by Laura Scott
“Okay, I’ll go north. Zeke, you and Cheetah head east and Julianne should take the west,” Max directed. “I don’t know if we need to worry as much about the south, since that’s where the highway is.”
“Agreed,” Brody said. “Call me if you find anything.”
Zeke nodded, but didn’t say anything as he moved toward the east side of the woods. He and Cheetah quickly disappeared into the brush.
Brody waited until Max and Opal had gone off to the north, straight back from the house, before following Julianne and Thunder.
Neither of them spoke as they made their way through the woods. Brody concentrated on looking for signs of a trail, or a path that Otwell and Royce may have taken, but with darkness falling, he couldn’t see anything but shadows.
Just when he thought they’d have to come back to search again in the morning, Thunder let out a low bark.
“Do you see something?” he called to Julianne.
“Thunder has picked up something,” she replied. “I’m taking him off leash.”
Brody tightened his grip on his gun and moved closer to Julianne. The moment Thunder was loose, he took off running through the trees.
“What if it’s Nate?” Brody asked.
“I don’t think so... Thunder would have alerted on his scent.”
Brody still didn’t like it. Could be Royce was skulking around these parts somewhere, too. And either one of them wouldn’t hesitate to shoot the dog.
Thunder let out a musical howl, making the hairs on Brody’s arm stand up on end. “Is that a good sound or a bad one?”
“Good. Come on.” Julianne pushed through the brush in the general direction the K-9 officer had taken. Suddenly Thunder appeared at Julianne’s side, then spun around to go back through the woods.
“Thunder, heel!” Julianne commanded.
The animal came back to sit beside her. She clipped the leash in place. “Find, Thunder.”
The dog took the lead as both he and Julianne scrambled to keep up. After about thirty feet, Brody could make out the shadow of a person tied to the base of the tree.
His heart hammering in his chest, he cautiously approached. The man looked up, the whites of his eyes clearly visible through the darkness. There was a gag tied around his head, effectively preventing the prisoner from calling for help.
He flashed the light of his phone so he could see. The man shied away, ducking his head, as if the brightness was painful.
But Brody had seen enough to recognize him. “Clark!”
“You found him?” Julianne asked, going over to work on removing the gag.
“Yes.” Brody used his knife to slit through the bindings around Clark’s wrists and ankles. When the gag dropped free, Clark tried to speak, his voice little more than a rough croak.
“Thank you,” he managed.
Brody nodded, relieved they’d found Clark Davenport alive. At least one innocent life had been spared. Brody lifted his face to the sky, silently thanking God for showing them the way.
And in that moment, he promised himself he wouldn’t question the good Lord’s plan again.
* * *
Julianne pulled out her spare water bottle and offered it to Clark. “I’m FBI Agent Julianne Martinez,” she said. “Here, take a few sips of this, but don’t go overboard or you might get sick. How long have you been out here?”
Clark gratefully accepted the water bottle and took a long drink before answering. “Since early this morning.” He frowned. “At least I think so. It’s all a blur. What day is it? How long have I been gone?”
“More than twenty-four hours, I’m afraid,” Julianne said gently.
Clark rubbed at his face. “Guess it could have been a day and a half,” he admitted. “I need to get home. Banjo has been locked up for too long.”
“Dr. Grover is taking care of your dog,” Julianne assured him.
Clark let out a sigh of relief.
“Tell us what happened,” Brody encouraged in a low tone.
“Some guy with a gun ambushed me at the veterinary clinic and took me hostage. Brought me to a house, and another guy met us there. The second guy held a gun on me while I provided first aid to a bullet wound in the first guy’s forearm.”
Brody glanced at her, and she nodded. Clark’s story matched their theory of what had transpired. “Can you describe them?” Brody pressed.
Julianne rummaged in her pack for a protein bar. Poor Clark looked as if he was starving, and she doubted Otwell or Royce had offered him anything to eat.
“The guy with the wound in his arm was roughly five-ten with long dirty blond hair and a tiny scar at the corner of his mouth. The other guy was a little taller, maybe six feet tall, but really heavy, especially around the middle. He also had a shaved head and pale green eyes.”
She handed Clark the protein bar. “Here, this should help tide you over for now. Thanks for the great description.” She looked at Brody, her eyebrow raised questioningly.
Brody gave her a nod. “Do you remember anything else, Clark?”
The veterinary assistant looked thoughtful. “I think the shorter guy with the scar called the bigger, bald guy, Nate. But I can’t remember the other guy’s name.”
“It’s okay,” Brody assured him. “Do you think you can walk out of here, Clark? Or do you want me to carry you over my shoulder?”
“I can walk,” Clark said. He leaned heavily on the tree as he rose to his feet. He stumbled when he tried to take a few steps.
“Here, lean on me,” Brody offered, anchoring his arm around Clark’s slim waist.
Julianne and Thunder led the way back to the clearing in front of Royce’s ranch house. Clark’s progress was slow, but Brody showed infinite patience with their rescued victim. When Brody had lifted his face to the sky, she’d wondered if he was thanking God for sparing Clark’s life.
