“So, Camp Israel…” she said. “What else do we need to look for?”
I gave them the rundown on what Hank had shared about her sister, Claudia.
“And she won’t let you to talk to Claudia?” Nick asked. “Dammit, doesn’t Hank understand she could be allowing other people to get hurt? I don’t get it.”
“It’s tough. I know she’s just being protective of her sister. Who wouldn’t be?” I said, although with no siblings of my own, I was making a guess on how she might feel. “But that’s why I’m sitting here watching the bar. I’m hoping she’ll lead me to her. Like I said earlier, though, who knows if my mom is or was connected to this Camp Israel? But we can’t drop any lead that comes in right now. Which is why we also need to dig more on this Wayne Sigler guy in North Carolina.”
“Alex, have you thought about taking this hunt out of the shadows?” Nick said. “Claudia’s accusations would get any agency’s attention. You could reach out to the local FBI agency.”
“Sorry if I left that out, but Hank said the FBI didn’t get much done when her sister was missing for two years. It’s apparent she doesn’t trust them, which is one reason she doesn’t trust me. Well, I think she wants to trust me, but my FBI job hurts my credibility in her eyes.”
“Look, I’m more concerned that you’re out in the field all by yourself,” Brad said.
“Thanks, Brad, but I can handle it. I’m afraid if we go public with this, it’ll just create more of a bureaucratic smokescreen for us to fight through to make any headway on finding my mom, or finding out what happened to her.”
A few seconds of quiet. “It’s okay, guys. I don’t have my head in the sand. I realize it’s a possibility that Mom could have died years ago. We just know that she ran off with some religious fanatic. I’m preparing myself for the worst.”
“Dammit, Alex. I want to be there with you,” Brad said.
I thought about his offer. “I’m okay, really.”
“Okay, you two lovebirds,” Nick said. “If anyone is going to go, it’s me. I’m the obvious choice. I’m a field agent, and don’t forget, I’m your partner.”
“Thanks, Nick. And Brad, you know how much I want you here. But we can’t shut down the entire Boston FBI office just for my personal mission. And I doubt Jerry would approve the time off, especially with me already out of the office. Now fill me in on the last two elders from that picture.”
“Eldridge Kaufman and Dusty Holcomb. They look like Batman and the Penguin,” Nick said.
“What?” Brad jumped in.
“You know, one is tall, good looking, has a presence about him. That’s Kaufman. The short one, is a bit on the round side with hunched shoulders and dark circles under his eyes. That’s Holcomb.”
“Kaufman and Holcomb,” I said, thinking about the names. “Sounds like a law firm. And we all know what I think about attorneys.”
“No worries on that front. These two come from different worlds. Kaufman, who, in this old picture you sent us from the church, actually has blond, spiked hair. He was a former regional sales manager for a furniture chain. Appears he had some strong opinions. Wrote a couple of editorials in the local paper about maintaining a pure life.”
“What did he mean by pure?” I asked.
“He wasn’t specific, but it seemed like he was dancing real close to saying a pure race,” Nick said.
“Like Hitler,” I said.
“Maybe a Hitler with a splash of David Koresh,” Brad said. “He inserted Bible verses at the oddest times, just to prove some oddball point. Honestly, it read like he was recruiting people to his cause, this new way of life.”
Nick chimed in with, “But there was nothing new or progressive about it. Women, it seems, are nothing more than scratching posts for men.”
“Fuck that!” Gretchen said. “Nothing personal, Nick.”
“I’m all good.”
I heard a chair squeak.
“Who is this asshole?” Gretchen asked.
“That’s the point of this investigation,” Nick said. “This Kaufman fella, or one of the other two guys, might have been the guy who drew Alex’s mom into hiding.”
My mind swirled with everything that had been said. Hitler, Koresh…it was too bizarre to understand. “There was one more on the list. Penguin, you called him.”
