Words of Conviction

by Linda J White

  “And we should have some fingerprints, hair and fiber evidence, those tire marks . . . we’ll have some hard evidence to work with soon.”

  Again they were quiet. “So how do I respond?” Kenzie said, finally.

  Scott ran his hand through his hair. “What are our options?”

  “He’s trying to hurry things along. Clearly, that’s to our advantage. We need to find out when the IT guys will have the phony website functional. Then we’ll tell Chambers we’ll have the money deposited by that time, plus two hours. To give the IT guys some wiggle room.”

  Kenzie sat back. “Meanwhile, as soon as they identify the computer he’s using, we can go in.”

  “In the meantime, anything could happen.”

  Kenzie looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “We don’t know who’s in charge now.”

  Kenzie’s stomach sank. “You’re right.” She looked up at him. “This stinks.”

  Scott nodded. “Hold off for just a few minutes, will you? I really need some time to work this out.”

  By that she knew he meant “pray it out.”

  “So why didn’t they say nothin’ yet?” Billy asked.

  “The senator isn’t online all the time. He’s a busy man.” In a way, Grayson felt glad there’d been no immediate response to his post. Because any intelligent person would realize it would indicate the FBI was monitoring the message board. Of course, Billy was far from being an intelligent person. It was, in fact, Grayson’s best hope. If he could get the guy to mess up, or if he, Grayson, could get to a phone, or the gun, maybe he could still make something of this.

  “I have another idea,” Grayson said suddenly. “Let’s put up another post.”

  Billy looked at him as if he were sizing him up, then wiped his nose with his hand and turned toward the computer. “Shoot.”

  If only I could, Grayson thought. “All right,” and he began to dictate a message while Billy typed with his two forefingers.

  High Stakes happens fast. To keep the plot moving, I think I’d have Joie have a hidden disease. Like diabetease. She’s getting sick quick. Therefore, the ones who took her are anxious . . .

  “How do you spell that?” Billy said.

  Good grief, Grayson thought. He wished he could see that screen! He spelled “anxious” and continued.

  . . . to get there money. And anxiuos to dump her. Hard enough to have a hostige without her being sick. In fact, she could die.

  Grayson hesitated. Should he try something? Could he count on Billy’s stupidity? He continued.

  The bad guys have changed location. Now the drop off will be in Catoctin . . .

  “Hey!” Billy said suddenly. “What are you doing? You’re tipping this guy off . . .”

  “No! No,” Grayson protested, fear flashing through him. “No. I just thought you wouldn’t want to drive to Fairfax.”

  Billy grumbled. “I’m taking that last part out. I’m stopping at ‘In fact, she could die.’ What else?”

  Sweat dripped down Grayson’s neck. “Leave it at that. I’m sure the senator will respond to that.”

  “Idiot,” Billy said, swearing.

  “Second message, Scott,” Kenzie said as her partner walked back in the room. She read it to him. “Several misspellings, some bad grammar—either Grayson’s trying to communicate to us he’s no longer in charge or there’s another person at the keyboard. Either way, we have a new unknown suspect.”

  “All right.” Scott stretched his neck. “I called our IT guys. They’ll be ready to go at noon. And they’ll have those messages traced soon.”

  “So we tell him the money is coming in and we’ll be ready at two p.m.”

  They discussed the options for a few moments. Kenzie made some suggestions on the wording of the next post. Scott agreed to them, and she typed.

  “All right! Is this it?” Billy asked, turning the computer monitor toward Grayson.

  The captive winced when he saw the misspellings in Jackson423’s last post. But the response clearly came from the senator, and Grayson’s heart raced with an odd mixture of anger and hope, conflict and connection as he read it.

  I think CISU would have had to tap many sources for that kind of money. But the last of it would be in by two. Then everything would be in place. They would be very anxious to get Joie back.

  “So, they’re going to wire the money at two. That means we can confirm it and drop the kid off by, say, four p.m.”

  “There ain’t gonna be no dropping the kid off. I told you that before.”

  “Well, we have to pretend, anyway, don’t we? To lead them on? Otherwise, why would they give us the money?”

