Down the Darkest Road

by Kylie Brant

  “Could both homicides be the result of mistaken identity? Was Forrester shooting at boys he mistook for Dylan Castle?” she questioned.

  SBI special agent Sue Rebedeau spoke for the first time. “We have only circumstantial evidence that Forrester was involved. Dylan thought he saw the man in his truck shortly before the killings. Witnesses saw a similar vehicle in the vicinity of each of the crime scenes. Our office assisted with the investigation. But no one got a license plate off the truck, and leads quickly dried up.”

  “Tina Bandy was adamant the family relocate again,” Davis put in. “We briefly discussed their moving out of state, but she was unwilling to do so. They went to Raleigh, where they remained until last October, when Dylan contacted our office saying he thought he’d seen Forrester driving by the school. We reached out to the local law enforcement and assisted with a search for the vehicle. No verification could be found, but the Bandys moved again, landing in the Asheville vicinity last October.” He looked at Cady. “Since you’re handling Forrester’s abduction warrant, SBI administration determined it was best for USMS to take over his entire case. I understand that you’ll be handling the Loomer warrant too.”

  That was news to her. “Good to know,” she said wryly. North Carolina had no statute of limitations on felonies. Even the older outstanding warrants on Forrester and Loomer remained active, and her agency chased fugitives.

  She looked at DEA agent Curtis Weddig. “With your resources, maybe you can discover whether Forrester is still involved in the state drug trade. At this point, we can’t be sure he’s still living in the state, but he has to be getting money somehow.” The man nodded.

  He’d snatched Cassie Zook from Bryson City, Cady recalled. So even if Forrester wasn’t hiding out in North Carolina, he may not have gone too far.

  “Any recovered spent brass from the Matthis or Bahlman homicides?” Gabe asked.

  Rebedeau nodded. “They were a match.”

  “If and when the weapon is recovered,” Cady told Gabe, “I’m hoping you can personally oversee the ownership investigation.”

  The ATF agent replied, “I’ll be interested to see the ballistics reports. How far away was the shooter from Matthis and Bahlman when they were killed?”

  Davis clicked off the TV. “The lab did scene reconstructions. Their analysis suggests the driver slowed or stopped alongside the victims and shot through an open window. Distance between the shooter and victims was estimated to be eight to twelve feet.”

  It’s one thing to shoot at a target from a distance, Cady thought grimly. That could allow the shooter to depersonalize his victim. Being close enough to see the emotions . . . witness the carnage . . . that was cold.

  “Who besides Forrester would want to harm Castle?” She looked at the faces around the table.

  “No one we can determine,” responded Agent Rebedeau. She wore her dark hair short and sported a pair of trendy large-framed glasses. She sent Cady a quick smile. “We’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out how Forrester keeps finding the family, if indeed he is the shooter. We’ve combed through Tina’s and her kids’ friends and acquaintances and failed to find a link to the man.”

  “Special Agents Davis and Rebedeau updated us when they moved Dylan’s family into the area,” Andy put in. “Other than keeping an eye out for the man and the vehicle, we haven’t had much involvement.” Cady nodded. He’d said as much on the way over here.

  “SBI will remain involved with the family. Special Agent Rebedeau will liaise with your Violent Offender Task Force, as needed.” Davis’s tone went expressionless. “As you can imagine, Tina Bandy has become increasingly agitated by what she sees as a lack of progress in the case.”

  Recalling the woman who had appeared briefly in the clip she’d watched earlier, Cady could appreciate his understatement. But who wouldn’t feel the same way, under the circumstances? The woman’s family’s life had been upended continuously in recent years. Her son could be in danger.

  “I’ll want to speak to the family.”

  “We’ll reach out to them after this briefing to update them about your role,” Rebedeau promised. “I should warn you, Tina Bandy is volatile, and the older boy, Colton, isn’t particularly cooperative, either.”

  “Marshal Maddix, do you want to update us with what you’ve learned since being assigned the kidnapping warrant on Bruce Forrester?” Davis asked.

