Town at the Edge of Darkness

by Brett Battles

  They made small talk until the waitress took their order. After she was gone, Scudder said, “So, how can I help convince you Bradbury is the place to be?”

  Ananke started in on a series of questions she and the others had come up with, aimed at putting Scudder at ease. The truth was, he appeared relaxed from the start. If he was heading up a notorious smuggling operation, he certainly didn’t seem concerned about it.

  He had given her the lowdown on why he’d picked Bradbury for his company, telling her how it reminded him of his childhood, how he loved that it was close to nature, and how it had an unmatched quality of life. When he finished, Ananke decided it was time to move toward the stuff that really mattered.

  “One of my company executives used to work in California with someone I believe works for you now.”

  “Is that so? Who?” No suspicion in his voice.

  “Natasha Patterson.”

  The look on his face changed to veiled sadness, but there was no hint of wariness.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No. Not at all. Tasha’s great. One of my best employees. I’m lucky to have her. It’s just that she’s away on a family emergency.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. What happened?”

  “She’s a very private person.” Nice cover.

  “I didn’t mean to push.”

  “No, you weren’t. To be honest, I have no idea what’s going on. Like I said, she’s a private person and has kept the details to herself.”

  “Of course. Well, when you do see her, please tell her Noah Markle says hi.”

  “I will.”

  Lunch came, and as they ate, Ananke asked a few more generic questions about life in Bradbury while trying to figure out what her next move should be. The problem was, the vibe she was getting off him—like the vibe she’d gotten from Harris—didn’t fit Ananke’s preconceived narrative. Perhaps he was an accomplished actor—one didn’t get as far as he did without faking it at least a little sometimes—but Ananke was an expert at seeing through that kind of bullshit. If she wasn’t, she would have been dead a dozen times by now. With Scudder, her internal lie detector stayed silent.

  She decided to test the other thing that might get a reaction out of him.

  “What about zoning laws and regulations? Any issues there?”

  “Both the county and the city are very accommodating to new businesses. There’s even a joint commission made up of government officials and several local CEOs, including myself. I’m sure you’ll have little problem with anything, as long as it is within reason, of course.”

  “Without going into too much detail, there’s a shipping and receiving component to the facility we’re planning. At times, it might get a little high volume.”

  “Not a problem. As you can imagine, we do a lot of shipping ourselves. Might I suggest, though, finding a spot just outside of town to prevent any noise complaints.”

  “Have you experienced that?”

  “A bit at the beginning, but we adjusted our schedules and we haven’t had any problems since.”

  “Even with your late-night deliveries?”

  Scudder looked at her. “I’m sorry?”

  “Like last night.”

  “Last night?”

  “My colleague and I were coming back from having a drink, and a truck drove by escorted by a couple of Scolareon security cars.”

  Scudder’s confusion continued. “I guess there’s a chance a truck was behind schedule. We cut off all shipping traffic by eight p.m., but occasionally there are exceptions.”

  “Of course.”

  Like before, she detected no indication he was trying to mislead her. She asked a few more questions so that the truck matter wouldn’t be the last thing they discussed, and then said, “I know you’re a busy man so I won’t keep you any longer. I can’t thank you enough for meeting with me.”

  “Absolutely my pleasure. We’re building something special here, and I take it as my personal mission to make sure that continues. If you have any further questions, now or in the future, you have my number.”

  Ananke offered to pay but Scudder insisted on doing it, so she thanked him again and left after a handshake.

  She waited until she was back in the Mustang, pulling out of her parking spot, before she said, “Did you guys hear all that?”

  “Every word,” Dylan replied.

  “It sounded like he knows nothing about what is going on,” Liesel said. “Of course, we could not see him. What is your sense?”

  “The same. If he’s involved, then I need to retire.”

  “But Ricky saw the truck at Scolareon,” Dylan argued. “It’s on the list Patterson made. And she works for Scudder. How can he not know?”

  “I don’t know the answer to how,” Ananke said, “but I don’t think he does know. Someone else at the company must be running things, or working with whoever is.”

  She signed off with them and called Shinji.

  “I need to know more about the people working at Scolareon. Start with the security people Ricky saw at the delivery. Then look into management. There’s got to be something off about someone there.”

  “Scudder didn’t pan out?”

  “We can’t close the door on him, but I don’t think he’s part of the problem.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  Before Dylan and Liesel shadowed Ananke on her lunch date, Ricky and Rosario stopped by their rental to pick out some gear. The latter two then headed out on Ricky’s motorcycle toward Dalton Slater’s address, a good five miles north of Green Hills Estate.

  Interesting fact number one: the place was a ranch of at least two hundred acres on an old country road. The house sat about a quarter mile from the highway, and was reached via a long driveway. Ricky and Rosario only knew this because the fields surrounding the house were clear of trees, giving them a good view of the place as they drove by.

