Down Among The Bones

by Vickie McKeehan

  “Who needs night? With this guy, he does his best work during the day. For all we know, he could be walking the halls at Harborview Hospital right now.”

  “One thing we know for sure. Our killer isn’t Tony or Saxon Spears. Those guys wouldn’t need to set up a meeting here.”

  “Good point.”

  “I’ll call it in,” Harry finally said when no one else volunteered.

  Looking up and down the road, Skye felt a chill on the wind. “I think he’s here somewhere. He’s watching us right now.”

  “I get that, too,” Josh said, his eyes narrowing to a spot further down the roadway where he spotted a motorcycle. “That’s him.” He took off running with Skye sprinting behind.

  Despite chasing the sound of a gunning engine, they watched from some distance away as the guy took off roaring out of the alleyway and onto Aurora Avenue, disappearing between cars.

  Skye bent at the waist, slapped her hands on her thighs to catch her breath. “He knew…he knew we’d be here…to find the body.”

  Josh blew out a breath. “Yeah. At least we know he’s not at Harborview.”

  “No, but someone should still warn Diane. I’m not saying it should be us.”

  “Foley sent me a message just now. He has a warrant for her arrest. Turns out, he never bought the attempted burglary story. When she’s well enough to leave the hospital, Diane will be heading to a cell. Two counts of murder-for-hire. Foley’s already assigned a team to watch the woman.”

  “That good, because I almost can’t stand to look at her.” Skye took Josh’s arm as they walked back down the road. “Let’s hope Leo works his magic, and we figure out how to find this psycho.”

  Josh bobbed his head toward three police cars roaring down the lane. “Notice how they always show up in groups after the fact.”

  “Come on, if they want to grill us, I want to get it over with now and get back to the office.”

  Josh pointed behind the cruisers to a sleek black pickup truck. “That’s Brayden and Zoe turning in now. Let’s keep them out of this mess.”

  “Fine with me. Like I said. I think it’s too much, too soon.”

  ****

  Everybody else had waited back at the Artemis Foundation for news about Dani. No one had the heart to send a text message to keep them updated. So when the five walked back in the door, it was Judy who bounded up to greet them. “So, what happened? Tell us everything.”

  Zoe began reciting the details to the rest of the group while Brayden went into the breakroom to get a soda.

  He popped the top and then leaned back against the counter.

  Needing a caffeine boost herself, Skye followed him to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of mocha, cold-brewed coffee. “You okay?”

  “I’m not sure. A short week ago, Dani was this effervescent student sitting next to me in class. Or so I thought. Who knew she was as lethal and dangerous as Michael Smith? Who knew she’d want me dead? I tried to help her, tried to get her a better grade on our project. How do you know you’re looking at a sociopath? I mean, there are no signs above their heads, no flashing red lights going off to warn you there’s a danger right in front of you?”

  “Look, chalk this up to life experience. Wait a few years and you’ll have developed a keen sense of perception. It’s okay to be a skeptic, a doubting Thomas. It’s okay to be wary when someone new enters your orbit. Because people often wear masks well, masks that hide their true selves. You should never rely on anyone else to permit you to be cautious. It’s okay to be careful, to put up a little wall to protect yourself from people like Dani. We’re two of a kind, you and me. We’ve lived through having a real monster kidnap us, one who looks like an ordinary person but inside is evil personified. He or she looks like everybody else. They’re just as pretty or charming as anyone else.”

  “You’re saying it’s okay if I don’t trust too many people outside this circle?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Unfortunately, the world is a dangerous place out there. And protecting yourself or those you love should be priority number one.”

  “Like Zoe. I feel as though I’ve known her my whole life.”

  Skye grinned. “She’s come a long way from that little boy I took down who tried to rob me. Please tell me she’s told you about that.”

  A slow smile curved across Brayden’s lips. “Yeah. Did you know my scars didn’t even turn her off?”

  “That’s the beauty of finding someone who accepts everything there is about you.”