  “Six weeks ago, Tennessee resident Cassie Zook was reported missing when she didn’t arrive home after a conference in Wilmington,” she began. “She’d stopped in Bryson City to visit a friend but never showed up to their planned meeting. Footage from a security camera in the parking lot shows a man forcing her into the trunk of a car and driving away. Facial recognition software identified the abductor as Forrester. The angle wasn’t helpful when it came to identifying the vehicle. I reached out to Deputy Patten, and he summarized the events that elicited the arrest warrant in Cumberland County. I managed to track down Michael Simmons, who was Forrester’s prison cellie several years ago. We brought him in today on his own outstanding warrant.” She noted the exchanged glance between the two SBI agents and stopped.

  “We’ve been trying to find and question Simmons for some time now,” Agent Rebedeau murmured.

  “I got lucky,” Cady said diplomatically. “He was uninterested in answering questions about his former cellmate after the arrest. I’ll be talking to him again. And the Buncombe County sheriff’s office has his electronics, so we’ll discover whether he’s used them to communicate with Forrester.”

  “We’ve been using the Greensboro crime lab,” Davis told Andy Garrett. The other man nodded. “They’ve been expediting the evidence analysis on this case.”

  “What would be Forrester’s motivation for tracking Tina Bandy’s family from town to town?” It was the one question that had been nagging at Cady since the briefing began. “From what’s been said here, it doesn’t appear that Dylan was an eyewitness to Boster’s death, so he’s no threat to the man.”

  Deputy Patten scratched his head. “Thing is, Marshal, we were never actually sure what the boy saw at the end. I spoke to his doctor at the time, and he said the trauma could be causing an emotional block. Course, Forrester wouldn’t know that. If he did kill Boster, that could give him cause to want Dylan Castle silenced.”

  Cady’s nape prickled. There were lots of unknowns in the case from five years ago. But if Forrester was the shooter, he’d found the family two or three times already. Which meant the man was more successful at hunting the family than law enforcement had been at trailing him. The sooner she changed that, the better.

  Before a fourth boy wound up dead.

  Chapter 4

  Although it was tempting, Cady didn’t nap on the return trip from Mecklenburg. It seemed unfair to Andy, who’d been up as long as she had with last night’s arrest. And there was no way she could sleep in a car full of men. Not because she didn’t trust these individuals. But because she didn’t trust, period.

  It was midafternoon by the time they got back to Asheville. She bypassed the office and went directly to her vehicle. As if it possessed a divine GPS, she ended up at a drive-through coffee shop in an effort to stave off sleep a few more hours. Picking a corner of the lot to park in, she sipped from the steaming to-go cup while flipping through the pages in the report. Thirty minutes later, she was less than a third of the way through the file but had come to a couple of conclusions: Davis’s team had been thorough. And she still wanted to speak to Dylan Castle’s family.

  “Bang, bang! You’re dead, Mama!”

  She jerked her head toward the window. A young woman was pushing an empty stroller on the nearby sidewalk while a toddler walked beside it, pointing a stick at her. “Bang, bang!”

  Pull the trigger back nice and smooth.

  Cady stilled, her mind unsuccessfully chasing the flash of memory. Maybe it was from her initial firearms training at the academy.

  “Put the stick d
own, William. Let’s get back in the stroller.” The boy’s earsplitting scream when he was disarmed had her focus shifting back to the job.

  It took a few minutes to find Tina Bandy’s most recent address and key it into her phone’s GPS. Taking another gulp of coffee, she started the vehicle. It was a quarter to four. Schools were out. If she was lucky, she might find the boy at home. Possibly his brother as well.

  Twenty minutes later, staring at the small, neat house with bright-yellow paint and a red front door, she revised her earlier thought. The place looked deserted. The home and detached single garage sat back from the road, shielded from view by fat pines and untrimmed brush. There was no sign of a vehicle from the graveled drive she’d pulled into. The shades were drawn in all the windows. According to the file, Tina Bandy worked at a local grocery store, although there’d been no information regarding her schedule. She got out of the Jeep to approach the house.

