As soon as we were clear of the fence I grabbed Clyde’s lead, and he took off again.
The first two buildings rose quickly around us, dropping shadows so deep it was like walking into an eclipse. It was ten degrees cooler here. I tucked my sunglasses into my shirt pocket and let my eyes adjust to the gloom as I scanned the buildings. Warehouses or offices, I assumed. Graffiti festooned the old brick walls. Broken windows glared as we passed. Small creatures skittered away in the tall grass, ignored by Clyde. Mica or a similar stone glittered in the dirt. Dew-bejeweled cobwebs guarded gaping doorways.
Near the end of the passageway between the warehouses, Clyde stopped, just as he’d been trained. I gestured for him to back down as I approached the corner and pressed my back to the wall. Wilson drew his gun and followed my lead, standing against the opposite wall.
I squinted into the brilliant splash of sunlight. Nothing stirred save the whir of grasshoppers rising and falling in the weeds. An immense cogwheel lay rusting in the open. A cluster of beer bottles twinkled brightly. I swiveled and checked the area around the immediate corner. All clear. Which didn’t mean anything except that Lucy’s abductor wasn’t waiting for us in the open with an M16 and an invitation to tea.
“See anything?” Wilson asked.
“Nothing. You?”
“Empty as a confessional in prison. But it doesn’t feel right. The hair is up on the back of my neck.”
“Wait here. If the killer circles around, you’ll have our backs.”
“Ah, hell.” Wilson holstered his weapon. “Wife’s always telling me I’ve turned into a desk jockey. You lead, I’ll follow.”
I unclipped Clyde’s lead, giving him more range, then gave him the go ahead. He jogged north and then turned east again as he pursued Lucy’s trail through the complex.
We followed him at a fast walk through shadow and sunlight as he led us past a factory and another warehouse and unnamable, cylindrical structures. Our path threaded between fallen concrete and unidentifiable slabs of metal and other chunks of debris. In one place, someone had made a campfire. The ground around the cold, charred wood was littered with empty crack vials and crumpled foil.
At each corner, Clyde stopped and waited for me to clear the next space. It was a beautiful demonstration of the drills he and I had been running under the guidance of the former Mossad K9 trainer I’d hired.
Your dog is one of the best I’ve seen, Avi Harel had told me. With good training, he will amaze you. But you’ve become lazy, and so has he.
Not lazy, I’d considered saying. Afraid.
Then, nearly a quarter mile into the complex, Clyde’s behavior shifted. He was twenty feet ahead, but a sudden alertness showed in his tense posture and the prick of his ears. It was different from the reaction he’d give if we were getting close to Lucy—he was uneasy, not jubilant. If Clyde was a human Marine on guard duty, this would be when he’d put out his cigarette and go quiet.
“Clyde’s got something he doesn’t like,” I said softly.
“What?”
“Don’t know yet.”
As I approached Clyde, he kept his gaze focused forward. Once I reached him, I touched his back and felt a faint shivering.
The death fear. Damn.
He’d stopped next to a half-fallen wall framing a set of stairs. The steps led down to an immense, sagging floor—a former basement-level room now completely open to the sky. The half wall, the stairs, and the floor were all that remained of whatever structure this had once been. At our feet, the ancient railroad spur that had served the factory curved through the tall grass.
But whatever interested Clyde was fifty yards away, across a meadow where five immense, beehive-shaped structures squatted in a field crisscrossed with concrete pathways. Twenty feet tall and the same distance apart, the domes were completely enclosed save for a single rounded doorway at the base of each. The railroad tracks swung behind the domes and disappeared. Beyond the buildings, a dirt road angled north.
I strained my ears, listening. Just the wind through the grass. High above, a hawk flew past, its shadow rippling along the ground.
“Kilns,” Wilson whispered. “It’s where they heated the raw materials to make cement. Back before someone designed rotary kilns.”
I gave him a look. He grinned and tapped his forehead. “They don’t make brains like this anymore.”
Impatient, Clyde started forward.
