Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  We rolled into Mike Reynolds’ compound without incident two minutes later. It was everything Diggs had promised when we’d first talked about this—and so much more. Think Breaking Bad meets The Dukes of Hazard, without the sophistication. Three trailers were situated on a barren plot of land surrounded by half-dead evergreens, like even the trees were too depressed to survive this place. A pile of Hefty bags had been torn open by dogs or wildlife, the garbage strewn across the yard. Two rusted pickups with the hoods popped open were up on cement blocks off to the side of the driveway. A skinny mutt on a chain watched us warily as we drove up.

  Diggs stopped at a rickety gate held together with fishing line. “It hasn’t gotten any better with time,” he said, “but this is it.”

  He handed me an earbud. I put it in my ear, my adrenaline already running higher, while he put a tiny microphone in his collar. It was the same set we’d used in Coba—a parting gift from the worst night of my life.

  Diggs got out of the car and walked around the shitty fishing-line fence. When he was about ten feet from me, I heard his voice in my ear.

  “You with me, kid?” I flashed the car lights once, then doused them. “Good to know. Wait till my signal, then come on in and take a look around.”

  “Got it,” I said, even though he couldn’t hear me.

  He got closer and continued narrating, speaking quietly. “There are two kids and a woman—the girlfriend, I think, same one he’s had for a while—in the trailer on the right. Middle trailer’s got cardboard on the windows. I’d say that’s the meth kitchen.” He paused. I heard a dog start barking. “One dog. Skinny mutt—chained, so I think we’re safe there.”

  Three floodlights came on, one from each of the trailers. “Jesus,” Diggs said in my ear. My heart tripped a few beats faster. “It won’t be easy hiding out here with it lit up like this. Take it easy, huh? Stick to the trees.”

  He got quiet again. The barking dog continued without much enthusiasm. I squinted, trying to get a good read on what was happening. I could make out Diggs’ silhouette as he got closer.

  “Shit,” he whispered. “Okay, Sol. Showtime. Mike’s on his way out. Don’t do anything rash—stick with the plan.”

  I got out of the car and shut the door softly, still listening for whatever was happening with Diggs. I went around the gate and ignored the multitude of No Trespassing signs, but not without serious reservations. Keeping low to the ground, I headed toward the back of the trailers. I paused beside one of the rusted pickups when I heard Diggs speak again.

  “Hey, Mike—it’s good to see you, man. It’s Diggs, from the Trib.”

  I peered out from around the truck. Diggs stood in the glare of the floodlights, his hands raised. A smaller man strode toward him. I wasn’t as concerned about the man as I was what he carried with him—a shotgun, held loose by his side.

  “Easy, kid,” Diggs murmured to me under his breath, like he was right there with me. My hand curled around the Ruger in my jacket pocket, despite his reassurance. Mike Reynolds kept coming toward him.

  “I was back in town,” Diggs continued, talking to Mike. He sounded completely relaxed. “I just figured I’d swing by and say hi. Last time we talked you said you were getting those windmills, right? I was curious how that worked out.”

  To my profound relief, the man set the gun down and leaned it against the trailer before he moved any closer to Diggs. I took an overdue breath. The distinct smell of pot filled the air, thick enough that I was willing to bet I’d have a contact high before we got out of here. Not that that would be a bad thing—as I saw it, right now getting stoned was one of the better ways this whole thing could turn out.

  “How you been, man?” Mike said. His voice was surprisingly clear—I’d expected the low rasp of a lifetime smoker, but he sounded like he hadn’t left puberty behind all that long ago. For the first time, he became something other than a social security number, a tool J. would use to take more lives.

  “I haven’t seen you in, like…shit, I don’t know how long,” Mike continued. “Come on in. I’ll get Eddie to make us something—you remember her, right? We got married, not long ago. Jesus, you look good. You still on the wagon?” He didn’t wait for Diggs’ response before he continued, the words coming in a manic rush. “Yeah, I can tell you are. You got that look about you, you know? You look really good. I keep saying it, you know? Gotta stop smoking. Get my shit together. But there’s a hell of a lot going on right now. When things slow down a little… Then, maybe. There’ll be time for all that later, maybe. I’m working on something big right now, though.”

  Diggs asked him what that was, but I reminded myself that I had a job of my own to do. I got down low again and ran along the perimeter until I was behind the farthest trailer.

  It was darker back here, but there was enough residual light from the floodlights out front that I could make out the basics: a dumpster, a good-sized shed, and a windmill that didn’t look remotely functional. It smelled like dog shit and trash and pot. I slunk closer, focused on the shed. The door was cracked, light spilling out from inside.

  Diggs asked Mike about the mysterious ‘big things’ he kept talking about. I could hear the man’s distrust when he answered.

  “You know, it’s not like I’m not glad to see you,” Mike said. “But you come here out of the blue, right? And what am I supposed to think, man? Where’ve you been, anyway?”

  I crept closer, careful to keep to the shadows around the shed. There was a clatter inside, like someone had dropped something light—or several somethings. I pressed my back against the shed and held my breath.

