Deadly Webs Omnibus

by James Hunt

  “And what did you guys talk about when you communicated with one another?” Grant asked.

  And from there, it was textbook predatory behavior. Stacy would tell Mallory something secret about herself to help establish a bond and trust, and then Mallory would do the same. Grant had seen it before. It was all about layering, making sure the victim was eased into the relationship, making the victim think that all of this was their idea, then once that seed was planted, ensuring that it was only the predator that could save them from a doomed fate.

  Mallory teared up twice during the retelling, but Grant admired the courage she gathered to push through it. Despite the terrible trip down memory lane, Grant discovered little that he didn’t already know. The woman who kidnapped Mallory Givens was formidable, and she had learned all the tricks and secrets of abduction through the course she took on the website Grant and Mocks discovered.

  “You did great,” Grant said, his lips curving in a gentle smile. “Thank you so much for telling me.”

  The color from Mallory’s cheeks had gone pallid, the conversation just as physically draining on her as it was mentally and emotionally. She nodded and leaned back in the chair as her lip quivered. Her eyes were focused on the table, but when she looked up at Grant, that courage from earlier vanished and all that remained was a frightened young girl.

  “She’s dead, right?” Mallory asked, the quivering growing worse. “She can’t come back and get me? She won’t come back and take me?”

  “No, Mallory,” Grant said, reaching for the girl’s hands once more. “She won’t ever come for you again.”

  Mallory broke down, tears streaming down her face, and Ms. Givens rushed to her daughter’s side. The pair cried together and Grant leaned away from the tender moment between the two, excusing himself to leave. But when he stood, Mallory blubbered something while her face was still pressed against her mother’s arm.

  Grant turned back to the girl, leaning forward over the table. “What was that?”

  Mallory lifted her head from her mother’s arm, strands of her bangs glued to her forehead in stringy lines. “The spiders. They won’t come either, will they?”

  Grant shook his head, confused. “Spiders?” Grant asked. “Was that something you and Stacy spoke about?”

  Mallory nodded. “It was after things got really bad, right before she put that vest on me.”

  That ‘vest’ had ten pounds of plastic explosive wired inside with Stacy West’s thumb over a dead-man trigger. If Grant hadn’t wrestled it out of the woman’s clutches, the pair wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.

  “What did she say about the spiders?” Grant asked.

  Mallory sniffled, finding that courage once again, calming her frayed nerves. “She said that it was better that she got me instead of the spiders. She said it would have been worse with them. That they would have—” She pulled her lips into her mouth, afraid to even speak the words. “Hurt me.”

  “Did she say anything else?” Grant asked, biting on the new lead, hoping to get more, but Mallory simply buried her face back into her mother’s robe.

  Grant expressed his thanks and walked himself out, leaving Ms. Givens and her daughter to sort through the process of healing. He mulled over what Mallory had said inside his car, trying to piece it together, but he had as much of an idea about what it meant as Mallory Givens did.

  It had to be connected to the website somehow. Grant needed Sam to pull more data from the site. He rubbed the wedding band, his wife creeping into his thoughts for a moment when the radio came on.

  “Unit thirty-five, this is Dispatch, over.”

  Grant reached for the receiver. “Go for unit thirty-five.”

  “Lieutenant wants you to come back to the precinct. Says it’s urgent.”

  “Copy that, Dispatch.” Grant set the receiver back on the hook and arched an eyebrow as his cell phone buzzed. It was Mocks. A light twinge soured Grant’s stomach. Something was wrong.

  ***

  Press vans cluttered the outside of the precinct when Grant returned. They swarmed his squad car on his approach, and when he finally found a parking spot, the horde circled him, thrusting microphones and cameras into his face. He held up his hand to block the flashes from the photographers, but he was helpless to evade the questions hurled his way.

  “Detective! Can you tell us how many there have been so far?”

  “Are any of the abductions connected?”

  “I have sources telling me that as many as a dozen children have gone missing.”

