by Rachel Lee
Gage drummed his fingers. “Didn’t I say you looked like his victims?” he reminded her. “I wasn’t actually serious, just a little disturbed at the time. I didn’t know then that he sometimes takes women. Just a moment of uneasiness that hit me. Well, double damn it.”
“So we’re going out there in the morning,” Cade said. “I don’t think we should wait.”
“Hell no,” Gage answered. “I’d love to tell you to put it off a few days. Some time would be nice. But Sarah found something else. Two days ago, Sweet talked to a ten-year-old boy on the hotline. We may not have much time. It was only a few days between the time he talked to the last victim and the day that kid disappeared.” He paused. “I put you off this morning because I went out to check the kid. He fits the victim profile.”
DeeJay looked at Cade. Her mouth had gone dry, and her heart thumped painfully. “We’ve got to go in. I may be the only thing distracting him from taking that boy right now.”
Gage spoke. “That and the fact that I gave the mother some money to take the boy out of town. They’re leaving in the morning. I didn’t tell them why, but I didn’t have to do a whole lot of explaining. Everyone’s scared. They’ll get him out of here.”
“Thank God,” DeeJay murmured.
“So that leaves you two,” Gage said. “And what the hell are we going to do about you? There’s not a whole lot of cover out there. The snow makes it hard to hide, leaves tracks anywhere anyone goes...” He glanced at his watch. “And you’re telling me I have seventeen hours.”
* * *
The boy, Andrew, called Calvin from school. Calvin could hear the sounds of young voices in the background, but experience had taught him how to filter out the background noise.
He, too, was on his cell phone. Once he was interested in a boy, he always gave them his private number for subsequent calls, a number that he’d picked up with a false name in another town with a well-stocked card to pay for minutes. He wasn’t a fool.
He’d checked out Andrew yesterday and had seen the aura around him. He was one of the chosen.
Andrew was upset that he was being bullied again. Calvin listened with sincere sympathy, promising the boy that he’d help him take care of the problem in a few days.
Damn, he had the woman to deal with first, and taking a boy so soon... Yet this one had wandered into his web as if put there by fate. He couldn’t ignore such a perfect offering or risk delaying his mission.
“I need a few days,” he told the boy gently, yet again. “Can you hang on a little longer?”
“I have to,” Andrew finally said. “I just hope I don’t get beat up.”
“Be sure to stay in sight of a teacher. Maybe I can find a way to meet you tomorrow? Just to talk some more?”
When he was done with Andrew, he went to work, but for the moment he’d forgotten the boy. He’d made a bold move asking for DeeJay’s husband to accompany her in the morning and he needed to figure out how he could eliminate the guy so he could have DeeJay to himself.
It unnerved him a little that he hadn’t planned ahead before persuading them both to come. He wasn’t usually sloppy. But even as he worried the problem uneasily, he felt a growing confidence that he would figure it out.
Later that evening he got another call from Andrew. This time the kid sounded happier. “I won’t see you tomorrow,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Did something happen?”
“Yeah, it’s really cool. My mom’s taking me skiing for a week. It’s a surprise for my birthday next month.”
Calvin felt confused. The boy was leaving? But he’d been chosen. “Isn’t that kind of early for a birthday present?”
“Yeah, but we have to take the trip this week. She won it, she said, and if we don’t go this week we lose the prize.”
Andrew sounded ecstatic. Calvin felt a huge pressure growing behind his eyes. He had to act. He had to take DeeJay and he had to take the boy. They were both chosen and he couldn’t afford to lose either of them. He didn’t know what would happen to him if he ever missed a chosen one, but he was sure it would be dire.
His head throbbed, making thought difficult, but he reached hard to gain some control over the impulses. He had to work this out or fail.
He must not fail.
“Well, that’s great,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Listen, maybe we can meet before you go. Can you get out for a walk tonight?”
The boy didn’t answer for a few beats, maybe thinking it over. “Sure. I guess. After my folks go to bed, I can come down to the county road.”
“Tell me when and I’ll be there.”
Andrew hesitated. “Midnight? Nothing wakes them up at midnight.”
“Cool. I’ll meet you there. Your drive at the county road?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll bring a little present for you, too. Even if it’s early.”
The pressure in his head eased when he hung up. The feeling didn’t entirely vanish, but it told him he’d done the right thing.
Two at once. He’d never done that before, but a sense of his own power grew in him. He’d take the boy tonight while his family slept. Then he’d take the woman in the morning, and he’d figure out what to do about her husband. Remembering the medicines he kept hidden in a case under his bed, the paralytics he injected, the sleeping pills he could liquefy and put in beverages, he began to form a plan.
* * *
Micah Parish squeezed into Gage’s small office and closed the door. He leaned back against the filing cabinet, arms crossed, his dark eyes leaping from Gage to DeeJay to Cade.
“Okay,” Gage said. “You’ve got about sixteen hours to organize the best operation of your life. Anybody else you trust with Special Ops background, bring them in. Everyone else is out of the loop...in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case we’ve got the wrong guy. In case somebody talks before this is over.” He sketched the situation with additions from DeeJay and Cade, and Micah began to nod, his gaze growing distant.
