Words of Conviction

by Linda J White

  Her brother looked at her, his small eyes flashing. Then he relaxed and let go of Grayson. “Sandy. This is the guy who hit you, right? What do you care about him? Tell me what’s going on. Be straight with me.”

  Sandy took a deep breath. Shut up, Grayson said, silently. Shut up!

  But she didn’t. “Grayson here used to work for a senator, Senator Grable. That’s Zoe’s father.”

  “Zoe’s the kid?”

  “Right. And the senator, he owed Grayson some money. A lot of money. But he wasn’t going to pay, so Gray had to push his buttons.”

  “How much does he owe you?” Billy asked Grayson.

  Grayson’s mouth tightened into a line. No way would he let this guy in on this. No way.

  “How much?” Billy roared.

  Someone grabbed the back of Grayson’s chair and began shaking it, hard, and terror streaked through him, a deep terror he hadn’t known since . . . since high school. “Stop it!” he cried out. To his chagrin, it sounded almost like a scream.

  “Billy, stop!” Sandy said. “You’re scaring the poor guy to death.” The thug behind Grayson stopped, throwing up his hands and laughing. Sandy turned to Billy. “He told me five-hundred thousand dollars. And when Grable paid him, we were going to go live in Jamaica.” She looked at Grayson. “That’s what he told me, anyway.”

  Billy gave a low whistle. “Did you hear that, boys? Five hundred grand.” He rubbed his chin. “How close is he to giving you the money?”

  Grayson mind raced. How should he play this? How could he string them along? “I’ve got to keep contacting him. He’s close, but I don’t have it yet.”

  Billy looked at his friends. “So we got a choice. We turn the kid in and take the twenty-five G, or we let Mr. Toad here take us on a wild ride.”

  A fresh surge of anger swept through Grayson. He fought it. “I’ll split it with you,” he said quickly. “Two hundred fifty thousand dollars for me, the same for you.” He felt sweat pooling under his arms.

  Billy wiped his hands on his jeans. They were greasy hands, the kind of hands Grayson just abhorred. “Nah,” Billy said. “There’s four of us. So we’d want a hundred grand each.” He laughed. “Heck, we could kill you and be heroes! And get twenty-five grand free and clear.” He scratched the back of his head. “I dunno. Me and the boys got to talk this over.” Billy pulled a huge pistol from the small of his back. He walked over to Grayson and shoved it into his neck, right under his jaw.

  Grayson swallowed hard. The smell of the guy’s breath made his head spin.

  “You move one inch and I swear I’ll splatter your brains all over this kitchen. You hear? You hear?” Billy pressed the gun harder into Grayson.

  “OK,” Grayson said, weakly. He trembled all over.

  “You just sit still. I’ll be watching you.” And Billy and his three thugs left the room.

  “Untie me!” Grayson demanded in a hoarse whisper. When Sandy didn’t move right away, he swore at her. “Who is he?”

  “My brother,” Sandy said, stiffly. “And I’d suggest you don’t mess with him.” She moved closer to Grayson. “I found your receipt,” she said in a soft, bitter voice. “I see you only bought one ticket to Jamaica. Just one. What kind of game are you playing with me? What am I, the babysitter?”

  He thought fast. “I bought that a long time ago. Before we hooked up,” he said. “I was going to buy you one once I got the money.”

  “Liar!” she said, spitting at him. “You are lying to me, Grayson Chambers, and I know it!” And she slapped him hard, across the mouth.

  Rage filled him. He did not allow a woman to strike him. Ever.

  “All right,” Billy said, coming back into the kitchen. “We’ve made up our minds.”

  “Where’s Crow?” Kenzie asked as she picked up her ballistic vest.

  “He’s picking up copies of Zoe’s medical records. Her doctor agreed to meet him at his office. When he finishes there, he’ll proceed to Carroll County.”

  “I want to go with you,” Senator Grable said.

  “No.” Scott checked his extra magazines and shoved them into the cargo pocket of his tactical pants.

