The Darkest Thread

by Jen Blood

  “We actually got a special request to bring you in,” McDonough said. “That’s why I’m here. I know you and Juarez—uh, Jack—have worked together before, so I asked if he would make introductions.”

  “A special request by whom?”

  “The father of the girls who’ve gone missing,” he said. There was something about the way he said it, a look in his eyes, that made me think I wasn’t getting the whole story. “He doesn’t trust us, and we were the ones who brought in Vermont K-9. He’s gotten it into his head that the search and rescue team may be collaborating with the FBI.”

  “But Vermont K-9 has nothing to do with the FBI,” I said.

  “Trust me, we’ve told him that,” Agent McDonough said, a bit wearily. “But we have a history with the family, which means they don’t believe much that we say.”

  I considered things for a few seconds before I said, “Would you give Agent Juarez and me a few minutes? I’d like to ask him some questions.”

  “If you’re talking to him, you can include me in the conversation,” McDonough said shortly. “I’m the agent in charge here.” I was surprised at his tone. Clearly, he was a man used to getting his own way.

  I didn’t really give two horse hairs what he was used to, though. He was on my turf now. “That’s not how this works,” I said. “You came to me. If you want me to pack my crew up and horn in on an established search that’s already being led by an experienced team, I’d like to talk to Agent Juarez privately to get some details.”

  He stood his ground for a second, intractable, before he seemed to realize that I wouldn’t change my mind. I waited until he was well out of earshot before I shifted my focus back to Jack.

  “What exactly have you stepped in?” I asked. “Why is the FBI even in on this thing? You said you’ve already got the local and state police in the mix, not to mention the forest service. What made your guys throw their hats in the ring?”

  “You don’t know the story?” he asked.

  “I know there’s a search on Glastenbury Mountain. There’s more of a story than that?”

  “There’s definitely more to it than that. I guess you probably don’t have a lot of time for the news out on the island these days,” Jack said.

  “I’ve got seven people—two of them teenagers—helping me build a business and the buildings that will house that business, from the ground up. There’s a lot I don’t have time for these days.”

  He looked guilty at that, not without reason. Nine months before, I’d offered him a job when it seemed his career with the FBI was most likely a thing of the past. I would have been fine with him saying no—hell, I was glad he’d been able to salvage what had seemed an unsalvageable career at the time. But he could have at least called to let me know what was happening.

  “Right,” he agreed. “Well, Dean Redfield is the patriarch of the family—the oldest of ten siblings, though there are only five left now. About a month ago, he and his family bought up land in an unincorporated town in southwestern Vermont called Glastenbury. There was no real fuss about it, but Dean’s got a history with the FBI so we were keeping an eye on him.”

  I thought the name—Redfield—sounded familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly where I’d heard it before. “Agent McDonough mentioned that. What kind of history are we talking about, exactly?”

  “Tax evasion, for the most part. And…” He hesitated. “Do you remember a case in Western Mass about seven years ago? Two sisters…”

  That was all it took for the memory to click into place. “I knew the name rang a bell. His sisters were murdered, weren’t they? By…” I paused, realizing the implication for the first time. “By an FBI agent, wasn’t it?”

  “Exactly,” Jack agreed, grim now. “Gordon Redfield was—is—Dean’s brother. He was also a seasoned federal agent. He was convicted of killing their sisters, twins a decade younger than him. Gordon, incidentally, has maintained his innocence since that time.”

  “But you guys don’t buy that.”

  “No. Most of us don’t,” Jack said. There was something steely in his eyes when he said it, and I realized this case had some deep roots for him. “Back in 2009, the government had taken over the Redfields’ land after Dean refused to pay taxes for…well, ever. We’d just moved in on the place when the bodies were found. Two women, twenty-nine years old.”

  “Yeah, I remember. A pretty grisly case, as I recall. Or am I remembering wrong?”

