I waved him over.
“Nothing to the dead end of the street,” he said. “All sites occupied that are supposed to be.”
“We may have something here. This site is supposed to be occupied, and unless they have an invisible RV, well, it isn’t. Checkout date wasn’t for a week.”
We walked onto the empty site for a look around.
“They could have just gone out for a bit. I doubt they’d leave the place looking like this and leave their camp chairs behind if they weren’t coming back.”
“Yeah, but two people who left in a hurry and didn’t care would.” I pulled out my phone, got the number from the sheet, and dialed.
Each ring in my ear was immediately followed by the sound of a ringing phone off to my left. Scott walked to one of the camping chairs and pulled a phone from the chair’s cup holder.
“I don’t suppose that’s a coincidence,” he said.
Scott walked the phone to me, which showed my number calling on the screen.
“Shit.” I hit End on the call.
Scott looked over the copy of the sign-in form, found the RV’s plate number, and put it out over the wire. The two of us looked over the campsite. I caught a corner of something purple in the fire pit and crouched down for a better look.
“Scott,” I said.
He walked over from scouring the tree line at the back of the site.
“Did you find something?” he asked.
I grabbed a stick lying near my feet and moved some of the ashes away from what I was looking at. “Another cell phone.”
He let out a breath. “This was probably them, then.”
I nodded, tossed the stick down, and stood. A sheriff’s cruiser pulled up on the road in front of the campsite and stopped. A man, not looking like law enforcement, sat in the passenger seat. The deputy driving opened his door and stepped out. I immediately recognized him as Deputy Kelly, who had been holding down the street leading out of the campground.
“Agents,” he called from the road.
Scott and I both headed over. The passenger door of his cruiser opened, and the man, dressed in street clothes, stepped out.
“Deputy,” I said.
“The gentlemen here was leaving the grounds and recognized the woman by the photo I showed him. He thinks he may have seen your couple leaving this morning.”
The man closed the car door at his back.
“Sir, you saw the couple in question?” I asked.
He removed a baseball cap with a fish skeleton logo from his head and let it hang from his hand at his hip. “Pretty sure,” he said.
Scott motioned with his hand for the man to continue.
“Well, I made a morning trip to the john right back there.” He jerked his head back toward the restrooms a few plots down. “And I see an RV sawing back and forth, trying to get out of their campsite and turn onto the road. It looked like they didn’t really know what the hell they were doing. They kept trying to cut the corner out of the site and were getting blocked by the tree line. Actually, now that I think about it, it may have been this campsite here. Anyway, I go into the restroom, come out, and they are passing me as I’m walking back to the street. I couldn’t really see the driver, but there was a female in the passenger seat. Her hair was the dark-red color like in the photo the deputy here showed me.”
“Okay, when was this?” I asked.
“Well…” The man pulled up the sleeve on his flannel shirt and looked at his black plastic watch. “My site is around the corner there, and then we broke down after I got back. I’d say maybe an hour and a half ago. Probably right around there.”
“How good of a look did you get at the woman?” Scott asked.
“Pretty good. I mean, the hair color isn’t something you see every day. I guess I saw her from about forty feet away or so. I mean, I wouldn’t bet my life on it, but I’m pretty sure that was the woman in the photo.”
“All right. Can you tell us anything more about the RV they were driving?” I asked.
“Black top about halfway down and a white bottom. Had some swoops and graphics down the sides. Said Berkshire XL on the front. Pretty sure that is made by Forest River. I think it was about a forty or so. Guessing it’s probably a four slide. New and nice.”
That was an abnormally accurate vehicle description, and the man must have caught the look of question on my face.
“My wife and I have been into RVing for a while,” he said.
I nodded, pulled my notepad, and had him run through the description for me again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Deputy Kelly pulled away, taking the man who’d provided the ID and vehicle description back to the front of the campground. Scott and I called the team back to the campsite we believed the RV had been taken from.
“I’m going to get the vehicle description circulated,” Scott said. He pulled his phone from his pocket and started dialing.
Agents Gents and Makara walked the campsite, looking for anything resembling evidence. Beth and I stood near the fire pit and the camp chairs. We searched the area for the third time, looking for any small scrap of anything. I looked up, made eye contact with Agent Makara, and waved him over.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Can you get a forensics guy from your office out here?” I asked. “I’d like to at least get the beer cans printed, to make sure this was our couple that was here.”
“No problem,” he said. He pulled out his phone and made the call.
Bill walked up. He’d been searching through the white Toyota a few campsites down.
“Anything at all in the car?” Beth asked him.
