Undercover Hunter

by Rachel Lee

  “Do we have any idea of his cycle?” she asked.

  “The killer? Not sure. He was escalating somewhat before he vanished, and he seems to be escalating again. It’s hard to be sure with only three missing kids, though. You read the report?”

  Of course she had, but it had mostly been a description of events five years earlier. Little enough about the present except that it appeared to be happening again. Since Cade had been in these parts for at least a decade, she couldn’t help wondering if he knew more than was in the report. If so, they were going to have a meeting of minds very soon. If not...well, they were starting on equal footing. “The more frequently he acts, the more likely he’ll slip up.” On the other hand, that put some very real pressure on them to figure out something fast.

  “We’ll find out.” He pulled a left turn onto an even narrower street, this one devoid of pole decorations, although a few houses still sported lights along the eaves. Barnstable Street.

  “There it is.”

  Unmistakable, she thought. It was the only house on the street that was completely dark. Not very big, either, which could be good or bad, depending. Her mind ticked over impressions, cataloguing them for later.

  He stopped the car at the end of a plowed driveway, no heaped snow blocking it. “I’ll get the key.”

  She didn’t answer, just climbed out. He paused, then switched off the ignition and set the brake. She didn’t explain her actions, felt no need to, but she was damned if she was going to start letting him cut her out of anything, however small.

  She was a tall woman, but Cade was even taller. As they mounted the three salted steps side by side, the wind bit at them with frigid teeth. It was freaking cold this evening, like the breath of an advancing ice age. Even with her hood pulled up, the chill found ways to snap at her ears.

  Cade knocked, a courteous knock rather than a police banging, and soon the front door opened to reveal a beautiful and very pregnant young woman. “You must be the Dentons?” she said.

  Cade nodded. “I’m Cade, and this is my...wife, DeeJay.” DeeJay hoped she was the only one who noted that hesitation. To her it sounded too obvious to miss.

  “Come in,” the woman said, smiling. “I’m Kelly Jackson. You’ll freeze out there waiting for me to get the key.”

  So they stepped into a tiny foyer where the wood floor was covered in a bright braid rug and a few photos hung on the walls. “How about some coffee?” Kelly asked. “You must have had a long drive. Hank should be back soon. He’s helping with the search parties.”

  DeeJay could smell roasting pork from the kitchen and guessed dinner was cooking for Hank. Then it struck her. This woman was talking about search parties to a couple of travel writers. What’s more, they weren’t supposed to be clued in.

  As they were ushered into the front room and waved to seats on the sofa, she asked, “Search parties?”

  “We’ve had a boy go missing,” Kelly answered, her smile fading. “Just twelve years old. Let me get that coffee.”

  Kelly returned quickly carrying a tray that held three mugs and a coffeepot. “You’ll like the house,” she said. “I know you might not be here very long, but it’s where I first lived when I moved here.” Her face seemed to shadow, but then it brightened. “A real estate agent rented it to me when Hank was away for a few weeks. I thought Hank was going to have a cow when he found out. The place was in terrible shape. I don’t think you ever saw a man move so fast to repair things. He hadn’t intended to rent it out so soon.”

  DeeJay thanked her for the coffee. “How long did you live there?”

  Kelly laughed again, seeming to relax. She sat in an armchair across from them. “Long enough to finish out my divorce and marry Hank. Just long enough to fix it up a bit. The furnishings aren’t top-of-the-line, but they’ll serve you.”

  “What’s Hank do?” Cade asked.

  “He’ll tell you he’s just a cowboy.”

  DeeJay hooked on the way she said it. “But?”

  “Hank will never be just anything.”

  DeeJay was sure Kelly believed that, but she also sensed there was more of a backstory. No way to ask. “So he’s out searching for this boy?”

  “A lot of people are.” Kelly’s face darkened again. “I might as well tell you, since you’re going to run into it anyway. You picked a bad time to write a travel piece about us. Even with the new ski resort opening next fall.”