  “I was in Australia, actually,” Diggs said to Mike. “My girlfriend and me. We had a little trouble with the law…you know how it goes.”

  “Yeah, man—definitely,” Mike agreed. He sounded more relaxed at mention of Diggs’ legal troubles. Common ground.

  The shed was quiet now. Off toward the trees, I thought I saw a shadow moving in the darkness—definitely more humanoid than animal. I closed my eyes for a second and tried to still my racing heart. I thought of the good old days, when I just watched this kind of thing on TV. I refocused on the shed.

  The light went out inside. The door creaked, as whoever was in there exited. I wet my lips. Muted my earpiece, so the sound of Diggs’ voice didn’t give me away. I moved forward, just an inch. Then another. I eased myself toward the corner of the shed so I could see whoever was coming out. The door clicked shut. I heard someone fumbling with a lock.

  I peered around the corner.

  At exactly that moment, the person at the door looked up. He met my gaze. He held a bow and arrow in his hand—like Katniss used. The difference was that this bow and arrow was roughly the same size as its owner.

  The kid frowned when he saw me. He held the bow tighter. I caught the look he cast toward the trailer, though, and realized something:

  I’d caught him just as much as he’d caught me.

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  “Who are you?” he whispered back.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You weren’t supposed to be in there, right? It’s no big deal—I wouldn’t rat you out.”

  “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be back here.”

  “Neither are you though, right?” I said. That stumped him. His frown deepened. He had curly dark hair and a round face. I doubted he was more than eight years old, maybe ten. “What were you doing in there?”

  Silence. I’m not great with kids—if he was a dog, we’d be golden right now. I nodded toward the bow and arrow, grasping at straws. “That’s pretty cool. Can you really shoot?”

  Pride softened his face. “Damn right I can. That’s why I went in the shed.” He had dark eyes and that low, raspy kind of voice Disney always uses for cartoon puppies. “Mike’s got all this ammo in there—I saw a show where you can light your arrows on fire, you know? I thought maybe I’d find something in there. How cool would that be, right? Just, like…shootin
g fire.”

  “That would be cool,” I agreed. Or terrifying, take your pick. “What else has he got in there?”

  “Aidan!” A woman shouted from out front. The kid flinched at her voice. “It’s bedtime, get the hell in here!”

  “You’re Aidan?” I guessed.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he said. “You better hide, though. You get caught out here, and Mike’ll skin you alive.”

  He ran for the trailer, bow and arrow still in hand. It sounded like things were getting tense between Mike and Diggs again, so I headed back toward the woods. The shed was locked now anyway, but I had a good idea what I would have found in there.

  None of it was good.

  Ten minutes later, Diggs and I met back at the car. I’d already been there for five minutes, listening through the microphone as Mike explained to Diggs all the horrible ways we could have been killed in Australia. “They got crocodiles that can bite a man in two—right through the gut,” he said. Diggs had sounded appropriately horrified, and finally extricated himself from the conversation.

  “What’d you find out?” he asked as he slid into the driver’s seat.

  “I met one of the kids—” Diggs glanced at me as he started the car. “Don’t worry—he had more to lose than I did if Mike caught him. But he was going into a shed back there. He told me the thing’s filled with ammo. Did you get any idea what he’s got planned?”

  “No clue, but something’s definitely up. He said he’s been working with some people. Didn’t say who, didn’t say what they were working on. Just that he was tired of being pushed around.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “No. That was pretty much my thought, too.” He paused, thinking. “Did you know there are ten thousand different kinds of spiders in Australia?”

  “You really think those are the kinds of facts you should start spouting if you ever want me to go back there?”

  “Probably not,” he agreed. “Listen, do you mind if we swing by my place now? I just want to check things out. Make sure it’s still standing.”

  I agreed with a nod, already too far back on the J. track to give it much thought. “If J. has been working with Mike, how long do you think they’ve been at it?” I asked. “Their old M.O. was to get in touch with these guys when they were just wayward kids—do you think they’ve had him in their sights that long?”

  “I don’t know,” Diggs said. “It’s possible. Between your father and Isaac Payson, we know they had people from the organization around here.”

  I fell silent, lost in thought. J. had started as Project J-932, an offshoot of MK Ultra—the conspiracy theorist’s wet dream come true that ran experiments on human subjects around the U.S. until it was shut down in the mid-1970s. J-932 started by doing mind control experiments on young boys around the country—boys with shitty home lives and no advocates to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. Their alumni included Jim Jones, Timothy McVeigh, a serial killer by the name of Max Richards…and my father. And now, Mike Reynolds.

  After MK Ultra went dark, J. continued for another few years in the secret annals of the U.S. government. It was shut down officially in 1979, after Jim Jones spearheaded the mass suicide in Guyana in November of ’78. After that, Dexter Mandrake—the founder of J-932—found his own funding, and continued his work in the private sector.

