“Damn right,” Sam said. “So let’s not make anymore, okay? We do the groundwork, search the boat, put our heads together and get ourselves a decent plan.”
Nate rubbed a hand across his eyes, looked at me. “Can you find the boat again?”
The need to do something, act now, swept over me with a feverish rush. Sam’s caustic retort, of all things, pulled me back from the edge of manic impatience. Look where that’s got you. Jenna couldn’t afford another mistake.
“It’s not far,” I sighed. “Turn around.”
“What’s at the micro brewery?” asked Jack.
I sent him a grimace. “Do you know about the canning factory in Joe’s book?”
“Yeah, that’s where…” He paled, the natural tan washing clear off his skin.
“Isla knows all the canning factory locations are compromised now that we’re onto her, so she plans to use the micro brewery instead. Can you check the Wellington area for any breweries?”
Jack pulled his phone out, put his head down and went to work.
I leant forward to poke Nate on the shoulder. “Have you called for backup?” Of course he had. “Where are we meeting them?”
“It’s just us.” His gaze met mine in the rearview mirror. “The Brackenport police are no longer cooperating.”
“It’s their job to cooperate,” I exclaimed. “They swore an oath to serve and protect. Does that not include Jenna?”
“The FBI have released Peter Nell. His alibi pans out, the Merc is clean and there’s nothing to tie him to Lacey Markson or Jenna. Without the link to Brackenport, Joe’s story wasn’t strong enough to convince them. The field agent has returned to New York.” Another glance in the mirror. “The chief of the Brackenport Police Department accused me of making him look like a clown in front of the FBI.”
“But Jenna is still missing! And what about me? Does he think I just drove your truck into a ditch and ran off?”
“You’re both connected to Joe,” Nate said. “He thinks you’re all playing a part in Joe’s mind games.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t matter, that bridge is burned,” Sam said flatly. “And the Lycoming Sheriff called our chief in Auburn to make his personal grievances known.”
“I have some explaining to do when I get back,” Nate added.
Ah, so that’s why Sam was extra special mad at me. Someone had ratted Nate out to his boss and I was the one that had dragged him into this mess.
Wait a minute. “If the FBI have dismissed Joe’s story, where is he?”
“Not dismissed,” Nate said. “Joe’s still considered a credible suspect, or witness, in the Lacey Markson case. The field agent took him back to New York for further questioning.”
“That’s what this is all about, the copycat murders, Joe, The Twilight Kill.” I slumped back in my seat. “Isla’s main goal is to frame Joe, and it looks like it’s working.”
Sam glanced over her shoulder at me. “They have some kind of history?”
I shook my head, then tapped Nate’s shoulder urgently. “Here! Stop.” I pointed to the bushes behind the trees. “Right through there.”
Nate pulled over and cut the engine, then shifted to look me in the eye. “It’s okay if you don’t want to go back to the boat. Spinner will wait here with you.”
“It’s fine,” I grumbled and climbed out.
It wasn’t, though. My feet dragged, each snow-plunging step a reminder of how very much I did not want to ever set foot on that boat again.
When I caught up to the others, they’d found the rubber dingy.
“Is this how you got to shore?” Nate said as he pushed it into the water.
“Yeah, let’s go with that,” I muttered and totally ignored the quizzical glance that earned.
The dingy couldn’t hold more than two people, at a squeeze. Jack ended up ferrying us across, Nate first, then Sam, leaving me for last.
The heavens above opened up on the last trip, unleashing an onslaught of rain and sleet all over me. Since, you know, this day wouldn’t be complete without a drenching. I scrambled off the dingy and up the fiberglass steps, cursing myself for not staying dry and warm and sane inside the truck.
Sam had already disappeared down the hatch, but Nate was there when I scurried across the deck. He caught my hand and pulled me into the pilot house, out of the wind and practically into his arms.
Although, not all the way.
He kept me at an arm’s distance and cocked his jaw, his gaze intense, watching, waiting…
Oh.
“I’m really sorry about stealing your truck,” I said. “And for going after Isla without you. Well, I’m not really sorry I found Jenna, and now at least we know Isla’s next move, but I am sorry for making you worry.”
His hands rubbed up my arms to my shoulders as he looked at me, said nothing.
I wet my lips. “I think that’s it.”
The silver glint in his eyes warmed to stone. “Not yet.”
I scratched my memory for anything I’d missed, came up empty. “You’ll have to help me out here. What did I miss?”
“Nothing.” The shadows haunting his expression were gone, replaced with the barest trace of a grin. “I’m just not done looking at you.”
My pulse hitched. Suddenly I was hyper-conscious of the dreadful sight I made. Because let’s be honest, the apocalypse could come and go and I’d still fret about what Nate saw when he looked at me. Forget the drenching, I hadn’t washed in days, hadn’t brushed my hair—or my teeth, for that matter.
I rolled my eyes to cover the cringe of embarrassment. “To quote Sam,” I grumbled, “I look like shit.”
“You’ve never looked more beautiful to me,” he said, his voice swathed in darker tones of honey.
My heart melted a little, right there, right then.
