Dark Harvest (A Holt Foundation Story Book 2)

by Chris Patchell

  A door.

  Marissa stepped through.

  The floor dropped away. Her breath caught. She fell. Two steps. Crashed into something metal. Cried out.

  Regaining her footing, she groped along the wall. The room was a dead end. She couldn’t see shit. And it was getting hard to breathe.

  All she wanted to do was curl up into a ball, the fear inside her spiraling into a funnel cloud of despair. She was never going to find her way out. Not like this. In the cold. In the dark, with no help.

  She was going to die. Just like that nurse had. And he would leave her there. Her family would never find her.

  Seth would never find her.

  Marissa closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe—remembered what Dr. Frank had said about Brooke’s panic attacks.

  She imagined a summer day. The warm sun on her face. The briny scent of the sea. Sand between her toes.

  Seconds ticked until at last, the panic dimmed.

  Marissa retraced her steps. She followed the wall around until she found the door and pushed through.

  This space felt different. More room overhead. Colder. This wall wasn’t smooth like the others. It was corrugated. Arched.

  A hallway?

  The corridor seemed endless. She heard a rumble up above, like a transport driving overhead. Marissa froze. The ground shook.

  Then everything steadied.

  Fighting her fear every step, she crept down the hallway into the unknown.

  High up above, a small red dot of light peered like an all-seeing eye through the inky black. She might not have noticed it all if it wasn’t so dark. Marissa shuffled down the hallway. Dust coated her lungs. She coughed. She held her hands out in front of her, sweeping the empty black, searching for obstacles and finding nothing. Just open space.

  The small light was embedded into a panel on the wall. Her toes struck something hard. She pitched forward and landed on a stair.

  “Shit,” she said, wincing.

  After a second, she rose and cinched the sheet tighter around her torso. Marissa climbed the stairs haltingly, fingers feeling her way. Her breathing was shallow and labored as the menacing dark closed in. She climbed another step.

  She glanced down but there was nothing to see, just an empty black expanse that stretched out into nowhere. There was no choice but to keep going. She climbed until the light was right above her. So small, it barely penetrated the darkness.

  She reached out. Touched the light. Ran her fingers around the surface. Wires. It was connected to a tangled nest of wires. She traced the line of the wires to where they connected to a set of double doors.

  Relief weakened Marissa’s knees. Her eyes closed as she drew in a deep breath. The metal doors were heavy. She gathered her strength to heave them open when the lights turned on.

  The clang of the generator filled the corridor, and Marissa looked up.

  The blinking red light was connected to a device. A block covered in waxy brown paper. The wires—red, yellow, and black—were snaked in and out of the block. Wires ran from the device to the handle of the door.

  Crude metal strips obscured most of the lettering. But the one legible area of the block stopped Marissa’s heart.

  C4.

  Chapter 48

  “Christ. Look at that guy,” Alvarez said as the rickety Ford truck sailed past. The truck swerved back across the lines, caught some gravel and corrected. “He’s all over the place. He’s going to kill someone.”

  “One of the locals will get him,” Seth said, not wanting to waste a second ticketing a DUI.

  Let the Enumclaw cops handle their own business. From their vantage point at the end of the procession, it looked like the entire Enumclaw police force was heading out to the farm. Seth was itching to find the bastard who had planted the bomb that ripped off Henry’s leg. Maybe killed him.

  “Look at him.” Alvarez shook his head.

  The truck careened off the road into the ditch and then back again. Seth didn’t pass comment. Up ahead, an unbroken strand of flashing lights illuminated the long driveway. The pickup truck veered into the driveway too.

  “Shit! He’s going to slam right into them,” Alvarez said.

  Cops jumped out of the way as the pickup truck careened down the driveway. Everyone screamed at the driver to stop. One cop opened fire at the truck. The gunshot echoed through the quiet night. A pop sounded as the tire blew. The Ford pickup swerved and smashed into a pine tree.