“Dusty Holcomb. Looks like a troll, but was quite the corporate politician. Had jobs at three of the Big Five accounting firms, moving as high as executive vice president,” Nick said.
“Sounds like a typical corporate junkie. All about the power and control,” I said.
“And the money. He raked it in, according to SEC reports,” Brad added.
“This is where it gets interesting.” Nick’s voice got louder, like he was leaning closer to the speakerphone. “A year after this photo was taken, Holcomb sold his house, liquidated a number of other assets—stocks, bonds, a boat—and moved to Ohio.”
I finished off the last of the candy bar as I waited for Nick to continue. All I heard was clicking and tapping on a laptop.
“Nick, are you still breathing?” A roaring cough nearly ruptured my eardrum. “What the…?”
“Sorry, my smoothie…ugghh!”
“He’s trying to say, Alex, that he choked on his fruit smoothie,” Brad said with a chuckle. “Now he’s wiping the beads of sweat off his red face. You okay, Nick?”
“Yes. Just got a little excited.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, Ohio is also the last place we can find any record of Kaufman.”
“What part?”
“Parkersburg, a city in southeast Ohio. The same city where Holcomb landed.”
I downed the last remaining water from the bottle, my eyes on Hank’s Bar, but my mind far from it. “Any further connections between the two?”
“Not on paper,” Brad said. “It’s strange how they both ended up in the same small city.”
“Too much to be a coincidence. But you said that’s where the trail grows cold.”
“Over twenty-five years cold. We’ve only been at this for a day, so we’re bound to turn up more data—”
“We’ve only scratched the surface, Alex,” Gretchen said. “Now that I’m part of your covert op, if data exists, we’ll find it. Guaranteed.”
My, she sounded confident. And that was just what we needed. Then I heard a rippling noise.
Nick said, “Gretchen just popped her knuckles. World, look out.” We all laughed.
I felt more comfortable knowing Gretchen was involved, allowing Brad and Nick to spread around some of the work. And we had a good track record of working well as a team. “So, we have Sigler as more of a known entity down in North Carolina,” I said.
“Sure you don’t mean deity?” Nick joked.
I ignored his lame joke. “What part of North Carolina?”
“Small town just west of Winston-Salem called Boone,” Brad said.
“I’m struggling with this one. We need to dig deeper on all three men: Sigler, Holcomb, and Kaufman, but at the same time, I need help with this Camp Israel. I have this strange feeling from talking to Hank, which is why I’m…Hold on.”
Hank had just stepped out of the bar. “The bar owner is on the move, guys.” A moment later, she climbed into an older, tan, Ford SUV. “I’ll try to get her plate, just to establish residency.”
I cranked the engine, backed out of my hiding spot, and put the car in drive as Hank pulled away from the curb and headed east.
The moment my tires hit the main road, another call beeped in. I glanced down at my phone. Archie, my old running buddy from the CIA whom I’d called the day before. “Guys, gotta run. It’s a call I’ve been expecting.”
“No worries. We’ll split this up and get back to you ASAP,” Gretchen said.
“Be careful, Alex,” Brad said.
I executed a right turn, and followed the SUV from about a hundred yards back, three cars in between us. It appeared we were heading out of town. I tapped my phone to answer the
call. “It’s about damn time, Archie. How have you been?”
No immediate response, although his phone sounded like it had been placed in a wind tunnel.
I pulled the phone away from my ear for a second. “Archie, where are you?”
The wind subsided, but now I heard voices, but not near the receiver.
“It’s okay, he’ll never know. Promise me. Scout’s honor.” It was Archie. He was talking to someone, his voice barely detectable. “Archie, this is Alex. I’m on the line. Do you even know you called me?”
A rustling sound.
“Archie?”
I maintained eye contact with Hank’s SUV. She took a right down a side road and passed a few homes. Once I made it to the intersection, I waited a moment and then turned right. I made a slow turn and kept my distance. My theory about her heading out of town seemed wrong. Maybe her Claudia lived in one of these homes.
