One of many reasons he had been chosen for the post.
“Dumbasses almost blew themselves up,” Wood said.
“Jesus Christ,” Trick replied, spitting out the words. His entire body rocked back as he said them, packing as much force as he could into his lowered voice, shaking his head from side to side.
“Yeah,” Wood said. “I guess it took most of the operation up with it.”
Trick continued to shake his head before leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. There he remained, contemplating the information.
“They still have the backup place, right? The one we paid for in case something like this happened?”
“Yeah,” Wood said, nodding, having already considered that as well. At the time of construction it had seemed like an unnecessary expenditure, decided on against his better judgment, a pre-requisite from one of their buyers before agreeing to do business.
Apparently, they had had experience with meth, and the men who made it, before.
“The problem is Elias,” Wood said.
The skin around Trick’s eyes tightened as he winced, lifting his beer to take another swig. “Dead?”
“No, but Cuddy seemed to think it was bad. Like, not-being-able-to-cook-for-awhile bad.”
“Shit,” Trick replied, verbalizing the exact thought Wood had been having most of the evening. “I mean, it was only a matter of time, that boy can barely tie his own shoes.”
“I know,” Wood said, “and that other one Cuddy has is even worse, but I’ll be damned if they don’t make some sweet selling stuff.”
Raising his eyebrows slightly, Trick nodded in agreement, remaining silent as he continued to work on his beer.
“What did you tell him?”
“Told him he had two days,” Wood said, raising one shoulder in a shrug, “though to be honest, at the time I was just pissed off.”
“Right,” Trick agreed.
“It’s going to take them at least half that long to get the new lab up and going, and that’s assuming they can get him on his feet and working.”
“Right,” Trick said again. “I’m assuming the buyers don’t know?”
Wood flicked his gaze over to him, shaking his head. “You’re the first person I’ve told.”
He didn’t bother adding that he had already shared it with Maria, knowing that it would be assumed.
Another moment passed as Trick considered things. He placed his Cold Smoke on the table beside him and folded his arms across his chest, using one hand to stroke his goatee.
“Well, right now we have enough put back to last a week or more, and with the weather like it is, they won’t be pumping a lot, so they won’t have as much need.”
Wood grunted in agreement. “But after that, we could be hurting.”
“And we already know they won’t wait,” Trick said. “If we’re not ready, they’ll find someone who is.”
That one statement was what had kept Wood up most of the night, an inevitable truth that they could not avoid, no matter how badly he wanted to.
There was only one choice, something he wasn’t terribly excited to do, but had no way around.
“First light, I want you to peel off two men and go check on them. I know it’s a blizzard, but we can’t take the chance.”
The kitchen fell into silence, Trick’s attention focused on the floor as he thought about it. Wood had seen the pose enough to know he was working through the logistics in his head, would not speak until either a question or solution presented itself to him.
“Snowmobiles?”
“If you want,” Wood said, “or the coaches. I’ll leave that to you, whatever you think is the best way to get there.”
“Hmm,” Trick said, nodding slightly, continuing to chew on things. “And when we get there?”
“Assess and report,” Wood said. “From there we’ll figure out how close they are to being operational, if we should help them get up and running, or just cut our losses and figure something else out.”
Chapter Nineteen
The pressure in Yvonne Endicott’s head was explosive. Just the act of waking up, of opening her eyes and letting light in, had been brutal. Following it up with a surge of fear-based adrenaline and being forced to walk across the barn had her entire body quaking.
The moment the door closed behind her, pinning her into the makeshift room, she sank down into the ancient rocking chair, the wood groaning in protest beneath her. Despite the small ceramic space heater whirring on the table across the room, the chair was cold, passing through her scrub pants and causing goose pimples to rise on her skin.
Pressing her eyes closed tight, Yvonne cupped a hand around either elbow and bent forward at the waist, drawing her body in as tight as she could. There she remained for several minutes, willing herself not to cry, trying to push aside the enormous fear that gripped her, threatening to suffocate her.
There was no way to know what time it was or how much had passed. The last thing she remembered was standing outside the hospital, but how long she had been unconscious was anybody’s guess.
Yvonne raised her left hand to her face, using her fingers to gently probe her cheek. The surface was warm to the touch, the area puffy. A quick glance confirmed there were no mirrors in the room, though if she had to guess, she had a lump the size of a quarter protruding from her face. At least a few hours had passed, allowing the body to begin the healing process, nutrient-rich blood rushing to the area.
A few hours.
The thought brought a shudder as she again leaned forward, pulling herself in tight, trying to generate some body warmth, to shake the chills brought on by lying prone on the concrete floor.
Even in a snowstorm, the distance they could have traveled in that amount of time would leave a large search radius for the authorities to cover. And in this weather the odds of someone just passing by and noticing them were low. A quick glance around the room confirmed that the door was the only way in or out.
