27

The humid air left a thin film of sweat on Kenzie’s neck as she moved toward the subject house. Fortunately, the lot across the street remained both empty and wooded. Except for the barking of a lone dog, Crow and Kenzie went undetected. He motioned her down on the ground. They lay still, under a moonlit sky, and just watched.

The house Chambers had inherited was a one-floor rambler with a small front porch and another on the side. The gravel driveway ended in a walkway up to the side door. The house showed a mild state of disrepair, with some loose shingles and a broken handrail on the front step. The driveway, overgrown with weeds, looked like it hadn’t been used much, and the lawn needed mowing.

There were no lights on in the house, no movement, no sound. At midnight, that wasn’t surprising. But there was also no vehicle visible.

Lying there on the ground, Crow next to her, Kenzie tried hard not to think about the lecture she’d gotten from Scott or the spiders that could be crawling around in the leaves and underbrush. Both, in her mind, seemed equally dangerous. She brushed her hair back from her face. “What do you think?” she whispered after ten minutes.

“I wonder if anyone’s in there.”

“Why are we watching it for such a long time?”

Crow leaned close to her so he could keep his voice a quiet whisper. “When I hunt, I take the high ground. And I watch. The more patient I am, the more likely it is I will succeed.” He nodded toward the house. “That works for both deer and men.”

Scott’s voice came over their radios, into their ear buds. “Jeff, what do you think?”

“I’m not getting any infrared readings,” the leader of the SWAT team reported.

“OK. Crow?”

“Nothing.”

“OK. Stay steady.”

Five minutes later, Kenzie saw Scott move down the street a little away from the house, sheltered by the woods. Then he crossed over the street and worked his way back up to the target location. He made a complete circle around the house, and then came back to his original position. “Nothing,” he said, over the radio. “Crow, you have the warrant?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” Scott radioed the SWAT team, waiting a half-mile away. “Jeff, bring your team in. Be careful. I want to be able to take footprints if we can get them. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Jeff’s voice responded.

“I want to be first in,” Scott said. “Pick whoever you want for the ram.”

Off in the distance, a whippoorwill called, an eerie sound to Kenzie. She waited silently, her heart thumping, until she heard the sound of car engines. A wet leaf stuck to her hand as she scratched her nose. Crow lay next to her, his eyes focused on the house. She could feel his tension. She shared it.

Over across the way, behind the subject house, she could see a row of SUVs moving into position with just their parking lights on. They moved down the hill, and out of sight, and then came up on Tulip Drive. They pulled over, and eight black-clad men got out. Three moved through the yard and behind the house, two moved to each side, and three moved up to the front. Then Kenzie saw Jeff.

“Let’s go,” she heard Scott say.

Kenzie stood up and followed Crow across the street, moving quickly.

“Stay behind me,” he whispered.

Two SWAT members held the ram at the side door. Scott skirted the side steps, pulling himself up onto the porch by the railing so as not to disturb any prints. Kenzie and Crow moved up behind him. Scott nodded and the men swung the ram. The door near the doorjamb shattered into toothpicks.

Scott kicked in the rest and moved inside the house, gun and flashlight before him. Kenzie and Crow covered him, looking left and right. Nothing in the kitchen. Nothing in the living room. Clear in the bedroom, the bathroom, and the other bedroom. They flipped on the lights room by room, checking under the beds, in the closets, under the mattresses even. And when they were convinced the house was completely empty, they holstered their guns.

“Wrong place?” Jeff asked.

“No way,” said Kenzie. She had gone back into the kitchen and was walking toward them with a pile of papers she’d found on the countertop. “Look at these.”

They were crayon drawings. A big man had the label “Daddy” with the initial letter D backward. A little girl with yellow hair had tears dripping from her eyes. Four included a big bear with huge teeth and sharp claws. The last was signed, “Zoe.”

“Not wrong at all,” Kenzie said softly, “just . . . just too late.”

“Hey, look at this,” Crow said, emerging from the bedroom. His gloved hand held a paperback book. He raised it so Scott and Kenzie could read the title, Who Killed Catherine Jones? Crow’s eyes were bright. “You want to know why there were so many similarities with Waller’s crimes? This is one of those true crime books. The kidnapper’s been studying it. He’s even got stuff underlined.”

“Well, that explains it,” Scott said.

“That fits!” said Kenzie. “Grayson Chambers has no criminal history. Instead, he studies a book to figure out how to pull off his crime.”

“All right,” Scott said, sharply, “I want everybody out so the evidence techs can get in here.”

With all the activity and the evidence truck parked outside, the raid on the Tulip Circle house was no longer a secret and a few nearby neighbors had gathered to watch the show. FBI agents and deputies were interviewing them. Two of the techs were vacuuming the entire house, looking for hair and fiber evidence. Others were checking for prints. Someone collected a hairbrush found in the bathroom for DNA evidence. And outside, Scott crouched down next to Crow, who was pointing out some tire tracks he’d found in the mud of the road.

