The airfield quickly appeared in the distance. A metal hangar, a small clapboard building, and a single runway. There had to be planes inside the hangar, and Goodwin might own one of them. Especially since he seemed to commute between his homes on weekends. Where was the gray sedan? Had she been wrong?
Rox raced forward, a new tightness in her stomach. Maybe the vehicle was behind the little building or on the other side of the hangar. Goodwin might be trying to hide. As Rox neared the hangar, an overhead door opened and the nose of a plane eased out. A small Beechcraft. The plane rolled toward the runway, its engine sounding like a giant lawn mower.
What now?
Impulsively, Rox jerked the wheel and lurched across the strip of grass separating the road from the runway. She turned again and headed straight for the plane. The aircraft had to come this way to power up enough speed to take flight.
The plane gained speed, heading straight at her. Rox kept her foot on the gas. She needed to reach the craft before it retracted its wheels and got air underneath. Oh god, this was crazy! At the last moment, Rox jerked the wheel again, skidding diagonally. She smashed into the nose of the plane just before it lifted off. The impact threw her forward, but her airbag deployed and slammed her back. Hurting and shaking, Rox dragged herself from the truck.
The damaged Beechcraft had come to a stop on the edge of the tarmac. Rox sprinted to the plane, wishing she’d brought the Glock. Marty sure wouldn’t need it. From the tarmac, she couldn’t see Goodwin, but he couldn’t have had time to get out. She jumped on the aircraft’s landing board and peeked into the cockpit. Goodwin was slumped over, his head bleeding, and no weapon in sight. A siren wailed in the distance, and Rox heaved a sigh of relief.
Chapter 43
Marty grabbed the front doorknob, realizing he still had his gun in his other hand. He shoved the weapon into the back of his pants—a move he usually hated—so he wouldn’t frighten the teenage girl if she was inside the house. The door was unlocked so he pushed it open, then glanced over at Josh. The boy looked deathly pale.
“What’s wrong?” Marty asked.
“Uh. I just have a bad feeling about this place.”
Marty didn’t blame him. If a young girl was being kept hostage as a sex slave here, then he hated the place too. As he stepped inside, the house was quiet. Brooke could be locked inside a back room or maybe even in a space under the house. “We have to search everywhere,” he whispered to Josh, not sure why he was keeping his voice low. Instead, they needed to let Brooke know they were there, so she could knock or call out her location.
“Anyone home?” Marty yelled.
No response.
“Check the kitchen and backyard, and I’ll do the bedroom.” Marty gestured at Josh to get moving. The boy stood just inside the front door, looking pale, thin, and beaten. The poor kid had been through enough already, and maybe this was too much for him. “Never mind. I’ve got this.” Marty hurried toward the hall.
A young girl stepped out from behind a china cabinet. The pretty teenager held a small silver gun aimed right at him. “Get out!” she screamed.
Whoa! Marty took a step back as he scrambled to make sense of the situation. “Are you Brooke?”
“It doesn’t matter. This is my house, and I want you to leave.” Except for her long hair, she looked lean like a boy, and her blue eyes were glassy and unfocused.
Was she high? Or just not right in the head? Marty was at a loss for what to do. “Put down the gun. We’re here to take you home.”
“This is my home.”
Marty recalled what Josh had said about the girl’s trip to the gay-conversion camp and her parents not wanting her back. How could he convince Brooke that she could have a better life than this? Maybe he didn’t need to. He could just walk away and let Children’s Services deal with her.
But she had a weapon and was blocking the hall. Something wasn’t right here.
“Brooke, I know you’ve had a rough time, but you need to put down the gun.”
“I’m not going into foster care!” Her eyes sparked with anger and fear. “Just get out!” She waved the little weapon in a threatening move.
Marty took another step back and realized Josh was right behind him.
The boy spoke up. “Brooke, you don’t have to go to a foster home. You can come with me to Seattle to my aunt’s house.”
“No. Scott wants me here.”
Poor girl. She had no idea who Goodwin really was. Marty tried again. “Scott is a murderer. He killed Tommy to keep him quiet and tried to kill Josh too. He’s on the run and not coming back.”
Brooke was silent, her eyes jumpy as she tried to process the stunning information and decide if she believed it.
In the stillness, a thumping sound echoed from the back of the house. Was someone knocking? Marty’s heart did a triple beat, then sped up. “What is that noise, Brooke?”
“Nothing. Go away.” Tears filled her eyes.
He took a step forward. “Is there someone else here?”
Brooke started to whimper. “I can’t let you back there. Scott will get mad.”
