Labyrinth

by Catherine Coulter

  He forced himself to look away from DeSilva, to the man and woman standing behind Hammersmith, both looking at him with mild interest at best, both spit-shined in their cool black clothes, all sharp and hard, doubtless more FBI agents. Well, maybe not the girl with the curly red hair, but where were the freckles? He couldn’t see any. Was she that white all over? He wouldn’t mind checking that out for himself, then maybe, well, who knew? He stared hard at her. “You’re an FBI agent, too?”

  Sherlock gave him her patented sunny smile, not realizing it was her trademark. She appeared to give his question some thought. “I’m told I am. Actually, I don’t remember, but I will soon.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Not important. Now, I understand, Mr. Bodine, you were involved in the kidnapping of three teenage girls, very probably murdered them. Amy Traynor—we know she’s dead—that’s what you let on to Dr. DeSilva. But what about Heather Forrester and Latisha Morris? Are they still alive?”

  Rafer’s lawyer had told him to keep quiet, and he’d meant to, but her question made him yell, “That isn’t true! Don’t believe anything she says, she’s lying. She claims she read my mind. Can you imagine anyone taking that seriously? You know it’s nuts, she’s nuts.” He saw his lawyer’s stern expression in his mind’s eye, and shook his head. “I’ve got nothing more to say.”

  Sherlock said, “At least tell us why you kidnapped those sixteen-year-old girls. Did you rape them? Have there been other young girls, but from farther away, nowhere near Gaffer’s Ridge so they couldn’t be traced back to you? Were all of them sixteen? Are you a serial killer, Mr. Bodine?”

  Rafer felt bile rise in his throat. He wasn’t about to sit here and let her spew this crap at him. He managed to keep his voice calm. “I didn’t kill anyone. I wouldn’t ever hurt anyone. The lot of you, go away. Leave me alone. Get the nurse, I want pain meds. My lawyer said you have nothing on me, I’ll be going home soon. Uncle Booker told me all about your takeover, but there’s no way that’ll last for you. You’ll see.” He stared at Savich. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Agent Savich and you’ve already spoken to Agent Sherlock. It’s all very straightforward, Mr. Bodine. Help us find the missing teenagers, tell us where you took them, and it could save your life.”

  Quiet, keep your mouth shut, that’s what his pa had said, too, last night after the lawyer laid it out. He said, “You’ve got no proof, you’ve got nothing at all. Go away.”

  Sherlock cocked her head at him. “Help me to understand, Mr. Bodine. If Dr. DeSilva didn’t read your mind, if she didn’t scare you witless, then why did you knock her unconscious, take her to your house, and duct-tape her in your basement? Surely you and your lawyer have come up with a story, an explanation, right?”

  “I didn’t! I never touched her, I don’t even know her. She’s fricking crazy. You should be locking her up.”

  Sherlock said, “Does your family know what you’ve been up to? Are they involved? Or are they covering up for you out of habit?”

  “My family is none of your business.”

  “Oh, but they are, because someone not only removed your car from your driveway, this same someone probably also removed your computer and the duct tape. Which makes me wonder, how does a homeowner make do without any duct tape?”

  “Very funny. Look, I came home and walked in and there she was holding that pipe, ready to brain me.” He flicked a look toward Griffin. “And that one, that pretty boy, came running into my house and attacked me. They’re probably sleeping together and he’s lying to protect her.”

  His wrist hurt, his head hurt, and he was scared to his bones, but no way would he let these bastards see it. He looked over at Carson, managed another credible sneer, coated it with sarcasm. “You’re a journalist for this big shot in New York City, and everyone knows you people make up stuff all the time.” And then to Griffin, “So, are you going to charge me? My lawyer says even if you do, you can’t hold me for long. There’s no proof I did anything wrong.”

  Carson still wanted to leap on him, but instead she took another deep breath, even managed to smile at him, watched him jump. For the first time in her life, she tried to hear what someone was thinking, but there wasn’t anything to hear.

  Sherlock said, “Tell us, Mr. Bodine, what did you mean—Agent Hammersmith won’t last for long?”

  He held it in, shook his head.

