“Where’s Westcott?” Dean asked.
“Dead,” Joe managed. “In the storeroom. We’re clear.”
Dean emerged from where he had covered himself and a moment later Clark Arroyo, the man Dean had told him about two weeks ago when they’d made plans to undertake this mission, stepped out of the shadows, and Joe Taylor was finally able to breathe a little easier.
* * *
They got the woman on the table untied first. As Joe worked on freeing her, Clark made a quick sweep of the rest of the kitchen and the storeroom. Dean stood by Joe, relief and worry etched in his features. “I can’t fucking believe this,” he said. “This is just...it’s just...”
“Believe it,” Joe said, working on unloosening the knots around the woman’s wrists. The woman had been sobbing in relief, but now she was calmed down and looked at them with relief and gratitude. “It’s everything I was afraid of.”
Dean shook his head. He still gripped his handgun loosely, barrel pointing to the floor. He surveyed the kitchen, the bodies of Pete and Glenn, the Johnsons sprawled on the floor. “Who are they?”
“They were going to eat me!” the woman said. Now free, she massaged her legs, trying to restore circulation. “Chef Munchel...he was going to kill me, prepare me for these...these...” The woman couldn’t seem to speak about the incident anymore. Joe reached out to her and held her while she tried to get control of herself. She was older than Carla but in a way she reminded him so much of her.
From the storeroom: “Holy crap, dude, don’t shoot me!”
Joe called out. “Brian?”
Brian’s quavering voice answered. “Yeah?”
Dean stepped into the pantry. He spoke to Clark, who Joe couldn’t see, but he could hear the conversation perfectly. “He’s okay,” Dean said to the marksman. “He’s a victim.” Beat. “This one, on the other hand...”
“Don’t shoot him, either,” Joe said, still holding Anna in his embrace. “I want him alive.”
* * *
They used the coils of rope that were used to tie Anna King to the table and got Chef Munchel trussed up. Clark Arroyo made quick work of the ropes and had the award-winning Chef tied and gagged quickly. As Clark worked at securing Chef Munchel, Brian Gaiman came into the kitchen, wide-eyed, his face pale. Joe learned that he’d hidden himself back in the freezer when the shit went down. “It was the quickest hiding place I could get to,” he said.
“And the smartest,” Joe said.
Once Chef Munchel was tied up, Clark propped him up against the wall. Joe stood next to Brian, looking down at the unconscious man. “How hard did you hit him?”
“Hard as I could,” Brian said. He shrugged. “I hope I didn’t kill him.”
Clark knelt beside him, felt for a pulse in the man’s neck. “He’s alive. Pulse is weak.” He pulled back Chef Munchel’s left eyelid, watched the pupil retract. “He should come out of it soon.”
Joe turned to Dean Campbell. “We need to look for the others.”
Dean nodded, turned to Clark. “Phase Two,” he said.
Clark got up and Joe turned to Brian and Anna, who were standing near the table where Anna had been tied up. They’d dragged Chef Munchel into the kitchen rather than leave him in the pantry with Rick Nicholson’s mangled remains. “I need the two of you to stay here. Can you do that?”
“Where are you going?” Anna asked. While she looked frightened, there was a sense of strength that was coming to the surface that Joe liked.
“We need to try to catch some of them.”
“But what if they—” Brian began.
“They’re not going to come back,” Joe said. He gestured at the bodies of the security guards. “We took down their security team. Everybody else scattered. They’re probably in their vehicles heading off the property now, but if we can catch up to a straggler—”
Clark Arroyo slapped in a fresh clip in his handgun. “Let’s do it.”
Joe handed Brian the Sig Sauer and two extra clips. “Just in case.”
Brian took the handgun and clips and nodded. No longer the frantic victim, he seemed empowered now that he’d been rescued.
Joe Taylor, Dean Campbell, and Clark Arroyo exited the kitchen and set off to track down the rest of the board members and their guests.
