Trace Evidence (The Heir Hunter Book 2)

by Diane Capri

  When Wilcox slept, his staff slept. Only one man on his security detail would be standing watch in the video room as a precaution. No one seriously expected to be attacked in the Atacama Desert.

  Two hours’ drive time from the airport to Wilcox’s Oasis would have been the easiest means of approach. But any degree of stealth was impossible using a land vehicle. Nothing but a few outbuildings, his observatory, and miles of sand surrounded Wilcox’s house. A land vehicle would kick up dust and be seen on the long-distance closed-circuit cameras monitored by Wilcox’s security.

  Which made the decision to approach by air in a steerable parachute the only option.

  At the terminal, they collected their gear. Drake drove the rental to the private airstrip where he’d reserved the skydive aircraft. There were several popular jump planes. The Cessna 182 Drake located was common and familiar. It would take him up to ten thousand feet in twenty minutes, which served Flint’s purposes. More important today, this one was painted gray, like a fighter plane. It would be tough to spot from the ground.

  Flint dressed in the gray jumpsuit and checked his steerable gray parachute again while Drake readied the Cessna. Soon they were airborne, flying east from the coastal town into the desert. The plane was loud, as all plane engines were. But at ten thousand feet and a radius of three miles from Wilcox’s Oasis, occupants of the house should not hear the Cessna.

  Drake flew wide of the target. Flint lifted the binoculars to his eyes to get his first real look at Wilcox’s Oasis. The house and grounds seemed unoccupied from this vantage point. No vehicles outside. No people, either.

  He saw the glass dome reflecting sunlight even though its shade was deployed inside. The two outbuildings that housed vehicles and supplies were closed up tight. The observatory’s VBT had been covered for the daylight hours, too. All was as he’d expected.

  He gave Drake a thumbs-up from the back. He checked his parachute again as Drake flew to the jump point, east of Wilcox’s Oasis as the sun was nearing its apex. The surveillance cameras would be looking into the sun. In his gray suit with the gray parachute, ten thousand feet up and three miles away, Flint should be effectively invisible.

  In theory.

  He opened the door of the Cessna. When Drake had the plane in position, Flint jumped into a brief free fall and then deployed the chute for a long, slow glide.

  The outbuildings surrounding Wilcox’s Oasis came into view. He steered the chute to land behind. His feet hit the ground and he ran and tumbled to a safe stop. Quickly, he released his harness and stepped away from the chute. He gathered it up in his arms and found a place to stash it behind the building.

  He stripped off the gray suit, revealing desert camo garb beneath, which would visually blend his body with the terrain. He settled his small equipment pack around his waist and moved his gun to his belt where he could grab it easily.

  He crouched close to the ground and ran from the cover of the building to the cover of the trees, careful to avoid the security cameras, until he reached the exposed side of the house. The side where Wilcox’s master suite was located.

  Wilcox’s windows were covered by blackout shades. Intel said he was inside and he was alone. All Flint had to do was breach the bedroom’s security.

  He made his way to the bedroom window farthest from the bed. He opened his equipment pack and pulled out the specialized glass cutter and a roll of heavy duct tape. He stuck two long strips of the tape, corner to corner, in a big X across the window glass, leaving enough slack in the center to form a handle for his gloved hand.

  He cut a large rectangle around the X and, using both hands on the center of the X, pulled the glass free. He set the glass against the side of the house. He dropped his work gloves beside the roll of duct tape and the glass cutter.

  The blackout shade was now the only barrier between him and Boyd Wilcox. The shade was on a track attached to the wall, like a second window. It opened and closed electronically. It provided not only a light barrier but also a heat and humidity barrier, and sound deadening as well. He listened for snoring inside the bedroom but heard none.

  Moving quickly, he pulled his specialized utility knife from his belt and slashed the blackout shade in the same big X pattern he’d used on the window. He tossed the knife to the ground and gripped his gun in his right hand and a Maglite in his left. He pushed aside the heavy shade with his left arm as he stepped over the window’s threshold into the room.

  The brief flash of light when he stepped through the X was almost immediately shuttered when the X snapped back into place, as if it had never been sliced. Flint stood in near-total darkness inside the bedroom.

  He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust.

  He pointed the Maglite to the floor and turned it on. The bed was to his left in the drawings he’d seen. Quickly, he brought his hands together, right over left, and raised both light and gun at the same time, pointed straight ahead.

  The light illuminated the king-size bed in a solid beam, leaving the rest of the room in darkness.

  The covers were thrown back. The bed was unoccupied.

  “You’re later than I expected, Flint.” Wilcox had heard him coming.

  From ten feet ahead, on his left, in the near-total silence, he heard the unmistakable rack of a gun slide. A pistol.

