The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 4-6 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set Book 2)

by John W. Mefford

  “Isn’t that Archie?” I said out loud. He had on his usual mirrored sunglasses, but was talking to another gentleman, who had similar sunglasses, with short, cropped hair and a blue blazer. He looked like a generic middle-aged mannequin from a department store. They were standing next to Archie’s miniature car. Given the hand gestures by the other gentleman, it appeared Archie was doing a lot of listening.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What are you up to, Mr. Woods?” I realized I’d just spoken to myself for the second time in the last few minutes. I guess it comes with having a cat.

  Archie arrived at the door a couple of minutes later and handed me my coffee. It was damn good. He pulled kolaches and two apples from the sack.

  “I’ll give an attempt at being healthy,” I said, buffing the apple on my denim shirt. I took a bite, but my two front teeth almost came out in the process. “Crap. I think the apple is petrified.”

  Archie tossed his apple in the bag. “Oh well, you should see what a horse can do to an apple.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” I opened the wrapper and had a bite of my kolache. “I never would have thought you and the country life could commingle so easily.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Eh, I’m pretty easygoing. I can usually adjust to my surroundings.”

  “So are you going to tell me why you posed as a vet? Was it just to have your way with Felicia?”

  He gulped some coffee, then wiped his mustache with a napkin. “I would say it was strictly part of my…uh, case, but I’d be lying. She’s easy on the eyes, that’s for sure.”

  I thought I heard a bit of a country twang in his voice. “Are you sure you just don’t mean easy?”

  “Ha. Funny, Alex. I was told to get close to people in the town. That’s all I did.”

  I nodded. “So is that what you were doing in the parking lot a few minutes ago?”

  His mouth stopped chewing. “You were spying on me?”

  “Takes one to know one.” I arched an eyebrow and pinched off some more of my breakfast and ate it.

  “Just some guy I met at the kolache store,” he said casually.

  We unfolded a large paper map on the round table and pulled up the earth application on my phone.

  I turned to look at Archie. “A guy from the kolache store followed you back to the motel?”

  “What? He…uh, you know, was pissed that I cut in line. You know how people can be.”

  Archie was keeping something from me. As I began to identify the location of the compound from the coordinates Gretchen had given me, I couldn’t help but wonder if Archie’s baggage might hinder our mission.

  Plopping my phone down on a crease in the map, I said, “Archie, I need to know.”

  “I’m a Pisces, I majored in pre-med in college, and I lean to the left.”

  “Lean…what?”

  “I’m not talking about politics, if you know what I mean.” He nudged my arm and chuckled once, then downed a kolache in a single bite.

  “Why would you go there?”

  “You’re not a believer. You want to see for yourself? It’s not something I joke about.” He stood up and grabbed the top of his jeans.

  “If you unsnap those pants, I’m going to take this pen and puncture a hole in your neck.”

  His butt hit the chair. “No need to get violent. Wait…you’ve seen my package. Remember, down in South Padre, after that psycho bitch tied me to the bed post in my birthday suit.”

  I picked up my phone, feigning to look for a text from Brad, or any other human.

  “Ah, I can see you just got a visual.” He smiled and used a single finger to jab my ribs. I somehow managed not to giggle.

  “No worries, I know you and Brad are officially an item. I’m respectful of another man’s turf.”

  I slowly turned his way. “I’m not a fire hydrant, and he didn’t piss on me to mark his territory. We’re dating.”

  “Peeeww,” he said, waving a hand in front of his face. “Someone’s been pissing on something in this room. Smells like a boy’s locker room. Now, did Gretchen mention the size of the camp?”

  To get off the topic of his package and his overall foul state of mind, I swiped my phone and pulled up the earth app. “Wait, you never really answered my question, Archie. In fact, you just spent the last five minutes trying to get me to forget about it altogether. Come on, Archie, what’s going on in your life? What we’re about to do here is too important. I can’t afford for you to disappear, or maybe go rogue on me.”

