The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset: 1-6

by Ethan Cross

  “Alvarez. The shipment. You both have protocols and schedules to follow I’m sure. He’s going to want answers when the truck doesn’t show up.”

  “You don’t need to worry about how I run my business. But just to put your mind at ease, I’m going to call Alvarez and ask him to send up some of his guys to assist us.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? He might see it as weakness, and do we really need a bunch of those…people…coming up here.”

  “It’s a preemptive maneuver. Rather than wait for him to call about the shipment being late, I’ll call him and ask for help with our problem. Remember, I don’t work for him, and he doesn’t work for me. We’re independent contractors.”

  “But what about the next guy in the chain who comes to Alvarez asking questions—”

  Grabbing Yazzie by the edges of his body armor, Canyon jerked the police captain forward and nearly lifted him from the ground. Through a clenched jaw, Canyon said, “All you need to worry about is getting your ass back to your station and figuring out how to find my son!”

  Yazzie shoved his arms up between Canyon’s and broke the hold. Then, within the blink of an eye, Yazzie had pulled his Colt Peacemaker pistol and had it pressed to Canyon’s gut. His expression stone and his eyes unreadable behind his dark little glasses, Yazzie calmly whispered, “One of us has killed people, John, and the other is a killer. There’s a big difference. Let’s not forget who’s who.”

  “Don’t cross me, Yaz. You’re a long way from the enforcer you were when we were kids.”

  Returning the gun to his holster and taking a step backward, Yazzie said, “I’ll get you a location. You just worry about raising a war party. I hitched my wagon to yours a long time ago, John. You had better handle this mess.”

  Canyon glared at Yazzie as the captain walked back to the two officers waiting in a brand new Ford Explorer police cruiser that Canyon had paid for. After the SUV rumbled away, Canyon pulled out his phone and made two calls. One to Alvarez to let him know about the shipment, and the other to the ranch. He told the man who answered, “Call our guys at the casino and down in Shiprock. Get everyone up to the ranch now, and tell them to bring all the hardware they can carry.”

  21

  Concealed inside the entrance to an abandoned uranium mine, Ackerman stared into the back of a massive cattle trailer, which held the sheep that were John Canyon’s “official” livelihood. According to what they could dig up on Canyon, the rancher had gone as far importing a professional from the Basque region of Spain to run his operations. Canyon had descended from three generations of sheep farmers, but his hired head of operations could trace a lineage of shepherding back several hundred years. As far as the US government was concerned, Canyon was a successful businessman, who had invested the money from his farming operations into a now thriving casino.

  But Ackerman had looked in the man’s eyes. What he saw there was the blackened heart of a stone cold killer. He knew John Canyon was a criminal and a predator. He, however, couldn’t say whether or not Canyon was the particular one they sought.

  As he approached, the animals retreated to the far corners of their enclosures. Ackerman smiled, knowing they could also sense a predator. To his brother, he said, “These are the fattest sheep I’ve ever seen.”

  With the cocking of an eyebrow, Marcus replied, “And how many sheep have you actually seen in person?”

  “I always forget that you’re a city boy. If you must know, I hid from the police once inside the livestock building at a state fair. There were several prize-winning sheep I met there, but none of them were as plump and juicy as these fine specimens.”

  Marcus sighed. “Okay, let’s get one of them out, but since you’re the expert, you’re in charge of the stupid thing. I’m not in the mood to be chasing down runaway sheep.”

  “Have you slept at all since Maggie went missing?”

  “Let’s do this before I change my mind.”

  Pulling out a built in ramp, the brothers opened one of the metal enclosures and attempted to goad a female sheep, also called an ewe, out into the open. It was, of course, stubborn and refused to move. After some prodding, the first creature and two others made a break for it. Ackerman tried to kick the extra animals back up the ramp, but they paid him no attention. It took another ten minutes to wrangle one of the agitated creatures for closer inspection.

