Exposed

by Laura Griffin

  Quiet but not silent.

  They were two different things, as he’d learned in Afghanistan during bitter-cold nights on patrol in the Hindu Kush. So many nights, he’d stared into the blackness around the remote outpost. He’d clutched his M-4 with frozen fingers, sensing more than hearing the enemy in the surrounding mountains. It had been quiet then, too—but not silent—and sometimes only the softest sound of a missed footstep or a falling rock tipped him off to the enemy’s presence.

  He peered into the gloom now. With almost no light to help him, he squinted his eyes and tried to pick up even the slightest movement with his peripheral vision.

  Nothing.

  Gripping his Glock, he moved closer to the structure. Twenty paces. Thirty. Forty. When his feet went from uneven dirt to smooth concrete, he changed directions and started walking the building’s perimeter.

  He eased around the first corner. On the building’s western face was a metal door, the type that could be raised or lowered on a track. He noted the six-inch gap at the bottom and crouched beside it.

  In the dimness, he spotted the muddy tire tracks on the concrete. His fingers itched for his flashlight, but he left it in his pocket. He studied the tracks. The last rain had been eight days ago. A downpour. Someone had been here within the past week.

  He stood and glanced around, skimming his gaze over the shadowy bushes nearby.

  He retraced his steps. He avoided the gap under the door in case someone was watching from inside. He crept to the other end of the building and eased around the corner. Another door, but this one was raised completely.

  Brian eased closer. He stared into the yawning blackness. A peculiar smell reached him, and he went stock-still as he tried to place it.

  A sound—so faint he might have imagined it. He lifted his gun. The wind picked up, and he heard a dull thud as the building’s metal walls shifted. Then the gust died down, and Brian listened intently.

  Shoes on pavement. He crouched low and slipped inside the building.

  Maddie stared at the gun beside her. She looked out the window. She hadn’t heard a noise from any direction, and she was starting to get worried.

  The phone rattled in the cupholder, sending her heart rate into overdrive as she snatched it up.

  “Yes?”

  “Hey, it’s Sam. He’s not back yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We’re on our way, probably ten minutes out. How’s it looking there?”

  “Dark.” She glanced around and felt that clutch of panic again. Because of the foliage, her only visibility was out the rear window, and she hadn’t even seen a car pass. “There’s not much out here. It’s pretty deserted.”

  “Sit tight, okay? And call me if you see anything.”

  “I will.”

  Maddie tucked the phone into her pocket and looked at the shotgun, trying to calm down. She’d never been scared of guns. Her father had taken her hunting with him when she was a kid, so she was familiar with how to handle them. But she didn’t shoot regularly, and she’d never in her life fired a weapon in self-defense.

  She checked the rear window again. A flicker of light on the road.

  Her imagination?

  No, it was a car. Her pulse skittered as the trees lining the highway brightened in the approaching headlights.

  She pulled the gun across her lap. Would the car speed past or slow down?

  What if it turned onto the dirt driveway and someone spotted her?

  On impulse, she shoved open the door and squeezed out of the car. Batting away branches with one hand and clutching the gun in the other, she used her hip to shut the door. The road brightened as the engine noise drew closer.

  Maddie ducked into the bushes. She pushed her way through the leaves and branches until her fingers encountered the barbed-wire fence on the property’s perimeter.

  The car slowed. Her heart pounded. They weren’t speeding past, but stopping. She peered through the bushes and looked for Brian. Why wasn’t he back yet? And was he close enough to hear that they had company?

  She tucked the stock under her arm and pulled out the phone to text him one-handed: Car coming. As she pressed send, the bushes became whiter and whiter, until they looked covered in snow. Her stomach knotted with dread as she tucked away the phone and the vehicle rolled to a stop a scant ten yards shy of her hiding spot.

  Maddie lifted the shotgun. She used the barrel to nudge a branch aside, giving her a clear view of the roadway. The SUV was pulled over now, engine idling.