She hoped so. Brody deserved some good news after being faced with the brutal reality of Lilly’s necklace. His gut-wrenching anguish at being wrong six years ago had cut her to the bone.
Brody hadn’t deserved to be betrayed by Nate Otwell. And she was fiercely glad that Brody had been the one to finally arrest him.
Now they’d have Clark’s testimony, too. The veterinary assistant would be able to testify that the two men were working together after the prison break. Not to mention the evidence they’d found when they’d executed the search warrant.
The momentum was shifting in their favor. All they had to do was to find Otwell and Royce’s hideout.
Before they left town for good.
A loud crash behind her had Julianne spinning around in alarm. Clark had fallen, but Brody was already lifting the younger man up. “Come on, Clark. Hang in there, it’s just a little farther, see?”
Julianne crossed back to Brody. “Give me your keys, I’ll bring our vehicle up the driveway.”
“Fine.” Brody dug out the keys and handed them to her.
She and Thunder jogged back to where Brody had parked along the side of the road. When she drove back up to the ranch house, he was still half dragging, half carrying Clark the rest of the way out of the woods.
“Here.” She opened the backseat of their SUV. “Sit here, Clark.”
Brody lifted him into the seat and offered a weary smile. “Did you call Max and Zeke?”
“Doing that now,” she answered, pushing the call button on her phone. “Max? We found Clark Davenport, the veterinary assistant who was taken at gunpoint by Royce. Clark is dehydrated and hungry, but otherwise fine.”
“Opal and I haven’t found anything, so I’ll head back,” Max told her. “Have you heard from Zeke?”
“Negative. I’ll check in with him.” She disconnected the call and found Zeke’s number. The phone rang several times, then went to voice mail.
“What’s wrong?” Brody asked, sensing her distress.
“Zeke’s not answering.” She stared at her phone for a long moment, then tried again. This time, Zeke’s phone only rang twice before going straight to voice mail. She hit the end button, wondering what was going on. If Zeke was in trouble, wouldn’t they have heard something? At least Cheetah’s barking if nothing else.
“Let’s go after him,” Brody said.
She hesitated. “What about Clark?”
“He’ll be safe inside the car. I’ll have him stretch out on the backseat and lock the doors. He probably needs rest more than anything.”
Every cell in her body wanted to go after Zeke, but she didn’t like leaving Clark alone, either. She braced herself for an argument, and was about to ask Brody to stay behind when her phone rang.
She punched the button, relieved to see Zeke’s number. “Zeke? Are you okay?”
“Fine. Sorry I didn’t answer when you called. Cheetah seems to have found something, though. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but I’d like you and Thunder to get over here right away.”
She looked questioningly at Brody, who nodded. “Clark will be fine for a few minutes especially since Max and Opal will be here soon. Let’s go.”
“We’re on our way,” she told Zeke.
Julianne kept Thunder on leash as she headed toward the spot in the woods Zeke and Cheetah had taken.
“This looks like a path,” Brody said, shining the flashlight app on his phone toward the ground. “I wonder if they found another cabin.”
Julianne could see what Brody meant about a path. It wasn’t so much that the ground was worn with footprints, but there was definitely a gap between the trees and brush, as if someone traveled through the area on a regular basis.
The darkness surrounding them was complete now, the quarter moon in the sky not providing much assistance.
“Is that Zeke’s light?” she asked, spying a brightness off to the right side of the woods.
“Looks that way.” Brody didn’t move his light from the ground, for which she was grateful. There were far too many twigs and branches lying around.
Thunder whined, straining at the leash. Odd behavior for her partner.
“What is it, boy?” she asked.
Thunder’s nose twitched. It wasn’t as if the animal was alerting on Otwell’s scent, but he was clearly acting strange.
She nibbled her lip, wondering what Zeke and Cheetah had found.
Zeke’s light grew closer and soon they were within talking distance. “What is it?” she asked. “More evidence?”
“I’m not sure,” Zeke admitted. He turned to face them, watching as they approached. “Cheetah found a bone.”
She arched a brow. Bones in the woods weren’t necessarily unusual. “Probably from an animal,” she said, going over to stand beside him.
“No, it’s human for sure.” Zeke pointed out the bone partially imbedded in the dirt and she could see what he meant.
“It looks like a femur,” she said in a hushed tone.
“Yeah, and that’s not all.” Zeke gestured to the ground at his feet. “Cheetah was digging here. There’s another bone. It’s curved, so I think it might be either a tibia or fibula.”
She glanced at Brody. “We’d better call the medical examiner again,” she said.
Brody nodded grimly. “Could be Otwell and Royce’s dump site.”
She shrugged. “Seems strange to me that they’d use Royce’s property as a dump site. For all we know, this could be one of their former accomplices.”
“Maybe.” Brody didn’t look convinced.
Zeke was still hunkered down beside Cheetah, the second bone free of dirt now. He carefully pointed to the bone nestled in the soil. “Do you have any reason to believe that Otwell and Royce have accomplices that are women?” he asked.
