The helicopter hovered a thousand feet over the border between Georgia and South Carolina. The ground below looked like a painting of life a hundred-plus years ago. Quaint and free of the tragedies of modern day. They had their own problems back then, too. That was never lost on me. The scale was smaller to the average person, though. I could’ve lived with that.
Pennington insisted we start closer to Charleston and work our way back. Didn’t make much sense to me. Everything centered around Savannah. Novak had to be close by.
Cervantes and Pennington left before six to drive up to Charleston where they would meet a liaison there who would fly them. Sam and I were assigned to the local department’s bird.
We weren’t supposed to stop, but Sam spotted two greenhouses on a large tract of land surrounded by woods.
“Probably not what we’re looking for.” Sam’s voice sounded tinny in the earphones. “But worth checking out.”
I leaned forward and touched the pilot’s shoulder. “Can you get us down there?”
Thirty seconds later he clicked the radio hanging on his shoulder. “I called the location in. Waiting on verification of the property.”
Sam leaned his forehead against his window, peering out over the lot below.
I didn’t have the same view as him. “See anything?”
“A whole lotta nothing, man.”
The helicopter dipped and rose and swayed a few feet. The whomp-whomp of the rotors pervaded the senses if you let it. It was warm in there and smelled like stale chips.
We lurched forward.
“Moving on,” the pilot said.
“What’s the deal?” I asked.
“Pennington said it’s a known private residence with a registered business selling floral arrangements at flea markets and road-side stands. He’d actually been out there in the days before he was in homicide. Couple of kids came across it, thought someone was growing marijuana there. Turns out it was lilies.”
“Doesn’t sound like Novak,” Sam said.
Indeed it didn’t. The guy had an interesting psych evaluation. I guess all the crazies did. But nowhere had it been mentioned he was into selling flowers, let alone growing them. Then again, we weren’t entirely sure what he was doing in his greenhouse.
As we raced north, I couldn’t help but feel we were wasting a whole lot of time. There was too much ground to cover. How were four men in two helicopters searching an expanse of land larger than New Hampshire expected to find a couple of greenhouses holding a couple of women and who knew how many corpses?
They needed to arrange search teams. Bring in more helicopters. We had a lead, possibly a solid one, and the detectives were doing too little in my opinion. Maybe it wasn’t their fault. Small-town politics, I supposed.
I stared out the window at the passing scenery. We came across a few more greenhouses, but quickly dismissed them from being top prospects. They were too obvious and visible. The place we were looking for would be away from civilization. Novak wouldn’t feel safe hiding out in a neighborhood, let alone with a few captives.
As quickly as I thought it, I had to dismiss it. There had been many stories over the years of kidnapping victims found several years after they had gone missing. They’d been living on busy streets, in apartment buildings, row homes, surrounded by people. Deep cover wasn’t required for concealment. You had to be smart. Careful.
Was Novak either of those anymore? He had to be watching his back every step he took. One wrong move, he was either going back to prison, or taking a dirt nap. Did he even care? I doubted he did. A man concerned with his life would not have abducted Cassie in the middle of the day. He broke free from his confinement with the realization that everything could slip away at any time. That made for an even more dangerous psychopath.
The pilot changed his heading to the northwest. Bright sunlight made viewing anything out of my window impossible. It also radiated heat. I pulled my headphones off and wiped my damp ears.
Sam gave me a curious nod. I shrugged and pointed him back toward his window. Couldn’t have him missing that major clue we were bound to find up here.
I turned my thoughts to Cassie and tried to reach out to her. Just to let her know I was still looking and I wouldn’t stop until she was safe again. I had no way of knowing if it worked. She even joked herself she was more comfortable speaking with the dead than the living. And that was after we’d spent a couple of hours in bed together.
Sam started pointing out his window, tapping it with his thick fingertip. I put my headphones back on to see what was going on.
“That looks like a promising spot,” he said.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned over to get a look. The pilot angled the helicopter. An unkempt circular lot surrounded by pine forest held what we were looking for. Two ragged-looking greenhouses stood in the middle about fifty feet apart. Looked like a small garage with a rusted roof was near one of them. About a quarter-mile away I spotted another clearing with an old beat-up house. Best guess says it had been abandoned decades ago.
