29

We gotta get out of here.” Billy said, shoving Grayson away. His motion tipped the chair over, and Grayson lay on the floor, still bound to the chair, helplessly staring into Sandy’s dead face. The lips which had been wordlessly moving just moments before were parted. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. “What do we do with him?” he heard Joe ask.

“Bring him.”

“What about the kid?”

“I dunno. Bring her, too. She’s worth twenty-five grand, anyways.”

Outside Joseph Mitchell’s ramshackle house, Scott, Kenzie, Crow, and Sheriff Hughes stood looking over a map spread out on the hood of Scott’s car. Mitchell hadn’t been seen in three days. His mother worried that he was hanging out with his friends, men she didn’t trust. One of them, Billy Foster, owned a motorcycle repair and parts shop in an industrial area of Frederick. What’s more, the IT unit in Washington had traced the messages posted to Foster’s business.

The shop stood on a dead-end street, and Scott wanted to carefully plan out their approach. If Foster had Zoe there, they had to be very, very cautious.

“We come down here,” the sheriff said, pointing, “and they won’t be able to get out.”

“On the other hand, they might feel trapped and kill Zoe,” Crow said.

“How about if I go in first,” Kenzie said. “I won’t appear threatening to them. Let me ask about some . . . some motorcycle thing. Maybe I can find out who’s in there.”

Scott frowned. “Not safe.”

“I can do it,” she insisted. “I’m the least cop-looking of anyone.”

“How about those pants?” He nodded toward her khaki tactical pants.

Kenzie looked around. A Walmart lay down the street. “In fifteen minutes, I’ll be somebody’s girlfriend in shorts and sandals.”

“And your gun?”

“A big purse.” She put her hands on her hips and tilted up her chin. “Scott, I can do this.”

Scott took a deep breath. “Sheriff?”

He shrugged. “You know her better than I do. We can get right outside the building on the blind side and probably hear her if she hollers.”

“What do you think, Crow?”

The agent had his eyes fixed on Kenzie. He looked down, unwilling or unable to affirm her offer.

Scott seemed to be taking forever to make up his mind. “All right,” he said, finally. “We’ll give it a try.”

Fifteen minutes later, Kenzie emerged from the store. Her sunglasses covered her eyes and her hair hung loose. She’d bought a flowered fabric hobo-style bag—it held her gun and her radio. She climbed into Scott’s empty SUV. He and the sheriff were in the county car, preceding her to the industrial park. She called Scott on his cell. “I’m leaving Walmart,” she said. “Tell everyone I’ve got on khaki shorts and a white tank top.”

“Will do,” he responded. “Be careful. I’m going to be right outside. Something gets hinky, you yell and I’m in there, OK?”

“OK.”

The industrial park looked deserted on this weekend morning. Kenzie drove all the way to the back, took a right into the last lane, and parked in front of Billy’s Cycle Shop. She spoke quietly into her radio, hidden in her purse. “I’m set.” Scott acknowledged her communication. Then she walked up to the door, her heart pounding.

Oddly, it was ajar. “Hello?” she called, opening it just enough to look in. “Anybody here?” She heard no answer. The door led into a grimy, magazine-strewn waiting area. “Hello?” she called again.

She walked across the room to another door leading to the shop. She started to push it open, then jumped as she noticed a spider crawling right where her hand would have gone. She stifled a gasp. Gingerly, she reached down to the knob, swung the door open, and stepped through.

The shop bays were full of oily tools, cycle parts, and discarded coffee cups. She picked her way through the mess, to yet another door on the other side. It, too, stood several inches open, and as she got close, her heart leaped. She could see a body on the floor.

Carefully she reviewed her options: Pretend to be a customer looking for a mechanic and walk on in. Or retreat and come back with reinforcements.

At the Academy, safety ruled the day. She retreated. Outside the building, she reached into her purse and pushed the radio transmit button. “There’s a body, a woman, in the interior office. I didn’t see anyone around. If someone’s in there, I didn’t want to surprise them.”

“Smart move,” Scott said. “We’re coming to you.”

Within seconds, Scott, Crow, and Sheriff Hughes came around the sides of the building. Then she saw marked cars coming down the street at a fast clip, and deputies get out to cover the back.

“OK, stay behind me,” Scott said and, guns drawn, the three retraced Kenzie’s steps, through the waiting room, through the cluttered shop. When they got to the office door, Scott silently counted with his fingers held high. On three, he kicked open the door, and they burst into the room, yelling “FBI! FBI!”

But the dead no longer hear.

“So who is she?” Kenzie asked as she and Scott stood by watching the evidence team go over the cycle shop. It seemed so eerie. The redhead lay on the floor, her T-shirt bloody, her hair sprayed out in a sunburst pattern, just like the little girl they’d found earlier.

