The Lowdown (Dale Conley Action Thrillers Series Book 3)

by Erik Carter

  But Dale didn’t have time to be awed by the beauty. Instead his eyes focused on the sheer number of graves. It was far from the biggest cemetery he’d ever been to, but there were hundreds of graves before him. In fact, Dale didn’t have to estimate the number. He’d found that out during his research.

  Over 3,000.

  “So many,” Dale said as he put his hand over his eyes, shielding out the bright sun.

  Allie’s expression said she was thinking the same thing. “How the hell are we going to find it?”

  “We’ll find it,” Dale said, hoping to sound more confident than he really was. “Everything works out if you give it time.”

  “That’s exactly what we don’t have: time.”

  They were on one of the roads that cut through the cemetery. Ahead of them and to the right was a small, brick building. An elderly woman exited the building and walked up to them, smiling. “Hi folks. Cemetery closes in thirty minutes. Just so you know.”

  Dale took out his badge. “Ma’am, we’re looking for markings on a tomb, something that would give coordinates.”

  The old woman’s eyes went wide. “I … don’t know of any coordinates. You’re welcome to look.”

  Dale looked at the thousands of gravestones in front of him again.

  “Alright, Allie. Let’s get started.”

  Chapter 41

  “Thank you, Maria,” Luanne said and hung up the phone. She’d called everyone she could think of, driven to everywhere Dylan might have taken Tyler. No sign of them.

  Her hands trembled. She looked down at Caleb, who was sitting at the table. He wore a look of concern. But he wasn’t scared. He was determined. So brave for someone so young. He was her little man. He really was. He’d be a fine man someday.

  She thought of her other boy, Tyler. Dylan had him. She didn’t think that he would hurt the boy—he did love him, after all—but, then, she never thought that he could hurt her the way he had that morning. The last couple of days she’d realized that she didn’t know her husband at all.

  Or what he was capable of.

  She thought of one more place to check, one more place Dylan might have taken her son.

  “Come on,” she said to Caleb. “We’re going to make one more stop.”

  She walked out of the trailer into the bright sunlight again. She held Caleb’s hand. He hated when she did that. He thought he was too old for it. But he didn’t complain today.

  As she walked toward Maria’s Dodge, a figure stepped out from behind the tree that grew beside the trailer.

  Dylan.

  She gasped, wrapped her arm around Caleb, shielding him.

  “Hi Luanne.”

  She walked backwards, away from him, guiding Caleb with her arm. “Where’s Tyler?”

  “I got him someplace safe. Don’t you worry about him.” He looked at the Dodge and back to her. “Maria let you borrow her car. Nice of her. One of my boys says he saw you driving this morning. Followed you all the way to Pensacola till you got on the interstate. Said you were headed west. You were gone half the day. Go to the police, did you? Where’d you go, Luanne?”

  “None of your damn business, Dylan.”

  He laughed. “Oh, she’s got a little spine to her now.” He ran his tongue over his teeth, turned his head and spat in the grass. “My map’s gone. Tell me what you’ve been up to, bitch.”

  “No.”

  She felt movement behind her. Caleb jolted toward Dylan. She restrained him.

  “You leave Momma alone!”

  Dylan looked at him, scoffed. “Go inside, boy. Your momma and I are gonna have a nice, long chat.”

  A wave of panic rushed over Luanne. A sense of doom. Thoughts of that morning. The pain she still felt. His hands. The tearing of her clothes.

  “Luanne,” he said with a smile, “do I need to remind you that I have Tyler?”

  Her thoughts went to her youngest child. And his safety. This made her fear dissipate. She’d do whatever she had to for her boys.

  She looked down.

  “Go inside, Caleb.”

  “But, Momma …”

  “Go.”

  Caleb hesitated then walked back to the trailer.

  Dylan called out to him. “That’s right. Listen to your mommy, pantywaist.” His eyes returned to her. He had that look of glee again. “Let’s take a ride, Luanne.”

  Chapter 42

  It was starting to get dark. They hadn’t found any coordinates. They’d made several flimsy connections to symbols they discovered on some of the graves—desperate attempts at finding their answer—but Dale knew they weren’t looking for more symbols. Coordinates, an address—whatever Dylan Mercer had found would be directions to the treasure he was hunting.

  But it had been an hour, and while he was normally cool under pressure, the thousands of graves surrounding him were starting to give him a distinct feeling of desperation. Allie’s body language, too, had changed. She looked defeated.

  The old woman they’d met earlier walked up to them. “I can’t wait any longer. I have to lock the gates. You need to leave.”

  Frustration came out of Dale. “Ma’am, please. This is official police business. Just go. We’ll hop the fence when we’re done.”

  The old woman thought this over. “Alright. You’re on your own.”

  It was dark. The temperature had dropped. The light from Dale’s flashlight roamed the tombs.

  Allie was beside him. “Dale, it’s over. We’ll never find it. Let’s get you back to New Orleans so you can help Percy.”

  “It’s here, Allie. I can’t leave knowing it’s here.”

  There was a burst of light in front of them. Dale grabbed Allie and pulled her behind a tree trunk.