  Billy grunted. “Give me what to say then.”

  So Grayson dictated the next message, setting up a fictitious drop-off at Foxstone Park as soon as the bank confirmed the transfer. “That should do it,” Grayson said, satisfied. “You’ll soon be a rich man, Billy.”

  “All right! Crow’s got a lead,” Scott said, snapping off his cell phone. The sheriff and Kenzie looked up. “A dealer in Frederick remembers selling some of those tires. His records show the buyer was a guy named Joseph Mitchell.”

  “I’ll get someone on that,” Sheriff Hughes said. Within minutes, he had information. Mitchell showed up as a motorcycle enthusiast and small-time drug dealer with a couple of arrests for possession.

  “We have an address?” Scott asked.

  “Sure.” The sheriff read it.

  “Let’s go.” Scott slid into his vest. “I’ll call Crow, and he can meet us there. Kenzie, I guess you have to watch the computer?”

  “No way,” she said, standing up. “I doubt he’ll post again. But Sheriff, do you have a deputy who can monitor it?”

  “I’ll get you a clerk.”

  “All right.” A young woman came in quickly. Kenzie instructed her. “This is your job. Watch this message board. Anything gets posted from Jackson423, you call me. Do not answer him, OK? Just call me.”

  “Right,” she said, sitting down in Kenzie’s place.

  When Kenzie turned around, Scott was ending a call on his cell phone. “Let’s go.”

  Kenzie put on her vest as they walked out of the room.

  Scott inserted his key into the ignition of his Bureau SUV. He glanced in his rearview mirror. Sheriff Hughes and two deputies were right behind him in unmarked cars. Whether they’d need SWAT or not was a question. Right now, the game plan was to go to Joseph Mitchell’s house and find out what they could.

  “Grable’s insisting on coming up here,” Scott said to Kenzie.

  “How’d you wave him off?”

  “With blood, sweat, and tears.”

  Kenzie kept quiet. “I admire his commitment to his daughter,” she said, after thinking about it. “He wants to do everything he can for her.”

  Scott nodded. “He’s a good dad.”

  Kenzie raised her chin. “And you know what? I think Beth could be a good mom if she had half a chance. And if she got help with her own issues.”

  “Billy, we got to end this,” Sandy said, walking into the small motorcycle shop office after a restless night’s sleep. She held Zoe’s hand while the little girl half-hid behind her leg. “Zoe needs to go home.”

  “Yeah, so she can turn us all in? You think I want to spend the rest of my life in jail?” her brother responded. He sat at the desk fingering the Glock pistol.

  Instinctively, Grayson, sensing the tension, started scooting his chair away.

  Sandy frowned. “Billy, come on! There’s twenty-five thousand dollars in reward money sitting out there! You can have the whole thing. Honest. I don’t need none of it.”

  “Are you kidding? This guy’s got eight hundred grand coming at him.” He motioned toward Grayson with the pistol.

  “You listen to me, Billy!” Sandy said. She sounded exactly like a big sister chastising a little brother. “Don’t be stupid. You’ve got no reason to believe him.” She grabbed the barrel of Billy’s pistol
to get his attention. “He may not even give you any of it.”

  “Sandy, get off!” Billy tried to pull the gun away from her but as he did, his finger slipped. A huge explosion filled the room. Grayson nearly jumped off the chair. Zoe began screaming.

  Sandy straightened up, an expression of shock on her face. A red stain began spreading over her pink T-shirt. “Billy,” she whispered, and then she collapsed on the floor.

  Zoe, crying, tried to run out of the door, but a man blocked her way. She retreated to a corner.

  “Billy,” Joe said breathlessly, gripping the doorjamb of the office. His eyes dropped down to the woman on the floor. “Holy cow! What’d you do?”

  “Shut up! Just shut up!” Billy said, bending over his bleeding sister.

  “Billy, the Feds been at my house!” Joe yelled.

  “What?” Billy said, standing up.

  “The cops. They been at my house.”

  Billy cursed. He turned and grabbed Grayson and began shaking him. Grayson’s eyes widened with fear. “I thought you told me the cops wasn’t onto you! You son of a . . .”

