Golden Trail (The 'Burg Series)

by Kristen Ashley

  “Right,” Layne agreed.

  “So, I don’t know how they think or how they work but to work three girls, it doesn’t seem like it would be worth that investment, takin’ that long to do it,” Jasper went on and Layne’s eyes moved to Devin whose jaw was tight.

  His eyes went back to his son. “Go on,” Layne prompted.

  “So, it just seemed funny to me but I don’t know how they work so I didn’t think about it much until you told us to go to Giselle’s folks’ house and get the list of her friends. We worked our way through that and none of her friends had much but one of the names on it was Tara Murdoch. I thought that was weird ‘cause Giselle doesn’t hang with Tara, no one hangs with Tara. She’s weird, a goth, loads of piercings, black lipstick, total attitude and not the good kind. She’s fourteen, Dad, and she’s got tattoos.”

  Fuck.

  Layne looked at Tripp. “Tara Murdoch a goth last year?”

  Tripp shook his head.

  “She tight with Giselle last year?” Layne continued.

  “Yeah, Dad,” Tripp whispered. “They were best friends.”

  Fuck!

  “Giselle tell you why she’s not Tara’s friend anymore?” Layne went on.

  “We never talked about it but Tara went goth, that’s not Giselle’s scene. That kinda thing happens with girls all the time. One day they’re tight, the next day they’re not,” Tripp replied.

  “You guys talk to her when you were doin’ the rounds?” Layne asked Jasper.

  “No, we went to her house and…” he shook his head, “she was there, standin’ in the front window, watchin’ us with this weird look on her face. Just standin’ there watchin’ us. We rang the bell and knocked but she didn’t move. Just stood there watchin’ us. I thought it was some goth shit and I knew she wasn’t tight with Giselle so I figured she didn’t have anything for us so we walked away.”

  Layne nodded at Jasper. “You got anything else?”

  Jasper nodded, sucked in breath and replied, “Summer Collins and Hannah Blair. Mitch had clocked both of them at a party, end of school last year. Giselle, Tara, Summer and Hannah were known to be the talent comin’ up from junior high. All the guys knew about them. Giselle was shy. Tara turned goth. Summer is more shy than Giselle, she doesn’t go to games, doesn’t go out for pizza, she just goes to school, doesn’t have any friends that I know of, and she goes home. Sometimes she also doesn’t wash her hair. Just kinda tries to fade, you know?” Jasper asked but didn’t wait for a response, he continued. “But it’s Hannah. Hannah disappeared.”

  Layne turned to Merry. “You get a report on Hannah Blair goin’ missin’?”

  Merry shook his head but Tripp spoke. “She’s in the hospital Dad. Everyone knows about it, she wigged out this summer. Word is, she’s, like, catatonic. Doesn’t talk to anyone. Not her parents, her friends quit visiting her. She’s just like, gone.”

  Fuck, fuck, fucking hell. Devin was right. They’d missed something. Nicolette Towers had already thrown a party.

  “They all go to Youth Group?” Layne asked Tripp.

  “Don’t know for sure but I think so. I know Tara did,” Tripp answered.

  “Brunette, blonde, redhead?” Layne asked.

  “Tara was blonde, but now her hair’s black,” Tripp answered. “But yeah, Summer’s got red hair and Hannah was dark.”

  Layne looked at Merry but he was already pulling out his phone, muttering, “Got it.”

  “I take it, it wasn’t stupid,” Jasper mumbled and Layne’s eyes went to his boy to see he was not looking good. He was looking sick. He thought he fucked up.

  “Jasper, shake that off. You couldn’t save them but now they may be able to save Alexis and Tiffany. Focus on that. Yeah?”

  “I should have said something.” He was still mumbling but he was doing it looking sicker.

  “Shake that off Jasper, I need you to think,” his eyes cut to Tripp, “I need you both to think. Any other girls? A trio. Blonde, brunette, redhead. They were normal girls last year, attractive girls, and did an about face over the summer. They could be Freshman or Sophomores, they went to Youth Group but they don’t go now.”

  Tripp shook his head. Jasper was thinking.

  “Jas,” Layne prompted.

  “No,” he replied. “But to be sure, I’d need my yearbooks.”

  “Where are they, our place or your Mom’s?”