  Ackerman grabbed the beast in a headlock while Marcus felt beneath the thick layers of wool. Marcus said, “There’s nothing here. It’s just wool and skin. I can feel all the way down to its back. Wait…”

  “What is it?”

  “The skin doesn’t feel very warm.”

  “Is it supposed to?”

  Marcus didn’t answer. He was busy groping all over the sheep’s body. Ackerman added, “Did you know that ISIS traffics sheep as sex slaves?”

  Ignoring him and reaching beneath the animal’s stomach, Marcus said, “You were right.” Then he lifted off a fake skin and wool “costume” from the animal. The ewe, which had been shaved down to its skin, actually appeared quite thin. Marcus flipped the fake covering onto the rock floor of the mine, exposing a lining filled with bags of white powder.

  Marcus looked back at the massive cattle trailer, which they now knew to be loaded with cocaine-smuggling sheep. Ackerman could see his brother’s wheels turning. He knew exactly what Marcus—whom he believed to suffer from an undiagnosed form Autism Spectrum Disorder—was thinking. Marcus was calculating, analyzing, and surmising.

  Ackerman asked, “Is it enough for us to retire?”

  “Street value of about twelve to fifteen million dollars. I guess now we have another bargaining chip with Canyon. I’m sure he’s pretty attached to his animals.”

  “But you forget, dear brother, that when I absconded with Tobias Canyon and commandeered this vehicle, they were preparing to leave with the shipment. Which implies a new set of problems in the coming day, when this shipment doesn’t arrive where it’s supposed to.”

  “That’s Canyon’s problem. All the more reason for him to give up Maggie.”

  “After having spent some time with Mr. Canyon, I’m not convinced that he would surrender Maggie even if she is truly in his custody. He seems more the type to eliminate the threat and worry about the ramifications later. I think we must consider the possibility that—”

  “Don’t even speak it. Until I see a body, she’s out there, waiting for the both of us to come save her. And I don’t care if that means we have to wipe Canyon’s little operation right off the face of the Earth to do it. We will find her.”

  Ackerman laid a hand on Marcus’s shoulder and said, “I’ll hunt with you to the ends of infinity, dear brother. You know that. But where do we go from here?”

  Darkness shifting in his eyes, Marcus said, “We prepare for war. Full out, bloody war.”

  “Does that mean you’re finally allowing me the use of firearms?”

  “On this case, you can carry as many guns as you want and a whole hell of a lot of bullets.” Punctuating his next statement with a finger in Ackerman’s face, Marcus added, “But the same rules of engagement apply. No killing.”

  “What if it’s a ricochet, or what if I shoot them in the foot, but they have some anemic disorder and bleed out. Firearms are far too unpredictable to make any sort of reasonable promise that—”

  “No killing. Shit happens, I get that. But it’s a last resort, even under the circumstances. And we’ll both know if someone goes down, and you could have prevented it. Remember, we’re the good guys.”

  As his brother walked away, Thomas White whispered in Ackerman’s ear, “You’re going to wake up from this dream soon, Junior. Think about it. Could you and I really be considered akin to these so-called ‘good’ guys? Marcus is a bit rough around the edges, sure. Still, I could see him as the white knight. But what are you? I suppose we’ll find out soon enough, when I take the wheel. Maybe I’ll kill your brother first. I haven’t quite decided yet.”


  Ackerman spun around, as if to attack a physical enemy, but there was no one there but him and the night.

  22

  One month earlier…

  Maggie parked her rental car—a Ford Focus hatchback that smelled of body odor and take-out food, the former coming with the car and the latter her own addition—in front of a double-wide trailer that seemed held together only by a new coat of paint. The family who lived here had once told her that they would never move. In hope that their missing daughter, Elisabeth, would find her way home to them. The for-sale sign in the front yard, however, told a different story.