“Bleib,” I told him. Stay. To Wilson, I said, “There’s something dead. Up ahead.”
“Dear Jesus, tell me it’s not the girl.” His gaze followed mine toward the domes. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing yet.”
I swung my duffel to the ground, removed my binoculars, and glassed the kilns. A swarm of flies moved in and out of one area in front of one of the domes. Whatever had attracted them was hidden by the tall grass. I handed the glasses to Wilson.
“There’s something outside the second dome from the left,” I said.
Wilson raised the binoculars.
“Could be an animal,” he said after a moment.
“Could be.” I took the binoculars back and gave the area a final scan but saw nothing else. I replaced the glasses in my bag and hoisted it back onto my shoulder.
“Seek!” I said.
As we moved into the meadow, the place felt empty in a way it had not before. Save for the distant flies, the malevolence was gone as suddenly as if a spell had broken. All of nature seemed to sense it. A flock of starlings swooped in suddenly, settling on a nearby stand of cottonwood trees. A few feet in front of us, a bull snake whipped through the grass and disappeared down a hole.
As we reached the far side of the field, I halted Clyde and the three of us stopped twenty paces away from whatever the flies had been feasting on. Clyde pressed hard against my legs. I gently eased around him and took a few more steps until I could see what had drawn the insects.
A man lay sprawled on his back, his arms and legs flung wide, eyes open and empty toward the heavens. He’d been shot in the gut and left to bleed out, his face a rictus of agony.
He looked to be in his midforties, with closely trimmed blond hair and a strong, angular face, blue eyes turning opaque. He wore blue jeans, a button-down denim shirt, and a rain jacket. Even in death and with a face filled with pain, he looked cruel. The kind of man who kicked dogs and shot squirrels.
“Our killer?” Wilson whispered.
“Gut shot by an eight-year-old?” But I was wondering what kind of weapon had been used in the Davenport killings. “Maybe a security guard.”
“Where’s his uniform and radio?” Wilson frowned. “Nothing says the killer was working alone. Maybe they had an argument.”
I took a quick glance around the open space and the other kilns, at the buildings of the cement factory. I ordered Clyde down; no need to expose us both. Then I said to Wilson, “Keep watch. I’m going closer.”
I heard the scrape of Wilson’s weapon leaving the holster.
As I approached the body, the flies lifted, buzzing angrily. When I was close to the dead man, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and took a few quick shots. I did it without thinking. In Iraq, it had been my job to catalog the dead. Maybe that would never leave me.
As soon as I stepped back, the flies dropped onto the body again.
“Large caliber,” I said to Wilson when we were together again. “GSR and stippling suggests it was at close range.”
His eyes met mine. Both of us no doubt asking ourselves what we were walking into.
Leaving the dead man for now, I again gave Clyde the seek command. He skirted the corpse and went straight to the rutted dirt track. There, he hesitated for the first time since picking up Lucy’s scent at the Lexus. He sampled the air then dropped his nose to the ground. After a moment, he turned back in the direction we’d come, ignoring the body and trotting in a snakelike back-and-forth pattern around the kiln and through the surrounding vegetation. Finally, he returned to t
he dirt track and lifted his head to again taste the air. Then he looked at me as if to say, “I got nothin’.”
Together, Wilson and I turned north, to where the road curved toward the gate.
“She’s gone,” Wilson said. “He must have had a car stashed and took her away. Maybe you’re right—maybe the dead guy was a security guard. Saw them and tried to help Lucy.”
But I was still watching Clyde. He was moving back along the track, toward the kilns. He had his nose up—whatever he’d caught wasn’t a ground scent.
“Wilson,” I said. “Clyde’s got something.”
We hurried after him. At the farthest kiln, Clyde lowered his head and nosed his way toward the entrance. Just outside the doorway, his ears lifted with an expression of high alert and he lay down. Clyde was trained to detect explosives, contraband, and trespassers. This was his signal that he had something.
“Lucy?” Wilson breathed.
I shook my head. “Something else.”
Wilson and I drew our weapons and placed ourselves on either side of the entrance. I pressed my back against the sun-warmed bricks, listening.