  Grant waved his hands, growing more irritated the longer they followed him to the door. “I don’t have any comment on current investigations.” He pushed through to the door and left the roving animals outside where they belonged.

  But if Grant was hoping for sanctuary in the precinct, he didn’t find much peace inside. Phones rang loud and intermittently. Officers scurried around their desks. Everyone was on high alert. And for good reason.

  Lieutenant Furst was behind his desk, the phone glued to his ear. Mocks was already in the office, twirling her Bic lighter but keeping the flame at bay. She didn’t like to do it in front of the bosses. She thought they might think it was weird. Grant had always told her it was too late for that.

  “Yes, of course, Mayor,” Furst said, nodding, then looked at Grant. “I actually have them in my office now. I’ll call you back with an update as soon as I have one.” He set the phone down, then pointed to the door. “Mocks?”

  Mocks shut the door and the chatter, phone calls, and office machinery fell silent.

  “If the press haven’t given it away already, I suppose you can figure it out,” Furst said, leaning forward. “We have an epidemic on our hands.”

  “I had a reporter ask if it was twelve?” Grant asked, his voice exasperated. “Is that true?”

  “Fifteen,” Furst answered. “From all around the state.”

  “We had another abduction reported while you were talking to the Givens girl,” Mocks said. “Boy was taken at Hyde Park.”

  Even before Grant joined Missing Persons, he had never heard of anything like this happening before. Cases were always spaced out. In the two years he’d been with the unit, he and Mocks had only worked twelve legitimate abduction cases.

  Furst rocked in his chair. “That’s two for this precinct and another thirteen outside our jurisdiction. I’ve spoken with the other lieutenants to get a handle on any connections.” He pressed a finger into the desk. “All victims were under the age of thirteen, with thirteen of the kids female and two male. The children’s families have mixed backgrounds and ethnicities, as well as financial status. We have poverty to upper middle class.” He sprung from his chair, walked over to his printer, and removed a stack of papers from the feeder. “So far none of the abductors have made any demands or ransom. The only pattern identified so far is the locations. All public places.”

  “Malls, parks, crowded stores,” Mocks said. “All textbook grabs. It has to connect back to that website.”

  Grant took the papers from Furst and sifted through them while the lieutenant arched an eyebrow.

  “The website involved in the Givens case?” Furst asked.

  “Yeah,” Grant said, skimming the notes, looking for anything that stood out, particularly anything about spiders, but found nothing. “Has it spread outside of Washington?”

  “I haven’t reached out to any of my contacts in Oregon or Idaho,” Furst said. “So maybe.”

  “Cyber find anything yet?” Grant asked.

  “No,” Mocks answered.

  Furst slammed his fist on the table, the scowl on his face accentuating the scars on his left cheek that ran from his eye to his jawline. “We have an epidemic on our hands!” He pointed to the bullpen. “I’ve got parents from all over the city calling in and asking if it’s safe for their kids to go outside. Not to mention the press, Mayor, and Senator’s offices calling the chief and torching our entire department! We need answe
rs, Detectives. And we need them now.”

  “If Cyber is still trying to crack that website, then we have to work with what we have,” Grant said. “AMBER Alerts already set up?”

  “We managed to push out your two cases, Annie Mauer and Tommy Steeves, but the chief is holding off on sending the rest of the AMBER Alerts until we can figure out a PR standpoint,” Furst said.

  “Yeah, because waiting is going to make things better,” Mocks said, scuffing her shoes against the carpet.

  “You handle your job, Detective,” Furst said. “And I’ll handle mine.”

  “There is something else,” Grant said. “When I spoke with the Givens girl, she mentioned spiders.”

  “You lost me,” Furst said.

  “That makes two of us,” Mocks said. “Are you sure that means anything?”

  “She was pretty worked up, but I think it’s significant,” Grant said, nodding to the phone. “It might be something to pass along to the rest of your contacts, Lieutenant.”

