by JP Ratto
Crocker stood and took the time to dust himself off. I wondered if he was stalling—thinking about the time he had left. His eyes darted to the Ka-bar and back to me. I was between him and the knife. I glanced at Maddie. Her pain was evident. She had used her belt as a tourniquet, but she needed to get to a hospital.
Feinting a run at me, Crocker circled to my left and headed for his Ka-bar.
I tackled his legs, and he hit the ground, face down, well short of the knife. Crawling up his body, I received an elbow to the head for my effort. I rolled off and away, attempting to clear my blurred vision.
Thick, black smoke rose from the barn, contrasting the clear morning sky. Someone would call the fire department and Deputy Brimmer. I feared if Brimmer showed up and saw Maddie’s condition, it might cause a knee-jerk reaction to shoot Crocker. If that happened, I might never find Karen Martin.
He moved in close, still in a wrestler’s crouch. I shifted my feet in the upright stance of a boxer. I knew he meant to tackle me, and I wasn’t going let that happen.
In a surprise move, he stood up and feinted a jab. I went to block it, and he grabbed my other arm, pulling me in toward him. I returned an elbow to his face and watched his bloodshot eyes roll inside his head. He staggered several steps backwards. Crocker rushed again, feinted another jab, and landed a roundhouse to my cheek. After shaking off the initial pain, I moved in and landed an uppercut to his chin. We were both bloody and trading punches, neither giving quarter.
I stepped back, covertly getting a view of Crocker’s legs, then moved in again, holding his psychotic stare. I began a kick up toward his groin but instead used my right leg to sweep his left leg from under him. Again, he went down like a bag of stones. Crocker rose, but he winced and grabbed his left side.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Maddie, limp and still, the tourniquet slack on her leg. Crocker’s knife and gun were behind him, and he was in front of me. Would he quickly hobble away, leaving me to help Maddie? Would he make another run for the Ka-bar?
He quick-turned and limped rapidly toward the knife. I had to make up ten feet between us and did. I dived low and hard and reached the Ka-bar first. Crocker landed on top of me, knees crunching my back, and grabbed my hand with both of his, lifting and twisting. To counter the pressure, I stiffened my wrist. Crocker’s knees gouged ruts in my back. Inhaling deeply, I ignored the pain and focused on freeing my right arm from beneath me. Pushing up with my trapped arm, I jerked it free. Able to rock my body, Crocker tumbled off me and onto his back. He had no choice but to pull me along to maintain a hold on the Ka-bar. My back on his chest and Crocker attempting to break my wrist, I had one move I hoped would work. I slid to the left and, as hard as possible, I rammed my right elbow into his solar plexus. With the air knocked from his lungs, Crocker turned his focus to breathing and I yanked my wrist free. I spun and faced him with the knife to his throat.
It wasn’t until that moment I decided Crocker’s fate. I knew it would only end one way.
I can’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.
His eyes told me he knew it too.
For Karen Martin. For Mary Wells. For Maddie.
I plunged the knife into his chest. His eyes bulged. He tried to take a breath, but the air hole in his collapsed lung wouldn’t permit it.
I shifted the weight of my body onto the Ka-bar and sunk it to the hilt.
Chapter 47
Emergency responders arrived and began to work on the blazing barn and Maddie’s gunshot wound. Cars of locals lined Farm Road. I watched as Alex Clancy examined Crocker’s body. He saw me. I must have looked as if I needed verification that the knife I plunged into the madman’s chest did its job.
“He’s dead,” Clancy stated, making it official. He rose and gave the order to bag the corpse and have it brought to the morgue. He half smiled at me. “Business sure has picked up since you came to town, Mr. Holt.”
It wasn’t funny, and a left-handed compliment to be sure.
Deputy Brimmer stood over Maddie, who lay on an ambulance gurney. As I walked over to the sheriff, he moved away to control the crowd congregating at the lane to the farm.
“Maddie?”
Her eyes opened partially, then wider. She tried to rise then winced in pain and lay down again.
