He immediately started chastising himself. "Ty Stone, battles have been fought and won by this hour. Better men have already broken a sweat and have blisters forming. You can't even be bothered to get your ass out of a recliner and sleep in a bed like a civilized human. I am going to break your ass down today, boy. We're not jogging and hitting the gym, either. You're going to go to Mount Rogers and run trails until you whine like a puppy."
Ty didn't even know where those words came from some days. When he woke up, trail running was definitely not something he had in mind. He didn't know if this abusive self-talk was something the military had instilled in him or some weird form of schizophrenia that adrenaline junkies and endurance athletes thrived on. Either way, he always listened to it. If his inner drill instructor said he was trail running, then that's what he was going to do.
He staggered to the kitchen and started putting together breakfast. If he was going to push himself that hard, it needed to be something good. No cereal or pop-tarts. This was a bacon and eggs kind of day. He grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge and sucked it down a little too fast, brain-freeze forcing him to stagger around the kitchen with his eyes shut, cursing his life. When he recovered, he added a little tap water to the bottle, hoping it might prevent another incidence.
Once he had his breakfast cooking, Ty scrolled through his phone. There were messages tied to conversations he'd initiated last night but fallen asleep before finishing. There was more Wasteland traffic—jokes, notifications, hilarious and inappropriate comments. Not wanting to get sucked into the Wasteland at the moment, Ty checked the weather and found it was going to be a nice day for trail running. Not that the weather mattered. He was hitting the trails even if the weather sucked. He could only imagine the abuse he'd take from his inner voice if he postponed a workout for the weather.
When his breakfast was done, he sat down at the table with a cup of coffee, his remaining Gatorade, and a tall glass of water. He opened his phone and received a notification from an app he'd recently installed. It was the app associated with the trail cameras that had gotten him in trouble with the boss. He'd promised Cliff he wouldn't access the cameras so he'd ignored the app, but what was he supposed to do? The notification was taunting him.
Besides, he understood now that anything the cameras collected was inadmissible. If the footage was pointless and unusable, what was the harm in reviewing it to confirm that the pregnant woman was still there?
According to everyone involved in the case, arresting the counselor for buying Raylene's kids would get them a warrant to search the clinic. That was critical to the case moving forward, however, he couldn't ignore the feeling that there was an important thread tied to the pregnant woman in North Carolina. He didn't know what it was about. It was simply another of the gut feelings he felt compelled to follow. He suspected those gut feelings would one day be his downfall.
With a sigh of disappointment at his inability to follow orders, Ty Stone clicked on the trail camera app. The app told him that video had been collected from both the camera he'd placed across from the clinic and the one he'd placed in North Carolina. He was much more interested in the North Carolina camera at the moment so he selected that one first.
Opening the app brought up a screen full of tiny thumbnail images, screenshots of the clips the camera had captured. Ty clicked on the thumbnails in order, finding several of the pregnant woman standing around outside the trailer, smoking and drinking. He averted his eyes with pointless embarrassment as several of the clips revealed her urinating in the weeds.
He clicked through those quickly, then stopped to watch one in which a second woman appeared with a box and knocked on the door. Ty saw that she was delivering food. There were several clips similar to that one. In one, he watched the women sit and talk for some time before getting up and walking out of the frame. The camera had sound but Ty couldn't make out what they were talking about. The next clip in the series caught his interest.
There were two men he hadn’t seen before in the other clips. One was a well-dressed foreign man. The other looked like a farmer. He was missing an arm, but even from a distance it was obvious he'd spent his life in the sun. What little skin that showed was blotched and seared to a permanent red. The two men seemed to be looking for the pregnant woman. They wandered around the campsite and searched the camper. Their gestures were those of men unable to find something they were looking for. The clip ended with the foreign man disappearing inside the camper and the one-armed man wandering out of the frame.
Whatever story was being told on the screen had Ty's full attention now. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. He was bound inextricably to this drama, whether he wanted to be or not. However, he had no idea how bad it was about to get. If he had, perhaps he'd have stopped there, deleted the app from his phone, and forgotten all about the cameras he'd placed.
Ty advanced to the next clip. It began with the two women, the pregnant woman and the one who'd brought the food, walking into the frame talking animatedly. They gestured with their hands but neither was smiling. While it didn't appear to be an argument, neither did it appear to be friendly banter. There was a palpable intensity. The pregnant woman was sweating profusely, her skin glistening. She wiped at her forehead before throwing back the door to the camper.
Both women went inside but found something they didn't expect. Apparently, the sight of the foreign man inside the camper alarmed the woman who'd brought the food. She tried to rush back out the door but ran right into a brutal punch thrown by the one-armed man. He'd come out of nowhere, perhaps laying in wait for them.
Ty winced at the punch. It was solid and well-thrown, the blow of a strong man who'd thrown a lot of punches in his day. The woman dropped in the camper and the man grabbed her by the leg, pulling her outside. Ty wanted to turn away but couldn't, the image of her flesh scraping along the threshold of the camper difficult to watch.