“Zip. I looked under the seats, glove compartment, and every nook and cranny. Nothing belonging to Nick Frane or Molly McCoy anywhere. I did find a stack of receipts for fuel, but they were all prior to him being abducted by the couple. I checked the man’s cell phone that was in the center console for the last number dialed—also prior. Figure we can get the phone to the Omaha office tech department either way. We’ll have them pull the records and make sure nothing has been deleted. It seems like a bit of a long shot—I kind of have to figure if they knew the phone was there, they would have tossed it—but we’ll get everything double-checked anyway.”
“It probably wouldn’t hurt to do the same with the two phones we found here as well,” I said. “Agent Makara is calling out someone from their forensics department. He should be able to get everything bagged and delivered to their tech guys.”
Bill let out a breath and nodded. “We’re still two steps behind. Looks like we missed them by about a half hour.”
“We got a good description on the vehicle they’re traveling in,” Beth said. “Hopefully, we get a hit.”
Scott walked back to us and slipped his cell phone back into his pocket. “We should have the helicopters up and searching within fifteen minutes. I made a call back to Ball. He said he’ll get a team at the office working to notify every campground, RV park, rest stop and local law enforcement agency inside of a couple hundred mile radius.”
“We have coverage of this all over the news. Let’s get a hold of a few stations and tell them the area we believe them to be in,” Beth said.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Bill said. “I’ll make a few calls.” He stepped off to the side.
“So what’s our plan?” Beth asked.
I thought for a moment. “We need a map.”
“I saw some at the front guard shack,” Beth said. “What are we needing it for?”
“If they left an hour and a half ago and drove straight, we can get a perimeter set.”
“Yeah. Station local law enforcement just outside the perimeter—overpasses, on ramps, any major arteries out,” Scott said.
“It’s worth a shot,” I said.
“I’ll get a map,” Beth said. She jogged toward our rental car.
“We can get the helicopters hovering over the major interstates and work their way back from the farthest p
oint they could possibly be,” Scott said.
I nodded. “Let’s just hope, if they’re in that RV, they don’t switch vehicles again,” I said.
Scott and I waited for Beth to come back with our map—ten minutes passed before she did. Beth pulled our rental car onto the road next to the campsite, and Scott and I walked over. Bill was standing in the street off to my right, still on the phone. Beth opened her car door and held up the map. She closed the door at her back and went to the hood of the car, where she spread the map out.
“Okay, so we’re looking at an hour and a half,” Scott said. “Let’s just call it a two-hour headstart. How fast?” Scott asked.
“I’m guessing in an RV, it’s going to be around the speed limit,” Beth said.
“So we have a hundred-and-thirty-mile radius, with no stops.” I stared down at the map and pulled my pen, clipped to my notepad in my suit jacket’s inner pocket. “We have I-80 west that we’d need to have guys about here.” I made a star on the map with my pen. “And I-29 north after Sioux City.” I made another star. “I-80 east takes us back into Des Moines—though we have a number of ways to get out of there. That might be a bit of a problem. We may be better off hitting all the arteries out of the city there.”
“We have an issue headed northwest here as well,” Scott said. “Lots of ways you could jog back and forth and travel that way. Though it looks like Highway 20 might not be a bad option to station a few cars here.” Scott poked his finger down on the map.
“I’d say I-29 north and I-80 west are probably our best spots for the helicopters,” I said. “They came from this way,” I pointed to I-80 east. “And they’ve been heading north the entire time, so their turning around and heading south doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Okay, let me get back on the phone,” Scott said. He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed again.
Bill walked back over. “Did we come up with something?”
“We just got a map and figured out where we wanted to station some cars and get the helicopters searching. Anything on the news outlets?” I asked.
“I spoke with two channels that said they would get the information distributed between the other news outlets in the area. The one station manager I spoke with said they will run it as a breaking-news bar at the bottom of their telecasts, so that’s looking good there.”
“Good,” I said.
Agent Makara approached. “My forensics guys should be here in a minute,” he said. “Anything else for them, other than printing this campsite here?”
“We have some cell phones that we’d like them to take back to the tech department at your office and see what they can get from them,” I said. “About it.”
“What about the car?” Beth asked.
“I figure the forensics guys will print it and give it another once-over. If we don’t need it back at our office for anything, we’ll have it towed to the city impound lot.”
“All right,” Beth said.
“So, what’s left for us here?” Makara asked.
“We’ve had no signs of them, and an eyewitness claims they’ve left the area,” I said. “We should be just about done here, I’d think.”
Scott came back to our group. “The word is out. We should have men on those locations shortly, and the birds are headed to their spots,” he said.
“Okay. Let’s wrap up here,” I said. “What’s next?”
Scott pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch. “When the forensics guys arrive, we’ll leave the scene for them. I’ll ask a couple of guys from the local sheriff’s department if they can station a deputy or two here for the rest of the day. You never know—they may return. After that, I don’t know. I need to eat, though.”