  It was exactly the kind of sound that Flint had trained his whole life never to miss. A precise set of movements, one following the other. The magazine spring, the brass-cased shell clicking home, the return of the slide. Fast, sure, solid.

  Less than half a second, even for an amateur like Wilcox to accomplish.

  Less than a tenth of a second for Flint to process.

  Wilcox was seated. The pistol was small. The magazine held not more than thirteen rounds. Which was more than enough to do the job, in the hands of a man who knew how to use them.

  In one smooth motion, Flint pushed his light and his gun to the left and down to meet the attack’s origin. He squeezed the trigger on his pistol and fell onto his left side and away. He felt Wilcox’s bullet pass through the void where Flint’s body had been half a moment before.

  He was in that zone where his mind raced and his body slowed.

  Like slow-motion in films, he saw his shot hit Wilcox’s chest and red blood spurt onto his naked torso.

  The blood pumped out and darkened when it hit the room’s oxygen and covered his body, running down to his lap and pooling there in the chair.

  Flint was barely breathing heavy. “You thought you’d get away with murder, didn’t you?”

  Wilcox grimaced. He lifted his left hand to cover the wound. His voice wheezed. “Aludra was a cheap slut, Flint. You didn’t know her.”

  “So you killed her.”

  “In the moment just before orgasm. Too much pressure on her throat.” He coughed a bit and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He shrugged. “It happens.”

  Flint’s Maglite illuminated Wilcox, but Flint and everything in the room was still cloaked in darkness. Even as he watched Wilcox through narrowed eyes, Flint listened intently for footsteps in the corridor outside.

  Wilcox’s right arm lifted his gun and pointed at Flint.

  This time, Flint shot first.

  The second bullet slammed into his heart.

  Blood pulsed once, twice.

  Wilcox’s arm fell to the side, eyes wide open.

  His blood stopped spurting. His heart quit pumping.

  The world regained normal speed. Flint could hear his own breathing, blood pulsing in his ears in syncopation with his pounding heartbeat.

  Flint nodded. Now he knew for sure. All the dominos fell into place. Boyd Wilcox had faked Aludra’s kidnapping and then killed her. Everything that flowed from Aludra’s death was on Boyd Wilcox’s head.

  The gunshots had awakened the household.

  Flint heard footfalls in the corridor outside the bedroom. Intel said there were four security guards on-site, along with three male staff members tr
ained in combat. He couldn’t outrun them all, but he hadn’t planned to kill them, either.

  He pushed up from the floor and ran to flatten himself against the wall. The door burst open. Light came in from the hallway. The security guard flipped the light switch and flooded the bedroom with blinding light.

  The room was decorated like a desert hideaway. Sand colors permeated the modern furnishings. The floor was cool brown tiles. The walls looked like blocks of sandstone, as if the building had been carved out of the mountain, one room at a time.

  The guard looked at Wilcox. The damage to his torso from the close-range gunshot was spectacular. No one who saw Wilcox would believe he still lived.

  He swiveled his head. Took one look at the outline of light from the giant X in the blackout shade. Should he pursue the attacker? He was gripped by indecision for half a second too long.

  Flint raised his gun and pressed it to the back of the guard’s neck. “Drop your weapon.” The guard didn’t respond. Flint pushed his gun harder. “You want to join Wilcox?”

  The guard dropped his weapon.

  Flint closed the door to Wilcox’s bedroom and locked it from the inside.

  “On your knees. Hands on your head.”

  The guard dropped to the floor. Flint pushed him onto his face and pulled out a plastic cable tie from his pocket. He secured the tie to the guard’s wrists and then pushed him over onto his back. The man’s nose flared and his eyes narrowed into slits.

  Flint crouched down and stuck the barrel of his gun under the guard’s chin. He put one knee on the guard’s chest and leaned his weight onto him. While he was immobilized, Flint reached into his pocket and pulled out the fast-acting sedative he’d intended for Wilcox.

  The guard struggled to break free, but Flint pulled the cap off the needle with his teeth and dosed the guard with about half the contents of the syringe. When the guard’s eyes fell closed, Flint rolled him under the bed.

  He picked up the guard’s weapon and put his own weapon into his pocket.

  The entire exchange lasted less than two minutes. This was the guard on duty, but the others would be on the prowl now, too. Three more guards and three combat-trained staff.

  Six against one. He hesitated for a moment before he ducked out the window into the blinding sunlight.

  Flint left Wilcox’s room the same way he’d entered. He stayed out of sight of the cameras and made his way to the outbuilding that served as a garage. He collected his parachute from behind the building and stuffed it into the back of Wilcox’s SUV.

  He pulled the starter fuse and the fuel pump fuse on the second SUV and slipped them into his pocket.

  He saw the electronic key fob resting in the cup holder. He pushed the ignition button to start Wilcox’s armored SUV and reversed fast out of the garage.

