Murder on the Mountain: A Marshall Brothers Novel

by Carolyn LaRoche

  Only silence responded.

  “Come on, Emma. This isn’t funny.” He walked along the edge of the clearing.

  “Emma?” he said once more as he circled back to their original waiting place. When he stepped up to the log, he saw the sunlight catch on something shiny.

  He reached down and fished the chain and its pendant out of the long growth around the trunk.

  Emma’s necklace.

  He knew it was hers because he’d given it to her. A really long time ago. He also knew that back then she’d never taken it off. If she still had it on all this time….

  Taking a look at the chain, he could see that the links had snapped. They were mangled, like someone had yanked the chain, hard, off her.

  Adam made a slow circle, examining the woods around him, praying that Emma would step into view. She didn’t. He looked down at the necklace with its broken chain. She didn’t because she was gone.

  Someone had Emma.

  Into the radio he said, “Someone snatched Emma. I’ve got to go after her.”

  “Who’s Emma?” somebody asked.

  “Are you sure she didn’t just wander off?” Bill Ryan said. “Maybe she just wanted to get closer to see the big takedown. I told you it was a mistake to have her here.”

  “So, where is she then?” Adam looked around once more. Desperation was beginning to take over. “I don’t see her anywhere.”

  “Do what you gotta do, man. We got your back here.”

  “Thanks, Ryan.”

  “Oh, Marshall?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Never bring a reporter to a sting.”

  Emma looked around the empty space. There was something familiar about the old, run-down building. She just couldn’t put her finger on it.

  She’d spent the last however long since she’d been kidnapped mentally kicking herself for letting it happen.

  As her captor forced her down the mountain, Adam’s voice had carried through the trees. She wanted to yell out, but her abductor had slapped a piece of silver tape over her mouth before she even saw him. With her hands tied behind her back, all she could do was move in the direction the gun pointed at her back had told her to.

  “You and your copper thought you were so sneaky. No one hides from Pablo. I always get my mark.” He’d sounded so proud of himself, bragging about his expertise.

  Emma couldn’t reply, so they’d just walked along in silence until they made it to the base of the mountain. A black sedan sat parked in the trees. Pablo pushed her toward it. Emma stumbled and fell. Why hadn’t he just shot her in the woods?

  “Get up!” He yanked her arm, forcing her to her feet. His grip on her burned and had probably left bruises.

  She stumbled to the car, where Pablo tossed her in the trunk. A sharp whack to her head with the butt of his gun had knocked her out. When she next saw the light of day, she sat in a chair, arms and legs tied to it so she couldn’t escape. At least he’d taken the tape off her mouth. Based on that fact alone, she knew she had to be far away from anyone who might have been able to help her.

  Emma caught sight of a field mouse chewing on something in the corner. “Why aren’t I dead? I should probably be dead.” The mouse looked at her and continued to chew thoughtfully but could offer no insight into her situation.

  “Because Pablo is good at taking orders.” A voice that sounded oddly familiar came from behind her.

  “Who’s there?” Emma turned as much as her bonds would allow in an effort to see who had spoken.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. In a little while, nothing will matter.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that at all. The little mouse ran across the space, disappearing into a hole in the wall near a closed door. Footsteps echoed around the room, the sound bouncing off the stone walls and floor. Her captor came into view. Emma sucked in a breath of air. “No.”

  He grinned, pure evil. “Not what you expected, huh?”

  “You’re supposed to be one of the good guys!” Emma pulled against the ropes that bound her, making the man standing in front of her laugh.

  “Don’t bother to struggle. I did four years in the Navy before joining the Bureau. I know how to tie a knot. If I were in a beauty pageant, tying impossible knots would be my talent.” FBI Special Agent Bill Ryan leaned against a stone wall, arms folded over his chest, an annoyed expression on his face.

  Emma stopped tugging at her arms and legs long enough to give Agent Ryan a nasty look. “Why?”