* * *
An hour later they all gathered back in the dining room.
Anna King and Brian Gaiman had carried Chef Munchel into the dining room and braced him against the far wall while he was still unconscious. Brian wanted him moved because he didn’t like hanging out in the kitchen where the dead bodies lay. Anna didn’t care either way. Anything to abide by what Brian wanted, since he was on her side.
Once they had Chef Munchel out, they brought some chairs over and set them in a rough semi-circle around him. Then they waited.
When Joe Taylor, Dean Campbell, and Clark Arroyo arrived back, Joe looked disappointed. “They cleared out,” he said.
“Has anybody been monitoring any of the mobile devices the security guards were carrying?” Dean asked.
“Uh...no,” Brian said. He cast a look back at the kitchen and grimaced. “The thought of touching one of those guys just...makes me squeegee.”
Clark headed toward the kitchen. “Which one is Paul Westcott?”
“The one in the pantry,” Joe said. “Blue slacks and white shirt.”
Clark headed through the kitchen to the pantry.
“Some of them left their belongings behind,” Dean Campbell said to Joe. “One of the suites’ doors was chocked open. It looked like whoever occupied it left in a pretty damn good hurry. They left suitcases.”
“There’s probably records in the computer system,” Brian said. “And if the security booth was being manned, there’s probably some kind of list somewhere with their names and addresses.”
Dean nodded. “We already have all that information.”
“There’s one other staff member probably still on the grounds,” Brian said. “Charlie Thompson. He’s probably in his suite, way on the other side of the property.”
“Do we need to worry about him?” Dean asked.
“No,” Brian said. “He was tapped by Wayne to be on hand for any maintenance issues that might arise during this thing.” He told Dean an abbreviated version of how he hid in Charlie’s closet and overheard his former co-worker talking on the phone to his friend about Brian’s disappearance. “They were telling the staff that I was on a meth binge.”
Clark Arroyo returned with Paul Westcott’s Blackberry. “No messages yet. And there’s an app here that connects directly to the county Sheriff. Nobody sent out a distress call to them. Lucky for us.” He sat down in one of the chairs, facing Chef Munchel.
“So what now?” Brian asked.
“Now we wait for him to wake up,” Joe said.
* * *
A moment later, Chef Munchel woke up.
* * *
They waited until he was fully conscious.
During that time, brief introductions were made. In the heat of the moment, she hadn’t recognized the man she’d waited on over the last few days. She hadn’t recognized him as the man who had been so nice to her, who had introduced himself to her as Bob Garrison.
Twenty minutes later Chef Munchel looked at Anna King and she couldn’t tell if her former employer was scared, nervous, or angry. His eyes darted from her to Joe, back and forth. He seemed most confused by Joe. She remembered back in the pantry when she was still tied up. Chef Munchel had looked at Joe in surprise, obviously recognizing him.
“Your name isn’t Bob Garrison,” Chef Munchel said. His voice was slightly slurred.
“No, it isn’t,” Joe said.
“What is it, may I ask?”
“You can ask, but I’m not telling you.”
A hint of a smile on Chef Munchel’s lips. “I’m disappointed, Bob. I was so looking forward to our meal tonight.”
“So was I.” Joe leaned forward, looking down at the Chef.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.”
The two men stared at each other. Anna had the instinctual feeling that there was something more at play here, something that went back in Joe’s history with Chef Munchel when he had fooled him into believing he was Bob Garrison. She had no idea who Dean Campbell and Clark Arroyo were—she assumed they were private investigators of some kind. They surely weren’t real police or detectives or federal agents. If they were, more cops and detectives would have been on the scene by now. They were playing this privately, much like the next five days at Bent Creek had been for Wayne Sanders and Chef Munchel’s private, exclusive guests who paid lots of money to dine on exotic dishes prepared from human flesh.