  It was a searchlight from a police car, probing the cemetery

  “Dammit, someone spotted us,” Dale said.

  “Can’t you just show your badge again? Explain why you’re here?”

  “No time.”

  Allie looked at him like he was crazy. And maybe he was being a bit nuts. But when Dale acted nuts, he got results.

  He put his finger to his lips, shushing her. He shuffled them around to the other side of the tree as the light came near.

  And then he saw it.

  For a brief moment, the searchlight illuminated the backside of a tombstone, about ten feet away from them. At the bottom of the stone, near the ground, were two long sets of numbers.

  Dale recognized the style of the numbers. Longitude and latitude.

  Coordinates.

  Chapter 43

  Percy checked his watch again. 6:38. The note he received said “sundown.” But it had been dark for almost an hour now.

  He’d walked the main drag of Bourbon Street countless times already, the area with all the bars, all the shops. On TV, this stretch of Bourbon—the area you always see Mardi Gras footage from—seemed endless. But in reality, it was less than a mile. Another thing that had surprised Percy about the French Quarter was the fact that its party atmosphere wasn’t relegated just to Mardi Gras. It was year-round. So, even though it wasn’t yet seven o’clock, the crowd was thick—people shouting, bumping into each other. Drinks were flowing. Drunken madness.

  And this is where Percy figured Jesse Richter wanted them to meet. Right in the middle of this madness, for the anonymity, for the safety of numbers. But he couldn’t get over the fact that an hour had passed. Maybe Percy should have went farther down Bourbon Street, past all the craziness. He cursed himself. His son’s life was at risk, and he was being foolishly careless.

  He turned around again to walk farther down the road, and then he saw him.

  Jesse Richter stood dead center in Bourbon Street.

  People funneled around him, laughing, stumbling. Richter’s face was set. Just a small rise in the corner of his mouth. Beside him was Ervin. Richter’s arm was behind Erv’s back. Did he have a gun?

  Percy felt himself move toward the pair. It had numbed his senses so much, seeing his
child in danger, that it was as though his body was moving of its own accord. He ended up three feet away.

  The evil from Jesse Richter’s eyes bore right into Percy. From Ervin’s eyes came fear. And a silent call for help.

  “You started your Great Contingency, Richter,” Percy said. “You got your drugs out. What do you want with my boy?”

  Richter shook his head. “I don’t want your boy. I want you. You brought my whole world crashing down. You and your fed buddy. The Great Contingency isn’t my doing. They kicked me out. Because of you.”

  “No honor among racist killers, I suppose,” Percy said. “But I guess they still like their revenge.”

  Jesse Richter smiled. “They do indeed.”

  He gave Ervin a little push toward Percy. Ervin stumbled forward a step or two. And then stepped back towards Richter.

  “Don’t do it, Dad!”

  “I don’t want you,” Richter said. “I want your daddy, you dumb …”

  He called his son the N word.

  There was a flurry of motion as Ervin ignored the gun and threw several swings at Richter’s face. It was a careless disregard for his own life brought on by a passionate, emotional response, but Percy was impressed. And proud. Ervin had shown some real bravery.

  Percy sprang forward. The three men’s limbs were entangled. There were blows. Screams from the crowd around. People ran out of the way, jumped over them.

  Percy had a hold of Richter’s ankle. Then he took another punch, this one to the back of the head. He was thrown down. He landed on something. Ervin. He looked in his son’s face. Erv’s eyes were fire. Percy glanced up. To his right, people were screaming. The crowd parted. Jesse ran through them.

  And disappeared into the masses.

  Chapter 44

  Dylan drove the Corvair down the curves of Fort Pickens Road on Pensacola Beach. It had started to rain. The window was down, and raindrops hit his arm. He could hear the waves to his left. There were still a few other cars out, returning to the condos and hotels or making their way back to Pensacola proper.

  In the seat next to him was Luanne. She’d been giving him a lot of lip lately, but now she sat there silently with that same stupid, obedient look on her face. She also looked truly frightened—not of him but of what would happen to Tyler. She had nothing to be concerned about, of course. She knew he loved the boy. But that’s who Luanne was—a paranoid weakling.

  She’d shown a bit of bravery lately, though, which was why he was bringing her with him. Given her recent actions, he didn’t know what she was capable of, and he was certain that she’d gone to the police.

  He passed the last of the hotels, and an opening in the dunes to his left revealed the ocean for a moment. The waves were violent in the wind and rain, but the moonlight was bright and clear.

  “You always liked the beach, Luanne.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “You’ve been so curious lately. I’ll oblige. The group you saw this morning—it’s a group of local hillbillies. Your cousin is my right-hand man. The drug deaths—that’s us. I convinced these derelicts that they were joining up with a new version of a secret society from the Civil War. I read a few old books, wrote down their symbols, their ceremonies. And these fools ate it up. I sent them out into a holy war, to kill off the black people they hate so much. I sent them out looking for the old symbols for me and my partner, connecting their group back to the real, historic KGC. Your cousin found the last symbol. Now my partner and I just need to use it.”

  “Mick Henderson.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “How are you going to use the symbols?”

