Danger in Numbers

by Heather Graham

  Ahead down the road, Hunter could see the biker bar.

  “Hey, do you know anything about the bartender at the biker place in Maclamara?” Hunter asked him. “I know that several tech divisions have been checking out people for red flags, but that biker bar is where we met Phin, and the bartender was at the barbecue.”

  He could see, as Roger slowed the van, that there were at least a dozen cars in the parking lot that day.

  “Gilbert Bowles,” Ellison told him. “Yeah, I checked him out. A few speeding tickets on a motorbike. That’s all. Nothing there. He owns the business and works the business. It just hangs on—enough in profits to keep it going.”

  “Thanks. What about his history? School, married, kids?”

  “No college, school right where he is—in the neighboring county. Single, no children.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. I’ll get right on your request. I’m not far from you. I’m headed to the woods, to look at human remains,” Ellison said dolefully.

  “Right. Let me know if you have any problems. I don’t want to take the time to follow her unless I have to.”

  “Right, my friend.”

  They ended the call.

  Hunter thought about the man he now knew to be Gilbert Bowles. He was one really big guy; there weren’t that many men who were several inches over his own six-three.

  “You were asking about the bartender, the massive guy at the barbecue?” Roger asked.

  He dropped his speed more, keeping an eye on the road ahead—and Casey. But she, too, had slowed down.

  Curious to see the place, probably.

  “Big guy, but that doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing,” Roger went on. “Then again, fighting a smaller person... he could just sit on them and squash them.”

  Hunter cast him a glare.

  “Just saying. Big guys have the weight—if nothing else—to hold on to people. Then again, I saw Amy’s move the other day. She knows what she’s doing. She’s an impressive young woman.”

  “Yes.”

  “You think so, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, some people have to have people a lot like themselves in their lives.”

  Hunter groaned aloud, looking over at him. “Yes, I like her. I care about her. Yes, we make a great team.”

  “On and off the playing field.”

  “Roger, we’re tracking a deadly cult.”

  “Killers. Yes, and you’ve done a damned good job of that all your life, kid. Like you make up for something with your folks. Your folks are good people, too.”

  “Roger, I’m not trying to make up for everything. I love my parents. They were fooled, but then they showed tremendous courage.”

  “Just remember what I’m saying. You and Amy are a good team, on and off the playing field.”

  “Right. We’re passing the biker bar, Roger. We have to get a handle on this.”

  “It’s a busy day in hell!” Roger said.

  The biker bar was hopping that day, so it seemed. There were a lot of cars in the lot for a town this size when it wasn’t even noon.

  A meeting of the faithful? Hunter wondered.

  “Something going on there, right?” Roger said. “Let’s see, an early memorial for their friend Phin Harrison?”

  “And maybe someone is preaching that he did the right thing, what is expected of all of them, if they love their faith, believe—and want a taste of heaven themselves,” Hunter said.

  “Maybe once we get Casey out of this town and on her way, we should stop back in.”

  “Two of us?”

  “I think we’d shake them up. They know who you are, and some of them saw me yesterday. At this point, they’d know that you can have a small federal army down on them in minutes.”

  “He’ll refuse to serve us, I’m sure.”

  “But do we care?” Roger asked.

  “Maybe not a bad idea. I’m going to call Garza, see if there’s anything new.”

  Roger nodded. “Kids in the park. Looks like the happiest little old town in the world, doesn’t it?”

  They were passing the park. And Roger was right.

  There was an area for children with swings and monkey bars and a small carousel. Several young mothers with toddlers were there, watching over their children, chatting with one another. The baseball field was quiet; the picnic tables were empty. There was nothing where the podium had been the day before.

  Casey had slowed, as if hoping that she might see one of her brothers in the park.

  Then she increased her speed.

  At the end of the park, they came to the town’s one light; it turned red.

  Casey didn’t stop; she kept going through the empty intersection.

  Roger stopped.

  Hunter stared at him.

  “Hey! It’s a red light,” Roger protested.

  It changed quickly. Then they were moving again and it only took a minute to catch back up with Casey Colby.

  Hunter’s phone rang; it was Ellison. A trooper from the highway patrol was going to pick up Casey and follow her to Ocala where a local officer would take over.

  They followed her until they saw the trooper waiting on the side of the road. He waved to them, and they let him ease his FHP car onto the road.

  Then Roger made a U-turn and they started back.

  Hunter swore softly. “I’ve got to let Amy know what happened. She’s expecting to meet up with us at the inn and we’re going to be later than I thought.”

  Roger grinned. “If I know Amy, she’s not worried about us. She has her nose in a computer. When she’s not physically in the field, she’s still in the field.”

  “Probably. I think she’s read every translation of Revelation known to man,” Hunter said.

  Amy’s number rang and rang. Her phone went to voice mail.

  “Amy, it’s Hunter. Give me a call. We caught up with Casey. She was heading to Maclamara. We got her through, and we’re heading back now.”