“I’m going to show you a photo,” Joe Taylor said. “And I want you to tell me if you’ve ever seen the person in that photo. Furthermore, if you recognize this person, I want to know what happened to them. Every detail.”
“Mmm, I see what we have here,” Chef Munchel said. There was something about the lilt and tone of his voice that creeped Anna out. “You’re a vengeful father, husband, boyfriend, or significant other. Once I tell you what you know about your loved one, you’re going to kill me, right?”
“No,” Joe said. “I’m not. I just want to know what happened. And why.”
Chef Munchel raised his eyebrows. “That’s unheard of.”
“Not really. Lots of murder victim families get to confront the murderer of their loved ones with these questions every day.”
“I see,” Chef Munchel said. “You want closure.”
“Look at the photo,” Joe Taylor said. He reached into his pocket and extracted a leather billfold. “Nod if you recognize her. And be truthful. If you lie, we’ll know.”
Joe Taylor unfolded the billfold and held it up to Chef Munchel. The chef looked at the photo for a long moment, then nodded. “I remember her.”
“What happened to her?” Joe Taylor asked.
Jim’s eyes flicked up to Joe’s. “You know.”
Anna was watching the exchange with bated breath. She could sense the underlying emotion simmering in Joe. Rage. Anger. But most of all a tremendous sense of finality. Of loss. Of confirmation that whoever was in that photograph had been very dear to him and he was finally facing the truth of her demise.
“Who brought her here?”
Jim Munchel said nothing. His eyes remained locked with Joe Taylor’s.
Joe knelt down in front of the chef. “I know she came in contact with a man named Bill Richards. She had a job interview with him, for a company that we later found to be false. She disappeared after that meeting. Last week, we learned that Bill Richards was an alias used by Earl Sanders. We tied Earl to Wayne by the holding company that was used to form Apex, the company we found to be false. The holding company was incorporated by Wayne Sanders.” Joe paused for a moment, letting this information sink in. “Tell me how she was chosen.”
“Earl chose her,” Jim murmured.
“What do you mean, he chose her?”
“I don’t know the details. But he probably saw her somewhere. And...she probably looked good to him. So...he learned about her. That’s what we do. We learn about them to make sure they’ll fit, to make sure they’re healthy, that they’ll be easily trapped, and their family and friends won’t have the resources to find them.”
Joe frowned. “Earl misjudged that with her.”
Jim said nothing for a moment. His eyes locked with Joe’s. “I suppose he did.”
“He set up the fake job ad?”
“Yes. Everybody in the club, the heavy-players, they’re the ones who pick out their choice menu items. They’re the ones who set things up to...how shall I say it? Ensnare them.”
Joe said nothing. The tension in the air grew thick. Anna could feel her disgust rise. She thought about Mitch and Theresa Johnson, how they’d picked her out in Denver, Colorado at Hoops, that sports bar she’d been at with her former co-workers. They’d scoped her out at the same time she was sizing them up.
Clark Arroyo spoke. “Earl Sanders, a.k.a., Bill Richards, had her abducted and taken here.”
Jim Munchel looked up at Clark and nodded. “Yes.”
“And I was recruited for this job because the Johnson’s picked me out,” Anna said. Her gaze bore into Jim, smoldering. “Only I got the drop on them, too.”
Brian looked at Anna, curious. The statement didn’t get a rise out of Dean, Joe or Clark. Their attention was still directed at Jim Munchel.
“If you think you’re going to take this network down, you are sadly mistaken,” Jim Munchel said.
“Am I?” Joe Taylor asked. “Explain.”
Jim Munchel let out a little laugh. “Be reasonable. You think you can take down Wayne’s circle? You might have me, you might have evidence of murder, but you have no evidence of what really went down here.”
“We have a survivor,” Dean said.
He means me, Anna thought.
Jim cast a glance at Anna. “You have a thief. Last time I checked, the crimes Anna King has been admitting to and committing are serious felonies punishable by life in prison.”