  Breaking in half, the top of the tree crashed into the top of the cab. The radiator cracked wide open. A cloud of steam hissed into the cold night air.

  Cops swarmed around the truck’s cab and dragged the driver out.

  He looked like a skeleton with a shaggy mop of hair. Pale skin. Drinker’s nose. He was swearing—fighting the cops who were trying to restrain him. The sheriff approached the driver.

  Though he was carrying an extra fifteen pounds around his midsection, the sheriff was still in good shape. He had a full mustache, caterpillar eyebrows, and a don’t-fuck-with me gaze that was all business.

  “Calm down, Willie,” the sheriff said. “You damn-near killed my boys.”

  “What are ya doin’ on my land?”

  “It’s not your land anymore.”

  “Stolen away by the bank. Damned government conspiracy.”

  “Willie . . .”

  The sheriff traded looks with one of his officers. Held out his hand. The officer passed him a bottle of water. The sheriff cranked off the lid and poured the water over Willie’s head.

  Willie shook the water from his shaggy hair like a dog.

  “What did you do that for?” he sputtered.

  “You’re drunk, Willie.”

  “Am not.” Willie spat on the ground at the sheriff’s feet. “Damned lie.”

  “Careful,” the sheriff intoned. “I’m this close to nailing you with a DUI.”

  “What’s stopping ya?”

  “Sheriff,” one of the Enumclaw officers said, elbowing Sheriff Henderson in the side and pointing toward Seth and Alvarez. Henderson blew out a sigh. Seth knew what that meant. They were going to be chased off. Ignoring Seth, Henderson addressed Alvarez.

  “You’ve got your guy. Best you two move on. Let us handle this.”

  “We’ve got two missing women we think are being held here. Seth knows more about this case than all of us. Thought he could be of help.”

  Seth knew it was a long shot. They had no jurisdiction, and the fact that he and Henry had recklessly blundered onto the scene in the first place wouldn’t help his case.

  There was no way he was leaving.

  The sheriff hawked and spat on the ground.

  “I’m Henderson,” he said, shaking Seth’s hand. “Don’t get in the way.”

  The tailgate was missing off the back of the broken-down Ford, and Willie flopped down on the edge of the truck bed. His skinny arms crossed his chest, and he stared at the cops surrounding him.

  “Willie, we have reports that someone has been living here. You know anything about that?”

  “Me? Nah. I ain’t been out here for years. Not since those blood-sucking bankers—”

  Henderson waved his hand, cutting Willie off. “We’ve been over this already.”

  “Do you know Alexander Wilcox?” Seth asked.

  Willie’s eyes narrowed at the name. His mouth puckered like he’d just downed a shot of Campari. He said nothing.

  “Alexander Wilcox. He’s your brother’s boy, isn’t he?” Henderson asked. “It’s not a hard question, Willie.”

  “Then why ask me?”

  Willie propped his temple against his closed fist. His eyes drooped like a man who hadn’t slept in days. His mouth gaped open in a yawn so wide that Seth had an unobstructed view of Willie’s blackened molars.

  “We boring you?” Seth asked.

  “Wastin’ my time,” Willie muttered.

  “When was the last time you saw Alexander?”

  Willie
’s eyes fluttered shut. Seconds later, he let out a bone-rattling snore.

  “Christ. Did he just pass out?”

  “It appears so,” one of the other cops said. A smirk slid across his face.

  “Goddammit. Does anyone have coffee?” Henderson yelled.

  A murmur rippled through the crowd.

  “Hold on.”

  A ginger-haired cop broke from the circle. He jogged to his cruiser and returned with a silver Starbucks travel mug in hand.

  “Willie!” Henderson yelled.

  The ginger-haired cop kicked the beaten-up fender hard enough to rock the truck, but Willie didn’t notice. Henderson dribbled some coffee onto Willie’s thigh, cutting Willie off midsnore.

  The old drunk coughed. Sputtered.

  “Jesus. What ya tryin’ to do? Burn me?” he complained and rubbed the wet stain on his pants.