  “No, you got it right.” He removed his sunglasses, and his dark eyes held mine for a second. I felt that inexplicable warming I always feel in Jack’s presence, and resisted the urge to take a step back. “Their names were June and Katie Redfield, two of only three sisters in the Redfield clan. When they were found, both had been drugged, raped, and tortured. Both of them tied together through the whole experience.”

  The violence of the act stopped me for a moment, the cry of two dead sisters bound for eternity echoing in my head. “Both found with purity rings, weren’t they?” I finally managed.

  “They were,” he said with a nod. “Genital mutilation of both bodies—while the women were alive and conscious. All the victims were killed in pairs, strangled with gold chains. Each found with an antique purity ring on the right ring finger.”

  “All the victims?” I echoed. “I only remember hearing about the sisters.”

  “There was never enough evidence to bring the other murders to trial. But eight other women had been killed in crimes that were almost identical, all killed in pairs. All prostitutes.”

  “This is why I prefer dogs,” I said with a shiver.

  “I’m not arguing with you.” He paused. “There were some…extenuating circumstances with the case, made it kind of a nightmare around the office for a while.”

  “In what way?” I asked.

  I caught something in his eyes, a hint of whatever story I wasn’t being told, before he glanced back toward Agent McDonough and the look vanished. “It’s not relevant here,” he said. “The bottom line is that Gordon had all of us fooled, but ultimately the evidence put him away. Dean is a hard man, but he isn’t heartless. You can imagine what the whole thing did to him.”

  I’m from a family of eight myself—six of them sisters. When I was seven, one of those sisters—Clara, four years old, the youngest among us—went missing. Half of Georgia rallied to try and find her. Search dogs were called in. I watched how hard the dogs worked; how much the handlers cared. For two weeks, we searched high and low. My folks put up bulletins. Offered a reward of three thousand dollars cash money raised by strangers who’d seen the whole thing play out on the local news, for any information that helped bring Clara home.

  At the end of the day, though, none of it mattered. Clara remains lost in the Georgia woods to this day, a piece of my family with her.

  “Sure,” I said quietly. “I can imagine.” I waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, I added, “There’s no question that this family has suffered. I’m not sure I understand what it has to do with me, though.”

  He frowned. “Honestly, it doesn’t have anything to do with you—at least, not as far as I’m concerned. But, as McDonough said, Dean doesn’t trust us. None of his family does. And now that his daughters are missing, they’re convinced it’s happening again.”

  “What’s happening again? The murders? You said Gordon Redfield is behind bars, though.”

  “The Redfields always thought the FBI had more to do with it than we did,” Jack said. “Dean was convinced there was a conspiracy. And now he’s sure that we’re somehow responsible for the other girls going missing.”

  “Well, whatever he might think, he should know that Vermont K-9 doesn’t have anything to do with it. And they’re the ones who should be running the search.”

  “No one’s disputing that,” Jack said. “But the FBI feels that it wouldn’t hurt to have another pair of hands on deck.”

  “The FBI feels,” I said, catching the implication. I can’t
deny, it stung a little. I studied him. “What about you?”

  His jaw hardened. He glanced back at McDonough, and I caught the glare that passed between them. “I’m here in an official capacity, Jamie,” he said, quieter now. “They’re trying to get me to use the relationship between you and me to their advantage, but I won’t do that.”

  He paused on ‘relationship.’ I felt my cheeks warm, even though there’s never been a relationship between Jack and me—not really. We’ve worked together a few times. Shared a hotel room one night, but separate beds. I cut his hair one cold winter morning out on the island. And once, when I was feeling particularly brave, I kissed him on the cheek.

  That’s the extent of our ‘relationship.’

  “If you don’t want to come, I won’t try to persuade you,” he said.

  “Does McDonough know that?” I asked. One look in his eyes at the question, and I could tell McDonough had no idea.