  Waiting for someone?

  She cast a frantic look over her shoulder. Had Brian heard the approach? The ten minutes he’d been gone seemed like an hour.

  A door squeaked open. Maddie whipped her head back around. The interior light was on now. Two men sat in front. They were big and bulky, and one had a cell phone pressed to his ear.

  Maddie held her breath. She watched them. She tried to memorize their faces, their clothes, any distinguishing features she might later give to police. She shifted position for a better view, but then the door slammed shut, and tires squealed as they sped away.

  Her breath whooshed out. She glanced over her shoulder. Through the branches, she saw a light flickering . . .

  Fire.

  Fear zinged through her. She stumbled from her hiding place. Over the treetops, flames licked up into the night sky.

  “Brian!” She put down the shotgun and ducked through the fence, snagging her hair. She yanked it loose and pulled herself through the barbed wire, then darted through a clump of cedar trees. She reached a clearing and saw a warehouse engulfed in flames.

  “Brian!”

  An explosion knocked her on her butt. Pain shot up her tailbone. She pushed herself up and gazed, stunned, at the flames and smoke billowing into the sky.

  Maddie scrambled to her feet and raced for the building, tripping and stumbling as she went.

  “Brian!” Her voice was shrill with panic. She halted and looked around desperately. Dear God, was he inside?

  Smoke stung her eyes as she raced around the building, searching for a way in. It was stupid—she knew that—but she had to try.

  Something clamped her arm and whirled her around.

  “Are you okay?” Brian demanded.

  She stood there, paralyzed with shock. The fire cast his face in an orange glow. He was dirty and sweaty and bleeding, but her relief at seeing him was so intense she couldn’t breathe.

  “I thought you were in there!” She threw her arms around him and squeezed.

  “Hey. Hey.”

  Tears burned her eyes. Her lungs hurt. She felt dizzy and confused and terrified right down to her toes.

  “Maddie.”

  She couldn’t let go. She clung as tightly as she could, scared he was somehow going to vanish into the flames and smoke.

  “Maddie, look at me.” He took her by the shoulders and eased her away from him. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, unable to talk now because of the rock-hard lump in her throat.

  “Say something, damn it.”

  “I’m fine.” She stepped back from him, glanced at the fire, and felt a surge of fear all over again. “I thought—” She couldn’t even say it. What if it had been real? People always thought the worst couldn’t happen, but it could. It did.

  He turned to stare at the fire, and she took a moment to compose herself. Her palms were bleeding. She wiped them on the front of her coat.

  “Chemicals.”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “Couple of big metal drums. I saw them inside. We shouldn’t stand so close—who knows how many might be in there.”

  He tugged her back toward the road. The clearing was illuminated by the glow of the fire, and she realized that in her mad dash, she’d covered quite a distance.

  He stopped suddenly. “Hear that?”

  “What?” But even as she said it, she heard.

  Sirens. They were getting louder.

 
“Come on.” He grabbed her by the elbow, and they jogged toward the noise. As they reached the road, a gray sedan plowed through the gate, flinging it back against a tree stump. Sam jumped out of the passenger’s side.

  “Holy shit, Beck, what happened?” He rushed over and looked at Maddie. “She okay?” His gaze went to Brian.

  “I’m fine,” she said as a trio of police vehicles arrived on the scene—two sheriff’s units and what looked like another FBI car.

  “He torched the place.”

  “Who?” Maddie and Sam asked in unison.

  “Mladovic.”

  “You saw him?” Sam asked.

  “Not him, one of his guys.”

  “What about Jolene?” Maddie touched his arm. “Did you see her in there?”

  “No.”

  “But did you see any evidence—”

  “No,” he repeated, and the sharpness of his tone made her think the exact opposite—that he had seen something.

  “I smelled gasoline when I first walked up,” Brian said. “And something else—whatever chemicals were stored in there. Then the place went up.”

  “While you were inside?” Sam asked.

