Hard Proof (Notus Motorcycle Club Book 1)

by Debra Kayn

  "Okay." Wayne studied her, trying to follow the conversation. "Go on."

  "We never knew she was murdered until two years ago after my dad died. He'd moved us away after Mom was killed and raised us in a safe environment where we didn't have to be afraid or hear the stories about what had happened." She rubbed her chest and gasped for breath. "When we found out, we both decided to move back to St. John's because our parents' are buried here. Then, we bought the bar."

  "Sweetheart, what does the past have to do with right now? Who do you think has Gracie?" Wayne studied her, becoming concerned. Her irrational behavior alarmed him knowing she suffered a head injury.

  "I'm trying to tell you. We think the man who broke into our house is the same man who killed my mom. He stole a picture off the bookcase. The only picture we have of us with my mom." She sucked in a breath. "That's why we bought the bar, a-and why I met you because you find missing persons and we needed you. You'd know how to find him. W-we wanted him to pay for killing our mom."

  "Slow down, sweetheart." Her erratic breathing concerned him. "You're going to pass out if you don't calm down."

  "We need you to find the man who killed my mom, and now he's taken Gracie," said Clara.

  She wasn't making sense. Wayne rolled on his hip and removed his phone from his pocket. "Twenty-four years ago? He could be out of prison. Do you know his name?"

  "No." She shook her head and instantly stopped, grabbing the side of her neck. "He was never caught. Th-the police said it's a cold case. But, you have to find him. That's why Gracie and I bought the bar, and we knew about you before we met. We knew if we paid you, paid Notus, you could find him. Wayne, you need to find him and kill him. I-I'll pay you. He can't have my sister, too."

  "Fuck," he muttered, lifting the phone to his ear. Clara's information came out in pieces and out of order as if she knew ahead of time that he'd be with her and she wanted him to hunt down a killer before her sister was taken.

  The call connected. "Lieutenant Gomez."

  "It's Wayne." He stood. "I've got some information. Clara believes the man who has Gracie also killed her mom twenty-four years ago."

  "What are you saying?"

  "You need to find out exactly what happened twenty-four years ago with a cold case." He looked at Clara. "Where did you live when you were little?"

  She shrugged, cradling her head in her hand. "I don't know. We think somewhere on Lombard Street, but on the other end, away from the bar. All I remember is a yellow house. It was small, single story. Gracie thinks she remembers a park at the end of the block where mom would walk us to play, but we've driven around trying to find the house, and nothing looked familiar. We're not even sure if we remember correctly. We were five years old."

  "Gomez?" said Wayne.

  "I'm here."

  "The kidnapper has probably lived here his whole life. Check the blocks from Thirty-Seventh Street down Lombard Street to Pioneer Park...the old Pioneer Park behind Dunn's Car Lot." Wayne's phone vibrated, and he pulled the cell away from his head. "Hold on."

  He connected the incoming call.

  "Yeah?" he said

  "Trail is cold. No one has seen anything. You'd think a fucking man carrying a woman away from an accident would be remembered," said Thad. "Police have notified the main bus depot, train, and the airport. Do you want us to cover the port?"

  "I've got something else for you to do. I need you to contact your parents. Ask them if they remember another woman getting kidnapped and murdered in St. John's two years before Thalia. Get any details you can from them. Location, what they said on the news at the time, any fucking thing they'll remember." Wayne fisted his hand, feeling the adrenaline to go out on the street and track down the son of a bitch who had brought more pain into Clara's life. "Whatever you find out, you call me first, then Gomez."

  "Brother, you know my parents. They don't talk about—"

  "I don't give a fuck. We're talking about Gracie. We need to know if they remember anything similar about any previous murders before Thalia's. They'll be faster at remembering than the police searching files."

  Even though he'd been twenty-two years old at the time, before Thalia went missing, he never paid attention to shit going on around him. He needed someone older who'd gone through the horror of losing a daughter and possibly went looking for answers around the same time and would remember a previous murder two years earlier. Thad's parents might have something that would lead them to where the killer would take Gracie.