“I’m not concerned with what Miss King is accused of,” Joe said, keeping his gaze locked on the chef’s.
“Well, you should be. She’s been stealing from some of the richest, most powerful people in the country.”
“Don’t forget the most depraved, too,” Joe said. “This isn’t about her. This is about you and your network of sadistic low-life freaks who feel they are so above everybody that they feel they have to eat people, especially those they feel a sense of superiority over.”
“It’s nothing like that,” Jim replied. He was shaking his head. “No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong! You’re making it out as if this is all a symbolic act, like some twisted S&M game. Or a way to feel superior to the commoners.”
“Then what is it?”
Jim smiled. “It’s because we like the way...” His eyes seemed to grow dreamy. “It’s because we like the way people taste. There’s nothing more to it than that. No symbolic act of superiority.” He looked at Joe. “We simply like the way human flesh tastes when it’s properly prepared.”
Anna felt her stomach churn. The tension in the room seemed to grow heavier, a dead, weighted thing. Anna felt her heart race at the thought of what had almost happened to her.
“Think about it, Mr. Garrison. I can still call you Mr. Garrison, can’t I? Since you won’t reveal your real name?”
“Of course,” Joe said.
“What’s your favorite dish, Mr. Garrison?” Jim Munchel looked up at Dean Campbell, at Clark Arroyo. “You gentlemen? What dish do you find so mouth-watering that you’ll drive clear across town to a restaurant that prepares it exactly the way you like it when that same dish is prepared at restaurants closer to your place of residence?”
“I fail to see the analogy,” Dean said.
“The analogy is this,” Jim said. “The people I serve, the Bent Creek elite who have formed this little secret dining club, will employ extreme measures to partake in a dish they find mouthwatering and irresistible much in the same way when you have a hankering for some kind of beef or poultry dish and you drive across town to dine on it when restaurants closer to you serve similar dishes. The reason you travel across town is because the chef at that far-flung location has a certain flair, a certain...zest for preparing these dishes. The meat is more tender, more tangy, and the way it melts in your mouth...pure magic! You pay extra in mileage, in time, and in menu price. The people who are part of this club pay extra in mileage for their travel here, in time for the inconvenience in traveling here, and in price due to the risk. To them, the rewards are worth it.” Chef Munchel looked at Joe. “We had countless conversations about this, Mr. Garrison. You recall, yes?”
“I do,” Joe said.
“I suppose all that talk about how you dined on Silverback breasts was all a ruse, wasn’t it?”
“You could say that
.”
The more Anna listened to Chef Munchel, the more disturbed she got. Listening to him, and remembering what he told her earlier about how he got into this was painting a very ugly, disturbing picture. She could tell that the man Chef Munchel was referring to as Bob Garrison was fighting to restrain himself from physically attacking the chef. Dean and Clark appeared more stoic. The more she observed, the more she had the impression that Dean and Clark were hired guns and that Joe Taylor wasn’t simply your average man out to learn the truth and seek revenge. He was that, but he was a lot more too. If he’d infiltrated Chef Munchel and his inner circle, he was cut from the same social strata. He was a man of power and wealth, of a certain prestige. The fact that he had probably been rubbing shoulders with Chef and some of the other members of this cannibal club told Anna that he was very wealthy himself.
But he was not cut of the same cloth as they.
“This was never about broadening your culinary taste,” Chef Munchel continued. “It was all about one of the oldest motivations in human existence: revenge.”
“No,” Joe said. “It wasn’t about revenge.”
Chef Munchel cocked his head questioningly. “Oh, but it must be, Mr. Garrison. You’re a lousy liar when it comes to what you hold true to your heart. I saw the resemblance in that photograph. She’s your daughter, isn’t she?”
Anna noticed Bob Garrison’s jaw twitch. Confirmation.
Chef Munchel smiled again. “See? I was right! Daddy was coming to find out what happened to his little girl!”
Retreat Page 28