It wasn’t until mid-August that they finally got some payback. While patrolling a village in the Guldara District, Larson’s squad had come under attack. A fire team, four of his boys on the other side of the village, reported contact. Bursts from an assault rifle. Then came a grenade that, luckily, didn’t go off.
Larson had rushed to their position. By the time he got there, it was over. No one was hit except the Afghan boy who had attacked them. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, but that hadn’t made him any less dangerous. When they approached his riddled body, they found an AK-47, a spare magazine, and another grenade.
Morale improved after that.
Rachel counted seven more attacks before Larson went home. Three of those ended with dead enemy combatants. Taliban or al-Qaeda militants hidden among villagers. To Larson and his boys, they were all starting to look the same.
The villagers never bothered to warn their American protectors. Perhaps they stayed quiet out of fear. Fear of retribution from the terrorists, against themselves or their families. It was understandable, at least in the beginning. But there’s only so much understanding in a soldier living under constant threat from an unseen enemy. Months in Afghanistan wore it paper-thin.
Larson’s journals were light on commentary. For the most part, they were concise descriptions of events, with only the essential details listed along with the names of those involved. There was little in the way of sentiment or reflection. The only words that betrayed his personal feelings came near the end. On more than one occasion, he referred to the Afghan civilians as savages.
TWENTY-ONE
Hughes dialed the number again—his third attempt in the last hour—and groaned when he heard the voicemail greeting.
“Hi, Ms. Carver,” he said after the beep, “this is Chad Hughes with the Siler City Police Department. We met at the hospital the other day. I need to talk to you regarding your friend, Mr. Parker. Could you give me a call back, please? As soon as possible, if you don’t mind? Thanks.”
He hung up the phone, leaned back in his chair, and tried to think of what to do next. He had spoken to Ramirez’s neighbors, her family, and her friends. None of them had been able to shed any light on what had happened. Parker had lived in Raleigh, so the police chief had requested assistance from that department’s homicide unit. They were still waiting for them to call back.
There was only so much a municipal detective could do. Hughes didn’t have the authority to run all over the state and question whomever he wanted, which meant the investigation was starting to get out of his hands. On top of that, the chief was cautious when it came to homicides. He’d already insisted on asking the SBI for help with the crime scene process, which probably wasn’t a bad idea, but it certainly slowed the works. It was only a matter of time before he called them and asked for an investigator to be assigned to the case.
But Hughes wanted this one for himself. It wasn’t a matter of pride; he felt responsible. The reporter had been into something bad, and that’s what had gotten him and Ramirez killed. If only Hughes had stayed at the hospital, stuck it out until the sorry bastard woke up from his heroin-induced coma …
Hughes wasn’t the type to let his emotions get out of control. Anger didn’t make him a better detective, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he could have done differently. Or better. Or that he could have done anything at all rather than just leaving. Rather than ignoring the fact that a man was claiming to have been kidnapped and drugged against his will.
He stared at his desk and chewed on the dead end of a ballpoint pen. He nudged his chair into a gentle rock and let his mind wander. It didn’t take it long to drift back to Rachel Carver.
There was something about her that bothered him. More than just the attitude she had given him. The look of condescension. Something that didn’t make sense about her relationship with Parker.
He stood and strolled over to Morrison’s desk. She was on her computer, punching away at the keys, most likely typing up her report about the morning’s follow-up canvass. She’d gone back to Ramirez’s street to question a few neighbors who had not been home the first time around. She paused to glance up at him and said, “You’re not coming over here looking for a sounding board, are you?”
He was pacing between her and a wall of filing cabinets. “Huh? No … I’m just thinking.”
“That’s not possible,” she said, getting back to her report. “Your mouth’s not moving.”
“Uh-huh.” He stared at the floor as he took a few more turns. “So this guy ODs on heroin…”
“Here we go.”
“… and the first person he wants us to call is an ex-cop?”
“Yep.”
“And not just any ex-cop. A freakin’ SBI agent.”
“Right,” she said with an absent nod.
“I mean, this woman’s supposedly a goddamn hero. She saved a Wake County deputy’s life, for cryin’ out loud.”
“That’s something.”
“And she just comes running over. Straight to the hospital to see him.” He stopped and leaned against a cabinet. “Almost like she wanted to make sure she was the first one to talk to him.”
Morrison sighed and stopped typing. “Let me guess. You haven’t done a background check on her yet, have you?”
“You know how I feel about the new computer system.”
“One of these days, I’m gonna stop enabling your lazy butt.” She moved her mouse around and made a few clicks, then asked, “What’s her name?”
“Rachel Carver.”
She typed it in and started scrolling through the results.
Hughes went back to thinking, staring into space, mumbling whatever came to mind. “It might make sense if he was an old informant or something. And if she was still an agent. But a reporter? On heroin?”
“Oh, damn,” Morrison said under her breath.
“And what the hell did Ramirez have to do with any of this?”
“Chad, you need to see this.”
“Huh?”
She was staring at the screen. “Come here and have a look.”
