Impact Zone (Noah Braddock Mysteries Book 6)

by Jeff Shelby

  “She was out of the frame after that one,” Henry said, touching the fourth photo. “So that's the last still. There's a bend in the path there in the grove that you can kind of see. In the video capture, she disappears around it.”

  “No audio?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not even sure that's possible and even if it were, I wouldn't have done it. Didn't think there'd be any reason.”

  I nodded. “Sure. And there was nothing else on the video or the stills after she left the camera?”

  “Nope,” he said. “I watched the full 30 minutes of the video. Nothing. No more stills, nothing. And I checked the five closest cameras to the one that caught all of this. They weren't triggered at all that night.”

  “Nothing before?”

  “No. That first picture there is when it was triggered.”

  Sarah leaned in closer to me. “She really does look scared.”

  “I told you,” her father said, nodding. “That was the first thing that jumped out at me. She looks incredibly frightened to me.”

  I agreed. There was an almost panicked expression on her face when she was looking at the camera. And the fourth picture certainly seemed to indicate that she was running from something.

  Or someone.

  “And you don't know her, correct?” I asked.

  “Never seen her,” Henry said. “I've looked at each of those photos at least fifty times now and I'm positive I've never seen the woman.”

  “Me, either,” Sarah said.

  I stared at the pictures. “Why would anyone be in that area?”

  “It's a picking area,” he said. “It's off the main road, so, in theory, the only folks who'd find their way there would be the ones who were actually trying to get there. It's maybe half a mile in from the main road, so they would've had to hike in.” He paused, then shook his head. “And right now, it's not an area we are working, so it should be pretty quiet.”

  “So how would she have ended up there? That specific place?”

  “I'd have to say she was lost,” he said. “Was on the main road and then wandered off, not knowing where she was headed.”

  “Why would she have been on the main road, though?” I asked. “I'm just trying to work backwards.”

  He nodded. “I understand. But I don't have a good answer for that.” His eyes washed over the photographs. “Here's what I keep coming back to. When I look at that last photo, I see someone who is very scared. So when I work backwards, to use your words, I feel like something or someone was chasing her. I can't say how or why she was on the main road on the property, but if someone was chasing you in the middle of the night and you didn't know where you were, I think it would make a whole heck of a lot of sense if you ran off the main road.” He pointed to the last picture. “And ended up there.”

  If you were being chased by an animal or another person, your first instinct was to run and get as far ahead as possible. Then hide. But it would be easy to panic in that scenario and you wouldn’t be thinking about where you might end up if you took a wrong turn.

  I touched the last picture. “What routes out of there would've been available to her?”

  Henry rubbed at his chin for a moment, doubt seeping into his features. “It's hard to say, really. The direction she's headed in is southeast. The groves are dense. If she'd stayed on that trajectory, you're looking at a couple miles before she would've hit a main road again.” He pursed his lips. “If she was hiding, it might've been the right move. But the problem becomes if you don't know the area, the only way you're going to stumble out of it is dumb luck.” He glanced at Sarah. “You remember that one summer?”

  She made a snorting sound, then nodded. “Of course. Worst night of my life.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  She folded her arms across her chest and looked down at the desk. “I decided I was going to run away. Packed a backpack and took off.”

  Henry chuckled. “In a hurry.”

  “In a hurry,” Sarah said, a small grin on her face. “I was twelve. I don't even remember why I was mad. But I announced I was running away and he said 'Send me a postcard.'”

  Henry chuckled again.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Well, I walked for about 45 minutes and then I got the bright idea that I'd just camp out for the night,” she said. “I thought I knew my way around the ranch well enough. So I turned into one of the groves, pretty near where these pictures are from.” She frowned. “But it was as dark as a mineshaft and I got freaked out. So I thought I'd just hike back toward the house and sleep outside and then figure out my plan when the sun came up.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “But I got lost and couldn't find my way out. I walked for hours, completely lost and with no idea where I was. I cried and cried and cried.” She lifted her chin in her father's direction. “He showed up at some point and brought me back home, sobbing. Was a long time before I'd walk outside in the dark again.”

  “About two years,” her father said, his smile broad. “Was right about two years.”

  “Whatever,” Sarah said. “The point is I know those groves pretty well, but even I got lost out there. Anyone can get lost out there.”

  “Sure,” I said, taking another look at the pictures. “I'd imagine it's hard to navigate during the day, much less in the dark.”

  She nodded.

  “So what do you think?” Henry asked, eyeing me.

  I gathered up the photos. “I think I'd like you to take me out there.”

  SEVEN

  Henry led us outside to an old Ford F-150. Its thick tires were caked with mud and the bed was filled with assorted buckets and gardening tools. Sarah slid across the vinyl bench seat in the cab and I followed her in. Henry climbed behind the wheel and the engine roared to life. The radio blared some talk news program and he switched it off with a mumbled apology.