  “Like you and Josh?”

  “Yeah. Like Josh and me. Although it took me a while to trust him completely.”

  “I bet. But you eventually did.”

  “Everything takes time to heal, Brayden. Everything.”

  Leo came out of the conference room, whooping and hollering, putting an end to the moment. “Remember when I said that I could track anybody who replied to Dani’s chatroom post?”

  “You did say that,” Brayden retorted. “You also claimed it would reroute to an account that you set up.”

  “Yeah, well, he masked his IP address. I didn’t see that coming. But that only works for so long before I’m able to track it back to the source eventually.”

  Skye whirled on Leo. “Are you saying you found the source?”

  “You bet I did. And it’s right in the heart of where we thought it was.”

  “Well? Don’t keep us in suspense.”

  Leo brought up a map, then zeroed in on a remote location right off the Tolt River, adjacent to a creek. “Here’s the satellite view of his cabin.”

  “Wow, he must’ve built that himself,” Josh concluded, staring at the image of a well-designed small lodge. “Look at the surrounding area. He must’ve cleared the land and used the timber to construct what we see here. He’s put solar panels on the roof. That’s a rainwater retention system. He’s trying to be fully self-sufficient, definitely live off-the-grid.”

  “What? You mean like the Unabomber did?” Brayden said, scanning the terrain.

  “No comparison to what I see on the outside so far. Although what Kaczynski essentially built was a one-room shack, it functioned well with an entire wall dedicated to storage. Without seeing this guy’s set up on the inside, I’d say this is a much more sophisticated manner of living. In no way does he need to rely on public utilities. Look at that outside generator. He has it protected under what amounts to a plastic bubble.” To Leo, he asked, “Are your coordinates correct here?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because they indicate his cabin is approximately forty miles northeast of Ames Lake.”

  “So easy access to both dumpsites,” Skye confirmed. “What if he has another one closer to this bolt hole?”

  “Something to consider. Leo, do a deed search on the surrounding land. Get us a name.”

  It took thirty minutes for Leo to maneuver through public records at the county website. “Because the cabin doesn’t have an actual address, I had to settle for a series of plots blocked off by the Tolt River. I came up with two names. Porter Finch and Peter Sprecher.”

  “Anyone want to bet they’re the same person?” Skye prompted.

  Josh put forth what everyone was already thinking. “Only one way to find out.”

  “You guys aren’t going out there alone,” Zoe cautioned. “We’ll all go with you.”

  “There’s no need for everyone to go,” Skye refuted. “With a little luck, our guy will be out settling scores with the people who hired him and not anywhere near that cabin.”

  “Well, you can’t go out there in the dark at night. It’s an unfamiliar area,” Brayden pointed out. “Take me with you. Let me ride along. If for no other reason, I could act as a lookout.”

  “We’ll study the terrain,” Josh explained.

  “The place could be booby-trapped,” Brayden went on. “You should expect tripwires and other devices that would keep people out of there.”

  “He might be right ab
out that,” Skye acknowledged.

  “Why don’t we send a drone over that area first thing tomorrow,” Leo said. “Check it out. If he’s not home, then we’ll go from there. What’s the worst that could happen waiting a mere twelve hours?”

  “In the meantime, he could kill two or three more people, including Brayden here, and we didn’t do anything to stop it,” Skye replied.

  “You won’t be able to stop him anyway,” Leo fired back.

  Harry scratched the side of his jaw. “Leo’s not wrong.”

  “Damn straight. You don’t know who’s hired him exactly. The two you do know about—Dani and Diane—have already suffered from the consequences of their choices. One’s dead, and the other will end up in jail for the rest of her life.”

  “Better make that three,” Harry added. “Gil didn’t make it through surgery.”

  “Okay, three,” Leo snapped. He looked over at Winston. “What are you grinning about?”

  “I’m just listening to you make a case for waiting until daylight. You go into that place in the dark, knowing ahead of time this is an unstable guy. Who knows what type of devices you’ll encounter. We’re talking IEDs. No telling how many he’s placed around that outside perimeter.”