  “Why?” DeeJay asked gently.

  Kelly shook her blond head. “This is the third boy to disappear since late fall. And some are talking about how this happened before I moved here. People are scared. Whether they talk to you about it or not, you’re going to sense their fear.”

  Five minutes later they were parked in the short driveway of the dark little house. Kelly assured them that Hank had turned up the heat that morning so they should be warm. Everything was ready for them, including the phone.

  Cade drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Want to unload the suitcases first or find a place to eat?”

  “Greasy spoon?” she asked, quoting him from earlier.

  “One of the best.”

  “Then let’s eat first. As cold as it is tonight, I don’t want to settle into warmth and then have to go out again. When do we meet the sheriff?”

  “Soon. With the search going on, I can’t say any better than that.” He pulled away from the house, rounded a block and headed in toward the center of town. The houses grew bigger and some even boasted decent-sized yards.

  If you blinked, DeeJay thought, you could miss the entire center of town with its flashing red stoplight. It had the kind of charm most old small towns boasted, along with the inevitable seediness. It could have been almost anywhere in the country or anywhere in the past century.

  Whatever tourism might come to Conard County from the ski resort, the town hadn’t yet given in. No cheesy T-shirt shops, no cowboy-hat shaped neon announcing Western clothing. No upscale boutiques. No touristy stuff at all. The town hadn’t yet wakened to its new status. Maybe it never would.

  They parked at a place called the City Diner. “It’s empty,” she remarked before they climbed out of the car. “That’s not a good sign.”

  “This place has a great rep,” Cade answered. “And remember, people are either out searching for a boy or they’re locked inside where it’s safe.”

  Three boys missing and the town feared they had a killer in their midst. Not understanding the mentality of most serial killers, they wouldn’t get that anyone other than a young boy would probably be safe. And that was wise, because there had been a few who had had no particular victim type, and hadn’t cared whom they had chosen for their ritual.

  “Ramirez,” Cade said, almost as if he were reading her mind. “That guy ran the gamut in his victims.”

  “But as far as we know, this one doesn’t.”

  “So far.”

  “Maybe more like Gacy.”

  “Maybe.”

  Inside, the diner looked ancient, with seats patched with tape and tables that were scratched past all shine but clearly clean. The menus weren’t even sticky, but the woman who waited on them was something else. If she’d ever had a charming bone in her body, it had abandoned ship a long time ago. Crockery clattered, cups slammed, hot coffee filled them and splashed a bit, and all without any communication beyond indeterminate grunts. Mavis apparently wasn’t much for talking.

  Then came the platters overflowing with steak sandwiches and enough fries for an army. The dinner salads in their tiny bowls almost disappeared beside them.

  It was then they discovered that Mavis could talk.

  “You them travel writers?”

  “Yes,” Cade and DeeJay answered together.

  “Humph. Bad time to be coming to these parts. Don’t know if I like
that whole ski thing, neither. We were getting along just fine.”

  “You’ll get more business,” Cade pointed out.

  “Already got all the business we want, and some that we don’t.” With that, Mavis stomped away.

  Cade and DeeJay exchanged looks, the first real understanding that had passed between them. It arced almost electrically, and both quickly glanced down at their plates.

  “So everybody knows who we are,” DeeJay remarked, picking up a half a steak sandwich that by itself would have fed three men.

  “At least we won’t seem suspicious.”

  “Maybe not.” But she had her doubts. Strangers in a frightened town always caused suspicion. They really had their work cut out for them.

  * * *

  The house created its own set of problems for them. It was tiny, with one small bedroom. DeeJay insisted she sleep on the couch because she was shorter, and this time Cade didn’t offer an argument.

  They’d brought home hefty containers full of leftovers, but they’d also made a stop at the grocery for coffee. No day would be complete without it. At least they agreed on that much. Cade picked up a few other odds and ends for snacking while DeeJay selected some energy bars. Even frozen, they’d be edible, and right now they were utterly in the dark about how they were going to handle a case they knew very little about.

