“No one could love combat.” Grant thought of all the good men he’d seen maimed and killed, all the flag-draped coffins he’d saluted, the crying widows and shock-faced children.
“Then why do you do it?”
“Duty. The country needs soldiers. I’d been groomed my whole life to serve. To protect American citizens and their way of life.”
“People like Lee and Kate,” Mac added.
“Ironic, isn’t it? I was protecting them thousands of miles away from where they were being murdered.”
“Whoa.” Mac raised his hands. “Even those Mr. Clean shoulders of yours can’t bear guilt over this. Or at least not any more than me and Hannah. None of us were paying attention. None of us knew anything about what was really going on in Lee’s life. If any of us failed him, we all did. Don’t think for a second that me and Hannah aren’t feeling plenty guilty, too.”
“I have no intention of failing him again.” Grant drove the rest of the way without speaking. Mac’s revelation about their shared guilt shouldn’t have come as a shock. Of course they felt remorse and regret. None of them knew Lee’s life was in shambles. Were the three of them so wrapped up in their own lives, so disinterested in Lee, that he felt like he couldn’t share his troubles? The answer was an obvious and resounding yes.
Ambition would be the Barretts’ downfall.
The trailer park occupied a field in the middle of fucking nowhere. Forest surrounded an open space the size of two side-by-side football fields. Dirt roads bisected a grid of small, square lots. Grant turned at the ingress, where white script on a faded green sign proclaimed they were entering Happy Valley Trailer Park.
He drove up and down multiple rows, the muddy road grating and squishing under the tires.
The sedan lurched over a deep rut. Mac grabbed the chicken strap hanging above the door. “We should have brought my truck.”
“I didn’t anticipate going off-road.”
“Over there.” Mac pointed through the windshield. “I see a pig.”
“Son of a bitch.” Grant kept driving past a white trailer outfitted to look like a miniature farmhouse. Black shutters flanked the windows. A two-foot picket fence surrounded a patch of weedy lawn adorned with decorative pig silhouettes. The pig flag waved from its bracket next to the door.
“No car out front.” Mac scratched his chin. “How do we sneak up? There’s no cover.”
“No.” Grant spotted an empty space two spots down the lane and parked the sedan. “Sneaking doesn’t appear to be an option. Any ideas?”
“Yeah. Let’s talk to the neighbors. I suddenly feel interested in this empty lot.” Mac reached for the door handle. “Try not to scare the piss out of anybody.”
“I’ll do my best.” Grant rolled his eyes. “Unless we find Donnie. Then all bets are off.”
“Fair enough.” Mac opened his door and got out. “I’ll do the talking.” He pointedly scanned Grant from boots to jacket. “No one would believe you were interested in a trailer park.”
Grant looked down at his clothes. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“Nothing. You’re just too . . . ironed.” Mac’s attire leaned toward scraggly. His hiking boots were scuffed from use, and the holes in his jeans weren’t a fashion statement, but a lack of interest in shopping or his appearance.
Mac walked past a dinged pickup truck to the trailer between the empty lot and the pig house. The unit was neat but basic. He knocked on the door.
A thin, middle-aged man in a flannel shirt, jeans, and tan work boots answered. His Bee Gees beard was neatly trimmed but made him look like he stepped out of the 1970s. “Yeah?”
Mac backed down the step, giving the guy some space. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m interested in the lot. Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
“Sure.” Tugging a Mets cap over a salt-and-pepper shag cut, he locked his door and walked down the steps to join them on the square cement landing. “I’m leaving for work. I only got a couple minutes.”
“I’m Mac.” He held out a hand.
The Mets fan shook it. “Bob.”
Mac crossed his arms over his chest. “How is this place?”
“It’s OK.” Bob shrugged. “Folks mostly mind their own business. Some people have been here forever, but there’s a fair amount of turnover.”
“Is it quiet at night? I get up early for work.”
