When she last spoke to Hawk, he said he had snatched the phone of the lead man in the organization and that he was now running down the numbers in it. She hadn’t heard from him since, but had to believe that he was already on it. That whatever Russo was now finding was at least a step behind.
“Kuntzman,” she whispered.
“Nothing for me,” Josh managed, flicking his gaze up to Amber. “You?”
Again, the words of Hawk came back to her.
Six years had slid by since the loss of her sister. Six years during which she’d wished every harm possible on the man, had asked anybody that would listen why Elizabeth had died instead of him.
As little as three days ago, she would have shared every bit of information she had. She would have gone out of her way to impede Hawk with something he was doing, would have gladly testified against him at trial.
But that was before. Before he had flown across the country without hesitation, before he had spent two solid days looking for Elyse.
Where he was now, how close he may be, she wasn’t certain, but if there was even the slightest chance of him bringing her daughter home, she had to make sure he had it.
And it wasn’t like mentioning him or anything he’d told her impeded the police investigation in any way. Rather, it just doubled the chances of somebody getting to her daughter.
“Never,” she replied, looking up to Russo. “Does this man have our daughter?”
Reaching out, Russo snatched the photo away from Josh. Returning it to his jacket pocket, he gave her a look that relayed he did not appreciate how the conversation was going, taking a step backward.
“We don’t know,” he said, “but we do know he has been identified as a high-end fence in the area with ties to different people throughout the country. Among them are those that have been known to dabble in trafficking before.”
Beside her, Josh let out a gasp. His hand shot out, clamping around her thigh, squeezing it tight.
For the first time in days, Amber dropped herself down to the loveseat. Unable to support her own weight, she hit the cushion square, bouncing once, feeling the air driven from her lungs.
“We have also just picked him up,” Russo said. “I will be heading there directly from here to question him myself.”
Hot tears boiled to the underside of Amber’s eyes. Her breathing grew taut, the world seeming as if it was tilting on an axis, listing to the side.
For two days she’d forcibly tried to push aside such notions, but hearing the words aloud brought with them a gravity she never anticipated.
So much so she barely even noticed as Russo turned and left, disappearing as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving them both in stunned silence in his wake.
Chapter Seventy-One
The smell of burnt flesh, gasoline, and smoke all three hung thick in the air inside the SUV. Penetrated deep into my pores, the acrid combination of scents seemed to permeate the air, so thick there was no way the rental car company would ever be able to get it out.
Even with the windows now down and air rushing in at eighty miles an hour, it was intense enough to make my nostrils burn and my eyes water.
The first offending odor was straightforward enough. It was based in pressing both sides of John Kuntzman’s face against the hot engine block, keeping him pinned against it hard enough and long enough that by the time I was done, he looked like an extra from a bad horror movie.
Freddy Krueger, or some such thing.
The scent of gasoline came from inserting Kuntzman’s shirt into the tank of his truck after the interrogation was finished, letting the cotton material soak up as much as possible before draping it across the front seat.
The smoke came after I used the cigarette lighter on his front dash to turn the entire cab into an impromptu hibachi, taking care of both his body and any DNA I might have left behind.
Even if there was no way they could get anything to a lab fast enough to impede my investigation, I didn’t want to run the risk of having someone show up at the office one day asking what I had been up to in my travels.
The first round of my efforts with Kuntzman hadn’t yielded a great deal. His fingers had snapped and blood had run freely from the hole in his knee, but to his credit, the man had stayed resolute.
Not until I had gone to work using the hot engine had the man broken down.
Somehow, the combination of smelling one’s own flesh cooking and seeing the results of it in the mirror has a way of penetrating even the most ardent defenses.
Once he figured out that not only was his life over but so too would be those of his family back in Odessa, the gates had opened. Wanting only for the hellish scene to end, to be put out of his misery, he had freely shared whatever I asked for, telling me all he knew, begging the entire time for me not to touch his mama.
The irony of it and the situation we were now in was not lost on me.
The story he shared was one that sounded like it was ripped from the script of an episode of a bad TV procedural. Himself the not-quite-innocent bystander that got pulled in, he said he was summoned to the biggest house he’d ever seen a few nights prior. How they’d gotten his name or his contact information, he had no idea.
Asked to come late at night, he sat in a study with a Latino man and an Asian man and listened as they made a request of him, one that even they admitted was a bit unusual. They were having a party and needed some very particular favors on hand for guests.
Unlike most inquiries that crossed his desk, this one wasn’t looking for a rare antiquity or a specific model of car. It was in search of a young girl with a very particular set of attributes. Height. Hair color. A slight accent.
In short, they wanted Elyse.
Not her in particular, but someone like her, someone that would appeal to a very certain type of person.
Who they were or what that meant exactly, I didn’t bother fleshing out. Already doing everything I could to the man short of killing him, it was best to keep him on track, not veering into side conversations.