  Maddie felt sick all over again.

  “We need to go after him,” Brian said. “I didn’t see where he was parked, but—”

  “Them,” Maddie corrected. “There were two men in front. Looked like they were waiting for someone, and then they took off.”

  “Which way?” Sam demanded.

  “East.” She looked at her watch. “But that was at least ten minutes ago. By now, they’re long gone.”

  “We need to try. Or we could set up a roadblock.”

  Sam shook his head. “They’re probably in another county by now, but I could put out an APB.” He looked at Maddie. “You get a license plate?”

  “Just a description.” Guilt stabbed at her. She should have tried harder to get a plate. “It was a gray SUV, midsize, chrome running boards.”

  Sam jogged off toward his car, probably to call it in on the radio. Maddie looked at Brian. The cut above his eye trickled blood, and she once again felt the tight grip of fear that made it difficult to breathe.

  He whipped out his phone and started dialing someone.

  “Are you really all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “What did you see in there?”

  He shook his head once, sharply, confirming that he had seen something but he wanted her to drop it.

  “Hey, it’s Beckman.” He looked over his shoulder at the blaze behind him. “I need an evidence response team out on Highway 84, north of Route 12.” He paused to listen, and then pressed the phone against his chest. “Hey!” he called across the driveway. “What’s the ETA on that fire and rescue squad?”

  Sam looked up from his conversation with another agent, who was also on the phone. At least, Maddie assumed she was an agent. The blond woman looked about Brian’s age and had on one of those FBI jackets like Maddie had been wearing the other night.

  “Fire and rescue’s been diverted,” Sam shouted. “They’re responding to a car fire west of here. Someone’s trapped in a vehicle.”

  A car fire? Maddie’s stomach knotted as she thought of Jolene.

  “West?” Brian looked at Maddie. “But you said they went east. You’re sure about the direction?”

  “I’m sure. Sam, are you talking rescue or recovery?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Let’s go,” Brian said. “We need to find out.”

  The sight of Kelsey’s white Suburban parked beside the fire rig confirmed Maddie’s worst fears. Road flares and cones marked off the accident scene, reducing the highway to one lane near the blackened wreckage.

  Brian rolled to a stop behind the line of emergency vehicles, and they trekked over the asphalt to the smoldering car that was nose-first in a ditch. Smoke and fumes burned Maddie’s nostrils. She gripped her camera strap and braced herself for the sight.

  Kelsey was crouched at the back of the vehicle, and Maddie could feel the heat emanating from it as they drew closer.

  “How’d you get here so fast?” Maddie asked.

  Kelsey glanced up from her work. She wore the same clothes she’d had on earlier at the Delphi Center—jeans and a cable-knit sweater—but she’d traded her lab coat for a green ski vest.

  “I was on Twelve driving home when the sheriff called.” She glanced at Brian, and her gaze turned suspicious. “Who are you?”

  “I’m with the FBI. What can you tell us?”

  Kelsey seemed to ignore the question as she stood up and made notes on her clipboard with a gloved hand. After a moment, she glanced up.

  “Nothing yet. The burns are too severe from all the gasoline.”

  Maddie hazarded a look inside the car. A charred skeleton lay curled in the fetal position on the backseat. The stench of burning flesh and gasoline made her take a step back.

  “Hey, Maddie!”

  She glanced down the road to see Sheriff Bracewell waving her over.

  “Come get a picture of this gas can, would you?”

  She started to move, but Brian caught her arm. “Hold up. This isn’t your crime scene.”

  Before she could argue, another car pulled up. Sam and the blond agent got out. Probably sensing a territory dispute, Bracewell abandoned the gas can and stalked over to Brian.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Brian flashed his badge. “Special Agent Brian Beckman, FBI. We’ve got an evidence response team en route to this location.”

  The sheriff’s gaze narrowed. “On what grounds?”

  “Trust me, you don’t want this one,” Sam said, sauntering over.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Forgoing the badge, Sam held out a hand and introduced himself. Then he turned to look at the smoldering vehicle.