  Before we could continue talking, McDonough got tired of waiting and rejoined us. I noticed that his shoes were leather and freshly polished, though to his credit he didn’t seem concerned at the rain and mud now spattering his wingtips.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Flint, but we don’t have a lot of time here,” he said. “We’re not saying you need to bring your whole team out with you. Just you and your dog. You can coordinate with VTK9, explain the situation, tell them you’re not there to step on anyone’s toes. We’re looking at a search area that could be as much as twenty thousand acres, all of it rough terrain, mountainous, with twelve peaks topping three thousand feet in elevation. You’re seriously telling me they couldn’t use the help?”

  He was right. I had a good relationship with the organization, had trained with a lot of the handlers there, so they wouldn’t get territorial if I showed up and offered to lend a hand. With a search area this big, other K-9 organizations had most likely already been called in. If I were a gambling woman, I’d bet the house that nobody would blink if I joined their ranks.

  “They still haven’t found any sign of either of the girls?” I asked.

  Jack shook his head. “Not a trace. Dean Redfield has been through this with June and Katie—his sisters. Those two had taken off a couple of days before and dropped out of sight from there. You can imagine what he’s going through now that the girls missing are his own daughters.”

  I glanced back at the boat, where Bear was standing with Monty. I was barely sixteen when my son was born, and I’ve lost more than my share of sleep since that time worrying over everything from chicken pox to first crushes and a thousand things in between since that time. What Dean Redfield was going through, though, was incomprehensible. Torture was the only word for it.

  I asked for a minute from Jack and McDonough, and nodded Bear and Monty over. They came as if they’d been waiting for the signal for a while.

  “You need us to gear up?” Monty asked.

  “No,” I said. “Just me—I’ll take Phantom, probably be gone no more than a couple of days. You think you can handle things without me?”

  “You’re going on a search?” Bear asked. “You sure you don’t need a hand?”

  “Positive—” I began.

  “Because we could get geared up fast,” he pressed. “You saw how good Casper’s been the last couple of days—he listens better than Phantom half the time. And this would be good experience. I could come, maybe bring Minion. Three teams are better than one.”

  “Minion and Ren, you mean?” I asked.

  Bear’s never been much for subterfuge. He blushed, while Monty snickered beside him. Urenna—Ren—is the seventeen-year-old daughter of another of the Flint K-9 staff, Carl Mensah, a former Nigerian soldier who fled his homeland after his wife and sons were murdered. He and Ren have been with me since first immigrating to the U.S. a few years before. The growing bond between Ren and Bear—completely platonic, Bear insists—has been one he’s denied for years. I know his feelings for the girl run a lot deeper than simple friendship, though.

  “We don’t really need more teams, Bear,” I said. “This is just a quick operation for me. To be honest, I’m not even clear why I’m going, much less why I’d bring anyone else.”

  “It’d be a good road trip,” Monty said, always helpful. “Get the kids out there, show ‘em how the Feebs do it.”

  I shot him a glare, but all he did was grin in return. “We’d do whatever you need,” Bear added.

  “You really think Ren can handle things out there?”

  Bear looked at me pityingly. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously,” I said. “If we actually end up pitching in, we’re talking cold temps, rough terrain, and two girls your age who may well not even be found alive. Conditions don’t get much tougher than that.”

  “Ren can handle it,” he said, with the unshakeable confidence of youth.

  I glanced at Monty, who shrugged.

  “Trial by fire, right?” he said. “I say give her the call, see what happens.”

  I weighed the argument for a few seconds before I finally nodded. “Okay, fine. Gear up Casper, and call in Ren and Minion. I’ll give VTK9 a call, clear it with them.”

  “Yes!” Bear said, half under his breath. I shot him a look, which he ignored. “You won’t regret it, I promise.”

  Famous last words. McDonough and Jack returned then, McDonough just ending a call. “I’ve got a plane on standby. You think you can be ready by ten hundred?”

  I nodded without a second thought. “We’ll be there.”

