by Ace Collins
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Farraday Road (Book 1)
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The Cathedrals:
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Stories Behind the Best-Loved
Songs of Christmas
Stories Behind the Hymns
That Inspire America
Stories Behind the Great
Traditions of Christmas
I Saw Him in Your Eyes:
Everyday People Making
Extraordinary Impact
More Stories Behind the
Best-Loved Songs of Christmas
Stories Behind the
Traditions and Songs of Easter
Stories Behind Women of
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Sticks and Stones:
Using Your Words as a Positive Force
Stories Behind Heroes of Faith
ZONDERVAN
Swope’s Ridge
Copyright © 2009 by Andrew Collins
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.
ePub Edition October 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-86555-1
This title is also available in a Zondervan audio edition.
Visit www.zondervan.fm.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Collins, Ace.
Swope’s Ridge / Ace Collins.
p. cm.—(Lije Evans mysteries)
ISBN 978-0-310-27953-2 (pbk.)
1. Lawyers—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.O47475S96 2009
813’.54—dc22 2009018441
* * *
Scriptures are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers printed in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Interior design by Christine Orejuela-Winkelman
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight
Chapter Thirty Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty One
Chapter Forty Two
Chapter Forty Three
Chapter Forty Four
Chapter Forty Five
Chapter Forty Six
Chapter Forty Seven
Chapter Forty Eight
Chapter Forty Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty One
Chapter Fifty Two
Chapter Fifty Three
Chapter Fifty Four
Chapter Fifty Five
Chapter Fifty Six
Chapter Fifty Seven
Chapter Fifty Eight
Chapter Fifty Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty One
Chapter Sixty Two
Chapter Sixty Three
Chapter Sixty Four
Chapter Sixty Five
Chapter Sixty Six
Chapter Sixty Seven
Chapter Sixty Eight
Chapter Sixty Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy One
Chapter Seventy Two
Chapter Seventy Three
Chapter Seventy Four
Chapter Seventy Five
Chapter Seventy Six
Chapter Seventy Seven
Chapter Seventy Eight
Chapter Seventy Nine
About the Publisher
Share Your Thoughts
To Shalee,
whose life is a model for us all
Previously in the Lije Evans Mysteries Series
On a cold June night, in the pouring rain, small-town lawyer Elijah Evans and his wife, Kaitlyn, are found brutally murdered on Farraday Road. By some miracle, however, Lije Evans is revived and saved; when he wakes up in the hospital and learns of his wife’s murder, he vows to find her killer.
His only lead is a piece of property Kaitlyn had purchased only days before the tragic incident: mysterious and beautiful Swope’s Ridge, upon which sits a cold and lonely fortress built by a German recluse in the post—World War II era. As Lije investigates the history of this land, he discovers that its past is bathed in obsession and blood.
Lije teams up with Diana Curtis, an agent with the Arkansas Bureau of Investigation, and in the resulting journey they find an innocent man sitting on death row, a corrupt ABI director, and a legend hidden deep within the dirt on Swope’s Ridge. And through it all, the murderers watch their every move, until finally Lije faces them down.
Escaping with their lives but with little more information than they had when they started, Lije, Diana, and his associates, Heather and Janie, find themselves inside the stark fortress on Swope’s Ridge, staring at Lije’s great-aunt’s high school yearbook, which they found hidden in the house. The mystery turns out to be deeper and more complicated than anyone had imagined.
As they leave the fortress to investigate more, shots ring out from the logging road on Swope’s Ridge.
1
October 11, 2001
Waxahachie, Texas
IT WAS JUST PAST EIGHT AND, AS USUAL, OMAR Jones was running late. As he glanced at the clock, the twenty-eight-year-old computer programmer picked up a half-filled cup of coffee and splashed a last lukewarm gulp down his throat. He heard Charlie Gibson on Good Morning America voicing yet another story on the attacks in New York and Washing
ton. Had it already been a month? He still couldn’t begin to fathom how anyone could fly a jetliner into the World Trade Center towers or the Pentagon. Why would anyone become a terrorist? Why would anyone choose to die like that?
Jones switched off the TV and set down his coffee. He had thirty minutes to get to work, and traffic was sure to be snarled due to construction around Desoto. Hurrying toward the door, he stopped in front of a mirror to make sure his coal-black hair was neatly combed and his thick mustache showed no sign of the oatmeal he had just eaten. Satisfied, he pushed open the side door of his modest three-bedroom track home.