  Mandrake was killed in the ’90s, but J. continued to thrive under new leadership after that. The problem, as I saw it, was that we had no clue who that new leadership might be. Their M.O. was still preying on the mentally unstable, though they were an equal-opportunity organization now; almost as many women were featured on Cameron’s list as men now. I still didn’t understand exactly how they did what they did—how they pushed these people to kill time and time again—but whatever their technique, it had proven damned effective so far. If they were pushing Mike in that direction, I wasn’t sure how much faith I had that we could stop him.

  Diggs pulled up in front of his house a few minutes later and stopped the car. “You’re quiet,” he said.

  “Thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Nothing new—just more J. stuff. What do you think Mike has planned?”

  “Not a clue,” he said promptly. “Nothing good. I want to keep talking to him, though—we did all right tonight. He got jumpy a couple of times, but I’ve dealt with worse than him before. He’s not a bad guy. If there’s something we can do…”

  “Like save him?” I said. “Diggs…”

  He held up his hand. “I know, I know. Stupid idea. It’s not even like he’s a good guy… I just hate the idea of one more body, you know?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  He leaned across the console and kissed me. “I know you do. Come on. Let’s go in and think about something else for a while. Maybe we can see if my bed still works.”

  “You think it might have gotten rusty while you were gone?”

  “It’s a possibility. We’ve been gone a long time.” He got out without further discussion. I knew we were supposed to be doing other things, but I had to admit the idea of having a house to ourselves again for an hour or two was appealing.

  When we reached the front door, Diggs got out his keys. Since he’d had the electricity shut off months ago, the porch light naturally didn’t come on. I got out my flashlight and shined it on the door while he fumbled with the lock. The encroaching darkness and the profound quiet kind of murdered my libido; instead, my spidey sense kicked into gear. It didn’t get any better when Diggs finally fit the key to the lock and the door opened before he could turn it.

  He drew his gun. “Hang back a second, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, then followed him right in. He glared at me over his shoulder, but he didn’t look at all surprised.

  I scanned the room with my flashlight, shining the light into the darkest corners. There was no sign that anyone was here but us now—but someone had definitely paid a visit before. And not a friendly one.

  “Shit,” Diggs said under his breath, once he’d gotten the full effect.

  My sentiments exactly.

  The entire place had been trashed: cupboard doors pulled off their hinges, furniture slashed, pillows unstuffed, graffiti on the walls.

  “Vandals?” I asked.

  “In Littlehope?” He moved past me and up the stairs, to his bedroom in the loft. I followed at a more sedate pace, all the while looking back over my shoulder in case the bad guys had lingered.

  When he reached the loft, he went straight to a bank of built-in dressers along one wall. The drawers had all been pulled out, clothes strewn in all directions. Apparently the hoodlums weren’t keen on vintage concert tees, because they’d all been left behind. Diggs knelt in front of the dresser and reached all the way to the back with one hand, holding the flashlight in the other.

  “Goddamn it,” he murmured.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Forget it.” He straightened, utterly disconsolate.

  “Did you have a fortune in gold doubloons hidden back there you never told me about?” No answer. “Your porn stash? Jimmy Hoffa’s remains?”

  “Let it go, Solomon,” he said. I frowned. I’m not known for letting things go.

  “That My Little Pony collection you could never explain to the women who came before me?”

  “Seriously, woman…” It was a tone that brooked no argument.

  “Okay, fine. Moving on then—for now. Do you have any idea who this could have been?”

  “Not really, no.”

  I followed him back down the ladder to the main level and stood there for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the destruction. The graffiti on the walls wasn’t enlightening. In fact, it was the weirdest graffiti I’d ever seen from hoodlums.

  Which made me worry that hoodlums hadn’t done this at all.

  MURDERER was written—not spray painted, but written in what looked like permanent black ink—in l
arge letters across one wall. Slightly below it were the words, A FUGITIVE AND A VAGABOND SHALT THOU BE. I watched Diggs, waiting to see if he got the significance.

  “ ‘…and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me…’” he quoted. “The story of Cain and Abel.”

  “Nice to know growing up a preacher’s son wasn’t totally wasted on you,” I said. “You think whoever did this is talking about your brother?”

  Diggs’ brother died diving into the local quarry when he and Diggs were just kids—a freak accident that Diggs still blames himself for to this day. Unfortunately, his parents never did anything to relieve him of the idea that it was all his fault.

  “I can’t think of anything else that makes sense,” he said. He went radio silent and stared into the darkness. After a couple of endless minutes of that, he turned to me. “If it’s all right, I’d kind of like to check in on my father before we head back. Maybe he knows something about this.”

  I made a face—not a good one. Papa Diggs was a miserable son of a bitch who’d made Diggs’ life a living hell for the bulk of his formative years; I wasn’t exactly a fan. But after watching my own father put a bullet in his skull before my eyes, I figured at least one of us should have a shot at resolving our daddy issues.

  “Yeah, of course. You think he might know something about this?”

  “I doubt it, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. And I haven’t talked to him in a while… I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

  “Sure,” I agreed. Something roiling in my gut told me this would be a bad move—some sixth sense that suggested this was a path we’d be better off leaving alone right now.

  Unfortunately, I ignored the feeling.

  Chapter Three