SIXTEEN

 

 

September 18th, 2016

Las Vegas, Nevada

 

NINE IN THE morning in the Bellagio Café felt the same as ten at night. Julia loved that about the place. Time didn’t exist there.

She and Lott and Annie and Andor were all there to meet the people with the drone. Annie had told them that they could trust Mike and Heather with their lives and she and Doc had a number of times.

Lott knew them from the first case where Doc and Annie had met. He had told Julia last night before they curled up and fell asleep that he liked them a lot.

Julia was a little surprised when Mike and Heather walked up to their table, though.

Mike Dans was a large, muscular man with a full beard and moustache. He wore a blue button-down shirt, bright Bermuda shorts and tennis shoes. He looked exactly like a tourist.

Heather Voight had medium-length blonde hair and was dressed in a white blouse, jeans, and tennis shoes. She looked to be in stunningly good shape as far as Julia could tell.

Mike was former special forces and his company hired special forces for security still. Heather was a former FBI agent and had been working with Mike for as long as Doc and Annie had been together. They were clearly a couple.

Julia liked both of them at once. They seemed easy going and fun and very competent.

Annie started off giving Mike and Heather the background on the case after they all ordered breakfast. And then she showed the satellite photos she had of the property.

“So basically what you think might be there,” Mike said, studying the images and then sliding them to Heather, “is a body dump?”

All of them nodded.

Julia hated thinking of terms like body dumps, but she understood that was the correct way the military thought. And considering that if their worst fears came true, there might be over one hundred bodies in that desert. A body dump by any definition.

“We can’t have the person who owns the land even knowing we are in there,” Lott said.

Mike nodded. “We’ll do a security scan first to see if anything is watching that driveway and road. If there is no surveillance, we can go in there with better equipment and scan the entire area.”

“If there is surveillance,” Heather said, “we can get a drone in at a thousand feet and take some damn fine images, including ground penetrating work.”

“What about Bob?” Mike asked Heather, raising an eyebrow at her.

She thought for a moment and then nodded. “This might be worth his time considering the scope of all this.”

She turned to the rest of them to explain. “We both have a good friend who might be able to get some really detailed and ground-penetrating satellite images of that sight. I’ll check if we need to.”

“Give us this afternoon to check what we are dealing with out there,” Mike said, “including the road in and out of the place from the highway.”

Julia felt so much better that Mike and Heather were dealing with that property. She just hoped they didn’t find a really fresh grave there of a young woman by the name of Mary May.

Julia really wanted Mary May to still be alive.