by Lisa Gardner
“I’m thinking that’s the old Stanley’s diner,” Wyatt said.
Gina, one of their new deputies, nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir. Drove by it just a couple of days ago. Boarded up tight.”
“Not a bad place to hide hostages,” Jeff commented. The forty-five-year-old father of two was one of the county’s best detectives, with a knack for financial crimes. “Near a road for easy access, but also isolated. Sure as hell aren’t that many other people or residences around.”
“Shouldn’t the GPS signal be emitting from the building, then?” Gina countered. Wyatt liked the fact she argued. Tough part for any new officer, but particularly a new female officer, was speaking up. Clearly, Gina could hold her own.
“Range is give or take a hundred feet,” Jeff said. “So it could be from the building.”
Gina nodded, hooking her thumbs in her duty belt as she accepted his answer.
“So here’s the deal,” Wyatt spoke up. “We have three possibilities. We’re going to find a jacket. We’re going to find a jacket and some or all three members of the missing family, possibly alive or dead. Or, we’re going to find a jacket, a missing family and their kidnappers. Possibly up to four definitely living kidnappers. Which, if you include three family members, totals seven people at one site, with five of us to approach, control, contain. Let’s talk strategy.”
He looked at Kevin, the second detective, who had yet to speak. Kevin had taken some courses on workplace violence and hostage negotiations. They called him the Brain, not just because he was thin and bookish looking, but because he really did like to study. New legal rulings, new forensic techniques, new criminology reports, just ask Kevin. He also knew all the hockey stats for any given player on any given team in any given year. And, no, he could not get a date most Friday nights.
“Code one,” he suggested now. “Approach quiet, get the lay of the land. If the kidnappers are around, we don’t want to spook them.”
“So five patrol cars convening in one parking lot isn’t gonna work?” Wyatt asked with a droll smile.
“We can take two vehicles,” Jeff said. “Double up occupants.”
“Only gonna buy us so much,” Gina pointed out. “Even two cars, turning at the same time into a deserted parking lot…”
“One car could pull in, the other should drive past, heading south,” Kevin amended. “Once out of sight, that car can pull over and the officers hike back up. That gives us one car appearing to stop randomly—maybe a driver needing to check a map, stretch his legs, that sort of thing. Better yet, Gina should be in the car that pulls over. So it looks more like a couple pulling over than cops descending on a scene. Just till we know more.”
Made sense to Wyatt. One by one, they agreed.
“Vests?” he double-checked.
They were a good crew. They were prepared. Better yet, they were excited to get out there and do some good.
Wyatt grabbed the handheld GPS tracker. They booted it up, plugged in the coordinates.
And just like that they were ready to go.
WYATT HAD BEEN MARRIED ONCE. Stacey Kupeski. Beautiful girl. Great laugh. That’s what originally caught his attention. Literally, across the room in a crowded bar, he’d heard that laugh and just known he had to hear it more. They’d dated six months, then tied the knot. She owned a high-end boutique that specialized in fancy Western belts and glittery tops and lots of other bling women seemed to think they needed for big nights out. Being retail, Stacey worked holidays and weekends, which seemed a good fit for his job, given that criminal activity inevitably spiked during every major holiday, not to mention most lazy Sunday afternoons.
Except, that became the problem. She was working and he was working, their paths crossing basically on Monday night, when she’d want to go “do something” and he mostly wanted to varnish a piece of wood just so he could watch it dry. They made a go of it for eighteen months. Then she started going out and “doing something” with the husband of one of her best customers. That wife went crazy, trashed Stacey’s store, while the husband got a restraining order, and Wyatt got out of his marriage. Turned out, he only liked drama on the job, not in his personal life.
Besides, he found he wasn’t really that upset with Stacey, which struck him as not a good thing. If your wife was sleeping with some other guy, you should probably care. At least he and Stacey were still friends to this day. Mostly, because Wyatt still didn’t much care.