“Civilians?” Micah asked. “I may need a couple with the right background. A few SEALs come to mind. Say Nate Tate’s son, Seth Hardin, for one.”
Gage looked at DeeJay and Cade. “Your asses are going to be hanging out and we called you for your expertise. What do you think?”
DeeJay spoke. “I’ve had a lot of dealings with Special Ops. Mostly Rangers, but some SEALs, too. If Micah has people he trusts to observe secrecy and do this job, go for it.”
Micah nodded and straightened. “I’m on it. I’m going to need one of the choppers to overfly the Sweet ranch today for a terrain check, and I’m going to have a team ready early tonight.” He looked at DeeJay and Cade. “It may go against your instincts, but let me handle this part. I’ll be in touch when we’ve got a plan and fully brief you.”
“Micah?” Gage spoke. “Remember, we don’t have enough for a warrant. One crisis hotline phone call isn’t enough to prove probable cause to a judge. Lots of people call the hotline, and lots of them talk to Calvin Sweet without getting into trouble.”
“I get it. The primary thing is to be ready to act if he tries to harm either of these agents. I’ll have us ready. They won’t be alone for long.”
* * *
Later, Cade and DeeJay walked along the streets of Conard City. For some reason Cade reached out and took DeeJay’s hand. Well, they were supposedly married, and she didn’t feel the least urge to pull away from the touch.
“The waiting is going to drive me nuts,” she said.
“I hear you. So you think these guys can do it?”
“I’ve had the privilege of seeing Special Ops in action more than once. It’s even more amazing than what they let you see on TV. If I have to put my life in someone’s hands, they’re it.”
He nodded. “Okay then. This goes against my grain.”
She gave a mirthless laugh. “Mine, too. Action, that’s me. But our turn comes in the morning.”
“Yeah.” He gave her hand a small squeeze. “Maybe we should stop and take a picture from time to time. I don’t know much about being a travel writer, and the folks around here probably don’t know much, either, but I doubt that we’d just be taking a stroll if we were working.”
“Good idea.” She pulled out her cell and snapped a photo of the shops along the street. “You know, this place has some real charm. Worn-out charm, but real. I hope the improvements the resort plans don’t ruin it.”
Overhead, one of the rescue choppers flew, the whop-whop of the blades loud.
“There they go,” Cade remarked.
“I guess Micah’s moving fast.”
“He needs to.”
She took a few more photos, and when they resumed their stroll, he again took her hand. She found his touch comforting, something she desperately needed right now when she felt cut out of the operation, with no input of any kind. She wasn’t used to that.
“It’s killing me that I can’t be in on the planning,” she admitted. “I want to be in the war room.”
“Did you used to be, in the army?”
“Usually. When we were planning a takedown in a big case, yes, I was there. Nothing like this, though.” She sighed. “I get that Micah is the best person to plan this.”
“And we’re just here in a supporting capacity. Profilers, doing our part by getting proactive. Local authority rules.”
“I understand that, too. It’s not what I’m used to, but I’d better get used to it.”
He laughed and squeezed her hand again. “We’ll have our own big cases, trust me. Statewide investigations. You’ll be in the war room again. Just don’t expect it to be frequent.”
“It was never frequent. Yeah, we did some big investigations, but most of them were the types that cops do everywhere. I’m not expecting major ops around every corner.”
“Good, because most of our work is considerably quieter than this. But I have to admit I’m edgy, too. I don’t like relying on anyone blindly.”
“Ha. You sound like me.” She glanced up at him in time to see him smile faintly.
“Okay, so I like to be in charge,” he admitted. “I’m not the only one suffering from that deficiency.”
She couldn’t disagree. “I guess there’s no sense to just walking around town. I’ll take a few more pictures, and since we left those rolls at the sheriff’s office, maybe we should stop and get some more. Friendly gesture, and I want a sandwich. Not a steak sandwich, just a plain old ham sandwich.”
“And then what?” he asked as they turned a corner in the general direction of their house.
“I’m going to chew my nails to a nub until we hear from Micah.”
“Well,” he said, and flashed her a devilish look, “there’s another way we could relax.”
The laugh that escaped her came easily and naturally for the first time that day. “You’re on.”
* * *
By the time the early winter night settled over the world, distraction was a thing of the past. The two of them were pacing the house, waiting for a phone call.
“He hasn’t had enough time to set things up,” DeeJay said yet again.
“Nope,” Cade agreed as he passed her.
Their time in bed earlier had been wonderful but rushed because they’d both been listening with one ear for a phone call. Neither wanted to be at a point where they couldn’t stop when that phone rang.
DeeJay tried to distract herself by remembering that all-too-brief hour, but great as it had been, larger worries wouldn’t leave her alone.
She had pulled out all the papers again, all the files, and had tried to reread them from a different angle, looking for indicators that she’d made a mistake somewhere, but she kept coming back to Calvin Sweet and the way he was so insistent that they come out to his ranch.