He walked behind her and bent down to look over her shoulder. “What is it?”
She pointed her index finger at a block of text. It was the return from the DMV database—a vehicle registered in Rachel Carver’s name. It was a white Toyota Camry.
“Holy mother of God,” Hughes said. “Looks like we got ourselves a suspect.”
TWENTY-TWO
Rachel finished skimming the last few pages and went back to the beginning, hoping something might jump out at her. But nothing did. She was starting to think the journals were a waste of her time.
She closed the oldest of the set and stared at its cover for a moment. Suddenly, she remembered the uneasy feeling she’d had when she’d opened it in Romano’s living room. As if something inside it hadn’t made sense to her.
She opened it again and studied the inside of the front cover where Larson had written his name, rank, and unit number. The formality of those details made Rachel wonder if the journals had been a requirement. Something Larson’s superiors had demanded in case there was ever a need to review the actions of his unit.
Tyler Larson.
Staff Sergeant.
B—2/525 PIR.
She understood the nomenclature of the last line. She had learned the format during the original investigation. It meant that Larson had been assigned to Bravo Company in the 2nd Battalion of the 525th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
But that didn’t look right.
Rachel straightened in her seat. She stared at it for a moment, realizing why it had bothered her. At the time Larson was murdered, he had been a platoon sergeant for a different unit—the 508th.
Larson’s promotion to sergeant first class must have come with a transfer. During the original investigation, Rachel had spoken to several of his fellow soldiers. Searching for any hint of hostility or ill will. Any kind of grudge that might
have gotten him killed. She hadn’t found anything, but only one of the people she’d interviewed had served with Larson in the 525th.
PFC Adam Hubbard.
If Larson had been killed because of something that had happened during his time as the leader of Hubbard’s squad, Rachel would’ve had no way of knowing about it. Aside from Hubbard, she had been talking to the wrong people.
She flipped through the pages again, this time looking for names. They were peppered throughout. Each time she found one, she jotted it down in her steno pad. When she got to the end, she dropped the journal in the passenger seat and stepped out to stretch.
A gray blanket was drawing west across the sky, leaving a thin band of blue stretching over the horizon. The cloud cover brought a respite from the sun, but the damp air clung to her skin. It was thick and suffocating. She tugged on her shirt and felt it sticking to her back.
Frustration engulfed her. She was grasping at straws in the most important fight of her life. The memory of her history professor explaining that phrase popped into her mind. “A drowning man will reach for any object to save himself,” he had said, “even a straw, floating on top of the water.”
In that moment, she thought about Calvin Grant. About the anonymous tipster he was protecting. Would they be willing to help her out? If she called Grant, would he be willing to go to his client and ask for more information? Some new clue that might point her in the right direction?
Rachel heard the prepaid ringing in her car. She ran back to grab it and read the screen. CARLY BREWER.
“Hey Carly. You find anything?”
“Yeah, I did, actually. By accident.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was searching the driver side floorboard and I dropped my light. It fell out on the ground and rolled under your car. I had to lay down on my side to look for it, and I saw this thing stuck under there … almost looks like a hockey puck. It’s magnetic, and there’s a little switch on it. I’d bet you anything it’s some kind of GPS tracker.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, for real. It’s got me kinda freaked out right now.”
“Did you get anything else? Hairs or prints?”
“Got a few of each,” Carly said. “Along with the swabs I took for touch DNA and the samples for comparison. I’ll leave first thing Monday morning to take them in. The prints can go to the Asheville lab. That’ll be the quickest turnaround. But the DNA tests have to be done in Raleigh. I wouldn’t get too excited about the hairs, though. They look like they’re probably all yours.”
“Okay.”
“There’s something else I need to tell you.” Her voice lowered. “The BOLO came in. For you and your car. You’re wanted for questioning, but I don’t think there’s an arrest warrant yet.”
“Damn.” Rachel looked around instinctively, then held her head a little lower. “Was only a matter of time, I guess.”
“Yeah … take care of yourself, okay?”
“I will.” She climbed back into the Tacoma. “Thanks, Carly.”
It felt like the world was closing in on her. Time was running out. She had to move. Had to make something happen.
She turned her iPhone on and typed Grant a text message, giving him the prepaid number and asking him to call her. She sent it, then thumbed her way to the app she used to run quick background checks. When the search screen came up, she typed ADAM HUBBARD, MONROE, NORTH CAROLINA, 24 YEARS OLD.
The app was a paid subscription service. It could dig through thousands of public records in a matter of seconds, an invaluable tool for a private investigator. She had signed up for the premium version, which wasn’t cheap but often proved its worth.
The little wheel that told Rachel her phone was thinking or processing spun at the top of her screen, testing her patience. It didn’t help that she knew it was also transmitting her location to the nearest cell towers.
“Come on,” she growled.