Crow gestured toward the tire prints. “I’m seeing three motorcycles. One’s a recumbent. I can tell from the radius of the turn. The other one has very expensive tires on it. The lab will be able to tell you the exact type. But I know they’re unusual.” He shrugged. “We might be able to trace them to the owner if they were purchased around here.”

“Good,” Scott replied. He looked exhausted. “Tell one of the techs we need plaster casts of these prints, OK? I want them rushed down to the lab, to Harold Wilson. He knows everything about tire treads.”

“Will do.”

Scott looked at Kenzie. “We got close, very, very close.”

But close wasn’t good enough. She knew it and he knew it. “What’s next?”

“Crow!” Scott called to the agent, who was talking to a tech. “Let’s go over there and strategize.” He pointed to the hill across the street.

“You want to bring in the sheriff?” Crow suggested when he arrived on the hill.

“Yes,” Scott responded.

Once Sheriff Hughes had joined them, Scott opened the discussion. “All right,” he said. “Where do we go from here? Who was here? Where are they now? And how do we find them?”

“Maryland issued a driver’s license to Grayson Chambers six months ago. But I don’t see any vehicles registered in his name,” Crow said. “I thought I’d try California to see if he just never switched tags after he left there.”

“Good,” Scott said. “Who was the prior owner on this house?”

Crow looked at his notepad. “His mother, Edith Summers.”

“Summers?”

“Second marriage, I guess.”

“Any vehicles under her name?”

“I’ll have someone check that,” Sheriff Hughes volunteered.

“All right. We’re doing a door-to-door in this neighborhood. Crow found some motorcycle tire tracks he thinks are distinctive. So we need to check all the custom motorcycle shops, the clubs, the repair places, and see if anyone has noticed anything . . . a kid who seems out of place, new purchases, that sort of thing.” Scott sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Kenzie, you’re going to have to continue to monitor the Internet. I guess that means going back to Grable’s.”

“Wait. You can set up in our conference room if you like,” the sheriff said. “I can get you Internet access and everything.”

“Great. Terrific, Sam. Thank you,” Scott said.

“I’ll even throw in a coffeepot.”

Kenzie smiled.

“Sheriff,” Scott said, “in a county this size, I’m thinking you pretty much know who the bad boys are.”

“Pretty much.”

“What’s your thinking?”

Sam Hughes rubbed his jaw. “Thing is, we’re right on the highway between Baltimore and Frederick. Every scumbag in central Maryland can pop in here easily. Our local boys, they mostly get into fights when they’re drunk and deal a few drugs. Beat up a woman now and then. But I’ll tell you what, we’ll circulate among our regulars, if you want, and see if we can shake something out of them.”

“Good,” Scott said. “You got a motel around here? We’re going to need some rooms.”

“Sure. Come over here. Let’s get on the radio.”

Grayson Chambers lay bound and gagged in the trunk of his mother’s car. He could feel every bump in the road, every curve, and every turn. His head hurt, his wrists ached, and fear and anger had coalesced into a potent brew in his stomach. He wanted to throw up.

The men who had abducted him were the kind of raw meat bullies he’d loathed since elementary school. They lived by brute force. They were cold-blooded, callous, stupid, ignorant animals. To beat them, he would have to use his wits.

Sandy had gotten him into this. He’d suspected from the beginning she would do him in. So stupid!

Moving around in the trunk to find a more comfortable position, Grayson began to plan, to scheme, the way he always had. How could he get the upper hand? Trouble was, he’d never been in real physical danger before. Desperately he racked his brain. What should he do?

The car stopped suddenly and the engine cut off. Grayson heard what sounded like a garage door closing. Then a car door shut, and he heard footsteps. The trunk popped open. “C’mon, you,” Billy said, and he pulled Grayson out into the night.

What a relief to get out of that trunk! Still, Grayson could barely stand up. His legs ached. His head hurt. He sagged against the car.

He was in a stinky, junky garage. Billy grabbed his arm and propelled him toward an interior door and into what looked like an office. A pinup calendar hung on the wall, greasy work orders and parts catalogs lay strewn about, and a metal desk and two chairs filled the rest of the room. Billy pushed him down into one of them.

“Now look,” the man said, roughly. “Ain’t nobody can hear you out here, understand? Nobody. I’m going to take that gag off, and then we’re gonna talk. You cooperate with us, and it’ll go fine. You don’t, you’ll wish you never met my sister.”

No problem there, Grayson thought.

“Billy, what are you going to do?” Sandy stood at the door of the office. Zoe was asleep in her arms.