  #

  Special Agent in Charge McDonough said he had business to take care of and would meet us at the airport, but Jack joined us on the boat. Monty got behind the wheel, piloting us across the harbor with the engine at full throttle. The seas were calm and the sky had cleared, but there was a heaviness to the air that suggested we weren’t through with the rain yet. We’d need to check the weather for Glastenbury, as well as the maps. Jack and I stood portside with the wind in our hair and watched as the island got closer.

  “One question,” I said. “Agent McDonough said Dean Redfield has heard of me. That’s flattering, but I’m not exactly a household name.”

  “Apparently, Dean was friends with someone you used to work for,” Jack said. “A Brock Campbell? I know Campbell died a few years ago, but I guess he spoke highly enough of you when he was alive that Dean had heard of you, too.”

  Jack watched me as he fed me the details, reading my expression. I kept it as clear as I could. He already knew the truth—he would have to. Or at least as much as the rest of the world did: that Brock Campbell had been my mentor, yes, but that he had also left his entire estate—including a thriving business and a barren mansion that I sold the second Brock was in the ground—to Bear and me.

  “I’ve never met any of the Redfields,” I said. “Apart from the stories I remember from the news, I’ve never even heard of them.”

  “I know,” Jack said. “I wouldn’t have let McDonough talk me into coming here if I didn’t think you could help, though. I expect the girls just wandered off somewhere. Hopefully, they’ll be found by the time we get there. But I remember how good you were during the search up in Black Falls a couple of years ago—the way you handled me when I was going crazy, how hard you worked. You have a way of setting people’s minds at ease.”

  Two years before, I’d led the search when Jack’s girlfriend at the time, Erin Solomon, was run off the road by a madman up in the Northern Maine woods. Thankfully, that search had ended well. Not all of them do, though, and I didn’t have a great feeling about this one. I shrugged at his praise, never easy with compliments. “I was just doing my job.”

  “Which is all I want you to do here,” he said. “Dean’s not a bad man, and he’s had a hard time over the years. I think it would do him good to know someone he feels like he’s hand selected is out there looking.”

  “Well… I’m happy to help if I can,” I said. “It sounds like it’ll be interesting out there, anyway—I haven�
��t done a search in that area before. I’m glad you called.” I hesitated. The elephant in the room yawned, stretched out, and made himself comfortable between us.

  Silence fell. A shimmer of light caught the sun over Jack’s right shoulder. I stared at it for a few seconds. A familiar tremor slid beneath my skin. I’d seen that light before. It followed Jack, shining brighter the worse things got for him. Right now, it was blinding.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him.

  He looked surprised. I noted again how thin his face was. His complexion was a shade lighter than usual, like he hadn’t been in the sun much in recent months. Though he’s only a few years older than my thirty-three years, just then Jack looked a decade beyond that.

  “I’m fine,” he said. He sounded tired, though. His professional Man-in-Black persona wavered. “I mean… I guess I’m fine. I get up every day. Put one foot in front of the other. Try to find answers.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “And…none yet. But I’m still looking.”

  Jack’s wife—that brilliant light shining forever in the distance for him—was raped and murdered in Nicaragua a few years ago. He’d learned last year who had actually done the killing, but I knew he’d been working hard to bring the killers to justice since then. Apparently, with no success. Based on what I was seeing now, it was eating him up.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. I resisted the urge to ask him why he hadn’t called over the past several months. How he’d managed to get his job back. So many questions. I wasn’t sure that any of them were really my business, though, so I kept quiet.

  I thought again of the uneasy feeling I’d gotten that morning; the loaded glances Jack had been trading with Agent McDonough.

  “I noticed some energy between you and McDonough,” I said. “Is there anything I should know?”

  A pulse ticked in his jaw, though he shook his head. “I don’t like the man, and he knows it. We have a history, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the search for the Redfield girls. This should be fairly straightforward. Dean’s family lives up in the cabins they bought at the top of the mountain, and I think his younger brother has a couple of friends he brought up there. I’ll go with you and we’ll talk to them, see if there’s anything they can tell us that wasn’t mentioned before. Other than that, you’ll be out with the rest of the searchers.”