Blood Trail

by C. M. Sutter

  Chapter 2

  Claire twisted her long blond hair around her finger as she video chatted with Gary that morning. “This is sooo boring.”

  “Tough shit. Nobody said what we’re doing was supposed to be like a day at Disneyland. I thought you wanted to make a boatload of cash, get out from under your mom and dad’s thumb, and earn your own money. If you don’t, they’ll run your life forever. They dangle those Benjamin Franklins in front of you like fish bait, give you credit cards to use, and pay all your bills, then you comply with whatever they tell you to do to keep the bucks rolling in. They hold that shit over your head twenty-four seven.”

  “Fine!” she sniped. “No reason to bring up my entire life. I know how manipulative my mom and dad can be—I’m living it,” she whined into the phone. “I’ll admit, it’s been easy money though.”

  “I know how hard it is being you, Claire,” Gary said with thick sarcasm, “but it’s time to get out from under their control. Don’t you want to call your own shots?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What? I didn’t hear you. Say it louder.”

  “YEAH! Did you hear me that time?”

  “Don’t get pissy with me. Pick us up at the bus terminal in Denver. The bus gets in at three o’clock, so don’t be late.”

  “I won’t. Just so you know, Hope said she’s bored too.”

  “I really don’t care. You two want the big bucks, and the system we just started is working fine, so do your part, shut up, and deal with it.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll see you at three o’clock. No need to yell at me.”

  “Don’t be late either.” Gary hung up and immediately dialed Leon. “Hey, bro, we’re on for later, so hit the road now. Drive the beater to Cheyenne’s bus station, and get on the bus going to Denver. Your bus leaves Cheyenne station at one twenty-five, so don’t miss it. That delivery is going to land us a decent amount of money.”

  Leon grunted into the phone. “I’d much rather drive Hope’s car. It’s more reliable.”

  “Have you painted it and swapped out the plates?”

  “No, I don’t have the money to buy paint.”

  “Then you aren’t driving it anywhere until that’s done. Get the money from Hope tomorrow. Pretty soon we’ll be able to drive luxury cars, so be patient. Don’t mess this up, and don’t miss the damn bus. My bus gets in about ten minutes before yours, so I’ll be waiting inside the terminal for you. Make sure to leave the beater parked in the bus station’s lot.” Gary clicked off the call and cursed the fact that he had three whiners to deal with.

  Somebody has to take charge, and God knows that person has to be me. If I left it up to those three idiots, we’d all be in jail.

  Gary made the call to Charlie, his contact who lived west of Denver. He waited as the phone rang four times in his ear.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Gary.”

  “You have the merchandise?”

  “I have three items now, and if I’m lucky, I may be able to score another one by the time we meet up later.” He listened through ten seconds of silence before he got a reaction.

  “Okay, we’ll meet just outside Central City. Take I-70 west out of Denver, and before you reach Idaho Springs, you’ll exit right onto Central City Parkway. Follow that road into town. Pull over by the Gold Nugget Café, and call my number for further instructions. Understand?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Good. What time should I expect your call?”

  After calculating the time frame in his mind, Gary suggested five o’clock to be on the safe side.

  “Then I’ll be waiting for that call.”

  The phone abruptly went dead. Gary gave the screen a glance then shook his head. “Such a warm and friendly guy. Asshole.”

  Gary thought back to Willis Johns—the con he befriended in prison who got the ball rolling for him. Willis was a hardcore criminal who was serving a fifteen-year term for interstate transport and sales of minors. He’d received a lesser sentence for ratting out the higher-ups, which landed him in a state penitentiary instead of a federal prison, and for half the term. He’d insisted on being put in the witness protection program after he fulfilled his sentence as part of the deal, and it was approved.

