A tremor that was matched an instant later by the phone coming to life beside her.
Lying flat on the box, the device buzzed against the wood. Sending vibrations the length of the coffin, it seemed to rattle her every nerve ending, the magnified sound ripping her from the state of detachment.
Without thinking she grabbed for it, the broken tip of her index finger jabbing against the hard plastic. A spasm of pain shot the length of her arm, clawing the air from her lungs.
Gritting her teeth, her eyes clamped shut, Della managed to twist her body just slightly, reaching to the bottom of the phone and scooping it up. Unaware that she had forgotten to turn it off after the last call, she held it above her for a moment, the light searing through her head as she stared at it.
One time after another it pulsated in her hand, her mind debating whether or not to accept it.
As far as she knew, the detective didn’t have the number for it. That meant the only person that could be calling was whoever had put it there, the same one that had alerted her to its presence originally.
Just ten minutes ago, she would have jumped at the thought of getting to speak with them. She would have snatched it up and unloaded every bit of the vitriol she felt, screaming until she had no voice left.
Now, in the wake of her recent outburst, she wasn’t so sure.
Staring at the phone, allowing it to buzz twice more, she accepted the call, holding it to her face.
And said nothing.
“Hello?” a male voice asked after several seconds. Sounding young and uncertain, he added, “Della Snow? Are you there?”
Hearing her name aloud, a single tear leaked from the corner of her eye. A low moan slid from her throat.
Nothing more.
“Della, my name is Deke Chamberlain. I am a friend of Detective Reed Mattox’s and the man that he asked to run a trace on your phone. You don’t have to say a word, just press a single button if this is you.”
Not trusting herself to do more than that, Della raised her pinkie, jabbing at the device without opening her eyes.
A solitary click punctuated the call.
“Thank you,” Deke said. He paused, before adding, “Hang in there. We’re coming.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Is it her?” Adam Gilchrist asked. Seated in the far corner of the office, he had risen from his chair, his backside levitating a few inches above it. In his hand was the pen and paper he’d been using for notes, ink filling most of the top page.
“No,” Reed said, looking at the name on the faceplate for just an instant before accepting the call. He didn’t bother saying who it was, instead accepting the call and flipping it to speakerphone. “Deke.”
Around the desk, a series of glances were cast, Grimes and Greene both rising as well.
“You got something to write with?” Deke asked, bypassing a greeting of any sort.
Flicking his gaze up to Gilchrist, Reed saw the younger man nod, thrusting the items he held out a few inches.
Forming his fingers to mimic holding a pencil, Reed motioned for him to take down whatever was about to be shared.
“Yeah, what have you got?” Reed asked.
“614-555-7734.”
Leaning forward to use the desk, Gilchrist pressed the pad flat, taking down the digits in order.
“I say again, 614-555-7734. You got it?”
“Seventy-seven thirty-four,” Reed repeated back. “Got it. What is it?”
“That is the number for Della Snow’s phone,” Deke said. “The reason I wasn’t able to run a trace on her was the GPS has been disabled. That means I can’t get a direct geographic lock, but your guy got a little too cute and I was able to backdoor him.”
Reed could see veins bulging on his forearm as he extended the phone in front of him. A series of lines intersecting with the tendons, they all ran the length of his exposed skin before disappearing beneath the cuff of his sweatshirt.
A perfect visual of everything he was feeling, dozens of thoughts and ideas, all weaving together, held just beneath the surface.
“Okay,” Reed replied. “So you know, I’ve got you on speaker with Captain Grimes and Officers Greene and Gilchrist.”
“Good,” Deke replied. “I hope you don’t mind, but I just called the number to make sure it was clear before passing it on. That girl is in a bad way.”
Casting a glance around the room, Reed could still plainly hear the outburst from Snow on the previous call in his ears. Feeling his core pull tighter, he asked, “Like before?”
“No,” Deke replied. “Complete opposite, almost catatonic. She couldn’t even get a word out, had to press a button to let me know she was there.”
To Reed’s left, Grimes pushed out a muffled grunt. Opposite him, Greene folded his arms, his mouth pulled into a tight line.
“You said you couldn’t get a direct location,” Reed prompted.
“On her,” Deke corrected, “but like I said, your guy was a little too fancy. Turning off the GPS alone wasn’t enough, so he ran it through a router just to be sure to keep the backtrail clean.
“Working through the trace I opened with your call, I was able to track it to half a dozen places in the country before finally bringing it to one much closer to home.”
“How much closer?” Reed asked.
“Grove City,” Deke replied.
At the mention of the name, a bit of energy seemed to pass through the room, everybody ready to be up and moving, on their way again.
“I’ll tell you right now though, I don’t know if anything’s there or if it’s just a box sitting in a trash can somewhere,” Deke said.
“But that’s where this call is going through?” Reed asked.
“Just checked it on my call to Della to be sure,” Deke replied. “No doubt about it. I’m texting you the address right now.”
“Hot damn,” Reed said. For the first time since sitting in Grimes’s office at the start of the evening, he actually felt good, like maybe he was a half-step out ahead of things.