The scene that met him in the carport nearly caused his heart to stop. There, no more than ten feet in front of him, stood a police officer pointing a gun at his chest, with a dozen other officers—all heavily armed with weapons aimed and ready—spread out behind him.
“Omar Saddam Jones?” A man in a black suit stepped toward him.
Unable to manage a verbal response, Jones simply nodded.
“Put your hands on top of your head. Now.”
Jones quickly did as he was told.
Three men rushed up behind him, forcefully pulled his arms behind his back, slapped a pair of cuffs around his wrists, and patted him down. Then he was pushed twenty feet toward a squad car. Only then did Jones speak.
“What’s this about?” His voice sounded almost childlike to his ears. “You must have the wrong guy. I’ve done nothing! “
A large man in a dark suit walked to the car, leaned over, and said, “You know the Klasser family.”
Jones nodded. “Sure, they’re my neighbors.”
“They were your neighbors,” the man said. “Someone killed them. A month ago. Even the baby was murdered. Where have you been?”
Albert Klasser wasn’t just his neighbor; he was a good friend. They played softball on the same city team. Emily was the ideal wife. She made chocolate-drop cookies for the neighbors. And the kids…Jacob…Sarah…They were dead? “The Klassers?” he whispered.
“Jones, I’m Adam Horne, Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The tall, balding man showed Omar his identification, then looked around for another agent. “Take him downtown.”
The interrogation room was stark, just like the ones Omar had seen so many times on television. He’d been waiting alone for a half hour. His palms were sweating. He needed to call his boss.
The door opened and in walked Agent Horne, a thick manila file folder in his hand. The man sat down across the table from Jones and opened the file. He rifled through a few sheets of paper until he came to a specific report.
“Jones, we have a witness who saw you come out of the Klasser home on the evening of September 10.”
Omar had been gone a month. The tenth had been the night before he left on vacation. He’d arrived home late because he stopped to buy a few last-minute things for his trip to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail. A new sleeping bag and a rain poncho.
“I got home late,” he said. He hadn’t seen anyone. This was all a horrible mistake. But he had to keep his wits and think straight.
“What time did you get home?” Horne asked.
“I don’t know. About eleven.”
“Was anyone with you? Anyone see you?”
“No. I live alone. But I bought some stuff at the mall.”
“Then you have receipts,” Horne said.
Panic set in. Jones hadn’t used a credit card or written a check; he had used cash. He’d thrown away the receipt that first night on the trail.
He had grabbed a bite at a Burger King, but had used the drive-through. It had been so long ago, no one would remember him.
He’d killed some time watching kids playing football in a park in Red Oak, but he’d never gotten out of his car. No one had seen him there either.
No one had called him on his cell phone and he hadn’t made any calls. He couldn’t prove where he’d been.
“No, I paid cash,” Jones said. “I didn’t get home until almost midnight. I left before five the next morning. This is all a mistake. I love the Klassers like family! “
The agent turned over a few more pages in the file. “Do you know Martin de la Cruz?”
“Yes, he lives down the street.”
“Mr. de la Cruz told us that he spoke to you at eight on the night of the tenth. That you talked for about five minutes right in front of the Klasser home. He saw you come out the side door of that house. Do you remember he asked what you were doing?”
“No, it wasn’t me.”
Horne ignored Omar’s denial. “And you told him you’d been arguing with Mr. Klasser over religion.”
How could that be? He hadn’t seen Martin when he got home that night. He hadn’t seen anyone. Why was Martin lying? Why would he lie about anything?
The man waited for an answer, then said, “Where were you born?”
Suddenly everything became clear. Jones knew why he’d been arrested. On September 11 the whole world changed. When those planes flew into the towers, Omar Jones had been transformed from a naturalized citizen and college graduate with ten years in the workforce into an enemy of the state. It didn’t matter that he’d come to the United States at the age of sixteen months. It didn’t matter that he’d been adopted by Americans. It didn’t matter that he’d been raised as a Christian or that he’d been an honors student and had a master’s degree.
The only thing that mattered now was that he’d been born in Baghdad, in Iraq. On September 11 his Arab roots, his birthplace, had put a target squarely in the middle of his forehead.