  He pulled a pocketknife from his jeans pocket and opened it up. “You showed up at the wrong time. If you hadn’t witnessed the murder of another agent, you could have had your little story and moved on with your life.”

  “The man I saw get shot works for the FBI?”

  Agent Ryan ran the tip of the blade he held under his nails, one at a time. “Worked, sweetheart. He worked for the FBI. The only thing he does now is provide worm food.”

  “Doesn’t he have a family? People that miss him and are looking for him? You’ll never get away with it.”

  “I didn’t do anything. Pablo did. My hands are clean.” He held his hands out, palms up. “See? No bloodstains.”

  “But you were just there! I saw you at the cabin, arresting those two men. Why would you work so hard to take down your own supply chain?”

  He shrugged. “Survival. There will always be more, sweetheart. The war on drugs will never end, because no one really wants it to. Too much money to be made.”

  Emma stared at the man in front of her, trying to understand, but she couldn’t. “But it’s your job to enforce laws, not break them. How long have you been on the take like this?”

  “What does it matter?” He kicked at a loose stone on the floor. “The money is good. I have a family to take care of, you know.”

  “Have you ever heard of working overtime?”

  “I work smarter, not harder. And thanks to your boyfriend’s boss letting me know he was bringing you along, even catching you was easier. You gave my boy the slip one too many times this week.”

  “Why didn’t he just kill me on the mountain?” Emma asked. “Wouldn’t that have been so much easier than all of this?”

  Bill sneered. “But not nearly as much fun.” He walked over to where she sat and toyed with a piece of her hair.

  “Kidnapping is fun for you?”

  Bill laughed, the evil sound bouncing off the stone walls and giving her a chill. “Watching Adam Marshall lose someone else he cares about is a ton of fun.”

  “What did he ever do to you?” Emma demanded.

  “The Blue Ridge Killer was my case. And he got the arrest. I was supposed to be the one that took him down.”

  Emma shook her head in disbelief. “You can’t be serious?”

  “What? You think your man is the only one that can solve a high-profile case? It was supposed to be FBI jurisdiction.”

  “So, you’ve got a bruised ego? You held on to that for how many years?”

  Bill shrugged. “You made it too easy to get back at him for stealing my fame. I could be a big time consultant by now, writing books on profiling and speaking around the country. There wouldn’t have been any need to get mixed up in the other stuff.”

  A door opened somewhere, bringing with it the sound of running water. Like a river. Suddenly she knew where they had her—the old mill. Abandoned and just far enough out of town to be forgotten; no one would ever find her there. It was up to her to save herself.

  Emma had an idea. “So let me help you get out of this so you can claim all the glory on the drug house.”

  Agent Ryan squatted down in front of her so that they were eye to eye. “There is no getting out of this, little girl.”

  Emma shrugged, trying to act nonchalant and unconcerned about a criminal being only a few inches from her face. “Depends on how you play it, I guess.”

  “
Hey, boss.” Pablo Vasquez walked into the space and scowled at Emma. “You want me to take care of her now?”

  Ryan stood up. “Not yet.”

  “Why not? I been chasing her for two days now. Let me do my job.” Pablo paced the small space, waving his gun around. Emma ducked when he aimed it in her direction.

  “You aren’t going to get to kill her. I am. When I am good and ready.” Agent Ryan grabbed for the gun, but Pablo moved faster. He pinned Ryan to the stone wall, his forearm pressed to the agent’s throat.

  “Let me go, you idiot!” He grabbed for Pablo’s arm, trying to free himself. Emma used the distraction to try to free her hands. The more she struggled, though, the tighter the ropes seemed to get.

  “I’ll let you go if you let me whack her.” Pablo pointed in her direction with his gun once more.

  “No!” she yelled, jerking to the left and dumping the chair she was tied to on the floor. Her head smacked the cold stones hard. Emma lay there, dazed.