Whether Lucy was dead or alive, I knew that she wasn’t in the kiln. If she had been, Clyde would have gone straight in. But someone or something was in there. Clyde’s behavior was both anxious and supremely confident. Whatever he’d found, he knew I’d be interested.
A trace of cool air wafted out of the kiln, carrying with it a mustiness of soil and old things and—it took me a moment to place it—leather. I strained my ears, but the only sounds were the flies at the body and Wilson’s labored breathing from the other side of the opening.
I slid my flashlight free of its loop on my duty belt, squatted to minimize myself as a target, then leaned into the doorway and shone the light inside.
The beam flicked over a large wooden chair, then a shovel. I sent the beam higher. Beyond the chair, the light picked out words painted on the wall in red, a quote I recognized from my classics class. My breath caught as I read the words and realized the killer had been here.
STRONGER THAN LOVER’S LOVE IS LOVER’S HATE. INCURABLE, IN EACH, THE WOUNDS THEY MAKE.
Euripides, I was pretty sure. Below that was written a single line of alphanumeric code—02XX56XX15XP.
I moved the beam back toward the floor. The large, circular space was pitted with holes, and—neatly arranged on one side of the room—two long forms lay wrapped in heavy plastic. Red paint spattered the inside of the plastic.
I thought, for just a moment, that I was looking at someone’s attempt to make a home. Haul in a little furniture, splash on some cheery red paint.
I flicked my beam over one of the plastic forms and saw a face peering through. Someone had taken a knife to it—there were only sockets where the eyes had been and the nose was split down the middle. The lips had been carved away, creating a morbid grin.
“No!” I shouted, coming to my feet.
Before I could step into the doorway, Clyde came up fast and pushed me back. My arms went up as I struggled for balance and my flashlight flew from my hand and sailed into the room. It landed and spun, the light winking in and out as it rotated, with each gyration shining on a thin line of copper wire running across the door. A wire as thin and delicate as a garrote.
Iraq. Heading one fine morning toward the mess tent as the sun rose. Exhausted and still filthy from the night’s work. My commanding officer, the Sir, beside me, nodding at something I’d said. Something about what I’d found in the pocket of one of the dead. From up ahead came the sound of Usher on someone’s boom box.
Then a deep-throated boom.
The flashlight beam hit the copper wire again. That’s when I noticed the bag on the floor. And the other wires.
“Parnell?” Wilson was saying.
“Run!” I shouted, giving Wilson a push. “Go! Go! Go!”
The flies soared into the air as we sped past the dead man and raced toward the farthest kiln. My mind flashed to the thought that we should try to bring the man with us. So we’d know who he was. So there would be something left to bury.
The explosion came with a sharp staccato crack and the world broke open.
CHAPTER 4
Ghosts are the persistence of guilt. The persistence of memory.
They are the dark, drowning persistence of grief.
—Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.
Something struck my face.
In the seat next to me, Gonzo shot me a grin.
“Put on some music, Lady Hawk!” he whooped. We were all using call signs by then. “Scare the shit out of them crazy raghead motherfuckers.”
“You’re the crazy motherfucker,” Robo muttered from the back seat.
Gonzo winked at me. “Gotta be crazy to stay sane.”
I steered the seven-ton with the refrigeration unit, following the line of Humvees along the wide, flat road. Behind us came the explosives ordnance disposal team in their specially equipped vehicle. The military police brought up the rear in an armored security vehicle. Through the windshield, beyond rows of cinder-block houses, a smudge of smoke was just visible on the horizon.
Another IED. Another group of dead troops. Another broken day.
“Steady,” said the Sir over the radio. “We’re okay.”
At precisely that instant, we blew up.
The truck hurtled into the air, pitched, then smashed like an anvil into the desert. The sky disappeared behind a wall of dust. The truck went sideways and my arms flailed for a hold, my knees slamming into the gear shift, my head striking the window, the seatbelt biting deep.
Then a long, slow silence.