  “All right. All right. I get it,” Josh conceded. “How about this? On satellite view, I picked up a gas station near the turnoff for the cabin, five miles or so before you get there. I say tomorrow morning we meet there. Leo can send up the drone then, maybe buzz the house a few times to see if we get a reaction. If our guy is still gone and the coast is clear, then we go in.” He pivoted to look at Winston. “And we could use some devices of our own to counter the IEDs.”

  Winston sent him a grin. “You’re talking about my robots, the ones I’ve been working on for just that purpose.”

  Zoe elbowed Winston in the ribs. “Seriously? Robots?”

  “Yeah. Seriously. But there’s nothing I have that will counter the surveillance cameras he’s bound to have installed. The only answer to those is simple. Get in close and disable them.”

  “We could use spray paint,” Reggie piped up. “Black paint works best.”

  Harry nodded. “I’m probably supposed to stop listening to this whole thing by now. But I’ll tell you why I’m not dealing myself out this time around. It’s because this man is dangerous. If someone doesn’t get a handle on him, he’ll move out of state and set up shop somewhere else.”

  “I’m glad you’re in, Harry. But am I the only one asking here? Who exactly is we? Who gets to go?” Brayden wanted to know. “Because I want in on this. I’m tired of sitting on my ass while you guys take all the risks. It’s not right. You guys have a kid.”

  Zoe had never been prouder of Brayden than she was at that moment. “He’s right. Let the rest of us take a few risks for once.”

  Skye traded looks with Josh. “They seem determined.”

  “We are,” Judy echoed with Reggie backing her up. “We’re not as useless as you think we are.”

  Skye sputtered with laughter. “Believe me, I’ve never once thought any of you were useless, not ever.”

  “But you guys are always putting yourselves on the line,” Reggie bellowed. The guy who rarely raised his voice kept going, “It’s time we did something to back you up, be there to do the job you’re willing to do.”

  “You always back us up,” Josh stated. “You guys are the backbone of this entire outfit.”

  Brayden shook his head. “No, we’re not. That’s the point. You and Skye are the glue that holds us all together. So stop arguing with us. I say we sit down and come up with a plan. One where none of us gets killed going in after this dude.”

  Josh grinned. “If you all feel that strongly about it, we’ll go in as a unit but with the understanding that you don’t take any unnecessary chances and do exactly what we say, when we say it.”

  “You got it. Now, what’s the plan?”

  Twenty-One

  As dawn broke the next day, the team met at the rural convenience store. Miles from the nearest neighbor, the gas station served as a supply stop where you could buy breakfast or a burger from a food truck, permanently parked to the right of the front door like an extension of the main building. The smell of bacon wafted on the wind as they gathered in the parking lot.

  “It’s too visible here to get the drone airborne,” Skye pointed out. “The man we’re looking for could drive right past us, and we’d never know it. We should probably go down the road until we find a place where all of us can pull over.”

  They got back in their vehicles—everyone except Brayden and Zoe—who ran over to the food truck to order a breakfast sandwich.

  But the rest of the team followed the minivan a couple of miles down the road to a clearing, a wide spot off the roadway, wide enough for four vehicles to pull in.

  By this time, Brayden and Zoe had caught up. They used the bed of his pickup truck to set up the drones and get ready for launch.

  Leo had brought three—and handed one off to Brayden and one to Reggie.

  Zoe put her hands on her hips. “Good thing I brought my own.”

  Leo rolled his eyes. “I split the property into three coordinates. If you brought your own, you should’ve given me a heads up. Just for that, you can check out the tree line around the house, make sure nothing’s hidden in the trees like extra cameras or people.”

  “People in the trees? Is that a joke for the newbie?”

  “No. They’re called lookouts. We don’t know how many people live up there with this Porter Finch or Peter Sprecher. We don’t know what the situation is. Yet. If we go off without clearing each grid first, we could run into trouble on our approach. Someone could station themselves in a tree with a high-powered rifle and a scope, pick us off one by one.”

