by BJ Bourg
With copies of the surveillance footage in hand, I headed east on Route Twenty-Three. When I reached Gracetown, I turned south onto Highway Three and stopped at Bestman’s Market. Bestman’s was a busy convenience store on the western side of Highway Three and it was the last gas station before the onramp to Route Twenty-Three. If my suspects purchased fuel to burn the SUV, this would’ve been the most likely spot.
It was almost seven when I walked through the doors and asked to see the surveillance footage from Thursday. The kid behind the counter was probably still in high school, but he acted very businesslike and was polite. He apologized, but said only the day shift manager could access the surveillance equipment, and she had left for the day and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow morning.
“If you like, Mr. Detective, I can call and ask her to come back to the store, but it’ll take her a while to get here. She lives in Chateau.”
I thanked him and told him I’d be back in the morning. There was no guarantee the red SUV had stopped here for gas, and I would’ve hated for her to drive all the way back to Gracetown for nothing. I stopped at the remaining convenience stores along my route to the detective bureau, but they all said the same thing—no one on the night shift could access the cameras.
With nothing more to do that night, I drove home and hoped for a quiet evening so I could try and figure out what was going on. I tried calling Dawn several times while I made dinner—smothered shrimp with Jasmine rice and cucumbers—but it was no use. She was out in the mountains somewhere and she had no idea what was going on.
If something nefarious was about to happen out at that address, at least she wasn’t going to be at her mom’s house—
I suddenly dropped the spoon I’d been using to stir the shrimp and grabbed my phone. Scrolling through my recent calls, I found an old conversation I’d had with Dawn while she had been on her mom’s landline, and quickly pressed the button to dial it. A woman picked up on the third ring and I recognized Priscilla Luke.
“Mrs. Luke, it’s London,” I began. “How are you?”
“I’m just happy to be healthy. How are you?”
“Great—look, have you heard from Dawn or Evan lately?”
“No, they’ve been out of cell phone range most of the day. Evan called earlier to say they were almost at Dead Man’s Canyon.” She paused and then asked if everything was okay.
“Well, I don’t know if Dawn mentioned the break-in at her house.”
“Dear Lord, no! When did this happen?”
“We found out about it yesterday, but it happened Thursday.” I hesitated, wondering how much I should worry her. “Um, have you noticed any strange characters around your place lately? Maybe vehicles driving around that you don’t normally see?”
“No…why? Is there supposed to be?”
I sighed in relief. If everything was secure at the Luke home, then there shouldn’t be any problems, because that’s the address that would’ve been on the corner of the envelope.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m just being cautious, that’s all. You know how it is in our line of work.”
“Well, I didn’t, but the more I visit with Dawn, the more I realize you guys have to look over your shoulders every minute of every day—especially with all the things that are happening nowadays around the country.”
I nodded and chatted with her until my food was done, and then told her goodnight. Feeling better, I sat down to eat while I thought about the SUV fire. There had to be a way to identify the vehicle. There were several hidden VINs on the Escalade, but finding them would require some effort and a bit of time, because much of the car’s plastic material had melted down over the frame and engine block.
After eating and cleaning up, I decided to have another look at the VIN plate. I retrieved it from my Tahoe, along with my gun cleaning kit, and threw an old towel over my kitchen table. I grabbed a magnifying glass out of my office and then settled down to try and clean it up. The number should’ve been stamped deep into the plate, so there was a good chance I might be able to scrape back the top layer and recover the number.
Using a bronze cleaning brush and some solvent, I scrubbed and chipped away at the flakes of burnt metal, removing specks of the burnt plate bit by bit. It was thin and brittle, so I had to hold it gingerly in order to keep from snapping it in half. After about an hour of working, I managed to get a smoother surface on the face of the plate. I wiped it off and then peered at it through the magnifying glass.
“Hell, yeah!” I could make out some partial numbers. I hurried to my office and dug around in my desk drawers until I found a piece of white chalk. When I returned to my table, I gently scraped the chalk against the face of the plate and nodded triumphantly when the seventeen-character number began to appear. My celebration was short-lived, though, because when I examined it through the magnifying glass again, I noticed two of the last eight characters were damaged beyond recovery. Without those numbers, I wouldn’t be able to identify the individual Escalade to which the VIN belonged…unless I could find a willing dispatcher.
I called Headquarters, but didn’t recognize the dispatcher who answered. “Hey, this is London Carter,” I said as nicely as I could. “Is Julie there?”
“Hold a minute.”
After a click and a pause, Julie came on and she sounded annoyed. “This is Jules.”
“Hey, it’s London. I need a little favor.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“Name your price.”
“Take me to New York when you get interviewed by all the big networks for saving the vice president’s life.”
“I’m not going to New York or anywhere else,” I said. “I’m staying right here.”
Julie grunted. “Are you kidding me? This is your one chance to make it big and you’re turning it down? What’s wrong with you?”
“I know, right?” I said, trying not to laugh. “You should feel sorry for me and do this one favor out of pity.”
“Whatever—what do you want?”
“I need you to run this VIN for me.”
“That’s easy. What is it?”