His only regret: He would’ve liked kids. Not with Stacey. Oh no, that would’ve been a disaster. But in an abstract gain-two-point-two-kids-but-not-an-ex-wife sort of way, he would’ve loved children. Boy, girl, didn’t really matter. Someone to build tree houses and toss a ball and just be with. Maybe a little version of himself he could teach a few things to before it inevitably grew into a teenage version of himself and passionately declared, You just don’t understand me! But even that would be good. A rite of passage. The way the world was meant to go round.
Not going to happen at his age, he figured, so he borrowed his friends’ kids, helping them build clocks and jewelry boxes and once, even a pirate’s chest. Good Saturday afternoon activities. Made the little ones proud to have made something with their own hands, and made him feel like he had something worth sharing other than investigative skills 101.
These days, his mom was trying to get him to adopt a dog. Maybe an older rescue animal. He had a good mojo for that kind of thing, she kept telling him, which seemed to imply that his current lifestyle was one step away from a monk’s.
Sometime soon, he’d go on a date. But first, he wanted to build that wine cabinet. And today, rescue a missing Boston family.
They’d reached the old diner. He and Gina had volunteered to be the turn-in vehicle. Not the biggest undercover operation in the world, given that even an unmarked police car screamed cop and they were both in uniform. Their hats were off for now, making them appear civilian at least from the shoulders up, as Wyatt casually slowed the car, put on the blinker.
No sign of any vehicles in front of the diner. As Gina had said, the old building was boarded up. He drove to the left side, away from the blinking GPS target, as he didn’t want to get too close too fast. Mostly, he wanted to peek behind the building.
Still no sign of any vehicles. Or an open door. Or cracked window.
He looped an easy circle, as if just turning around and now preparing to head back on the road.
Gina had the handheld tracker on her lap. She was looking down at it. “Due north, fifty feet,” she murmured.
Wyatt looked due north. He spotted trees, lined by dense vegetation. He also spotted twin tire tracks, fresh, more deeply rutted, approaching the edge of the woods. A second set of tracks, slightly parallel to the first, showed where the vehicle had backed up, then headed back to the road.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Gina glanced at him.
“Vehicle was here. Looks like it pulled up to the woods, then left again.” He didn’t say the rest. As if to dump something. Perhaps just a jacket, but, more likely, a body wearing said jacket.
Gina reached around for her hat. Wordlessly, she shoved it down on her head, while he got on the radio and relayed their status to their backup car. He heard back from Kevin; ETA on foot in five minutes.
Close enough, Wyatt figured. Action here was over and done. Not even a matter of what he could see, the tracks and all, but what he could feel. The property was abandoned. Plain and simple.
He and Gina got out together, taking a moment to pause with their doors open for cover, just in case. When nothing moved, no shots were fired, no suspects magically bolted from a boarded-up building, they continued on.
Wyatt had out a digital camera. Gina still worked the handheld.
“Watch the ground,” he instructed her. “Avoid tread marks, footprints, any other signs of disturbance. Feds are gonna work this later, and I’ll be damned if they chew our asses.”
She nodded in agreement.
She wa
s keeping a cool face, expression neutral, but he could see a slight tremor in her hand as she held the GPS tracker in front of her. Not fear, he’d guess, though maybe. But either way, adrenaline. He had it crashing through his bloodstream as well, heart rate slightly accelerated as he faced a known unknown. Something and/or someone loomed before them.
They approached together, him in the lead, Gina two steps back, tucked slightly behind him because presenting one target was bad enough; two targets would be just plain stupid.
Wind blew, rippling the low bushes, swaying the trees. Broad daylight, sun shining. A bird, here and there. The sound of a car, rushing by at forty-five miles per hour on the rural road, passing them by.
“Fifteen feet,” Gina murmured.
He placed his right hand on his holstered weapon, as prepared as one could be.
“Ten feet.”
And then, Wyatt didn’t need her anymore. He saw it, plain as day. A darker lump tangled in a sea of sparse green. Not a body, thank heavens, but a large swath of fabric, wadded up, tossed in a twiggy bush.