  “I will,” Furst said, and took his seat, slowly calming down. “Listen, what I tell you doesn’t leave this room.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward even though no one outside could hear. “The mayor and Senator Pierfoy want this handled quickly. This is going to be national news, and if these kids aren’t returned safely, then heads will roll. Don’t misstep.”

  “We won’t,” Grant said. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  When Mocks opened the door, the cacophony of the precinct blasted their senses. The pair returned to their desks, Grant still holding the files from the other cases that Furst had printed.

  Grant handed Mocks the first half of files once he finished taking notes, and she absorbed the information like a sponge after only a few minutes. She tore open another Pop-Tart package while Grant tried to connect the myriad of information into something coherent. But aside from what the lieutenant had said, there was nothing. And no spiders.

  “Hey,” Officer Banks said, sneaking up behind Grant. “We got a hit on the kid from Hyde Park on the hotline.” He rotated the piece of paper in his hands. “Guy was seen with a boy matching the description of the rusted eighty six Toyota Corolla off Interstate Five. He turned off on an exit to a town call Lynden, just south of the Canadian border.”

  Grant and Mocks both reached for their jackets, and Grant snatched the note from Banks’s fingers.

  “Get on the horn with that county’s Sheriff’s office and put out the APB for that car,” Grant said. “And do me a favor and get a message over to Sam in Cyber; tell him to run this plate number against any names on his list from the website. He’ll know what that means.”

  Mocks was three steps ahead of Grant, but he finally caught up with her at the door. She walked fast for her size.

  “Why do you want Sam to run the name attached to the plate against his information?” Mocks asked.

  Grant pulled the door open. “Because I want to confirm the abduction to the website. We need to narrow down who we’re fighting.”

  Chapter 4

  Police cars lined the street, and two officers were forced to move the barricade when Grant and Mocks arrived on scene. The altercation was undoubtedly the most excitement the citizens of Lynden had seen in their lifetime because the street was packed with pedestrians, searching for a better vantage point at the unfolding scene.

  Grant parked behind a cluster of squad cars that blocked the driveway where Craig Johnson’s rusted Corolla was parked. The house he sought shelter in was more of a trailer, but the way it had been cemented into the ground gave it a more permanent look.

  “Sergeant,” Grant said, tapping one of the officers on the shoulder. “I’m Detective Grant.”

  The sergeant was Grant’s height, maybe an inch taller, and had an unsightly orangutan orange color sticking out from under his cap. He smiled at Mocks, exposing off-white teeth. “Detectives.”

  “Is the boy inside?” Mocks asked, ignoring the sergeant’s gawking.

  “We’re not sure,” he answered. “We can’t get a straight answer out of the guy. What we do know is he has plenty of shotgun rounds and hasn’t shied away from using them.”

  And almost on cue, a twelve-gauge barrel poked through the window and buckshot blew into the front yard and the hoods of the police cruisers, the cannon-like blast sending every officer ducking, eliciting a horrific gasp from the crowd that had gathered.

  Grant poked his head up from behind the trunk of one of the cruisers and saw that the weapon had disappeared from the window. Mocks was tucked behind the car to his left with the sergeant.

  “What do we know about the suspect?” Grant asked.

  “He’s a janitor over at Seattle General,” the sergeant said. “He’s worked there for almost twenty-five years. Up until four months ago, he had over thirty grand saved up in his account, but several withdrawals since then have emptied it.”

  “Doesn’t Homeland usually flag large withdrawals like that?” Mocks asked.

  “He didn’t make a large withdrawal,” the sergeant answered. “Over two hundred small increments were taken out over that time span.”

  “Smart,” Grant said.

  Dozens of guns were trained on Johnson’s fortress, and every curtain was drawn on the windows. If this guy took the same class as kidnapper in the Givens case, then he knew the authorities’ plan of attack. And if he didn’t get what he wanted, then things could end in a big boom.

  “How many entrances to the house do we have?” Grant asked.

