“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Yeah, about two hours earlier here, so quit your bitching.”
Dan sighed. “I’m up. What do you need?”
“You tell me. You texted.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“What’s her name?”
“Whose name?”
“The woman who kept you up all night and scrambled your brain.” Dan was a legendary man whore.
“Funny,” he deadpanned. Dante chuckled. “Anyway, I was calling about Sandy Bradford. I can’t track down anyone who has heard from her in weeks. She lives in Tennessee. You could take a slight detour and stop by her house on the way home.”
“Text me the coordinates. I’ll keep you posted.”
#
Sandy Bradford lived in a rambling ranch house on a tree-lined country road just outside city limits. The home was landscaped beautifully but the grass needed cut and weeds were overtaking the flower gardens. A car was parked under an attached carport but there was no activity around the house.
They motored past to reconnoiter before parking in a church lot a half a mile away. They geared up and Dante and Logan took the lead, using the trees to disguise their approach. The remaining agents trailed closely behind. Luke and Sawyer peeled away to cover the back. Logan rang the doorbell, careful to keep his gun out of sight. The sound echoed but no one answered. He started to knock but before he could make contact with the door, it creaked open.
“That can’t be good,” Dante mumbled.
“Ms. Bradford?” Logan called out. “We’re with the phone company. We need to check your lines.”
When there was no response, they communicated silently and stealthily entered the house. The smell hit him first. Dante recognized it from too many years on the battlefield. He cleared the kitchen and then entered a room filled with high-tech equipment. Peter would be salivating. The smell was pungent in here. His eyes catalogued the room and landed on a pair of stocking-clad feet. “We’ve got a DB,” he said into his mic.
Logan came up behind him, followed by the rest of the crew. They knew better than to approach the body so as not to contaminate the crime scene since she was clearly deceased. The floor was stained with copious amounts of her blood.
“Looks like she bled out.” Dorian said, stating the obvious. “There’s a gun by her hand. Suicide?”
“Someone wanted us to think that,” Logan said. “They’ll check for gunshot residue, angle entry of the wound.”
“She’s been here awhile,” Sawyer murmured. “The blood’s dry and she’s out of rigor.” He punched a number on his cell and walked out of the room to make the call.
“She didn’t kill herself,” Dante said with conviction. “It’s too close to Sweeney’s pattern. Either he came to pick up the phone or he sent one of his minions. Once they got what they needed, they took her out.”
“How freaking big is his network?” Luke muttered, exasperated. “Every time we turn around, another woman ends up dead.”
“Three down on the list, one to go. That leaves Lois Quinlen.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Patrick sped down the drive and zipped to a stop just in time to see two white-tailed deer leap across the clearing. Bambi, not Grace. Dammit.
He left the truck running and rushed into the camper. He crammed clothes, shoes, toiletries and Lois’s computer into a bag. She brought thousands in cash so he stuffed all of the money in as well. With the edge of his shirt, he wiped down most of the surfaces but then decided it was a waste of time. He’d be long gone. What did it matter if they found his prints?
He didn’t wear gloves last night and he didn’t wipe down the car, either. He just assumed Lois would rest at the bottom of the lake for years and all of his prints would wash away. Stupid mistake. He shrugged. Oh, well. Didn’t matter if they tied her murder to him, either. As soon as he exacted his revenge, he’d be safely ensconced in a country that had no extradition treaty.
He pitched the bag into the truck and at the last minute, grabbed the folding bike and tossed it in the back. His prints were definitely on there. He hopped inside, screeched backwards to turn around and spun gravel as he beat a hasty retreat.
Once he put a few miles between himself and the camper, his breathing returned to normal and his heartbeat slowed. So he had to make a slight adjustment to his scheme, no big deal. Every good Plan A had a backup. Plan B. Of course, he didn’t actually have a Plan B yet, but that wasn’t a major problem. He’d come up with one. He was great with improvisation. In the meantime, he grabbed his cell and punched in the number he had memorized.