Josh suddenly rushed forward, grabbing the gun from the distressed girl. He tossed it aside and took Brooke into his arms. Josh stroked her hair and whispered, “It’s going to be okay now.”
Still stunned, Marty ran down the hall. Two doors were slightly ajar. A bathroom and bedroom. A third door at the end was closed and locked. He called out, “Is someone in there? I’m here to help.”
“Yes! But I’m trapped.” A young female voice.
Could he kick the door open? Probably not. He rushed back into the living room and grabbed the heavy flashlight he’d spotted on the fireplace mantle. When he approached the door again, he yelled, “Stay back!”
Using the long flashlight as a battering ram, he smashed the doorjamb again and again until the lock gave way. He kicked the door open, then reached for his weapon—just in case this teenager had a gun too.
But the only thing in the young girl’s hand was a rope that looped around her waist and secured her to a clamp on the wall. She burst into tears at the sight of him.
Chapter 44
Wednesday, July 12, 8:45 a.m., Portland
Rox glanced at the sleeping boy on her couch, then turned to Marty. “Let’s take our coffee outside.” They headed to her back patio, both moving slowly, like people who’d run a marathon the day before. Rox ached everywhere, as if someone had been punching her too. But it was over. They’d rescued Josh—plus three teenage girls—and hadn’t been arrested. She was getting good at this business.
“I hope Josh is going to be all right,” Marty said, slumping into a patio chair.
“I think he will.” Rox sat down too and sipped her second round of java. “He seems pretty steady, considering what he’s been through.” The last twenty-four hours had been rough on all of them. The state police had interrogated everyone for hours, then they’d had to limp home in a badly damaged truck. But her business and alias were intact. She’d managed to persuade the officer handling Scott Goodwin’s arrest to use her investigative name in his reports. As a fellow cop, he’d understood the need for her services. But first she’d had to convince him to contact the Portland Police Bureau and talk to Kyle Wilson. Her ex-boyfriend had vouched for both her and Marty.
“Kyle really came through for us,” Marty said, obviously thinking along the same lines. He gave her a probing look. “Maybe you should go out with him again.”
“Maybe.” On the drive home, Rox had called Kyle to thank him, then begged him to drop the charges against Isaac Lovejoy—so her client could go home and give his son a place to live. “Children’s Services might still get involved in Josh’s life, but we did everything we could to prevent it.”
“I hope he gets some counseling.” Marty glanced at the sliding door.
Rox laughed. “Listen to you. Since when are you a fan of shrinks?”
“Since it’ll be someone else talking to them.�
�� Her stepdad grinned.
“I’ll suggest it to his father when I see him.” Isaac Lovejoy was being released later this morning and she planned to take Josh to meet him. She hoped they both were through with the Community Fellowship. But she wasn’t done trying to put Ridgeline and its camps out of business. She’d called her buddy at the FBI, and he’d started an investigation into their blackmail-style recruitment for the conversion therapy program.
The back door slid open and Josh stepped out, his eyes puffy and his hair wild from sleep. “Is there more coffee?”
An hour later, Rox parked her SUV on a side street across from the Multnomah County Jail and shut off the engine. The boy in the passenger seat asked, “What now?”
“We wait.” She pointed at a large overhead door on the back of the white-brick building. “Your dad will come out that exit, most likely with a group of other inmates. They tend to release people in batches.” The county ran the facility, so her experience here as a city officer was limited to booking suspects in. This was the first time she had waited for an inmate to come out.
“Thanks for all this.” Josh gestured at the jail, then himself. “I mean, bringing me here and giving both of us a home. I can’t wait to sleep in my own room.”
“You’ve thanked me enough.”
They were quiet for a moment, then he asked, “What’s going to happen to Brooke?”
The girl had gone from angry to relieved to scared as the officers questioned her at Goodwin’s house. Rox hadn’t seen her since a social service worker arrived at the scene to take both girls into state custody. “If they can’t find a relative who wants her, she’ll end up with a foster family.” Rox hoped the state wouldn’t force Brooke’s parents to take her back. The poor girl needed people who would accept her the way she was—and probably a lot of counseling. The other captive girl, named Ashley, had a family in Bend. She’d run away after a fight with her father and had been hitchhiking south when Goodwin picked her up and promised her a house in the country and all the pot she wanted.
“I can’t believe I’m not in juvie jail right now.” Josh rocked back and forth, obviously nervous. “But I’ll find a way to make things up to Brooke.”