“I’m thinking this is Sandy Sheffield. She used to be a waitress at a bar not too far from here. Her brother owns this place. He has a rap sheet,” the sheriff said, glancing at the papers in his hand. “Petty drug dealer, thug. Into meth.” He shook his head. “I know him well. Matter of fact, he was my first arrest.”

Scott looked up. “Your first arrest?”

“Yep. Just brand-new on the force. Caught him with a baggie of pot after I stopped him for running a red light. He was just seventeen years old.” The sheriff took a deep breath and nodded toward the body. “From the looks of it, she got shot at close range by a good-sized gun.”

“How’d they get along?” Crow asked.

“Him and his sister? She bailed him out more times than I can count. I thought they were OK.”

“So what’s her connection with Chambers?” Kenzie asked.

“Unknown,” said the sheriff.

Scott took a deep breath. He looked at Kenzie. “She’s got to be the redhead he’s been seen with. He meets her in a bar, she’s not bad-looking, he figures he can use her, and bingo, they’re in a relationship.”

“Women fall for that kind of stuff all the time,” Kenzie said.

One of the evidence techs came out of the shop. He had a brown toy dog in his hand. “Found this upstairs.”

Kenzie took it in her hand. She could imagine Zoe holding it. She stroked it with one finger.

“There’s an upstairs?” Scott asked.

“Supposed to be storage, like an attic. But somebody had a bed up there. And I found some kid’s clothes.”

“Bag them,” Scott said. “Run them for evidence.” The tech nodded and left. Scott shook his head. “We’re one step behind,” he said to Kenzie and Crow, “just one step behind.”

Grayson Chambers felt like he would pass out any minute. The air in the trunk was stifling, and he felt every bounce of the rough road in his joints and in his chest. He wondered if he’d even make it to wherever they were going.

Why’d they have to tape his mouth? It made it so hard to breathe. The darkness in the trunk and the thick air made him so tired. He just wanted to close his eyes and get away from the image that kept playing in his mind: Sandy, dead on the floor. Sandy, blood dripping out of her mouth. Sandy, with that huge stain on that pink shirt.

If that happened to Sandy, it could happen to him.

The thought brought him close to panic.

Finally, the car lurched to a stop. The trunk popped open, and bright sunlight blinded him. Joe and the other guy grabbed him and pulled him up and out of the car.

They were in the woods somewhere, in the mountains that edged Frederick. The Catoctin Mountains, part of the Appalachian chain. Grayson scrambled mentally to remember what he knew about them. The Appalachian Trail ran through the range and the presidential retreat, Camp David, lay hidden somewhere in them. What he wouldn’t give to see a Secret Service agent right now!

Joe had him by the arm and marched him up toward a cabin. Billy walked ahead, dragging a reluctant Zoe. The kid has spunk, Grayson thought, and for a moment he hoped she’d give Billy the same tough time she’d given him.

The cabin looked old. It had two stories with a roofed porch on two sides. Billy stepped up on the front porch. He had picked up a shotgun and a whole bunch of ammo from somewhere; it seemed clear he intended to make a stand.

Inside the cabin, Grayson noticed immediately the abundance of spiders. Webs were everywhere. That was the trouble with being in the woods. Spiders. And snakes. He never did like the woods. He’d hated Boy Scouts.

Joe shoved him and Grayson fell down on the floor. He quickly scooted over to a wall, and tried to look inconspicuous. What were they going to do here?

Zoe cried. Billy started spanking her. “Shut up! Shut up!” he yelled and his blows grew so harsh, the little girl froze.

“Billy, stop! She’s just a kid,” the third thug said. Grayson thought Billy called him Fred. He didn’t know where the fourth guy was.

Zoe managed to stop crying. She stared at Billy, her face full of fear. Then he threw her down on the ground near Grayson.

She took one look at him and moved as far away as she could, until she was half-hidden by a couch.

“All right,” Billy said, “we come up here to think. Let the heat die down. Nobody knows about this place. We’ll be safe here for a while.”

“Let’s just take the reward and go,” Joe suggested.

“You’re forgetting something,” Billy sneered. “Sandy.”

“That were an accident!”

“Yeah, and you think the Feds are gonna believe that? Once they see my sheet?”

Fred paced back and forth. “I think he did it,” he said suddenly, pointing at Grayson. “I think HE killed your sister.”

Grayson felt his face grow red with anger. He thought, Don’t try to pin that on me, you scum! Don’t you even think about it.

But Billy did think about it. “He’s why she’s dead, for sure,” he snarled, and he walked over and kicked Grayson hard, right in the ribs. The tape over his mouth muffled Grayson’s scream. “It ain’t right I take the rap for something he brought on.”

His ribs hurt. He must have cracked one, Grayson thought. What a jerk! What right did he have . . . He blinked away tears.

