He looked out the open doorway at us. “The guy is a choir boy. No priors, no nothing.”
“Sympathetic to the girl, maybe,” Beth said.
“How far is the drive?” I asked.
“To what?” Gents asked. “Great Falls, Montana?”
“To wherever this guy lives,” I said.
“Hell, fifteen, sixteen hours would be my guess,” he said.
“What? Are you actually thinking about driving there?” Bill asked.
“I am,” I said. “I don’t want a local going to try to rattle this guy’s cage. As far as Frane and Molly McCoy know, we don’t know they made a call to this guy. They might be headed there. And like you said, Scott, this could be an opportunity.”
“I know,” Scott said. “But, with them only being an hour or two from us, I don’t know if I’m ready to pull up shop and travel a couple of states away in hopes they come to us. These two have only been traveling a few hours a day.”
“I know, but right now, this could be something in a big investigation of nothing other than looking over the shit these two have left in their wake. I’ll go and meet with whoever is local up there—find this guy, put something together, and take it from there.”
No one responded.
“Well?” I asked.
Scott seemed to be thinking. “Yeah.” He started nodding. “It’s the right move. And Ball would be good with it. We need to do something here. What we’re doing isn’t working. I’ll get everything the twins get on the phone call and this Gormon guy sent to your e-mail.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Are you set on this? Going?” Beth asked. “I mean, Jim could probably secure airfare. Let’s at least have him check on what’s available.”
I let out a breath. “Yeah, okay. The let’s have him check part made it sound like you’re joining me.”
“I am,” Beth said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Maybe we should find a different way,” Nick said. “We don’t really know who he’s associated with or what we’ll be dealing with when we get to the land. I can’t imagine that they don’t have some kind of security guarding the thing.”
He and Molly were sitting at the back of a rest-area parking lot just off the freeway. They’d traveled roughly a hundred miles since Nick had acquired the Corvette, which was just about out of fuel.
“This makes the most sense if we’re trying to get into Canada. We’ll try to make some kind of deal, and if that doesn’t work, we can, I don’t know, make him take us through. It’s not guarded. Whatever they are doing is real low-key.”
“When I think of a tunnel under the border, I imagine guys with machine guns guarding it,” Nick said.
“It’s not like that at all.”
“I just don’t know. I wouldn’t be opposed to scrapping this whole Canada idea. Maybe we should head south.”
“Are you serious?” Molly asked.
Nick nodded. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about. Everything is a little too hot for us up here right now. There are too many unknowns with this guy and his operation. I think we should lie low and figure out something else. The South America thing through Mexico is looking a bit more attractive.”
“We discussed this, babe. The Mexican border is going to be damn near impossible for us to get through. It’s too dangerous. We’ll be able to work something out with Red. Everything will be fine.”
Nick was silent for a moment, thinking. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “I know. I just think there’s a chance that the feds, cops, or whoever are going to be able to find us up there before we get across. They know who you are and where you’re from. I’m sure they’re talking to anyone you ever knew. All they have to do is find out this Red guy that you used to work for has some land that borders Canada, and they’ll have people on it. Shit, they’ll probably find out what he has going on up there and shut the whole thing down.”
“We’ve been over this. His land is on reservation property. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the shed over the tunnel. It’s perfect.”
“But you used to work for this guy. The cops looking for you are bound to question him.”
“As far as they know, he’s completely legit, and I worked at the guy’s restaurant for six months before I turned eighteen. That was how many years ago? I highly doubt they will look into that. And even then, Red isn’t going to give them anything at all.”
“Tell me about his operation and the land again,” Nick said.
“The tunnel goes from a small shed on his land into Canada, where he said his friend owned the land on the other side. They ran drugs through it, I assume. As far as I know, he was never busted, so it has to still be there.”
“And you’ve seen it. You’ve been to the land and saw the tunnel with your own eyes?”
“Yeah, I saw it. He showed it to me once. It’s just a small shed from the outside. Inside the building, there is a big metal door in the center of the floor with a huge combination lock on it. Which is why we need him to get in. He opened the door for me. I saw some cement steps that went down. Most of the inside was dark, though.”
“Why would he show it to you?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know. He just did.”
“And why were you even at this place again?”
“Ugh, I told you. He’d get some girls from the restaurant to come out and cater gatherings at his”—Molly held up her fingers and made air quotes—“summer house, which is on the land. He and his drunk friends would try to hit on us all night, but they tipped well. I only went out there a couple of times. One of the times, we went on a walk, and he showed me the shed. He pointed to the tunnel and said, ‘That leads to my friend’s property in Canada.’ Then he told me to never speak a word about it.”
“We still need to find a pay phone somewhere and call to make sure he’s at his house so we can grab him.”
“He’ll be there,” Molly said.
“What makes you so certain?” Nick asked.
“I just am.”
“How?”
“I said, I just am.”
“Tell me you didn’t call him from that farmhouse.”
“Huh? Why?” Molly asked.
