Dark Harvest (A Holt Foundation Story Book 2)

by Chris Patchell

His eyes narrowed as he focused on Seth’s face. “What you want this time?”

  “The old farm. Is there any place you could store equipment?”

  “Like what? Tractors and such?” Willie asked, scratching at the scruffy growth sprouting from his hollow cheeks.

  “Like lab equipment. Freezers. Microscopes.” Seth struggled to recall the list of items Henry had rattled off but came up short. The long night was taking its toll.

  “Ha! Not in the barn,” Willie chucked. “Place ain’t fit for a rat, let alone all that shit.”

  Alvarez shook his head. “We’re wasting time. Is there another place it might be?”

  Willie scratched his head and stifled a yawn. He let loose a gut-wrenching one-hundred-proof belch that sent Seth back a step, grateful they weren’t close to an open flame.

  “There ain’t no more houses or anything on the property except . . .”

  “Except?” Seth prodded.

  Willie’s eyes narrowed. His thick pink tongue snaked out from between his blackened teeth and licked his chapped lips. Seth’s patience evaporated in an instant. The old fucker was enjoying this.

  “Well, nothing,” Willie said, “Aside from the bunker.”

  The bunker?

  The moment Willie said it, Seth knew. A bunker was the perfect hiding place. Questions flooded Seth’s mind—how big was it? How well equipped? Was it a hidey-hole in the ground or a full-on armed encampment?

  Before he could ask, an explosion rocked the ground. The barn erupted into an orange ball of flame, illuminating the dark sky. Cops ran, taking cover. Only Henderson stayed on his feet in the middle of the yard as smoke billowed in the air.

  “Fall back,” Henderson shouted.

  He mobilized his team into action. First responders rushed toward the barn, where the dry wood was devoured by the ravenous flames.

  In that instant, the horror of Henry splayed out on the ground flashed through Seth’s mind. Gray skin. All that blood. He barely heard Willie chuckle under his breath.

  “Looks like they found one of Abe’s prizes.”

  “What did you say?” Seth said, turning away from the horror of the scene unfolding in front of him, playing out like a reoccurring nightmare. He grabbed Willie’s jacket in his fist and shook the old drunk until his eyes rolled back. “Prizes? Who the fuck is Abe?”

  Seth released his grip. His hand cocked back into a fist. This wasn’t a game. These were lives Willie was fucking with. Henry’s life. Becky. Suzie. Their babies. So many victims, and all Willie could do was laugh.

  Willie flashed a grotesque smile.

  “When the bank foreclosed, my brother, Abe, planted some special surprises for the fuckers to find.”

  Standing at the edge of the action, Seth’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out.

  Evan? Why the hell would Evan be calling this early unless . . .

  “How’s Henry?” Seth asked, picking up the call.

  “Henry? What do you mean? I’ve been leaving you messages all night to see if you know where Marissa is.”

  “Marissa?” Seth had never thought to check the voicemails on his phone. He’d assumed they were from Marissa wondering where he was.

  “I’m at her place with her daughters. She left work midafternoon. Her car is still in the parking garage, and no one has heard from her. We were hoping she was with you.”

  The evidence bag with the green blouse flashed in his mind.

  “You still there?” Evan asked.

  “Yeah.” Seth could barely speak. Barely breathe.

  Henry could have pinged her cell phone. But Henry was in the hospital. He searched the crowd for Alvarez. His old boss was striding toward him with a grim look. Alvarez handed Seth a file folder.

  It contained Marissa’s patient intake form from the Planned Parenthood clinic.

  They had her.

  Chapter 49

  The burning barn sent a pillar of fire and smoke billowing into the charcoal sky. Dawn approached. Forced to break off their containment efforts, the firemen stood behind the perimeter while EMTs worked feverishly over the wounded men.

  The scene was organized chaos. Henderson conferred with members of the bomb squad. Orders were shouted. Officers scrambled to their vehicles, trying to clear a path along the driveway. The shrill blare of the ambulance siren cut through the roar of the blaze. Forced to move around the other emergency vehicles blocking the way, it plowed through the muddy grass toward the wounded.