In short, she was a prisoner, trapped to do their bidding. Beyond that, she could only guess what would become of her.
Another quiver passed through her body, thinking of the two men standing outside, of the things they could do to her here, without anybody around to stop them.
A sheen of hot tears surfaced in her eyes as she thought of her situation. Two months before she had been in Atlanta, where it was warm, where things like abductions from the hospital sidewalk and blizzards didn’t occur. Perhaps the occasional brush with a shady character, almost always the unwanted advances of leering men, but never anything like this.
A single tear slid down her face as she thought about it, considering if this was to be her fate, her reward for packing up everything and moving to Montana. She made no effort to wipe it away, to stifle the single sob that slid from her throat, her mind wandering, landing on the reason she was there in the first place.
Her father.
Nearly as fast as they had arrived, the tears receded, replaced by a steely resolve.
She was not alone. There were people who would notice her absence – her father, her coworkers – they would have almost certainly reported it by now. They would be looking for her, they would send others to look for her.
Yvonne’s eyes slid open, her head rising a few inches, looking up from the ice crusted on her shoelaces and taking in the room around her, seeing it again for the first time.
She had been given a directive. There was a purpose for her being there. As much as she hated the notion of doing anything for these men, she knew she must.
Whatever it was, whatever task they presented her, she had to perform. Doing it meant staying alive, buying the precious time she needed for somebody, anybody, to come find her.
Chapter Twenty
It felt like thousands of tiny needles were jabbing into my feet and ankles, the capillaries in my lower extremities begrudgingly opening up, allowing blood to rush back in. After tromping through the snow for the better part of 20
minutes, all of it dense and wet, my shoes and jeans were both soaked, making the journey back to feeling normal difficult, despite the heater in the truck on high, all of it aimed straight down at the floorboards.
Beside me I could see Ferris was enduring his own kind of pain, squeezing the steering wheel in both hands so tight the veins bulged along the backs of them. He sat with his bottom pressed back into the seat, his back arched forward, as if he might launch himself out through the windshield at any moment.
“How much we talking?” he asked, his teeth gritted, his voice low.
It was the third time already he’d asked the question, each time his animosity rising a little closer to the surface.
“Hard to tell,” I said, keeping my tone clear, careful not to let him think I was getting annoyed. “Maybe an inch, a little more, in diameter. Hardly ideal conditions for forensics though.”
I could see him wince slightly at the word forensics.
Deciding to push past his line of inquiry, to open things up a little wider, I asked, “Anything new from the guard? From the hospital CEO?”
In my periphery I could see him glance my way before going back to the street, the snow continuing to fall, the engine strain a bit louder than it had been earlier.
“The CEO was a wash. She’d been called in when things went down, didn’t know anything.”
“Any ideas on motive?” I asked, knowing that even someone who had not witnessed the crime could be of value, just as Meredith Shek had been.
“Naw,” he said, shaking his head. “Both had nothing but nice things to say about her, said everybody felt the same way.”
“Hmm,” I said, bending forward. Starting mid-calf I wrapped both hands around my legs and began to rub, kneading the cold material and my skin beneath it, trying to help along the warming process. “Any chance this could have been racial?”
I had purposely moved into that position before asking the question, both so we could each clearly see the other and so he would know it wasn’t meant as an adversarial question.
“No,” Ferris said, turning to glare in my direction, his jaw set, before looking back out the front window. “This isn’t that kind of place.”
“Every place is that kind of place,” I countered. “It only takes one bigot to take it there, and in my experience no town is the world is immune to those.”
“Well, we are.”
He made the statement with a hint of finality that seemed to coincide with a handful of other peculiarities I had noticed since his arrival at my door hours before.
While it made sense that he needed manpower and was willing to lean on anybody available with proper training, it didn’t add up for him to do so that fast. There was a video that had showed what happened, and in a town the size of Glasgow he should have had a list of usual suspects and locations to check into before calling for outside help.
Especially in a blizzard, where the search area was much smaller than usual.
The fact that he had come straight to me, would have grabbed others if they were available, was a red flag. Coupled with a fuse that was getting shorter by the moment and his outright hostility at the mention of blood at the scene, warning sirens were beginning to go off for me.
There were two ways I could handle it. The first was choosing to remain quiet, to continue observing and try to ferret things out for myself.
Of course, being that subtle had never been my style, which left only option two.
“What’s your angle in all this?”
The question seemed to catch him unaware, his mouth opening and closing before he turned to stare in my direction. His grip slackened slightly on the steering wheel, the truck slowing.
“What?”
“Your angle,” I asked. “This means much more to you than just a kidnapping.”
Instantly, the hardened demeanor came back into place, Ferris waving a hand in my direction, dismissing the notion. “I’m the sheriff here. Something like this happens in my town, it’s on me.”
I let a moment pass, sufficient enough that he could see I was considering his response, though in reality I was only waiting a reasonable amount of time before responding.