  “You fly your drone in the open,” Brayden suggested to Zoe. “I’ll fly around the trees. You’re not that great at maneuvering yet.”

  “Gee, thanks. I guess.”

  “Are we all set then?” Josh asked, taking out a pair of field glasses and aiming it in the direction of the cabin. Even though they were still half a mile away, he wanted to keep tabs on whether there was any movement once the drones were airborne.

  “Almost,” Leo said, tapping keys on his laptop before grabbing the controller to launch. “Let’s do it.”

  Each person manned their control pad, sent the device up in the air for the first pass. Each had a grid to cover that encompassed a hundred acres.

  Zoe watched her drone sail two hundred feet in the air while Leo’s leveled off at three hundred feet. Reggie’s held steady at the higher altitude, four hundred feet above the ground. On the first pass, Brayden kept hovering near the front of the house before making a beeline to the trees.

  They spent the next hour making several passes at various heights trying not to miss anything. On their last pass, they buzzed the house like angry hornets to see if anyone dared come out.

  “I think it’s time to send in Winston’s robots across the field,” Skye determined. “Is there any way you could aim in a straight line for the doorway, so there’s less ground to cover? So we’ll have a path to follow?”

  “Not a problem,” Winston replied as he readied his homemade bots built to scale rocks and other obstacles at ground level. Whenever possible, Winston’s gadgets duplicated the military’s design, but with certain limitations. His robots had a top speed of only three miles per hour. They were equipped with two cameras, instead of four. And each had a robotic arm for grabbing things.

  “If you want a path, I’ll need to get a lot closer, so the batteries don’t die on me before they’ve finished covering the area in question. Unlike the six-hour military models, the batters only last for three hours, sometimes less, depending on the terrain. If it’s bumpy, that drains the battery faster.”

  “Just do the best you can. How many do you have ready to go?”

  “I’m starting with four. I built eight, but I think four is enough to use in in
crements. That way, if we run out of juice, I’m able to at least get you up to the house. That area needs sweeping because it’s the most likely for IEDs. But don’t worry, I held a ninth one back for the front door in case it’s booby-trapped.”

  Josh used his binoculars to detect any movement while Skye brought out a thermal imaging device and scanned the cabin. “I don’t see anyone moving about inside. I believe we’re good to go.”

  Winston’s first robot made it about thirty yards across the landscape before spotting its first pressure plate and paused.

  “I did this during the war,” Harry said. “Gimme one of those flags to mark the spot.”

  After pinpointing the first landmine, Winston backed the bot up, positioned it to head toward the front door again, and continued onward. Ten yards in, it picked up another device.

  Harry marked the spot again and waited for Winston to move forward.

  The next sighting occurred another ten yards in, another flag marking the spot. They went through the process over and over again until Harry stood six feet from the front door.

  “It’s got thin wires all over it,” Harry announced. “We’re gonna need to find another way in.”

  Standing a few feet behind Harry, Skye pointed to a side window. “I’ll see if I can get closer to look inside.”

  She was about to take a step around the right side when Harry hollered for her to stop. But it was too late. Her foot snagged a tripwire, followed by an explosion that knocked them both back several yards.

  Sprawled on the ground, Josh ran over to where Skye had fallen. Blood oozed from the top of her head. “Get an ambulance! Now!”

  Through the black wall of unconsciousness, Skye tried to swim her way back to Josh’s voice. Like a beacon, the sound drew her closer. She fought to get there. But it seemed something held her back, prevented her progress. Instead of forward, it kept pulling her toward a pit of impenetrable darkness. The smell of evil whirled around her until something latched on as she clawed her way back. Skye could see the vile man as he yanked on her ankles, keeping her weighted down, pulling her deeper into the abyss. She kicked at the weight, kept trying to wriggle out of his grasp. She needed to stay on course, stay on an even keel to get back to Josh.