Closer Than You Think

by Karen Rose

  ‘Did you know where he was keeping Amy and Roza?’ Faith asked carefully.

  ‘No.’ Jade looked away. ‘For a long time I thought it was Mrs O’Bannion’s old place, but when she described the basement, it was nothing like the place where we were kept. That’s when I first learned he had cameras all over the townhouse. He played back a tape of me talking to his mother. And then he took me to the other basement – the one in his other house. He told his mother that he’d given me two weeks’ vacation, because that’s how long it took for the bruises to fade. Then he showed me a photo of Amy. Her bruises were much worse. He said he’d do that to Roza if I asked again.’

  ‘We understand,’ Faith said. ‘In the other house, was there anything you noticed in particular?’

  ‘Only on the inside. He had a portrait of Joy on the wall in the basement, but he’d slashed the face. It wasn’t the same one your grandmother had in her bedroom. I think he did the portrait himself, just to give himself something to destroy.’

  ‘Did you ever go anywhere with him?’ Bishop asked, and she nodded, dropping her chin.

  ‘We went to Miami once. We took his van and he drove the whole way. He shot your friend, the man.’

  ‘Gordon Shue?’

  ‘Yes. And then we tried to push you off the bridge. He made me shoot at you. I missed on purpose. I couldn’t kill you, even to save Roza. God help me, I hope he’s not hurting her now.’

  ‘Thank you for not killing me,’ Faith said gently. ‘I’ll do my best to bring Roza back to you. She has a father, right? Eric Johnson?’

  She nodded. ‘He and Amy got married while they were at college and they were so happy—’ She stopped abruptly, then asked, ‘My parents? Are they still alive?’

  ‘Yes,’ Faith said. ‘They’ve been contacted and they’re on their way.’

  Jade’s shoulders shook as she started to cry. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’

  Faith touched Jade’s shoulder gently, swallowing her wince when she only felt sharp bone beneath the thin T-shirt she wore. ‘We have to go now, but we’ll come back. And as soon as we find Roza, we’ll let you know. At least we know who we’re dealing with now.’

  Out in the hall, Bishop leaned against the wall, frustration etched deep into her face. ‘Any idea where this house could be?’

  ‘No, not one. Has Deacon had success at Jeremy’s ex’s estate?’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything. I don’t know.’

  ‘Then I guess we brainstorm how we can track him to this mystery house.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  North of Cincinnati, Ohio, Thursday 6 November, 2.30 P.M.

  He put down his garage door before opening the back of the van. He smiled at the snarling pair. ‘Welcome to my home. Don’t worry, you won’t be here long.’

  He’d parked the Bentley not far from the small airport he’d scoped out as his Plan B should he fail to get Faith this afternoon. If he absolutely had to, he could run. But he didn’t want to run. He wanted to fight for who he was and what he’d built.

  He’d forced the gorilla to restrain his twin’s hands with zip ties, then restrain his own. He’d marched them to a white panel van that he’d stolen a few years ago but had been keeping for a rainy day. This qualified, he thought. Once they were in the van, he zipped their ankles.

  Now he rolled them out of the van, keeping them restrained. He dropped them from the van to the cement floor of his garage. Not a huge drop, but enough to make his weakling brother grunt in pain. Always a bonus.

  The gorilla was so damn stoic and powerful, he thought he needed to even the odds. Making sure his silencer was on tight, he fired two shots at him, one in each knee. The gag stifled his cries. A strip of duct tape silenced him further.

  Satisfied, he crouched down and pulled the gag from his twin’s mouth, keeping his gun trained on his groin. ‘One question, and if you scream I will shoot your balls off. What were you doing in the police station today?’

  ‘Talking to Faith,’ Jeremy said through clenched teeth.

  ‘About?’

  ‘I wanted to buy the house from her.’

  Jordan laughed. ‘Why?’

  ‘So I could burn it down. I have plenty of money, I can afford it.’

  That actually made sense. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Wait. I have a question.’

  ‘This ain’t quid pro quo, Jeremy.’ He sighed. ‘Fine. One question.’

  ‘Did you kill my son?’