“What? You want me to say you’re my hero? Forget it.”
I smiled. “Time enough for that later. Crocker is dead. We still don’t know where Karen is. She has to be on this property somewhere.”
Maddie struggled to speak. “Lucas, I tried. I tried to find her.” She paused and took a deep breath. “He found me…before I could.”
“I know, Maddie. We all tried. We’ll find her. Just rest.”
Maddie shook her head and tugged hard on my sleeve. I leaned in close.
“I remembered. There’s a root cellar.” She raised a shaky hand and pointed to an area on the right side of the house. “Find it.”
I yelled to Brimmer. He and Delaney followed me. We trudged through the dead leaves, branches, and brush covering the ground. Spreading out, we began clearing the area with leg sweeps. I pounded the dirt every few feet, hoping to discover a void under the surface.
Fifteen minutes later, I heard hollowness in response to my tamping. Brushing aside the scrub, I found a trap door, camouflaged with dirt and sprigs of leaves. A thought wormed its way into my consciousness and halted me in my tracks. Wait. A trap. Was Crocker’s plan, I kill Karen Martin and myself by opening the cellar door?
Brimmer was as anxious and stressed as I was. “C’mon, Holt. What are you waiting for?”
I gave them the time-honored, time-out signal by putting my hands together in the form of the letter “T.” Crocker made this personal. He’d have a backup plan.
I walked full circle around the door to the root cellar but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. I glanced up. Brimmer and Delaney got the message and took a few steps back. Maddie sat up straight on the gurney staring at me, and I sensed apprehension from her posture. Doc Clancy strode with purpose in our direction.
As a Delta Force operative, Crocker was trained in explosives and booby traps. I searched the ground until I found a stone two inches high. Lying on the ground next to the cellar, I gently lifted the door and propped it up with the stone.
“Brimmer, hand me your pocket flashlight.” I shone the bright LED light in a slow motion along the underside perimeter of the door. It only took a moment to find the wire attached to the right corner of the door and follow it down between the steps. I recognized the shape.
“What do you see?” Brimmer asked.
“A grenade.” Crocker had used the steps to anchor the grenade so when the door opened, it would pull the pin. Raising the cellar door as little as a few more inches would have ended me—and anyone in the cellar.
“Karen,” I called, shining the light around the dark cellar. No response. In one corner on the wall, I saw a shadow cast by what could have been a body. It didn’t move. Shit. I had no choice but to open the door without setting off the grenade.
I stood. “Delaney, ask the EMTs for the strongest pair of scissors they have.”
He nodded and hurried away. I liked him. He didn’t ask questions.
Delaney returned with the scissors. “Holt, everyone is asking for an update. Especially Maddie…who insists I find out what’s going on.”
“She’s going to have to wait a few minutes.” I lay down again and slid one hand under the door. Able to reach in just past my wrist, it was enough space to pinch the wire between my thumb and forefinger. I inserted the blades of the scissors through the opening and above my left hand. I paused, took a deep breath, and snipped the wire. So far so good. I eased the grenade a few inches to the dirt floor, rose, and lifted the cellar door.
The quiet outside was almost as deafening as the silence coming from the root cellar. I looked for another grenade, C-4, or any other potential traps. The daylight penetrated to the bottom of th
e cellar. I slowly descended, avoiding the step shielding the grenade. In the dirt was a maze of footprints of large heavy boots with deep treads. A balled-up object covered with a blanket lay still against one wall. The air was fetid. Something had died in that cellar. My jaw clamped shut, and I took short shallow breaths through my nose.
She’s alive. She has to be.
“Karen,” I shouted as my heart hammered in my chest. Dropping to the floor, I yanked the blanket away. I recoiled at the sight, but it wasn’t human.
Karen Martin wasn’t there.
Chapter 48
The fact that Karen Martin wasn’t in the root cellar spread to the many spectators on Farm Road. I watched concerned, optimistic faces drop with disappointment at the news. Two teary teenage girls held hands for comfort. No one left despite the threat of rain.