  Back at the house, they brewed a pot in a decent drip coffeemaker, then sat down to pass the time. Being here in support of local law meant they had to await directions. And all of this undercover stuff was designed to lull the perp. If he caught wind that two state investigators had been brought in, he might disappear again. The pressure to catch him was heavy, almost creeping along DeeJay’s nerve endings. She suspected Cade was feeling much the same.

  “There are crimes and then there are crimes,” she remarked.

  “I read you loud and clear,” he answered.

  “These sick twists make my skin crawl. I’ve dealt with all kinds of crimes. Just like you. I can understand most of them. People get mad. They want money. Lots of reasons that fit human understanding. Hell, most of us have probably felt an urge or two in our lives but haven’t acted on it.”

  “True.”

  “But these guys...they like it. They’re playing out some bizarre fantasy and compulsion. They never stop until they’re dead or in jail. All that stuff they poured into us at Quantico? It still doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “I don’t think it ever can.”

  “If it ever does, I may cash in my chips.”

  He surprised her with a quiet laugh.

  She looked at him, something she’d been trying to avoid by pretending a fascination for the pattern in the curtains or the back of her hands. “I didn’t mean that to be funny.”

  “I know you didn’t. I laughed because my reaction is the same. It’s bad enough we have to try to understand enough to predict him. That’s as much understanding as I ever want to have.”

  “More than enough. And we start as usual with the same bare-bones outline. Probably male, most likely white, late twenties to early thirties, drives a car that doesn’t stand out...” She trailed off. “A lot of blanks to fill in.”

  “It could be a woman.”

  “Quit reminding me we can’t eliminate anyone.”

  At that he laughed freely, and as much as she didn’t like most men, she joined in. It felt good, released tension, and she hoped he was beginning to feel less resentful of having a woman for a partner.

  In fairness, he couldn’t feel any more resentful of her than she felt of him. She sighed as the laughter died. Somewhere in the depths of the house the heat kicked on. First came a wave of chilly air, followed by warmer air that smelled a little musty.

  The doorbell rang. She let him answer it. She heard Cade and another man exchange a few words, then Cade ushered in the sheriff along with a blast of cold air. The first thing that struck her was that one side of his face had been burned and showed old, shiny scar tissue. The next was that he limped, and occasionally pain flickered across his face. The car bomb.

  “Gage Dalton,” he said, pulling off his glove and offering his hand. She rose and shook it. Cade took his jacket while DeeJay introduced herself. And even though it was a female thing to do, which she usually avoided, she asked if he wanted coffee.

  “Always,” he answered promptly.

  “I’ll get it,” Cade said.

  DeeJay waved Gage Dalton to a chair and didn’t miss the way he winced as he sat.

  “Long day,” Gage said.

  She didn’t want to dally on niceties. “When did the boy disappear?”

  “Four days ago, after school. His dad was in town to buy supplies at the feed store and told the boy he’d pick him up after school. When he got there, the boy was gone and the dad assumed they must have crossed wires and he’d taken the bus home after all. But the bus arrived, and no kid.”

  DeeJay nodded, seeing it all so clearly. “No one saw him on the bus?”

  “Nope. So it had to have happened while he was waiting for his dad.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twelve.”

  Cade returned with the coffee. Given the size of the house, he couldn’t have missed any of the conversation. “So these kids are fitting a profile? Not an age group?”

  “That’s how it’s looking. I can show you all the photos, from this time and last time. He’s picking the small skinny boys, all of them with dark hair so far. He’s definitely choosing by physical appearance.”

  “I guess that tells us something,” Cade muttered as he passed DeeJay her coffee and sat at the other end of the couch.

