Hotwire

by Alex Kava

  “I don’t feel so good. I got the runnies.”

  Rachel was already out of bed.

  “And I pooped red.”

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  NEBRASKA

  Maggie didn’t know how she had gotten into the back of the SUV.

  She did remember that there had been two more jolts of pain, each one more excruciating than the first. She had felt her eyes roll back in her head. Maybe she had passed out. She couldn’t focus. Vision was blurry. So much pain had rocketed through her body. She remembered seeing her arms jump with each jolt but she had no control. Saw them flail and flap like a rag doll. Her back muscles had spasmed, tightened stiff, and locked in position until the next jolt of electricity jammed its way through.

  Now as she lay in the back of the vehicle, her chest ached. It hurt to breathe. Her pulse raced—too fast, way too fast. Her throat was raw and dry—so dry—she couldn’t swallow. And yet, her mouth hung open. She felt drool sliding down her chin.

  She stared at the ceiling of the vehicle. She saw her knees bunched up beside her. At least she thought they were her knees. She couldn’t feel them. Her hands were in front of her, bound at the wrists by a zip tie. She had no idea if her feet were bound together. She couldn’t see or feel them, either.

  A voice droned on and on. It reverberated, hollow and muffled from somewhere above her head. Or was it inside her head? She didn’t recognize it. The radio?

  “ … should have headed back to Denver.”

  No, it was him. He was talking about her. Talking to her. From the front seat, right above her head. But he sounded like he was miles away at the other end of a tunnel. She could only decipher bits and pieces of what he was saying.

  The vehicle started turning and she slid. Something thumped against the wall beside her. A clank of metal rang in her ears. The tires switched from pavement to dirt, hard and rutted. Her body bounced and her head banged. A wave of nausea came over her and she started to panic. If she vomited she wouldn’t be able to roll over. She’d choke. She felt dizzy and looked for something to focus on. Like Dawson, she needed something to keep her eyes on, to concentrate on.

  Outside the window she saw deep, dark-blue sky and a few blurred glitters. Twilight. How could it already be so dark?

  Another turn. Another clank.

  Maggie twisted her head so she could continue to see the sky. In doing so she also got a glimpse of what clanked beside her.

  Oh, God, it was a shovel.

  The nausea became strong. Her panic continued to rise up.

  Star light, star bright. First star I see tonight.

  She found a twinkling star in the deep sea of twilight and she held on.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Platt didn’t have time to drive home from the airport. Instead he and Bix had dinner in the District. Old Ebbitt Grill was one of Maggie’s favorites. The men needed somewhere convenient and close to the monuments. He thought of the restaurant immediately and now he was glad.

  It felt good to be surrounded by the warm glow of the antique gaslights and the thought of Maggie laughing from across the table. She and Gwen Patterson came here all the time, but she had brought him once. Corner booth. It had been steamy outside. Cool inside. Beers and burgers and a lively discussion about Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn movies.

  Tonight the high-backed booths would allow Platt and Bix some privacy. And because they weren’t politicos who frequented the place, they wouldn’t be recognized or noticed. Sure enough—no one even turned to look at them.

  Platt ordered a Sam Adams. Bix frowned at him and ordered coffee.

  “We aren’t meeting him for two hours,” Platt said. “I think I can have a beer.”

  Bix continued to scowl.

  “You should have beer, too.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “You might start after today.”

  “We need to eat. I haven’t eaten all day.” Bix pulled open the menu.

  “No red meat. Okay? It might be a long time before I have another cheeseburger.”

  Platt’s cell phone interrupted just as they finished placing their orders with the waiter. He went to hit Ignore but then he saw it was his parents’ number. He hadn’t checked in with them since yesterday. It’d be his father. He knew that his mother always nagged—“Call your son.”

  “Hi, Dad.” He glanced at his watch. Not quite time yet for their late-night shows.

  “Ben, so are you back home or still in Chicago?”

  No one but Bix knew he had gone to Chicago. He hadn’t even told anyone at USAMRIID.

  “How’d you know I was in Chicago, Dad?”

  Bix looked up across the table, setting down his coffee so hard he splashed some on his hand and didn’t bother to wipe at it.

  “A friend of yours stopped by here.”

  Platt’s stomach lurched.

  “What friend?”

  “Military guy. Said you asked him to check up on us.”

  “Did he give you a name?”

  “Jack … oh, what was his last name. Your mother would remember. Scared us at first because he was in uniform. We were worried something might have happened to you. But he said you were okay. He was just checking on us while you were in Chicago. So how was Chicago?”

  It was a warning. If they wanted to hurt his parents they could have already done it. That was exactly what they were telling him, letting him know that they could hurt them at any given moment. It would be worthless to tell his parents to pack up and leave. Go to a hotel, a resort. No place would be safe. His heart raced while his mind played out scenario after scenario, none of them good. He would make a phone call to USAMRIID and within a couple of hours, he would have a real friend outside his parents’ home, watching for him.

  “Chicago was fine,” he finally answered.

  “Colder than here, I bet.”

