Conard County Revenge

by Rachel Lee

  Darcy nodded, her lips compressed into a tight line. “He might be. But I can’t rest until we find him. Jack is out there because I put him up to it.”

  “Like you ever suspected he might go chasing after a bad guy.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I suspected,” she said tautly. “It remains I didn’t shoo him off. I didn’t threaten him with interfering with an investigation... I didn’t do anything to make him stay away from this mess. That’s on my head and no one else’s.”

  “Look, the sheriff said they’d all be keeping an eye on him.”

  “You ought to know how hard it is to keep an eye on one person. If anyone saw him the other night, they probably thought he was just tooling around the campus before going home to bed. Nobody would be uptight about it.”

  “Exactly.”

  He hoped she heard him. He hoped she understood. But nobody would have predicted anything like what they suspected right now. That Jack had risked his neck to try to find out who the bomber was.

  No, he thought. Not alone. Jack was bright, unusually bright for someone his age. But apparently this time he hadn’t paused to consider what might happen. Partly due to his age, but Jack had never really fallen into that group before. As well as he knew Jack, Alex wouldn’t have anticipated this possibility. Not that he’d chase someone. Call the cops? Yes, he would have expected that from Jack.

  Apparently he hadn’t known the young man as well as he’d thought.

  * * *

  Darcy didn’t think she was abandoning her post. The likelihood that she’d find the clue to the bomber’s identity and his intentions in that heap of rubble was small. Even all the helping hands of the firefighters and cops had turned up little that was useful except a potential ammo can. How many people in this county had probably served in the military and understood the use of that container for an improvised bomb?

  Too many. The sheriff was talking to some vets he trusted to see if anyone suspected that someone they knew could be capable of this. So far, no one.

  FBI was arriving tomorrow. Well, they could dig deeper into military backgrounds, but they’d probably be left with a stack of names to go through, of people who might have improvised bombs during their careers.

  Then there was that deputy—Micah Parish. He’d run those metal fragments to the state lab. Maybe the results would come in soon, although that would lead them to another place too full of suspects.

  Online purchases of ammo cans? The sheriff had been looking but it was amazing how many places sold that kind of surplus, mainly as watertight storage containers for food. Another blank.

  One blank after another, and now maybe Jack had got himself into trouble, maybe even killed, because he might have followed someone away from the explosion.

  At this point, she didn’t much care about anything except finding Jack. She needed a whole damn team now that there’d been a second explosion. She needed background checks, maybe VA medical records, enough people to sift through the debris to find some more useful clue than a possible metal can.

  And if, by the grace of God, Jack was still alive, he might turn out to be the most useful clue of all. Once she got through dressing him down, she was going to ask the ATF to find a scholarship for that young man. Best to send him to college, then train him, for his own sake.

  * * *

  Jack knew the bomber was gone. He felt it as if the air had changed. Before, he’d felt a weight surrounding him, as if darkness were trying to close in, but now the world felt normal again. The darkness had moved on.

  Maybe he was just being fanciful, but he was past caring. He was tethered by that chain locked around his throat. No way to wriggle out of it or break it without strangling himself. He knew because he’d tried repeatedly.

  But there was food and water within reach, and somewhat-softer hay to sit on, and feeling was beginning to return to his butt.

  There was also an ammo can sitting ten feet away with that cord running out of it toward the door. Apparently that cord was some kind of fuse, because the guy had said if he wrapped it around Jack, it would fry him.

  All he’d done, all he’d risked, and he still didn’t know who the guy was. Right then he felt like one great big failure. His parents were probably worried to death. The sheriff had to be searching for him. Work on the bomb scenes had probably halted because one teenage boy, a stupid one evidently, had disappeared.

  No one had asked him to follow anyone. All Darcy had asked was that he keep his ears open in case he heard something. If he’d followed his orders, he wouldn’t be stuck right here, unable to do anything to help.

  After this, assuming he survived that bomb that was keeping him company, even if he managed to go to college and apply to the ATF, they’d probably tell him to get lost. He’d screwed everything up.

  For all he knew, after this they might even charge him with something, like getting in the way of an investigation or whatever it was called. Maybe he’d be better off dead.

  Especially since the guy had taken off. He might still be here, within reach if they found the right clue, so he could be stopped.

  But no, Jack had scared him into leaving. Now the bomber was out there, probably making sure no one could find him even if Jack was found and they learned who owned this place.

  Jack half wished the bomb would just go off so that someone would come quickly enough to hunt the guy down.

  * * *

  Alex found the tire tracks. Here and there they ran over the first set that had pulled away from the building the night of the explosion, but that indicated they were fresher. They called for the opinion of one of the deputies. Sarah Ironheart and Sergeant Beauregard came quickly.

  “We think Jack might have seen the bomber,” Alex explained.

  “And possibly followed him,” Darcy added. “We’ve got two sets of tracks here. One belongs to the truck that went through the fence but is the other set newer or older?”

  “Hard to tell given the rain the other day,” Sarah remarked, squatting. “Beau?”