“Let me talk to my daughter, Sweeney.”
“What, no hello today, Taylor?”
“Aren’t you getting tired of this game by now? I know I am.”
“Well, let’s see, since I’m winning, that’d be a great big no.” He smiled triumphantly.
“What makes you think you’re winning?”
His smile slipped. She couldn’t know Grace was gone, could she? He forced bravado into his tone. “I have your daughter, therefore I’m at least in the lead. You have to give me that.”
“I’m not giving you anything, Sweeney. Let me talk to Grace.”
Nope, she didn’t know. “Didn’t we go over this yesterday? She doesn’t want to talk to you. Are you having memory problems, Taylor? I mean, you are getting up there in years. What are you now, forty-five? Fifty?” He chuckled. Women were so touchy about their age. He was about to make a crack about support hose and incontinence when he glanced in his rear view mirror. He fumbled the phone and batted it around a couple of times before regaining control. He disconnected and distractedly tossed it to the floor. Red and blue lights flashed in the distance…and they were rapidly gaining on him. Shit. His eyes darted to the speedometer. He was only going a couple of miles over the limit. He hadn’t blown through a stop sign, had he? He gripped the wheel with both hands as sweat popped out along his brow. No way could he make a run for it. The piece of shit truck Julie Stone secured for him couldn’t outrun his arthritic grandma. And she’d been dead for fifteen years.
He adjusted in his seat and checked the mirror again. They were closer now, too close. He faced forward and then reached under the seat and withdrew his gun. He had no choice but to shoot it out. He slowed and eased to the side of the road, resigning himself to going out in a blaze of glory. They were almost on his bumper. He unleashed a rebel yell and grabbed the door handle, prepared to launch out and ambush them.
The police car blew right past him.
Patrick stared open-mouthed as the car continued down the road and disappeared from sight.
#
Kai almost collided with Grace when the vehicle approached. He grabbed her hand and tugged her behind a tree. They were out in the open with no way of making it to their hiding place without being seen. Why was he back so soon? He just left. He couldn’t have eaten breakfast that quickly.
Two white-tailed deer leaped across the clearing and it was all he could do to stifle a scream. The man stomped the brakes just before he plowed into the camper. He left the truck running as he bolted inside.
“What do we do?” Grace whispered urgently.
“We can’t make it back,” he said. “He might see us. We’ll be safer if we stay here to see what he’s doing.” They peered around the tree to watch as the man slammed cabinets and drawers. He came out carrying a large duffle and tossed the bag in the truck. Kai’s stomach dropped when he spun around and grabbed the bike, pitching it in the bed. Tears stung the back of his eyes but he ruthlessly pushed them back. The man backed up in a wide circle, almost running into the boulder covering their hiding place. He gunned the engine and sped away.
“Do you think he’s gone for good?”
“It looks like it,” Kai agreed. Something spooked him. “Let’s wait a few minutes to be sure he doesn’t return and then I want to look inside the camper.”
They waited for what seemed li
ke hours but was probably only fifteen minutes or so. The man didn’t return so Kai led Grace back to the hidey hole. He made her promise she’d stay put and then he darted a look down the road, relieved no cars were in sight. He hurried over to the camper and stepped inside. Drawers were hanging open, their contents spewed across the floor. Tiptoeing through the debris, he stuck his head in the bathroom. All of the man’s things were gone. He spun around and checked the table. The computer was gone as well. He must have really left.
He rummaged through all of the cabinets to find anything they could use. All of the food and toys the woman replaced were there, so he packed up a box, happy to see two more bags of the donuts Grace loved. He added the rest of the food from the pantry…chips, crackers and cereal. There was a package of t-shirts in a cabinet above the bed that the man must have forgotten. Kai looked down at himself and then lifted an arm and sniffed, his face puckering. His bath in the lake hadn’t done much good, especially having to don the same dirty clothes. He checked the rest of the space hoping to find a phone but there wasn’t one. He carried the box over and then made another trip for the rest of the blankets and pillows. It was getting pretty tight in their hole. He emptied the box and added the used containers and wrappers and bottles they’d accrued the last few days to make room.