  She would call him right back, Hunter was certain.

  But she didn’t.

  “Why isn’t she answering?” he muttered aloud.

  “You called ten minutes ago—give it a chance.”

  But Hunter was dialing again.

  And, again, getting her voice mail message.

  He called the inn and asked to be put through to the suite. No answer.

  Pete Perkins, the owner, had answered the phone. Hunter had no problem asking him if he’d take a look outside and see if his car was out there.

  Pete put him on hold and then came back in a minute.

  “Sorry, I guess she just isn’t back yet. Her car—or your car—isn’t out front.”

  “Thanks, Pete. Please have Amy call me right away if you do see her.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thanks.”

  He dialed information for the number at the diner. A friendly woman answered at the restaurant. She, too, put him on hold. She returned to the phone to assure him that neither Amy nor his sedan was there.

  Finally, Hunter was out of calls to make.

  Hunter looked over at Roger and swore explosively.

  “What the hell could have happened? She was at the car when we drove away,” Roger said. “Don’t panic—”

  “Roger, they had a poisonous spider bite a woman, and they let ants and other creatures eat her flesh as she lay dying.”

  “Amy is smart.”

  “Yes. But they have her, Roger. Somehow—” He broke off and looked at his friend. “Casey,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Is she really a frightened innocent, here to save her brothers? Or was that a setup, a way for them to abduct Amy? Roger, they were trying to get Amy when they held Patty and Martin host
age—they wanted her! Damn it, I was a fool. I shouldn’t have left her alone for a minute. The lying bastard wants her—a woman who would stand up against him and everything he’s managed to create. Roger, we must find her. Now! And I will call out every cop and agent—”

  “Slow down. Think, Hunter—use the brains and the training that your years have given you,” Roger said firmly. “Call in an army, and we’ll have corpses everywhere—and they’ll make sure that Amy is the first to go.”

  “They have something planned for her. Something...” He paused, gritting his teeth.

  “Something that buys us time, Hunter. Something that buys us time to find her.”

  Roger was right and Hunter knew it. He just hated himself at the moment; she was capable, yes, she was a damned good agent, yes.

  But they had targeted her.

  And he hadn’t been watching...

  He steeled himself to be calm and methodical. He put through a call to Ellison. He needed someone who could bring Casey in, not down in Ocala, but back where they’d interrogated Phin—back in Ellison’s realm. “What are we arresting her for?” Ellison asked.

  “Highway violation. We watched her run a red light,” Hunter said. “Just get her in, where she’s watched, where we can talk to her and get the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “I’m sure that this morning she wasn’t trying to help anyone. It was a setup, Ellison. She was setting us all up. She was helping them get Amy. He’s wanted to take her down.” He took a deep breath and added, “Now the bastard has her. But I’m going to get her back.”

  20

  It seemed forever that Amy lay in a strange state. She was aware, and not aware. She was floating in some distant place, and she couldn’t remember where she had been or how she had gotten where she was.

  Then the pain at the side of her head grew and she was rudely reminded that she had oh-so-stupidly allowed Zeke Morrison to come up behind her.

  How? How the hell?

  Was Casey in on it all—or had she been followed herself, duped?

  Well, there was one thing the pain in her head was doing for her; it allowed her to know that, at this moment, she was still alive.

  How long she’d stay that way, she wasn’t sure.

  She slowly slit one eye open.

  And she still had no idea where she was.

  It was inside, somewhere. A rustic shack like the one out in the Everglades down farther south. They were far north in the state—out of the Everglades—but that didn’t mean that hunters and weekend campers didn’t keep cabins.

  She was tied up, hands and feet tied singly to bedposts. But there had to be a way...

  She pulled on the ropes that held her. They were tight and secure.

  She heard a grate and a squeaking sound; someone had just opened a door.

  She closed her eyes, waiting. She was sure that she could pass for still being unconscious; it had been one good wallop on her head. She could feel the bump rising where the pain seared her.

  A stifled sob sounded, and she realized that someone else was in the room; not the someone who had just entered, but another hostage.

  Billie? Wilhelmina? The missing woman some had tried so hard to help?

  Had she found her at last, right when she could do nothing for her?

  No.

  The abduction of a state agent would bring down the wrath of the state of Florida. And, with Hunter attached to the case, the resources of the federal government.

  But whoever had her intended to kill her. That she knew. So, what was the end game? Did they really think that they could get away with it?

  Apparently so.

  It was a man who had entered the room. She listened to every little movement. He was stooping down, talking to the other hostage in the room.

  “Billie, Billie! See, I brought you company so you wouldn’t be so alone. How are you feeling? You seem so sad and scared. But you shouldn’t be sad or scared. Don’t you understand? You’re going to be a great sacrifice! And you’ll rise so high... You’ll see. Yes, yes, there will be some pain in the here and now. But after that...”

  He started laughing.

  The man, Amy thought, wasn’t religious in the least. He didn’t even believe in God, she was certain. He believed in himself—and his great agenda, whatever it might be.