  Sherlock studied Rafer Bodine. He was a fairly good-looking man, early thirties, and probably tall, but she couldn’t tell with him in bed. His hair was blond, more gold, really, with some wave to it, a bit on the long side. She’d bet he moseyed when he walked. She wished she could see a monster behind those dark brown eyes, but she didn’t. What she saw was anger and fear, and petulance. She said to get him talking again, “Mr. Bodine, we hear your family has been in Gaffer’s Ridge for generations, that many of you run successful businesses here. Is this true?”

  Rafer stared at all the curly red hair, the pale face, the incredible light blue eyes. He said slowly, “Maybe I’ll tell you, if you tell me if you’re white all over. Or are you sick?”

  “Your father, Mr. Bodine,” Sherlock said without pause. “Isn’t he the president and owner of Gaffer’s Ridge First City Bank? His name is Quint Bodine?”

  Rafer looked at the four faces, then back at her. “You call yourself Sherlock? That’s dumb. A girl can’t be Sherlock.”

  “Your father, Mr. Bodine?”

  Why not? It was common knowledge. Why would the lawyer mind? “That’s right, he owns a lot of things, not only the bank, but some of the stores in town, like the dry cleaners, and two gas stations, and a whole lot of land. My pa signed over a share of the lumber mill to me three years ago and I run it. I’m a respected citizen around here, not that you strangers would know anything about that.”

  “And your mother? What does she run?”

  He said with no hesitation, “She runs the family. No one screws with her. She’ll fix you in ways you can’t imagine, she’ll fix the whole lot of you. She doesn’t need anyone else. I’m not talking anymore. Go away.” He seamed his lips and looked away from them.

  Sherlock said, “That sounds mysterious, Mr. Bodine. Are you saying we should be afraid of her?”

  He turned back to look at Sherlock. He didn’t see how it could hurt to tell her the truth. He said simply, “She’ll shine you, she’ll shine all of you.” He turned his head away from them again, stared out the window, and really did stop talking.

  “You’ll see us again soon, Rafer,” Griffin said as they left.

  33

  * * *

  Elton John’s “Rocket Man” blasted out of Savich’s pocket as they crossed the parking lot to the Range Rover. Savich pulled out his cell and listened as they walked, asked questions, and punched off. He motioned them to the car, turned, and made a call, this one longer. When he got into the Range Rover, he said, “Hold off starting the engine, Griffin. You guys need to hear this. That was Detective Ben Raven, Metro, in Washington. Sherlock, the man who struck your windshield and disappeared—they had no luck with the local ERs, no matches with missing persons, you know the drill. But we got lucky. They put a rush on DNA testing and the results just came back. Now, the disturbing part—the man’s DNA was in the database because he’s a CIA analyst, thus a federal employee. His name is Justice Cummings. Ben went to Cummings’s house, found it empty. One neighbor told Ben he saw the wife and two kids get in the car and leave Monday morning. He said they sometimes head to a cabin in the Poconos for a vacation, sometimes to her mother’s, he couldn’t be sure, didn’t know where in the Poconos, maybe one of the neighbors knew. Without the husband? Ben asked him. The neighbor shrugged, said he’d heard the guy was a spook and no one would know what the dude was up to.”

  Griffin held up his hand. “Whoa, a CIA analyst running into a car in the street and disappearing? If that had anything to do with CIA covert activity, especially here in the States, it’d take a presidential order
to get anything out of them. Even with a personal call from the president himself, given the CIA culture, getting them to tell us what this analyst was up to would be like prying open a tuna can with a Q-tip.”

  Carson stared at him. “I understand they’re secretive, they have to be, but with you guys? The FBI?”

  “To give you an idea of how the CIA operates, Ben Raven called Mr. Maitland at the Hoover, who called Cummings’s supervisor—group chief at Langley. All he got out of the group chief, a Mr. Alan Besserman, was stone-cold silence, then an ‘I’ll look into it’ and a curt thank-you. Since Cummings hit an FBI agent’s windshield, namely yours, Sherlock, Mr. Maitland is ready to crack the whip, although where exactly he’d crack it is a question. He spoke of going over Besserman’s head to his boss, Claire Farriger is her name, the assistant director of the CIA for Europe and Eurasia analysis. He told me he’d get back to me if she deigned to see him, so he wants us to be ready to come back to Washington.” He added to Sherlock, “Mr. Maitland wants the CAU to lead up the investigation. I told him we needed another day here in Gaffer’s Ridge. He has Agent Lucy McKnight in charge for now. She already tracked Cummings taking an Uber from several blocks from the accident to Alexandria, where he destroyed his cell.”

