“Okay, that’s it folks. Get out there, keep in touch and report back anything you think is out of the ordinary. Anything at all.”
The sounds of chairs being pushed back and the murmur of conversation followed him as he walked into the chief’s office before closing the door behind him and shutting it all out. It felt strange sitting in the Chief’s chair but he needed the quiet to think, to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.
Quiet wasn’t what he got, though, as the phone in his pocket started ringing, the sound very loud in the silence of the room. Pulling it out, he saw that it was Sally. Damn! He’d left her cleaning up and with a promise that he would call her and let her know what was happening. That had been hours ago. Sheepishly, he picked up. “Hey.”
“Hey, you. Everything okay? I’ve been worried.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I know I promised to call but things sorta got out of hand here.”
“Oh no!” He could hear the concern in her voice. “Nothing serious, I hope?”
“Actually, yeah.” He filled her in on what had happened, trying not to sound as worried as he felt. She was bound to be affected; she’d grown attached to Daniel, too.
“Oh, that poor boy! And Kat! Can I do anything?”
“No, there’s nothing you can do. But I’m not going to make it back tonight, I don’t think. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be silly. No apology necessary. You need to find them. Do you want me to stay?”
He didn’t. And it wasn’t because he had no idea when he’d get back, it was because all he could think about was how he would feel if he lost Kat. “No, better not. I have no idea when I’ll be back or how long for. I’ll give you a call when I have any news, okay?”
“That’s fine. Take care and bring them home, okay?”
“I’ll try.”
He ended the call and sat for a moment looking at the now silent phone, frustrated with himself. He could try and kid himself that the only reason he couldn’t stop thinking about Kat was because she was missing, but he would be lying to himself. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her since she’d first come back to town. Yeah, he didn’t know if he could forgive her, but that didn’t stop the way he felt. Now was not the time for such thoughts, though; he had to find them before it was too late.
He thought everyone had gone when he came out of the office and he was surprised to find Deputy Carver still hadn’t left. He had his back to him and he could see he was on his cell phone, talking animatedly. Deliberately closing the office door hard, he watched as he quickly put the cell phone away. “Sorry boss, had to make a quick call.”
Finn resolved to have another talk to the chief about this kid when he was well enough.
“And it was so important that you had to make it now rather than get out there and do the job you’re paid to do?”
He could see that he wanted to make some sort of sarcastic retort, but the look on Finn’s face must have been enough to tell him that it wasn’t a good idea and he kept his mouth shut. “No? Well, get out there then. You’re no use to me sitting around here.”
***
The deputy from Charlton charged with obtaining the CCTV had finally arrived and he and Finn were both sitting in front of the TV in the main squad room.
“Thanks for getting it so fast,” Finn said to the deputy as he took the disk out of his bag.
“No problem, though the woman I dragged out of bed to let us in to get it probably wouldn’t agree.”
Thankfully, the chief had invested some of the budget last year in getting them an up-to-date media set-up that would allow them to review the footage. Precious hours, or even days, could have been lost if they’d had to get someone else to do it for them. Putting the disk in, they selected the timeframe when Kat and Daniel had been due to arrive and, sure enough, there they were. They watched as Kat parked her car in the lot and they walked across the asphalt to the main doors to the center where the therapist was located.
It was odd watching them like this, their movements jilted and puppet like on the feed. The center had several cameras, but Finn was only interested in the one pointing at the car lot, deducing that if they had been followed they would have been unlikely to have been followed actually inside the building.
“Okay, now slow it down,” he told the deputy.
“What are we looking for?”
Finn sighed. “I don’t know. Anything that looks out of place, anyone acting strangely. I’ll guess we’ll know it when we see it.”
***
It was a cup of coffee and a severe case of eye strain later that he finally spotted it. It wasn’t what was there; it was what wasn’t there. They were just watching the tape of Kat and Daniel leaving when it hit him.
“There!” He pointed at the top right hand corner of the screen. The front half of a red pick-up was just visible reversing out of a parking spot, just after Kat’s car had left the lot.
“What about it?” The deputy looked confused.
“Go back to when Kat and Daniel arrived.” He was right; he just knew it.
Playing the footage back again from the moment they arrived, they watched that corner of the screen and not long after Kat parked her car, the red pick-up arrived.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see what’s so special about it. There are lots of red cars in the lot coming and going throughout the tape.”
“I know that,” Finn said impatiently, “but keep your eyes on that one and keep watching it until Kat comes out again.”
They watched the tape again in silence. “Do you see now?” The deputy shook his head. “Look at it. You can only see the front half of the vehicle but you can see the cab. From the moment it arrives until the moment it leaves again, do you see anyone getting out of it?”
He could almost see the light go on in the deputy’s head. “No, because no one did!”
“Exactly. Now why would you drive into a parking lot and just sit in your truck for an hour and then leave again?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“That’s them.” Finned jabbed his finger at the screen. “That’s who ran them off the road.”