“But, Arch, I’m a good country girl. And country girls only do that…”
The woman’s rural twang dissipated. It was obvious I had interrupted something. Archie had butt-dialed me. I turned the phone so my voice was directed straight at the phone mic. “Archie, if you don’t pick up this fucking line, I’m going to hang up on you. And I was going to pay you for your services. Money!”
“Who is that?” the woman asked.
“What?” he said. “It’s just you and me in this barn, Felicia. Well, us and two goats, a horse, and that damn rooster that tried to take a snip at my—”
I quickly interjected on high volume, “No, no, no, no. Please don’t go there. You’re making me sick to my stomach.” Oblivious to my hell, Archie continued his sales pitch on the woman. “Okay, all you need to do is to emulate those two horses we watched out back, okay?”
“Emulate? Is that one of those fancy terms you learned when you were in veterinarian school?” she asked.
“Exactly. It’s very primal. Organic.”
“I like organic. What’s good for the environment, is good for my—”
“Please shut up!” I yelled into my phone. “Archie, dammit.”
The gal continued. “But what if George comes home? We may not have had sex for five years, but he’s got an awfully big gun.”
“Mine’s bigger, Felicia. Much bigger. Now come home to Daddy.”
Just then, a dog jumped into the road in front of me and a kid was two steps behind him. I slammed on my brakes and jabbed my free hand into the horn. The kid froze for a second, then waved at me and ran after his dog.
“Dammit.” I released a breath.
“What the hell, Arch? Your phone is on. Who is this?” the woman said into the phone.
I paused a second, and I spotted the back end of Hank’s SUV turning right onto another residential road up ahead. “This is Archie’s doctor,” I said. “Just wanted to let him know the test results came back. He’s got an STD.”
“What the fuck, Arch?”
Sounded like the phone was dropped. “That’s nothing, Felicia. Just some prankster. You don’t need to put your clothes back on.”
“Looks like you’ve lost your zest for me anyhow,” she said.
I heard a zipper sound.
“Seriously, Arch. I don’t know what I was thinking. I think this was a sign. You’ve got an STD, and I’ve got a jealous husband. So we better not do what those two horses were doing out back.”
“I swear to you on a stack of Bibles that I do not have an STD.”
“But that’s what your doctor just told me.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
Archie got on the line. “Tell her, Alex. Tell her you’re not my doctor.”
“I’m not his doctor, I admit it.”
“Oh really. Hmmm,” she said.
“I’m actually his ex-girlfriend. And he gave me syphilis.”
I heard a smack. “Ouch, that hurt,” Archie whined.
“Don’t come back here again, Arch. We’ll find another vet to take care of our horses. I thought we had a connection, but I guess you’re just like every other guy.”
“Worse,” I said.
“Hush, Alex. Please, Felicia, give me another chance.”
“You got a better chance with one of those horses than you do with this country girl.”
I heard what sounded like boots marching away.
“You there, lover boy?”
“Yes, I’m here,” he said in a pouty voice.
“You let her wear her boots. How gentlemanly of you.”
“Her feet are on the large side, kind of like her—”
“Please, no more. I can’t take it.”
“You asked.”
“Actually, no I didn’t. And frankly, you’re going to force me back into therapy.”
“You listened in,” he said.
“You called.” We sounded like a teenage brother and sister. “Let’s move on. You got time to talk?”
“The only thing that got my attention was when I heard you say money. I always have time when money is involved.”
I’d never heard Archie complain about money, certainly not since he’d gone solo and opened his own private investigation business.
Hank pulled into a parking lot and walked inside a pet store. I parked on the side of the building.
“You going to be around in an hour?” I asked.
“As long as I can’t convince Felicia to come back to the barn.”
“You’re sick. I’ll call you then. Answer the phone this time.”
“If you’re paying, I’ll pick up even if Felicia and I are in the middle of it.” He laughed.
I hung up and walked inside the pet store.