  “Do you think it’s going to spread?” Alvarez asked one of the firemen as the flames engulfed the barn.

  “Tough to say. It’s pretty wet out here.”

  “If the house goes up, we’ll lose evidence.”

  The fireman shrugged his shoulders. “We can’t get close enough to stop it.”

  Seth turned his back on the house and pushed up against the perimeter, fully focused on the trail leading past the barn into the woods. If the fire spread across the path, it would cut off access to the old part of the farm. That was where he suspected Wilcox was keeping Marissa and the other two victims. He would be trapped here, forced to wait it out until it was deemed safe.

  Whenever that would be.

  A gust of wind caught the flames. They danced toward the trees. Seth ducked under the police tape, but Alvarez grabbed his arm.

  “Dammit, Crawford, don’t be stupid. You can’t go out there.”

  “The hell I can’t.”

  “You want to end up like Henry, or worse? There could be explosives all over this place. It’s not safe.” He pointed toward the ravenous flames devouring the barn. “One shift in the wind and that whole area will go up.”

  “He has Marissa.”

  “What good will you be to her dead?”

  Seth wrenched himself free of Alvarez’s grasp and sprinted toward the woods. Shouts and warnings erupted behind him, but Seth blocked them out. His attention was riveted on the barn and the unpredictable flames darting out in all directions like a nest of hungry vipers, tongues of fire licking the air.

  Blazing waves of heat billowed toward Seth, forcing him off the path into a tangled mass of brush. His scars prickled with a deep itch like they remembered the kiss of flames. Seth rubbed the side of his face and plowed through the knotted undergrowth until he reached the forest.

  The promise of daylight touched the morning sky, but as Seth entered the trees, deep shadows from the canopy of branches engulfed him. The woods smelled like death. Wet earth combined with the thick carpet of decaying pine needles and leaves blanketed the spongy earth. Scrubby pines and naked birch trees rustled in the wind like dry bones.

  He slowed down. Gaze locked on the ground in front of him. Scouring every square inch of earth for any disturbance in the soil. He’d seen what one of those bombs could do. Any misstep, any mistake, could have fatal consequences. He took a step. And then the next.

  If Abe planted the bombs to scare off the bank, he would focus the blasts around the newer part of the farm to protect his family’s interests. If Alexander Wilcox planted the bombs, though, he might well focus more of his defense around the old part of the farm. Particularly if that was where he transported the women to do his experiments.

  Experiments.

  God, how much time had he wasted on shit that didn’t matter, clinging to a past that was long gone? Afraid to let go. Afraid to move on and give his whole heart to Marissa. They were both scarred by their past failures. But they would lose everything if they didn’t try.

  Hope. A family. A life.

  Some things were worth fighting for. Dying for. He would find her.

  He spied a shape on the forest floor, tucked in near the gnarled roots of a fallen tree.

  Seth caught his breath.

  The jut of a shoulder, white against the dark carpet of debris.

  Human.

  He lurched through a stand of trees. Pine needles, as sharp as razors, clawed at his face. Downed branches snapped under foot. He leaped over the fallen t
ree and raced toward her, chest heaving, heart pounding.

  Please. Please. Please.

  The sickly sweet stench of decay roiled his stomach.

  She lay sprawled on her back, limbs flung wide like a broken doll. Slick brown leaves tangled in her long blonde hair.

  As soon as he saw her face, he knew.

  It wasn’t Marissa.

  He had found Suzie Norwood.

  Chapter 50

  Marissa stumbled back a step. Lost her footing. Grabbed for the railing. Her heart raced faster than the strobe of the blinking red light attached to the bomb.

  A bomb.

  Marissa descended the staircase into the corridor, a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t getting out of here.

  A floodlight buzzed overhead. The harsh light faded to shadows halfway down the arched passageway. She reached the ground and collapsed onto the cold concrete floor. Tears flowed down her cheeks as the reality of the situation hit her full force.

  She would never see her girls again.

  Kelly, who was poised on the cusp of womanhood—fierce, strong, and loyal. Brooke, who was fighting her way back—brave beyond words.

