In 2010, the U.S. military closed Korangal Outpost, and the valley was quickly dominated by the Taliban. American forces dubbed it the Valley of Death because of the large number of American lives lost between 2006 and 2009. Current rumors of Russia and Pakistan working with the Taliban against Afghan forces and the resulting suppression of life in the northern regions had been the drive behind her story. Although the Taliban had been behind a recent car bombing in Kabul that killed twelve people, including a U.S. service member, they had been assured of their safety by the American Embassy.
Whit and John had been well aware of the history in that region and after being kidnapped knew they were facing an almost impossible situation. They would surely be used as collateral damage for whatever message the terrorists intended. Only a spattering of American soldiers remained in the area and only off the grid, and renegade Taliban lived by their own set of rules. Some were no more than mercenaries, in the game for the thrill and the money; others were radicals who simply hated Americans.
After being dumped in a wooded area and forced to march along a trail into the mountains for several hours at gunpoint, they had all stopped to rest.
The fatal moment.
Damn it!
Breathe in … hold it … one … two … three … four … five … slowly release.
How was she supposed to get through this story?
Shit!
Just breathe, girl.
The natural sounds of the forests gradually penetrated her chaotic thoughts as her heart rate slowed. She focused on a stream of ants trekking across the ground at her feet. She wished she hadn’t remembered. She didn’t want the ugly details. But there was no going back now. The nasty images were planted front and center in her mind, like waking from a nightmare. One that instilled a sense of terror long after waking.
The worst of the memory … during their march through the woods, she’d kept prompting John to make a run for it, fearing they were on a death march anyway. She’d understood enough of their kidnappers’ bickering among themselves to fear the worst. They’d be used as pawns to shock the world in a public beheading, no doubt, like other victims. It was her insistence to run, even though John argued against it, that had gotten him killed. She saw the opportunity to escape when the kidnappers stopped to take a leak, and John had reluctantly agreed.
The American recon team who rescued her just happened to be in the area on an unrelated mission when they heard the gun fire. Would John still be alive if she’d just listened to him?
The sick reality of that question haunted her. Guilt wrapped its cloying arms around her heart and squeezed until she felt she couldn’t breathe.
Unaware of being watched until she heard a distinctive snicker, she stood on shaky legs and scanned the hillside.
“Hey, lady,” a voice called out.
Whit swung around but didn’t see anyone. “Hello?”
“Up here.”
High above her, on a moss-covered boulder, peered two heads barely visible through tree branches that hung over the rock.
“Are you okay?” one of the boys called down. “We thought you might be having a heart attack.”
“Yeah.” She forced a pathetic laugh. “So did I.”
“Well, are you?”
She shook her head. “No. Just …” Mortified that anyone witnessed my breakdown. “I ate something that made me sick,” she lied smoothly.
“Oh, as long as you’re not contagious.”
She approached the rock, craning her neck. “Are you Jimmy and Connor?”
“Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“I spoke with your mother. She said you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions. I’m with the Medford Daily Chronicle.”
Their faces disappeared as they conferred with each other. She wiped the perspiration from her face with the back of her hand.
Fortunately, a sense of numbness had settled in. The suppressed memory, now so vivid, seemed as if it belonged to someone else or something she’d seen in a movie. She would do what she’d always done after seeing some kind of horror: tuck it away for some other day, when she could handle it. Shove it down deep and keep moving. She sure as hell couldn’t handle it right now.
Groping in her bag, she found some mint gum, and popped a piece into her mouth.
Nothing like the taste of vomit.
In a moment they poked through the brush again.
“Cool! Come on up.”
Scaling a massive rock was not on her agenda right now. “Ahhh. Would you guys mind coming down here?”
The blond called back, “It’s not hard. Just go back down the trail about fifteen feet, and you’ll see a clearing that leads right to us.”
She glanced at the trail, contemplating an escape back to her car as the heavy air weighed on her like a steaming blanket.