  “Gold, Luanne. The KGC buried gold all over the country. Caches of gold to fund future endeavors. There are idiots out there who think the real KGC never ended, that it’s carried on for the last hundred years, still guarding the gold. But the reality is there are millions of dollars sitting in the ground for anyone who can figure out how to find it. After we dig it up tonight, I’m leaving here.”

  He turned to Luanne with a look that he hoped would frighten her.

  “And I’m taking Tyler with me.”

  They walked down the boardwalk, over the dunes and toward the crashing waves. The beach was bathed in moonlight from a blueish-black sky. The rain poured, drenching him. On either side of him were Mick Henderson’s construction projects. The one to the right was a fenced-off area with a few bulldozers and other pieces of equipment. The site to the left was much further along. A tower. Ten stories high. Cement. No windows, doors, or color. It was a gray skeleton reaching into the sky. The moonlight glistened off it as the rainwater rolled in sheets down its walls.

  He gave Luanne a shove to the back, toward the site to the right. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight. Not until this was all over.

  Dylan moved the wet hair out of his eyes.

  There was orange plastic fencing around the site, the soft, flexible type. Luanne straddled it and crossed into the site. He followed, pushing the wet plastic down with his hand. The ground had been broken at the site, and Dylan was careful to watch his step. The sand beneath his feet was already quite loose, and it would be easy to fall into a pit. There were pallets full of cement bags, some columns already in place, all the equipment, and a big, steel trash receptacle in the far corner. But he didn’t see Mick Henderson

  “Henderson?” he yelled into the darkness.

  He grabbed the back of Luanne’s shirt, stopped her. Listened. Noise to his right. Someone walked out from behind a crane. It was Henderson. He held a black umbrella. Rain poured off it.

  “This is it,” Dylan said and moved toward him, pushing Luanne as he did. “This is the right site. This is where the coordinates pointed.”

  Henderson leaned his umbrella back, and his eyes went to Luanne. “Is this your wife?”

  Dylan gave his response a moment’s thought. “That’s right. This is Luanne. I thought she should be part of this.”

  Henderson was slow in response, speculative. “And you’re sure this is the right site?”

  “I’m certain. We broke ground at all these other sites for no reason. All the other maps were dead ends. This was the only set of coordinates.” Dylan was shaking with anticipation, and he was getting frustrated with Henderson’s apparent hesitance. He pointed at a bulldozer. “Let’s get started. Show me how to use this shit, and let’s find it.”

  But Henderson just looked back at him from beneath his umbrella. A smile—small at first but expanding—came to his lips. There was something about that smile that Dylan didn’t like. Suddenly, he feared for his safety.

  Had he been double-crossed?

  Dylan sensed the revolver he’d brought with him, holstered behind his back. He might just need it. “What’s going on, Henderson?”

  Henderson just continued to smile. He raised his free hand and snapped his fingers.

  From among the equipment and stacks of material, hidden in the shadows, emerged several men, all bearing shotguns and rifles. They came from all directions and walked slowly through the rain toward Dylan and Henderson.

  Henderson’s gaze lingered on Dylan as the other men closed in.

  “Dylan Mercer, meet the real KGC.”

  Chapter 45

  Arancia’s engine bellowed as she tore down the road that cut through the center of the thin island that was home to Pensacola Beach. At the cemetery, Dale had checked one of the maps he’d brought from the office in New Orleans—a detailed map with longitude and latitude—and narrowed the latitude to the island. While he drove, Allie—also well-versed in cartography—worked on guesstimating the longitude as best she could.

  It was raining. Hard. Not a storm. No lightning or thunder. Just a heavy, warm, windy rain. Arancia’s wipers swung back and forth rapidly. Dale hated that she was getting rained on.

  Allie glanced up from the map and looked through the windshield again as they drove past the last of the hotels. She narrowed her eyes, trying to peer through the rain and
darkness. Farther down the road, Dale could see the partially-finished forms of future hotels and condos. Pensacola Beach was expanding to the west.

  As Allie looked ahead, she shouted out, “There! That must be it. A park.”

  On the other side of the road was a small sign bearing a park’s name. Dale agreed with Allie’s thinking—the other symbols had been at cemeteries and parks. This was their best bet.

  Dale yanked Arancia over into the park’s small, gravel parking lot and came to a quick stop. He put his hand on the door handle, turned to Allie. “Stay here. Okay? You don’t have a gun, and—”

  “Okay.”

  Dale grinned. You didn’t have to tell Allie twice. She was a very brave woman—having been on a lot of dangerous adventures with her father—but she also wasn’t stupid.

  Dale pointed at the driver’s seat. “There’s a knife under the seat. If something should happen.”

  Allie reached into her purse and brought out a large knife. She raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course. How silly of me,” Dale said.

  He ran out the door. Rain soaked him immediately. Ugh. He hated the feeling of wet clothes.

  There was a path in front of him that went up the dune, through the sea oats. The wind whipped rain into his face, and his boots sank into the sand. It was a very light sand, hard to walk in. He ran up to the crest of the dune, taking out his gun as he did. The park was in front of him, to the right. A few tables and fire pits. A stretch of sand beyond and huge, thunderous waves.

  Dale had finally made it to the beach.