  He gently touched my arm, a serious look of concern on his face. “Alex, all of my shenanigans aside, I understand what this means to you. It’s your mom, for God’s sake. Oh, sorry for the unintended poor choice of words.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I just don’t want you to think of this as just another case, or another way to make a few bucks.”

  His lips pulled tight. “I guess we never discussed my rate. Not to be a douche, but what do you consider to be a few bucks?”

  I gave him a blank stare.

  “Okay, my standard rate and not a dime more,” he said, looking out the window for a moment. “Now if you pay with cash on the day we finish the case, then I can give you a two-percent discount.”

  “Two? That’s all?” I could feel a headache coming on. I sipped more of my coffee. “Forget I said anything, Archie. I’ll pay you every dollar I owe you…in cash if you like.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Sweet. Now where were we?”

  While I didn’t feel like he was being above board about his run-in with the fella downstairs—or his other case and especially his top secret client—I knew pressing him further would only create more frustration. For me mostly. Archie and I had a history, and while we’d had our differences, ultimately, I’d been able to trust him. And nothing could change that core belief.

  Then why did questions continue to ping my mind?

  “So, the camp is right about here,” I said, drawing a circle southeast of Parsons on the big map.

  “How big?”

  “Gretchen said it’s just under a hundred acres. Now, in looking at my app on my phone, I can zoom in here to see the tops of the buildings. Looks like there’s a barn and four other buildings. Gretchen is still researching to see if she can find specs for the buildings, through permits or whatever.”

  Archie nodded, his dark eyes studying the phone.

  “You’re thinking something. What is it?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Just getting in the zone. Four buildings. Do we know how many people are in the camp?”

  “Good question. Claudia guessed there were about a hundred or so, and at least half were kids, if not more. She also said there were three generations. She knew a woman who had been there, had kids, and now her kids had kids.”

  “Inbreeding in the hillbilly mountains of West Virginia,” Archie said with a straight face. “Who would have thought?”

  “Sadly, you might be right.”

  “Seriously? I was just throwing shit against the wall. That’s sick.”

  “Claudia said she met a couple of kids who appeared to be slow, and then she heard through the grapevine that their parents were actually first cousins.”

  Using the thin napkins from the sack, Archie wiped his hands, his face scrunched up like a prune. “Just because people can have sex, doesn’t mean they should. We’re dealing with some twisted folks.”

  He lifted from his chair and stepped to the window, arching his back. “That mattress last night sucked.”

  “We paid, what, twenty-nine bucks? What did you expect?”

  “Not sure I got more than a couple hours of sleep.” He rubbed his face, then turned around to grab his coffee. I could still see steam drifting out of the little hole.

  Two quick, chinking sounds, and shattering glass rained on top of me. Ducking my head, I grabbed the back of Archie’s windbreaker and yanked. At first he didn’t budge.

  “Get down!” I dropped to the floor, tugging harder on his jacket,
and he tumbled on top of me. He landed face first right on top of my chest. I think I heard another chink and more glass sprinkled the air. I closed my eyes and tucked my head tight against his.

  A few seconds ticked by, then I heard a baby crying. My neck felt warm. Was it blood?

  “Archie, were you hit?” I pushed him off me and glass fell from his curly bed of hair.

  “I’m good,” he said, trying to get to his feet. “I think I froze.”

  “Get out of the line of sight,” I said, waving my arm.

  He hunkered down.

  “What are you thinking?

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “Keep your head down,” I said, reaching up to the bed to grab my purse. “You got your piece?” I pulled my Glock.

  “Crap. Left it in my room.”

  I duckwalked over to the door and then stood up. “It was a rifle. Nothing too high-powered. Caliber was maybe a .223 Remington.”

  “A deer hunter,” Archie said, pulling up next to me.

  I held a finger to my mouth. More voices and the cry of the baby now echoed off the walls and pavement somewhere outside.

