Gone Missing: A gripping crime thriller that will have you hooked

by T. J. Brearton

  “Cross, take some time for yourself. You look dead on your feet. Go get a couple hours’ rest.” He clapped a hand on Cross’s shoulder. “Tomorrow is going to be a big day.”

  * * *

  Cross drove home, just five minutes away, and fixed himself a sandwich, ate it standing in the kitchen. He jumped in the shower. He was sore from the chase, his leg bruised, shoulder tender. He wondered about Katie Calumet out there in the deep woods, and what shape she was in, as he let the hot water beat down.

  His phone rang while he was still in his towel.

  “How you doing?” Marty asked.

  Cross hadn’t expected to hear from her, and not at almost eleven at night. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat on the couch. “Think I’ve been up for twenty hours. Feels like Coast Guard days. How are the girls? Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine. They’re good. They’re asking about your case.”

  “They’ve heard?”

  “Of course. And they know you’re on it. Petrie asked me, ‘Mommy, is Daddy going to find that missing lady?’”

  “Tell them I’m working on it.”

  “You think she’s alive?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where do you think she is?”

  “She might be in some old hunting camp. Somewhere near Bakers Mills, or maybe… I dunno. A lot of mountains in there – Panther, Crane, Pillsbury…” He rose from the couch and went to the closet, holding up his towel with one hand.

  “It’s crazy. Just crazy. Well, the girls were asking about you, I wanted to tell you.”

  “Thank you.” He dug through the junk in the closet. “How’s the new job?”

  “It’s good. It’s real good. We meet every morning for a fifteen-minute staff meeting, and I like that. The people are good.”

  “That’s great, Marty.”

  He found a couple of Adirondack Park brochures and a topo map. He pulled everything out and went to the dining room table, cleared it off with a swipe of his hand.

  “What was that?” Marty asked.

  “Nothing. Just moving some stuff around.”

  His towel fell away. He glanced at the windows, suddenly paranoid a reporter would be out there. It was the last thing he needed – “Crazy Cop Works Missing Woman Case in the Nude.”

  He didn’t see anyone peeping in, but he shuffled off to get dressed.

  “How’s the house?” Marty asked.

  “Uhm, the house is good.”

  The house had been a contentious part of their separation. It was the first home the girls had ever known, and Cross had been reluctant to uproot them. But Plattsburgh was forty minutes away. After six months, Marty didn’t want the commute any longer. And Cross didn’t want to move.

  The girls would go to a different school in two weeks when the year started. It had all been settled on amicably enough, though Cross felt like he’d gone through it in a daze.

  He pulled on some pants and quickly returned to the map.

  “Okay,” Marty said, sounding distant. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

  He spread out the topo map and traced a finger down to Bakers Mills. Crane Mountain was close to Bakers Mills. But the Crane Loop Trail attracted a lot of hikers, and it was peak season.

  He followed Route 8 west to Speculator, which was close, and then looked at the surrounding area.

  Plenty of mountains, plenty of wilderness. Less touristy.

  “Alright, Marty, good to talk to you.”

  He hung up and set the phone aside, then looked at it. He realized he’d just been abrupt. Kind of an asshole.

  Why can’t we move? Marty hadn’t understood.

  Petrie is in first grade next year. She’s already done kindergarten, made friends…

  Don’t use the girls. You don’t want to move because you don’t want to support my job.

  He remembered the argument clearly, despite everything which had followed their ultimate loggerheads moment feeling hazy the way it did. He picked up the phone to call her back.

  But what would that do? It had been months. Marty had settled in. Petrie was starting school. Ramona was doing a mixture of day care and hanging out with Marty’s mother. They’d stopped arguing and were getting along, able to talk. Everything was falling into place.

  Except, he missed them terribly.

  He’d been drinking himself to sleep most nights.

  When the weekend was over and the girls went back to their mother’s, he felt lost and broken.

  He set the phone down again and returned his attention to the map.