It was still early, and there were a lot of potholes that could still exist, but at least for now it felt like they were getting closer to Della.
“Thanks for this, Deke. I owe you one.”
Ignoring the thanks and the mention of payment, Deke said, “Now that I have digits, I’m going to try and track down a call history. I’m guessing it’ll be a burner, so there won’t be an account name or payment address, but I might be able to find out where it was purchased and when.”
A few feet away, Gilchrist made a face and mouthed, “He can do that?”
Thinking the same thing, Reed asked, “That’s all possible?”
“Very.”
The next question in order was if it was legal, though at the moment Reed couldn’t force himself to care quite as much about that aspect.
“You want it? Think it’ll help?”
“Absolutely,” Reed said. “Thanks again.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Deke said, cutting the call without another word.
An instant too late, Gilchrist muttered a farewell as Reed shoved aside the calling program and went into his messaging center. Right on top was a message from a Deke, just a single line of text present.
“808 Queen Street. You guys ever heard of it?”
Gilchrist shook his head in the negative. Beside him, Greene said, “I think it’s a part of one of those subcommunities that went up a while back down there. They all have different naming systems. One uses president names. I think another uses different titles from royalty. King, queen, prince, bishop.”
Nodding, Reed shifted his attention to Grimes. “Like he said, it might just be a box jacking wifi from somebody, but we’ve got to go take a look.”
“Have to,” Grimes agreed.
“You guys up for a drive?” Reed asked, casting a glance at the officers beside him.
“Right behind you,” Greene replied.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Some nights during the summer, Reed and Billie barely spent any time in their car. Working the streets in the inner portion of Franklinton, they were content on foot. Going for the middle option, Reed used the eight-foot lead and the two of them went on their rounds, using the car only when absolutely vital.
In the winter, the opposite was often true, the cold weather forcing them to stay inside. With the exceptions of bathroom breaks for Billie or water breaks for them both, they largely kept to the car. Even at that, extremely rare was the night when they went further than a few miles in any one direction, tracing and retracing the same routes they’d done a hundred times before.
The complete opposite of a night like this one, where it was less than half over and already Reed had sped to the north end of Hilliard and back and was now doing the same in the opposite direction. Again running with the flashers on, he was on I-270, the boxy frame of Greene and Gilchrist’s cruiser framed in his rearview. Moving without their lights on to keep from blinding him, they stayed two car lengths back the entire way despite nudging up close to triple digits as they wound their way down.
For more than ten minutes, Reed pushed hard. Bunched up behind the steering wheel, he gripped it tight in either hand, aware of Billie’s head pressing against his right arm. Her hot breath landed on his exposed forearm, her breathing matching his own, both accelerated slightly.
On the GPS beside him was the address, the same blue bar he’d used earlier to get to Della Snow’s apartment now leading the way south.
In the middle console beside him, his phone sprang to life, the theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly piping into the car. Without checking the screen, Reed pulled it over onto his thigh, accepting the call.
“Mattox.”
“I just spoke with the 10th and GCPD,” Captain Grimes said. “Told them both you were pursuing an active tip into their jurisdiction. Both signed off, said they could have someone up on standby if assistance was needed.”
Nodding, Reed considered the invitation. “We’ll keep it in mind, but like Deke said, we don’t even know what’s there right now.”
“That’s what I told them,” Grimes said. “But don’t be afraid to make the call if you need some clout.”
“Roger that. Thanks, Captain.”
Signing off without further response, Reed slid the phone back into the middle console. Easing to the outer lane of the freeway, he let the officers behind him see where he was going, taking the next exit in order.
A near copy of what he’d found in Hilliard when going to see Deke, a cluster of small businesses were congregated tight to the outer belt. A Waffle House was first in order, smells and the familiar yellow block signage beckoning to travelers. Next up were a pair of gas stations, a trio of fast food offerings following them.
Ignoring everything, Reed drifted to the center of the road. What little traffic there was peeled to the side as he leaned on the gas, listening to the automated instructions of the GPS guiding him through town.
Shifting off the major thoroughfare, he moved down a secondary street, the houses to either side transitioning in kind. Gone were any of the stately brick homes and two-story ranches that had been present before, replaced by pre-fab models that all looked exactly the same.
To either side, streets filed by, matching signs giving cheesy titles to different clusters, somehow hoping to demarcate one from the other. Eschewing the first two, Reed followed the GPS directions down the third street, rolling past a tan sign with burgundy letters proclaiming the place “The King’s Court.”
Under normal circumstances, Reed would have rolled his eyes. He would have looked at the cookie cutter homes and the postage stamp sized lawns and wondered how anybody could live there. He definitely would have mocked the name of the place and how anybody could equivocate where he was with royalty.
As it were, none of it even registered, his focus instead on the homes filing by to either side, trying to envision who might be inside.
If Della Snow could be nearby.
“You have arrived at your destination.”