It was not so difficult to watch as the remainder of the video, though. Even without sound Ty could tell the one-armed man was terrorizing everyone. He was in charge. Whoever this foreign man was, he didn't come from a background where he'd been exposed to a lot of violence. He flinched with each blow dealt to the young woman who'd brought the food. When she was brutally murdered, stabbed to death, he seemed to go in shock.
Without words, Ty had only the expressions on their faces to tell the tale. The foreign man was stunned and terrified. The one-armed man was exhilarated, enjoying the sensation of having killed for what Ty assumed was not the first time.
On the pregnant woman's face, Ty saw resolute acceptance. This woman was no stranger to violence. She'd been on the receiving end before. Perhaps this was not even the first murder she'd witnessed. She responded calmly to each of the murderer's commands.
The clip ended with the one-armed man making a phone call. Ty wondered if he was calling in reinforcements or reporting the situation to whoever had sent him. Ty closed the app and stared at the wall. Despite promising Cliff that he wouldn’t watch the video, he had. He'd opened Pandora's Box and he'd seen things he couldn't ignore. He had to report it. The only question was who to call first.
He changed screens and punched a recent contact. The voice that answered was groggy. Ty hadn't calculated for the difference in time zones but that was inconsequential now. Everything had just changed.
"Cliff, it's Ty. We need to talk."
48
Federal Courthouse
Abingdon, Virginia
An hour later Agent Baxter was sitting in Ty's living room. He stared in disbelief as Ty related the story of his struggle with PTSD, how he'd come to purchase the trail cameras, and how he'd come to plant one across from the clinic in Glade Spring. He went on to tell the agent what he'd seen at the clinic and how that led him to pursue a pregnant woman to North Carolina. Then he had to admit to returning to North Carolina a second time to plant a trail camera outside the small camper on the isolated farm.
Agent Baxter shook his h
ead with shock and amazement. "Dude, when you go off the rails, you go totally off, don't you?'
Ty shrugged. "I'm on meds and I'm getting help. I still have a troubled relationship with free time, the couch you're sitting on, and much of the world in general. If you've not struggled with PTSD I don't think I could explain it. The symptoms are unique to that condition. It's fucked up. It's not just inconvenient either—it kills people every day."
"I'm not discounting the seriousness, Ty, but why the confession? I'm not too concerned about the camera across from the clinic because that might possibly be in the public right-of-way. We'd have to measure it to be sure. The camera in North Carolina is a different issue entirely. You were trespassing on private property. I'm not even sure what you hoped to accomplish there. From a law enforcement perspective, anything you capture on the camera would probably be thrown out of court. But you're not even law enforcement. You could be charged with a crime for even placing the camera if this were to come out. You better hope it doesn't."
"It will have to come out," Ty said.
Baxter threw his hands up in frustration. "Why? I'm not going to tell if you don't."
"Scoot over."
The agent moved over on the couch and Ty took a seat beside him. He opened the trail camera app on his phone and started playing the video clips in order.
"Hold on a second. I don't know that I should be watching these," Agent Baxter said.
Ty ignored him and kept playing them. Soon, Baxter was sucked into the rising drama which culminated in the murder of a young woman.
"Jesus Christ, Ty!" Baxter exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief.
Ty closed his phone and laid it on the coffee table. "I hadn't planned on watching any of the camera footage. Once I got my head together, I realized going there was a bad idea, so I was going to ignore it. Then the app sent me a reminder that I had unwatched videos so I got curious. When I saw the murder I panicked and called Cliff. He said to reach out to you immediately."
Agent Baxter took a long breath and wiped his face, his eyes racing as his brain processed, trying to find a path forward. "Is that the last clip?" the agent asked. "Is that where the story ends?"
"That was the last one. Apparently, the card filled up. I guess I should have used a bigger memory card. Are we going to organize a raid?"
Ty's question broke through Agent Baxter's indecision. He looked at Ty like he was crazy. "A raid? We? Dude, are you nuts?"
"I told you why I went down there. I told you about tracking the pregnant woman there. You saw her in the clip? Don't we need to do something about this?"
Baxter forced air out between his teeth. He looked like a man ready to have a stroke. "I hear what you're saying, Ty, but there's no evidence connecting our investigation here to this murder in North Carolina. Sure, there's the pregnant woman who was in both places, but that's not enough. You're making a leap based on a feeling which, according to Lieutenant Whitt, is your primary investigative method. A feeling is not admissible in court. It's also insufficient for obtaining a warrant."
"Then what are you going to do about this?" Ty gestured at his phone.
"I'm going to find the name of the local sheriff for that jurisdiction and I assume we're about to have a very frank phone call. You're going to send me those video clips and I'm going to share them with the sheriff. I can't say that we legally collected that video because my statement to that effect would become part of the record. I could end up having to testify under oath as to how I obtained those video clips. Instead, I'm probably going to have to admit that a member of the task force, perhaps a little too gung-ho for his own good, went rogue and obtained these videos illegally. That admission makes me sound like I don't have control of my own team, Ty. I don't like it. When my superiors get wind of this, when they read it in the newspapers, it's probably not going to advance my career."
Ty let out a long sigh. "I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry I involved you, but I couldn't ignore a murder."