I recognized two people in the crowd: the Martins. The last few days left them looking pale and haggard. I wished I had good news. I’d been where they were, and my heart ached for them.
Thunder cracked as dark clouds gathered in the distance. Restless, Brimmer and the other deputies milled around, not sure what to do next. Alex Clancy remained for the moment when we found Karen Martin. I walked back to Maddie who still rested on the gurney.
“Don’t you think you should be on your way to the hospital?”
“Not yet,” she said. “The bleeding stopped and the I.V. is helping. I’m weak and need to rest, but I can do that here. Lucas, I was sure she was there. Where else could she be?”
“Good question.”
We were out of possibilities, and it was my fault. There were ways I could’ve subdued Crocker but didn’t. When he told me Karen Martin was in hell, my mind went down a tortured road where I pictured her lying in the woods, her body twisted, bent and bloody. Then Maddie fell unconscious from Crocker’s gunshot, and I feared she was gone. My thoughts ran down another dark road, one where I repeatedly stabbed Crocker’s arms, legs, and pockmarked face. A dog with a spiked collar pulled at a chain I held, wanting to shred Crocker’s throat.
Peter Delaney stood near the ambulance. “Peter, what about those search dogs? We could use them now.”
“They’re supposed to arrive this morning. Let me check.” Delaney made a phone call. “They’re twenty minutes away. I’ll tell them to come straight here.”
I returned to the root cellar, hoping to find something of Karen’s which we could use to put the dogs onto her scent. Repulsed, I searched what Crocker left behind in the blanket. There was nothing I could use. It was possible that at one time Karen had been wrapped in the blanket, but it was now compromised. Moving to the few shelves, I knelt on the ground, feeling the cool dampness on my knees, and used the flashlight to look under them…and there it was. A black sweatband, like runners wear on their forehead. It was fairly clean so I knew it hadn’t been there long. I left the cellar and headed toward the Martins.
As I verified with Sarah Martin that Karen owned a band like the one I found, a white van pulled onto the lane. A man jumped out, rounded the back of it, and opened the doors. Out shot two excited dogs, barking and pacing in circles around their handler. I ran to the van and Delaney introduced us.
“Lucas Holt, this is Henry McCoy. He’s been training search dogs for ten years.” He put his hand out, and I grasped it. McCoy had an engaging smile and an easy way about him.
“Good to meet you, Lucas. Hope we can be of some help.”
“I’m counting on it. I found a sweatband I believe belongs to a kidnap victim. I’m guessing she isn’t far from here, and I hope she’s alive.”
McCoy’s face turned somber. “Well, I hope so too. But we’ll find her either way.”
I handed him the sweatband and watched as the excited canines sniffed it, danced around as if they were about to play their favorite game, and put their noses to the ground.
When we found Karen, she would likely need medical attention. Walking past Maddie, I could see her arguing with Doc Clancy. From what I overheard, she didn’t want to leave for the hospital, and he was having none of it. Two attendants lifted the gurney, slid it in the back of the ambulance, and climbed in. She saw me.
“Lucas, call me as soon as you know something.” I nodded and waved.
“Clancy, coming?” I asked.
“Try and keep me away.”
“We’re coming too,” Brimmer spoke for himself and Delaney.
We followed McCoy and the dogs.
***
With their tails whipping back and forth, the dogs, a German shepherd named Nine and a white Lab named Eleven, caught and tracked the scent north past the barn. Both tugged hard, pulling McCoy toward the woods as they alternated between sniffs and pants. I hoped Karen was close and that Nine and Eleven would go straight to her. We didn’t have much time and I wasn’t sure how effective the dogs would be if it began to pour rain. If we didn’t find her, all that was left was to take a shotgun approach to the problem and get as many people as possible, spread them out, and hope someone stumbled on her. With rain coming, that seemed like a very low probability solution.
Ten minutes out, what I feared most happened—the dogs lost the scent. Their noses still to the ground, Nine and Eleven separated, pushing outward in different directions. My chest tightened. There weren’t any homes or farms in this area, which meant that Crocker dumped Karen. He either left her unprotected against the weather or hidden by bushes and trees. In that case, the more time that passed, the less likely we would find her alive.