  Griffin said, “I’ll bet the CIA is working as hard as we are to find Cummings before his disappearance hits the media, and it will, too juicy not to, particularly since he struck your windshield, Sherlock.”

  Sherlock was thinking her world was awfully strange, being FBI, hitting a CIA analyst who had, oddly, simply disappeared. How often did something like this happen?

  Griffin said, “We don’t have much time, so we need to move fast. What about Rafer Bodine? Sherlock, you’re a fresh eye. What did you think of him?”

  Sherlock said thoughtfully, “He’s scared, he’s angry, but here’s the thing—I didn’t see evil in him. I know that’s an odd thing to say, but being that scared and angry isn’t what you’d expect from a serial kidnapper. Is it, Dillon?”

  “No,” Savich said. “I don’t think Rafer is alone in the girls’ disappearance. Carson, you said he seemed really sorry Amy died?”

  She nodded. “Yes. And he seemed really frightened yesterday at his house, too, frightened of what I could do, or might do. Then today he spoke of his mother fixing us—‘shining’ us.”

  Griffin said, “Jenny never spoke of anyone being afraid of Mrs. Bodine. Maybe they keep it a secret and it was the only threat Rafer could think of. So who’s involved? Rafer’s mother? His father? For that matter, is Sheriff Bodine part of this? And that’s why he behaved as he did? To try to contain the damage?”

  Savich said, “I know one thing. We don’t have time to put together a task force. We have to find those girls fast. If they’re still alive, what we’ve done has already put them in more danger. I think we should go speak to Mrs. Bodine right now. Take it right to her face, see what she says.”

  Griffin nodded and revved up the Range Rover.

  34

  * * *

  They drove from the hospital back toward Gaffer’s Ridge through beautiful rural countryside, a single road cutting through flat green farmland, with copses of trees dividing the fields. The mountains were closer here, tree-covered with a soft and hazy fog lacing over them, impossibly magnificent. Griffin turned onto an unmarked single-lane road that immediately wound upward. Pines and oaks were summer full, their branches so thick over the road they nearly met to form a canopy. The temperature was cooling and Griffin cut the AC. Everyone opened windows and breathed in fresh, sweet-smelling air.

  He said, “Last winter when I was driving across the country to Washington, I stopped in Gaffer’s Ridge. Jenny and Aimée Rose and I hiked for a week, didn’t matter when it snowed. I couldn’t get over how clean the air was, how the sun glistened off the snow. No cars, only the outdoors and the trees. It’s gorgeous country, endless mountains, make you feel like you’re standing on the earth’s backbone.”

  Savich said, “Katie Kettering, the sheriff of Jessborough, Tennessee, says the same thing—the mountains are forever at your back, like a neighbor you can always count on.” He turned in his seat and said matter-of-factly to Carson, “Griffin told us about the gift you have. Did it surprise you?”

  As if he were talking about the weather. Carson cleared her throat, saw Griffin nod at her, said to Savich, “I’ve been told it’s a gift—well, that’s what my mom calls it. Like I told Griffin, it’s always a shock, makes me crazy when it happens. Luckily, my mom didn’t haul me to a shrink when I told her. She believed me.”

  Griffin asked, “What did your father say?”

  “No way would I ever tell Dad. I can see his writer’s brain latching onto it, making me the subject of his next book, or maybe he’d try to fit me in with his current project—on Freud. No, thank you. But with you, Griffin, it was the first time I’ve actually communicated with someone. I guess it’s a gift, since if we hadn’t connected, I might be dead and buried with those poor girls.”

  Griffin said to Savich, “Carson and I talked about this last evening. I told her it’s sometimes like that with you and me. Well, on occasion.”

  They stopped talking to let Griffin navigate the sharp switchbacks up the narrow single-lane road. It sometimes passed a mere few feet from a sheer drop, and there was only the occasional turnout dug into the side of the mountain to allow an oncoming car to pass. But they saw no traffic, not a single car or truck. He said, “Jenny told me this is a private road, mostly a private mountain, really. She said she didn’t know of anyone who came here.

  “She told me the Bodines are treated like royalty, well respected by the locals, but not exactly liked. She added no one ever crosses them, or appears to want to. Then she paused a second, and warned me to be careful.”

