He smiles triumphantly, and does as I asked.
The missing pieces are starting to fill in.
Now we understand why Chuckie was looking for work. The company he’d been given by his father was crashing and burning. A well-paid job, like the Hayden Valley Agriculture rep position, would have gone a long way toward keeping that from happening.
It was soon after Davis told Chuckie he was no longer being considered for the job that the draining of Chuckie’s accounts began in earnest.
The money he didn’t put into Price Motors was routed to the account of a shell company in Dallas, Texas, called RS Shepherd, Inc. JP was able to peel back the layers, and found that RS Shepherd is really owned by Husnic Investments. If you pronounce the Hus like the word hews, maybe you’ll see where this is going.
Hus as in Huston. Nic as in Nicholas. You know, like Nicholas Huston, Chuckie’s barbecue buddy and managing partner at RCHB Consulting.
The total amount Chuckie has funneled to him is $465,000. Why he’s been sending the money is not something JP was able to discover.
I can think of two possibilities right off the top of my head. One, Chuckie owes Huston the money for…well, something. Two, Huston could have something damaging on Chuckie and is extorting the cash from him.
I don’t like the second theory as much, because when they met in Chuckie’s Winnebago, there didn’t seem to be the kind of tension and animosity you’d expect between an extortionist and his victim.
I also don’t know why either of these possibilities would result in Chuckie and Huston having Bergen burn down farms.
There is the Gage-Trent Farming angle to think about, too. The company owns the vast majority of the farmhouses that have been hit. So why would the managing partner of RCHB order the destruction of his client’s properties?
Dammit. You solve one piece of the mystery and you realize there’s a whole other piece you didn’t know about that needs solving.
The easiest way for us to figure it all out would be to corner Chuckie and make him spill it. Don’t for a second think we couldn’t make him do that. I’ve persuaded some pretty rough types to cooperate against their better interests, guys a lot scarier than Chuckie will ever be.
But I’d like to avoid damaging him too much, if we can, before turning him over to the cops. I would hate for anyone to feel sorry for him.
Besides, there’s someone else we can talk to who might be able to shed a little light on things for us. And today is the perfect day to pay him a visit.
Which is why Jar and I drive back to Mercy.
In Southern California, our storms hit us in waves, and it’s rare that a single downpour lasts more than an hour or two. Here in southeastern Colorado, it’s been raining since we went to sleep seven hours ago, and according to the forecast, it won’t let up until after midnight. If that happened back home, the governor would declare a state of emergency and people would be talking about it for years.
In Mercy, it’s just Tuesday.
We head to the duplex first to pick up a few things. As I approach the door, I see the faint muddy outlines of two shoeprints on the mat that weren’t there when we left yesterday. They’re not dry, but they’re also not as saturated as they would be if they were made in the last hour or two. I estimate they were created sometime between the wee hours of the morning and sunup. Our tell on the door has not been disturbed, so if our visitor entered our house, he or she did so somewhere else.
I pull out my collapsible baton, unlock the door, and push it open. I wait just outside, listening for movement. When I hear nothing unusual, I step inside, my eyes moving all around, searching the place. The living room is empty, as is the kitchen.
I head down the hall to the back of the house, checking windows and rooms. There is no sign anywhere of an intruder having tried to get inside.
“Looks like we’re clear,” I tell Jar when I return to the living room.
She fires up her computer. Though we haven’t bugged our own house, we did place two cameras outside—one taking in most of the front, and the other the back. This was done more out of habit than for any other reason. I actually never thought we’d have to review their feeds.
Jar scrolls quickly backward through footage from the front camera until she spots our visitor. She plays the clip in real time.
Even without the time stamp, it’s easy to tell the video is from early this morning. A steady rain is falling, like it was when the storm started and much lighter than it is now. A figure clad in a winter coat and hood steps onto the walkway to our door. Just shy of the small, sheltered area by the entrance, the person hesitates.
If I didn’t already know the outcome, I would think there’s a good chance of the visitor walking away. But of course the person steps forward, leaving the prints we found. After another pause, the visitor raises a hand and knocks, then fidgets while waiting for us to answer. When we don’t, the visitor knocks again, this time longer. Another wait, and another knock, and when the door remains closed, a slumping of shoulders and a turn toward our camera.
Evan.
A hole in my stomach opens up as I wonder what caused him to reach out to us at that hour.
He steps away from the door, and moves over to the bushes in front of our living room window. He’s trying to look inside but the curtains are closed.
Without warning, he jerks his head around, looking over his shoulder toward the street. It’s as if he heard something and is worried about being seen. But all we can hear is the rain.
And then I see his mouth move.
Jar pauses the video, turns up the volume, and replays the last several seconds.
The sound of the downpour leaps from the speaker like the roar of a crowd in a stadium, drowning out all other noise. When Evan whips his head around, his voice cuts through the deluge but not enough for us to understand what’s being said. Whatever caused him to look back, we haven’t been able to hear—or see—it.
After he finishes speaking, he turns back to the window, unconcerned that someone has just seen him and even talked to him. He spends several more seconds trying to see inside before finally giving up and walking back to the street, out of frame.
