Max thought about it but didn’t know how to answer. “We could go back and search Gabe’s body for some sort of clue.”
“That’s risky. For all we know, Smith has already called in his cop buddies. Or the creeps he works for. Any of them could be headed out here as we speak.”
“If anything important was on Gabe then Smith would have taken it when he killed him. It’s possible Smith still has it on him.”
“Max, I don’t think I can—”
“I’ll do it. You search his car.”
Liz managed another weak smile. “Thank you.”
Max stood. “We should get moving then. We can’t waste any time.” He extended his hand to Liz.
Liz took Max’s hand and got to her feet. She smiled weakly at him before heading toward Smith’s car.
Chapter Forty-Two
Max searched the body, retrieving Smith’s wallet and badge. He found some cash inside the wallet along with a few credit cards, but nothing else of any real importance. He was also able to fish the dead man’s phone out of his front pocket but found the screen locked with thumbprint security. He pocketed the wallet and the phone and kept looking.
He found a wrapped condom in Smith’s back pocket along with a half-full pack of Marlboro cigarettes. A search of the left front pocket revealed a set of car keys for the Crown Vic and a matchbook. Max opened the matchbook and found two matches gone. He also found the name Brandi scrawled onto the underside cover, a phone number scribbled beneath. He wasn’t a detective, but that sure looked like a clue, so he pocketed the matchbook as well.
Familiar Lies Page 12