“I hear you. I hate first shift.” Bob huffed. “Broad next door and her boyfriend are into some weird shit. They go at it till late some nights. Pain in the ass. Some nights I got to put on fucking headphones. Forget leaving the windows open.”
“Have they been here long?”
“She has, but he’s pretty new. I’m hoping he moves on. She goes through boyfriends like napkins. Seems like a lazy piece of shit to me. Probably an ex-con. Mean-looking dude.” Bob touched his face just below his eye. “Got one of those blue ink tats right here.”
“Huh.” Mac made a noncommittal sound of interest.
“Three kinds of people live in a place like this.” Bob held up a hand and ticked them off on his fingers. “Broke seniors, hardworking people trying to scrape by, and scumbags. The boyfriend is a scumbag, freeloading on a lonely woman.” Pure disgust colored his voice.
“Maybe I’ll knock on the door and see for myself.”
Bob glanced over at the pig-adorned trailer. “She ain’t home. Must be at work. She runs a register at the Walmart on the highway.”
“Hmm. I really need my sleep.” Mac scraped a toe on the concrete. “Maybe I should come back at night and listen for myself.”
“Probably.” Bob nodded. “Hey, I gotta get to work. Can’t afford to get docked.”
“Thanks for the info, man.”
“Anytime.” Bob got into his truck and drove away.
“Well, what do you think?”
Grant scanned the area. There was no one outside. “Can you work your magic on the lock?”
“Sure. Kind of ballsy in daylight though.”
“I’m feeling kind of ballsy.”
“OK.” Mac followed him to the trailer, raised his hand, and pretended to knock. Grant crowded him, using his body to block Mac’s hands from view. Two seconds later, Mac cracked the door. Grant nudged his brother out of the way and took point. His Beretta was in his hand as he crossed the threshold. He inhaled. Something smelled off. Raw.
Dead.
Mac sniffed and handed him a pair of latex gloves. “Not good.”
“Do you just carry those around?”
His brother shrugged. “Thought we might need them. I like to be prepared.”
“I feel like we need hazmat suits.”
The door opened into the living area. Nothing interesting in sight. Grant moved through the empty kitchen. A door led to the single bedroom. Grant gestured toward the assortment of BDSM toys scattered on the bed: handcuffs, whips, a spiked collar, something that looked like one of the dog’s Kong toys with straps on it. “Is that a ball gag?”
“You are asking the wrong person.”
Five minutes later, Grant pulled a manila envelope out of the bottom of a drawer. He opened and tilted it. A picture of Lee and Kate fell into his other hand. They were walking out of their house. Lee’s arm curled around Kate’s waist as he spoke in her ear. Her head was tilted toward him. The address was written on the bottom of the photo. “Shit.”
Grant turned the picture over. Notes were scrawled across the back. Locations of both of their employers, license plate numbers, e-mail addresses, and their daily schedules. The login information for their online calendars was scrawled in the middle of the page. That explained how he knew where to find them. Grant’s gut went sour as he focused on the last note: $5,000.
“Look what I found.” Mac said across the room.
Grant used his cell p
hone to snap a picture of the photo and the notes on the back.
Mac was holding a pricy laptop. “What the hell is a lowlife scrounging off a cashier doing with a machine like this?”
“Probably stole it. McNamara said Donnie had done time for ID theft.”
Mac returned the computer to the closet and crossed the floor. He sucked air when he looked at the photo. “Someone paid this guy to kill them.”
Instead of the hot rage Grant expected, ice flowed through his body. In front of him was evidence that Donnie Ehrlich had been hired to murder Lee and Kate. Grant didn’t want to call the cops. He wanted to lie in wait for this guy, then ambush and kill him after he beat a confession from his lips. Grant wanted Donnie’s blood, and the blood of the person who’d hired him, on his hands. But he wouldn’t do it. He’d do the right thing. As a soldier he’d sworn to protect his country, and that included all the laws that comprised her. Going vigilante wasn’t defending democracy.
But his hands—and his determination—were shaky as he returned the photo to its hiding place.