I got lost there for a while, in his smoky gaze, in the warmth unfolding inside me, but it wasn’t long before reality bled its way back in.
“Jenna,” I murmured.
Nate nodded, took another moment before he released his grip on me and reached inside his jacket, bringing out my cell phone. “You left this in the truck.”
“The battery ran out,” I explained as I tucked the phone into my coat pocket.
We exchanged a smile of sorts, words left unsaid, emotions left buried, possibly another apology left hanging.
FOURTEEN
Down below, Sam was tossing apart the cabin in her hunt for that solid lead.
“Try not to touch anything,” she yelled when she saw me, and made a point of showing me her gloved hands. “I don’t want your grubby paws to defile my evidence.”
“She’s kidding, right?” I said to no one in particular. “My grubby paws, and my sweat and blood, are all over this place.”
Perched on a bunk, Jack waved his phone at me. “Looks like there’s only one micro brewery near Wellington. The Tollercon Apple Cider Company.”
That didn’t improve my mood.
We needed to be on the road to Jenna, not revisiting my nightmares.
Nate took a slow look over the remnants of my great escape. The shot out hatch. The chain still bolted to the bunk. Scattered zip ties. Blood spotted on the floor.
He gave a low whistle as his gaze swept to me. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“I’m a kitten,” I said. “So long as you don’t chain me up and lock me in.”
His expression sobered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.”
“Yeah, well, that was kind of my fault.”
“Look at this,” Sam called out.
She was standing in the skinny doorway, flipping through a fat folder.
I hurried over to take a look. My eyes widened on the plastic sheaths insides, each one holding a set of printed pages and a micro flash drive. “Where did you find that?”
Sam gestured behind her. “In there.”
Apparently I hadn’t tossed the place a
s thoroughly upside down as I’d thought.
I tried to take the folder from her.
Sam lifted it out of reach. “Uh, uh.”
Nate joined us and plucked it from her hand. “What is this?”
The thickness of the folder churned my stomach. I didn’t need to take a closer look. I already knew exactly what that was and every plastic sheath was someone’s life, someone’s death.
“Isla’s final hour collection,” I told them as I fell back, sank onto the bunk. “If I’m right, the last entry will be Lacey Markson.”
While Nate and Sam stood with their heads bent over the folder, I explained what they were looking at.
“Lacey Markson’s here.” Sam peered across to me. “Are you saying these flash drives contain actual recordings of Isla’s victims? Their voices?”
“That’s what she said.” I shrugged. “Maybe video footage as well. And she also transcribed the final hour. That’s probably on those pages.”
Nate snapped the folder shut. “There’s enough here to convict Isla.”
I grunted. “We have to catch her first.”
“We will.” He came to sit beside me. “What else can you tell us? Start at the beginning. Even the smallest thing could be relevant.”
Sam drifted closer.
Jack gave me his full attention.
Conscious of every wasted minute, I rattled my way through everything I’d learnt about Isla, her final hour collection, her illogical envy over Joe’s fame and how she was using The Twilight Kill to frame him. I told them about her original location, Burke Orchards, but how she’d changed her mind and decided on the micro brewery once she realized Joe was already on her tail.
When I was done, Sam said thoughtfully, “Max Wilder kills the girl at the abandoned factory.”
Jack glanced at the browser opened on his phone. “The Tollercon Apple Cider Company is the only micro-brewery in the area, but it’s a functioning business.”
“Does it shut down out of business hours?” asked Nate.
“Not according to an interview the owner did some months back,” Jack said. “It was about the economy and ongoing concerns of small business. He mentioned the cost of keeping on a skeleton staff. The fermentation process can’t be interrupted, so the machinery runs 24/7.”
Sam’s brow puzzled. “How does Isla plan to get past them?”
“Skeleton staff. Night duty.” Nate shrugged. “They tend to get careless.”
“Longer coffee breaks,” Sam agreed. “So, she could sneak a body in, maybe…”
“But she couldn’t do the final hour there,” Nate said.
“She needs somewhere isolated.”
“She’d have to kill Jenna there—”
“—and move her body later.”
“That doesn’t follow the script.”
“Isla’s adapted before.”
My gaze bounced between them as they finished each other’s thoughts. Someone, somewhere, would probably find that sweet. This wasn’t the place and I wasn’t that person.
“What are you saying?” I interrupted. “That Isla isn’t taking Jenna to the micro brewery?”
Nate looked at me. “The final hour has to happen at the end, right? The actual last hour of that person’s life?”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
“Then, no, Jenna’s final hour won’t be at the micro brewery.”
Panic fluttered in my chest. “We’re back to square one. Jenna’s gone and we have no idea where Isla’s holding her.”
“It will be somewhere close to Tollercon,” Nate said. “We’ll find her in time.”
Sam blew out a breath. “How does Max Wilder get the machinery working at the canning factory? The place is abandoned, the power cut, and even if it wasn’t cut, you’d need an experienced operator to turn it all on.”
“The power isn’t cut and he reads an operating manual,” Nate drawled. “It’s fiction, Sam.”
“Isla never intended using an abandoned factory, anyway,” I said. “So how is that relevant?”
