by Kylie Brant
Maybe it was the sight of his accomplices being hauled away by uniformed officers, but the man finally jerked his head in a half nod. “You gotta unlock the cuffs. I’ll need my hands free.”
Five minutes later the man had his skinny frame perched on a folding chair, and he was opening up a file and rapidly scrolling through it. “Sutton was running this scam on a smaller scale back when we met in county lockup.” The man had gingery-colored hair with a matching patch on his chin, and the quick, furtive moves of a rodent. “I suggested some improvements. I mean, hey, plenty of room for more than one guy running the same scheme. We worked together for a while until he got himself sent to prison. I didn’t hear from him again until about a year ago. I figured he was going to try to claim I owed him some of the business, but he just wanted some favors done now and again.”
“Like embedding some narration into audio files.”
Nieman gave a quick bounce of his shoulders. “It was an easy job. I didn’t even charge him. Sometimes he wanted to borrow my car. But a few weeks ago, he wanted in on the operation. As partners.”
“Partners. I thought you said this wasn’t your business.”
Nieman stopped scrolling to look over his shoulder at Cady. “It was and then it wasn’t, you know? Sutton is the one calling all the shots now. I still get paid the same, so why do I care? It ain’t worth pissing off a guy like him.” He pushed away from the screen. “These are the credit cards he kept.”
“Print it,” Miguel ordered. The man turned back to the computer to obey.
Cady smiled. “You’re a good record keeper.” He’d scrolled through dozens of pages. She was fairly certain they’d find files on the computer to incriminate all four involved in the operation. But the possibility paled in comparison to the find they’d made on Sutton’s fake cards.
They’d run the financials corresponding to them. With any luck, the man had used one of the cards recently, and they’d be able to use the records to nail him.
They’d no more than stepped into the office when they were summoned to Supervisory Deputy US Marshal Allen Gant’s office. “Close the door,” the man directed. “I figured you’d want to hear this right away. The task force in Haywood County was tipped off about two men outside Robbinsville resembling Aldeen and Sutton.”
“What?” Cady sank into a seat. “When?”
“A couple of hours ago. The guy was going down a gravel road and got suspicious when a car pulled out of a farm drive on an abandoned site. He got a good look at the vehicle and passengers before he pulled onto the property to check for damage. He thought they might be vandals. He found Bush’s vehicle behind the barn and recognized it from the newscasts. They’ve got a BOLO out on the car the men left in and a perimeter around the area.”
“Well, that’s good news.”
Gant gave Cady a wry look. “Try to contain your enthusiasm. Chester and Quimby are taking part in the manhunt. I’m getting regular updates.”
Chester and Quimby. She knew without glancing at Miguel he felt exactly the same way she did. Cady wanted Aldeen and Sutton arrested. But there wasn’t a person on the fugitive investigations unit who wasn’t a bit of an adrenaline junkie. To be relegated to the sidelines for the capture burned more than a little.
“Somehow, running Sutton’s fake card numbers doesn’t seem quite as exciting as it did fifteen minutes ago,” Miguel muttered to Cady as the two of them left Gant’s office.
She couldn’t disagree. Not then. And not during the hours it took to receive the information and pore over it. She was at first surprised to discover Sutton’s earliest transactions were less than two weeks old. But then it made sense. Why else would he have been using Selma Lewis’s house when the utilities were turned off? He must have been broke. If she remembered correctly, his parole had only ended weeks ago. It hadn’t taken him long to return to criminal behavior.
“What’d you find on the addresses to correspond to the cards?”
“Some are fake.” Miguel wheeled his chair from his desk to Cady’s and showed her a list he was making. “We know from Nieman’s computer files they were using anonymous mail drops to send and receive the applications. According to Google Maps, a few of the addresses on the applications don’t exist. I’m guessing the others are vacant houses.” He showed columns of notations he’d made correlating online purchases and the addresses given for delivery.
“All it takes is sitting down the block from the address, wait for the delivery, and scoop the packages up,” she murmured.