“Okay, but now what?” The deputy leaned forward and squinted at the screen. “There’s no way of making out the license. The angle is wrong. It’s pointing away from us.”
Finn’s heart sank. He was right; even with enhancement they wouldn’t be able to see the plate as it simply hadn’t been captured.
Finn’s hand slamming down on the desk made the deputy jump. “Damnit! Why is nothing going our way?”
“But who’s saying this is the first time they followed her, though?”
Finn stilled. He was right! Why hadn’t he thought of that? He clapped his hand on the deputy’s shoulder. “Good point. If he was caught there he may well have been caught somewhere else, somewhere where we can see the license plate.” He thought for a moment. “He hasn’t been out of the hospital long and I know that Kat has only been into town a couple of times since he has.” Good news for us for a change, Finn thought. “I’ll give Jamie McKay a call and find out if she can help us narrow down our search window. Then we can contact anyone in town with CCTV and see if they’ve caught anything.”
Feeling energized, he went to his office and called Jamie. As he suspected, Kat had only been into town twice since Daniel had come out of the hospital, as far as Jamie was aware. One of those visits was just yesterday when she’d come to collect the property records. “We’ll start with her visit yesterday as it was the nearest in time to the actual attack. There were two places she visited yesterday, apart from here: the council offices and the coffee shop,” he instructed the deputy. “You go to the council offices and get their footage and I’ll go and grab the coffee shop’s. Get back here as quickly as you can.”
“Will they be open now?” The deputy checked his watch “It’s only five a.m.”
Finn realized with a start that he had completely lost track of time. “No, they won’t. You’re right. The
diner opens at six, though, so I’ll head over there as soon as it opens. We’ll have to wait until a bit later for the other footage.”
He was waiting at the glass doors of the diner when it opened promptly at six. He didn’t want to get his hopes up; he wasn’t even sure they had CCTV.
“Hey, Jen, you got a minute?” Jen had been behind the counter here for as long as he could remember and used to serve him milkshakes when he was a kid. A large, kindly gray-haired lady, you didn’t talk to her if you were in a hurry as she was very difficult to stop once she got started.
“For you, honey, always.”
“Do you have CCTV here?” He looked around and saw a camera in the corner of the room and pointed at it. “Is that a real camera or a dummy?”
“It’s real. We got it after that robbery a couple of summers back.” She put a cup in front of him and started to pour him a coffee from a glass jug that seemed permanently attached to her hand. “Do you remember that summer? That would have been when...”
He held up his hand. “Sorry, Jen, I really can’t talk right now. I need to get a copy of your footage from yesterday and it’s really urgent.”
She didn’t seem in the slightest offended. “Sure, come through the back and I’ll get it for you.”
Leaving her with promises that he would return soon to catch up, he took the footage and hurried back to the station. The deputy was already there and watching the footage he had gotten from the council offices.
“Anything?” Finn asked, coming to stand behind him.
“Not so far.”
They both watched silently as the images played across the screen until they got to the point where Kat and Daniel arrived. Despite going over it slowly, it was clear that the camera hadn’t caught anything.
“Fingers crossed we have more luck with this one.” Finn handed the disk in his hand to the deputy and watched as he replaced the one currently in the machine and pressed play. Immediately, the image came on screen Finn’s heart fell. The camera covered the interior of the coffee shop, as he’d expected, but you could only see a small section of the road outside the diner. He had hoped that it would be at a better angle. Damn!
He watched as Kat appeared on the screen and collided with a man he didn’t recognize who was just coming out of the bathroom. He didn’t seem pleased and he didn’t need to be able to lip read to see that he said something angrily to her before leaving.
“Looks like he’s getting into a red car, or truck,” the deputy said, pointing to an area at the top of the screen. He was right; you could just make out the bottom half of a red vehicle. “It’s no good to us, though. We can’t see enough.” As they watched, though, the car pulled forward and reversed towards the shop window to make a u-turn. As it did, for a brief moment, the license was in full view.
Not believing his luck, Finn quickly grabbed a pencil from a holder on the desk and a piece of paper and jotted the number down. Going to the nearest computer and switching it on, he ran it through the database. And was immediately disappointed. The vehicle was shown as belonging to Mark Flint. The man on the footage must have been one of his farm hands. Finn had known Flint for years, since he had taught him in high school, and he knew without a doubt that he wasn’t involved in this in any way. He didn’t know the farm hand, though, so it was worth a drive out there even if it was just to eliminate them.
“Have you got time to come out with me to the farm or do you need to get back to Carlton?”
“My boss said I’m to give you whatever help you need so sure, why not?”
***
“What’s your first name, kid?” Finn asked the deputy as they drove up to the farm.
“John.”
“Well, John, thanks for all your help back there.”
“No problem. Good change from issuing parking tickets in Carlton.”