  We pulled out of the drive in front of the house and headed down the road and away from the direction Sarah and I had come in from. We curved around the far side of the house, crested a small hill, and then started our descent down a long dirt road that led deep into the valley.

  From the cab of the truck, the valley seemed even larger than it had from the house. It was miles of rolling hills, covered with trees. Roads snaked through the trees in the distance, but it was like driving into a forest of avocado trees. The dirt road bounced us around as we moved further into the valley and after about five minutes of being tossed around, the road settled and we were at the bottom of the groves.

  “How do you two know each other anyway?” Henry asked as we bumped along.

  “Noah helped me out with something at school,” Sarah said.

  “You needed a private eye for something at USD?”

  “Something like that.” Sarah’s tone conveyed her reluctance to discuss the details regarding how we’d met.

  Henry didn’t press. “How long you been an investigator?” he asked, turning his attention to me.

  “Since I got out of school,” I said. “Only thing I've ever done.”

  He moved a little to the left to avoid a ditch in the road. “How'd you get into it?”

  “Was just looking for a job,” I told him, looking out the window. “Went to work for an insurance company and just sort of went from there.”

  “So you must like it then.”

  I shrugged. “I like the freedom.”

  Henry chuckled. “I hear that. What's the worst thing you've ever run into?”

  Something cold started to take hold in my gut and I thought about the worst thing I'd ever run into. It wasn't something I wanted to discuss or think about.

  “Too many to choose from,” I told him. “It's a long list.”

  He chuckled again. “That makes sense, I suppose. You got an agency or just a shingle?”

  “Shingle,” I said. “Not really the agency kind.”

  “You'll have to excuse him,” Sarah said to me. “He always wanted to be a detective of some
kind.”

  “I read all those Spenser books,” he said. “You ever read those?”

  “I have not,” I said.

  He looked a little disappointed by my response. “Made it sound like being a private eye was kind of fun,” he said. “Always running into bad guys and taking care of them. Figuring out puzzles along the way.”

  I watched the trees as they blurred by, a sea of green. “Sure.”

  “I'd think it'd feel pretty good taking down the bad guys.”

  “Sometimes the bad guys win,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “But hopefully not more often than the good guys.”

  I didn't have a running tally, but even if I did, it wouldn’t have mattered.

  I tried to remember when I’d first started. Maybe back then, I'd thought the same way as Henry. Good guys always win. But if I'd learned anything, it was that even if the bad guys didn't win most of the time, when they did win, you never forgot it.

  “I do my best,” I finally said.

  EIGHT

  The view from the bottom was much different, in the same way the Grand Canyon looks different from the bottom. The feeling of endless groves was gone, replaced by thick rows of short, fat avocado trees. It felt as if we'd been dropped into the middle of a forest, with no idea how lost we actually were. I couldn't imagine anyone wandering onto the land and knowing their way around unless they'd either been there before or had some type of map.

  We drove for about a mile and then Henry pulled the truck off to the side of the dirt road. “We'll have to hike in from here.”

  We got out of the truck and I followed both of them into the trees. There were thin paths between the trees, packed-down dirt that had probably been created more by accident than design, the result of workers walking the trees day in and day out. The trees were thick with leaves, and small green fruits peeked out at us. There were rotted out avocados at the base of the trees, but most of the branches had been picked bare of all of the ripe fruit. I was expecting some sort of aroma to scent the air, but the only thing I smelled was whatever shampoo Sarah had used on her hair.

  Henry led us further into the grove, then to our left down another path, and after ten minutes of walking, I was fairly certain that I'd have a hard time finding my own way out.

  Henry slowed his pace, craned his neck toward the tree line on our left, then stopped. He pointed to where he'd been looking. “This is it. Camera is right over there.”

  I squinted toward the tree and after a few moments, spotted the small camera attached to one of the thicker branches. I didn't see any possible way it would've been visible if a person wasn't looking for it, especially at night.

  He took a few paces forward, then turned back to me. “I figure the woman was right about here in the photos.” He gestured toward the camera. “I'm gonna take another couple steps. Listen carefully.”

  He walked up the path and I heard three faint clicks.

  He gestured at the camera again. “Those clicks? That's me tripping the camera eye and setting it off. So she either would've been about where I'm at or where you're at.” He waved his hand toward the trees behind him. “From looking at the pictures, I think it was here. The groves behind me match up with what was in the background.”

  Sarah nodded. “Yeah, that's just what I was thinking.”

  I turned in a slow circle, trying to take in any details that seemed out of the ordinary. Given that I'd never been in the middle of an avocado grove before, everything seemed out of the ordinary.

  “So how would I get out of here?” I asked, looking around. “If I was stuck or lost?”

  Henry scratched his head, thinking. “Trial and error? I don't know, really. It's taken me decades to learn the layout of the land here. If you wandered on?” He shook his head. “You would've either needed to leave a trail of breadcrumbs, be an expert navigator, or take a guess and hope you're right.”