“A bit more than that. He still has to set up the channels to sell the merchandise, but yeah. Easy money.”
Miguel picked up a few more of the sheets on the pile in front of her and took them back to his desk. Cady scanned the transactions quickly on the remaining records. Some cards hadn’t been used yet. She put those statements in separate files. Her gaze landed on the date on the next one in the stack. She stilled. “Look at this.” She rose and went to his desk, slapping the statement down in front of him. “A rental car. With yesterday’s date.”
Excitement shot through her veins. She strode back and grabbed the remainder of the pile of statements and returned to his desk with them. Rifling through them, she honed in on the dates on each. “Hotel rooms.” She spread the statements bearing the transactions in front of Miguel. “Apparently, Sutton got sick of the accommodations at the Lewis house.” She glanced down at the next statement she held and felt the floor rock a bit under her feet. “Two days ago.” Cady shoved the sheet she held to Miguel. “David Sutton made a motel reservation in Cherokee and a cabin rental in Bryson City.” She flipped through the other statements before another transaction jumped out at her. “And here’s a second car rental. Made the same day as the first one.” She wheeled around and went back to her desk, scooping the statements into file folders.
Miguel was already doing the same. Without exchanging a word, they strode to Allen’s office, folders in hand. There wasn’t a doubt in Cady’s mind they’d just discovered a vital lead in the whereabouts of David Sutton. And this time, she and Miguel weren’t going to be shut out of the manhunt.
The Kozy Room Motel on the outskirts of Cherokee bore more than a passing resemblance to the place where they’d found Sheila Preston. With sections of connected rooms detached from the main office, it was a sensible choice for anyone trying to keep a low profile.
A plainclothes female deputy from Swain County had entered the office and radioed the rest of the team, secluded in a large perimeter surrounding the area. Sutton’s room was at the far end of one long row. The plate on the dark-gray compact in front of the room corresponded to one of Sutton’s rentals. They’d already shared the plate number of the second vehicle Sutton had acquired with the task force watching the cabin rental in Bryson City.
A dozen personnel had been reassigned to the motel. They had people situated on benches and inside parked cars keeping track of the license numbers of passing vehicles. All were equipped with radios on the same frequency.
Cady and Miguel were outside the back of Sutton’s motel room. She pressed the radar device against the siding and depressed the buttons to begin the analysis. Seconds later, she read the screen. Stifled a feeling of frustration. Shaking her head at her partner, she reached for her radio. “There’s no one inside. Wait for entry.”
The two of them ran to the front of the motel room, where two other members of the team waited. Like them, the others were outfitted in tactical gear. Miguel used the key the deputy had gotten from the motel clerk. They entered as one and spread out across the space.
There was a laptop sitting on the bed. Cady booted it up, but it was password protected. She set it aside. Miguel was going through a duffel bag in the closet. “TracFones.” He held up a handful of the cells, all still in their plastic packaging. The other team members were checking the dresser and bathroom. Cady lifted the mattress. She spied a plastic bag and pulled it out. Checking inside, she said, “And here are the rest of the
credit cards.”
“What is this, and why would it be in the bathroom?” The deputy came out holding a portable black device.
“It’s a magstripe reader.” Miguel briefly explained how it worked. It looked an awful lot like the ones they’d seen in Nieman’s house. “As for why it’s in the bathroom . . .” He shrugged and got down to look under the bed. “Apparently, Sutton is the paranoid type. He doesn’t want to keep all his goodies together in case his room gets tossed.”
“He’s going to be disappointed then,” the deputy observed. She set the device on the desk and continued the search.
Cady smiled at Miguel’s expression of distaste when he rose, brushing at the knees of his trousers. “Anything of interest under there?”
“Only to the department of health.”
She pulled open the single drawer in the bedside table. It was empty except for a battered Bible. Flipping through its pages, she found a sheet of paper folded into a square. Smoothing it out, she saw a list of addresses. Some seemed familiar.
She held it up, catching Miguel’s attention. “Sheila Preston’s address is on this.”
