The Kid: A Suspense Thriller (Reed & Billie Book 3)

by Stevens,Dustin

  The van belonged to Earl and his crime scene crew, the doors on it standing open, the interior light illuminating stacks of equipment stowed tight in the back.

  “Stay,” Reed said, climbing out to the sound of Billie emitting a low whine from the back seat. It was the same exact way she reacted every time she was left behind, something Reed made a point of doing as little as possible.

  As an officer of the law, she was entitled to go wherever he went.

  Still, there were certain realities that didn’t always make that practical. Despite her expert training, first with the Marines overseas and now with the department, there was no way to get around the fact that she was a dog. With that came a certain degree of contamination that could occur at a fresh crime scene, especially where blood or bodily fluids were present.

  As much as Reed hated the thought, pushed it aside as fast as it entered his mind, he held a deep-rooted certainty that there was about to be plenty of the former present.

  The smell of sulfur found Reed’s nose as he walked toward the scene, the effects of the flares burning bright nearby. They sent up a hazy red light that shielded all else from view until he was past them, the glare replaced by crime scene lights 50 yards ahead, a few silhouettes moving between them.

  With his badge swinging from the chain around his neck, Reed walked with his hands extended by either side, careful to let every person present see he wasn’t a threat as he approached.

  The first person to spot him and step forward was Officer Tommy Jacobs. On duty when the call came in, he was dressed in his full black uniform, the cooler weather causing him to switch from the short sleeves back into full length. Several inches shorter than Reed, he had an open, fleshy face and a mouth encased by a thin goatee.

  “Mattox?”

  “Officer,” Reed said, sliding his hands into his pockets.

  A moment later his partner Wade McMichaels appeared by his side, the same grim expression Reed had seen on every single person for the last six hours on his face. Taller and leaner than Jacobs, his face was clean shaven, his hair buzzed short on the sides.

  “You working it or you here to take a look?” McMichaels asked, the tone indicating the question was far less hostile than it might have seemed.

  Reed took no offense in the slightest. The events of the evening had everybody on edge.

  “Grimes assigned me a couple hours ago at the hospital,” Reed said. “We ran the plate they pulled over and went to the house first, then came straight over.”

  Both men nodded, content with the explanation for the passage of time before his arrival.

  “Anything?” Jacobs asked.

  “The house had been broken into, nobody was home,” Reed said, recalling the events of just a few minutes before. “At the very least the car was stolen...”

  “At the most, a kidnapping or worse on top of all this,” McMichaels finished, bitterness creeping into his voice.

  “Christ,” Jacobs muttered beside him, turning at the waist to glance over his shoulder at the criminalists working behind him.

  Reed nodded once, in agreement with both, though he said nothing.

  “Anything turn up here so far?” Reed asked.

  The question pulled Jacobs back to face forward, the partners exchanging a quick glance.

  “Lot of blood,” McMichaels opened. “Lot of blood.”

  Reed nodded again. Given what Grimes had explained at the hospital, he had expected as much, the very reason he had left Billie in the car. A litany of questions sprang to mind, his subconscious wanting to start fitting things into place, to visualize everything that had happened. In careful order he tamped them down, waiting until he spoke with Earl, got a good look at things for himself.

  As much as he trusted the two officers before him, having worked with them more than just about anybody in the precinct given their shared roles on the night shift, he still wanted his own impressions to be clean when he first saw things.

  “How’s the scene at the hospital?” McMichaels asked.

  He didn’t bother to ask if Iaconelli or Bishop were going to make it, Reed picking up on the insinuation, knowing neither side wanted or needed to hear the words out loud.

  “Bishop is out now,” Reed said. “His knee is wrecked, word is he’ll need a new one before long.”

  “Christ,” Jacobs muttered again, glancing down at the ground.

  “Ike?” McMichaels inquired.