Directing the nose of his sedan over to the side, Reed mashed on the brakes, he and Billie both sliding forward against the momentum. Barely waiting for the chassis to rock back into place, he shoved the gear shift into park and stepped out, leaving Billie to roam free beside him.
Five feet back, Greene and Gilchrist both did the same.
Standing before them was a single-story home, the structure built to match those on either side. With a rough stucco exterior painted taupe, it had rust-colored shutters and a matching door. A one-car garage was attached to the right.
Across the front were a trio of windows, blinds pulled in all three, no lights behind them. Lining the sidewalk were empty flowerbeds.
No vehicles – or even oil spots – were visible in the driveway.
“How you see it?” Greene asked, meeting Reed in the space between their cars. With his right hand cocked by his hip, he looked ready to grab his weapon in an instant.
Retrieving his own gun, Reed checked the slide, keeping the front tip pointed at the ground before him. “Like Deke said, there was no guarantee we were going to find anything here. Still have to go take a look.”
“Agreed,” Greene replied. Shifting his shoulders slightly, he said, “How you want to do it?”
Turning to take in the front again, Reed gave the place another look. It was clear at a glance that it was deserted, and had been for some time. Wasting the energy of having the officers flank him, or go around the back, seemed like a lost cause.
“Billie can clear, we’ll all go in through the front,” Reed said. “That work?”
Nodding his assent, Greene turned to the side, allowing Reed the lead. Billie fell in on his hip, seeming to sense what was about to take place. Bringing up the rear was Gilchrist, alternating his focus between the house and the street behind them, checking their rear.
Along the street, random lights could be seen popping up, neighbors spotting the flashers parked outside and peeking out to take a look.
Classic American suburbia at its best.
Ignoring the onlookers or the speculation they could be providing, Reed walked up the narrow concrete way. Beside him, the corded muscle of Billie’s torso pressed into his thigh, assuring him she was close, that they would be facing danger together.
Marching up the short walk, Reed ascended the two short steps onto the landing. Reaching out, he knocked twice, hearing the sound echo through the house.
“Anybody home? This is the Columbus Police Department.”
More times than he could count, Reed had stood in a similar position. Waiting outside a door, he could always tell if anybody was within, the house doing something to let him know. Some form of creaking, a footfall on a hardwood floor, even the slight moan of the structure beneath shifting weight.
This one did nothing of the sort. It merely sat silent, almost brooding, beckoning them forward.
“Alright, here we go.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The front door to the house was only nominally stronger than the entrance to Della Snow’s apartment had been. Designed as a primary residence instead of a secondary workspace, the wood was thicker and sturdier, meaning that as Reed’s heel collided with it, he could feel some pushback travel the length of his leg.
Much like the first one, though, the design flaw was in the thin casing surrounding the frame, securing the locking mechanism in place. Holding strong for just an instant, it sheared away under the force of Reed’s blow, ripping away with a mighty snap.
Once it gave, the entire door swung inward, shards of the frame still hanging in the air as Reed’s momentum carried him forward. Landing flat on the sole of his running shoe, he stood with one leg on the small linoleum foyer, bits of wood scattered about. The other remained out on the concrete landing, his body perpendicular to the entrance.
“Clear!”
Remaining turned to the side, Reed let Billie bolt past hi
m before stepping inside. With one hand on his weapon, he used the other to push the door open the remainder of the way, allowing Greene and Gilchrist to slide in behind him.
Fanning out wide, the three spread themselves around the small foyer, standing on the edge of brown carpeting, staring into a house that was completely void of furniture.
Remaining in place, they waited as Billie began, making it no more than a couple of feet before pulling up. Standing in the middle of the living room, she dropped her body into an extended point, everything from the tip of her nose to the end of her tail stretched in one unending line. All four legs slightly bent, she had her focus aimed at the far side of the room, a perfect black silhouette standing in the center of the space.
Her entire attention was aimed at the wooden door in the center of the wall, the sole exit from the home into the garage.
Adrenaline seeped into Reed’s system as he stood, his heart rate rising as he brought his left hand up under his gun. Turning his body in the same direction as Billie, he paused, waiting for Greene and Gilchrist to move forward as well.
“Someone there?” Gilchrist whispered.
“No,” Reed replied, again casting a glance down to Billie’s posture, seeing the position she had taken. “That stance means she’s picked up something else.”
“Something like a girl in a box?”
Reed never got a chance to respond.
Starting at the base of the door on either side, a series of small explosions ignited in order. Accompanied by flashes of bright red light and sounds like firecrackers snapping, they worked their way up both sides, a chain reaction one after another.
Moving on pure instinct, Reed drove off his right foot, shoving his body to the side. Abandoning his two-handed grip on the weapon, he let his left hand go free, extending it as he hurtled through the air, his body seeming to hang for an eternity, flash bangs going off beside him.
Clawing with his extended fingers, he tore at the air until finally finding fur, his hand sliding around Billie as they toppled to the ground together. Keeping his body between her and the door, he raised up just a few inches on his knees, easing the weight on top of her while using his chest to pin her to the floor.
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