  “Billy!” Joe said. “We’re all over the news.”

  29

  We gotta get out of here.” Billy said, shoving Grayson away. His motion tipped the chair over, and Grayson lay on the floor, still bound to the chair, helplessly staring into Sandy’s dead face. The lips which had been wordlessly moving just moments before were parted. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. “What do we do with him?” he heard Joe ask.

  “Bring him.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “I dunno. Bring her, too. She’s worth twenty-five grand, anyways.”

  Outside Joseph Mitchell’s ramshackle house, Scott, Kenzie, Crow, and Sheriff Hughes stood looking over a map spread out on the hood of Scott’s car. Mitchell hadn’t been seen in three days. His mother worried that he was hanging out with his friends, men she didn’t trust. One of them, Billy Foster, owned a motorcycle repair and parts shop in an industrial area of Frederick. What’s more, the IT unit in Washington had traced the messages posted to Foster’s business.

  The shop stood on a dead-end street, and Scott wanted to carefully plan out their approach. If Foster had Zoe there, they had to be very, very cautious.

  “We come down here,” the sheriff said, pointing, “and they won’t be able to get out.”

  “On the other hand, they might feel trapped and kill Zoe,” Crow said.

  “How about if I go in first,” Kenzie said. “I won’t appear threatening to them. Let me ask about some . . . some motorcycle thing. Maybe I can find out who’s in there.”

  Scott frowned. “Not safe.”

  “I can do it,” she insisted. “I’m the least cop-looking of anyone.”

  “How about those pants?” He nodded toward her khaki tactical pants.

  Kenzie looked around. A Walmart lay down the street. “In fifteen minutes, I’ll be somebody’s girlfriend in shorts and sandals.”

  “And your gun?”

  “A big purse.” She put her hands on her hips and tilted up her chin. “Scott, I can do this.”

  Scott took a deep breath. “Sheriff?”

  He shrugged. “You know her better than I do. We can get right outside the building on the blind side and probably hear her if she hollers.”

  “What do you think, Crow?”

  The agent had his eyes fixed on Kenzie. He looked down, unwilling or unable to affirm her offer.

  Scott seemed to be taking forever to make up his mind. “All right,” he said, finally. “We’ll give it a try.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Kenzie emerged from the store. Her sunglasses covered her eyes and her hair hung loose. She’d bought a flowered fabric hobo-style bag—it held her gun and her radio. She climbed into Scott’s empty SUV. He and the sheriff were in the county car, preceding her to the industrial park. She called Scott on his cell. “I’m leaving Walmart,” she said. “Tell everyone I’ve got on khaki shorts and a white tank top.”

  “Will do,” he responded. “Be careful. I’m going to be right outside. Something gets hinky, you yell and I’m in there, OK?”

  “OK.”

  The industrial park looked deserted on this weekend morning. Kenzie drove all the way to the back, took a right into the last lane, and parked in front of Billy’s Cycle Shop. She spoke quietly into her radio, hidden in her purse. “I’m set.” Scott acknowledged her communication. Then she walked up to the door, her heart pounding.

  Oddly, it was ajar. “Hello?” she called, opening it just enough to look in. “Anybody here?” She heard no answer. The door led into a grimy, magazine-strewn waiting area. “Hello?” she called again.

  She walked across the room to another door leading to the shop. She started to push it open, then jumped as she noticed a spider crawling right where her hand would have gone. She stifled a gasp. Gingerly, she reached down to the knob, swung the door open, and stepped through.

  The shop bays were full of oily tools, cycle parts, and discarded coffee cups. She picked her way through the mess, to yet another door on the other side. It, too, stood several inches open, and as she got close, her heart leaped. She could see a body on the floor.

  Carefully she reviewed her options: Pretend to be a customer looking for a mechanic and walk on in. Or retreat and come back with reinforcements.

  At the Academy, safety ruled the day. She retreated. Outside the building, she reached into her purse and pushed the radio transmit button. “There’s a body, a woman, in the interior office. I didn’t see anyone around. If someone’s in there, I didn’t want to surprise them.”

  “Smart move,” Scott said. “We’re coming to you.”