  Money or power? Seriously, how could ruling a little place like Maclamara be all that he craved? It couldn’t be. Whatever he was doing was supposed to take him farther along his path. And Amy would bet he didn’t care if every single resident of the place died if it got him where he wanted to go. Not even the lives of those he should have loved most, his acolytes, like Phin Harrison, meant anything at all. Men like Phin just received their rewards when times were good, and they knew to end it when times were not.

  If only Phin had talked! There had to be someone out there who valued their own life more than loyalty to a madman.

  There was, surely. But would they come forward in time to save her or Billie?

  Someone else came into the shack.

  “She’s still out?”

  “Yep. You hit her hard. You might have killed her.”

  “I had to hit her hard and fast. She’s dangerous.”

  “She’s a woman. What kind of a sissy are you?”

  “She’ll come to. She’s breathing, she has a pulse.”

  “I want her alive to see how she’s going to die.”

  “She is alive!”

  “Well, get ready. They’ll know that she’s missing now. They’ll start tearing everything apart to find her.”

  “They’ll never find her here.”

  “Let’s hope not—for your sake.”

  The door opened and closed again. The men were gone.

  Amy cracked her eyes open again. “Billie?” she asked softly. The sobbing continued. “Billie—Wilhelmina? Is that you?”

  “Yes, it’s me. And you’re...well, I know who you are. I saw you come... I was so afraid. I thought you were one of them, and now...now you’re with me. And we’re going to die. And he will make it hurt. He’ll make it hurt so bad!”

  “Billie, how did you get here? You were down south—I know that several people were trying to help you.”

  “They caught me,” Billie said. “I was walking on the road from the diner to the motel and they came with their van and... I ran. But they caught me.”

  Billie had an accent, but her use of English was fine. The young woman had studied hard, Amy was certain, to make her way to the United States.

  “They’re going to kill us!” Billie sobbed again.

  “No, they’re not.”

  “How can you stop them?”

  Amy struggled against the ropes binding her. Damn, they were tight.

  Hunter would know by now that she hadn’t arrived back at the inn. Hopefully, he would figure out that she had most probably been set up. By Casey? Or had Casey been a pawn, followed during her every movement?

  Yet, how could anyone know Casey was meeting Amy—unless she had told them?

  “How can you stop them?” Billie asked, her words partially a whisper, partially a sob, as she repeated her question.

  “I don’t know, but I will,” Amy promised. Yes, Hunter would be searching for her by now. “I have friends out there, coworkers, lawmen who will stop at nothing to find us, Billie. I’m telling you we’re going to survive this! Now, tell me—how do they have you tied up? The first thing I have to do is find a way to get out of these ropes.”

  * * *

  The word was out.

  Between them, Hunter and Roger had called local police in five counties, the FDLE, the Highway Patrol and the FBI.

  Special Agent Amy Larson, FDLE, was missing, presumed taken by the same people who had already murdered at least three women.


  Hunter had Roger pull the van over. He needed to think. They were near the woods where the forensic team had found the unidentified remains of those killed years before.

  “They’re not close,” he told Roger. “They have spies who watch, I’m certain. That’s how Phin nearly got the jump on Amy the other day, except that Amy was too quick for him. They know that the bodies have been found. The woods in this area are dangerous. Besides, they wouldn’t bury their dead that close to where they kill.”

  “Hunter, I don’t have any idea—but I will go anywhere, do anything. You tell me,” Roger said, waiting. “You know these people, maybe not personally, but you knew Morrison’s father—and Morrison himself. Yeah, he was a kid back then. But he’s clearly taken a lot for his playbook from Brother William. And he seems to be a creature of habit—he’s looked for small communities where there isn’t much traffic. He used an old hunter’s shed, deep in the Everglades.”

  “That’s it,” Hunter said.

  “What?”

  “A cabin. There’s a cabin somewhere. Not here—too close to the old remains, as I said. But there’s got to be a shack in the woods.”

  “Where? Give it some thought, Hunter. Give it careful thought.”

  He didn’t have time for careful thought.

  And yet they certainly didn’t have the time to go through acre upon acre of rural and forest land in and near Maclamara.

  He forced himself to pause, close his eyes, breathe, think.

  “The biker bar.”

  “Hunter, I don’t think they have her in a public place. They’ll know we’d check that out immediately.”

  “No, not in the bar. And they’ll know that we’ll be watching the park. But they’re going to be near the biker bar. That’s where everyone is gathering. I think that this is supposed to be a major public sacrifice—referring to their public, the community, Morrison’s followers.”

  “All right, how far do we drive in?” Roger asked.

  “A distance from the parking lot, though they may not know your van. Unless Casey Colby is involved—she would recognize it. I’m going to ask Garza that he makes sure any agents he sends in are aware that they need to stay hidden, not to engage until we find out where Amy is—and get her out before the cult realizes that they’re under attack in any way.”