  Those five years behind bars had taught Gary a lot, and with the few names Willis had given him, he made contact once he was on the outside. He promised to do the heavy lifting and prove his worth if they gave him a chance. Charlie Dunn was his contact guy and who Gary would pass the merchandise off to. The way Willis explained it was that Gary would never meet the actual people in charge beyond Charlie, who was only a middleman. He would never advance through the ranks, and he would never amount to jack shit. He would be one of the people making the deliveries. He would earn good money, and if he kept his mouth shut and his eyes open, he would do well financially. He remembered Willis’s words, “Don’t get too full of yourself or too greedy, because you’ll surely be busted or killed if you do.”

  Gary would heed those words, and with last week’s first delivery being a huge three-thousand-dollar success, he intended to play by the rules. He just had to make sure Leon, Claire, and Hope did too.

  Chapter 3

  Our instructions were to fly to Rapid City’s regional airport, grab a rental car, and drive into town to meet up with the police chief, Tony Franklin, and the deputy sheriff of Meade County, Ben Tilley. Both departments and Casper PD had already been briefed by the Buffalo Police Department’s chief, Roger Worth, in regard to the teenagers who had gone missing.

  We were supposed to spend the rest of Monday being briefed and all of Tuesday conducting interviews with the missing teenagers’ families, followed by visits to the crime scenes where the girls were abducted. Our FBI colleagues in Casper had already been briefed yesterday and would begin the interview process immediately since more teens had been abducted from Wyoming than South Dakota.

  Renz and I gathered our bags and headed to Mitchell International Airport, where we were scheduled to set to the sky at ten a.m. sharp. We each had a folder containing contact names for every police station we would be dealing with as well as the names, ages, and town residences of every teen who had gone missing and their parents’ names, home addresses, and locations of abduction.

  An hour later, after boarding our jet and taking to the sky, I settled in with paper and a pen at my side and began reading every police report and witness statement taken at the site of the abductions. After that, I read through what the police departments nearest the abduction sites did in regards to their own investigations.

  Renz and I would work the South Dakota abductions. Tommy and Fay were deep into the Wyoming cases, and we would meet in the middle in Buffalo on Wednesday.

  After reading the police reports, I learned that the South Dakota teens were taken from a camp ground and an RV park.

  “Hmm… an RV park and a campground are probably the easiest places to snatch teens from.”

  Renz looked up and lifted his reading glasses. “Why do you say that?”

  I double-checked the girls’ ages. “They’re fifteen and sixteen, the worst ages since they aren’t kids, yet they aren’t adults either.”

  Renz chuckled. “I have a fifteen-year-old niece, and she definitely thinks she’s an adult.”

  “Exactly my point, and the last place they want to be is anywhere with their parents. Hell, at that age, I didn’t want to be around my mom and dad or my younger sister, Amber. I could easily see a fifteen-year-old wandering off by herself because she’s already pissed that she has to be there. Maybe the abductors befriended her, offered her beer or something like that, then caught her off guard and snatched her. It can’t be a coincidence that the girls were taken from an RV park and a campground. Those places are isolated, to a degree, and they don’t have security cameras for the most part unless they’re by buildings. Mix all that together, and you’ve got a great kidnap cocktail.”

  “Damn, Jade. You’ve really got a w
ay with words.”

  I grinned. “Thanks.”

  “But—”

  I rolled my eyes. “I should have known a but was coming.”

  Renz waved off my skepticism. “What I was going to say is that your theory isn’t bad, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What we envision isn’t always the reality. The campground and RV park could be packed with people. They might have dozens of buildings, and the campsites might be right on top of each other. Maybe those places aren’t as rural or isolated as you think.”

  “Or maybe they are.”

  “We’ll find out everything once we arrive, talk to the cops, then go to those sites tomorrow. We’ll see exactly where the campsites were and where the girls were last seen, then go from there.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I glanced at my phone. “How long before we land in Rapid City?”

  Renz tipped his wrist. “We should be on the ground by twelve forty-five, so we have another hour and a half. Might as well sit back, relax, and enjoy the view.”

  After skirting around a wall of black rain clouds and heavy turbulence that detoured us a bit, we landed safely in Rapid City at one o’clock.