  Two guards came running out of the front of the house, brandishing handguns.

  He sped faster, reversing down the driveway.

  He took evasive maneuvers, serpentine driving, toward the road, increasing speed, putting distance between the vehicle and the shooters.

  Two shots at the SUV went wide. Another hit the left front side and bounced off. A fourth shot hit the windshield. The round screamed through the bullet-resistant glass and embedded into the rear seat.

  When he reached the road, instead of slowing Flint floored the accelerator into a fast J-turn. The top-heavy SUV wobbled and the left tires threatened to leave the road. He removed his foot from the accelerator, and the left side slammed hard onto the gravel roadway, facing the right direction.

  The tires gripped the gravel and he accelerated again and the SUV leapt forward.

  He glanced into the rearview mirror. The two guards ran around the house to the garage. He patted the fuses in his pocket and smiled.

  They wouldn’t be able to start the second SUV, but they might have access to transportation from somewhere. He drove away from the house as fast as the heavy SUV would travel down the straight road along the desert.

  He kept the pedal on the floor until he reached the extraction site where Drake was waiting with the helo. He jumped out of the SUV and left it running. With luck, no one would find it before it ran out of gas.

  He dashed to the waiting Bell 407, stepped inside, and closed the door. “Let’s go!”

  The helo lifted off the ground and headed west, toward the airport. Which would be the first place Wilcox’s team would look for him. “How far can we go in this bird before we need to stop for fuel?”

  “Without using the reserve, about two hundred and fifty miles.” Drake glanced at Flint and raised his eyebrows. When Flint offered no comment, Drake said, “I’ll find a private airstrip within that distance. And we’re going to need a jet to get home.”

  Flint watched the never-ending desert and felt as if he were on Mars. Hazy mountains in the distance looked purple against the perfectly cloudless blue sky above and the miles of desert below.

  “Copy that.”

  In every direction, the land was parched and lifeless. Not a blade of grass or a cactus stump as far as the eye could see.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Every new book begins with a spark that leads to an idea I can turn into an exciting story. In the case of Trace Evidence, the idea was sparked by an unusual true story.

  Years ago, when I was a practicing lawyer in Detroit, one of my clients disappeared. He had been vacationing with his family at an inland lake in northern Michigan. He went out fishing alone, early in the morning, and didn’t come back. His boat was found, with all of his gear inside. He was never seen again.

  The story stuck with me for several reasons. Because I knew him. And because it was a shock to learn that drowning victims could disappear from small inland lakes. When there is no outlet to a river or ocean, logically, the bodies should eventually be located, and the families deserve closure.

  A decade later, I read about an unusual case at another inland lake. A young man, nineteen years old, went out alone on a jet ski in the afternoon. Later, the jet ski and his life jacket turned up, but the young man did not. A search was undertaken immediately, but he was not found. Ten years after he disappeared, new technology in use for underwater search and recovery had been developed. Using that technology and cadaver dogs, his body was found, lying peacefully and intact on the sandy lake bottom, about one hundred feet from the surface.

  Thus, my research for Trace Evidence began. What I learned along the way forms the foundation for this story in the Heir Hunter Series featuring Michael Flint.

  A real-life heir hunter is a forensic genealogist, someone who researches ancestry by means of standard records and more, for profit. It was the “and more, for profit” piece that I’ve used to create the Michael Flint novels. The “and more, for profit” opens all sorts of story possibilities, doesn’t it? My writer’s mind went to work, furiously plotting.

  For Trace Evidence, my research revealed that what happened to my client, and to the young jet skier, is only one of many unusual circumstances related to the thousands of lakes in North America and around the world.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Every book is created with the help of experts, readers, editors, and friends. This one is no exception. My undying appreciation goes to the entire Thomas & Mercer team, who believed in this project and helped me bring it to you. With special thanks to Grace Doyle, Megha Parekh, Anh Schluep, Kjersti Egerdahl, Jacqueline Ben-Zekry, Sarah Shaw, Kevin Smith, and Jill Marsal.

  Finally, Michael Flint would not exist in his current form without the support of my friends who call themselves Capristers. For weeks, they helped me search for precisely the right character name, and had a lot of fun doing it. Capristers are the best readers in the world. I love you guys!

  —Diane Capri

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Diane Capri is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of numerous book series, including The Hunt for Justice, The Hunt for Jack Reacher, and The Jess Kimball Thrillers. A former la
wyer, she now divides her time between Florida and Michigan. Capri has been nominated for several awards, including the International Thriller Award, and is the recipient of the Silver award for Best Thriller e-Book from the Independent Book Publishers Association. Trace Evidence is the second book in The Heir Hunter Series, following Blood Trails. She is currently at work on her next novel.