  “Mom’s,” Jasper answered.

  “You think of someone, you call Merry right away, not me, Merry. Yeah?” Jasper nodded and Layne looked at Devin. “Take the boys to their Mom’s.” Devin nodded, moving to the Calais and Layne looked at Tripp. “You too, Pal. Seventh and eighth grade last year, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Tripp muttered and jogged after Jasper and Devin.

  Merry and Sully came up to Ryker and Layne.

  “Tennessee needs a call, Sul, they need to yank Goulding,” Layne told him. “He held out on us. He delivered at least three girls to a party, maybe more. If he didn’t deliver them, he primed them. We need to find out everything he knows. We need to know if there are more girls. We need him broken.”

  Sully nodded and again stepped away, flipping open his phone.

  Merry said, “I gotta get to the Station.”

  “Right,” Layne replied but Merry was already on the move.

  “What’re you thinkin’ you can get from these girls?” Ryker asked low from Layne’s side and Layne looked at him.

  “Maybe a location, though I doubt she’ll double up. Definitely cause for a warrant,” Layne answered.

  “Obviously none of them talked,” Ryker noted.

  “Probably too scared,” Layne replied.

  “So maybe they won’t talk now,” Ryker observed, his face and body tight. He was a man who liked to be on the move, in the thick of things, with Alexis on the line, this was killing him.

  “Marissa Gibbons was hard as nails, Ryker, and she talked because she didn’t want another girl to face what happened to her. They’ll talk.”

  “It’ll take time, they’ll –” Ryker started.

  “Patience, brother,” Layne whispered and Ryker got scary again.

  “Your girl isn’t right now keepin’ company with sheer evil, bro,” he whispered back.

  Layne held his gaze. “Stick with me, big man.”

  Ryker held his eyes and a muscle danced in his cheek. Then he looked to the house and muttered, “Gotta check on my babe.”

  Then he walked to the house.

  Layne looked at his shoes, thinking, fuck, we fucking missed something.

  Then he looked up when Joe Callahan slid his truck to a halt in front of the house, Vi’s Mustang sliding in behind him. He watched Vi get out, she pushed back her seat to get to Angela’s baby seat in the back. Cal jumped down and walked to Layne, his face intense.

  He just made it to Layne when February Colton’s VW Beetle slid up behind the Mustang.

  That was the women of the ‘burg. Trouble comes, they close ranks.

  Cal stopped at him.

  “Talk to me,” he ordered.

  Layne locked eyes with him then he talked.

  Vi with Angela at her hip and Feb with her son Jack at hers rushed into the house.

  * * * * *

  When Layne could take no more, he tore his eyes from Tara Murdoch, her weeping mother, her stony-faced father, the softly-speaking Patrick Sullivan and the watchful child psychologist and he walked out of the observation room.

  Cal moved with him.

  Layne pulled his phone out of his jacket, flipped it open, scrolled down and hit go while he walked to the buzzing bullpen.

  “What?” Ryker barked in his ear.

  “Meet me at Towers’s apartment at The Brendel,” Layne ordered.

  “I’ll be there yesterday,” Ryker replied and then dead air.

  “Tanner,” Cal murmured and Layne stopped and turned to him.

  “You can stay here or follow,” Layne stated.

  “I’m w
ith you,” Cal replied instantly.

  “Tanner!” Sean O’Leary jogged up to him and Layne checked his movement and looked to Sean.

  “Yeah?”

  “Bad news and kind of good news,” Sean said and when Layne did nothing but stare impatiently, Sean went on. “Rutledge didn’t lead us to the location but he did lead us straight to four of her army. The cop on his tail called backup. They came in quick but cool and were there when Rutledge either pushed too hard or got impatient. Whatever reason, shots were fired, the boys moved in.”

  “Rutledge?” Layne asked.

  “He went down, he’s still alive, it’s bad though and he’s on his way to hospital,” Sean answered.

  “Fuck, Sean, that is not good news,” Layne clipped.

  “No, the kind of good news is that Rutledge took down one of her army, the cops got the other three, they were all armed and, man, it is highly likely we’ll get ballistic matches on the slugs they pulled outta you,” Sean returned.

  Sean was right, that was kind of good news.