  “Two,” the sergeant answered. “I spoke to the landlord to see if there was any other way inside, but there was nothing. We were going to infiltrate, but S.W.A.T. found traces of explosive wiring around the doors and windows when they got close. He’s sealed himself in there nice and tight.”

  Mocks pulled Grant aside and lowered her voice so only he could hear. “This guy knows all of the tricks. The moment we go inside, he’ll blow the whole damn place sky high. It’s just another Mexican stand off.”

  Grant shut his eyes, trying to figure out a way inside, but there wasn’t a move he could make that Craig Johnson wouldn’t anticipate. Except…

  “Sergeant,” Grant said. “Do you have a communication line already open with the suspect?”

  “Yeah, but he’s not talking,” the sergeant answered. “Our negotiator has tried, but the man won’t budge until he gets what he wants.”

  “I have something that I think will work,” Grant said.

  “And that is?” the sergeant asked.

  “Giving him what he wants.”

  The sergeant’s face twitched like he was having a stroke, and Mocks offered the coyest little smile.

  “What the hell do you mean we give him what he wants?” the sergeant asked as both Mocks and Grant ducked low on their way back to their cruiser, Craig Johnson still randomly firing his twelve gauge into the squad cars. Once inside, they shut the doors, staying below the dash with their eyes barely exposed.

  Grant reached for the radio. “Dispatch, this is Detective Grant. I need you to patch me through to Captain Hill and Lieutenant Furst. Tell them it’s urgent.” He let his finger off the button of the receiver and Mocks shook her head.

  “You planning on calling in a few favors?” Mocks asked. “Because that’s the only way you’re going to pull this off.”

  “You heard what the lieutenant said,” Grant answered. “The mayor and senator want a speedy resolution to this mess. The longer this goes on, the lower their poll numbers drop.” He looked at her and grinned. “I don’t think I’m the one that’ll have to call in favors.”

  “Detective Grant, you have Captain Hill and Lieutenant Furst on the line,” dispatch said.

  “What is it, Grant?” Hill asked.

  “Captain, Lieutenant, I have an idea,” Grant said.

  Grant walked them through the plan, having to pause several times to interrupt the captain’s objections, but Grant found it a good sign that the lieutenant remained quiet. It meant that he wa
s considering it.

  “And what happens when we give him what he wants?” Furst finally asked. “What’s to make him think that we won’t double cross him?”

  “Because it wasn’t in the class he took online,” Grant said. “It’ll throw him off balance. He’s thinking he has to dig in and wait until he blows himself off the face of the earth, but this gives him hope. Plus with all the news vans, he’ll know if something happened to the boy on television, we’d be crucified.”

  “You’re goddamn right we will be,” Captain Hill said.

  “Sirs, I’m telling you if there was another way to get that boy, we’d do it. But the way things stand right now, there is only one outcome, and that puts both Tommy Steeves and Craig Johnson in body bags. My way gives us a chance to intercept him when he comes out of the house.”

  “He’s right,” Mocks said. “It’s the only way.”

  Grant smiled at the vote of confidence from his partner, and the fact that she was on the same page only gave him more clout.

  “If this goes south, your career is over,” Lieutenant Furst said. “If one hair on the boy’s head is out of place after the smoke clears, then you’re done. The press, politicians, even this very department will gun you down. Same goes for you, Detective Mullocks. I need to hear the two of you say that you understand.”

  “It’s not our careers we’re worried about, Lieutenant,” Grant said. “It’s that boy’s life. And this gives him the best chance to keep it.”

  “I still need to hear you say it, Detectives,” Furst said.

  Grant looked to Mocks, and the pair leaned close to the receiver. “We understand.”

  A pause, and then the captain spoke. “We’ll contact the mayor and senator to bring them in the loop, though they won’t be happy about it.”

  “Just tell them what I told you, sir,” Grant said. “And make sure you tell them it’s from me.” He set the receiver down and jolted from another shotgun blast, Craig Johnson’s incoherent rambling muffled through the car’s cabin.

  “So now what?” Mocks asked.