“Grace, I want to take a shower while the man is gone. Do you promise you’ll stay here and not leave?”
“I want to take one, too. Maybe the black will come out of my hair.”
He winced, knowing it would be weeks before that happened. “I’ll take one first. You stay here. When I finish, I’ll come get you and you can shower while I stand watch outside.”
“Okay.”
He pushed the carton full of trash out first and then climbed out after it. Another check to make sure it was clear and he darted over. He deposited the box on the sofa and padded to the shower. All of the woman’s belongings were still there so he grabbed what he needed and turned on the hot water. He soaped up and poured shampoo in his hand. “Aw, man.” It smelled like a huge meadow full of flowers. He almost held his hands in the water to wash it down the drain. With a huff, he rubbed his hands together and lathered his hair. He stood under the water, making sure every drop of the flowery crap was gone. Grace wanted to shower so he couldn’t use all of the hot water. Reluctantly, he turned the knob and stepped out to dry off.
He felt so much better with his hair and body clean. The shirt was way too big but it was better than putting his dirty one back on. Nothing he could do about the jeans but that was okay. He found a comb and ran it through his hair. Stepping in front of the mirror, he probed the wound on his cheek. It was healing nicely, thanks to the antiseptic cream he’d been liberally applying to the wound.
He retrieved Grace and stood guard outside while she showered. The woman had bought her several outfits so she had fresh ones to change into. She stuck her head out when she finished.
“Do you think it’s safe to sleep in here tonight?” Her black hair was brushed back from her face.
Oh, he wanted to. A real mattress sounded so appealing. “I’m afraid to risk it,” he said. “We’d be safer in our hidey-hole.”
“Okay.”
#
“This one doesn’t look occupied,” Officer Chip Brown said to his partner as they bounced down the rutted driveway that led to a silver Airstream parked in a clearing.
“No cars, no lights,” Sergeant Suzette Hardy agreed. “Do we know who owns it?”
“Not yet. I’ll call in a search on the property.”
“It’s creepy back here in the woods. Dark. Deserted. It would be a perfect place for a murderer to hang out,” Hardy said.
“What’s wrong, Sarge? Scared?” Brown wiggled his fingers and made an eerie noise.
Hardy rolled her eyes at the younger cop. “You are so immature. My daughter’s into all those tween-age vampire zombie shows. I personally don’t understand the attraction of the undead but she loves them. They’re always set in desolate, creepy places like this.”
“Don’t worry,” Brown said, flexing his bicep. “I’ll protect you.”
Hardy gave him a droll look. “I have my Glock to do that, thank you very much.”
Brown peered through the windshield. “There’s no one here. Probably a waste of time. Maybe we should move on to the next place.”
“We’re here, so let’s do a quick check, just to make sure. Whoever killed that woman could still be in the area.” Hardy angled the car around and backed up so the passenger side was closest to the camper. “Check it out, kiddo. I’ll keep the car running. Oh, and watch out for the zombies.”
Brown stepped out of the car and climbed the metal steps. He rapped his flashlight against the door. “Police”. No response. He flicked on the light and angled the beam inside. He turned to his partner and shook his head. He started to check the handle when Hardy rolled down the window.
“We got a call. We need to roll.”
He jogged back and jumped in the car. He barely fastened his seatbelt before Hardy shifted the cruiser into gear. He flipped on the lights and activated the siren.
#
A sound woke Kai and it took a few seconds before he realized he was hearing the low hum of a car engine. It was close. Someone was here.
The noise jarred Grace awake, too. “Oh no, he’s back,” she whispered.
Kai sat up and extracted the screwdriver from his peep hole so he could peer into the darkness. Two headlights illuminated the camper and then shifted away. He saw a flash of red from the brakes and then a tire stopped directly in front of the hole, completely blocking his view. He couldn’t see a thing. “I’m glad we decided not to stay in the camper tonight. He’d have found us for sure.”
