Mercy remembered how Truman had originally pulled Joshua over for the plates.
“You sent Truman a letter saying he owed you three million dollars,” she stated. “That had us looking for you when Truman disappeared, even though you got out a few hours after we think he vanished. Then you disappeared. That didn’t look good.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with his disappearance,” he said earnestly, meeting her gaze. “I didn’t even know he was missing. I was just trying to protect my own ass.”
“You’ve got people upset with you?”
His chin dropped. “I don’t trust them,” he mumbled.
“Why not?”
Joshua didn’t answer and stared at the tabletop.
“Where’s Truman?” Her heart hammered against her ribs.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But two days ago I heard a rumor that he’d escaped—but I swear I didn’t know they had him in the first place.”
“The people who head up your forgery business took Truman?” She glanced over at Samuel, who hadn’t blinked an eye. How can he be so calm? She was ready to dash out the door.
“I think they did. All I know is that I overheard a couple of guys talking about the cop who got away.”
“When? When did he get away?” She stood up, planted her hands on the table, and leaned toward Joshua, trying to hide her shaking arms.
“It was at least five days ago.”
Mercy froze. Five days? She slowly sat back down. “Then where is he?”
Joshua looked tormented. “I don’t know. I didn’t know who they were talking about until I heard something about the missing police chief on the radio. As soon as I realized that the guy who’d arrested me was missing, I knew that’s who they were talking about.”
“When did you figure this out?”
“Maybe a day or two ago. I didn’t know if I should do something or not. I didn’t want to get in more trouble with them, but . . .”
“But what?” Mercy wanted to shake him. This story was taking forever to come out.
“I know what they do,” he whispered. He slowly lifted his gaze back to hers. “They’ve killed people who wanted to get out of their organization.”
“Were they going to kill Truman?”
“If they were keeping him where I think they were, they were definitely planning to.”
“Where is it?”
Joshua told her about a remote property where one of the members of the forgery ring lived. It had an outbuilding where they’d locked up men before.
“What are we waiting for?” she snapped at Samuel, getting to her feet again.
“We’re waiting for a warrant and support,” Samuel said firmly. “I’m not rushing into a remote situation where armed banjo-playing bumpkins are running their own mini prison. County is pulling together their SWAT team for us.” He checked the time. “That takes some time. It’s going to be dark out there by then, Mercy. You need to be prepared that SWAT might want to wait and go in during the daylight.”
Mercy turned back to Joshua. “Are you sure he escaped? Would they spread that rumor if they’d killed him?” Bile rose in her throat.
“I don’t know,” he said miserably, looking ready to fall apart. “I don’t know anything else. I thought these people were my family.”
“Who have they killed in the past?” she asked.
“An old guy. He was a good artist . . . really knew how to make things look professional. He wanted out, and they were afraid he’d talk. They took a vote and put him down.”
Like a dog?
“Would they have taken a vote on Truman?” A chill spread over her skin.
He lifted one shoulder. “Probably.”
“If this place is as remote as you say, he could be lost in the woods. Is it above the snow line?”
“No.”
His answer gave little comfort. The weather had been miserably cold and wet for weeks.
“Samuel, we need to move our searchers to the forest around that place.” Her heart fell at the time that’d slipped away. By the time their search parties moved, it’d be too dark.
“County has their search-and-rescue team gearing up too. They’ll be ready to head out at first light tomorrow,” he told her. “I had the same thought about Truman in the woods.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come forward sooner,” Joshua admitted. “But . . .”
Damn you for not coming sooner.
We might be too late.
“I know how you’ve been raised,” Mercy told him, thinking of his sovereign citizen upbringing and attempting to keep the anger out of her voice. “It’s hard to go against everything that’s been ingrained in you since childhood.”
I’ve been there many times.
“But deep inside we all know when the right thing has to be done. If what you’ve been taught hurts others, there’s something very, very wrong.”
His posture drooped. “Yeah,” he said softly.
Tick tick tick.
THIRTY-FIVE
Mercy stood with Samuel on a remote side road a few miles from the property the SWAT team was about to invade. It was pitch-dark, and the temperature was rapidly falling, but at least it wasn’t pouring rain. By the time they’d received the warrant and the SWAT team had organized and made their plan, it was nearly nine at night. A few yards away, the team was reviewing last-minute instructions, their tank-looking armored personnel carrier ready to roll.
“I hope this gets us somewhere,” Mercy muttered to Samuel. She was petrified to allow hope into her heart; it’d been shattered too many times recently.
The SWAT team leader had been more than happy to enter the property in the dark.
“Less chance they’ll see us coming, but we’ll see them just fine.” He’d tapped his night vision gear.
The leader was currently conferring over a satellite photo of the area a second time with Joshua Forbes. Joshua had agreed that no structures had changed on the property and stated that up to six men could be in the house. Mercy had already studied the satellite photo, and bile had filled her stomach as she stared at the tiny square Joshua had claimed was the outbuilding most likely to have housed Truman.