“Well, there’s a catch. Digit twelve and fifteen are missing, so I’m going to need you to run it with every possible variation until you come up with a red Escalade that was reported stolen.”
“What?” Her voice was shrill, but it sounded exaggerated. “Do you know how many variations that’ll be?”
“I’m guessing it’ll be a lot.”
“I’ll do it and call you back, but you’d better take me to New York if you go,” she said. “And I don’t give a damn what Dawn has to say about it.”
Before I could respond, she hung up the phone. I shook my head and cleaned up my mess, hoping she’d hit pay dirt. I only had to wait about twenty minutes for her to call back and tell me she’d found what I needed.
“A red Escalade was stolen from Chitimacha Parish Thursday morning,” she said. “According to the teletype message that was sent over NCIC (National Crime Information Center, a computerized database of criminal justice information), a woman left her car running and ran into a convenience store to get a cup of coffee. When she came out, the SUV was gone. The S.O. pulled the surveillance tapes, but all they saw was a white male wearing sunglasses and a gray coverall get into the vehicle and drive away.”
“Could they see how he got there?” I asked. “Did he drive up in another vehicle or something?”
“No. He just walked into the camera’s view, got into the car, and drove away. They said he acted so calm that anyone watching would’ve assumed he owned the vehicle.”
“Well, let them know we found their vehicle and that it’s mostly a shell and a pile of ash.” I thanked her and ended the call. I’d hoped for something more—like a suspect’s name—but that was how the ball bounced sometimes.
I sighed and headed for bed, hoping tomorrow would bring me better luck.
CHAPTER 16
Dead Man’s Canyon, Arkansas Wilderness
The sun had already dipped behind the steep walls of the canyon by the time Dawn finished cleaning the last route. She wiped the chalk from her hands and pulled off her helmet. The wind felt cool against her wet hair and she tilted her head back to enjoy it. Her arms ached from the four climbs she had done since arriving at Dead Man’s Canyon earlier in the day, but it was a good kind of ache. It made her feel alive.
“You haven’t missed a beat,” her dad said as he rolled up the rope and placed it in her rope bag. She watched with concern as he straightened and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not used to staring up the face of a mountain anymore. My neck is killing me.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” Dawn stripped off her harness and tossed it in her gear bag. “We can head back home tonight if you want.”
“Nonsense, rat. We came here for two days of climbing, and that’s what you’ll get.”
“Well, I’ll take it easy tomorrow and not do so many routes.” She finished packing up her gear. “I need to get you a set of those belay glasses I’ve been hearing about. You can look straight ahead and still see up.”
While her dad hefted the rope bag to carry to the Jeep Wrangler, she shouldered her backpack and gathered up their helmets and harnesses and followed him along the narrow ledge that led out of the canyon.
Although they were about fifty feet above the canyon’s floor, the ledge was nowhere near halfway up to the top. There were literally hundreds of routes varying in difficulty up and down the steep sides of the canyon, and—although she used to come here regularly as a teenager—Dawn had never climbed them all.
As the trail sloped downward toward the mouth of the gorge, she stared at the river that roared through the middle of the valley. The plan was to get their tent and camping gear and bed down for the night near the mouth of the gorge. Then, first thing tomorrow morning, they would hike west toward the voluminous waterfall that fed the river and spend most of the day running some of the more challenging routes.
Dawn smiled as she thought back to her childhood and the many weekends she would spend out here with her dad. It was a giant playground and, no matter how many times they came out here, they were always discovering new adventures.
Her smile faded as she remembered how most of their weekends would end. On the drive back to the house, her dad would stop at a liquor store and grab a bottle of whisky, killing it one swig at a time. It never failed—they’d get back home and her mom would say something innocent, like how much she missed them, and her dad would start screaming at her and berating her for not being more of an outdoors person. Next would come the beating. While Evan Luke never laid a hand on her or her brother, Darby, he didn’t spare their mother.
Dawn found herself staring at her dad’s back as he walked ahead of her. His shirt was loose-fitting and his pants baggy. He stumbled often on loose rocks or roots that jutted out of the ground. When he was younger, his muscles would stretch the fabric of his clothes and he walked with the sure-footedness one would expect from a mountain man. The younger and stronger version of her dad reminded her of London—well, minus the mean streak.
Will London become old and frail someday? Dawn asked herself. Will he lose that spring in his step and become too weak to defend himself? Will I?
Saddened by the thought of growing old someday and not being able to do her job, she lowered her head and continued to walk in silence, vowing to enjoy every moment she’d get to spend with London.
“There’s your Jeep,” her dad called from a few feet up the trail. “Just how we left it.”
Dawn looked up and saw her Wrangler parked on a rock with the mountains and trees as the backdrop. Wanting to capture that moment, she pulled out her phone and snapped a picture. The mountains were majestic and the clouds dark and ominous, with her Jeep the only sign of civilization. She maneuvered to her contact list and clicked on her favorites, which contained only her family and London. She attached the picture to a text message and sent it to London, but frowned when a message came back stating it couldn’t be sent. She held up her phone and clicked it again, but it got stuck in send mode. She moved around, trying to find a sweet spot of cell service, but it was no use.