  The sheriff removed the lid off the travel cup and handed it to Willie. He sniffed at the coffee and scowled down at it like it was poison.

  “Drink,” the sheriff demanded.

  Face scrunched in protest, Willie took the travel mug in his shaky grasp and choked down a sip. He grimaced. Henderson gestured for Willie to keep going, and he took another sip.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Who?”

  Henderson sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Your nephew.”

  “Alexander? Aw, I don’t know. Kid went off to some fancy school in California. Never came back.”

  “Is his father still around?” Seth asked.

  Family might be the fastest way to find Wilcox, and Willie sure wasn’t trying to help. Every second they wasted with the old drunk was one second longer it took to find the missing girls.

  “Stan? Nah. Long dead. A tractor rolled over ’im. Shouldn’t have been on that tractor in the first place. Mind wasn’t right. You know the rest, Sheriff,” Willie said like it was an old story.

  Henderson nodded. Willie shook his head. His drooping jowls flapped around his chin like a basset hound.

  “Never did see a penny of that insurance money. Sure enough, young Alexander used it for his schooling. Some kind of fancy doctor. Never sent no money back. We lost the farm, and he never raised a finger to help. Never cared for anyone, that boy.”

  Willie started to nod off again. The sheriff prodded him. His head snapped up. Hot coffee scalded his hand. Willie let out a yelp and dropped the cup. The black coffee seeped into the ground below Willie’s dangling feet.

  “That kid weren’t nothing but trouble. Why, you remember that girl from Lacey that went missing? Well Stan said he caught Alexander in the barn with a girl that looked somethin’ like her. But that boy never said a word. Denied everything like always. Well after she went missin’, I had a bad feelin’ about her. I asked Stan, but he just shined it on.”

  “You never said a word to the police about that girl.”

  Willie’s face broke out into a smug grin.

  “Why would I? He’s family. Ain’t any of my business what he done. Or not done. Boy wasn’t right after his mother left. Stan neither.”

  “Maureen.”

  “Yeah, well, she had enough of both of them, I reckon.”

  “We think Alexander is back and staying on the farm,” Seth interjected.

  Willie’s bushy eyebrows raised. He hissed out a warbling whistle. “Well ain’t that somethin’? Got tired of his fancy life, did he?”

  “We’re searching for him. Checked the house, the barn, the outbuildings. You know where he might be?” Henderson asked.

  Willie’s lips parted, revealing a gap. He was missing a front tooth.

  “You checked the old place?”

  “The farmhouse? Yes, I just said—”

  “Nah, nah.” Willie’s face screwed up in disgust. “The old place. Out near the pond.”

  The words hit the assembled group like a shockwave. Three beats of silence passed while the import of Willie’s statement sank in.

  “Get me a map,” Henderson bellowed.

  A temporary command center was setup under a portable canopy not far from the farmhouse, providing shelter from the steady drizzle of rain. Henderson hunched over an aerial map of the county while his officers devised a plan to search the property and the outbuildings once they were given the green light.

  Members of the bomb squad in full gear were hunched over the site of the explosion, painstakingly gathering and cataloguing evidence. Beyond the house, bomb sniffing dogs inched across the craggy grass toward the barn, trying to ferret out other explosives buried beneath the earth.

  Seth blew into his hands, trying to rub some warmth back into them. The damp chill penetrated layers deep. Alongside Alvarez, his attention was focused on the map, hoping Willie held the secrets to where Wilcox was holed up.

  “We’re here,” Henderson placed his finger on the location of the farmhouse. “Where did you say the other farm was?”

  “I didn’t say.” Willie’s jaw jutted out. He crossed his arms and looked like he might be about to nod off again.

  “Goddammit, Willie, this isn’t a game. These are people’s lives we’re talking about here.”

  “That ain’t my problem.”