She stepped right behind Joshua and spoke in a low voice to the back of his head. “If I find out that you’re lying about anything regarding this location, I’ll personally skin you alive. I’ll go all Game of Thrones on your ass.”
His face blanched as he turned to her. “I’m not lying.”
The team leader gave a big grin. He’d heard her threat. “Let’s load up!” he told his men.
Frustration filled Mercy as she watched them leave. She had no role to play. Her job was to stand back and wait.
I’ve been waiting for nearly two weeks.
Fifteen minutes later, she and Samuel got the call to come in. They left Joshua with a county deputy, knowing it was best if the men in his organization didn’t connect him with their raid.
The property was less than impressive. A single-wide mobile home with a large barn and a smaller shed to one side. Mercy tore her gaze away from the shed as she strode to the front of the home. That’s the place. The shed’s door was wide open, and the team leader had said it was empty.
Inside the home three men lay on the floor, their hands bound in zip ties behind their backs.
No broken door. No broken windows. No shots. No one injured.
A successful operation.
Two SWAT members stood near the bound men, their weapons ready.
The suspects looked up as she and Samuel entered. Mercy stopped in shock as she recognized one and scanned the room for a certain item. Then she pointedly checked all three men’s muddy shoes, went directly to the man in the middle, and squatted next to his head. “Aren’t you clever.”
Kenneth Forbes turned his face away from her.
“Do you collect disability pay from the government?” Fury shot through her at how easily she’d been conned into believing that he was disabled an
d reliant on his wheelchair. Why didn’t Joshua say his father was one of the men?
Then she remembered Joshua’s morose statement that he’d thought this was his family.
Did his father put out a contract to kill him?
And Mercy had believed her father was an ass.
It didn’t matter. Joshua was upright and breathing. Truman was her concern.
“Where’s Truman Daly?” she asked.
No one answered her.
She sighed. “You know his prints will be found in that shithole outside. Don’t you want a judge to hear that you cooperated when asked?”
Silence. But one of the men on the floor squirmed. She nodded at Samuel, who was already moving toward the man. He hauled him to his feet and took him outside.
“Do you know what GPR is?” she asked the remaining silent men. “It’s ground-penetrating radar. We use it to find buried remains. Rumor has it that there’s a grave on these grounds. And in it is a member of your little ring who you wouldn’t let walk away from your dirty business.”
Kenneth Forbes now faced her but said nothing, his bright blue eyes defiant.
“We were expecting a few more men here,” she stated. “Where is everyone?”
After a silent moment, she continued. “Don’t tell me you two are the type that can’t bear to answer to a woman?” She sighed dramatically. “Poor me, I guess I’ll have to wait for Samuel and his testosterone to come back if that makes you more comfortable.”
As if on cue, Samuel entered with the third suspect. Mercy was pleased to see the man didn’t have a split lip or black eye—Samuel knew better, but she knew his emotions were running high due to his missing boss. Samuel ordered him back on the floor by the other two, and the man didn’t make eye contact with his two buddies. “Truman got away several days ago, and three of their men are out searching for him,” Samuel announced. “They suspect a kid set him loose.”
“A kid?”
“A teenager. Some forest-dwelling hermit who’s a pain in their butts. Raids their supplies and damages their equipment.”
“I’d like to meet him,” admitted Mercy. Some of her worry evaporated. Truman wasn’t alone in the woods. “Why do they think this kid did it?”
“The handcuffs were cut with a bolt cutter, and they found dog prints around the shed. The teen always has a dog with him.”
“Where do we find this teenager?”
“These guys don’t know. I suspect if they did, the kid wouldn’t be breathing anymore.”
“I want to see the shed. Have county process these guys,” she told the SWAT team leader. She followed Samuel outside. He pulled a flashlight from his utility belt and lit the way. “What did you do to the guy you took outside?” Mercy asked Samuel as she stepped around the puddles.
“Nothing.”
She smiled in the dark. As they approached the shed, her smile faded. The small wood structure had a metal roof and sat on a concrete slab. It was the creepy place in a horror movie that teenagers should never enter. But they always do.
Her hand covered her nose and mouth against the stink as she stepped inside. A few glass jars were on the floor, the flashlight revealing their contents. Shattered glass covered part of the concrete, and a single handcuff bracelet hung from a pipe along the back wall.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. It was too easy to imagine Truman cuffed to the pipe. How long was he here?
Samuel shone his flashlight over the floor, and Mercy knew he was looking for blood. There was none. A small relief.
They silently filed back out.
“I’d like a few minutes alone with each one of those guys,” Samuel muttered as the two of them stood outside the house, breathing rain-cleansed air.
“He’s still alive,” Mercy said.
In the poor light, Samuel turned his gaze on her. “That’s the first time you’ve said that. I’ve heard you say we need to keep looking, but you’ve never said you believe he’s still alive.”
“I was too scared to think it. What if I was wrong? It’d tear me apart . . . more than I already am.”
“What if you’re wrong now?”