“Here we are. This is the Flint farm,” Finn told him, pointing to a dirt road after they’d been driving for twenty minutes. “It’s about two miles up this road.”
The road was full of bumps and potholes and by the time they arrived Finn felt like they’d been put through a tumble drier.
Getting out of the cruiser, they climbed the steps to the front porch and knocked on the door.
“Finn! Gosh, how long’s it been?” The door was opened by a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Colonel Sanders.
“Hi, Mark.” Finn shook his extended hand. “How have you been doing?”
“I’m very well. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
Finn described the man seen on the surveillance footage and explained that they needed to speak to him but he stopped short of telling him why.
“Ah, that sounds like Kenny. Not the most sociable or friendly of people but he’s a good worker.”
“Any chance we could have a quick word with him?”
Flint shook his head. “I’m sorry, Finn, he’s not here. I’ve sent him on an errand and he won’t be back until tomorrow.”
“Can you get a hold of him and ask him to come back early?”
“I’ve got no way of getting a hold of him. He doesn’t have a cell. I really am sorry, Finn. I’d help if I could.”
“What about the truck. Is that here?”
“He’s got it with him, I’m afraid.”
Disappointed, Finn told Flint that he would be back tomorrow and they returned to the cruiser.
“Didn’t that seem a little odd to you?” John asked as they pulled out of the yard.
“What?”
“Who doesn’t have a cell phone these days?”
“Unfortunately, out here a lot of people don’t have them. The service is awful and a lot of the farm hands wouldn’t know what to do with one.”
Twenty-Nine
You pay peanuts and you get monkeys, wasn’t that how the saying went? Well, he sure seemed to employ a bunch of monkeys. “Why didn’t you warn me they were on their way here?” he shouted into the phone.
“I didn’t know.”
“I told you I wanted to know everything that was going on in the investigation. You’ve let me down.”
He had no choice now; he had to run, and fast. Shouting orders to his men, he told them to put their escape plan into action. He’d had one for years, always knowing that this day could possibly come but never actually believing it would.
He didn’t care about the farm itself. He was not into all that sentimental clap trap, but it did represent a sizeable chunk of money. Oh well, he thought, there was plenty more where that came from. Going to his safe, hidden behind a picture in his dining room, he took out two large briefcases filled with cash. On top of them was a worn black book. The book contained all the details of the others like him and was invaluable. Putting the book inside his jacket, he looked around. There was so much here that he should dispose of but he just didn’t have time. No matter; there was nothing he could do to hide it any more. He grabbed the cases and stepped outside.
“The trucks are all loaded,” Clay told him, coming out from the nearest barn. “What do you want us to do with the woman?” He thought about it for a moment. He hadn’t had time to deal with her yet and he didn’t want to take her with them.
“Leave her and the boy behind.” It was because of them that all this had happened. He would leave them where they wouldn’t be found and when they were, it would be too late. The thought of the death that awaited them made him smile.
“Yes, boss,” Clay replied before trotting back over to the barn.
***
Something was going on. “What’s happening?” Kat tried to get an answer from the men who were roughly removing the other boys from their cells. “Where are you taking them?” But they just ignored her. Gripping the bars of her cell, she screamed at them. “Leave them alone!” But they took no notice. The boys were mostly silent, doing as they were told and following the men meekly. She expected them to come for her and for Daniel, but as one after the other of the boys was removed and no one approa
ched their cells she started to fear the worst. As the last boy was led out, the room was suddenly plunged into complete darkness as the light was switched off, the only light now coming from the still open door.
“Wait! Come back! You can’t just leave us here!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, but to no avail. Despairingly, she watched as the light from the door finally disappeared as it was closed with a resounding clank.
Her own breathing was heavy in her ears in the silence that followed. Feeling her way, she went to the bars that separated her cell from Daniel’s. She could hear him sniffling in the darkness and called out to him.
“Daniel, honey, it’s okay.” She heard him move closer to her and felt his hand reach for her through the bars. “We’ll get out of here, I promise.” She was confused. Where had they all gone? “Daniel, has this ever happened before, where they’ve taken you all out at the same time?”
“No, they only ever take the ones that are fighting,” he whispered, the tremble in his voice giving away how much this worried him.
“Okay. I know it’s hard, but try not to worry. I’m sure they’ll be back soon.” Though she was trying to convince Daniel, she didn’t believe it for a second herself. Something had happened, something that was making them run, and she clung to the hope that the police were getting close. She’d not given a thought to oxygen before, as the constantly opening and closing door from the room that was linked to the outside replenished their supply. But now, without that, how long did they have? She didn’t know but she did know that the police had better hurry. If it wasn’t the lack of oxygen, it would be the lack of water that killed them. Either way, she knew for certain that one of them would.
Thirty
The McKays Box Set - To Kill For, Blood Sport, Hard Time & Gang Land Page 22