“Just something to help us all out, Sis. Don’t you worry about it. I’m not gonna hurt this guy.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Her voice sounded like a whine. Grayson hated that.

“Take the kid upstairs. Go to bed. I got to talk to him,” Billy said, and he grinned as he motioned his head toward Grayson.

The four hours of sleep Kenzie got at Scott’s insistence helped a little to restore her energy level. When her alarm woke her up at six a.m., she felt hungry.

Scott had rented four rooms at the motel and made a simple arrangement. The desk clerk would keep the room keys behind the counter; anyone involved in the investigation who needed to sleep would show creds and be given a key to an empty room.

Kenzie had brought her jump bag with her, so after a shower and a change of clothes, she returned her key to the clerk, found some breakfast at an all-night diner, and drove to the sheriff’s office. In the conference room, an exhausted Scott sat slouched in a chair staring at a computer screen.

“Your turn. Go to bed,” she said.

He shook his head. “Can’t. We don’t have a vehicle. We don’t have an ID on the men the neighbors saw. Or the redhead people saw at the house. We have no idea who was there last night, or why, or where they’ve gone.”

“But if we did, you’d want to follow those leads. So go to bed now.”

“Can’t.”

“Sounds like somebody needs breakfast,” Kenzie said, and she put a Styrofoam container in front of him.

His smile showed a little life. He opened the container. “Scrambled eggs, pancakes, butter, syrup—but where’s the veggie sausage? The granola?”

“I decided to be easy on you. Plus, Hank’s All Nighter hasn’t heard of granola. Or veggie anything.” Kenzie smiled. She looked around. “Where’s the promised coffee?”

“Right through that door,” Scott said, pointing.

Kenzie got a cup for Scott and one for herself. She put the coffee in front of Scott and sat down next to him. “No other postings from Jackson423, right?” she said.

“Right. Alicia’s been on it all night.”

“How about the senator?”

“So far I’ve convinced him to stay there. So far.”

Kenzie sipped her coffee. “I’m sure he’s anxious.”

“We should have something from the lab on those tire treads in the next few hours, I’m hoping anyway. The techs cast some footprints, too. One may match the print we found the night you were assaulted.”

Kenzie nodded. “Of course.”

“The sheriff’s deputies have been rousting bad boys all night, trying to get a lead. It’s amazing how many unpaid speeding tickets this county has, so deputies need to inquire about them in the middle of the night.”

“Is he still thinking these were out-of-towners?”

“Yes. That’s his theory.” Scott scraped his fork over the Styrofoam container, getting the last of the scrambled eggs. “Did you sleep?”

“More or less. Why don’t you go now? Get some rest?”

Scott glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid if I did, I wouldn’t wake up, even if you called me. I’m beat to shreds.”

“So I’ll get the clerk or a deputy to pound on your door.”

He thought about it for a minute, but then shrugged. “Look, I’m just going to lie down over here.”

“On the floor?”

“It’s carpeted. Wake me up, OK? If anything happens?”

Five minutes later, the sound of his soft snoring told her that floor or no floor, Scott had had no problem falling asleep.

“Look,” Grayson said, trying to be as nonthreatening as possible. He shifted position in the chair, trying to get comfortable. “Here’s the deal. Let me loose and I’ll pinch Zoe’s father for eight hundred thousand dollars. I’ll tell him I changed my mind. I want more than I said originally. I’ll split it with you, so you and your friends each get a hundred grand. That’s a lot of money. You can buy a lot of motorcycles for that.”

Billy snorted. “You don’t know nothin’ about motorcycles, do you?”

Grayson kicked himself.

Sandy’s ugly brother kept playing with a handgun. Every time he twirled it, Grayson’s stomach got tighter.

“Tell me again how your plan works,” Billy said.

“I’m posting messages on the Internet to give the senator instructions. In fact, I’ve got to post again soon, or they’ll get suspicious.”

“Are the cops onto this Internet junk?”

Grayson lied. “No. Not yet. It’s just me and the senator. So here’s the deal. He’s going to put money in my account, and then I’m going to release Zoe.”

Billy shook his head. “No good. She’s seen all of us.”

“She’s five years old!”

“Kids can be smart. Nope, the kid’s gotta go.”

“Go where?”

Billy looked at him like he was an idiot.

A cold chill swept over Grayson. This is out of control, he thought. Way out of control. He cleared his throat. “Let’s get on with this. I need to give one, maybe two more instructions to Grable. Then we’ll have the money, I’ll cut you in, and that’ll be that.”

Billy stroked his chin. “I gotta think about this.” He yawned and stretched. “Joe!” he called.

One of his buddies came in. He smelled like sweat and beer, and a wave of revulsion swept over Grayson. “Yeah?” Joe said.

“Watch him,” Billy said, standing up and handing Joe the gun. “I gotta get some shut-eye.”