  “Still on the table,” Reed said. “They had to remove his spleen, get a lot of internal bleeding slowed. The details were pretty thin, but I get the impression he’s going to be touch-and-go for a while yet.”

  Both men fell silent, Jacobs continuing to stare down at the ground, McMichaels raising his face to the sky and pushing a long breath out through his nose. They remained that way for several moments, Reed eventually nodding and stepping past them, patting Jacobs on the arm as he went.

  It was the same way he felt, the same way everybody in the precinct felt.

  “Hey, Reed,” McMichaels said, his voice low, causing Reed to turn back. “I know those two kind of gave you a hard time when you came over, but...”

  He let his voice trail off there, the implication clear.

  “I know,” Reed said. “And it wouldn’t matter anyway. These are ours.”

  McMichaels nodded once as Reed turned back, covering the last 15 yards to the scene.

  A quartet of spotlights were set up on all four corners, each aimed inward, casting down a brilliant fluorescent glow over a space almost 20 feet in length. On one end of it Iaconelli and Bishop’s sedan was still parked, Reed assuming they had been taken by ambulance to the hospital.

  In front of it on the asphalt was a pair of blood stains, McMichaels initial assessment being pretty spot-on. Tucked up along the edge of the road was the first, the patch more than two feet in diameter before disappearing into the grass abutting the pavement.

  Six feet away, room enough for the width of an SUV, was a second spot, the edges of it distorted and uneven, as if the source had been moving or tried to crawl away. The thought of it caused Reed to wince slightly as he tried to measure the total length, his best guess being that it was more than five feet in total.

  Small pockets had settled into the rumble strips engraved along the edge of the roadway, the surfaces of the pools already congealing, flies and mildew just a few hours away.

  Stretched out between the two blood stains were a series of fresh skid marks, the faint scent of scorched rubber still noticeable in the air.

  “Damn,” Reed whispered, taking it all in, his gaze sweeping over everything in quick order. He ignored the two techs covered in white paper suits as they collected samples and instead focused on the scene itself, trying to visualize how everything had played out.

  From what he could tell, it seemed a pretty straightforward incident, much in line with what Grimes had said hours before.

  “Damn is right,” a voice said, drawing Reed’s attention up from the scene in front of him.

  Sliding his hands from his pockets, Reed extended his right in front of him, taking a few steps to his left to meet Earl Bautista, head of the crime scene unit for the west side of Columbus.

  At first glance there was no way anybody would have guessed what the man did for a living, his appearance lending itself more to someone on the other side of the law.

  By any feasible definition Earl was a big man, standing a few inches taller than Reed and weighing in somewhere close to twice as much. His tremendous bulk he kept hidden perpetually under a pair of bib overalls, his ensemble for the evening completed by a long-sleeve thermal beneath them. His bald head shined bright under the harsh crime scene lamps, offset by a heavy beard outlining his jaw.

  He clamped Reed’s hand in his and pumped it twice before releasing, turning to face the scene and running a hand back over his scalp. “Damned awful, I tell you.”

  “Looks like it,” Reed said, shifting to the side as well, their shoulders a
few inches apart. Together they stood in silence a moment, each assessing, before Reed asked, “You want to go first or should I start and you correct any mistakes?”

  Beside him he could sense Earl glance over, though he made no effort to meet the look.

  “Forgive me for being brusque,” he added. “Obviously...”

  “This gets top billing and a full rush job,” Earl finished. “I get it. No worries.”

  At that Reed glanced over, nodding, letting it be known that his question was not malicious in any way.

  “Best we can tell,” Earl said, “place plays out just the way it looks. Ike and Bishop pulled over a vehicle right here. Judging by the tire treads and the space between them it was large, most likely a truck or SUV.”

  “Car registration showed it to be a Chevy Tahoe,” Reed interjected.

  A small grunt slid out from Earl as he watched his guys work, processing and accepting the information in short order. “That fits, for sure.