His hand came down. He approached more briskly, brow already furrowing. Gina had seen the blue material as well. She lowered the handheld tracker and got on the radio to let the others know.
Then they both came to a halt, regarding the lump of fabric, thrown waist high in the bush.
“Doesn’t look like much,” Gina said. “Not even a whole coat.”
Wyatt pulled on gloves, then gingerly untangled the lightweight material, holding the long strip up in front of them. Nice fabric, he thought. Some of that high-tech stuff meant to keep you warm and dry and still look good in pictures at the summit. Cost some dough, he’d bet, as befitting some rich Bostonian.
He felt around with his gloves, until he came across a flat, thin shape in the lower part of the strip, the GPS device. He fingered the edges, where the material was jagged and frayed.
“Kidnappers figured it out,” he said after another minute, glancing around the scene. Kevin, Jeff and the other deputy had arrived, walking the length of the dirt parking lot to meet them. “Maybe Justin Denbe confessed, or the kidnappers discovered it upon closer inspection, but they figured out the jacket contained a GPS device, so they cut it out, looks like with a serrated blade, and tossed it.”
“Why cut it out?” Gina asked with a frown. “Why not just toss the whole coat?”
Wyatt had to think about it. Then it came to him. “Denbe’s tied up. Hands most likely bound. Meaning, to get the coat off him, they’d first have to remove his restraints. He’s a big guy, I was told. Strong. Probably, the kidnappers didn’t want to risk it. Easier, quicker, to remove the device itself and toss it aside.”
He couldn’t help himself. He flipped the fabric back over, inspecting for droplets of blood. Hunting knife. No good reason, maybe because he was a New Hampshirite, but he pictured a hunting blade. Plunging into the blue material, ripping down. Fast, that would be the way to do it. Two tears down, one across. Slash, slash, slash.
But not a trace of blood on the surviving strip. Fast and controlled. Disciplined.
The kidnappers had discovered their mistake, but they hadn’t panicked. They’d simply taken evasive action. Fast, disciplined and smart.
It gave him a bad feeling. He turned his attention to the tread marks. Not wide, such as the kind on some of the souped-up SUVs guys drove around here, or the deeper grooves of the snow tires many would soon be sticking on their trucks to prepare for winter, but average Joe tracks. Like car tires, except given they suspected three to four kidnappers plus a family of three…cargo van. Had to be to hold a party of seven.
So a van, under the cover of night, pulling in, ripping apart a jacket, tossing the strip with the GPS device into the bushes. But why did it pull in? Because they already knew about the GPS device? Seemed unlikely to him that Justin Denbe would volunteer that kind of information. The jacket was his family’s best shot at being rescued. So maybe it had nothing to do with the coat; that came later. The kidnappers were simply taking a comfort break. Someone had to pee. Or the kidnappers needed to sleep. Or just get their bearings, check a GPS system or a map. Not much going on in this area any time of day, let alone in the small hours of the morning. Good place to pull over, maybe better secure the family, pat down pockets. Interrogate. Hand off.
That intrigued him. He glanced up at Kevin.
“I see one set of tracks. You?”
His detective walked around, took his time with it. “One set of tracks,” he agreed.
“Footprints?”
More studying. The others were fanning out, searching the bushes. Maybe the jacket wasn’t the only thing that had been tossed. And while the jacket had been discarded at the edge of the woods, in plain sight, that didn’t mean there weren’t other discoveries to be made deeper in. “Maybe some footprints,” Kevin finally called back, crouched down. “Ground’s disturbed over here, between the tracks. As if a person or persons had been milling about.”
“I’m thinking cargo van, to hold seven,” Wyatt supplied.
“Makes sense. Pulls in, parks by the edge of the woods, at least one guy gets out, comes around to the back. Fiddles around. Can’t make out individual sole patterns, though. Dirt’s too firm.”
“Guy or guys came around to the back.” Wyatt picked up the thought. “Opened the doors. Most likely, to check on their hostages, tied up and tossed on the floor.”
Kevin shrugged. Couldn’t be known or unknown at this time.