  She climbed out and headed up the sidewalk toward a screen door that looked like it was about to fall from its hinges. Through the front window, she saw a small living room lit only by the glow of a television set. Maggie raised her hand to knock on the wood surrounding the screen, but a woman with a deeply-lined and leathery countenance appeared on the side before she could. Even through the barrier and with a strong breeze blowing outside, Maggie detected the stink of cigarette smoke and beer. Without opening the door or greeting Maggie, the familiar woman peered through the screen, her lips flattening, and Maggie noticed door move slightly toward her, as if Elisabeth’s mother was holding it shut.

  Maggie ignored the reaction and said, “Hello, Mrs. Crenshaw, it’s me…Agent Carlisle. Maggie. I was in the neighborhood and just wanted to stop in and check on you and your husband. It’s been awhile since I’ve heard from you. I’ve tried to call several times, but—”

  Mrs. Crenshaw closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked into the other room for a moment before replying, “We’re no longer going to be sending you Elisabeth’s things, Agent Carlisle. Or helping in your investigation in any way. Please leave.”

  “But ma’am, you would be surprised what difference even the smallest piece of evidence can make to a case,” Maggie explained, in much the same as she had all those years ago when she’d first convinced Elisabeth’s family to send her the packages that the Taker sent to them every year on the anniversary of the abduction—the scraps of clothing, hair, and buttons—so that she could have it thoroughly analyzed.

  Mrs. Crenshaw laughed bitterly as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Every year, we send you everything we have left of our little girl. What have you been doing with it? What difference does it make?”

  “Ma’am, as we’ve discussed—the post mark, the box or envelope, the packing material—every bit of it could contain some kind of trace evidence that—”

  “It doesn’t matter. None of it has ever made a speck of difference. You’re no closer to finding him now than the police were back then.”

  “That’s not true. We’re closer than we’ve ever been. Mrs. Crenshaw, there have been several new developments.”

  “Have you found my daughter? Or the man who took her? Do you have any answers for me or just more questions?”

  “Well, no, I just—”

  “You’re worse than the Taker! He sent those packages to torture us, keeping our hope alive, keeping the memory of that anguish, that emptiness, alive. We knew exactly when it was coming, and the dread of it infected the rest of the year. At least he knew when to quit, and I’m grateful that it stopped. Our Elisabeth is long dead, Miss Carlisle, and we’re moving on. Your brother is gone too. You should do the same. But most of all, and you listen good now, you get off our property and stay the hell away from us.”

  The inner door slammed shut, and Maggie heard the locks engaging. She turned numbly, heading back to her rental car. Maybe Mrs. Crenshaw was right, what had she been doing to find them all these years? Had she truly put forth her full effort and dedicated everything to locating Elisabeth and the other children and the man who had taken them?

  She dropped in behind the wheel and sat a moment without moving, breathing hard. Then, with a wail of anger and frustration, she slammed her fist into the steering wheel over and over.

  All her hope had hinged on acquiring Elisabeth’s package. The young girl had been the victim taken closest to her brother’s date of abduction, and Maggie hadn’t received a package for going on two years now. Fearing that the Taker had died, which meant she may never learn the truth, she had prayed to find that she was the only one. But, confirming her worst fears, Mrs. Crenshaw’s words about her daughter’s package echoed through her racing thoughts: At least he knew when to quit, and I’m grateful that it stopped.

  23

  The abandoned Red Bluff Trading Post rested twenty miles west from the town of Roanhorse and thirty miles north of the Grand Canyon Hotel and Casino, which had been erected along US 491—a lonely stretch of highway that the locals still referred to by its original name: Route 666. The trading post itself was a weather-beaten structure of faded red that had been out of business for a couple of years. The dilapidated building sat atop a small bluff with one road in and a shear drop off to its back, making it the ideal place to set up their temporary base of operations. The uranium mine where they had stashed the truck was only another fifteen minute drive up a mostly dirt road that led up into the hills.

  Ackerman found Dr. Emily Morgan—the other member of their team, who had stayed behind to guard the prisoners—in the back room of the old trading post. The captives sat beyond her on a pinewood floor that was beginning to sag and rot. The place smelled of sweaty young men, rat excrement, and underneath it all, almost imperceptible, the metallic aroma of dried blood. Like a shark detecting a drop of blood in a vast ocean, he zeroed in on the tantalizing odor and felt the carnal desire of a predator to rend and tear flesh and taste blood on his tongue.