Jar taps the fast-forward key, speeding things up slightly. She’s trying to see if Evan shows up again. Much to our surprise, he does.
It’s a brief appearance in the bottom right corner, near the location where he walked out of frame. We can see only a portion of him, shadowy and skewed because of the angle. And then he’s gone again.
Four seconds later, he enters the frame for a third time, but now he’s at the bottom left corner. He doesn’t stay there. He walks all the way into the shot and up the left side, along the narrow strip of our driveway that’s in the camera’s view.
And he’s not alone.
The framing of the shot is just wide enough to catch the arm of someone walking beside him. Someone holding Evan’s hand.
When they reach the garage door, they walk along it to the left, out of frame. A beat later, the door shakes but does not otherwise move.
Did they just try to open it?
We watch for another full minute but nothing else happens. Jar increases the speed, and we rip through the next thirty minutes without seeing Evan or his friend again. Jar checks the backyard camera, but he and his friend never show up there.
“Let’s see what time he left his house,” I say.
It doesn’t take long for Jar to find the shot of Evan leaving his backyard. It happened less than ten minutes before he knocked on our door, meaning he came straight to us. The surprising revelation is that his companion left the house with him. While the rain and the darkness make it impossible for us to see either of them clearly, the size of the other person gives me the sinking feeling it’s Sawyer.
The skin on my arms and shoulders tightens, and the pit in my stomach is turning into a roiling black hole.
I’m positive Evan would not have taken his brother outside at that time of
night—in the rain, no less—if he felt he had another choice. And it’s the unknown reason for this that’s scaring the hell out of me.
I almost ask Jar to search through video from the Prices’ house for the triggering event, but first there’s a more pressing matter.
“What time did they go back?” I ask.
Jar speeds up the footage, starting from the point the boys leave the house.
Three a.m. comes and goes. No Evan or Sawyer.
Three-thirty.
Four.
Five.
Six, and soon after, sunrise.
At 7:03, we see a flash of the orange Mustang go by on the small bit of the street that the camera picks up in front of the house. Chuckie off to work, right on time. I’m guessing no one had checked on the boys at that point.
Just before 7:30, Kate appears at the backdoor and looks around. She then disappears inside for a moment, leaving the door open. When she returns, she sticks an umbrella through the doorway, opens it, and dashes through the rain to the door of the RV. She tries to open it but it’s locked. Apparently she hasn’t brought the key, because she knocks. When no one answers, she hurries back into the house.
I expect to see Chuckie return in response to a call from his wife telling him the boys are missing, but the orange Mustang does not come back.
Jar starts to open the feeds from inside the house to see what Kate did next, but I say, “Hold on.”
My gaze moves to the access door to our garage, along the living room wall, just this side of the kitchen cabinets. We’ve barely used it, but I move over to it now.
Very quietly, I undo the lock and push the door outward.
An exchange occurs between the rooms, light spilling from inside the house into the dark garage, and cold air rushing the other way.
My motorcycle is right where I left it. The last time I was here, it was the only thing in the garage. That is no longer true.
Evan sits on the floor in the back corner, opposite us, leaning against the wall. Stretched out on the ground beside him is his brother. Sawyer’s head lies in Evan’s lap. His eyes are closed, and his chest is moving up and down in a way that tells me he’s asleep.
Not so his older brother. Evan’s eyes are open and staring at me, as if half expecting me to start yelling.
I step into the garage, careful not to make too much noise, then walk over and crouch down beside the brothers. Evan’s gaze stays on me the entire way.
In a quiet voice, I say, “Come inside. It’s warmer there.”
Evan’s lip trembles as he says, “He-he hasn’t slept much. I don’t want to wake him.”
“He can lie down on one of our beds. If he’s tired, he’ll go back to sleep.” I glance at Sawyer and back at Evan. “That jacket may be insulating him from the cold concrete, but I doubt his pants are. Yours, neither, I’d bet. You’ll be a lot more comfortable inside.”
“O-o-okay.”
When he doesn’t move right away, I say, “Maybe it’ll be better if I’m not here when you wake him up.”
Evan nods, looking a bit relieved that he didn’t need to suggest it. “Probably.”
“We’ll be inside. Join us when you’re ready.”
I give him a quick smile and go back into the house.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jar and I are in the kitchen, looking for some food the boys might like. I’m sure they’re hungry. I remove two bottles of water from the refrigerator and eye what food we have there. It’s not much. Part of a Subway sandwich, a donut, and some tasteless-looking french fries.
From a nearby cupboard, Jar pulls out some granola bars.
They may not make for a gourmet breakfast but they’re better than anything I’ve found, so I close the fridge.
From the garage. we hear hushed voices. I’m sure I could pick up a word or two if I tried, but I let them have their privacy. Soon footsteps approach the door.
By unspoken agreement, Jar and I stay in the kitchen, keeping the counter between us and the garage door, in hopes that will make us look less threatening. But even then, when the brothers enter the room and Sawyer sees us, he stops in his tracks and stares.