“I’m not. I can feel it.” She couldn’t explain. Two months ago an unusual woman had told Mercy she’d seen an invisible connection that strung between Mercy and Truman. Mercy didn’t believe witchy mumbo jumbo, but as she’d lain bleeding out in the snow the day her cabin burned, Mercy had seen . . . something . . . and known it was true.
Is that what I’m feeling? As she’d stepped out of that shed from hell, a confident warmth had filled her chest. It was still there.
Or else I’m finally cracking under the strain.
“That idiot inside gave me the last check-in location of the three guys who are out looking for the teen and Truman,” said Samuel. “I’ll pass it on to the SAR team. I know they’re planning to meet at seven tomorrow morning and start searching as soon as the sun comes up.”
“Can you trust what he said?” Mercy asked.
Samuel grinned. “Yeah.”
Mercy no longer wanted to know what Samuel had said or done to the man.
“Text the location to me. I’ll be there too.” She wanted to start searching now. “I’m not going to get any sleep tonight.”
“That makes two of us.”
THIRTY-SIX
“I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you’re capable of. We can’t have anyone slowing us down,” the search-and-rescue leader stated as he glared at Mercy.
“Trust me, I can probably outlast all of you,” she said as she scanned the rest of the SAR crew, ignoring the threatening twinge in her thigh.
She’d been in place that morning before anyone else arrived. Her backpack was stocked for at least three nights in the woods, and she was dressed in waterproof, breathable gear. She wore her most reliable hiking boots and had popped three ibuprofen. She had backups in her pocket. “I know what I’m doing.”
The group was composed of various local officers. Three, including the leader, were from the Bend Police Department, one was a Deschutes County deputy, and one was from the Redmond Police Department. They looked experienced and skeptical.
“Aren’t you the FBI agent who helped bring down that militia?” asked Anna, one of the officers from Bend.
“Yes.”
“She can handle it, Lou,” the woman said. “That was some nasty shit she was in the middle of. I heard about it.”
Mercy met Anna’s gaze and gave a small nod.
“Okay. But if you slow us down, I’m leaving you behind. You armed?”
“Yes.” Mercy touched the side of her jacket.
Lou focused on his map. “We’re about a half mile from where those perps out searching for the kid and the chief reportedly checked in. They claimed they found footprints at one point, so we’re going to operate on the assumption that they’re in the right place, because I don’t know who else would choose to be out in this crappy weather over the past week.
“If we follow the general direction from the place where Truman was held, it appears the two of them are heading here.” Lou circled an area with his finger. “I don’t think they would go any further north, because there’s a wide section of sheer cliffs that you can’t get around. But this is an isolated, sort of protected area. If this mystery kid has a hidden place in the woods, this is where I’d build it. No one goes here.”
Mercy couldn’t disagree with his logic. But there’s so much forest. What if he’s wrong?
They were truly searching for a needle in a haystack.
As they headed out, Mercy fell into the middle of the line, pleased to be doing something.
It finally felt like progress.
I hope my leg doesn’t give out.
“I think we should have waited one more day,” Ollie said, watching Truman catch his breath.
“I just need a moment. I feel pretty strong,” Truman lied as he leaned against a tree for the fourth time that morning. There was no way he was going ba
ck to the cabin. He could taste freedom; he had to keep moving forward. “It doesn’t matter if we go a little slow,” he argued. “No one is expecting us.”
He wanted to ask how much farther but knew he wouldn’t like the answer.
Shep touched his nose to Truman’s leg and then went back to sit next to Ollie. Truman wondered if he’d passed the dog’s inspection. Surely the dog couldn’t smell exhaustion, but his eyes looked at Truman in sympathy.
“What will you do when you get rid of me?” Truman asked, stalling for more rest time.
The teen shrugged. “Go back home. Keep preparing for the winter.”
The thought of Ollie spending the winter in his little hut made Truman shudder. No doubt Ollie didn’t mind . . . or did he?
“What would you like to do with your life, Ollie?”
He tilted his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I guess I’m asking what you want to be when you grow up,” Truman said awkwardly.
“Be? I want to be me.”
“What kind of job would you like to have? You know, like become a doctor or a lawyer or a fireman.” This is the sort of conversation I’d have with a ten-year-old.
“Oh.” Ollie thought hard. “I wouldn’t mind being a teacher. Don’t know what I’d teach, though.”
“I can totally see that.” Truman wasn’t surprised. Ollie had used a calm, steadying manner as he’d taught Truman card games. He was patient, kind, and brave as hell. “You should set that as a goal. You’re a natural to be a teacher.”
“I suppose this is where you talk to me about school again,” the teen said.
“I know you want to learn.”
“True.”
“We’ll make it happen. I promise you, once we’re out of here, I’ll help you explore all your possibilities.” He didn’t want to see the boy live out his life in the woods with a dog.
“You done stalling?”
“Yes,” Truman admitted.
“Let’s go.”
It was midafternoon when Lou halted and held up his hand, making the line of searchers come to a stop. “Ten-minute break.”
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