Then the blond yelled out, “It’s okay, you can do it.” Those simple words of encouragement, however innocent of the truth, brought tears to her eyes. She nodded. “Yes. I can.”
The trail opened up to a narrow clearing of brush that a casual eye would never notice. No wonder they were able to hide out up there.
One of the boys called through cupped hands, “Stay in the center so you don’t get poison oak!”
That would be the coup de grace for the day.
Whit made her way to the foot of the rock. Little rivulets of perspiration trailed down her sides, as much from stress as the heat.
The mammoth rock thankfully had a gradual incline on this side. Relieved that she didn’t have to climb, she stepped over two pairs of dusty flip-flops and ascended the rock, taking a seat on the blanket spread out at the top.
The blond said, “I’m Jimmy, and this is Connor.” He had a mouthful of braces, and proud of it.
Both boys were thin, with narrow shoulders exposed by tank tops and spindly legs in cutoff jean shorts. Neither had yet developed masculine features, although Connor, with sandy-brown hair shagging over his ears and bright blue eyes, had a spattering of acne across his jaw. He was also sporting a healthy-looking scab on one knee. Connor tucked his chin against his chest, perhaps a bit shy, allowing his shaggy hair to fall across his brow. “You’re our first guest. How do you like the place? Pretty cool, huh?”
“Yeah, we wouldn’t have called out,” Jimmy explained, “but, like, we thought you might be in trouble. You’re the only person—well, besides us—who knows where our hideout is at.”
“Thanks. I’m fine now.” She was grateful for the distraction, so she was going to hang on like a pit bull to this story. She surveyed their camp. “You guys have a great fort.”
The top of the rock lay relatively flat. Above, a tarp had been spread out up in the low-hanging branches of a tree, and beneath lay sleeping bags, pillows, flashlights, mosquito repellent, and a large basket of chips, crackers, peanut butter, and other snack foods. On the other half of the rock, where Whit sat under open sky, was an assortment of blankets to cushion the hard surface. A small ice chest rested in the corner alongside a stack of board games and a couple of pairs of binoculars. Most of the rock was shaded by a nearby tree.
Towheaded Jimmy grinned, his sunburned face alight with pride. “Yeah, man. It’s sick!”
“Looks like you boys have been camping out here at night as well.”
“Sure.” Jimmy pointed to the tarp. “We have a roof in case it rains. But we can’t stay out here all night. My mom wouldn’t let us.”
“Smart mom. She said to tell you boys to come back to camp for new batteries for the walkie-talkies. She’s also nervous about a bear in the area, so she wants you closer to home.”
“No way!” Jimmy protested.
“We should head back.”
“No way, man!” Jimmy insisted. “I’m not leavin’.”
They weren’t her kids. There was nothing she could do about it. With a sigh, Whit agreed. “All right, we’ll do the interview here.” She grabbed her digital recorder from her bag and held it out between them.
“The fisherman who found the body said you guys witnessed him shooting at the bear?”
Both boys immediately cheered up, their faces beaming with secrets begging to be shared. They burst out chattering at once, elbowing each other out of the way.
“Wait a minute.” Whit raised her hands. “One at a time.”
Jimmy clamped a hand over Connor’s mouth. “Sure, we saw it; then we ran down there to see what was goin’ on.”
Connor finally freed himself. “That’s when we saw the body. The bear had, like, mangled that lady’s foot. And, like, tore half the leg off.”
“And now we think maybe we seen the killer!” Jimmy jumped up, grabbed a pair of binoculars, and handed them to Whit. “We’ve been watching the cops dig up the body. Come on up.”
She stepped tentatively toward the edge of the highest peak, holding on to a tree branch for support. Jimmy picked up the other pair of binoculars and pulled back a couple of leafy branches, creating a small window.
“Look there.” He pointed down a steep slope on the other side of the trail.
Whit sat on her knees and steadied herself.