  “Yeah.” He, too, squatted, then looked farther down the road. “Maybe we should follow a bit.”

  Sarah nodded. “Just what I was thinking. And we need to know how many people might have driven along here since the rain.”

  Together the four of them walked up the road a way, then Darcy suddenly stopped. “Are those fresh tracks overlaying? Breaking up the dried mud?”

  Sarah squatted again, poking a finger into the crumbled earth. “Yup. Someone drove through here since the road started to dry out. During the night maybe. We have to find out if anyone saw a vehicle from the scene.”

  Beau walked a little farther down, then spoke. “Different tire treads, longer wheel base, slightly bent frame. It wasn’t the truck that pulled away from the building. Not a car at all, I’m thinking.”

  Darcy felt her heart sink. “I’m going to get my vehicle and keep heading out this way, unless there’s a reason I shouldn’t.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Alex.

  Sarah stood and looked at them. “Remember, you two, you might be chasing a bomber. You find anything, Darcy, anything at all, you radio immediately.”

  Of course, she’d radio immediately. She wasn’t foolish enough to think she could stand up to a crazed man who might be armed, even with Alex’s help. But she had to find Jack. First and foremost, find that young man alive.

  Guilt rode her like a heavy weight and gnawed at the edges of her mind. No way could she convince herself she wasn’t in some way responsible for Jack’s disappearance. Nothing Alex said could relieve her of that burden. Even the bit about what was she supposed to have done—lock him in a cell?

  But if he’d actually seen and followed the bomber...

  God, she couldn’t stand to think of it.

  When she and Alex were in her truck, ready to follow the roa
d to wherever it led, Sarah flagged them.

  Darcy rolled her window down. “Yes?”

  “I’m going to check with the sheriff. You may find that you’ve got some deputies on your tail. He might pull some of us from elsewhere in the search, okay?”

  “Thanks. If we find anything, we’re going to need you guys.”

  Sarah’s smile was faint. “I know. Now, get going.”

  * * *

  For the first time in his life, Jack understood true loneliness. Sitting in an outbuilding probably somewhere near the guy’s property, in the company of a bomb, kind of made cold winds blow inside him, like he was in a desert in the middle of the night all by himself.

  No one to call. No friendly face to look for. No one to find him who probably wouldn’t be blown up the instant they opened that door.

  He hoped that if someone found him, they’d make enough noise that he’d hear and could call out a warning. He didn’t want anybody else to die or get hurt because of his idiocy.

  And he had been an idiot. What did he think he was going to accomplish following that guy? He should have kept driving, but no, he’d thought he could creep up on the house and maybe get some information to take back to Darcy. Be a hero. Solve the case.

  When he thought of the painstaking work he’d seen Darcy and everyone else doing as they sifted through the evidence... He should have known he wasn’t going to fly in like a comic-book hero and save the day. He should have had more brains than that.

  He’d disappointed himself, and now maybe he’d die for it. Probably die, he amended. The guy had left him some power bars and a few bottles of water, but that would only delay the inevitable if no one found him. And that bomb sitting there made him think it might be better if he just died of thirst.

  Yeah, noble thoughts, he told himself scornfully. That was a bomb! Even if he were dead, someone else might be killed trying to get to his bones.

  No, he had to ration that water, make it last, in the hopes he could shout a warning to anyone who came out here. That mattered more than everything else now. It was the only good thing he had left to do with his life.

  He leaned back against the post, feeling the pressure of the chain around his neck, his fingers already bloody from having tried to break it. It let him move a little, let him lie down, but it wouldn’t break, and every time he pulled on it he felt its strength. If he pulled too hard, he’d strangle.

  He’d even struggled to grip the length that was tied around the post, hoping he could break that or pull it loose. No go.

  But once he’d stopped trying to find a way out of this mess—as if he could with a bomb wired to the door—and stopped dousing himself with self-pity for being a fool, he started thinking about the man who had done this to him. What he had said.

  It was like a puzzle. That man was a Vietnam vet. He wasn’t the only one around here. Lots of them—from the last sheriff to the guy who currently headed up the Emergency Response Team; even Micah Parish, his favorite of all the deputies, because Micah was like dark, still waters, saying little but seeming to know so much.

  Lots of Vietnam vets, but he hadn’t met any who seemed as crazy angry as this guy. From more recent wars there were even more vets around here. Some occasionally went off the deep end a bit, but everybody understood and tried to help.

  This guy was different. Dying, he’d said. Agent Orange. What the hell was Agent Orange? A defoliant, Jack had gathered. Probably something like the weed killers people used in their gardens, only worse. Apparently, it had made the guy sick. Maybe a lot of guys, from the little he’d said.

  The things he’d said about soldiers being disposable when they could no longer fight? When Jack thought about it, he squirmed inwardly because he suspected it was true. He didn’t have a whole lot of experience with the larger outside world, but he’d heard things. High rate of suicide. Not enough medical care from the VA.

  But to build bombs to get even? This guy had a major grudge, and maybe he wasn’t exactly sane.