  Fact number two: a six-foot-high electrified fence, topped with two strands of razor wire, surrounded the entire property. In addition to signs hanging from the fence, warning of its shocking nature, there were other signs reading: THE ONLY GOOD TRESSPASSER IS A DEAD TRESSPASSER, and TO ALL POTENTIAL TRESSPASSERS—WE SHOOT FIRST AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER, and GO AHEAD I DARE YOU. The last was accompanied by a cartoon of a stereotyped Mexican in sombrero and poncho staring bug-eyed into the barrel of a shotgun.

  Friendly folks, these Slaters.

  Getting on the property would be tricky, but that didn’t mean they had to leave without getting a decent look at the place. Ricky picked out a hill on the opposite side of the road, two hundred yards past the driveway, and parked the motorcycle around the back where it would be out of sight.

  From there, they climbed the hill.

  At the summit, Rosario pulled her binoculars out of her backpack, took a look toward the Slaters’ home. Ricky retrieved his own set.

  At maximum magnification, the view made him feel like he was standing in their front yard. The house—four bedrooms at least—was a decent size for the area. It had a wraparound porch and a sloped roof with a pair of chimneys. Beyond the house was a barn and a stable with a fenced-off corral.

  He scanned the rest of the property. To the right of the house was a large, closed garage. In addition to whatever vehicles were stored in it, five cars were parked between the building and the house.

  “No white truck,” Ricky said, lowering the binoculars.

  “It will be here eventually.”

  “If I’d known this was going to turn into a stakeout, I would have brought a bag of pork rinds.”

  “Pork what?”

  “Skin, you know. Deep fried.” He smiled. “Tasty!”

  She gave him a glance over the top of her lenses, then went back to scanning the area.

  They’d been sitting there for nearly half an hour when she suddenly tensed. “Is that the truck?”

  He tried to follow where she was pointing her glasses. “W
here?”

  “Way to the left. On the highway.”

  He aimed the binoculars west. The highway was about a quarter mile away. When he found the vehicle she’d indicated, the skin on his forearms tingled.

  A white pickup, crew cab, Ford headlights, and something in its bed covered by a tarp the same color as the one he’d seen.

  “That’s it,” he said, smiling.

  He kept the binoculars on the vehicle. Another few seconds and it would be turning onto the road to the farm. He was so sure of this that it took him a second to register the truck had driven right past the intersection.

  “Son of a bitch!” He jumped to his feet. “Come on!”

  They half slid, half ran down the hill back to the Yamaha, and seconds later were racing down the road. When they swerved onto the highway, Ricky jammed the accelerator and flew down the asphalt.

  The highway curved and dipped and curved again, thwarting efforts to see far ahead. Finally, they crested a ridge and the truck was there, about half a mile away. It wasn’t quite to Bradbury yet, but getting close.

  “It is slowing,” Rosario yelled.

  It sure as hell was, Ricky saw. A moment later it turned left off the highway and disappeared.

  “I think that is the entrance to Green Hills Estates,” Rosario said.

  Ricky nodded. He’d driven this way enough by now to know the entrance to the exclusive housing area was the only road in that area. He decelerated, and by the time they drove past the entrance, the bike was under the speed limit.

  A quarter mile on, he spotted a dirt road on the same side as the estates and veered onto it.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Rosario asked.

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  To their left, rolling hills separated them from the estates. Ricky kept an eye out for a trail that might lead over them. He stayed on the dirt road until it petered out.

  He stopped for a moment, foot on the ground, and scanned the hills for the best way over.

  “What about over there?” Rosario said, pointing to a pass a little farther ahead.

  It was as good a choice as any. Ricky said, “Hang on,” and steered the Yamaha off the road into the hills.

  When they reached the top of the pass, he stopped again.

  Green Hill Estates stretched out below them, nestled in a gentle valley. He could see the main road that circled the entire estates—Grand Way, according to the maps—and several of the luxury homes built along it. The road was deserted, which, given how few lived in the area, wasn’t surprising. Between it and their position grew a large grove of pines.

  Rosario examined the valley through her binoculars. “I do not see the truck.”

  “It’s gotta be there somewhere.”

  She put the glasses away and grabbed on to Ricky’s waist. “Let’s go find it.”

  Letting gravity do most of the work to reduce the noise of their engine, Ricky steered the bike through the woods.

  When they reached Grand Way, he said, “Left or right?”

  “Right?”

  “Why not?”

  Long driveways intersected Grand Way in a seemingly random pattern. Some led to homes already built, while the majority appeared to end at properties still waiting to be developed. No sign of the white truck on any of the lots.

  Had Slater left while they were looking for a way into the valley? That would suck.

  The next driveway was gated off about a hundred feet in. Ricky stopped just past it.

  “Scudder’s place,” Rosario said, after consulting a map on her phone.

  Given that Scolareon’s CEO was at the top of their list of potential evil masterminds, chances were very good Slater would be there. Unfortunately, too many trees prevented them from seeing the house or the grounds.

  “We could hike in,” he suggested.

  “If Slater leaves while we are on foot, we will lose him. I think we should continue checking other places, in case this is not where he is. But if he is and he leaves before we can come back, he will drive right by us on his way out.”