“No, why?” Julianne couldn’t bear to look at the bone Zeke pointed to. At least this gravesite didn’t smell as badly as the last one they’d found.
“I’m no expert,” Zeke said slowly. “But from the size and shape of this, I’d say both of these look to be that of a young female.”
A woman? Julianne’s gaze clashed with Brody’s and she winced at the stark regret shimmering in his eyes.
Lilly.
TWELVE
Brody couldn’t tear his gaze from hers, knowing Julianne was thinking along the same lines he was.
Lilly Ramos.
The devastated sympathy in Julianne’s eyes had him straightening his spine. He shoved aside the wave of remorse, reminding himself that he’d agreed not to question God’s plan. He turned and forced himself to look at the white object lying in the dirt. He didn’t want to believe it was part of Lilly. For one thing, the bones could belong to any young woman who’d fallen prey to Otwell and Royce’s illegal activities.
Secondly, Lilly had been missing for almost seven years and just because Julianne had found her friend’s charm embedded in the slats of the hardwood floor didn’t mean the skeleton belonged to her, too.
But the possibility, no matter how remote, was difficult to ignore.
He listened somberly as Julianne called Max to fill her boss in on the gravesite. Glancing around, he looked for something to use as a landmark so they could find the area again. Doc Andrews was likely still dealing with their previous dead body, so excavating this area would have to wait until daylight.
“Max wants us to keep the evidence where we found it,” she told him. “He thinks we should wait until morning before continuing our search.”
“I agree. We need to take care of Clark anyway,” Brody said.
Julianne nodded slowly. “Okay, let’s get Clark something to eat, then take his official statement. The poor guy must be exhausted.”
Once again, Brody was glad they’d found the young man alive, even though he couldn’t quite figure out why Otwell and Royce had let him live.
Had they taken off in a hurry, assuming the kid would die before he was found? Maybe. Or they might have planned to come back to finish him off.
No one spoke as they made their way back to the clearing in front of the ranch house. Brody went over to look inside the vehicle, relieved to see Clark still stretched out, apparently asleep.
“Maybe we should take him home,” Julianne said, coming over to stand beside him.
“I’d like to make a quick stop at headquarters, first,” he replied.
She looked as if she wanted to argue, but then simply nodded and went around to the back to let Thunder jump in.
The traffic on the highway was light. Brody kept a keen eye on the rearview mirror as he headed back toward headquarters. When they passed a popular fast-food joint, he glanced at Julianne. “Want me to stop?”
“Yes, please.” She reached behind to gently shake Clark awake. “Hey, Clark, are you hungry?”
The young man’s eyes cracked open a sliver, and he nodded. “Cheeseburger,” he whispered.
“Got it.” Julianne settled back in her seat. “We may as well get something to eat, too. I’ll feed Thunder when we get to your office.”
Fifteen minutes later, the enticing aroma of burgers and fries filled the interior of the SUV. Brody pulled off in a corner of the parking lot so they could eat. Clark rubbed his face and sat upright, gratefully reaching for his food. “Thanks,” he said as he stuffed a french fry into his mouth.
“You’re welcome.” Brody ate quickly, barely tasting the food, his mind preoccupied with finding Otwell’s location.
“Are you taking me home now?” Clark asked after devouring his meal in record time. “I’d like to pick up Banjo along the way if possible.”
“After you give us your statement.” Br
ody caught his gaze in the rearview mirror. “It won’t take long.”
“I thought I already did,” Clark said, looking confused.
“It’s just a formality. I’ll write it out, and we’ll need you to sign it,” Brody told him. When he and Julianne had finished eating, he used his radio to let the dispatch center know they were on their way.
When he pulled into the parking lot of the sheriff’s department headquarters, he had a strange sense of déjà vu. Of course, it was probably because they’d never made it to the Sunflower Motel.
He helped Clark from the backseat, while Julianne took care of Thunder. When they entered the building, he was surprised to see that Sandra Levee had replaced Corrine as the dispatcher. How much time had passed? He’d lost track, his entire being focused on the case.
“Sheriff!” Sandra raked the headphones off her head, looking at him in alarm. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. We’ll be in my office if I’m needed.”
Sandra eyed Julianne and Thunder with curiosity, but then replaced her headphones and went back to work.
“Have a seat, Clark.” Brody dropped into the chair behind his desk and booted up his computer while Julianne filled Thunder’s food and water dishes. “I want you to start again at the beginning, okay? What time did you leave home to return to the veterinary clinic?”
“A few minutes before nine o’clock at night. There were two patients that needed to be cared for, a tabby cat and a poodle.”
“Do you know what time the gunman came in?” Brody asked as he typed.
“It was just a few minutes later... I hadn’t even gotten a chance to give the animals their medication. I heard a loud noise when he kicked in the back door.”
“Go on,” he encouraged.
Clark went through the sequence of events. “After I gave him the medication and the dressings, I begged him to let me take care of the animals, but he refused.”
“It’s okay, Clark,” Julianne said gently. “Dr. Grover came in and provided what they needed.”
“Is that when you left the note? Before the gunman forced you to go with him?” Brody asked.