“Now what?”
“Only one place left to look.” Grant opened the door to the bathroom. His stomach curled at the sight—and smell. The body lay on its side in the bathtub. She was nude, wrapped cocoon-style in a sheet of plastic, the seams thoroughly duct taped. Ice was piled around the shrouded body. Empty plastic bags marked ICE, the kind sold in liquor stores, littered the floor. Her features were blurred by multiple layers of plastic, but Grant could make out a slender shape, long dark hair, and one, wide-open blue eye. Another layer of anger tested his tenuous control.
Mac looked over his shoulder. “I assume that’s the cashier.”
“Seems likely.”
“Now we call the police.”
Grant’s gaze swept over the clutter of hair spray bottles and body lotion, the personal items the cashier would never use again. He glanced back at the body. What a fucking waste. “Yeah. It’s time.”
They slipped out of the trailer and returned to the car. Grant drove to the end of the street and pulled out his cell phone.
“Are you calling the cop?”
“Yes.”
Mac shook his head. “Might be best to deliver this tip anonymously.”
“Good point.” Grant circled to the front of the park, where the office squatted next to a gravel parking area. A pay phone hung on the exterior along the side of the building.
“Let’s see if this works.” Grant parked behind the office. He dug some loose change out of the ashtray. The phone was live. McNamara didn’t answer the call, and Grant left an anonymous message, though the cop might recognize his voice. He wiped his prints off the phone and went back to the car.
“Are we going to sit here and wait?”
“No.” It took all of Grant’s willpower to turn the car toward the exit and drive out of the trailer park. The urge to confront his brother’s killer seethed under Grant’s skin like bits of shrapnel, but deep down, he was afraid he’d lose control, that he’d kill Donnie before he found out who’d hired him. “I don’t want to tip off Donnie.”
“He’d definitely bolt if he saw us.”
“Hopefully, the cops will pick up Donnie, and he’ll tell them who paid him. His stuff was still in the trailer. I assume he was coming back.” But under all the civilized pretense, Grant’s heart and soul were screaming for revenge, and instinct told him that Donnie would cave faster to him than to the police. When put in just the right place, there was no better motivator than a sharp blade.
His fingers tightened on the wheel. “I hope we’re doing the right thing.”
“We are,” Mac said. “I’ve operated outside the law. It’s not a good place to be.”
“No. I imagine not.”
Mac pointed at him. “You know Lee wouldn’t want us to take risks. We can’t take care of the kids if we’re dead or in prison. Plus, if you go all apeshit and kill this guy, how will we find out who hired him?”
It seemed as if Mac was reading his mind.
“I know, but I don’t like it.” At a stop sign, Grant texted Ellie to let her know they were headed home. He could do this, but sitting back and waiting wouldn’t be easy. He’d only be able to hold back for a short time. If the police couldn’t find Donnie, Grant would go hunting.
Chapter Thirty
The hall bathroom of the Barretts’ house needed a serious renovation. Ellie attempted to duplicate an intricate braid in her daughter’s hair, but her mind was redesigning the space.
Could the cast-iron claw-foot tub be restored? The answer depended on how deep the rust had eroded into the finish, but it was a lovely, elegant fixture. The clunky vanity had to go. A pair of pedestal sinks would fit the house far better.
Julia sat in front of her in a desk chair they’d dragged in from the guest room. On an iPad propped on the vanity, a girl demonstrated the hairstyle Julia wanted for her skating routine at the winter carnival.
“If I don’t make practice tonight, I can’t perform in the show. Coach Victor said so.”
“I know.” Ellie folded one piece of hair over another and pulled the strands tight. “I’ll do my best to get you there. Major Barrett said he’d take us later as long as he gets home in time.”
“I like him, even if he did get me and Taylor in trouble.”
“Major Barrett did not get you in trouble. You got you in trouble.” Ellie missed a step with her hairdo and had to backtrack. She unwound two sections, rewound the video, and did it again. Better. Disheveled hair was a no-no on the ice. “What you did was dangerous. What did you expect him to do?”