  “Frank, are you okay? Hello?” Emily Morgan asked, apparently not for the first time.

  “Sorry, just indulging a darkly sweet daydream.”

  She gave him a questioning look, and he changed the subject. “I see the children are nestled snuggly in their beds with visions of my bone-handled bowie knife dancing in their thick heads.”

  “You should write poetry,” she said, and he couldn’t decide if she was being sarcastic or merely recognizing that his genius should be shared with the world.

  He replied, “Your superiors would never allow anyone to read it. And that’s another question. Any progress on the blogging issue?”

  Emily stared at him with an unreadable expression across her exotic features, which were a result of her combined Asian and Irish heritage. She reminded Ackerman of a Siamese cat he had once seen in the home of a victim. It was the way he imagined a feline princess would move–confident but not boastful. Powerful. Graceful. But gentle. All at once. Her skin was flawless and smooth like a child’s, as if the harmful rays of the sun had never touched her skin.

  She fascinated him. Something about her inner strength and calm demeanor. Sometimes he simply had no idea what she was thinking. And as a student of human nature, Emily was one of most intriguing subjects he had ever met. He had thought so ever since the moment he first met her on the day he murdered her husband.

  She said, “I didn’t advise you to journal so that you could post it on the Internet to make money.”

  During their last case, Ackerman had met a strange private detective who posted his ramblings on God and the Universe on the Internet and, by selling advertising space, generated a six figure income. He said, “They realize that I’m not being paid to be here, and it would be anonymous. That’s the beauty of the Internet.”

  “They are fully aware of the concept. And the answer is still no.”

  He scowled. Sometimes he wondered if the Shepherd Organization’s Director was the real villain they should be dispatching. “Please let them know that I’d like to file a formal complaint.”

  She rolled her eyes but said, “Okay.”

  A part of him loved cracking her stone demeanor. Having accomplished that mission, he turned his attention to the prisoners. The closest young man was Canyon’s son, Tobias. He had bandages over his forehead and arm. Unlike his father, the young Canyon’s face was the perfec
t color of wet clay and was unlined from the years. He looked nothing like his progenitor. Where John was tough and worn like old leather, Tobias was smooth and undamaged.

  Emerging from the deep shadows in the back of the room, Thomas White—or at least Ackerman’s hallucination of him—said, “You know how you could find your little friend, Junior? Just cut off a significant piece of this one and deliver it to his father. Then you’ll get your answers. Perhaps a foot. Or if he has any tattoos, you could skin that portion of his body and deliver it to the old man like an offering of flesh.”

  Turning back to Emily, Ackerman said, “Have you been able to reach Computer Man?”

  “His name is Stan.”

  “I know his name. I just don’t enjoy saying it. Besides, he likes it when I call him Computer Man.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Well, I like it.”

  “And that’s all that matters?”

  “No, there are many factors beyond my personal tastes that ‘matter.’ For example, I need the Computer Man to find out everything he can about a Navajo Nation Police officer named Liana Nakai. Also, I’d like to know more about Captain Yazzie. Don’t recall hearing a first name.”

  “Fine, if I’m able to reach Stan, then I’ll let him know. I’m not sure what it is, the canyons or hills or something, but even with our boosters, we can’t get any signal here. We may have to drive around to the other side of the mesa in order to get an outgoing connection. I wish we would have tracked down a satellite phone or something, but we’ve never had this problem in the past. The boosters for the cellular signals usually do the trick, even out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “My sympathies. I’m sure it’s difficult for you being out of contact with your child. I know Marcus feels the same about Dylan, and he isn’t aware of this, but he grows increasingly cantankerous the longer he’s out of contact with the boy. As if he needs to see Dylan’s face and hear his voice to ensure that the child is growing to maturity.”