“Discovered the GPS device in the jacket,” Wyatt continued, “ripped up the coat, tossed the device in the woods. Then they continued on their way.”
Kevin straightened. “Continued north,” he added, pointing to the way the tire tracks exited the parking lot.
“Looks about right.” Wyatt reconsidered the strip of fabric, moved on to the next logical question. “Why toss the GPS device? Even discarded, it’s still traceable. Why not smash the device, render it inoperable?”
“Didn’t know how?” Kevin suggested. “Or, they didn’t care if the police traced them to this point. This area”—he waved his hands at the desolated building, deep woods—“isn’t relevant to their final destination.”
“Lets us know they’re in New Hampshire,” Wyatt said mildly.
“Were in New Hampshire,” Kevin corrected. “Driving north, hell, they could be in Canada by now. Or have turned off toward Maine or Vermont, all easy routes from here.”
Wyatt shrugged, unconvinced. The kidnappers should’ve smashed the device. That’s what he would’ve done. Not rocket science. Just take a hammer or a rock and be done with it. Otherwise, jacket became the first bread crumb, and why leave behind a trail if you could help it? Not to mention this particular bread crumb proved the crime had crossed state lines and brought the feds into the game. Again, an unnecessary risk that could’ve easily been avoided given thirty seconds and a large rock. The discovery of the jacket seemed to imply that the kidnappers were shortsighted, but Wyatt wasn’t convinced a stupid crew could’ve abducted a family of three from downtown Boston with such precision and speed.
Meaning maybe it meant the opposite? Not that their suspects were dumb, but their suspects were so experienced, they didn’t believe having their activities traced this far hurt their efforts. They were executing according to plan, and the police discovery of a GPS device three hours north from the abduction site didn’t matter to them one way or another.
That thought, the coldness behind it combined with the kind of precision it took to effortlessly slice up a thousand-dollar jacket without any collateral damage, unsettled him.
Kevin straightened from his study of the ground. “So based on the GPS device, the missing family was here. Question is, where are they now?”
They both looked north, toward the fading tire tracks.
This time of year in northern New Hampshire, there were hundreds of shuttered campsites, boarded-up homesteads and deeply isolated mountain cabins. And the farther north you went
, the better the opportunities for never being seen by another living soul.
The kidnappers didn’t need to care about one strip of material discovered in an isolated spot in central New Hampshire. Because from here on out, trying to find even three missing people in a state this rural, this wild, this mountainous…
Wyatt’s powers were considerable, his grasp of law enviable and his domain vast.
He turned toward his assembled task force; two detectives plus two deputies. Not much, but enough to get the party started.
“All right,” he informed them crisply. “Kevin, contact the media and release a description of the family. Kidnappers need fuel, need food, so in particular, follow up with truck stops, gas stations, roadside diners, all the quick in-and-out sort of joints. Jeff, you work on the vehicle, issue a BOLO for any suspicious cargo vans, and while you’re at it, request video footage from the Portsmouth tolls. Rest of you, time to bang the drums, rally the troops. We have only about three hours of daylight left. Let’s get it done.”
“At least we can assume the family is still alive,” Gina provided hopefully. “Since the kidnappers dumped only the GPS tracker and not any bodies.”
“We can assume,” Wyatt murmured. “For now.”
Chapter 11
WAKE HER UP.”
“I’m trying!”
“What’s the problem? Did you administer too much sedative?”
“No—”
“Then wake her up!”
“I…shit!”
Pain. Instantaneous. Absolute. One second, I was floating in an abyss. The next, my stomach cramped violently and I bolted upright. Going to vomit. Trying to roll onto my side, but flopping awkwardly. My hands, my arms, my shoulders burning…couldn’t move, didn’t understand. My stomach heaved more insistently. Car, I was in the back of a vehicle, going to throw up in the back of a vehicle. Instinctively, I angled my head toward fresh air, rolling toward the open cargo doors where I could just make out the rear bumper, black tennis shoes and asphalt drive.