  “Anyway, after calling it in, both detectives exited their vehicles and the shooting began.”

  Raising his right hand, he motioned for Reed to follow, drifting over to the left. “We found three shell casings that had rolled into the rumble strips up here, all on the driver’s side of the car.”

  “You thinking single shooter? Or the man in the passenger seat was firing a weapon with a side ejection feed and the brass stayed inside the car?” Reed asked.

  Earl opened his mouth to respond before pausing. He considered the question a moment, then raised his eyebrows. “Truth, right now we don’t know. If I were to guess I’d say single shooter, but that’s pure speculation.”

  Having worked with him a number of times before, Reed knew that if Earl had a strong supposition, there was probably good reason for it. He also knew it was a reasonable bet that it could be trusted.

  “What makes you say that?” Reed asked.

  “Logistics of it,” Earl said. “You can tell by the blood present, by the injuries sustained. Bishop was hit once, most likely went down, was out of sight from the driver’s side. Someone on the passenger side would have just leaned out the window and continued firing.”

  “Meaning multiple gunshots and at least one shell casing,” Reed said, thinking out loud.

  “Right,” Earl agreed. “Instead, he went down, the driver focused on Ike.”

  Again the two men considered the twisted amoeba of blood left behind by Iaconelli.

  “You think maybe it was personal?” Reed asked. “Maybe they just wanted to subdue Bishop so they could go after their real target?”

  Again Earl chewed on the question, his face contorting itself a bit as he rolled it around in his mind. “I mean, yeah, it’s possible. I don’t buy it, but until we can do some more digging, I just don’t know.

  “Right now we’re still looking at everything here on the asphalt. After that we’ll start going through the weeds over there. Hopefully we can find another casing, get the metal detectors out and find an errant bullet buried in the mud, something that will give you a better heading.”

  A final time Reed nodded, his hands back in the front of his sweatshirt, taking in the horrific scene before him.

  “I appreciate it.”

  Chapter Nine

  The call had come in the moment Reed got back to his car. Judging by the tenor of Gilchrist’s voice and the way Billie was pacing in the backseat, he got the impression it was far from the first time such a call had been placed, though neither side pressed the matter.

  The message delivered was simple enough – one of the neighbors had been put on notice by the Hendrix family. They were going to be away for the week and asked the couple across the street to collect their mail for them.

  For the second time in just over an hour Reed found himself moving quickly down the outer belt toward Grove City. Despite his nerves pulled taut, his every inner thought telling him to surge forward, to move while things were still hot, he opted against running with the siren on. Instead he kept his speed a steady 15 miles above the posted limit, covering the ground between the two sites in just 12 minutes.

  Greene and Gilchrist’s sedan was still parked on the curb in front of the Hendrix home as he arrived, a panel van similar to the one driven by Earl and his team now pulled up behind it. The front door of the house stood wide open and a bevy of lights could be seen pouring out onto the front lawn, though Reed didn’t give them much more than a passing glance.

  His attention was focused on the small cluster of folks on the opposite sidewalk, the group staring as he pulled to a stop just a few feet away and hopped out, Billie pressing into his side and spilling onto the street before he had a chance to even contemplate leaving her behind.

  Together they circled around to the group, Greene and Gilchrist standing to either side, who Reed presumed to be the couple Gilchrist had alluded to between them. Neither looked to be much older than 30, most likely either newlyweds or well on their way toward it. On the right was a woman with blonde hair hanging to her shoulders, her blue eyes a bit puffy. She wore red and black flannel pajama bottoms and an Ohio State sweatshirt, the cuffs of the sleeves pulled down over her hands.

  Standing by her side, an arm around her shoulder, was a man with hair buzzed short and a square jaw, the kind of look that hinted at some sort of military background. Dressed in gym shorts and a fleece pullover, he openly appraised Reed and Billie as they approached.

  “Keith, Dawn,” Greene said, taking the initiative, “this is Detective Reed Mattox, his K-9 partner Billie. They have the lead on this case.