“You won’t get any service out here, rat,” her dad said, opening the back of her Jeep and tossing the rope bag inside. “And I’m not upset about it. I love the solitude and being disconnected from the outside world. If I had my way, we’d live like this all of the time.”
Dawn nodded and dumped her gear in the back of the Jeep and grabbed the tent and sleeping bags, while her dad shouldered the duffel bag with their camp and food supplies. They turned back and trudged toward the river, where they searched around for a good spot to make camp.
After walking about a hundred yards in the waning light, they found a strip of riverbank that was free of underbrush. Consisting mostly of short grass and leaves, it would help add some padding to the tent floor. Behind them, there was a rock wall with an overhanging ledge that would offer emergency shelter should it start to storm.
“I’ll make the fire while you set up the tent,” Dawn offered. When she was little, she was always begging to set the fire. It fascinated her to no end and her dad would always act so proud of her once she would get it going—and his approval meant so much back then.
“Yep, nothing at all has changed,” Evan said, laughing as he bent to unzip the tent carrier. He grunted and braced himself against a nearby tree. “Well, my knees have sure changed. They keep talking back to me when I tell them to bend or support my weight. One day I think they’ll just stop working altogether.”
Dawn didn’t respond. It pained her to see her childhood hero struggle to do what used to come so easily and naturally. Collecting some bowling ball-sized rocks, she made a fire ring, and then began collecting some dry logs and dead leaves amongst the trees along the edge of the river. After gathering one armful, she dropped the logs beside the ring and placed the leaves inside. Returning to the riverbank, she reached for a log in the dimming light and paused when something rustled in the leaves beside it.
Moving slowly, an inch at a time, she pulled her flashlight from her back pocket and shined it at the noise. There—blending perfectly with the dried leaves—was a large copperhead snake just inches from her foot. The snake was now coiled up and watching her closely, as though trying to decide if it should run or fight.
“Let me help you decide,” she said, grabbing a large branch she’d spotted nearby. Moving it slowly toward the snake, she gave it a nudge and, in a soothing tone, said, “Go on, little fellow…time to get back to your family.”
“What is it?” Evan asked from where he was struggling with the tent. “What did you find?”
“A copperhead.”
“Be careful. One of my friend’s little boys got bit by one last year. He thought it was a lizard and picked the thing up. It nearly killed him and cost them a fortune in hospital bills.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not some dumb, snot-nosed little boy,” Dawn muttered, watching the snake slither off into the darkness.
“What’s that?”
“It looks like you need some help with the tent.” Dawn dropped the firewood near the fire ring and quickly got the fire started. After she was done, she walked over and untangled the mess her dad had made. “As always, you can’t figure these things out, can you?”
“It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. Just when I got those A-frame tents figured out—granted, it took many, many years—they went out and invented these dome-shaped jobs.” He wiped the sweat from his brow with his shirt sleeve. “I’m afraid I won’t live long enough to figure this one out.”
Dawn laughed and began explaining how to set it up. She was almost finished when they heard the rumbling of a vehicle approaching from somewhere to the east, near where her Jeep was parked. They both stopped what they were doing and stared in the direction of the sound. They could see flickers of headlights through the dense trees as the vehicle drew closer.
CHAPTER 1
7
“Who in the hell could that be?” Evan asked, his voice betraying the concern he felt. “Rock climbers don’t come out here this late.”
The vehicle came to a stop somewhere in the distance. Based on the location of the sounds, Dawn knew they were in the area of her Jeep. “They’d better not mess with my stuff.”
Doors began opening and slamming. After a brief pause, they could hear the sound of men’s voices echoing through the cool night air. One of the voices sounded strangely familiar to Dawn, and she felt a chill reverberate up and down her spine. She instinctively reached for the back of her waistband, where she normally kept her baby Glock when she was off duty, but cursed herself out loud when she remembered leaving it in the Jeep.
“What’s the matter?” Evan asked, sounding more alarmed when he heard Dawn curse.
“One of those men—it’s Abel Chism,” Dawn said quietly, trying to penetrate the darkness with her eyes. She could think of no good reason why Abel Chism would be out there at that time of night, and she knew it wasn’t a coincidence that she happened to be out there, too. There were at least two other men with him and they sounded rough.
“What should we do?” Evan asked.
Dawn was thoughtful. She didn’t want to be stuck in a flimsy tent while some strange men were roaming around the woods, out there for God knows what. She knew the men would be able to hear her and Evan if they kept messing with the tent. Moving close to her dad so she could whisper, she said, “Just leave everything here. We’re going to bed down under that ledge and put the rock wall to our back. I don’t know why they’re here, but I’m not taking any chances.”
“But why? Do you really think they’ve got bad intentions?”
“I’ve got a hunch they’re up to something,” Dawn explained. “And in my line of work, you always trust your instincts.”
In the dim glow from the moon and stars above, Dawn saw her dad nod. Careful not to make a sound—and remembering some of the things London had taught her about stalking—she made her way toward the overhanging ledge, with her dad following closely behind. She could hear his rough breathing and she knew he was afraid. She’d never known him to be afraid in his younger years. Mean and angry? Yes. Afraid? Never.