  Ricky wasn’t crazy about leaving the most likely place Slater would be, but first making sure he wasn’t at one of the other places was the right move. He pulled them back onto the road.

  They passed another driveway, and another, and another. None had a white truck parked in sight.

  At the next driveway, Ricky stopped again. Like at Scudder’s place, a gate blocked the entrance, this one a brushed-metal monstrosity.

  Rosario aimed her binoculars past it.

  Ricky asked, “Anything?”

  “Part of the house. Two stories. Looks big. Large attached garage. Um….”

  “White truck?”

  She was quiet for a moment before lowering the binoculars. “No.”

  They headed to the next driveway. No gate here. As for a house, they couldn’t tell. The drive weaved up a small wooded hill and disappeared. Ricky turned into it, thinking they’d go only far enough to get a look at the property. But by the time they could see it was an empty lot, they were near the top of the rise.

  “Take us all the way up,” Rosario said. “We should have a good view from there.”

  Ricky did as requested. Rosario was right—they did have an excellent view of the nearby properties. They hopped off the bike and separated to scan more ground quickly.

  Ricky could see as far as the roof of Scudder’s place. No sign of the truck in the land around it. He moved the binoculars over the other homes they’d passed, ending at the property next door to Scudder’s, hidden behind the garish, brushed-metal gate.

  Rosario had been right—the house was a monster, as wide as four normal houses set side by side, and with two perpendicular wings jutting out the back. What she hadn’t been able to see from the road was the pond a hundred yards behind the house, and the barn near it. Surprisingly, the barn looked to be decades old, its white siding and gray roof faded with age. If that was the case, it had been there long before the house had been built, long before Green Hills Estates had been an idea in some developer’s mind.

  As he scanned the barn, he saw something sticking out from the far side. Ricky jogged across the plateau until more of it came into to view.

  “Rosario,” he called, waving her over. The thing sticking out from the barn was the back end of a white pickup, with a tarp-covered box in the bed.

  When she joined him, he directed her where to look with her binoculars.

  “¡Ay! So, he did not go to Scudder’s.”

  “Nope.” That surprised Ricky, too.

  Rosario scanned the area. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “Probably inside the barn.”

  She pointed the binoculars at the land between their position and the barn. “Fence. No barbed wire, though.”

  He lifted his binoculars. The fence was about six hundred yards from their position.

  “You up for a little hike?” he asked. They might never have a better chance of getting a tracker on the truck.

  She grinned. “We should let Ananke know what we found first.”

  “Allow me.”

  He pulled out his phone and typed:

  Found the truck at a property in Green Hills Estates.

  No address visible, but near the north end of the big circle road.

  The only place with a pond.

  He hit SEND, gestured to the rear slope, and said, “After you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The guard at Green Hills Estates raised the entrance gate as soon as he saw Slater’s white truck turn onto the road. Slater gave him a wave and a “Afternoon, Owen” as he passed by.

  “Afternoon, sir.”

  A good boy, that Owen. Smart. Slater had big plans for him. Owen, like all the guards who worked the estates, was a member of Slater and his brother’s organization.

  When Slater reached Grand Way, he went left along the loop, taking it to the property where the Lindens’ old farmhouse used to be. Though the
pond and the barn were still there, the house had been replaced with one of the mansions that made up Green Hills.

  Back in the day, the whole area had been part of the Lindens’ farm. But agriculture had held no interest for any of Artie and Fran Linden’s children, and after their parents passed away, the kids sold the property to Jack Williams, who sat on it for a decade before turning it into the estates.

  While Slater firmly believed dividing the farm into a multimillion housing tract was a waste of good land, it had its upside. Mainly that his cousin owned the house by the pond. And, most importantly, the barn.

  When the three men first started the project, they’d kept the illegals—and other riff-raff their agents had picked up—in an unused storage area at Scolareon. With Yates as head of security, their activities went unnoticed. That had been okay when there had been only two or three people who needed to be put on ice for a bit. But as the trials grew in scope, so did the need for more product and the risk of discovery.

  That’s when Slater had his brilliant idea. Why not expand the old Linden barn to accommodate their needs? Their cousin had needed a little convincing, but in the end he’d gone along with it.

  It addition to the main level, the barn had a basement. Using only their own people for labor, Slater and Yates expanded downward to a second underground level, where they created a secret holding area. Now, the trucks still came into Scolareon, but the product was soon transferred to one of their customized delivery vans and relocated to the barn.

  All nice and tidy and no one the wiser.

  Slater used his remote to open the gate to his cousin’s place, and drove around the unnecessarily massive house down to the barn, where he parked near the door.

  He rolled his head over his shoulders, working out a little kink, as he walked to the barn. A gentle push against a board near the doorframe released the latch holding it in place. Behind the board was a fingerprint-activated screen, identical to the ones at the lodge. A scan and the door unlocked.

  Despite the secured entrance, the ground level of the barn was used as storage space only for things like landscaping equipment and fertilizer and grass seeds. Nothing that would strike anyone as unusual.