  “We can’t stay in here forever. Try to get to your room and grab your weapon. I’ll provide cover. Got it?”

  He nodded. I swung the door open, two hands firmly gripping the Glock, my weight anchored. No gunshots.

  Archie slid behind me, and while keeping his torso no higher than the four-foot railing, he got to his room then came back out, gun at the ready. “See anything?”

  I’d been scanning the parking lot and anything in my line of sight that was as high as we were.

  “Only see trees. Someone could be perched in any one of them, waiting to fire again.”

  Another wail from the child.

  I looked to my left, and a toddler walked out of an open door at the other end of the landing. I saw no adult figure anywhere around.

  “Cover me.” I took off running, hoping the sniper wouldn’t be warped enough to shoot the kid. Not slowing down a bit, I scooped up the little boy, who was wearing only a diaper.

  A boom caused me to spontaneously jump in the air. “Crap.” I looked down into the parking lot and saw an old truck billowing smoke out of its tailpipe. It must have backfired.

  I cut left into the room and found two girls and two guys hovered over a bunch of cards sprawled out on the bed.

  I set the kid down, and a girl wearing nothing more than a glorified bikini hopped off the bed and picked him up. That was when I noticed the kid was holding a piece of chocolate. It coated his mouth and was smeared across his cheeks, likely from all of his tears.

  “Poor guy.” I shut the door, then peered through the curtain. Nothing moving in any of the trees.

  “Didn’t you hear the bullets?” I said without looking behind me.

  “Whatever, lady. It was nothing,” one of the boys said.

  I picked up a strange waft, and I quickly looked over my shoulder.

  “You’re smoking weed? What the hell?” I said, moving closer.

  “Shit, dude, she’s got a gun.” A skinny kid who didn’t look like he’d started shaving yet kicked his legs until he fell off the bed.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing, just doing our thing, until you busted up the party,” the boy on the floor said.

  I realized all four had on very few clothes. “Put out the weed. What are the four of you up to?’

  “Just playing a game of strip poker, that’s all. We’re eighteen. We can vote and fight for our country. Means we can do just about anything we want, cop.”

  “I’m no cop.” I went back to the door, peeked outside, then gave a thumbs-up to Archie. He had a phone to his ear. “Sheriff is on his way,” he yelled. “I think we’re clear for now.”

  I shut the door and turned around to see the boy popping the top on a beer.

  “Didn’t you guys hear anything?”

  “Only some car backfiring.”

  “There was a shooting.”

  “No shit?” He burped as he spoke, and the other three laughed.

  “Nice. You don’t get it. Someone could have been hurt or killed, starting with this little guy. Is this your kid?”

  The girl nodded, holding the toddler on the side of her hip. “Don’t be telling me how to parent. I got every right to do what I want. He’s got food and shelter.”

  “And I’ve got every right to call in child protective services and take that kid to a family who will take care of him.”

  I opened the door and ran into an immovable object. Standing next to Archie was a man whose gut was so big I couldn’t see his belt.

  “Sheriff Tom Kupchak.” The man tipped his hat, then turned to look out across the parking lot. “We need to figure out what kind of trouble the two of you brought to town.”

  This was going to be a fun conversation.

  ***

  And I thought I was a tough interrogator. I had underestimated Sheriff Kupchak. Or at least his foul breath.

  Practically cornering us in my room, where a couple of uniforms and one so-called detective milled about—apparently waiting for a clue to jump out and grab someone by the throat—Sheriff Kupchak grilled us for a good hour. Although as time moved along, with Archie squirming like he had to use the bathroom, the sheriff’s questions morphed into political statements about his community.

  “We’re a quiet, humble town, full of law-abiding, hardworking Americans. American values, you know what I mean?” He looked us both over. I bit my tongue and hoped his preaching would soon end. “Most everyone here just goes about their business. Now when outsiders roll into town and the proverbial shit hits the fan…or a window in this case, then we got problems. And the only sure way to get rid of problems is to get rid of the root cause.”