  Or Seth.

  She wanted a lifetime with Seth. Now, when all hope was gone, she wished she could turn back the clock. Start over. After everything he’d been through, losing his wife, trying to move on, he deserved the time he needed to heal.

  She should have been patient. Love wasn’t something you could rush. Love was like a tree that grew slowly, roots spreading out over time until they were deep and strong. Strong enough to withstand the storms of life. Until nothing could shake them.

  She wanted that kind of love.

  If she could do things over again, she would be the rock-steady support that Brooke needed. Kelly would move home. She would not let her insecurities undermine her relationship with Seth or her work at the foundation.

  God, she’d made so many mistakes out of fear. She had almost ended this new life growing inside her because she was afraid of making more. Of failing.

  But making mistakes wasn’t the same as failing. Failing meant giving up. Quitting on everyone she loved. Everyone who needed her.

  She couldn’t quit.

  Marissa pushed herself off the floor.

  If she was destined to die here, then so be it, but she didn’t have to make it easy for him. She would fight. Like Brooke had fought in that cabin. Like Brooke fought every day.

  Marissa limped down the hallway toward the only door she could find. It led into a small control room. Wires were strung across the walls. Some led to computers, others to monitors. She looked for power switches, buttons, anything that might disarm the bomb, but there was nothing.

  Movement on the monitor caught her eye. It was him. The doctor strode toward the camera. He paused. Keyed a code into the door. Her breath caught.

  He was coming back.

  Chapter 51

  The sight of Suzie Norwood on the ground—cold, naked, dead—froze Seth to the spot. Her gray skin was starting to slough off. Gouges and bite marks were visible where animals had already been at her. Her belly looked like it had been ripped open. Her baby taken.

  The bitter tang of bile filled his throat.

  A woman. A mother. Murdered. Another wasted life. And for what? One sick man’s desperate need to save himself?

  And what about her baby? Sold into an illegal adoption? Abandoned at a hospital? Or discarded like medical waste?

  Seth hunkered down beside the young woman on the ground and texted Alvarez with the news that Suzie had been found. He pinned the location so that Suzie could be returned to her family. Laid to rest. Mourned. Then he kept going.

  The heavy scent of charred wood tainted the clean morning air. He picked up the pace, moving quickly until he reached the far end of the woods.

  Emerging from the shadowy trees, gray morning light slanted across the meadow, dissolving the mist that shrouded the ground. It had once been used as farmland, growing hay or other crops to sustain the family, but in the intervening years, it had grown over. It hadn’t been tilled in a quarter century. Maybe more.

  Dead brown grass snarled around Seth’s ankles as he headed across the field in the direction of the old farm. And Wilcox.

  He’d sat across from the doctor and never once suspected that he was face to face with the man who had kidnapped those girls. Taken their babies. His emotions had clouded everything. He’d put Marissa in danger by tipping his hand, and now she was gone and it was his fault.

  On the far side of the field, Seth stumbled on a mound. A three-inch rise in the earth. He stopped. It was low, even, and covered in dormant grass.

  Five feet long, three feet wide, in an instant, Seth realized what it was.

  He didn’t want to look, but he had to know. Hunkering down, he scraped the dirt away—careful not to disturb what lay beneath.

  At first there was nothing. Then he edged into the mound, digging deeper until his fingers scraped against something slick. Black. Plastic. The edge of a tarp. He pulled it back. His stomach rolled.

  A body. Not fresh. Buried months ago. How many, he couldn’t tell, but given the advanced state of decomposition, it had been out here awhile. Long before Becky and Suzie had disappeared.

  Seth released his grip on the tarp. Rising, he backed away and cast his gaze across the field. Noticed more mounds—rectangular shaped anomalies barely discernable beneath a tangled layer of dead grass. At the far end of the row, he saw something that chilled his heart. A fresh mound. The black earth had faded to a muddy brown.

  He stumbled to the graveside and fell to his knees, his pulse roaring in his ears. Soft black clumps of earth filed his hands. Scooping the earth away, his fingers tangled in long strands of hair.