Especially those likely to really piss me off.
When it was first broached, Kuntzman had thought it might be a joke. Some sort of litmus test from a potential partner, trying to get a handle on what type of man he was.
Not until they’d starting talking money – and a lot of it – had he even realized they were serious. That it was anything more than a gag, some sick bastard’s idea of a joke.
Even as he left, he hadn’t expected it to turn into anything. That night he’d gone home, pushed it out through the usual networks, and fallen asleep.
Eight hours later, he received a hit from Big Man. One of their recruits had gotten a little overzealous and brought home something he thought might fit.
From there, things had moved quickly.
That’s where the information had ended. Kuntzman didn’t know anything else. He had an address and a pair of physical descriptions, a phone number he was certain belonged to a burner.
Hearing it all for the first time, I figured him for lying. Continuing to work him over, I used the hammer and the scorching engine to mutilate him in ways the human body was never meant to withstand.
Through it all, his story remained steadfast.
I had no idea that Pally had remained on the line, forgetting that the phone had gone flying when I first slid off the road and headed for Kuntzman’s truck. By the time I returned, more than forty-five minutes had passed, though still the faceplate on my phone was glowing, shining like a beacon from the floorboards.
Tucked away where it was, he hadn’t heard everything, but he’d heard enough.
He stayed on just long enough to tell me he was going digging before signing off. Needing to put some distance between me and the remains of Kuntzman and his truck, I had moved back through Goodlettsville, eventually meeting back up with the freeway.
If Kuntzman was to be believed, I had an address. A spot I could type into my phone and cruise straight toward, taking my
small assortment of weapons and making as much noise as I could.
What I didn’t have was information. A way to confirm if anything he’d just told me was true or just the last gasps of a dying man.
I also had no plan and no way of arriving at an elegant party that was set to begin at any moment.
As much as my every inclination was to head directly there, adrenaline pulsating through my system telling me to do just that, I had to be smart about this. I was only a single person, and more importantly, Elyse would only get a single shot.
Circling around the north end of the city, my phone balanced in my lap, I noticed the flash of light from an incoming call the moment it arrived. Reflecting off the front windshield, I snapped a hand out, drawing it to my knee.
Using the controls on the door panel, I raised the windows to either side, the silence it afforded much more pronounced after listening to the wind howl since leaving the airstrip.
With it came a sharp rise in the competing odors, the scents still strong, even after so much time and distance.
Thumbing the phone to life, I pressed the button on the side, shoving it to speakerphone. “Pally.”
“No,” a voice I did not expect said, giving me pause for just a moment. Flicking my focus down to it, I saw the only other number that would be calling me at such an hour staring up, a Nashville area code affixed to a string of digits. “It’s Amber.”
Based on the tenor of her voice, something had occurred. She wasn’t calling for an update, wasn’t awake and pacing, wondering what I’d found.
A tiny ripple passed through my chest as I checked the rearview mirror, seeing only the same loose collection of semi-truck lights I’d been watching for the last ten minutes.
“What happened?”
“Where are you?” she asked, answering my question with one of her own.
Anybody else, and I might have been annoyed. I may have even repeated my question, raising my voice to make a point.
Not now, though. Not with what she was going through, what we had already endured.
“Twenty miles northwest of you,” I said. Pausing, I considered not telling her where I was headed, before opting to go for it.
There was no need to keep secrets, no upside in doing so right now.
“Headed toward Ashland City.”
On the other end, I could hear her draw in a breath, practically see the crease forming between her brows as she tried to reconcile what I’d said. “What’s in Ashland City?”
This time, it was my turn to answer a question with one of my own. “What happened?”
Amber’s first response was to draw in another breath. Much longer than the previous, it seemed as if she was steeling herself for something.
“The police just left here,” she said. “I guess they went to the warehouse of the S-2 and rounded everybody up, took them all in for questioning.”
Grunting softly, I nodded, knowing she couldn’t see me. The last time we’d spoken, I had told her exactly that, stating I had just left and the cops were on the way.
At the very least, it was validating to know they had done their jobs.
“You tell them...” I began, letting my voice trail off.
“No,” she replied, her lilt letting me know the question wasn’t appreciated, “but it wasn’t like I got to say a lot in general. The whole thing felt more like a fishing expedition, like the detective was here just to see who or what we might now.”
Off the right shoulder, a sign announced that I was twenty-four miles from Ashland City. The address Kuntzman had handed over wasn’t quite all the way to the city, sitting in the space between it and Nashville.
Given the time of night and the speed I was driving, that meant I was only sixteen or so minutes out.
Still having no idea what to do when I arrived.
“Fishing for what?” I asked.
“The guy threw out the name John Kuntzman,” Amber replied. “Said they had seen his name and contact information at the S-2 warehouse and brought him in for questioning as well.