  We deplaned after waiting for the door to be opened and the jet’s stairs to be lowered. As I crossed the tarmac and walked into the hangar, I breathed in the fresh air and looked to the sky. The sun was out, and it was a comfortable sixty degrees. I thought back to our time spent in Houma, Louisiana, and smiled, thankful for the current weather in Rapid City.

  Our rental car awaited us, and all we needed to do was sign the paperwork. Renz took care of that while I checked the city map for our hotel location. Tory had booked our rooms at the Mountain View Inn, six blocks from the police station but the best hotel in town.

  I led the way with my phone’s GPS as Renz drove the ten miles to downtown Rapid City. We gave ourselves fifteen minutes to check into our hotel rooms, freshen up, then head out. I made the call to the police station during our drive and told them to expect us by two o’clock.

  “Not a bad vehicle.” I gave the new Chevy Tahoe a once-over.

  Renz gave it his own approving nod. “That’s one good thing about having a lot of rental cars to use during our cases. We can weed out the ones we don’t like and put check marks next to the ones we do so when it comes time to trade in our own vehicles, we have decent options.”

  “True, but I doubt that Tory is going to reserve us a sports car.”

  Renz laughed. “Yeah, what’s up with you and hot rod cars?”

  I shrugged. “I can get to the bar faster than you and your Volvo wagon.”

  “That’s only if we were going to a bar.”

  “We will someday, and it won’t be one that’s attached to a hotel in a distant city.”

  We arrived at our nicely appointed hotel at one forty, checked in, and headed down the left hallway to our rooms, numbers four and six. Inside room four, I hung the few outfits I brought then headed to the bathroom, where I washed my face and brushed my teeth and hair. Within ten minutes, I was out the door again.

  I read the latest headlines in the newspaper that sat on the coffee table in the lounge area while I waited for Renz. The article showed that nobody had been apprehended yet in the two abductions at the RV park in Blackhawk and the campground just outside Sturgis.

  I always had a secret desire to visit Sturgis and partake in that biker-rally phenomenon, but it wasn’t the right reason or the right time of year to indulge in something like that.

  “Ready?”

  I looked up to see Renz walking toward me.

  “Yep, just reading the headlines in the local paper about the kidnappings.”

  He raised his brows as he held the outer door open for me. “Yeah, anything of value in the article?”

  “Not that I got to. It just said that nobody had been apprehended yet.”

  We crossed the parking lot to the Tahoe, and Renz clicked the fob. We climbed in, and he continued with the conversation.

  “We’ll learn a lot more between today and tomorrow.”

  Five minutes later, we reached the police station and parked in front of their brick building. At the long counter near the back wall, we showed our credentials and told the desk sergeant that Chief Franklin and Deputy Sheriff Tilley were expecting us. He gave us a nod and made the call.

  Within seconds, a pleasant-looking man came out to greet us. He appeared to be in his early forties and had buzz-cut blond hair and a blond goatee. He wore stylish glasses and a wide smile. He reached out and shook our hands. “Agents, I’m Chief Tony Franklin. We’re so lucky and appreciative to have your help with these disturbing abductions. Please, right this way.” He pointed down the hallway. “Deputy Sheriff Ben Tilley is waiting in the second room on the right. His insight will be more than beneficial as we sit down to go over the details.”

  Renz thanked him. “That’s perfect, and we appreciate the fact that he drove down here to meet us.”

  Chapter 4

  We entered the conference room and were introduced to the deputy sheriff. The Meade County Sheriff’s Office was located in Sturgis, but the RV park abduction took place only a few miles outside Rapid City.

  “Agents Monroe and DeLeon, this is Ben Tilley, the deputy sheriff of Meade County. He has been leading the investigation in the abduction of Tracy Bast and Jillian Nance since they went missing.”

  I nodded. “Great, and I’m sure you have a lot to share with us.”