  “I want to go.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Senator, we need you here,” Kenzie said, “on the chance Jackson423 posts another message. I don’t think he will, but if he does, we need you to help Alicia respond. You’ve watched what I’ve done.” She tightened her belt.

  “Why are you going? You’re the linguist. You ought to man the computer.”

  “We may need her help if we have to negotiate,” Scott said. “I promise you, though, you will be the first one we call when we have Zoe, and we’ll rush you to her. I promise that.”

  Resigned, the senator nodded. He turned toward Alicia, who sat at the computer. “Well, it’s you and me,” he said and he sat down heavily.

  The drive up to Carroll County would take about an hour and fifteen minutes. The Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team had been deployed to New York, so Scott had arranged to meet a SWAT team from the Baltimore office at an elementary school near the cell tower location. “I can work with Baltimore’s SWAT team,” he had told Kenzie. “I know several of them. They’re good guys.”

  Kenzie looked over at him as they raced up I-270 North. His eyes were intense. “You’re praying, aren’t you?” she said.

  He glanced her way. “Yeah.”

  She settled back in her seat, a slight smile on her face. “Well, I’m glad somebody is because . . .”

  “Kenzie!”

  His voice was sharp and it took her by surprise.

  “You need to quit playing games with this.”

  “What are you talking about, Scott. I just . . .” she stopped short at his fierce look. His hands gripped the steering wheel.

  “Anything could happen tonight. Anything! Any one of us could die.”

  A half-laugh emerged from her throat. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “That’s not drama, it’s reality.”

  “Oh, Scott.”

  His voice dropped. “Anything could happen. And if it does, are you going to stand before God and say, ‘Well, I sorta believed in you but I didn’t really want to commit because, you know, you might leave me like my father did.’ ”

  Kenzie’s face burned. “Wait. That’s over the line!”

  “No, it’s right on the line,” he said fiercely. “And you know it. I don’t know what we’re going to run into tonight. But life can end like that,” he snapped his fingers. His voice softened. “I care about you, Kenzie. I’d like to know you’d be okay if . . . if it happened.”

  “I’ll be fine, Scott . . .” She stared out of the window, aware that tears had formed in her eyes, fighting anger, fear, resentment . . . what else churned inside? Scott should just shut up, she thought.

  But he wouldn’t. “You’re like the rich young ruler. You’ve given God everything but your treasure, your father. Let him go, Kenz. Let him go. Trust God, even through your pain. Let God be God, and I’m telling you, your life will change. You’ll feel the difference. You’ll know what love is.”

  Her throat tightened. Love. Yes, what was love? What did it feel like? Outside, the lights zipped by as Scott drove well above the posted speed limit. “I know . . .” she started to say, but truly, she didn’t know. Not really. She shivered. She had so little control over anything. Yet it was so hard to let go, to let God . . .

  Scott’s cell phone rang. Kenzie closed her eyes, relieved at the interruption.

  Scott’s one-syllable answers didn’t reveal the identity of his caller. Kenzie leaned her head against the cool glass window, as if it could calm her feverish thoughts.

  Then Scott said, “Hang on,” and turned to her. “Kenzie, take down an address.”

  She pulled her small notepad out of her pocket.

  “It’s 2647 Tulip Circle, Mount Airy, Maryland, 21771,” he said, and she wrote that down. “All right. Fantastic, Crow. Hold tight. I’ll call you
back with further instructions.” Scott hung up. “Crow’s got the location!”

  “Really? How he’d get it?”

  “He went to the courthouse in the county where we located the cell phone tower and he got a magistrate to order a clerk to let him in to check public records. He and the clerk and a county deputy found what they were looking for: a recently settled estate. Chambers inherited a small house in a little community. Crow gave me that address.”

  “And does he know if they’re there?”

  “He drove to the neighborhood. It’s very small and the roads are unpaved—twisty, windy little things with all kinds of potholes. He opted not to go in, because it’s one of those places where every new car gets noticed. And the big, black SUV he’s driving just screams ‘law enforcement.’ So no, we don’t know for sure if Chambers is there.” Scott took the exit for Route 27, and then pulled onto the shoulder. “Switch with me, would you? I’ve got some calls to make.” He threw the vehicle into park and unbuckled. Then he touched Kenzie’s arm. “I’m sorry, Kenz. I didn’t mean to offend you. But just know I care about you.” He scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Here, stick this in your pocket.”

