“Who are you?” I demanded.
Her chin rose as she laughed—cackled such as a witch from a child’s horror movie. “I told them” —her voice was weak in comparison to her cackle— “all I knew about you.”
My feet backed away as I struggled not to trip. “Please tell me who you are.”
“You know me, Lorna.”
My pulse raced as I tried to make sense of what was happening.
I shook my head from side to side. “I don’t know you.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.” I protested.
“I’m nobody. I’ve always been nobody.”
A cold chilled covered my skin. My feet no longer ached. My battered face no longer registered. My question stayed for a moment on the tip of my tongue. Finally, I made the words go forth. “Are you me?”
Reid
Earlier the same day
The last twenty-four hours passed in the blink of an eye. Sparrow, Araneae, Patrick, and Madeline were all back and safe in Chicago, behind the protective shield of our tower. I didn’t have time to give them more thought than that. They were there. Both women were being monitored as were their unborn babies. Their world was once again right.
Unlike mine.
We’d found the satellite images we’d wanted.
Early Saturday morning, a dusty old black Ford truck entered the far west portion of Mason’s land, coming from a small intrastate highway. A man wearing a baseball cap, jeans, and worn jacket carried an object from the truck—an object we believed to be Araneae.
While that was good news, it wasn’t enough. A man fitting that description was not specific enough. We couldn’t get close enough for any facial recognition software. As for the truck, there was only one visible license plate, on the rear of the truck. No matter what we did to the picture, we couldn’t make it out. Since there was no front plate, we could assume that the truck came from one of the states that only required rear plates.
At this moment in time, there were nineteen such states.
None were west of Montana.
We had the make and model.
The sheer number of F-250 black Ford trucks made in 2010 made that information useless. Finding the one truck that had driven onto the ranch was like a needle in a haystack. Even when we limited the number to the nineteen states that didn’t require a front license plate, the number was astronomical.
And then it occurred to me. The truck left the property headed west, the same direction as the helicopter. We began running programs accessing traffic cameras cross-referenced with towns, cities, and other landmarks accessible to the west. I started with the smaller towns.
Not all of them had traffic cameras.
However, due to the vast expanse of Montana’s highways, the state had recently added cameras and call booths along the long stretches of interstate. There were also cameras when entering and exiting state and national parks and forests. The larger cities such as Butte and Missoula were much easier.
Thankfully, we had a time stamp to follow.
The truck left the property Saturday morning at 8:23 a.m. headed west.
Early this morning, nearly twenty-four hours after Araneae had been left, we found what we believe was the same truck. It traveled through Butte and beyond. We could now see that the man was Caucasian with black hair. Again, that was too broad, the images too grainy for any kind of recognition. The truck then disappeared from Interstate 90 north of Highway 1.
Mason immediately dispatched two of the Sparrow capos toward Anaconda. Outside of the city—also the county seat—the land was rugged. The elevations made for excellent snow skiing when the weather cooled. The terrain was covered in untamed forestlands and dotted with lakes.
Our progress had brought to life budding optimism tempered by reality. Our haystack was smaller, but the needle was still fucking small.
All of our wives willingly wore trackers sewn into all of their handbags and shoes. Each was a GPS transmitter equipped for one purpose: to transmit the location.
We’d determined the ladies hadn’t had time to take their purses, but they did leave with our failsafe alternative—shoes—because who wouldn’t always have their shoes? As soon as we reached the ranch, I began running a program to locate their transmission.
Unfortunately, as soon as it was found, it was determined that it had stopped relaying rather quickly after their kidnapping. The last transmission was still within the bounds of the ranch. Since the only way to stop the transmission was to contain the transmitter—shoes—in a box lined with a special polymer, we’d assumed the shoes had been destroyed.
I’d forgotten about that program, leaving it running in the background. It had been useless and well, my mind was in a million places.
The program dinged Sunday evening at exactly 8:07 p.m.
The tracers were reactivated.
“What the fuck?” Mason said, hitting keys and bringing the GPS to one of the screens. “It’s Lorna’s and Araneae’s trackers. They’re broadcasting from the same spot.”
I stepped closer. “Where?”
Mason enlarged the map. “Elevation eight thousand feet. West-southwest of Anaconda.”
“I’m calling Christian.” Christian was the Sparrow capo in charge of the search party we’d deployed that direction earlier in the day. Once I completed my call, I stared back at the map. “They’re less than an hour out.”
Mason shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would the trackers suddenly start to transmit?”
“I don’t know why they stopped.”
The strain of the last few days showed on my brother-in-law’s face. “Unless the kidnappers knew what polymer was needed.”
“Very few would—”
“The Order would.”
The muscles in my neck and back tightened. We could take down a warring outfit, cartel, or bratva. We had. The more signs pointing toward the Order, the more worried for my wife I became.
Mason’s green gaze came to me. “I don’t like it. It’s a trap.”
He was probably right. Unless he wasn’t.
“So what? We don’t go after our first real clue to save Lorna?”
“No, of course we do.”
