by Ed James
Then something caught in his throat. Or she’d died, long enough ago that her body was cold.
He passed the binocs back, his hand shaking slightly. “You’re the experts—what do you suggest?”
“Covert entry.” The driver narrowed his eyes. “Surprise the occupant. Take them down, then question them. Our priority is to secure the accomplice and identify the location of Avery Holliday, right?”
“Agreed.” Carter opened the back door and put his foot on the curb.
“Sir.” The driver was raising his eyebrows. “I know you like to lead from the front, but it’s best if you leave this to the professionals. Don’t want any more blood on your hands.”
Carter wanted to punch the guy. He held up his hands instead. “Come on, then. Show us how it’s done.” He joined Elisha on the sidewalk, getting out his Glock handgun.
The four TacOps agents were all about the same height, telltale bulges in their suit jackets visible through their windbreakers.
Elisha unholstered her pistol and checked it. “You know the drill. Usual formation.”
Four tight nods, like they’d spent weeks practicing their timing. Then they broke off toward the house. Two stayed at the end of the path with Elisha. Carter followed the other two at a distance, jumping over the chain-link fence into the front yard, a patch of mud. Then he crouched low and crept around the side of the house, following the path of the two TacOps agents. The side gate hung open, and he stepped through. The back yard was overlooked on all sides. Two homes at the back, a block of low-rent apartments to the left, and a clone house on the right. The yard was overgrown, just some faded kids’ toys hiding in the long grass. A set of swings that looked like they hadn’t even been looked at in years.
The two agents went into a flanking position, pistols drawn, one on each side of the back porch.
Carter inspected the windows as he stepped over to the door. No signs of movement inside. The agent who’d been in the passenger seat put a device up to the door lock and pressed the screen of a smartphone.
The door clicked open.
Carter went first, taking care to keep the door quiet, waiting to pass it to the first TacOps agent. He stepped into a grubby kitchen, and let the agents scan the room.
“Clear.”
Carter waited by the door to a hallway, letting the TacOps agents go first. No dead bodies yet. But no live ones.
“Hands on your head!”
Carter raced through the house.
A woman cowered on a wheelchair, her shaking hands held aloft. The two flanking agents trained their guns on her. She looked late thirties, but frail and drawn, her skin pale, her blonde hair thin. She put her hands behind her neck, panic in her eyes.
Not what Carter had expected, sure, but maybe she was still capable of collaborating with Mason. Maybe she knew where he was keeping a small girl hostage. He crouched in front of her, gripping the arms of the wheelchair. “Who are you?”
“Grace. Grace Wickstrom.”
Wickstrom’s wife.
Carter looked around the room. No sign of any dead bodies. “Where is Avery?”
“Who?” The fear in her eyes betrayed a complete lack of knowledge.
“Where’s Mason?”
“He’s not here. Hasn’t been all day.”
“When did you—”
“Last night. He fixed dinner for me, then left.” She looked away, her face full of shame, like not being able to cook for her husband was the worst she had to contend with. “Mason’s staying with a buddy. We had a fight, and he’s not responding to my texts or calls.”
The two agents appeared in the narrow hallway, shaking their heads. “She’s not here, sir.”
So where is she?
Chapter Forty-Nine
Holliday
Holliday sat in the Cadillac’s passenger seat, eyes trained on the house Mason had entered.
Ten minutes now. Doesn’t take that long to retrieve a girl. Unless…
Unless something’s happened to her. Or him.
I’ll never get her back.
A green Range Rover circled the block again, a young couple in the middle of a thundering argument.
I’ve got to do something.
Holliday got out of the Cadillac and carefully pushed the door shut. He looked around, but there was no sign of anybody, let alone anyone homing in on them. He followed Mason’s path across the road and crouched by the low fence. The house sat in a dust yard, a chain-link fence securing it from the street. No features of note, just two windows facing the road, both with thick curtains, and a wooden door, hanging open.
Holliday got up and crept over to the doorway. He stopped by the door and listened. Somebody inside, pacing around, shouting. Got to be Mason.
He opened the door wide enough to peer inside.
Mason tore through the apartment into the kitchen, oblivious to Holliday watching him. Thumping came from another room.
He hasn’t noticed me.
Mason walked back into the hallway.
Holliday pushed himself flat against the front wall. He spotted the Range Rover just down the road, but the occupants were still locked in their deep argument.
“Jackass!”
Mason cursing himself isn’t good.
Holliday peeked back inside, his heart hammering away. Sweat drenched his forehead.
Mason had his cell phone pressed to his ear, keeping his focus on a room on the right. “Layla. Call me. Where are you? Have you still got her?”
Layla? His accomplice?
And he doesn’t have my daughter?!
The things he’s made me do and he doesn’t even have her?
Mason ended the call and entered the room, leaving Holliday’s field of vision.
Think.
He doesn’t have her. But he knows who has her.
Holliday crept forward, stepping over the threshold.
Something banged in the room, loud like a weight had fallen on the floor.
Holliday chanced a peek in. Mason was going through a closet, throwing stuff around.