  She did, without looking at it.

  The county sheriff, Sam Hughes, suggested they meet at Thelma G. Hardesty Elementary School. His own emergency response team, along with an FBI SWAT team from Baltimore headed by an agent named Jeff Kingston, and Scott, Kenzie, and Crow formed a huddle in the middle of the parking lot.

  “Good work,” Kenzie said to Crow in a low voice as they gathered. He had changed into tactical pants, a black shirt, and a vest.

  “How do you feel?” he asked her. “How’s your head? You don’t need to be in on this, you know.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  The sheriff had brought along copies of a subdivision map for the house where they believed Grayson to be.

  “All right,” said Scott. “Here’s what I’d like to do. I’d like Sheriff Hughes, Jeff, and one other SWAT team member, Kenzie, and Crow to accompany me to the house. You see this area here, where the mailboxes are,” he said, pointing to a place on the map. “We’ll leave our car parked there and walk in. Jeff, you and your guy walk this way,” he made a motion, “and cover the back door. Sheriff, you take this side route. Crow, you and Kenzie stick together and take a position here.” He pointed to a spot across from the house. “Unless we perceive a clear and present danger to our target, we are going to observe the house for fifteen minutes, maybe longer.” Holding up his radio, he said, “Everybody come up on A-One.”

  “Sheriff, we’ll need one of your deputies to go along with us and watch the cars,” Scott continued. “Depending on what we see, the SWAT team will come in and take the house. Your deputies will maintain control of the ingress and egress. How does that sound?”

  Everyone nodded approval.

  “All right. We’ll squeeze into two cars for the ride over. Vests on? Let’s go.”

  27

  The humid air left a thin film of sweat on Kenzie’s neck as she moved toward the subject house. Fortunately, the lot across the street remained both empty and wooded. Except for the barking of a lone dog, Crow and Kenzie went undetected. He motioned her down on the ground. They lay still, under a moonlit sky, and just watched.

  The house Chambers had inherited was a one-floor rambler with a small front porch and another on the side. The gravel driveway ended in a walkway up to the side door. The house showed a mild state of disrepair, with some loose shingles and a broken handrail on the front step. The driveway, overgrown with weeds, looked like it hadn’t been used much, and the lawn needed mowing.

  There were no lights on in the house, no movement, no sound. At midnight, that wasn’t surprising. But there was also no vehicle visible.

  Lying there on the ground, Crow next to her, Kenzie tried hard not to think about the lecture she’d gotten from Scott or the spiders that could be crawling around in the leaves and underbrush. Both, in her mind, seemed equally dangerous. She brushed her hair back from her face. “What do you think?” she whispered after ten minutes.

  “I wonder if anyone’s in there.”

  “Why are we watching it for such a long time?”

  Crow leaned close to her so he could keep his voice a quiet whisper. “When I hunt, I take the high ground. And I watch. The more patient I am, the more likely it is I will succeed.” He nodded toward the house. “That works for both deer and men.”

  Scott’s voice came over their radios, into their ear buds. “Jeff, what do you think?”

  “I’m not getting any infrared readings,” the leader of the SWAT team reported.

  “OK. Crow?”

  “Nothing.”

  “OK. Stay steady.”

  Five minutes later, Kenzie saw Scott move down the street a little away from the house, sheltered by the woods. Then he crossed over the street and worked his way back up to the target location. He made a complete circle around the house, and then came back to his original position. “Nothing,” he said, over the radio. “Crow, you have the warrant?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” Scott radioed the SWAT team, waiting a half-mile away. “Jeff, bring your team in. Be careful. I want to be able to take footprints if we can get them. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jeff’s voice responded.

  “I want to be first in,” Scott said. “Pick whoever you want for the ram.”

  Off in the distance, a whippoorwill called, an eerie sound to Kenzie. She waited silently, her heart thumping, until she heard the sound of car engines. A wet leaf stuck to her hand as she scratched her nose. Crow lay next to her, his eyes focused on the house. She could feel his tension. She shared it.