  For a minute, no one said anything. Gage stretched out a leg and rubbed it absently, a gesture that had become unconscious through long experience. DeeJay recognized the signs. The sheriff was looking off into space, shaking his head slowly.

  “It really chapped me that we didn’t catch up with him last time. He was gone by the time we found his trophies out in the mountain. Sickening. And not a damn thing to link anyone to it.”

  “He likes taking risks,” DeeJay said. “He must know that everyone has figured out he’s back, and that everyone is being watchful. He must get a real thrill from riding close to the edge of discovery.”

  “Meaning?” Gage asked.

  “He’d not hiding. He’s out in plain sight.”

  Cade nodded. “She’s probably right. At this point I’m inclined to say he’s making contact with these kids beforehand. In some capacity that makes him seem trustworthy.”

  Gage nodded. “We figure he’s got to be a local. Only problem with that is that locals leave all the time because they can’t find work here. A lot of them came back with the jobs at the ski resort. Not much narrowing we can do that way.” He sighed. “But if he seems trustworthy to the kids...” He trailed off. These kinds of questions always trailed off in an investigation like this. Trying to overlook nothing meant often coming up against the lack of answers.

  DeeJay spoke. “Tell us exactly what happened the other day. Were other kids or adults around? Did anybody see the boy before he disappeared?”

  “Nobody remembers seeing a thing,” Gage answered. “The buses had come and gone, the walkers had headed home, the teachers were back inside or gone for the day. One of them questioned him when he was standing out front, but he answered he was waiting for his dad. He refused her offer to wait inside. That’s it. Dad was a little late and by the time he arrived, no kid.”

  Cade and DeeJay exchanged looks. DeeJay spoke. “Our perp had to be somewhere he could see when the kid was alone. Completely alone. How big a time frame was that?”

  “Maybe ten minutes,” Gage answered. “The teacher remembers the approximate time she spoke to him. The dad came along about ten minutes later.”


  “Planned,” said Cade flatly. “Not a target of opportunity.”

  “That’s the way I’m figuring it,” Gage said. “Hardly anybody knew that boy was going to be waiting there instead of taking the bus. He had brought a note to school that morning asking that he be excused from taking the bus home. A couple of school officials knew, the teacher that talked to him knew, maybe some of his friends. We checked the whereabouts of the administrators and teachers for the entire time between dismissal and his disappearance and came up blank.”

  “Vehicles on the street or parking lot?”

  “Lots. Teachers. Administration. Plenty of cover for one vehicle. Nobody would notice it unless it didn’t fit at all.”

  DeeJay leaned forward, holding her mug in both hands. “How often do kids wait for a ride like that?”

  “At this time of year? Almost never. It’s too dang cold and we were having some thick snow that day.”

  “More cover,” she remarked. “Okay, our perp must have found out that kid would be out there. Question is, how? And why was the dad late?”

  Gage sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “When he came out of the feed store, he had a flat tire.”

  Cade looked at DeeJay. “Organized,” he said.

  “Highly organized,” she agreed. “Leaves nothing to chance, but likes riding the edge. We need to go over those files again.” She looked at the sheriff. “Is everything in the file you sent to the state?”

  “Pretty much. I didn’t include victim photos, but everything else is there.”

  Cade spoke. “We need anything else surrounding the other disappearances that you or someone else can remember. I know this goes back a long way, but it helps us focus on what we need to think about.”

  “You got it.”

  DeeJay gave him a smile that was nearly a grimace. “We’d like to be able to point you in a direction that’s more specific than late twenties, early thirties...”

  Gage surprised her by laughing, a raspy sound. “We’ve all heard the basics. Useless. So believe me, I’m going to be racking my brains and everyone else’s for every sliver I can come up with. In the meantime, I can establish your bona fides. Stop by the office in the morning, and it’ll be all over town that you two are on the side of the angels. There’s only one thing folks are talking about right now, and they might drop another splinter into this morass that’ll help you. As long as they know you’re okay.”