I emphasized each phrase. “Her shoes are there. I’m not leaving this stone unturned. My wife could still be there.”
“If she ever was,” Mason stood and paced the length of the office. His colorful arms flexed as his long legs moved step by step and his boots clipped the hard-surface floor.
“I fucking want to go myself,” I admitted, the stress coursing through my circulation making it difficult to stay focused.
“Even if we used my plane, the capos are closer.” The tension had oozed from his expression and was now thick in Mason’s voice. It hung in the air around us like a thick, choking cloud as we both stared at the satellite image.
Trees.
That was all I fucking saw—trees. As I stared, I recognized that they were predominantly pines. Montana’s state tree was the ponderosa pine. Some measured up to two hundred and twenty feet high and eight feet in diameter. It made sense. Pine trees of any variety made the best cover because unlike deciduous trees, pines never lost their needles, not in a way to disclose this hideout.
We were back at our keyboards when at 9:34 p.m. my phone rang. Mason’s eyes met mine.
The screen read Christian.
“Are you there? Tell me what you have,” I demanded as the call connected.
“We are here. We’re not sure what this place is.” Before I could ask, he went on, “It’s a compound. I’m sending pictures, but it’s beginning to get dark. Not completely. You know, this fucking weird dusk.”
I put the phone on speaker. “Christian, describe what you found so far.”
“The coordinates you gave us were, well, inaccessible. And then we found this road. Fuck, it’s not a road. It’s one lane up a mountain.”
“Get to the damned point,” I pushed.
&nbs
p; “Christian,” Mason began, his tone calmer. “Is anyone there?”
“I can’t be sure, Mr. Pierce. It appears abandoned. I’d say recently abandoned. There are fresh tire tracks. While I can’t confirm with just visual evidence, I’d say the tire tracks were made by a truck.”
“Anything else.”
“Yeah, about half a mile away to the east is a clearing, the perfect place to land a helicopter.”
I was no longer seated, but standing and pacing by the computers in Mason’s office while he was hitting keys, bringing the satellite image closer.
“Look over here.” Mason moved the cursor to what appeared to be a clearing in the trees.
“Are you sure no one is there?” I asked.
“We called you before doing a sweep. The buildings look a bit like power stations. You know, all made of concrete blocks. They aren’t big, at least not on the ground level.”
“Protect yourselves,” Mason said. “Are your vests in place?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wait,” I said, going to the keyboard and bringing up the tracker program. “Christian, turn your GPS on, the one on your phone.”
Mason’s eyes met mine as we watched the two signals.
“Mrs. Murray’s and Mrs. Sparrow’s tracker signals are one hundred and twelve feet south-southeast.”
“Sir, the buildings are the other way.”
Mason stood and spoke quietly. “I’m not losing capos to the Order. The Order doesn’t leave breadcrumbs it doesn’t expect to have followed.”
My heart ached with the thought of Lorna in one of the buildings Christian described.
Had they left her alone?
What was the plan?
Mason spoke, “I want you and Romero to get back from the buildings. Make sure that your vehicle is at least one hundred yards away.”
“Sir?”
“You’re not going to open the doors—not yet. Instead, I want you to shoot six inches above each door handle. Can you do that?”
“From one hundred yards?” Christian asked.
“I can, sir,” a second voice said.
“Romero, listen carefully,” Mason said. “I fucking hope I’m wrong, but if not, you need to listen very carefully. I’ve set explosives like what I’m imagining could be waiting for you.”
Booby traps.
“Sir, what if Mrs. Murray...?”
Romero didn’t need to finish the sentence. Mason and I both knew what would happen.
“There’s a chance,” Mason continued, “that only one building is rigged. I can’t explain the logic right now; I just know it’s a possibility. Get farther away and take cover if you can. Leave the phone on. The satellite is delayed. We’ll be able to hear before we see.”
Mason and I waited as they followed his instruction, moving their vehicle and taking cover.
“Sir, we’re set.”
My pulse raced to the point of nausea as I imagined Lorna inside one of those buildings. In the seconds that followed, I said prayers to every Supreme Being, even asking my father I lost too young and my mother and grandmother to reach down from heaven and protect the woman I loved.
“Do it,” Mason said.
Rapid gunfire came through the speaker.
And nothing.
“Sir, nothing happened with the first building.”
“You’re not done yet,” Mason said.
Rapid gunfire again.
A deafening explosion.
My breath caught in my chest. “Romero, Christian, are you all right?”
Reid
The sound of the blast reverberated through the office.
“Christian. Romero?” Mason screamed into the phone. He looked up at me. “The fucking line went dead.”
We both turned to the real-time, albeit delayed, satellite image as a flash and a plume of smoke came from between the trees. My heart sank in my chest. “What if she was in there?”
Mason’s head shook. “If she was, she wasn’t getting out.”
My steps staggered as I reached for the desk chair and my knees gave out. My sorrow quickly morphed to rage. I shot out of the chair, sending it flying behind me. “Lorna wasn’t in there.” My voice rose. “She wasn’t. There’s no way. I will fucking take down the whole goddamned Order.”