  Within seconds, Scott, Crow, and Sheriff Hughes came around the sides of the building. Then she saw marked cars coming down the street at a fast clip, and deputies get out to cover the back.

  “OK, stay behind me,” Scott said and, guns drawn, the three retraced Kenzie’s steps, through the waiting room, through the cluttered shop. When they got to the office door, Scott silently counted with his fingers held high. On three, he kicked open the door, and they burst into the room, yelling “FBI! FBI!”

  But the dead no longer hear.

  “So who is she?” Kenzie asked as she and Scott stood by watching the evidence team go over the cycle shop. It seemed so eerie. The redhead lay on the floor, her T-shirt bloody, her hair sprayed out in a sunburst pattern, just like the little girl they’d found earlier.

  “I’m thinking this is Sandy Sheffield. She used to be a waitress at a bar not too far from here. Her brother owns this place. He has a rap sheet,” the sheriff said, glancing at the papers in his hand. “Petty drug dealer, thug. Into meth.” He shook his head. “I know him well. Matter of fact, he was my first arrest.”

  Scott looked up. “Your first arrest?”

  “Yep. Just brand-new on the force. Caught him with a baggie of pot after I stopped him for running a red light. He was just seventeen years old.” The sheriff took a deep breath and nodded toward the body. “From the looks of it, she got shot at close range by a good-sized gun.”

  “How’d they get along?” Crow asked.

  “Him and his sister? She bailed him out more times than I can count. I thought they were OK.”

  “So what’s her connection with Chambers?” Kenzie asked.

  “Unknown,” said the sheriff.

  Scott took a deep breath. He looked at Kenzie. “She’s got to be the redhead he’s been seen with. He meets her in a bar, she’s not bad-looking, he figures he can use her, and bingo, they’re in a relationship.”

  “Women fall for that kind of stuff all the time,” Kenzie said.

  One of the evidence techs came out of the shop. He had a brown toy dog in his hand. “Found this upstairs.”

  Kenzie took it in her hand. She could imagine Zoe holding it. She stroked it with one finger.

  “There’s an upstairs?” Scott asked.

  “Supposed
to be storage, like an attic. But somebody had a bed up there. And I found some kid’s clothes.”

  “Bag them,” Scott said. “Run them for evidence.” The tech nodded and left. Scott shook his head. “We’re one step behind,” he said to Kenzie and Crow, “just one step behind.”

  Grayson Chambers felt like he would pass out any minute. The air in the trunk was stifling, and he felt every bounce of the rough road in his joints and in his chest. He wondered if he’d even make it to wherever they were going.

  Why’d they have to tape his mouth? It made it so hard to breathe. The darkness in the trunk and the thick air made him so tired. He just wanted to close his eyes and get away from the image that kept playing in his mind: Sandy, dead on the floor. Sandy, blood dripping out of her mouth. Sandy, with that huge stain on that pink shirt.

  If that happened to Sandy, it could happen to him.

  The thought brought him close to panic.

  Finally, the car lurched to a stop. The trunk popped open, and bright sunlight blinded him. Joe and the other guy grabbed him and pulled him up and out of the car.

  They were in the woods somewhere, in the mountains that edged Frederick. The Catoctin Mountains, part of the Appalachian chain. Grayson scrambled mentally to remember what he knew about them. The Appalachian Trail ran through the range and the presidential retreat, Camp David, lay hidden somewhere in them. What he wouldn’t give to see a Secret Service agent right now!

  Joe had him by the arm and marched him up toward a cabin. Billy walked ahead, dragging a reluctant Zoe. The kid has spunk, Grayson thought, and for a moment he hoped she’d give Billy the same tough time she’d given him.

  The cabin looked old. It had two stories with a roofed porch on two sides. Billy stepped up on the front porch. He had picked up a shotgun and a whole bunch of ammo from somewhere; it seemed clear he intended to make a stand.

  Inside the cabin, Grayson noticed immediately the abundance of spiders. Webs were everywhere. That was the trouble with being in the woods. Spiders. And snakes. He never did like the woods. He’d hated Boy Scouts.