  Sherlock said, “I’m wondering how Mrs. Bodine would fix us—what she actually does to ‘shine’ someone.”

  Savich said, “That’s one of the reasons I want to meet her, to find out what this ‘shining’ means.” He remembered how Blessed and Grace Backman could control most anyone they wished to control—they had their own word for it, ‘stymie.’ He turned and smiled at Sherlock. She started, then looked wary. It went straight to his gut, but he said nothing.

  Griffin pulled the Range Rover to a stop when the road simply ended. They saw a large sign on curved metal hanging on a freshly painted white gate, EAGLE’S NEST. There was a weathered dark wooden call box next to it.

  Griffin said, “Why would someone want to name their property after a Nazi hangout in Bavaria?”

  Carson said, “My dad told me Hitler disliked Eagle’s Nest because of his fear of heights, and who cares? Sorry.”

  Griffin leaned out of the driver’s side window and pressed the call button. A woman’s deep voice answered. “What do you want, Agent Hammersmith?”

  Griffin looked for a camera but didn’t see one. He raised an eyebrow at Savich as he said into the call box, “Since you know my name, ma’am, you probably also know why I’m here. Just to be sure, we’re FBI and we’d like to speak to you about your son, Rafer. You are Mrs. Cyndia Bodine?”

  “Of course I am. Yes, I see you brought some reinforcements. Wise of you.” The gate buzzed open.

  Wise of him? Griffin pulled through, looked back to see the gate close behind them. “I don’t see any cameras.”

  “I don’t, either,” Carson said. “Guys, I really don’t want to be shined. Whatever that means can’t be good.”

  Savich said, “We’ll see if she tries anything. Too bad for her son, Rafer, but it appears he can’t shine anyone or he surely would have tried it on you, Carson.”

  The road didn’t widen when Griffin was through the gate. It narrowed a bit. At least the asphalt was new and the curves were less sharp, which was something. There was no railing on the cliff side, only stout-looking gnarly bushes planted every three or so feet. Carson said, “Those bushes are meant to keep your car from going over the edge? They look sturdy,
but I doubt they’d stop a rabbit on a bicycle.”

  Sherlock laughed, and was very glad Griffin hugged the mountain.

  In five hundred feet they reached a flattened clearing near the top of the mountain, at least two hundred feet wide. In the back, on the very edge, stood an ultramodern structure of glass and painted black wood. Beside it was a huge garage. Across the way were what looked to be a guest house and storage sheds, and around all of it was a wide, perfectly landscaped yard, bordered by a thick forest.

  35

  * * *

  GAFFER'S RIDGE

  EAGLE'S NEST

  THURSDAY AFTERNOON

  Carson breathed in the crisp cool air as she climbed out of the Range Rover and looked around. “They simply scraped off the top of the mountain to give them as much flat space as they wanted. Everything seems perfect, not a blade of grass growing too high or where it shouldn’t. No stray yard implements, no dead flowers in a pot—everything’s perfect. Look at all the outbuildings, neat and freshly painted. Flagstone steps shiny and clean. And would you listen—not a sound. Except for the leaves dancing in the breeze. It’s like a perfect painting, no messy life to disturb it.”

  Griffin said, “There had to be more here when Rafer was a kid, maybe a basketball hoop on one of the four garage doors. It’s too quiet, makes me itchy.”

  Savich studied Sherlock for a moment. She was still pale, but he didn’t think her head was hurting her any longer. “Let’s let Mrs. Bodine wait for us a while, wonder why we’re not coming to the door. Before we go in, you should all know what MAX coughed up on the Bodines of Gaffer’s Ridge last night.” He grinned. “Not one of the Bodines has a single felony, not even a parking ticket. There are two living brothers: Booker Bodine, the sheriff, and Quint Bodine, the bank owner, the one with the business smarts evidently, and all the money. The brothers married their cousins—two sisters, Cyndia and Jessalyn Silver. Quint and Cyndia’s only daughter, Camilla, disappeared when she was a teenager, a suitcase and her clothes with her. She didn’t leave as much as a letter to explain why. As far as anyone knows, she has never been heard from since that long-ago night. The story was in the local newspapers at the time, part of the family’s efforts to find her. The papers mentioned private investigators, but there was nothing to suggest they ever found her. Rafer was five years younger than his sister.