  He blinked at him. ‘No. Wounded him. Didn’t kill him. Tried to.’

  ‘No, my other son. The boy they found in the grave with the Earl Power employee.’

  His mouth fell open. ‘That was your son?’ He laughed. ‘That squatter was really lord of the manor? Now that’s irony. Yeah, I killed him. Now, I have to go. When I get back, I’ll let you go.’

  ‘Right,’ Jeremy said grimly. ‘You’ll let me go.’

  He cut a piece of duct tape and pressed it over Jeremy’s mouth, making sure to cover his mustache. Whoever removed it would rip the mustache right off his skin. Then he stood up and dusted his hands. ‘I have to reload my van. You can stay here.’ He covered both men with a blanket. ‘Sweet dreams.’

  Woodland Mound, Ohio, Thursday 6 November, 3.30 P.M.

  ‘There’s nothing here, Agent Novak.’

  Deacon leaned against his SUV, looking through his binoculars at the land belonging to Jeremy’s ex-wife. There wasn’t a ripple of dust, not a speck of dirt out of place.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said to the SWAT leader. ‘This was a wild goose chase.’

  ‘You think we were led here on purpose?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wanted to believe Jeremy. Jordan’s obviously gone somewhere else. I’ll leave a squad car here to watch for him in case he comes, but we’re wasting our time now.’ He was starting to make the call when Bishop called him. ‘What do you have?’

  ‘According to Jade, he has another house,’ Bishop said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘She doesn’t know. We’re bringing in the team to brainstorm.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’ As he got into his car, his phone rang again. ‘Novak.’

  ‘It’s Jim.’ And he sounded scared.

  Deacon paused, his hand on the ignition. ‘What’s wrong? Is it Tammy?’

  ‘No, it’s Greg. He’s gone. We let him sleep in this morning, but when he didn’t come out of his room, we went in. He left a note that he’d gone to Dani’s, but Deacon, she’s not here. I’m in her apartment and she’s not here.’

  ‘She texted me from The Meadow last night. She was staying at the shelter and had a couple of off-duty CPD cops to watch over her.’

  ‘No, we checked there. She didn’t go in last night. We’ve been checking all the places both Greg and Dani go. All morning.’ Jim’s voice cracked and broke. ‘She’s gone, Deacon.’

  Deacon’s heart jumped into his throat. ‘Maybe she’s at work.’

  ‘No, I called. She texted that she was sick, that she wasn’t coming in.’

  No, no, no. His stomach lurched and he nearly threw up.

  ‘And Deacon? There’s blood on her carpet. It’s soaked through. Still tacky to the touch.’

  No. Not Dani. Not Greg. He couldn’t have them. But Deacon’s gut told him that Jordan had taken them. ‘I’ll be there in twenty.’

  He started his engine and raced down the long driveway, calling Bishop back. ‘It’s Deacon. Jordan has Dani and Greg.’

  ‘Oh my God. We need to find his damn house.’

  ‘Do it fast. He’s had them since last night. I’m going to Dani’s apartment.’

  ‘You want me to send a CSU team?’

  ‘Yeah, that’d be good. Tell Isenberg. Tell Faith to stay put.’

  He hit the main road in a spray of gravel and put his light on the roof. Get out of my way, people, he thought. You do not want to be slowing me down today. Hold on, Dani. I’m coming.

  Cincinnati, Ohio, Thursday 6 November, 4.15 P.M.

&nbs
p; Faith paced the perimeter of the conference room, her hands shoved into her pockets to keep from wringing them together. Bishop, Tanaka, and Isenberg had their heads bent over a map, trying to determine where the house could be. Crandall was at his computer, running searches on property records. If Jordan had another house, he had it in another name, and that was what they needed to find.

  Jordan had Dani and Greg. He wants me. He’ll try to trade for me. But he didn’t let witnesses live. So even if she traded herself, he was going to kill them. Where did he take them?

  Everyone else was busy and Faith was pacing. I’m panicking. Not thinking.

  So think, Faith. Abruptly she stopped and sat on a box of Foundation files. She closed her eyes and thought about Jordan, about all she’d learned about the O’Bannion family and their many issues. Jordan hated Joy. Hated Jeremy and Maggie. He hated his mother. But he may have hated his father most of all.