“You already did.” Rox touched his hair. “You helped us find her, and you kept her from making a huge mistake.” Brooke had claimed she didn’t even remember that night with Josh and Tommy at the house, so the police had no reason to charge Josh with anything. They’d harassed him about not reporting Goodwin’s sexual relationship with a minor, then chose not to hold him accountable for it. But adults pulled that crap all the time and got away with it!
The young man was still dealing with grief though.
Josh shook his head. “As happy as I am to be home—and with my dad soon—this is still fucked up. I can’t believe Scott strangled my mom. Are you sure about that?”
“They’ll compare his DNA to trace evidence they found on Carrie. If it matches, then we’ll know for certain. The police wouldn’t release your dad if they weren’t sure about another suspect.”
“But why would Scott do it? Just because he wanted to get to me?”
“Mostly, yes. If he was doing drugs like you say, he may have been out of control and not thinking clearly.” The piece of breath mint she’d found in her parking lot flashed in her mind. Had Goodwin broken into her office looking for notes about Josh’s location? It seemed crazy, but he’d also given her two grand as a retainer for a made-up case—just to see if she had located Josh. Goodwin had also tried to kill all of them to keep them from finding the girls in his cabin. So he’d gone over the edge, for sure.
“What is it?” Josh asked, concerned.
“Excuse me, I have to make a call.” Rox stepped out of her vehicle, pulled out her phone, and pressed Kyle’s contact icon.
He answered almost immediately. “Hi, Rox. I only have a minute, but I’m glad to hear from you.”
“A funny thing.” She explained the break-in at her office and added, “I found a piece of breath mint in the parking lot, and I’m sure Scott Goodwin dropped it. Can you take it and turn it into the lab for DNA testing?”
“No shit?” Kyle made a breathy sound. “The technicians found something similar in Carrie Lovejoy’s car. I’ll make sure they test it for DNA as well. This could be the trace evidence that nails him for that crime.”
She needed that bit of good news. “Have you questioned Goodwin?” The state police had said they would transfer him to Portland—eventually.
“He’s not here yet. But the Bend detective says the suspect claims the incident on the road with you guys was an accident and that everything that happened between him and the girls was consensual.” Kyle let out a snort. “Even if that’s true, it’s still statutory rape. But don’t worry, we’ll get him on Carrie’s homicide.”
“Good luck. Let me know if I can help.” Rox hoped they would charge the bastard with Tommy’s death too, but they might never have any evidence for that crime.
A pause. “You could agree to have dinner with me soon.”
Rox looked up at the bright sun, still not sure how she felt, except angry at herself for being charmed by a psychopath. That would have never happened before—when she was herself. “I’m not going back to the treatments. But for now, I want to wait and see what changes for me as the effect wears off.”
“Can I ask again in a few weeks?”
“Please do.”
“See you later.”
They hung up, and she climbed back in her vehicle, then patted Josh’s arm. “I’m sorry you missed your mom’s funeral.”
Voices echoed across the street, and Rox looked up. Inmates streamed out of the now-open door. “Here they come.”
When Josh saw his father, he jumped out.
“Wait,” Rox said. “Let him cross over here.”
Isaac Lovejoy spotted them and broke into a run. When he reached his son, he wrapped his arms around the boy and hugged him hard. Their joy was palpable.
Rox smiled. That was why she did this for a living.
L.J. Sellers writes the bestselling Detective Jackson mysteries—a five-time Readers Favorite Award winner. She also pens the high-octane Agent Dallas series, the new Extractor series, and provocative standalone thrillers. Her 22 novels have been highly praised by reviewers, and she’s one of the highest-rated crime fiction authors on Amazon.
Detective Jackson Mysteries:
The Sex Club
Secrets to Die For
Thrilled to Death
Passions of the Dead
Dying for Justice
Liars, Cheaters & Thieves
Rules of Crime
Crimes of Memory
Deadly Bonds
Wrongful Death
Death Deserved
A Bitter Dying
Agent Dallas Thrillers:
The Trigger
The Target
The Trap
Extractor Series:
Guilt Game
Broken Boys
Standalone Thrillers:
The Gender Experiment
Point of Control
The Baby Thief
The Gauntlet Assassin
The Lethal Effect
L.J. resides in Eugene, Oregon where many of her novels are set and is an award-winning journalist who earned the Grand Neal. When not plotting murders, she enjoys standup comedy, cycling, and zip-lining. She’s also been known to jump out of airplanes.
Thanks for reading my novel. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review or rating online. Find out more about my work at ljsellers.com, where you can sign up to hear about new releases. —L.J.
-o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Broken Boys_The Extractor Page 21