“It’s okay,” Evan says. “I told you. They’re friends.”
“I remember them,” Sawyer says, his gaze not shifting. “They were at the Grand Canyon.”
“That’s right. They’re the ones who helped me.”
“When you saved Terry.”
“Yeah.”
Terry? Who’s—
Then I notice the stuffed tiger squeezed tightly under one of Sawyer’s arms. The same stuffed tiger Evan was clutching when we pulled him up the side of the canyon.
Terry.
Sawyer eyes us for another few seconds, then looks at his brother. “I’m tired.”
“They have a bed you can use.” Evan glances our way. “It’s still okay, right?”
Before I can say anything, Jar steps toward the hallway and says, “I will show you the way.”
She heads into the back of the house and Evan guides his brother after her. Sawyer’s eyes return to me as they start walking and stay there until he and Evan move out of sight.
At one point, I hear Sawyer say, “That’s not a bed.”
Jar says something too low for me to hear. Whatever it is, it seems to do the trick, because when she and Evan return, Sawyer is not with them.
We have made zero improvements to the duplex’s décor since Evan’s last visit, and still have only the two chairs. Like before, I let Evan and Jar take them, then I bring out the water bottles and granola bars and set them on the table.
“I’m guessing you missed breakfast this morning,” I say.
“Thank you,” Evan says. He opens one of the bars and finishes it in two big bites.
When he looks at the others, I say, “Have as many as you want.”
He takes a second one, polishes it off, and drinks half of one of the bottles. This seems to satisfy him for the moment.
“How about you tell us what you and your brother were doing in our garage?” I say.
He looks at the table, as if afraid to meet my eyes. “We…I mean, I…” He lets out a breath. “There was nowhere else close by for us to go. I’m sorry.”
“Something wrong with your house?”
“No,” he says tentatively. He’s playing semantics.
“In your house, then?”
He glances up at me, then looks away again.
“Evan, did something happen that made you leave?” I ask.
His chest moves in and out faster and faster as his breathing accelerates. He swallows, trying to calm himself, and says, “I’m really sorry. I-I’ll pay for the window.”
“What did you do to the window?” I ask.
“It, um…it cracked in the corner when I pried it open. I’m sorry.”
“Well, there goes our security deposit,” I say.
I mean this as a joke, but Evan doesn’t take it that way. “I’m so, so sorry. We didn’t mean to cause you any problems. We can go now. That would probably be best. Thank you for letting us use your garage.”
When he stands up, I say, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I wasn’t serious. And you haven’t caused any problems. Really. Besides, wouldn’t it be better to let Sawyer sleep for a while?”
He looks toward the hallway, seemingly lost in thought.
“You do not want to go back out in the rain, do you?” Jar says.
Evan sits back down.
“We want to help you,” Jar says. “But we need to know why you and your brother left in the middle of the night.”
Pain crosses his face as he tries to push past whatever is keeping him from saying what happened. It’s heartbreaking and makes me want to wrap my arms around him and tell him everything is going to be all right. But that would be a lie. Nothing will ever be completely all right for him and his brother again. Or for their mother. I’m not saying we won’t take care of the Chuckie problem. We will. Without question. What
I mean is, the damage Evan’s father has already inflicted will always be there in some way. The most I can promise is that things will get better. But I’m not sure he would actually hear that right now, so Jar and I wait out his silence, giving him the time he needs to work through the obstacles in his head.
After several seconds, he pulls down on the zipper of his jacket. It’s warm enough in the house that he doesn’t need it anymore. Underneath he’s wearing a black cable sweater. When he pulls that off, too, I realize he hasn’t removed the layers because he’s hot.
Under the sweater he’s wearing a gray T-shirt. Its short sleeves aren’t long enough to cover the bruises on both of his biceps. Five on each. Each an oval, spaced apart in the distinct pattern of fingers wrapped around the muscles. They’re dark. The person who caused them would’ve had to clamp down hard to leave marks like these.
Jar jumps up from the table and hurries into the back of the house, returning seconds later with two towels from the bathroom. In the kitchen, she pulls out the tray from the refrigerator’s ice maker and pours some of the contents onto each towel. She wraps the towels around the ice and brings them over to the table.
“It’s okay,” Evan said. “I don’t need anything. They’re not that bad.”
“It is not okay,” Jar says.
She scans both arms, determines the left is worse, and wraps one of the towels around it.
“Hold this in place,” she tells him. “I’ll be right back.”
After another visit to the rear of the house, she returns with two ACE bandages from our med kit. She wraps one around the towel and hooks the clasps into the bandage to hold it in place. She then applies the second towel of ice to his right arm and wraps it in the same way.
“How does that feel?” she asks.
“Fine. Cold, I mean, but fine.”
She checks her work again, making sure it is neither too tight nor too loose.
When she finishes, Evan says, “Thank you.”
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
For a moment, he looks like a kid who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and I know he’s been hoping he wouldn’t be asked this. He hesitates, and then tries to grab the bottom of his shirt, but the ice is making it difficult.
Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3) Page 26