  “Any of her crew know where the party is located?” Layne asked.

  “They’re workin’ them now,” Sean answered.

  Layne nodded and moved, Cal moving with him. They separated in the parking lot, both going to their trucks, Cal following close as Layne headed to The Brendel.

  Ryker’s bike was parked at the foot of the stairs leading up to Towers’ apartment. Layne didn’t bother finding a spot and neither did Cal, they parked at the curb. They both got out and started to jog up the stairs where Ryker was waiting.

  “Bust it,” Layne ordered, his head tipped back to look at Ryker and Ryker didn’t delay, he took a step back, lifted his big motorcycle boot and the apartment door crashed in.

  The alarm immediately went off, Ryker and Layne ignored it, both of them moving into the space. Cal went to the alarm panel, ripped the face off, twisted some wires together and the alarm stopped.

  “Shit, child’s play,” he muttered, his eyes slicing to Layne. “Rocky lives here, to do list, man.”

  Layne didn’t have to think about Roc’s security. Rocky was, that night, officially no longer living at The Fucking Brendel.

  “What are we lookin’ for?” Ryker asked.

  “Anything,” Layne answered. “Just look.”

  “Devin sifted through this place, bro, and I get the sense he’s good at what he does,” Ryker noted, pulling cushions off the couch.

  Layne picked up a cushion Ryker pulled off, yanked his army knife out of his jeans and his eyes locked on Ryker.

  “He had to go easy,” Layne said softly. “We don’t.”

  Then he ripped the cushion open with his knife.

  Ryker smiled his ugly smile, it was without humor but filled with something else which made it uglier and a fuckuva lot scarier.

  Then he ripped a cushion clean in two with his bare hands.

  * * * * *

  Towers’s apartment was clean so they moved to Rutledge’s.

  By the sounds of it, Cal and Ryker were tearing up the downstairs. Or, at least Ryker was.

  Layne was working the bedroom when he flipped the mattress on the bed, his eyes glancing across the bottom of the mattress to go to the box springs then his eyes shot back.

  Stitches.

  Shit.

  He walked on the mattress, crouched down to the stitches and carefully slid his knife in. Ripping the material away, he reached in and felt it, he found the edge, pulled out the manila envelope and also pulled in breath.

  He knew he didn’t want to see what was inside. Still, he opened the envelope carefully, shook out the eight by tens on the mattress and used his knife to move them around as his stomach churned.

  Rutledge. Rutledge and Towers. Towers with girls with Rutledge in shot, watching; Rutledge with girls Layne had never seen; and Rutledge also with Tara Murdoch.

  He stood, tearing his eyes away, looking at the wall, taking a moment to pull his shit together.

  Then he pulled out his phone and called Merry.

  “Hope this is good, big man, ‘cause I’m –”

  “I’ve just located evidence that Harrison Rutledge is a pedophile,” Layne told him.

  Silence then, “Where are you?”

  “Rutledge’s apartment.”

  “Man, we’re still holding on the search warrant,” Merry bit out.

  “Good, then we’ve assisted the Department in a time-saving measure,” Layne shot back. “We’ll finish up, leave visible what you need to see and move out. No one needs to know that you boys didn’t make this mess.”

  “Fuck, Tanner,” Merry hissed.

  “Merry, suck it up and work with it,” Layne advised.

  “This is not your burden, brother, you didn’t let those girls down,” Merry said low.

  “No, brother, we all did,” Layne returned, flipped his phone shut and kept looking.

  * * * * *

  “This is bullshit!” Ryker barked. “Time is wastin’.”

  Cal’s eyes cut to Layne, his phone to his ear, he moved out of Layne’s office and into the reception area, closing the door. Cal was working through every number on Rutledge’s cell phone bill, he had half the pile, Dave was sitting at the receptionist’s desk with the other half. They’d taken pictures at the apartment of a number of hopefully useful documents and gone to Layne’s office to print them out.

  Ryker and Layne were going through credit card statements.

  “Focus, Ryker,” Layne advised.

  “Every second we waste –” Ryker growled.

  “You wanna hold hands and meditate and hope her location pops in one of our heads?” Layne growled back. “Or do you wanna investigate this fuckwad and hope he tripped up and leads us to your girl?”