  “Wetter. It rained the whole time.” He tried to keep his tone even so it wouldn’t betray him.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back, safe and sound. And listen, your mom and me are fine. You really don’t need to send anyone to check on us. We’ll be just fine.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “We love you, son.”

  “Love you, too.” He ended the call and placed his cell phone on the table.

  It was Bix who broke the silence.

  “Holy son of a bitch. What the hell did we step in?”

  FIFTY-NINE

  NEBRASKA

  Maggie’s view of the sky and her star got blocked out by canopy after canopy of trees. They were in the forest, thumping along roads that weren’t well traveled. Branches scraped the roof of the vehicle and pine needles brushed the windows.

  He was going to bury her out here, someplace deep in the woods where hikers and hunters never went. He couldn’t have just killed her on the road where she was running. Someone might have come along. Besides he’d have gotten blood all over the back of his SUV. So he used a Taser. Her body still remembered the pain.

  Had to be a Taser.

  The darts had clawed into her back through her shirt. All he had to do was simply lean out his window and fire. She had been an easy target. Once the darts hit and grabbed onto her back, the electrical charge would race through the wires attached to the gun. He controlled how long the charge would last. A few seconds incapacitated a victim. She went down immediately. No fight. No struggle. The additional charges, at that point, were strictly for pain.

  Her spinning mind had started to unravel what had happened. She still couldn’t figure out who was in the driver’s seat. Who wanted her incapacitated and in pain? Who wanted her dead?

  Her muscles ached. But that was good. That meant the feeling was coming back into them. The temporary paralysis was wearing off. She didn’t think he had tied her feet together. They felt loose but she couldn’t quite feel them. No, he probably didn’t tie them. He’d need her to walk. Even if it was a stumble, he’d want her on her feet so he could
take her deeper into the forest. It’d be easier than carrying or dragging her. Yes, he’d make her walk to her own grave site.

  Maggie tried to wiggle her fingers. They tingled. Tingling was good. She saw her hands, zip-tied together on her stomach, only when the brake lights flared up in the dark. At first, she was almost surprised to see they were still connected to her. In the red glow her body looked twisted and broken.

  Her skull roared. Every time she lifted her head it felt like it would explode. But her vision wasn’t quite as blurry and the nausea was less. Her heartbeat had slowed. It no longer felt like it would gallop out of her chest. Even the ringing in her ears had subsided.

  Better. She was doing better. But then the SUV came to a stop.

  The engine shut down. Parking lights stayed on. She heard the driver’s door open. No dinging. He took the keys with him. Slammed the door shut. The dome light hadn’t come on. He must have shut it off earlier.

  Darkness surrounded the vehicle. In the glow of the parking lights she could see trees and thick brush all around them. Even the road was not really a road. The vehicle had cut the first path through the tall grass, squeezing between tree trunks. Maggie wondered how he’d back out of here. An odd thing to care about for someone who knew she was not going to be leaving with him.

  He’d expect her to still be dazed and incapacitated. He wouldn’t be disappointed.

  The tailgate clicked and her body jerked. She told herself that was another good sign but her heart started pounding again.

  The hinges screeched and the tailgate went up. In the glow of the parking lights she saw Mike Griffin with his hunting knife.

  SIXTY

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Platt had always thought the Washington monuments were at their most awesome at night. The bright spotlights cast halos in the dark and the guided tours drew whispered reverence from the tourists—that didn’t happen in the daylight.

  The whistle-blower had agreed to meet them at the FDR Memorial. In the movies wasn’t it always the Lincoln Memorial? But now Platt saw the wisdom. FDR’s was all ground level, no steps to get trapped on. There were separate sections, actually what they called “rooms,” but even that was beneficial. The person could wander through each, bypassing Bix and Platt at will if he didn’t feel comfortable.

  Bix traded his suit jacket and Platt his uniform jacket for Smithsonian sweatshirts. Bix carried their folded jackets in a paper bag with the Smithsonian logo, making them look like tourists.

  “So how long do we give him to find us?” Platt asked.

  “He’s only ten minutes late.” Bix checked his watch. “Twelve minutes.”

  Platt still didn’t like this idea but they had no choice. He wouldn’t be surprised if the whistle-blower ended up being someone from the media: a reporter wanting to confirm his tips. Maybe Bix didn’t mind being sent on wild-goose chases but Platt was tired of it. Especially when the chase might involve his parents.

  They were staring at one of the walls, neither of them reading the engravings, when a woman came up beside Bix. As long as tourists kept coming and going, their guy would probably stay away. Platt elbowed Bix and nodded for them to move on just as the woman said, “Good evening, gentlemen.”

  Both men did a double take. What the hell was Irene Baldwin doing here? They were so busted. Had she followed them?

  Bix glanced around and Platt knew he was looking to see if they had just scared away the whistle-blower.

  “Hello, Ms. Baldwin,” Platt finally said when it became obvious that Bix couldn’t find his voice.

  “How’s the weather in Chicago?”

  That was the line. How did she know the line the anonymous caller said he would use?

  Then Platt took a good look at her. She, too, was wearing a Smithsonian sweatshirt, jeans, her usual swept-up hair now flowing over her shoulders. Even the eyeglasses were new. Had it not been for her distinctive voice he wasn’t sure he would have recognized her.