Dust sprinkling into the cab like snow. Robo talking soundlessly in the back seat.
I sucked for air and found none. My lungs were clotted with debris; I was drowning in earth.
Another boom, and something wet spattered my face and chest.
Gonzo.
The first sound I heard through the ringing in my ears was a deep, ragged coughing.
I lay on my back, a sharp pain in my leg and another in my shoulder. Grit cracked between my teeth. I turned my head and spat then coughed again. My eyes burned with dust and I kept them closed. Something nudged my ribs; I swatted weakly with my hands.
I rolled into a fetal position, then, with a nauseating surge of dizziness, made my way to my hands and knees. My entire body screamed in protest. My face burned. I coughed again, drooling dust onto the ground. The world spun.
“Gonzo,” I whispered.
Not Habbaniyah, I told myself. Denver.
I rocked back on my heels.
Edison Cement Works. Kiln. Bodies.
Bomb.
My eyes shot open. “Clyde!”
A bark and another push against my ribs. Blinded by dust, I scrabbled for my partner. I felt his tongue warm and rough on my face and hugged him tightly before gently pushing him away. I pulled my shirttail free and wiped my eyes clear—blood made a Rorschach blot on the white fabric.
Clyde’s nose touched mine.
Frantically, I ran my hands over his head and back, down his rib cage and then along each leg. My hands came away thick with dust but otherwise clean.
“You’re okay, Clyde. Brav! Good boy.” My voice sounded like it came from half a mile away. I gathered spit and yelled, “Wilson!”
“I’m . . . okay!” His voice was faint. Maybe he was a faster runner than I was.
“I’m over here!” I called.
Done with Clyde, I checked myself. As I’d been taught in the Marines, I patted my legs, then squeezed my groin, armpits and neck, looking for arterial bleeding. When I lifted my fingers to my face, they came back bloody. Gently, I ran my fingers over my face and skull—the wounds seemed superficial. I rotated every joint. My knee felt like someone had taken it out with a sledgehammer. My leg and shoulder still hurt. But nothing was broken.
“We’re all right,” I whispered to Clyde.
I felt around on the ground until I fo
und my earpiece and shoved it into my pocket next to my phone. Nearby was my hat. My sunglasses—an expensive pair of Ray-Ban aviators from Cohen—were shattered. He should know better than to give good gear to a railroad cop. I leaned on Clyde and staggered to my feet, stumbling away from the kiln and into the open.
The structure Clyde had kept me from entering was vaporized. In its place was a deep, gaping hole rimmed with debris. The explosion had sent the bricks flying out in all directions and raised a cloud of dust I couldn’t see the end of. The chair, the bodies, the message in red paint, all were gone. As was the body of the dead man. When I saw a foot and ankle, severed from the rest of the body, I closed my eyes, picturing the red flags we’d used in Iraq to mark remains.
Just like Samantha Davenport.
Breathe. Stay here.
Please stay here.
When the ground stayed steady under my feet, I opened my eyes again, well aware that only distance and the intervening structures had saved Clyde and me from being blown apart.
“Wilson?” I ran my tongue along my dust-furred teeth and tried again. “Wilson!”
“Can’t . . . get up.”
I turned in a circle. Through the haze, I could just make out a form lying on the ground a dozen yards away. Clyde and I stumbled across the ruined landscape and found the detective sprawled on his back. His eyes were closed, his face awash with blood.
“Wilson! Dammit, you said you were okay.”
He groaned.
I dropped next to him and studied the gash running across his forehead. Wide and shallow. A bleeder. I did a quick check of the rest of him. He’d suffered a lot of superficial cuts on his arms and he had a painful-looking wound on his thigh. His left arm lay awkwardly across his stomach, the wrist turned at a bad angle and clearly broken. When I looked more closely, I saw a growing stain of blood beneath his hand. Gently I moved the arm aside, ignoring his groan, and lifted his suit jacket. Blinked. Put it back. I reached for my radio.
“First responders are inbound,” dispatch told me.
Dead Stop (Sydney Rose Parnell Series Book 2) Page 5