  Ryker glared at him. Layne held his glare then looked back to the statements.

  His eyes shifted through the one in his hand, down and then back up.

  Then he stopped.

  He had August’s statement. August was the month when Tara Murdoch told Sully the party was held. It started with a photo shoot where they gave the girls champagne likely laced with Rohpynol or another fast-acting, date rape drug. She’d woken up blindfolded. A ball gag with a handkerchief stuffed in her mouth. She’d described what the gag felt like and he’d seen it. She’d been tied to the bed. She’d taken five men, none of whom she’d seen, one of whom he knew. She had no idea how much time each one had with her but she reported they took their time however a girl enduring that, five minutes could seem like five hours.

  When it was done, Towers had made her warnings and they were good ones. None of the girls talked for fear it would happen again. Each of them had a younger sister. Each of them was told, they talked, they’d come back and their sisters would be accompanying them. Alexis didn’t fit this profile but Giselle and Tiffany did. The girls were told to tell their parents they were with each other. They did and held their secret until Tara spilled it in the interrogation room.

  Hannah lost her mind. Summer faded into herself. And Tara built a wall.

  And Harrison Rutledge had ordered himself a couple of drinks from the bar prior to his turn and the dumbfuck had paid for them on a credit card.

  Layne stood, grabbing his jacket as he growled, “Let’s go.”

  Ryker’s head shot back then he was up with Layne. “What’d you get?”

  Layne didn’t answer, he had his cell phone out and he was out the door. Cal’s eyes came to him when Layne put the cell phone to his ear. He jerked his head to the door, Cal took his cell from his ear and moved with them. Dave didn’t miss a beat and kept talking into his phone.

  Merry answered, “You got something, Tanner?”

  “Get IMPD to get units to every exclusive hotel in Indy, starting with The Townsend. And tell them to go in soft,” Layne ordered.

  “On it,” Merry replied and then he disconnected.

  Layne led Ryker and Cal down the stairs.

  * * * * *

  “Stick with
me,” Layne murmured as he drove through the parking garage.

  “We should get inside,” Ryker hissed.

  “Stick with me,” Layne repeated.

  “Shit, this is shit, this is bullshit,” Ryker muttered.

  “A woman like that is not gonna revisit the scene of her crime,” Layne explained. “Rutledge had his sick fun at The Imperial. Second top spot in Indy is The Townsend. She’s there and she’s the kind of woman who can sense heat. She’s gonna bolt. She’s gotta go down, brother.”

  Then he saw it and braked.

  Not the silver BMW, her sporty, red Mazda.

  He put the car in neutral, set the brake and turned to Ryker.

  “Knife,” he growled.

  Ryker didn’t hesitate, his hand went to his belt, he popped the button on his huge-ass knife, yanked it out and handed it over.

  Layne opened his door, ordering, “Stay here.”

  He jogged quickly to the Mazda, motioning with flicks of his fingers, communicating to Cal. Cal nodded through his windscreen and passed the Suburban.

  Layne didn’t watch to see where Cal went. He crouched by the back tire, thrusting Ryker’s knife into the rubber. He moved forward and took out the front tire. He jogged around the car and did the same to the other side. Then he jogged back to his truck.

  He swung in, handed the knife to Ryker, pulled out his cell, put the car in gear, released the brake, located the pedestrian entryway to the garage and scanned for a spot with good visibility all at the same time he scrolled on his phone.

  He hit go and put it to his ear.

  “Yo,” Merry said quietly.

  “You at The Townsend?” Layne asked, seeing his spot, he started maneuvering the behemoth to reverse in while still talking.

  “Yes, just got here. This is it, brother. Management says three weeks ago they had an unusual reservation. One day, big money, an entire floor of suites cleared. They had to juggle but they did it. I’m in the security room, they have cameras on the halls. She’s got sentries. Two at the elevators. One outside each room. Three rooms. Two at the emergency exit. The hotel was told it was a VIP with stringent security and that they needed confidentiality and discretion which the hotel assured them they could provide. So we got seven boys, from what I can see by the bulges in their jackets, heavily armed. We don’t know if there are more in the rooms and the hotel didn’t clock them, considering the promise of discretion and all. IMPD is pulling together a team to take the top without collateral damage.”