  Climbing the three concrete steps, she opened the screen to pound on the windowless front door. A judas hole punctuated its center. When there was no answer, Cady knocked again. Waited. Just as she was about to give up, a slight sound on the other side of the door alerted her. Turning back, she partially unzipped her coat to withdraw her credentials and flipped open the case, holding it up in front of the peephole in the door. “US Marshals Service,” she called.

  She heard the lock being disengaged, and an instant later, the door swung open to reveal a teenage male. The shock of blond hair had darkened a bit, Cady noted as she tucked away her credentials. He was taller and wider in the shoulders than the boy in the interview clip she’d watched this morning, with an expression far more guarded. But it was easy to see the boy in the teen.

  He stared at her for a full minute before surprising her by saying, “You’re Katy Maddix?”

  “Cady.” She gave him an easy smile, noting the opened can he held in one hand, a spoon sticking out of it. Pork and beans. She suppressed a shudder. “You must have spoken to Special Agent Davis.”

  Wordlessly, he stepped aside, an invitation for her to enter. She did so, swinging the door shut behind her. “Not him. The other one. The woman.”

  “Special Agent Rebedeau.”

  “Yeah.” Now that he’d allowed her inside, the boy didn’t appear to know what to do with her. “Are you taking over for the SBI?”

  “I’m charged with finding Eric Loomer and Bruce Forrester.” It would have been impossible to miss the flicker of fear in the boy’s gaze. “Is your mom home?”

  Dylan shook his head. “She’s at work. She won’t be back until late.”

  Cady looked beyond him into the small living room and adjoining kitchen. Sparsely furnished but neat enough. The TV was on. “What about Colton?”

  “He’s not here, either.”

  She returned her attention to him. Nodding to the can, she asked, “Is that supper?”

  He shrugged, scooping up another spoonful and shoving it into his mouth. “Lunch,” he said around the mouthful. “Mom keeps forgetting to put money in my school account.”

  His words summoned a familiar recollection. There’d been no hot school lunches when she’d lived with her grandfather. He’d grudgingly made sure there’d been bread and peanut butter in the house most of the time. If she’d dared take any of the other food, punishment had been a stint locked in the root cellar.

  Are you afraid of the dark, girlie?

  She elbowed aside the mental snippet and eyed Dylan’s skinny form. His natural build, maybe. Or it could be due to irregular meals. “C’mon,” she said. “Those beans aren’t going to last you long. Let’s go get cheeseburgers.”

  He looked up. Stared. “Serious?”

  “You’re not the only one who missed lunch.”

  “You left the note where your mom will see it?”

  Dylan swallowed his bite of burger before answering. “Yeah. Like I told you, though, she won’t be home. She works till ten, and then she usually hangs with friends for a while.”

  Meaning Tina Bandy had no intention of returning late to prepare a meal, either. Cady tried to reserve judgment. She had no idea what the woman’s work schedule was, and a fifteen-year-old was plenty old to fend for himself when needed. If there was food in the house.

  They were silent for a few minutes. Cady watched the kid eat with a sense of awe. Teenage boys were supposed to be legendary for their appetites. But she had no idea where he put the food. When he’d dithered between two different king-size burgers, she’d encouraged him to order both, thinking it wouldn’t hurt for him to have some extra food to take home. Now she doubted there’d be a crumb left over.

  She finished her more modest sandwich and picked up her diet soda. When he appeared to be slowing down, Cady asked, “Do you have a cell phone?” If so, he could text his mother without bothering her at work. Despite his assurances, she wanted to be sure the woman didn’t miss the message about her son’s absence.

  Reaching for his chocolate shake, he shook his head. “Just the one the agents gave my family for emergencies. And when they want to get in touch with us. That’s what Rebedeau called me on earlier.” With a last slurp, he set the glass back on the table. “I just take it with me to school and stuff. It’s in my backpack. Mom has a TracFone, because there’s no expensive plan.”

  “What about when you hang out with friends?” He should have had the phone with him at all times.