He came over and scanned it. “I’m pretty sure one of those addys belongs to her sister.”
The others weren’t familiar, but Cady wondered if one might belong to Preston’s mother. Or the girls’ school and day care. She turned the paper over and frowned. There was a rough drawing on the back consisting of little more than measurements and Xs. A map of some sort, perhaps. At the bottom of the page, a line of text was written in block letters.
REVENGE IS COMPLETE WHEN THE ENEMY HAS LOST EVERYTHING.
It was nearly dawn when Cady pulled up in front of the gates to her house. Sutton hadn’t returned to the motel yet, which worried her. Given the possessions he’d left behind, it was certain he’d planned to come back. The cover of darkness would have been the most likely time to do so.
Where the hell was he? And where was Aldeen? Despite the miles-wide search in place, there’d been no sign of either of them near the Bryson City cabin.
Exhaustion hazed her vision. They’d taken up surveillance of the motel from a used car lot across the street. Even when the next shift came to relieve them, Cady had still had the task force’s emailed updates to go through before she’d headed for home.
The dog came racing across the lawn as she got out of the car to open the old gates. She stooped to give him a quick pat and grabbed his collar, walking him to the passenger door and letting him in the vehicle. It was starting to be their routine.
She drove inside the gates, got out to close them, and passed the area where her car was parked on the grass to park under the carport. “I hope you didn’t have to battle it out with a raccoon while I was gone,” she told the dog. A pang of guilt stabbed through her for leaving the animal outside overnight. The clerk who’d sold her the doghouse claimed it was a balmy seventy degrees inside the structure, but . . .
“What’s that?” As weary as she was, it was the first time she’d noticed Hero was holding something in his mouth. Turning off the car, she flipped on the interior light and reached for the object. The dog didn’t release it, but Cady felt the object. It was fabric of some sort, thoroughly wet. He’d been chewing on it for a while.
“Drop it,” she ordered. Slightly surprised when the dog obeyed, she picked up the small jagged piece of material and held it up to the light. Dark colored with visible stains on it. They looked an awful lot like blood.
She slanted a look at the animal. “Where’d you get this?” But Cady was certain she already knew. Grabbing the Maglite beneath her front seat, she got out. The dog scrabbled to her side of the vehicle to follow her.
The security light turned on as she went past the house and rounded the corner. She stopped to put the food and water dishes inside the doghouse and blocked the entrance with the piece of plywood she’d found in the basement. Then she continued to the back of her home. The door was locked. She directed the beam of the flashlight toward the window as she headed to it. Her step faltered.
The bottom two clips were turned to a vertical position.
She trained the light on the ground beneath the window, squatting so she could see better. It’d rained a bit around 3:00 a.m. The ground was still damp but not soggy. She could see partial footprints mixed with paw prints. And more fabric. Dark threads, mostly, with a bit of material clinging to them. Hero put his nose down and started sniffing the ground. A low growl sounded in his throat.
Cady put her hand on his fur to calm him. But she was feeling rather feral herself.
Eryn: Then
Eryn’s eyes fluttered open. She looked around at her small room in their apartment, then settled back into her bed. Her Nemo night-light was still on. The matching lamp on the table by her bed wasn’t. Mama always crept back in when she was asleep and turned it off. But even with the night-light, it was too dark in her room. There were big, scary shadows in the corner. The closet door was open a little. She didn’t like that. Mama said there were no monsters there. But Eryn wasn’t sure.
Her gaze darted to the door to her bedroom. Closed. Panic started to flutter in her chest. Mama always left it open. Always, always. She started to call for her and then closed her mouth again. Mama didn’t like to get woke up. Eryn pushed the covers back and started to slide out of bed. She could open the door. She wasn’t scared. Or, only a little.
The crash had her jumping. She turned and ran back to bed.
“Get out! Get. Out!” Eryn froze. Mama’s voice didn’t sound like her. It was loud. And very scared. It made Eryn scared too.