  “This is a budget buster. Ditto the factory fire down the road there.” Sam had dropped the Maryland accent and was channeling Texas good ol’ boy. “Lotta man-hours involved. You’re best off letting us pay for it.”

  “What’s all this about?” Bracewell demanded, and Maddie held her breath, hoping Sam wasn’t clueless enough to give a glib answer. If he tried to pull a sorry-I-can’t-comment-on-a-federal-investigation, Bracewell would take it as a declaration of war. His ego far outweighed his budget concerns.

  But Sam pulled him aside to talk, and Maddie returned her attention to Kelsey.

  “I take it you’re the ME?” Brian asked her.

  “Forensic anthropologist.”

  “And this is your autopsy?”

  “Afraid so.” Kelsey held the clipboard against her chest.

  “And you’ve already determined there was gasoline involved in this fire?”

  “Quite a lot, I’d say, judging from the damage.” Kelsey nodded at the car. “Looks like the victim was doused.”

  “How long until we get an ID?”

  Kelsey looked him up and down. She walked to the front of the car, which was significantly less damaged than the back. Not touching the hot metal door, she peered through the broken side window, then stood back and shook her head.

  “No purse or wallet, front or back,” she said. “Too hot to check the glove compartment yet, but someone removed the plates. I don’t have a lot to go on here.”

  “What about the body?”

  “I can get you the big four by tomorrow.”

  “Big four?”

  “Race, sex, age, stature,” Kelsey said. “Anything more specific is going to require more time.”

  Maddie listened to the conversation as she edged closer to the driver’s door and looked inside. She adjusted her flash settings and lifted her camera to get a photograph of the dashboard.

  “Vehicle identification number,” she explained at Brian’s questioning look. “No tags, no ID, but at least you can get started on the VIN.”

  “Good idea.” He turned to Kelsey. “And we’re definitely going to need more than the
big four. We need to know who this is. How soon for a positive ID?”

  “Depends. If I have dental records, it’s faster. If not, I’ll need to extract tooth pulp, maybe even bone marrow.” She glanced at Maddie, clearly concerned. “Why? Who do you think it is?”

  Maddie opened her mouth to respond, but the words seemed to get stuck in her throat.

  “A missing woman,” Brian said for her. “She’s a witness in a federal investigation.”

  “This the kidnapping I heard about?” Kelsey glanced over, and Maddie nodded. Her friend knew this case related to her personally. “And do you have a DNA sample?” Kelsey asked Brian.

  “I can get one.”

  “Do that,” Kelsey told him. “Send it to Delphi, and I’ll work as fast as I can.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Maddie stepped out of the concrete building and tipped her head back to look at the sky. The night was cold and cloudy. She took a big gulp of air and let it sit in her lungs to wake her up. She had a thirty-minute drive ahead of her, and she needed to get it over with before her emotions kicked in and sapped what was left of her energy.

  It had been a grueling night. After spending more than an hour at the fire scene, Brian had taken her to Delphi to pick up her car. Then she’d followed him back to the FBI office to debrief with the task force and look at mug shots.

  “You finish up in there?”

  She turned to see the female agent she’d met at the vehicle fire—LeBlanc.

  “They showed me a photo array,” Maddie said. “I picked out one of them.”

  The woman strolled over, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jacket. In khaki tactical pants and an FBI golf shirt, she looked more casual than Brian and Sam.

  “One’s better than none,” the woman said. “Did you hear about the VIN you photographed for us?”

  “No.” Maddie could tell by her tone of voice that it wasn’t good news.

  “Vehicle traces back to Anatoli Petrovik, a known associate of Goran Mladovic. Same man you picked out from the lineup, the one in the SUV.”

  Which meant a clear connection between Mladovic’s crew and the burn victim. Maddie closed her eyes. She’d known it anyway, but hearing it confirmed just added to her bleak mood.