  Over across the way, behind the subject house, she could see a row of SUVs moving into position with just their parking lights on. They moved down the hill, and out of sight, and then came up on Tulip Drive. They pulled over, and eight black-clad men got out. Three moved through the yard and behind the house, two moved to each side, and three moved up to the front. Then Kenzie saw Jeff.

  “Let’s go,” she heard Scott say.

  Kenzie stood up and followed Crow across the street, moving quickly.

  “Stay behind me,” he whispered.

  Two SWAT members held the ram at the side door. Scott skirted the side steps, pulling himself up onto the porch by the railing so as not to disturb any prints. Kenzie and Crow moved up behind him. Scott nodded and the men swung the ram. The door near the doorjamb shattered into toothpicks.

  Scott kicked in the rest and moved inside the house, gun and flashlight before him. Kenzie and Crow covered him, looking left and right. Nothing in the kitchen. Nothing in the living room. Clear in the bedroom, the bathroom, and the other bedroom. They flipped on the lights room by room, checking under the beds, in the closets, under the mattresses even. And when they were convinced the house was completely empty, they holstered their guns.

  “Wrong place?” Jeff asked.

  “No way,” said Kenzie. She had gone back into the kitchen and was walking toward them with a pile of papers she’d found on the countertop. “Look at these.”

  They were crayon drawings. A big man had the label “Daddy” with the initial letter D backward. A little girl with yellow hair had tears dripping from her eyes. Four included a big bear with huge teeth and sharp claws. The last was signed, “Zoe.”

  “Not wrong at all,” Kenzie said softly, “just . . . just too late.”

  “Hey, look at this,” Crow said, emerging from the bedroom. His gloved hand held a paperback book. He raised it so Scott and Kenzie could read the title, Who Killed Catherine Jones? Crow’s eyes were bright. “You want to know why there were so many similarities with Waller’s crimes? This is one of those true crime books. The kidnapper’s been studying it. He’s even got stuff underlined.”

  “Well, that explains it,” Scott said.

  “That fits!” said Kenzie. “Grayson Chambers has no crimina
l history. Instead, he studies a book to figure out how to pull off his crime.”

  “All right,” Scott said, sharply, “I want everybody out so the evidence techs can get in here.”

  With all the activity and the evidence truck parked outside, the raid on the Tulip Circle house was no longer a secret and a few nearby neighbors had gathered to watch the show. FBI agents and deputies were interviewing them. Two of the techs were vacuuming the entire house, looking for hair and fiber evidence. Others were checking for prints. Someone collected a hairbrush found in the bathroom for DNA evidence. And outside, Scott crouched down next to Crow, who was pointing out some tire tracks he’d found in the mud of the road.

  Crow gestured toward the tire prints. “I’m seeing three motorcycles. One’s a recumbent. I can tell from the radius of the turn. The other one has very expensive tires on it. The lab will be able to tell you the exact type. But I know they’re unusual.” He shrugged. “We might be able to trace them to the owner if they were purchased around here.”

  “Good,” Scott replied. He looked exhausted. “Tell one of the techs we need plaster casts of these prints, OK? I want them rushed down to the lab, to Harold Wilson. He knows everything about tire treads.”

  “Will do.”

  Scott looked at Kenzie. “We got close, very, very close.”

  But close wasn’t good enough. She knew it and he knew it. “What’s next?”

  “Crow!” Scott called to the agent, who was talking to a tech. “Let’s go over there and strategize.” He pointed to the hill across the street.

  “You want to bring in the sheriff?” Crow suggested when he arrived on the hill.

  “Yes,” Scott responded.

  Once Sheriff Hughes had joined them, Scott opened the discussion. “All right,” he said. “Where do we go from here? Who was here? Where are they now? And how do we find them?”

  “Maryland issued a driver’s license to Grayson Chambers six months ago. But I don’t see any vehicles registered in his name,” Crow said. “I thought I’d try California to see if he just never switched tags after he left there.”