“What do you mean why? Do phone records mean anything to you?” Nick adjusted himself in the seat to face her. “Please tell me you didn’t actually call from there.”
“Oh geez, relax. I didn’t call him yet. I just know he normally only goes up there in the spring and summer.”
Nick sat quiet for a moment—a thought started to bother him. “So you and him just decided to take a little walk together? How do you remember this guy’s house phone number? Or when he’d normally be there or not be there? Seems like a lot of remembering about your boss if you only worked there for six months, five or six years ago.”
Molly paused. “I don’t know. I just know.”
“So, you used to screw this guy is what you’re saying?”
“Whatever,” Molly said. “I have a good memory. I’ve told you that.”
Nick stared at her, not buying her flimsy explanation. He placed one hand behind his bald head and rested it on the driver’s-seat headrest. “I’m still waiting for you to deny the part where I accused you of sleeping with the guy.”
“I remembered a phone number, so that automatically means I slept with him? Wow, jealous much?” Molly asked. She turned away from him and looked out the passenger window.
“Still waiting,” Nick said.
“I’m not even going to answer that. You can sit and wonder if you’re going to be like that.”
“Just admit it.”
“No.”
“How was he?”
Molly snapped her head back to face Nick. “Ugh. Fine. I used to sleep with him, okay? Happy now?”
“I thought you said he was old and fat. Why would a seventeen-year-old girl be sleeping with an old fat guy?”
“Just leave it alone, already.”
“Tell me.”<
br />
“Nick, come on.”
“Tell me now, or this is over.”
“God. He used to give me money, and I used to sleep with him, okay? He had the same arrangement with half the girls that worked there. I’d meet him out at the summer house, which is why I know where it is. I used to call his house to ask when he wanted me to meet him out there. This went on for years, which is why I remember the number.”
“There we go—honesty. Since we’re being honest, why didn’t you tell me you were a hooker when we met? That would have been good to know prior to us beginning this relationship. So I’m guessing that you normally ran the kissing tent at the carnival? A couple extra bucks for a little special treatment in the back?”
“I’m not a damn hooker. I did what I had to do at the time for a little extra money. It’s not like you came out and told me you killed people, either,” Molly said.
“So you took money from a man for sex? Pretty sure if I look up what that is, it’s going to say”—Nick leaned his face next to her and whispered—“hooker.”
She pushed him away. “Stop calling me a hooker. That’s not how it was, and it was a long time ago.”
“Right. That’s what you said—when you were seventeen. That’s just great. An underage hooker. I bet a lot of guys liked that.”
“Please stop.”
“Maybe we should have just been hitching rides with truckers the entire time.” Nick pointed through the car’s windshield at a semi parked on the far side of the lot. “Why don’t you go see if that guy is buying? Maybe he can give us a lift after you two have finished.”
Nick felt the slap hit him on the nose and the side of his face a moment later. He reached across the car and grabbed a handful of Molly’s hair with his left hand. He yanked her across the center console toward him and pulled the gun from his waistline. He held Molly’s head over his stomach and kept her from moving by gripping her hair. He jammed the barrel of the gun under her chin. “Now that I know you’re a hooker, you’re pretty easy to replace. Give me a reason why I don’t blow your hooker brains all over this car.”
“Because I love you,” Molly said.
“That’s it?” Nick asked. “Because you love me?”
“That… and this,” Molly said.
Nick felt something hard jam him between his legs.
“That’s my gun, and I figure you’d like to keep what it’s pressed against,” Molly said.
Nick took the gun from her chin and his hand from her hair.
Molly backed off and retook a normal position in the passenger seat. She placed the gun on her leg and fixed her hair. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It wasn’t how you think, and like I said, it was a long time ago. Now, can we just drop it?”
Nick let out a breath and shook his head. “I’m sorry, too. That my girlfriend is—sorry, I mean was—a hooker.”
“Whatever, Nick. You can kill him after we’re done with him if that’s going to make you feel better about it,” Molly said.
“Trust me. That guy is already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Whatever. Are we done?”
Nick said nothing.
Molly placed her gun back in her waistline. “So what are we looking for? A different car or another RV?”
Nick cracked his neck and slouched. “Truck. We can risk one or two fill-ups. I don’t want to have to deal with getting any more vehicles.”
“Okay,” she said.
The pair sat quietly, waiting for a suitable vehicle to pull into the rest area.
Molly reached over and placed her hand on his leg. “I love you,” she said.
“Yeah,” Nick responded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Our flight touched down in Great Falls a couple of minutes before eleven thirty. We’d made the trip back to our Omaha hotel, grabbed our things, and hustled to the airport to catch our flight out, which Jim had booked. The flight out of Omaha went the opposite direction from our destination, to Minneapolis, before we caught our connecting flight to Great Falls. On our hour-long layover, I spoke with Bill. There had been no signs of our couple, and the only new information we’d found out was a little more on that Armond Gormon guy, the one called from the farmhouse. Apparently, he owned a restaurant called Big Red’s Barbecue in Great Falls that Molly McCoy had once been employed at prior to turning eighteen. What the connection between the two was, aside from employer and employee, we didn’t get anywhere on.