  That sounded about right to me.

  “So where does the path go?” I said, gesturing behind him. “If she took off that way, where would she have ended up?”

  He set his hands on his hips. “Damn near anywhere, really. I mean, it doesn't really go anywhere except further out into the groves. It's not a straight shot to any specific place. I'm not really sure how we could figure out where someone would go if they took off that way.”

  “So it doesn't empty out or anything like that?” I’d been under the impression that all paths and roads ended somewhere.

  “Not really. You would just be going deeper into the groves. At some point, you might hit a road, but it'd be impossible to figure out the path to get there, especially from this spot.”

  I nodded. It made sense to me. I literally had no idea how to get out of there and it was daylight. In the dark, it would've been like trying to navigate a labyrinth.

  “Have you scouted out that direction?” I asked.

  Henry nodded. “Yep. Took some of my workers and we fanned out through the area. We didn't find anything. And I don't just mean her, but we looked for clothing, shoes, anything that might've gotten left behind.” He shook his head. “Nada.”

  Even fanning out with a team, that still left a lot of the area uncovered or unsearched. If the woman truly was lost, she could've gone anywhere. The temperatures over night hadn’t gotten too cold yet, but I imagined it still wouldn't have been too comfortable this far north and east in the county. Frosts hadn’t yet set in, but it wasn’t as if water would be easy to come by, and dehydration could be a real possibility, especially if she’d been lost or disoriented for a long period of time.

  “But you can't cover it all, right?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No. Would be nearly impossible to do on the ground. We'd need something overhead and even that might be hard to do, given how thick the groves can be.”

  I nodded and took another look around. “So let me ask you one more question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What exactly would you like me to do?” I asked. “I'm just not sure how I can help you out here. I think you'd be better served to call in to the local sheriff and report it to them.”

  Henry winced. “Let me answer that second part first. The local sheriff's department out here isn't worth a rat's ass, alright? It's one guy and two part-timers. Well meaning, but under-skilled. To get San Diego County involved, I'd have to give them a whole lot more if I wanted them to do air surveillance or anything like that. And it wouldn't be immediate. So I don't feel like that's an option.”

  Sarah folded her arms across her chest, looking like she wanted to object. But she stayed silent.

  “I guess what I'd like for you to do is find out who she is,” Henry continued. “Figure out who she is, why she was here, make sure she's okay. I've just had this feeling that she's not alright and…well, it just doesn't feel alright to me.” He rubbed at his forehead for a moment. “I know I'm not asking you to do something simple. But if I hire you to find what you can, I'll at least feel like I tried to do something, even if nothing turns up.”

  “There's a good chance of that,” I told him. I wasn’t trying to blow my chances at landing a job but I felt like I needed to be honest with him.

  “And I can live with that,” Henry said, nodding. “But I'd just like you to try. And I'm not asking for a favor here or anything like that. I'll hire you, pay you, and whatever you're able to bring me, I'll live with that.”

  I glanced at Sarah. She shrugged, like the decision was entirely mine.

  I really didn't see what Henry thought I'd be able to do. Even the local sheriff had more resources than I did to search the property. And several black and white photographs weren't a whole lot to go on.

  But I needed the work, and I knew I could in good faith at least poke around a little on his behalf. I didn't think it was going to go anywhere, but I could go through the motions and see what happened. I just wasn't sure that I felt good about taking a job when I felt like I already knew the outcome.

/>   “Let me think about it,” I finally said. “I appreciate that you want to do something, but I'm not sure I can really deliver anything for you. I'm going to make a couple of calls and then I'll let you know this evening.”

  Henry couldn't hide his disappointment. “I'd really like for you to look into this, Noah.”

  “I know you would,” I told him. “And if I think I can be of any help to you, I’ll let you know and we can go from there. I promise to get back to you this evening at the latest.”

  Henry sighed and put his hands on his hips. He squinted into the sunlight. “Well, if that's the best you can offer, then I'll wait to hear from you tonight.”

  NINE

  “He's being paranoid,” Sarah said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “He means well, but he's being paranoid.”

  We'd said goodbye to her father and headed back down toward San Diego. Sarah had ditched her pullover, tossing it in the backseat. She had the air conditioner on high and I adjusted myself in my seat so the cold air hit me head-on.

  “I understand why he's freaked out,” I said. “You see somebody, she looks like she needs help, it's on his land. He's worried. I get it.”

  She frowned. “I guess, but it seems like a stretch. He's jumping to conclusions. The woman could be perfectly fine. Maybe she ended up there on a dare or a bet or something.”

  “Maybe.”

  She cut her eyes in my direction. “You think he's right?”

  “Not really,” I said. “They took a look for her, they couldn't find her, and I'm pretty sure they did a better job of looking than I could do. Your dad and the men on the ranch know the property better than anyone. But I understand it has to be a little unnerving for him. Probably reminds him of when you ran away.”

  She snorted. “Funny.”