  “Relax, little girl. I’m not gonna shoot you yet. I want to enjoy it one hundred percent.” Agent Ryan brought his knee up and hit Pablo in the testicles. The gunman doubled over, dropping the FBI agent to the floor. They both lay there, panting.

  “Why’d you go and do that?” Pablo whined.

  The agent pulled himself to his feet. “You wouldn’t let me go. What did you expect me to do?”

  Pablo just groaned in response as he also stood up.

  “Give me your cell phone.” Ryan motioned toward Pablo’s pocket.

  “Why?” Pablo eyed the phone in Agent Ryan’s hand as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “You got yours right there.”

  “I got an idea how to end this and get us both what we want.” He snatched the other man’s phone. “Sit her up again.”

  “Don’t touch me!” Emma tried to kick at Vasquez, but he side-stepped her tied-together legs. Her head throbbed and her vision blurred, but she ignored it. A warm trickle of liquid ran into her left ear.

  “Stand that chair up.” Agent Ryan held the phone out in front of him. “I need a picture of her.”

  Emma tried to squirm away, but the chair made it impossible to move. Pablo grabbed the back of the chair and yanked up, dragging Emma with it. Her head flung backward, amping up the throbbing pain. Ryan snapped a photo on Pablo’s phone, then pulled his own phone out and looked something up. A few seconds later, he tapped on the first phone, then put it in his pocket. “Now, we wait.”

  “Hey! Give me my phone!” Pablo reached for the other man, but Agent Ryan sidestepped him.

  “I’m not done with it yet.”

  “Fine. Keep the phone.” Pablo pulled his gun again and pressed it to her temple. “Can I kill her now?”

  Emma froze, terrified that any movement would make him pull the trigger. She barely took a breath as the two men engaged in a standoff.

  “Take a walk, Vasquez. Miss Thomas and I need to have another conversation.” Agent Ryan pulled out a gun of his own and aimed it at the other man. “Beat feet.”

  “Sure thing, Agent. You’re the boss.” He held his hands up in mock surrender. “But I’ll be right outside. No funny business.”

  “You trying to be my boss now?” Ryan asked, but the only reply he got was a slamming door.

  He walked over to where Emma sat. Gripping her chin, he forced her to look up at him. His sneer held so much evil in it, a shiver ran down her spine. She tried to pull away but he held tight, squeezing so hard there would surely be bruises. “You should have just stayed in Richmond and left this investigation alone. Of course, after what happened at the paper, I guess you didn’t have much choice but to skip town.”

  “How did you know about that?” Emma’s head spun as she tried to ignore the pain in her jaw.

  “I know everything about you, Emma. You’re the only child of a retired cop and his nurse wife. You love tulips, eighties’ rock, and pizza.” He lifted a strand of her hair and toyed with it. She tried not to vomit at his touch. “I also know you left town shortly after your best friend died and haven’t been back since—until now. Because you have unfinished business with Detective Marshall.”

  “Have you been stalking me?”

  Agent Ryan let her go, leaned against the wall, and looked at her. “Just doing my homework. Like any good investigator.”

  Emma shook her head slowly, wincing with the ache in her head and jaw. “I don’t understand any of this. Why would you make things worse for yourself by kidnapping me? I didn’t know you were involved. I’m one hundred percent sure Adam doesn’t either.”

  He shrugged. “Adam’s been working on cracking this case for months. He had no idea where the drop spot was until you came along. A couple more days at the most and he’d have figured it out.”

  “So, your answer to that was to kidnap me and—?”

  Agent Ryan laughed. “Lure him here, of course. I want him to see me kill you. For an investigative reporter, you aren’t too quick.”

  “He won’t let you get away with it. You know that, right?” Emma’s heart started to ache as much as her head.

  “It won’t matter. I’m going to make it look like a murder and suicide. The good detective finds you dead and can’t live with the guilt of another woman in his life dying because of him.”

  “And you get to go on being FBI Agent Bill Ryan?”

  “Of course.” He chuckled. “I’ll be the one to discover the bodies.”