“I don’t know.” Julia lifted her shoulders.
“Hold still.” Ellie wove and tucked hair, but panic was inching up her esophagus as she thought of Julia sneaking out of the house while Donnie Ehrlich was after her.
“You’re mad.”
“I’m not mad.” Ellie fastened the end of the braid with an elastic band and bobby pinned it into place. “I’m scared. It’s my job to protect you. I can’t do that if you sneak out in the middle of the night. What if that man was watching and waiting for you?”
“I didn’t know about him,” Julia protested.
“No. You had no idea who was out there, but now you do. Close your eyes.” Ellie gave Julia’s hair a good blast of hair spray. She picked up a hand mirror and showed Julia the back of her head. The braid was twisted around and woven into a bun. “What do you think?”
Julia smiled. “It’s pretty. I hope it holds up during practice.”
“That’s why we’re giving it a dry run.” Ellie set the mirror down and stopped the video. “Look, I know I’ve been strict with you. When this is all over, I’ll take the time to get to know Taylor.”
“You’ll let me go out with him?”
“I’m not making any promises. Maybe we’ll start with him coming to our house. He will need to be driving a safe vehicle. I’m sure I’ll have other conditions when I have a chance to really think things through, but yes. Your sixteenth birthday is coming up. I think it’s time.”
“How many conditions?”
“I’ll try to be reasonable and balance my sanity with your safety. But you have to promise you’ll never try to sneak out again.”
“Deal.” Julia stood up and hugged her. Ellie closed her eyes and enjoyed the embrace. With every year that passed in her daughter’s life, hugs became scarcer.
“Now go run around and see how that braid holds up.”
“I promised Carson a game of Candy Land.”
“Thank you for helping out with the kids,” Ellie said. “I know Major Barrett appreciates you pitching in.”
“I like Carson.”
“He likes you, too.”
Julia bounced out into the hallway. How she could be that happy when the man who’d chased her was still on the loose, Ellie
had no idea. She tidied up the bathroom, then went to the room she and Julia were sharing. Carson’s and Julia’s voices floated down the hall, childish, innocent, sweet. Who could want to hurt either one of them? A text came in on her phone. Grant was on his way. She ignored the pleasure that knowledge gave her. This was not his home or hers. He would be leaving again in a few weeks, and he didn’t know when he could come back.
Images of their brief and intense lovemaking seared her mind. She’d been near desperate to have him, to connect with him as a physical expression of the feelings she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. But whether she was ready to admit it or not, the possibility of love hovered around her heart.
Her phone vibrated in her hand. A call, not a text. The number on the screen belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton. She closed the bedroom door for privacy and stabbed the green Answer button. “Hello.”
“Is this Ellie Ross?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Yes.”
“This is Aubrey Hamilton.”
“Mrs. Hamilton. Thank you for returning my call.”
“Frankly, I’m disappointed it took your firm this long to contact us.” Mrs. Hamilton’s tone carried her annoyance.
“About that.” Guilt nagged Ellie. Hoping the woman wouldn’t hang up, she said, “this call isn’t exactly about firm business.”
“Excuse me? I don’t understand. We’ve been waiting for a call back from Mr. Peyton. That’s not what you’re calling about?”
“No. I’m sorry. But I need to speak with you. Can we meet? I’d rather explain in person.”
“All right,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “I think it would be better to do this in private. Do you want to come to me or shall I come to you?”
Ellie did not want anyone to come to the house. “Are the media still outside your house?”
“No. Our daughter’s case is no longer exciting news. The press gave up their vigilance when the police declared there wasn’t enough evidence to file charges.” Mrs. Hamilton sounded bitter. “They jumped on that interview, but only because bullying is such a hot-button topic.”
Ellie checked the clock. “There’ll be a tall man with me. Say in about an hour?”
Hour of Need (Scarlet Falls) Page 24