  "Damn." Thad's gush of breath came over the phone. "Are you trying to link a murder from two decades ago to Gracie getting abducted?"

  "We need to check into it," said Wayne.

  "I'll get back to you in twenty when I get to my parents' house."

  Wayne disconnected the call and reconnected with Gomez. "Thad's finding out more details from his parents. He'll be giving you a call in about thirty minutes. You need to have the records on that cold case in front of you."

  "Wayne?" said Gomez, his voice quiet. "How are you connecting an old crime case with what is happening with the abduction today?"

  "Clara." He reached out and cupped the back of her head gently. "The break-in at their house. The picture the intruder took was of their mother. She was kidnapped and murdered twenty-four years ago."

  "I don't see how..." Gomez groaned and said, "What was her mom's name?"

  He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at Clara. "Sweetheart, what was your mom's name?"

  Clara wiped the steady stream of tears from her cheek, losing the battle. "Barbara. Barbara Nelson."

  His arms dropped to his sides, and he rocked back a step. Her sniffles pounded in his head, and his heartbeat thundered in his chest. Gomez yelled his name over the phone in his hand. He stepped away from the bed and lifted his hand.

  The man who'd killed Thalia had killed Clara's mom two years earlier. Recently, he killed a seven-year-old and a seventeen-year-old girl. Now he had Gracie. He stared at Clara, broken and sobbing on the bed. She'd said they bought the bar and friended him before they were even together. Before he'd put the moves on her. Before she told him the truth.

  "Wayne, get on the damn phone," said Gomez.

  He lifted the cell, calm washing through him. "Her mom's name was Barbara."

  "You're sure?"

  "Positive," he said. "I need at least two police officers at my house immediately. I'm riding out. Where are you?"

  "Two blocks from the station. I'll send two officers over as soon as I get there, then I'll meet you here. I need to get a team on this and get ahold of the judge. You'll need to stay back, but I swear, we'll search every God damn house in St. John's to find him."

  "I want in," said Wayne, knowing if the P.D. waited for a search warrant and had to shake hands with the Oregon State Police to help in the investigation, they'd be too late."

  "With the information you gave me, this has already escalated to something bigger, Wayne. Come to the station or wait it out. I can't have you there."

  "Right." He disconnected the call and sent a text to Glen and Chuck to meet at his house. Then, he went to his dresser and removed another pistol from the drawer.

  For twenty-two years, he'd hunted for Thalia's killer, needing justice for Thad and for Rich. His hand shook from adrenaline. Hopeful to be that much closer to figuring out who the serial killer was and putting an end to the nightmare, he strapped the pistol to his ankle, double checked the gun in his shoulder holster and stuffed two extra cartridges in his vest pocket.

  "Wayne?" said Clara from the bed. "Please don't hate me."

  He had no time to think about the information Clara hit him with or the reasons why. Or, what everything meant. He had a job to do.

  "There will be two cops coming any minute. They'll stay with you." He stuffed his gloves in his back pocket.

  "If you have to tell the cops what I've done, go ahead. I just want my sister back," she said.

  He looked at her, hugging her waist an
d pleading with her eyes. His blood ran cold, already prepared to go out on the street and hunt down a killer. "Tell the cops what?"

  "That I'm begging you to kill the man who took Gracie. That we can pay you." Her shoulders rounded. "Gracie and I planned —"

  "Stop." He stared at her, wondering if their whole relationship came down to her begging him to kill someone. If she'd lied about falling in love with him. "Don't say anymore."

  "Please," she whispered. "I’m sorry. I just—"

  Banging on the door cut Clara off from saying more. He walked over to her and lowered his voice. "Do not say a word about any of this with the cops that are going to walk in the house any minute. Do you hear me?"

  She nodded, wincing as her shoulders came up. He couldn't take the time to ask the questions that needed to be asked. He kissed her softly, backed out of the room, and rushed down the stairs.

  There was no way in hell he was going to let the killer get away again.