On command, the results appeared, displaying the top six returns based on her search criteria. The first name seemed to be the best fit. She touched it, and the profile opened. A menu with several options: Overview, Contact Info, Address History, Relatives, Employment History, Criminal Records, Associates …
She touched the Associates tab and compared the results with the list of names she’d copied from Larson’s journal. There were two matches: Seth Martin and Austin Buckley. They had shared an address with Hubbard back in 2014. It was an apartment. Apparently, the three of them had been roommates for a year after getting out of the Army.
Rachel ran a search on both men and checked their most recent addresses. They still lived in Fayetteville. She decided to try Martin first, entering his address into her navigation app. The route came back a second later showing a ten-minute drive. She wrote the directions on her steno pad, then plotted the course from there to Buckley’s apartment. She copied those directions as well, then turned off her phone, downed the last of her Monster Energy, and started the Tacoma.
* * *
Martin lived in a new apartment complex not far from Fort Bragg. He shared his two-bedroom with a roommate, who said he was at a pool party behind the next building over. Rachel went down to find a group of twenty-somethings in board shorts and bikinis, tossing each other into the water and yelling over loud country music as a heavyset man in a tank top cooked hamburgers on the community grill.
Rachel went to the cook first.
“Hi there,” she said. “Mind telling me where I can find Seth Martin?”
“What do you want with that asshole?” he asked playfully.
“He knew a friend of mine in the Army.”
“In the Army?” He waved smoke away from his face and yelled, “Yo, Seth. This chick says you were in the Army. Say it ain’t so.”
Rachel looked toward the pool and saw a man look back and say, “What?” He was short, maybe an inch taller than Rachel, with a barrel chest and heavy arms. When he spotted Rachel, his mouth formed a little smirk, and he strolled over.
He slapped the cook on the butt and said, “Is this guy bothering you?”
“Not at all,” Rachel said. “He’s actually been quite helpful.”
Martin sipped on a can of Busch Light, taking a second to examine Rachel’s figure. He seemed pleased with what he was seeing. “I can be helpful too.”
The big man in the tank top put a towel to his mouth and snickered.
Martin punched him in the arm with an expression of mock indignation. “Hey, show some fuckin’ respect, bro.” He leaned toward Rachel. “Never mind this heathen.”
“Do you mind if we have a word in private?” Rachel asked.
“Why not?”
They walked away from the crowd and stood at the edge of the concrete deck behind a row of metal lounge chairs.
“I’m sorry to pull you away from your friends,” she said. “I won’t keep you long.”
“No worries. How can I help?”
“I’ve been hired by a law firm in Monroe to investigate the death of one of your former squad mates. Adam Hubbard.”
His expression changed. Some of his cockiness disappeared. “Little Adam. I miss that guy.”
“Were you two close?”
He shrugged. “For a while. We lived together after we got out. He was too serious, though. And then he got into the pills, and that just wasn’t my thing.”
“Would you say his addiction was out of control?”
“Well, yeah. When you think about it, that’s what got him killed. The guy did two tours in Afghanistan, dodging bullets and IEDs and shit. Then he comes home to get beat down by some fuckin’ junkie.”
“You think that’s really what happened?”
“Hell yeah, I do.”
His answer seemed a little too forceful. He looked like he was starting to get agitated. He shifted his weight and took a large gulp of his beer. It must have gotten too warm. He spit some out and poured what was left in the can on the grass.
Rachel a
sked, “Do you know if Adam spent any time with Sergeant Larson after he got out?”
He looked down. “No, I wouldn’t know anything about that.” His mood had changed completely now, and he seemed to recognize it. He put on a smile and said, “Look, I hate to cut this short, but it looks like those burgers are just about ready, and I could use another beer. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
He started to turn away.
Rachel reached out to block his path. “Sorry, I hate to keep you, but this is really important. Just a couple more questions?”
He stopped but kept his eyes fixed on his friends, who were forming a line for food. “Yeah?”
“Did you happen to have any contact with Sergeant Larson before he was killed?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Would you happen to know why anyone would want him dead?”
“You mean aside from the fact that he was cheating on his girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Aside from that.”
He took a step closer to her and lowered his voice. “I don’t know why you’re asking me all these questions, and I don’t care. All I know is, these are my friends you’re talking about. It was hard enough when they died. I don’t need to keep reliving the shit.”
He went back to the grill, where the cook was waiting with a hamburger and a fresh beer. Rachel wondered if she had just seen genuine pain, or if Martin had something to hide. Either way, she wasn’t getting anywhere with him. It was time to try Austin Buckley.
* * *
The woman answered the door in a brown T-shirt and a pair of pink panties. She had red sores on her shins and looked too skinny for her own good. Sucking on a vaporizer, she looked Rachel up and down, exhaled a cloud, and said, “You lookin’ for Austin?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ain’t gonna find him here. Not at this time of the evenin’.”
“Any idea where I could find him?”
She stuck the end of the tube back in her mouth while she considered the question. Then she took it out and asked, “Whatcha want with him?”
Rachel adopted a conciliatory tone. “Oh, I’m actually trying to find an old friend. He was in the Army with Austin. I thought he might be able to help me out.”
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