“Don’t even think about using that on me.” A man was talking. Low and mean. Something hit the floor, and there was a crack. Like the sound when Mama swatted Eryn’s bare butt. Crack! Crack!
“Stop it! You lunatic, get out! I never want to see you again!”
“When are you . . .” Thud. “. . . going to . . .” Thud. “. . . learn?” Another crash.
Tears streamed from Eryn’s eyes. “Mama! Mama!” But she didn’t come. There were just more scary noises. Yelling and then screaming. Bad words. Very bad words. Smash! Crash! Thud! And then there were no more screams. But Eryn heard crying.
She scrambled out of bed and slid underneath it, sobbing softly. She pressed her hands over her mouth so no one would hear. Something bad was happening. Something terrible. A monster was hurting Mama. She should go help.
But Eryn was scared of monsters too. “Mama,” she moaned. “Run.” It was the only way to get away. Run fast, so the monster can’t catch you.
Maybe this was a bad dream. The kind Eryn couldn’t wake up from. She pressed her hands over her ears. She didn’t like it here. She didn’t like this big old house with different people living in parts of it. She hated the smelly basement where they did their laundry. Eryn was crying so hard, she couldn’t get her breath. And still the loud noises didn’t stop.
Eryn tried to go far away. Away inside herself where the monsters couldn’t follow. Where princesses lived in beautiful castles. No one could hurt them. If they did, the dragons would breathe fire and kill them dead.
She shivered and whimpered for a long time. Until she finally took her hands away from her ears. And all she heard was quiet.
Eryn stayed under the bed, too frightened to cry anymore. She didn’t know why the quiet was scary, too, but it was. “Mama?”
It took a long time for her to be brave enough to wiggle out from under the bed. Then she crept to the door. Listened. Someone was moaning real soft. Eryn made herself reach for the knob. Turn it. She pulled the door open just a crack and peeked out. There was no one in the hallway. She tiptoed to Mama’s room. Pushed the door open.
But there was no one in there.
Tears squeezed out of Eryn’s eyes. Her stomach felt sick. Her feet didn’t want to move anymore, but she had to find Mama. Quietly she continued down the hall until she got to the kitchen. She caught her breath at the sight there.
Broken g
lass. Chairs tipped over. A big, big mess. Eryn’s belly knotted as she stared. Then she saw someone’s leg on the floor. “Mama!” She ran the rest of the way and started to cry again. Because Mama was dead. She wasn’t moving. And there was blood all over her.
“Eryn.” The word didn’t sound like it came from Mama. And she didn’t lift her head. “Listen . . . to . . . me. Bring my phone. In my purse.”
She hesitated, little bubbles of fear filling her. Eryn wasn’t supposed to touch Mama’s phone. Or her purse. Not ever.
“Now.”
She looked around the kitchen. It was such a mess. She couldn’t see the purse. Eryn went to Mama’s bedroom. Sharp pieces of glass bit her bare feet, but something inside her made her hurry. The purse was on the carpet. She dumped it out. Finding the cell phone, she ran back to the kitchen. Then she stopped and tiptoed back to Mama. “Here it is.”
“Press the green . . . button.” Mama still didn’t lift her head. Her voice sounded thin and far away.
Eryn knew her colors. She knew green. She found the button with a little bit of green on it. “Okay.”
“Find . . . one. Number . . . one.”
Eryn knew her numbers too. One, two, three, four, up to twenty! But she found the one. Pressed the button. “Okay.”
“Tell . . . to come . . . help.”
Eryn: Now
Eryn lay in bed and tried to sleep. Her eyes were closed, as if she could summon unconsciousness through sheer force of will. But despite all the relaxation techniques she tried, she was too wired. She was itching to get her paints out and start another picture. Not of the night shadows and watery moonlight this time. But of the image in her head of the scenery when she’d looked out over the Smokies with Mama. It was one of her final memories of her mother. And this time, the picture would be perfect. Better than the last time she’d tried to capture the scene. Better than anything she’d ever done before.