  Ben Tilley responded. “Even though the RV park in Blackhawk is right on the border of Rapid City, this is Pennington County not Meade County. The abduction still took place in my jurisdiction, which means all incidents pertaining to it come to us. So for the two teenagers who have been abducted, other than the first responder statements and eyewitness accounts, you’ll be dealing directly with me. Because you flew into Rapid City and the police department is a convenient place to conduct business, I thought it better to meet you here.” He turned to Tony. “Because of the proximity of the RV park to Rapid City, I’d venture to say Chief Franklin would probably hear a lot more chatter about the incident than I would up in Sturgis.”

  “Makes sense, and every bit of information passed on means more people for us to talk to. Sooner or later, we’ll get the tip we’re looking for,” Renz said.

  After we took our seats, I pulled the reports, two notepads, and two pens out of my briefcase. I slid one folder to Renz. “These reports were emailed to our headquarters this morning before we left Milwaukee. Has anything changed in the last few hours?”

  “Not to our knowledge,” Tony Franklin said. “At least no new evidence has come in, and no new abductions have been reported today.”

  “That’s good news, so we can put our focus on what we do have and know. Two girls have been abducted from South Dakota and four from Wyoming in the last two weeks, which is a startling amount. We have two other agents on the ground working the cases in Wyoming. They arrived in Casper yesterday. They’ll work their end until Wednesday, and we’ll do the same here, then meet in Buffalo. You have both been briefed on the possibility that these abductions are coming from an organized effort of two men who have recently been released from prison, correct?” Renz looked from Tony to Ben and back to Tony.

  “We have,” Ben said. “Does real evidence point to them, or is it just speculation at this time?”

  “Definitely speculation,” I said. “It’s more of the coincidental timelines, the possible players who could be involved, and the locations that cause us to lean toward them. Of course, that information came from the Buffalo PD at the request of the parents of two young women, now of legal age, who had previous relations with the men. They’ve gone missing, but at this point we don’t know if they were abducted or are deliberately out of touch with their families. The backstory of those young ladies leads us to believe they’re missing on purpose and are tired of controlling parents inserting themselves in their lives.”

  Renz spoke up. “Yet we aren’t ruli
ng out the possibility of those women being involved, if the abductions were actually at the hands of Gary Rhodes and Leon Brady.”

  “Who interviewed the families and got a timeline of events from them?” I asked.

  Ben answered first. “Since the Blackhawk RV park is in Meade County, it was one of my deputies who was dispatched to the scene.”

  I flipped through the report pages. “A Deputy Tim Jenner?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Is there a chance of meeting with him tomorrow at the RV park to have him walk us through the area where Jillian was last seen?”

  “Sure thing. I’ll arrange it for whenever you want to meet up with us.”

  Renz brought up that the Nance family lived in Rapid City. “That has to create a sticky situation, doesn’t it? Jillian’s family lives in Pennington County, but the abduction took place in Meade County.”

  “We have no issues working hand in hand,” Tony said.

  “Why would the family travel five miles from home to go to an RV park?” I asked.

  Tony continued. “I asked that very question myself. I was told that the family just bought the RV, so they wanted to take it out for the weekend to get the feel of a real camping experience rather than sleeping in it overnight in their driveway. According to the mom, Jillian was furious that they wouldn’t let her stay home alone from a week ago Friday through last Sunday. The abduction took place sometime Saturday afternoon after a heated argument between the dad and Jillian. They didn’t call the sheriff’s office until nearly dark. They figured she was just blowing off steam and wandering around the area. They assumed she would come back long before sunset, but she didn’t.”

  I shook my head. “Nobody knows when something that seems off turns into a real situation. It’s completely understandable but unfortunate. I imagine, with the sun going down, there wasn’t much time to look for evidence before dark.”

  “That’s correct, Agent Monroe, and there was also a thunderstorm that night. Any physical evidence like tire tracks or signs of a scuffle that may have been there would have been washed away. We combed the entire park and yelled out her name but never got a response. We had six deputies out searching that night along with the father but didn’t have any luck. We also spoke with other campers, but nobody saw an altercation or an abduction. We ruled out an animal attack the next day when we didn’t find evidence of blood or torn clothing anywhere in the park.”