“So let’s turn him and the kid in, take the twenty-five G, and cut our losses,” Joe suggested. “We all stand by the same story: He kidnapped the kid and killed Sandy. We saved the kid.”

Billy looked thoughtful. He had small dark eyes, like a snake, and when he got serious, his brow furrowed and his eyes got even more reptilian. “This guy is in line for eight hundred grand. You know how much that is?” he spit.

“I was just thinking.” Joe backed away.

Billy walked over to Grayson, and jerked the tape off his mouth. It hurt like crazy, and he had to blink away tears again. Billy grabbed his shirt. “You better be right about this! You better be right!”

“He’ll pay, I swear, he’ll pay,” Grayson said, trying to control his fear. This guy could kill me, he thought. He glanced toward Zoe. The kid had crawled even further behind the couch. He couldn’t blame her. He’d be there, too, if he could fit.

“What do we gotta do to get the money, slug?” Billy asked him, spit flying from his mouth.

Grayson rubbed his cheek on his shoulder to get the spit off. “I told you. We’ve got to finalize the deal. For that, we’ll need the Internet. And you need me.”

“Forget you! Forget you! I can do it myself.”

Panic rose in Grayson in a wave. If Billy didn’t think he needed him, he’d kill him. “You most certainly do need me. You don’t know the code words. You don’t know where the park is. You don’t even know the pass code for the bank account.” Grayson shook his head. “You need me, Billy, and I need the Internet. And my laptop.”

Billy looked hard into Grayson’s eyes, judging his sincerity.

“Let me help you get what’s coming to you, Billy. I tell you what. I’ll give you two-thirds. Because of Sandy and all.”

Billy’s eyes flickered. He grunted and strode away toward the other side of the room. Then he turned around. “I ain’t going nowhere for a while. It gets dark, we’ll go to town and get on the Internet. Till then, I’m staying here.” He turned to Fred. “Get me a beer.”

“We don’t have none.”

“What?” Billy roared. “No beer?” He cursed. “How can we have no beer? You get on your bike and get some. Hear me? And make sure nobody’s following you when you come back. You,” he said, gesturing toward his friends, “are a bunch of sorry losers.”

Scott, Kenzie, Crow, and the sheriff returned to the sheriff’s conference room to regroup once workers had removed Sandy’s body from her brother’s motorcycle shop. The FBI evidence teams would be at the shop for hours, doing grid searches, lifting fingerprints, taking photos and video, and vacuuming for hair and fiber evidence. Scott had seen enough to believe Zoe had been there. But where was she now?

“I want every scrap of information we can get on Billy Foster, Joe Mitchell, and Sandra Sheffield,” Scott said when they got back to their command post. “Sheriff, can you send some deputies out to the bars?”

He looked at his watch. “It’s pretty early. But I will.”

“I want to know height, weight, marital status, hobbies, where they like to eat, what they like to drink. I want photos to pass around. I want to know what they drive and what kind of toothpaste they like. Everything.”

“Understood. Mary!” the sheriff called out. “I need some digital photos printed. And some copying done.”

“All right, what else?” Scott said.

“Landlords, banks, ATM withdrawals, and credit card usage,” Crow suggested.

Kenzie paced the floor. “I think we ought to watch Internet cafés, the library even.” She motioned toward the computer. “Chambers hasn’t posted again. But we clearly put the bait out there . . . that account posting. So either he’s away from Internet access or . . . or something has happened to him.”

“Right. Internet cafés. We can do that.”

“And ERs,” Crow continued, “in case somebody else got hurt.”

For the next two hours they sorted, coded, and compiled the scraps of information reported from agents and deputies working in the area. Billy had an ex-girlfriend and a little boy. He was supposed to take the kid to the park that day. The girlfriend complained about money and said she didn’t trust him. He used meth. But a court order gave him visitation rights and as long as he paid, she had to comply with that.

Would he hurt a child, the interviewer asked. He’ll do anything that suits him, the woman responded.

Someone else found out that Joe Mitchell had spent some time in Jessup, the notorious Maryland correctional facility. Nobody knew what he did for a living and he was three weeks late on his rent. His landlady said she intended to evict him. Pennsylvania had a warrant out for him for burglary and armed robbery.

Her former boss, the owner of a bar, called Sandra Sheffield “a sweetheart.” Heart of gold. Would do anything for anybody. Just not real bright. When the agent showed him a picture of Grayson Chambers and asked if the bar owner had ever seen him, he said sure. That was Sandy’s new boyfriend. They were running off together somewhere. “I’d never seen her happier,” he added.

Finally, they got their break. A deputy familiar with motor-cycles pulled over a guy on a rocket bike zipping through town. Sure enough, the bike was equipped with special order tires.

“He’s bringing him in for questioning,” the sheriff said, animated.

“Great. Crow, Kenzie, let’s go,” Scott replied.