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, “but there’s more to it. Something tells me if Myles Breckman had been the one snatched instead of Yvonne Endicott, things might be a little different.”
Once more Ferris turned to look at me, shock on his face. “Are you trying to insinuate that I pick and choose...”
“I’m insinuating nothing,” I said, cutting him off, raising my voice to stop him before his moral tirade really got off the ground. “I’m merely stating this is personal to you. It’s obvious as hell, and I’m wondering why.”
“Why? Does your being here hinge on it?” Ferris asked, going back on the offensive, ducking my question in the process.
“No,” I countered, “but it might go a hell of a long way in helping us solve this thing.”
Ferris’s right hand came up off the wheel, a finger outstretched as if he was about to give me a stern talking to, a principal on the verge of scolding an unruly child, before stopping. Slowly his hand returned to the wheel, his body relaxing as he again glanced over to me, some of the fire having drained from his features.
In its place was a twinge of weariness, the lines on his face the clearest they had been since he first arrived at my door.
“Yvonne Endicott is my niece.”
Of everything in the world Sheriff Rake Ferris could have said, perhaps short of telling me she was his lover, I don’t think anything would have surprised me more. I made no effort to hide that fact as my eyebrows tracked up my forehead, whatever adrenaline I had bleeding away as well.
“Your niece?”
“My niece,” he said, pushing himself back against the seat behind him. The engine bucked slightly as he pressed the pedal down a bit harder, moving past a stop sign and making a right, the name on the sign along the side of the road obscured by a sheet of snow clinging to it.
While the explanation certainly explained his actions, and his reactions, to everything that was going on around us, it also managed to open up other questions.
It was obvious that the revelation was one he had hoped could be kept hidden until after this was over, the girl found and unharmed. With just one sentence his entire demeanor had shifted, changing to one now much more befitting a man of his stature.
“Where are we headed now?” I asked, signaling that it was time to move on.
A moment passed, the heater still working hard to blow out hot air, before Ferris said, “I have to give the deputies an update, and there’s someone you should probably meet.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The resemblance was uncanny, once I was able to get past all the distractions and actually see the man sitting across from me. If I had to guess I would peg him as somewhere in his mid-to-late 50s, though he easily could pass for a decade older.
Again, whether that was what my eyes were seeing or my mind was computing based on everything else, I couldn’t be sure.
If the man had been surprised at all for us to be calling at such an odd hour, there was no indication of it. He didn’t seem to mind that Ferris knocked only once before pushing the front door open, very much awake, as if expecting us.
Seated in an overstuffed chair on the far side of the living room, he had the same watery blue eyes as the sheriff, even the same shaped face.
Beyond that, though, the resemblance was lost.
Any muscle mass the man had once had was gone, withered away, hidden beneath an enormous velour robe that gapped over a thin white t-shirt and pajama pants. Most of the hair was gone from his head, what was left snow white, like wisps of cotton.
Clear tubing ran down from both nostrils, connecting to a green oxygen canister on the floor beside him. On an adjacent night stand were a bevy of medication bottles, all lined up neatly, an empty water glass beside them.
“Hey, Mike,” Ferris said, settling h
imself onto one end of a leather sofa. “How you feeling? You need anything?”
The man in the chair raised a hand to wave him off, making it no more than a couple inches from his lap before giving up and lowering it.
“Who’s the new guy?”
The voice came out much stronger than I expected, certainly not befitting a man in his physical condition, my mind again making assumptions based on appearances and nothing more.
“This is Mr. Hawk,” Ferris said, motioning for me to take a seat on the opposite end of the couch. “He’s helping out in the investigation.”
The man sat and stared at me, his lips moving just slightly, no sound escaping as he put things together in his mind. “Hawk? As in...”
“Yeah, that was me,” I said, glancing over to Ferris, seeing him tense just slightly.
There was no point in avoiding it, the man having clearly heard about the prior incident, if not from Ferris himself, then most certainly from the townspeople. At the time I had not given much thought to how the event might be construed, having never really spent any time in town, my residing nearby more of a self-imposed exile than an effort to become a part of bucolic Americana.
What had transpired was bad, no doubt, but it paled in comparison to what would have happened had I not come back to Montana.
“My name is Mike Ferris,” he said, openly appraising me. “Rake’s older brother, Yvonne’s father.”
Neither the last name nor the skin tone matched up with what I knew about the victim, though I let it go without comment.
In my experience, it would come up soon enough anyway.
“Sergeant, U.S. Army, retired” Mike said, as if reading my thoughts. “Spent two years at Fort Benning, Georgia, enjoyed some time with a young lady I met there. Wasn’t until after I put in my service and returned home that I even discovered I had a daughter.”
The words of Meredith Shek echoed somewhere deep in my mind, reminding me that Yvonne had come from Atlanta.
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