***
Carrying two plastic bags full of canned cat food and two cat toys, Hank swung open the door to her bar and disappeared inside the dark edifice.
A cat inside a bar. I hadn’t seen any evidence of a cat when I was inside. It could have been there, lurking under a pool table or huddled in a box in Hank’s office. But a cat in a bar? My eyes were drawn again to the colorful, wispy clouds lingering above the building. As I studied closer, the bricks changed color along the top. I stepped off the curb and crossed the street, my eyes moving beyond the bar toward the back. I stopped at an alley and realized there was another building behind the bar. From my vantage point at the end of the alley, I could see a number of broken windowpanes and graffiti scrawled across the chipped paint of the bricks. The place looked abandoned.
Moving at a faster clip, I walked south half a block and then turned down the street to face the front of the building. An old, warped sign at the top of the building: Hopewell Drugstore.
It was completely dark inside. Two metal-framed doors were chained shut. Smeared white shoe polish was on one large window, saying “50% off at Big A’s Bakery” with a large arrow pointed westward. The building looked like it hadn’t seen a tenant in years.
A dog howled off in the distance. Or was that a coyote? I did a quick spin on one foot. No sign of any creature, four-legged or two. As I shoved my hands in my coat pockets and retraced my steps, a flash of light caught my eye.
I glanced up at the same abandoned building. I blinked a couple of times, wondering if I’d been distracted by a shooting star or a lightning bug. There was a single window on what looked like a third floor. I moved two steps closer. It was dark, just like the other windows. I stared it down for a good minute.
There it was.
I spotted a crack of light in the middle of the window, as if someone was peering between two pitch-black curtains. I felt my heart thumping against my chest wall, and I made a beeline for the front door. Pulling on the metal handles, they rattled some, but it was obvious the chains were secure. No one had walked into the building through that entrance.
I stepped back from the front door and glanced up at the darkened window. A couple of black birds sailed overhead. Another minute of staring and no sign of light or life. I hoofed it down the street and made my way around to the back alley. The clicking of my
flats reverberated off the brick walls as I moved down the alley. About a hundred feet down, I spotted the back door of the bar. In addition to the underlying odor of old trash from two open bins nearby, my senses also could smell everything that was Hank’s Bar: musty smoke and cheap beer. I shuffled about another thirty feet; I could see the back door to Hopewell Drugstore. As I walked closer, a yellow, uncovered lightbulb shining off the opposite building illuminated a padlock on the door. I jogged to the door and found the lock was open. I yanked the door open and made my way in.
With no desire to give myself away, I closed the door quietly and pulled out my phone, turning on the flashlight app. All I saw was trash, pillars, and dust. Then I swung left and saw a door.
“Stairs to the third floor, hopefully,” I whispered, opening the door. I started to make my way up, stopping every few steps, listening for anything. I heard little claws clamoring across the concrete. I tried not to think about sharing the space with rats; I knew where there was one, there were many. At the top, I slid inside the door and found another door about ten feet in front of me. Light glowed from under the threshold, and I stepped closer.
“It might be time, little sister.”
It was Hank.
“You think I’m going to go public with my story? It’s too soon, Hank. I’m telling you they’re still after me.” That had to be Claudia. Her voice had an edge to it, as if she were afraid of her own shadow.
Pressing my ear against the door, my pulse tapped the side of my neck so hard I wondered if it was audible.
“Claudia, outside of one FBI agent who asked a few questions earlier today, no one has been asking about you. Anyone who lives in these parts thinks you’ve moved on to start a new life in another state or country.”
“Wait…an FBI agent talked to you today?” Now she sounded like a panic attack was just a breath away.
“Calm down, Claudia. Come here, let me hold you.”
No sound for a moment.
A long sigh. “Sorry I’m still such a mess, Hank. I just can’t get over everything that happened, everything I saw. I’m not sleeping well. The nightmares won’t go away.”
“I thought those pills helped.”
The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set Book 2) Page 61