  “Well let me make it your problem,” Henderson snarled. “I can get one of the boys to take you to the hospital for a blood test. We’ll get the biggest needle and the meanest goddamned nurse in all of Washington State to take the sample. Now as near as I can remember, that will be your third conviction. Three months in jail. Four months of electronic home monitoring, which you’ll have to pay for. Oh, and you might as well burn that truck of yours for the insurance money because your license will be suspended for four years.”

  “You can’t do that,” Willie cried. His bloodshot eyes popped wide.

  “The hell I can’t. Now are you going to help us?”

  “You government people are all the same.”

  Willie swayed as he stepped closer to the map. He propped his hands on the table. He closed one eye and studied it like a jeweler examining a gem. Then he jabbed his shaky index finger on an area a mile southwest of their current location.

  “Here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I was born there, ain’t I?” Willie snorted. “Right here was where the original farm was built. The house ain’t there no more. Torn down years ago after the new house was built. But the barn’s still standin’. At least it was the last time I checked.”

  “We need to get the search underway,” Henderson said. He turned his gaze on the ranking member of the bomb squad. “How much longer are we talking?”

  The officer shook his head. “Too risky. We need to sweep the area first.”

  “Ball park?”

  “A few hours. Maybe more. There’s a lot of ground to cover. These things could be anywhere.”

  Henderson swore. Seth ground his teeth, frustration bubbling over inside his chest.

  “If he knows we’re on the property, we could lose any chance we have of finding him.”

  “Can’t risk anymore lives,” Henderson said.

  “What about those girls? They could still be alive.”

  Henderson fixed him with a grim stare. “I’m responsible for the lives of my men, and I will not risk them by stumbling blindly into god-knows-what kind of shit show this crazy bastard has planned. Now if you can’t accept that, you should leave.”

  “Come on,” Alvarez said, tugging on Seth’s arm. “We’ll have to wait it out.”

  Seth blew out a breath and followed Alvarez back toward his car. Panting and out of breath, a young officer from the Enumclaw force caught up to them.

  “Are you the two cops from Seattle?”

  “Yes,” Alvarez said, shooting Seth a wary glance.

  “We’ve got some stuff we want you to take a look at. Come on.”

  They followed the officer toward the house. Yellow crime scene tape cordoned off the area surrounding the explosion blast. Seth averted his gaze from the
gory debris, the memory of Henry still fresh in his mind.

  “Jesus,” Alvarez said, surveying the damage as they rounded the corner into the farmhouse.

  Evidence, extracted from the scene, was being bagged and tagged. The officer held up an item. Through the clear, plastic bag, Seth saw a necklace Vicky Kincaid had described, a white gold chain with a heart.

  “That’s Becky’s,” he said.

  The cop nodded grimly. “What about this?”

  He held up another bag. A woman’s silk blouse in a light sage green. Not a maternity blouse. It was small. Fitted.

  “It doesn’t belong to either of our victims,” he said, certain it was true.

  The cop set it down in the pile along with the other evidence. Seth looked back at the blouse. Something about the green shirt bothered him. It looked like something Marissa might wear.

  “You and Henry were right about this place,” Alvarez said. “They were here.”

  “They’re not here now,” one of Henderson’s cops said. “There’s a lot of blood on the carpet upstairs.”

  “Could be from delivering the baby,” Seth offered, although in his gut, the statement didn’t ring true. There was an easier, more obvious answer.

  “As soon as we’re given the green light, we’ll start searching the out buildings.”

  “What if he’s moved them to the old part of the farm?” Seth asked.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Could be that’s where he’s conducting his research. This looks like more of a holding area.”

  “But where?”

  Seth shrugged. “Let’s see if Willie knows.”

  Willie sat alone in the flatbed, slumped against the side. Chin on his fist, the old drunk was dead asleep. The buzz-saw rattle of his snore cut through the air. Seth bypassed Henderson, going straight to the source.

  “Willie.”

  Willie’s chest shuddered with another snore. Seth grabbed his shoulder and shook him. Booze and body odor wafted off Willie in a cloud of stench that assaulted Seth’s nose.

  “What? What?”