Holliday shot past the bedroom floor, then stopped, listening hard. Just swearing and shoving clothes along in the closet, the hangers squealing off the rail. He started walking again and kicked something, a crumpled-up sheet of paper. He reached down for it.
SORRY.
Holliday stepped over to the kitchen. Spartan, just a stove and a small countertop cooler. Curled-up wallpaper, battered and bruised cabinet doors, the countertop cracked and scored. Aluminum pans hung from a shelf made of metal rods screwed into the wall. Aluminum wouldn’t hit hard enough and it’d take too long to get a rod down without being heard.
Holliday opened the top drawer. No knives, certainly nothing sharp enough.
“Shit.” Mason was back in the hallway, staring at his cell phone in disbelief, raised eyebrows twisting together in a deep frown, looking back into the bedroom like Avery would magic herself out of thin air.
Holliday jerked to the side, out of Mason’s line of sight. He scanned the room again. Hiding behind the aluminum pots was a cast-iron griddle, the surface rough and charred like burnt meat. He chanced another look.
Mason was still staring into the room. He put the cell to his ear and entered the bedroom.
Holliday stepped over to the pans and parted them to get at the griddle. He took it—felt weighty enough.
Two of the pots clanked together.
Holliday froze, listening hard.
Mason’s voice came from the bedroom: “Layla, it’s Mason. Where are you?”
Holliday stepped through to the hallway, hiding the griddle behind his back, barely breathing. A floorboard creaked as he passed over to the bedroom doorway.
Mason was standing by the closet, head bowed, phone to his ear, facing away. “Layla, call me. Now.” He stabbed a finger off the screen, then just stood there, thinking hard.
Holliday lashed out with the pan and cracked it off the back of Mason’s skull.
&nbs
p; Chapter Fifty
Carter
Carter leaned against the window, looking out onto the street. Outside, Elisha was coordinating the quartet of agents as they fanned out, knocking on doors. No sign they were being watched. No sign that Mason Wickstrom was anywhere near his home. Meaning he hadn’t fled here.
So where was he?
And where was Avery?
He turned back to face the room—a small kitchen area, spartan, the furniture jaded. The walls needed painting, and the shaker kitchen could do with some new doors. Probably the least of her worries. The place smelled of strong coffee, a pot hissing on the counter. The dark liquid inside was more opaque than coffee should be—looked like the sort where one cup at ten in the morning would keep you up all night.
Grace Wickstrom sipped from a glass of water, her hand shaking.
“Your husband didn’t come home?”
“Weren’t you listening?” Grace slammed the glass on the small table. “Staying with a buddy. So he said.”
Carter poured himself a cup of coffee and another for Grace. “That a common occurrence?”
“It’s become more common.” She pounded her hand off the wheels. “Since this happened.” She scowled at Carter. “What’s he done? Why are you looking for Mason?”
“Your husband abducted two children.”
Her hand covered her mouth, her wedding band slipping over her knuckle. “The senator’s kids?” She leaned forward, head in her hands.
Looked genuine, like this was all news to her and she wasn’t involved. No acting, just the truth.
Carter left her with her shock, let it play out in her head, all the possibilities, all the probabilities. Might dislodge something useful.
She shut her eyes. “You know about Jake, right?”
“Jake?”
She looked up, frowning at him, then wheeled over to an open fire, the red bricks charred black. The coals and embers glowed, heating the room, but the ventilation wasn’t doing its job—the air tasted of bitter wood smoke. A row of framed photographs ran along the mantelpiece. Grace was in most of them, smiling and about thirty pounds heavier, a weight that suited her. Her husband was in fewer than a quarter, obviously the photographer in the rest. A boy grew from a baby to a chubby kid, maybe ten, maybe thirteen, hard to tell. “This was Jacob. Our son.” She handed Carter the most recent photo of Jake, a shot of him and his dad fishing. “Jake died at school.”
Carter inspected it. The boy had his father’s red hair, but a heft neither of his parents seemed to have. More burgers and fries than linebacker strength. Kid didn’t look too happy either. Welcome to modern America.
But his father did. In every shot, Mason Wickstrom grinned at the camera, like he had everything in the world. Shaved head, smooth face. Muscular physique.
If the boy was dead, then he’d lost it all. Was that enough to do what he did?
But why Holliday?
“His heart stopped when he was warming up for soccer.” Grace looked over, her red eyes probing, then took the photo back. “The autopsy said it was some congenital defect that we didn’t know about, that we couldn’t know about, that we shouldn’t blame ourselves for.” She took the photo back and stroked it. Her body jerked as she started crying. “He could’ve died at any time, they said, but it happened last year. It’s all a blur. I was at work, got a call and my world fell apart. They said my boy was dead. I raced over to the school and he was being taken out in a body bag. My boy, my Jacob. Dead. He was nine. How does that happen?”
Carter stroked her back. Made her flinch.
She twisted her head around in a sideways figure eight, like it was all she could do to stop herself breaking down, from descending into the abyss. She fiddled with her wedding band, spinning it around her bony finger. “I couldn’t cope with what happened. Threw myself onto the freeway. Missed the front of the bus and landed on the top. Bounced. And broke my back.” She punched her useless legs.