  He was going to get even with bureaucrats? What the heck did that mean? It seemed to Jack that anyone who’d given this guy a hard time in the past was probably long gone. Retired.

  Send a message? By blowing something up? That didn’t make much sense to Jack, either. It didn’t seem like a good way to get the kind of attention anyone would want.

  But maybe the bomber couldn’t see any other way. In his rough voice, Jack had heard frustration, even when he seemed weary. Terrible, ugly, endless frustration.

  He tried to focus his mind on the pieces the man had given him. A defoliant that had apparently killed his friends. That was still having an impact all these years later. Maybe it was the reason the man said he was dying.

  Even so, after all this time, wasn’t it too late to send any kind of message about that? Unless his captor thought similar things were still happening.

  But no, he’d just said he wanted to get even. Over forty years seemed like a long time to want to get even. Something must have pushed this guy over the edge. Or maybe he’d just been simmering for an awfully long time, and finally he blew a gasket.

  Maybe the fact that he was now dying had been the last straw.

  Jack sighed and leaned back against the post. What did it matter? he asked himself. He was chained in here with the bomb. His own time was probably limited, and if he didn’t live he couldn’t pass along even the small bits of information he’d gathered.

  Useless, Jack. Just useless.

  He looked again at the bomb and decided to just be grateful it didn’t have a timer ticking down. That would have made the tension even more unbearable.

  Because right now he felt wound tighter than a drum. As if he could explode himself.

  * * *

  Much as she would have liked to race, Darcy drove slowly. The grasses on either side of the road had deepened with spring and fresh water, and Alex had mentioned they needed to keep an eye out for disturbance.

  “If he went off the road into the grasses, it might be hard to see his car because that grass is growing in drainage ditches in a lot of places.”

  Good advice, she thought. Plus, she didn’t want to roar by a house that might hold information.

  After what seemed like forever, she caught sight of a group of ramshackle buildings that hadn’t been painted in so long the wood had slivered. There was a mailbox out front, dented and rusted and tipped on its rotting post.

  “Looks like nobody lives there,” she said, slowing down even more.

  “I’m not sure. Stop for a minute, okay?”

  She obliged. Alex climbed out and walked slowly across the road, then to the end of what was probably once a driveway, overgrown by grasses now, but still showing two ruts through the grass. If anybody came here, they didn’t use it often.

  He stood staring up the drive, then turned around and spoke as she leaned out the window. “Somebody came down the drive recently. Some of the grass is still crushed.” Then he pointed toward the road ahead. “Only one set of tracks continuing. Let’s drive a little farther. If we don’t find something, we’ll come back and check this place out.”

  “Okay.” As they started moving again, she spied a rusted pickup way down there near the house, but it looked as if it could have been abandoned a long time ago. The whole place looked as if it had been deserted for decades.

  Kinda creepy, actually. But they needed to find some sign of Jack, if he’d come out this way, and stopping might delay them.

  A half mile farther down the road, her heart suddenly lodged in her throat. “Alex?” His name could barely escape, but she managed to point. “Under the sagebrush,” she whispered, trying to regain control of her breathing.

  “His car.” Alex didn’t even wait for her to fully brake. She was still rolling a bit as he leaped out and ran forward. She pulled up closer, then climbed out to join him.
<
br />   “Be careful,” he said as she ran over. “When the brush is dry like this it can scratch you.”

  “Is it useful for anything?” she asked, feeling oddly frustrated as she tried to pull the tangle away from the car. What if Jack was in there and needed help?

  “Provides most of the food for antelope and elk,” he responded.

  At last, between them, they broke the tangle enough to see inside the car. “No one.”

  Her heart sank, then lifted rapidly. Okay, he wasn’t dead beside the road. But where had he gone?

  At almost the same moment, the two of them turned and looked back toward the seemingly deserted ranch.

  “He might have been hurt,” she said.

  “Seeking shelter,” he agreed.

  Both moved swiftly, climbing into the car. Darcy turned it without going into the ditch herself. As they headed back toward the ranch, Alex used her radio and called the sheriff’s office.

  She barely heard him explaining the situation and where they were. All she could think was, Dear God, let that kid be okay.

  She knew so little about this area that she had no idea if turning into the rutty, overgrown driveway might get them shot, but she never hesitated. The truck jolted and bumped, and only the seat belt kept her head from hitting the roof.

  At last they reached the house. No one had appeared. No faces in the windows, the few curtains that remained never twitched. But she was right behind that pickup truck and could tell it hadn’t been abandoned. As she climbed out and approached it, she could see fresh metal exposed in the bed. The tires were full of air.

  “This place is occupied,” she said.

  “Well, someone lives here,” he corrected. “Stay back while I knock on the door.”

  The porch looked as if it might fall through at any moment, but it supported his weight. He more than knocked—he banged. When there was no answer, he banged again.

  Darcy dared to climb up beside him and when he got no answer to his second knock, she framed her face with her hands and peered through the window.

  “Somebody lives here,” she said.