“He said he came by to ask if we knew him or had ever dealt with him before, but I couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to it than that.”
Again, I cast my gaze to the rearview mirror. Having no interest in the traffic around me, I instead stared back at my own expression, seeing the tempest of thoughts swirling just beneath the surface.
A weight pressed tight against my chest, my stomach seizing into a coil.
“Hawk?”
“What did you tell him?” I asked, barely more than a whisper.
“The truth,” she replied. “Neither of us had ever heard of the guy before. Why?”
The myriad of thoughts continued to mesh in the front of my brain, a menagerie of loose ends and ideas, all fighting to come together.
“Hawk,” she repeated, her voice rising slightly. “Why? What do you know?”
Once more, I answered a question of hers with another. “Who was it that came to see you?”
Not expecting it, a hint of confusion found its way over the line. “What?”
“The officer that came to speak to you, who was it?”
Twice she huffed, letting me know that none of this conversation was anticipated or appreciated, before exhaling. “It wasn’t an officer, it was the detective on the case. Oh, I’m sorry the lieutenant detective, Benjamin Russo.”
The tiny ball that was my stomach contracted further yet, my lips parting, lower jaw sagging slightly. Enormous pieces came together in my mind, contorting themselves just so, fitting as if they had been designed for that specific purpose.
“Your turn, dammit-“ she began.
I cut her off before she got out another word. “John Kuntzman is dead.”
Falling completely silent, she waited without pressing further, no sound at all coming in over the line.
When she’d first said his name, I couldn’t figure out how the police had known about him. The sole mention of him at the S-2 warehouse was on Gates’s phone, which I took.
And there definitely wasn’t any way they had him for questioning.
“I know this because I killed him,” I said. “A little over a half-hour ago.”
Rocking back, I adjusted myself in the seat, no part of me wanting to say the next words, but having to anyway.
“Which is why I’m now headed to Ashland City. Because that’s where the plane he stuck Elyse on just before I got there was bound for.”
The sound that came to me next was a cross between a cry and a gasp, the sort of noise only a mother going through the most intense of pain could make.
“Then...why?” she asked after a moment. “Why come over here and ask those questions and lie to us?”
I could almost hear the tears in her voice as she asked the questions, the raw emotion she felt threatening to overtake her at any moment.
The same sort of emotion I felt the day I laid my wife and daughter to rest, their remains burned so completely that combined they fit into a single urn.
Was still feeling, so many years later.
“Because he was testing you,” I said. “They must have found Kuntzman and Russo wanted to know if you were involved in it somehow.”
Ahead of me, the lights of a shopping center grew closer. Even at this time of night, there was enough activity to make the place look like an oasis, a bastion of color in a sea of darkness.
Just over a quarter hour to my destination, where I would find Elyse, no matter what it took.
“I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
The second phone call of my drive came just three minutes later. Making my way down the last stretch toward my destination, every mile that passed beneath my tires brought closer the reality that I still had no idea what I was going to do.
By the time it rang, a ripple of palpitations roiled through my chest, my arm reaching out and snapping it off the dash. Knowing who it was without even looking, I accepted the call before raising
the windows.
“Pally.”
“Hawk,” he replied. “Where are you?”
Considering everything the man could do with phones and computers and electronic tracking, I was certain he probably knew better than I did exactly where I was.
But I still appreciated the effort he made to ask.
“Just left the outer belt,” I said. “Should be there in fifteen.”
Grunting softly, he said, “Turns out Kuntzman wasn’t talking out his ass after all.”
At the sound of the words, my left hand curled tighter around the wheel. I reached to the phone with my right, pressing the volume button on the side of it, making sure it was turned all the way up.
“What did you find?”
“A shitload.”
Ahead of me, a semi-truck drifted to the side, getting out of the way so I could pass. Without tapping the brakes to interrupt the cruise control, I slipped within just a few feet of his back end, not bothering to look over as I zipped past.
“Start at the beginning.”
“I already had an address,” Pally said. “But before I just assumed that was true, I wanted to backcheck the rest of Kuntzman’s story, so I started with the flight. Seemed like the most obvious, but unfortunately, the strip you went to was completely private, and I’m guessing the place they landed is as well.”
Nodding, I pieced together what he was saying. “Private strips, private craft, no need to show up on an FAA registry.”
“Or file a flight log, passenger manifest, etc.”
“Right,” I agreed.
“The second place was the numbers from Kuntzman’s phone. Like we guessed, all either local to Nashville or burners. Already turned off, or more likely destroyed.”
“Completely untraceable,” I added.
“Yeah,” Pally said. “So after realizing there was no low-hanging fruit on this one, I had to reverse course. Step back and figure out what we knew and how we could use it.”
Overhead, a trio of signs announcing upcoming offshoots and highway options appeared. All state routes pointed toward towns I’d never heard of, I let them pass without further thought, keeping my focus on the call at hand.
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