Sam’s eyes sharpened on me. “Burke Orchards, right?”
“Originally,” I pointed out. “Isla gave that plan up.”
“They have their own farms?”
“That’s what Isla said.”
She flicked a finger at Jack’s phone. “See what you can find on Burke Orchards.”
Jack started tapping.
“What’s on your mind, Sam?” said Nate.
She smiled. “Look around. Isla already had Jenna at the perfect isolated location for that final hour.”
“Here?” I said.
Sam nodded. “So why move her, why try to find another place at the last minute?”
“Because I was here.”
“She could have gagged you again, locked you in the sleeping cabin or above deck.”
“It’s too far from Wellington?” Nate suggested.
“No, the final hour is more important to Isla,” I said, reluctantly agreeing with Sam. “She’d rather deviate from Joe’s script than jeopardize it.”
“I’ve got the Burke Orchards homepage,” Jack spoke up.
“They have a farm shop on site?”
Jack looked. “Yeah.”
“And we all know farm shops open and close with the daylight.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “The shop’s winter hours are 9 to 4.”
“Let me see.” She held her hand out for Jack’s phone, took a look, then showed it to Nate. “The farm shop is in the enclosure with the factory.”
“Behind the gates,” Nate said.
“Isla would want to get inside the gates before they’re locked.”
“That’s why she took Jenna and left the boat so early.”
“Production must be down in winter.”
“Maybe they shut the factory for extended periods.”
“That would be my guess.”
They were doing it again, the twin thing that would probably bother the crap out of me later. For now, however, it was doing more good than harm.
I coughed to get their attention. “What about Joe? He’s the reason Isla swapped locations to the micro brewery. Why would she change her mind again?”
“She knows Joe has turned himself over to the FBI,” Nate said. “You told her.”
Sam followed on with, “In her head, they’ve already convicted him and not looking any further. Jenna can’t talk.”
“And so far as Isla’s aware,” Nate finished, “you’re still safely locked and chained to the boat.”
I scowled from Nate to Sam. “Are we absolutely sure about this?”
“We’re sure,” they said together.
Jack jumped up. “We have to go.” He checked his watch. “It’s three thirty. We won’t make it to the gates in time.”
Nate pulled out his badge. “This should still be enough to get us past the security guard.”
FIFTEEN
On first impression, Burke Orchards wasn’t quite as big as I’d imagined. The farmland, I supposed, stretched for miles and miles, but the actual compound seemed comprised of a handful of medium-sized buildings, mostly cast in shadow from the foggy halo of the odd security light.
The sleet and rain had turned to a snow blizzard (or close enough), and it was way past dark before we eventually arrived.
The sentry house stood to the left of tall, wrought-iron gates. After some back and forth, and a couple of flashed badges, the stocky guard opened the gate with the warning that he’d have to call his boss.
He reached through the cubbyhole of his house to pass a swipe card to Nate. “That will give you access to all the buildings.”
Nate waved a hand over the shadowed husks before us. “Which one is the canning factory?”
“Those are the warehouses and packing centers.” He pointed into the blackness. “Through the car park, follow the road about a mile into the woodland. The factory’s back there, in a clearing. You can’t miss it.”
Sam leaned over
Nate to speak to the guard. “Is the factory operational at the moment?”
“No, ma’am, it only starts up again end of January.”
Nate rolled his window up and hit the gas.
I glanced over my shoulder to see the gate slide closed behind us. “He could have offered to join the search party.”
Sam snorted. “He probably doesn’t get paid enough to risk his life.”
I don’t get paid at all, I groused. Silently. One the way here, Sam had argued extensively against my case to tag along. I was a risk, apparently, a casualty waiting to happen. I didn’t want to open that can of worms and find myself stuck in the sentry house with the guard.
The snow fell faster than the windscreen wipers could bat and Nate slowed right down, especially when the road twisted into the woods.
I peered out the side window, not that I could see anything. My heart beat an unsteady tattoo, adrenaline and dread. “God, I hope we’re right about this.”
Jack reached for my hand. “We’ll get to Jenna in time.”
“Of course we will,” I said softly, and sighed.
If Nana Rose were here, she’d say we were flying on a wing and a prayer. I’d always loved that expression. What was not to love about wings and prayer? All good, right? But then she’d usually add to whomever it was directed at, “Don’t come crying to me when the hot air bursts your sails.”
I had no idea what she meant by that. Maybe I’d ask, when she finally came ashore again. She’d gone sailing the wild seas with her brand new husband and every month we got the postcard that they’d extended their cruise yet again.
I wondered why Nana Rose came to mind, then I knew. I missed her. Just like I missed Jenna, knowing she was coming home, of course she was, but at the same time I wasn’t entirely sure.
The headlights lit on something in the trees, there and gone. There again. Gone.
Nate stepped on the brakes. “Did you see that?”
No one answered.
We were all too busy squinting out the windshield.
“I’m going to take a look,” he said. “If I’m not back in five minutes…”
“I’ll bust your ass,” Sam replied.
He opened his door a fraction, glanced at me. “I won’t be long.”
Words That Kill (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 3) Page 14