Grace huddled beside him. “Me, too,” she agreed.
A door slammed and a few seconds later a pounding sound echoed. Someone was knocking on the camper door. Why would the man knock…he would just barge in, wouldn’t he?
“Police,” a voice called out.
“Ohmygosh, the cops! We’re saved!” Kai fought his way out of the blankets, only to tangle himself more. He twisted and stumbled and face-planted into the bedding before he was finally able to extricate himself and push the plank away from the opening. He launched out of the hole and started waving his hands. “Hey, we’re here. We’re here.” He took off running but the siren drowned out his voice. Red and blue lights disappeared down the road and out of sight. Disappointment hit him hard, stealing his breath. He couldn’t pull any air into his lungs.
Grace scurried to his side. “Oh, no. They didn’t see us.” Her short black hair was sticking up on one side.
Something howled in the distance and she clutched his arm. “What was that?”
Kai had no idea but it sounded big. And mean. And hungry. “Probably just a dog.” Or a wolf or a coyote. He didn’t know where they were or what creatures lurked in the dark. It could be a freaking mountain lion for all he knew. Come-on, let’s go back to our secret cave. We’re safe there. Nothing can get to us.” He hoped.
Grace was quiet as they hurried back to the rock. Finally she stopped and looked up at him. “Do you think they’ll come back?”
He had to inhale a couple of times before he could speak. “I don’t know.” He wanted to cry but he had to stay strong for her sake. She was shaking like a leaf. He forced a bright smile. “But no worries, Gracie. We’ll be out of here before you know it.” He prayed she didn’t hear the tremor in his voice.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wednesday
Taylor was able to manage a few hours’ sleep with Dante’s arms wrapped around her, but a new day dawned…another day Grace was missing and she had no idea where to find her. Or even where to start looking. The euphoria she felt after finding out Kai rescued her from Sweeney was waning. Desperation was taking over. Tomorrow would mark one week since her disappearance.
Her parents were in the great room, talking with some neighbors. Maureen was wit
h them. Her parents had forgiven her for bailing Cassie out. Still no word from her sister. She didn’t know if she had the strength or energy to face her friends when they stopped by today. One minute, she felt like they would find Grace soon, the next she feared she was too far away. Needing to do something to help, she tapped on the office door and opened it. Dante turned when she entered, concern etching his face.
“Is everything okay?”
She nodded. Stopped. Shook her head as tears gathered. “It’s really getting to me this morning.”
He wrapped her in his arms, uncaring of the others in the room. “Me, too,” he admitted.
She sank against his chest, absorbing his warmth and strength. She hated that his child was in danger, too, but she didn’t know how she would’ve survived Grace’s kidnapping without his solid presence at her side. He was the glue holding her together.
He leaned back and framed her face with his hands. His thumbs brushed away her tears. “We’ll find them, Taylor. Soon. I can feel it.”
She nodded, needing to believe his words were true.
Sawyer Oldham sat at the desk, scribbling on a pad of paper, his cell at his ear. “Got it. Thanks.” He slid the phone into his shirt pocket. “The coroner just ruled Sandy Bradford’s cause of death as homicide.”
Dante released her to face the FBI agent. She almost cried out at the loss of his touch. Sawyer consulted his notes. “The attempt at making it look like a suicide was very sloppy. No prints on the gun…Sandy’s included. She had no gunshot residue on her fingers and the angle of the entry wound would have been almost impossible to be self-inflicted. They ran a ballistics test on the gun. It’d been reported stolen ten years ago from a man named Morris Milburn.”
Dan’s head jerked up. “Morris Milburn? Wait…I might have something.” He pecked away at his keyboard. “I was doing a search on Lois Quinlen, the fanatical Sweeney follower we can’t locate. She has no family to speak of…father ran away when she was young, mother passed a few years ago. No siblings and her parents were only children as well.”
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