  The phone in his pocket dinged. Agent Ryan fished it out to look at the screen. “Hook, line, and sinker.”

  “Excuse me? What does fishing have to do with any of this?”

  The FBI agent held out the phone, a picture of her on the screen. “Detective Marshall took the bait.”

  Eighteen

  As Adam tore through the forest searching for Emma, his phone vibrated in his back jeans pocket. Pulling it out, he opened the message from the unknown number, praying it was Emma. Maybe she’d borrowed a stranger’s phone to let him know she was okay.

  What he saw when he opened the message; a picture of Emma tied to a chair. Blood ran down one side of her face, and it looked like she had a bruise forming on her chin. Stone walls and a stone floor surrounded her. Adam knew that place. Too well. He’d partied in that room at the old abandoned mill more than a few times during his high school days . The worn-out structure sat down the end of County Route 3, without another building around for miles. Emma could scream herself hoarse and no one would ever hear her.

  He keyed his radio. “Hey, Ryan. This is Marshall. I’m headed to the old mill. He’s holding Emma there.”

  Ryan never replied but another agent did, so Adam moved down the mountain as fast as he could. When he reached his SUV, he hit the lights and sirens and tore out of the lot. All he could think about was Emma. Not calling for backup. Not wondering why Bill Ryan never answered his radio call. Just getting to Emma.

  Running lights and sirens all the way up the Blue Ridge Parkway, he didn’t encounter much traffic. When he pulled off the exit closest to the mill, he had to slam on his brakes. Traffic sat completely stopped with absolutely no room for him to get around it.

  He slapped his palms against the steering wheel. “What is the holdup?” he yelled at all the stopped cars. The light at the intersection ahead was green. He could see no traffic on the other side of the intersection.

  Flashing blue lights passed through the intersection slowly, followed by a long black hearse and several stretch limousines. A group of motorcycle-riding police officers passed through next, one of them holding an American flag and another carrying a thin blue line flag. Adam turned off his own lights and sirens as the funeral processional passed, holding his hand up in salute as the procession moved along.

  As soon as the last car moved through the intersection and the light turned green once more, the cars ahead of him started driving again. Adam hit the lights and wove his way
through traffic until he made it to the two-lane Route 3 heading out of town.

  He raced down the pothole-riddled road. As he took a sharp curve, the back tires lost traction and the vehicle slid sideways a good five feet. Taking his foot off the gas pedal, Adam spun the wheel and eventually set the SUV in the right direction. An old, tilted sign on the side of the road said Domici’s Mill 4 miles.

  Adam switched off the lights and siren and slowed his pace to a near crawl. He itched to slam the gas pedal to the floor, but he didn’t. It was better to find a spot to pull over and walk in once he got close enough.

  His phone rang. Adam pulled it from his pocket and hit the speaker button. “Marshall here.”

  “Hey, Detective. This is Dana Murray with the crime lab.”

  Maybe he should have just let the call go to voicemail. “I’m in kind of a hurry. Can I call you back?”

  “This will just take a second. I know you’re working a sting, but I think it’s relative to what you’re doing.”

  “Fine. Hit me with it.” Adam was only about a mile out from the mill, so he started watching for a good place to pull over and hike in.

  “The ring you put into evidence? It had a couple different fingerprints on it. They were both in the system. The first came from an unknown source.”

  Adam nodded even though Dana couldn’t see it. “Okay. So, the ring’s a bust.”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe. The other print? This is the one that might be useful. It came from a man named William Ryan. He’s with—”

  “The FBI.”

  “Yes, how did you know?” Dana asked.

  “He’s running point for his agency on this investigation.” A little clearing appeared on the left side. It looked like a narrow dirt path leading into the woods. Adam crossed the road and pulled in.

  “Hmm, okay. Well, I just wanted to give you the heads-up in case it helped with the sting.”

  He parked the SUV out of sight of the road. “Wait, Dana. Before you hang up.”

  “Yes, Detective?”