Nine looked up at his handler and let out a soft whimper. Eleven’s tail rose and he pulled east, toward a denser area of trees. He wasn’t excited, but he was firm about the direction. Nine picked up the scent too and we were off again.
We’d been in the woods nearly an hour when McCoy spoke, “We’re close. Eleven seems committed. I’m going to let him loose. I’m not worried about him getting too far ahead of us because Nine will find him.”
The Labrador ran in a northeasterly direction and quickly disappeared from sight. McCoy and I trotted along behind the Shepherd while Brimmer, Delaney, and Clancy pulled up the rear. After five minutes, the two deputies paused. The rest of us continued our fast pace.
Another ten minutes passed and it began to drizzle. As I prayed that we’d find her before we were caught in a deluge of rain, we heard Eleven’s faint barks. My breathing became deep and rapid.
She’s alive. She has to be.
Rushing to catch up to the dog, we stopped when Eleven trotted out from behind tall junipers and then disappeared again. The dog paced back and forth as if trying to decide if he should run to his master or stay where he was. The closer we got to the dog, the more he barked. Thinking it was a good sign, I ran ahead of the others, praying it was finally over. Praying for a positive end.
When I approached, Eleven moved to sniff my clothes and then turned back to the result of his search. I ran past some shrubs and a large mound of dirt and stood at the edge of a deep hole—the size of a grave. It was empty.
From his vantage point to the left of me, McCoy tried to call Eleven away, but the dog continued to pace and bark. A few feet from the dugout grave was another mound of dirt. I stepped closer and my breath caught when I saw the partially concealed body of Karen Martin.
Down two feet from the ground and buried in dirt from her neck to her feet, Karen’s pale face protruded from the soil. Her eyes were closed, her mouth covered with duct tape. McCoy shouted to the others as I jumped into the hole and straddled the mound covering her. I scooped out handfuls of dirt from around her head and chest. Pelts of rain came down hard, but were buffeted by the trees. Hundreds of worms crawled through the damp, loose dirt framing her body. Dread replaced shock when I removed the tape and couldn’t feel her breath. Grabbing her shoulders, I lifted Karen to free her chest from the grave. I held her in my arms and checked for her pulse. I exhaled in relief. Her pulse was weak, but steady.
She’s alive. Thank God.
Doc Clancy leaned
over, black bag in hand. “Alive?”
I smiled as the knots in my shoulders relaxed and my stress melted away. The search was over. “Yes.”
“Well, get out of that damn hole and let me do my job.”
Chapter 49
Waiting until I knew Karen Martin’s prognosis, giving myself time to regroup and collect my thoughts, it was a few days after the rescue when I called Janet Maxwell.
“Mr. Holt, I’ve been impatient to hear from you. Please tell me you’ve found her.”
“I have,” I said, my voice reflecting an unspoken “but” at the end.
“And? Where is she for God’s sake? Don’t keep me in suspense. It’s what I’m paying you a lot of money to tell me.”
I dreaded the phone call and having to tell her she couldn’t know where her daughter was yet. I thought some things were better said in person.
“Mrs. Maxwell, there were some unforeseen events, and while your daughter is alive, she’s been through an ordeal.”
She asked rather nonchalantly, “An ordeal? What’s happened?”
“I can’t go into that right now. I’ll come and see you when I get back to New York. You have to keep in mind your daughter is still a minor. You’ll have to wait a few months to make contact.”
That news received more reaction.
“Months? Absolutely not. I demand to know where she is right now. It’s what I’m paying you for!”
“I know, but a few months—”
“In a few months it will be too late!” Her shrill voice pierced my ears, and I held the phone away from my head for a moment.
“Too late for what? You’ve already waited seventeen years. A few months will—”
“Will ruin everything. I’ll sue you for breach of contract. Expect to hear from Brown and Harrington in the future.”