  His expression closed. “I don’t have friends.”

  Cady sat back. The statement might have nothing to do with the subject of her warrants, but she couldn’t leave it alone. “It’s tough moving around this much, huh? Especially at your age.”

  “Tougher for the people who got killed because of me.” Dylan’s gaze was on his fries, which he’d topped with a liberal dose of ketchup.

  “You’re not responsible for their deaths. Their killer is.”

  The set of his jaw shouted disagreement, but he remained silent, shoving fries into his mouth as if he hadn’t just demolished two king-size cheeseburgers. There was something going on under the surface, Cady thought, and why the hell wouldn’t there be? The kid had had trauma layered over trauma in his young life. “You ever see a counselor about any of this? To help you work through it?”

  “When I was a little kid, for a few days back when Trev died. Not anymore. Mom says that kind of thing is for pussies.”

  She was really starting to dislike Tina Bandy. With effort, Cady tamped down the reaction. She wouldn’t allow it to affect the way she did her job. Reaching for one of the fries on her plate, she said mildly, “I don’t know about that. Cops—detectives, marshals, FBI agents, whoever—have to see counselors after they experience traumatic events on the job. It’s mandatory if they want to get cleared to go back to work.”

  Finally, his eyes met hers. “Yeah?”

  She nodded, chewing on the fry.

  “Have you ever had to see one?”

  They’d entered personal territory. But she’d led them there. She forced herself to answer. “Once.” Every job-related shooting required desk duty and a counselor while awaiting an administrative investigation of the event. The kid looked like he was mulling over the information. She made a mental note to talk to SBI agent Rebedeau about pushing the issue of counseling with Bandy. Keeping Dylan and his family alive was paramount. But letting the kid carry this kind of emotional baggage was guaranteeing a screwed-up adult in a few years.

  “I realize this is the last thing you want to talk about, but I need to ask you about Bruce Forrester.” Dylan dropped the fries he’d been carrying to his mouth. Looked down. Cady’s voice softened. “You saw him in Greensboro.”

  He gave a short jerk of the head.

  “When was that?”

  Swallowing hard, he lifted a shoulder. “A couple of days before—” He broke off then. Took a moment before he continued. “It was before Ethan was shot.”

  “Then you saw him in Ayden. SBI said you reported both sightings.”

 
; “Fucking good that did,” the kid said bitterly.

  “And later he appeared in Raleigh?”

  He hesitated. “I thought so. But no one was . . .” Killed, she filled in silently. “We left town pretty quick after that,” he finished. “It got to where I was seeing him everywhere. He murdered two of my friends; you get that? He was every driver who went by too slow. Every guy walking his dog down the street. I was scared to death. Sleeping with the light on.”

  “And what about now?”

  He looked away. “I said I was scared then. I’m not scared anymore.”

  She studied him closely. Bravado or something more? “How do you think he found you two or three times?”

  “Isn’t that what you guys are supposed to find out?”

  “Yeah.” She paused to take a sip of her soda. “But you’re fifteen. You’re not a kid anymore. I’m sure you’ve given it some thought.”

  His expression stilled. “I got nothing to do but think. I can’t have friends anymore because they might end up dead like Trevor and Ethan. I don’t go anywhere. Do anything. I go to school. I sit at home. That’s it.”

  The picture he was painting was bleak. But she focused on his first words. “So you’ve considered it. What’d you come up with?”

  For the first time that day, he appeared animated. In between polishing off more fries, he said, “The schools issue us a computer. All the social media and gaming sites are blocked on it—don’t worry. Not like I’d have anyone to talk to online anyway. But I took a programming class. For coding and stuff. And I was thinking maybe Forrester knows something about computers too. Or he knows someone who does. Because the quickest way to find us would be to hack into the school’s database and find their list of students. It’s not like our names have been changed.”

  There was no official state law enforcement protection service in North Carolina, which meant no funding sources. The SBI agents deserved credit for repeatedly relocating the family and, she presumed, helping them find housing and a job for Tina Bandy. Providing them with new identification would not fall within their purview.