  Why? Because Tobias beat him and ridiculed him and told him he was worthless. He’d sired him for parts. He kicked him out of the Foundation. He favored Joy over all of them.

  She went still. ‘He stole from them. He stole from all of them.’

  Bishop, Isenberg and Tanaka stared at her. ‘Jordan stole from who?’ Bishop asked.

  ‘No. Tobias. He stole from my grandmother. He took her land. He took her birthright so that he could keep up appearances with his peers. Jeremy said that Tobias’s grief for Joy was bigger than his love for any of them. Out of either desperation or plain selfishness, he stole Barbara’s family land. That land would have gone to my mother when she was twenty-one.’

  ‘But Tobias used it to fund the Foundation,’ Tanaka said.

  ‘Wait.’ Isenberg held up a hand. ‘Why would Jordan want his mother’s land? Land that should have gone to your mother? It wasn’t his birthright that was stolen. It was your mother’s.’

  ‘True.’ Faith looked at the whiteboard for inspiration – and found it. Nearly every box connected to Joy. ‘The land was Joy’s first, but she died. Then . . .’ Fury blew through her again as she thought about her mother. ‘Then he killed my mother. That would have been his land had his father not sold it. He and Jeremy would have split the O’Bannion land, but Jeremy had been disowned. And he had the O’Bannion property already claimed.’

  ‘He wanted it all,’ Isenberg said. ‘All right. You said it was the land up near Liberty Township. That land is all houses now. Maybe Jordan bought one of them.’

  ‘It was a lot of land,’ Faith said. ‘Thousands of acres. At least five or six square miles.’

  Tanaka did a calculation using his phone and his shoulders sagged. ‘Assuming the average house is on a quarter-acre plot, that’s at least ten thousand houses.’

  ‘And he didn’t buy one in his own name,’ Crandall added.

  ‘What else do we know?’ Isenberg urged.

  ‘We know he made Jade pose as his receptionist at Maguire and Sons,’ Bishop said. ‘The company lists John Maguire as the owner. Try that.’

  Crandall ran the search. ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘He wouldn’t use Maguire and Sons,’ Faith said. ‘That company was going to be the fall guy if the bodies were ever discovered. He tried to lead Deacon and me in that direction when we had breakfast with him. Mr Crandall, can you project a map of the land north of Millikin Road? Thank you,’ she said when the map appeared on the wall. ‘This is the area. My mother took me there once and showed me a brand-new house. She said it was where the old house had once stood. It got knocked down in the early eighties when the land was cleared for construction, but I can’t remember where it was. Can you look for land under the name of Corcoran?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Crandall said. ‘That much land would be noted in a census at some point, though, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Faith bit at her lip. ‘My father might know. Excuse me. I’ll call him now.’ She dialed her father’s number and tapped her foot until he answered.

  ‘Faith? Are you all right?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘Dad, I’m doing a search of the old homesteads and I was trying to find where Gran’s family lived before she married. Do you remember the place?’

  ‘Oh yes. I remember it well. It was north of the city, just farmland and rolling fields and trees. Your mother and I went up there for the first time on her twenty-first birthday.’ The sad smile in his voice made her own grief swell, and she dreaded having to tell him the truth. Dreaded having to admit the secret she’d kept so long. He sounded so tired. ‘That was the night she found out it wasn’t hers anymore. Your mother was full of plans because you were on the way. She knew I didn’t have much, but she had this house, so we’d have a place to raise our child. She hadn’t been out there in a long time. She tried her key and it didn’t work.’

  Faith thought of Sunday afternoon. She’d been so relieved when the key hadn’t fit the door. ‘That’s how she found out her father had sold the place?’

  ‘Actually the new owner told her when he came to the door with a shotgun. He said he was calling the cops if we didn’t get off his property. She said there was a mistake and he offered to show her the deed – that he’d bought the land from Tobias O’Bannion.’ His voice trembled. ‘I think the look of shock on her face got his attention. He put the gun down and invited us in. He’d bought the land from your grandfather, then sold it to a developer. A lot of money passed hands. I was so angry that night. Your mother was beyond devastated. So betrayed.’