  He gnawed on a soggy toothpick as his obscene breath invaded my pores, but I held my breath and forced out a response. “What happened to law enforcement collaboration, since, of course, we’re all essentially on the same side, trying to put bad guys behind bars?”

  “I’m a team player. Everyone’s a team player in this room, on my small force. But if there’s an elephant in the room, I can’t just ignore it.”

  Archie snorted out a laugh.

  The sheriff nodded slowly. “Something you want to say, Mr. Woods?”

  “Uh, no. I, uh, have this allergy thing going. Being in the mountains and all.” He then faked a sneeze. It was the worst acting job of all time.

  “Elephant in the room,” I said with one hand firmly planted on my hip. “Care to elaborate?”

  He chuckled. “Flashing your fancy badge.” He pointed at me. “And then bragging about all of your Jason Bourne adventures,” he said, nodding at Archie, “just makes you stand out for the wrong reasons. So now we got us a shooting to investigate. Yet no one got hurt, and the only two people who seem to care are standing right here. Outsiders. How many resources do you think I have to put on a case like this? This ain’t Interpol, you know.”

  Both Archie and I stood there in stunned silence—until Archie threw a thumb over his shoulder. “I really gotta go. Do you mind?”

  Sheriff Kupchak and I both rolled our eyes, and Archie disappeared in the restroom.

  “So, Agent Troutt, let’s start by you telling me the nature of your visit to Elkin, West Virginia.”

  “Just driving through.”

  “Playing it that way?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “The truth? Ha!” His baritone voice pummeled my eardrums. “The truth and the federal government don’t belong in the same sentence.”

  “First of all, I’m not a government. I’m a person. I can’t speak for every other employee who works for the US government, whether it be federal, state, or even at the local level such as yourself…” I let that one linger an extra second. “But my ethics weren’t drained from my body the moment I accepted my FBI creds. How about you?”

  He rolled his mashed-up toothpick to the other side
of his mouth. “Ethics. Yeah, okay, we can go there if you want, but trust me, that’s a battle you’ll never win in Elkins, or any other town in this area.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair, realizing Sheriff Kupchak was just baiting me at this point. As the town Grand Poobah, he could say or do anything he wanted.

  He curled his fingers toward his body and wiggled them. “Come on now, Agent. I need to know what the two of you are up to. How else can I properly investigate this shooting?”

  He had a point, but my trust factor wasn’t real high.

  “Hey, Alex,” Archie said, rounding the corner from the bathroom with something in his hand, “is this one of those dual-purpose bathroom tools? Toothbrush and vibrator all in one.” He smiled and switched it on.

  “What are you doing going through my stuff?” I snatched it out of his hand. “It’s a tooth brush, you fool. Sheesh.”

  Sheriff Kupchak shook his head while sticking both thumbs into his hidden belt loop. “Just what I thought. Whatever happened to the good ol’ American values?”

  I could have tried to explain that Archie was an idiot and I’d never heard of a dual-purpose toothbrush and vibrator. And on top of that, I had Brad. But this guy’s brain was thicker than a block of granite, so I didn’t see the reason to waste my energy.

  “Are you done with us?” I asked.

  “I can’t hold you on anything…that I know of, unless we find something around this room that’s illegal.”

  “No worries. We’ll be out of here in two minutes,” I said, giving Archie the signal to grab his stuff. I turned back to the sheriff who had started talking to one of his deputies.

  “Hey, Sheriff, what’s going to happen to that little boy?”

  “The one down the hall you scared with your gun?” he snapped back.

  I counted to three. “Uh, yeah. Him.”

  “Nothing. He’s going to stay with his mama where he belongs.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “Excuse me?” He took a step in my direction, his flesh turning pink.

  “Don’t you realize what she was doing in that room, and the other so-called adults? That’s endangerment to a child, just for starters. They can’t even take care of themselves, let alone a little kid.”