As Mason came toward me, I stared him down. “No. Don’t fucking try to stop me.”
He lifted his hands. “I’m not.”
My gaze searched the room around us. I had an unmet need to lash out, to hit, and to destroy. It bubbled within me from a simmering fury to a boiling rage. Turning away I stomped down the corridor toward the front of the house. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was seeking, but the small slice of humanity still within me said whatever I sought wasn’t inside. I wouldn’t find refuge in destroying Mason and Laurel’s home.
I flung open the tall wooden front door.
Like my emotions, the darkening sky was a simmering caldron of swirling gray clouds. Some hung low over the mountain peaks in the distance with shades of red decorating their undersides as rays of the setting sun shone upward. Others churned high above.
My steps led me out to the closest outbuilding.
I pulled open the door, searching.
For what, I didn’t know.
And then I saw it. In the diminishing light, leaning against a corner was a wooden baseball bat.
It didn’t matter to me who it belonged to.
I moved forward until it was in my grasp. My knuckles blanched as I gripped the handle and turned back outside to the dusk. A hundred yards away was the fence that contained one of the corrals. There were no horses up this way. There hadn’t been since we’d arrived. The ranch hands had them out on the property.
My mind focused on the baseball bat in my grasp.
I’d never been interested in sports.
When I was a kid, while other boys made a name for themselves on the football or baseball fields or basketball court, my nose was in a book. Whether it was math, science, or history, I couldn’t get enough. The coaches saw my height and the way my body matured. They watched as I took the mandatory gym class or weight training. They encouraged me to try out for this sport or for that. They told me stories of all-star athletes and the grandeur of six- and seven-digit salaries.
Coming from a modest beginning, I’d be lying if I said they didn’t make it sound appealing.
I talked to my mother and grandmother and told them what the coaches said.
They didn’t dismiss the offers. Instead, they told me that life was an offer.
Did I want to spend it doing something that didn’t appeal to me, simply because I could?
If I truly wanted the life the coaches described, wouldn’t it be more rewarding if I accomplished it doing what I loved?
“I did it,” I called out into the wind to the ghosts of my ancestors. “And now that life took her. I don’t fucking care about the money or the houses.” My stomach threatened to revolt as I screamed at the clouds. “I only care about Lorna.”
My attention went back to the bat in my hand. I gripped the handle as tight as I could and brought it back.
My anger, frustration, and grief materialized in the form of a six-inch-diameter fence post. I set my stance and swung. The bat struck the post. The impact reverberated through the bat to my grip. I veered back and struck it again. Each strike was harder than the last. Finally, the bat gave up. I was left with the handle of a splintered bat in my hand.
“Reid?”
I turned to see Laurel walking toward me. My head shook as my frustration came to life in the form of tears blurring my vision of the woman coming my way. “Don’t, Laurel.”
She stopped. Her long hair and dress were blowing in the breeze as the clouds continued to build. “Mason said to tell you that Christian and Romero are all right.”
Letting out a breath, I dropped the bat’s handle to the ground. “I can’t...”
Laurel came closer. “Nothing is for certai
n.”
“I didn’t look for her.”
“Yes” —she reached out and placed her hand upon my chest— “you have. You’ve been searching nonstop, doing all you could do.”
I laid my hand over hers. “No, I didn’t look for Lorna the night we met. I never imagined that I’d find a woman to love. I wasn’t trying. I had the life I wanted. I didn’t think I needed more.”
A tear trickled down Laurel’s cheek as she smiled sadly. “But you found her.”
“She blew me away.” I remembered her at that stupid debutante ball in New York. We’d all been present to secure allies in our recent coup. I recalled the blue dress she wore and her gorgeous red hair pinned up with a small crown. Fuck, I thought she was royalty. I forced a smile. “She’s everything I didn’t imagine needing or wanting in a miniature package.”
Laurel lifted her hand, palm up. “Come back inside.” She looked down at the broken bat. “I guess we’ll get Seth’s kids a new bat.”
“Oh” —I looked down and then back up— “I didn’t know.”
“Come inside, Reid.”
The emotions that propelled me out the door were gone, leaving me an empty shell. I didn’t argue, taking my friend’s hand and walking back to the sidewalk, up the stairs, and into the house.
The wood-lined entry was warm with golden light, yet I felt only the chill.
“You’ve barely slept,” Laurel said as she closed the front doors.
Beyond the windows, rain began to fall.
“Can I get you something to eat? How about a sandwich?”
“Reid,” Mason called, “get your ass back down here.”
With a quick glance toward Laurel, I took off, nearly running through the entry, living room, and corridor. Once I crossed the threshold of the office, I stopped. “What?”
“Look at this.”
I stared up at the screen. The image was grainy as natural light was waning. “Fuck.” My heart remembered how to beat as it took on a double-time rhythm. “That’s the same fucking truck.”
“At about the same spot we found Araneae.”
“Can you see what they’re doing? Is it Lorna?”
Dusk Page 17