She gazed through the binoculars. At first she saw nothing but a blur, but as she adjusted the lens, she gasped at the clarity. With all the switchbacks on the trail, she had lost her sense of direction. Trees and brush prevented her from seeing every detail of the crime scene, but she smiled when she recognized Katie Riggs. A group of detectives gathered around what was presumably the victim, concealed now in a body bag.
“Good God!” She fished her cell phone out of her pocket, zoomed in, and took several shots.
“Yeah,” Connor laughed. “Front-row seats, man! We were like … insane!”
Slowly, Whit lowered the phone and turned to the boys. “No wonder you two came back up here.”
Impatient to get to the facts, Whit settled the boys back down on the blanket where they could talk. Nothing like a hot lead to pull her back on track. She set the recorder between them and, taking no chances, jotted notes on her steno pad as well.
After collecting names and phone numbers, she asked, “So you saw the killer?”
“Sure!” Jimmy said, nodding happily.
Connor shook his head, the shaggy brown hair flopping. “Not really, man. Well, we did, but like … it was super dark.”
“I think it was Tuesday morning, but I’m not real sure,” Jimmy said. “About four or five days ago.”
“Yeah,” Connor explained, “it was our second day here and we wanted to sleep on the rock, but Jimmy’s mom wouldn’t let us.”
“Yeah, so we snuck out of our tent down by the camper early, like three or four in the morning, and hustled up here while it was still dark.”
Connor’s bright blue eyes widened. “It was sooo creepy at night!”
“That’s the whole point, Connor!” Jimmy shook his head in disgust. He turned and spit into the brush, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anyway, it was super quiet up here that early in the morning, but we kept hearing these weird scraping noises. But we couldn’t see anything ’cause it was so dark.”
Whit nodded. The noise would likely travel over all the foliage to their perch at the top of the hill. Even now, she could hear an occasional voice or car door slamming from somewhere down below.
“Yeah, so we ate some Hershey bars and waited until dawn. That’s when we saw the guy. The morning mist was out, so we couldn’t get a very good look at him. And he wore a blue or gray baseball cap.”
“Uh-huh,” Jimmy broke in. “And the guy was diggin’ with a frickin’ shovel! How creepy is that?”
Connor shrugged. “At first we figured it was just a fisherman out digging for worms or something. But, like, it could be something sinister too. So we went down for a better look.”
Whit frowned. “You went down to the road?”
“No way, man,” Connor laughed. “We’re not that stupid!”
Jimmy leaned forward and pulled the tree branches back. “See how the trail leads up around that bend to the other side of the hill? We got closer to the action, but by the time we got there, the guy was piling rocks and dirt over the hole he’d been diggin’.”
“Yeah, and the mist from the river moved in real thick, so it was tough to see,” Connor said.
Jimmy slapped him on the back. “So George of the Jungle here grabs a branch and tries to lean out over the hill.” He laughed, the high-pitched glee of youth in puberty. “The branch broke and just about tossed his butt down the hill.”
“Holy crap, that was a close call.”
“So, what happened?” Whit asked.
“I saved his sorry a …” Jimmy laughed again, and sat back down. “He took a tumble, but I grabbed the belt loop on his shorts. He made a hell of a lot of noise. Especially when he screamed like a girl! Then the killer stopped moving rocks and hurried away. Like he was busted, man. Then we heard an engine start.”
“So you never really saw his face?”
“I didn’t scream like a girl!” Connor protested.
“Dude … you know you did!”
“Suck the big one, man!”
Whit interrupted. “Guys!”
Jimmy slapped Connor on the back. “Come on, man. It’s cool.”
Connor shrugged and gave up the fight, running the back of a dusty hand across his nose.
“Okay,” Whit asked again, “so did you see his face?”
“Naw.” Jimmy shook his head. “It was too dark and foggy. He was dressed in black, except I could see his arms. He was a white dude. Couldn’t see his face ’cause of the cap.” He leaned back thoughtfully, chewing his lip between the bright metal braces. “But, ya know, later we were talking about it, and I’m not sure, but we mighta heard a second car door.”