Carter had to step away, shutting his eyes.
Grace had tried and failed.
His own mother hadn’t just tried to kill herself, but had taken two lives. Hers and someone else’s.
Grace hadn’t, instead returning here to an emotionally broken husband, her body as smashed as his mind. Returning to only the memories of a happy life.
He pictured her standing over the freeway, resting on the bridge, watching and waiting. Her broken heart still beating. Ready to time her fall to kill herself.
The bus driver wouldn’t forget.
Nobody thinks of the others in that situation.
Carter dragged himself back to the present and tried to piece it together. They were getting somewhere, some kernel of a motive forming.
A son dying could make anyone do anything.
But why Holliday? It still didn’t add up.
Carter wiped his cheeks and eyes, then turned to face her. He flashed her a sympathetic smile. “Mrs. Wickstrom, did your husband ever talk about Christopher Holliday?”
Grace frowned at him. “You really think he’s taken those kids?”
“We know he has, I’m afraid.”
She slumped back in her chair and swallowed hard. “Mason got let go from his job six months ago. He worked security at a tech firm, but they sold up to some company down in Silicon Valley. Paid off most of the staff, took the good ones with them. My husband was good at his job, but it was security, so they didn’t need him. He blamed the government for not protecting their jobs.”
“Including Holliday?”
“Everyone. The president, the governor, both senators. He wrote to them, but they just sent back form letters, if they even bothered to read them in the first place.”
That didn’t feel like a strong motive. Especially not with the questions he’d been asking.
“I really need to speak to your husband, Mrs. Wickstrom. Any idea who this buddy is?”
She looked up, but didn’t say anything, just spun the ring on her finger.
“Is he having an affair?”
“No.” Grace shut her eyes and snorted. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Mason’s…” She gasped and kneaded her forehead. “Mason found this hard. And with my, um, accident, on top of Jake, well…” She slumped back in the chair again. “My husband tried dealing with what happened in his own way, which meant he didn’t accept it. He didn’t believe the autopsy, didn’t believe that our boy had a heart attack. Or didn’t accept that it was during soccer.”
“What did he think happened?”
“I don’t know. When he lost his job, Mason got a chunk of cash, enough for a couple years’ living. I told him to get another job, that we should save it.” Grace rolled back to the table pressed against the wall, still set for three places. At some point, a family would’ve eaten there. Now it was empty, her son dead, her husband a child abductor and murderer. “But he sat here, every single day, searching on his laptop. From the moment he helped me up, till I went to bed again.”
“What was he looking for?”
“Jacob died the same day this military exercise went down.”
Carter took a sip of coffee, savoring the bitter tang. Tried to focus on that to keep his mind from racing ahead. And he failed.
A dead son, and a military conspiracy. Delgado said they were looking for information on an exercise at a school.
“When was this?”
“October second.” Grace looked at him, her eyes locking on to his through the mist of tears. “Mason thought Jake’s death was somehow connected to a military exercise. He found stuff on the internet about military conspiracies. YouTube, Reddit, you name it. He searched and searched for his truth.” She reached up to the counter and took her coffee, cradling it on her lap. “I thought it’d help, but he just kept getting deeper and deeper. I told him to stop. But he couldn’t. By that point it was an obsession. It had taken over his life.”
“Did he find anything concrete to back it up
?”
“Not that he told me.”
“Did Mason speak to anyone else about his suspicions?”
“The school, of course. Tang Elementary. I mean, the principal denied it. But Mason thought someone had paid to shut them up.”
“What about any of the kids’ parents, anything like that?”
“Not to my knowledge. He thought the school told them to keep quiet, but…” She locked eyes with Carter, her glare steely. “My husband isn’t a well man. Not like me. I mean, mentally.”
“Did he ever share anything with you that might make you think he was onto something, that the school was indeed covering it up?”
Grace frowned. “I don’t know.” She took a drink of her coffee, grimacing at the taste. “Mason kept asking me to explain how Jake died the same day his friend went missing. Faraj. Lovely boy. Jacob’s best friend. He disappeared that night after school. They never found him again.”
Carter could now see the logic Mason Wickstrom had followed. One mighty coincidence. “Did he find any evidence?”
“Not that I know of.”
But a missing kid meant a Child Abduction Rapid Deployment case.
Meant that Carter had another lever to pull.
Chapter Fifty-One
Mason
I can barely open my eyes. The room’s dark, just outlines of shapes. Dulled light coming from a window, thick curtains blocking it. I’m propped up against something and my head is getting worse, throbbing hard now. Feels like someone’s opened up the back of my skull. I reach up to touch it but my hands are tied together.
I try to pull my wrists apart, but there’s no give. Can’t even get my fingers around. Feels plastic, like cable ties. The bonds on my wrists glow bright yellow in the gloom. Twisted nylon rope, the modern stuff, coated plastic. Shit, I need a sharp knife to get out of that. My eyes are adjusting to the light. I can see shapes, maybe a desk with a chair. I twist around and it’s maybe a bed that I’m propped up against. But nothing I recognize.