  “Snowy Mountain,” he said, touching it with his fingertip. It was one of the tallest mountains in the Southern Adirondacks. He flipped through one of the brochures and found information on Snowy – a 7.8-mile hike, considered Difficult. That meant maybe fewer tourists, but it would still have worn trails. Would Katie’s kidnappers take her somewhere that was used by the public, even a little?

  Kane Mountain – distinct from “Crane” Mountain – had a restored fire tower which offered “spectacular views” according to the brochure. Cross wanted people in that fire tower, and any other towers, on the lookout. For what, though? Maybe smoke from a cabin. Something. They needed to be doing aerial searches. Why was the FBI being so obstinate?

  He looked at Cellar Mountain. Not as high in elevation as Snowy, but it wasn’t in the brochure. No hiking trails, no fire towers with spectacular views. Part of the Blue Ridge Wilderness. Southwest of that, West Canada Mountain, part of another wilderness area, well off the beaten path.

  Cross left the map and rummaged through a kitchen drawer full of bric-a-brac until he found some Scotch tape. He fixed the topo map to the wall then went searching for thumbtacks.

  By midnight he had marked several places. They had a map like this at headquarters, showing the route the minivan was thought to have taken before winding up near Bakers Mills. Cross highlighted that route on his own map then drew lines to the thumbtack points on five different mountains, places that seemed remote enough, places that would likely have abandoned hunting camps.

  Then he sat down and drummed up a list of his own demands – things he was going to make sure happened the next day, not take no for an answer.

  The beer he’d started earlier in the evening sat half-drunk on the table beside the maps, and Cross went to bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Gates called while Cross was headed out the door, six hours later.

  She sounded weary.

  “We’ve had to detain David Brennan.”

  Cross opened the car and dropped into the driver’s seat. “What happened?”

  “He tried to leave again. To sneak out last night, go find Katie.”

  “Ah Jesus. Well I mean, maybe we just… I don’t know.”

  “He was starting to get physical with one of the troopers at the gate. Listen, we’ll talk more about it in a bit. Right now I need you to follow up on the Gebhart lead. His brother is Abel Gebhart. I’ll give you the address.”

  Cross followed the instructions and drove the thirty miles to Abel Gebhart’s home.

  It was a small house on the outskirts of Vermontville, lots of land, mountain views. Cross put the vehicle in park and got out. He was on his way to the front door when it opened.

  “Can I help you?”

  “You Abel Gebhart?”

  The big man, burly-bearded, stepped away from the house. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, despite the heat. Steel-toed work boots. “Yeah?”

  Cross pulled his badge. Slowly. “Investigator Cross.”

  Abel narrowed his eyes. “Cross-dressing Cross?”

  Cross stopped walking, keeping a few yards’ distance. His heart sank. Crap.

  Abel took a step forward. He pointed his finger. “You ran Jeff off the fucking road.”

  The hostility emanating from the man, the foul language – Cross felt his stomach turn pulpy and his palms start to sweat as the adrenaline kicked in. “Wel
l, your brother ran from the police, Mr. Gebhart. Obviously that’s piqued our curiosity.”

  “And so you come here, trespassing on my property, expecting me to what – talk shit about my little brother?”

  Cross saw a child’s face in one of the grimy upstairs windows behind Abel. A little boy looked out at them.

  “Not at all.” Cross put his badge away. “I came to talk to you about hunting.”

  “About hunting,” Abel mocked. “Where you from?”

  “I was born and raised around here.”

  “Uh-huh. Why don’t you get in your car and turn around.”

  “I’m investigating the kidnapping of Katie Calumet.”

  Abel was already headed back inside. He flapped a hand in the air. “Yeah, yeah. Well I’ve got nothing for you.”

  “You or your family own any hunting cabins?”

  Abel stopped, keeping his back to Cross. Then he slowly turned. He started across the gravel driveway, rapidly closing the gap.

  At the same time, Cross heard a vehicle come rumbling up from behind. A pickup truck, two more men inside.