  ‘Where was the house?’

  ‘It’s not there anymore,’ he said, his words coming more slowly. He was getting tired. She needed to get to what he remembered before he became too worn out. ‘You can’t visit it.’

  ‘I know, but I’m doing some genealogical stuff,’ she improvised. Not entirely untrue. ‘I really want the location of the old house.’

  ‘That’s nice, dear, but I can’t remember exactly where it was,’ her father said, mildly exasperated. ‘I remember that a creek ran near it. And you could see the old one-room schoolhouse from the front yard. Your mother liked that. She said it was being restored to be a historic landmark, so it should still be there.’

  ‘Near a creek and an old schoolhouse,’ Faith repeated for the benefit of Crandall and the others. ‘Do you remember the name of the guy who bought the house from Tobias?’

  ‘Heavens, no. That was more than thirty years ago, Faith.’

  ‘Okay. Well, thanks, Dad. You’re sounding tired. I’ve kept you too long. I’ll let you go.’

  ‘Wait,’ he said with a sharpness that surprised her. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s really going on here?’

  ‘Um, sorry?’ she asked as if clueless.

  Her father blew out a breath. ‘Your grandmother’s old house is all over the news, Faith. The reporters are all saying they’ve found bodies in the basement. Do you really expect me to believe you’re doing genealogical studies in the midst of all that? Give me a little credit, honey.’

  She sighed. ‘Can I promise to tell you later? Things are a little hectic right now.’

  ‘Are you safe?’

  ‘I am very safe. I’m in the police station.’

  ‘Well, all right. Did your uncle Jordan get you a phone? I asked him to.’

  She bit back her anger at her uncle. ‘I got my old number back today. You can use that.’

  ‘Good. I hate to keep going through him to contact you.’

  She frowned. ‘When else have you contacted him?’

  ‘Sunday night,’ he admitted. ‘You said you’d call when you got back to your hotel room, but you didn’t and I got worried. That road leading away from your grandmother’s place is treacherous in the dark. I called your hotel, but they said you weren’t registered.’

  ‘Because I’d checked in under Corcoran,’ she said. It seemed like a million years ago.

  ‘And I was looking for Frye. That makes sense now, but by midnight I’d worked myself into a lather waiting by the phone and worrying, so I called Jordan and
asked if he’d go over there and make sure you were okay.’

  She had dual pangs of guilt and sadness, picturing her father waiting by the phone. Until she realized what he’d said. ‘So Jordan knew which hotel I was staying in?’

  Isenberg, Bishop and Tanaka looked over at her expectantly.

  ‘Sure. I thought you’d told him. You two were thick as thieves at one time.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said calmly. ‘We were. I’ll call you as soon as I can, Dad. I love you.’

  ‘Love you too, baby. Be careful.’

  She hung up. ‘Jordan found my hotel because my father told him. That’s how he knew to stake out that one room. He probably waited for me to leave Monday morning, then followed me in to work.’

  ‘Where he put the tracker on your Jeep,’ Bishop said. ‘You might not want your dad to know that.’

  ‘I’m not so sure how well that’ll work,’ Faith said. ‘Did that information help you at all, Mr Crandall?’

  ‘Yes and no. I have the creek and I have the schoolhouse, but there are still hundreds of houses to sort through and Novak’s family may not have that much time.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s killed them yet,’ Faith said, needing to believe it was true. ‘He’ll want to trade them for me.’

  ‘He can’t have you,’ Isenberg said. ‘We don’t trade, Faith.’

  She only nodded. She wasn’t going to argue the point right now. ‘Can you find a record of the sale of the actual house?’ she asked Crandall. ‘Dad said the person who bought the land kept the house. Joy died in ’75 and the Foundation was formed in ’76, so it would have to be somewhere in between.’

  ‘Okay. It’s not an easy search. Property records are by address or name or parcel and I don’t have any of those. And many of the old records haven’t been uploaded to the website.’

  ‘The seller would have been Barbara O’Bannion.’