  “Reed, this is Mr. and Mrs. Rollins.”

  For a moment Reed considered reaching out to shake each of their hands before thinking better of it, reading their stiff body language as a sign that they were anxious for the entire affair to be over.

  Given the time of night and the ambient temperature, it was a more than fair stance to take.

  “Good evening,” Reed said. “I know it is late, so I’ll keep this as brief as possible. I understand you are friends with the Hendrix’s?”

  A muscle quivered in the man’s neck, though he remained silent, deferring to his wife beside him.

  “That’s right,” she said, her voice sounding much stronger than her appearance would indicate. “We’ve lived across the street from each other for about a year and a half.”

  Reed nodded. “Do you happen to know where they are now?”

  “Florida,” she replied. “Disney World. Their oldest daughter is on fall break, so they decided to head down for a few days.”

  Glancing to his right, Reed noticed a notepad clutched in Gilchrist’s hand. Strewn across it were several lines of dark blue ink, undoubtedly every word he was now hearing having already been transcribed.

  There was no need for him to slow things down by taking notes himself, knowing he could get a full workup of whatever he needed later.

  “When was this?” Reed asked.

  “They flew out Wednesday evening when school released,” she replied, adding just enough of a tinge to her voice to let it be known she had already answered all of these questions, did not particularly appreciate doing it again.

  Even still, Reed pushed forward. He had a job to do.

  This is what they got for being the nosy neighbors that turned on their lights to see what was happening across the street.

  “And when do you expect them back?”

  “Tomorrow evening,” she replied. “School is back in session on Monday, Jonas and Amy both work.”

  It was the first time Reed had heard the name Amy, his mind filing it away as the blonde woman he had seen in the photos on the wall inside the house.

  “Do you happen to know where they’re staying or how to reach them?” he asked.

  “Don’t know where they’re staying,” she said, shaking her head, her hair just brushing against the tops of her shoulders, “but we have their cell phone numbers we can give you.”

  “Good, please do that,” Reed
said, nodding.

  Across from him both people paused for a moment before Keith peeled himself away, heading back toward the house. His body language seemed to indicate he wasn’t especially glad to be doing so, though he went anyway.

  “Mrs. Rollins, do you happen to know what kind of cars the Hendrix family drives?” Reed asked.

  A small vertical line appeared between her brows as she thought a moment, folding her arms across her chest. “Um, they have both have SUV’s. Amy’s is smaller, a RAV4 or something like that, red. His is bigger, solid black, not sure what kind of make or model.”

  Reed flicked his gaze to Greene a moment before shifting it back to face forward. “Do you know if they drove to Florida?”

  “No,” she said, again shaking her head. “I was out in the yard when they left for the airport. I think with only a couple days, it didn’t make sense otherwise.”

  “And they took...?” Reed said, letting his voice fall away.

  “Amy’s car,” she replied. “The RAV4.”

  Once more he cast a glance to Greene, the officer meeting his look, both already thinking the same thing. Jonas Hendrix’s black Tahoe had been left unattended in the garage. Somebody must have known that and entered through the rear door, instantly accessing a vehicle with a clean back story free from fear of anybody reporting it missing for a couple of days.

  “Did you happen to notice the other SUV, the black one, since then?” Reed asked. “Anybody coming or going since they left?”

  The wrinkle between her eyebrows grew more pronounced as her husband exited the front door and walked toward them, an iPhone gripped in his hand. She thought on the question a moment before turning to him and saying, “I haven’t seen any movement since they left. Have you?”

  Pressing his lips into a tight line, he thought a moment before shaking his head. “Nothing. But we both work full time, get up early most mornings.”

  The last line was added with just a bit of emphasis, enough to let Reed know that ending things soon would be appreciated.

  “Okay,” Reed said, “just one more question. Do you happen to know of anybody else that would have access to the house?”