  “You got a warrant to be on my property?” Abel stopped, his face inches from Cross’s. He was half a foot taller, thirty pounds heavier.

  “I’m in your driveway, which is accessible and visible from a public highway, conducting an open investigation. I can come back with a warrant and we’ll search everything you own, if we have to.”

  Abel just stood glowering, trying to intimidate Cross. The doors to the pickup opened and the other men got out. Cross heard them moving up behind him.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it and took a deep breath.

  “I can also have state troopers show up at your house, arrest you, and you spend forty-eight hours in a holding cell. Maybe we end up charging you, you go to jail. Or… we can just talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I don’t know my brother’s business.”

  The two other men flanked Cross. They were holding coffees and egg sandwiches. “Good morning,” Cross said. He returned his attention to Abel, still staring him down. “Let me ask again: Does your family own any hunting cabins?”

  “That’s nobody’s business but ours.” Abel’s eyes glinted in the thin morning light, but he was losing his edge.

  “It’s my business.”

  Abel spat to the side. “Well you better get that warrant, then. Come back and arrest me or whatever else you said.”

  “Okay, have a good day.” Cross walked back to the car, his pulse racing. He opened the door.

  Abel called over. “Only I won’t be here. Got to go down to Albany, see my brother. He’s in a coma because of you.”

  “Well he shouldn’t have run.”

  Cross sank into the vehicle, cranked the ignition, and tore out of the driveway. He watched the three men in his rearview mirror, standing side by side.

  * * *

  “You really want to go forward with this theory that Katie is out in the middle of the woods?” Sair paced the living room at Katie’s house. Cross sat with Gates on the couch.

  “Yes, we do,” Gates said. “And Captain Bouchard is behind it. DEC is ready to jump in.”

  “But this area you’re talking about, this region in the Southern Adirondacks – which mountains did you say again?”

  Cross spoke up. “Snowy Mountain, Kane, West Canada Mountain, maybe one or two others. None of them that far from Bakers Mills. We could use your resources, but we’ll do it without them.”

  Sair cocked an eyebrow. “We don’t take over investigations, Cross. We help, we advise. My advice is that if you’re going to do this search, it needs to be toned way down because they’re probably watching, could be expecting something like this. No helicopters, for one thing. I’ll speak to the DEC commissioner. Who is their press operations?”

  “I believe no one right now. The position is vacant.”

  “Vacant? So who’s handling press releases? Who the hell is the department spokesperson?”

  “Probably someone from general counsel. I don’t know, Agent Sair.”

  Sair gave Cross and Gates a look like he disapproved of the whole thing.

  Cross said, “We have a BCI Investigator in Albany with Jeff Gebhart, the carpenter who ran and crashed his truck.”

  “How’s that looking?”

  Gates answered. “Hasn’t woken up yet. We’re ready to question him. Cross just came from his brother’s house. They did everything but run him off with shotguns.”

  “Where are we at with the payment?” Cross asked. “What has Calumet come up with?”

  Agent Sair took a breath and glanced around. He spoke in a low voice. “Calumet has some issues.”

  “What?”

  “That information is privileged.”

  “Then let us sign an NDA or read an affidavit or something.”

  Gates reached over and touched Cross’s hand. She’d obviously already been through this with the feds.

  Sair set his jaw and put his hands on his hips. “We’ll consider it.”

  “But he definitely can’t pay? What can he come up with?”

  “Twelve million was the number I was given.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  Sair glanced at his watch. “It’s nine o’clock now. We’re keeping the Calumets secluded at this point; we’ve appropriated the inn. The kidnapper said twenty-four hours, so that’s at one o’clock. When he calls, Calumet will offer the twelve. Hopefully they take it. If not, I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t think they’re unwilling to wait another twenty-four hours. That’s a bluff.”

  Sair sat down across from the investigators and lowered his voice even further. “What I will say is that Calumet might have it, but there’s a $5 million withdrawal last summer, and we don’t know where it went.”