“Where were you born?” Horne asked again.
Jones shook his head. “You know the answer.”
“And you knew the Klassers were Jewish.”
Jones nodded.
“And that Albert Klasser worked for the Federal Aviation Administration.”
With that final link, Omar felt as though he’d fallen into a hole so deep there was no light. Truth no longer mattered. He had been born to a Muslim woman. Even though he’d been adopted by Christians, they saw him as a Muslim who lived next door to a Jewish man who worked for the agency that oversaw the aviation industry.
One final question from the imposing agent removed all hope.
“Jones, can you explain why your DNA and fingerprints were found at the crime scene?”
Omar Jones stared at the floor. Being late for work no longer mattered. Nothing did. His life as an American was over.
They believed he was a terrorist.
2
LIJE EVANS SAW THE HAND-HEWN BOARD OF THE doorframe crack a split second before he heard the thunk.
The shot, fired from a rarely used logging road that ran along the highest point of Swope’s Ridge, barely missed Diana Curtis as she started out the door with Lije right behind her. They both plunged back into the safety of the old house and slammed the door.
“That was close,” Curtis said.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine.”
They waited a few moments in silence, ears straining for any noise. Nothing.
Lije moved back toward the door and opened it just a crack. The shot had splintered the rock-hard wood harvested generations before in the Bavarian Black Forest. The home had been built like a fortress in the late 1940s by a German soldier. To Lije it felt as if World War III had started here in Arkansas, on a hillside called Swope’s Ridge.
“Think he’s gone?” he asked.
Curtis, a former agent for the Arkansas Bureau of Investigation, crawled to the door and looked up toward the top of the ridge. Another blast put a second hole in the doorframe. Curtis dove back as the sound of the shot echoed through the hills.
“He’s still there. That shot was no accident.”
They knew the shooter hadn’t meant it as a warning. Whoever had pulled the trigger had a clear target lined up in the gunsight. If her head had been raised just a little more…
They waited and listened. Nothing. Then the sound of a car starting u
p and wheeling away.
“He just drove off, or he might be moving to a better spot. We’re still pinned down.”
“He could still be watching us,” Lije said. “Still waiting to make his move.”
She nodded.
“We’re trapped,” he said.
He finally took the time to check on his legal assistant, Janie Davies, who exhibited her normal calm, and his partner, Heather Jameson, who cowered in a far corner behind an overstuffed chair.
“We’re trapped but safe,” Janie said. “That door’s the only way into this place, and if he tries to come through it, Diana’s gun will no doubt provide a welcoming note. So we’re safe—really safe. After what we’ve been through, that’s a lot to be thankful for.”
As always, Janie provided wisdom in a moment of chaos. The Ozark foothills were littered with boulders, but none were more solid than this diminutive blonde whose blindness had tightly honed her other senses. She had a vision he lacked and a logical steadiness in the midst of calamity. If she wasn’t an angel, she would surely make a good prototype for one.
“Janie’s right,” Lije said. “We’re safe as long as we stay in the house. Nothing’s going to happen to any of us while we’re inside.”
Heather nodded but pushed deeper into her spot behind the chair, like a rabbit hiding from a wolf. She would’ve likely pushed into the thick wall if that had been possible.
Lije couldn’t predict what would happen next. That was entirely up to whoever had fired the rifle. Knowing they couldn’t dictate the person’s actions, they all looked toward the door and listened intently for signs of an approaching gunman. All they heard was the symphony of the majestic rushing water of Spring River as it cut its way through the foothills, and the rustling of leaves on the tall trees surrounding the six-decades-old structure. These sounds framed the moment with an aura of peace.
Lije was ready for a showdown. He glanced over at Curtis, who fingered the grip of the nine millimeter she had pulled from her purse. It looked as though she was itching to charge out into the sunlight and take on the assassin who had nearly ended her life. But she waited, perhaps convinced Janie was right. The German’s stuffy home offered sure protection against a foe carrying a lethal weapon.
The minutes dragged by as they each held their positions. No one spoke. Then, silently, Janie got up and walked toward the door. For a moment he considered pulling her back down to the floor. But in her uncanny way, she avoided any position where she could be seen from outside. Could she sense the sunlight pouring through the partly open doorway, or was it the slight breeze that led her?