  “You?” Bix asked. “What the hell’s going on?”

  SIXTY-ONE

  NEBRASKA

  “This is where you get out, O’Dell.”

  Griffin grabbed Maggie’s ankles and started to pull.

  She couldn’t stop him. Her feet wouldn’t listen to her head telling them to kick. She could barely feel his fingers grabbing her around the ankles. With her wrists tied she couldn’t stop him and she couldn’t break the two-foot fall from the tailgate to the ground.

  She landed hard on her right shoulder, hard enough that she thought she must have dislocated it. A fresh wave of pain spiked through her upper body. Better that she came down on her shoulder than her head. The pain didn’t subside and she immediately thought, maybe not better. A tingling sensation spread all the way down to her toes.

  He obviously didn’t care how banged up she got now. He’d simply bury any mess he made. He dragged her all the way to the edge of the ridge. She could see only far enough in the dark to know it was a steep drop-off. She remembered climbing down to get to the crime scene. One wrong step and you’d fall until you hit a tree. He left her within a foot of tumbling over. It didn’t matter. There would be no crime-scene techs, no coroner, not even the county attorney to figure out all the marks on her body, because her body would never be found.

  Now he didn’t look pleased that she couldn’t stand up. He’d done too good of a job with the Taser. She saw him looking around, devising a new strategy, glancing at his clothing. He went back to the SUV, keeping an eye on her as he looked into the back of the vehicle. He was big enough, strong enough to carry her. But that was obviously not what he wanted to do. He hadn’t dressed for the occasion. Maybe he’d been in a hurry. He didn’t want to risk getting anything from her on his clothing.

  Had he heard about her visit with Amanda? Is that what pushed him to do this?

  “Why?” she managed to ask. Her mouth was dry. She could taste metal. She wasn’t sure if he could even hear her. But it stopped him.

  “I just wanted to scare those kids,” he said, looking at her as he dug inside a tool kit he’d found in the back of the SUV. “They kept snooping around the field house. I told Amanda to stay the fuck away.”

  So it had been Mike Griffin that night with a laser stun gun.

  “I’ve got a sweet deal here. I’m not about to lose it.”

  “They’ll look for me,” she said and realized immediately how lame it sounded.

  “Twenty thousand acres of valleys and hills and all covered with trees and thick brush. This time of year, pine needles dropping, leaves dropping over everything. In less than a month there’ll be snow. They might look”—he stopped, squinted because she was no longer in the halo of the parking lights, and tried to meet her eyes—“but they won’t find you.”

  In that instant, Maggie realized this wasn’t a man to reason with. She’d met killers face-to-face before. She recognized that empty, hollowed-out stare. When they looked at you like you were an object to be removed—an object and not a person—it was already too late.

  Griffin put one knee up onto the tailgate and half climbed into the back of the SUV, pulling out shovel, tarp, and rope for his re adjusted plan. Easier to bury tarp and ropes than his clothes. His back was slightly turned to her. He didn’t need to worry about her running away when she had just proven she couldn’t even protect her shoulder from hitting the ground.

  But that thump must have jolted more than just her collarbone. She could feel her feet. She could feel her hands and her fingers. And they actually worked when she wanted them to flex and move.

  Griffin clanked around in the back of his SUV. He didn’t have to worry about sounds out here, either. Hank and the rest of the forest rangers were miles away. Maggie used his noise to cover her scuffs and intakes of breaths. She bit her lower lip to stop any groans.

  Her mind raced. She’d never be able to take him down. Not with her wrists tied. Not with her muscles weak and her skull spinning. The keys were in his pocket but she’d nev
er be able to get them and make it into the SUV without him being on top of her. She couldn’t even swing the shovel at him.

  She saw him crawl deeper inside the back of the SUV. Then she did the only thing she could. She took a deep breath and rolled over the edge of the ridge.

  SIXTY-TWO

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Platt, Bix, and Baldwin found a bench a few feet away from the monument, out of tour guides’ path as they led their groups. And hopefully out of earshot.

  “The meat-processing plant you visited is notorious for contaminated beef,” Baldwin explained. “And yet the Department of Agriculture keeps giving them chance after chance to clean up their act.”

  “Aren’t they supposed to close them down after so many offenses?”

  “Oh, they have. For a day or two. They clean everything. Get it all spotless and sterile. But in case you didn’t notice, processing beef is a messy business. I’m always surprised that there aren’t more contaminations.”

  “And some of this plant’s contaminated beef ended up in the National School Lunch Program.”

  “Three orders were purchased in late August by the USDA. I thought it was ridiculous to continue to buy from this vendor with their track record, but I’m the new kid.”

  “Can you track those orders and see what schools received them?” Platt asked but he already knew it couldn’t be that easy or they wouldn’t be here.

  “Once they get sent to state warehouses it’s almost impossible to track where they go. I’ve discovered the NSLP is a complex maze of illogical proportions.”

  “So a recall?”

  Baldwin bristled, her back straightening. She let out a sigh, more frustration than relief. “I realized the day after the Norfolk, Virginia, outbreak that I wouldn’t be able to do anything from inside.”