  Frank Paulson came out of the dining room, interrupting before Cross could ask more questions. Paulson was followed by two other feds. They gathered with Sair and headed for the dining room. Sair beckoned Cross and Gates to join them.

  Paulson was already fiddling with the computers when the investigators entered the room.

  “We got him,” Paulson said. He tapped the screen.

  Cross moved closer. “Montgomery? Or Gebhart?”

  “Jonathan R. Montgomery,” Paulson announced. “At a Target in Plattsburgh on August the sixth, buying a burner. A Tracfone.”

  “Boom,” said Agent Sair. He cut Cross a look. “Told you we didn’t need a stingray.”

  There was a knock on the dining room door. Sair opened and Captain Bouchard entered with Laura Broderick behind him, followed by three new faces. The house was filling up with people again.

  Things became hectic. The newcomers were Elena Cobleskill, the district attorney, another forest ranger named Joe Pike, and the deputy commissioner of the DEC, Helen Teague. With Montgomery’s identity confirmed, the focus shifted to capturing him before delivering payment.

  “We’ve got the MVNO number of the phone,” Paulson explained. “We plug it into the system and the phone will start pinging. We can get Montgomery’s location almost right away.”

  Cross picked his way through the small crowd and got beside Cobleskill, the DA. “We don’t need a warrant?”

  She shook her head. “The US Court of Appeals has ruled that law enforcement agencies don’t need a probable-cause warrant to track prepaid cell phone locations. If we have the number, we’re good to go right now.”

  Agent Paulson and Kim Yom were already working the system, and Cross saw a map come up on the main screen. It was similar to the topo map at his house, but with an overlaying grid.

  Sair stood in a corner of the room with Bouchard, preparing the deployment of state police. Laura Broderick looked at Cross. Further efforts to find Katie appeared to be on hold. The FBI was about to pounce on Montgomery.

  Chapter Thirty

  Katie heard a noise outside the cabin and sat up on the mattress. She picked up the hatchet and moved to
the windows. It was morning; she’d finally fallen into a deep rest and slept late, until almost 9 a.m.

  She peered out through the broken glass at the tree line surrounding the clearing.

  The man was back: the grizzled figure she had questioned hallucinating.

  He was no figment of her imagination. He was standing amid the trees, looking at the cabin, holding a rifle with one hand, real as the constant throbbing pains in her body.

  He stepped into the clearing and gazed upward, like he was watching the smoke rise from the stack.

  Katie did her best to keep out of view, but he had to know someone was in the cabin. It was just a matter of time before he opened the front door.

  They were miles away from anywhere, deep in the wilderness. He was definitely not a searcher – he was carrying a weapon, not a radio or a GPS. She didn’t think he was Leno anymore, not the way he looked or the way he was acting, but she considered again that he could be an associate. Some mountain-man contact they had in place in case things went awry. Maybe, she thought with a trace of shocked giddiness, his code name was Jimmy Fallon. The new guy.

  After standing there checking the cabin over, the broken windows, he looked at the ground. He seemed to grow interested in something and moved off in the direction of the rocky cliff.

  Katie huddled by the adjacent window so she could visually follow his path. He slipped out of sight, but she was fairly certain he was tracking Carson’s trail to the edge of the clearing, to where Carson had fallen.

  She stayed where she was a moment, calming her heart rate. Then she left the window and quietly opened the front door.

  Holding the hatchet in both hands, she edged to the front of the porch and watched him. If he’d heard her come out, he made no move to show it but kept on toward the cliff, until he was mostly hidden by the trees before the drop.

  The cabin was no longer safe. Coyotes and strange men had interfered with that.

  And she could be carrying a tiny life.

  She ran inside, grabbed the backpack where she’d stashed the liquor bottle of water, the climbing rope, and a few other supplies, then left again. She cut across the clearing, sparing a glance the way Fallon had gone, but he was entirely out of sight.