Beth was saying a few more words on a phone call and finished with, “I’ll call you when we get checked into our hotel.”
I glanced over at her from the passenger seat of our new rental car—a black late-model sedan that was as about as base model as could be imagined. “Ex-husband?” I asked.
“Yeah. Were you eavesdropping on my phone call?” Beth asked.
“Not at all. So how is your little Honey Bear doing?” I asked—she’d said that to him right before hanging up. “Sounds like things are going well.”
“Yeah, it seems different now. We might actually have a shot at this again.”
“Good,” I said.
“You’ll like him. Great guy,” Beth said. “Maybe we should have tried a little harder the first time around.”
I rocked my head to one side and looked out the passenger window. “You said it was work that ended up being the problem last time?”
“Yeah, unfortunately. Between me being gone on investigations and him having to travel, after a while, it just kind of eroded our relationship.”
From previous conversations, I knew he was in the same line of work as he’d been in when he and Beth were married. A thought bubbled in my head, that nothing had changed in their professional lives and the same problem could resurface. I kept that to myself—Beth seemed happy and hopeful. I wouldn’t say something that could bring her down.
“It looks like there are some hotels coming up in a few exits. Have a preference?” she asked.
“Don’t care. I’ll let you pick,” I said.
“Works for me,” Beth said. “I was thinking before, after I talked to Scott, that maybe this Armond Gormon and Molly McCoy used to date.”
“That’s what Bill was talking about as well. I still don’t think so. Think about it—you’re going to bring your new serial-killer boyfriend around your old middle-aged boyfriend that’s then going to help you two. Makes zero sense. Why this guy would want to help her at all makes zero sense.”
“The call was under a minute. Whatever was spoken about was quick.”
“We’ll find out,” I said.
“Do you think we should try to bring the guy in right away? Or spend a little bit watching him?” Beth asked.
“Right away, and try to get him on our side. I’ll feed him the ‘we know you’ve been in contact with these two, and unless you want to be charged with the same crimes for aiding and abetting, you’ll help’ line.”
“That’s if he knows anything,” Beth said.
“Well, they didn’t dial him as a wrong number. He has to know something.”
Beth pointed through the windshield and off to the right. “Are you okay with that?” The billboard she pointed at was advertising a chain hotel off the next exit.
“That’s fine,” I said.
Beth exited the freeway for the hotel a moment later. The hotel stood just off the interstate’s exit ramp on a main road. We pulled into the driveway. The hotel’s grounds were well kept, and the building looked only a handful of years old. I was fairly certain if we passed it up, we wouldn’t find anything nicer. Beth found us a spot in the huge but mostly empty parking lot. We grabbed our things from the trunk and headed for the two-story hotel’s front entrance.
The doors slid open and took us into the building’s lobby, which resembled the parking lot in being far too large for what it contained. I glanced right and left at the small sitting areas to each side of the front door. To our right was the coffee station, which I made a mental note of for morning. The far wall h
eld what looked like a small entrance to the building’s restaurant, which was closed. The ceiling was two stories up. The walls that rose to them were mostly bare aside from some random stuffed wildfowl. I spotted a Canadian goose, a few ducks, and a couple of pheasants—all struck me as odd choices for decoration. Beth and I wheeled our suitcases across the large tan tiles to the far left wall, where a woman stood behind the counter, smiling at us.
“Looking for a room?” she asked. The girl looked to be in her midtwenties. She had straight black hair, a thin face, and a barbell piercing through her eyebrow. A name tag clipped to her black shirt read Claire.
“Two, actually,” I said.
“Okay. Two rooms. Let me see if we still have two available,” Claire said. She began clicking keys on her computer’s keyboard.
The comment caught me off guard. The place probably had a hundred rooms, but I remembered seeing about three or four cars in the lot. I looked at Beth, who shrugged.
“Um, one second.” Claire clicked some keys on her keyboard. “It looks like we can still accommodate you.”
I looked at Beth. “Did you hear that, Beth? They can still accommodate us. You were getting me worried there for a second, Claire. I thought you guys might be all booked up.”
The girl flashed me a bit of a grin. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. The management makes us give the same story to everyone so we seem like we’re busy. A little hard to do with only a handful of cars in the lot, and most of them being overnight staff. Don’t tell anyone I told you that, though.”
“Told us what?” I asked.
Beth smiled and placed her credit card on the countertop.
Putting my back to the counter while Beth and the girl got our rooms squared away, I took in the rest of the lobby. Two chairs and a small fireplace were tucked into the far-left corner at my shoulder with the entrance to the restaurant center of the back wall. I could see the hallway leading to the rooms beyond that and a sign that said Pool. Across from me, taking up a huge bare wall next to the elevators, was a computer and printer on a small desk—a sign above them said Business Center. I continued looking around until Beth swatted my shoulder with a plastic room card.
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