If she was wrong, if they were all wrong, absolutely nothing would happen in the morning. Then they’d be hunting again with possibly less to go on and a whole lot less time if that boy didn’t leave in the morning.
It was seven in the evening when the phone finally rang. DeeJay grabbed it and was almost disappointed to hear the familiar voice of Lew Boulard from the FBI.
“Thought I’d check in,” he said. “The cases you had me search for? We sent out an information request to law enforcement for similar cases. I hate to tell you, but he’s killed more than I originally told you. Over the last year, this guy appears to have been striking with increasing frequency, sometimes only a few days apart. I can’t say for sure, because we have missing persons, too. No bodies. But when I sent out a composite of his victim type, the missing-persons cases started rolling in, as well. You don’t have a whole lot of time.”
“We just learned that here.” DeeJay told him about the call to the crisis line. “He may be stalking a kid right now. The sheriff has the mother taking the boy out of town in the morning.”
“Good. And you?”
“I’m going in as bait.”
She listened to silence from Lew. Then, he continued. “DeeJay, be careful. I got tox reports on several of the victims, three boys and one woman. He used a medical paralytic, vecuronium. No side effects, other than paralysis, and it’s long acting. I don’t know how the hell he got it. I do know it has to be mixed and injected, so don’t let him get close.”
“I won’t.”
She barely had time to fill Cade in on what Lew had reported before the phone rang again. This time it was Gage.
“Micah’s about ready to roll. Here’s how it’s going to play out, okay?”
“I’m listening.”
“Calvin gets off duty tonight at ten. I’m going to have someone undercover follow him home to make sure he gets there and doesn’t divert. We’ll call you as soon as he’s heading out of town. Then both of you get over here so we can fill you in.”
“We’ll be there.”
When she hung up and told Cade, she asked a question. “Is there any antidote for that paralytic? Can we get it?”
“I suppose there must be, but I don’t know.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m going to call our forensic pathologist.”
Ten minutes later, he had the answer. “The antidote has to be administered by IV. So let’s keep our distance.”
* * *
Shortly after ten, they got the call and hopped into the car to drive over to the sheriff’s office. From the street, it looked almost deserted. A different dispatcher manned the desk, and only one deputy was visible through the window. A quiet night in Conard County.
In the very back everything changed. A large room had been turned over to a team. Gage was there, as was Micah. Cade and DeeJay were introduced to five other men, but only one name stuck: Seth Hardin, probably because Micah had mentioned him earlier.
All the team members were dressed in black, but winter camouflage was heaped on nearby chairs. Sniper rifles with scopes lined the wall on a rack. Radios had been laid out on a long table to one side, along with various other implements from knives to garrotes. This was a team preparing for anything.
A map lay spread out on the big central table.
“All right,” Micah said. “We’re ready. We’ll be in place by 4:00 a.m. but we’re not going until we’re sure that the subject has turned in for the night. Here’s the deal. I surveyed as much as I could today. You need to try to draw him toward the woods if you can, assuming you find any evidence, because that’s the safest place for us to hide out. But I’m still going to have a couple of guys near the house. There’s a gully that runs along here, and we can use it to approach. Still, the woods aren’t that far from the house, so we won�
�t be out of reach. Given the lay of the land, though, we’ll be at least ten minutes away. Maybe fifteen depending on the snow depth out there. And we can’t do a damn thing unless something goes down. You know that. So you’ll have to let us know.”
DeeJay nodded, studying the map.
“Unfortunately, we’re going to be blind on the north side of the house and barn, except for what we can see from the woods. Try not to go that way. If you go inside and something happens, we won’t know unless you signal us. Clear?”
DeeJay and Cade both nodded.
Micah went on. “I checked it out and cell phones work out there, which is good because it’d look weird to go out there with satellite phones. Give Seth here your cells. He’ll set them up to call us immediately with a one-number punch. Any number.”
DeeJay felt impressed. “I didn’t know that was possible.”
Seth Hardin, a tall, good-looking man, smiled faintly. “A little modification to the auto dialer. You may need a new phone when I’m done, but regardless, you’ll still receive calls.”
“Go for it,” she said, handing over her phone.
Cade passed his over, as well.
“It all looks simple,” Micah said, “but these operations are usually straightforward once everyone is in place. So that’s what you need to know. If something happens, we’re going to need ten to fifteen minutes.” He paused. “That’s long enough to kill you. Don’t forget that.”
“Here’s something you need to know,” Cade said. “We just got another call from the FBI. This guy is using a paralytic on his victims. I checked it out. It works fast and it lasts for up to forty-five minutes. We’re not going to get close to him if we can avoid it, but if we do... Well, if we don’t come out of that house or barn in fifteen minutes, you come in. Because we’re supposed to be there to take pictures and I have no intention of staying inside for very long.”
“I’d prefer not to go inside at all,” DeeJay said. “But if we get the opportunity, I’m not going to turn it down. We might see something.”
Micah and Gage both nodded. They didn’t need to be reminded of the plain view doctrine. Once Cade or DeeJay was invited inside, anything in plain view became evidence.