  He rolled back on his heels. Dark hair was knotted with clumps of dirt.

  Dark hair. Not blonde.

  He closed his eyes. Equal parts of relief and revulsion shuddered through him. It wasn’t Marissa buried here, but chances were good he had just found Becky Kincaid. Seth rose. He swept his gaze across the area.

  Christ. It was a body farm.

  How many other victims were buried here? They didn’t just need bomb sniffing dogs. They needed cadaver dogs too. He texted Alvarez the location of the gravesites and kept going.

  Movement on the far side of the field caught Seth’s attention.

  The danger forgotten, he bolted toward it. The crumbled remains of the old farmhouse came into view. Beyond the ruins, he saw a man. Medium height and build. Brown hair. Wearing blue scrubs.

  Wilcox.

  Seth reached for his holster, but nothing was there. He swore under his breath. Fucking hell. Elizabeth’s ridiculous gun policy left him here unarmed with the suspect in his sights.

  Wilcox was hunkered down by a large, rectangular concrete pad in the ground. Seth approached slowly. Off to one side, there was a keypad mounted on a post. Double metal doors were embedded in the concrete. A branch cracked beneath Seth’s foot and Wilcox looked up.

  Chapter 52

  Wilcox was at the door and she was out of time. Heart pounding, Marissa fled the control room into the lab where she’d been held.

  Panic raced along her nerve endings. She was trapped.

  She bolted past the hospital bed where she’d been bound. The white sheets were splattered with blood. Plastic restraints dangled from the rails like a hangman’s noose. She tripped on an IV stand. Fell. Landed on the floor.

  Marissa came face to face with the dead nurse. She screamed. Pulled back. Thick red blood pooled beneath the woman’s head. Sightless amber eyes stared right at Marissa. Through her.

  He’d killed this woman in cold blood. He was going to kill her too.

  Light winked off the metal instruments scattered across the floor. A scalpel lay wedged beneath the nurse’s torso. The razor-sharp edge was designed to cut through flesh like butter. The one-inch blade made this a lethal weapon, but to use it, she would have to let
him get close.

  The smell of blood and feces filled her nose. Marissa gagged. She covered her mouth. Swallowed. Pressed her hand against the woman’s arm and felt the cold flesh against her palm as she slid the scalpel out from beneath the nurse’s body. She clutched it tightly in her hand and stood.

  On the opposite side of the room, she saw another door. Marissa crossed the lab.

  The door opened onto a small bedroom. Unlike the cluttered lab, this room was stark. Pathologically neat. With stacks of clothes folded military straight filling the cubbylike shelves. Shoes lined the walls. Not just men’s shoes, but women’s shoes too. Side by side.

  Separate but touching. Partners.

  With a jolt, Marissa realized that the two were partners. The nurse lured the girls into the trap while the doctor . . .

  Goose bumps erupted across her skin, and she hugged the sheet to her body.

  She grabbed a stack of clothes off the shelves. Blue scrubs. Like the ones he was wearing. Shedding the sheet, she pulled them on.

  Through the next doorway, Marissa found a bathroom. The cold tile floor was damp. A showerhead dripped from the wall. There were no other doors. No escape.

  It was a dead end.

  She would wait here in the dark for him to come and find her. Marissa crossed the room, looking for the light switch.

  A blast of air blew across her feet. She shivered.

  A vent?

  Marissa bent down and ran her hand across the lower half of the wall. Her fingers grazed the horizontal slats. Metal. It was large. Two, maybe three, feet in diameter. The air coming through the vent smelled like rain-soaked pines.

  She curled her fingers through the metal shaft and tugged. Heaved. The grate didn’t budge. She tried again.

  Nothing.

  She slid the thin scalpel blade behind the lip of the grate and pulled. The blade snapped.

  “Shit.” Frustrated, she pitched the scalpel aside and went in search of something else.

  A rolling stool sat inches from the dead nurse. She grabbed a leg. Picked it up. It was heavier than it looked. She leaned to one side, offsetting the awkward weight as she lumbered back into the bathroom and took aim.