“You might be right.” I leaned forward next to the pilot. “Can you get us down there?”
“I tried radioing to Pennington,” he said. “Got no answer. Let’s circle for a few and I’ll try him again.”
“We need to move away,” I said. “Gonna spook whoever’s down there if we hang out too long. Find a spot to land and shut this thing off.”
The pilot stared at me for a long fifteen seconds. It seemed he couldn’t figure out what to make of me. “All right. But any grief over this goes on you.”
I gave him a broad smile. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He found a level patch of dirt a little ways to the north to set the helicopter down. We hopped out onto solid ground. My ears rung long after the whine of the turbine had dissipated. The smell of fuel clung to my nose and throat.
“I’ll keep trying to reach the other helicopter,” the pilot said. “Get them to reroute out here. In the meantime, take this.”
I grabbed the radio from his outstretched hand.
“Keep it on channel nine and listen out for me. If you need backup, let me know.”
“That’s it?” Sam asked. “Just gonna let two detectives from Philly take this?”
“One, I’m just a pilot,” he said. “Two, we’re out of our jurisdiction, so it doesn’t matter who goes in there. From what I know, I figure this fella ain’t coming out alive. So, go do what you gotta do.”
Sam and I maintained silence as we picked our way through the dense forest. Poison ivy grew everywhere. Just a brush with the stuff would cause me weeks of pain. When I was a kid, I had it so bad they ended a Boy Scout camping trip two days early in order to get me to the hospital. My entire body had swollen so bad I must’ve had an inch of fluid under my skin. They said if we’d stayed in the woods any longer, I’d have died.
We reached the wood’s edge and waited for a few minutes. The garage I’d seen from above was in fact a carport. Underneath was a rusted Dodge pickup truck. The grass all behind it was matted down. Someone had been in and out with the vehicle recently and regularly, judging by the path that extended across the clearing.
I watched the nearest greenhouse for a few minutes. The glass exterior appeared as though someone had covered the lower half with a film that allowed light in but made it impossible to see through. Of course, it could’ve been a thick layer of grime that had built up over the years.
“Ready?” Sam said.
“I’ll go first,” I said. “Watch my back.”
“All right.” But Sam took off before I could take a step. He hustled across the open field to the dilapidated carport. It looked like it was going to collapse as he reached out for the support pole and used it to break his sprint.
The truck shielded his body as he scouted the area up close. After a few seconds he opened the passenger side door and leaned in. I lost sight of him after he climbed into the cab and the door eased shut on its own.
I covered what was visible of the lot from my spot just inside the tree line. If someone had been watching, they had decided to remain in place. Can’t blame them. If I saw Sam hauling ass in my direction, I’d get out of the way. Never understood why coach didn’t let him line up at fullback in goal line situations. The other team would’ve created the holes themselves for him to run through.
Sam signaled over the top of the truck from the driver’s side. That was my cue. I dashed across the open field to the waiting carport, refraining from using the support as a stop. It wouldn’t survive a second collision. Instead, I jogged around the back of the truck and met Sam on the other side.
“Anything good in there?” I asked.
He held up a faded registration card. “Gotta be ten years old. Can’t make out the letters anymore.”
I wondered if anyone could. “Hang onto it. Someone might be able to help.”
“And there was this.” Sam held up a .357, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. He glanced over his shoulder as though someone had called out his name. “Haven’t checked to see if it’s loaded. Might be some evidence on it.”
“Let’s leave it in the truck. Maybe we can find a bag inside the greenhouse to store it.”
We didn’t need the firearm. Cervantes had hooked us up with standard issue Glock 22s the afternoon before. The pistols offered plenty of stopping power. I was touched by the gesture. Of course, the bastard made us go to Wal-Mart to buy our own ammo.
“You ready for this?” Sam stood facing the nearest greenhouse. “Once we go in, there’s no chance at turning back.”
“There never was, bro.”