"I get it, Ty. You couldn't. This might even be a murder that would have gone unsolved had you not illegally captured it on video, but that doesn't change the fact that this could be uncomfortable and embarrassing for us."
Ty didn't know what to say to that.
"I need the login information to that camera, Ty. Start sending those videos now. I need them on my phone before I leave here. I've got a long day ahead of me."
"The sheriff might need me to go with his team," Ty insisted. "Someone will have to show them where the camper is."
"Draw a fucking map!" Baxter spat. "You're not going to North Carolina!"
Ty got up from the couch and went to his laptop to print out a satellite map of the farm. He'd mark the camper location as Baxter requested, but it was not the same as being there. Ty understood he was going to have to change his mindset somehow. He needed to get his shit together and quit doing stupid things. He hoped he hadn't screwed up the opportunity in Arizona, but he needed to prepare himself for that possibility. Cliff Mathis might be done with him and he couldn't blame the man for that.
49
The Farm
North Carolina
Shelby was glad when he was shed of Karen and Dr. Jacoby. He was ready for life on the farm to get back to normal. He knew how to run his operation and didn't like strangers meddling in it. He treated Harrison's product, the women and children, like they were just another species of livestock entrusted to his care until he could get them to market. He cared for them same as he would cattle, hogs, or sheep. He and his most trusted people saw that they were fed, watered, and their waste dealt with until Harrison's black vans came to fetch them. That's all there was to it.
Under his practiced hand the farm operation ran like a well-oiled machine until Harrison threw a wrench into it. Every time he sent him a pregnant woman or a drug addict there was an issue. Shelby couldn't breathe easy until they were gone and the farm was his again. Then he'd fall back into his routine and everything would run like clockwork. He wasn't a big wheel in this operation but he knew his role and he knew his value. Harrison paid him well and Shelby did what was expected of him.
Still, he was a farmer at heart. While his life was dictated by Harrison's needs, he also did the things that all farmers did. Most nights he was in bed by 10 PM so he could be up at daylight. Tonight it was already 11 PM and he still wasn't in bed. An older piece of farm equipment had broken down earlier in the day. A weld in the frame had cracked and the tractor operator didn't notice it until the problem had gotten a lot worse. They needed the equipment fixed by tomorrow which meant a late night for Shelby and two of the farmhands. Shelby was a proficient welder but a big job like this one required extra hands.
The old Lincoln stick welder and the grinders the farmhands were running created a loud drone that made it nearly impossible to hear anything. Shelby didn't notice they had company until he spotted an odd reflection through the open shop door. He tipped up his welding helmet with a leather-jacketed forearm and wiped the sweat from his face. His eyes stung from the sweat, making it hard to get a handle on what he was seeing.
"Is that brake lights?" he wondered aloud.
The two helpers, grinders throwing showers of sparks, cocked their heads toward him. They knew he'd spoken but hadn't heard the words. They lowered their heads back to their work.
"Dammit," Shelby mumbled. He dropped the stinger that held the welding electrode, then pulled the welding helmet off his head, slinging it to the ground. Welding in this heat, wearing a leather welding jacket, made him irritable. It had been a long day on top of a long week.
When he reached the open door, he was fumbling with his cigarettes when he froze in his tracks. A steady stream of vehicles with flashing red lights was pouring onto the farm. There had to be dozens of them. It had to be a raid.
Shelby cursed and threw his cigarettes to the ground. He twisted into the shop and yelled at the farmhands until he had their attention, their sweaty, smudged faces peering at him from beneat
h grinding shields.
"Get to the camp and get those illegals out of here!" Shelby yelled. "Tell them to run into the woods and hide."
The men dropped their grinders and raced off, tossing their clear face shields to the side. They jumped on ATVs and rocketed off into the night, leaving their lights off. Shelby stood there in the door glowering at the scene unfolding before him, mumbling under his breath. The only thing he hated more than visitors was cops. He saw there was a car at his house by the road now. They were trying to knock the door in. Other vehicles streamed toward the work camp. There was no way those workers were going to hide before the cops got there.
Then it hit him that the migrant workers were the least of his problems. They were at the forefront of his mind because he was a farmer and spent so much time dealing with them. The other item of concern, that which he'd hardly considered at all, was the human cargo stored deeper on the farm. If the cops found that, he was screwed.
And how could they not find it?
Seeing the light in the shop and Shelby's figure silhouetted in the bay door, one of the speeding cars broke away from the others and turned in his direction. Maybe Shelby should have tried to call Harrison and warn him about what was taking place, but that wasn't how Shelby's mind worked. He was a fighter. He'd always been a fighter.
Shelby dropped a hand to the sweat-stained leather holster on his belt and drew the 1911 Colt. He carried it cocked-and-locked so it was only a matter of dropping the safety and hiding it behind his back.
Shelby stood in the door and waited until the police car skidded to a stop in front of him, raising a cloud of thick dust that swirled in the shop lights. Shelby squinted against the dust, spitting as he tasted the earth on his tongue. The deputy in the passenger seat leapt out the door, leveling a rifle at Shelby. A red dot appeared on Shelby's chest as they shouted orders at him.
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