  Chapter 30

  In the garage, Wayne pushed a pin with a color-coded flag through the paper map taped on the wall in the location where Clara's accident happened, and Gracie was last seen. He stepped back to study the whole area of St. John's. There were at least a hundred pins stuck in the area. Most of them runaways and estranged spouses that had been reported missing over the last twenty-two years. Only the red pins signified a murder after being reported missing, which narrowed the search.

  He stepped forward and squinted. "Thirty-seventh Street," he mumbled.

  Tracing the black line representing Lombard Street to the next red pin, he went to each murder site. There were eight pins, not including Clara and Gracie's mom. Murders were coins in a prostitute's purse in any area surrounding Portland, but kidnappings ending with murder within St. John's were rare they stood out among the other crimes.

  "Three blocks." He walked his finger backward on the map. "Six blocks. Four. Two. One. Two. Three."

  The circle he traced grew smaller. His body warmed, and he grabbed a piece of string off the filing cabinet, wrapping it around the three closest pins. He then moved outward with his finger and counted the city blocks again. In any other order, the killer would have further to go, his pattern would be erratic.

  "Pattern. Mother fucker," he muttered, rushing to his desk. He picked up the file that'd been opened a thousand times over the last month with two missing females. There was an order if there was one murderer over the span of, at least, twenty-four years, starting with Barbara. The catalyst for the serial killer.

  The garage door leading into the house opened. Wayne lifted his head and motioned Chuck and Glen inside. "Find the dates of each female who was kidnapped and found murdered."

  Thad walked over to the wall. "They're written on the paper attached to the pins."

  "So, read them..." Wayne joined him at the map and removed one of the pins and said, "Twelve. Three. December third."

  "Hang on." Chuck took the pin from him and read the date. "March twelfth, you read it backward."

  "Damnit." He waved toward the map, motioning Chuck closer. "Check what I've done and make sure I haven't screwed it up. I want the string to go around the last half of the murders, then tell me how far apart they are."

  Thad walked into the garage. Wayne stepped away from the map. "What did your parents remember?"

  "A hell of a lot." Thad removed a piece of paper from his pocket. "After my sister, they scoured the paper looking for past crimes that would match the one on Thalia. They only found one, and they remembered her name was Barbara."

  Wayne pressed his lips together. If the police would've given more details to the public instead of being worried about building a case, they would've linked the killer to more murders. An outdated cold case filing system had created a roadblock.

  "They believe she was found in an old park on..." Thad looked on the paper.

  "Pioneer Park. It's a parking lot now on Lombard." Wayne moved back to the map and stuck a pin in the correct location. "Son of a bitch."

  The pin was right in the middle of the circle of string. Wayne looked at the others. "We've got the fucker. What time is it?"

  "Quarter to five," said Glen.

  "Chuck, get on the phone with..." He clamped his jaw closed, knowing the moment he called Gomez, they'd need to wait until he got a judge to issue a search warrant. They didn't have the time. Gracie didn't have the time. "Call the city office talk to the planning and tax department, get the names of everyone who lives on the block behind Dunn's Car Lot. That information is public. If they give you grief, tell them it's for a neighborhood watch you're organizing, and you're sending them all an invite by mail. Everyone else, let's head that way. Chuck, give me a call with the information. I only want the houses that are recorded with a male's name. If it's a couple, forget it. While you're doing that, we'll look the houses over. I doubt if this asshole spends a lot of time outside doing yard work. He's probably a recluse."

  "Let's go." Thad squeezed Wayne's shoulder. "Good job, bro."

  Inside the house, Wayne stopped beside Officer Geary who would remain with Clara. "How's she doing?"

  "Sleeping. Officer Taylor is up in the bedroom with her and will wake Clara up every two hours." Officer Geary looked toward the stairs.

  "Do me a favor and make sure she takes one Motrin when she wakes up. The bottle is on the dresser." Wayne stepped toward the door. "Also, there's a heating pad if she needs it in the sack on the nightstand. I'll be back as soon as I can."