“You mean the killer had someone with him?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Sounds echo up here.”
“But you didn’t see anyone else?”
“No. Just the one guy.”
“What about later? Did you find his digging spot?”
“We tried.” Connor scratched his head. “It’s hard to tell from down there. The rocks and dirt all look the same.”
“Until the bear dug her up,” Jimmy added. “Now we know what that guy was up to. Burying a frickin’ body!”
“Got a look at the truck, though.” Connor held up his hand, and Jimmy high-fived him. “It was black with a king cab.”
An eyewitness account. It doesn’t get any better than that. Whit smiled. “Nice work, boys.”
CHAPTER
5
RIGGS CRUISED THROUGH the security gate at Judge Cordero’s Tuscan-style home on Cherry Lane. On the crest of the long driveway, above the heavy-leafed shade trees, basked a terra-cotta–tile roof in the fading sunset. Near the gated entrance was a sign, one of many planted throughout Medford, asking its citizens to vote for Cordero as “Our Next State Representative.” The judge had managed to keep his nose out of controversial rulings and was well respected. Riggs thought he’d probably win the seat without a problem.
She parked her company-issued Ford F-150, which sometimes served as the coroner’s van, under a tall portico at the front entrance. Blackwell’s demand for an expedited autopsy sent her scurrying to make all the arrangements with the medical examiner. As the ME detective, she acted as the eyes and the ears on the ground, helping Dr. Weldon piece together the evidence. The judge was expecting her. Reluctantly, she leaned across the seat and moved a pile of books she’d picked up from the library onto the floor: anatomy, forensic psychology, and three suspense novels. The Niki Francis case would dominate her life for the next few weeks. Personal reading was out of the question. She grabbed her iPad for the DocuSign on dental and medical records. She could have sent the documents via email, but she had a good rapport with the judge and wanted to ask some questions.
It was dusk, just after eight thirty, and the setting sun cast a pale-pink hue from the west in a darkening indigo sky. She stepped onto the co
bblestone circular driveway. On the quiet hillside she heard the low rumble of thunder off in the distance. A warm breeze ruffled her short blonde hair but was little relief from the day’s heat.
She crossed the courtyard, past a three-tiered fountain, and approached a heavy wooden entrance. Before she could knock, Judge Cordero opened the door.
“Detective Riggs.” He was tanned, of medium height with a barrel chest, and usually cheerful, but tonight he appeared somber.
“Judge, nice to see you.” It wasn’t the first time she’d dropped in at Cordero’s home on business or the occasional summer party.
She followed him through a vaulted great room and stepped out French doors to a pool patio. Riggs recognized the soft strains of a Hawaiian ukulele playing over hidden speakers, which didn’t surprise her, since the judge and his wife owned a home in Hawaii.
The infinity swimming pool reflected pale-blue lights from beneath the water and appeared to flow endlessly off the edge of the hillside, where below spread a panoramic view of city lights. Beneath a vine-covered trellis sat Cordero’s wife, Celeste, at a glass-top table, the remains of their evening meal, what looked like a Cobb salad, still in front of her. Both were dressed casually in shorts and cotton shirts with flip-flops.
Celeste, a slender woman in her late sixties, was incredibly well preserved. Riggs suspected a pinch and a tuck here or there. She wore bleach-blonde hair cut in full layers around her shoulders, a stark contrast with her dark tan. A social butterfly with a network that spanned the entire valley, she owned a flourishing real estate business. Her name recognition was better than her husband’s.
Usually chatty and vivacious, Celeste seemed edgy. Riggs wondered if she’d interrupted a family dispute.
The judge offered Riggs a chair and some water, which he poured from an iced pitcher garnished with lemon slices. The air beneath the canopy of trumpet vines smelled of sweet honeysuckle, stirred by an almost pleasant breeze, as if the expansive pool had managed to cool the air around it. Riggs sat with a deep sigh.
Judge Cordero said, “I’ll just go get my reading glasses from the study.”
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