“Yeah, I missed breakfast,” Bill said.
“All right. As soon as we wrap here, we’ll stop and grab a quick lunch until we find out where we’re headed next,” Scott said.
Beth and I both nodded in confirmation.
“Works for me,” I said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Do you have the list, baby?” Nick asked.
“Yup. Let me know if there is anything you’d like to add.” Molly walked the list from the back of the RV and brought it to Nick, sitting behind the wheel.
He stared out the front windshield, waiting for the light to change to green so he could continue a half a block up and make a right into a superstore’s parking lot. The green light flashed, and Nick started forward.
“Just read it to me,” he said.
“Aside from food, we have the stuff that you wanted on there—shovel, propane lantern, matches, a knife, cheap fishing rods, and miscellaneous lures. Um, you sure you don’t want to pick that stuff out yourself?”
“Just grab whatever you think will work. I trust you.” Nick made a right into the parking lot.
“Okay. Besides that stuff and the groceries, I just have some random bathroom supplies, toothbrushes, toothpaste, things like that, and hair dye,” Molly said.
“Hair dye?” Nick asked.
“Yeah, I think the maroon may get us spotted. I’m just going to dye it back to brown for now.”
“That will be different. I never saw you with your hair a different color,” Nick said. He’d entered the back of the parking lot when he pulled in. He made a hard left and parked the RV across a few empty spots facing a gas station on the corner. Then he killed the motor and spun the captain’s chair toward Molly, standing beside him.
“Oh, I’ve had my hair all kinds of different colors. It’s only been maroon for a month or so. Blue before that.”
“It will be like being with a new girl.”
Molly stared at him stone faced. “Is that what you want? A new girl?”
“What?” Nick asked. “It was a joke.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t funny,” Molly said.
Nick shook his head, stood, and walked toward the back of the RV. He flopped down on the sofa and held his hand out.
Molly walked to Nick and sat on his lap. “Are you glad I came with?” she asked.
“Absolutely. I never actually thought you would, though.”
“Why not?” Molly asked. “I told you. Love at first sight. I saw you make eyes at me while I was standing at that booth and knew I’d never spend another day of my life without you.”
Nick smiled. “Where’s your hat?” he asked.
“In the back.”
“Go get it.”
Molly went to the back bedroom of the RV and reappeared with the hat on her head and her hair tucked underneath. “How do I look?”
“Like a girl in a hat,” Nick said. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.” He stood and pulled the hat a bit lower on her head. Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. He counted out four hundred dollars and handed it to her. “Keep your head low. No eye contact. In and out as quickly as you can.”
“I know,” she said and slipped the money into the pocket of her shorts.
“If they have a self-checkout, use it. Try to avoid any long lines where you’re just standing around.”
“I’ll be careful, babe. Don’t worry.”
“Okay. Let me see that list again quick,” Nick said.
Molly handed it to him.
Nick ran his finger down the list of supplies and groceries. Once he was satisfied everything was there, he handed it back.
“I’ll be waiting here,” Nick said. He gave Molly a kiss and saw her out the door.
Nick closed it at her back and walked back to the galley. He watched her walk toward the front of the store through the window above the sink. The giant blue-and-tan building had two entrances—a right one reading Food Center and left one reading Home and Living. The two entrances were separated by some large miscellaneous items for sale outside. Nick saw a row of grills, a couple of canoes, and a few riding lawn mowers. Nick fished his hand into his pocket and pulled out his pack of smokes. He flipped the top on the pack and stared down. Three cigarettes rema
ined in the box, and they weren’t on the list. He thought about calling out to Molly, but she was almost out of earshot, and he didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to himself, her, or the RV.
“Damn,” Nick said. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it with a match, and took a long drag.
Nick blew the smoke out of his nostrils as he continued to stare out the kitchen window at Molly. She vanished into the Food Center entrance. He checked the time on his watch then went to the front to look out. He stared over at the gas station on the corner. He had a good twenty minutes to a half hour before Molly would return to the RV.
Nick pulled the hood on his sweatshirt over his head and stepped out of the RV. He walked across the parking lot toward the gas station, keeping his head low and eyes on the ground. He weaved his way around the gas pumps, which were mostly unoccupied, and entered through the front door.
Nick quickly glanced up to see a line of three or four people standing and waiting for the lone female clerk ringing people up. He walked over and stood behind the last man. Nick kept his line of sight low. The man standing ahead of him purchased a four-pack of beer. Nick had no phone to stare down at, so he took out his wallet to make it look as though he was counting his money. The line advanced a single person.
Nick stuffed his wallet back in his pants pocket and began to look over the selections of magazines and newspapers on the shelf. He stared at a photo of himself on the front cover of a local paper. Nick reached down, grabbed a different paper, and gave it a quick glance while the line advanced another person.
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