  "Are you going to the station?" Officer Geary sat back down on the couch.

  He'd worked with Geary before and chose to lie. "Yeah, we're all heading over now to wait and hear any progress in the search."

  He went out the door before Geary could ask him any more questions. As far as law enforcement knew, they headed out as a club to the police station. Thankfully, his story would take him along Lombard Street, where they'd make a little stop first.

  Five minutes later, Wayne pulled behind Dunn's Car Lot and turned off his motorcycle. He removed his helmet and gloves, leaving them on his bike. Checking his phone in case he missed Chuck's phone call, he motioned for the others to walk with him toward the back of the office where no one could view them hanging around. From there, he could see down the street and do a once-over without the noise of their motorcycles drawing attention.

  Behind the cover of a Cadillac Escalade, Wayne gazed from one house to the next. "Look them over. Disregard any homes with bicycles or signs of children living at the house. Also, ignore any places with two cars in the driveway. We need to quickly narrow down the search."

  "Going closest to farthest, that leaves numbers one, four, six, seven, and nine. Agreed?" Glen slipped his skullcap over his hair.

  "No, take off seven," said Thad. "The trike is out on the sidewalk, not in the yard. Mom could've been called home while out with her kid, or the kid could've fallen, and they're in getting a Band-Aid two houses down. We don't know. Better safe than sorry."

  Wayne walked past two parked cars and looked down the opposite side of the street. Unlike the other blocks surrounding the area where the houses faced each other, the block had a car lot separating the houses, also affording them privacy. Exactly where Clara's mom's body was found. Except, twenty-four years ago, the car lot was an old park.

  Because of the layout, the first house set sideways right behind a car wash. The back of the house almost touching a ten-foot cement wall and the front door out of sight of the street because of an overgrown bush. At first, he figured the place was abandoned. The dirty windows, the more dirt than grass patch of a front yard, and one older rusted vehicle in the driveway in front of a single-car garage.

  His phone vibrated. He took the cell out of his pocket and answered, "Talk to me."

  "You're not going to like what I say. Almost half of those houses are owned by Holdings LLC and rented out. Which means I don't have information on the renters," said Chuck.

  "How about the house behind the car wash? H
ang on." Wayne whistled and motioned for Thad. "Find out the house number for that white house. The first one."

  Thad jogged away. Wayne walked back to the others. "Anything from Gomez?"

  "Nope. I imagine he's thick in the middle of creating a team and figuring out how to find somewhere to investigate." Chuck paused. "You sure you don't want to let them in on the location we're centering our attention on?"

  "The hour it'll take them to gather will be too long. One fuck up, and Gracie..." Wayne exhaled. "We know what this guy does before he kills the women, and now he's included children."

  "How's Thad doing?"

  Wayne looked up and spotted his MC brother jogging back to him. "Better than I expected, considering."

  The seriousness of the situation with Gracie's life hanging by a thread was not the only thing on every Notus members' mind. The loss of Thalia from their life had shaped each one of them. The guilt and heaviness of losing Rich as a fall-out from the murder of Thad's sister stayed with them each day.

  Thad slowed and stopped beside him, huffing for air. "Six-four-zero."

  "Did you hear that?" said Wayne, into the phone.

  "Yeah. I'm looking at my notes." Chuck paused. "Roy Jenson."

  "No other name on the property?" Wayne held up his hand to the others.

  "Nope."

  "Thanks. Hang tight at the house and help Officer Taylor and Geary keep an eye on Clara for me."

  "You got it, brother," said Chuck, disconnecting the call.

  Wayne pocketed his phone and waved his hand to gather Glen and Thad. "It's the house over there. There's enough sound coming from the car wash there's no way anyone could hear a thing happening on the inside."

  Thad's gaze intensified. "Are we going in?"

  "Yep." Wayne studied the area.

  Because of the time of day, there were no walkers around. People hadn't returned from work yet, and anyone at home was inside their house. Traffic stayed on Lombard Street, and if an occasional car cut across, they'd be on the other side of the block.